She may be gone, but the old bag’s not forgotten.
Or maybe she is. I keep conflating her with Queen Elizabeth, and forgetting she’s also dead.
God, we have a Charles now?
Whatever happened to ending the monarchy?
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1179 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Side Hustle: From Idea To Income In 27 Days, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: WildCats 10-13
Music: For Blood And Empire, Anti-FlagI mean, didn’t everyone?
But, yeah. I’m supposed to be better than that. I still think, that to this day, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
I’m also in awe of the kindness and compassion she shows, which is actually more attractive than her appearance ever could be.
Indeed, that kindness and compassion is one of the sexiest attributes anyone can have, regardless of gender or appearance.
Being a hateful thing only serves to strip even the most beautiful of us of any allure.
Just ask Brigitte Bardot and her Marine LePen supporting ass.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 2093 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Side Hustle: From Idea To Income In 27 Days, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: WildCats v2 1-3, Wild Times: Grifter 1
Music: Foot In Mouth, Green DayLet’s start small. Yesterday, I had difficulty reconciling the lifestyle of kindness and compassion with the need to punch a Nazi in the nose (because that may be the kindest thing you can do for the world, and perhaps for them).
Today, I’m just thinking about little things, and mostly, it comes down to paying attention. Instead of living in our own heads, we focus outward and really pay attention to the people around us, the people with whom we interact. How are they responding to what’s happening around them?
Do they need help? A good chuckle? A hug? A pat on the back? Some uplifting words?
Or maybe they just need someone to sit with them and be there for them.
I’m naturally drawn to the underdog, the person everyone’s ignoring in place of the most obvious victim or the cause du jour. Caregiver burnout is a real thing, and I think it behooves us to show some grace to those who do the work.
It’s very easy to feel empathy for an aging mother whose mind is wavering, or someone in a wheelchair, and very easy to criticize those who are most responsible for their welfare, who have set aside their own wants and needs in order to take care of someone else.
And it’s easy to sympathize with those who are caregivers, except when they get frustrated or dare to take a little something for themselves. Then, it’s easy to criticize; they’re bad people for getting angry at their charge, for taking a few moments to collect themselves while a child or parent is screaming; the accused, seeing the press whirl up against them without any regard for fact or nuance.
It’s easy to judge, to write off, to label as mean, as a bitch, an asshole, an abuser.
It’s much more difficult to try and understand, and in that, there is kindness.
I guess this wasn’t really mini at all.
More on that another time.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 2094 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 38-39, Grifter v2 11, WildC.A.T.S./X-Men 2
Music: Fly On The Wall, AC/DCI’ll admit, this is the part of kindness where I struggle. I know, in Buddhist though, Taoist thought, compassion is for everyone, no matter who they are or what they represent.
And I understand that. But I see kindness as having little effect on the authoritarians of the world, or on those who absolutely refuse to help themselves. In many cases, kindness is an enabling factor, not a mitigating one.
Kindness needs to be tempered with a resolve that doesn’t allow for bad behaviour to continue. Tough love, I believe it’s called, but I hate the concept itself – it’s so ripe for exploitation and coercion. Like so many great concepts “in theory”, there are always those who would twist the sentiment to their own end.
Tough love as the excuse for an abusive parent. Kindness as a shield for an exploitive guru. Compassion as way to enable another’s bad behaviour and thereby, avoid conflict.
It is not kindness to let people continue to behave poorly in their lives. Sometimes, the greatest kindness is letting go of that person, or devising a means by which their harm can be minimized (or eliminated altogether – and since I preach non-violence as much as possible, I prefer minimization – not ignorance, awareness without engagement).
Sometimes, the most kind thing is to recognize that the person you need to be kind to is yourself, and that the person who you believed deserved your kindness is not of more consequence than that. If compassion for another is killing you, it flies in the face of compassion. Compassion does not equal martyr.
Then again, maybe I just don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. Perhaps I’m only saying this because I feel on the verge of breaking, and am putting up walls to allow myself time to rebuild, refocus and rest.
Thus, it’s back to the Buddhist texts and a continued re-reading of Tao Te Ching. Kindness, empathy, compassion – the structure is in there somewhere.
And I’ll get it eventually.
I hope.
Target: 1600 words
Written: 1369 words, novel: Father Lightning (and the tradition of missing my updated target on the first day continues)
Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton (wait, is this a rewrite? Ugh.)
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 37-38, Grifter 9-10
Music: Flowers, The Rolling StonesI don’t necessarily agree with some of the stuff he’s doing (too corporate-leaning for me), but his ability to make deals and get us away from our dependence on the States (which is something I’ve advocated since Bush Jr.), it’s impressive.
Dude’s a force of nature, very quietly and clearly cutting the United States out of the equation, insulating us against their insanity.
So, credit where credit’s due. On that front, he’s fucking brilliant.
And Pierre Poilievre can shut the fuck up, until he has an actual idea to make Canadian lives better, instead of trying to create controversy by bitching about everything and slagging Canada as horrible.
You want to represent a country? Maybe don’t constantly complain about it, Pierre.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2084 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice
Comics: Grifter & The Mask 1-2, Grifter 4-5
Music: Flogging Molly, Flogging Molly (floggingmollyfloggingmolly)So, listen. I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist. I know everybody immediately assumed the White House Correspondent’s Dinner attempt was fake, and then immediately, in the interest of both sides-ing it or covering their ass from a litigious president, decided to pretend maybe it wasn’t.
I personally think we are right to be suspicious. Certainly, there’s arguments both ways. On one hand, President Rotting Orange has given the world more than enough reasons to hate him. Fuck all that shit about Democratic rhetoric turning the heat up – those folks are mostly cowardly, hedging their bets every chance they get. Donald, on the other hand, ratchets up to a hundred pounds of hateful rhetoric and bullshit every time he opens his mouth.
That said, maybe the hateful rhetoric spewing from his piehole (and his minions’ pieholes) is enough to spur someone to violence, in anger, in retribution, in a misguided attempt at justice (and justice does need to come, though preferably, not with bloodshed).
On the other hand, this administration and its orange cult leader have flooded the world with so many lies, so much bullshit, so much flagrant dishonesty, that you could hardly blame anyone for taking anything they say with a healthy dose of skepticism. We all immediately start asking, what are they really after? What are they really trying to do?
And that’s a hundred percent valid. You don’t fight fascism by letting it lie without examination.
Add to all this the fact that they are literally running the fascist playbook, as example after example after example of past authoritarian leaders will show you, and it’s pretty clear they’re looking for their Reichstag moment.
A moment, you’ll recall, was fake.
Butler was bullshit – a hundred percent staged no matter how you slice it. The coordination of MAGA influencer accounts and MAGA politicians who with fast came out with the same coordinated message of “build the ballroom!” within what? A hour, hour and a half of the assassination attempt?
Yeah, my credulity is strained, and it was essentially nonexistent before, again, because of the firehose of deceit that gushes out of every Republican and MAGA influencer’s mouth.
You are the boy who cried wolf, and despite the fact that no one believed you, you kept crying wolf over and over again. And unlike in the story, where eventually there was a wolf and no one believed him…
There’s still not a fucking wolf.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 987 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Against The Fall Of Night, Arthur C. Clarke (shades of 2001, this, before 2001 came to be)
Comics: Spartan: Warrior Spirit 4, Grifter 6, Zealot 3, Grifter/Badrock 2
Music: Flag Of The Shiners, State RadioI think it’s time I got more serious about writing and exploring kindness.
See, The Mungk took me to a dark place because I was thinking about trauma, abandonment and isolation the whole time. The Conflagration of Boor and Aghast made me angry, because tapping into the outrage machine and felt helplessness of modern politics can’t help but do so (also, didn’t help that Trump launched his reign of terror).
Father Lightning is, at its core, an exploration of kindness. So rather than bogging down in anger and hopelessness or despair, it was meant to re-centre me, and re-focus on compassion and empathy and treating people with kindness and respect.
But here I am, thinking about anger and trauma, again.
Going forward, no more pain and anger (well, some pain and anger).
The primary focus of this blog will be kindness, and everything that goes along with it.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2195 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Time For A Tiger, Anthony Burgess (when I started reading this, I thought it might be about an actual tiger, or a tiger as a metaphor for Malaysia near the end of British rule, but nope - a Tiger is a warm beer, and our protagonist spend most of their time not wanting to do anything but stop what they're doing and go have one. Weird premise, Burgess. I mean, I understand the sentiment, but weird thing to focus a book on.)
Comics: Voodoo/Zealot: Skin Trade 1, Zealot 1, WildC.A.T.S. 23, Team One/WildC.A.T.S. 2
Music: Five Songs And A Cover, Foo FightersLike, the whole thing about Father Lightning is me exploring the nature of kindness, in the same manner I explored the concept of dualism in The Conflagration Of Boor And Aghast and trauma in The Mungk.
I don’t think I’m doing so well. The point of kindness is not that you’re a doormat; it’s also not to only be kind to those to whom it’s easy to be kind.
True kindness understands that sometimes the kindest thing is a direct truth; true kindness understands that sometimes, even those that would seem to deserve it the least are the ones that may need it the most.
It sets boundaries by shedding light on the reality of a situation; it understands that sometimes, in that enlightening, we may need to cast aside judgment.
I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job of that.
In this, I must be better.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2337 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Pebble In The Sky, Isaac Asimov
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 18-19, WildCats Adventures 6, Warblade: Endangered Species 3
Music: The First Four Years, Black FlagIt’s been a while since I watched this. I forgot how uncomfortably disturbing it was; the perfect metaphorical encapsulation of America’s insanity, then and now.
Everything sick and venal about America, the glorification of guns and violence, of racism and corruption.
It is America, in its most unsettled base.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 740 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Call For The Dead, John Le Carre
Comics: WildCats Adventures 1-2, WildC.A.T.S. 15-16
Music: Firestarter, The ProdigyThat the idea that somehow the market will fix things has to be one of the stupidest and most persistent lies of the past couple of centuries?
I mean, why anyone in their right mind would think that a system primarily based on a system of consumers and predators would ultimately end up being beneficial for the masses of humanity is beyond me?
The idea that a system of human interaction centered around greed and selfishness will somehow, though the magic of the invisible hand of the market somehow result in benevolence toward society and people as a whole is naive at best, and criminally stupid at worst.
And yet, supposedly higher functioning human beings, president, lawyers, Ivy league alum, they all pray to this deity called market, as though it’s God or something, instead of a collection of sociopathic hoarders who would cut their own mother for a dime.
I mean, what the fuck is that about?
Are these people so brainwashed or stupid as to actually believe that, or is it, as is much more likely, that they’re benefiting from it, so it’s worthwhile to them to continue to perpetrate the lie?
I strongly suspect the latter.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1454 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: Code And Other Laws Of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig (who inspired this post with an assuming that the market is magic and all-seeing, and somehow, not every bit as susceptible to corruption as government, particularly when it's in bed with the government, or the government is in bed with it - I agree with a separation of business and state, but for entirely different reasons than deregulation somehow being beneficial, and not an excuse for crass exploitation. Theft is still theft, especially when it's called Wall Street or Silicon Valley, and that should be policed)
Comics: Gen 13 v2 72-75
Music: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, The Soundtrack