Monday, December 26, 2011

TACKLING TIME

Slow slays haste unawares.
Take your time but not the denials. Learn to wait but refuse to wilt. Scream if you will and curse if you must, resuming afterwards your confidence and trust. The universe is slow but knows how to serve. If not, you can always resign.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

SUNGLASSES

Some people wear shades to shield their eyes. Others model to mask their gloom. Yet eyes are never as tender as gloom pretends. We just aren't used to being perturbed. So, we don the lens to project the lie that all is well.

Friday, December 23, 2011

OUR RESPONSIBILITY

"When the heart is hurting God is speaking."

When you encounter abuse how does it make you feel? Do you silently question, wondering if God us real? If so, you've yet to grasp your responsibility because circumstances should not impeach God's existence or limit our compassion. We should ponder rather our relation to Him and to our immediate circle. How much injustice fills this? How aware are we of others struggles? If their plights elude, how can we slander God? If we don't confront what we can, how can we confront what we can't? Our complaints are only valid when we get involved. Otherwise they deceive though they enrage. Yet rage alone fails; only action frees. The responsibility for changing the world rests with us, not with its Author. God created the world, not its abuses.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

THE MIDDLE

Things always muddle in the middle. But if you keep walking, enduring the dangers (and daggers), you'll emerge with a swagger self-redeeming. Then others will pay to see your wounds, even those who doubt your win.

Monday, December 12, 2011

BEING BRAVE

Will you be brave when things fade and defeat seems certain, or will you prematurely fold and behold the loss of your mission? That's the decision we face when disappointment douses. Then we must decide whether to strive or to have a stroke, surrendering our hope because something broke our heart. Persistence in this regard is another word for "heart." Without it we won't achieve it, whatever it is no matter how much others give us their support. Ultimately, the dream is ours to abort.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

THE ROAD

The road we travel often baffles because we chart unwisely and short-sightedly. We do so because we imagine that our directions are synonymous with perfection, at least until we get lost. Then we realize that maps and markers are often harder to read than we imagine. In this regard, the GPS to success often fails to help us in our quest. Thus we must be willing to travel blindly trusting kindly in the goodness of fortune while be willing to hearken to whatever help we can receive in route. Otherwise we will pout and complain at the pain of being detained in our pursuit. If this weren't so, success' road would be empty because each traveler would have fulfilled her destiny. Yet the fact that she hasn't proves that we are given to assuming more than we should about just how good our maps are. If, however, we persist we will arrive eventually.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

THE URGE TO REGULATE

The urge to regulate represents a diversion of democracy and usurpation of the autonomy entrusted to citizens by reason and sanctioned by law. Thus “red-tape” has become the red-herring enabling governments to galvanize their efforts to prevent the emergence of truly free markets by manufacturing amorphous mechanisms that suppress the growth of cottage industries (and contrary ideas), which would ultimately enhance our ability to build a genuinely liberal and liberating society. If, however, this society sees itself as complete, then it is compelled to create oppressive protocols that stifle citizen’s efforts to implement their unique ideas.

This claim neither denies the need nor denounces the value of regulation as a means of managing public safety (e.g. Borders' attempts to retail his barbecue). However, it does substantiate his sentiment and sustain his argument that the regulatory state is effectually and efficiently becoming a new form of totalitarianism wherein only certain avenues are open to certain people with access to powers and persons that grant permits and permission for them to pursue their projects unimpeded.

Borders, however, launches a logical fallacy in his fertile comparison of over-regulation with applying for welfare, which is an equally arduous process. I also reject his reductionism, saying that, “In the end, all I wanted was to sell barbecue sauce.” In this regard, the relationship between ends and means are malleable. One feeds the other and informs both because of their bond. We just have to be Spartan to limit special interests from suppressing our pursuits which, unfortunately Borders wasn’t.

Characteristically, democracy and capitalism are constructed on contradictory, ambiguous and occasionally conflicting concepts supported by prescriptions and tempered by provisions designed for quality control. Concern with over-regulation, however, as expressed by Borders can become a form of “paper terrorism” whereby citizens are subverted by processes that require conformity to regulations multiplied beyond reason and without regard for commonsense. Perhaps a concept co-opted from philosophy might diminish the dominion of these mandates, namely, a revised version of Occam’s Razor, which would prevent “regulations from being multiplied unnecessarily in efforts to protect public interests.”

If this principle prevailed, the ability of special interests to suppress the emergence of entrepreneurial ventures by their vulturous actions would erode significantly. More important, such an approach would impugn the intellectual parochialism that imperils the progress of democracy, domestically and internationally. In this progressive climate oppressive provisions would cease to prevail, and yield rather to the rule of reason and the right of persons to pursue their peculiar projects in a climate of least resistance. Such a change, however, would require revision in the contemporary demeanor of American democracy, which routinely lets itself be bullied by global events that ultimately hinder citizen’s ability to exercise greater degrees of self-determination because of being deterred unjustly and illegitimately. Moreover, our allegiance to the logic of a flattened world seems to require inflexible systems that suppress rather than serve social interests and citizen needs, threatening freedom in the process.



References

Paper terrorism is the use of false liens, frivolous lawsuits, bogus letters of credit, and other legal documents lacking sound factual basis as a method of harassment, especially against government officials.[1] It is popular among some anti-government groups and those associated with the redemption movement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_terrorism)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

ON ANGLES

There are so many angles that it's easy to become entangled and discouraged. That's also why we need to have courage so that we won't be buried or beaten by the things that threaten and intimidate. It's simply a matter of enduring what we cannot change. In doing so, courage arises and we are often surprising even to ourselves. Yet how many of us are willing to die this kind of death until we are reborn, and no longer captive to the norm? That's what I ask when I hear so many bask in the glow of others' success. It's okay to applaud them but we shouldn't defraud ourselves.

Monday, February 14, 2011

A MOMENT

Take a moment to take the matter that is most pressing, and apply yourself to discern its lesson. In doing so, barriers drop and opportunities crop unsolicited. This, in part, is how "they did it."

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

ON BREEZES

You will if you can. It's all about the demand you make on yourself. Otherwise you will dream yourself to death, only to discover that every other person who eventually acheived stayed committed even when the breeze blew them over. The only difference is that they refused to surrender.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

KNOWLEDGE AND COURAGE

Knowledge and courage are incompatible if we are hyper-rational. Then we know too much and risk too little because of our reliance upon knowledge, which limits the range of our courage. This doesn't make ignorance bliss but it does make us bold if we understand the difference between the two.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

PLEA BARGAINING...

The pining to pursue our dreams is so common that it corrupts. Most are rendered with the rabid, "If I win the lottery..." How can the heart handle such folly? I understand the relief that the idea grants. But I reject the statement it makes about ourselves. Why must we win the lottery to pursue our destiny? What fears must we defeat? Or, are we waiting passively for fortune to favor without changing our behavior accordingly, forfeiting opportunities?