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Early To Rise
So, what on Earth am I doing up at this preposterous hour?
Friction
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above them ~Washington Irving
It’s not easy being me. It’s probably not easy being you, either.
Society is so fractured these days. Part of it is by design. There are factions in our society that are hell-bent on keeping us divided so that we won’t unite against them, the bastards.
Some of them actually have malign agendas and put them into action by keeping us all at each others’ throats about stupid things.
Some people just like to watch the world burn and revel in the chaos they contribute to an already strained situation.
Some people are just grumbling malcontents who couldn’t think their way out of a wet paper bag. They actually have solutions that are not only obvious but painfully simple to enact in order to improve their situations. Unfortunately, they’re just so dedicated to being pointlessly miserable that they couldn’t lift a finger to ease their own suffering.
I think that’s the most tragic thing of all.
Deliberately evil people usually are their own undoing. Eventually, somebody will take personal offense at their diabolical schemes and put them out of our misery. It’s called comeuppance and every genuine villain gets theirs sooner or later.
The mad dogs of society are also, generally, found out and either put away or simply put down. Just ask General Soleimani.
The whining sadsacks are another matter altogether. The resolution of their distress is right in front of them. All they have to do is take a deep breath and see the golden ticket peeking out of their chocolate bars. Everybody has somebody. Whether it’s family, friends or even just a social worker who just refuses to give up on them, there’s always somebody who cares.
The genuine tragedy is that these people are so dedicated to wallowing in their own misery that they can’t see that the muck is actually only ankle-deep. All they have to do is stand up and walk into the warm sunshine and field of wildflowers that’s waiting for them outside of their desperate miasma. Just stand up, for God’s sake…
One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time. ~Robert Kennedy
Affliction
(Nature Relaxation w/ Music)
Heavenly Mountain Sunrise
Timelapse 1 minute 1080p HD
So, one of the things I’ve really missed about the old me was the dreams I used to have. For so very many years now, I have had a seemingly dreamless sleep. It’s been said that people dream whether they remember their dreams or not. I’m not sure I entirely believe that but let’s go ahead and assume it’s true.
Well, now they’re back and it’s a bit of a mixed blessing.
One of the downsides to being aware of one’s dreams is that dreams have a tendency to go their own crazy way. I have had lucid dreams before. I was able to steer events and conversations in these dreams but at the time, I was used to dreaming on a regular basis. Now that they’re back after a long hiatus, the novelty of dreams is a distraction in itself.
I assume it’s a good sign that I’m dreaming again, or remembering that I’m doing so at least. I do need to rein these things in. They’re getting pretty weird. If I’m not going to get any rest, I should at least get some enjoyment.
Perhaps that’s why I woke up at such an early hour this morning. I had some time in blissful oblivion, followed by a collection of freakishly weird scenarios. I guess it was my body’s way of telling me I’d had quite enough rest for the time being.
Despite the fact that I didn’t sleep very long at all, I woke fully rested if somewhat perturbed by the chaotic nonsense my imagination was feeding me. With a bit of luck and some practice, I might even be able to steer my dreams in the days to come. One can certainly hope. The bizarre game show I was participating in last night is not an experience I care to relive.
For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature’s finest balm. ~Edwin Way Teale
Fiction
I am an artist…I am here to live out loud. ~Emile Zola
All the random quotes about art suggest that the intention is to be truer than truth and more real than reality.
I suppose there’s something to that. Artistic expression is about the artist’s inner reality or their perception of what reality is to them.
For the writer of fiction, it’s about exploring what reality would be like if the non-existant existed. Theoretically, someday people will live aboard space stations, starships and alien planets. Right now, we do not. So, books on the topic are purely speculative.
Those people in that future time will look back and see the folly of our fertile imaginations. They will be able to say concretely that any variety of predictions or assumptions will be completely disproven. Even so, some few of them will still be trying to make the products of our imagination come true. This is why we finally came to have floppy disks, flip phones and even a functioning medical tricorder.
Until then, our exploring minds will continue to bombard the page with assumptions that may never come true but scream aloud our perceptions of what we actually see around us. The heart of fiction has always been to explore the question, what if. It has also been to dissect what is.
Fanciful as works like Gulliver’s Travels were, actually scathing commentary on the world as the author saw it. The question is, are there enough people who would prefer the world to become like Star Trek to overcome the multitudes who either consciously or unwittingly doom us to become like 1984.
I’d like to think that, even though we teeter at the brink of an Orwellian horror, the optimists of the world will finally prevail and more of us will be able to happily live out loud.
Steven Curtis Chapman – Live Out Loud
So, that’s what comes of getting up ridiculously early. At least I have the rest of the day free to run errands. I hope your Hump Day is just as productive as mine.