Category Archives: Uncategorized

It is a Fragile Existence

Take a minute and think about this concept. As a person, you are one living being among billions, standing on a spinning rock, dependent on gravity created by this force in order to hold you on our giant sphere. What is more, you are in the vastness of infinite space depending on the sun to keep you at a proper distance where a slight diviation could end it all.

When I think about this, it overwhelms me and reminds me that we constantly take for granted how fragile this life can be. We may feel very small and insignificant when we look at a bigger picture like this, but I am left in awe of it. We are fortunate beings in that we can recognize the vastness and fragility that our lives have. My cat, Simon, only recognizes what is immediately around  him and is more concerned about getting his dinner, which, according to him, is always late, than he is about the consistent orbit of the earth.

Look to this existence as a blessing and a gift. We are only here a short time in the grand scheme of this universe.  We should be inspired by this truth and strive to live our best life, a morally good life. You may not believe in something beyond this existence, but I do. I will not apologize nor deny that I believe there is a true God who desires us to make morally good choices and offers forgiveness when we fall short.

I want to live within goodness and happiness and not evil, corruption and oppression. We must all strive to strengthen this fragile existence and make this one life count for something. Deceit is our most dangerous enemy in that immorality constantly costumes itself to appear as good and moral. We face the deception of freedom, democracy, science, and hedonism that this world fronts for us. Avoid falling into these traps and seek what is good.

Solving the Cube

As a teenager in the 80s, there were so many memorable items that came out to entertain us. We worked out to Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons via VHS, the CD player slowly took over vinyls, high top sneakers, MTV, and leg warmers, to name a few.

We were also introduced to a mental torture device- the Rubik’s Cube. How many hours were wasted trying to line up colors on a block? More than I care to admit.

Solving this puzzle is like trying to make sense out of life. It is not impossible, but it can be difficult. People approach solving a Rubiks many different ways. This is just like how we approach life’s meaning differently.

Some people will analyze and make careful turns, spending more time thinking than acting. Others will constantly spin the sides, hoping that they will solve it by dumb luck or by accident. Of course, there are people who will give up and say it is impossible. Deception also takes a role. There are those who will peal off the stickers and replace them to make a completed cube, attempting to impress those around them.

You can take all of these methods and apply them to how people approach morality. Do we sit back and analyze, rarely acting? Jump on the bandwagon of the latest idea and hope that we will find the answer? Or, worst of all, do we peel the stickers and shape morality to fit ourselves?

It takes a steady balance of insight and action to solve this puzzle and living the moral life.

I challenge you not to ebb and flow with the times,  nor give up due to it feeling like a “hopeless” cause. Focus on what is good and right, thinking and acting that way. Don’t peel the stickers to shape something that fits you. It is a dangerous path to take, one that will do more harm than good. 

Find your center and align your blocks around that.  It is not impossible to solve the cube, just as it is not impossible to solve moral living.

“The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.” – Albert Einstein

Difficult Motivation

This is a day and age where we can easily dive into a pool of hopelessness and depression. Everything around appears to be crumbling at the seams and spiraling out of control. People are faced with inflation, war, hate, weather disasters, and crime filled streets.

Motivation can be hard to come by. In reality, many have already given up, retreating to quiet corners and closing their eyes, hoping it ends. Others stand up and try to make a difference only to be crushed under the weight of conformity and wokeness

Will you continue to let society control you and your life? It is very easy to just sit back and complain that the world is a mess. You can say, “there is nothing I can do about it.” Yet, we can do something about it. Dig deep find that motivation to make a stand for what is right and moral. Righteousness will always shine in the darkness of adversity.

In a world of darkness, we must rise up and say that we will not be imprisoned by the corrupted values of our society. Be the ones who will not conform and live in fear. Our faith must always be uncompromising and barbaric. There is right and wrong; moral and immoral, and we need to eliminate the moral “grey” area including these fluid ethics this country waves around at us like a cheap carnival prize. Society loves that moral grey area, planting their feet firmly in its mucky ground, looking to suck you down into its putrid stench.

It is time to fight back and make a stand! Be prepared to be resisted. Making this moral stand will make enemies and could label you an outcast. It is a hard road if we choose not to conform and enslave ourselves to this compromised existence. How do you know if you are travelling in the path that is right? You will face constant opposition.

I will close with a quote from Winston Churchill:

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Nothing is more powerful than raw, focused motivation. I challenge you to be the difference and don’t bow down to the woke idols.

Climb Aboard! We Will Show You the Way.

Once again, we are at that time when our lives are bombarded by politics. Every four years, we elect a president who is always preceded by a vicious campaign of personal attacks and name calling. Each candidate has a plan to “help” the nation’s citizens.

Is anyone else tired of the exhausting circus? I know that I am.

We become obsessed with our politicians, wanting them to make changes and improve our lives. We are so focused and dependent that we also look to them for moral direction. Don’t forget, they are humans like you and me. They have no authority to give moral direction. Human thinking is flawed and corrupted with power and control being a huge temptation.

There is the old saying; absolute power corrupts absolutely.  It seems almost cliche to the point that we state it like a punchline to a joke. Yet, I like to state that with more power comes more temptation to abuse that power.

Putting our faith and moral direction in the hands of our politicians is a huge risk; dare I say, an easy way to trick ourselves. The trick is that we let another flawed individual or group guide our ethics as we travel through the raging river of existence. Why risk trusting a navigator who may drive the boat into the rocks or even toss you over to make the boat lighter?

Don’t get into the doomed ship and be chained to an oar, hoping to see the light of day as you row the vessel to an unknown destination under the command of a control hungry monger.

Buy the kayak and direct your own way through life. Be an individual, not part of an enslaved collective rowing under the monotone beat of a drum.

One response to “Climb Aboard! We Will Show You the Way.”

  1. dutifullygrande0152c653d Avatar
    dutifullygrande0152c653d

    Yes I am tired of all the lies and bashing.Human thinking is flawed and for me I will not get on board the boat of destruction , I choose the kyak for the moral direction through this life. My faith is in the One who made me!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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Who Will You Serve?

Bob Dylan wrote a great song talking about how we must serve somebody. No matter how we slice it, we are serving something or some principle. True freedom is only an illusion. Yet we are told we are “free” by the principalities that we are ironically serving. We are free to make our own choices but will gain favor or suffer consequences based on the action that we choose. This is not true freedom. We are bound by human law.

Follow the rules and you are fine. Disobey and you will regret it.

We are not prisoners in the physical sense, though if you break enough rules, you may become one. It is our minds that are imprisoned. We are being conditioned by the “rule makers” to think a certain way and behave according to their wishes. They say laws are made to protect us, but I beg to differ. Many laws are designed to control our behavior, keeping us in check. There are many who grab political power, not for the betterment of the citizens, but to influence and control. They desire to move their agendas.

So, what is the solution? How do we live?

Morality must always be the higher authority. Do not compromise what is good and right when mankind tells us to behave in a contradictory way. The woke movement wants us to sideline our principles and accept a loose morality that lacks conviction and accountability. Walking the moral path will bring a higher joy than living a morally fluid life.  

Who will you serve? Will you submit to the laws of mankind, or will you cast it aside and follow the higher principles that God has established for humanity. As citizens of a nation, it is our job to hold our leaders and lawmakers to this higher morality. When they fail, we need to take action. Use your voice. Do not be afraid to stand, cross the line and say, “I will not compromise.” I will serve what is good and right!

Will you?

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Give Me the Beat, Boy, and Free My Soul…

For my entire life, music has been an important part of who I am. I grew up with a small briefcase style record player, tossing aside the kid’s records that my parents bought me and swiped their (much better) albums. ELO, The Beatles, Barry Manilow, and Ted Nugent were among several that I would put on headphones and let myself be carried away.

I have found that as I am older, music has become a type of therapy and a form of meditation.  A song can comfort during sadness or help release anger that is boiling up inside. Another way to use it is to bring you back to earlier times in your life. It is like time travel, but without the DeLorean. Nothing sparks a memory like a song. I can sometimes capture a feeling I had as a kid with the rift of an old song or a relevant lyric. I believe it was the book, All is Quiet on the Western Front, where the soldier tried to recapture memories and feelings before the war by reading through books he had read in the past. Unfortunately, he was unable to capture those feelings of comfort and his past. It is music that can do this!

Music is not just entertainment or background noise. It is a catalyst that can help an individual process emotions, memories, or feelings. It can bring back good memories but can also bring back the sad. Even through those sad memories, we can begin to heal and learn. Use that sadness to strengthen your resolve!

I am music,  and I write the songs.

The Name of the Game

So many things always have good intentions and are meant to benefit a society. Such is the case with politics. A democratic system set up to represent “the people” of our nation was created to make us free from government oppression. For the people, by the people.

Yet, like so many things, corruption has taken control, making it a system of deception and misdirection. The people have become the victims of an oppressive government.

If we peel back the skin, we find private agendas, financial gain, and ambition. While campaigning, it is about the people- the citizens first! But once that stage production concludes, politicians slip back to favoring their sponsors and, most importantly, themselves.

I am telling you what you already know. Do not believe that we are free people as we are shoved into a two-party system that forces us to choose the lesser of two evils. The politicians are only concerned with beating the other side, and the citizens get tossed to the wayside, trapped in the debris.

These people that we elect to represent us need more accountability. In a representative democracy, these individuals need to keep the citizens first and foremost.

Don’t live in the shadows any longer. We can no longer be quiet or controlled. Stop playing their games and be the change.

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Tightening the Grip

How do we curb the violence that plagues our streets? Each day, we are bombarded with reports of assaults, road rage, gunshot victims, and even attempts to assassinate a presidential candidate.  It spirals worse and worse each day. I should not have to worry everytime I leave my home that my life could be in jeopardy.

So, what is the response? The first thing I always hear is, “Take guns away.” OK, but it is not guns doing the violent behavior. It is people. If you take guns away, it’s like sticking a large rock in a flowing stream. The water will find a way around it. People will continue to find a way to act out this behavior, not to mention expanding the black market

What about more police? Flooding our streets with more police gives a sense of martial law. Unfortunately, the police forces are already stretched thin thanks to budget cuts and the lack of willing people to take up the task. Even now, in Pittsburgh, there will be no police presence on the streets from 3am to 7am.

Jails are overcrowded and are just holding people for their crimes. In most cases, there is very little effort to reform prisioners with the hope of being able to give people a chance to change their lives for the better. Prisons are not correcting the problem. Instead, they are like a petri dish developing a culture of deep-rooted immorality and violence.

This is NOT what prisons were meant to accomplish.

There is no “quick fix” to the expanding violence across this country. We need to push for reform and a re-establishment of morality in our country. This “anything goes” attitude is driving us deeper and deeper into chaos. We need to focus on the disease, not just treat the symptoms.

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” – Princess Leia

May be a quote from a movie, but a truth proven throughout history.

Valor in the Face of Despair

Today, the nation remembers the victims and honors the heroes of 9/11. It is a defining day in our history as we rose up and showed the world we would not back down. I honor those first responders, the passengers that fought back and mourn those who were lost. It is a humbling day.

I wanted to take a moment and reflect on something else about this day. This country experienced something that many other countries have gone through and continue to endure in our modern age.

As a country, we have been very fortunate to avoid conflict on our soil. We rest safe and secure and watch from a distance as other nations resist an internal or external enemy. Today marks when we became vulnerable instead of safe. American heroism and sacrifice won the day for us. Valor prevailed.

We must remain ever vigilant for enemies, both foreign and domestic. Currently, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all pose an external threat to our nation today. Unfortunately, there is a more dangerous enemy lurking in our shadows. Hate, immorality, and division threaten to cripple us. Remember, it is the responsibility of the people to rise against these powerful forces that threaten to unravel us. Do not rely on our nation’s leaders as they can easily distract us from truth and potentially, be part of the problem. No matter who you vote for in November, we must rise up against those immoralities that eat away at our foundation. Stop hiding in the shadows, thinking you are safe! Step out and let your voice be heard.

Neither Democrat nor Republican will be able to stop the decay of morality and ethical values. We must be the ones, like the heroic first responders on September 11th, to charge into the crumbling towers to rescue our endangered values. Fight for what is right and good!

For those who were lost that fateful day, we remember you. Always.

Living the Lie

Russian author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, wrote the following:

“The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.”

Even though this was written in 1879, it holds a truth that resonates even today. This is the trap in which our society has been ensnared. We are persuaded to lie to ourselves about our values and beliefs to the point that we no longer see what is true and what is a lie.

Society is working to replace the moral with the immoral. Why? To avoid and eliminate guilt and accountability. This is why our society pushes so hard to suppress what is morally good, dressing up immorality in a costume to masquerade and convince us that morality is an abstract concept which we are not accountable to answer.

Morality has become a collection of immoral values in a pickle barrel. Pick one, what the heck, take two!

In reality, society is not trying to show us what is moral. Instead, they are trying to cover up and justify their beliefs and behavior. These lies become so rooted and entangled within our minds that nothing seems clear, and we fall victim to this deception. We find ourselves floating in the pickle barrel.

Stop lying to yourself. Don’t assume what society feeds you is moral and good. Unfortunately, most of it is false or a diversion so that you cannot find the truth. An individual must be honest with themselves and stop choosing to accept the world’s lies. Governments and institutions are not the ones to decide our values. We must look to a higher standard.

As I have said before, this is an insurrection! Hold fast to your morals and be unapologetic! Stop living the lie.