Ice Cream for Everybody!!

I keep hearing how Trump is "not qualified" because he has no experience in politics! Yikes! What this country needs...is more "good" liars, .....those "practiced in politics".....thoroughly indoctrinated... and catering to the whims of their chosen political party or PAC. Yes, yes...the Ice Cream Man and self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders has so much more going for him than Trump! He will have  U.S. Government issued Ice Cream for everybody!!  And what about Hillary's experience ?  She has been wearing a proverbial dog collar for philandering husband Bill Clinton for years. What kind of feminist plays down a cheating husband?  One who sees benefit in riding his coat-tails to the gain votes!.  Look...these guys are politicians! What they are good at....is lying, scheming for votes, catering to poll data ...and usurping your civil liberties as they legislate to expand the ever-growing black-hole of government.  Why would anyone choose to hold the category of "politician" in high esteem? Trump, although risky Presidential material, has an unrefined but much needed candor about him. Unfortunately, being a slick and slitheringly manipulative politician has become a pre-requisite for becoming President!! Don't hold Trump in high esteem...and certainly do not hold any of those other bastards in high esteem either. Hold their feet to the fire! That is a civic duty.

The Beaten Path

So you decided to go for it.
 Finally  machete through the thickets to that place you have never been before.
 Did you find Heaven?  Bliss?  Revelation? Rebirth?
Creating a pathway in your mind .....an access to places lost or forbidden....driven by curiosity...boredom...your quest for freedom....rumored enlightenment?   What did you find there?

There are paths overgrown for reasons.   No one wants to go there.

When your curiosity gets the better of you,  remember that once you have beaten a path to that God-forsaken place ,  you may find yourself running back in holy terror!  And since  the trail has been trodden....it will be easier to go back there.   The  terror may come to you without hindrance now.

The same can be said for enlightenment.  The path there overgrown, for many would choose not to have it.
   
Choose carefully your beaten paths.
Chiseled accesses to places frightening...or enlightening.
Once you have created the pathway,  it will be easier to go back there....the once jungled journey you have now made a much easier trek...
..

Something's Fishy

... Gently coaxing my dear daughter through the entrance of our local fish market, her eyebrows instantly raised as we entered. "Sheeew!!! " she said, as she pinched her nose and jerked her head high , aghast. She looked around amazed that no-one else was bothered by the smell. I watched as her eyes slowly began to tear.  She looked up at me....eyes pleading to leave,  yet wanting to endure... knowing my love for the world of fishing. She let out a cough, and a gag or two, as I ordered some grouper and scallops.  Distracted by a few large fish heads to be sold for fish soup,  and then by a tank filled with live blue crabs...she slowly began to assimilate. We studied the different varieties of sea life, displayed  proudly as gems in their glass enclosed cases. By the time we left, about 45 minutes later,  the stinky stenches had permeated our clothing and found acceptance with our olfactory nerves.   We had assimilated.
      Fish stinks. There is no denying it. Only accepting it,   or getting used to the smell.   There is no market for mullet perfume,  or for squid flavored soda pop.   We must be careful what we assimilate to....lest we become what we hate. Recall those things that would never have been accepted just a short time ago,  but are now part of our culture due to the shame of political in-correctedness,  sly political incrementalisms, and assimilation. Choose to hold dear the things inside that you know to love,....so that you don't become what you hate...

The Forgiving Mirror

I am much better looking downstairs.

The bathroom down there has no natural lighting,  and that...combined with God's grace in giving me  this failing eyesight, ... softens the lines and blemish of age that has become me.

I am 20 years younger down there....when gazing into that mirror downstairs.
                                           
                                                The forgiving mirror....

Eventually, though,  ....I must leave the house after that last reassuring glance.
With the proper distractions,  I can carry the image to the end of the day.

There are times when I must look at myself without the aid of a mirrors reflection.
When  what I must see ....is who I am inside.
 
And I find that in order to make it through the day....I still must find a forgiving mirror.....attempting to rationalize those things inside that are old and ugly,  scarred and blemished.
Permanent parts of who I have become through years of silent sin and stifled conscience.....
.....of wounded love and hopeless romanticism....
.....of dreams unrealized .

      Reality  is harsh ....but sometimes I find it important to use the bathroom upstairs...

Whirlwind

                            Repeated lies become facts of fiction.

 Beneath the membrane that separates fantasy from reality there is chaos. Heat of passion rising through cold reality. Crusted corridors casting eery shadows on the light.   Love fending lust. Courage overtaking fear. Desires morphing into need. What would be your sanctuary....from your self-created whirlwind?

    Truth lies in the light...and in the shadows.  It hides from no-one,  but can be hidden. Be a seeker of truth.  Don't let repeated lies become your sanctuary from the whirlwind.  Who on this earth knows you better than anyone?   You do.     Recognize your inner chaos ,  and only take sanctuary in the truth.

Perception' s Deception

  Have you ever "said it without sayin' it"?    Through a smirk...or a smile...or a roll of the eyes,  conveyed a thought that didn't require words. We all have. Gestures that are common or well known,  ....or those that are recognized only by those most intimate to you.  Even when you speak,  there is a response to speech patterns and body movements that convey and inject things you never said.  You may even become someone you never were...in the fantasy of someone elses perception.

     You have lived your whole life, and are still a mystery to yourself. Yet there are those audacious enough to think they know you in a matter of minutes.   Do they?

     Statistics, ...demographics....behavioral patterns...culture...social influences...formative paths created in your youth.  A bad father....a broken home...socio-ecomomic scales?  DNA...genetics...that decide who you will be and whether you fit the norm.  Drugs that homogenize humanity and attempt to curb the "disorder" that is your ....personality.  

       Parts of a gigantic human puzzle.....where the pieces are not cut from a jigsaw,...but are the ebb and flow of chemicals that ignite the spark-readied receptors and set free hormones that make us feel life.

       Avoid the potential deception of perception.  Remember that you can never hold the squirmy chameleon that is one's own mind. It is ever changing.  It is eerily and wonderfully unique.

Go to Bed Hungry

     Sleep....peaceful sleep. Your chance to exit the chaos for a while.
      Hunger... beggar of your contentment.  Thief of sleep.
      Why would you ever choose hunger,... when it may keep you from your slumber?  Why would you attempt to feed yourself from the human menu of insatiability?     When it feeds the consciousness that is life.   When it becomes a matter of the soul...
     Do you have no  passion....no desire....except for sleep, peaceful sleep?
Sometimes it is okay to go to  bed hungry. Then,   let your dreams follow you into reality.  When you finally awaken, feed the hunger that is your passion and desire, and keeps your spirit alive in the arms of hope.
     It has been estimated that more than a billion people go to bed hungry every night.  It's time to join them. It is time for you, as an American ...to feel the bottomless pit and pain of hunger.
You can even stuff  yourself with milk and oreos , and sneak a 3 a.m. snack. But wake up with some passion for the things that feed your soul. Do you consider yourself lucky to go to bed with a full belly.....but an empty soul?
                      "....until the next revolution"....(elrok)
                

Enabling Will

     The most integral part of the ability to accomplish anything....is a matter of will.  Without will...there is nothing.  No beginning.  No heart's thumping desire to attain. We can be smart, astute, born with great aptitude, aggressive, patient, endearing, manipulative, spirited, a bastard, cunning, forthright, disciplined, organized, thoughtful, ....born with an innate ability to lead, to build, to destroy, to love, to hate, to be true, to influence, to attract attention, to persevere, to gain perspective.  All of them useless without will.

      We all have the ability to defend the helpless. But can we muster the will to do it? We all have the ability to squeeze the trigger, cut the throat, hurl the brick, or swing the tire iron that would end a life.   But what of the will?
       Will is ability. And it is comingled and in constant battle with fear.  Fear sometimes enables the will. ...energizes it...like a nitrous pill or an adrenal needle thrust into the  heart to keep it pumping with  vigor and vivation.....
      Learning to use fear  is embracing freedom...relinquishing it's control of your will.  From fear or love or lust for life and freedom...it is time to enable will.

    

Forsaken

   

 Trust.  Given ...lent...built.  The sum of bridges constructed , borders crossed, and sins ignored.  Family with faith and hope. Precursor to love.  Enlightening to the point of blindness. All of us have it,  and  want a place for it.
     It is an emotion of the soul. It is yours to keep or give, shelter or expose, bury or set aloft. It is expressed in comforting relief of conscience or guilt.  A mind's cornerstone of freedom.
     We are all skillfull manipulators of trust. Not just a natural tendency....but a necessary  component of survival....we will build trust with an instinctive intent to breach it.  An art formed of desire and need.  Insidious and self serving. Subconsciously ...skillfully....manipulated. Observe the natural human tendency to build trust, .....just to breach it..
       "The best way find out if you can trust someone....is to trust them".   Ernest Hemingway

Finding Freedom

     As you stoop to adjust your seat cushion, a tiny dime glistens...calling you to rescue it from it's obscurity there.  You reach between the cushions and pocket it. You aren't sure why. But seemingly unknown forces caused you to recognize value and attach worth. Brain synapses firing , breaking through murky grey obfuscation. Hurdling barriers or creating new paths to a place permanently etched in engrams, and finding home.

     Freedom is a place carved into the soul.  Lost in the illusion of comfort and security, smothered by fear and trampled by forces of oppression, we may leave it for a while as illicit embers burn underneath the layers  we have allowed to cover it.

      Remember that your legacy as an American is born of freedom. Daring and tenacious enough to fan the flames around the heated gases within our human soul.  We will discover it as it catches our eye again and travels along the permanent pathway from synapse to soul.  Something in our nature will cause us to rescue it from it's obscurity and attach value. Something in our memory will take us back to a time when freedom was our most precious American treasure..

      "Until the next Revolution......".....elrok

Walk The Line

    Faith.  Does it open your eyes?  Or does it blind you?   As you finally take a step from the clutches of hope...will you sink into the abyss of hopelessness? Or will you embrace the light of faith?

    Hope and faith can be dangerous illusions. Your fall from hope can lead to despair. Wallowing in hope can lull you into corroding complacency.  Blind faith can have you flying airplanes into crowded buildings,   accepting creepy sexual crimes from your  religious leaders, or exchanging your Bible  for the U.S. Constitution.
     You must walk the line between hope and hopelessness, faith and blind faith. There will be no easy answer. Every living step must be weighed, as arrows pierce you from above, or the cold hands reach from the hollows of your floor.
     Freedom requires this cursed responsibility.   These are the scales of liberty.


    

Is That My Nose?!

    

    There it hangs.  Right in front of you. Right smack in the middle of your face. But a lifetime of conditioning has taught you to ignore it...that ever growing monstrocity filled with cartilage, hair and mucous .  Focusing on it would only make you cross-eyed.  Or perhaps, if you've got a monster like mine, a little self-conscious.....

     Your nose. At the very center of your outward image.  Largely ignored...forgotten...                                                                                                                                                                                                                     There are so many things in our lives that have become "too familiar to be recognized"....   whether they be  the more tangible ones like your nose,  your neighbor, your co-worker, your salt intake.... or the things inside, like your manner of handling stress, your  ever morphing perspective,  your capacity for love or emotion, your ability to muster will.  And of course, those things more ethereal, which have been bequeathed to you...like your values, your freedom,  this life of yours, and time tested mores and standards you will test again to prove your individuality.
      It is important to reflect  from time to time ....on that which has been lost to your consciousness or has become vague by it's cursed familiarity.  Obscured by life circumstances,  and forgotten.  They are the structure built by the cells that define your humanity.  They are worth noticing...

Dude!

 ......this officer was eventually fired, ONLY because this was caught on film. Imagine what kinds of things happen that are not caught on film. Unfortunately, teenage skateboarders whose vocabulary is limited to the word "dude", will be left to run amuck in city streets now, until the officer can be replaced. Friggin' skateboarder
https://youtu.be/StSYRSm-yNI

 https://youtu.be/UHSWCMqYQc4



...you see, " Eric", ( 14 year old white skater boy heathen) and his buds will be forever changed by this incident. Perhaps, they will forever live in fear, or have an underlying and seething contempt for police officers. Contempt that unaddressed in already rebellious teenage years, might lead to a giant fuck you. Now, if this officer is representative of just 1% of the force in Baltimore...then there are about 30 of these officers on the force who are about to stroke out about a city ordinance that MAY have been violated by a skateboarder. Damn punk kids! hey, I am not prejudice about skater dudes...I'm just sayin'  Now, I wonder how many black kids have been "mistreated" by those 30 officers, who might not have prejudices against skateboarders only, but against black kids as well. Maybe that prejudice was brought with them before they were hired....or maybe it was developed by their experiences in law enforcement . All black kids are drug dealing belligerent punks and hoodlums, we all know THAT right? Thirty ( and this is probably very conservative) officers endowed with such authority, granted public trust that was not necessarily earned, armed with attitude and weaponry....can create a lot of contempt in a city.....maybe even some hatred. Have you ever had a person who held a position of authority over you, abuse you? Sucks, doesn't it? What if they were allowed, by virtue of their authority, to abuse other members of your family? Maybe your daughter, or your son, your black wife, your cousin. .... You might just take it to the street.


http://findingfreedom-elrok.blogspot.com/2014/02/proving-grounds.html

Sip Your Marguerita!

Sweet America!
......sometimes I think every American needs an ISIS asshole in their backyard..    planting tulips, or sweeping a roadside storm drain. Smiling and winking at you with insidious anti-American evil thoughts coursing through his brain..... as you drive by him on your way to the beach.

 Sending your sons and daughters to fight unknown forces ...for unknown causes.... in unknown lands...while you lie on the beach and thank them while  sipping  your marguerita......just somehow ain't cuttin' it!

My God! The mamby-pamby bullshit things we squabble about with such vehemency!  It is a sure sign that we are TOO FAR REMOVED from the REAL fight!

Keep sippin' that marguerita and living your inebriated dream of freedom while waving your favorite colorful banner and trying to take the other guy's down. In the meantime, there's a REAL fight going down.....

Maybe if it was closer to home, you would be reminded of how much the crap you have been squabbling about is frivolous bullshit!

Screw Them All.....?

Polonius:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

  ......on occasion, I have tried to use this phrase to teach my kids. But the message for them, was that you must know yourself before you can pretend to know anyone else. That you must know your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, your goodness and your strengths, your propensity towards bias or prejudice and your capacity for love or hatred,.. before you can understand your own judgements and attempt to pass judgement upon others. It is a lesson of humility, not one of "Ya gotta be good to yourself first  " as I have heard so many chime in their interpretation.

https://youtu.be/n13FhFrtu_8

Zealots

https://youtu.be/MuZhnNR6vzc 

Have you ever met zealots who mis-interpret criticism of America and the status quo...as hatred of America? It is your DUTY as a citizen of this great country...to question and be critical when necessary. Your "leaders"...whether they be lawmakers, the judiciary, or the executors ...as a group, or individually...are not pious deity, and the U.S. Constitution is not the new Holy Bible. Love of country, sometimes, is to be critical of it. I guess it's a tough love..... Don't gamble on an Obama...or a Bush...or a Clinton...to be your Savior...

Earth to Dr. Carson...! Earth to Dr. Carson...? Dr. Carson.....are you there?!?!

Dr. Carson ....what planet have you landed on?    "Brains"  planet?  Self-touting may be necessary in a political campaign,  but while traveling above us in your spaceship...please take a few moments to gaze back...at the bigger picture. I believe with luck, innovation, and perseverance....you may one day actually find planet "Brains"!   This will require something a degree cannot give you.   .....Empathy!  for your fellow citizen.  Cognizance!...of a goverment running amuck.
"If you have an unpleasant experience with a plumber, do you go out and declare a war on all plumbers? Or teachers or doctors? Of course not. And it makes no sense to do that with police either.” .................. (Dr. Carson quote)    
 As a master,.... ( or even Doctor!!! ;))  of vague analogies,  I recognized this was a good one!.  It is important to assume the opposite sometimes, in order to truly and fully understand the circumstance . So, time to play the devil's champion....at least in your view, Dr. Carson!                                                 Consider this:     Could it be, perhaps, that a "war" has been declared on the general citizenry? That young men's ...( and esp. young black mens')... life potential has been taken away and their access to the benefits of society snuffed....for non-violent drug offenses and trumped up charges? Could it be that the cycle of legislation-to-enforcement -to-the judiciary-to-the prison system....is ever growing, consuming, and self-perpetuating? Don't mess with the man, or talk back, or display emotion, or defend yourself, or look at him funny...or you just might see your jay-walking ticket turn into fifteen separate offenses. "We need you to know who is in charge, boy.!."Check your jails. Run some numbers. See 'what',.. then ask "why'?". Could it be...perhaps...that the system you trumpet as your champion, is feeding these poor souls to the lions as you sit in your colosseum's stands jeering with  your thumbs pointed decidedly downward!                                                                       And then, as for another masterfully vague analogy: Do you think that maybe several hundred thousand innocents were slaughtered as "war" was declared on police states in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did those poor, powerless, and innocent souls somehow manage to stay in your periphery as you waved your banner of righteousness and condemned them as evil fools , allowing such a state to exist? Will you think the same of us, if we allow a police state to flourish as we wallow in increasingly clouded dreams of American Freedom?
....plumbers, teachers, and doctors..... are not armed in military fashion, nor are they given license to kill. It is true that there are many good police officers. It is also true that many of them have assimilated to a culture a of  'brotherhood protectionism'  when citizen's rights are violated.  And many of them suffer from a wide range of psychological problems brought on by the pure nature of their "jobs".  One must contemplate why. ...Yes why, would someone want such a job in the first place? Perhaps desiring to attain such a job has honorable intent. Perhaps aspiring to attain such work, is brought on by some degree of inadequacy overcompensated for in this line of "work". More outside psychological evaluations need to be done, and re-done on the people endowed with such great power, authority, and weaponry.                   Contemporary  trends in governments and legislation have been toward dis-arming the citizenry (gun control laws)..... while arming police forces to the TEETH.                                                                                                                                  What rationale can possibly justify  flagrant disregard for human rights, of which only very FEW have been exposed by the relatively recent access to instant video footage. Just imagine what has NOT been caught on video!  It is enough to make any real American shudder!  These officers, and their close-knitted brotherhoods across the nation, are NOT judge and jury in the field. These citizens are innocent, until a court of LAW determines otherwise .Police officers are NOT a court of law. We have a Judge and Jury for that. ! And what is the justification for such intimidation.....? Why, to subdue and subjugate the American public, of course. Tasers? Sorry...100,000 volts or more! injected into another human is an act of CRUELTY! And this type of "cruel and unusual" punishment inflicted too many times, and too many times whimsically.....AND IN MANY OTHER FORMS as well. This is what happens, when you CHOOSE security OVER FREEDOM!  Through FEAR,  is a willingness to accept many atrocities perpetrated by your government, and to keep your eyes downcast as your brother's human rights are violated in the name of public safety. Until it affects YOU, of course. Through incrementalism and assimilation....you have already lost what so many in our military have fought for you too keep. Too many of you pundits wave the banner of freedom, while simultaneously snuffing the flame of freedom. And as for the poor souls whose lives we have sacrificed in our name and in the name of freedom.... they have died for nothing, if this trend continues......