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Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Upbeat

I had a downbeat post this morning. Now I feel more upbeat... or beaten up. Anyway, I perused a book by someone named Mark Steyn about how everything is being destroyed, and Armageddon is a-coming, and the US of A is going to be going down for the count.
On the back jacket, there were positive blurbs from Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter.
Once I saw that, I knew it was tripe. Those two are nay-sayers because they do not like President Obama. They had nothing but praise for the trends of events that were ocurring pre-Obama, such as out of control budgets, wars fought off-budget and on-the-cuff, and loss of manufacturing.

There is infinite detail.
We can see good and evil by the bucketful everywhere we look. We can see bad, even when things are going good. It takes no brains to be downbeat when things are down... look at me this morning! It takes brains and guts and perseverance to set one's course to better things when things are down, and similarly it takes guts to call a spade a spade when our country is doing stupid and vile things in times which seem good, such as the things Mr. Cheney is now striving to rehabilitate with his own book.

We have to have the strength to switch our focus from the siren song of destruction to the symphony of creation and life. Fear is a powerful focus. It fascinates and pervades the body and soul.  It is an ancient Medusa whose glance turns men to stone!
Do not look the Gorgon in the eye, lest you be turned to to stone, to a pillar of salt... lest we become rigid with unnatural panic.
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4 comments:

AD said...

Very thoughtful and meaningful post. So very, very true. The odd thing is that to be genuinely *there* paradoxically I have to be *detached*. This is toughest to do when I open my paper in the morning, energized by a night's sleep. Then I want to *hit* people. But that's not real.

Montag said...

Interesting comment, too. I think one has to be detached, otherwise one becomes much too much engaged to one way of doing things or seeing things.

That would be one of the dangers of living forever: at some point we would lose detachment and become slaves to the world and one way of viewing it.

Anonymous said...

At 82, my father's motto is; The future is open and we say yes.

Souls sometimes seem older than the people they reside in.

Engaging Blog.

Montag said...

Thank you, Diva.

Your father is wise.

We have to learn the door is open, then that there is an unlimited number of pathways leading from it, then how to handle it all the choices.

Wisdom takes a lot of work.