Long time readers know that while I’m not much on structured religion, I am big on spirituality, and as such I like to study a variety of different religious philosophies. One of the most valuable things I’ve ever read is the Serenity Prayer. For those not familiar with it:
Way back in the latter half of 2001, I had someone ask me this: “If you got on a plane with someone from the middle east, would you want to sit next to them? Or far from them?” My answer was that I wanted to sit right next to them. I saw it as an…
A few years back, almost 30 now I guess, I was a firearms instructor and was at the range with several officers who needed to complete their annual qualifications. Keeping in mind that most shooters, in my experience, paid attention and tried to shoot their best, with understandable concern about their score. After all, if…
Past experience has shown that all of us have times in our life where we feel like we’re “close to the edge.” That edge is usually visualized or shown in images as a cliff, most often with an ocean or other large body of water at the bottom. In a variety of conversations held with…
I have always loved dreaming. No, not daydreaming, although I’ve done my fair share of that (and then some); I’ve always enjoyed dreaming in my sleep. I feel bad for those who don’t remember their dreams and I know one person who swears they never dream. I don’t believe that. I believe all humans dream…
A very wise man once said, although I argued with him about it for quite some time, “Everything is a matter of perception.” I argued with him because I believed, at the time, that some things were not open to interpretation; that they weren’t open to perception; that they simply were. While I still believe…
Something a lot of my friends have heard me repeatedly say is, “We don’t stop playing because we get old; we get old because we stop playing.” While I still believe that is, to some extent, true, I’ve also observed enough behavior from a few friends to believe that some people simply decide it’s their…
Full disclosure: When this image popped up in my social media feed, I was only four months away from being sixty anyway. So, that’s kind of a big cheat: Would I be willing to give up four months to get $50M? The real question is: would I be willing to gamble any time I have…
The year is 3023. Earth is a different planet than it was at the beginning of the 21st century. Fossil fuels are a thing of the past. Virtually everything runs on solar power. OPEC hasn’t been around since 2085 when the last oil pump in the world was shut down. When world powers realized that…
Throughout our childhood we are taught what’s good and what’s bad, or at least we’re taught what our parents teach us is good or bad… what behavior is acceptable or not. We get punished for everything we do outside of the rules they put in place for us. Those rules and behaviors become the foundation…
Three teenagers attack an art teacher and beat her to the ground on video… A group of teenage girls trap and beat another teenage girl until she’s in the hospital severely injured… An elementary school child is pushed on the playground, tells the pusher not to do that again and gets punched for having said…
Author’s Note: This article was originally published in June of 2008. There are references in it to ‘recent events’ and the reader needs to understand those recent events were recent in June of 2008. But you should still remember there and the observations still all apply. – – – – – – – – –…
Fair warning: This is going to be a short rant about assumptions people make pertaining to age. Just recently I had someone tell me that I should, “Grow up and act your age.” My first reaction was to tell them to pay attention to their own behavior. After all, if they felt I was so…
Author’s Note: Republished almost 16 years after I originally wrote it. Still just as applicable today as it was then. As I type this it’s Sunday afternoon, November 12, 2006. Two days ago, November 10th was the Marine Corps’ Birthday (231st). Happy Birthday Marines! I’m proud to have to call my older brothers on that…
This entry is a combination of an updated version of two blogs I wrote about 15 years ago. They have to do with reliance, self-reliance and how America’s original values (at our founding) may be related to them. These have been edited only to make them current-society appropriate.
“It’s not how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and still keep moving forward.” Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in, well, Rocky Balboa.
Throughout the course of my law enforcement career it has constantly caught my attention how many of my fellow officers – most especially the ones that seem to perform on the street in ways that demand respect – have played contact sports. Given that most of my contemporaries are 45 years of age or older,…
Most recently I had a conversation with a gentleman who is a Marine, a veteran police psychologist and an avid supporter of self-defense. The conversation started because I had been asking questions about families and the environment set dependent on whether the family itself – that being the mother and father (or other primary care-givers)…
Not long ago I was on a long drive and as the miles passed, I began to ponder fear, our human reactions to it, how different those reactions can be even between people of similar backgrounds, etc. My thoughts came to focus on Various reactions to fear anyone can experience, and Motivations for some of…
Criticism:1. the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.2. the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.3. the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of work Critique:1. A critical review or commentary, especially one dealing with works of art or literature.2. A critical discussion of a specified…