Here’s how it will be when the dust settles

Oh, we go through this in cycles, every four years. Such a fuss, such a lather, and in a few months there’ll be the same old realization that “the most important election of our time” produced yet another dose of “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Oh, there’ll be some cosmetic differences, but the vast protection racket will still be in place and we’ll still be toiling away for the privilege of giving a third or more of what we’ve earned to a machine that does not rule over us as well as we can run our own lives. It sounds so bleak, put that way, but it isn’t so much.

After a while you spare yourself some angst and recognize that in actuality your life is your own, your future is in your hands, and you are the boss of you.

Recognizing that you have the power is scary — because you have the responsibility, too — but all told, it’s kind of exhilarating because it’s so, well, empowering.

Did I create the monster?

I have a mantra that I tell Willow The Best Dog There Is™ almost every day.

You’re the puppiest pup of all the pups who ever pupped.

You’re the doggiest dog of all the dogs who ever dogged.

You’re the willowiest Willow of all the Willows who ever willed.

You’re the BEST — DOG — THERE — IS. Yes, you are.

And Willow is the sweetest, gentlest, most regal and dignified dog you’d like to know.

Her little sister, Dejah Thoris Princess of Mars, is something else. I’m more likely to ask, suspiciously, “What are you doing, Dejah?” or “Put it down, Dejah,” or, the old standby, “Dejah, NO!”

She is a mischievous devil who sticks her nose everywhere and often can be seen prancing triumphantly around the house with a sock she has retrieved from the laundry basket, a piece of paper I left too close to the floor, or today’s newspaper carelessly placed on the couch instead of the recycling bin. A month after we brought her home as a puppy seven years ago, she underwent emergency surgery after eating too many pebbles, bits of mulch, twigs, dead leaves and other miscellany, and she continues her nosy ways to this day.

Would Dejah change her ways if I showered her with a mantra more like Willow’s? Or is Willow just a regal animal and Dejah a devil, to begin with?

I suppose there’s only one way to find out …

A new blurb for A Blue Guitar

Ever since that magical day in April when I read through my draft of How to Play a Blue Guitar, thought “this is not a draft this is the book,” and published it then and there, I have struggled to describe this book.

(Stop me if you’ve heard this recently) As I was reading Seth Godin’s new book The Practice, he asked his readers regarding their projects, “Who’s It For?” and “What’s It For?”

And then, after writing yesterday’s blog post, “A New Dream All Its Own,” I suddenly knew. The book is for anyone for whom “A New Dream All Its Own” resonated.

I scratched out a new blurb:

The Zero Aggression Principle states, “No one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor should anyone advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.”
This quirky little book contains two dozen poems, short stories, prose poems and aphorisms around the theme of finding a way to live and let live in peace — to co-exist without forcing a way of life on people.
Because “The way you play a blue guitar is the same as the way you play any guitar … It’s built with the same workings, potential melodies and chords, hopes and dreams as any other color guitar. Kind of like people.”
From the author of The Imaginary Revolution.

It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along about How to Play a Blue Guitar. I just never thought to answer Seth’s two questions. Silly me.

Now that you know, if I may sell you a copy, please click here.