December means the beginning of winter, the Christmas season, and the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child. Also, on top of these are Santa Claus, gift giving, and shopping to accommodate the preceding. Parties, caroling, banquets and family dinners are also prevalent.  It is a festive time of year.  But not for all.  Some are moved to introspection, or even depression by the ups and downs of the season.  Some are without homes, warmth, proper clothing, adequate food or medications.  What stands out is the obvious disparity of this particular time of the year.  On the other hand, there are shelters, soup kitchens, and many charity events and projects.  But are they enough?  Do we as individuals do as much as we can to help?  Why does this even happen in the first place?  And, to dig in more deeply, Why are we here?  And, What’s next?

If we look at an overview of our lives we can easily come to the conclusion that we are here on earth briefly.  Very briefly.  Discounting our own solar time, there is geological time and the cosmic time of the universe.  So again, Why are we here, and What’s next?  Let’s begin by attempting to answer the following three questions pertaining to our lives. 1.  Have you found your purpose?  2. Have you accomplished it?  3. Has it helped the lives of others?

Life itself is simple and basic.  All else is sham.  The only real truth is born of honesty.  You fool no one but yourself.  Our actions touch others day to day to month to year.  Do we help or do we hinder?  Do we alleviate or block?  Are we the answer or the problem? Do we leave life as we found it or are things better when we are gone?

1. Your purpose was always waiting for you and the choices that you make along your journey should lead you to that purpose. Have you recognized yourself as fitting for the tasks presented?  Have you exercised your being in order to seek for it unceasingly?  Have you expended the energy that you were given? And did you seek and did you find with all your heart?
2. Did you accomplish your purpose when you discovered it? Did you stay with it until the end?  Did you keep at it with all of your heart and soul? Or did you give in to all of the roadblocks and impediments, negativity and criticisms that would hold you back?  Did you doggedly pursue what you knew was right in your own heart as far as you possibly could take it?
3. Did your purpose also help the lives of others? By doing what you have done through the good times and the bad, did your actions and your work make a difference in the lives of other beings who reside near you?  Looking back, were those near you helped in any way?  Did your actions cause reactions in a positive way and can you now recognize the assistance that was instrumental toward the well-being of another person and all of your contemporaries?

Speaking of the above three points, age, whether we are young or old or in-between, is not a factor.  Looks are not important spanning time.  Styles are not important in the prevalent fads of any specific period of time.  Only your inner self can direct these toward your own accomplishments and nothing corporeal should distract us.  So since we are here so briefly, for questions 1, 2, and 3, the only question left is “What is next?”

Empirically we know the answer.  We’ve known it from our birth.  Our minds are meant to return from whence they came.  The body is only an instrument to accomplish our purpose here on earth.  Our minds with all of the experiences we have gathered through our brief span of time here will eventually separate and be required to answer these three questions for admittance to eternal love and peace:

1. Did you find your purpose?
2. Did you accomplish it?
3. Did it help the lives of others?

So for the month of December with its ups and its downs, its caroling and its elegies, I wish for you the ability to answer these questions.  May the music of the universe permeate your mind and your soul.  And may you in your own finale find eternal rest and peace.  Merry Christmas…!

Maybe love is too strong a word for our daily lives. Love your neighbor, love all people, love yourself.  Maybe it’s just too difficult for our cluttered personalities, too hard of a concept to assimilate against all of the distractions we must deal with on a daily basis.  Maybe we should just start with “like.”  It’s easier to like someone or at least distinguish between like and dislike.  Both parties in any relationship or confrontation could initially know where they stand.  And it would be easier to come to terms with dislike of a person if we were able to sublimate this feeling into a gray area just before like. In other words, hide dislike and fake like.  It is at least a starting point for a relationship that would have absolutely no chance to survive otherwise.  “I dislike you” could be your inner feeling with “I like you” on the surface. Again, at least this could be a starting point toward the concept of love.

Love is a difficult concept.  We are told to love but not how or what it is or even how it is supposed to work.  There is no user manual. Our parents, teachers, ministers, etc., all tell us to love others, even unconditionally, but do they, themselves, really understand the concept of loving someone?  It is much easier to love “some-thing” like a dog or a cat or your car or house, etc., but isn’t this just a stronger “like?”  It is not always possible to distinguish between these concepts.

Maybe we should first teach like and dislike and then gradually assimilate the concepts that reside in love; go from known to unknown.  Then, if our parents, teachers, ministers, etc., understand this transition themselves, they might be able to transmit the basic concept of love by example, by actually living it. In this way we would be dealing with reality, not just words or preaching or two dimensional thinking.  Then, finally we might begin to distinguish between real love and mere sexual attraction which really muddies the waters.

Our concept of love is mostly lacking emotion and feeling which relegates it to just words with different moods.  Sexual love is a much more ubiquitous feeling that is charged with emotion and feelings of warmth and attraction to another or others.  Does this equate or even relate to loving your neighbor, pets, car, etc.?  Definitely not!  These two concepts are in two different ballparks and exist for different reasons.  So where does this leave us?

In my opinion we are all the way back to like and dislike which are easy to understand, easy to teach and easy to transmit to others.  And this makes it possible to lay the foundation and groundwork for a true understanding of love with its emotional magnetism.  This could create a whole movement about loving your neighbor and people who are different and even lead eventually to world peace.  All of these could have some accessible and realistic, useful and understandable meaning. And so all of our most popular songs which are drummed into our consciousness and even subconscious would be easier to categorize.  “All You Need is Love,” “Love is the Answer,” and many other pop songs can convey physical attraction, but maybe our society could relate to all of its members with a realistic “like” or even start with just tolerance.

By understanding the basic concepts of like and love maybe we could establish real feelings for our fellow humans and start a real and realistic movement toward a true world peace.  Maybe.  Let’s start with the basics.  Think kindness…!

We are experiencing an increasing underground group of people who are a contemporary version of the “Luddites.”  The Luddites were a group of people and a movement which was opposed to new technology. The main philosophy of the contemporary version is to return to a simpler way of life.  I don’t think that this is anything new in the history of the earth.  After the discovery of fire there were undoubtedly those who opposed it as evil and destructive.  Probably with good reasons.  As the ancient Greeks and Romans progressed technologically, I’m sure that there were those who wanted to return to the old ways with less structure, no wheels, chariots or carts.  This kind of thinking made its way through the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Victorian ages and now into our own modern age.  From the European to the Slavic and even into the Asian societies, without a doubt, the same “drop-out” mentality surfaced. The industrial age has morphed into a multitude of forms which have become increasingly complicated.  And this has encouraged segments of each of these societies to drop out from the status quo of the time.

But, does this solve anything?  Is it even possible to return to a simpler and less complicated way of life?  What does this ultimately mean?  How extensive can anyone get to be simpler in any modern culture?  In our own time, can we forego electricity? Transportation? Packaged or precessed food? Grocery stores? Department stores with pre-made clothing, tools?  Houses, running water, schools, jobs to make money to finance all of the above?  Hospitals, medicines, pills, vaccinations to alleviate and prevent recurring diseases and plagues and out-breaks?  Would it be possible to survive in our present society without the above?  Communication is now instantaneous, and entertainment of all kinds.  What would a simpler life be like now if it were even possible?

If you somehow obtained a farm left to you by a deceased relative and were able to grow food and become self-sufficient with animals also grown for food, this might seem attractive to some people until faced with the realities involved in its realization. Fruits and vegetables grown organically (without any protection) will face problems with either drought or flooding or being overrun by hungry insects before they are ripe enough to harvest and consume.  Not to mention the constant labor involved in finding seeds to plant, growing them and tending to them with the care that this actually takes.  Cows, chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, would have to be purchased and are expensive. Feeding them is expensive, and caring for them is a constant job with long hours from sunrise to sunset.  Cows give milk (which must be pasteurized), chickens lay eggs, pigs taste good in many forms when properly cooked, and letting the above reproduce means that the older animals can be killed and eaten.

When was the last time anyone that we know has killed a chicken for food?  Would we even know how?  Killing a chicken or a cow or a pig is a messy and noisy business.  (I won’t go into detail). Preparing the carcass for food takes time and patience and skill.  Disposing of the unusable leftovers (offal), takes time and planning.  This whole process takes many hours in every day of the week in addition to the caring for the fruits and vegetables that are growing. In addition, animals  can give birth, get sick or diseased and possibly  spread the sickness to all of the others making them potentially useless.  (This requires a veterinarian).  For all of the above to work or even be possible, many people are necessary.  If not a very cooperative wife and eventually a large family, workers would have to be employed, and this is also expensive.

So what about the above qualifies it as a simpler life?  Would “dropping-out” work for very long under these circumstances?  Has the Luddite mentality worked in any society in the past?  With any knowledge of history or human nature I think we can agree on a resounding “No!”  Cults, which primarily attract confused females are really just based on free sex for the leader.   It shouldn’t take much further thought to realize that we are in fact living the simpler life.  And it will in time get even simpler.  We are moving (kicking & screaming) toward a global society.  Our world is constantly shrinking driven by economies, finance and goods and services.  We are finally reaching out as one human entity to new horizons in space.  All of the refinements we are experiencing are necessary to this end. We may not see this or want to participate, but it will happen anyway with our kids and their kids and so on.

Societies never move backward, only forward with or without the “naysayers” and the dropouts and the societal and governmental anchors.  Progress happens! With or without the individual.  And just like any of our games and contests, we are here to win.  Our individual mentalities may vary (everyone is a little crazy, no one is 100% mentally), but our global society as a whole will not only survive but progress forward and onward and upward and outward.  God bless our earth!

A huge segment of our society is lost, disconnected, wandering with no direction and resenting authority.  They are like a boat without a rudder, like a plane flown with no instruments, like a school with no discipline, like a parent with no tough love, like a child with no respect.  Our society is crumbling from the inside due to a rot which is out of control.  Most of the reporting of most of our mass media is of negative happenings and opinions.  Our entertainers, actors and athletes are using their popularity for their own personal and convoluted thoughts.  They misunderstand their role in holding our interest in their fictional or game-like contest with its fictional resolution, and the reality of our daily lives with resolutions that are finalized in pain and suffering and death.  The idealism of entertainment, sports and acting do not apply to living together day to day under laws, government and enforcement that is meant to protect us from the outlaw and maverick in our society who thinks nothing of harming the weak and innocent and is idealized in movies, television and the internet.

Thus our role models are too often without the inner compass that is needed to guide us in a subtle way toward happiness and well-being and true caring for our neighbors and friends and relatives, and even casual acquaintances.  Too many of our lawmakers are concerned with “dumbing down” and catering to the lowest and forgetting about those who actually are able to think.  They forget about their purpose in facilitating the lives of all citizens in an unfettered fashion by guidance, not just over-regulation.  These lawmakers should not be forcing issues into politics which should only be worked out by the populace in their daily lives or by the local governments who understand the issues in their own communities. Too often we are using our roles as teachers and parents to lead the young, our own young, into confusion, and not into a healthy balance in their thought processes which require limits, both implied and ingrained.

We are confusing freedom in our system of government with unlimited freedom in our daily lives. Unguided and rudderless, we are dangerously out of control when our children are left at a young age to decide not just what sex they would like to pretend to be, but also what variation of it that they may want to enjoy for as long as it suits them.  And now we even inundated with laws to enforce this travesty.  Also laws to take away the safety and protection of the unborn.  We must ask ourselves, what has happened to the mindset of our lawmakers to even consider this and many other convoluted controls.  We can only assume that they also rot from within.

Anyone who really cares about our way of life must insist upon truth brought about by clear and deep thinking, not the latest fad and fraud in the misguided and uneducated opinions of a relative few who are given an undeserved platform by our irresponsible media. Truth is being clouded and overcast by a few puppeteers with unlimited finances who are controlling our thoughts and actions.  Out of control, we crumble and rot from within.  Do we the downtrodden masses have the will to effect change?  Can we swing the pendulum back where it belongs?  The lives of each succeeding generation depend on us.

The vast majority needs to wake up to the fact that we are being bullied by those who purvey wrong thinking, and there is only one way to deal with a bully… confrontation.  This may take many different forms, but fighting back with a show of force will become necessary and vital. Truth has always won over dark thinking, but someone must make it happen. Let the silent majority get up from its collective ass and go “kick ass!”  Now…!  Before our present national stupidity becomes irreversible.  Carpe diem…!

The month of August is a month in a holding pattern.  It foresees the fall season with all of its activities, holidays and seasonal preparations.  It is pre-football: the practices are beginning and the pre-season playoffs begin even though the weather is hot, especially with full uniforms when in use.  It is pre-school: a time for getting the necessary books and class materials together. It is pre-harvest: at least in the store decorations.  August is also pre-playoffs and World Series with all of the excitement that will be coming.  It is pre-holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s will be rushing toward us with the ever-changing store decorations, one blending into the other faster and faster each coming year. It is also pre-weather: rain and cold weather are coming.  The leaves will be turning and colder-weather clothes have to be brought out of storage or purchased.  For a static month in a seemingly holding pattern, August gets to be very busy and cluttered.  It is also a month of organizing for the next season.

Sometimes the preparations can outshine the actual events.  The next few weeks can become anti-climactic.  If overdone, the next season can become  a downer or depressing.  This is a lot like all preparations when overdone or over-thought-out.  Enjoying the month and relaxing and letting the weeks go by at their normal pace is much healthier than a frantic must-get-it-done mode.

How do we slow down the frantic pace of living that we get pushed and pulled into and can’t exit?  Limits!  Instead of thinking about the whole month of August, we need to take it in smaller increments.  Even one day at a time is too much.  Even hours or minutes.  Time itself is the problem.  We are ruled by clocks, watches, TVs, computers, the Internet, iPads, etc.  Everything we do is connected to a time restraint.  We are locked in to our schedules, and sometimes into everyone else’s schedules, again with no exit.  No limits.  The only solution is to figure out how to leave the carousel, the treadmill, the endless highway of our lives and take control of reality.  Living in someone else’s reality is a real problem and this also limits our personal control.  Without all of the above time restraints we should be able to gain control of our lives once again, but then what?  Keeping that control is another problem.

How do we lose track of time?  What breaks the rule of the clock?  Is this even possible? Our own minds are the answer.  Our own personal lists or schedules tailored to our own personal needs.  This means limiting our exposure to TV, Internet, personal phone, and all other communication devices that sap our energies and control our minds with someone else’s agenda.  Control of all of the above is the only way to insure our own sanity.  In this way we can slow down our schedules and make our own times manageable.  We can actually breathe on our own and deal with realistic plans of our own. We can have time to enjoy ourselves and the time period we are in, the present, instead of trying to live in the future.  A much healthier mindset.

And, finally, the best way to support the above release is music.  Music releases us from the time restraints of our daily lives.  It makes sanity possible by eliminating the unnecessary elements in our lives that push us around.  Music is the glue that holds us together when we use it judiciously as a support and not a crutch.  Let us use it wisely…!

One of my favorite painters is Norman Rockwell and one of my favorite paintings of his is “The Four Freedoms.” July 4th is one of our greatest holidays, the celebration of our independence, which we too often take for granted.  However, at least once a year we at least think, even in passing, of our rights and freedoms.  By the way, we also too often confuse what are our rights and what are our privileges.  Rights we can point to in our laws and liberties provided by our representative government.  Privileges are customary permissions that we have grown into and taken for granted as laws, but are, in fact, not legalities,  e.g. walking along the street, driving, shopping, etc.  We don’t need permissions, we do them all of the time, but they are not regulated. The Four Freedoms presented by Norman Rockwell are: Freedom to Worship, Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want.  Well said, in my opinion.

Are these freedoms rights or privileges?  They used to be rights, but they are increasingly being treated as privileges which are unregulated, blurred or even looked down upon.  Do we really have free speech anymore?  Think of the college campuses that invite speakers to present a case or an idea and are shouted down by an agenda with only its own opinions.   Who regulates free speech?  Certainly not the college administration.  Do the majority of the attendees have a right to hear the opposing side of anything or are the shouters in league with the administration to limit ideas instead of presenting all sides of issues? In this case both rights and privileges are lessened, even negated. This is only one example. There are many.

Do we have freedom to worship?  Anything that has ties to religious ideas, symbols or the Bible itself is increasingly eliminated from the public forum.  The Ten Commandments cannot be posted in many places.  Public prayer has been eliminated from many gatherings and meetings.  Anything religious on a T-shirt or hat can be denigrated. Christmas symbols, Nativity scenes, etc, are discouraged in many places.  Has this right become a privilege that is now fading into nothing?  Separation of church and state does not mean that we eliminate religion entirely from our zeitgeist. Or does it?

Freedom from Want means that we are able to work to provide for our families.  It means that we are a capitalistic society that provides opportunities for all of us to find jobs and receive incomes that make life possible.  We are able to find housing, food, clothing and all of the rest of the necessities of living in our society. Extreme cases of want are provided for in relief efforts in housing, food and clothing.  This is deemed to be temporary until work is found to once again be in control of our own lives.  It is not meant to be a way of life.  Homelessness has been, and always will be, a problem wherever there are people and large cities.  The mentally impaired and those who just cannot exist in an organized society are provided for, but this rarely fixes the problem.  Mental instability is resident in any society.

The fourth freedom is Freedom from Fear.  This is an all-encompassing freedom because it affects everyone, no matter what their station in life.  Freedom from fear means that we are secure in our daily lives; that we are protected from the evils that exist in any society and that encroach on that society.  We have local law enforcement, and we have national law enforcement such as the FBI, CIA, and the military.  Our police can protect us, be we have to do our part in lessening our  vulnerability. We lock our houses and our cars.  We are alert in unprotected venues and have 911 as a back-up.  The military protects us from other nations and terrorist organizations that may want to take us over or just harm our society.  But we have to do our part also in this area.  We vote funding for our law enforcement organizations and trust them to protect us.  We support our military with our young that are able to join one of its branches.  We elect members of Congress to provide for our security by limiting access to our land without identification or credentials, and we trust them to carry out our needs and wishes. When this works we have freedom from fear.  Use your vote, but vote with intelligence.

Our freedoms are embodied in some of our music, e.g. “God Bless America,” and “America the Beautiful.”  Let us sing them in a meaningful and powerful unison.  And, please check out my patriotic music on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc, including: “America Together,” “Celebrate Our Freedom,” and “We Thank Them,” (Memorial Day).  Music permeates our society, but we are stuck in just a few styles: Love, romance, drinking, commercials to sell products and background music used as wallpaper in many ways.  Branch out!  Start listening to more styles with many more messages and feelings.  We are free to do this on a daily basis.  Let’s get to it…!