I expect to get the usual complaints and comments about the headline because some will see it as linkbait.
Some of those who cry about it will be the same people who see nothing wrong in gaming the system as long as they are the ones who benefit and some will cry because they won’t spend enough time reading to find tips about blogging.
Now you have got to understand that under normal circumstances I don’t care what most people think and that at the moment the circumstances I am dealing with aren’t normal.
There are big changes taking place in my life and I am working on making some even bigger ones and none of this is happening on schedule.
It is like most things in life, coming at me when life decides and not when it is convenient.
I don’t view most of these things as being bad, they should be good but the nature of how they are coming is creating chaos.
And since I worked hard to try and prevent, avoid and or minimize chaos I am pissed off. Pissed off because I tried to plan and it didn’t work.
So I deal with what I have and not what I want, but it doesn’t mean I am not going to let my inner Taurus run free.
No Ferdinand the bull today, instead I give you my horns and a promise to stomp and trample.
Many years ago I told the kids to remember the measure of a person isn’t found during peace and calm. It is discovered during chaos and confusion.
It is created and molded by the moment.
Drama is a ship you can sail and if you are a master sailor you will avoid the rocks, reefs and Krakens of the deep.
Unless you are me in which case you look at the Kraken and figure, “Fuck, that sucker would make one hell of a story and so you break out your rod and reel ‘cuz you are going to catch the giant.”
Who is afraid of Leviathan?
Not me.
Connect The Dots
You do recognize that I see all of this tied up in what Voltaire said, don’t you?
It is about asking questions of all sorts and figuring out as you go what the right question to ask is.
Such as trying to figure out why so many people choose to ignore the obvious contempt for laws, rule and order coming from a corrupt administration that will just as easily go after them as anyone else.
And if we figure that one out can we come up with a way to pull them back from supporting corruption or do we have to accept they’ve given up morality, character and integrity.
Maybe it is easier to pump out the fiction and create the world I want to live in. Hell, I have so many pieces I have worked on for various places, some submitted, some not.
Maybe it is better to insert a piece of fiction here as a palate cleanser because today I learned I know more people that buy into this Nazi shit than I had thought.
Fiction Break
There are no coincidences because what you see, hear and do are part of something greater than us. It is tied into something larger that can be described as both mystical and magical.
Don’t ask me to explain this because I can’t tell you how or why. All I can say is that I know because I have experienced it. I have seen it. I have lived it. I have been there and that is all the proof that I can provide.
It won’t be enough for some of you. It won’t be the kind of thing that you can accept because you can’t buy, touch or taste it. Actually that is not true, you can but only if you open your mind and let your soul seek its match.
I know this because for the longest time I didn’t do it. I spent years not buying into it or believing that it could be real. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to because I did. I desperately wanted to believe that this thing was something tangible. Because I just knew that if I could feel it in my hands and see it with my eyes it would prove that there was something to this dream I had once lived.
You see I fell in love with a girl and I loved her fiercely. I loved her madly. I loved her passionately. I loved her in every way that the poets wrote of, spoke of and dreamed of.
I loved her with all of my heart and all of my soul. I loved her desperately and somewhere in that madness I lost her.
Some of you can’t feel what I am saying. These words have no meaning to you. They are figments of imagination that you can’t feel, see or taste. So they never grab you. Your heart, your eyes and your mind are closed to them.
I can’t fault or blame you because I used to be like you. I used to look at this sort of writing and roll my eyes because I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen. I hadn’t felt it.
But that was long ago. That was in the time before I became who I am now. That was before I understood that love is a drug that can make you soar to the highest heights and or drop your ass into a pit so dark and dank you can’t remember what it felt like to see sunshine.
Some of you are nodding your head. You don’t even realize that you are doing it. You aren’t even aware that your pulse has quickened and you can’t see anything other than these words and even those are growing faint.
That is because we are running with the moon you and I. We are partners on a journey and you want to know more about my story because you hope that maybe it holds some sort of key insight to your story.
You want to know about the girl I loved and what happened to her. You want to know if there is hope for us because if there is hope for us there might be some for you.
The thing that is ever so interesting about this is that I haven’t given you much in the way of detail. You haven’t heard about how we met in the most unusual way or how crazy it all was. You don’t know how it is we fell in love. You wonder if I am exaggerating or maybe you don’t.
Maybe you know what it is like to have that kind of passion where you can’t stand not having that person in your life because there is a gaping void that aches and burns without respite. Maybe you too were surprised to discover that the kind of crazy love you experienced the first time you ever fell in love could come back. Maybe you were shocked by the passion and overwhelmed by the loss of the friendship that you had.
Because that friendship threw you for a loop. It wasn’t just about love or lust. You liked them as a person. They filled the gaps and made you believe that you could be more than you were. They made you believe that all that hokey stuff you read in cheap paperbacks or saw on television might be based in reality. You understood that you could be naked in every possible way with them and be confident that they would caress your soul and cradle your heart.
It doesn’t have to be a dream. You don’t have to keep running with the moon. You don’t have to feel that enormous sense of loss or wonder whether you can ever love and be loved like that again because if it happened once it can happen again.
There are no coincidences. You can live your dream. You can find a way back. All you need to do is let go, submit to the reality of the possibility and accept that there will be opportunity.
It is not poetry or fiction. It is reality. It can’t happen on its own but if you ask and if you believe you will find the answer. You don’t need the old gypsy woman to sell you Love Potion number 9.
There are no coincidences.
Will Our Republic Make It?
I am not a pacifist. I believe that there are times when you must go to war. I believe that when you go to war you unleash hell upon the other side. I believe that it is ok to say that some ideologies are morally superior to others. I believe that the families of “evil” people probably cry when their sons/daughters die just as we do for our own children. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot or should not protect ourselves.
I believe that a smart society educates its citizenry and provides affordable healthcare for them. I believe that smart parents and smart people judge others based upon actions. I don’t believe that the death penalty is always a deterrent nor do I believe that it should be outlawed.
A smart society looks out for all of its citizenry from the weak to the strong. It protects those within its embrace and those without.
I can write on about my beliefs. I can write 10,000 words on why I believe these things. I can cite the Constitution and explain why I believe it is a living document. I can tell you how the Electoral College works and sing along to all sorts of School House Rock Songs about the U.S. government. I can do all this and more but I can’t quite make sense of the senseless.
It still shocks me sometimes to think about conversations I had when my children were young. The one we had when the U.S. got Osama Bin Laden and how my my almost 10.5 year-old son asked if we murdered a murderer and if that meant we’d have to kill his kids. I remember my almost 7 year-old daughter telling her older not to worry because “daddy will kill bad people” and how he nodded his head.
Now 14 years later they ask me questions many of my friends ask, “do you think the U.S. will make it? Will Trump kill democracy?”
It is a fair question and we have honest conversations that we couldn’t have when they were little.
Sometimes I have to go back to 51,983 Things I Didn’t Expect To Happen In My Fifties and review/think about other things.
I am ready to leave a time of unprecedented changes and go back to the boring and mundane. Ready to wake up each day and not ask questions like “what kind of fuckery/stupidity/ignorant/bullshit will they come up with today.
This too shall pass, but may it go faster than it is now.
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