Ser o estar

There is a hierarchy of all our actions.  Primarily we do what we need to do; what we must do to continue living.  The newborn screams to fill its lungs with air.  It learns that it can safely hold its breath for a relatively short time before searing pain reminds it to inhale.  We have a need to respect and interact reflexively with gravity.  A person moving off a ledge, being defenestrated or leaping from a plane must know the appropriate action to prevent lethal contact with ground after the fall. These are some needs we have: not a complete list, nor necessarily in order of urgency (though breathing is probably at the top of the list).

Then there are the actions we have to perform. These required behaviors are constant and periodic. You can take your time with all of them, but at sometime you must do things like pee or risk a burst bladder. You must eat or your body will consume itself until you can no longer do anything, but you can stop concerning yourself with having to shit. If you eat and don't defecate you are in a world of hurt. It is a must.

Then there are the should dos. You may survive a surprisingly long time without performing should 
actions, but your life is likely to suffer a negative 
blowback unless you are a masochist. You should take your hand as quickly as you out of a fire, or put on an oven mitt before touching anything in a hot oven. Being out naked in the sun also holds the potential for burning skin, so watch your time and pinkening. So many should dos to learn. So little time. Using a sharp knife is a very useful action if you have learned how to avoid cutting deeply into your own flesh.

Then there are the want to dos.  The like to dos. These are activities that at some level give you pleasure. If you are fortunate, all of the must and have to dos will fall into this category. Taking a 
good piss or shit.  Eating and drinking tasty 
nourishing food. Opening the parachute at the right time after having jumped out of the airplane.

You'd thing having sex, which is so pleasurable to most might also be a have to do.  Well, it is a necessity for the survival of our species, but not for ourselves. Copulation is often recreation. This category includes so many actions and mind states that no one should ever have to ask you what you want to do.  The pleasure principle will soon lead you to one of those behaviors.  Now mind you, this is a very tough category to open up to everyone at any time in any place.  These want to dos can be illegal, immoral, unseemly, disgusting 
to others, and dangerous ( are you stupid? ). 

Finally, the don't want to do actions. These are the behaviors for which you need to learn to delay your gratification and/ or avoid punishment. There is a hierarchy within the above proffered hierarchy because not all the actions are so totally unpleasant that you will not do them, and some are so fear, disgust, and anxiety provoking that you might prefer being locked up in jail, than doing them.  Fear can paralyze, in which case there's  virtually nothing you can do try to keep breathing.  Who is afraid a thousand spiders sleeping with you in your bed?  Who would jump into a full latrine and orally sample the degree of  biodegradation?  We go to work, do chores like taking out the trash, spend our money to buy groceries, clean up the dog poop from the carpet where Rover has shit lately for the past three days. Take Rover to the Doggie Training School. You get the idea. Life should get better with the don't 
want to dos, so you really try to do them. Aren't you a responsible adult after all?

Peace.

Decisions

Aging is not all bad.  There are many positive trade offs.  First of all, as experience and knowledge are accumulated, one might hope to have a calmer more balanced way to deal with the challenges of living. Secondly, one accumulates more flexible time to engage in activities outside of work. In my case, having retired, I have taken up the brush and canvas and my imagination spurs works of art that seem to improve significantly as I practice. Thirdly,  I get to watch...... really watch my grandchildren grow up.  I get to interact and observe.  Parents don't generally have the time to do both because they are nurturing, protecting and managing their kids.  One day blends into the next and like the frames in a motion picture,  adjacent frames (days) don't reveal much change. Before you realize it, the story of childhood is over and you've missed many of the really funny parts, the tender parts, the amazing parts. As a grandparent,  you get the scenes interspersed by weeks or months and the changes are evident and the progress of becoming is apparent.
The balance is that age also requires more self maintenance.  The most important decision you make as you enjoy your latter years is how you take care of yourself.  I maintain by forcing myself (self-discipline) to exercise, lift weights, bend, and generally get active during the day. If you make the decision to become an old couch potato, there will come a day, that the couch is your bed and you can't get off it. I decide to exercise my mind as well, by crossword puzzles, scrabble games, sudoku (only 5 star), go, reading and pondering the subject of my next artwork.  Aging is unavoidable, but don't let it imprison you in a non-functional body if you can do anything about it.
Life is making decisions.  Don't avoid them.  Don't give up to divine intervention. No one stands around waiting to reroute  your life and save you.  Decide.

Questioning

What is wrong with questioning? Certainly it is encouraged in school.

The teacher wants to know if the lesson is getting across clearly. Yet many students don't question because they assume everyone else knows what the lesson is about and they don't want to appear stupid. The result for these students is ignorance. That's why teachers ask questions directed to each of the students - to assess the success of the teaching. Questions hone the mind into sharpness.

Many religions make it very clear that questioning is frowned upon if not disallowed if the "believer" is to remain within the fold. The concept is that belief questioned, is belief denied.

Liar Liar Pants on FIRE

I was never a bully in school. Nor was I ever a bully to anyone.
  In my neighborhood I was bullied when I was a small boy.  Nothing severe, nothing emotionally scarring.  But, when I was bullied, I would run to my mother and hope that she would do something about it.  No.  Instead, her advice was to take care of it myself. 
Well, it took a while to figure out what to do and sometime later when I saw my nemesis walking in back of our apartments, I walked up to him, put him in a headlock and banged his head into a garage door over and over again until I thought I had made my point.  I had, he didn't fight back (he couldn't).  He never bothered me again. Bullies never pick on people who fight back.  Bullies have a personality defect.  They feel inadequate.  They bolster their self-esteem by controlling weaker individuals.
I have never allowed myself to bullied since, although there was no shortage of would-be bullies in Junior High school.   I  have always tried to avoid fights, physical or otherwise.  My competitive nature is expressed in sports, debate, and various games.  However,  unable to avoid a fight,  I know that even at 66,  I would pummel any physical aggressor with all my being.
Now to my point - Liar Liar.   By even a subtle interpretation of the saying,  Mitt Romney should be flaming all the time.  No one forgets bullying on either side of the aggression.
Certainly not a high school kid.  He remembers the incidents vividly.  He got sick pleasure from them.  If he thinks he was a prankster, not a bully,  he  is one sick dude. He was self-righteous and felt immune from consequences for his behavior.  Perhaps he felt a sense of entitlement for his behavior.  If that is true,  it has to have dangerously warped his personality.  Don't stand to close to him, one of these days his pants will ignite.

Michelle Bachmann for President

There has to at least one woman in the Republican party smarter and more qualified to be president than either Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann. While both of these women seem to have a charisma that appears to attract the loony fringe of the Tea Party (perhaps the fringe has worked its way to the party core), both of these women are able to stay calm in the face of intelligent bombardment, both of these women can blabber on almost endlessly without actually saying anything truthful, meaningful, substantial, or even understandable at times, both of these women are simply too ignorant to head up the United States.
According to these women, the litmus test for candidacy for President is being pro American. Ms. Bachmann questions the pro and anti American positions of our congressmen and believes there should be an investigation into how pro-American our elected officials really are. Are they Communists? What might she mean by anti-American? Perhaps they are not strict constitutionalists. They lack the detailed knowledge and understanding of the Constitution that she believes she possesses. She believes in the Constitution literally as she does the bible, and questions neither the intent of the authors, the history and genesis of the document, or its ability to actually be amended.
She proudly proclaims that she is not a scientist. She's right on that one. She actually believes that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can't be a cause of global warming because "there has never be one study to show that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." Well, ask her if she would mind being in a room filled only with carbon dioxide for ten or fifteen minutes? Almost anything can be harmful in excess. You can die from drinking too much water.
I shiver at the thought of "well meaning ignorance". Who out there really believes Michelle could govern our country?

Right and be Red

Sure, for some writing is just cathartic. Journals and diaries, notes and doodles. It is that for me.
However, when I blog, I'd like to know that I have readers. Unless someone (you ) post some sort of comment, I have no idea if I have succeeded in affecting you in some way. My goal is to make you think about an issue. If I am logical, accurate and persuasive, maybe you'll adjust the way you think. Or not. You know what I think about the subject. Please just give me the kindness of letting me know your views. I might change my thinking? (Yeah, sure).
No matter what you feel, please just let me know you read my blog. I would appreciate it.

Fists not arms

Have you heard defenders of the right to carry arms say that guns don't kill people; people kill people. This is just irrationalization clothed in inaccurate rhetoric. The truth is that people with guns kill people. Take away the gun and just how many deaths would be avoided? The gun is powerful, wieldable, and portable. It is most often the tool of bullies and cowards who wouldn't dare manifest their anger without one. The attacker is safe at a distance and most often is aiming at an unarmed victim.
Yes, people kill people. Yes, we have a right to defend ourselves. But how does one defend oneself from a deranged idiot shooting at you because he is a gang member getting initiated, or a angry fired employee trying to unload at his coworkers and bosses , or a macho jerk in a road rage deciding your death is the penalty for cutting him off, or an immature schoolboy bullied daily by his classmates seeking his notoriety and revenge?
How many people are punched to death in a fistfight? Now that's a manly, up-close, mutually honorable way to settle a dispute.