Last weekend I mentioned finding notes on promising blog entries that I never completed or posted. My favorite (but most difficult) was about freedom “superpowers.” I thought I’d turn this topic over to you guys — who are, in aggregate, the cleverest blog commentariat on the planet and therefore far better able to come up ideas than I’d be by myself. So here’s the question, and a crucial caveat: What THREE freedom superpowers would you like to possess for the future? The caveat: I’m not really talking about superpowers, ala Marvel or DC. No laser vision to melt AOC’s tiny…
Category: Mind and Spirit
Spirituality, moods, feelings, and thinking free to live free.
Ah, spring. Okay, not quite. But it finally stopped snowing here (after one of the coldest, snowiest PNW Februaries on record — which you Midwesterners will no doubt dismiss as a gentle dusting, barely worth a mention) and I’m making only a quick stop at the library before heading out into the sunshine. —– If I owe you an email, you’ll no doubt notice I’m getting behinder every day. That’s not a new thing for me, but with home Internet gone, I’m really, deeply, almost sinfully indulging in the privilege of not responding to email. I hate to admit it,…
Note: After drafting this at home all day, I’m posting it in the cold outside a closed library. I usually do a lot of revisions when blogging something I’ve written offline. So if it has more than the usual amount of typos, poor editing, or rambling passages, please forgive it. It’s been snowing and I’m not staying out here in the car much longer to give it the usual polishing. Reflections on two recent books and a tragic ancient history whose spirit is rising again I’m reading two books right now that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.…
I’m in occasional touch with an Outlaw Mole — a talented, intelligent, freedom-loving person whose day job is in a dark trade, dealing with dark forces as we descend into Endarkenment. This person tells me no secrets. I wouldn’t want secrets and there’s no reason for the Mole to risk harm by telling them to me. What I receive, sometimes, is the outpouring of frustration, anguish, grief, rage — and occasional bitter humor — that comes from living a life out of tune with one’s own inner self. It’s heartbreaking to witness; imagine living it. Being a Mole is hard.…
I’m beginning this on Thursday, within two hours of leaving to have a tooth yanked. I’ll finish this blog on the weekend, fates willing. The appointment is late in the day, which I wouldn’t have chosen. Cause I’m a wuss and a worrywort and just want it over with. I’ve been busy blogging and doing other things all morning, but suddenly I’m out of distractions. I’m not as nervous as I expected to be. Yet. I did wake at 3:00, counting, “Twelve+ hours to go.” Hated that and knew I’d be keeping count all day. But I stayed in my…
Or perhaps it would be better to say this is a ramble about finding freedom/reality balance — an ideal personal compromise between how much we struggle for the larger ideals of freedom and how much freedom we create in our personal lives. We’ve talked before about the difference between fighting for freedom and living free — and the difference between studying freedom in theory and using it in your own life. Nothing creates more burnout among freedomistas than beating our heads against futile causes. Yet there are always causes. And occasionally, freedom wins. So we fight. Even as we lose…
… some thank yous. Years ago — I don’t even know how many now, though it was back before Amazon made it clear that bloggers with Associate links shouldn’t also have public wish lists — reader BT fulfilled one of my wishes by sending a lovely lavender set of flannel sheets. It was Christmas. Readers sent much bounty. But I especially love flannel sheets and in this climate they’re comfortable and comforting all year long. Only after what, eight years? ten years? did those cozy sheets become so threadbare they started developing holes. And at that point I learned I…
The Internet is a drug with increasingly toxic effects. I’m done with it. On Saturday I filled out Comcast’s online service cancellation form. Comcast being Comcast, their retention department will now call and arm wrestle me to to stay, as if my slow, grandfathered Internet service were a prize they’d do anything not to lose. But I’m done. —– This doesn’t mean I’m going away from blogging. I did think about that. I even had a date in mind; but I couldn’t take my head from idea to plan. It seemed ungrateful, almost traitorous to stop. Not to mention a…
You know that post-illness brain-death phenomenon, I’m sure. Your body’s recovering from affliction, but whatever intellect or sense of “self in the real world” you previously possessed has abandoned you. You go outside and nature looks oddly unfamiliar. You read (or write) and words on the screen unravel like something from the imagination of a dyslexic five-year-old. You apologize for your conversational failings or try to carry off a dialog, simply hoping no one notices you don’t possess your standard quotient of wit or common sense. Eventually you fake it ’til you make it. Meantime, you hope you don’t trigger…