Death Dodging

What a strange world in which we exist. Preoccupation with death begins at such a young age. Drenched in scenes of violence, illness, accidents, and simple old age, there exists far more dodging death than embracing life. 

I’m talking about our entertainment – movies, tv, music, sports – our preoccupations with medicines and surgeries and vaccines, in our governments with their wars and their acts of deadly commission and omission, in our pharmaceuticals with each commercial containing a litany of horrible side-effects which serve only to desensitize us from what we’re allowing in our bodies. 

Then there looms the psychological aspect of death. Without recognizing the truth, this world passively allows pharma, government, corporations, and disgusting media to fearmonger every soul with breath. 

We go from one extreme control to another. The latest is AI and I’m certain we will rue the day of its existence. But the world population has been desensitized by our “fictional” movies decrying the severe danger of AI. 

Let us live people. Let us walk away from the controls. I am horribly controlled. The dopamine of modern technology wars with my sense of living and breathing and experiencing the joy of life. More often than not, I lose these wars. I’m lured into the lurid, calculated shorts on Tik Tok and other media streams. 

There must one day come a corrective revolution. Someone, some great hero, must come into this world to stop the madness – or we shall perish as a productive race. 

Oh, Michael, such doom and gloom… Come on. Any of you reacting to me thinking and speaking those thoughts, laid down your life for lies long ago. Truth will always be in front of us. Courage, however, will remain behind most of us until we collect the power to overcome (which, by the way, will not come without the exertion of courage). 

These liars in pharma (I’ve ceased capitalizing that despicable entity), government, media, etc will continue to double down on their lies and DARE anyone to stand up to them. We’ve become complacent and allowed criminals to control this world. I sensed it back in the touted “New World Order” days. I learned that even the conservatives in government had bought into this bullshit control of people’s lives. That jaded me, hearing daddy Bush talk about the New World Order. I thought only the lefty loons held a stranglehold on this.

We continued to be played, every minute of every day. When I say “we” I am speaking of everyday man which the aforementioned entities do not give a rats ass about other than how we can be used to further their agendas. 

Putin is not the only evil in this world at the moment. He’s obligingly taking the visual lead. Fauci, Gates, Soros, pharma, media, the medical community’s bought-out doctors following the money rather than the truth, etc, etc, etc, all combine to form the perfect storm of world domination from a few over the masses. 

The big question for those of us who see all this happening always boils down to this: “What can I do about it?” We heard of the “Arab Spring” back a decade or two ago. We need a “World Spring.” 

This world plummets into the abyss of horrid people controlling our lives. We appear to give up without a fight on a daily basis. There are good people working hard to get the truth and facts out to the public, but the media no longer cares about facts. Bought, sold and delivered long ago. 

We continue to play the insipid game of dodging death rather than living life. We are fat, complacent, too comfortable even with all the freedoms we lose each and every day. We will be steamrolled into submission. We likely will die by the billions. But hey, who am I? 

Look at the Cleveland Clinic’s study of the after-effects of the vaccines and boosters. They set out to prove the vaccines worked in a study of 51,000 healthcare workers (not patients). What they proved was that with each successive booster, the chances of contracting COVID (manufactured and profited by Fauci and friends) increase dramatically with each successive dose. Those who were never vaccinated have the least chance of contracting the weaponized bio-creation-for-profit-and-control virus. 

There’s plenty of scientific facts being spoken out there, but because the media is controlled, you must search it out. Of course, as soon as you search for truth, they track you and label you for their future agendas. It’s a first step. Search the truth about the pathetic masks that have absolutely no power to stop the spread of the virus. This was proven before this “pandemic” even took hold. 

But they scared you with no one having paper to wipe their asses with. I still shake my head at that. The absurdity was such a brilliant move. 

Oh well, I will go out today, work with some flowers and tomato plants, shoot some hoops, and strive to embrace life. 

Dodging Death

One day we grasp awareness
or not
One day we breathe in the miracle of life
or not
One night we gaze into the face of the celestial heavens and feel awed
or not
One night we embrace and share honest passion
or not
One week we strive to shrug off the controls of this modern world
or not
One week we daily seek more truth manufactured through facts rather than controlled rhetoric
or not
One month we set in motion a new step in our existence toward living
or not
One month we develop a pattern of asking “why” is this absurd issue dominating everyone when there stand real issues which need to be addressed
or no
One year we consistently cease supporting the “money” who controls our lives
or not
One year we actively pursue recapturing our freedom to life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness
or not

In every single moment we each possess the nanosecond option of decision
Decision to abandon dodging death rather than continuing as the controllers desire 
or not
In every single moment we each possess the nanosecond option of decision
Decision to embrace life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness.
or not

As with anything worthwhile in life
Effort becomes the lynchpin to success
Actively take steps to regain your life
or not

If I Live Until I Die

Reading books is magnificent…until it’s not. Great books overwhelm your senses, your intellect, your heart, your soul. Drowning in a great book’s raging river, you bob up and down. You thrill to white-water violence, you bask in back-water eddies, always connected. Always ready for the next concept, line, and if you’re quite lucky, you hang on to the very next word.

Atlas Shrugged did this to me. So did The Fountain Head. Dandelion Wine. The October Country. 1984. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Lolita. The Four Agreements. Replay.

I am currently surviving the book Catch 22. An exasperating writing style, seemingly born of insanity yet falling in step with the human race. I cannot say, at this point halfway through, that this book will be on my list of favorites, mainly due to the difficulty of the prose, but I still have a long way to go.

I have poached a line from this book for the title of this post and hopefully the title of a good poetic exploration of life.

Does everyone live until they die? Do we live before we die? Do I live before I die? Those rigid rationalists will, of course, state flatly “yes” and move on. The line struck me as one of those ‘ultimate questions’ one should strive to answer. I feel I’ve traveled all these decades searching for the means by which to ‘live until I die.’

I’m not attempting to come across as trite. Too much of my life falls into the category of living for others. I can see some of the influence of Ayn Rand here. She unlocked a barrier. The door stands with rusted hinges from neglect and opens only with great effort.

I desire to live until I die. To understand the exact meaning and application of this statement I must first explore “desire.” What truly, at the root of my soul, is my desire. Desire’s definition lies rooted in selfishness. Selfishness, over the years, has become one of the pariahs of inner emotion and contemplation.

If you are selfish in any way shape or form, you become despised and avoided. You’re an outcast. Who are you to think you can create anything? Who are you to not follow blindly what the masses and money and governments demand you to swallow? Who are you to even dream of being an individualist?

Ayn Rand drove this point and drove it hard in Atlas Shrugged. The destruction of self coincides with the destruction of your life. When you cannot live “Your” life, you have no life to live. You exist until you die.

My desire is to live.

No, my desire is to LIVE!

Living is effort. A struggle against so many obstacles that mere contemplation of the task can obliterate your moxie. Your energy. Your will. Your motivation.

Desire, for me, is to align myself with my best self, not the self this world dictates I should show to everyone else. Far too often, this world (collectively governments, corporations, media, friends, neighbors, ad nauseam…) dictates my heart direction, my soul direction, my chosen direction, and my life direction.

I’m not alone. uncountable people before me and with me have suffered under this same yoke. Writing lends me freedom. Not only release through my fingertips from my soul but also in return in through my eyes and into my soul.

To live becomes what I define as my best life and my ability to achieve that life. “Life” can be an ever-moving target. One you must not allow to slip into other people’s control. This is often a clash of wills that we lose consistently and these losses fragment the driving forces within us.

I write many definitions of life on these digital pages. Most, approaching all, of my writings here grow from my search for life. My desire for a life continually morphs as days and moments pass.

One moment of life, which lasted about fifteen minutes, was the lunch I enjoyed at the Grand Canyon in Arizona on September 12, 1986. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an ice-cold Mountain Dew. I climbed over a barrier fence against the protestations of Vicky, and I sat on the rim of the canyon. My feet dangled over a sheer vertical drop of over a half mile.

No. This is not a testosterone moment of defiance of daring over safety. The canyon called me to communion with my soul. I could see eagles and helicopters miles away beneath me. No sound came to me other than an ethereal silence that soothed my soul. The sheer magnitude of this place delivered a peace within me that few other locations ever did.

Sun drenched me in warmth and comfort. Breezes whispered welcome. That sandwich and Mountain Dew exemplified the act of communion, so to speak, but time became the true connection. In reality, no, it was not timeless or I would still be there, Yet, I am still there in my heart and soul. I felt timelessness on a scale beyond my knowing. Beyond my living, Beyond my death. In THIS moment I was living until I die.

I possess many moments like this. Moments of life I value beyond all other moments. I am no different from you. You possess these moments as well. The main difference I witness in many, possibly most people, is the hope and belief that more moments await you. Too often we chase after the same moment. That is not possible.

Too many people, including myself, relive the ghosts of old moments. Some moments, I do agree, may be revisited over and over, yet they are new moments where we allow ourselves to see and experience life in a new light, a new perspective, a new environment, basically a new moment. This is when I feel I am most living until I die.

I could go on forever on this, but I shan’t.

If I live until I die

My heart revels in small things
Breezes
Sunshine
Rain
A gentle word
A loving touch
Timeless moments

My soul rests in a snug warm blanket on a winter’s day with
Her
My innermost thoughts
Love
Companionship
Silence
Music

My life defines itself through
Simplicity
Direct pursuit of happiness
Self
Ever rebirthing desire
My evaluation only
My ability to embrace my core values

If I live until I die
I will die with the peace I crave
The knowledge I desire
The comfort of self-love
The purity of a glowing love for life
As a surreal walk through a midnight garden
And all other experiences I deem valuable.

 

Collective Insanity

Mankind lost its mind. No, this statement stands as far too past tense. We exist in a snowballing loss of reason, logic, and intelligence along with a long and deep list of attributes that once made us the dominant species of life on earth.

Now we are reduced to pettiness, shaming, and blatant lies labeled as truth, news, diagnosis, etc. We’ve created diseases to apparently run profits sky high because we first invent the “cure” or “vaccine,” patent the damned thing then release the disease into the world and rake in a boatload of money. There definitely lie much more despicable, incalculable, and sinister motives behind this disgusting agenda.

All now becomes calculated, through media and governments bought and paid for, either through outright clandestine agreements or apparent symbiotic fleecing of the world population. Forget documented proof. That sort of evidence does not fit the narrative of those who wrested control long ago.

They can double down and count on mankind’s disgusting apathy and refusal to remember the lies told over two years. Fauci, claiming COVID came from bats (definitely not a lab…), when a lab he helped to fund, and a project he endorsed years before the machinated pandemic, delivered world recognition and truckloads of cash to his life.

Forget the big names who tailor and sculpt public opinion rather than deliver the truth, how about the individual? A woman, relishing the dominance of “customer complaint” refuses to listen to four experts who tell her that she cannot double bill a certain type of insurance for her prescription. When offered the simple fix of calling the doctor and getting authorization which would allow the insurance to go through, she would rather browbeat store-level employees for hours because she knows the system better, even though that system has repeatedly denied her claim.

I know. Sounds like I have an ax to grind. But this is not an isolated experience. Daily, people are going to absurd lengths to show everyone they can force to listen, that they know better about their particular insanity.

Yes, insanity. There is no way for a rational mind to allow for the complete destruction of facts and truths that constantly fall to bluster and complete abandonment of reality. What strikes me as beyond disturbing is that when a person attempts to stand on reason, that person is attacked mercilessly and without any concrete proof.

I am disgusted with the great liars of this world who pollinate dissension, division, and outright violence. I am more disgusted by a public who cannot muster the backbone to step up and fight this scourge, this blight on the progression of mankind. We live in a suicidal downward spiral, refusing to fight for truth and facts, and we allow the liars to constantly double down on their ridiculous non-truths.

Pfizer and the other big pharma ilk, who fearmongered hundreds of millions of people into padding their coffers, lied all along the way. The vaccines will save you. 100%. They are safe. 100%. You MUST get a vaccine or you will die. You must wear a shaming mask, which they knew to be ineffective, as they chuckled to their big banks who smiled at their windfalls, with government officials who did their bidding.

Check out the Pfizer commercials now. Open your ears! Hear how they’ve completely toned down their fear agenda and are treating the failed disease (failed because it did not kill enough people) like the flu it was derived from. Look at pre-pretended pandemic at the stats on flu deaths in the US. I did. Half a million people died of the flu in 2017. No flu during the pandemic. Why? Because it’s the new, improved (in a lab) flu. They managed to up the kill count, but not much.

Don’t get me started on things like a friend who died in a car wreck had their death certificate cause of death labeled COVID. Only after the spouse of the deceased threatened an attorney would the hospital change the certificate. Only under threat of the truth and a lawsuit.

When the media is corrupt and under the control of those who are self-seeking, without any pushback, the human race is doomed. There are voices of reason out there but you must dig deep and be willing to back off of what you were spoon-fed and swallow the truth that you’ve been had.

All this collective insanity appears to owe its blueprint to some notable books that predicted the world we now know. 1984. The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged.

Days of Lies

Truth succumbs to absurd assailment
Reality stolen in twisted lies to suckle agenda
Facts trampled and shat upon through ridicule
Sanity flees

Attacks played out through double-speaking tongues
Revile those who refuse the Koolaid
Double down on anything debunked
Sanity flees

When extreme minorities dictate your life
Absurd science rooted in Shelleyian maniacal practice
When all reason falls strewn underneath the controller’s feet
You live the Days of Lies

And…

Sanity flees…

 

I Am the Day After Tomorrow…

Mists
Dreams and Realities
Pain
Sorrow
Hope
Fear
Anxiousness
Immortal
Dead before my time

Hollow yet full of void and questions
Absent of all answers save the few I tackle today
For the questions remain dreams
Until the soul searches out truth

I am Yesterday’s Tomorrow
Offspring of the Day Before Yesterday
A grandchild of decisions and discoveries weakly tested
Solid ground nothing but a dream
A fantasy
While nebulous mental footsteps work diligent
On the futile effort of internal peace

I become this moment
Only once allowed
Because the haunted heart grows weary
Thus the refuge of the Day After Tomorrow

Ghosts

The Alpha Post

I no longer ask when this began. The invitation of stupidity. The collapse of dreams, of prosperity, of common sense. Our sun once rose upon a land of achievers. People of intellect. People who forged great cities, brought to life amazing inventions, and cured diseases.

Mentors once drove me forward, lending me wisdom to build my thoughts and dreams. In my way, I passed on in kind, helping others trapped by their own restrictions to discover they possessed so much more than they’d ever imagined right there in their beautiful, chaotic minds.

Somewhere we lost ourselves. As a nation. As a people on this Earth. As a person.

Who is John Galt?

Fear now rules our land, our minds, and our lives…

One of the most egregious Fear Mongers in our society this present day other than our politicians, propaganda spouting machines (otherwise so-called “news media”) and Big Pharma is the vapid, insipid Weather Channel. This mouthpiece of everything FEAR has been spewing its drivvel for so long it seems to get a pass from even people with active brain cells. Remember how the reporters would massively overact in wind-blown rain? How they would be nearly falling down when a gust of wind shot its pitiful invisible daggers while walkers in the background strolled with no difficulty?

The Weather Channel stooped to new lows this past week. They reported on what they’ve dubbed a “zombie virus” in Antarctica. Please. PLEASE! Ask yourself WHY would they call this “Discovery” a zombie virus? A frozen “virus” was purportedly discovered underneath the frozen tundra. The virus still possesses a glimmer of life, hence the moniker “zombie.”

Why “zombie?” Because our education system has failed us completely at this point. We’ve raised generations of young people who are doing their best to chemically and biologically defy science and nature to become zombies. Who in the hell, with any level of analytical intelligence would buy into this? The present crop of young people, that’s who.

Why do you think the lying, deceptive, manipulative CDC would place a page on their site addressing zombies? Why would the vilest liars of this world like Fauci (I won’t dignify his soiled name with his “degree”), CNN, Gates, and other slithering snakes, push “vaccines” down our throats or, more specifically, into our arteries and FEAR MONGER the world into submission?

Our present generation of young people suffer systematic destruction in our education system. Those who are willing to stand up and fight the scourge of lies cannot get a voice because our corrupt government, media, and healthcare refuse to acknowledge any facts that do not serve their destructive agenda

Zombies permeate our youth, another of the initially benign seeming distractions of online gaming. The subliminal repetition of subjects like zombies, UFOs, and climate change (don’t get me started on that farce…) will condition this generation of young minds into believing anything they hear. Hell, this strategy has worked on left-wing adults, people who should have acquired enough education to know better.

Oh, my apologies. WHO money (read Fauci and his wife) did not go to the Wuhan laboratory that created and released/leaked a virus for which Moderna had already created a supposed vaccine that PERFECTLY matched the DNA sequences of the virus hyped to the world four years later. What a boon that was to big pharma and to government’s massive overreach of authority all over the world.

Create fear and panic, use this to strip basic freedoms as simple as healthy breathing, steal people’s jobs with lies, ruin millions of businesses and lives, all in the name of a new world order which so few even recognize. The CDC and other “scientific” entities are now saying that masks did nothing, which many of us already knew because we actually studied and learned in school. The masks were EXACTLY the same as mandating nuclear bomb alarms in schools in the fifties and sixties where we, as children, were instructed to take cover underneath our desks. WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT BOTH SCENARIOS ARE.

Our government knew the radiation would be airborne. They not only boldface lied, they never bothered to apologize nor even attempt to correct the misconceptions. Same with the masks. The truth was being spoken by MANY legitimate scientists from jump that the virus molecules were so much smaller than the gaps between fibers in masks that rather than a deterrent, the masks were actually a health hazard, which again, many of us knew who retained lessons in school growing up.

That our corrupt and despicable media pedaled all this propaganda is as disgusting as it is predictable.

Now that everything that was called “Conspiracy Theory” three years ago is now being left-handedly admitted by media and government, WHERE THE HELL IS THE OUTRAGE? People lost their jobs over LIES. People lost their lives over LIES. People could not attend the funerals of their loved ones over LIES.

I am stupefied that the left continues to act passively in the face of the revelations that they were sold a bill of goods as rotten as anything ever perpetrated on this planet. The left supposedly “cares” about people, yet no one is giving back the jobs to those who lost them simply for NOT BELIEVING LIES. No outrage in the left. No condemnation of our FBI (who knew all along) and other governmental agencies that pushed a massively false narrative on us.

This reeks of something so large and sinister that I don’t believe anyone can truly wrap their minds around it. How does someone, or some entity, acquire so much power that they control big pharma, world media, WHO, governments, corporations, political parties, education systems and more?

Come on people. Get your heads out of your asses. Admit you were duped. More importantly, walk away from the fearmongers like major news networks and crazed left-wing progressives who are dumping us into another “Dark Age.” When they have you believing males can have babies and that you must change your pronouns, you have lost your grasp of reality.

There is no depth these people will not sink to. Less than one percent of the population is dictating lies to you and you sit idly by and allow it. If you cannot take a stand now, you never will. The evidence of the coordinated destruction of truth is underway and we are far past the point where we need to make a stand.

Unfortunately, I know few who bought into the lies will back away at this point. The sad thing is, when all is said and done, even the so-called conspiracy theorists will not be able to crow ‘I told you so’ because the destruction will be so complete. It’s coming. The next big fearmonger experience is in the works and on its way. Continue to buy in and we all lose. Sick people like Gates and Soros and Fauci and a very long list of conspirators will have their way. Hopefully, there are enough of us willing to fight a cowardly, lying, despicable enemy who hides rather than comes out and shows themselves and their sick agenda to the world.

When Will We Ever Learn

World darkness
Creeps like a targeted, manufactured virus
Lies as a media giant run by powerful, cruel men and women
Slithers through good people’s lives spreading its ilk
Death its merchant, its client, and its goal

Why
Asked only by half the population
The banned question of anyone who smells a rat
Vicously attached as hate speech
Once a staple of science

Safety
Stamped out on myriad levels
Physical
Mental
Emotional
Practical

Peace
Will be absent forever as it has never reigned in this world
And the nature of mankind will not be reconciled
Even with diminished populations will not happen
Not the goal of the gutless powers who hide their destructive ambitions

When will we ever learn?

Vision

When each day realizes no memory
When each day falls into oblivion
When each day leaves you alone
When each day abandons hope
When each day sentences your heart for death
When each glance produces no passion
When no breath arrives without sorrow
When no thought germanates brilliance
When no amount of love finds your would
When no words nor wind nor sun nor rain move you
When no touch comes to your pathetic rescue
When no sight elicits nothing but grays and sincere blackness
Your eyes fall open to life…

Transcendent Music

I am sad for seven and a half billion people on Earth. Each one, robbed. Cheated. Excluded from one of the finest sets of music this man ever witnessed.

Saturday night, spanning two uninterrupted hours of harmonies that pulled tears from not only your heart but your soul as well, about 20 fortunate humans held captive by the music, enjoyed an energetic, personal, night of music by the Parachute Brigade at Taylor Books in Charleston, West Virginia.

The night kicked off with a warmup “sound check” five minutes before the performance was scheduled to begin. At that moment, this music-lover knew the night held magic. The only question asked of my ears and heart? Will they be able to carry the night?

“The River” beautifully kicked off the evening. The harmonies. The passion. The smiles adorning each performer’s face – all interwoven throughout the evening of personal connections with the audience – kept me riveted. Much of the set contained original music.

I know, I know, people, including myself, don’t like to get away from the familiar too much. Cover bands flourish like dandelions on a neglected lawn. The particular lawn I metaphorically speak of here? The music landscape.

Sure, many bands write their songs with “one-day” hopes. This band, this Parachute Brigade writes songs of life. Experience. Human emotion. Not only do they write outstanding music, their tight harmonies and adept instrument playing soothe AND engage the heart and soul through your ears.

The set contained a number of covers, one by a band I never heard of, which was unfortunate in its timing in the show as my phone battery decided to call it a night and I did not record the song title.

The first cover of the evening delivered a smooth, melodic version of “Fever,” a pleasant surprise. Brittany McGuire’s outstanding vocal kept the original tension of the song and delivered with softened tones. A couple Tom Petty covers, “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and “Free Falling” were spot on through the use of a quartet of incredibly blended voices.

My favorite cover arrived with an energetic (as it should be) rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.” Not only did the energy match the tune, quick thinking improvisation by Eric Robbins had him grab a small, empty suitcase and beat it like a drum so convincingly, Mick Fleetwood himself would be amazed!

I must state, however, that the covers were NOT the highlights of the evening for this listener. Yes, well crafted and excellent beyond expectation, but the homegrown music of fellow West Virginians threw me to the edge of musical ecstasy.

Songs like “Gold, The River, Old Pond, Carry You Along, I Wish it was All a Dream (not sure if that’s the title but these words were an incredible repeated hook in the song), Family of Trees (again not sure of the title but a beautifully haunting song), and California.”

“California stood out to me amongst a night of outstanding songs. I believe they stated this was a new song. Bravo!

I’ve been blessed to have witnessed and enjoyed some of the most incredible concerts in rock ‘n’ roll over the decades. Tina Turner live at Walnut Creek in Raleigh comes to mind as an amazing concert. That woman worked hard! She invested herself at levels mostly unseen in rock music. That stands as one of my top ten concerts of my life.

Then, again at Walnut Creek, Styx with Dennis DeYoung. Oh. My. God. Only 7,000 people showed up. Did Styx slack off because of the low turnout? Walnut Creek held around 25,000 people. Hell no! They absolutely delivered possibly the finest arena concert I’ve ever enjoyed. They stand in great company with the “Elton John/Billy Joel” tour which I caught both in Dayton Ohio and Atlanta Georgia. Numerous Elton John performances, Fleetwood Mac tours and Heart.

Tonight, I witnessed a band that poured their hearts into their music. Their love of their music transcended something the big arena concerts cannot touch. There was no money involved. Ok, sure, I know there must be some stipend or some monetary lure to play in a bookstore. Maybe not. Maybe this band loves playing so much, they just show up one night on the bill at a bookstore in downtown Charleston.

Regardless, the band members spoke with us, the audience, lending us background inspiration for many of their songs. After the set, I made a lame attempt to convey to them that this two-hour set was likely the finest set of music I’ve ever experienced. I don’t wish to detract from the great concerts I’ve attended like Heart’s performance in Wheeling, WV on their Bebe le Strange tour.

It all comes back to that intangible, no intangibles. The Parachute Brigade sang and played their asses off tonight. The connection between artists and audience soared into a music paradise. I’ve pulled a link to the Parachute Brigade covering Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” in a studio setting. An AWESOME rendition, but I’m telling you, tonight, in quaint little Taylor Books on Capital Street in Charleston WV, the version I heard blows away even this excellent rendtion.

It all comes down to the musician’s passion, their passion for playing live, and the connection they successfully built with their audience. This acoustic version of the Parachute Brigade blew me away. Don’t pass on a chance to attend a live performance by this nine-year-old band. You will not be disappointed.

As promised, the link to the Tom Petty cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7a15YNe6Xo&t=353s

Yes, 7.5 billion people missed out on this marvelous evening of music. I won’t speak for the 20 or so other souls who were fortunate to be there, but I count myself one of the twenty luckiest people on Earth because of this evening. I hope to get many more opportunities to enjoy The Parachute Brigade live and in person!

Truth

“Someday in the future, a few people will push buttons – and millions will die a terrible death.

The problem with war is that the people who want it don’t expect to die in it.

And the problem with our memory is that it forgets, cheats, and distorts in order to survive. She turns death into an adventure if death spared you. But death is no adventure: the point of war is to kill, not to survive.

Therefore, only the dead can tell us the truth about war.

Words of survivors cannot convey it fully. “

Erich Maria Remarque

Vision Is Very Deceiving (1957 )

Moral Dilemmas

Here goes.

What the hell does one do with a moral dilemma? Not some namby-pamby-little-nick-on-the-heart-and-brain-thing, but a full-fledged, life-interrupting, and irrevocably-changed moral dilemma.

A moral dilemma that costs you valuable sleep. A moral dilemma that costs you health. A moral dilemma that could conceivably cost your life.

What I’m writing about is not the decision. The decision is/was cut and dried. Done. The tsunami aftermath, hell, the tsunami of dread that crushed me as the decision was made – nanoseconds stretching into honest seconds, minutes, hours, and now days – roll over my heart and intellect with suffocating fear.

Four years ago, we were forced to take our mother out of the home in which she lived for 66 years. The house was courtesy of her mother when mom was young and on the cusp of raising four children. In July 2018, none of the children could come to mom’s rescue. Mom slipped sadly into Alzheimer’s and our world was crushed.

This beautiful mother desired/desires nothing more in life than to finish her life in the house she raised her family in. In the four years she has spent with my little sister, me, and an assisted living facility, all she ever wants is to go back home.

My little sister cared for our mother for over two years until congestive heart failure forced her to realize she could no longer care for her. I took mom on for 11 months. I was a single parent woefully unequipped to handle the dual responsibilities of mom and dad, and sadly unable to care for mom as well.

When we sold the house, my little sister and I cried many tears. Those tear tracks on our cheeks remain fresh as mother has insisted for four years that she is going back home. The conversations with her have been heartbreaking over these four years. So much so that I avoid talking with mom and little sis struggles when mom crumbles into tears or anger.

This house, the gift from my grandmother, the structure that mom helped turn into a home, is her one touch with reality. Her main focus, which comes very hard for Alzheimer’s sufferers, rests in West Virginia and this house.

When we sold the house in 2018, we were pleasantly surprised when good friends from high school bought the house for their daughter. Last week, both my sister and I awoke to the news that the house was going to be auctioned that particular day.

I had desired to go live with mom in 2018 because the entire family knew of her life’s desire to live her final days in that house. I could not because of my daughter still being in school and a vicious custody battle. Therefore we sold the house and mom popped from place to place all the while insisting that she be returned to her home.

I have a good-paying job. The job is wearing me out. I’ve established myself here in Florida for 24 years. I have begun running my Inspired Mic event after two years of the COVID event. I am blessed with many friends and acquaintances.

I am the only son. In my mother’s eyes, I could do no wrong. This was a burden of untruth I found embarrassing and difficult to live up to. Yet, whenever I fell on hard emotional times, without fail, my mother was there. When the housing market crashed and people were losing their homes, she came to my rescue.

Now, on the spur of just a few hours, I pulled the trigger and won the auction of my mother’s house, the house I know solely as a home, the house my mother knows solely as the home she helped to build. So many tears and triumphs in that house. So much emotion and attachment.

What do we owe our parents? What does it really matter that mom gets to go back. She will be 91 very soon. Her care at the facility is excellent by all measures. My care may end up lacking. Do I owe her this? Do I, at 63, owe her the ability to realize her insistent dream? Am I stupid for walking away from the first good-paying job I’ve had in over a decade?

My heart is broken. I don’t know that I can even secure the financing, although it will not be difficult once I secure employment back home. The pressures of all that must be done and my emotional exhaustion at revisiting this crazy thing I did on auction day. I changed my life and there is no guarantee for the better. My leaving with cripple my employer. I do not mean him any harm. I feel so guilty for doing this for my mother.

I know this feeling. I felt it when we sold the house. I cannot even hope to feel exhalation on the return of the house. There is no promise from Alzheimer’s that mom will be satisfied with being home. There is no exultant happy ending betrothed to me, my sister, my wife, or the rest of the family, and ultimately including mom. I have tossed aside so much to give my mother her ultimate dream.

I have no retirement. I have no assets. I am feeling alone and despondent and hopeless and nearly defeated by life. This should never have happened. But it did. I must get right with myself. Somehow, someway, I must find the fortitude to rise above yet another life crisis. Crisis is a strange word to pluck from my vocabulary, yet upon inspection, I believe crisis defines this situation. I am once again going against the odds and at an age where I do not have the vim and vigor of yesteryear.

I fear so much. I fear my ability to take care of my mother. I fear that I have made such a financial blunder. I fear the pressure this could possibly place on my marriage. I fear that small little town I once loved that is now rife with meth addicts and heroin. I fear leaving the friendships I’ve built here for a quarter of a century. I fear I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life. I could list hundreds of other fears all attached to this, but you get the picture.

This is my mother’s dream, her dying wish. I envy her that. She possesses a dying wish. My only dying wish so far is to not die. I’m sure there are many, including my boss at work, that would argue that I have no obligation here. I am not obliged to sacrifice what’s left of my life to make this happen. I will likely be reviled by my boss. I hope not. This is a great pain for me. He needs me. I am not overestimating my worth. It’s a fact. He may be able to replace me, but likely not from what I’ve seen in this job market.

I will be back for more on this. I am being eaten alive from deep inside because of my decision as the only son and the only family member willing or able to put mom back in her beloved home. I know I owe her this. Not just because she has always been a wonderful mother, but because of a lifelong desire to be an honorable man. She raised me that way. I cannot turn my back on this. My mother raised me to be an honorable man. I’m the Golden Child, a burden I’ve always eschewed because I know those moments and times I’ve been less than honorable. Almost laughably, those times I’ve not lived up to the honorable man my mother raised me to be are not times anyone can point to.

People can point to crises in my life and question my decision-making, but I can stand and defend my positions at those points. It’s those deep, secret, personal moments where I’ve chosen to step outside honorability that I know. I”m sure everyone has these points in their lives.

I will not let my mother down. I am her last hope, her last chance to achieve her dream. The cost to me may destroy me, something my mother would never desire, so I must find a way to pull myself up by my bootstraps and help her pass in peace. The crazy thing there is that no guarantee she will pass like that. But without my action in this, the guarantee would be that she does not get her wish. I cannot abide by that.

I will need help. Much help. I will need support. Much support. I am flitting in and out of deep depression. This decision is taking a huge toll on me. Any kind words will be treasured not simply appreciated. Fear is running rampant in my heart and mind and I need to get to a better place. As I said a few paragraphs ago, I will be back. I must purge…

The Good Mother

Days of dreams
Nights of wonder
What little boy doesn’t snatch time to ponder

A wisp of a willow
A snap of a twig
A boy to grow up and live life big

Where did he find it?
When did he know?
Memories cripple him the more he will grow?

His safety stood certain
His ambitions ran wild
All maintained as he was her child

When she left him in tatters
Unable to think
Crushing sadness shoved his life to its brink

Heart weary from the battles of life
He soldiers on to her side
The untidy knight unwilling to hide

A good mother lives priceless
In the heart of her son
He stands with her now until the victory is won

Hello Darkness You’re no Friend

Out of Darkness

Traveling through hell?
Don’t slow down
Nowhere to go?
Keep moving
Hope lost?
Never further from you than your next thought
Love nonexistent?
Not when you fill yourself with love
Fear of death?
You will die
Fear of life?
See the immediate above answer
Too many view death as something to avoid at all cost
So few view life as something to pursue at all cost
One cannot put their energy into dancing with the fear of death without robbing themselves of the joy of life.
Many have died pursuing life at absurdly young ages
Hallowed and hailed as people who lived well
Yet we follow the talisman of old age as the end all and be all of life
Stepping out of darkness requires you to live YOUR life
Not the one you’re commanded to live

“Oh god! You’re a conspiracy theorist!”

If this statement defines you, move on. There’s nothing to see here. Go back to your docile, believe-the-media-mentality.

If you read the flow of information, you can see the manipulations. More importantly, you may learn to look away from the circus. Behind the insanity lies truths of actions most of us would be appalled to see.

Long ago, our media became masters of smoke-and-mirror reporting. They focus on a key issue, get the masses stirred up. Then, while so many folks are weighing in on whatever pseudo-crusaded they’ve generated, the disgusting work is quietly performed without outrage from the masses. Attempt to sue Monsanto for poisoning our food with their genetically altered seeds. While you’re at it, attempt to purchase true, unaltered seeds.

What about the paid rioters a couple years ago? Have you experienced paid protesters? I have. The sheer stupidity of these people cannot be described in words. During the obvious (and massively under-reported) paid protestor/rioter phase, a group disrupted life around my place of work. These people prove Darwin wrong at every turn EXCEPT for those leading the charge.

I observed the key people during the absurdity. The man, in his thirties, oozed a calculated intelligence. As soon as police arrived, he moved his minions on to the next location. They continued to catcall and berate customers walking into the cafe as they left, often full of profanity and vitriol. As I’ve understood since childhood, profanity becomes the final tool of a senseless mind. The focus of people who attack in this manner becomes solely a provocative endeavor.

Many people see through all this bullshit. I’m stating clearly and succinctly if the media is keying on something, there is a 100% chance there is an ulterior motive, never in our best interest. The sickest aspect of this becomes the connection between those pulling the strings of the media and machinating negativity nearly at all times with both corporate powerhouses and politicians blurring the lines between the two at a level that is as brilliant as it is diabolical.

All you have to do is look at our intellectually challenged leadership and connect the dots. The United States of America has been invaded by this political machine which now operates openly in its quest to dismantle our best attributes. These are sad days. The darkness to come shivers the soul.

So where do we look for answers? How do we fight an adversary who controls the conversation like a sick narcissist? That’s the modus operandi of our media. Gaslight the shit out of the masses then points to them as the problem.

If people have not been educated to the level they can see behind the curtain, the lemmings will run full-tilt-bozo to the sea. When media strums the negative heartstrings and points the rabid dogs they’ve created in a particular direction, all you can do is hold on to your sanity, your peace, and treasure what life you can find.

An aside, “my body my choice” only pertains to a certain segment of the population when in truth, anyone should be able to make medical decisions about their bodies. Bring this point up and you will definitely hear the absurd argument – “oh, but THAT’S different!” Continue to point out the simple logic and you will hear profanity and personal attack.

Back to health. Today, the media, among many other agendas, is driving the “mental health/depression” narrative. What’s wrong with that? Nothing if it were coming from an innocent, well-meaning source. The single-most proprietor of negativity and mental destruction, the media, now doubles down to tell us, “Look at what we’ve accomplished” without people realizing the snake that keeps biting them and the bully that continues to knock them down is the folks behind the very articles they’re reading on the subject.

In a perfect world, the most knowledgeable people on a subject would be the ones to go to for answers. In this world, these people stand proud as the perpetrators leading more and more millions to pharma (I will never capitalize this word – they do not deserve it). The media will decry street drug dealers and perpetuate the global power-and-money-controlled drug dealers -pharma. There exist only scant truths from the media anytime they mention pharma. Control now becomes the norm and the masses now roll over the manipulations like docile animals,

Protect your mind. When the crushing volume of media-driven tripe knocks you down, look at who the media wishes to divide. Understand that those who follow the media’s agendas will not be dissuaded. Friends, family, loved ones.

We live in an age when we must cling to our sanity and move forward or be assimilated. In an insane world, the sane person will appear insane. Scant consolation to be sure, but the alternative for many of us is unacceptable.