Sometimes I forget that I have this blog. When I remember it makes me happy to see the changes since 2010 when I started this blog. This is why journals are so important and why I hope you have one.
When you discover something you lost, especially when it is a person or something personal, like this blog is to me, it’s like uncovering treasure. This is just another page to you, but to me it is proof of evolution…my own and I am grateful for the time I’ve enjoyed here.
I recently reconnect with someone from my past and it reinforced those positive changes.
I have a lot of genetic medical problems and I don’t anticipate being here into the elder years but the years I’ve had (outside of a few truly horrible years in my twenties) have been happy.
Please love everyone you can, recognize good times when you have them, celebrate them with people who love you and never waste time on people who can’t.
Who am I?
Who are you? Do you know? I’ve been doing this blog for years with the intention of helping you find out. I’d tell you my “brilliant thought” and in my fantasy world, you would meditate on my brilliance, start dancing and the world would shine with love and harmony as you spread serenity by proxy.
That was some foot-stank bullshit.
I’m still breathing after a lifesaving operation. In my hospital bed, I had time to think about what’s real and realize I haven’t been real with you for a long time. Nor have I been real with myself.
Are you being real with yourself?
Do you distract yourself with television, internet. food, sex and imbibments? I’ve been doing that. I don’t even know what real is to anyone but myself is but I do know that BEING REAL IS IMPORTANT. I have no idea who the hell I am. I was pretending my way through every damn day. I can’t do that anymore.
BEING YOUR REAL SELF IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT, FRIEND.
Yes, I’m yelling. Listen. I’m yelling to you.
Turn off the internet. Turn off the television. Don’t read the news sites. Please unplug for a few days.
Everything will still be there when you get back. You won’t miss anything because the people in your circle will fill you in as often as you let them.
Quit alcohol and weed, S&M, heroin, crack or whatever else you use to cope.
Stop eating crap and cook for yourself. I don’t care what you cook but mess up your kitchen. Make things you can’t pronounce and clean it up every day for seven days.
Stretch often and breathe to stay aware of your body.
That one week is bound to bulldoze the tenements of your mind where the bad things curl up in corners and wait to rob the good things as they pass by. Take those bad things to the ground. Leave no quarter for those fuckers. Let the good stuff feel safe with you.
I needed that week in the hospital and I know one week will help you get there too. It’s why we vacation. It’s why people go to places like Tibet, Mecca, Israel, or the Vatican to seek holy people. They’re not mystically wiser, they’re just not distracted. It’s the quiet times of thought that goes into planning a short sabbatical (or vacation) and the experience, but it’s the reflection, and the memory of being elsewhere that changes us. (not the holy person or place.) You can get all of those benefits with just a week disconnected.
In you is someone you may have been hiding for fear of being judged. Let them out. There is a welcoming place for who you were born to be.
You’ll be able to live honestly and rebuild the places in your mind you roamed as a child where nastiness cannot take hold.
Here’s something fun. (I like it at 1.25 speed best.) Lyrics below.
When there’s a trap set up for you In every corner of this town And so you learn the only way to go is underground When there’s a trap set up for you In every corner of your room And so you learn the only way to go is through the roof Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground And as we’re crossing border after border We realize that difference is none It’s underdogs who, and if you want it You always have to make your own fun And as the upperdog leisurely sighing The local cultures are dying and dying The programmed robots are buying and buying And a psycho load of freaks they are still trying trying Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground And as the boy scouts learn to read between the lines The silver rabbits hop between their fathers’ lies And boy scouts ask “Where? Where do they go?” They go to the country that they only know Just like their meanings they lay between the lines Between the borders their real countries hide The strategigo’s saw their advertise Their strategy of being is one of in-your-face disguise Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground! And when their own walls they will a-crumble, And all the systems will be discumbumbled, Around the stump of bigotry, our own [Ukrainian]. Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground Ooohoohoooh through the roof, and underground Ooohoohoooh through the roof, underground Ooohoohoooh through the roof!
Underground! Through the roof!
And underground! Through the roof!
Underground!
2019 is nearly over. Any lingering possible resolutions will be wrapped up and new ones crafted. Most will fall by the way, but some will happen.
The most important thing to remember about resolutions past and present is that they show a desire to improve. To turn that desire to action remember:
Breaking a task down into smaller steps, to it’s essentials makes beginning more likely.
Small steps taken every day can make all resolutions possible. If your tasks are small enough, they should fit into a regular day. Micro-tasks added together can make a great difference.
Taking stock of your progress adds inertia. When you see what you have accomplished, it’s easier to see what you can do.
It’s perfectly fine to “fail”. So what if you did lose enough weight, make or save enough money or get the change in status you were striving for in the past? That you identified where you wanted to change and worked toward it means that eventually, you will get there.
Trying again often means succeeding. You know how NOT to get what you want, now try ways that will.
Rest now. In a few days the gun will fire from the starting line and you can reenter the race. Good luck and godspeed!
Every endeavor begins with an idea and most end there too.
Writing an idea down, or putting it into your to do list, makes it a goal.
When you break the goal down into steps, it becomes a plan.
When you put that plan to action, it becomes reality.
It all begins with one idea.
What is your big idea?
Where will you put the idea so that you don’t let it fall away unheeded?
What do you think you need to try, buy, do to get the idea off the ground?
How will you approach the tasks, with resolve, or casually and with no intention?
Who can help you? How long should each task take?
What can you do right this moment to get the ball rolling?
When will you begin?
The only way to make your idea a reality is to get started.
Let this be your day one. Your hour one. Your first minute.
Go.
It’s Sunday, September 29, 2019 and that means it’s a new year for millions of Jewish people around the world. Happy New Year!
Everyone else would be mindful to remember that EVERY DAY starts a new year.
Where were you on Saturday, September 29, 2019? (To clarify, check your instagram or Facebook.) A whole year has passed since then.
Even if you are not Jewish let’s celebrate today and every day like it’s the beginning of a new year.
Bonus: If you wrote a list of resolutions on January 1st, you have exactly 93 days to accomplish them. Go, go, go!
Every day we read about shootings, beatings, stabbings and suicides. Everywhere around the world, people are angry, jealous, frightened, and sad. It hurts to read the news.
Many of the violent acts we read about are committed by people who have nothing to lose by committing the crime. They are disenfranchised, neglected, mistreated, and abused into desperate acts. We jail them, electrocute them, inject them to death and we think this will end the violence. If that is true, why does crime multiply rather than decline regardless of incarceration or execution.
One theory is that today’s society values money above humanity. Everyone just wants to be richer than their neighbor. Prices are high and getting higher while people work harder for the same money. CEOs become super wealthy and make more money than they or many of their family’s generations to come can ever spend. Meanwhile, even with both parents working, some families cannot meet their bills.
When survival is at stake, how can we take time to nurture our children into becoming good adults?
Changing our wealth-obsessed society is not going to be easy, outside of a revolution, but lowering our crime rate can be done with just a little time.
Parents, instead of staring at Facebook posts or the television tonight take at least half an hour to talk and to listen to your child.
Every day.
Aunts, uncles, grandparents, adult friends of children, it parents are unable to spend time with their children, it falls on you to take up the slack and pull our children up to a place where they can thrive and be happy responsible people instead of lost, angry, unhappy people later.
Some free activities you can do while communicating and LISTENING (Kids problems are every bit as serious as yours.) are:
Play a card game or a board game
Prepare food together
Take a drive or a walk
Exercise
Visit a friend or go to the park
Paint
Play or listen to music (no screens)
Cloud gaze
Garden
Brush or bath a dog
Draw on a sidewalk with chalk
Ride a bike
Dance
I’ll bet you can think of at least 13 more.
Let’s work together to make the future safer and the world a more loving place. It starts with the children. Take one under your wing, soon.
Benjamin Disreali said “”Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” It’s true.
Can you remember a time when you felt good about something you wanted to do but didn’t? Few people can.
When we decide we want to do something and we don’t we not only let ourselves down, we let down those that may have benefited from our action. When we do it, even if it’s difficult and we succeed, we build a foundation upon which we can do anything.
Set aside time today to start on that thing that’s been haunting you.
Record that song in your head.
Call that relative you miss.
Start your Etsy/Ebay/Craigslist/Amazon business.
Take action, bring yourself some happiness.
Do you know who had a lot of faith in his abilities and set great goals? Gutzon Borglum.
He is the sculptor who gave us Mt. Rushmore.
Borglum knew he could turn a cliff-side into a work of art so he packed up his tools and a few helpers and carved the faces of some of America’s best leaders into the mountain.
At any time he could have sheared off a nose or made a chin into a cave but he knew what he could do and so he did it.
When we believe we can accomplish something, we look for ways to do it. When we don’t, we ignore opportunities and allow ourselves to fail or we just quit.
Have faith in yourself and don’t give up. If a guy named Gutzon can turn a hill into an American icon, you can get your “guts on” and turn your life into whatever you want.
It’s Sunday, September 29, 2019 and that means it’s a new year for millions of Jewish people around the world. Happy New Year!
D.N. Howard 