Month: July 2024

Where freedom comes from

Recent events in the national theater have ramped up the fear and the anger big time. Friends and families are bursting with emotion in an increasingly vicious argument between the two main factions of the ruling class. One side declares the other a fascist threat to humanity. The other side declares the other a communist threat to humanity. Both sides declare that if the other side wins, it will slide the country into a totalitarian dictatorship.

What if they’re both right?

That’s a rhetorical question.

I came to the philosophy the Greeks called anarkhia from the right side of the political aisle, and then through libertarianism. As recently as a couple of months ago, I was thinking about voting for the Libertarian Party candidate for president, until it finally sank in that you can’t cure the cancer of politics through political means.

I don’t want you to tell me how to run my life, and I certainly have no need to tell you how to run your life, and yet by choosing sides in this ghastly exercise I would be participating in that very thing. Well, no, thank you. I am the boss of me, and I respect your right and ability to be the boss of your life, but if you want to vote on which dystopia you prefer, you go right ahead.

I have found my freedom in the words and teachings of a guy from Nazareth who turned out to be a lot more than he appeared to be. He grew up in a tradition with all sorts of arcane laws, a labyrinth of rules about what you may eat and how you must live. Some of those rules are so absurd that people who hate him still try to trip up those who follow him by quoting some of the sillier things and asking, “How can you believe that?”

It was all so complex that the laws were boiled down to 10, more general, rules, but then this fellow from Nazareth came along and summed it all up in two laws: Love God and love your neighbors, and we are all neighbors. You can look it up.

You don’t have to call me a wild dreamer if I imagine a world where we all just loved our neighbors. We live in that world every day, driving here and there, buying and selling goods, interacting peacefully for the most part, and resolving our differences without resorting to violence. We know right from wrong, we do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and the overwhelming majority of us live and love with good will.

The trouble seems to begin when we add the ruling class to the mix. The truest words ever spoken by a politician were these: “Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem.” Yes, yes, he was talking about “this present crisis,” but government keeps us in a constant state of crisis, so the statement is always true.

Inspirational

“I don’t know how many gardens I have left,” Red would say. She was not only savoring her time digging in the soil and creating beauty; she also said that when she wanted to see what else there is to savor in this world.

When the speaker at some craft event told us to paint an inspirational word on a small rock, most of us wrote things like, “Hope,” “Courage” or “Love.” 

Red wrote “Garden.”

At the time I thought she might have missed the point of the exercise. Now I think I was the one who missed the point.

(Almost) Four years and counting

Also, Summer is 3 years old today!!

At the end of this month, assuming I don’t blow it in the next 11 days, I will complete four years of daily blogging. 

Human nature being what it is, instead of being thrilled to reach this nifty landmark, I find myself wondering why, after blogging all these years — not just the last four but nearly 20 years in all now — I’ve never expanded beyond a couple dozen readers a day. I feel like I have something to say, most days, so either I don’t have something to say or I’m helplessly hapless at marketing. I admit the latter is part of it; I would rather just write than spend a significant amount of time crying “Look at me!” at the universe.

“Don’t worry about that, your stuff will find its audience,” is the advice that comforts me, but apparently my stuff is looking for eyes in all the wrong places. And of course I, too, am all over the place — ranting my anti-war rants, trying to encourage people it’s going to be all right and to live as free as they can, veering into some flash fiction, and of course writing about Godzilla movies and ancient comic books …

A few people seem to “get” me. I see familiar names and faces among the “Likes” all the time. And even Bruce Springsteen occasionally is compelled to ask, “Is there anyone alive out there?” although the response he gets seems to be a little more definite.

It doesn’t really matter. This is a passion thing for me, the thing I will do even if no one pays attention, and a couple dozen readers a day is a lot more than “no one.” So thank you for checking in as I try every day to encourage, enlighten and/or entertain you. I plan to keep trying until that day when I am no longer able to communicate, and in the meantime see you tomorrow and, if I may borrow a line from the political fanatics, here’s to four more years.