A Vote for Integrity

The Latin adjective integer means whole, complete. Having a sense of integrity is paramount in business; in society.  Today, the United States goes to the polls to elect its 45^th President. A lot has been said about the candidates as most of it requires a point-of-view on which to stand in order for the conflicting statements to be true. Yet, in review, I’d not say that either showed much integrity.

  This process of selection has become one of adversity; where the plan for all is not encouraging cooperation and participation, but a position where disagreement delivers denigration and humiliation. Taking sides diminishes American culture proposed by our founding fathers and first President, George Washington. He promoted the cultivation of being a citizen of the United States above all other loyalties; who in his farewell speech to the nation at the end of his second term as President, warned the new nation of the dangers of political parties; where affiliation to a particular party’s course of governing divided citizens from being supportive to one another as fellow citizens. 

   Ours was an inception based on freedom; to pursue our happiness. No guarantees, and certainly no false promises of the government taking care of us, but a pledge to support one another.  Adam Smith, father of economics said that government should protect society against “the violence and invasion” of other societies.  We’d call that national defense. Overall I think that’s a swell idea, we need space to invent ourselves.

  As for all the rest? What should we invest our time, our money, our very limited energy into? How about starting with civility? Not moralistic or ethical dogma that says we must behave is this way or that in order to earn respect or demonstrate obedience towards appointed authorities; nothing so abstract as how not to be punished.  Being decent should be the start point, as is abhorrence to deliver ridicule and humiliation on others. It should be a national value, as well as personal virtue. Hoarding greed is born from lack, as that is a conclusion derived in fear.  We are a marvelous race for we adapt to who we say we are.  Ellie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate said it best:

“People become the stories they hear
and the stories they tell.”

I vote, today for a fresh approach to being human. Foremost in my dedication is to not see disagreement as a call to battle.  Rather, to cherish my brethren because we’re American’s and that’s not an everyday calling. Let us use this hard earned freedom to work towards good; no one needs a lesson on what that is. It’s the only reasonable course towards peace.

Salute to Past Sunday's Diversions

Yesterday started with high hopes of staining my deck before the winter closed us in.  Then, the office printer stopped, without preamble, working. So I had to sort that out; then I had to resort to reading the printer documentation to set it up to do my will. In that process, I discovered something else had gone amiss with my Firewall, so I followed that down, fixed it, and presto; I lost control of my wireless mouse.  

Do try one day, for grins and giggles, to try commanding your computer operations without the help of a mouse.  Yes, there are DOS commands that are comprised of combined key strokes that work splendidly; just as there are formulas for calculating the volume of water in a lake. Point being I've forgotten both.

   So after spending more time on unexpected side-lining events, I  realized that I lost the initiative. The day was already half spent; my plans would have to wait.  Then, I stumbled onto this little piece I penned, just so happens, the LAST time I stained the deck.  Life really is a course of circles.  Imagine that?  I like.....totally forgot the pain from the last deck effort.

Totally

Well, until about mid-morning today that is.

Got the stuff under the deck in its proper place, watered the new plants; even re-seeded the crescent of earth where the sink hole used to be.  Then like a plutocrat descending on a neglected citizen, I felt the reins of power pull me abruptly from my TODO list. 

It was Jackson Browne's voice in my head, rising in volume from the background of my mind...

'Runnin on...'

"Where's that coming from?"  I looked around but I knew better, I knew the source.

'...running on empty..'

I tried to shake it off, maybe something to eat?  It doesn't work.

'...runnin on..'

I attempted to ignore it, focus on something that wouldl keep me moving, I had to keep moving, my success depended on moving...it was dream like, the air like water, like transparent Jell-O, impeding my advance, I grasped for anchor, nothing to hold on to, nothing to help.

'...running blind'

my plight increased, ached overwhelming, tackling me, legions of midgets squirming and squeaking in my ears, on my leaded limbs, I tried to resist them, too many, I thought  I'm fighting, delaying them, but it was no use, dragging me towards the couch

'...running on into the sun, but I'm running behind'

My struggle dissolved, I collapsed into a nap..

So history repeated itself and I took a nap…how was your day?

Ghost of Summer

  When I was a boy, I used to run bare foot most of the year, but particularly during the summer. And my best friend in the whole wide world at the time was Britt Lee Moore and he lived across the street from my house, in a small Southern California housing development a few miles from Long Beach.  No matter the many solemn speeches given by my parents about looking both ways and being careful before crossing the street, my sisters and I would still scurry across the road without looking; from time to time we would scare the hell out of some neighborhood parent driving on an errand as we’d darted out in front of their Buick. 

  Oh, we’d get yet another sit down lecture; they’d try to recruit fear into their convincing; looking all serious when they mentioned how we could get hurt …killed even.  Ha, we heard it before, to kid reality that’s the same consequence for not eating your liver and onions. So beyond a winking desire to obey our parent’s wishes born more by experience with punishment, any conscious choices to obey their rules would dissipate with a single minded survival impulse of getting off the blistering asphalt of the July sun.  Then, darn if on more than a single occasion, I'd catch that slip of asphalt extending over the cement curbing with my big toe.

Even now I can sense that spark of pain flashing behind my eyelids.  Oh and that baby would bleed like I was being murdered; I sounded off like I was too. The scabbed big toes of the neighborhood kids became the measure of the quality of any summer.   I'm writing about this from the point of view of my inner child, flinching with the fresh recollection.  You know back then, that kind of injury didn’t slow us down any; not a bit, we took it as just something we had to cope with.  No big deal.  I hear the howl of pain from a paper cut in a neighboring cubicle, and I think;

   “He’d not have lasted on my street in Westminister.”

Nope, they’d be a house kid; a ghost to summer.

I shake my head in amusement at how I consider those the sweet days of my youth?
What a funny filter that is.