Large Fierce Mammal

… I wonder how many times I can make this thing skip on the lake … (Mrs. LFM Photo)

“By now, those disposed to it will have proclaimed their ‘resolution’ for the ‘new year’. They may have proclaimed more than one. From there, as with all such things, the outcome will be, as we say, fuck all. How do I know this with such certainty? Well now Goode Reader, the answer is obvious, and lies in plain sight in the words “new year’s resolution”.

“One may successfully silence an incessantly barking Dog by means of a collar that administers an electric shock when the sound of a bark is detected, but without foreknowledge of what has motivated the Dog to bark so much, only the outwardly expressed symptom is erased while the reason for it remains. Remains to manifest in more destructive and toxic ways.

“One may have grown dissatisfied with one’s appearance as it has changed over time, and become caught up in squandering time, thought, and treasure in a fruitless battle to recapture a fondly remembered moment of perfection, and hold it in stasis forever. A moment of perfection that never existed; for perfection, for each of us, is not a thing that existed once upon a time, but in the moment that is now, and if you can’t find it there, you won’t find it anywhere.

“When one gets on an airplane, it is with no need to state an attendant intention to eventually get off of it. So it is that “going on a diet” is like going on a trip – the act comes with the presumption that when a specific goal is reached, the activity will end, even if the perceived necessity for the diet, or trip, is born of misfortune of the traveller’s own making.

“All ‘new year’s resolutions’ will fail because they are born of procrastination, and those self-deluding sods who proclaim and embrace the concept trumpet their lack of resolve by the simple act of putting off all their life changing actions for one magical day. A magical day that, like tomorrow, never comes, because in the end there’s always another New Year, right?

“Wrong. Find the moment and your perfection in it.” ~ A Long Winter’s Night 2014 – Day 11: Perfection

If you are reading this on a screen of any kind, then the inevitable negative outcome of a society far too reliant on delicate infrastructure has not yet descended upon either of us. Huzzah! I encourage you to read on, and then work on acquiring or improving upon your, “… Tools that can never be broken, worn out, stolen or legislated away. That are always with you even when standing naked as the day you were born ….”

You’re going to need them.

This marks my first utterance to be published here in the year 2023. A year affected to its core by artificial problems that, by their nature, can never be solved, and Real ones that already have, long ago by people nobody steeped in belief in the chosenness bestowed by modernity wants to listen to.

So, lots of Reality to come, Goode Reader. If you’ve “reached all”, as my Dear Departed Father used to say, then you have nothing to lose by sticking around here a while before offing yourself. What’s the rush? At least you’ll have absorbed a bit more educational enlightenment — mayhap even passed some of it along — before running down the curtain and heading off to join the choir invisible.

Now here is today’s closing word. Repeat it often until you understand what it means.

A Dose of Reality

By LFM

Who would thrive shall not disgrace
His worthiness for Nature’s grace.
In service of what needs befall,
What he would take, he takes not all.
The first he finds, he moves on past,
So he will never take the last.