Beautiful Things

When the snow first started falling days ago, Darlin’ Daughter stated, with that absolute certainty that’s characteristic of youth, “We’re going to have a white Christmas!”. I explained to her that even though we had a lot of snow and the temps were cold, there were several days ’til Christmas still, that the weather was atypical, and not likely to last throughout that span. She remained adamant.

The snow didn’t completely melt off, and I awoke today to a few flakes dancing down to earth. That has now escalated to a full-fledged snowfall, with several inches expected to accumulate. She will be thrilled.

Well. I must’ve done something right by the weather spirits this year. I have been privately commenting on how much I’ve missed the snow—and as if on cue, the other day we got a decent (for here) accumulation. Amazingly, it’s stayed cold enough for it to mostly hang around. I awoke this morning to cloudy skies and a slightly thicker blanket of snow; and now, the snow is flying thick and fast—enough to compete with any plains or upper midwest snowstorm. The forecast is calling for 3–6 inches today, with a little more possible overnight.

It was twelve years ago—not this date, exactly, but this day, if you follow the distinction I’m drawing—that the Liberty Round Table was born.

I know this. Good things are always all around us. It’s true despite the economic uncertainties I have been entirely too focused upon of late. It’s true despite the weather, despite how wealthy or impoverished one is, despite how healthy or ill one is.

It’s just that we often focus on getting from one point to another, from one condition to another, from one goal to another ... and in the focus on the getting, we forget about the being. Being present to our lives as we’re living them.

Yesterday, I was very pleasantly reminded of a very good thing—an intriguing person with whom I’d become acquainted at the Freedom Summit when I spoke there a few years back. That was an abundance of goodness all by itself, but there’s more; he offered an essay for my consideration for publication here. It is so beautiful and profound (and timely) I simply couldn’t say no.

I hope you enjoy Time Is Money (not) as much as I do. It’s by NonEntity—yes, he of Strike the Root fame. (As is the custom on guest essays, comments are welcome here rather than on the essay page.)

I see more good things ahead, too. Short term, more blackberry picking with the snolfs today, and longer term ... well, the possibilities abound. I see a few more clearly than others, but all will be shown in time. Thank you, NonEntity.

I have work to do. But I’m waiting. It’s been overcast and rainy, and my solar panels have not kept up with my time on the computer, so now I need to give them the time they need to catch up with me. I sit. I’m reading a beautiful book, a memorial to John Lennon. (Imagine!) I glance out the window and admire the stark beauty of the thunderheads building against the rich blue background of high desert sky. Time is money, I think. And then some other part of my brain pipes up and says, “WHAT???” I sit up a bit straighter and try and figure out what just happened.

I have at my hands a bit of reality. The sky is beautiful; it’s quiet. There was a small herd of elk grazing outside my window last night that blew me away. Three mothers and two children; the mothers grazed while the children settled themselves down to rest in the tall grass. After a bit, they moved on. Time is Money. “What?”

What is time, to the elk? Last week I happened across the statement, “There will never be a time when it is not now.” Hugh Prather wrote that. I have no idea who Hugh Prather is, but he has changed my world in some way. Time. Clouds. Elk. Waiting for my solar power. It just is. It is what it is. Time is Money. What?

What can that mean? Time going by is an expense? But all I have is time. There is nothing else. When my time stops there can be no debt, for there will be no more time. Can debt exist in nothingness? No, of course not.

I glance outside as I notice the sky darkening. There goes my solar power, I recognize. Has time changed? Time is money. The clouds pass and I get more solar. Has time sped up? Maybe I need to consult with Einstein on this one. Does elk time speed up when the sun is shining and slow down when clouds intervene? I look outside. Yep, there it is, the world around me, just being. Everything is just as it should be. I hear a rifle crack. It’s elk season.

In St. Paul, at the Republican convention, the riot police were herding people into cages. It’s ... “people” season? They’ve decided. They’ve decided who will be allowed to express his or her opinion, and who will be herded into cages. It’s the democratic way. Time is Money.

What IS money? It’s time. (t=m m=t)

The only way that I can figure time is money is if money is the measure of my life. The clouds pass overhead and I must stop and allow my batteries to rest, I can’t get done what I need to do to “make the money” I need to pay the taxes which are coming due. Time is Money. Taxes are due. Taxes are due regardless of the clouds. Taxes are due until the rifle crack ends time for this elk. Time is Money. Time is Life. So... Money is Life. Life is Money. ... Ah, there we have it. Money is life. I’m a commodity! Cool! I get it now.

Okay, so what we have here is that my life has a certain tax value. I must spew out taxes at a given rate, minimum. Otherwise I’m of no value. I’m a cash cow. Without my taxes the democratic machine will starve. We can’t have that. Democracy minus Money equals ...? What, freedom? Democracy minus Money equals no one to put people in cages for desiring to speak their opinions.

But I’m not spewing money, I’m sitting here while the sun and the clouds tease my solar panels. While I contemplate the elk and John Lennon (Imagine!) and revere the essence of simply being. I am not a cash cow. I’m an elk. I am. That is all. I don’t need any reason, I just am. My time is not money, my time is love. My time is life, the will to create each day and make it worth the gift of just being. I don’t owe you. You can’t take me. If you take me you have a shell, you don’t have my life. Life is a gift, and by definition, a gift can’t be taken, it can only be given.

Life is. Love is. There are no taxes due. Treasure yourself as the very special gift you are. Be not the gruel in another’s bowl, be the sun that warms his skin and charges his solar panels.

I am. That is all.

That is plenty. No taxes due.

I bid you peace and love and the warmth of the sun.

_______
By NonEntity.

Tonight was the opening night of The Metropolitan Opera. This season they are doing HD Live presentations around the world, one of those being in San Jose, Costa Rica. Ricardo and I went to see.

It was fantastic! When I lived in New York City 20+ years ago I would go to the Met several times a year. It was wonderful being able to see the opening night live, without the massive crowds. Renée Fleming is simply an amazing performer.

Sure, there were a couple of technical hiccups. At the beginning there was no sound, and in the second section the sound and video got out of sync, back in sync, then out of sync again. But that is to be expected with something new.

It was great to be at a live Met performance after all these years, it was one of the few things I still missed from NYC. To be able to do it at a 15 minute drive from my house is, well, just short of mind blowing.

Things like this remind me that as bad as some things are, the technical progress that is going on around us can make our lives richer and better.

It didn’t go as intended—which was a given before we’d even set off—but our weekend away was nonetheless filled with a lot of pleasure. The snolfs got to try their fishing poles, at long last; but, not having tried to learn anything about their equipment nor the fish in the waters they were plying, didn’t get so much as a nibble. Snolf the First was especially frustrated, because his supposedly better reel kept tangling the line when he’d try to rewind, but Darlin’ Daughter’s willingness to share her rod offset that frustration quite nicely. They learned how to cast fairly quickly, and did pretty well at it. They apparently chose the most garish of lures they have—a big red and white stripedy thing—and it looked comically out of place in the clear, cold water of the lake. Maybe the fish were as amused as I was; all the same, the snolfs enjoyed themselves, and I enjoyed watching their antics and seeing their happiness.

We had other kinds of fun as well, but I won’t bore everyone with a detailed recounting. Suffice to say that we found more interesting things to explore than we had time for, and we intend to return to the area.

Lobo and I were each a bit preoccupied in our own ways by the doings of humans in the world at large, and that was hard to shake over the weekend. Yet, nestled up in the mountains, trying to avoid human interaction as much as possible, we too were soothed by the music of wind in pines or rushing rapids; we enjoyed seeing birds of prey coasting on thermals; in short, nature provided a welcome balm.

And I wonder how it is that regular individuals—not the petty tyrants who administer and bureaucratize and dictate the rules and regulations by which we’re supposed to order our lives; in being such creatures they show they have no soul left to reclaim or rejuvenate—can so seemingly placidly plod along with those restrictions and orders.

How can someone breathe deeply of fresh, clean air; take in the breathtaking beauty abundant in nature; feel a child’s small hand slip into theirs as they walk side by side; how can any person observe or even think about the countless ways the world displays its beauty, even amongst man-made jungles, and then turn to become a cog of the state?

How do people who see the glories and the wonder–full potential of our world willingly go off to kill others in some faraway place? How can they blind themselves to the potential of those faraway places, or worse, trash the beauty there?

What does the state offer that is so powerful, so enticing, that people willingly turn their backs on their own dreams and goals, and become its thralls? I do not think most people are intrinsically that evil, nor that stupid, to choose such a deal with such a devil. But its siren songs sing to them in ways I cannot hear; or perhaps more accurately, I heard but never stopped questioning, and hence the song held no charms for me.

I may be nothing but an aging idealist, yet I cling to the belief that many people’s eyes could be opened if they would just look a little harder, or have a key question dropped into their minds. While I often ask “why”, it seems to me that for many, pointing out the contrast between a life as it is, and that life as it could be—as it was meant to be, free from busybody interference and coercive intrusion—by asking “how” might be the right key.

I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve barely had time to collect my thoughts, much less rub two of ’em together to see if they spark. This morning, however, vivid images past and present swirled in my mind; aided by a thread elsewhere, I resisted the urge to squash a poetic moment. And upon contemplating the result, I decided I liked it enough to put it here.

We finally had a deviation from the unusually damp and cool spring here, and I made good use of it. I’ve been dodging the showers as best I can, getting the garden plot ready for planting. Yesterday morning, I finished that task; and in the afternoon, the snolfs and I finally got the garden planted!

Yes, I continue to dwell on the “Is all fun profitable?” idea. It occurs to me that part of the reason I have difficulty with responses like Brad Spangler’s is that it’s based on something that may be ineffable for as long as humans exist: a way to objectively define, quantify, and calculate relationships among concepts including “profit”, “fun”, “cost”, “risk”, and “happiness”. I could go off on many tangents from that observation—and I may still, in future ramblings—but for today, I will simply say that I am unconvinced that an economics-based analysis is always the best course.

A deceptively simple question, perhaps ... but something I’ve been pondering for quite some time now, actually. It burbled into this question on my recent cross-country drive.

Ignore practical considerations of cost, “relevance”, duplication, etc. What would you focus on in the museum you would love to create?

I’ll provide my answer in the comments, after giving you fine individuals a chance to answer.

You know who you are ... and while you may have thought that I wouldn’t say anything publicly because I didn’t ask permission to, you thought wrong. A very happy birthday to you, my dear badger friend, and warm wishes for very many more! I’m sorry I couldn’t bake a cake for the occasion, but I’ve yet to find a cake that travels through the mail well.

[If you’re a regular here, you may well know the individual to whom I am referring. Even if you don’t, what harm can come from wishing another pro-freedom Family member well?]

... that leads to our door is covered with snow and ice.

Sunni's turkey roasting account spurred me to share my own methods and recipes here. Cooking is certainly one shining example of the idea that there is more than one "right" way to do things! I'll have to try her method one of these days, and thought some of you might enjoy reading about mine.

This method is good for any size turkey, and for any wild game birds. There are some extra tricks for the wild birds, however, so ask me if you want those too.

After blowing off some steam over the ongoing squabbling in The Family, I’ve been able to calm down some. Get into a better frame of mind. Many things have helped me accomplish that, but one choice I made boosted my spirits enormously—and the funny thing is, I didn’t expect my trivial action to have any consequence to my perspective.