First: To all of you who’ve written to inquire about the state of my health, thanks, most sincerely, for caring. (NB: Except for the two clowns who wrote to express their hope that I’m about to die. Really, gentlemen! Have you no patience?) I’m mostly better, though I still have a nagging cough that occasionally makes me feel as if I’m turning inside-out. But you know how resilient we curmudgeons are, so keep the faith.
Second: Does it seem to you that the remnant of the Blogosphere has slowed down lately? Quite a number of our colleagues in this pastime appear to be running out of gas. Long-timers who were known for multiple posts per day are down to one or two. A couple have had stretches of total silence for several days. Even my worthy Co-Conspirators have recently appeared sluggish.
There are a few who still carry the torch high. For example, Ace has been laboring like Hercules. Dave Blount continues to pump ‘em out. And with assistance from a couple of relatively new co-contributors, Mike Hendrix has kept his site busy as well. But overall, the pace seems to have slowed. At a time of such division and contention, that strikes me as odd.
Still, I’ve been feeling a persistent sluggishness, myself. I don’t think it’s because I’ve been under the weather. Even though there’s a huge amount I could write about, the urgency I feel for it has diminished. Perhaps it’s more general than I was aware.
Are we beginning to sense the wheel and the futility of wearing out our feet, fingers, and hearts endlessly spinning it?
Every man’s passion is limited. Each of us has only so much to give. At some point, the reserves run dry and you face the prospect of…well, of writing something like this.
The core of the thing is the sense of pointlessness, the recurring question What have I achieved this way? It demands an answer that eludes me. I shan’t speak for anyone else.
Futility, like pain, is wearying. Weariness can be paralyzing. Add the advancing age and undiminished personal responsibilities of the Blogosphere’s stalwarts. The combination makes the easy chair and the Idiot Box look pretty inviting.
I’d like to survey the proprietors of the blogs I’ve patronized these past twenty years. I’d like to ask each of them What keeps you going? Their answers might help me to learn how to answer that question for myself.
Yes, you’ve guessed it: this is really a day off piece. I got nothin’, and I’m worn out to boot.
I suffer a terrible sense of failure when I issue a piece like this one. I feel a responsibility to you, Gentle Reader. You come to Liberty’s Torch for reading material of a sort that’s hard to find elsewhere. (Pipe down, you in the peanut gallery muttering “thank God!”) Providing it feels like a personal obligation. A failure to satisfy that obligation leaves me empty.
Even so, now and then it happens. It has and it will. The battles on the “home front” of the skull must be fought and won before one can sally forth to fulfill others’ needs. Just now, the lead is flying and the eventual outcome is uncertain. So apologies for the dearth of substantive material, have a nice day, and perhaps I’ll be back tomorrow.
(NB: According to a variety of “sources,” when his producers-to-be asked comedian Jerry Seinfeld what his proposed TV show would be about, he said “Nothing.” Hence the title.)
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Take supplemental vitamin C orally with water in divided doses. I take 5 grams a day.
Be healthy. Health is an eternal value.
At the first signs of a viral cold (fatigue, nasal drip and cough, sore throat), triple that (meaning, take 12 to 15 grams of vitamin C a day in divided doses, orally with water) for relief in a day.
Oral liposome encapsulated vitamin C (LEC) is more effective in delivery (to the cells) than intravenous delivery of vitamin C. LEC bypassed the limited number of receptors in your intestines. (If you are worried about too much intake of vitamin C, I know the body will clear the excess with one-time explosive diarrhea. This is not a problem. For example, swallowing 20 grams of vitamin C in tablet form dissolved in warm water, every 20 minutes for an hour, being a 60-gram dose, results in diarrhea in an hour. Relief. That’s all.) You can buy tablets of vitamin C in bulk for about three cents a gram.
Rinse your sinuses (wait and then blow it out). Tip your head to reach your left, right, upper and lower sinuses. Repeat. Test clearance on each side by closing one nostril and breathing.
Rinse your exterior nose and hands with 3% hydrogen peroxide also. Gargle with 3% hydrogen peroxide too. Repeat. Yes, you can swallow the bubbles. For sore skin around the nasal area apply coconut oil.
Take a 2 to 3 hour nap to strengthen your immune system.
If a sore throat persists place a few drops of oregano oil or manuka oil sub-lingually or try minced garlic. Manuka oil kills staphylococcus aureus bacteria.
If your lungs become involved add weeks to your recovery. Cough it out. Drink water to thin your mucous.
Take deep and deeper breaths, triple inhalations. Exhale deeply. Have some warm tea to clear your throat when doing these deep breathing exercises. Swallow your saliva at the top or bottom of the breath. Each deep inhalation and exhalation may take a minute! Yes. one breath per minute. Growl or make a bumble bee sound on the exhalation. Could you do 100? It would be the best part of your day! Sit cross legged. Stretch in different ways. Begin at 5 AM. You may like to use a blanket.
If you have a local rib pain which you can cover with a fingertip, then it is likely being referred to your skin by your lungs. Press on the spot. Take deep breaths. Cough it out. Stretch your intercostal muscles too when breathing deeply.
If the pain persists, then make a doctor appointment for a proper diagnosis. It could be serious, anything from parasites to a malignant tumor.
I start every morning (after coffee) with a long tour through the bookmarks. There is no TV, radio, or paper here, so the desktop is the only portal to news, and current events. It is easy to finish the tour with that gut-drop feeling like you just got a letter from the IRS, and a summons for jury duty in the mail. Too, it’s hard to overcome the illusion that reading about the BS, and maybe dropping a comment on a blog or two is actually doing something about it all. It changes nothing. Day after day it just seems to keep sliding down hill. The temptation to just tune out is great. Futility is a great drag on incentive.
We have only so much time left before our tenure here in this world expires. You and I are the same age. We’ve entered the eighth decade, and chances are pretty good that there won’t be a ninth. Best to invest our time wisely. I’m going to try to get a new stone up on the carving table today. Will it make any difference in the great scheme of things? It’ll make a difference for me. That’s enough.
JWM
I forgot to tell you, nasal breathing for moist air and clear sinuses.
Sir,
With great respect, I would offer the following:
It may be that thinking persons have simply reached the point where further analysis is redundant. I know I certainly have. After spending more than 2/3 of my life researching and learning, thinking and deriving, I find that I need to hear less and less concerning the latest insult to my intelligence. The writing, as they say, is on the wall, and has been such for a long time, since before my birth at any rate.
How many times must one read the words on that wall, before one tires of the effort?
I have said as much to my beloved wife. I have had enough of everyone’s analysis and opinion. It is obvious where we are, where we are going, and to whom we owe our thanks for the journey. All that remains is for us to comport ourselves, to decide the difference between what we shall abide, and that up with which we shall not put, and our responses to both eventualities.
Tempus fugit, and our opportunities for further preparation dwindle by the day. I would humbly suggest that further analysis be reduced, being a litany of the ridiculous made flesh, and instead we focus on ensuring, as our UK friends say, that our leavings are in fact in a single container…
IMHO, of course. I certainly do not profess a monopoly on truth.
Best,
MinC
Hey, I’m older I think than you two guys [87] and I’m not despairing! Also I don’t have an outlet except for the occasional comment on a few blogs. I’m in a new location where I don’t know anyone, I’ve given up for the most part to talking to friends, the few I have left, but I’m patiently optimistic that our side will win, it can’t be otherwise, none of the other ‘systems’ actually ‘work’ over the longer term. Maybe none of them are self correcting or something, even if they try like China seems to, they just take the superficial surface of our system without believing in it. Anyway, for me, people like you Fran are my lifeline, thankyou for everything you do.
50 year old. I’m going to live each day as if it were my last.
90 year old. I’m going to live each day as though I will live forever.
A lot of people are suffering from reduced energy, strength, motivation, I’m seeing it too. I’m new here, so I don’t know how far down the reality hole you are, BUT “they” have weaponized a significant portion of the EM, radio, etc. spectrum (HAARP), Xspecially Cell site weaponization (if you’re within a few miles of a site). They are tunable and focusable directed energy weapons. Can bring on almost any symptom, sickness or behavior, imaginable. The range of their electronic warfare is almost unimaginable. It was a hard (red, black?) pill for me. Depending on your reaction to this, I’ll know whether or not to bring up this subject again. You have a great site, keep up the good work.
Sometimes, you have to focus on the personal. Restoring your best health, eating properly, shoring up the aging house you live in, caring for family and community, doing the prep work.
Writing, and blogging, may have to take a back seat for a time.
Health has been my recent issue – mine, my family’s, and keeping the housekeeping from getting out of hand. Other things have had to wait until I was capable of putting in a full day’s work.
We are no good at the Final Battle if we haven’t the strength raise our swords.
So, I’ve also managed to include FUN time – watching movies, taking a walk (Having a dog is a blessing – they MAKE you get out in the fresh air. And the rain. And the cold.), sitting down for a break with some homemade cookies and milk.
It can be hard to relax when the world is going to pot, and the chores need to be done, and the work is never-ending.
But just think. What will happen to all those things the day after you die?
They will be done by other people.
None of us are indispensable. So lighten up.