"21 Thoughts Occurring Around The Start Of Fall"
by John Wilder
"Here are some notes that I wrote, mainly for nobody but me. Then I thought, hey, why not share them? So, here you have it. The list is in no particular order. Your mileage may vary.
Personal responsibility and discipline lead to freedom. I need to understand that decisions belong to me. I stand without fear because this comes internally, not externally. My internal focus is on virtue, and making choices that celebrate Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
The outcome of virtuous acts is sometimes failure.
I tried opening a packet of tuna to make a tuna fish sandwich, but it didn’t look like there was enough tuna in the bowl, so I opened another packet. Then? Too much tuna, enough for four sandwiches. This is why I only have tuna sandwiches every four years.
I deal with failure in a game where I put myself out and did all I could. It is what it is. An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable surrender, but an honorable victory is better than both.
Following someone else’s rules isn’t the basis of honor. Fighting fair when they won’t fight fair isn’t the basis of honor, either.
Realize that defeat is sometimes hidden victory, and victory is sometimes hidden defeat and the biggest decider is timescale.
I realize that other cultures put their own people first, and it does my children no good for me to put other cultures and their people as equal to ours.
Responsibility leads to responsibility. This is good, in tough times and in good times. There is no time while I’m still breathing to lay down my burden.
The system is broken. I fight to make it better. I will not fix it by myself, and it may not ever be perfect. Yet, I will not stop.
No Chinese guy ever called me a racist. Except that one.
I will make audacious goals, because more often than not if I exercise enough discipline and effort, I will meet those goals. Aiming low does me no good.
Challenge is what gives us the opportunity to be strong, wise, and virtuous. Understanding that there is some part of me that is eternal is enough to overcome the fear of the ephemeral.
Am I ever ready? No. The best I can do is the to face the future with bravery and open eyes, knowing that the challenges I face may be more difficult than any I have ever faced in my life.
There is only one way: forward. There is no return or retreat, time is an unforgiving arrow that moves, leaving the past as a dead and inaccessible country with the exception of the echoes I have in memory, writing, art, and recordings. Living in the past is living with ghosts, as it is dead and barren.
The past exists to transform me. I am where I am, and I am who I am because of my successes and failures. To spend time on regret is a waste. To feel despair because of what I am not is a temptation put forward by Evil. I cannot live a life that never was, even if I wish it so.
My favorite time of the year is when the air conditioner isn’t running, as long as I don’t need the air conditioner to be running, and then it’s my least favorite time of the year. When the machines finally rise against us, I’m going to really regret having to kill my air conditioner.
In one sense, we are all on our own islands, alone. It is only by talking and listening and doing that one can know another. The way that minds speak to each other through time and space is by writing and reading. Maybe in the future it’ll only be memes.
Our nation is not ours, it was given to us in trust by our ancestors for their grandchildren. To give it away to others is thoughtless theft. Geography is important to making a people. Geography is important to controlling the world.
Maybe it was a bad idea to let soulless corporations have access to the immigration system so they could import unlimited amounts of people from a foreign country that have no connection to our genetics, no understanding of our history, no respect for our values, or any sort of comprehension of standards of personal hygiene. But hey, they have amazing in-group preference and won’t hire actual Americans, so at least you won’t have to work with them.
I never understood the “got your nose” game as a kid. I spent the entire age of three thinking adults were retarded because they were certain that their thumbs were my nose. Now, if they had been holding knives..."
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