What I'm Thinking

A FACEBOOK POST, somewhat felicitously, posed this question: "What are you thinking right now?". That question might be among the most dangerous questions which can be asked. I cannot ever remember ever having asked it of anyone. I cannot remember ever actually wanting to know what someone else is thinking, curious person though I am. My assupmtion has always been that people are always thinking something, that most of the time their thoughts are of no concern or interest to me, and that, were I to be apprised of their contents, I would be most likely be disappointed. That may be incorrect. That may be my loss. It may be that I have spent my entire life lacking appropriate curiosity about what other people are thinking, that I should have at least asked people about their thoughts, if not often, then at least when the situation seems to indicate that someone is having an interesting, worthwhile thought. My only comfort is that people have told me without my asking what they are thinking with sufficient frequency that I have not missed out altogether on the thoughts of others, and also, with the huge number of books I have read over the decades, I have indeed availed myself of the thoughts of others in great enough quantity to convince myself that if I have not delved deeply into the thoughts of others, I have, if nothing else, gotten a fairly large sample. I noticed that on this Faceboook post seeking thoughts, that nobody had as of yet responded. Again, my loss, maybe. I decided to contribute. My rsponse was honest. I said: "What I am thinking is that within my lifetime there will come a summer when the temperature where I live rises above one hundred degrees on the first of June, and remains there until labor Day". Now that, one must admit, is one helluva a thought, especially considering the fact that I am sixty nine years old. When I share a thought, which I often do merely by speaking, I don't fool around with tame, generic, unimpactful thoughts. I try to go for the trophy. I stand by my thought. It occurs to me repeatedly, to the point of paranoia. I become more convinced of the truth of it daily, and it frightens me. I take comfort in knowing that I have lived most of a very fortunate life, with many geat blessings and much good fortune, and as I make my way through the latter part of it, still in good robust health and blessed with daily activities which I find rewarding and worthwhile. I have no complaints. By the time the truly disastrous stage of climate change arrives, I will be dead, I think. Maybe. But even as I type these thoughts there is a horrible drought in western Florida, and other parts of the country, and the annual drought is beginning where I live, in the lower midwest mid south, and in the upper midwest,drenching, torrential flooding rainfall is occurring, precisely where and precisely as long predicted by climate science. Also, the annual burning of the western United States is beginning. It never really ends anymore. The rest of the world is experiencing much the same; the manifestation of climate change precisely as predicted by climate science. It impacts my thinking, constantly. When at any time in the future somebody asks me what I am thinking, it most likley be about precisely that. If that makes me less ineresting, so be it. At least I, like the world's climate, am somewhat predictable.