In The Abode Of An Elder Geek...

 In The Abode Of An Elder Geek...

Deep Thoughts In The Den

What is it about the quiet late hours that make the mind travel through existential space? Somehow, I find that words fall out of the word tornado at the center of my inner world in an order all their own in these "wee hours."

Maybe it's because the world seems smaller when you can see and hear less of it. Maybe it's the quantum entanglement of a collective subconscious quieting the world with a traveling wave of sleep that rhythmically sweeps the globe, a ripple through an ocean of billions of minds. Maybe we're just one of the dreams in that liminal space before we fall under the wave ourselves. The last leaf on the ground under the tree of this corner of humanity before the wind carries us away.

Maybe being a dream is why poetry comes to me, or artistic inspiration to draw, just as others are inspired to sculpt air into beautiful sounds that dance in our ears, or sometimes in our bones.

Still, like any question, it boils down through a thick onion of layers of "why." Why do we exist at all? Are we random chance? Intelligent design? Some alien-tweaked conglomeration of both, as twisted a plot as any writer could hope for? If the World (I prefer universe, but this is our corner of it, I suppose) is a stage, who then is the audience? What is the play about? Who wrote it, or was it the gas-lit dreams of a hundred cosmic monkeys that finally wrote Shakespeare, and didn't know enough to stop in the end?

Then the final "why" drops, and falls into the black hole at the bottom; "How do we matter?"

The Piscean dreams of the Piscean age shove this question aside by throwing it upon the shoulders of a god or gods who are an endless array of surrogate parents. I don't think that humanity can believe that it needs to answer to itself. If we're the children of God(s), it implies that we must someday grow up.

Philosophers have argued this argument, debated this debate, and thrown up their hands for unsated curiosity since as long as humanity has had any collective memory of any kind. That last question can never be settled for the collective whole of living humanity.

Astrology seeks to know as much as it can of the onion through reading the shape of its many layers, and so does Tarot. These are wonderful pursuits, for they occupy our minds in the vacuum of a non-present answer. They help to out-loud the relentless ticking of the wheels and gears of our perception of linear and finite time.

So does watching TV, learning a language or musical instrument, working, or any other possible human endeavor. They're wonderful distractions to amuse us while we wait for the vaudevillian "curtain fall."

Does it matter if we love, and whether that love is requited, consummated, lasting, or short? Does it matter if we become parents, or grandparents? Does beauty matter? Finesse? Anything?

This is where adulting gets hard. Remember that "children of god(s)" thing? We have to grow the eff up and answer the damn question for ourselves, before the end of our own little stage play. Neither cosmic "dad" nor "mom" are going to come down from on high handing out cotton candy answers.

We have to, each and every one of us, answer the damn question for ourselves. We each have to *choose* whether we or anything else matter. At least if we're going to have our own answer. The only other option is to let go of the question. It's like letting go of the rope holding us from falling through the event horizon of oblivion, isn't it?

No ancient book, no dead philosopher, nor any living philosopher, can give us "the" answer to whether we matter or not. They can only give us the answer that they chose. 

So I'm going to choose, for me, myself, and I. I have nothing else, and I don't feel like letting go of any rope right now. 

I choose love and beauty, because they matter to me, and they'll do my part of making the world hopefully a little nicer for those around me while I'm here, and for however long they might remember me after the wind has swept the branches and the ground at the end of Autumn.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 02-15-2026 (Written 100% by human hands, AI-Free)

Starve The Dark, And Reach For The Stars...

Space Hotel

It seems like movies have been apocalyptic forever…but they haven’t.

Somewhere in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s, television and movies went to the dark side. Almost all future visions in TV and cinema became dark, jaded, faded, or dying. 

It’s like the entirety of entertainment production dived into a psychological black hole of doom and gloom.

Prior to that we had a few here and there, but most future visions were a dance of slow improvements to galactic expansion.

It almost seems like some controlling force has colluded with screen feeds to spit out violent trauma feeds unto infinity.

We need to stop swallowing the negativity, turn away from the apocalypse in the box office, come together, and reach for the stars and for life.

As a global culture, we are starved for a positive vision, as things sit now.

It is time for us to start laying seeds. To go from the sleepwalking dead to the intrepid explorers of the living universe.

It’s time to tear down the Epsteinian pizza parlor of horrors, and start building space hotels and colonies, and throw the past into Pele’s bosom.

Vote with your wallets, and if that seems to leave life in reruns, be a writer or storyteller with tales of wonder and big accomplishments.

Starve the dark, and reach for the stars.

Dan A. Stafford 02-14-2026

 

Social Circles...

Social Circles...

So many hearts, 

So many small quiet conversations,

A few degrees of separation,

Droplets in a vast ocean.

No one can swim all the waters of all the seas,

Dancing with sharks.

But all these thousands of lakes and ponds,

Maybe it's the dawn of a new Summer.

Too big is too much,

Yet at the edges we all touch,

A heartbeat beyond treading water.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

© 02/01/2026

Salvage Operation...

Salvage Operation...

The spin was large it created gravity,

A vortex of soulless mean,

Frozen in the bloody dirt,

Splashing pavement and doors.

Yet no spin is equal to a black hole,

They've fallen in,

Though the event horizon's time distortion...

...feels like forever for them to fall,

Inevitably,

Inexorably,

No escape.

After the Spring and Summer,

We must pull our ragged souls out of the closets,

Dust them and wash them with love,

Begin the salvage operation,

Build a time to warm the heart again.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

(C) 01-31-2026

Under The Boot...

Under The Boot...

In the cold death of Winter they came, 

Owners they said,

For safety's sake.

Cities sweating below zero,

The arbiters of choke,

Freedom is only for their kind,

So they say.

The time will come,

Because frozen is slippery,

Like a loaded boomerang of karma,

And a nation of laws is all about karma.

It's been said for thousands of years,

About what you live by.

I wouldn't want your karma for all the rubles in crypto,

So feed your pride while you can,

Because when the snow melts,

Living rooms will overflow with popcorn,

As the circus reaches its natural conclusion.

All we need to do is lift voices,

Our fingers can rest easy out of circulation,

And of biblical proportions,

Juries will rapture their asses,

Out of reach of pardons,

And tailors will gleefully sew gitmo suits.

Pour some butter on that after it pops,

The big tent is getting ready for a grand finale. 

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford

©


01-25-2026

Cold...

 

 

It was all over the news today, oh boy. 

In these times of frozen hearts,

The well of sorrow is deep, 

And children find it hard to sleep. 

What once was seems to be sleeping, 

Lost In a strange world of dreams, 

Even nightmares. 

The snow flies, 

The ice creeps, 

Stealing away breath. 

Songs and words are lost, 

And the children find it hard to sleep. 

When the world is painted Orange, 

Somehow it will be blue. 

Let the Angels fly to heaven, 

Carrying songs and poems for all the children, 

For those with soft hearts, 

Kind minds, 

And some shred of decency left upon the cold hard ground. 

Words, words, words.. 

I still wonder what they are worth. 

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford 

© 01/09/2026

Regards,

Dan Stafford

Sardines And More...

I have discovered that I really like sardines, especially this particular flavor. At  first I was worried about the bones. I tried skinless boneless sardines in EVOO first, and those were good with a few drops of Cholula. 

Then I searched online about people eating sardines with bones in them, and apparently the canning process for tinned sardines is hot enough to really soften the bones, and they are a great source of calcium and trace minerals.

I tried a tin of these this morning, and I couldn't even tell there were bones in them. Very good, and excellent source of omega 3's and minerals, selenium, and more. Going to alternate these with skipjack tuna.

Regards,

Dan Stafford