Feed Your Head – Page 4 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Your Limits: Are They Real? Or Can You Do More?

“A man’s got to know his limitations.” – Magnum Force

I’ve heard coffee is bad, but O.J. will kill you.

Knowing yourself is important. There are two aspects of that that aren’t considered enough – knowing what you can do, and knowing what you can’t. In practice, since abilities define a large part of who I am, knowing these limitations and abilities is crucial.

To start off, I have a list of things that I know I’ll never, ever, be good at. When I was in junior high, my music teacher tried to convince me that everyone could sing. Then he heard me and began noting that the Geneva Convention probably outlawed me singing, and also that he was wrong – some people can’t sing. So, I’ve known since I was very young that however much I might like to sing, I will never, ever be able to.

Strike that – I can sing, I’ll just never be able to sing in a manner that other people find pleasant.

Other things are also off limits. Basketball, for one. I have been graced by genetics with a very powerful frame that gains muscle very easily. My body is suited for trudging through snow, chasing priests, rowing longboats, forming a shield wall, and general pillaging. Basketball? If I can tackle people that might work out. Basketball with an axe or a sword? Even better.

Knowing what I absolutely can’t do is important. It prevents frustration.

Are Viking Christians Bjorn again?

The next category is things I can do that are easy. Now, many of the things that are easy for me are hard for other people. And as I grow older, I find that things that used to be easy are becoming not so easy. This pattern will continue, up and until a thing that used to be easy (breathing) will cease to be easy. It will be difficult, and loud. And hopefully someone will make the joke, “oh, Wilder’s just venting.”

But easy is still important.

Then there are the things that I can learn to do. Taking great pictures is one, and I was working on that, trying to get the right light at the right time. I still have a lot to learn, because the teacher kicked me out of class for indecent exposure. All kidding aside, I’m okay at photography, but haven’t spent the time to be great at it, but I can picture getting good at it.

One time I thought I had a “long distance relationship”, but she called it a “restraining order”.

Learning is crucial. It is the thing that can multiply capabilities, and when they’re used for something important, it can work wonders. When those capabilities are used for nothing important, it’s the same as multiplication in the real world – it amounts to nothing.

That’s important. Learning can make us better. The last category is, in my opinion, where the magic happens: things I can do, but I think I can’t do.

Like I said, this is the magic. I had one boss who believed in me even more than I believed in me. On more than one occasion, he said to me when he gave me a task that I thought was impossible, “Wilder, you can make this happen.”

My boss at the suicide hotline asked me to be a bit less positive.

Nine times out of ten, he was right. So, nine times out of ten he knew and mentored me to do more than I thought I could do. That is either the definition of a great boss or a psycho. In this case, he was a great boss. The downside? He set ten impossible goals for himself before breakfasts, too. In one of those cases, he was wrong. As I recall, it only cost a few billion (really, not making this up) to the company. It wasn’t fraud, mind you, he just wasn’t able to do what he thought he could do.

Obviously, he was fired. And then he managed to make another billion dollar company and make himself several tens of millions in the process. Even the thing he screwed up still is worth billions.

All because he didn’t allow those that he worked with to limit themselves.

Looking back, the biggest mistakes I made were in overly limiting myself. When I look at some other friends, I see the same, not swinging for the fence when they had it all. When I get those phone calls or texts, from the outside it’s generally a trivial call to give advice because I can see the capabilities of my friends and I believe in them.

Sometimes more than they believe in themselves.

The Mrs. has a simple test to see if a cat is a psycho. “Is it a cat? It’s a psycho.”

Am I done?

No. I still have a goal – I want to kick a dent in the Universe. I think I can. If my old boss was right, it’ll be a bigger dent than I think it will be. I’m really hoping that it isn’t the Russian’s weaponizing my singing to use in the Ukraine.

Some things are more horrible than war.

Greeks, Passion, and Mayo

“Why? Are the Greeks tired of fighting each other?” – Troy

I heard the Greeks kept watch on their infants by using a baby minotaur.

Epictetus is a dead Greek dude. His name sounds like Epic . . . well, it would make Beavis and Butthead laugh. Epictetus is, as I mentioned, dead. So are several billion people, but so, outside of his sorta-funny name, why am I bringing him up on a Friday?

Because he’s one of the people whose ideas have made it down to us because someone decided to invent the original wireless information transfer technique which uses a solid-state information storage media along with speed of light photon transmission: writing.

One of the things he wrote was this:

Remember that it’s not only the desire for wealth and position that debases us and subjugates us, but also the desire for peace, leisure, travel, and learning. It doesn’t matter what the external thing is, the value we place on it subjugates us to another. Where our heart is set; there our impediment lies.

Okay, the truth is, he didn’t write that at all. He wrote some sort of gibberish with lots of Latin or Greek letters. Sadly, no one left alive can translate those languages, so we had to guess at the meanings, like Bulgarian mall lawyers poking at the internals of a laser printer with a pen, dimly thinking that might somehow fix the complicated internals and make the magic printer work again, like humans at the dawn of time, worshiping an almighty being, hoping one day to be rewarded with things like mayonnaise, or French fries.

Only you east of the Rockies will get this. I grew up with Best Foods™, which ruins this joke.

Yeah, that’s a run on sentence, but so is the Preamble to the Constitution. Classic things can’t be rushed.

Anyway, the good thing is, Bulgarian mall lawyers are absolutely amazing at fighting judges over silly restraining orders. I mean, how could I be charged with trespass if it was just my drone looking in their window?

But Epictetus was trying to tell us something deeper than any silly restraining order. It’s that what we want is what controls us. Epictetus just made the point that the desire for power and the desire for peace and a restraining order are equally controlling. Diogenes, another dead Greek dude who pathetically didn’t speak English, said, “It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.”

Remember, Diogenes often walked around naked, yanking his crank in public, so, you know, ewww. I think Diogenes must have had Bulgarian mall lawyers because I never read that he had a restraining order against him.

What do you call it when a Bulgarian uses bad language? A Bulgarity. (This is not my first choice joke, but the other one was pretty rough. Email me and I’ll share. It starts with, “how do you get two Bulgarian brothers off of a couch?”)

These dead Greeks, though neither of them ever had a hamburger from McDonald’s™, did point out a very simple truth: our passions, our desires are what we give ourselves over to. And those desires don’t have to be bad to control us.

Some of the best times in my life are when I was single mindedly focused on a goal. In one sense, it is a freeing moment. In the very best of those times, I become the work. I lose myself entirely, because I am the goal. It may sound weird, but there are those moments where time ceases to exist, where I am 100% engaged with what I’m doing. I lose myself entirely. This has happened while gathering firewood (I used to call it getting wood, but then I read about Diogenes, so I changed it to gathering firewood) or working on a project, or even writing one of these posts.

It’s awesome. A day at work goes by in seconds. And I look at what I’ve done and am satisfied. I have lived a day that had purpose, that had meaning, even if it’s only meaning that I gave it.

So, were Epictetus and Diogenes wrong? I mean, it’s not like they’re going to come to my house and give me a wedgie if I make fun of their moms. They’re dead.

Kinda yes, and kinda no.

Yo momma so old? Her first crush was Diogenes.

The point is we are not small g gods. We’re people. We have desires, like pooping. Or another glass of wine. Or eyedrops when our eyes are itchy. To be a person without desire isn’t to be as a small g god, it’s to be . . . dead, or worse, a zombie or an ice cube or a houseplant.

It’s living in a world where the salt has lost its savor and every day is like going to a gray cubicle with gray carpet and gray walls and a gray chair and doing work that I don’t care about.

Yes, they may be dead (and in the case of Diogenes, a dead chronic masturbator) but I think people who have interpreted them have missed the point.

If we choose our passions, choose what we will do, what makes us mad, and what makes us happy, we have an amazing small g godlike power: we choose the people that we want to be. In those moments when I get mad (it happens) I try to step back and ask a simple question: why am I mad?

I had to kick some resistors that didn’t work out of my house. Now they’re Ohm-less.

I’ll allow it if it ties to virtue or values. Otherwise, it’s ego, and I try to choke it back, because in 100 years, absolutely no one will remember it. My virtue or values? Those aren’t for sale. I own those.

I really do think what Epictetus and Diogenes (when he wasn’t gripping the one-eyed wonder weasel) were really trying to tell us was to pick what we were willing to be controlled by.

I choose to be controlled by putting these posts out, three a week. I choose to do the best podcast ever done weekly. I choose to go to work, and, on days when there’s enough coffee, to give it everything.

I choose. If I am to be controlled by my passions, I get to choose them, and I make it a conscious choice.

And if I could choose my Greek name it would be Epic . . . well, I’d better stop there.

This is a family friendly place.

Anyone have TP?

Is The End Of The Road Nearly At Hand?

“If they have him, and they can somehow piece the country together, get communications up, they’ll control everything; the Federal Reserve, the military.” – The Last Ship

Where does the Fed® hide its monetary mistakes? In debasement.

Pa Wilder was a banker, and when we communicated via a while back, I’d send him long-ish messages about most everything. One time, I broached the economy with him. As a small farm banker with more than 50 years of experience, he was familiar with the way the system worked.

When I first heard that the Federal Reserve™ wasn’t owned by the government, but by the member banks, I asked him. I figured he’d tell me, “Nah, John, it’s really owned by the government, aliens aren’t real, go back to sleep – we won the war.” Nope. He then went through how each member bank was required to buy stock in the regional Federal Reserve Banks (as I recall) with at least 6% of their deposits.

Whoa. His bank owned a tiny part of the Federal Reserve Bank®. Certainly not much, but part of it. The Federal Reserve Bank© is a private institution. It was the 1913 mechanism to get the politicians out of the economy. The Great Depression shows how well it worked.

What do you call a talkative Colombian? Hablo Escobar.

After World War II, there was a time of relative stability – Europe and Japan were shattered, and the United States had industry that was just waiting to stop making weapons and start making washers. The sudden influx of labor with the demobilizing G.I.s made a combination for economic growth. After they drank the bars dry and made a zillion babies.

Even with the added costs of Social Security, it worked. The economy was working so well that we could build an interstate highway system without breaking a sweat. The highway system even added to the economic boom by lowering the cost and time required to move goods, effectively shrinking the country.

However, every good party has to end. Johnson’s Great Society and financing for the Vietnam War out of “money we just made up” caused Nixon to end the last tether between gold and the dollar. Sure, the Fed® had been cheating about the amount of cash it had been printing, but when the bluff was called, Nixon had the option of sending all our gold to France or saying “just kidding”.

He chose the latter. I think it was a good idea, because it wasn’t like France was going to do anything about it, anyway. The result was the petrodollar – the idea that all international transactions in oil would take place in dollars. That also resulted in almost all transactions taking place in the dollar. The inflation of the 1970s was the result – it was before we figured out how to tax the world by printing dollars in a sorta responsible way.

If I had a dime for every time I didn’t know what was going on, I’d say, “Hey, where did all these dimes come from?”

So, people all over the world needed dollars, even though we were printing them like we were, well, the Fed™. As long as the Soviet Union existed, there was a counterbalance to the United States, so at least there was some check. But after they went tango uniform?

That’s when the responsibility completely ended, the cash was printed, and the instability really started.

The Dotcom Bubble was the first – fed by cash from the Fed® with no place to go. And then it tanked. So the Fed™ printed a few trillion bucks. That led directly to . . .

The Housing Bubble. You probably have heard of it.

But this was different – it actually lead to protests against the banks. A reprogramming was necessary – “put the bankers in jail” had to be stopped, because bankers like to use our money to buy themselves nice things like that tiny part of France where they don’t let Muslims in. Except the Saudis.

I read that photographers and art thieves both take pictures.

A reprogramming was needed – Occupy Wall Street™ had to turn to . . . something. That reprogramming of the Lefty rank and file was into “white people are awful” and it got the heat away from the bankers. And made movies suck.

Meanwhile, the money hijinks led to country after country having revolutions, from Libya to Egypt to Syria. Why? Because inflation in the United States (at that point) meant that people had to pay a nickel more for Cheetos®. In Egypt, that meant that one of the children had to be sold into medical experimentation.

The key to all of this was keeping the dollar as the key currency used in international transactions. To be clear, Russia was a big threat in this. Sure, Russia is ruled by corrupt folks who kill people who threaten them, but I can raise you a Jeff Epstein, a Hunter Biden, and Hillary.

The Russians certainly threatened all of this with Nordstream® and Nordstream II©. These pipelines pushed natural gas straight from Russia to Europe. Now, Russia could take . . . euros for gas. Dollar not required.

Watch a 10-hour movie? No. But have Netflix® break it up into 10 one-hour movies?

And scary. All the investment of the Left in Green Energy® led them to shut down nuclear power plants (Germany, I’m looking at you) and replace them with natural gas plants. And you see the results.

(hint: Ukraine and certain underwater explosions)

Now we find that we have a currency that’s becoming worth less every day, foreign folks are building ways to not take the dollar. So they need fewer of them. And want fewer of them in their pockets.

It doesn’t help that we’re in debt by (spins wheel) over $25 trillion bucks, the economy is distorted, and that Medicare® and Medicaid™ will soon cost more than Joe Biden’s hair plugs. And we’re going to double that in the next eight years, and double it again in the next eight. That’s $100 trillion dollars.

Does anyone reading this believe we can last that long?

Oops.

Pa Wilder said 20 years ago that he didn’t see how it could last. But many folks have gone broke by betting against the Fed™. That one day they can’t paper it all over?

Nah. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.

Red Pill? Blue Pill? What About The Green Pill?

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – The Matrix

What happens if they try to get a new actor to play John Wick? Keanu leaves.

The movie The Matrix is a classic. Too bad they never made a sequel or three. I’m sure they would have been fantastic. Imagine taking the adventures of Neo™ beyond that big battle with Mr. Smith®!

Regardless, The Matrix did include several ideas that have made their way into the main stream, and stayed there. The biggest, perhaps, is the idea of The Red Pill and The Blue Pill. In the movie, Neo© is given the choice of taking The Blue Pill, which will allow his version of reality, the things he knows, to remain, even though they are founded on pretty little lies.

I’ll admit, The Blue Pill is attractive. It’s comfortable. But it is, in the end, a lie. I imagine that since you’re here, lies aren’t the thing that motivates you and more than they motivate me.

If Bill Cosby had played Morpheus, I think he would have pushed the blue pill.

The alternative is The Red Pill. The Red Pill is the The Truth. The problem with The Truth is that it’s ugly. The world we want to believe in is in The Blue Pill, because those lies speak to us so clearly. When I first took the Red Pill on a particular subject, I felt betrayed. Here was an entire line of propaganda that I had been fed since I was a child – it was a part of my base programming.

That’s the problem with The Red Pill. Once I took it, I began to question everything. Like a potato chip, you can’t have just one. And once I began looking, I found even more to question. That was difficult, because I had to reevaluate where I was wrong. And what ideas I had were built around those incorrect ideas.

The Red Pill is demoralizing. It’s not pleasant to have to reevaluate basic beliefs, especially those that comforted me and that I now know are wrong. In part, this website is about that. It’s looking at the things I think I know, and trying to distill what is true. On more than one occasion, a post was nearly complete when I found an inconvenient fact.

In algebra class, people always thought I was plotting something.

That meant I was wrong. That meant my post was wrong. In one sense it sucks because it kept me up later to write something else. But it never upset me, because I had learned something new, and was a bit closer to The Truth.

A key to getting through The Red Pill is to embrace The Truth, and improve. However much. A little each day is enough.

I suppose you could call that The Green Pill. Or, for weightlifters, The Iron Pill.

So, which one makes me The Hulk if I’m angry?

It’s the idea that instead of being upset that the world isn’t the way that I want it to be, I don’t focus on that, at all. Instead, I try to focus on improving myself. Not a lot, just a little each day. Can this post be better? Can I get stronger? Can I get in better shape? Can I learn another useful skill?

Life is nothing without difficulty. There is no honor in fighting weak opponents. I mean, I could spend my day boxing three-year-old kids. But my arms would get tired. Unless there weren’t that many, or if they were all especially weak three-year-olds. Like vegan-weak.

No, for a victory to have meaning, the challenge must be sufficient. It would have to at least be boxing six-year-olds. Or, maybe helping the world, or even one person, see what they normally would never have seen.

I had a globe on my desk, and met the guy who made it. It’s a small world.

I have to have a quest. The grander, the better, and I even live with and am comfortable that I won’t live to see the ultimate impact that I have on the world. That’s fine with me. Small pushes, over time, change the world.

Never let The Red Pill get you down. The real choice, even in a world gone mad, is to keep our virtue, and never to give up in making ourselves better, and to improving what we can, even if it’s only a little.

The Red Pill is difficult to swallow, but it is a gift, and victory in finding and spreading The Truth is the challenge that fuels me, and is way less tiring than fighting either endless streams of toddler or endless streams of Agent Smith.

Dang. Sure wish they had made a sequel to The Matrix.

No Way To Go, But Forward

“It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.” – The Blues Brothers

I’ve seen this meme a dozen times, but this is the first time I noticed that Keanu was talking to Sponge Bob and Patrick Starfish. Now I can’t unsee it. (All memes today are as-found.)

Today was . . . busy. On the average day, I manage to manage stuff so that I get my normal life done and then have time to post or do other creative shenanigans. Not today. I could give a much longer explanation, such as: “I ran out of gas. I . . . I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! It wasn’t my fault, I swear to God!”

But I won’t. I half expected this, but there was still the outside chance I’d come back in time.

I wasn’t out doing this, but it looks like fun.

So, a very short post on a Friday, and I’ll leave just one thought – there’s no use looking into the rearview mirror of your life. You can’t go back there. The only path that you and I have (provided you don’t have a time machine) is forward.

Me? I look around, and take stock. The mistakes I’ve made? I don’t dwell on them, because I can’t change them. I can only look at what I have, the talents I have, the support of the people who love or believe in me, and go forward.

There is no way out, but through. Unless you live in Canada, where the “easy way out” is now a prescribed medical treatment.

I always thought we’d see another Pol Pot, just didn’t think he would be as much of a pansy as Trudeau.

So, remember, there is one direction, forward. There is one attitude, determination. And there is one moment: now.

What you do with all of that, is up to you.

As for me? I’m going to go hit the hay. I’ll comment on comments from the previous post tomorrow.

I’m sleepy.

Your move, Mr. Bond. Do you really think those Space Marines® can hold out?

Never Lose The Battle For Your Mind

Bah! Your planet doesn’t deserve freedom until it learns what it is not to have freedom. It’s a lesson, I say!” – Futurama

What did they call George Washington’s teeth? Presidentures.

“So, John, after I explained it, do you agree with me?” asked Captain Assholay.

“No, no I don’t,” I responded.

He looked frustrated.

The other details of the conversation were and are relatively unimportant, but the boil down to those two sentences. The fact that the person asking the question was my boss is pertinent, since, well, Captain Assholay was (years and years ago) my boss.

As bosses go, I’d rank the Captain near the bottom of the ones that I’ve had. I think he was borderline retarded, and I can say that word because it’s my blog, and I’m bringing it back.

One of my previous bosses was a man that reportedly lost the family fortune by punching a punter for the Green Bay Packers® who sued him and won because he couldn’t play anymore. I guess punters are fragile. On another occasion (while drinking) he mentioned that he threatened a witness in a felony trial so he’d leave the state and not be able to testify.

Captain Assholay? Worse than that guy.

Alternate caption: “Well, Forrest, there’s cheddar cheese, fried cheese, cheese sticks, cheese curds, cheese slices, cheese doodles, melted cheese, cheese dip (continues for three days) . . . that’s all the cheeses I know.”

But these two sentences encapsulated the relationship I had with Captain Assholay – his question was whether or not I would change my opinion. I would not.

Neither would I lie about it.

I’ve followed a fairly simple pattern in my life: when I’m working for someone, if they ask me to do something that is within my capabilities, and it’s not illegal, immoral, unethical, and doesn’t conflict with my values, I do it. Even if I don’t like it. Even if it sucks. That’s why it’s called work, and not a hobby.

This, though, was different. In this case, I was asked to conform my thoughts and agree with my boss. If he told me to do something (again, nothing illegal, immoral, unethical, and not conflicting with my values) I would do it. But the space he doesn’t own is in my head.

To me, agreeing with the Captain merely because he was my boss is something I couldn’t and wouldn’t do. I’ll hold my tongue. I’ll support silly things. But my mind?

I own it.

My other friend makes wigs. It doesn’t pay much, just enough toupee the bills.

I’m not sure Captain Assholay understood that. Heck, I’m not sure he had the capacity to understand it. But it’s not my job to raise him. One (much better) boss of mine had a saying, “Right or wrong, the boss is the boss.” That is true, and soon enough, we ceased working together.

I don’t send him Christmas cards. Okay, I don’t send anyone Christmas cards, but if I did, I would not send him two cards. My joy in thinking about him is that I do know that karma is real, and that the German word for empathy is schadenfreude.

Even though I’ll enjoy (at some point) hearing about his sudden but inevitable downfall, that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is about the latter part: there are things other people can buy from me. My time.

But they can never, ever, buy my soul. They can never buy my integrity. They can never buy my values.

He also joined a poetry club. So far he’s made some ashtrays and a nice vase.

Life is about a series of compromises. Anyone in a long-term relationship realizes that. In fact, I’m pleased that The Mrs. has learned that if I promise to fix something around the house, I will, and she doesn’t need to nag me every six months until I actually get it done.

I couldn’t lie to the Captain. Why?

I’ve given that some thought. One idea might have been pride, but that’s not it. I’m not much about things like that – the last time I washed one of my cars was sometime when Clinton was president. So, that’s not it.

It was deeper. And I look to my growing up, and the stories. Would the heroes I read about have yielded? Would Alexander? Would Patton? Would Richard Dawson?

No.

While I will render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, there are things that are simply not for sale, and never will be. I will face the world that is being born knowing that.

“All I want for Christmas is Gaul.”

I don’t recall exactly where I read it, but the difference between the Mafia and Leftists is that the Mafia doesn’t care if you agree with them, as long as you pay. Leftists? You must pay, and you must agree, and you must humiliate yourself if you ever disagreed. They will settle for nothing less.

The only answer is to never give in.

Ever. Understand where the line is, and never, ever let it be crossed. Even if you aren’t religious, understand that the battle is for your soul.

And you will be tested.

And you are not alone.

I saw my ex-wife get hit by a bus, and thought, “Man, that could have been me,” but then I remembered I don’t know how to drive a bus.

And that is the first step and the final step of winning. If you don’t compromise, there will never be a one-way trip on a train. Be free: never give the space in your head, never give up your values or virtue.

Especially not to Captain Assholay.

Thanksgiving Thanks, 2022

“Two men are dead! This is not the time for petty sibling squabbles. That’s what Thanksgiving is for.” – Psych

I knew an Irishman who used to sell lawn chairs. I’ll never forget Paddy O’Furniture.

As this is Thanksgiving week, I thought I would share a few things that I’m thankful for. These are in no particular order.

I’m thankful that almost every single one of my problems is self-inflicted, and has a clear way to solution. I am where I am because of who and what I am, and I can change everything I don’t like, when I want to.
I’m thankful for being with The Mrs., because either of us with other people would be just an unending misery for them. I believe the Geneva Convention specifically lists being married to either The Mrs. or to me as a Crime Against Humanity.
I’m thankful for Elon Musk and the amusement he creates by stirring the pot. Do I think he’s on our side? But I think he irritates enough of the people who hate us to make me laugh, nearly daily.
I’m thankful for friends. I have a Polish friend who is a sound tech. And a Czech one, too. And a Czech one, too.

Or if I opened a trampoline in Prague, would the Czechs keep bouncing?

I’m thankful for standard time. Daylight savings time is the tool of the Devil.
I’m thankful for the “ringer and vibration off” switch on cell phones. And I should use it more. There’s something to be said for uninterrupted focus time. When going out to dinner, we often ditch our cellphones at home. This leads to this crazy thing called “talking to each other.”
I’m thankful that The Boy is home from Midwestia State U (located right next to Wassamatta U) and that he and Pugsley talk for hours when they’re together. A loyal brother can be the closest friend as you move through life.

I recently bought a toilet brush. Long story short: I’m going back to toilet paper.

I’m thankful that I got up late today, and that I’m writing this early.
I’m thankful that, right now in this place and time, my family is safe, and we are together. This is why Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday: there isn’t the stress from presents, merely a time to give thanks and be together.
I’m thankful for decongestants. I’d tell a joke about me having a virus, but I’m worried you might spread it.
I’m thankful that I live in a time that has the greatest access to knowledge of any place and any time in history, allowing me to read the thoughts of the greatest men who ever lived and the ideas that influenced our civilization and showed us what truth is, almost at a whim. Oh, and there’s also CNN®.
I’m thankful for cheese.

A Pomeranian puppy looked Medusa in the eye – he became pomegranite.

I’m thankful for living in a time and place where starvation is unknown, though the Left keeps wanting to put it back into play.
I’m thankful that The Mrs. talked me into buying the chair that I sit in to write these posts. I had to get rid of my old recliner. Me and my old recliner? We went way back.
I’m thankful for hard exercise, where when I’m done, I know I’ve given it my all. I try to use the workout the actors who played the Marvel® superheroes use, but I get Thor just thinking about it.

I accidentally hit my Nokia® with a hammer, and took it to Best Buy™ so the Geek Squad© could fix it. Best Buy® said they don’t work on hammers.

I’m thankful that Pugsley and The Boy are sons I can be proud of, strong and with their own opinions for their own reasons, and with exactly the character that I had hoped for. It wasn’t easy, and no matter what I do, German children will always be kinder.
I’m thankful for Ma and Pa Wilder, who, though gone, helped me become the man I am today. There was a time when I had a difficult relationship with them: when I was born, I didn’t talk to them for two years.
I’m thankful to have lived through some of the most interesting times in human history, and having seen amazing advances in technology. And Chia Pets®.
I’m thankful for the first sip of hot coffee on a cool morning. I’m thankful for the last sip of coffee on a hot day. I guess words cannot espresso how much I like it.

What was the subtitle for War and Peace? Tsar Wars.

I’m thankful for the troubles I’ve had in life, because those have made me better. When I was young, Ma Wilder called me a pirate when I was learning the alphabet, since I always got lost at C.
I’m thankful for the talents that I was born with, because those gave me capacity. In fact, I have one talent that I’ll brag about: I can always tell what’s inside a wrapped present. It’s a gift.
I’m thankful for winter. Winter is the time of year when things are quiet, and I can think. Sometimes I work on math, which makes The Mrs. say that I’m cold and calculating.
I’m thankful that I don’t have regrets, and go to sleep soundly. I often sleep without pajamas, which seems to bother them at work.

And I’m thankful to spend time with you folks every week. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Defeat? Never.

“Okay you people – sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning, and if we’re not back by dawn? Call the president.” – Big Trouble in Little China

I hear that Rob Halford became an eastern monk, which I guess makes him a Buddhist Priest.

Back when I was in high school, I started a quest. It would probably be a trivial quest in today’s world with the Internet, and tens of millions of songs available all from a single search. However, back when I was in high school, the only people using the Internet were computer nerds at colleges or places like Los Alamos sharing nuclear bomb design info and ASCII porn.

Is this how Los Alamos beat the Soviets?

There was exactly one rock and roll radio station that reached the lofty heights of Wilder Mountain, and it was a good three-hour drive from where I lived. Heck, the nearest record store was a 45-minute drive. But I heard a song . . . and loved it.

I had no idea who the artist was. All I knew was that it had guitars that sounded like jet fighters coming in for an attack (metaphorically) and a heavy metal singer with pipes to growl low and also hit the high notes.

This was not helpful. My bumbling attempts to hum the song to the record store clerk probably sounded like a toddler attempting to instruct an Albanian goat herder on how to repair a Junkers Jumo-004 on an ME 262. My incoherent rambling eventually convinced the store owner that I could probably be sold a lot of records on my quest to find the goofy song.

What happens when a plane full of Leftist lands? The Jet turns off but the whining continues.

She was right. On one particular winter day, I bought two cassettes. Memo to the young: a cassette was an attempt to put a part of the Internet on a skinny magnetic tape and take it with you. Sort of like WIFI but with a really, really low transfer rate that cost over $7 for 42 megabytes.

I listened to one of the cassettes on my forty-minute drive to Stately Wilder Manor. I don’t recall what the first cassette was. It was okay. The song I was looking for, however, wasn’t on it.

When I got to Wilder Mountain, I decided to listen to the other cassette. Pa Wilder wasn’t home. It was November, and snow was falling gently across the valley, as I looked toward the volcanic cone that dominated the view above the mountains that surrounded the valley.

I put in the cassette. I hit play.

A single guitar hit an E note that crunched and then was followed by 41 seconds of guitar solo that made my brain implode. The first second was enough, the next 40? Pure passion. My father’s stereo, which before that day was primarily concerned with playing Dean Martin and Johnny Cash, must have been surprised.

I know I was. Then? Another driving song, this time about a sentient A.I. encased in an orbiting surveillance satellite.

The two satellite dishes on my house got married. The ceremony was awful, but the reception was amazing.

What? I was in heaven. The cassette was Judas Priest, the album? Screaming for Vengeance.

The theme of the music was unabashedly masculine. It was fueled by testosterone and optimism and defiance. It was, in short, everything I loved in life.

What was my ethos at that time? Full speed. Every moment in life. When I played football, I played football. Every ounce of my being was focused on the next play. The cleats digging into the turf, the snap as the center delivered the ball to the quarterback, my sudden sprint, and the exquisite feeling of my shoulder pads digging into that quarterback’s belly as I impacted him at full speed. Life was a game to be played at full speed. When a football game was over, win or lose, the idea that I would have left anything of myself or held back an ounce of myself? I never felt that after a single game.

Win or lose. Everything I had.

And that was the ethos. My focus was on doing everything that I could humanly do during the game. If we won? Excellent. If we lost? There was no room for regret since I had done every single thing I could for the team.

Amazingly, here that was, in music.

This music and most of the music I have loved since then was fueled by one concept – it was fueled by the idea that, in this life, there are winners, and there are losers. But there are no victims. I was responsible for my preparation. I was responsible for my effort. I was responsible for me.

If I won? Wonderful. If I lost? Yeah, it stung. But if I gave it my best, and lived up to my own values, I still won.

I took a survey of what soap people used in the shower. 95% of them told me to get out.

Again, winning was and is important. But a loss of a single day was nothing. Winning could and would come. And I would live my life, on my terms.

Have I been cheated? Yes. Have I been wronged? Yes. Did I stand toe to toe with my boss and tell him that I wouldn’t sell my honor and principles to him for any reason?

Yes. And did I pay a price?

Duh.

Do I regret it? Not for a minute. Not for a second.

There are moments in life, where honor and values will be tested.

Heck, that was in this music, too.

In this world we’re living’ in, we have our share of sorrow
Answer now is don’t give in, aim for a new tomorrow

Also in the music? Questions of deep philosophy. The eternal battle between Good and Evil. Oh, yeah, and hot chicks.

Eventually, this changed and fell out of fashion. I think it was Bush. Or maybe raising the drinking age to 21. Or maybe drugging generations with lithium and Adderall®. Or maybe the new “zero tolerance” lifestyle, where fighting for Good and being right still resulted in a suspension.

Or maybe all of that.

Kurt Cobain was depressed at 13. Guess that was his midlife crisis.

Music based on honor and testosterone and optimism eventually fell out of favor. I can even give you the date: September 21, 1991, when Nirvana launched Nevermind.

With the lights out, it’s less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

That abomination of learned helplessness replaced this from Judas Priest:

Thousand of cars and a million guitars
Screaming with power in the air
We’ve found the place where the decibels race
This army of rock will be there
To ram it down, ram it down
Straight through the heart of this town
Ram it down, ram it down
Razing the place to the ground
Ram it down

One of these makes me feel like slitting my wrists. The other? Fills me with the idea that none of us are alone. We have power. We are . . . going to win, no matter what the damn odds are. Judas Priest is still touring. Kurt Cobain? Not so much. I guess it proves that one person can handle only so much Courtney Love.

Fast and furious, we ride the universe
To carve a road for us, that slices every curve in sight
We accelerate, no time to hesitate
This load will detonate, whoever would contend its right

I refuse to accept defeat. The idea is against every fiber of being in my body. I realize that I will not win every battle. And I am going to listen to music, and I am going to take in media that tells me the truth, but I shall never, ever, despair no matter how dire the situation. My family? They come from heroes. So does yours. Never, ever, give up.

I always took a piece of paper to a wrestling match. That way I could beat The Rock.

I’m not going to stop until I stop breathing. And I won’t relinquish my honor to any man. And I am responsible for every aspect of my life and my situation.

Oh, I did find the song I was looking for, a year later:

The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming

But that’s another story, though the song remains the same.