Noisy

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Daily writing prompt
Do you need a break? From what?
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Yes! From the barrage of bad news and angst and manufactured drama and loudness that often accompany news reports and newsfeeds I check. I need to take a break from checking them, find a good book or a hobby, walk away for a while. Or just take a walk.

Of course, I lack the discipline to refrain for very long, so the stress and frustration are mostly self-inflicted. Gotta stay informed, though, so I guess anyone who takes the world seriously just picks their poison and guts it out, looks for ways to make sense of whatever can be made sense of.

There’s probably a better way to explain that.

Easily Forgettable

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With each passing day, Donald Trump appears more like a marionette. A vengeful, angry, soulless, manipulated yet somehow manipulating puppet, looking older by the day.

He’s an enigma, I guess, but not in a good way. He is the point man for all the pernicious actions being taken and words being spoken. He’s in so deep now that he may go into full-on beast mode before too much longer. He’s taken all his psychological and emotional baggage and used it as fuel for his ongoing, ill-advised quest.

I’m not convinced that “cornered rat” will ever apply to him, though. He seems to have the Midas touch when it comes to avoiding consequences, and this may follow him even into death, at which time the pain and stupidity which have become his calling cards will thankfully fade away. Then he will become a footnote swept into the dust pan of history, where he rightfully belongs (of course, not before he signs one last Executive Order stating that flags should fly at half staff for a full year, especially during any subsequent Inauguration ceremony, if we still have those).

I wonder what kind of stuff will be in his library. Whatever may find its way into those pseudo-hallowed halls, it is likely to be written from the perspective of a “winner.”

Baby and Bathwater

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Obviously, this is no way to run a government…

Republicans’ kowtowing and pathetic obeisance to King Donald; fabricated and disingenuous support for rampant incompetence among cabinet picks and other nominees. A hateful, isolationist, racist playbook whose author most likely will be approved for head of OMB. A misguided, skewed, and selective embrace of Scripture. Highly suspicious motives. And the seeming mission of wanting to burn it all down.

Can these people really be this dispassionate and insensitive, and maybe evil? Besides Elon Musk and Donald Trump and a few others, who often behave as if they are sub-human vessels of rage and cunning, what is the excuse for the rest: riding a wave of power and influence, latching onto coattails while they can, afraid to speak their minds and just along for the ride? How can they all see things so differently? How can they live with themselves?

Trying to answer these questions will get us nowhere. Righteous indignation and anger is often nothing more than impotence with an attitude. Resistance apparently is now a tool we must employ. It has come to that.

How does this end?

Eye On The Ball

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The key to sorting through the mayhem is to not allow our focus to stray from what’s happening in Washington.

Forget about making Canada the fifty-first state, or changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico or annexing Greenland or razing Gaza and turning it into a resort. All that madness is in service of distraction.

The real news is Elon Musk’s overreach and easy access to information about us all. The real news is who’s being fired and furloughed, who’s being confirmed to fill important posts in the Cabinet and various organizations.

The real news is the insidiousness of it all, and the rate at which Project 2025 appears to be taking shape, along with the mind-numbing and thus far lackluster resistance. Since when can executive orders—pieces of paper—along with an unelected, self-interested and clueless loose cannon wield so much power?

The ugliness and destruction are moving at light speed.

Debatable

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Daily writing prompt
The most important invention in your lifetime is…
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It could be a lengthy list, but beyond the advent of the computer and the internet, I’d have to say advancements in medicine– vaccines, surgical techniques, other pharmaceuticals. Honorable mentions go to lasers, fiber optic cable, satellite and wireless communication, and advancements in auto safety.

A 10, Maybe

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Daily writing prompt
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.
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Should have taken a peek at this one yesterday, so I could mull it over for a bit.

Let’s see… on a day predicted to be sunny and in the 70s, with family visiting, arise at 5am, pour myself some cold brew, write for a couple of hours, get dressed, go out for breakfast somewhere, then just take a leisurely drive to places we’ve never been, take some pictures, maybe poke around in some local shops where my wife could get ideas for her next sewing and embroidery project. Then we’d find a nice spot for lunch, linger there, and take our time driving home, where we’d have an invite for supper at our son and daughter-in-law’s place and we can visit with the six of them and their loveable pooch. Then we’d finish the day, if it was a Tuesday, with a snack–maybe some popcorn or something– and a new episode of Finding Your Roots, or maybe a movie we’d been wanting to watch. Then, before retiring, we’d step outside and take in a rare planetary alignment and a highly visible comet.

An alternate ideal day, from a more personal perspective, would start the same way– with cold brew and writing and breakfast out– but would include time at our son’s outbuilding, working with him on some woodworking venture, or maybe, if the weather was good, playing 18 at our favorite local golf course, lingering at the 19th hole for lunch and a cold beer, then heading home to mow the lawn and work on the yard for a while, finishing with some sort of meal on the grill and a leisurely evening sitting in the back yard, maybe reading for a bit, just letting the day wind down, and topped off with an ISS sighting– traveling 275 miles overhead at seventeen-five mph.

OK. With apologies for the length of this… a third scenario, and maybe the closest to being the most honest and realistic: getting up early, pouring myself some cold brew, writing in my journal and in here, and having the rest of the day be a blank slate, where I call the shots, totally unencumbered by anyone’s expectations, and my choices for how the day unfolds are left totally to me. That sounds ideal.

So, a day that involves some autonomy, solitude, food, drink, visiting, satisfying activity and maybe a change of scenery.

A Rock and a Hard Place

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Saturation. Keep the craziness coming so we don’t know what to focus on, which way to turn.

One question that emerges regards the role of Democrats, and any Republicans with a conscience: where are they and what are they doing? Are they hatching a plan of resistance, or are they dumbfounded and paralyzed and impotent?

They can’t stop Elon Musk? He’s not even an elected official! He’s just rich and apparently wields a lot of power.

What the hell is going on? Who’da thunk it would be this easy to tear things down? Maybe the hard lesson to learn is that it’s no longer enough to play by the rules. Trump has never played by the rules, and look what that’s gotten him.

Maybe it’s time to take the gloves off, restore some order. Or is it too late already?

Why?

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Daily writing prompt
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
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Sometimes it’s a reminder that our time on earth is fleeting, and it passes relatively quickly– that there’s no time like the present. In other moments, something happens that prompts a word of thanks or a feeling of gratitude. And still other times, things happen that induce rage and make one wonder how the human race has survived for this long, makes me think that we can do and be better.

One’s life experiences inform one’s perspective. On the balance, life can be blessing and curse, mysterious and mundane, joyous opportunity and endless slog. A journey of discovery and exhiliration, of love and warmth, or bleak coldness and senseless suffering.

One is blessed if they are curious and teachable, given the space to experience and react and assess, then to change when necessary and move on, armed with more knowledge and filled with better questions. This earthly life generates more questions than answers, which keeps things interesting and pushes us toward some sort of… enlightenment?

Pollyanna

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It all seems to be going to hell so quickly. I guess when there’s a Project 2025—when there’s a plan—things get done in short order. But how does this end? Where are we headed?

What happens to America when bridges are burned and its leadership wants only to turn inwards and feed itself? The citizenry counts for little in this scenario, gets lost in the shuffle.

What’s being preserved? What happens after everything is torn apart, torn down? Is anything built up, replaced, somehow made more “efficient,” and better?

Who is being served by this evisceration?

We all need to be citizens of the world. We can’t withdraw and look out only for our own. This is how the ruse continues. This is how progress gets stymied—when we convince ourselves that it’s always been and always will be a dog-eat-dog world.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We have the capacity to flip the script. We simply choose not to.

Itemized

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Daily writing prompt
Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.
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We often talk about replacing the somewhat unsightly shed in the back yard– maybe a bigger one that would hold the usual shed stuff and maybe even a lathe… I won’t push the lathe. Cost has been stopping us, but also the prospect of running up against local zoning rules that would push a new build further out into a relatively small yard. I’m sure we’ll continue revisiting this.

My personal list that garners occasional lip service: practice piano, dust off the guitar, get back to learning Spanish, find part-time work, build shelving in the basement, remove a hornet nest before it gets warm and they’re back building it again, find places to volunteer, work on a generally rosier outlook.