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| | Life Without LV | | | | Wednesday, September 17, 2008 (10:25 PM) | | I am still alive, though I have been absent from LV for quite some time now. In my mind the LV I knew is frozen in time, just waiting for my eventual return. I know, however, that all of your lives are changing and some of whom I had known will no longer be active on LV when I am capable of coming back.
It is a matter of being "capable" of coming back. While I would like to get back into the swing of it and discover all of the insightful, intelligent, inspriring and intriguing posts all of you make on a daily basis, it just takes too much time that I need for writing the first draft of the novel. When I get into rewrites I'll have more time, but for me it's way too important to get that first draft down solid, then I can loosen the focus a bit.
So, what is taking so long? Well, I had to trash the first several chapters of the first, first draft because it wasn't up to what I could do. Then, I started over and now I am at chapter 11 (not bankruptcy, literally). I may rewrite the first seven of those chapters, or at least massively adjust them to fit the final narrative that I have decided on. It really wouldn't take so dang long if I had more then three hours a day to devote to it. Sometimes I use all three hours just staring at the blinking cursor. The blinking cursor is my tormentor.
The saddest part of this whole hiatus is that I know you all are doing wonderful things with your masses of creativity and I cannot allow myself the indulgence of keeping up with it. It is a loss that I recognize and regret.
TL
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| | Checking In | | | | Friday, August 8, 2008 (6:25 PM) | | I feel somewhat guilty about taking some time to spend here on LV. The novel is not going as well as expected, I had to trash six or seven chapters and start over with a more imaginiative version, a little less tied to the actual and a bit more tied to the vision.
There is a lot about writing a novel that gets lost when you haven't done it in a while. For one thing, trying to stay within the same mindset is difficult. Another thing is that it is hard to find more than one or two hours a day to do this. Another is that a lot of what you are trying to accomplish has to cater to two possible points of view, the reader and the editor.
LV is a release, a way of communicating and writing without having to publish, to go through the process of getting something published. That is way too destructive to the creative process and why I had to take a hiatus, which is not over by a long shot. However, I did feel like I had left a lot of friends here and that I hadn't stopped by to look in on all of them for a while.
I can't tell you all a lot about the novel, it is still being kept close to the vest. Innovative ideas don't come around so often that they can be squandered. Also, though, I don't exactly know how to explain it either. Let's just say that I expect some editors and some agents to sit up and take notice. It is a divergence from Westerns, or Action/Adventure types. This is a literary work, which most of my stuff is anyway, but this is much more so and it does have the possibility to obtain the widest possible readership. That is something I haven't thought about much in the past.
Well, for now I have to get back to the grind, once I have gotten the story to the point of no return I will feel better about spending time here, with you.
TL | | | | 35 Views | 10 Thumbs Up | 5 Comments | |
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| | Hiatus | | | | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 (8:57 PM) | | I spent some time this weekend with family. I had forgotten a lot about who I am to them. Maybe I forgot a lot of who I am to myself. Since coming back, I have not engaged in this site, or responded to the videos I watched when coming back. The people who know I watch their videos are probably wondering why I have not responded, or commented on them. I hope those people will understand that I am re-evaluating where I am and what I'm doing.
To my family, even my greatly extended family, I am still a writer. They have read my novels, short stories, etc. They wonder why I am no longer writing for a living. I wonder too. I enjoy drilling water wells. I enjoy drilling in general. There's a thrill to it, an adrenaline rush that comes with it that I have long been addicted to.
Also, you all know that I am working on a new novel. After speaking to some of my relatives, I realize that what I am working on could be a lot better than it is. I may have to totally redo it. Let's just say that I am in a place where I need to massively rethink what I am doing and where I am going. I also need to work harder on the novel. While I know that some of you won't understand why I can't do both, trust me, I can't.
So, I am taking a hiatus from LiveVideo, at least the participatory part of it. I may post a blog now and then, but mostly I need to use what little free time I have for working on the novel, not satisfying my interests with videos and such. Everything you all do is massively interesting and engaging and that is part of the problem. If I spend my free time watching, reading, commenting and responding I won't be doing the work I need to.
Once I get the novel started in the right way I will be able to come back on a more regular basis, but I have for a long time had trouble with the way it began and the way it was developing and when I looked at revising it, I realized that I didn't have time to do that and spend so much time on LV.
TL | | | | 64 Views | 12 Thumbs Up | 7 Comments | |
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| | Country Dance | | | | Wednesday, July 2, 2008 (8:05 PM) | | You have to go back a ways, back to the mid 70's when I was 14 years old and to a place that no longer exists. You would have to understand that back then we thought country music was stupid, lame and ridiculous, but everything else was worse. It wasn't like the songs of the 60's when Ernest Tubb, Johnny Horton, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash dominated the airwaves. The 70's was a time just short of the lawsuits that ruined everything in American life. Sure, a few people are safer today and society might be a degree or two more civil toward those otherwise outside of traditional society, but it is also a million times less fun.
When I first heard that George W. got a DUI in the 70's I had to ask myself: "Good God, how drunk did you have to be in the 70's to get a DUI?" I never heard of anyone getting a DUI unless there had been some sort of injury accident.
That was back when I stood around with my "cowboy" buddies and endured the cold wind before the Saturday night dance. Those dances were the only things us cowboys had going for us as far as a social life was concerned. We didn't fit into the usual categories at school. We were outnumbered about 50 to 1 to even the most minor of minorities and we caught hell in that politically incorrect time when hoots of "goatropers" echoed the halls. And yeah, we learned to fight. When I eventually got to the Air Force and hung out at the NCO club of a New Mexico air base I was known to get into a tangle now and then. My friends were always startled at my willingness to go at it with odds as bad as 3 to 1, but the way I was brought up, those were as good of odds as a guy could expect.
And yet, what I remember most was the smell of a girl's hair, the softness of her hand, and the swell of her chest against mine. This, while songs played that would come to be my favorites from people who were hardly known at the time, people like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, David Allen Coe, and yes even a little Lynard Skynard now and then.
Those times, however short and distant, built me into what I am, for good or ill. It tempered me, hardened me, and taught me the value of being able to walk through a crowd of people who hate you for the fact that you wear a hat in order to get where you need to be. That period taught me that I knew nothing about women, at all. It taught me that whiskey tastes good, but can make you puke behind a barn. It taught me that pickup trucks and fast cars can take your breath away figuratively and literally. It taught me that when I did eventually go out into the world, that I went alone and that I could handle it.
Happy Birthday Dana, for making me recall my childhood.
TL
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| | Done | | | | Tuesday, July 1, 2008 (8:35 PM) | | Okay, I threw the short story up so my friends could read it without buying the book. I have no expectations. I had a lot of opportunities to correct, or do a better job with the language, but I resisted the urge, because the way it is written, while not my best, is the way it was published.
I will say that I badly wanted to do a better editing job, but I didn't.
It is what it is.
TL | | | | 47 Views | 6 Thumbs Up | 4 Comments | |
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| | For my friends PT 3 | | | | Tuesday, July 1, 2008 (7:45 PM) | | PART THREE
X. Biedler closed the door behind him and faced the others. Perhaps thirty men stared at him from under their hat brims, trying to get a sense of the outcome.
“He’s having none of it,” Biedler declared, and a quiet resolve spread from one man to the other. They knew what they had to do.
The men of the Vigilance Committee knew Slade. Often, Slade himself had sniffed out the murderers and thieves among the townsfolk. Many times, he had dispensed justice before the committee could assemble. Other times, he had ridden with them and been at the forefront of their business. Now, it was Slade they had to confront. Many of the men considered Slade a friend, and the vote was not tallied without hearing their dissents. But, in the end the vote was unanimous. Even his allies recognized that he was out of control.
Thundering hooves beat against the frozen ground. An icy wind whipped across Slade’s wide cheekbones as they neared Cold Springs Station. He saw, or thought he saw, a wisp of wood smoke on the horizon. Slade leaned forward in the seat and strained his eyes. His fists tightened around the stock of the rifle resting across his knees. He sniffed at the air.
Slade raised his rifle in the air and brought it down hard on the top of the stage.
“Yeah?” Hodges asked, leaning out of the window and holding onto his hat with a free hand.
“Up there it is.” Slade pointed toward the low wooden structure rising slowly above the horizon as they neared. “Get around back as soon as you can.”
“Yes, sir!”
Slade nodded and turned his attention back to the station house. Inside was the man who had filled him with lead. Beni had taken his best shot and come up short. Slade felt invincible, above it, as if God had brought him through this terrible ordeal for the chance to watch Beni die.
The stagecoach rattled up to the station and stopped. The horses snorted and blew. Their muscles jumped beneath their skin. The side door swung open and Scott and Hodges jumped out to surround the building.
Inside, confusion flitted across the bartender’s face. No stage was due in, not for a day, or two. He glanced at Beni, who remained frozen. Words no longer mattered. Judgment had come. But in his heart Beni was a coward, and he darted for the back of the station. He broke out a window and hefted his bulk up into the window frame. He looked one way, then the other. There was no easy way down, so he pushed himself through the window and to the ground. The pistol in his waistband fell free and clattered on the frozen earth.
It didn’t take long for Scott and Hodges to appear around opposite corners of the building and hem Beni in. The pistol lay not far from Beni’s hand. Scott saw Beni’s predicament.
“You grab that hog leg and you’re liable to get me in a jam,” Scott said, knowing that killing Beni was something Slade wanted for himself.
Beni looked through long strands of greasy hair. An odd sense of giddiness came over him as he thought of defying Slade one last time. Beni chuckled. One lunge for the pistol would change everything. Above all, it would bring him a merciful death, something he could not otherwise count on. Long seconds passed.
“You could get us both out of this,” Beni suggested. “You could let me go.”
Scott snorted a reply. “Die now, if you want.”
The Vigilance Committee pushed out the door and into the chilly Montana sunshine. They were a well-disciplined mob, but a mob nonetheless. They thronged through the streets carrying rifles and shotguns. Urgent whispers rushed past them and through the town. As the people of Virginia City became aware of the aim of the Committee, others joined in. Some of the ranchers that had stared at Jack Slade in the bar were now turning to follow the Committee. Miners swelled out from nowhere to join the fray, some carrying only clubs.
Slade felt something, an odd awareness that all was not right. He narrowed his eyes. Even in a half-drunk stupor, he could feel a reckoning coming. He hunched his shoulders against the cold wind that blew from the north and staggered down the sidewalk.
At the other end of the street, the Vigilance Committee had swelled to over one hundred men. The sheer noise of so many footsteps should have alerted Slade to his impending doom. Perhaps it did and he simply no longer cared.
“There he is!” someone shouted, sending the whole herd of them into a jog toward the man in the long coat. They engulfed Slade and swept him up into the maelstrom of hate and fear that propelled them.
Slade was startled when he looked up to find so many faces staring at him. He tried to shrug them off, but they pinned his arms to his sides. They disarmed him and shoved him back the way he’d come.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” a voice said, close to his ear. When Slade turned toward the voice, he found no ally.
“The Vigilance Committee has decided upon your execution,” Captain Williams informed him, maintaining a rigid gait and not bothering to turn toward Slade. “The Elephant Corral will be your end.”
It was only then that Slade began to realize the depth of the trouble he was in. He searched each man’s face for signs of sympathy and found only stiff, wind-chapped features and cold eyes.
“Get my wife! Someone has to get my wife!” he bellowed to the crowd. “I want to see her just once more before I die.”
Jim Kiskadden trailed on the fringes of the crowd desperate for some way to help Slade. He whispered urgently to a boy standing on the sidewalk and begged him to ride to the Slade Ranch to get Virginia Slade. The wide-eyed boy was swept up into the excitement and, feeling very important, took off at a run to comply.
Slade could see the Elephant Corral looming ahead. As he neared, he noticed a dry-goods box beneath a corral pole and a noose dangling from the cross member. He recoiled from the sight and tried to break free, but these men had done this before. They knew the impulse to run would come, and they braced against Slade’s reaction.
Beni appeared from around the corner of the shack a broken man. Behind him, Scott and Hodges had him covered with shotguns, periodically nudging him forward with the barrels.
Slade waited with a knife in one hand and a rope in the other. He pointed the knife at Beni.
“I told you I’d live long enough to wear your ear on my watchguard, and by God that day has come,” Slade shouted over the wind.
Beni flinched against the thought and realized that Slade’s design for him was much darker than he had imagined when the pistol lay so close. What he would give for that chance again.
“Tie him up, boys,” Slade said, tossing the rope to Hodges, who worked quickly to fashion a loop.
Beni allowed the proceedings to go along without a fight. He was numb, divorced from the horrible circumstances surrounding him. Yet, his mind searched desperately for some chink, some opening to plead his case. If it were anyone else, Beni felt sure he could cause a break in the momentum and maybe talk himself out of it, anyone but Jack Slade. Then the ropes pulled tight, securing him to a fence rail.
With his prey fastened to the fence, Slade took a more leisurely stance. There was no way for Beni to get out of it and no reason to hurry through a moment Slade had dreamt of. That image had been his inspiration for living.
“The only damn thing that pulled me through that awful time was the thought of seein’ you like this, Jules Beni. When they washed my wounds out with whiskey, I thought of this very moment. God only knows what wretched hag bore you into this world, but I plan to take you out of it piece by piece.”
With all of his hate intact, Slade drew down. The pistol jumped in his hand. Beni’s shoulder exploded. The force of the bullet yanked Beni’s body to the side. Slade fired again, this time at Beni’s leg. Slade relished in the injuries for a while, but his enthusiasm slowly drained. Torturing Beni was not as satisfying as Slade had hoped it would be. It seemed then a pathetic brutality, and Slade did the merciful thing and pumped a round into Beni’s head.
Slade approached the body of his enemy and studied it for signs of life. He calmly holstered the pistol and drew his skinning knife. A quick slash left Beni’s ear in Slade’s hand. Without comment, he pocketed the ear and walked back to the stage.
And, there on the Montana plains, Slade fingered the ear in his pocket and felt the noose close around his neck. So much had gone wrong in his life. It had been a long time since Slade had felt the sense of propriety he’d felt on the day he killed Beni. With the U. S. Army on his side and the whole of public opinion with him, he had killed a man most would call a “scourge.” It was a justified killing and everyone knew it.
“This ain’t right,” he muttered as he looked out on the crowd of ranchers and miners.
As if on cue, Jim Kiskadden burst in to object. “What has Slade done? No one was killed last night, or the night before. What has Slade done to deserve such an end?”
Without answering him, the crowd descended and muffled his cries. They shoved him to the ground and beat him.
Captain Williams ignored the scuffle and proceeded to the box. He looked up at Slade and turned to address the crowd.
“Jack Slade is a public menace. We have all suffered at his hand in some way or other. Whether it be the fear we have for loved ones should a stray bullet from his pistol find its way to them as they walk innocently on the street, or in a more direct manner, we all know the danger he presents. For two straight days, this man has held the community hostage. Forty-eight hours and I submit that that was one hour too long.” Captain Williams surveyed the crowd and turned slightly toward Slade. “Do your duty, men.”
The dry goods box was yanked out from under Slade’s feet, and he dropped two feet to his death. Nothing could have been more anti-climactic. Years of perseverance through hostile, deadly country, years of facing the worst men the West had spawned, ended with a short drop and a simple death.
The crowd, feeling a bit of relief but also a degree of guilt, turned reluctantly away from the dangling body. Something had ended: more than a man’s life, but less than an era. And, just when they thought there was no price to be paid for the way it had been done, they were confronted with the image of Slade’s wife riding hell-bent on a lathered horse toward them.
“What have you done?” she asked, jerking on the reins and staring down at the men. “You cowards! For what crime…?” she asked, her voice faltering as sorrow overcame anger. “What have you done?”
THE END | | | | 53 Views | 10 Thumbs Up | 5 Comments | |
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| | For my friends PT 2 | | | | Tuesday, July 1, 2008 (5:04 PM) | | Slade knew Beni as the biggest horse thief in Colorado Territory at least, and the most corrupt man on the payroll of the Overland Stage. He fingered the mummified ear dangling from his watch chain as his thoughts dwelled on Beni.
It was spring when Slade went to Julesburg Station to confront him. The fresh, thin air of Colorado was tinged by wood smoke coming from the chimney of Beni’s small house. Slade rode up to the corral. It was apparent that Beni had been stealing Overland stock. He hadn’t even bothered to alter the brands.
Slade shook his head in disbelief as he looked over the horses. Such an act showed downright contempt for the Overland, and for the owner, Ben Ficklin. It steeled Slade’s desire to see Beni squirm. Slade gave orders to his men to cut the Overland’s horses out of the corral and take them back to the station. The men were leading the stolen horses away when Slade crossed a broad prairie toward the house.
“Jules Beni, come on out here. Now!” Slade shouted. “We got business, you and me.”
But, Jules Beni was no man’s fool, and he wasn’t impressed with Ficklin’s hired gun. Beni had been arguing with Slade for weeks over the operation of the Julesburg Station. The cards were falling against Beni, and he knew of only one way to stop it. He jerked a revolver from its holster and opened the door.
Several sharp cracks split the morning air. Magpies perched on the top rail of the corral took to flight. Slade heard the flapping of the wings as he felt the first ball hit his shoulder. The second ripped into his side, knocking him to the ground. More shots were fired, and Slade lay taking ball after ball until, thankfully, he heard the dry click of the hammer on an empty chamber. Slade lifted his head to watch Beni walk back to the house.
“This is how I die?” he asked himself as he lay in the dust and a pool of his own blood. “Here, at the hands of a horse thief and a coward?”
Slade, despite his wounds, was outraged at the prospect of such an end. He spit. “By God, I won’t,” he declared, tensing the muscles in his jaw.
Everything was clear and sharp. Slade’s senses were keen, probing outward as if to hold on to the world that was slipping away. Then he heard the creaking of leather hinges. Without the strength to raise his head, Slade peered from under his brow to find Beni approaching on stubby legs. Beni raised a shotgun to his shoulder and aimed it right at him.
“God, no!” whispered Slade.
Hot balls of shot splattered Slade. A large puff of smoke billowed out from the end of the gun and hung in the air. Beni was only a few yards away.
Slade’s men, having heard the shots, approached at a gallop as Beni reloaded. They pulled up short when Beni swung the shotgun in their direction.
“When this man dies,” Beni said, in a thick French accent, “you can stick him in a dry-goods box and ship him back to Ficklin!”
Enraged by the presumption of his death, Slade forced himself to speak loud enough for Beni to hear. “I’ll live long enough to wear your ears on my watchguard!” he exclaimed.
Beni furrowed his brow for a second, then laughed. He gave a dismissive thrust of his jaw and backed toward the house with the shotgun held stiff to his shoulder.
Slade retreated from the solitude of reverie. He stared at the whiskey and raised the glass a few inches. “Here’s to ya, Jules. Even though you were a lowborn horse thief and a murderin’ dog, you had more character than any of these here.”
The saloon doors slapped open and two men stepped through. Jim Kiskadden and X. Biedler scanned the room and approached the bar. Jim grabbed hold of Slade’s jacket as if to turn him around. Slade pulled free and narrowed his eyes.
“Get off me, Jim,” he warned.
“For God’s sake, let’s go home, Jack,” Jim pleaded.
“I ain’t done havin’ fun.”
“The mood’s against ya, Slade. Best listen to Jim and go on home,” Biedler advised.
“I ain’t thought much of you, X, but it seemed that at least you knew when to tend your own business,” Slade said, goading Biedler. He was in the mood for some sort of resolution, and X. Bielder was just about the only man to show some sentiment against Slade and live.
“You’ve become my business, Slade,” Biedler said, in that officious, denigrating tone he was so capable of producing. “I urge you to leave town immediately…for your own good, sir.”
Slade slapped the bar with his hand, bouncing drinks farther down. He snorted a laugh, and with a dramatic, sweeping gaze, he took in the whole bar.
“My own good, is it? I’ve never known you to be so bold without the Vigilance Committee close at hand.”
“Jack please!” Jim begged, sure in his belief that time was running out.
Without acknowledging Jim’s plea, Slade fixed his penetrating stare on Biedler. “Well?”
“You’re to leave town immediately.”
“Jack, you know Biedler speaks for the Committee,” Jim urged. “Just go home!”
“Hell, I believe the Committee’s played out,” Slade declared, staring into Biedler’s tiny eyes.
“You have three hours,” Biedler said, making a grandiose gesture of pointing at the clock. “Beyond that, I can not vouch for your safety.”
With that, Biedler turned with a flourish of his long coat and walked out of the bar. Jim watched him go as if watching the last train of salvation pull out of the station.
“Jack, you know the men on the Committee. They’re serious. What you said to Judge Davis went too far. Hell, I went too far, too. Let’s quit and go home.”
“Let ‘em do what they want. Ain’t one of ‘em going to stand up to me direct. Ain’t one of ‘em go the backbone of a lowborn horse thief. Nothin’ gave me more pleasure than hunting Beni down like a dog, nothing except him knowing I was coming.”
“I’m going to talk to ‘em. I’ll reason with ‘em,” Jim said, desperately searching for a way to divert fate, to resist the irresistible. On one hand there was the Vigilance Committee that had had enough of Jack Slade; on the other hand there was Jack Slade, who had had enough of vigilance committees and fake judges; a man who yearned for one last opportunity to have it his way.
Autumn winds were blowing cold as Jack Slade returned to the Overland. A long stretch of dusty trail and months of painful recuperation lay behind him by the time he stepped off the stage in Fort Laramie. Word had already gotten around to Jules Beni that Slade had miraculously recovered from his wounds and was back.
“By God, I’ll finish the task!” Beni was reported to have said in front of everyone at the Cold Springs Station a few days earlier. It didn’t take long for Slade to hear of it and set out for Wyoming.
Slade entered Fort Laramie administration headquarters and met with Major McFinney.
“You know Jules Beni tried to kill me,” Slade began, his jaw thrust out. “He will do so again in the same fashion, if I know the man.”
“Yes,” McFinney replied.
“He was never to return.”
“He was given strict orders that he might live if he left for good,” McFinney acknowledged.
“Well, return he has. That can only mean one thing in my mind. Therefore, I propose to hunt the man down and bring peace to the Overland,” Slade boldly declared.
“The business you have with Beni is Overland business, not mine. I trust you’ll take the proper course.”
Slade nodded and left. A coach waited outside to take him to Cold Springs. The effects of the wounds were still obvious as Slade strode unevenly across the compound. He climbed up onto the box with the driver.
“Cold Springs!” Slade shouted.
Two men, Scott and Hodges, abandoned their protective positions at the corners of the stage and climbed in. Slade had come for Beni unprepared the first time; he wouldn’t do so again.
Jules Beni had made some money trading horses and was in the process of getting drunk. Rarely a minute passed without his boastful arrogance shining through.
“My only mistake was in not getting closer,” Beni said to an interested bartender. “Had it not been for six of his men bearing down on me, I would have walked right up to him and put the barrel to the back of his neck.” Beni took a drink of whiskey. “As long as I’m here, you won’t have trouble with Slade. I bet he won’t get within ten miles of me. Not if he wants to live.”
The fat bartender jiggled as he laughed. He dried his hands on a filthy gray apron and leaned on his elbow as he listened to Beni’s stories.
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| | For my friends | | | | Monday, June 30, 2008 (7:31 PM) | | I know I teased "Short Rope At Dawn" with the story of the short story, but I am going to do a serial of the short story here so I don't feel so cheap. IT BEGINS:
Jack Slade stood at the bar. His mind was just starting to clear as he surveyed the destruction he had wrought: shards of glass from shattered lanterns lay at his feet; broken whiskey bottles were swept into piles behind the bar; and there were bullet holes in the wall and ceiling. Shame descended, but only for a moment before being thrust from his mind by the comfort of defiance.
Miners and ranchers, who had gathered in the aftermath, stood just inside the door. Snow slid off their boots and began to melt at their feet. Their attention was focused on Slade: the terror of Virginia City.
Slade shot a glance over his shoulder. "Let 'em stare," he thought. There wasn't much else for the cowards to do anyway. They were store clerks and haberdashers; the type of men who knew the ease of society; men who relied on the certainty of laws.
On the other end of the spectrum was Slade. He was a man who had stepped into the untamed West and brought order to the Overland Stage. He was a man who had lived far beyond civilization, where a man's strength and tenacity stood between life and death. Survival was power, and respect was earned. These new men, these latecomers, took power and placed it in stupid laws; they took respect and made it fear. They were hangers-on and usurpers and Slade didn't like them.
A cold wind blew across the frozen earth of Montana and up through the floorboards of the saloon. Slade didn't move. He was lost in thoughts of a different time. A time he better understood: the days of Julesburg.
"Julesburg," he muttered and rolled his eyes. "Damn Jules Beni for the arrogance to name a town for himself."
More later,
TL | | | | 66 Views | 8 Thumbs Up | 4 Comments | |
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| | Discoveries | | | | Saturday, June 28, 2008 (11:32 PM) | | It is difficult in a world presented with so many incredible technological advances to understand and imagine the importance of some of the more mundane discoveries of the past, like penicillin.
For whatever reason I have been imagining the world after some sort of global disaster (yes greater than global warming). I'm thinking of something more like a meteor and the aftermath of it and what would be needed, what would be important.
It is not unusual today to realize that within minutes of writing this blog I can present it to the world and have it viewed all across the globe. While that sounds like an unbelieveable feat for one man in an office, we now take this fact for granted (all the while realizing that perhaps 30 people will actually see it).
In the future, should such an event occur and leave us basically back in the stone age, how long will it take us to rebuild it? How many truly knowledgeable people will be left, or will small enclaves of people survive and pool their limited knowledge to arrive at part of the puzzle and look for other enclaves with other pieces of the puzzle?
What will society look like, will it be chaos or cooperation? Will it be hostile and violent, or will we all band together for mutual support and benefit? And, how do we go back from here? How lonely will the world seem now that we know there are millions of people out there on different continents struggling just the same as we are, but with no way, or even reason to go and seek them out?
What could we do to survive the conditions? How much of the population would be obliterated? All of this assumes some level of survivability, so, if there is survivability what degree of the world will be uninhabitable?
I don't know, but some of these things have been swirling around in my mind, making nuisances of themselves time and time again.
TL | | | | 50 Views | 10 Thumbs Up | 5 Comments | |
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| | Manliness | | | | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 (10:33 PM) | | Something that seems to have been misplaced, lost or discarded is manliness. I'm not talking about the Tim Taylor (Tool Time) type of manliness. I'm not talking about the anti-feminine type of manliness, I am talking about what it means to be a man, at least what that means to me.
A man never has to lie, because while he may have done some things that were wrong, or bad, he is able to stand up and look anyone in they eye and admit his errors and bad deeds.
A man is never cruel, because cruelty is a weakness, a reliance on the exploitation of the supremacy of mankind's place in the natural order of things.
A man does not need to belittle another person, because a man recognizes that everyone deserves respect and kindness.
A man does not need to negatively criticize others, because it is a man's purpose to enable those around him to do better and to show the way by improving himself, accepting positive criticism and acting on it to improve himself.
A man never has to hide, because accepting responsibility and working to correct the problem is a man's duty.
A man never has to runaway, because there is no beating, or punishment that is greater than the shame of cowardice.
A man never has to cheat, because he is secure enough in himself to know when he has been bested and he uses that opportunity to work harder and to demonstrate good sportsmanship.
A man never has to steal, because there is no item that is greater, or more valuable than his self-respect.
A man must never use his physical superiority to subject others to his will.
A man must always defend the weak.
A man must always protect those around him.
A man must always provide, or help to provide for those around him.
A man must always seek justice.
A man must always seek the proper treatment of others.
This is what I have been taught and how I try to conduct myself. I am not perfect. I am flawed and often wrong, but these values are central to who I am and what I think is important.
TL
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