And on the 2nd day

It occurred to me that my post from yesterday really looked like a resolution.

I didn’t intend for it to be that way; I had been thinking about traditions.  Our tradition is to spend the day with friends.  It was a brief visit this year because my wife and I were absolutely exhausted but it was fun.  We look forward to it each year even though we don’t always make it.  That was really all I was thinking, how the day has engendered traditions.

I don’t make even make resolutions.  I try to look at my life and since I do see the first day of the year as a significant, well, signifier of change, I look for ways to improve on what I did in the previous year.

OK, I make resolutions.

But I didn’t mean to make a post about how resolutions shouldn’t be restrictive let alone necessary and then go ahead and make a resolution.  It was just something that I had been thinking about that I wanted to share, that’s all.  We should take advantage of every day as best we can.  I am by far not the best at doing this, but I thought it was a good way to approach things.

Oh well, be good and have a good year.

I have to go write a sonnet now.

January 1, 2014

So it is the first day of a New Year, a new beginning, a time to make resolutions and to make changes in your life.

But really it’s just an arbitrary date that we’ve chosen; an artifact of a calendar that has changed over the centuries.  This day isn’t really different than any other day, though I do see this as a special day myself.  I recognize that is a personal feeling but a new year has begun.  Other people celebrate this day but I don’t know if they feel the same way that I do about it.  For some people New Year’s Eve is the big event.  That’s fine.  Everyone can celebrate in their own way, but I think it’s useful to focus on January 1^st as a time of beginnings. 

If you made resolutions to change your life for the better, then good for you.  It’s good to improve yourself in whatever way you choose.  Make needed changes and work to make yourself and your life better.  But don’t fret about January 1^st.  If you started today, fine, but if you miss it, don’t give up because of that, just start tomorrow.  If you make it to January 10^th or March 2^nd or May 4^th and then your resolve falls apart don’t worry about that either.  Maybe your resolutions were too ambitious, or maybe they were unattainable or maybe you just had a bad day.  It’s good to have goals that you try to achieve but don’t let the goal be an obstacle.

So you didn’t go to the gym every day and you haven’t been eating better at every meal.  Maybe you haven’t been a nicer person to everyone and you haven’t been able to write a sonnet every day.  So what?  Maybe you just need to revise your goals or maybe you just need a day off.  I have the feeling that a lot of people give up on their resolutions once they have a single misstep.  I’ve done that.  It’s human nature, and it’s hard to overcome.  Still, I think it’s worth trying to get over it.  If you don’t start right away or you can’t quite keep up with what you wanted to do don’t give up completely.

It’s a new year, a chance to see things in a new light and to start thinking in a new way.  Of course things don’t really change just because it’s January 1^st.  The rest of your life hasn’t reset itself just because the calendar rolled around to a new year.  Work keeps on going, or the look for work keeps on, and the demands of life are still there – maybe it’s all even a little more pressing because you took some time off for the holidays.  Fine, do what you have to do to keep life going and your world in order.  I hope things run as smoothly as possible for everyone.

But do think about it being a new year.  It’s New Years Day.  Celebrate, relax, enjoy.  And tomorrow go about your business, but maybe look at things a little differently.  Sure, it’s going to be January 2^nd and it will be Thursday and just another ordinary day.  Try to make that day a good day.  No, I’m not trying to spout platitudes about making the world what you want it to be, I don’t know anyone with that kind of control over the world and if you can do that give me a call.  If you’re that powerful you’ll know my number.

What I am suggesting is that if you have that feeling of newness and potential that can come with New Year’s Day don’t leave it behind.  Keep that thought with you as the year progresses.  I intend to try.  Maybe the chance to start something new comes along in three weeks.  I want to keep looking.

Every day is a new day with its own potential and that’s a good thing.

I choose to celebrate today

I had intended to blog more this year.  You can see how that worked out.

I’ll give some details as to why I have been silent a little later.  For now I want to talk about today.

That post title refers to the anniversary days of my time in the hospital.  It’s been a while but those days are still very present in my life.  Apparently I’ve been dealing with the effects that remembering those days has on me by ignoring them this year.  An effective but not a productive strategy.

So, since I wanted to start in with an attempt at blogging again, I am going to look at today.

Today in Beatthereaper history.  Or something like that.

September 12^th is the day I think I started to remember things sequentially again.  I think I remember things from the 9^th on, but even as I was in the ICU I felt that the first three days’ memories were mixed up.  Oddly I knew that even though I was remembering things, I was not remembering what order those things happened.

Then, on the 12^th, things seemed to fall into place.  My thinking was not clear, but the memories were keeping in line.  I can’t really describe how that felt or why it’s so important to me.  It was like returning.

Somehow my brain knew that I had been in the hospital for a long time even though I had been unconscious.  Then when I finally was conscious I had those days of confusion.  That left me feeling disoriented.  The ICU is an unreal place to begin with and that just magnified the problem for me.  But then I started to remember.  Sure, being in the ICU was not the best place for the remembering to start up again, but you take what you can get.  And remembering is an important thing.

So I choose to celebrate today.  I have ignored the other significant days, I intend to keep ignoring them for now.  As much as I cherish memory and believe that it has an important role in making us who we are, I do not want to dwell on those days right now.  Yes, I’m taking the easy way out and frankly I don’t care.  I have other things I want to spend that energy on right now so that’s what I’m going to do.

This day is important.  I’m going to focus on that.  I’ll work on that other progress later.

Now, this has been a rather haphazard post, very much in keeping with my blogging this year.  But I felt like giving it a try again.  We’ll have to see where it goes from here.

I hope you all have important days that you want to remember, moments in your life that mark positive times, improvements and maybe even joy.  We all need them and we all deserve them.

Here’s hoping we can also all build some more of them.

Hi there, remember me?

It would only seem to be inevitable that the year I start out stating that I want, and intend, to blog more often I would go for 3 months without a single entry.

With any luck, yesterday will mark a return to more blogging.  Today, really, since yesterday was not, shall we say, original content.

I was away for good reason even if the underlying cause was not good.  In other words, I was doing things but my current state means that the activity left me too tired to do anything else.  You take the good with the bad.  You may not like it, but what else are you going to do.

I will refrain from further use of platitudes, clichés or trite expressions.

Watch this space.  I will be back.

IN CONGRESS. July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

     WE hold the Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that when any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.  Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.  The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

     He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

     He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

     He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Rights of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

     He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

     He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

     He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

     He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

     He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

     He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

     He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

     He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.

     He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

     He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

     For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

     For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:

     For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

     For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

     For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

     For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

     For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

     For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

     For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

     He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

     He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

     He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized Nation.

     He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

     He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

     In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury.  A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

     Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren.  We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us.  We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here.  We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence.  They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity.  We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

     We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do.  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Nice weather

I like a nice summer evening, just not in April.

That’s all I have to say today, I’m too tired for anything else.

Still here

If you were wondering, there will be more posts.

When the year began I intended to post more frequently than I had been, but that went the way of so many other resolutions and was overcome, once again, by life.  It’s been a hectic year, and one of those years where I needed a month or two just to recover from the previous year.

Well, now it’s April.  What could possibly interfere with blogging in April?  OK, a lot, but I’m going to try anyway.  Maybe I won’t go for a month between posts, but I make no guarantees.

One of the reasons I stopped for so long was that all I had to talk about was politics and health.  I didn’t want to keep doing that because it felt too negative.  So, I will try to limit the politics, though I am sure that it will pop up frequently.

Health issues will also be discussed here, but since that’s what I started this blog for in the first place I don’t see a problem with that.  I just don’t want it to be the only thing and I will try to be more positive.  That will depend on how much progress I make, so give me time on that one.  Still, sharing is important.  If anyone stumbles across this blog I want them to see that they are not alone, should they be dealing with similar problems.

As cheesy as it sounds, it helps to know that you aren’t the only one going through something. 

As often as I can I’ll write about things that I am doing that help deal with the problems.  And with any luck I’ll come up with some other topics.  I’ll probably start in with the posts about my health and condition, but I’ll work on the rest of it.

There’s no telling what I might come up with.