“7 Things Fear Has Stolen From You”

“7 Things Fear Has Stolen From You”

by Marc Chernoff

“There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.”

- Ben Johnson

“Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid; courage means you don’t let fear stop you. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Don’t ever hesitate to give yourself a chance to be everything you are capable of being. Although fear can feel overwhelming, and defeats more people than any other force in the world, it’s not as powerful as it seems. Fear is only as deep as your mind allows. You are still in control. The key is to acknowledge your fear and directly address it. You must step right up and confront it face to face. This tactic robs fear of its power, instead of fear robbing YOU of…

1. Your true path and purpose. Fear of being different: Don’t be fooled by what others say, especially when they try to tell you what is right for you. Listen and then draw your own conclusions.  What is your intuition telling you? There is not a clear path that everyone should follow. Your greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding in life at all the wrong things. Choose a path that fits YOU. Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. Challenge yourself to ask with each and every step, and each focus point that consumes your energy: “Does this thing I’m doing right now truly serve me and those I care about in the next few minutes, few months, and few years?” Whatever you settle on, just make sure you don’t gain the whole world by losing your soul and purpose in the process. 

2. Self-respect. Fear of not being good enough: Don’t be too hard on yourself. There are plenty of people willing to do that for you. Do your best and surrender the rest. Tell yourself, “I am doing the best I can with what I have in this moment. That is all I can ever expect of anyone, including me.” Love yourself and be proud of everything you do, even your mistakes, because your mistakes mean you’re trying. If you feel like others are not treating you with love and respect, check your price tag. Perhaps you subconsciously marked yourself down. Because it’s YOU who tells others what you’re worth by showing them what you are willing to accept for your time and attention. So get off the clearance rack. If you don’t value and respect yourself, wholeheartedly, no one else will either.

3. Your ability to make concrete decisions. Fear of commitment: You cannot live your life at the mercy of chance. You cannot stumble along with a map marked only with the places you fear, or the places you know you don’t want to revisit. You cannot remain trapped, endlessly, in a state where you are unable to ask for directions, even though you’re terribly lost, because you don’t know your destination. You have to commit to goals that speak to you. You have to stand up, look at yourself in the mirror, and say, “It isn’t good enough for me to know only what I DON’T want in life. I need to decide what I DO want.” 

4. Priceless opportunities and life experiences. Fear of change and discomfort: As Thich Nhat Hanh so perfectly said, “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” In many cases you stay stuck in your old routines for no other reason than that they are familiar to you. In other words, you’re afraid of change and the unknown. You continually put your dreams and goals off until tomorrow, and you pass on great opportunities simply because they have the potential to lead you out of your comfort zone.

You start using excuses to justify your lack of backbone: “Someday when I have more money,” or “when I’m older,” or the over-abused “I’ll get to it as soon as I have more time.” This is a vicious cycle that leads to a deeply unsatisfying life – a way of thinking that eventually sends you to your grave with immense regret. Regret that you didn’t follow your heart. Regret that you always put everyone else’s needs before your own. Regret that you didn’t do what you could have done when you had the chance.

5. General happiness and peace of mind. Fear of facing inner truths: If you keep looking for happiness outside yourself, you will never find it. Happiness is found from within. What you seek is not somewhere else at some other time; what you seek is here and now, within you. The more you look for it outside yourself, the more it hides from you. Relax, remember the source of your deepest desires, and allow yourself to know their fulfillment. A choice, not circumstances, determines happiness. Each morning when you open your eyes, say to yourself:  “I, not external people or events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. It’s up to me. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow hasn’t come yet. I only have today and I’m going to be happy in it.” 

6. Your willingness to love, truly and purely. Fear of not being loved in return: Although it is nice when gestures of love are returned, true love is one-way traffic. It’s a pure flow of giving and expecting nothing in return. Anything else is a contract. Notice how whenever you allow love to flow you are always clear, calm and strong. It is only when the thought arises, “What have they given me in return?” that there is confusion and resentment. Ego transacts, love transforms. Life is too short for all these meticulous contracts and transactions.

Look out for yourself by focusing your love in a direction that feels right to you, but once you decide to love, remain clear, remain bright, and remain strong. Love without expectation. Don’t let fear get in your way. When the love you give is true, the people worthy of your love will gradually reveal themselves over time.

7. The right company. Fear of being alone: Sadly, no matter how much love you give, some relationships simply aren’t meant to be. You can try your hardest, you can do everything and say everything, but sometimes people just aren’t worth stressing over anymore, and they aren’t worth worrying about. It’s important to know when to distance yourself from someone who only hurts you and brings you down. When you give your love to someone, truly and purely without expectation, and it’s never good enough for them, there’s a good chance you’re giving your love to the wrong person.

The bottom line is that long-term relationships should help you, not hurt you. Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and like-minded. And remember, good relationships are a sacred bond – a circle of trust. Both parties must be 100% on board. If and when the time comes to let a relationship go, don’t be hostile. Simply thank the relationships that don’t work out for you, because they just made room for the ones that will.

Next steps: Your biggest fears are completely dependent on you for their survival. Every new day is another chance to change your life, and it’s way too short to let fear interfere. Today, focus your conscious mind on things you desire, not things you fear. Doing so can bring your dreams to life.

Your turn… What has fear stolen from you?  What has it stopped you from doing, being, or achieving?  Leave a comment below and share your thoughts with the community.”

- http://www.marcandangel.com/

"Alas.."

“Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come, nor care beyond today.”

- Thomas Gray,

“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”

- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

The Poet: Wendell Berry, "The Circles Of Our Lives"

"The Circles Of Our Lives"

"Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circles of the years,

the cycles of the moon,

within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,

changed, changing. Hands

join, unjoin in love and fear,

grief and joy. The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining

joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return,

Within the circles of our lives..."

- Wendell Berry

The Daily "Near You?"

Lawton, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Free Download: Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged,”

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"

"I... don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him?"

"To shrug."

- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”

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"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard - the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money - the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law - men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims - then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."

An excerpt from “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand.

Full text of “Francisco’s Money Speech” is here:

- https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/

Freely download "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand, here:

- https://archive.org/

Gregory Mannarino, "Housing Bubble Bursting, Real Wages Plummet, Food Inflation Rises"

Gregory Mannarino, 2/23/23:

"Housing Bubble Bursting, Real Wages Plummet,

 Food Inflation Rises"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Related:

"We Are Witnessing The Fall of the United States"

"Is the Biden Administration Just Completely Brain-Dead?"

"Is the Biden Administration Just Completely Brain-Dead?"

By Martin Armstrong

"Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons on all its ships. The US arrogantly told China not to support Russia or that they would impose sanctions on China as they have done with Russia. That is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Once you make such a public demand on China, they now MUST act against it or their leadership will lose face.

I have dealt with governments for some 40 years +. Warnings of this nature have ALWAYS been communicated privately – NEVER publicly for that is confrontational and will necessitate the opposite side to vote against your demand. I cannot imagine that even I know far more about diplomacy than anyone in the Biden Administration. That suggests to me that this is deliberate. They just cannot be this stupid. They seem to be deliberately moving Russia and China together against the arrogant West in the very same manner that resulted in the Peloponnesian War with Sparta taking down Athens for its arrogance.

As the world teeters on the edge of World War III between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran against the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Europe, diplomatic efforts to reach a peaceful settlement are seriously lacking. Europeans should be storming their own parliaments demanding the end to supporting Ukraine and honoring the Minsk Agreement to forestall a potential conflict the likes of which Europe has not seen since the end of the second World War and will certainly not survive.

The Biden Administration appears to be taking the advice of Adolf Hitler given the complete lack of any diplomacy whatsoever. China has offered a peace settlement but the Biden Administration wants war. China had no choice but to respond to Biden:

The United Nations has become a joke. The Security Council can take action to maintain or restore international peace and security under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Sanctions measures, under Article 41, encompass a broad range of enforcement options that do not involve the use of armed force. The UN has refused to remain unbiased and should have imposed sanctions on Germany, France, the UK, and the United States for their bad faith in negotiating the Minsk Agreement and for their unwarranted sanction of Russia that even began before the 2022 invasion. The UN no longer represents an independent body of nations but has been usurped with lofty ideals of becoming the one world government thanks to Schwab’s World Economic Forum and the pressure from the American Neocons directing US foreign policy.

The United Nations took its marching order from the United States and suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council on April 7th, 2022. They have courted world war with the vision of emerging as the new one-world government. They self-proclaim: “Now, more than 75 years later, the United Nations is still working to maintain international peace and security, give humanitarian assistance to those in need, protect human rights, and uphold international law.” Sanctioning private individuals claiming that will put pressure on Putin was a blatant violation of international war. Under this theory, then the Republicans could confiscate all the personal assets of Democrats until the Democrats agree to their terms. This is absurd.The United Nations has REFUSED to be impartial and to prevent World War III. They are a total failure and a disgrace to humanity. Here is the simple pattern they should have investigated if they really cared about preserving world peace.

(1) In 2014 US installs an interim government in Ukraine which is unelected and immediately sends troops to attack the Donbas for wanting to separate from Ukraine after its own revolution.

(2) West engages in the Minsk Agreement whereby Merkel has come out and acknowledged it was in bad faith and intended only to allow Ukraine to build its army while making a fool out of Putin for trusting the West.

(3) Zelensky is elected promising to end corruption and the civil war with Russia.

(4) VP Kamila Harris at Munich Security Conference tells Ukraine they should join NATO.

(5) On February 23rd, 2022, Zelensky announces that Ukraine should rearm itself with nuclear weapons:

February 24th, 2022, Putin intervenes to support the Donbas when the West ignores their human rights. If the United States even exists after World War III which they are promoting, then we would no doubt have a similar investigation into the deliberate policies that have rejected any possible peaceful negotiations and promoted war for the total destruction of Russia.

When not just diplomacy fails we get war, but when the United Nations acts in its own self-interest against all the member states that fund it and ignores the very foundation upon which it claims any authority. That seems to be in line with the World Health Organization to dictate its policies to the world."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

Bill Bonner, "Bad Luck of the Draw"

"Bad Luck of the Draw"

You win some, you lose some... then you lose everything.

By Bill Bonner

"Hi...you're young and you got your health...what you want with a job?"

~ Evelle, "Raising Arizona"

San Martin, Argentina - "We’re up in Northwest Argentina. First stop was the city of Salta, where we met with our trusty lawyer. Monday and Tuesday were holidays – Carnival. All was quiet. Wednesday, the city was back to its usual hustle and bustle. Streets crowded. Hotels full. It was Ash Wednesday, so we walked down to the central square to the magnificent cathedral of San Francisco. So many Christians were eager to get the smudge on their foreheads that the church ran full almost all day long, with services every hour.

Origins Stories: We couldn’t understand the sermon, partly because half of it was done with a faulty microphone, but we greatly admired the elaborate gilding and silverwork. The place is stunning.

Argentina claims to be ‘the most European country in the world.’ Here, people make a joke of it:

The Mexicans descended from Aztecs.

The Peruvians descended from Incas.

The Argentines descended from boats.

Argentina never had many African immigrants…and those it had, according to popular lore, were put on the front lines in the war against Paraguay in the 19th century. Whether this is true or not, we don’t know, but there are very few African-Argentinos today. As for the indigenous population, it was mostly exterminated or exiled in Julio Argentino Roca’s ‘Conquest of the Desert’ in the 1870s. Those few who are left are concentrated in Salta…and at our farm.

In the Cathedral of San Francisco was a mixture of mixtures. Most people in attendance seemed to have more than a little of the local Indian blood. Here, as elsewhere in the world, people tend to group together depending on their cultures and backgrounds, and find a place that suits them. Some neighborhoods are darker than others. Generally, the darker the skin, the poorer the people. When you are in affluent neighborhoods, such as the nearby town of San Lorenzo, you could be in Italy or France. Other ‘barrios’ are more like poor sections of Los Angeles.

Introducing The Colorometer™: These are just averages and stereotypes, of course. But statistics and stereotypes are the bread and butter of public policies. In the US, the Biden Administration has just ordered a campaign of ‘racial equity’ for the federal government. “Agency Equity Teams” are supposed to make sure they discriminate in favor of the people they want and against those they don’t want. But the problem with this, and all racist programs, is that they ignore quality and merit completely. It doesn’t really matter how much you deserve a break, or need one; it’s all about what category they put you into.

The program aims to give preferences to ‘people of color.’ But how much color do you need to qualify? Should the dark-skinned daughter of an Indian billionaire bio-physicist get a break…but not the fair-skinned son of West Virginia trailer trash?

Since the whole idea is to give preference to people with dark skins…and since, generally, the more melanin you have, the poorer you are…the simplest way to solve the problem, if there were one, would be to develop a ‘colorometer’ app. Yes, dear reader, here we offer our own claptrap contribution to a claptrap program run by claptrap people based on claptrap notions. You just point the ‘colorometer’ at the person and it gives you a number, which determines how much of a preference or punishment the person should get. The more color, the more ‘equity,’ whatever that is. Note to the feds: no need to thank us for that suggestion. If you’re dim enough to actually take it up, we’ll claim we had nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, Salta is booming.

Win, Lose or… Worse: “It’s hard to find an apartment to rent,” explained our legal advisor, “and if you find one, it’s going to be expensive.” This seemed odd. All the economic news coming out of Argentina is bad. What is the source of so much bustle in the North, we wanted to know? “It’s all based on one thing – lithium. It’s like a gold mining boom. Everybody wants to get in on it.”

The way it works, at least as it was told to us, sounds a lot like the way the telecom industry was developed in the US in the ‘90s. The government took applications for areas that would be served by a cellphone tower. Anyone could apply. The licenses were awarded by lottery. But then, you had to build out the service.

We applied, along with a group of friends. And we won one – out in South Dakota, if we recall correctly. The trouble was, there weren’t many people in the area. If we had been able to teach cows how to use cell phones, we would have had a winner, but there was not enough human traffic to justify the investment.

“I was in a lottery for a lithium area,” explained a man we met later. “There were only three bidders. A Chinese company. A Canadian company. And me. The Chinese and Canadians were represented by their lawyers. It was very old-fashioned. They put three numbers into a tumbler. I had #2. You could watch the numbers in the tumbler. I was chatting with the woman who was turning the crank. I knew her. She slowed up…and I could see that my number was not in position to win…so I asked her how her son was doing…and she turned the crank again while she answered. This time my number was in a good position, so I stopped talking. And guess what? She opened the chute…and my number came out. I won.”

Once again, the particular triumphed over statistics and theory. But wait, there’s more. Lithium is big business. Everybody says so. And the whole world, they say, is switching to battery power…and batteries require lithium, lots of it. But investors, lovers, parish priests and business people live in a different world…not one of statistics and headlines, but one of particulars…details…special situations, and keeping your eye on the tumbler. Our lithium lottery winner continued:

“I don’t have the money to develop a lithium mining operation. So, I went to the Canadian and the Chinese and offered to go into partnership with them. But they said they didn’t want partners. So, now I’m stuck…somehow, I’ve got to come up with millions of dollars…and someone who knows the mining business. So far, it’s not looking very good. And if I can’t develop it, I don’t just lose the concession; I could lose everything.” He pointed towards his house. More to come..."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"How It Really Is"

 

"Things Are About To Get Chilly"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 2/23/23:

"Things Are About To Get Chilly"

"Southern California is under a blizzard warning right now. It is unbelievable that things are as cold outside as they are in the economy right now."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Price War At Kroger! The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly! Price Increases"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 2/23/23:

"Price War At Kroger! The Good, The Bad,

 And The Ugly! Price Increases"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Traveling With Russell, 2/23/23:

"Russian Typical Hypermarket After 1 Year of Sanctions"

"What does a Russian typical hypermarket look like after 1 year of sanctions. Walking in Moscow shopping mall, then taking a walk inside a German owned hypermarket to see what affects sanctions against Russia have done to the retail and grocery industry."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Biggest Super Bubble In Human History Is Leaking Air"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/22/23:

"The Biggest Super Bubble In Human History Is Leaking Air"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gerald Celente, "US Government: Reckless, Immoral, Illegal, and Unconstitutional War"

Gerald Celente, Judge Andrew Napolitano, 2/22/23:

"US Government: Reckless, Immoral,

 Illegal, and Unconstitutional War"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"

Full screen recommended.

Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, pictured above, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer. 

The active star forming region spans 100 about light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus) Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/

"For Nothing Is Fixed..."

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."

- James Baldwin

"People Pay..."

 

Chet Raymo, “Telling Stories”

“Telling Stories”
by Chet Raymo

"When the pulse of the first day carried it to the rim of night, First Woman said to First Man, "The people need to know the laws. To help them we must write the laws for all to see"...And so she began, slowly, first one and then the next, placing her jewels across the dome of night, carefully designing her pattern so all could read it. But Coyote grew bored watching First Woman carefully arranging the stars in the sky: Impatiently he gathered two corners of First Woman's blanket, and before she could stop him he flung the remaining stars out into the night, spilling them in wild disarray, shattering First Woman's careful patterns."

This episode from the Navajo creation story of is from "How the Stars Fell Into the Sky", a children's book by Jerrie Oughton. It is a lovely story, full of ancient wisdom. For centuries, Navajo children heard the story at an elder's knee. The story was taken literally, or at least accepted with a willing suspension of disbelief. I heard a similar creation story in my youth - of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Serpent. I accepted the story with a willing suspension of disbelief.

All cultures, everywhere on Earth, have stories, passed down in scriptures, traditions or tribal myths, that answer the questions: Where did the world come from? What is our place in it? What is the source of order and disorder? What will be the fate of the world? Of ourselves? No people can live without a community story. The problem comes when the community story becomes so disconnected from empirical experience that it no longer commands a suspension of disbelief. For many of us in the West, that is the case with the creation stories that have undergirded Western civilization.

Today, a New Story exists for those who choose to accept it. It is the product of thousands of years of human curiosity, observation, experimentation, and creativity. It is an evolving story, not yet finished. Perhaps it will never be finished. It is a story that begins with an explosion from a seed of infinite energy. The seed expands and cools. Particles form, then atoms of hydrogen and helium. Stars and galaxies coalesce from swirling gas. Stars burn and explode, forging heavy elements - carbon, nitrogen, oxygen - and hurling them into space. New stars are born, with planets made of heavy elements.

On one planet near a typical star in a typical galaxy life appears in the form of microscopic self-replicating, carbon-based ensembles of atoms. Life evolves, over billions of years, resulting in ever more complex organisms. Continents move. Seas rise and fall. The atmosphere changes. Millions of species of life appear and become extinct. Others adapt, survive, and spill out progeny. At last, consciousness appears. One of the millions of species on the planet looks into the night sky and wonders what it means. Feels the spark of love, tenderness, responsibility. Makes up stories - of First Woman and Coyote, of Adam, Eve and the Serpent - eventually making up the New Story. The New Story places us squarely in a cosmic unfolding of space and time, and teaches our biological affinity to all humanity. We are inextricably related to all of life, to the planet itself, and even to the lives of stars.

It has been the task of many of us gathered here on this cyber porch to help wed the New Story to the spiritual quest, to create what Thomas Berry calls an "integral story." In his introduction to Kathleen Deignan's collection of Thomas Merton's nature writing, Berry writes: "Today, in the opening years of the twenty-first century, we find ourselves in a critical moment when the religious traditions need to awaken again to the natural world as the primary manifestation of the divine to human intelligence. The very nature and purpose of the human is to experience this intimate presence that comes to us through natural phenomena. Such is the purpose of having eyes and ears and feeling sensitivity, and all our other senses. We have no inner spiritual development without outer experience. Immediately, when we see or experience any natural phenomenon, when we see a flower, a butterfly, a tree, when we feel the evening breeze flow over us or wade in a stream of clear water, our natural response is immediate, intuitive, transforming, ecstatic. Everywhere we find ourselves invaded by the world of the sacred."

Berry reminds us that we will neither love nor save what we do not experience as sacred. The older creation stories locate the source of the sacred outside of the creation. The New Story, the scientific story of creation, provides unique opportunities to experience the creation itself as holy and good.

We should treasure the ancient stories for the wisdom and values they teach us. We can praise the creation in whatever poetic languages and rituals our traditional cultures have taught us. But only the New Story has the global authority to help us navigate the future. Of all the stories, it is certainly the truest. It is the only story whose feet have been held to the fire of exacting empirical experience.”

- http:www.sciencemusings.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks or stopping by!

"On These Faces..."

“The barbarian hopes, and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles. “

- Hilaire Belloco

"Something Like Reverence..."

"When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness, and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, or what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost, with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair." 

- Blaise Pascal

Ahh, but it does...

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“When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither flight nor fight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own.”

- Scott Russell Sanders

Folks, I fear our time for such reverence has arrived.

God help us, God help us all...

"Retail is Broken"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 2/22/23:

"Retail is Broken"

"It was just announced that another 800 retail stores will be closing across the country. Retail giants are suffering all over the country. The final stop is the shopping mall. It is completely broken."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Economic Market Snapshot 2/22/23"

"Economic Market Snapshot 2/22/23"

Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data 

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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

○

"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it. 

You and I are not in the Big Club."

- George Carlin

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- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Financial Stress Index

"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."

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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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"The more I see of the monied classes,

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...

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And now... The End Game...