Hello everyone! Mother Earth is really churning, promoting transformation of all sorts. I think it is a perfect time to ground oneself, to get a grip. Not so easy for people like me, apparently. Something will grab me, an idea, and suddenly I can’t let it go. I’m really angry to realize the New York Times is jerking me around. I’ve trusted them my entire life…

Good morning world! Yesterday I spent totally upset about all the civil unrest, and my confusing and ever-changing view of things. Today I plan to put all that aside and just try to have a good day! Much to be grateful for, and without gratitude as a backbone, or at least appreciation, what do we have on which to hinge our values? Last night I dreamed I was living with a mean girl, and then I remembered hang-gliding… decided I was going to move out, and also get a hang glider. In my dream I’d done it before, and so was remembering how amazing it felt… in reality I haven’t, although i plan to. I do know that dreams of flying are always a good sign, so I’m planning on getting launched off and try to make the most of this day!

Good morning world! I have recently recommitted to writing a few minutes each morning, but my dogs are staring me down, so I’d best keep this short! I want to at least put my foot in the door of the topic of ‘extremism.’ And return later, because regardless of anything else, dogs must be walked… 🙂

Ok, much later, here I am, back, after two awesome dogwalks…

I’ve been reflecting on the topic of ‘political extremism’ lately, and have encountered some major blind spots within my own mind, some willful ignorance. I know I’m not alone in reflecting on the protests, and the groupthink that has sprung up around it. But I feel a civic duty to join in the discussion… although I don’t feel particularly well-versed or thoroughly educated on political ideologies, I feel I may have a bit of a unique viewpoint because of the suddenness in which I am shifting my ideologies, or gaining clarity. Please consider the following writing as an exploration, an attempt to get a foothold, and in no ways a promotion of any viewpoint…

It was a very rainy day, and the protests took place downtown. It was a rattended got caught in the crossfire between joyous rioters and looters, and the police herding us here and there. I got stuck after curfew downto and saw these people roaming the streets taking wild swings at windows, pouring into stores to steal stuff…

Sometimes a schism will cause a mental shift to occur that is quite jarring, and I think this has happened to me… it’s been extremely unsettling to swing directly from fear of the extreme right to fear of the extreme left in the matter of weeks… especially when I’ve stayed on one political side my entire life… have I been totally close-minded until now, or has the far-left dramatically changed? And is the media, on both sides, providing such a false narrative that no one has any idea what is really going on, among most people? And another thing, how can both extreme views so thoroughly ignore the rest of the world outside the little bubble that is the American experiment? Maybe I’m making too much of these clashes. The lack of accountability or accurate media depiction of Seattle’s recent CHOP/CHaZ experiment really set the alarm bells off in my head, and made me realize I am going to need to dig deeper to get to the truth of things…

My entire life I’ve thoroughly identified as a liberal. But immediately after attending the George Floyd protests, I realized something else was going on, something that had missed my radar. And that day, the mental ideological ground started shifting underneath me…

It was a very rainy day, and the protests took place downtown. I got caught in the crossfire between joyous rioters and looters, and the police herding us here and there. I got stuck after curfew downto and saw these people roaming the streets taking wild swings at windows, pouring into stores to steal stuff…

I will say that it is rather crazy making that these protests have probably caused more than one of us to swing from the fear of getting crushed under the weight of constant threats of heavy-handed ‘law and order’ exacted upon the liberals, to fear of an all-out chaotic breakdown of society, a ‘smash the state’ in the name of liberalism.

Has the far left considered how hard it will be to ‘rebuild society’ from the ground up, that tearing down the solid structure we do have will take centuries to rebuild?

Has the far right considered the damage caused by their fearless leader and current President? Someone who has systematically used Twitter to create a constant barrage of cognitive dissonance? It’s no surprise that the far left, as wrong as I hope this viewpoint is, to believe that there is no solid ground… Trump’s Twitters leave everyone feeling that there is no one at the helm other than a facsimile to a bored defiant teenager trying to pass the time during detention by secretly sending ridiculous, insensitive and thoughtless notes… For almost four years straight…everyone has been under psychological attack, suffering psychological Stockholm syndrome, and that includes most Republicans, forced into the role of constant apologists…

A nagging voice has been getting louder and louder forcing me to dramatically change my political ideologies… I’m really scared of all this escalating violence, and it is extremely annoying to not have a side I can be on. If civil war breaks out, I will not have the privilege of dying for something I believe in. I won’t have a side to advocate for… yet I don’t really quite have the words yet to describe how I feel, that the extreme left is taking us to a dark place, without any real agenda, and it is forcing the extreme right to match with equal darkness… the CHAZ/CHOP social experiment was ill-conceived, threatened the safety of others, and was immature and thoughtless toward the liberal cause… especially considering the upcoming election.

Good morning world! I woke up thinking about dualities, about how our country has gotten to the point where we don’t have open dialogues anymore with people of differing opinions… I was thinking of the loaded phrase “all lives matter…” I remember as recently as 2016 attending a Unitarian church service right after the election. The church had posted a Black Lives Matter sign on our building, and someone had sabotaged the sign with graffiti, crossing through it and writing ‘All Lives Matter.’ The pastor had expressed empathy/curiosity for the saboteurs, wondering what their lives were about; if they felt underserved somehow, if they were suffering somehow… I felt the love for humanity during that sermon, and comforted at the efforts to reach across the divide, to see what would motivate someone to purchase spray paint, presumably climb up on a ladder to get to the sign… Anyone who dares to utter that phrase now is immediately stigmatized as an unredeemable racist… and maybe they are. Maybe they were a KKK member with devious plans to undermine the lives of black people at every step… but maybe they are frustrated that they don’t feel their needs are being met… maybe they were beaten and abused as children, struggled to make grades just to find an undiagnosable mental illness would rob them of any efforts to get ahead… we won’t get to know anymore though, because in our current American culture, there seems to be no room for dialogue…

How is everyone doing in this strange reality? Are you a Democrat, believing the pandemic is worse than a collapsed economy? Are you a Republican, concerned that a collapsed economy is worse than the pandemic? Are you a Christian, finding comfort in a moral guidepost and a loving God? In spite of the ‘problematic’ moments throughout Christian history, do you have a sense of order that guides you toward achieving your goals? Are you an Atheist, finding comfort in reason, even though you’ve got the crushing burden, and privilege, of moral relativity? As an Atheist, do you fight the challenges of indecision, since your values and sense of priorities are being invented from within?

I am curious to hear about other people’s lives in this regard… I turned 52 this year, and after the quarantine, I have found that loneliness and isolation in my own life is causing me to reevaluate my values. Historically I’ve been attached to agnosticism and liberalism, but now I’m wondering if too much freedom of thought (for lack of a better phraseology) has somehow undermined my ability to achieve my goals toward reaching my full potential… so hungry to hear about other people’s experiences in this regard…

How I survive on the other side of the tracks…

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

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You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

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It was the spring of ’68 when I was born. There were visible stars in the sky that night, or so I’m told… Some days, I ride my bicycle to the farmer’s market, hang my clothes to dry, and sketch or play my guitar into the evening… Other days, I stay indoors, drink too much coffee, eat canned soup, and critique endless reruns of “Law and Order.” (It’s fun to wonder how all the suspects have such perfect memories as to their whereabouts, or why the longshoreman isn’t curious enough to get out of the forklift when confronted by homicide detectives). Do you have friends? (I have come to be leery of dating anyone who has no friends. These people always seem to have some far-fetched conspiracy theory or weird aversion to sunlight…) Bonus points to those who… appreciate a good pun or will give a gratuitous chuckle:) can find humor in not only the absurd, but esp in the mundane…

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?