I talk a lot about the rewards of “being present,” and it occurred to me recently that it’s an adult thing — we grow into it as we mature. It’s unreasonable to expect conscious presence from children, who always want to be doing something else, somewhere else.
In my late teens and early 20s I worked a few summers at a kids camp. Given that we dealt with small humans having the attention span of gnats, we were always prepared with diversions — word games, broom hockey, stories, snacks, whatever it took to scratch their random itches.
Some adults never get past the childish need to be entertained, to be distracted from what’s right in front of them. When they go out they bring a book, a deck of cards or a ball and two gloves, burrow into their phone or get drunk. And a party, even one attended by fascinating people, isn’t a party without parlor games.
A party with parlor games is a party I leave, by the way. I hate parlor games.
Oh, and I hate costume parties. So yeah, Happy Halloween.
I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point I left behind the desperate need to be somewhere else, doing something else. I discovered that there’s truly no moment but this moment, no place but this place. No distraction is as rich or as rewarding as being present now.
Practicing conscious presence isn’t boring, and it’s not anti-social. It’s simply an intentional embracing of what is. Try it.
If you paid attention to the news overnight — honest news, anyway — you heard that the current occupant of the Oval Office and his cabal want to pay “reparations” to illegals. I know that sounds crazy, but I swear I’m not making it up.
Here’s the deal — DOJ, DHS and HHS are in talks with the anti-American Civil Liberties Union to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of a thousand families who crossed into the US illegally from Mexico. As a reward for breaking federal law, and for illegals’ self-inflicted trouble and “trauma,” the regime is offering $450,000 per person, $1 million per family.
This is not ok. This is not America.
This is what we get when we have a doddering mail-order “president.” It’s what happens when Congress is wagged by the likes of a barfly from New York and a commie from Vermont, when the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer is a shameless political tool, when law and order are overrun by race hustlers and identity whores.
This is The Unmaking of America.
There’s every reason to believe that this high crime against Americans eventually will be committed, and that you and I will pay the price. Tucker Carlson asks,
“Why pay your taxes at this point? Seriously, it’s too insulting. It’s too destructive. It is evil.”
That’s a damned good question.
But remember, more than four in ten Americans still believe that this “president” is doing a good job. There are enough communist sympathizers in our midst to grant Crazy Bernie similar favorability. Hell, almost one-third of Americans approve of the vapid Sandy Cortez.
Gruesome Newsom beat a recall. There are people who actually vote for Pelosi, Maxine, Swalwell, Robert Francis O’Rourke and a Somali chick who married her own brother.
I could go on, of course. Yes, we’re “governed” by idiots — because we’re surrounded by idiots.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB
(Today’s header image: On the banks of the Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana, watching a pair of bald eagles soar overhead, September 20th.)