Happy Halloween!!!!!!

 

Hi! 

Happy Halloween!

So, for those of us who really enjoy Halloween, it's an excuse to let our inner little kid play dress-up and have a blast.

For those who don't, I get it. You hate fun. 

Okay, before the trolls come at me full force with your completely legit reasons you don't celebrate, relax.... I'm kidding.

If Halloween isn't for you, that's absolutely fine. Simply don't participate.

All I suggest is, if you are one of the people that doesn't enjoy, please don't try to suck the fun out of it for the rest of us.

If you choose not to pass out candy, that's your choice. But, if you do decide to hand out candy, please don't complain about it. Don't complain that the kids aren't as enthusiastic as you think they should be. Don't complain that some didn't say "trick or treat." Don't complain that there are 'big' kids coming around.

Not every child is great with speaking up to strangers. You have no idea what the rest of their day looked like. 'Big' kids are still kids. This is a fun way for them to spend an evening, where they can do things they enjoyed as a little kid without threat of being deemed 'uncool', as long as you don't act too excited. Some "big" kids are differently abled, and may not be incredibly verbal, and although they want to do this, it may not be easy for them. 

I guess it boils down to this. 

If you choose to participate, do it without conditions. If they are willing to put in the effort, just hand over the candy... with a smile... with enthusiasm... make their interaction with you the best one they have all night. 

This, after all, is supposed to be fun.

So, get dressed up.... or not.

Decorate with your most ghoulish touch... or not.

Hand out candy... or not.

If you do, go all in... it makes it that much more fun.

If you don't, although I don't know why anyone passes up on such a good time, you do you! It's all good!

Now, I gotta run, I have some last-minute adjustments to make on one of my costumes.... yeah you heard me... ONE of my costumes! 

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May the costumed candy crusaders that come to your door fill you with that warm feeling you get from adding joy to a child's bucket. 

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How Easy It Is To Create A Rabbit Hole...

 

Hi!

I'm sure I'm far from the only one in this.

I'm struggling.

There are people I know well and love dearly who have fallen into such a deep rabbit hole of conspiracy nonsense that I'm genuinely worried for them.

At first, it was kind of at least, humourous. I kind of thought, or maybe it was just wishful thinking, that this one person in particular, was just kind of doing it to be the "anti" person. You know, kind of just being contrary, as that's how they are wired. 

I've avoided certain topics of conversation for that reason. I didn't want to get sucked into the ridiculous debate of fact versus fiction. It's so frustrating because in conspiracy land, facts are, at best, moving targets, and at their worst, they are nothing but vapour.

Anything that doesn't fit into the ever-changing narrative is perceived as part of the conspiracy. So actual facts, historic, contemporary, plain as the nose on your face kind of facts simply don't exist for them. 

Part of this particular one is that the ultra-rich people are trying to off the rest of us to start over. When pressed to explain, the answers get very thin, grounded in nothing. I couldn't get a straight answer as to the reasons why, or how it makes any sense. 

To believe this stuff with so much conviction, you have to fully commit to some incredible serendipity, magical coincidences, and a lot of complete, worldwide cooperation. I mean, I'm not sure how rich you have to be to be in this exclusive group. I don't know what the qualifications are. Is being rich enough? Do you need other skills? 

If you off all the people that toil to make you money, you'll eventually run out of money. Part of the theory is that AI will take over all the labour on the planet. It will eliminate the need for mere humans. I know AI is getting pretty sophisticated and all, but we are a long way from humans not needing to do any of the work necessary to have our planet function. 

From what I've observed, ultra-rich people don't tend to agree on much of anything, in fact they spend most of their time competing in imaginary toy accumulation competitions. It's hard to picture them coming to a consensus on where to even conduct these let's control the world meetings, let alone what the agenda would look like. 

Hell, if this level of cooperation was achievable, most, if not all of the world's problems would be solved!  

Is there evil in the world? Of course, there is, we see factual proof of it every day in school shootings, hate crimes, suppression of cultures, violent attacks, how we treat the most vulnerable of us... the list is endless, sadly.

But.....

Is there good in the world? Absolutely!!! We see factual proof of that too, in our everyday lives! The sad thing is, that kindness, compassion, and generosity rarely make the headlines, they are usually the feel-good anecdote at the end of a news program, usually about once a week. 

So how do you help someone who has devoted themselves to living fully down a rabbit hole?

Solutions to this seem to differ depending on the type of conspiracy, and depth of the hole itself, how the person involved is wired, and if they are willing, even in the most minute way, to climb out. 

To believe all of this nonsense, some fundamental things have to be going on under the surface. Looking for a way to make sense, to have some sense of control over things you don't fully understand, you latch on to things that provide simplified answers. 

If there isn't an actual boogeyman, make one up and blame him for all the chaos. Then make your "facts" fit the story. Then, put it all out there in such a way that vulnerable people who maybe have issues with impulse control, are a bit contrary, maybe had dipped their toes in other conspiracies like flat earthers, moon landing disbelievers, and 9/11 tall talers, will slip into the depths. 

I've been sent links to videos and articles, and have earnestly checked them out. When you spend a bit of time doing so, it generally doesn't take very long at all to find out the history of some of these 'experts.' Sometimes it can be as simple as taking a screenshot, zooming in, and researching the certificates so proudly displayed in the background. On one of them, that's literally all it took. 

With others, it can take more digging and more time. I've even found myself rooting for some tidbit of factual truth. But, inevitably,100% of the time, the trail leads to fiction. 

As a writer I can almost respect the dedication to the story, or stories, depending. But fiction is fiction. Just because you can make people believe it, doesn't make it true. You have to follow it all to its end to find out. 

Some of these conspiracies have been around for a long time, like the one my loved one believes so desperately. It actually started in 1966, and facts have been contorted to fit the narrative through multiple generations. None of what they claim has come to fruition, but that doesn't seem to matter.

Twisting current events to fit this nonsense like the tragedy that is going on in Israel right now is apparently a thing. The fact that conflict in that region is centuries old, you know, a fact, doesn't seem to factor in... go figure. 

I give you "The War of The Worlds" The 1938 Orson Welles narrated adaptation of the H.G. Welles novel. Innocently read for purposes no other than pure entertainment, resulted in causing panic in the eastern United States because those people mistakenly thought it was an actual news broadcast. 

And that, my friends, is how easy it is to create a rabbit hole.

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May you find your way back to what's real, what's true.

May you see the world as the imperfect beautiful place it is.

May you discover the joy that can be had when you let go of the dark.

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It's So Easy To Feel Helpless...

 

Hi!

I won't pretend to understand the complicated, deep history of the Middle East. There is so much more to all of it than what is presented to us in the news. 

But I do know what hate looks like. Hate is visceral, hate is pungent, hate is simple and manifests through cruelty to the nth degree. 

As long as the evil-doers of the world have cheerleaders with money, who clutch their pearls at the sight of blood, but are more than happy to spill it for profit, there is no incentive to stop. Evil will continue to do as evil does, without restraint.

The antidote to evil is not revenge. It's compassion.

The counter to the screams of hatred is the playing of joyful music, accompanied by lyrics filled with love.

I am not naive enough to think it's that simple. That singing rousing choruses of kumbaya will heal all things.

All I know, is it can't hurt.

Maybe if those, whose only goal in life is to dominate and inflict pain, figure out that those they doing their best to destroy have unwavering support and compassion from the entirety of the rest of us, they won't have a choice but to crawl back into the putrid hole from which they came. 

Underneath the guns, there lives nothing but a bully. Which is what dictators and their want-to-be counterparts are. For a bully to back down, they have to gain a true understanding that they have no path to victory. They need to be overwhelmed by the support their victims receive. 

It's a tale as old as time. The bully CAN NOT become victorious. 

The only way they win is if we quit, become weary of the fight, or decide we simply no longer care. 

It's so easy to feel helpless. But we're not.

Social media has made the world a virtually small space. We can show support, throwing our voices behind those who have the actual power to do tangible things. 

Good people, when we collectively do good things, can move mountains, hell, entire mountain ranges, if that's what's needed. 

Centuries of pain are not healed overnight, but for the healing to begin, the infliction of the pain must stop. 

My heart breaks for the senselessness of it all. 

The insatiable appetite for power, driven by greed, and delusional assumptions of superiority, willing to filter the blood of children through the gloves of their henchmen to fill their golden chalises. 

Dictators are the antithesis of freedom. There is no upside. How they are able to get some to do their bidding will forever baffle me.  It's so twisted. 

Anywhere there are efforts to restrict voting, put shackles on an unbiased education,  ban books, interfere with bodily autonomy, or marginalize already marginalized swaths of humanity, lives a very real danger to democracy. 

They fearmonger, telling us scary stories of "others". 

They want us to be afraid of immigrants.

They want us afraid of the LGBTQ+ community.

They want us afraid of anyone who doesn't look like us.

They want us afraid of those who worship differently, or choose not to worship at all.

They make things up, then want us to fear "others" like proverbial boogeymen. I mean there are still people out there who think antifa is an actual thing! It's short for anti-fascism. That's it. 

They want us afraid of each other. I mean, they have a lot of not-so-critical thinkers twisted in knots, jumping out of their skin at non-existent shadows. Scared people comply. Any of us who grew up with corporal punishment understand this all too well. 

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May we all reject the fear, and build trust in its stead.

Graditude....

 

Hi!

As far as the world goes, precious few countries celebrate a holiday called Thanksgiving.

As a kid, all it meant was turkey, company for supper and a vague story about how the holiday came to be. 

As an adult, I've come to understand the reason for keeping it vague. What really was happening when the original feast took place isn't pretty, not something that those of a tender age should have to try to wrap their heads around. 

We whitewash what our ancestral colonizers did with platitudes of gratitude. Under this guise, we rewrite the facts to better soothe our egos. God forbid we should take the time to understand the truth,  accept the reality, learn from it, and strive to do better.

Some argue that scraping the sugarcoating off of history only serves the purpose of making white people feel bad. That's nonsense. 

All the truth can do is teach empathy, create understanding, and help take steps toward healing. If we can embrace truth without blinders, maybe, just maybe, we can begin to create new systems. Ones that carry actual equality. Ones that take care of our most vulnerable citizens. 

We should be thankful. We should be thankful that those who were here when we got here were peaceful and generous. They shared what they had and taught us what we needed to know to survive within this challenging landscape.

They had the option of treating us the way we treated them. But, they didn't. 

So, as I sit here today, I am so very grateful. 

I live in a fabulous country that has come far, but still has a long way to go.

I have four walls, a roof, heat, clean water, a bed, a pillow, and I get to eat every single day.

I have access to medical care that will take care of me no matter my financial situation. 

I have the freedom to love who I love, raise our kids as we see fit, and encourage our grandkids to be exactly who they are.

I am grateful that at 57, I can still call my mom and have a laugh. 

I am able to write on this platform with little restriction. Yes, trolls will troll, but, mostly, the feedback is positive, touching my heart with personal stories and conversations that I treasure.

I am extremely grateful for all of you who take precious time out of your lives to read these ramblings. When I see readers from Singapore to Sweden, from Ecuador to Ireland, and everywhere in between, it continues to thrill and perplex me to no end. 

Are there things that we still need to fight for? Absolutely.

Yes, homelessness should be illegal... it should be illegal for a country as rich as ours to allow it to happen. 

Should more things be covered by our universal health care. Absolutely. Ambulances, therapists, all dentistry, eye care, and prescriptions, just to name a few, should all be covered for all ages. There is no reason why it can't. Other countries have figured it out. We're smart, we can make it happen here too. 

Should there EVER be a circumstance, in a country such as ours, where someone should have to raise money to cover the cost of someone's death? THAT should NOT be a thing. 

Yes, there are lots of things we could be doing better. Likely, there always should be, as Utopia is still simply a fantastical place. 

We can make things better. We just have to want to bad enough to sacrifice the avoidance of hard conversations to make it happen. 

We just have to want to.

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May you find yourself among those who make your soul sing.

May you soak in the laughter, creating memories, giving your happiness wings. 

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