13: Is the Bird Feeder Half Empty or Half Full?
1. “I just had my first shower of 2017 and lemme tell y’all…it’s the same damn water.” – Posted by my sons’ brother on Facebook on New Year’s Day
2. Most of life is imaginary: “Human beings have a habit of compulsive thinking that is so pervasive that we lose sight of the fact that we are nearly always thinking. Most of what we interact with is not the world itself, but our beliefs about it, our expectations of it, and our personal interests in it. We have a very difficult time observing something without confusing it with the thoughts we have about it, and so the bulk of what we experience in life is imaginary things. As Mark Twain said: “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” – More from 9 Mind-Bending Epiphanies That Will Turn Your World Upside-Down HERE.
3. I understand that many of you want this divisive and exhausting election season to be over and for everyone to move on. I want my life back too, but there are so many reasons to believe that our troubles are just beginning. This is no time to look the other way, and as much as some of you think that I and others aren’t accepting the reality of the election results, the same could be said for you. Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million and many prominent Republicans do not support Trump. Those of us who think Trump is a danger to the world are here in large numbers, and we aren’t going away. That’s another reality. – More coming soon from my commentary Not Getting Over it is How I’ll Get Over It
4. My blogger friend Bonnie recently shared her new favorite word, “Codswollop,” which means nonsense, and to which I responded, “I think the Irish say “malarkey” which is different than blarney and more like baloney.”
5. Adam Rosenblatt, Science and Technology writer, wrote for the Washington Post “Please, no more calls to ‘drain the swamp.’ It’s an insult to swamps. This scientifically suspect metaphor needs to go,” to which my Dharmacratic Poet friend Will responded, “Trump has stocked the swamp with billionaires. I wish the metaphor could find a way that the alligators could eat them.”
6. Another Floyd poet friend sent me an email that had this quote included with his signature: “All a bird brained president elect can do is tweet tweet tweet.”
7. No, this is not The Blue Man Group and those aren’t Blue People, Aka as Do You Like Our Guitar Party Hats? HERE.
8. Could this be why I say ‘I think’ more than ‘I believe:’ believing something is not an accomplishment. We grew up thinking that beliefs are something to be proud of, but they’re really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider.” – More HERE.
9. Last week I posted a picture of a spent Santa piñata from our Christmas Eve party with the caption “Party’s Over.” A reader made an insightful comment, saying, “Santa has the longest vacation.”
10. The day after Carrie Fisher died and on the day her mother died too, a friend posted on Facebook from the hospital, where she was recovering from surgery, and told us that her daughter was just in a car accident, will be okay but was now in the bed beside her.
11. “Suffering is completely human and completely normal, and there is a very good reason for its existence. Life’s persistent background hum of “this isn’t quite okay, I need to improve this,” coupled with occasional intense flashes of horror and adrenaline are what kept human beings alive for millions of years. This urge to change or escape the present moment drives nearly all of our behavior.” – More HERE
12. Since Trump got elected I’ve been hugging a lot more people in the grocery store.
13. Post-truth: The shift of the world / has gone back flat / A contagion of lies / is the new plague.
________Thirteen Thursday
January 4th, 2017 11:46 am
#2: absolutely. all of ’em. I keep saying that, beliefs are just opinions nailed to the barn door. If you can change your opinions (as we often do) why cant we change the ones we call beliefs?
George Carlin said nearly the same thing, about memory: there is no now. no here. Only “remember” and “what comes next”, and as soon as “next” is here it’s turned into “remember”. Took me a few minutes to work that out, but once I did, I could see just what he meant.
January 5th, 2017 6:47 am
I like 12 – it proves good things can come out of bad things.
January 5th, 2017 1:11 pm
#2 explains why I have so often seen a dozen people witness the same event and each come up with a different version.
January 5th, 2017 1:57 pm
A most excellent and thoughtful TT. Would that we could turn back time and make things a bit different. I am fearful for the tomorrows to come, too. And I am grateful that you still have the spit and vigor to be vocal about your concerns.
January 5th, 2017 3:46 pm
Like number two — much truth in that. My T13
January 5th, 2017 4:24 pm
10 AGHAST!!
January 7th, 2017 2:22 am
I’ve been grieving too. The most hopeful thing I see is that people are working harder on supporting causes. When congressmen (including my representative Goodlatte, embarrassingly) proposed weakening House ethics, so many people protested that they backed down and withdrew the measure. It helped that the president-elect did not support the measure, of course, but experts say that public pressure had already effected the change.
January 7th, 2017 8:45 am
This is a great TT! Number 2 is the best!
January 8th, 2017 6:40 pm
Going back to follow link in #2. Agree with #3 of course completely and your poem (previous post/#13) expresses that perfectly. I read #8 and immediately went back to my latest post and changed a word.
You always make me think (not believe). A good thing for an aging brain.
January 9th, 2017 3:25 am
I didn’t grieve. I knew the twittering twit was going to have to change because even his own party was going to put pressure on him to do so. And I knew the intelligence agencies were just beginning to gather the evidence to convict him if he didn’t admit he’d stepped over a very BIG line.
That’s not to say we can sleep walk through this. Semper Fi.