Happy Friday Digital Neighbors! Good Morning ADD Irregulars, Phamily & Refugees, Dawn Patrol & Early Birds, Later Dayers & Vagabonds, Conversants, Lurkers and all the rest of ya's. A few more quotes and commentary on various aspects of opportunity, which is much better than whining about privilege and hoping you can enshrine some sort of victimhood to make you above criticism, challenge or question. Whining about privilege and enshrining victimhood is probably a guaranteed ticket to emotional or mental illness. Well enough me for the moment - on to some quotes!

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. - Charles de Gaulle

Once a virtue, now an act of extremism, self-reliance is the boogey-man of any person or group that cannot depend upon goodwill to maintain the relationship. One of the rules I learned early in life: The more you have to control a person, the less you actually love them. In families, this becomes the toxic environment that stifles differentiating yourself from the family norms. Non-controlling individuals can voice dissatisfaction and disapproval without the threat of cancellation, excommunication or exile. They are really the same reality, but just slightly different packaging. Controlling persons, families, or communities will move to exile almost immediately both as a way to silence the outlier and warn others not to follow suit. I am not saying that exile shouldn't sometimes be used, but it ought to be the last resort after all other attempts at reconciling and understanding have been exhausted. In a work environment, it is a little different if you decide to go off-brand and undermine your place of employment. Sometimes extracting the cavity is simply the best thing to do.

Sorry, wandered off-topic - self-reliance is a good thing. They more we can cultivate it the more freedom we will actually possess. By that metric I have almost no freedom except to act defiant when I come to a point of disagreement. My ability to sustain myself is at a very low threshold and my greying is not helping in that matter. At least I know I am not in a good position to survive an interruption of normalcy for a very long period. That knowledge makes me less prone to panic in the moment, I am not a chicken little person. Do I get stressed, absolutely. Do I feel fear, most certainly. But I tend not to let the animal run the person once the initial flash of emotions have washed through the system.

Of course the only way to know is to subject oneself to various self-imposed tests. Fasting and abstaining from things that you could lose in the crisis is a good preparation for the moment you may not have a choice. Try giving up comforts as a matter of self-exploration, of measuring what your interior state under absence will be. The vast majority of your neighbors cannot live without comfort and cannot handle inconvenience. Trying to test your limits on both is good preparation that require no special skills other than the willing to try it and to pay attention to what is taking place in your interior state. I guess the bad news is if it pushes you to a break down, at least you know and might be able to correct that before you find yourself lost in a crisis and the animal is replacing the person.

No man is free who is not master of himself. - Epictetus

Self-mastery and self-reliance are good and praiseworthy things anytime in the chapters of history, but very important when the system is fragile. The system is fragile. Probably more than I realize and that doesn't fill me with hope for the immediate chapters ahead of us. I think the hallmark of mastering oneself is to master what comes out of your mouth. That of course begins with what you coddle in your mind and decide to voice or not voice. I am not really thinking of the use of vulgar words, humor or such things in normal conversation, but rather what you say when you are irritated, inconvenienced or faced with prolonged discomfort. Acknowledging dark thoughts is not the same as acting on them. The doing is impactful, the consideration of it is dangerous.

How you react when the joke is on you can reveal your character. - Robert Half

No one is immune to the power of humor. Even comedians, who know how to take themselves lightly and easily find humor in life's absurdities, know that humor pulls back the curtain on attitudes and behaviors. Powerful humor can exposes vulnerabilities, give rise to questions and make the target feel stupid or foolish. That last bit used to get comics silenced and killed. Think skin, small ego and a readiness to laugh at yourself is probably the best defense when targeted by a clever comedian. Many aren't clever enough to be able to reply to the such verbal assaults. They usually get mad. Mad people become animals. I think I've mentioned that. 🤨 Laugh at yourself, it is some of the best medicine for your ego. Accept that your most treasured convictions or beliefs probably have a something odd or amusing about them than a clever mind can exploit with humor. IF, if you can get over that and over yourself, you have a great chance of real autonomy and cultivating some depth of self-reflection. Of course, I could be full of crap. 💩 Thanks for reading this long my dear digital neighbors!

Missouri Creek Photograph by Brian Kerls