"The Poet: Mark Strand, "Dreams"

"Dreams"

"Trying to recall the plot

And characters we dreamed,

     What life was like

Before the morning came,

We are seldom satisfied,

     And even then

There is no way of knowing

If what we know is true.

     Something nameless

Hums us into sleep,

Withdraws, and leaves us in

     A place that seems

Always vaguely familiar.

Perhaps it is because

     We take the props

And fixtures of our days

With us into the dark,

     Assuring ourselves

We are still alive. And yet

Nothing here is certain;

     Landscapes merge

With one another, houses

Are never where they should be,

     Doors and windows

Sometimes open out

To other doors and windows,

     Even the person

Who seems most like ourselves

Cannot be counted on,

     For there have been

Too many times when he,

Like everything else, has done

     The unexpected.

And as the night wears on,

The dim allegory of ourselves

     Unfolds, and we

Feel dreamed by someone else,

A sleeping counterpart,

     Who gathers in

The darkness of his person

Shades of the real world.

     Nothing is clear;

We are not ever sure

If the life we live there

     Belongs to us.

Each night it is the same;

Just when we’re on the verge

     Of catching on,

A sense of our remoteness

Closes in, and the world

     So lately seen

Gradually fades from sight.

We wake to find the sleeper

     Is ourselves

And the dreamt-of is someone who did

Something we can’t quite put

     Our finger on,

But which involved a life

We are always, we feel,

     About to discover."

- Mark Strand 

"Time..."

“Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so?

Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live.

Before they know it, time runs out.”

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

○

“How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy. In youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time.”

- Charles Caleb Colton, “Lacon”

○

“The problem is, you believe you have time.”

- Buddha

○

Full screen  recommended.

Hans Zimmer, "Time"

The Daily "Near You?"

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"It's Not Such An Easy Business..."

“Over the years you get to see what a struggle life is for most people, how tough it is, how easy it is to be judgmental and criticize and stand outside of situations and impart your wisdom and judgment. But over the decades I've got more tolerant of people's flaws and mistakes. Everybody makes a lot of them. When you're younger you feel: "Hey, this person is evil" or "This person is a jerk" or stupid or "What's wrong with them?" Then you go through life and you think: "Well, it's not so easy." There's a lot of mystery and suffering and complication. Everybody's out there trying to do the best they can. And it's not such an easy business.”

- Woody Allen

"This Species Is Amusing Itself to Death. The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"

"This Species Is Amusing Itself to Death.

The Addictive Contaminated Media Reality"

By Dr. Gary G. Kohls

“And when they found our shadows (grouped ‘round the TV sets), they ran down every lead; they repeated every test; they checked out all the data in their lists. And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed, but on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise they logged the only explanation left: This species has amused itself to death.”  – Roger Waters

“Apathy and indifference are nurtured in the modern age as most peoples’ free time is frittered away with worthless trivia like ball games, computer games, movies and soaps, and fiddling with their mobile phones. These distractions might be fun, but after most of them you’ve learnt nothing of any value, and remain ignorant, malleable and suggestible, which is just how the elites want you.” – Clive Maund

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed… When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James

“A lie gets halfway around the world before

the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

– Winston Churchill

"30 years ago (1985) Neil Postman (a professor of communications arts and sciences at New York University – until his death in 2003) wrote the best-selling book “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”. (Free download below.) The book exposed, among other things, the subtle but profound dangers to the developing mind from the mesmerizing (and addictive) commercial television industry.

The lessons from that book have essentially been ignored by the amoral and corrupted sociopathic capitalist system that says “damn the torpedoes/full steam ahead” and blindly and greedily promotes unlimited growth no matter what the costs and who or what gets hurt long–term in the resource-extractive, exploitive and permanently polluting processes.

But Postman’s thesis applies even more strongly today to the current internet/computer/ age-inappropriate, pornographic sex and pornographic violence-saturated televangelist/political-contaminated media reality with which the prophetic Postman was properly alarmed.

SOMA, the Drug That Predicted Prozac by 50 Years: In the classic “Brave New World” (1932) Aldous Huxley wrote about the new form of totalitarianism that has now come to pass in the developed world, thanks to the privatized profit-driven, drug, medical and psychiatric corporations whose practitioners were once (naively or altruistically?) mainly concerned with relieving human suffering and trying to holistically and permanently cure their distressed patients’ ailments (rather than lucratively “managing” said “clients” as permanently paying consumers of unaffordable prescription drugs). Nearly 30 years after he wrote the book, Huxley said,

“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.” Neil Postman’s very last sentence of his book concerned the prescription drug-infested victims of the new form of totalitarianism that Huxley had described in “Brave New World”.

Of course, Huxley’s book was all about his imaginary psychotropic drug SOMA that Prozac’s makers and promoters in the late 1980s to falsely claim to make its swallowers “feel better than well”. One of the characters in Brave New World said: “And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always Soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears; that’s what Soma is.”

Postman ended his book by writing: “what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.”

A couple of years after the publication of Postman’s book, Roger Waters (of “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” fame) released a “concept” album that was inspired by the book. He titled the album “Amused to Death”. The lyrics of the title track are as follows:

“Amused To Death”

by Roger Waters

"Doctor Doctor what’s wrong with me,

This supermarket life is getting long,

What is the heart life of a color TV?

What is the shelf life of a teenage queen?

Ooh western woman,

Ooh western girl.

News hound sniffs the air

When Jessica Hahn goes down

He latches on to that symbol of detachment.

Attracted by the peeling away of feeling.

The celebrity of the abused shell of the belle.

Ooh western woman,

Ooh western girl,

And the children of Melrose strut their stuff

Is absolute zero cold enough?

And out in the valley warm and clean,

The little ones sit by their TV screens

No thoughts to think,

No tears to cry,

All sucked dry down to the very,

last breath.

Bartender what is wrong with me,

Why I am so out of breath?

The captain said excuse me ma’am,

This species has amused itself to death.

We watched the tragedy unfold,

We did as we were told.

We bought and sold,

It was the greatest show on earth.

But then it was over,

We oohed and aahed.

We drove our racing cars,

We ate our last few jars of caviar.

And somewhere out there in the stars

A keen-eyed look-out

Spied a flickering light,

Our last hurrah.

And when they found our shadows

Grouped ‘round the TV sets,

They ran down every lead,

They repeated every test,

They checked out all the data in

their lists.

And then the alien anthropologists

Admitted they were still perplexed.

But on eliminating every other reason

For our sad demise,

They logged the only explanation left.

This species has amused itself to death.

No tears to cry.

No feelings left.

This species has amused itself to death…"

- https://www.globalresearch.ca/

○

Freely download “Amusing Ourselves to Death:

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, by Neil Postman, here:

- https://interesi.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/amusing.pdf

○

Freely download “Brave New World", by Aldous Huxley here:

- http://www.idph.com.br/conteudos/ebooks/BraveNewWorld.pdf

"I'm Sure..."

"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. 

It's just been too intelligent to come here."

"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the 

Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

- Arthur C. Clarke

"United Against Existence"

"United Against Existence"

by Robert Gore

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"

"Middle Earth had its Mount Doom, into which the One Ring of Power could be tossed, ridding that evil from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional setting. Real Earth is not so fortunate, but in all other aspects the lessons drawn from his classic apply. It only comes up short in one respect. Tolkien never delved into the psychology of Sauron, Saruman, and the lessor denizens of Middle Earth who lusted after the One Ring’s power, other than to depict the inevitable corruption of the soul their lust produced.

There are two conclusions uncorrupted souls have difficulty accepting, although both experience and logic point uncompromisingly towards them. The first is that those in power and those who lust for it want power for power’s sake, ultimately to destroy and kill. The second is that they want to destroy and kill because they want to destroy existence and kill themselves. We owe the first conclusion to Orwell, the second to Rand. (For a fuller explanation see “The Last Gasp,” Robert Gore, SLL, March 24, 2020.)

This article assumes both conclusions are well-founded and that the second in particular is the key to understanding where the world is now and where it’s going. They offer a realistic assessment of the chances for nuclear Armageddon.

It is no coincidence that the twentieth century witnessed history’s most totalitarian regimes and its bloodiest wars and genocides. By all indications the twenty-first century will extend the connected trends. Power goes hand-in-hand with destruction and death. Governments are based on their capacity to inflict violence; what else can they produce? Rejecting lofty rhetoric and revolutionary rationales, Orwell wrote that: Power is not a means; it is an end. The twentieth century demonstrated that power is a means to inflict incalculable destruction and death. Know them by their fruits - those are the true ends of those who seek and hold power.

Report after report details the injury and death inflicted by the Covid mRNA vaccines, puncturing hollow platitudes and invocations of “Science.” The travesty offers a refresher course we don’t really need: from world leaders down to petty politicians and functionaries, they want to kill us. Those who aren’t killed are to be frightened into compliance with their ghastly and tyrannical edicts, herded like cattle into some other slaughterhouse.

The gelatinous souls who move whatever direction the bowl tilts usually don’t recognize what’s happening until the moment of their execution. Beforehand, a few of the more intellectually adept will argue that the powerful will be limited by their instinct for self-preservation - if they kill too many they’ll end up killing themselves. Perhaps that thought offers comfort, however scant.

But what if the powerful are like those mass shooters whose terror ends only when they turn their guns on themselves? What if mass murder is the means to their desired end: suicide? Someone who kills himself but no one else is to be pitied. Someone who kills innocents before taking his own life perpetrates paramount evil.

"...Now he knew that he had wanted Galt’s destruction at the price of his own destruction to follow, he knew that he had never wanted to survive, he knew that it was Galt’s greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy - he was seeing it as greatness by his own admission, greatness by the only standard that existed, whether anyone chose to admit it or not: the greatness of a man who was master of reality in a manner no other had equaled. In the moment when he, James Taggart, had found himself facing the ultimatum: to accept reality or die, it was death his emotions had chosen, death rather than surrender to that realm of which Galt was so radiant a son. In the person of Galt - he knew - he had sought the destruction of all existence."

- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged," 1957

Rand pinpointed the core motivation of those who seek power, whose lives are defined by those they subjugate. Regardless of their differing aims, professed justifications, and ideological platforms, the powerful are united against existence. Spoken or unspoken, acknowledged or unacknowledged, they are united by the ultimate evil: to slaughter innocents before their own lives are inevitably extinguished. That puts the prospect of global nuclear war in a whole new light.

How would it play out? Credit Putin and Xi with more intelligence than the cast of cretins running the American empire. It’s a low bar. But are they any less power-driven, any less evil? Russia’s oligarchy and China’s totalitarian dictatorship are, like the U.S. government, organized crime. Angels don’t get to the top of such syndicates, and these two non-angels have set themselves up as rulers for life. Putin’s and Xi’s intelligence are matched by their ruthlessness, which may surpass that of their Western counterparts.

Say the brain trust that masterminded the Nordstream sabotage decides that a low-yield, false-flag nuclear or dirty bomb detonation in Ukraine would accomplish important objectives. They could blame it on Russia, shoring up empire support for the Ukrainians sagging war effort. It would be the perfect excuse to cancel the elections the Democrats are set to lose and perhaps institute martial law. Russia might respond in kind, and the brain trust’s giddy hopes for global nuclear war would be realized. Obvious insanity for most of us, a feature not a bug for the suicidally inclined.

Once the bomb detonated, Putin and Xi would know the U.S. was behind it. They may even know beforehand. Russia has accused Ukraine of planning to detonate a dirty bomb, and the Chinese government has reportedly told Chinese citizens in Ukraine to leave the country. The comfortably numb assumption U.S. defense policy rests upon is that their responses will be proportional to the provocation out of respect for the planet-destroying potential of the U.S. nuclear triad.

What if they’re not? What if Russia and China respond with everything they’ve got, hypersonic missiles - to which the empire has no defense - taking out major cities, infrastructure, industry, and communications and computer networks? And what if the empire’s nuclear response capability has been surreptitiously crippled or eliminated by Russian and Chinese hacking and sabotage? They’re pretty good at that sort of thing.

Here is an urgent plea to anyone within the empire’s power structure who can short-circuit the false flag: check your assumptions. That false flag might not lead to the desired global holocaust, but rather to A RUSSIAN AND CHINESE VICTORY! In either instance you’ll probably be dead, but you can’t take the chance that the Russians and Chinese might win. That would be simply intolerable. Stop the false flag!

A Putin and Xi victory would leave the U.S. as a nuclear wasteland and those two as the world’s rulers - not unipolarity or multipolarity but bipolarity. Of course there’s only one Ring; sharing absolute power sounds like a contradiction in terms. Regardless, a radioactive U.S. and its miserable survivors would be at the very bottom of the pecking order in a world run by one or two totalitarian dictators.

However, the radioactivity from any nuclear attack capable of decimating the U.S. wouldn’t stay confined to the U.S. Russian and Chinese hacking and sabotage may not prevent every U.S. bomb from landing in those countries. Theirs would be the Pyrrhic victory to end all Pyrrhic victories if fallout extinguished everyone. Assuming the powerful - American, European, Russian, Chinese and globalist - are indeed murderously suicidal, united against existence, that outcome is not just a nontrivial possibility; it’s more likely than not.

In which case only God can save humanity. Let us hope in his justice, compassion, and wisdom he gives our species, woefully deficient in all three, one more chance."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Scott Ritter & Larry Johnson: Ukraine Faces Catastrophic Defeat, Putin Readies Deadly Strike"

Danny Haiphong, 6/8/25

"Scott Ritter & Larry Johnson:

Ukraine Faces Catastrophic Defeat, Putin Readies Deadly Strike"

"Former US Marine Corps. Intelligence officer Scott Ritter & former CIA analyst Larry Johnson reveal the devastating consequences of Ukraine's decision to keep fighting despite the heavy losses being inflicted by Russia's army. What comes next is shocking and this video details what you need to know as the Ukraine conflict escalates into possible nuclear oblivion."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

“How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot.”

- Christiaan Huygens, (1629-1695)

"How It Really Is"

 

Dan, I Allegedly, "The Pizza Crisis - The Economy's Warning Sign"

Full screen recommended,

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 6/8/25

"The Pizza Crisis - The Economy's Warning Sign"

"Pizza prices are skyrocketing, and they're telling us a whole lot about the state of our economy. From rising costs on ingredients to declining sales at major chains like Domino’s and Papa John’s, I break down how the pizza industry is a perfect snapshot of what’s happening financially for so many of us. Wealthy folks are cutting back, the middle class is squeezed, and even fast food isn’t what it used to be. I’m here in Laguna Beach sharing insights into how everything from housing to hot chicken (!) to luxury brands is feeling the pinch. Let’s talk about debt, smart decisions, and how to navigate these unpredictable times."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"What is 'Living Well'?"

"What is 'Living Well'?"

When money, power and empire are just not enough...

“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.”

~ Alexander the Great, student of Aristotle (356 – 323 BC)

Ohrid, Macedonia - "Money... power... empire... all much in the news of late, all fleeting in the end. But let us forget the distractions of the world for a moment and ask instead... What does it mean to “live well”?

We are here in Northern Macedonia, accompanying dear wife on a tour of the ancient sites. (Anya publishes a newsletter dedicated to the classics, which you can check out here.) The region is a veritable treasure trove of historical intrigue, having been at times under the control of various Greek and Indo-European tribes (Paeonians, Illyrians, Molossians), the conquering Persians (under Darius the Great), and the Macedonians (under Philip II and his son, the aforementioned Alexander) before being absorbed by the Romans in 146BC. Later, after the fall of the Roman Empire (toward the end of the 5th century), came various warring Slavic tribes... then the Byzantines... the Bulgarians... the Serbs... the Ottomans... Money... power... empire... and, inevitably, decline. But back to the question at hand...

A Day in the Life: During the day, before it gets too hot, we visit the ancient sites... like the Theatre of Ohrid, a Hellenistic-style amphitheater built during the 2nd century BC, which happens to be conveniently located right outside the window above our desk...

Later, in the afternoon, we wander down the hill, through the cool pine forest and along the winding paths, toward the lakefront. There, on pebble beaches beneath the Church of Saint John the Theologian at Kaneo, holiday makers lounge on the sun chairs and drink the local rakija.

Yesterday, we watched as a small armada of boats deposited a wedding party on one of the wooden jetties along the beach. The bride, a pretty blonde in traditional white, was surrounded by her maids, all in blue satin. The groom, a plump fellow with dark, curly hair, smiled the smile of someone who knows he’s getting away with something.

The merry crowd alighted to the applause of the locals, then made their way up to a private restaurant balcony, overlooking the lake and the approaching sunset. A band played traditional Macedonian music on lute and flute as the friends and family danced, raised their glasses and sang along. Is this “living well,” we wondered?

On Human Flourishing: In his major work on the subject, the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle advanced the concept of eudaimonia, most often translated as “flourishing.” According to Alexander the Great’s teacher, eudaimonia involves living according to reason (rational thought) and cultivating virtue (arete) through habit of action in our daily lives. “We are what we repeatedly do,” he wrote. “Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Virtue, Aristotle reckoned, is found by adhering to the “doctrine of the mean.” Courage is the mean between cowardice and recklessness, for example; generosity the mean between stinginess and garish extravagance. Readers will recognize the concept echoed elsewhere, too... in the “rational moderation” of Stoicism, the “harmony” of Confucianism and Buddhism’s “Middle Way,” among others...

Recognizing that humans are “social animals,” Aristotle also encouraged community and friendship based on mutual respect, along with deep philosophical contemplation, what he considered the “highest form of happiness.” Family... mutual respect... virtue... are we getting closer?

Our own dear father, wise and fighting fit in the prime of his 60s, gives his son the following advice. (Readers might also find it useful.) “Walk more than you eat. Save more than you spend. Listen more than you talk.” Sage counsel, indeed.

The World is Not Enough: Likely, there are many paths to being healthy, wealthy and wise... and, judging by the observable population at large, many more to being fat, broke and stupid. But in the end, the health nuts lay alongside the boozers as the rich occupy the same cold ground as the paupers. As for the morons, the graveyards must be full of them. (Spend half an hour on social media or watching the “news” for proof.)

As for Aristotle’s most famous student, after conquering vast swathes of the known world (Greece, Egypt, much of India...) Alexander the Great was dead at 32. Most historians reckon it was Malaria or Typhoid that cut him down, or perhaps a rare, autoimmune condition. Others blame the booze, noting that the famous imbiber was on something of a bender during his final days. From Plutarch’s Lives: “He spent the night and the following day in drinking with Medius, and after bathing late, he went to bed with a fever, and remained under its influence during the night.” Fitting, perhaps, that on his grave was the famous epitaph... "A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough."

Moderation then, dear reader... in sound company... and under ample philosophical contemplation. Now, off to lunch..."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

"Alert! Russian Stateman: "90% Chance of Nuclear War"; National Guard Deploys to LA"

Canadian Prepper, 6/7/25

"Alert! Russian Stateman: "90% Chance of Nuclear War"; 

National Guard Deploys to LA"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Chaos Strikes Los Angeles, California Looks Like A Third World Country"

Jeremiah Babe, 6/7/25

"Chaos Strikes Los Angeles, 

California Looks Like A Third World Country"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Heaven's Queen, Hell's Prostitute"

Editors Note: This is a fascinating, lengthy, extremely well written and illustrated

 article unlike any I've ever seen before. Well worth the time reading it! - CP

"Heaven's Queen, Hell's Prostitute"

Meet the supreme deity and secret practices

 of the ruling class's antinomian cult.

by Mr. E

"We live in an upside-down world. Depravity is celebrated, corruption sanctified, and while loyalty and obedience to a government is demanded, it never reciprocates. The people in charge live a libertine life in not-so-secret, and the average person is left scratching their heads, asking “How on earth did all this come to pass?” The answer lay at the very bottom of a particular rabbit hole, one you may not have thought to look in. You also may have looked, and think you know the truth about the god of the elites, but you’re in for a surprise. You’ve learned from a previous series of mine that the god of the ruling class is actually a goddess. But even this, they do not do in its correct form and have inverted her worship just as they’ve corrupted everything else they get their demented hands on."

Full article here:

- https://mrereports.substack.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "A Divine Encounter"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "A Divine Encounter"

Beautiful!

"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 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/

Paulo Coelho, "The Bird And The Cage"

"The Bird And The Cage"

by Paulo Coelho

"Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colorful, marvelous feathers. One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird. But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird.

And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.” The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.”

However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.

One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds. If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him ever more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.”

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

The Poet: e e cummings, "Humanity I Love You"

"Humanity i love you because when you’re hard 

up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink..."

"Humanity I Love You"

"Humanity i love you

because you would rather black the boots of

success than enquire whose soul dangles from his

watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you

unflinchingly applaud all

songs containing the words country home and

mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because

when you’re hard up you pawn your

intelligence to buy a drink and when

you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and

because you are continually committing

nuisances but more

especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you

are perpetually putting the secret of

life in your pants and forgetting

it’s there and sitting down on it

and because you are

forever making poems in the lap

of death 

Humanity, i hate you"

- e e cummings

"A Sane Person..."

 

"The Law of Jante"

"The Law of Jante"

by Paulo Coelho

"'The Law of Jante?' Of course I had never heard of this, so he explained what it was. I continued on my journey and discovered it is hard to find anyone in any of the Scandinavian countries who does not know this law. Although the law exists since the beginning of civilization, it was only officially declared in 1933 by writer Aksel Sandemose in the novel “A Refugee Goes Beyond Limits.”

The sad truth is that the Law of Jante is a rule applied in every country in the world, despite the fact that Brazilians say that “this only happens here,” and the French claim that “unfortunately, that’s how it is in our country.” Now, the reader must be annoyed because he/she is already half way through the column and still does not know what the Law of Jante is all about, so I’ll try to explain it here briefly in my own words:

“You aren’t worth a thing, nobody is interested in what you think,

mediocrity and anonymity are your best bet.

If you act this way, you will never have any big problems in life.”

The Law of Jante focuses on the feeling of jealousy and envy that sometimes causes so much trouble for people. This is one of its negative aspects, but there is something far more dangerous. And this law is accountable for the world being manipulated in all possible manners by people who have no fear of what the others say and end up practicing the evil they desire. We have just witnessed a useless war in Iraq, which is still costing many lives; we see a huge abyss between the rich and the poor countries of the world, social injustice on all sides, unbridled violence, people being forced to give up their dreams because of unfair and cowardly attacks. Before starting the second world war, Hitler sent out several signals as to his intentions, and what encouraged him to go ahead was the knowledge that nobody would dare to defy him because of the Law of Jante.

Mediocrity may be comfortable, up to the day that tragedy knocks at the door and people start to wonder: “but why did nobody say anything, if everybody could see that this was going to happen?” Simple: nobody said anything because the others did not say anything either. So in order to prevent things from growing any worse, maybe this is the right moment to write the anti-Law of Jante:

“You are worth far more than you think. Your work and presence

 on this Earth are important, even though you may not think so." 

Of course, thinking in this way, you might have many problems because you are breaking the Law of Jante – but don’t feel intimidated by them, go on living without fear and in the end you will win.”

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Robstown, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Hope In a Time of Hopelessness"

"Hope In a Time of Hopelessness" 

by Washingtons Blog

"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage;

anger at the way things are, and courage 

to see that they do not remain the way they are."

- Augustine of Hippo

"Several long-time activists have told me recently they are overwhelmed, worried, and think that we may be losing the struggle. One very smart friend asked me if there is any basis for hope.

Hope is an act of will, not a passive mood. Admittedly, things are easier when circumstances bring hope to us, and we can just receive the hopeful and inspiring news. But if we care about winning, we have to be able to decide to have hope even when outer circumstances aren't so positive.

I have children who are counting on me to leave them with a reasonably safe and sane planet. As I've said elsewhere, I care too much about my kids and my freedom to be afraid. I care enough about them that it gets my heart beating, connects me to something bigger than myself, and that gives me courage, even when the chips are down. 

If I allowed myself to lose hope about exposing falsehoods, about protecting our freedom and building a hopeful future, I would be dropping the ball for my kids. I would be condemning them to a potentially very grey world where bigger and worse things may happen, where their liberties and joys are wholly stripped away, where every ounce of vitality is beholden to joyless and useless tasks.

Many of us may be motivated by other things besides kids, and only you can know what that is. But we each must dig down deep, and connect with our most powerful motivations to win the struggle for freedom and truth.

I don't know about you, but I don't have the luxury of giving up hope. When I get depressed, overwhelmed or exhausted by the stunning acts of savagery, treason, and disinformation carried out by the imperialists, or the willful ignorance of far too many Americans, I will myself into finding some reason to have hope. Because the struggle for life and liberty is too important for me to give up." 

- http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/

"No Real Hope..."

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Thoughts on Evil, Human Nature”

“Thoughts on Evil, Human Nature”

by W. Christopher Epler

“Carl Sagan, author and astrophysicist from Cornell, used to wonder if atomic weaponry would be the nemesis of most “advanced species”. A flight of fancy of sorts since whales and elephants are certainly advanced species but don’t feel the need for technology (and should we patronize them for this since they aren’t rapidly destroying the planet?). Is it possible that much of science and technology are actually synonyms of self destructive stupidity? A kind of short sighted greed, perhaps.

In any event, what has now totally blocked the evolution of the human species is pure evil. The fringe of astronomically rich sociopaths is the absolute outer limit of evil. Similarly, so do all mentally ill religious fanatics poison the march of human civilization. And, probably most of all, the Earth’s Paris Hiltons and astronomically rich parasites (and vampires – remember, it’s all really OUR wealth), necessitate convoluted social/financial structures and processes which are the “crown of thorns” or highway to hell (or your metaphor of choice) for Homo sapiens. Maybe the wrong species got killed off during the demise of the Neanderthals.

Remember, “human” is a generic word that evolution has experimented with in actually a great many forms – we’re just the form that is still standing. But what’s the problem? Not a candy ass “religious” problem or a candy ass “political” problem but THE problem? Why is our species well on its way to going extinct? Indeed, why is it a near certainly that Home sapiens are going bye bye in the relatively near future (and taking countless “innocent by-stander” species with us in the process)? However, alas, they are just a sample of evil, since evil is as omnipresent as our breath. But what IS evil? Well, we don’t have to get particularly metaphysical about this. Evil is a function of human society. It has to do with the interactions of quantities of us (or probably any advanced life form).

So there’s a decidedly “quantitative” variable here. As our numbers increase, so does the complexity of our social infrastructure. And that seems to be the rub, since invisibly and insidiously the “social game rules” are conditioned into our vulnerable, biological brains. And just here is the door to hell. This dimension can be called “consensus reality” and it’s an admixture of language (always language!), the past, memory (not always our friend), and the miscellaneous conditionings of our time, place, and families (often profoundly dysfunctional). More openly, here are the programmed religions, laws, constitutions, and “theories” we so love to worship. In short, here is the stopping point of our species. Not atomic weapons, but the accumulated programming of years of social/psychological conditioning. The “operational definition” of all of the above is thought, because consensus realty IS thought; hence the thing the human race does best is think itself to death.

On a positive note, words like liberation, transcendence, and Enlightenment are “mystical” (the shoe fits) alternatives to this “swallowed whole” existence. The intelligence limitations of our species are still sublimely unknown, but whatever pragmatic value consensus reality may offer, our lives don’t even BEGIN until we get straight that this fire storm of conditioning that has become the “mind set” of the entire human race (indeed, the very “God” of the human race), is fundamentally, radically, and biologically arbitrary and random. In the context of this piece, what this means is that the social game rules that perpetuate the “Have’s,” that justify their astronomical wealth and power, and that (worst of all!) give an obscene “righteousness” to deranged lunatics who so love to commit genocide for the glory of God, aren’t worth the toilet paper they are printed on.

And exactly here is where our species is probably doomed, since many are called but few are chosen when it comes to being true to your birthright self and finding a reality/creativity/intelligence center that trivializes millennia of evil-perpetuating conditioning. Remember phrases like, “Might makes right”, “Manifest Destiny”, “survival of the fittest” (translation, survival of the wealthiest), and the loathsomely hypocritical “Divine Right”.

Of course these sayings (and even laws) are merely the tip of the iceberg. The dungeon is elsewhere. It is deep within the infrastructure of the collective human mind. Do we know that it is infinitely unjust that the elites spend more money on their wardrobes than most of us spend on our families in an entire lifetime? Do we know it is evil when religious fanatics try to steal an entire country and turn the lives of the people who have been living there for centuries into a WW2 concentration camp?

One response to these questions could be that we’re not sure if these things are evil, but almost certainly the world does know these things are filthy, evil, and infinitely unjust. However, you can know things on the “surface” of your mind that you play games with in the depths of your mind. The tragedy is that the world basically turns the other way from these evils and injustices because in the depths of our conditioning we are historically programmed to accept them. Hence, it is the deep, collective mind set that permits and justifies evil. We know better, but our “unconscious” (to use that word) “accepts” evil because we have been programmed to adapt to it for millennia.

The literally unimaginable suffering that necessarily goes with the existence of Greek God-like elites would make Jesus weep, but we accept The Haves (the evil) – indeed, most of us probably envy them. This is the paradox of evil. If we didn’t “accept” evil, it couldn’t exist! But since literally billions of us DO accept evil, that makes us an evil species.

This is not intellectualizing or empty theory. If the human race said no to “The Beast”, to the “Have’s”, to genocidal religious fanatics, to the Rockefeller’s, to the Rothschild’s, to the Bush’s, to murder in the name of God subhuman filth, to Saudi Princes, etc., etc., we could destroy them in a week. And I mean “non theoretically” destroy them in a week. Remove them from the planet as in cease to exist – now you see them, now you don’t! There are times in life you must be limitlessly aggressive. We can either watch The Beast destroy Mother Nature and our children’s future, or WE can destroy the beast. Remember, we know exactly who they are and we know exactly where they are. So what in the name of truth, beauty, and goodness are we waiting for? Certainly not for the paper bullets of religion and politics. ULTIMATE hardball is the name of this game.

Hence, looked at one way, there is great hope. Looked at another way, it is hopeless. It all comes down to how each of us deals with a lifetime of conditioning. Liberation is transcending the box. The world IS the box. So consensus reality (the home of evil) can be left. This is called being true to ourselves, or perhaps even Enlightenment. However, as a species, the probability that we will leave the box in sufficient percentages to “eliminate” evil is probably very, very small. Fortunately, even though our paralyzed and conditioned species continues to equate life with a moronically defective consensus mind set, each of us is still able to stretch our intelligence/spiritual eagle wings and leave this evil box forever. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: we’re the dogs – never the tails.”

- http://www.sott.net/

o

Freely download “Beyond Good And Evil”, by Friedrich Nietzsche, here:

- https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Nietzsche-Beyond-Good-and-Evil.pdf