Tales From the MoJo Road –
By Glynn Wilson –

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – This feels surreal, like much going on in the world these days, even without hallucinogens.

Everything feels like a bizarre mix of fact and fantasy, like the world depicted by artist M.C. Escher. And apparently that’s the way it’s going to be from now on.

Escher’s Relativity: NAJ screen shot from Wikipedia

There was a time not so long ago when I was convinced that simply reporting the facts and trying to tell it like it is without pretense, framing the stories correctly, had the power to keep at least some part of the world locked into a kind of basic equilibrium, like gravity holds us all on solid ground on planet Earth. This could sustain some semblance of democracy in a world gone mad.

But something has slipped out of place. A lever is out of kilter. We’ve stripped a gear on the basic machinery of human existence and understanding. We’re sort of like the dinosaurs depicted in this cartoon who see the giant, planet killing asteroid headed directly toward them and say to themselves, “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

So just two days ago I was parked beside the White River way out on the other side of Missouri almost to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, contemplating running for my life toward Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and California, maybe slipping into British Columbia, Canada by Jan. 20, 2025. Some of my friends were wiping their web and social media presence out of existence, now fearing the worst as “the enemy within,” as Donald Trump has come to call us. In his first term we became “The enemy of the people.” Now this.

But something about that westward direction and plan seemed off as winter approached, and slipped. Another door opened in the never ending game of life, which more and more feels like the House of Mirrors at an old-timey traveling carnival show.

So I gave in and turned around and headed east instead, camping for a night along the Spring River in Hardy, Arkansas in a city RV park, where just a few days ago the river over topped its banks in a rain-fueled flood and wiped out the bath house.

The Spring River in Hardy, Arkansas: Glynn Wilson

I met a women who came to walk her one-eyed dog in the morning and complained about the traffic when she has to pass through Birmingham when she comes from Cherokee Village to visit her mom in Alexander City, Alabama. Small world.

From there, almost like it had a mind of its own, the Siri bot directed me to the private Tom Sawyer RV park on the Mississippi River in West Memphis. I considered staying for a night, but the Indian woman was asking way too much for campsites.

Glynn Wilson

The Mississippi River in West Memphis, Arkansas: Glynn Wilson

So we pushed on, making the big curve east through downtown Birmingham as the sun was setting in the rear view mirror.

The interstate curves through downtown Birmingham, Alabama: NAJ screen shot

Monday morning, as I was online reading about the mass shooting in Tuskegee and more reflections on Trump, including this dissertation from the Columbia Journalism Review on New York Times “sane washing” of Trump, I thought again about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. Scientists say physical processes only go one direction in time.

As I sip my hazelnut coffee this morning, this example explains it. Cream and coffee can be mixed together, but cannot be “unmixed.” A piece of wood can be burned, but cannot be “unburned.” The word “entropy” has entered popular usage to refer to a lack of order or predictability in nature, or of a gradual decline into disorder, which an observer of the world these days might say is clearly happening.

Mixing coffee and burning wood are “irreversible,” a law of nature which states that in an isolated system which is undergoing change and not connected to any other system, entropy increases over time. Observations have shown, however, that this descent into chaos does not increase indefinitely. A body of matter and radiation will eventually reach an unchanging state, with no detectable flows in energy, and it is then said to be in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium.

If this theory is correct, and equilibrium is to be interpreted as a positive, stable state, we are clearly not there yet.

In social scientific terms, we may be doomed for the foreseeable future to suffer as this descent into chaos and disorder accelerates. Joe Biden got elected but could not be “unelected,” as Trump’s militia tried to do on Jan. 6, 2021. Now Trump has been declared president elect, and there is not much we can do about it.

The only way I know how to deal with it is to think and write about it. So that’s what I’m going to continue doing.

If that offends some of those who want to turn this country into a white, Christian nation with an autocrat for a dictator, and jail or kill anyone who disagrees with them, good luck with that. I’m sure they will be disappointed soon enough and disgruntled even more when nothing works.

I’m no fan of chaos and confusion. All I want is for our government and democracy to work well enough to do something about climate change, which means finding ways to combat global warming from the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transportation.

Since a majority of the people have chosen to believe this is not real, things will only get worse and the disasters will only grow in proportion and cost even more.

So come and get me if you can find me. I will not back down.

Many Rivers to Cross Before I Find My Way Home

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