Reigniting the flame

I'm just writing this sentence so I could say I wrote something today.

But it's a start.

I got no need to beat you

"I got no need to beat you; I just want to go my way," space freighter captain Malcolm Reynolds tells the government operative in the brilliant film Serenity. And though the operative has other ideas, in Reynolds' matter-of-fact statement lies a way of life.

I don't need to convince you that I am right and you are wrong; I simply desire to live my life on my terms and let you live your life on your terms, as long as we do no harm to one another.

There is plenty of room on this vast world for both of us.

It's as simple as that. And as complicated.

The rose in the moment

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day.

There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike.

But man postpones, or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with a reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future.

He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Reliance

What will you create today?

If people are created in God's image,

And God is a creator,

Then you are a creator.

What will you create today?

God is a gardener; make a garden.

God is a carpenter; build something.

God is a protector; conserve and protect.

God is love: Love one another.

My multiple personalities

I have at least three personas that I present to the world. Which one is the real me? Well, all of them, of course.

There is the mild-mannered newspaper editor, just trying to inform the community, touch its heart, and/or occasionally influence a thought or two.

There is the one author, a philosopher and pundit who believes in the power of the individual to change the world. The power of the collective? Not so much. Think Refuse to be Afraid, A Scream of Consciousness.

And there is the other author, a lover and student of pop culture who writes stories about superheroes and spaceships and other fantastic stuff. Think The Imaginary Bomb, Firespiders.

Sometimes there is a little overlap, such as in my book The Imaginary Revolution, which posits a real revolt that overturns a tyrannical government and then refrains from the imaginary-revolutionary tradition of replacing it with another government, which seemingly inevitably begins to repeat the sins of the old one. “Tyrannical government” – I repeat myself.

Weaving through all of these personalities is the lover of my life’s partner, known as Red on these pages, and Willow The Best Dog There Is and the cats, and the sometimes guitar strummer and writer of songs.

Each of us, I suspect, has multiple personalities at odds with each other, competing for dominance and working ever onward toward integration.

The answer may be hiding in plain sight

What is it that you want?

Is the answer waiting out there, plugged into this glowing screen, hiding in plain sight if you just browse enough pages or scroll down far enough?

Or is it in the quiet of the morning, between the pages of a book that's been waiting patiently on your shelf for 5-10-20-30 years, waiting as you sit listening to the compressor of the refrigerator compete for your attention with the chatter of the spring birds on the other side of your window?