“5 Painfully Obvious Truths We Tend to Forget in Hard Times”

“5 Painfully Obvious Truths

We Tend to Forget in Hard Times”

by Angel Chernoff

“This is going to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We are going to get through this, I promise,

and we’re going to get through it together. “

- Dr. Jon LaPook

“You know how you can read or hear something dozens of times in dozens of different ways before it finally sinks in? The little truths listed below fall firmly into that category – timeless life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, yet for whatever reason we tend to forget in the heat of the moment. This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all, especially as we collectively cope with the evolving reality of economic collapse and the drastic social and life circumstances caused by COVID-19…

1. Life is short, and nothing is guaranteed. We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know. It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step. You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is.

LIVE your life TODAY! Don’t ignore death – or the imminent dangers now becoming obvious – but don’t be afraid of life either. Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take positive action today. Death is not the greatest loss in life, neither is illness. The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive and well. Even in these difficult times, be bold, be courageous, be a scared to death, and then take the next step anyway. Just change the way you do it.

Invest your heart and soul into whatever you have right in front of you. Bring passion into otherwise ordinary moments. You don’t have to be surrounded by lots of people. You don’t have to be going anyplace new. You can distance yourself and still passionately engage in each moment.

2. Everything will change again soon. Embrace change and realize in many ways it’s necessary. It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end most forms of change are worthwhile because they force us to grow. So keep yourself in check right now.

What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow. You never know. Things change, often spontaneously. People and circumstances come and go. Life doesn’t stop for anybody. It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day. It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.

Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives. A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth. Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event. And these events are always happening – as they are right now.

So just remember, however good or bad a situation is now, it will change. That’s the one thing you can count on. Accept it. Breathe. Be where you are. You’re where you need to be right now. There’s a time and place for everything, and every hard step is necessary. Just keep doing your best, and don’t force what’s not yet supposed to fit into your life. When it’s meant to be, it will be.

3. Changing your response is what puts you back in control. Have patience with everything that remains unresolved in your head and heart. And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard to stay true to your intuition and values. This is your life, and it is governed by your choices. May your actions speak louder than your words. May your daily choices preach louder than your lips. May your inner sense of satisfaction be your noise in the end.

And if your present life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it. Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land – even when there are so many unknowns – be brave enough to stand up and listen to your heart. Remember that the most powerful moments in life happen when you find the courage to let go of what can’t be changed. Because when you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself – to grow beyond the unchangeable. And that changes everything! (Marc and I discuss this in more detail in the “Passion and Growth” chapter of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.“)

4. Life’s storms can be a great source of strength. Hard times are like strong storms that blow against you. And it’s not just that these storms hold you back from places you might otherwise go. They also tear away from you all but the essential parts of your ego that cannot be torn, so that afterward you see yourself as you really are, and not merely as you might like to be.

Ultimately, you realize you are here to endure these storms, to sacrifice your time and risk your heart. You are here to be bruised by life. And when it happens that you are hurt, or betrayed, or rejected, let yourself sit quietly with your eyes closed and remember all the good times you had, and all the sweetness you tasted, and everything you learned. Tell yourself how amazing it was to live, and then open your eyes and live some more.

Because to never struggle would be to never grow. You must let go of who you were so you can become who you are. Again, it is within the depths of the strongest and darkest storms that you discover within you an inextinguishable light, and it is this light that illuminates the path forward.

5. You don’t need all the answers right now. Accept the feeling of not knowing exactly where you are going, and train yourself to love and appreciate this sensation of freedom. Because it is only when you are suspended in the air, with no destination in sight, that you force your wings to open fully so you can fly. And as you soar around you still may not know where you’re traveling to. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is the opening of your wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as your wings are spread, the winds will carry you forward.

Truth be told, some of the greatest outcomes that transpire in your life will be the ones you never even knew you wanted. As long as you keep your mind open to new perspectives and yourself moving forward, there really are no wrong turns in life, only paths you didn’t know you were meant to travel. And you never can be certain what’s around the corner. It could be everything, or it could be nothing. You keep gliding steadily forward, and then one day you realize you’ve come a long way from where you started.

All details aside, someday all the pieces will come together. Unimaginably good outcomes will likely transpire in your life, even if everything doesn’t turn out exactly the way you had anticipated. And you will look back at the hard times that have passed, smile, and ask yourself… “How in the world did I get through all of that?”

- https://www.marcandangel.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Burnley, Lancashire, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: William Stafford, "The Gift"

"The Gift"

"Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one

that your life conceals, the one waiting outside

when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at

in her crochet design, the one almost found

over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.

It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.

You get killed now and then, violated

in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.)

You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait

and pray, and maybe good things come - maybe

the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.

You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.

It's a balance, the taking and passing along,

the composting of where you've been and how people

and weather treated you. It's a country where

you already are, bringing where you have been.

Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,

turning the world, moving the air, calling,

every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours."

- William Stafford  

"The Backdoor to Immortality"

"Immortality in Passing: Poet Lisel Mueller, Who Lived to 96,

On What Gives Meaning to Our Ephemeral Lives"

by Maria Popova

“When you realize you are mortal you also realize the tremendousness of the future. You fall in love with a Time you will never perceive,” the poet, painter, and philosopher Etel Adnan observed as she beheld impermanence and transcendence at the foot of a mountain. “By the grace of random chance, funneled through nature’s laws,” the poetic physicist Brian Greene wrote in his beautiful meditation on our search for meaning in a cold cosmos, “we are here.” And then we are not.

We die. All of us - atoms to atoms, stardust to stardust, the mountain to the sea - you and I. The dual awareness of our improbable life and our inevitable death is what allows us to animate the interlude with love and beauty, with poems and fairy tales and poems, with general relativity and Nina Simone. It is what puts into perspective just how fleeting and vacant and self-embittering all of our angers and blames and resentments are in the end - what beckons us, instead, to “leave something of sweetness and substance in the mouth of the world.”

That is what the late, great Lisel Mueller (February 8, 1924–February 21, 2020) - one of the most original, deepest-seeing poets of our time - explores with great subtlety and profundity disguised as levity in the poem “Immortality” from her final poetry collection, the Pulitzer-winning masterpiece "Alive Together" (public library).

"Immortality"

"In Sleeping Beauty’s castle

the clock strikes one hundred years

and the girl in the tower returns to the world.

So do the servants in the kitchen,

who don’t even rub their eyes.

The cook’s right hand, lifted

an exact century ago,

completes its downward arc

to the kitchen boy’s left ear;

the boy’s tensed vocal cords

finally let go

the trapped, enduring whimper,

and the fly, arrested mid-plunge

above the strawberry pie,

fulfills its abiding mission

and dives into the sweet, red glaze.

As a child I had a book

with a picture of that scene.

I was too young to notice

how fear persists, and how

the anger that causes fear persists,

that its trajectory can’t be changed

or broken, only interrupted.

My attention was on the fly;

that this slight body

with its transparent wings 

and lifespan of one human day

still craved its particular share

of sweetness, a century later.

- Lisel Mueller

“Immortality” by Lisel Mueller (read by Maria Popova) 

- https://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/lisel-mueller-immortality

(Two centuries earlier, William Blake explored the same eternal subject though the same creature in his short existentialist poem “The Fly.”)

In the front matter of this altogether miraculous book, where an epigraph would ordinarily appear, Mueller offers a short poem that becomes a kind of chorus line for the entire collection, but emerges as an especially harmonizing counterpart to “Immortality” in particular:

Complement these fragments of the wholly transcendent Alive Together with physicist Alan Lightman on our yearning for immortality in a universe governed by decay, Pico Iyer on finding beauty in impermanence, and Marcus Aurelius on mortality as the key to living fully, then revisit Barbara Ras’s bittersweet, buoyant, perspective-calibrating poem “You Can’t Have It All” and Marilyn Nelson’s magnificent ode to how we fill our impermanence with importance, “Faster Than Light.”

- https://www.themarginalian.org/

○

"The Backdoor to Immortality: Marguerite Duras 

on What Makes Life Worth Living in the Face of Death"

“What exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious,” Lisel Mueller wrote as she weighed what gives meaning to our mortal lives in a stunning poem - one of the hundreds that outlived her as she returned her borrowed stardust to the universe at ninety-six. And yet, by some felicitous deviation from logic - perhaps an adaptive imbecility essential for our mental and emotional survival, one of the touching incongruences that make us human - the moment something becomes precious to us, we quarantine the prospect of its loss in some chamber of the mind we choose not to enter. On some deep level beyond the reach of reason, we come to believe that the people we love are - must be, for the alternative is a fathomless terror - immortal.

And so, when a loved one dies, this deepest part of us grows wild with rage at the universe - a rage skinned of sensemaking, irrational and raw, unsalved by our knowledge that the entropic destiny of everything alive is to die and of everything that exists to eventually not, even the universe itself; unsalved by the the immense cosmic poetry hidden in this fact; unsalved by the luckiness of having lived at all against the staggering cosmic odds otherwise; unsalved by remembering that only because ancient archaebacteria were capable of dying, as was every organism that evolved in their wake, we and the people we love and the people we lose came to exist at all."

- Maria Popova

- https://mailchi.mp/

Prepper News, "Goodbye"

Full screen recommended.

Prepper News, "Goodbye"

"A Musical How It Really Is"

Full screen recommended.

The Temptations, "Ball of Confusion" (1970)

Prophetic...

“My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and

dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit.

I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.”

- Christopher Hitchens

"A Ripoff Of Historic Proportions: The Amount Of Money Involved In The Minnesota Fraud Scandal Is Absolutely Staggering"

"A Ripoff Of Historic Proportions: The Amount Of Money 

Involved In The Minnesota Fraud Scandal Is Absolutely Staggering"

by Michael Snyder

"I have been digging into the fraud scandal in Minnesota, and what I have learned has absolutely floored me. It isn’t just millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars that we are talking about in this case. The fraudsters have literally stolen billions of taxpayer dollars, and they have been spending it on luxury vehicles, expensive homes and all sorts of other things. This is something that has been going on for many years, and finally something is being done to stop it.

We owe Nick Shirley a tremendous amount of gratitude, because his investigative video is the reason why so many people are talking about the Minnesota fraud scandal this week…"As Homeland Security agents were in Minnesota conducting what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called a “massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud” on Monday, many of their targets came not from tips from the FBI, but from a video posted on social media over the weekend.

The video, posted by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley, alleged nearly a dozen day care centers in Minnesota that are receiving public funds are not actually providing any service. As of Monday, the video had been viewed more than 1 million times, according to YouTube’s metrics, and was seen by tens of millions more on X. “While we have questions about some of the methods used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously,” said Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families commissioner Tikki Brown. If you have not watched his video yet, I would very much encourage you to do so.

Why can’t our law enforcement agencies operate like this? Shirley says that he was able to uncover 110 million dollars in fraud in just a single day…"We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day. Like it and share it around like wildfire! Its time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable We ALL work way too hard and pay too much in taxes for this to be happening, the fraud must be stopped."

This is one of the reasons why citizen journalists such as Nick Shirley and myself work tirelessly to expose the truth. Because in so many cases our government officials will never take action until people start demanding it. Apparently those that live in the vicinity of the “Quality Learing Center” in Minneapolis never see any kids around. But now that this scandal is blowing wide open, suddenly there were quite a few kids at the facility on Monday…

"The Quality “Learing” Center Minneapolis, a purported day care flagged in a viral video designed to expose fraud, may have been bustling with kids Monday, but it is typically such a ghost town that it appeared closed, a local told The Post. The resident called the kiddie scene at the site Monday - a few days after explosive footage called it out and suggested it was part of widespread state fraud - “highly unusual. We’ve never seen kids go in there until today. That parking lot is empty all the time, and I was under the impression that place is permanently closed,” the person said.

Sadly, the fraud at daycare centers in Minnesota has apparently been going on for a very long time. In fact, surveillance footage at one daycare center in 2015 shows parents signing in their kids “so providers could bill the state for full days of care for children who didn’t actually attend”…"Shocking unearthed video from a 2018 state fraud case shows Minnesota parents dropping their children off at a day care center and then leaving with the kids moments later - as authorities probe a rampant billion-dollar fraud scheme in Minneapolis. In the surveillance footage, dated 2015 and obtained by Fox 9, parents are seen signing their kids into the facility so providers could bill the state for full days of care for children who didn’t actually attend. On some days, no families would even show up at all, but the day cares would still claim reimbursements from the government, the outlet reported at the time."

Needless to say, this sort of thing is not just going on in Minnesota. Hopefully this scandal will cause the federal government to take a very close look at taxpayer-funded programs all over the nation. Earlier in December, CBS News reported that hundreds of millions of dollars was being stolen through a nonprofit entity in Minnesota known as “Feeding Our Future”…

"Earlier this month, CBS News detailed how a group of convicted fraudsters allegedly spent some of the millions of taxpayer dollars stolen by people associated with a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, which was meant to help feed vulnerable children during the pandemic. Investigators say fraudulent payouts to the Feeding Our Future program alone were estimated at $250 million, making it the nation’s costliest COVID-era aid scam. Walz, a Democrat, previously agreed with an estimate from First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson that fraud across all programs, including the Feeding Our Future scheme, which is not a DHS-administered program, could total $1 billion."

Vast amounts of money that was supposed to go toward feeding needy children ended up in the pockets of fraudsters instead. And apparently they spent that money on vehicles, homes and other luxuries…"Luxury cars, private villas and overseas wire transfers: CBS News obtained dozens of files and photos that reveal how Minnesota fraudsters blew through hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars as part of one of the biggest COVID-era fraud schemes.

The files document a spending spree in which defendants, many of Somali descent, took taxpayer money meant to feed hungry children and used it to buy cars, property and jewelry. Videos show them popping champagne at an opulent Maldives resort. In a text message, one defendant boasts: “You are gonna be the richest 25 year old InshaAllah [God willing].”

Remember, this was just one nonprofit entity. Fraud has been discovered at countless others as well. Overall, prosecutors are telling us that the total amount of fraud that they have uncovered in Minnesota now comes to a grand total of 9 billion dollars…"Monday’s DHS visits come amid what prosecutors allege is a $9 billion COVID-era fraud scandal in Minnesota. Gov. Tim Walz and other state officials have disputed that figure and defended their handling of the crisis."

There are 14 specific Medicaid-funded programs in Minnesota currently under federal investigation, although child care isn’t one of them. 9 billion dollars in just one state! Just think about that.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced that 98 individuals involved in the fraud in Minnesota have been arrested so far…"@NickShirleyyy’s work has helped show Americans the scale of fraud in Tim Walz’s Minnesota. @TheJusticeDept has been investigating this for months. So far, we have charged 98 individuals – 85 of Somali descent – and more than 60 have been found guilty in court. We have more prosecutions coming…BUCKLE UP, LAWMAKERS!"

But what about all of the other states? An investigative journalist has discovered that rampant daycare fraud is also happening in Ohio. And apparently fraudsters in Ohio are raking in massive amounts of cash by engaging in a widespread “home health” scam…"Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke CONFIRMS MASSIVE fraud in Ohio, another hotbed for Somalis They run fake “home health” and bill $250,000 PER YEAR, per FAMILY, when no work is actually being done

She says it also happens in PENNSYLVANIA “Audit America. Audit Ohio now. And I’m pushing for that in every single state!” “The state will, as long as the doctor has approved it, continue to pay you. It could be for 10 hours, 12 hours, up to 24 when it’s critical care.” “So you could sit at home without caring for an elderly parent who really doesn’t need it, make about $75,000 to $90,000 a year. Now you add two parents, that’s $180,000. Now you add your in-laws $250,000.”

We all knew that the level of fraud in the system was off the charts. Now we are finally starting to get some of the details. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, over 5 billion dollars in federal rental assistance was sent to ineligible recipients last year alone…"A new report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has found that more than $5 billion in federal rental assistance during fiscal year 2024 went to potentially ineligible recipients, including nearly 30,000 deceased individuals and thousands of non-citizens, according to MSN and the NY Post.

The audit, conducted by HUD’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, reviewed nearly $50 billion in housing aid and identified $5.8 billion - about 11% - as “questionable.” More than 200,000 tenants were flagged, including 29,715 listed as deceased, 9,472 non-citizens, and 165,393 households receiving payments above local eligibility limits, particularly in large metro areas such as New Orleans. Officials said suspicious payments appeared nationwide, with heavy concentrations in New York, California and Washington, DC.

“A massive abuse of taxpayer dollars not only occurred under President Biden’s watch, but was effectively incentivized by his administration’s failure to implement strong financial controls resulting in billions worth of potential improper payments,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said. “HUD will continue investigating the shocking results and will take appropriate action to hold bad actors accountable.”

U.S. taxpayers are being ripped off over and over again. It is truly a national disgrace. If we make enough of a stink about it, and if enough people start going to prison, hopefully we will start to see real change. Enough is enough.

We are 38 trillion dollars in debt, and we simply cannot afford to keep sending billions of dollars to the hordes of lawless predators that are eagerly taking advantage of the rest of us."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Birthday Shopping at Walmart"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 12/31/25

"Birthday Shopping at Walmart"

"Shopping at Walmart, trying a delicious breakfast from Dunkin Donuts, and having an awesome Chicago Style deep dish pizza at my Aunt's for her birthday. Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you tomorrow with another video!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Travelling With Russell, 12/31/25

"Russian Supermarkets

 A Few Hours Before New Year"

"What do Russian supermarkets look like ahead of New Year's Eve in Moscow, Russia? Join me on a tour of a typical Russian shopping mall to discover the German-owned Globus Hypermarket and see in person how busy it is."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Scottish Guy In Moscow, 12/31/25

"Searching For Scottish Whiskey 

In Slavic Supermarket On NYE!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Are All the Banks in Trouble?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 12/31/25

"Are All the Banks in Trouble?"

"Are all the banks in trouble? Over the last several days, billions of dollars have quietly moved through emergency lending facilities, margin pressure has intensified in commodities markets, and stress signals inside the banking system are flashing once again. In this video, I break down what’s really happening behind the scenes, why liquidity is suddenly so important, and how these warning signs connect to the broader economy. This isn’t fear-mongering - it’s about understanding the financial system, the risks building beneath the surface, and what it could mean for everyday people moving forward."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Michael Bordenaro, 12/31/25

"Major Banks Confirm: The Job Market is Broken"

"Both Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are admitting that this is the worst job Market since 2011 and when you really dive into the data and after all of the downward revisions, it's probably actually worse."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The 'American Stasi' Is Watching Everyone, Everywhere, All The Time" (Excerpt)

"The 'American Stasi' Is Watching

Everyone, Everywhere, All The Time"

by State Of The Nation

Excerpt: "When my wife and I first moved into our very middle class subdivision here in North Florida, I knew that something was very wrong from the get-go. Of course, because of my extremely impactful personal experiences with family and ‘close friends’ since early childhood, as well as several highly consequential events within various communities over the course of my lifetime briefly described HERE, I had always known that I was a Targeted Individual (TI), but not in the way that most TIs talk about being targeted. In my case, it was literally like the Truman Show where I was the target but the many watchers were VERY careful about revealing that fact.

Hence, the day we moved in to this typical Florida neighborhood over 30 years ago, I told my wife three things: (i) we don’t know who any of these people really are, (ii) we have no idea who they work for, (iii) and any one or several of the homeowners and their families in the HOA could be paid government agents or intel operatives or Stasi snoops. After all, my life experiences had proved to me decades before that the whole place (i.e. the entire USA) was completely locked down post World War II exactly as East Germany was by the Stasi in 1950, only here in America no one knew it."

Full article is here:

- https://stateofthenation.info/

John Wilder, "Penultimate Day 2025"

"Penultimate Day 2025"

by John Wilder

"Penultimate Day. This is a particular and peculiar institution of the Wilder family. It started over a decade ago, my guess is 2011 or 2012. The Mrs. was having problems with her Blackberry® phone (the one with the cool trackball and the tiny keyboard and complete inability to innovate after Apple® showed up) and wanted a new cell phone. I was on vacation, and the closest place that sold phones with our carrier (which no longer exists) was 90 miles away.

We popped the kids in the car, and headed south to buy a phone. We went to Best Buy®. We ended up not buying the phone (the deal was awful) and decided to eat at Olive Garden™. As I drove home, I decided to have fun with the kids, and told them that this was a Wilder family holiday. They bought it, and we had a lot of phone fun. The day before New Year’s Eve would therefore be forever known to us as Penultimate Day. The next year, we remembered, and did the exact same thing.

What are the rules of Penultimate Day?

Wait for December 30,

Drive 90 miles south,

Look at cell phones,

Under no circumstances whatsoever actually buy a cell phone, and,

Have some Italian food at a casual-dining chain.

While it’s not a tough holiday, we’ve missed one year entirely (2023) and only Pugsley and I celebrated on 2022. Oh, yeah, and then there was COVID, where being afraid of everything was encouraged.

So, we try to observe it when we can. This year we had two exceptions:

Wait for December 30 (check),

Drive 90 miles south (a new restaurant opened nearby),

Look at cell phones (check),

Under no circumstances whatsoever, buy a cell phone (check), and,

Have some Italian food that incorporates pasta at a casual-dining chain (mostly check: The Mrs. was tired and took a nap, so we brought her a to-go entrée back).

So, while we did keep it, we didn’t manage to keep it wholly, so I guess still doesn’t count as a wholly holiday. I’m okay with that, because life is change. I’m fortunate that The Boy and Pugsley could both make it and spend time with the family. I’m also very, very thankful for that. I realized sometime around the time a kid gets 10 or 11, in the way the world works now, that I had spent half of the days I’d ever get to spend with that kid, so I did my best to be memorable.

But the holiday has changed for us. Back then the kids were little. Now, not so much. Time goes by very quickly. Don’t wish even a minute or an hour away. And don’t forget to enjoy the things and people that you have in your life. Heaven is being grateful for what you have, Hell is being envious for what you don’t.

You can choose Heaven, and you can also still work to make it better. I have more full-family Penultimate Days behind me than in front of me, and that’s okay. I’ve had the ones that we’ve had, and hopefully we’ve made a memory or two and in fifty or so years, one of my children will look back on December 30 and smile at the thought of Penultimate Day. But that’s their choice, and that’s for them in the world that they make.

For me? I’m glad we have this silly holiday. I’ve always thought that the New Year holidays (Eve and Day) were contrived. They were (and are, mainly) meaningless to me. But Penultimate Day? I also use that as a time to think about the passage of time and one of its most important elements, the time I spend with family and the memories that we’ve made.

That being said, then is my wish that all of us have a wonderful and prosperous 2026, but don’t feel the need to wish it away too quickly. And when midnight hits you, I hope you have a Happy New Year!"

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"Alert! They're About To Do It! Get Your Affairs In Order!"

Prepper News, 12/30/25

"Alert! They're About To Do It! 

Get Your Affairs In Order!"

Comments here:

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Gerald Celente, "2026: Markets Will Bust, Wars Will Explode And Precious Metals Will Spike"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 12/30/25

"2026: Markets Will Bust, Wars Will 

Explode And Precious Metals Will Spike"

"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."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

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Musical Interlude: Richard Harris, “MacArthur Park”, 1968

Richard Harris, “MacArthur Park”, 1968

Musical Interlude: Tim Hicks & Alan Doyle, "The Night Patty Murphy Died"

Full screen recommended.

Tim Hicks & Alan Doyle, "The Night Patty Murphy Died"

"A Look to the Heavens"

Full screen recommended.

The Secrets of the Universe, 12/30/25

"NASA Releases 25 Jaw-Dropping Space Images of 2025"

"Take a journey across space and time through the best space images of 2025, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble, Chandra, and other powerful observatories. From newborn stars hidden inside dusty nebulae to the shattered remains of supernovae, and from distant galaxies to interstellar visitors passing through our solar system, each image reveals a different chapter of the universe’s story. Webb’s infrared vision, Hubble’s clarity, and Chandra’s X-ray perspective come together to show how stars form, how galaxies evolve, and how unseen forces shape the cosmos."

Comments here:

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"After All..."

“The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.”

- Sydney J. Harris

And, of course, the universal and inevitable excuse…

“A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably 

excuses himself to himself by saying, “I’m only human, after all.”

- Sydney J. Harris

○

I've always wondered...

Everyone says “Only human…” compared to what?

Free Download: Jiddu Krishnamurti, "The Book of Life "

"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. 

That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, 

that is why you must sing and dance, 

and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti, "The Book of Life"

Freely download "The Book of Life" and many other works

 by Jiddu Krishnamurti, here:

- https://selfdefinition.org/krishnamurti/

"How Religion Became the Greatest Control System in History"

Full screen recommended.

The Psyche, 12/30/25

"How Religion Became 

the Greatest Control System in History"

"What if the most powerful system of control in human history was not built with force, violence, or weapons - but with belief? In this video, we explore how religion, across centuries, evolved from a source of meaning and comfort into one of the most effective control systems ever created. Drawing from philosophy, psychology, history, and critical thought, we examine how fear, guilt, hope, obedience, and moral absolutism were transformed into tools that shaped behavior, identity, and entire civilizations.This is not an attack on faith, spirituality, or personal belief. It is an inquiry into structure and power. How belief systems became institutionalized. How obedience was reframed as virtue. How doubt became sin. And how control became internalized, not enforced from the outside, but maintained within the human mind itself.

Through the ideas of thinkers like Nietzsche, Carl Jung, Michel Foucault, Freud, Marx, Hannah Arendt, and modern psychology, this video reveals why religious control has been so effective - and why many people defend it even when it limits freedom. We explore how meaning, identity, and fear of uncertainty keep these systems alive, and why freedom often feels more threatening than submission.

This video is for those who enjoy deep reflection, uncomfortable questions, and honest exploration of power, belief, and responsibility. If you’ve ever questioned inherited beliefs, felt conflicted about authority, or wondered why obedience is so often mistaken for goodness, this journey is for you. The most unsettling truth is not that control exists - but that it often survives because we participate in it."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Poet: Arthur O’Shaughnessy, "Music and Moonlight"

"Music and Moonlight"

"We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone seabreakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world forever, it seems…

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Ninevah with our sighing,

And Babel itself in our mirth;

And o’erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world’s worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth."

- Arthur O’Shaughnessy

o

 Harry Bidgood and His Broadcasters, "Music and Moonlight" (1928)

The Daily "Near You?"

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Thanks for stopping by!

'If I Am What I Have..."

"Deflation v Inflation v Stagflation – Misconceptions Clarified"

"Deflation v Inflation v Stagflation – 

Misconceptions Clarified"

by Martin Armstrong

"Some people have a tough time understanding that we are in a massive deflationary spiral; they think that rising prices mean it is inflation and not deflation. Then they mistake stagflation for deflation and wonder why people are spending more on less. They only see prices, not disposable income, and, indeed, not economic growth or unemployment.

Prices rose sharply following the OPEC oil price hikes of the 1970s. Still, the sharp rise in energy prices crowded out other forms of spending, resulting in rising prices that had nothing to do with a speculative economic expansion, and a deflationary contraction they called STAGFLATION occurred, with rising prices and declining economic growth.

If you want to raise NET DISPOSABLE INCOME, lower taxes! Raising wages, as the Democratas believe corporations should do, will cause people to move to higher tax brackets, and soon, all benefits will come into play with these socialistic programs. As always, nobody in government talks about reducing government waste and corruption. The very people who are using these social programs are still paying taxes to the state and federal government.

Household income will soon be defined as everyone living in the same house – kids and all. Perhaps you will have to pitch a tent and make the kids sleep outside with the dog to avoid “household” income tax increases. Deflation is not the lowering of prices; it is the lowering of economic activity that can also include STAGFLATION, which occurs when prices rise but there is no economic growth.

Now, stagflation is not exactly the same as deflation, where the price of goods and services declines. For example, before World War II, the US experienced a massive deflationary environment in which GDP fell by 30% between the crash of 1929 and 1933. A quarter of Americans were unemployed. Imagine 1 in 4 eligible workers on the sidelines. Prices plummeted, and consumers were not spending because they had very little, if anything, to spend. Panics erupted, and people hoarded; the Second World War brought America out of that economic downfall. The public confidence wave began after World War II, because people believed their change in fortune was due to government policies (i.e., FDR’s New Deal) and war victory.

During periods of stagflation, the prices of goods and services increase while buying power decreases. Consumers end up spending more on less. As we are seeing now, for example, retail sales of items such as clothing have declined, but people are spending more on gas, shelter, and groceries. People feel as if they are earning less despite wage increases because their buying power has been drastically reduced. Companies will suffer as consumers spend less, and this has led to workforce reductions. Unemployment during the OPEC crisis of the 1970s was not nearly as severe, but it rose to 7.2% by 1980. Inflation went from around 1% in 1964 to 14% in 1980, and GDP growth went from 5.8% to -0.3% during that same period.

So be very careful. If you only look at prices rising and ignore the fact that your disposable income is declining, you will be in for a very rude awakening. Unemployment will continue to rise in 2026, with the computer anticipating figures surpassing 6%. The trend was set in motion long before automation and AI. Companies simply will not hire when they expect a continued contraction. The ability to borrow at a lower rate is not enticing because those same companies do not want to take on more debt than they already owe. We will not see another Great Depression by any means, but the “soft landing” is merely rhetoric intended to lift confidence.

November home sales in the US paint a picture of stagnation and a frozen market. Home prices and mortgages have risen and demand has waned. This is a buyer’s market but conditions are not particularly favorable due to the cost of ownership. Sales rose 0.5% from November to October and were 1% lower on an annual basis, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. A total of 4.13 million homes were sold for the month based on closings.

Supply remains constrained on a monthly basis, declining 5.9% from October, but have risen 7.5% on the yearly. A six-month supply is considered a balanced buyer-seller market, but current conditions show a 4.2-month supply.

The median home price in the US has reached $409,200, up 1.2% annually, and the highest reading on record for November. Lower-priced homes are not selling as those with less cannot afford to enter the market. Homes priced from $100,000 to $250,000 are down 8% from last year, but homes above $1 million rose 1.4%.

Gone are the days of overbidding cash offers. Homes are sitting on the market for an average of 36 days. Investors are slowly re-entering the market and accounted for 18% of sales compared to 13% one year prior. New homeowners accounted for 30% of sales, but historically, first-time home owners account for 40% of closings.

Weak regions are seeing declining values while stronger capital-inflow areas remain firm. This is classic late-cycle behavior. Real estate does not move as a monolith. It turns region by region, driven by employment, taxation, migration, and regulatory burden. The myth of a single “national housing market” is one of the great analytical failures of modern economics.

Transactions are falling and inventory is uneven. The real pressure will come not from housing itself, but from government debt, taxation, and declining economic confidence as we move toward the 2026 turning point. The model indicates that the current buyers market will persist into 2028. There will NOT be a housing bubble collapse as we saw in 2008. Commercial real estate is far more vulnerable than residential and operates on a different cycle. People have fled and are continuing to flee states that are unfavorable to capital, as we have seen with mega corporations fleeing places like New York and California. We will see fragmentation on a regional basis in real estate.

Interest rates will not collapse to save housing as capital demands higher yields and the central bank cannot toy with the markets as they have in recent years. Capital is migrating to states that offer financial stability, lower taxation and regulation. Transaction volume is declining and sellers are refusing lower prices. Buyers are waiting. Liquidity is vanishing. This is all par for the course during a collapse of confidence that will intensify in 2026."

- https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/

Travelling with Russell, "Moscow's Largest Flea Market: Izmailovsky Vernissage"

Full screen recommended.

Travelling with Russell, 12/30/25

"Moscow's Largest Flea Market: 

Izmailovsky Vernissage"

"What does the largest Flea Market look like in Moscow, Russia? Join me on a tour of the famous Izmailovsky Vernissage located in the North-East of Moscow. Hosting more than 1000 vendors across 4,000sq meters of vending space."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/