Out of ICU after a near miss with a defibrillator yesterday. Not the original reason for admission but perhaps a red herring. Triglycerides down to 400 vs 2000+. Going for a stress test this morning. Maybe home. Good spirits and new awakenings abound from the past 6 days here, the greatest of which was waking up to another day, another sunrise, another chance to dance. #thanksforthelove

Well, your love and prayers brought me home from the hospital last night after an ordeal that logically should not have.

So many first hand nursing accounts of young dead COVID patients in the ICU hall next door was sobering to say the very least. I was in bad shape but my mountains were rolling hills in comparison to the desperation only 300 feet away I could occasionally hear when those sealed double doors opened. Some called it ‘the tomb’ while others called codes on the dead and dying.

There are indeed heroes inside those walls whose dedication to serve others seemingly outpaces their own need to survive.

Until there is a better solution, wear a mask. Keep your distance. Keep hope alive.

It does the dance

to get the glance

and soon entrance

upon the chance

you’ll drop your stance

and die just a little more.

#temptation

I find it remarkable how what lifts us from bed in the morning is the anticipation of a 10% sliver of the day’s hopes and holdings and what puts us to sleep at night is the reality that the day  had actually held so much more. #the10percentsolution

With all that’s going on these days, I’m not entirely convinced the question is whether we are all indeed equal, but rather, do we actually aspire to be?
Hear me out. I’ll be brief.
While we publicly abhor practices that promote differentiation from one another, at the same time behind the scenes, we are actively differentiating ourselves from one another, climbing ladders from lower rungs onto those higher, more distinguished or better regarded by society.
Like it or not, more measures of success in American culture still lie squarely in the value of being better than, with little to no reward earned for actually being equal. The climb crosses race, sex and all other classifications.
Those less successful at the climb are underfoot to the more accomplished climbers of a society disgustingly compelled to prove it with titles, money, power and prestige afforded by the present distance of their earned position from where they once began. Chances of the two ever meeting are reduced and subsequently, lines between the two are consequently more clearly defined.
Maybe what we really need is a better means of measuring achievement that’s not in light of being relative to that of another. Then inspire and equip people solely to be better climbers. Equality may be less about the height attained and more about progress made from where each begins his own adventure.
Just my thoughts.

A brush with depth.
I once knew a man who had a serious brush with depth. He failed to resurface, abandoned the life he knew and was never the same again.

Each of us is given one or two moments in a lifetime to dramatically change course if we want it bad enough, have vision to recognize the opportunity and the courage to act upon it.

There’s a lot of angry people in the world.
Here at home and across global ponds, on crucial issues, everyone wants change; half one way, half the other, half for economic reasons, half for moral reasons, half for preserving rights, half for conviction of wrongdoings. Remarkably, both sides publicly profess a desire for unity, but privately only when that unification embraces their own cause even if at the expense of another’s.

When I consider the world landscape and how this ideal of “unity in diversity” is supposed to work, the ideal seems to unravel a little more each day. The ways of the world are now far too complex for single issue advocates whose zeal unfortunately seems to do more to divide than unite. No one person or single issue can move this nation to the ideal all profess as their goal. And now we’re not only angry. we’re frustrated.
Idealists and true believers search for simplicities where available, for comforts where plausible and baby steps where attainable, yet within ever tighter communities that increasingly exclude views of neighbors just across the fence. Our solutions present more problems, political chasms widen and our hopes for unity narrow as we’re ensnared in traps laid by the media and the powerful whose livelihoods thrive on our continued conflict.