A Necessary Impulse...

Over the last week or so we have participated in two events where music became a communal vehicle for healing. You know, backing up our belief in the creative, musical approach to a satisfied mind, and a happy life. A tiny gesture, a sparkle of light in a bold darkness. Music. Vibrations. Well-chosen lyrics floating in the air. Somehow the act of creating music communicates and draws human beings closer. Maybe it's built into our DNA? The act of creating;  a small step forward into a new light. The singing and playing. A ritual. Maybe it's just the act itself that does the trick? We do, and the act of doing, changes us in some undefinable way, and has the ability to change those around us too. Anyway, that is how it feels. Not just entertainment, not just a diversion, a necessary impulse, a bringing together, a binding up of wounds, a glimmer of light and transcendence. Powerful stuff;  a voice and an instrument. A ritual of hope, a step forward towards a healing.

Variable Physical Journey...

Back to "analog:" continuously variable physical quantities...

Right. I had a mission: criss-cross the hard-edged city to bring a couple of posters to a club where our band will perform next week. A necessary trip.  DIY essential. An errand boy delivering a message in a bottle, or, you know, a message to be displayed on a wall. An act of futility or hope? Leaning to hope, but who knows?

Not a difficult trip. A train to a train, and then a healthy walk thru rumpled Chicago neighborhoods. Vibrant life swirling around me. Sunny day. Brisk wind. People hustling thru the streets. Everyone going somewhere.

By day the streets look a bit shabbier, signs of decay, dissolution and corruption. Empty store-fronts, bombed-out parking lots, old, sagging, scruffy, buildings, demolition projects.  Dirt and trash swirling. A continuous process of rehabilitation and decay. 

And then, surprising islands of bright, new, shiny renewal & possibility. Glad-handing life sprouting up in unlikely places. Happy pedestrians, well-scrubbed families, moms pushing strollers, kids playing ball in the park, well-tended gardens and homes.

The music mecca I approached in the cold light looked less shiny, a bit harder, more grimy than under the twinkling lights & stark black of night. A burly barman, a couple hard-drinkers bellied to the long shiny wooden bar. Classic Chicago vibe.

I delivered my posters and then headed back, same trip except in reverse. Mission accomplished. A small, no, a tiny gesture. To what end? Who knows? Maybe someone, or a couple someones, see that poster hanging on a wall and decide to come to check out the band and music? Or, you know, maybe not.

I got home, a bit weary. "These boots are made for walking." Yes, indeed. Fully analog.

Old Bones...

Old bones. 

There is something to be said for longevity. Maybe you gain a bit of wisdom along the way? You certainly accumulate more experiences over time. You find yourself here/now, and even with all the turmoil, hurly-burly, pain, loss & suffering that you endure, you find reasons for wanting to hang around: Laughter, Love, Light.

You hope you can live and die with a bit of intelligence & grace. But really who knows?!

We went to a memorial service yesterday (see previous post), for a young person who stepped out early. Someone who intentionally chose death over life. So shocking. So tragic & sad. So many young folks were there speaking about a young soul of dazzling energy & creativity. It was a heart-breaking event. Hard to understand or process the immense loss. Afterwards we were stunned into silence. Sometimes silence really is the only answer.

Later in the afternoon we found ourselves on the lakefront. Dazzling sunshine, blue sky, a big body of water waving and heaving. Everything was alive, in motion. We sat in the sun, propped against a stone wall. This. Just this. Life.

Keep Going...

Be into something...

That would be my simple advice to anyone foolish enough to ask my advice.  A code for living. It kind of goes along with another line I often use: You must believe. What to believe in? Best to keep it sort of sketchy,  general & open-ended: believe in goodness, believe in a better day, believe in the creative impulse, believe in the golden light of LOVE. Is that enough? I don't know.

Word came that a young person we know, stepped out, decided to end her own life. So sad, so shocking. The story that is told is that she was surrounded & overwhelmed by sadness and the loss of people very close to her, she was at sea, adrift, unable to hold onto anything. All of these things resonate. We all suffer loss, we are all at sea, we are all in various stages of being adrift.

How to make it? Be into something. Something outside of yourself. That is all I have.  You know, when it comes down to it, words do fail. Life is a long-form improv: Yes... and... try to keep the game going forward...

Bible Thumping Did Him In?!

Who knows?! If true, or even if this isn't true,  this is freaking hilarious. Was it the kooky bible thumping that really sunk creepy white nationalist Tucker?!

I mean. Ha. Who knows?! Very funny story. It is a wild, wild, wild, world.

Good News...

Tucker Carlson, that noxious, toxic purveyor of lies and inflammatory disinformation is fired by FOX. Good news for USA. Maybe a bit less white nationalist noise & dreck on the airwaves, at least for a little while. Folks were quite happy to hear the news in my little blue bubble neighborhood yesterday. We need more clarity, more clear-seeing, more intelligent discourse. Maybe, at least for a day, a brief patch of light and peace. Amen.

BTW - Kevin Drum floats a few theories on why Carlson was canned. 

"It is a testament to Fox's reputation that no one thinks Tucker was fired because of his endless appeals to racism, bigotry, and demented conspiracy theories. And why would they? That's why Fox kept him around so long in the first place."

YIKES!!!

The Sea of Minutia...

"The Devil is in the details..."

Yes, indeed. 

And sometimes the details are just overwhelming. What is a Humble Pilgrim to do? Pause, take a deep breath, and then, plunge in with all the gusto you can manage. Hope you don't drown in the sea of minutia.

The Healing Power of Art...

"Running with our eyes closed..." - Jason Isbell

Yes, Jason is one of the great songwriters. No doubt. We own 3 or 4 of his albums. All of them are intelligent, beautifully-written and masterfully recorded works of art. Jason plumbs the depths of his life. Child of a messy marriage & divorce, a raucous stint with the Drive By Truckers, a long trail of substance abuse; drinking (years & years of hard drinking), and drugging.  Jason goes there. It is the core and the code of his creative life. There is a great documentary about Jason and his musical collaborator & wife Amanda Shires streaming on HBO right now. You come away with a real appreciation of Jason's excavation of his past, and his self-reflective songwriting process; he has a deep desire to examine the trauma and the pain of a life. He isn't afraid to dive in and try to depict all the hard, gory, details, using those experiences to create shimmering, beautiful, powerful, heartfelt and real songs. As Jason tells it, he is working on himself through his art, working on being a better human being. He is painfully aware of the preciousness of the moment. Seeing the world with clarity and empathy and trying to capture it all with evocative, well-chosen words and images. It is all quite inspiring and cathartic for him, and for anyone who goes on the journey with him. He is intentionally, obsessively dealing with the multi-headed, Human Thing, making art, poetry, & beautiful music out of the hard trails and smoking wreckage.

Safely in the Past...

Ha. Turns out my time spent sleeping is now more eventful than my time in an state of awake. Weird. Crazy-ass dreams. Wild scenes. Turmoil. It seems there is a battle going on in my subconscious, which bubbles up as I toss and turn and wrestle with my pillows. That internal saboteur (see previous post) is in a battle with another entity. Not sure what to name it. The voice of reason? The Zen Priest in the Dark? The Shadow of Calm? Last night, in the midst of the fog of war, a phrase floated above me in the air. Sort of like that smoky "Surrender Dorothy," in the Wizard of Oz. What was the message? "Put it safely in the Past."

The Saboteur Within...

Tumultuous night's sleep. I think of the saboteur within. Yes. An expert in sabotage. I am back home from a long sojourn lightly-existing in another realm. My first night's sleep back in my own bed was a roiling, boiling, bubbling, troubling brew of hurly-burly.

So often I have been my own worst enemy in this long, snaky, shaky example of a life. Scenes of humiliation, futility, stupidity, and frankly bad decisions and wrong turns flooded through me last night. If my internal saboteur is correct, I am a wreck of human being. It is surprising that I am still standing, breathing and thinking.

I have to laugh. I mean, in the cold light of this Friday morning, my humble existence doesn't seem all that fruitless and ridiculous, I mean, yes, maybe mostly fruitless and ridiculous with a healthy dollop of self-sabotage. I suppose if I'd give myself a grade it would be: Pretty Much Incomplete.  

Plans...

We make plans, and then the plans get squashed by circumstances. Stop, take a breath, conjure up a new plan. It is sort of a never-ending thing. Make pictures in your head, envision scenes and actions, and then bring them to the moment. Sometimes the moment is friendly, and the plan rolls out, things move forward, smiles all around, or, then again, the moment is nasty and the plan, the action, the vision just fizzles, disappears before your eyes. All that is left in the air is tiny waft of smoke. Either way, there are always the next steps, and ones after those steps. Every step counts. Forward, backwards, sideways, down. If you are the type of Human that makes plans, it seems the well of conjuring up has no bottom. That may be an illusion, but, who knows?!

To Shark or Not to Shark...

There is something to be said for gumption, persistence, a certain relentlessness, a stick-to-it-tive-ness. I get a notion, an idea and sometimes I just can't let it go. You know, I am like a shark always on the hunt for the next meal. It can be a maddening phenomena for folks around me, and for me too, but it's a quality I have, and sometimes I just can't help myself. I will drive that idea to the ground. Damn the torpedoes. This comes handy in creative projects: writing a poem, a play, a song lyric, coming up with a riff or chord progression on my guitar. I get obsessed. The results can be very rewarding. It is also handy in the world of biz: coming up with a scheme or plan, a promotion, research, making the ask, chasing down the $. Not as rewarding. Little successes, or successes that feel like failures and a bland, blind futility. Even if I do get some kind of payoff, it seems the energy expended outweighs the $ that end up in the bank account. So yeah, for me  it is the creative pursuits that have the bang for the buck, the biz pursuits where everything is measured by the buck, comes up wanting.  Does the shark ever rest? Yes. Sometimes just because of pure exhaustion. Also this shark likes to pursue the calm center, practicing meditation, a life-long passion for silence, stillness, and calmness. Can you pursue peace and calm with the relentlessness of a shark? Probably not the best way to do it. Finally you have to drop your ego, drop the shark mask and just be. Silent. In the moment.

No Fretting...

How does it all end? 

We don't know, we won't know. That's just the way of the world and our place in it. This big epic movie is playing, we come into the theater long after the flick has started, and we will exit long after it ends, if it ever ends. 

And how do we end? Burn out, fade away? Death by natural causes, death by misadventure? Seems there are an infinite number of ways to go.

It is a sunny, beautiful morning here. Why is death on my mind? Well, it's always been on my mind since a very young age, I am sure I am not the only one. The knowledge of our eventual demise seems to be a very human thing.

And the planet seems to be burning up, folks are shooting each other down at an alarming rate, other folks are doing soul-killing deeds just for the fuck of it. Makes one a bit sheepish about being from the human tribe.  What if we could just fill ourselves up with love and passion?

No sense in fretting about death. It will come when it comes. Could be the next heartbeat, could be years from now, could be the next calamity/catastrophe around the corner. All we have is the moment, the moment to live. That is a code for living. Inhabit the moment, the now. Live it to the max. Make of it what you can. Damn the torpedoes.

You Either Laugh or Cry...

Woke up to a fresh coat of snow this morning. I had to laugh, I mean a full belly-laugh, out-loud. You know, finally, you either laugh or cry. First thought: "You must be freaking kidding!" Last week it was 83 degrees and brilliant sunshine, today, gray, cold, sloppy, snowy. I wear the weather like a cloak. If there is a Director, which, like I said, (see previous post), is not required, not needed, her theme song must come from the Steve Miller Band:

"...I'm a picker, I'm a grinner

I'm a lover and I'm a sinner

I play my music in the sun

I'm a joker, I'm a smoker

I'm a midnight toker

I sure don't want to hurt no one…"

Right. It's all just entertainment, even if it's not always entertaining.

Oh yeah, about that Director, she is surely "The Pompatus of Love." What is a pompatus? Turns out it is a word that Steve Miller made up.  A nonce word: "A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication."

Perfect. Oh Steve, what a card...

The Vibe Rules...

You can't help thinking someone is directing these episodes. It's what all those kooky religions take as a starting point. But no director is necessary. It's just a vast conspiracy of a Universe of Elements. One day pure sunshine, everything alive and shiny, Human Beings acting out like there is no tomorrow, and then, the next day, rainy, gray, subdued, everything seemingly turning inward, streets empty, no Humans to be seen. 

One day demands you to show up and be counted, the next day requires you to turn inward, shelter in place.

So yes, if you are one of those who ride the vibe of the day, you ride, for all you are worth, no matter what the theme, no matter the scene, no matter what the elements conspire to whisper to you. The vibes rules, you just ride.

Healthy Abstaining...

"First, do no harm." - Pithy & concise.

It turns out that isn't in the Hippocratic oath. The closest sentence and sentiment in the document: "I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm."

Those ancient Greeks had their shit together. No doubt. The Hippocratic Oath was taken by those practicing medicine, but, you know, really, it's seems like an oath, and a code for righteous living, that could be adopted by all of us.

Today, it's seems it's hard to get folks to abstain from anything. We seem to be the Tricky Monkeys who want everything all the time, which includes indulging in mindless, entertaining, wrong-doing and harm to ourselves and others.  

Maybe a little healthy abstaining might be a good idea?! 

A New Discipline...

So, yes, the last few weeks a bit energy depleted. A few days, bone-dead-tired. Slowly, gradually, finally I am getting a bit of my fabled MOJO back. How did I do it?

A bit of discipline and practice. Eat less, talk less, think less. More walking, more biking, more singing & guitar playing, more silent-witness & casual observation. 

Funny how being in motion keeps the energy flowing.

The warmer temps and glorious sunshine helped too. Long days in the sunshine. Luxuriating in the passing days, the trees, all the little birdies singing in the branches, flowers blooming, many-splendored life springing up all around.

Less energy going out, more energy coming in. Sounds simple, and it's true, it is simple. I stopped that endless needing, wanting, grasping. Let the days come to me.  It seems to be working. Still, you know, it's always one day at a time. Wonder what's next...

Hang Your Life on that Note...

There are those who talk, and those who walk, and those who walk the talk. You want to hang with folks who can walk and talk at the same time, those who will back up what they say with action and deed. Being there. Showing up. Doing what they say they will do. Being a Human Being true to their word.

It is disappointing when you realize all the big talk was just a bluff. Castles made of sand. Maybe an ego massage, a way of being friendly, but, you know, really not cool; a detour, a rabbit hole, a waste of time and energy.

Thinking of the "Fields" of Life.

There's the Field of Opportunity, the Field of Fertility, the Field of Futility. We toil in all of them.

It was time to "go to the mattresses" yesterday. Alone in our humble little rehearsal room, with a guitar and a couple pages of lyrics. I think about my "creative life," mostly spent in quiet rooms, writing, learning lines, strumming a guitar. Being true to the process. Finally the process is all I have. What happens or doesn't happen is beyond me.

Two shimmering, weird-beast songs emerged. Two very different animals & energies. Will they see the light of day? Who knows? Not every song needs to be sung "out there." Within the studio walls the songs stood up to be counted. A totally consuming process. Yes. It was a good session. Singing, playing, making something.  As Pete Townsend once sang: "There once was a note, pure and easy…"

You can hang your life on that note, and sometimes that's it, all there is, and surprisingly it is sort of enough, you know, sort of...

The Power of Words...

Supposedly those old Irish bards would write poetry, put strings of words together, create magic with words: curse enemies, cast spells, enchant and cloud men's minds.

Words. Supremely powerful tools. 

A well-chosen word can open a door, bring down an empire, destroy a friendship, create a new dream. A string of words can work like a virus, adhering to someone; opening new doors, and realities, closing other doors, destroyers of other realities.

Funny how we use words so casually & carelessly. This is an era where poetry is being strangled, it's all prose now. Plain words of text. Still there is the same power. A word: sword of good and evil.

Surreal, Imaginary Scenes of Futility...

What do you think of dreams? Significant visionary messages? Random, meaningless, rubbish? Who knows? Maybe a bit of both? Even if you go with the latter idea, why this random, meaningless rubbish?

"Don't confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them…" - from "These Days," - Jackson Browne (1967)

Amazing, Jackson wrote that line and that song at age 16. 

Lately, all my dreams have been surreal scenes where I am unprepared, lost, scrambling, unable to locate my guitar, or capo, can't find the room where I am supposed be doing something important: a speech, a song, some kind of performance. A large, expectant audience waiting for me to deliver the goods. I never quite get there.

Clueless, flailing, at wit's end. It all seems so foolish. 

Why does my consciousness enjoy confronting me with my failures, with surreal, imaginary scenes of futility? What of all my successes, small and large? Who knows?! My failures do seem to loom so much larger than any of my successes that I have ever had. Why does it work like that? I have to think hard to remember that time in Little League when I hit that Grand Slam home run to win the game. Almost seems like a false myth.  A brief flash of light in a field of gray. 

Anyway, wake up in a bit of a fog of failure. Sunny morning. I mean, totally glorious sunshine. First sip of coffee and bit of light and clarity lights up inside. I can push those clouds away. Yes. I can.

The Search, Always the Search...

Searching for the Holy Grail, what is the grail? In some re-tellings, a Celtic magic cauldron…

The quest.

I think I inherited the idea, the imperative, the fire, the hunger for the quest from my Father. And I suppose he inherited it from his Grandfather. My father's father skipped out, so we are not sure what he was looking for, but, since he skipped out, it is a good guess that he too was also on some life-long quest. A life-long journey & struggle hunting for the big deal, the big payoff, the magical substance or the "dingus" that will transform everything. I suppose it's also the search for the mission, the cause, the belief that will illuminate all. Transformation. It is no accident that one year my brother and I bought a replica Maltese Falcon and gave it as a gift to my Father. The falcon, the dingus, the grail. We also acted out the scene in the movie when a man entered Sam Spade's office: "The dying man was clutching a brown-paper parcel, held together by thin rope: "It was an ellipsoid somewhat larger than an American football." 

Yes. All very theatrical. Even this morning, I am in midst of the search. I can't help it. It's something that has always been with me, hovers over me, drives me forward. I think it's a bit of magical thinking. That something out there will change my life. Maybe it's just a flaw, a very personal, human flaw, thinking that whatever I need is out there, and not in here. Even after all these years practicing meditation, an act of inward looking, finding a calm center, there is that irresistible impulse to find that magical substance out there in the dark, secret places. Some habits die hard, some habits never die.

As Bono sings: "I still haven't found what I'm looking for…"

Everything is Everything, and that's Everything...

Easter, Ramadan & Passover collide today…

Maybe that's appropriate. High Holy Days bumping up against each other. Clashing beliefs and believers. That is the Human Conundrum. I am one of those who thinks all religions are fundamentally talking about the same thing, and to fight over who is speaking truth, is the height of stupidity. To think anyone has a monopoly on truth is truly deluded.

Trying to impose your truth on anyone else is a form of evil.

The most important things in our lives, love, inspiration, passion, insight, transcendence, are invisible, hard to define, and hard to hold onto.

“Heaven walks among us ordinarily muffled in such triple or tenfold disguises that the wisest are deceived and no one suspects the days to be gods.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I came across that quote in John O'Donohue's "Anam Cara" (1997) which I have been re-reading at a snail's pace; a few paragraphs here and there. It's almost like a long-form meditation. Just reading the words of the text, having those words explode in my consciousness is almost like hypnosis.  Happy talk. Celtic-style. I sort of feel like just the act of reading this book is improving my mind. Who knows?!

Yes. Well. This Humble Pilgrim believes in the power of believing. We all need a mission, a task, something to throw ourselves into, believing in a bigger, higher power. I believe it is best to define this higher power as loosely and open-endedly as possible. Believe in a better day, the sacredness of every day, or a healing light, or that the days are the gods, or, you know, god is love or love is god. God in my world is a very nebulous, hard to pin down phenomena.Think: Good & Goodness. A goodness that enfolds all phenomena.

I channel a lot my energy into creative projects, writing, music, composing and performing. It's a little slice of a more powerful, spiritual practice. When you drop your ego and just submit to the creative vibe it is sublime, something to live for.

Where is the evidence of God? All around us: a grain of sand, a butterfly, a sunny day, a cloud, a wave, a warm breeze, a cold breeze too, a rock, mud, blade of grass, a breath, a smile, an eye, a kind word. Life in all of its forms.  If everything is connected, everything is everything, and that's everything.

What Are They Afraid Of?

What are they afraid of? 

You know, the Republicans, the GOP, the wanna-fascists, the lunatic right-wing. What drives their hate & fear?  First, see previous post.

And, let me hazard a few answers:

Free & Fair Elections

Representative Democracy

One person/One vote

Women

Blacks

Immigrants

People of Color

LGBTQ+ 

Woke Folks

Democrats

Progressives

Equality for All

Bodily Autonomy

Intelligence

Progress

Change

They Fear losing their status in America. They really don't want to be treated equally with everyone else. That is scary for them. Is it really that simple? Fear? Which is expressed with a passionate Hate? Their primary tool: raw political power, to try to prevent folks from speaking, voting, participating in a free, fair and equal Democracy. 

Really. Yes, I really do think so.

We can't let their Fear and Hate rule our lives. No Justice, No Peace.

Outrage in TN...

No Justice, No Peace...

I've been around a long time. I have been a political junkie since an early age. I have had a bird's eye view of a lot of corruption, turmoil, hurly-burly, bad faith & bad actors. As an optimistic progressive it can be an ugly task just keeping up with the latest news, I am not easily shocked.  Shite. I mean, yikes.  This story totally blows my mind. It is 2023. 2 Black Democratic Representatives expelled from the TN house for advocating for reforming gun laws in the wake of a school shooting in Nashville.

It is a blatantly racist, anti-democratic stunt from an unhinged Republican majority in TN. It truly is mind-boggling, and an outrage. 

"In an extraordinary move, Tennessee's Republican-led House voted Thursday to expel two of three Democratic lawmakers who recently led a raucous protest from the House floor calling for gun law reforms.

Reps. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, were both removed from the body with votes falling along party lines, in a disciplinary measure that's only been used twice since the 1800s. The votes were 72 - 25 and 69 - 26 respectively. Together, they represent a combined constituency of about 130,000 people."

I stand with the 2 Justins! 

No Justice, No Peace.

My Own Private Idaho...

Closer to home...

Living the Dream, feeding the Myth.

Progressively Progressive!

Yesterday, that was an unexpectedly great day...

Fat-Boy Faces the Music in Manhattan.

Could be an album title. Big story. Big celebration over here. A long time in coming. 

We also hear that a "liberal" (pro-choice, pro-democracy & free & fair elections), Judge was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, AND a Progressive, (pro-public schools, and social/racial justice), Brandon Johnson, has been elected to be Chicago's next Mayor.

Whew. Lots of good news all in one day. I turn to Michael Moore for a bit of a pep talk and victory lap:

"You do know that we — liberals, progressives, lefties, Democrats, democratic socialists, common sense independents, former and recovering Republicans — we are the majority. And that we have the power to literally WILL things to happen, right? Stand up, speak out, organize, agitate, legislate, celebrate! Rinse! Repeat! Let’s all decide right now to climb out of our rabbit holes of despair and embrace the true power each of us has and the power that we all have together, collectively, by a margin of millions! Oh how the elites and the haters pray none of us ever realize we are the actual majority and, if we choose to, we could pass anything we wanted into law — just like that!"

Amen, brother...

Indictment Tuesday...

 My "Better Angel," that would be the one on my right shoulder, reminds me of the pithy phrase: "There but for the Grace of God, go I."

My "Bad-Boy Angel," the one on my left shoulder, declares: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." 

I'm stuck in the middle, leaning towards that idea: "You will reap what you sow."

There is a well-known con-man, a notorious cad & flim-flam-man due in court later today. Many of my friends, and I are quite happy to see that a quite repulsive, rich, privileged white-guy, who has lived a life on the corrupt margins, may finally be held to account.

Germans have a phrase that captures the moment perfectly: Schadenfreude - "is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. It is a borrowed word from German, with no direct translation, that originated in the 18th century." Schadenfreude has been detected in children as young as 24 months and may be an important social emotion establishing "inequity aversion". 

Exactly! Let it come down!

Supremely Weird...

Thinking about cults and followers. You know, collections of folks who give up their critical thinking skills to blindly follow some strong-man, or con-man. It is a bit baffling and mystifying. Review the historical record and it's horrifying too. Yes. It is a top of mind topic. It looks less like politics, and more like pathology. Folks so desperate to pledge their allegiance to some sick, and supremely flawed human being. You know, it's that creepy "authoritarian" mindset writ large. The worst excesses and atrocities naturally flow out of this kind of  blind "unthinking." Seems to be a total abdication of any semblance of intelligence and enlightenment. Yes, not so much politics but pathology; an illness & sickness of the mind and soul. All the worst qualities of human beings emerge from being a faithful, unthinking cult follower. Maybe it's an easy out. Folks who trade in thinking and taking control of their own lives, for pure passion, passion fed by hate and fear. It's a toxic combo. From the outside, it looks like total madness. Hard to get your head around. It's an eye-opener. Human Beings are complicated, for sure. To watch folks gladly & fiercely embrace non-thinking, stupidity, blindness and madness, is supremely weird.

Note: Teri Kanefield reminds us that there is a method to the active stupidity and madness. These authoritarian cultists are reactionaries bent on turning back & derailing the progressive cause.

The First Time, Every Time...

I said this in a conversation yesterday, (I know, kind of funny quoting myself), but I think, off the top of my head, I blurted out a core belief and practice...

"I like to approach everything with Beginner's Mind, and damn the torpedos."

You know, you don't want to reinvent the wheel, but you can't worry about what other folks have done, or haven't done. If you tell someone you are pursuing some project, or mission, the first thing you usually get in response is that it can't be done, or it has been already been done, or, you know, why the fuck bother?

Yes. The naysayers are legion. Best to tune them out. Maybe pretend that what you taking on is something that has never been done. You do it and, you know, you see what the fuck happens. Damn the torpedos.

Chickens Coming Home to Roost...

Nah. It is not a sad day for America. It's definitely a sad day for one particularly repulsive man. He is soon to be in a courthouse to face the music and that is a good thing! It is a sad day for the GOP. It's a terrible political party. They do not know how to adequately vet their candidates. They should be more discerning & careful, and bit more picky, on the type of candidates they support.  If they throw their support behind a loud, racist, misogynist, dodgy and super-corrupt con-man, who has lied and cheated most of his long, sordid life, well, it may take a bit of time, but finally, you know, reality has a way of catching up. You will reap what you sow! The first cut is the deepest.  The bully is not immune. The bully is no superman. The bully is a phony and a cad. I say, Let it come down.