How can I not enjoy sitting here at Starbucks, people watching?  Summer is definitely here in Seattle, regardless of the weather.  While the country seems to be chewing off its own limbs for one side to be “right” and the other “wrong,” what we value most is still there, waiting for us to rediscover the joy we find lacking in our lives.

I’m sitting here listening to a rather wide variety of music while I write this, looking for the positive feelings that I know are there, buried under the crap we are bombarded with every day.  Right now, it’s the Beastie Boys “You Have to Fight for Your Right to Party”.  Hey, when you get down to it, you do.  It’s all your decision to make – whether to be happy, or not.  We are 100% responsible for our lives and where we are.  That’s a hard pill to swallow.  But when you do, you can work on change from a position of power – not a victim of the whims of the world.

We are the ones in control of our destiny, folks.  Not the politicians, the President, the
pundits or the peckerheads who tell us what we should be feeling/doing/saying/believing (Beck, Limbaugh and the like.)  When did we relinquish the control of our own intellect?  We know that this country was founded by the persecuted masses who sought freedom and equality in the light of humanity and community:

“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.”

When and where did we stray from this?  I, for one, do not choose to listen to the bullshit being slung from on-high.  I make my own choices, decisions and opinions because I am responsible for my life and how I live it.  What is right or wrong for you is not the same as what is right or wrong for me – don’t ever try to tell me otherwise.  Maybe it’s a character flaw, but I am stubborn that way.

What I want to know is this – when did we throw out the pledge our founding fathers signed up for? –

“…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.”

John Locke – “What worries you, masters you.”