This is where we are

This blog is about life and not books, that will come later.

I am coming to appreciate this digital journal. I have not written in a journal for a few years and this shift from religious journaling coincided with my developing relationship with my fiance. Here it must be noted that much of my journal entries were, dreams, frustrations (with women), and random ideas. I have thought about why this change occured but have never come to any conclusion. I did not need it in my life, and thus found my confidant in Veronika, and not empty pages of a journal. This may or may not be a satisfatory reason. I went back this weekend, I went back to the Skagit Valley where my adventure began. I stayed with old friends, played in the mountains, and visited an old friend's emerging homestead. This was the dream... My first journal begins with a school assignment to write 100 things I would do before I die, and there it is.

So, I am troubled by the mixed emotions of wanting to be out there, battling nature to find my livelihood, or to pursue the life of leisure that I seem to be moving towards. The dream is HARD, it will come to fruition in 20 years, maybe, these guys are 30 now, and they are setting in to live a life of hardtimes. Yet, that is the dream... the myth, the compromise, the truth.

Do I have the strength of will to sign myselef up for this battle. We have so few models of character, these celebrities making movies about honor, the great men and women of history, but in my life it is a rare quality, abstract and distant. Abraham Lincoln was the man, but what would he be doing now? Is he the president Americans would like to drink a beer with? Where are the starving artists, stubborn farmers, and committed social servants? I don't have the energy to protest, I don't really feel so bad about social injustice, or feel charitable. It is sad, but it is true.

We are allowed to become soft as a society, and the impact will not be felt until we take the load off of the developing world. When we bear our own burden once more then we may recognize character again. I just want to say that while we live in this phony comfort there are people still fighting, and people carrying our load, and when did we admit to being too weak to do it ourselves?