I LIKE FREEDOM

I like freedom, but not all the way
but not whatever you wish to do or say

I define freedom in this way:
marry whom you want, unless they're gay

I like freedom but only in moderation
extreme freedom endangers our nation

I believe what's yours of course is yours
unless it's needed by the growing poors

You can of course smoke all you wanna
but not marijuana

The government can draft you if we want you to fight
freedom is not always an inalienable right

We tax your money when you buy
or if you save it till you die

Your house is your treasured piece of Earth
but we can take it for half its worth

I like freedom sometimes suspended
Isn't that what the Founding Fathers intended?

I like freedom, I didn't say love
that should be clear from all the above

EARTH BECKONS!

I have long wondered why, when we think of aliens from a distant world, they are generally cast as frightening and dangerous beings who would seek to destroy us and our planet. They are also generally perceived as threateningly super intelligent...smarter than we are. Obviously, we have no direct evidence as to whether they would more likely be friend or foe, but it is my guess that it is not evil design that fueled their interstellar voyage, but life-serving exploratory curiosity.

Evil is not the natural state for living things, whether man, animal or, I would guess, aliens. Life as we know it requires sustenance and nourishment if it is to continue. As between the two choices open to living beings...peaceful co-existence or its only option: force (aka evil)...the former is the preferred choice of intelligent beings. Why? Because the precious values of friendship, love, enhanced accomplishment, shared achievement, security and happiness and extended life can only be found in an environment of benevolence and goodwill, and not one iota of those are to be found in a state of evil.

Aliens arriving at our shore are very likely to be very intelligent considering the profound problems they would have had to solve to reach us. What new, joyful, and glistening values will that intelligence bring to us? It is very likely they, themselves, are on a peaceful voyage of exploration, eager to expand their knowledge and the scope and wonder of their lives.

As always, fear is life's greatest inhibitor. The prevalent fear generated by fictional novels and movies, imagined experiences and hallucinations, can serve only to rein in our adventurous spirit and its rewards.

So, greetings space travelers...we applaud your masterful achievement, we welcome you to our planet. We are eager to join your journey to the distant reaches of existence.

A HAPPY THOUGHT

Happiness seems to require 2 beliefs

1. that happiness is possible in your life, and

2. that you are capable of achieving it.

The beliefs may be rational or not, logical or not, mistaken or not. They are based solely on your subjective views.

Belief 1 includes an identification in your mind of what would make you happy:
health, money, loving relationships, celebrity, more work, less work, shining a new Ferrari, etc. There is no objective standard as to what will make you happy. That is not set by family, society, tradition. It could be big things or little things, it could be of monumental earth-shaking historical importance, or it could seeing a beautiful butterfly. It could have its origins in a reaction to something you have experienced. Your parents were poor and unhappy, and you have determined that if you cannot be happy without having money...or, you have determined that you will not let poverty stand in the way of your being happy and your happiness is to be found elsewhere. What would make you happy is as individual and personal a natter as your identity.

A positive Belief 1 relates to having a benevolent view of life.answer

Belief 2 is predicated on some evidence that you are capable of attaining the thing(s) you identified in Belief 1. You and you alone decide what evidence and how much of it is required to convince you. It could be a feeling about your intellectual or social skills, perceived or real, or your particular circumstances, or that you are generally a lucky person, or that you are blessed by God, etc.

A positive Belief 2 relates to self-esteem.

You see the problem: your beliefs are purely personal and subjective. No one can tell you what to believe, what will make you happy. There are those who seem to have everything and are unhappy...and there who retain a basic positive, happy attitude in the face of adversity. No one can appropriately tell you "you shouldn't be unhappy". There are no emotional shoulds or shouldn'ts at play here.

Can you change your beliefs? Yes. You can learn new things about yourself, gain new courage, etc. But the reason you have a particular belief must first be identified...not always easy to do, since that reason may be real or not, repressed or not, known to you or not. It is no wonder that psychological counseling can often be protracted and/o ineffectual.

Two positive beliefs, remember, are the cornerstones of your happiness.

LOCAL COLOR

"Local Color" is a small movie, with big meaning and a big big message.

Ostensibly, it is about a young artist who finally induces a drunken, cynical, foull-mouther, reclusive old Russian master to teach him to paint. But in fact, it is a movie about learning how to live.

Ostensibly, too, it is about the classic conflict between traditional painters, on the one hand, and impressionist painters, like the Russian master. But, in fact, it is a movie about the ongoing clash between societal conformity and traditionalism, on the one hand, and iconoclastic individualism, on the other.

On every point, the author of the screenplay, basing it on a true story, and the movie's hero, are right.. I will leave it to you to see and partake of this movie's bounty, if you wish, but here are a few of the

Ideological morsels delivered by the wise and wizened maestro with pungent alacrity:

* If you are not making a point with your painting (what you do in life), it is garbage (a waste)

* The glory of art (life) is in the expression and experiencing of beauty

* We witness objects too quickly, seeing only their superficial coloring and missing all of their nuances and shadings

* One should continue to paint (do) what one knows is the good, regardless of how and whether it is accepted, for one's own sake if not for anyone else's

There is more, wonderfully presented and acted., simply and directly. Finally.

The movie inspired me to get back to writing...for my own sake, if for no one else's.

BEST, BUT PRIMITIVE

If you were diagnosed with a serious medical condition, would you turn to a medical book written 500 years ago to see how that condition ought best be treated? 1,000 years ago? Of course not, because medical knowledge that long ago was primitive, in its infancy, faulty, unsound, incomplete...and often wrong. Dead wrong.

Then why do so many in the world turn to a book written 2,000 years ago,and earlier, to find answers to the deepest, most profound life questions, as well as to critical social, moral and political issues? 2,000 years ago, man's accumulated knowledge in every field of study, can best be described as primitive. Knowledge is accumulated from one generation to the next, growing, hopefully, more astute, more precise, more accurate. It is not coincidental that man's knowledge first began to expand exponentially after Gutenberg's development of the printing press in the mid-1400's...and mankind's new found ability to transmit information quickly and easily.

2,000 years ago, man knew little of mathematics, anatomy, sciences, law, philosophy, psychology. His vocabulary was limited. Which meant his transmittal of knowledge was severely hampered. What exactly was someone referring to, what precisely dis he mean, when he said what he did? Those are valid questions to ask reading something that was written millennia ago. Any wonder disagreements abound to what is found on virtually every page of that book?

That book was ok for those who lived at the time. It was, after all, the best they had. Perhaps 2,000 years from now, it will be widely accepted that our knowledge today was still primitive. For now, however, it is imperative for our well-being to limit our use to the best books we have.

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WHO'S THINKING?

The report is that 90,000 stimulus checks, millions of dollars, were erroneously sent to dead people and/or prison inmates. And if the Administration acknowledges 90,000, it is probably closer to 150,000.

Have you heard the President regret the error? Have you heard about anyone being called to task for this ridiculous error running in the tens of millions of dollars...your children will have to pay back? Remember: this was not a few names were on the list that shouldn't have been. This was almost 100,000 errors!

Why haven't you heard anything? Because the President doesn't think there is anything wrong with taking your money from you by government force and giving it to those less "fortunate" (as if your money came to you by the spin of a wheel rather than by sweat and toil)...and who are less fortunate than the dead? The President doesn't think there is anything wrong with redistributing our wealth as he sees fit. The President doesn't think America should be a leader in the world, first rate in power, standard of living, influence, prestige. The President doesn't think America deserves to be anything but a run-of-the-mill third rate country, like the countries from which so many illegals and murderers and child molesters come, in violation of our laws he chooses not to enforce. The President doesn't think...

Do you? The President is counting on you not seeing what he is doing, or not believing what you are seeing...he is counting on your being totally politically blind...HE IS COUNTING ON YOU NOT THINKING.

WANNA TALK?

As a PS to my recent post, Beautiful Facts...warning of the destruction headed our way because of the entrenched public habit of basing moral and political attitudes, opinions and decisions on subjective feelings, whims and fantasies, rather than on objective facts...and to those who wish to have a discussion with me about those matters, I have set the following two question, pre-discussion screening:

1. Do you believe that all facts of reality are objective and knowable?

2. Do you base all of your opinions about moral and political issues solely on objective facts?

If your answer to either question is anything but a resounding "Yes", I'll talk with you about Santa's weight problem, but that's about it!