Nuts for a Severe Winter....

Glad you could join on the Front Porch this evening!

Been mulling a few phenomena going on out there, connecting, or misconnecting a few dots. Tell us what you think!!

I haven't verified this for myself, but common lore has it that animals know when a harsher than usual winter is imminent. The most familiar illustration is that they get fatter than usual, and store more food. Natural "hoarding." Personally, I believe they do.

Do we humans sense when an unnaturally harsh winter looms? If so, how do WE prepare? I submit we do sense coming bad weather, and we are doing the 'human' kind of hoarding, with matching frantic activity....

In our case, the winter to which I'm referring is that seemingly inevitable part of the human cycle when things are at their absolute worst, civilization virtually disappears, and we enter a form of Dark Ages that may last years.

I won't go to why these cycles seem to recur, and what causes them. That's fairly evident to us folks who porch-sit often.

But, rather, at a different level---have you noticed:

That in the past decade there has been an epidemic of humans literally hoarding, so much so it's being addressed as a mental disorder and there are featured TV specials on the subject matter. Parenthetically, for those of us uncomfortably close to the phenomenon, these are some of the most accurate portrayals of a problem I've seen done by the medium. I think that's simply because those producing the shows haven't connected some dots that we have. If they did, the shows would be decidedly different, if made at all. (Doesn't fit their political agenda)

To the point, I think 'hoarding' is a way of trying to keep control of a world spinning out of control: the action response to a visceral knowledge that we're headed for the cliff. Am I over-simplifying a complex issue? Sure. It's what I like to do...

Meanwhile it's worth pointing out that 'hoarding' takes on many forms, yet the behaviours may be sourced in the same vague fear and dread. One may try to hoard 'friends' for example. Or time. Money. Second hand prestige. Even 'love.' When we become obsessive, i.e. self-destructively dedicated to the acquisition of gaining and keeping the unkeepable, it may be those little alarm bells going off inside of us.

Far-fetched? That's the fun of Front Porch sitting!!

So let's chat...