A new religion

Politics are the new religion. By fervently, violently and rashly defending a point of view, regardless if that point of view is not defendable with fact and reason, a new 'truth' has been found. The "Libertarian" voiced this ignorance with these words;

"We will all be equal. If health care is crap for some it must be crap for all. If someone manages to still have money when they die and if they are stupid enough to not give it to charity but to instead try to pass it on to their kids, then the Feds should seize it all. What right does anyone have to inherit? None! Those days are over. We should all be born the same and die the same. It is the government's job to contain the masses. To not let people take advantage of others, to make people stand in line with everyone else."

I didn't laugh. I didn't comment. This is the state of mind of more than half the people I know. I felt mildly appalled but I have become numb to the madness.

I watch and know this; As people refuse to take personal responsibility for anything they become unable to be responsible for anything. They become a member of an increasingly growing elitist mob nicknamed 'Democracy'. Their motto is “I deserve everything, someone else should pay for it and charity should be for everyone but I shouldn’t have to donate.” This is a contradiction I cannot understand and also that this extraordinary selfishness is a trait now admired in society.

My heroine would have laughed at the mess we are making. She already foretold the end in ‘Atlas Shrugged’

Know Yourself

Love is a remarkable thing. I have loved people and places before but never with all of myself. I have witnessed deep love but never partaken of the bitter sweet waters.

I avoided the plunge because I am a self-interested personality. Let me calirfy; although I am driven to aid others, I am limited by my vast and consuming sense of self-preservation.

I took the unthinking leap about four years and six months ago. I fell in love knowing the other wasn’t in love with me. I, vain and careful, who made certain a man adored me before agreeing to dinner, I fell madly in love and never looked back. He was beautiful and he became my whole world in one moment.

I was more terrified that a car would smash him then I was that he might not love me in return. I was ready to tear heads off over wounds inflicted YEARS before I had ever met him.

I found that although you may be angry with the one you love, you will still love. I learned that I worry and fuss even when I do not like him. When I am happy, the heat inside burns and I feel the mark deeper every day.

And as friends lose their own loved ones, the fearful knowledge that I too will lose someday, haunts me long into the night.

I am here to report to you that my verdict is this; Love will make you vulnerable and strong. I have been moved to a pain I would not trade and fallen to my knees in gratitude for it.

You will be able to accept the choices of the one you love even when jealously and anger cry out “Injustice!” You pay for that acceptance because you will hurt with the one you love, you will sympathize even when reason says you ought not to. You will find out that you are a smaller and bigger person then you thought you could be.

If I could offer any advice from my short experience it would be this: Know yourself, as much as possible, before you meet this One. Then get to know yourself even better. I tell you this because you will offer and sacrifice yourself on the altar of your Love. There, as the fires burn away the pretty parts, the ugly parts will cry out, exposed and aching, in the charred ashes. If you are unsure of your weaknesses and strengths, you may be the undoing of what you desire most. But if you know yourself to the best of your ability, you may heal yourself and elevate what you have into a painfully tender friendship. You and your love may create between you that which is written in legends and songs throughout history.

Fireworks

Our Future

Self

As time and life and experience go on, you, yourself may find that you didn’t. It is as if these things do touch you, they do move you, but as you stand still inside yourself, as the tide, wind and air flow past you, swirling into a dizzying array of colors, sounds, and emotions- you find that you have held on to a part of yourself that no longer is.

This is a disarmingly confused moment. You look at the ghost of a girl you were, this shadow, you see her smile, you see her thoughts, you REMEMBER and you KNOW her words… yet you are not this girl. Not anymore. You were her, parts of you are influenced by her, but she is not you anymore. This is a ghost.

I have seen this moment in others. Sometimes this moment may take hours, sometime days, in rare cases, this moment can take years. Understandably, frantic resuscitation attempts may take place. This person you were, who you may have defined yourself by for so long, is gone and facing your new familiar self in the mirror is a devastating moment.

I see her, the girl I was. I was the gypsy, the writer, the artist, the young girl and the world was frightening and new. At 115 pounds, I had long dirty blond hair, I loved to walk, I lived on coffee, cigarettes, and breakfast food and I spent a lot of time alone. I spent hours and hours and hours painting, thinking and in the Blue Mountains.

Who am I now? I am losing hope of ever being 115 pounds again, my hair is ash blond from living in the high western mountains and my emotions are somehow rawer than they were then. I am rarely alone. I clean house, make dinner and do laundry in a washer, not in a tub. I still love to walk. Sometimes I paint but I almost never see the emotions in my paint that I used to. The golden ball inside me hums quietly. Once I held it carefully, guardedly and now I forget that it is there on some days.

I am happier, healthier but I think I am less kind and less aware and less forgiving. I think I was less selfish. I have to let go of my ghost, turn around and let go. Only then can I remember, re-try, re-do, and change the person I am within.

What's slim and Forty Two Inches?

I came home at lunch to study the latest addition to the house. The house doesn't seem to mind either way about the this purchase so I decided to find out if I did.

There was a loud welcome from both dogs -I am presently sitting my Mom's dog -And then parked myself on the chair.

There it sits; Glossy and audaciously modern in this little cozy living room.

It's impossibly big. I feel like there should be popcorn and candy present. I feel that the seating should be on red velvet chairs with armrests fitted for drinks. There should be a flickering light behind me from the projector and an epic grand film about to play on the big screen.

I wonder if the previews will be any good?

I think I might like it.