You seem like an alright guy to me. I don't smoke as much as I used to, but I'd burn one with. I'm blessed to be a person who, whether by nature or nurture, doesn't have it in me to hold hate close to my heart. I don't like being miserable. I'm a youthful 36. Most of my life I have spent being a Pollyanna. I look for the good in people and the world. I look for the beauty, and I'm struck with awe when I perceive the sacred.

I am searching for wisdom, hopefully not with the motivation to boost my own status, to do right by my fellow human beings.

But I am thinking of Ecclesiastes 3. Which was paraphrased by Jim Morrison in the song "Take it as it Comes".

1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

I could wish my life was like it was before 5 years ago. Drinking craft beer with friends, listening to awesome music and dancing, eating great acid or mushrooms, and hanging out all night with beautiful women. Maybe there will be those times again.

But in the words of Bob Dylan in Subterranean Homesick Blues, "It don't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Sometimes shit gets real, and it will fall on someone, the burden to carry. As much as I just want everything to be ok, I strongly feel that the sense of disdain that many in the world have developed towards Americans in recent decades, will be felt about us by our children and grandchildren if we reconfirm to them over and over that our one foundational principle is commitment to our own comfort at all costs.

Westerners for the most part live very 

privileged and sheltered lives. That's why my number one priority in politics is foreign policy. I feel like how you treat others has to come before your social, domestic policy preferences. If not that selfishness will rot the apple from the core.

A significant portion of both political wings fail to realize the significance of this principle. It was this national moral failure that allowed the "devil" in. We are not a country governed and guided by people of good will toward the American people, or the people of the earth.

It's a sad state of affairs, but we have been at stage one for a long time and we can't afford to sit in denial any longer.

From the foundational proposition of this country of "Governance by the people, for the people", we have been subverted, hijacked, conquered.

We are a body weakened by parasitism, 

and I'm not talking about the poor people.