Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which I have any control: now.

You ever get the sense that the Universe is shouting at you buyt you cannot seem to hear it? Or understand the message? I just wish it would shut up… I am not equal to the task.

I get caught between feeling small and insignificant when I look and feel the enormity of life around me… and egotistical to think that I even have a clue, because it is so clear that I dont!

I just want to sit here for awhile and be left alone. Without burdens and responsibilities and the need to make decisions.

Kind of like the whole creative visualization process… see it in your mind, live it in your mind and then make it a concrete reality.

I said I wanted to do photography and I am doing it. I said I can learn Russian (little “r”) and I was pulling it off. I guess it is true, you really can do anything.

I still have NOT learned from my past… but I am learning. So no checks yet… but getting closer. Maybe in another 50 years. :-)

“There are so many hammocks to catch you if you fall, so many laws to keep you from experience. All these cities I have been in the last few weeks make me fully understand the cozy, stifling state in which most people pass through life. I don’t want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don’t want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun – hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, “Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case.” I will turn and say to them “It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn’t even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!” And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup.”
Henry Rollins

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.

Swindoll, Charles

I have a new project… a new fad or obesession… and I am going to do it. Something creative. Keeping my fingers crossed! :-)

Had to attend a presentation on terrorism last night for my emergency management duties. Ugh! You would not believe the number of threats out there and what they want us to be able to do. Makes it hard to sleep at times, but better to be part of the solution and help if you can, you know?

Just the numbers of these kooks in the U.S. alone and the numbers of sympathizers who donate money and intel to these guys is staggering.

Btw, never realized that Hezbolla is number two in American deaths as a terrorist organization, just after Al Qaida. It really is turning into a real long term culture war…

I have often made the same mistakes, had the same old opinions and loved the same old dreams without new action… the same way I did in the past. Never learning.

I would dearly like to move past these things and own my present, and deserve a future that I have built not purely by chance but by my own sweat and drive.