A New Year Approaches

Winter Sunset
Source

As 2025 winds down I have to admit that, for me, it was a good year. I'm retired, no one to answer to as far as how I spend my time (well, other than The Missus Herself but she's not very demanding), no need to set some artificial corporate goal, no need to really do much of anything except stay alive.

Yesterday's post was gloomy, which should teach me to stay away from the MSM, which is hard to do when watching football. Oh well, I can ignore most of it but sometimes the "news" leaks in.

And yes, I still watch professional football, yup, it's got issues but for the most part I enjoy the competition and have since around 1965 when I first really started paying attention to such things.

Probably due to my paternal grandmother remarking that due to my size, I should play football. As my dear grandmother was four-foot-not-much wearing heels, everyone seemed big to her. But she mentioned it, I adored her (still do) so I decided to check it out.

Watched it ever since.

Now you may wonder who I rooted for back in that day. Well, this was back when the cognoscenti said that the five year old AFL sucked, the NFL was the "real thing" so one shouldn't bother with the upstart league. (Which eventually took off and then was absorbed by the NFL.)

The Patriots back then were the Boston Patriots and, as my father despised everything Boston, wasn't even an option. Besides, they were in the AFL.

So I must have rooted for the New York Giants right?

Nope.

Dad was a Yankees fan, Mom was (and still is) a Red Sox fan. Boston versus New York, the smart move was to avoid rooting for either city. So who was the best team back then?

The Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi. So I watched them as much as I could. As they were in the playoffs a lot back then, it was easy to follow them.

These days? Well, I still have my old love for Green Bay. As I lived in Denver during the Elway era, I like them as well. (As The Nuke was born in Aurora, right next door to Denver, she is still a Broncos fan, and will probably stay one.)

Retiring to New England I arrived just in time for the Brady/Belichick era. Now that was a wild ride and a lot of fun to experience. But now ...

Where was I?

Oh yeah, watching "the football" on TV and being exposed to the MSM. Anyhoo, I try not to let that affect me much, yesterday it did.

Sorry/not sorry.

But yes, 2026 is right around the corner, it's so close you can smell it. For me it's just a different number on the calendar. I don't do resolutions or any of that. Every time you wake up in the morning offers the opportunity to change, to start something new, you don't need to buy a new calendar to do that.

So the years march on, I'm still here, and until the Good Lord decides otherwise I shall remain.

Plans for 2026? Yup, visit kids and grandkids, same as it ever was ...

Same as it ever was.

Sturm und Drang¹

Clearing Up - Coast of Sicily
Andreas Achenbach (PD)

As the new year approaches, there is much to be concerned about in the world. And there's little enough the average person can do about it. All we can do is pay attention and (hopefully) point out when something is too egregious to tolerate. But to whom does one point this out to?

Our politicians have mostly been bought and paid for by the dark forces in this world. By dark forces I mean the greedy and evil people whose sole reason for being seems to be to accumulate ever more power and ever more money. (I suppose the latter leads to the former, for who without money has any power at all?)

New York City and Minnesota seem to have already fallen to the darkness, as have large chunks of Europe. At least that's what it looks like to this humble scribe. No matter where you live, your "representatives" have failed you badly. And they will continue to do so as long as there are no term limits.

Pay attention in the new year, do what you can to arrest this nonsense. Remember, your local politicians are just as bad as you think they are, it's not those "guys from your state," it's the politicians from every state in the union.

They don't serve you, they serve themselves on behalf of their dark master. Remember that at election time.

Throw them all out.

That is all ...

¹ Storm and stress (German). According to Google's online dictionary: a literary and artistic movement in Germany in the late 18th century, influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and characterized by the expression of emotional unrest and a rejection of neoclassical literary norms. Emotional unrest, oh yeah, we've got that in spades!

The Quiet Mind

Cape Charles, Looking North along the Tree Line
OAFS Photo

Lately I've been re-watching an old Showtime series about the Tudor king Henry VIII, titled, appropriately enough, The Tudors. I was surprised to find that I had missed the fourth season. Like all things Hollywood, there are departures from the historical record, but overall I thought the series very well made.

Having lately finished up a most delightful and relaxing vacation on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. one scene in the series struck me as appropriate to my mood. The scene has Henry Howard (played by David O'Hara), the Earl of Surrey, reading a poem to Charles Brandon (played by Henry Cavill), the Duke of Suffolk. This one ...

The poem struck a chord with me, so as is my wont, I looked it up.

"The Happy Life"

by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (~1517-1547)

Martial, the things for to attain

The happy life be these, I find:

The riches left, not got with pain;

The fruitful ground, the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge nor strife;

No charge of rule, nor governance;

Without disease the healthy life;

The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no delicate fare;

Wisdom joined with simplicity;

The night dischargèd of all care,

Where wine may bear no sovereignty;

The chaste wife, wise, without debate;

Such sleeps as may beguile the night;

Contented with thine own estate;

Neither wish death nor fear his might.

Source

The concept of the quiet mind explains why I like to go off and just sit by myself in some quiet, beautiful place, such as this ...

Cape Charles, After the Rain
OAFS Photo

Mind you, it doesn't have to be a long period of solitude, it can be mere moments, best interrupted by a grandchild, which often it was while on vacation. But it helps my 和¹, my overall sense of harmony, if you will.

Much in the world is, these days, disturbed and disturbing. Many people fret over this, I do not. What will be will be. Life is too short to get spun up and stay that way.

Won't do the negative waves thing, Moriarity, ごめんなさい (gomen nasai - sorry).

I seek the quiet mind and inner harmony.

Cape Charles, On the Beach
OAFS Photo

I'm getting there.

Cape Charles, The Wooden Horse
Outside my Bedchamber
OAFS Photo

Peace be with you.

¹ The concept of harmony in Japan, I don't fully understand it, but I don't need to, not really. I feel it.