My Life as a Shut-In.

Long before the Corvid-19 virus struck the US, I had my own personal set of disasters.

First, I was exhausted and tried to get FMLA through my job. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of the end for me. I am getting better, but it's hard.

I was hoping for FMLA, bu the doctprs decided my health was too bad to sign the paperwork that would have give me the time off with income so I could go to doctor's visits. Instead, they forced on me two drugs that nearly killed me that they were infotmed beforehand that I was allergic to.  When he saw it was clearly going to give me a stroke, said he was going to give it to me anyway, and he closed his office,and moved to another state.

The first thing was, I had a stroke. i was 48, and I had a stroke. That was May of 2017.

lt got worse from there, though I don't know all the details. I remember a year, I think, of swimming through life in a dream-state. My memories of that time are confused, at best. I don't know what I would have done without my husband and our  friend, I probably would have died without them.

The next phase was a growth on my legscaused by blisters diuretic the doctor gave me that did not wok. 

Then I was attacked by bot-flies.

It got worse.

3 doctors decided I had necrotic fasciitis and gave me antibiotics for the fungal infection, which spread like wildfire.

Eventually, we drove Out West to look for drier climate and new solutions.

It was a particularly wet winter.

When we returned, we found the Anti-fungal wonder drug, potassium permanganate. I think it has helped, but it's still painful, On the otherhand, I think it has a pleasnt artificial berry smell.  That's just how it smells naturally.

Travel-Log Post 1

I have recently realized that, due to work and life, I've been traveling a good deal lately, and if anything is going to kick my brain back into gear, it's writing about something, and that is the thing I have the most thinks to write about.  As a result, I am considering trying to write a semi-regular sub-blog, as the City Druid takes to the air- and road-ways.

My most recent trip was the one from which I returned yesterday.  I spent a week in Denver after moving back to Georgia three months ago.

Let me tell you, returning to a place you didn't really want to leave can be....eye-opening.

Some background: I have lived in Georgia for all but about two years of my life: 1995 and 2016.  In 1995, I lived in Nashville, TN, where we moved because my (then) husband wanted to work with his dad.  I even got my company to hire me in the original store in Nashville, Service Merchandise, Broadway at 2nd in Downtown Nashville.

I liked Nashville a lot, but never felt particularly attached to it.  We finally bought a car after about four months, so I got to explore it more than I could on The Metro (and no, there was no train system--just busses) but it was actually less than a year, so I never really developed habits, friends, fun places to go....and then we moved back to Georgia.

In 2008, I got a temp job at an insurance company, just before the financial markets (of which insurance is a giant part) went kablooie, and spent several nerve-wracking months before the company hired me on permanently.  It took them 13 months, which puts me at close to a record for our company.  I've been there ever since.

My division has, in the time I've been in it, had offices in Alpharetta, GA, New York, NY, Chicago, IL, Dallas, TX and Denver, CO.  New York and Chicago didn't last, because the underwriters in those offices didn't, but I grew an urge, starting a couple of years after I started working with underwriters, to move to the Denver office.  Finally, two years ago, the decision was made to hire an underwriting services (my job) person for that office.  I ended up flying to Denver to train the first hiree.

I flew out to a city I'd never visited, alone, and trained a person that....was not cut out for modern office work.  She lasted a full week after I came back to Georgia.  (I flew to her because she was afraid of flying.)  Then there was the second one, who sounded like the perfect fit, and came to me for training.

Unfortunately, she apparently felt she was too good for the job, so, when she quit and I was sent to "fix her mess" after three months, I got more done in the first day I was there than she did in her entire three months.

Once I returned from "fixing the mess," I suggested that Denver needed someone who already knew the job, and offered myself.  It took a few months to replace me in the Alpharetta office--my co-worker in Alpharetta chose that time to retire, so I ended up training two people--but I was on my way to Denver within four months.

I loved it.  I liked my co-workers in the Denver office, even though, after my company bought another giant insurance company and changed its name to the other company's, they moved us into the other company's offices.  I liked the new office.  I liked the new people.  I liked Denver.  I liked almost everything about the new situation....except the cost.  My tiny apartment for my family of three cost more than the huge house we had previously rented in Atlanta, and was approximately 1/6 the size.  The Green Rush may have been great for the Colorado economy, and brought in a ton of tax money, but it also resulted in real estate price gouging.

Well, I asked to be transferred back, with the honest reason of lack of affordability, and was granted it.

After I moved to Denver, my department was relocated in the building, so it's been a trifle awkward, and there are some different people, so it's just not been the same.  When I was allowed to fly back to work in the Denver office for a week, I was pretty excited.

I swear, going back to a place you moved away from recently, that you didn't really want to leave, is a weird feeling.  I still remembered how to get around (it's only been three months), and we tried to get to a few of the places we'd promised ourselves we'd visit (we managed a couple), but it was so....familiar and comfortable.  At work, they welcomed me with open arms.  One of the....gruffer underwriters even told me it was good to see me, and I've never heard him talk to ANYONE that way (after sitting right behind him for a full year.)

The odd part was that, while we were staying near my work, we kept gravitating towards the neighborhood where we lived.  This has made me wonder.

If anyone actually reads this, perhaps you could satisfy my curiosity, and answer this question for me:
If you have lived in other cities, if you return after moving away, to you avoid, or gravitate towards, the areas in which you lived?  Does it matter how long you lived there, or how long since you visited?  I know when I visited Nashville last, I was completely lost, and had no idea where some things were any longer, because I hadn't lived there in 21 years.

So, how about you?

The Traveler

I have always felt compelled by roads and waterways
Every bridge over
Every stream
Calls to me
Beckons me
To jump in the water
And follow it
To see where it goes.

Every branch off of
Every highway
Calls to me
Begs me
To turn off the main artery
To explore its length,
To see where it goes.

Every living creature
Every cat
Every dog
Every ferret
Every parrot
Has a life
Has experiences
That I want to understand.

As much as I want to follow
Every rabbit hole
Every deer trail
Every dry stream bed
Every well-worn path
Every lazy river
I want to know it
To see it
To share it

To share with....
....everyone....
Everything I see
Everything I feel
Everything I experience

The center of all I want is
Above all

Understanding.

-- Copyright 2016 Cynthia Middleton

Take This Job and Apply For It.

Another thing I'm kind of tired of is some people I know and their constant complaints about not being able to find employment. Why? Well, from my observations those particular people are not really trying.

1. Finding a job is a full time job. Take that for ALL it entails. The way many of these people do it, if one were to translate that into actual work, they'd be doing the equivalent of about six hours of work a week. I'd fire you if you worked for me and that's all you did. The last two times I job-hunted, it took me two months of carpet-bombing with my resume. By then, of course, I was using the Internet (rather than the old way of going through the newspaper and MAILING out resumes with cover letters), but I was sending out an average of about 30 resumes a day, five days a week. It was a pain in the ass, but it got me jobs (though the first of those two times I did get the job through a personal contact).

2. Temp agencies are a great way to find a job. That is how I got my current job, JUST before the economy pretty much crashed in 2008. The thing is, you have to know how to get a job, or get regular jobs, through a temp agency, and which agency is best for you depending on what type of work you're looking for. You HAVE to actually go in to talk to them. Sure, send them a resume, but they're not going to be able to place you (especially in an office-type setting if that's the sort of work you're looking for) if you don't get in and have your office skills tested. I've been through that kind of testing at least a half dozen times with different agencies over the decades, and it has gotten me temp jobs a lot. My current one is the only one that ever became permanent, but that's just because this one worked out that way. You can't just send them a resume and expect them to magically call you up and give you a job. You have to call them, daily, AFTER you've been there, interviewed and been tested.

3. If you're offered a job, unless you know you actually are physically unable to do it (for instance, you're in a wheelchair and it involves lifting and climbing, you probably really can't do it), TAKE THE JOB. It's not going to keep you from getting your dream job, or a job more to your liking, to get a lesser job.  In fact, you are significantly more likely to find a job if you already have one.  One of the things they look for is reliability.  If you have a job and show up, that will actually show a degree of reliability that cannot be demonstrated if you don't have one.  Refusing to take a job just because it's not what you're looking for will hold you back at least as much as anything else will.

4. You need to know how to dress for the place where you've applied and are interviewing. Look into how they dress at that company typically. It's usually better to overdress than underdress in my experience. Also, it's good to dress in something brown, whether it's pants, shoes, shirt, jacket, or tie; just something. It apparently makes people view you as trustworthy. I just know it works.

My best friend gave me lessons on finding jobs back in 1989 after I quit working for my dad because, at twenty, I'd never had to apply for jobs before. I started off weak, but I got better at it. I remember the day I met him, in 1986, he was wearing his "Get a job uniform," which was a brown, plaid, Oxford-cloth shirt, brown shoes, brown socks, brown slacks and a brown tie. He got a job that day, and another one (wearing the same outfit) the next day, and that was in the 1980s when the unemployment numbers were actually worse than they are now. I don't (well, didn't) necessarily get every job for which I interviewed, but I only took about two months, maximum, to get a new job.

Note: I have a good job that pays reasonably well--more than twice what I was making ten years ago. I don't have a college degree, but I have experience in a LOT of things, because I've been willing to do what people have been willing to hire me for.

Yes, job hunting is hard work, but NOT having a job can be a lot harder, and you'll never get one if you don't put some real effort into it.

My Dinner With Bloggers

This was a conversation I was having with Vulcan Jedi Timelord several months ago, though all of it was not transcribed. However, it was relevant enough that I felt it should be shared.

Vulcan Jedi Time Lord: I entered this contest, and if I had known what they wanted, I would have given it to them.

City Druid: It shouldn’t be a matter of what they wanted—it should be a matter of quality, and of fulfilling the requirements.

VJTL: Yes, but they always have an agenda these days.

CD: I think you weren’t PC enough for iO9.  Funny.

VJTL: Yeah, but it’s not just them.  Everyone seems to have some sort of agenda, or they want you to write the same thing, or at least the same quality as everyone else.

CD: Right.  It’s not about having better quality, or superlative quality, but about being of the same quality.  That’s pretty sad.

VJTL: Yeah, I would tend to call that “death by mediocrity”.

CD: This is what comes of giving kids certificates for participation.

VJTL: I’m not so sure about that.  Over the past twenty years or so, I’ve seen Fandom and conventions and publishing houses and television shows taken over by cliques— high-school-esque cliques, with writing being done by fans, starting with Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was nothing but fanfic with no consideration for consistency.  Now a lot of stuff seems to be written by fans of fans of fans writing fanfic of fanfic of fanfic, so that you end up with Fifty Shades of Gravy.  You know, if there are fifty shades to your gravy, it’s gone bad and you should throw it out.

CD: You have a point.  Even Miyazaki, of Studio Gibli, said that was the biggest problem with anime currently, that it’s got too many anime fans, Otaku, writing it.  OK, he didn’t say Otaku, but he didn’t have to.

VJTL: Well that’s the thing: I’m a fan of science fiction, but that’s not all that I read, or watch, and it’s not absolutely everything that I write.

CD: In other words, it’s not all that you are.

VJTL: Right.  And the thing is, it should be about quality, about good writing.  And when it comes to science fiction, it should be about expanding our thought, considering the options and situations that are coming up, looking at the facts, not at a political agenda or, worse yet, looking around and copying what everybody else has already written.  Bad science fantasy is now being hailed as great science fiction, as if it even qualified.

CD: I think one of the problems is that everyone’s gotten genre-happy.  They want to break everything into smaller and smaller sub-genres, and they will defend their particular subgenre to the death.  Those are supposed to be suggestions of direction, not stone walls dividing one part of literature OR fandom from another.

VJTL: Well, as a science fiction writer, I write science fiction, whether it’s Space Opera, Time Travel, Alternate History, Steampunk, all of the above or, most especially, none of the above.  In-fighting in fandom only ever destroys things.  It never creates anything good or new, and B.S. politics has destroyed more conventions that I care to think about.  We need to unite against the common enemy: Mediocrity.

CD: And yet, mediocrity seems to be the order of the day.  I suppose the easy thing would be to blame the internet, though it started before that was commonly available (though it was already more available to fandom.)

VJTL: No, I think the internet just shows you the trends faster, and if you’re just writing for the trends, then you’re just a hack and should be drowned for the good of humanity anyway.

CD: If you’re just writing for the trends, it’s not going to last anyway.  You’ll sell for a few months and then be forgotten.

VJTL: True, but those guys can afford a nice house and a nice car, and get their way paid for conventions.

CD: At least until they’re forgotten, which doesn’t take that long.

VJTL: Oh, I’m sorry; who were we talking about?

CD: Yeah, that’s my point.

VJTL: Still, the core problem is that our society in general seems to have acquired this belief that an opinion has the same value and quality as a fact.

/CD: That explains high school science lately.

VJTL: I mean, when did the Texas school board get to decide what was science fiction?

CD: When it became harder science than what was in their curriculum?

VJTL: Oh, come on.  That happened hundreds of years ago at this point.  You know, this guy told me he didn’t evolve from monkeys, and I said, “I can see that.”  He thanked me.

CD:  Of course, Texas hasn’t been a state for hundreds of years.

VJTL: See, that’s where our science fiction story should start.  A contest should be about the quality of the stories and the ideas, not about being all the same.  Hell, even a collection of short stories should be about giving the reader the best entertainment you can.

CD: And even if there’s a theme, they shouldn’t all be the same.  Seriously, though, for writing to be published, or for it to win a contest, it should be exceptional.  Not just good.  Not just OK.  Not just the same as everything else.  Exceptional.  Exceptional in quality of writing, and exceptional in ideas.  It should make the reader sit up and think.  I’ve read a lot of books, and the recent ones are really running low on that.  At this point, I’d settle for exceptional copy-editing.

VJTL: Look, I’m not going to say that my writing is exceptionally good, but I will say that most of the things I’ve seen that have been published in the last two decades would have caused me to fill up my recycle bin, empty it, have a nice, stiff drink, and start over.  At the very least, I give my stuff more thought, and I’m not going to wallow in some dilemma that everyone else has wallowed in without offering a solution, or at least looking for one.

CD: Well, that is what science fiction is supposed to be about: finding solutions to problems.  You present a problem, you lay out all the ramifications of the problem, then you start looking for solutions to the problem, you weigh the pros and cons of all your potential solutions, and finally you implement the most useable solution.  I mean, ultimately, science fiction is a way to work through society’s problems.  It may not always offer the best solutions, but it offers options.

VJTL: Yeah, the fans aren’t even listening to that part any more, even when it’s offered.  I mean, the greats have gone ahead and offered solutions to some of our current problems, and the attitude seems to be, “Yeah, yeah.  This is fatal in the long run, but what’s going to make me a buck today?  I don’t care if it kills me tomorrow.”

CD: Well, that’s certainly society in general.  And, yes, fandom seems to be catching that, too.

VJTL: I’ve heard people say, “Oh, it’s just entertainment.  You can’t learn from it.”  Well, obviously they can’t, but that’s not what it’s about.

CD: If you’re not learning something, what’s the point?

VJTL: Well, they seem to think it’s all for funsies.

CD: Learning something IS for funsies.  As I said, if you’re not learning what’s the point?

VJTL: Well, to learn you have to be smart enough to be able to learn.  Science fiction, at one point, was for intellectuals.  It was for scientists and engineers and people who knew how to think.

CD: And now?

VJTL: And now even the colleges don’t teach people how to think.  I mean, sure, I’ve known how to do it for so long that I have no memory of not being able to, but the faculties of reason have to be learned in and of themselves.  Despite the technology, many people these days have a world-view that more properly belonged in the Middle Ages.  I mean, I know people running around claiming to be fans who brag proudly about the fact that they don’t read.

CD: At least some of them are sad that they don’t read.

VJTL: Yeah, but there are others that don’t see that there’s anything wrong with this.  They don’t see that they can’t properly be fans if they don’t at least want to be reading.

CD: So, what’s the solution?  Science fiction is about finding solutions, and this situation clearly needs one.

VJTL: Well, if the writers, the fans, and the publishers don’t demand something better, if there is no market pressure to repair this situation, then these genres will simply die out, because while they can live for a while this way, eventually even the people who are most strongly demanding it be this way will get tired of it.

CD: So, as with all other things, vote with your dollars.  And your demands.

VJTL: As with the music industry, when the record companies took it over and insisted that boy bands were more lucrative and more consistent than The Stones, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and Hendrix, and instead decided that we should listen to Justin Bieber, new genres burst forth.  When all the music in America had become incredibly bland in the 1950s, jazz and blues gave birth to Rock and Roll.

CD: So you’re saying we’re going to get new genres of literature.

VJTL: Sure.  It’s already happening.  I mean, right now we’re getting these little subgenres that aren’t necessarily any better, they’re just people going, “Ooh, I can do this and it will be a little different, and I’ll have my own niche.” But out of this we will get some, just like in the 1980s while the Punk movement was giving music a much-needed shot in the arm, Sting, the Police, Genesis, Devo, Huey Lewis and others were busy giving CPR to Rock and Roll.  J.K. Rowling is the greatest thing to happen to Fantasy since J.R.R. Tolkien.  I’m sorry, but some of the things that have been best sellers in that genre in the past two decades were written by people who couldn’t even make proper sentences.  The next Wells, Heinlein or Sheckley is overdue.

CD: “Best sellers” do not necessarily mean “best”.  They just really mean that more people wanted something to pretend to read on the beach.  It’s why I have historically avoided best sellers like the plague, no matter the genre.  I would love to be the next Sheckley, or Simak.  I don’t know that I have the chops to do it, but I would love to try.  Unfortunately, our culture does not value art or science, and does not want to admit that a writer can be either an artist or a scientist.  How many of our future Wellses or Heinleins are stymied merely by having to pay bills?  As for not being able to create a complete sentence, where are they supposed to learn?  I mean, the best way is by reading, but that does not teach one the rules, and with much of modern writing it does not actually teach one to write a complete sentence.  Are we doomed by a shoddy legacy?

VJTL: Yes.  But that’s not all there is.  As long as the past masters are still read we have a chance.  I grew up on Pirsig, L’amour, Gilman, before I even heard of science fiction.  As a child, my mother read to me the complete works of Shakespeare and then, while they were reading Dick and Jane at school, at home I was reading Kahlil Gibran and The World According to Garp.  When I discovered science fiction, I cut my teeth on Clarke and Asimov, fell in love with Wells and expanded my viewpoint with Sheckley and Simak.  If I didn't read Poe, Shelley, Lovecraft, Tolkien, and Tom Robbins, I would not be half the writer I am.  Greats like Niven, Spinrad, Delaney unfortunately will not last forever.  And while we have people like Steve Perry, Steven Barnes, Christopher Stasheff, and others, it’s just not enough.  Writing has become too much of a mob scene and the proliferation of writers and the drop in quality is choking the business like a garden full of weeds.  Now excuse me while I jump down off this soap-box and do a load of laundry real quick.

CD:  I read the classics.  I grew up, as a fairly young kid, reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Henrik Ibsen, Harold Pinter, George Bernard Shaw, Sir James George Fraser, Edward Albee, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer, O’Henry, my relative Samuel Clemens the steamboat pilot, and even the occasional modern writer like Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.  They made me, to a very real extent, who I am today as a person and as a writer.  Of course, they had editors, and they had actual courses in English grammar in school (in the case of the ones that wrote in English, anyway).  I fear that fewer people are reading these authors, and I am fairly certain that English grammar is no longer taught to any effective degree, at least before the post-graduate level.  I am frequently horrified at the level of editing that is not taking place in printed or virtual articles and books.  Now, I’m aware that language evolves, and I've seen a bit of it in my lifetime in the form of slang that moves from rare to common to a part of the language (take a chill-pill, OK?), but I fear that we’re looking at a re-randomizing of spelling and grammar after a huge and concerted effort by Messrs. Webster and Fowler to standardize these things.

VJTL: Yeah, Clemons was the Terry Pratchett of his day, and I’ve read a fair amount of these sorts of things myself, but I can say with a certainty that English grammar was not taught to any effective degree in any class that I was in in school, but I've had rants about the quality of school that I ended up going to on numerous occasions.  As a small child, my mother read me the Deerslayer, and of course I’m not talking about the modern Vietnam War era movie, but rather the book that the aforementioned Mark Twain blasted as utter crap.  As a small kid, it was a lively enough adventure story, but the holes in not only the writing but its connection to reality were somewhat obvious even then.  As an adult, I would not consider this to be writing worthy of my time but, then again, White Fang by Jack London really isn't any better.  Nonetheless, these used to be exceptions.  As a reader, I demand better quality than that.  However, even they teach proper sentence construction.  It’s bad enough that movies have stopped having continuity editors and most books no longer go through an editor, but if you can't make a proper sentence, then I don't think you really have any business calling yourself a writer.  I admit that I can’t spell due to brain damage, but my computer can, and I have my friends check my writing to make sure that there aren't any glaring mistakes.  Hans Christian Andersen never learned how to read and write and had to dictate his stories because he was dyslexic, but he made proper sentences.  Despite my difficulties, I continue to read, but I have talked to a number of people who are handicapped in no way, have plenty of time, want to be writers, and just don't bother to read.  I'm not quite sure why someone who has no interest in reading would want to write, but there you have it.  I think we're all going to have to do our part if there’s going to be a future worth reading in.

The Land of the Fwee and the Home of the Lame

I am inspired today by a friend of mine in the Navy in San Diego.  I don't disagree with everything he says, but I have put his Facebook post here, and I have responded to parts in color:

I have a seriously difficult time considering my beloved country 'The Home of The Brave' anymore. Why? Because this is rapidly becoming a nation of fear and loathing (no referential pun intended).
We're afraid of our law enforcement personnel.  -- I'm not afraid of them, but I've certainly seen unprovoked, unjustified police brutality.  The whole method of policing here in the US has gone the wrong way, and the over-use of guns, to me, just demonstrates an additional level of cowardice not even touched on in Oni's post.
We're afraid of our healthcare professionals. -- In my case, it's not a matter of fear, it's a matter of justified distrust based on lots of experience with doctors who violated my trust, and often the Hippocratic Oath.  I can't tell you the number of times I have nearly died due to the actions of a medical doctor.
We're afraid of the rich.  --  I think it's not so much fear and loathing as resentment due to mistreatment.  I've known lots of people who were rich--worked for them, was related by marriage to them, knew them socially. This is merely a major reminder that, while we may be a society that often behaves without what is classically referred to as "class", we are not a classless society.  There is a definite divide between upper and lower classes, and there's not nearly so much upward mobility as we would like the rest of the world to believe.
We're afraid of the powerful. -- We're not afraid of the powerful so much as the power that is weilded against us.
We're afraid of religion.  -- Not religion, just religious fanatics.  If you had been treated by the religious the way I have, you would learn a good healthy dose of resentment as well.  Abuse frequently leads that way, or it leads to Stockholm syndrome.
We're afraid of offending anyone. -- This is a symptom of Political Correctness and, while I myself have a massive fear of offending, it's also a syndrome related to excessive hypocrisy.
We're afraid of being offended. -- This appears to be a rampant fear, also related to hypocrisy.  I have no fear of being offended.  If I'm offended, I figure I have a problem that I need to deal with.
We're afraid we're being spied on. -- It's not acceptable for a government to spy on its own people.  The only possible excuse for it is tyranny.  I have nothing to fear from being spied on, but that does not mean I accept it.  This goes under the heading in the Constitution of Unlawful Search and Seizure.
We're afraid we have no say in anything. -- You have no say if you refuse to say anything, or if you refuse to vote.  These are choices you make.  If you want a voice, use it.  It may be a small voice in a sea of louder voices, but it's still a voice.  Also, you have a say in what is sold by buying it.  If you don't approve of something someone does, don't give them money.
We're afraid we'll never get paid enough.--  That's not a fear so much as a likelihood.  However, if you don't put your full effort into your job, you don't deserve to get full payment for it, or to be promoted, or get better jobs.  You (should) only get paid for what you actually do.
We're afraid we're being manipulated. -- No, for the most part we ARE being manipulated.  That's what advertising is all about.  That's what 50% of all body-language is all about.  Heck, that's what half of the communication involved in most relationships is all about.  The thing is to become aware of the manipulation, and decide whether or not you want to let it affect you.
We're afraid we're going to need another drink. -- If you have a fear of that, you probably have a drinking problem.  Or at least a depression problem.
We're afraid of the people we consented to put into power. -- Yes, but that's largely because people don't really learn about the candidates, and merely vote for the chosen team.  I have some answers to that, but they will most likely never be implemented.  The best answer to this is to learn as much as you can about each of the candidates and make an educated, rather than party-line, decision about your chosen candidate.  I'll bet if more people did this our elected officials would look very  different.
We're afraid of being 'conformists'. -- That's just silly.  Whoever you are, be yourself rather than fighting to keep up with the Joneses, or beating the Joneses.  The Joneses don't matter because they're not YOU.
We're afraid of being victims. -- And fear creates victims.
We're afraid of getting hurt. -- Learning from pain allows growth.  If you're afraid of the pain, you will repeat the same mistakes, and the same pain, over and over again.
We are a society and a nation consumed by fear, and that fear is tearing all of us apart, tearing this nation to pieces. Fear rules only one thing: Animals. Beasts. Unintelligible base lower creatures. Fear and panic drive every herd species, and the more we allow our fears to drive us and our society the less human we will become.

The problem is, of course, that we're not a herd species, no matter how much we're behaving like one.  We're primates.  Troops of primates have a very different dynamic, but we're not acting on it.

Courage, true and real genuine courage, seems to be as rare as common sense now...lost in the din of the cacophony of raised voices: The Media, screaming at us from television, radio, and computer monitor; The Academia, bellowing from their Ivory Towers, their lecture halls and their classrooms; and all of them contrasting or contradictory in their demands, pulling us in two separate directions at the same time!
They tell us that we are brave, that we are strong, but look around you. Do you FEEL brave and strong when you take in all that is transpiring in our nation? Or do you, too, feel the crushing weight of an unspeakable doom pressing down upon us all, irresistible and overwhelming, suffocating your pride, your hope, your ambition and positivity?
"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration."
Unless America faces all of it's fears, confronts them without hesitation, fear will dominate and swallow us whole until none but fear remains and all is ruin.

I realized that we had become a nation of cowards on September 11, 2001 when I learned that more than one plane-load of people had allowed themselves to be hijacked, and then immolated, by a couple of jerks with BOXCUTTERS.

You mean to tell me that you would rather die than receive a shallow cut with a poorly designed knife that's entire purpose is to cut corrugated paper-board?  I think the time it would take to disable the hijacker would be little enough that you'd have ample time to staunch the bleeding while you didn't die in a fiery plane crash

How stupid is that?

I don't generally disagree with this, I just find it a bit depressing that so much of it is true, and so much of it is easily solved.

Lauded Up the Wrong Tree

     A few years ago, a video was posted to Facebook that was supposed to be really inspirational and motivational. In fact, here it is:
Quadriplegic Motivational Speaker

       My reaction to it was not positive.  I didn't think it was that bad, but it actually got me blocked on Facebook (by someone I knew in high school and grade school, but don't miss in the least.)  Most of all, my response to it was honest, and I feel a thing that needed to be said.

       As it happens, any time I write something that I feel is important, I have a tendency to paste it to a document and save it somewhere on my computer.  As a result of a recent hard drive crash,  I was reviewing the data on the replacement drive to make sure everything was there, and ran across the document with this in it.  I present it now for your judgment (because I'm sure someone will judge it.)  Seems that the opening sentence was a tad prescient:


 This will not make me popular (though I never have worried much about that), but in many respects this guy has it easy. Yes, he has no arms or legs. And people look at him and see a cripple.

I want you to consider something, though. There are people out there JUST as disabled as he is, but you can't SEE their disabilities. They have all their arms and legs, but because of brain damage they can't function the same way that everyone else does. And because they don't look different, and they don't slur words, and they're smart and eloquent, people don't BELIEVE they can't do these things.

Sure, it's easy to say, "Yes, but he has arms and legs!" when, in reality he can't read a book without help, he can't fill out a job application, he can't fill out papers to get the disability benefits that the Americans With Disabilities Act claims he's entitled to, and he can't get help with those things from the agencies that are supposed to provide them BECAUSE THEY DON'T BELIEVE IT because they can't see it. And because he's smarter than most people you'll ever meet.

Imagine the frustration of being brilliant, of having ideas, concepts, and the need to share them....and not being able to write. Or type. Or read, because the words change. Sure, you can comprehend anything you read, if you read it correctly. Oh, yeah, college is a breeze......while they're sticking you in the "learning disabled" department, which means that they'll give you extra time to take your tests in a room with thin walls and no door while they chat loudly on the other side of the wall. Then, when they grade your paper, the algebra teacher takes off points because you couldn't spell your name right....and SHE was on the other side of that wall, yakking away so loudly that you couldn't concentrate.

It's easy for this guy to look on the positive side. People can SEE that he's different. They can see that he is, in their eyes, disabled, crippled. So some may gape at him, and some may make fun of him. But at least they know, they admit, that there's something wrong.

Where does all this come from? My best friend of the past 24 years. He's been through ALL of those things I named, and more. And my son is going through much of the same, but with less severe problems.

In comparison, this guy who has less than a whole body but an undamaged mind has had everything handed to him on a silver platter. Because his damage is visible.

Think on that a bit, and THEN look at yourself.