Scared to grow, or Scared too grow.

Scared to grow, or scared too grow, seem to have two different meanings. It can mean that we are scared to grow, or that to grow we must be scared into growing .

What an interesting concept. Not that it is new by any stretch of the imagination. I am just fascinated by the semantics of the whole phrase. One keeps us held back and the other pushes us forward. Fear being the common denominator. A real dichotomy if you will. Growth forward or backwards is still growth I guess. But is backwards growth still growth? Can positive growth still be obtained while receding?..... Direction may not be as important as the outcome, and the knowledge gained. I sure hope!

Row,Row, Row, your boat....

I know this is a sensitive subject for some of us, but the subject still remains. Should we bail out, (literally) people who choose to live in flood plains? I can see saving the farmers who work the bottom grounds of these watersheds, because that is where the best soil is located. In fact it is because of these floods that makes this ground so fertile.

To knowingly build homes and entire community's in such a precarious place when you have no vested interest in this ground borders on absurdity. It seems even more absurd to bail these people out. Living on higher ground dates back thousands of years. This is just common sense...which hasn't been real common for a while now. I realize that we cannot avoid all of natures wrath....and that is how it should be, but to be so cavalier about our supposed dominance over the forces of nature just grates on me sometimes. Oh well, I guess I'll feed the birds, and they can feed the fishes. G-day!

Buck up Buttercup!

It seems that their is two types of scared. One for your physical life, and the other for your emotional life. I am really starting to think that the emotional scared is by far the worst. I have been involved with the physical fear for my life a couple times in my existence, and as scary as that is, their seems to always be a way out of the circumstance... usually by being physical. On the other hand emotional scared is the scariest because your mind knows all of your weaknesses, fears and insecurities. Throw in ones own ego and you have the makings of a real train wreck.
Metaphorically speaking that is.

So the question is how do you toughen your mind without going ga ga? Surely one doesn't purposely create situations that would cause such turmoil....that would seem counter intuitive, almost self destructive. But just like a boxer who has to toughen their knuckles by repeated strikes, their is no easy way to practice what we all must do multiple times in this life. That is to summons the courage to face the unknown,... knowing that to do so is the only way to gain the realization that our fears are what really keep us from being all that we can be.

Free wheeling

Wow! Just about the time you think things will settle down in ones life more stuff comes up. I suppose thats alright, it just never seems like the timing is right. Maybe the timing is perfect for our maximum growth, but that doesn't make it any easier. Ok... I'am using this as a prelude to excuse myself from not writing lately. If its any consolation I have a ton of topics that I would like to talk about but, don't seem to have the time to sit down and put my thoughts together in a complete sentence. So these are some of the topics that have landed on my radar screen as of late that I would love to talk about but just have not had the time.

Grape Nut flakes. Whats up with that....no grapes and no nuts! Although most of the people that I have encountered lately remind me of cereal. I mean what ain't fruits and nuts, is flakes.

Weddings vs. Funerals. Weddings are probably more fun except that funerals get over in about an hour, and weddings can take roughly ten minutes shy of eternity. Especially during football season. I also believe that it is cheaper to put someone in the ground than it is to get married. Your life is not the same after either occasion in any event, but at least we don't have to go through our own funeral multiple times.

If you can't hula hoop without assistance, should you really let your dance instructor talk you into entering a dance competition? I'll have that answer for you sometime in August!

Why are we the only industrialized country that doesn't have universal health care?





If corn oil comes from corn and coal oil comes from coal....where does baby oil come from? Not real sure that I want to know, but it has crossed my mind.





If the stuff that happens to you when you are in your forties happened to you when you were in your twenties...would you really want to live to thirty?





If I go on a date with a blind person do I still have to dress up?





I know I know already. This is some silly assed stuff but you have to admit, a mind given half a chance to free wheel, when left alone can come up with some pretty unorthodox thoughts. On some level letting our minds go of all the programing that we have endured... even for a few minutes can be quite cathartic.

We the people.....

Their have been several articles lately in the local print media concerning the human population in the world and eventual demise of our planet and the people on it. It seems as though that their are numerous factors in regard to this trend. Not the least of which in my opinion has been due to our own intelligence. Yeah it seems weird that we as the smart ones on this planet ( or so we think ) are our own worst enemy. We have created problems today with our intelligence... that we cannot fix with the same intelligence.... that created the problem in the first place! In a nutshell I would like to interject a few of my own random thoughts about this subject, not in any particular order, just some knee jerk things that come to mind. Because this is to vast of subject to try and pick apart on this site and I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to analyse the nuances of demographic populations and the control their of. I think you all would agree.

First and foremost is the advent of agriculture. When you can grow more food you can support more humans. When you have more humans you need more food. Which takes more ground to grow more food to support even more humans. Pretty simple. Ask the native Americans why we put them on reservations...so we could control more ground and grow more stuff, their by reducing the competition. So that we could control our own food source....to support more humans.

Trying to westernize indigenous culture's that are living in perfect harmony with the land that is native to them. I am thinking of Africa in this instance and how we have transformed them from a primarily nomadic culture that traversed the plains. Following the rains and the game animals, to a bunch of people crammed into a couple square miles trying to live the western dream, because we have convinced them that that you are not very developed as a people if you cannot live in a pseudo urbanized setting depleting the immediate surroundings resources. Their by product of which results in depleted food sources, disease, famine, crime, and a host of other problems to great to try and cover.

Medicine and technology. This seems straight forward that their is a lot of us alive today, that wouldn't have survived a hundred years earlier. What with C-sections, drugs, x-rays, etc... me included. But given the chance to play God we by most accounts try to save every living thing that we can. I am just not sure if that was the way it was really intended. In the real world their are checks and balances that keep populations in check. Once that system has been compromised it creates a false sense of reality that we come to believe is real. Which is not real at all. It is an artificially propted up population that over time is destined to fail...because it runs counter to the reality of the natural world.

yes... I mean no!

Accomplishments seem so surreal sometimes. We spend all of our time and energy getting through the task...and then when it is finally over we somehow don't want them to end. It is the true dichotomy! The ultimate oxymoron. Come here, go away! No don't go! What a weird way of processing things. To me it seems to be a seasonal phenomenon, normally the spring. I wonder if that is because that is when most of us graduate from school. That is also the time if you have ever been involved in any winter recreational leagues that you are truly ready for them to end as well. Then two weeks later you wish it hadn't ended so soon. I mean it was only thirty six weeks long! We are definitely creatures of habit...even if we can't wait to kick the habit. I don't know if we will ever be able to just live in the moment and enjoy the feeling, even when it is the most hectic. But it has got to be a better feeling then wishing it wouldn't go... after complaining over the last several months that we wish it would just end. Hmmmm???

It's official!

Spring is officially in the books as far as I am concerned. I know this because this is how my spring always looks to those of us who spend time in the Ozarks. The peepers and wood frogs and chorus frogs are in full concert. The Nan king cherry and service berry are in full bloom. Winter flocks of turkeys are breaking up and the morning air is filled with song bird music as they come awake with the first morning blush of light to the east.

The woods have a smokey smell from people in the surrounding areas burning hay fields to encourage the early spring green up, and on occasions that smoke smell is from the woods that have caught fire from untended burns.
The
rivers run full from spring rains so that travel at times is difficult, do to the low water crossings. This sometimes can and does add countless miles to a normally short trip.
Spring has also arrived because that is the time when the stock men and those in the deer management arena make sure that their is plenty of mineral available for our four legged ruminants. To insure a good healthy offspring.
This is spring to me. This is the spring that I know where one stands out on the high ridge points at dawns early light listening for turkeys gobbling , with a warm cup of coffee in your hand, in anticipation of the season to begin. A few snow geese flying north still, heading to their breeding grounds on the Arctic tundra, with the rest of us hoping that we don't get a late spring freeze.

I know it is spring because I just picked the first five ticks off of me. Welcome back...welcome back.