It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs,
who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst,
if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of Dreamboat Annie by Heart
A heartbeat that never goes away. It stays in your thoughts your entire life. It drives you. It consumes your thoughts. It overpowers your emotions. It’s the voice that has no voice. It speaks in a language unknown to most. Unexplainable. Undefinable. Unmeasurable. Limitless. It knows no bounds. It is not constricted by time nor thought. It knows nothing of failure. Distance means nothing to it. It has been by your side since the day you were born yet most have never met it. It patiently waits. For to it, time has no meaning. Whether it takes 10 years or eons it matters not. It is already home. It knows you are separated and wants to help. But until you want it as bad as you would want air if held underwater it will not come home.
Today I stumbled across an old notebook of mine from 2014. In it I wrote some thoughts I had that summer oh so very long ago when the seed was still growing.
June 5th 2014
Have you ever had a burning dream locked away inside your soul, burning so bright and so deep all day and all night long it rips your very essence apart knowing it has not come true. A fire inside so strong it overwhelms your soul with its yearning to be free of its constraints, to burn inside you with such intensity that all else pales in comparison, something that cannot be explained, something so far beyond words, beyond feelings, beyond thought, something so deep it yearns for decades to become real, yet has never appeared in the exterior world. It drives you mad with intensity, like gasping for air when held underwater, you see it in its completion in your mind, every day and waking hour of your life, yet not a soul besides yourself knows of it nor could understand why it’s so important. Something so real, more real than the external world, more vivid than anything you could possibly imagine, a dream that refuses to die.
The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
How bad do you want your dream? Like air if you were held underwater or it’s OK if it never happens? That burning desire inside, that all-consuming desire, that almost unbearable yearning inside you that has no words to describe it, that is what will bring your dreams into this world. That feeling that has no words are your very dreams trying with all their might to reach you.
When you build your house Then call me home
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of Sara by Stevie Nicks
Do you ever feel you were born on the wrong planet? Do you ever look around you and say to yourself WTF? Do you ever wonder what the purpose of your life is? Do you ever look up at the Milky Way at night in the middle of nowhere and wonder what it’s all about? Do you ever get a feeling something is just not right? Do you ever try to speak with people and all you get is that blank eyed stare cows have? Do you ever look at what other folks do with their lives and wonder why anyone would do that or would even want to? Are you a square peg in a round hole world? Do you have itchy feet? Do you love to travel? Do you love to visit new places and explore? Do you march to the beat of a different drummer?
I plead guilty to all of the above. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to look at the stars at night far away from the maddening cities and ponder what was, what is, and what will be. Would that be imagination? Or something else? It’s hard to say. In my mind images take on a life of their own. It’s like 3-D movie swirling in my mind. Perhaps that’s why I gave up television and movies a long, long time ago. Sure, I still watch a few programs, mainly historical or educational but for the most part I have no desire for a TV or movies. That’s pretty odd eh in our media saturated society. Sometime I wonder what a person from 150 years ago would say if he was somehow transported to 2017. Probably die of a heart attack from the non-stop constant barrage of media images.
That said I did see a movie this week. Which is so rare for me I cannot remember the last time I went to the cinema. Actually I can. It was in 2012 and it was for a movie that was directed by the same director as the one I saw this week. Ridley Scott. Yes, I am the world’s biggest science-fiction fan. I remember seeing the first Alien on the big screen way, way back. This week I had to see Alien:Covenant. Yes, I cheated and read some of the reviews on IMDB and there were a lot of the “WTF has Ridley done to the Alien franchise???” Yes it is very hard to understand that so-called highly trained scientists would do some of the most stupid things ever imaginable but hey it’s just a movie. Or is it? I like Ridley because he isn’t afraid to dwelve into deeper concepts. I enjoy his films due to the overt and the deeper, more hidden concepts. The concepts that I was thinking about a long, long time ago. Way, way before the first Alien hit the silver screen. The WOO WOO stuff. The woo woo concepts that are not spoken of in polite society. In polite society one only speaks of the latest media blitzes spread across the vast media canvasses of tv, radio and news. Those things are more or less ok to ponder and comment on. Off that track down into the rabbit hole the masses lose their footing and run for the safe surface.
Ridley’s concepts are something for another post but I just love to ponder on the food for thought he tosses out. Is it just a stupid movie or is it an allegory? Does life exist somewhere else? Or is this rock we are on for a split second all there is? These are the sort of concepts I ponder out in the country all by myself looking up at the Milky Way at 1 in the morning.
Milky Way Galaxy – From Way Out In The Middle Of Nowhere Spanish Peaks Colorado
Every once in a while a meteor or two will appear (especially in August, the 2017 Perseid meteor shower will peak on the night of August 12 and early morning of August 13) that whets my appetite more. I’ve always owned telescopes my whole life. There’s something about a telescope that words cannot describe. Below is the one I have owned for a long, long time. A Meade LX200 8 inch.
I guess I am just a horse of a different color. Someone that marches to the beat of a different drummer. Things that interest me bore others. Things that others are interested in just plain bore me to death for the most part. In a world of common I must be the most uncommon person on this planet. I ran across a video today that pretty much sums up my ideas on what is normal and what is not. What pursuits are worth it and which ones are not. At least to little ol Laurie. Take a peek at this video and see if you are a horse of a different color too!
And here is something I will leave you with. A timeline trailer of Alien:Covenant that pretty much tells you what to expect and it has John Denver singing Country Roads. What more can you ask?
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of Country Roads by John Denver
That’s a funny title for a post huh? See the name of the song below that this post was composed under and you will understand. Well, I just noticed a few minutes ago that this is the 6 month anniversary to the date where my “business partner” shoved a knife in my back and tossed me overboard halfway to Hawaii. Of course he did not physically toss me overboard on a real sailboat but it might as well been that way. Greed and Sloth got the better of him. For all practical purposes I was thrown overboard with a knife in my back and set adrift. In the past 6 months I have learned a lot more about the situation and he is not having the best time. Some folks think they know how to ride a motorcycle but when they step up to the plate things don’t go as planned. I give that fool another 6 months or so and he will be belly up and asking for $5 for a chicken dinner as he once did to me in 2012. Certain birdies have kept me informed on what has been going on and it is not pretty for him. But he thinks he is Midas and can do it all. We’ll come back in 6 months from now and see what has happened to him after a year.
This is exactly why I am a loner and introvert at heart. In my life I have rarely come across anyone that can be trusted. Yes, for the little things for sure. But somehow when money starts getting involved for some reason most people have a Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde personality. I have seen this over and over and over again until I am sick to death of it. That’s why I do best on my own. No one to blame except myself. If I goof up I know how to fix it asap. Independence rather than dependent. Freedom rather than slavery. Self-reliance rather than blind obedience. That’s the life for moi.
Gloria Struck In the Wind At 91 Years Old
Gloria Struck At 25 Years Old
Chartering unknown waters. Going to places you have never gone before. Seeing sights you have never seen before. Pulling out in the morning with no particular destination in mind. Driving down the highway with the wind in your hair. Having the courage to do it and know that at any time your entire life could change in one second. But you still do it because the Freedom is worth it. All of us roll the dice every time we get out of bed in the morning. At the end of the day you just might not be coming home, at least not vertically. What I have learned is that big game we are all in is nothing more than learning to overcome your fears. Ever since I was a young tyke that’s all I ever did. Learning to overcome my fears. Learning to ignore the mass opinion and strike out on my own. Learning to make things happen rather than letting things happen. Finding more pleasure being alone by myself for a month or two by a quiet lake than cooped up in some big city with people living their lives like sardines in a can.
I think most folks have lost their intuition and their imagination. Those are two things I value the most. When I listen to my intuition I’m right 98% of the time. When I don’t, well, let’s just say it is not pretty. Call it what you will, a funny voice in you, a feeling, a premonition, a voice that speaks without a voice, whatever you call it it’s best to listen. I could talk for hours about this. I could give you hundreds of examples in my life. One example was a long time ago in Los Angeles. I was on the southbound 101 going up the hill into Hollywood. A semi was ahead of me and I was keeping a safe distance unlike the other 99.8% of drivers in LA. Well, about this time I got a feeling or a silent voice or an out of the ballpark thought (whatever you want to call it) that I should be more careful around this truck. That feeling/silent voice kept coming. About this time 20 seconds later a VW cut across a lane and forced the semi to brake hard. The next moments went in slow motion. The semi started to jackknife and his trailer started lifting up off the left side wheels. The trailer began to tip over to the right. In slow motion I am watching this trailer go more and more over. It must have been 25 or 30 degrees over and I really thought this was it. I was blocked in by traffic with nowhere to go. Well, somehow that rig driver got a hold of the situation, straightened back out somehow and I watched as that trailer came back down and bounced back and forth. Just a bit more over and that trailer would have tipped and crashed. The VW swung wide and exited at Barham. The rig driver kept going but I’m sure he had to change his shorts at his next stop.
Little things like that have taught me I need to listen to my intuition. For the last year before Oct. 2016 my intuition was in overload condition about this “business partner” of mine. I sort of shrugged it off most of the time but my silent voice inside my head started going off more and more and more in the spring and summer of 2016. It reached a point where I decided to take major precautions and about 2 weeks later the proverbial shit hit the fan. If I had not listened to my intuition when it was basically screaming at me in my head I would have been in a world of hurt. But I did listen and what could have been a major catastrophe was little more than a hiccup. A hiccup now as I look back but at the time in Oct. 2016 it seemed massive. It was massive but my intuition helped me to prepare for it.
On the way to Texas a funny thing happened. I was being followed by a monster pickup that acted like he was hooked to my bumper. This was in a construction zone with double fines. Speed limit was 55. So here I am minding my business listening to some of my favorite tunes and this guy behind me decides he can’t take it any longer. He floors it in a construction zone (on a double yellow line while pulling a trailer!!) and leaves us in the dust. Watch what happens.
I will leave you with these two thoughts to ponder on.
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
“If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
P.S. Darcy is doing well on her gofundme page. She indicated she has a major update she’s going to talk about tomorrow. Sooner or later her dream will come true too!!
P.P.S. What’s coming in 2017? What new adventures await? Here is a sneak peak to get your imagination going.
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of True Blue by Rod Stewart
Christmas time always makes me reflect on years and things past. Deeply reflect. I put on It’s A Wonderful Life and memories of some forgotten past part of my life seem to flood to the surface. It’s funny how at a certain part of your life 30 years ago you made a decision to turn left instead of right and from that point you see how your life ended up different. Sometimes I will ponder what might have happened if I had turned right instead. I think I must have the world’s best imagination because I personally would rather close my eyes and watch what is going on inside my head than watch any silly distraction in the exterior physical world. Inside my head it’s like some sort of 70mm Imax movie. Words really cannot do it justice. Anyhoos, my imagination gets going and I ponder what my life might be like now if I had gone down a different fork in the road.
Where would I be right now? Married in New York with a medical practice? An officer in the US Navy? A cattle farmer in Wyoming? CEO of an import business in San Francisco? Who knows? What I do know is a long time ago a vice-principal in my high school sat me down for an hour long talk. He could not figure out why I was skipping school so much. (I hated high school so much I cannot describe it, so incredibly, incredibly boring, I could not wait to get real world, hands on experience.) He looked at my aptitude and IQ scores and told me why would anyone with a 142 IQ skip school? What could I say to him? He just could not understand. He told me my C averages told him another story. He said you will be running things one day, you will be employing the other students at the school. He told me one thing I will never forget and it turned out 100% true. A students make the grades, B students make the friends and C students make the money. Mr. Sharp, I will never forget you wherever you are now.
At 17 years old and one month I made a decision that I always ponder what might my life be like today if I had chosen the other road. I was not getting along with my parents at all. My mother especially. What I wanted was almost always the exact opposite of what they wanted for me. One weekend about one month before my 17th birthday my mother told me to pack my bags like I was going away on a weekend trip. She said the hospital was going to do some tests on me over the weekend. We get to the hospital and I knew something was up after 20 minutes. 2 big guys in white coats came to get me and they said they were there to escort me. Huh? Escort? WTF?? So I get on the elevator with them and they push the 11th floor. The elevator opens up and I am looking at some kind of glass enclosed entry way (basically a large glass cage) with a locked door at the end. The nurse on duty buzzed me and the 2 orderlies in. It was at that point I was starting to understand where I was and where my mother had me sent. Can you guess? Yah, it was a nut ward!
A psych unit in polite terms. They had old people there and young people too. I think the youngest was 11 years old. There was a huge community room there with couches and a tv. After getting assigned a room I came out and sat down in the community room. I was pissed!! My own parents locked me up in a nut ward?? And I knew it was like 90% my mother and maybe 10% my dad. I’m thinking “Oh? I am the nut case? Right!” My mother was the one a few years back that had taken a butcher knife and threatened to kill my father in an intense fight, I will never get that out of my head but here I am locked up in a nut ward 1 month shy of my 17th birthday.
The nut ward I will go into later but suffice to say there were some real, real loonies at that place. I mean real, disturbed whack jobs. Long story short, the kids my age told me that no one gets out in less than 7 or 8 months. WHAT??? Well, they are going to see a new record set in early release if they keep their eye on me I told them. Ain’t no way I am going to be locked up here for 8 months. No way!!
BTW, my parents had me seeing a shrink for about 2 months before I got locked up. I’d go to his office once a week for about an hour and just talk with him about what’s going on. The shrink was cool, even admitted to me that he also smoked weed. Well, my shrink came to see me after a couple days inside the unit. He said he did not expect any 8 month program. He told me mainly it was for observation and not to worry. Well, after a month or so he could tell there was nothing wrong with me. I did not jump up on the TV like this other guy and yell out “I LOVE TO EAT DEAD BABIES”. I’m serious. Yup!
This place also conducted electro-shock “therapy” back when it was legal. Don’t know what EST is? Look it up on Google. It’s when they Frankenstein your brain with zillions of volts of electricity to “cure” you. Seriously! The guy I knew there before his “therapy” was never the same when he finished his “therapy”. He did not recognize me or remember my name. His brain was fried. And it was legal!!
After a month my shrink had a talk with me. He said all was ok with me. But he asked me dead seriously if I wanted to go back to my parents, especially to my mother. He told me that if I wanted to he could file emancipation papers for me with the state and then I could be set free on my own, be able to get a job, rent an apartment, do anything an adult could. He said to think about it and let him know when he returned.
So, here I am at 17 years and a couple weeks and I had the biggest decision in my life in front of me. Do I stay or do I go? What would you do? I thought long and hard about it. On one hand I wanted to, on the other I knew I had just one more year to stick out and I would be 18 and free. I chose to turn down the emancipation papers and return for one more year with my parents. Since then I have always wondered what my life would have turned out like if I had emancipated at 17 and moved out on my own. It’s hard to answer. I did move back in with my parents for one final year and had more and more fights with my mother. My dad, rest his soul, I believe did understand for the most part this burning freedom thing inside me. I learned later in life that he probably would have cut loose himself too but stayed together with my mother more or less for the sake of the family.
One year later after being released from the nut ward I did cut the cord and flew away. I remember my mother saying at the dinner table the night before I left not to worry to my brother and sisters, I would be back very soon. She was wrong, I never returned. I raised my wings and flew away to my future.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer – Lucky Man
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer
In my travels this year I have seen so many folks that are not living their dream. Or perhaps they are if you consider conflict, fighting, anger, confusion, consumerism, mind numbing entertainment, running on the hamster wheel, etc… to be living your dream.
No, the dream I am talking about is the one in the back of your mind. The one that no one knows about. Only you. The one you gave up on a long time ago and settled for what’s on the table.
I think this quote below says it all for myself.
I’m going to check out of this bourgeois motel, push myself from the dinner table and say, “No more Jell-o for me, ma!”
You have to get really fed up with the status quo. I mean really, really fed up. Enough that will cause you to break out of that daily momentum of mediocrity. You know, that routine where you just keep repeating the same stuff over and over and over again. You have to change. Most are not willing. Look around you. What do you see? Do you want to end up like that? If not, you better plan on changing something today. To change the future you must change what you do today, if you keep doing the same things you will keep getting the same things in the future.
How bad do you want to change? I mean is it a minor want like you want an ice tea? or is it a hunger? Does it drive you insane not having it? Is it an all consuming fire within you or is it a small wish easily acquired like a new shoestring?
I’m telling you right now most folks just do not have that fire, that spark, that all consuming passion. Or if they do they are hiding it pretty well.
When you want your dream as bad as you would want a breath of air while being held underwater then you will have it.
Most don’t have that all consuming, burning desire, instead they settle for the mouldy, scabby pigeon crumbs tossed their way.
I say no thanks.
Along my journey to my dreams I had a lot of doubts and low moments. There were several very low times I could have thrown in the towel and given up. Some of those low times were decades ago and some were in the last 5-10 years. I mean really low times. Really, really low. So low that a lot of other folks really throw in the towel for good and check out of this hotel forever. In those times I used to tell myself something I learned a long time ago from one of my early mentors. It was this.
“Six months from now you are going to be laughing about the current situation.”
And you know what? He was right. In all those really low situations I found myself in it always happened that six months later I would laugh about what happened six months back and how serious things seemed at the time.
Don’t believe anyone that tells you your dream is impossible. Better yet, keep your dream to yourself until it comes true. Even then, keep it to yourself. A piece of gold in your pocket does not increase in value if others know about it.
P.S. If somehow you are unsatisfied with your current life and feel you need more “things” to be happy I want you to look at one website and compare those at the site with how really fortunate you are if you live in a 1st world country. You really, REALLY have no idea how lucky you are to begin with and all the opportunity that surrounds you. Click on the KIVA link below and find out just how lucky you are and how perhaps you can help make a dream come true for someone else.
If you wanted something really bad how long would you search for it? A month? A year? A lifetime?
See, I was told a long, long time ago unicorns don’t exist. In spite of all the people that told me they don’t exist I kept searching. The so called experts told me I was wasting my time. Those around me searched for other more common things. Things that could be found easily. With barely any effort. That’s not what I wanted.
I’m here to tell you that unicorns do exist but they do not grow on trees.
The rarest of the rare. To most a figment of a wild imagination. Or fairy tale.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.
I’ve heard the following expression my entire life. “PROVE IT!” From the ones that only believe in things that can be hit with a hammer. If a hammer cannot hit it then that’s proof it does not exist. I get tired of that real quick. I suppose that is why I have chosen to walk the path less traveled. I’m not that good around people that need proof. People that drink from the fountain of the many, I prefer the fountain of the few.
I wish I could tell you that your dream takes just a few weeks to appear. Perhaps. But that’s not the way it works most of the time.
You see, you were given a very special gift. It’s been with you your entire life yet you probably are not even aware of it.
If you had a magic box that could make anything happen instantly how would that be? For most on this backwards rock the results would be a disaster. People cannot control their thoughts. That is why things do not appear magically in seconds. But they do appear. In months, in years or decades. What you think about, what you concentrate on, what you dream about does appear sooner or later whether you like it or not. Everything you see in front of you right now was just a dream a few years, a few decades or a few centuries back. Everything, bar nothing.
What is your unicorn?
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of Sarah (Cleaning Lady Version) by Stevie Nicks
To the that one in 10,000. Do you ever feel like a ghost? Ever visit a place you once knew well but now it’s so vastly different you barely recognize it? That’s how I have been feeling the past week here in Dallas. I grew up here north of White Rock Lake. If you ever saw the movie Dazed and Confused those are my stomping grounds. Lake Highlands. In 2015? Jeezus! I mean physically the same streets, the same parks, the same homes with a lot older, larger trees, yea, all the same. But the feel, the atmosphere, the boarded up businesses, the ratty Honda accords with grey primer blasting out rap along with mufflers with holes in them rasping out ear wincing doses of decibels on Northwest Highway.
So many closed and boarded up businesses. It’s like the whole place has been turned into a ghetto. Thriving Whataburgers in the day gone and replaced by a boarded up “plant store” that looks like it last saw the light of day over 10 years ago. I kinda felt like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man. The old Pizza Hut down the road has been boarded up on the sides, the front blown out and plate glass and a door put in the front wall to turn it into what looks like a homeless encampment/washateria. That was the coolest Pizza Hut in all of Dallas. Skip Baker used to run it. A world class place that was packed every night of the week. With I dare say the best jukebox in all of Dallas. Now a faded memory long past its prime.
Coming in to Dallas over Lake Ray Hubbard was the same except the old oak rope swing into the lake has been gutted and replaced by a concrete parking lot. Whoa! That was the place to hang out on hot summer weekends. Now just some ritzy name brand hotel with a snooty expensive restaurant across the street. Another memory smashed. OK, at least the old drive in on Plano north of the tracks has to be there right? At the very least the remnants right? The old lot and/or the dirt road leading to the cashiers box where millions of kids passed through there in the trunk of their car. Blast!! Nothing left! I mean nothing!! It’s as if it was smote from the earth.
My city was gone! My old place was still there. There was a huge open backyard at my old place where all the kids would play, now the huge backyard has been fenced in with 10 feet high fences and a huge brick wall from the garage to the alley. Looks like a fortress now rather than the local hangout for kids with too much energy. Whoa, that’s another thing. Where are all the people? It’s like a ghost town. No kids, no people, no animals. Cars parked at the curb but I might as well be the only person in Lake Highlands alive. It’s kind of creepy in a way.
Lest you think you are the sole survivor in a holocaust all one needs to do is hop on LBJ Interstate 635. Those thoughts leave you in seconds replaced by “Jeezus!! I have been instantly transported into a Mad Max movie!!”. Texting drivers acting as if they are trying to hook onto your bumper all the while doing 75-85 mph just inches behind you. Pray you do not need to change lines anytime soon since all the participants in today’s race are guarding their spots closely so someone does not steal them. Heaven forbid! A pack of rats on a treadmill doing 80mph and most of those are distracted with texts, phone calls, applying lipstick etc… making moi very wary of spending any serious time on the local Interstate system in the heart of the city. Give me the good old two lane countryside anytime.
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of My City Was Gone by The Pretenders
