Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

The book is ready. Although the "official" launch is about a week away, you can have it now.  If you were one of the folks who volunteered to ready the semifinal draft last month, you will get your hard copy shortly after the launch-launch. Call this a "soft opening." After a year or so of tinkering and a month or so of hard labor, it's good to be here and be able to say, "I made this!"

This collection of 15 essays began to form itself into a book when Wally Conger quoted Rhinoceros Success author Scott Robert Alexander’s blog: “No one knows what is going to get your pistons pumping except you. Write your own motivational book! You don’t have to worry about proper sentences, spelling or punctuation. No one is going to read it except you.”

And Wally followed it up with: “Got a motivational book inside of YOU? I bet you do. And maybe someday you’ll be willing to share it with the rest of us.” That was the push that I needed.

I wrote the book I needed to read. After hearing from my test readers, I think it has something to say. I hope you'll agree!

Now that we're on the subject, do you have a motivational book inside of YOU? I believe you do. You might want to get started, and there's no time like now — in fact, there is ONLY now.

Waste no time on hate or judgment

When you throw a ball as hard as you can into the sky, it will arc and fall to the ground some distance away. When you throw a ball as hard as you can into the ground, it will plant itself at your feet. Either act expends a great deal of energy.

Every moment you spend on hate is a moment you could have been loving. Every moment you spend passing judgment on someone else’s words or actions is a moment you could have been working to improve your own words or actions.

It takes energy to tear down, and it takes energy to build up.

There is no more destructive scream of consciousness than: I hate you! or I hate this! There is no more exhilarating scream of consciousness than I love you!

Jesus said a lot of wise things, but he boiled it all down to two essential purposes:

Rejecting the tyranny of being picked

On impulse last month, I made two of the best decisions I've made in a long time with regard to this book I'm about to release, A Scream of Consciousness.

First, I popped onto Facebook and asked for 10 people willing to read the manuscript and make suggestions. By day's end I had more than 10, which was a boost of confidence in itself.

Then the suggestions came in, and the book is quickly becoming even better than I'd hoped. From a subtle change to the subtitle to the addition of a closing chapter, all of the ideas from my "editors" have been useful, engaging and constructive – even the tough criticisms, or perhaps especially those.

Writing like ...

At various points in my life, I wanted to write like Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Seth Godin, Bruce Springsteen, John Sebastian ...

Somewhere along the way while I was trying to write like them, I started to write like Warren Bluhm.

Made for these times

"I keep looking for a place to fit where I can speak my mind..."

The mark of a great artist is that she puts words or images to a thought or feeling that is inside many people but hasn't been expressed in a way that most of us will understand. Brian Wilson is a great artist.

In the song "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times," Wilson puts words and music to the awkward feeling that each and every one of us feels when we recognize there is no one else in the world quite like "me."

"I've been trying hard to find the people That I won't leave behind ..."

The search for friendship, the search for meaning, the search for "fitting in." Ultimately we won't find complete fulfillment from other people. John Maxwell writes about being in the audience when someone asked his wife if "John makes you happy" and getting surprised when she responded, "No."

The debt conundrum

The car is starting to squeak a lot more than it used to, the suspension may be shot soon, and it's overdue for a transmission flush - but I have to make the monthly payments first. I should be saving up to buy the car that will replace this one - and the computer that will replace this one - and the lawn tractor that will replace the one I bought five years ago - but instead I am spending hundreds of dollars a month to pay the balances on the car loan and the credit cards that I haven't used in more than a year.

And that's the problem with debt. A debt is a trade - you exchange your future income for the money to buy what you want NOW.

The cost of having it now is a little thing called interest. So the $10,000 used car costs you $12,500. Is it worth it to have it NOW? That depends on whether you could have used the other $2,500.

Essentially you are gambling that nothing goes wrong for the life of the obligation.

Refuse to be Afraid!

Hey - wha hoppen?

I think The Mighty Wind is a charming movie that works as satire only to a point because the makers really do seem to love the 1960s folk music that they're trying to mock. Let's face it, songs like "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" and "Potato's in the Paddy Wagon" are just too good to be as funny as they could be.

My conscience emailed me the other day and said he has begun to refer to me as "the blogger with nothing to say." I could think of no response, which was ironic. Or fitting. Or something.

We're in a season of blowback, a season of seeing what happens when people elected to balance budgets and limit the power and size of government actually attempt to balance budgets and limit the power and size of government. The tantrums have been instructive. Every dollar spent in the name of Big Government has a patron. There is so much to say, and yet it all seems so self-evident.

The heat index outside my office window was something like 93 degrees today. Last time I posted something here, the wind chill was in the 20s. It's time I said something.

Springus interruptus

As we closed out the first month of spring, another 5 to 10 inches of snow fell on Northeast Wisconsin - the kind of thick, heavy snow that bends branches and strains backs. The only consolation was that street and road surfaces were warm enough that the accumulation was not as thick on concrete and asphalt as it was on the bare ground.

In fact our driveway didn't need clearing even though 3-4 inches of white covered the yard that just two days earlier had been showing its first signs of healthy green.

Last year at this time, the weather was so mild by April 20 that I optimistically planted a row of radishes, peas and beans in a corner of the garden. My foolishness became clear with the cold snap and flurries of the first weekend in May. But those flurries were mid-July weather compared to the scene in our yard Wednesday.

On this Friday morning, the only sign of the storm is the bent arbor vitaes that will probably never recover. All of the gunk that snapped branches, dropped power lines and sent vehicles spinning has now melted. The forecasters say sunny and 55 on Sunday, 66-70 by Tuesday. Like all cold storms that interrupt a promise of hope, this one has faded into memory, a diversion more fit for laughter than despair.

The freedom of a puppy's soul

One of the things that Willow likes to do is romp on our bed. It's sort of a wrestling match and sort of a doggie massage session. During these sessions she will either wrap her jaws around my forearm or bite down on my sleeve without actually connecting with my arm.

That's a remarkable decision on her part. It means we can play with a little more rough-housing because we trust each other not to cause harm. We both know that as the one with sharper teeth, Willow could shred my arm to pieces. We both know that as the larger beast, I could probably inflict some significant damage on her. But we choose to play in a way that avoids those things.

There is a philosophical theory that the difference between a human and an animal is that a human has a soul and the ability to know and choose right from wrong. But if Willow does not possess these qualities, how does she know not to chew my hand off? How does a beast with no soul develop the ability to play, and play safe?

No, this is a special creature with a sense of whimsy and a spirit of joy. Perhaps it's a stretch to conclude that my companion is a gentle soul based on the observation that my hand remains attached to my wrist. But I reject the notion that there is no soul behind those devoted eyes.