Note to self: If it Makes You Happy by Sheryl Crow is one of the best songs of all time

Reflect

It pains me to say that I look forward to hindsight.  That 20-20 that eats you alive.  Regret and forget instead of forgive.  Forgiveness is a skill that I hope to one day attain.  Hand-crafted like the patch on my back, this paradoxical-leaning concept takes practice and care.  One day I'll leave this place, the pain that Zoloft brings and takes away, a distant memory.  I'll take from my reflection the pieces that I like.  I'll leave behind the lag in the mirror.  How funny it is that we never actually see our own face as others do.  Simply an image or a reflection in the mirror.  We know everything that we see in spite ourselves.  To learn to forgive these lags in understanding oneself is to live.  I wish to live.  I wish to relinquish regret.  I wish to construct a life of forgiveness.

Violence Meets Violence

Although my adoration for Ayn Rand and her philosophies is often met with challenge, certain aspects of her convictions and novels seem to play out in our modern society.  In Rand's lexicon, she often returns to the motif of violence.  If you have read Atlas Shrugged, perhaps you recall the scene (without giving too much away) where Dagny Taggart must enter a building immediately to save the life of an individual, but she is first met by a guard who enters a paradoxical episode when he cannot decide if he should let Miss Taggart into the building or choose death.  Needless to say, he chose death implicitly by not choosing to act rationally.  I understand that this is an extreme, but the moral point of this scene is one that reflects todays society (which I will touch on momentarily).  

One quote came to mind which inspired this post, "The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force."  I cannot recall where Ayn Rand said this, but it reminds me of the scene described above.  Just as an aside, I have read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem, and I recognize that her philosophies fall under unpopular opinions, but I do wish to only highlight this one aspect of her ideology.  To put quite simply, Rand expresses incessantly that violence is never warranted unless it is a response to violence, or more metaphorically, in response to a threat to one's life.  Perhaps this is only my interpretation of her novels, but I find it relevant and rational.

To those who act irrationally and disrupt the lives of those who choose to live and to live as rational beings, they are a disruption that cannot be penetrated by rational behavior.  White nationalism is the posterchild for irrationality.  I think it goes without saying that our society needs diversity to thrive, that deep down the family tree, many of our ancestors were black or jewish (focusing on the groups which neo-Nazis and the KKK specifically hate), that this country itself was taken from Native Americans by a group of immigrants and has been welcoming in immigrants since its conception, that the color of your skin, your religion, your beliefs, do not have an implicitly hierarchical nor contrived system in society, and that no one singular group has historically or sustainably thrived.  White supremacists are irrational, and when they appear before us with shields and bats, they are warranting violence in response.  

And Mr. (not-my-president) Trump who can proudly state to this country that there is "blame on both sides" is fervently wrong.  For a moment he showed courage when he condemned the alt-right groups who have been supporting him throughout his campaign and presidency, but he quickly retreated to his cowardice that marks him in the irrational category alongside these extremist groups.  If he wants to define the "alt-left" as "very violent", look at the sources: police shooting unarmed black men and women, hate crimes against muslims, LGBTQ community, blacks, and other minorities, and now white supremacists objecting the removal of a symbol of a time of hatred towards black people.  If you want to define the alt-left as a violent group, then you are damn right they are, and Mr. Trump has done absolutely nothing but allow it by perpetuating hatred and implicitly encouraging violence by lacking to condemn these hate groups and acts of racism.  

I cannot believe that so many people in this country supported the election of such a heinous, irrational, racist, etc etc etc etc president.