Happy Friday, Digital Neighbors!  Good Morning Friends & Refugees, Early Birds and Later Dayers, Conversants, Lurkers and Wanderers on the Report, hey there PHAM and finally good day to all you ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators and Outliers. Two quotes for your Friday!

Ugliness creates bitterness. Ugliness is an eroding force on the people of our land. We are all here to try to change that. - Lady Bird Johnson

Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seek beauty and don’t listen to the Gospel of the Moment that is trying to persuade you to swallow lie after lie and pretend it is the truth. Every lie we embrace erodes the spirit within us.  Every lie that deceives us leads us that much further from reality. There are no genders – you can be whatever you want to be.  I identify as dung beetle, and there is ample crap for a happy future. Get to rolling your future now!  

We are frequently told ugliness is beautiful, we are preached inclusiveness & diversity constantly while at the same time being told that whiteness is a problem, and males exemplify what is worst about whiteness. Don’t forget “body positivity” – fat is A- OK!!!  And we ain’t talk’n just a little chub, you can have rolling layers of life and we will just assume you are as healthy as someone striving for a “normative” BMI.   Normative, there is word that is banished from our reality.  Send in the performative shriekers, wake up the privilege police: “NOT FAIR!!  NOT FAIR!!” so we can all be alerted to life’s most basic reality – life is not fair.  Not only is life not fair, but it is also profoundly indifferent to you.

For the record, many of the cultural advocates of “equality” were really waiting for revenge on the parent culture that gave them the freedom to differ and disagree.  Losing freedoms because you granted too many to those who don’t really believe in freedom is one of the most bitter ironies.  Many cry freedom and equality, but most have wanted power and privilege for themselves.  You can’t escape the Hegelian dialectic when you have made that your interpretive key for relationships and reality.  UGH – Sorry for that ugly offramp to a morning meant to be about beauty.

Life is not fair, but it is beautiful.   Find it in nature, find it your family, find it your friends. Ultimately, cultivate beauty in your heart.  Nature, music, classical arts and other venues have a shot at restoring beauty in your heart.  Seek the company of those who feed your own hunger for beauty. Make time for those who matter and the endeavors that bring meaning into your life.   It can’t always be sugarcoated goodness, see the above paragraphs, but one cannot have a steady and constant drone on how freaking bad things are.    I don’t have to make bad news that the only thing that rests on my mind and feeds my fears & angers.  I am so thankful for faith, friends, pets and a whole lot of perspective that insulates me from horrors and sorrows of life without blinding me to them.  May your imagination lead you to pleasant venues, may it strengthen your spirit and keep you grounded in reality with a sense of hope and purpose.  I can’t change the world, but I am going to do my damnedest to make my acre of reality worthwhile.

Lake Jasna, Slovenia - Hasmik Ghazaryan Olson - Unsplash