The Ramblings of the Titanium Don

Why is Disconnecting From Toxic People So Difficult?

Maybe because some of those toxic people are friends and family. Towards the end of 2022, I removed myself from Twitter. There was already far too much toxicity there for my liking, and when Mr. Musk decided to let Trump and several other assholes back on the platform, I removed myself and my support from it. I was only on Twitter mostly to promote my writing work. I don’t miss it or the toxicity of it. This week, my wife

Is the World Yours?

This post contains affiliate banner links. For more info, see my disclosures.   The world is only a terrible place if you accept it as such. You and I, however, have the power to change it for the better.  Yes, I know that this feels like a stretch, but it is still the truth. I am well aware that many terrible things are happening.  Aware doesn’t even begin to cover it.  Spend a minute scrolling through Facebook or Twitter or

How Can I Best Use Time?

Time is relative.  Our perception of it is variable, fluctuates, and changes depending on how much attention we are paying to it. Einstein told us that time is an illusion.  More specifically, he said, “The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”  Yet our whole society obsesses over these distinctions. Last week, I wrote about my tendency to always put my work on conscious reality creation ahead of me.  Not in the here-and-now, but

How does the use of I AM matter in Crossing the Bridges?

There are actions I can take, right now, to change my life. The challenge with this is in mindfulness.  While the action I am looking to take is relatively simple, it requires a great deal of mindfulness. I have written before about the power of the words I AM.  These two little words will ultimately define me, in the here and now, in absolute and specific ways.  I AM is far more powerful than the retrospective I WAS or the

Can I Cross These Bridges? Dreaming vs Doing

I am afraid to do the thing I should do. Afraid is not actually the correct feeling, however.  At least, not in the face of logic.  Maybe, the more correct thing here is I am concerned about the consequences that would come of my doing the thing I know I should do. What is the elephant in the room?  My job. I have a decent, reasonable paying, low-pressure job. The hours are okay.  The commute is generally not problematic.  This

What it means to Cross the Bridges – Different Aspects of My Writing

I love writing. I have been writing since I was 9 years old.  Wildfire was sci-fi, 50 hand-written pages long and illustrated by yours truly.  The basic premise: the grown-ups of the world allowed this mad scientist to create robots, who took over everything for everyone.  The adults got fat and lazy, the kids got distraught over this so they rebelled, stole a bunch of military hardware, created a base in the walls of the Grand Canyon, and in time

Crossing the Bridges: The Why of my Blog

Why do I blog? Recently, a webinar I viewed took me to an unexpected place, and I began a course to learn new ways to earn money as a blogger.  I mean, this is something I love rather a lot, so why shouldn’t I be earning a living doing this? One of the questions the instructor posed is, Why do you blog?  This is an interesting question, and the answer to it caused me to realize that this whole blog

Crossing the Bridges: Finding Joy

What brings me joy? Sunlight.  Writing.  Reading.  Time with my wife.  Time with my friends.  My cats.  My niece and my nephews.  Driving with the windows down and the radio blasting.  Helping other people. I want more joy in my life.  I want to spend more time happy, excited to greet the day and write my stories and share my blogs and do everything I can to make at least my corner of the world the best place that it

Crossing the Bridges: Empathy and Feeling Joy

Feeling joy has been something of a challenge of late.  I am an empath.  As an empath, I constantly feel the emotional states of other people around me. What does that mean?  It means when many, many of my friends and loved ones are feeling anxious because of, oh, say, awful acts of inhumanity on the part of our government…I get not only my own anger, frustration and dismay over what is happening, but also all of theirs as well.

Crossing the Bridges: Time

We are obsessed with time. Time factors into our lives in ways we hardly pay attention to, but there it is.  We are constantly exploring matters of time, events, dates, appointments, past, present, future, and on and on.  Time is everywhere, and we are frequently coping with a perceived shortage or overage of it. Why am I going on about this?  Because I am sitting here, spending my time doing nothing.  On the plus side, as I write this, I