The Ramblings of the Titanium Don
Explorations of Conscious Reality Creation, Mindfulness, and Other Matters
Sometimes, the best way through is to make it up as you go along. When I began to learn melee combat in medieval fencing, a key phrase always stuck with me. No plan survives contact with the enemy. And it’s true. The “enemy”, be it a physical opponent or an intangible like Resistance, is unpredictable. You can’t and don’t know what they’ll do, how they’ll do it, or much of anything, really. Part of this is because you are the
It’s especially hard when you wish they saw what you are seeing. Reading the news, even from a level of learning the basics to simply stay informed, is increasingly infuriating. I cannot understand how, in less than a decade, the United States went from progressive, having twice elected the first-ever black president, to this reactionary fascist-inspired nightmare. It seemed like we were entering a golden age of reason, of progress, of a world where greater fairness and equality were both
Do what you can to stay strong. I have massively reduced my time on social media. This is to avoid doomscrolling and doing harm to my mental, emotional, and spiritual health. It’s not that I don’t desire to know what my friends and loved ones are doing. It’s that all the bad news, awful happenings, and ongoing ugliness is disheartening, upsetting, and can move all the way over to terrifying. How in the hell did we get here? After decades
Let’s just cut through the BS, shall we? Awake, or “woke”, means that you’re present and aware. The opposite would be to be asleep, not present, unaware, and open to being controlled. It really is that simple, my friends. You’re either awake and capable of assuming control or asleep and letting someone else do the driving. That’s what it all comes down to. “Woke”, as such, is in no way, shape, or form, a bad thing. Being awake means you
Fear is a choice more often than not. In its original incarnation, fear is not a bad thing. That’s because fear in its purest form keeps you alive. Fear of predators, of climbing too high in the trees, of running too gingerly at the edges of cliffs, of swimming too deep into the waves, kept early humankind alive. Really, it’s by the grace of fear that the human race evolved to the place we enjoy now, atop the food chain
Every day is its own. I made a choice to spend way, way less time on social media. Granted, I had already reduced my social media usage over the past couple of years. Now, though, even that time is being cut way down. Yes, you can still find me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and BlueSky. Hell, despite that new (but not surprising) issues with Meta, I’m doing click-testing with ads as part of a course to help improve my marketing.
Choosing and deciding is how you have any control at all. Unless you’ve been asleep for years, or locked away in a cave, or hiding out on a tropical island somewhere, you know shit has gotten weirder. Reason and logic seem to be increasingly out to lunch. Greed, ambition, and screwing over others to advance yourself seem to be all the rage. Many, many people feel as if they are being wronged by “others”. There’s a great deal of false
Maybe not initially, but after that it is. Like it or not, shit happens. And there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. When shit happens, you’ll react to it. This always comes in three stages. The first stage is your visceral, immediate, automated reaction. What that will look like is situational, dependent on factors including what, where, how, why, and when, and often unpredictable. This can include immediate rage, anger, frustration, joy, surprise, excitement, or interesting combinations
It’s okay not to change anything with the new year. Today is the day after yesterday and the day before tomorrow. It also just so happens to be the first day of a new year according to the Gregorian Calendar. One of the enduring ideas of the new year is to make some sort of resolution. A quick search showed that New Year’s Resolutions date back thousands of years. What exactly is a resolution? A resolution is defined as an
Thank you for being you. The holidays are a mixed bag. For some, this is a happy, joyful, amazing time. But for others, it’s a sad, unhappy, awful time. Your mileage may vary. I can relate to the discomfort many experience this time of year. As a child, I grew up as a non-Christian minority (my family is Jewish) in a very Lutheran area. Coupled with that, I was also the only one who had divorced parents, one of whom
