Doing My Best

    There have been so many things to write about lately. So many thoughts ricocheting around inside my skull. So many things of both great importance and trivial. So many that it overwhelms me and I can't seem to write anything. It is like being faced with such a vast amount of work that I can't manage to do anything but turn my back, pick up a book, and disappear into an alternate reality. There is too much, too many thoughts, an endless flow that keeps me awake at night, and plagues my waking hours. With the current state of the world I wonder that anyone can sleep at all. Are we on the brink of war? The brink of climate change that will surely end the world as we know it? So much, too much. It is all I can do to not lose my mind.
    We are facing dark times, I have no doubt. Our country is in the hands of a lunatic and his puppetmasters, and there is little we can do but sit back and wait to see what fresh hell he can lead us into. We are confronted daily by his atrocious, outlandish behavior, and the continual blunderings of his inept and idiotic staff. It is a daily assault that is slowly numbing us to feelings of outrage, beating us down into a grim feeling of a shell-shocked new reality. We raise our voices against the regime, it is all we can do. We support the groups we can. We protest as best we are able. I can only hope we can hold out long enough to see the regime toppled by their own heavy handed, brutish behaviors, and that right will win over might, Where is Superman, with Truth, Justice, and the American Way?
    Lately, my best form of protest is to continue with the plan of self-sufficiency. I plug away, one day at a time. I plant more edibles, ponder ways to make a living outside of the "American Dream," I look at every alternative I can think of to take me another step further away from dependency, and The Man. I hold onto my dreams with both hands, and fight to not lose hope. Some days this is more difficult than others.
    Surprisingly enough, despite what feel like the gathering of dark forces just over the horizon, I have had fewer issues with melancholy this winter. Yes, the weather has been cold and miserable for far too long. Yes, my financial situation is a bit bleak. Yes, my job is wearing me down bit by bit. Yes, we are teetering on the brink of a global flux. But, despite all this, I have managed, most days, to maintain at least a modicum of my eternal optimism. I think it is largely due to the fact that I am not relying on anyone but myself for my happiness. I am the captain of my fate, the sole hand at the tiller of my ship for one. It keeps me balanced. And at the end of the day I can look at what was accomplished and know it was entirely my own doing. For now, this moment, that is enough. I am doing my best, and that is better than a lot of people can say.