liminal_luke

Oh how I would of loved to have quiet intellectual conversations in kitchens while enjoying tea with homemade preserves! I was born in the wrong place and time. Instead, I´m sitting here by myself while people half a world away threaten to out me (inaccurately) as "liking Trump."

Well, you already know how it is. The 4th is associated with fireworks, barbeque, parades, and beer. Drunken grilling accidents? Deeply American. Critical thinking? That´s more of a Russian thing.

If I disagreed with you, would I be allowed to say so? In the US I am not permitted to loot your businesses, graffiti your garden walls or spit on your security guards, no matter how strong my feelings, but I can still say my piece. In this respect, the constitution still stands. But this post of mine, like yours before me, is current event talk, and the rules of this forum are stricter than the rules of the street. I am willing to stop. Are you?

What can I say? Once a year I try to get in the spirit. Besides, many of my adopted paisanos (to the consternation of some and delight of many) live in the US. Vive Los Estados Unidos!

America is a vast patchwork of different cultures. We´re obscenely rich and heartbreakingly poor; rural gun-toting Texans and progressive rainbow flag-waving denizens of West Hollywood; black and brown and white like hulled rice. I can´t help but think, despite all the problems and fighting, that there´s something beautiful about the messy mix of it all. Happy 4th!

But denunciatory rhetoric is so much easier and cheaper than good works, and proves a popular temptation. Yet is it far better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. -- William L. Watkinson

@Cobie´s advice about living a normal life, eating healthy, and being grounded is great. I would also suggest getting an evaluation from a psychiatrist.

Brahma Viharas for the Win! (or something like that)

Human madness is overwhelming, so I recommend becoming a kindness specialist. Maybe your heart feels an affinity for a particular issue -- poverty, environmental protection, racism...whatever it may be. I think it´s enough to concentrate one´s change-the-world efforts in that one area. Or perhaps you´re not drawn to big splashy issues at all, but you´re an excellent gardener: brighten the world with flowers. Or lets say you´re an artist or a cook or the neighborhood extrovert who smiles and says hi to people walking down the street. It all counts. So many ways to heighten the vibe.

Perhaps you´re right, Apech, perhaps you´re right.

Don´t even get me started on my TV watching habits. My tastes are decidedly low-brow, although in my defense I´ll mention that, try as I might, I couldn´t make it past episode two of Dating Naked.

It´s true, as Old3bob has suggested, that spirituality and politics are interconnected, because, well, everything´s interconnected. It´s also true that a person can have an opinion on Trump or Gaza or gun control laws and decide not to share it in deference to forum rules.

The way I figure, pointing out other people´s alledged moral failings is a moral failing. (Oops!) I´m grappling with the enjoyment question in my reading right now -- should I try to read difficult books that maybe I don´t enjoy so much because they´ll stretch my mind or be somehow virtuous? Or should I take the life-is-short approach and just read what makes me happy? Curiously, I was a very literary teen. In high school I read Moby Dick and The Brothers Karamazov and lots of Steinbeck -- for fun -- but now I mostly read crime thrillers. There´s a popular thread on the forum dedicated to the books "on our bookshelf" and it´s chock full of erudite tomes on spiritual topics and great literature, not a Jack Reacher novel in sight. Surely I´m not the only Bum who enjoys reading about street brawling tough guys?

all my friends and I talk about is getting rid of our phones— a dystopian dream dominating dinner conversation, our phones on the middle of the table   like candles   like altars like tiny gods we are trying not to worship we talk about quitting like smokers do— “next week” “after this trip” “when I found the love of my life on a dating app” we make promises to each other the way people talk about leaving a bad relationship while still keeping their toothbrush ready by the sink we dream of flip phones— clamshells of another life decorated with glitter and stones and dangly   little charms the pixels soft enough to forgive our youthful acne and ringtones we bought by texting MTV the only calls we received were from our mother, telling us to   come home,   dinner was on the table there was no algorithm to drill us into compliance no one to tell us:   you are behind     you are cutting your onions wrong       you need to buy this thing (and this one and this one)         you are a rat girl joan didion girl soft girl clean girl iphone face never enough girl we say: let’s go camping   just us   and a map   and maybe a knife just in case (but what if we lose our way what if someone dies what if I see something beautiful?) we delete tiktok but never at the same time so someone is always missing out on the joke we say we cannot meet the modern world without a screen plastered to our hands— this second self we cradle like a   self-inflicted wound and maybe we’re right maybe we’re too far gone maybe this thing knows how to be us better than we do somewhere, there is a version of me who dared to take the leap she knows the constellations   by name her eyes are soft from looking   outwards i wonder what she wears i wonder what her hobbies are, and how she finds her way i wonder if she’s ever bored   or late     or lonely       without the glow to hold her and i hate it—      i hate it this tether this glass ghost this thing too big to understand i’m tired and my window to the world has no curtains     i want to close my eyes     i want to become very         very            very               small -- Quirine Brouwer