Musings of a Middle Aged Man

For as long as I can remember, I have been enthralled with the outdoors be it fishing at the local pond for the tiny yet voracious Blue Gill attracted to my barbed hook tipped by bacon or camping in the backyard in a makeshift tent treated liberally with insecticide to ward off mosquitoes or a week in Wisconsin lake country in a tent compound a few blocks from a manmade lake...

I find I am more ready for my own demise than the death of someone I care about. I have lost track of the numerous cries I sent into the universe calling upon death to release me from my mortal coil...but can't remember once I've asked death to black rain down on another. However, I did embrace elements of relief mixed in with my grief when both my parents were released from the cancer ago...

In my youth, I watched more movies my dad called " Shoot 'em Ups " than most other genres because they were my father's favorites. He also loved to watch boxing matches from his comfy chair with the TV at high volume including a bass boost causing the speakers and walls to reverberate...

I am plagued by a perpetually running self-dialogue from the moment I wake in the morning until finally falling asleep late in the evening. Not even sleep is always a respite freeing me from the incessant chatter as evidenced by the erotic dream...

For the longest time, I viewed the ideal human condition as one ruled by the intellect in the form of logic. This condition was elevated to its purest forms in Mr. Spock of the Vulcan Confederation, a species with lifespans more than double that of emotion dominated humans...

I have spent the better part of my last years attempting to exfoliate tribal detritus from my mental alignment with the ultimate goal of being part of nothing so I can be part of everything. It is an undertaking significantly more difficult than it appears for tribalism is forced upon us starting from birth when we are labeled with a race, gender, and a family name along with a city, state, and na...

There is one more day to pass before the year 2023 on the Gregorian calendar, a modification to the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caeser in changing the 1 to 46 BC. The Julian calendar was, itself, a derivation of a long line of calendars reaching back to the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian calendars of antiquity...

If one believes in an omnipotent, somewhat benevolent deity whose whims can be altered by petitions then one can make a case that everywhere we are is where we are supposed to be for the furtherance of the grand, universal plan formed by said deity before creation was kicked into play and time was instantiated...

It should come as no surprise adherents to the conservative party in the United States are reading the Hitler playbook and fighting to have books banned in schools, libraries, and even independent bookstores. It is a tactic, part and parcel, employed by dictators, autocrats, and totalitarian regimes throughout history seeking to marginalize those with whom they disagree...

Many of us humans are born free before spending our days, weeks, years, and decades building the cage in which we will reside for most of our lives, the cage that hems us in before blocking out the light from which wisdom grows. The cage traps us...

As any engaged parent of multiple children can attest, being born with a Tabula Raza, a blank slate at birth is a complete and total myth as preposterous as the mythologies disguising themselves as religions, plaguing the world claiming to be anything other than metaphors on how to conduct life in a particular environment and point in time...

There was a time, I freely admit, when I was lured in more by superficialities than substance. I was drawn to women for the proportions of their physical shape and the classical beauty of their faces where I should have been more focused on their character, a mistake costing me dearly in both physical and emotional distress...

I find the entire petitioning the lord with prayer phenomena to be nothing short of absurd. An all-powerful entity existing simultaneously at all points in time already knows what's going to occur when the dominoes were set in motion at the onset of existence and they fall in precisely the order she perfectly designed...

I am becoming increasingly disenfranchised with politics in the United States which means I, having grown up during the tail end of the Vietnam fiasco and the Tricky Dick criminal activity, am quickly approaching zero faith in our entrenched political construct...

I heard, recently, a person lamenting the fact that Christians fight to get the Ten Commandments given to Moses posted in public schools and other public institutions but say nothing about the Jesús gifted Beatitudes delivered at what they claim to be the greatest ever sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. Holding the separation of church and state sacrosanct...

There was a time when my ego was so fragile I cared about a legacy existing beyond the bookends of my mortal coil. I felt it was important that my family name propagated as deep into the future as its anchor in the past...

Up until last night, I was aware of only one Earth mass extinction event. Well, two, considering the one we are in the midst of, instigated by the careless hands of man. I count this failure of the American education system being systematically undermined by right-wingnuts and their Bible as history delusions...

I am regularly astonished at the vast number of people seeking outside themselves for the godhead that dwells within each being from the nearly permanent rocks to the ephemeral damselfly that dies within a day of hatching and breeding...

That liberty was perceived as more important than safety by the country's Founding Fathers should come as no surprise considering a popular slogan in 1775 was Patrick Henry's famous proclamation, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The sentiment...

There is a certain je ne sais quoi about a being that combines holiness and tricksterness in the same personage that brings balance to the universe...

I don't know if 'lost' is the correct word to capture my state of discontinuity and disconnect with the marrow of life. Preoccupied may be closer but is missing the essence of disconnectedness. There is also perplexed or bewildered...

For years...for decades, if I am honest...I existed in a world bounded on all sides by me, myself, and focused on I. My needs, my desires outweighed all other parameters driving my actions. I'm unsure how many people I damaged with my selfishness leading to the flaming crash of my own existence leaving me an isolated wretch...

I learned long ago that words matter in profound ways. Unless they are woven into a tapestry of nothingness by politicians ensuring they can never be held accountable for any promises they uttered. The nuance of words, their tone, and their implications not only capture existing perceptions but also create realities outside our wildest imaginations...

If open spaces opens minds, and I believe this truth will all my open soul, it holds, conversely, that closed spaces closes minds...

Imagine putting your life at risk when volunteering for a cause you deeply believed in and felt was justified only to find out experientially the "good" guys were riddled with the cancer of evil and the perpetrators of heinous, inhuman acts are protected...