"Our Economy Is Starting To Break Down On A Very Basic Level"

"Our Economy Is Starting To Break Down On A Very Basic Level"

by Michael Snyder

"Do you remember how much optimism there was last January? Many Americans were entirely convinced that really bright days were just around the corner, but instead things have taken a dramatic turn into the dumpster over the last 9 months. The Afghanistan debacle was the worst foreign policy embarrassment in modern American history, the Biden administration is trying to deal with an unprecedented crisis on our southern border, and the way that our politicians are handling the pandemic is causing extremely deep divisions throughout our society. In addition, our economy is starting to break down on a very basic level. On a widespread basis, goods are not getting to the places they need to be when they need to be there, and services are often not available when people need them. As time has passed, the “malfunctioning” of our economy has spread, and now the coming mandates threaten to make things a whole lot worse.

Just look at the chaos that was caused in Florida on Sunday… "Southwest has canceled 1,018 Sunday flights as of 2 p.m. ET, according to flight tracker FlightAware. That’s 28% of the the airline’s scheduled flights and the highest of any U.S. airline by a wide margin. American Airlines has canceled 63 flights, or 2% of its operation, while Spirit Airlines canceled 32 flights, or 4% of its flights, according to FlightAware. Overall, more than 1,800 flights were canceled during the weekend, and Southwest is publicly blaming the problems on “weather challenges”…

“We experienced weather challenges in our Florida airports at the beginning of the weekend, challenges that were compounded by unexpected air traffic control issues in the same region, triggering delays and prompting significant cancellations for us beginning Friday evening,” the spokesperson told FOX Business.

“We’ve continued diligent work throughout the weekend to reset our operation with a focus on getting aircraft and crews repositioned to take care of our customers,” the spokesperson added. “With fewer frequencies between cities in our current schedule, recovering during operational challenges is more difficult and prolonged. We’re working diligently to accommodate our customers as quickly as possible, and we are grateful for their patience.”

Of course that is complete and utter nonsense. A large number of Southwest pilots in Florida engaged in a “sickout” over the weekend to protest Southwest’s vaccine mandate, and apparently at least some air traffic controllers joined them… "On the record, they’re denying any sort of protest - but there are reports, citing airline sources, that a massive “sickout” went down, and that ripple effects are still being felt."

Regardless of what the truth here is… it’s screwing a lot of people, and causing a lot of problems. And, IF there is merit to the sickout speculation - it could also be a bad sign of what’s to come in other industries that might try to enforce vaccines on employees. As I write this article, there are rumblings that pilots at American Airlines are organizing similar efforts.

Good for them. In fact, we need bold people in every industry in America to start doing this sort of thing. Perhaps if enough people start standing up, those that are trying to impose these mandates will start backing down.

Right now, we are already facing the most epic labor shortage in U.S. history, and economic activity is badly gummed up as a result. If millions more qualified people are thrown out of work in the months ahead due to these absurd mandates, that is going to cause unprecedented chaos all across America. A weekend of canceled flights might be bad, but it is nothing compared to the complete and utter nightmare our society will be facing if all of these mandates go through.

Even the military will be deeply affected. On Sunday, it was being reported that “hundreds of thousands” of our service members have chosen to resist the mandates… "Hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members remain unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated against the coronavirus as the Pentagon’s first compliance deadlines near, with lopsided rates across the individual services and a spike in deaths among military reservists illustrating how political division over the shots has seeped into a nonpartisan force with unambiguous orders."

So what would it do to the state of our military if hundreds of thousands of service members are kicked out in the months ahead? That is a question that we need to be asking, because it appears that this is actually what is going to happen.

On top of everything else, now we are facing a severe global energy crisis… "Energy is so hard to come by right now that some provinces in China are rationing electricity, Europeans are paying sky-high prices for liquefied natural gas, power plants in India are on the verge of running out of coal, and the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States stood at $3.25 on Friday - up from $1.72 in April."

Most Americans may not realize it yet, but this is a really big deal. There are more than 1.3 billion people living in India, and coal is in such short supply there that officials are warning that there could soon be widespread blackouts… "Just like Chinese authorities ordering energy firms to conserve supplies at all costs, numerous power plants across India could be forced to adopt rolling blackouts as coal supplies run low. A minister in Indian capital New Delhi warned Sunday that blackouts could rock the massive city over the next two days. But the nation’s capital city isn’t alone in suffering energy shortages: it joins two Indian states – Tamil Nadu and Odisha – which have issued warnings about the growing possibility of blackouts due to dwindling coal supplies."

Other nations are facing similar issues. In fact, Lebanon just emerged from a blackout that lasted about 24 hours… "Lebanon has finally got the lights back on some 24 hours after the country was plunged into total darkness by fuel shortages. The Mediterranean country is battling one of the planet’s worst economic crunches since the 1850s in the wake of last year’s devastating blast that levelled a huge part of the capital Beirut."

If things are this bad already, how crazy will things get in the middle of winter when demand for energy is at the highest?

People need to wake up, because the times that we are moving into are going to be completely different from what we have grown accustomed to. It isn’t just the U.S. economy that is crumbling. Literally, the economic infrastructure of the entire globe is falling to pieces, and experts are warning that things will continue to break down in the months ahead. So many of the things that you have been warned about are starting to transpire right in front of our eyes, and this winter looks like it will be very dark indeed."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

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Related:

"Lebanon Plunged Into Darkness; India Faces Rolling Blackouts; 

NYC Pharmacy Shelves BARE As Global Collapse Accelerates, 

Leading To Rolling Blackouts Across The USA"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Be Open Minded..."

 

"A Night at the Opera"

"A Night at the Opera"

by Bill Bonner

"Now on with the opera. Let joy be unconfined. Let there be

 dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons, and necking in the parlor."

– Groucho Marx in "A Night at the Opera"

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – The end of last week brought joy – the debt ceiling was raised… the bars were open. And Republicans and Democrats, after pretending to be at each other’s throats, were necking in the parlor. The whole episode deserves at least a footnote in economic history, for rarely has a public spectacle been so completely phony. It was like a funeral for someone who wasn’t dead yet; unsatisfying for everyone. We will try to memorialize it here… for future economic historians to laugh at.

Dramatic Tension: The dramatic tension came, we were told, from the need to raise the debt ceiling. With mock solemnity, the newscasters, opinion mongers, economists, professional investors, and politicians told us that our future (and by inference, the future of the whole planet) depended on raising the debt ceiling for the 79th time.

Here’s American historian, Heather Cox Richardson, who regularly misunderstands almost everything. She imagines the debt ceiling standoff as another battle between Democrats (good) and Republicans (bad): "Today, [last Thursday] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) backed down from his obstructionism, agreeing to let the Democrats raise the debt ceiling by a simple majority rather than by the 60 votes they needed when the Republicans kept filibustering their bills."

A quick recap: the issue at stake was whether the United States would default on its debts, which it has never done before. The threat to default was purely a political ploy on the part of the Republicans to try to force the Democrats to abandon their very popular infrastructure measure.

Political Theater: As we have pointed out many times, this was untrue. Both protagonist and antagonist were in agreement. That is why the conclusion was never in doubt. Everything else was political theater of the lowest, most debauched grade. But it was the only show the press wanted to see. Reporting the real truth would have left the whole flimflam exposed.

All the elite – all of it – was lined up in favor of the obvious outcome. It not only wanted Congress to raise the debt ceiling… but to eliminate it altogether. All agreed, too, that the Fed should continue to use this money to buy bonds… so as to keep interest rates at fake, ultra-low levels… so that stocks (owned almost exclusively by the upper 10%… including politicians of both parties, the media, the bureaucracy, Wall Street, university and medical care functionaries… and all the apparatchiks and nomenclatura of the Deep State elite)… would remain at fake levels…and so that the government – whether red or blue – would be able to use the fake money to fund its grifter programs.

Flaming Scam: As we’ve seen, government programs are intended to fail… and rarely miss the mark. And in last week’s fraudfest, neither side… Republican nor Democrats… nor any mainstream news media… ever even whispered the truth – that the whole thing was a flaming scam.

Fake money, fake interest rates, fake asset prices, fake programs, with fake objectives, presided over by fake politicians, performing a fake show… for the benefit of a fake media, that doesn’t even try to get to the truth…

And all agreed that if the fakiness were suddenly interrupted… it would be a “catastrophe.” Here’s Joe Biden’s “old buddy,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon (a card-carrying member of the super-elite), speaking to the president last week: "America’s role in the world is essential. We are the bedrock – the American Treasury is the bedrock. […] We’re being watched right now by our allies and, unfortunately, our enemies. Our credibility is absolutely essential. Trust in America and the U.S. dollar and the financial system is critical to the world economy and eventually, actually, world peace."

Really? The U.S. has to keep spending money it doesn’t have… on things it doesn’t need – including military garrisons all over the globe – for the benefit of world peace?

Right.

Claptrap and Deceit: Last week’s debt-ceiling brouhaha brought fraud to a new level – a crescendo of claptrap… a denouement of deceit… an acme of absurdity. The feds have plenty of money to pay the debt – with tax receipts of $3.8 trillion this fiscal year – and to keep the major boondoggles in business. There was never a need to raise the debt ceiling… except one, single reason: It allows the elite to continue ripping off the public."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"Real Estate is Unraveling - Another Real Estate Crisis"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 10/11/21:

"Real Estate is Unraveling - Another Real Estate Crisis"

"Forbearance is over. There will be a catastrophic amount of inventory entering the real estate marketplace very soon. Over 25% of the people that are exiting forbearance can not afford their homes now. This excess inventory is a real problem."

Gregory Mannarino, "It's Out Of Control; Crude Oil Is Surging; Important Updates"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/11/21:

"It's Out Of Control; Crude Oil Is Surging; Important Updates"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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"Food Prices Hit Highest Level in a Decade"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 10/11/21"

"Economic Market Snapshot AM 10/11/21"

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will

do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

- John Maynard Keynes

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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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MarketWatch Market Summary, Live Updates

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

CNN Market Data:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/markets/

CNN Fear And Greed Index:

- https://money.cnn.com/data/fear-and-greed/

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A comprehensive, essential daily read.

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

 October 10th to 12th, Updated Daily

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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.freightwaves.com/

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Daily Job Cuts

- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

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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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And now, the End Game...

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Oh yeah...

"Desiderata" - A Life Changing Poem for Hard Times

"Desiderata" - A Life Changing Poem for Hard Times

Read by Shane Morris

"Max Ehrmann was an American attorney and poet who often wrote on spiritual themes. During his life, he contributed great thoughts to our literary lexicons, blending the magic of words and wisdom with his worthy observations. Desiderata, which means “things that are desired,” was written by Max Ehrmann “because it counsels those virtues I felt most in need of.”

"The Test..."

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Do You Believe..."

“Do you believe,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other as they do today, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?”

“Do you believe,” said Martin, “that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”

- Voltaire

Columbus Day

“A lot of the nonsense was the innocent result of playfulness on the part of the founding fathers of the nation of Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout. The founders were aristocrats, and they wished to show off their useless eduction, which consisted of the study of hocus-pocus from ancient times. They were bum poets as well.

But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crime. For example, teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy:



1492



The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.



Here was another piece of nonsense which children were taught: that the sea pirates eventually created a government which became a beacon of freedom of human beings everywhere else. Actually, the sea pirates who had the most to do with the creation of the new government owned human slaves. They used human beings for machinery, and, even after slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarrassing, they and their descendants continued to think of ordinary human beings as machines.

The sea pirates were white. The people who were already on the continent when the pirates arrived were copper-colored. When slavery was introduced onto the continent, the slaves were black.

 Color was everything.



Here is how the pirates were able to take whatever they wanted from anybody else: they had the best boats in the world, and they were meaner than anybody else, and they had gunpowder, which is a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulphur. They touched the seemingly listless powder with fire, and it turned violently into gas. This gas blew projectiles out of metal tubes at terrific velocities. The projectiles cut through meat and bone very easily; so the pirates could wreck the wiring or the bellows or the plumbing of a stubborn human being, even when he was far, far away.



The chief weapon of the sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, "Breakfast of Champions"

“A Prayer for the World”

“A Prayer for the World”

“Let the rain come and wash away the ancient grudges,
the bitter hatreds held and nurtured over generations.
Let the rain wash away the memory of the hurt, the neglect.
Then let the sun come out and fill the sky with rainbows.
Let the warmth of the sun heal us wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that we can see each other clearly,
So that we can see beyond labels, beyond accents, gender or skin color.
Let the warmth and brightness of the sun melt our selfishness,
So that we can share the joys and feel the sorrow of our neighbors.
And let the light of the sun be so strong that we will see all
people as our neighbors.
Let the earth, nourished by rain, bring forth flowers to
surround us with beauty.
And let the mountains teach our hearts to reach upward to heaven.”

- Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

"Catastrophic Property Sales Mean China's Worst Case Scenario Is Now In Play"

Full screen recommended.

"Catastrophic Property Sales Mean China's

 Worst Case Scenario Is Now In Play"

by Epic Economist

"A financial disaster is now underway in China: Its trillion-dollar real estate market is on the verge of a catastrophic crash as the Evergrande crisis intensifies and sends shockwaves to global markets. The Chinese property market has been scrambling ever since Beijing launched new policies tightening financial conditions and imposing new strict regulations in an attempt to tackle its housing affordability crisis. But that resulted in a significant contraction over the past year, and left some property giants, including Evergrande, struggling to adapt to the new measures.

The Evergrande collapse only added fuel to the fire, and at this point, it doesn't even matter how it plays out - whether it sparks an uncontrolled, chaotic default and distressed asset sale liquidation, a controlled restructuring where bondholders won't face acute financial losses, or with Beijing bailing out one of the foundations of China's housing market - because by now its downfall has already triggered a cascade of systemic failures that may not only end up in a major default crisis but compromise China's economic growth.

As Goldman explained in a recent note, a default contagion stemming from the Evergrande crisis and the ongoing turmoil sweeping across China's heavily indebted property sector will not only impact the banks -- which are all state-owned entities and whose exposure to insolvent developers will require an extraordinary amount of liquidity -- but the property sector itself. According to Goldman's estimates, the sector alone is worth $62 trillion, which makes it the world's largest asset class, and it contributes a staggering 30% of Chinese GDP (compared to 6.2% in the US) and accounts for 62% of household wealth.

However, as Goldman has recently noted, China doesn't need Evergrande to officially trigger a property market crisis: one is already here. In September, the bank projected three scenarios for China's housing sector -- a base case, a severe scenario, and a third "hard landing" scenario. This week, Goldman strategists suggested that the worst-case scenario has started to unfold. "In the third and most bearish scenario, land sales and housing starts fall 30% and property sales, house prices, and completions drop 10% from 2021 to 2022," the bank's strategists wrote, adding that in this scenario, at least 4% of China's 2022 GDP would be wiped out, leading to "a full-year contraction at the second-largest economy in the world, an outcome that would have catastrophic implications for the rest of the world," according to Goldman. The bank's warning that this scenario would result in even tighter financial conditions means that the Evergrande default contagion would spark a ripple effect in global markets and economies, and it would set off a massive wave of bankruptcies by the end of the year.

A recent report released by Shanghai Securities News, citing China Real Estate Information Corp., has shown that Goldman's predictions were actually right, and a disastrous collapse has begun in the Chinese property sector. The report found that more than 90% of China’s top 100 property developers’ sales declined by an average of 36% last month compared to the same period last year, deepening a downward spiral that started in July. While Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou saw transaction volume of residential properties drop by 30% y/y, Shanghai declined by 45%.

These are absolutely terrifying numbers, much scarier than Goldman's "worst-case scenario". To make things worse, this collapse has started before Evergrande even hinted that it could default its giant debt, which means that China's property market is headed to a glacial freeze that will likely end in firesales as the developer gets liquidated. In case they end up being left out of the market and unable to rollover coming maturities, and operating cash flow continues to dry up, the only alternative is the feared liquidation firesale, now seen as the pin that will burst China's housing bubble.

Since the eruption of the Evergrande crisis, experts have been comparing the property developer's woes to the epic collapse of Lehman. But in reality, this default crisis is much more dangerous to the global economy and it is merely the trigger event that could push down the entire Chinese house of cards, something the latest housing data suggest has already begun. China's enormous real estate sector seems to be rotten to the core. And this isn't just a "Lehman Brothers moment," it's the beginning of a global economic and financial collapse that may change the world as we know it, but while most people still remain unaware of the dangers that lie ahead."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

“Welcome To The New Banana Republic; Economic Disruption Everywhere; Small Business Disruption”

Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/10/21:

“Welcome To The New Banana Republic; 

Economic Disruption Everywhere; Small Business Disruption”

Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "Wicked Game"

Full screen recommended.

Il Divo, "Wicked Game" 

Melanconia, Live In London 2011

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Fans of our fair planet might recognize the outlines of these cosmic clouds. On the left, bright emission outlined by dark, obscuring dust lanes seems to trace a continental shape, lending the popular name North America Nebula to the emission region cataloged as NGC 7000. To the right, just off the North America Nebula's east coast, is IC 5070, whose avian profile suggests the Pelican Nebula. 

The two bright nebulae are about 1,500 light-years away, part of the same large and complex star forming region, almost as nearby as the better-known Orion Nebula. At that distance, the 3 degree wide field of view would span 80 light-years. This careful cosmic portrait uses narrow band images combined to highlight the bright ionization fronts and the characteristic glow from atomic hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen gas. These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look northeast of bright star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210916.html

“Raise Positive Vibration – 528Hz Positive Energy, Self-Healing, Healing Miracle Music.

Full screen recommended.

Spirit Tribe Awakening,

“Raise Positive Vibration – 528Hz Positive Energy,

 Self-Healing, Healing Miracle Music.” 

”Music is tuned to 528Hz and contains the 417Hz Solfeggio frequency. These frequencies have a specific healing effect on your subconscious mind. Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey.”

- https://www.youtube.com/

Simply beautiful, and effective…

“Why Not Despair?”

“Why Not Despair?”

“To view our times as decadent and dangerous, to mistrust the government, to imagine that those in power as not concerned with our best interests is not paranoid but perceptive; to be depressed, angry or confused about such things is not delusional but a sign of consciousness. Yet our culture suggests otherwise. But if all this is true, then why not despair? The simple answer is this: despair is the suicide of imagination. 

Whatever reality presses upon us, there still remains the possibility of imagining something better, and in this dream remains the frontier of our humanity and its possibilities To despair is to voluntarily close a door that has not yet shut. The task is to bear knowledge without it destroying ourselves, to challenge the wrong without ending up on its casualty list. “You don’t have to change the world,” the writer Colman McCarthy has argued. “Just keep the world from changing you.”

Oddly, those who instinctively understand this best are often those who seem to have the least reason to do so – survivors of abuse, oppression, and isolation who somehow discover not so much how to beat the odds, but how to wriggle around them. They have, without formal instruction, learned two of the most fundamental lessons of psychiatry, philosophy, and religion:

You are not responsible for that into which you were born..

You are responsible for doing something about it.

These individuals move through life like a skilled mariner in a storm rather than as a victim at a sacrifice. Relatively unburdened by pointless and debilitating guilt about the past, uninterested in the endless regurgitation of the unalterable, they free themselves to concentrate upon the present and the future. They face the gale as a sturdy combatant rather than as cowering supplicant.”

- Sam Smith

“Incidit In Scyllam Cupiens Vitare Charybdim”

“Incidit In Scyllam Cupiens Vitare Charybdim”

by Steve Candidus

“One of the great things about ancient Greek Mythology is that the stories all teach a lesson. They don’t end with – and the moral of the story is – though. They leave it to the reader to figure them out. So in addition to being just plain fun to read they are wonderful teachers about life. Perhaps the best thing about this one is that we still use the expression it contains exactly the same way that the ancient Greeks intended it almost 3,000 years ago. That almost never happens. Language is fluid and the meanings of words and expressions changes from one generation to another, but this one is an exception. The everyday expression it contains is one that we often refer to without really knowing where it came from.

This is one of the tales of Odysseus who was the heroic king of Ithaca and of whose ten-year journey back to Greece after the Trojan War was immortalized in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. There was a point in his journey when his ship had to enter a narrow straight. It was a passage so narrow that it could only be made under special conditions. They had to have both the wind at their backs and the current in their direction. However, once committed it was impossible to turn back.

Unknown to the sailors the straight was guarded by two deadly perils. On the one side, it was guarded by Scylla. Scylla was a six-headed monster that disguised itself as a rock. On the other side, it was guarded by Charybdis, a terrible deadly whirlpool born of the sea god Poseidon.

In olden times, it was common to refer to any place that a ship came to rest on land as being in a hard place. It didn’t matter if it was blown on shore by a storm, grounded on a reef or brought up intentionally for repair. If it was on shore, it was on a hard place as opposed to the soft place – water.

It also applied to a ship that had foundered. A ship that sinks will eventually rest on the bottom. The land at the bottom of the ocean is therefore called a hard place. It used to be a common term, but it has since pretty much fallen out of practice in common language today. A deadly whirlpool such as Charybdis could take a ship and send it straight to the bottom – a hard place.

So, now as we return to the story of Odysseus we see that their ship had entered a narrow straight and that straight was guarded by two evil perils with hardly enough room for a ship to pass between them. They were forced to choose between the six headed monster ‘Scylla’ disguised as a rock or the dreaded whirlpool ‘Charybdis’ that would surely send them to a hard place and they could not turn back.

There is a Latin proverb from this story, “Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim” which translates to, “He runs on Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis.” In modern day English, we simply say, “They were between a rock and a hard place”. And now you know…”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Janesville, Wisconsin, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Maya Angelou, “When Great Trees Fall”

“When Great Trees Fall”

“When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down in tall grasses,

and even elephants lumber after safety.

When great trees fall in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly,

see with a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid,

promised walks never taken.

Great souls die and our reality,

 bound to them, takes leave of us.

Our souls, dependent upon their nurture,

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance,

fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, cold caves.

And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always irregularly. 

 Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never to be the same,

 whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be.  

Be and be better. 

For they existed.”

~ Maya Angelou

“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”

“8 Things to Remember When Everything Goes Wrong”

by Marc Chernoff

“Today, I’m sitting in my hospital bed waiting to have both my breasts removed. But in a strange way I feel like the lucky one. Up until now I have had no health problems. I’m a 69-year-old woman in the last room at the end of the hall before the pediatric division of the hospital begins. Over the past few hours I have watched dozens of cancer patients being wheeled by in wheelchairs and rolling beds. None of these patients could be a day older than 17.”

That’s an entry from my grandmother’s journal, dated 9/16/1977. I photocopied it and pinned it to my bulletin board about a decade ago. It’s still there today, and it continues to remind me that there is always, always, always something to be thankful for. And that no matter how good or bad I have it, I must wake up each day thankful for my life, because someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs.

Truth be told, happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Imagine all the wondrous things your mind might embrace if it weren’t wrapped so tightly around your struggles. Always look at what you have, instead of what you have lost. Because it’s not what the world takes away from you that counts; it’s what you do with what you have left.

Here are a few reminders to help motivate you when you need it most:

1. Pain is part of growing. Sometimes life closes doors because it’s time to move forward. And that’s a good thing because we often won’t move unless circumstances force us to. When times are tough, remind yourself that no pain comes without a purpose. Move on from what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you. Just because you’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing. Every great success requires some type of worthy struggle to get there. Good things take time. Stay patient and stay positive. Everything is going to come together; maybe not immediately, but eventually.

Remember that there are two kinds of pain: pain that hurts and pain that changes you. When you roll with life, instead of resisting it, both kinds help you grow.

2. Everything in life is temporary. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you get hurt, you heal. After darkness there is always light – you are reminded of this every morning, but still you often forget, and instead choose to believe that the night will last forever. It won’t. Nothing lasts forever.

So if things are good right now, enjoy it. It won’t last forever. If things are bad, don’t worry because it won’t last forever either. Just because life isn’t easy at the moment, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh. Just because something is bothering you, doesn’t mean you can’t smile. Every moment gives you a new beginning and a new ending. You get a second chance, every second. You just have to take it and make the best of it.  

3. Worrying and complaining changes nothing. Those who complain the most, accomplish the least. It’s always better to attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed. It’s not over if you’ve lost; it’s over when you do nothing but complain about it. If you believe in something, keep trying. Don’t let the shadows of the past darken the doorstep of your future. Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any brighter. Take action instead. Let what you’ve learned improve how you live. Make a change and never look back.

And regardless of what happens in the long run, remember that true happiness begins to arrive only when you stop complaining about your problems and you start being grateful for all the problems you don’t have.

4. Your scars are symbols of your strength. Don’t ever be ashamed of the scars life has left you with. A scar means the hurt is over and the wound is closed. It means you conquered the pain, learned a lesson, grew stronger, and moved forward.   scar is the tattoo of a triumph to be proud of. Don’t allow your scars to hold you hostage. Don’t allow them to make you live your life in fear. You can’t make the scars in your life disappear, but you can change the way you see them. You can start seeing your scars as a sign of strength and not pain.

Rumi once said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most powerful characters in this great world are seared with scars. See your scars as a sign of “YES! I MADE IT! I survived and I have my scars to prove it! And now I have a chance to grow even stronger.”

5. Every little struggle is a step forward. In life, patience is not about waiting; it’s the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard on your dreams, knowing that the work is worth it. So if you’re going to try, put in the time and go all the way. Otherwise, there’s no point in starting. This could mean losing stability and comfort for a while, and maybe even your mind on occasion. It could mean not eating what, or sleeping where, you’re used to, for weeks on end. It could mean stretching your comfort zone so thin it gives you a nonstop case of the chills. It could mean sacrificing relationships and all that’s familiar. It could mean accepting ridicule from your peers. It could mean lots of time alone in solitude. Solitude, though, is the gift that makes great things possible. It gives you the space you need. Everything else is a test of your determination, of how much you really want it.

And if you want it, you’ll do it, despite failure and rejection and the odds. And every step will feel better than anything else you can imagine. You will realize that the struggle is not found on the path, it is the path. And it’s worth it. So if you’re going to try, go all the way. There’s no better feeling in the world… there’s no better feeling than knowing what it means to be ALIVE. 

6. Other people’s negativity is not your problem. Be positive when negativity surrounds you. Smile when others try to bring you down. It’s an easy way to maintain your enthusiasm and focus.  When other people treat you poorly, keep being you. Don’t ever let someone else’s bitterness change the person you are. You can’t take things too personally, even if it seems personal. Rarely do people do things because of you.  hey do things because of them.

Above all, don’t ever change just to impress someone who says you’re not good enough. Change because it makes you a better person and leads you to a brighter future. People are going to talk regardless of what you do or how well you do it. So worry about yourself before you worry about what others think. If you believe strongly in something, don’t be afraid to fight for it. Great strength comes from overcoming what others think is impossible.

All jokes aside, your life only comes around once. This is IT. So do what makes you happy and be with whoever makes you smile, often.

7. What’s meant to be will eventually, BE. True strength comes when you have so much to cry and complain about, but you prefer to smile and appreciate your life instead. There are blessings hidden in every struggle you face, but you have to be willing to open your heart and mind to see them. You can’t force things to happen. You can only drive yourself crazy trying. At some point you have to let go and let what’s meant to be, BE.

In the end, loving your life is about trusting your intuition, taking chances, losing and finding happiness, cherishing the memories, and learning through experience. It’s a long-term journey. You have to stop worrying, wondering, and doubting every step of the way. Laugh at the confusion, live consciously in the moment, and enjoy your life as it unfolds. You might not end up exactly where you intended to go, but you will eventually arrive precisely where you need to be.

8. The best thing you can do is to keep going. Don’t be afraid to get back up – to try again, to love again, to live again, and to dream again. Don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart. Life’s best lessons are often learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. There will be times when it seems like everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong. And you might feel like you will be stuck in this rut forever, but you won’t. When you feel like quitting, remember that sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right. Sometimes you have to go through the worst, to arrive at your best.

Yes, life is tough, but you are tougher. Find the strength to laugh every day. Find the courage to feel different, yet beautiful. Find it in your heart to make others smile too. Don’t stress over things you can’t change. Live simply. Love generously. Speak truthfully. Work diligently. And even if you fall short, keep going. Keep growing. Awake every morning and do your best to follow this daily TO-DO list:

Think positively.

Eat healthy.

Exercise today.

Worry less.

Work hard.

Laugh often.

Sleep well.

Repeat…”

- http://www.marcandangel.com/