In a World of Identity Politics, Priorities Matter

It seems like there are many people out there who want us to break each other down into little bite-sized pieces, disassemble one another, as if we were machines, into our separate entities. Of course I'm referring to sex, race, age, income, etc... While there is nothing wrong with identifying ourselves along these lines, in fact, we should be proud of every aspect of who we are, the issue lies in which identifiers we choose to prioritize over the others.

Depending on who you are, the terms that would commonly be used to identify me - white, male, Christian, Conservative, straight, gun owner, bachelor, Trump supporter, nurse, American, Italian, former military member, citizen, baker, cat owner, piano player, oldest sibling, child of divorced parents, international traveler, etc... will bring different preconceived notions about who I am. Some of the ideas are probably right (e.g. I'm a guy so I probably pee standing up). Some of them are probably wrong, but that's not what I'm going to discuss here. What you think of these labels is a topic way too broad for a blog. The point of this post, is that the order in which you prioritize which labels you apply to someone matters as much if not more than the meaning that you attribute to each label individually.

Continuing to use myself as an example, some people might might see: 1) Conservative, 2) white, 3) middle class, 4) male, 5) straight, 6) 38 year-old 7) Christian, 8) nurse, 9) single, in that order. What they would think about me as being male would over-rule what they would think of me as being a nurse. Political identity is the supreme identifier of the Liberal so everything that proceeds after your party affiliation is secondary to that. Race is second, followed by your class and so forth. This obviously portends that the order in which you prioritize what you see in someone else will have just as great an impact on your overall opinion of them as the actual feelings you have toward each individual label. 

The previous list is clearly contrived and just a possible hierarchy of labels. Truthfully there are dozens and dozens of labels that we apply to people based on their appearance, the way they carry themselves, their address, and so on. A stereotypical unimpressed mother-in-law comes to mind here. Most of these opinions are deeply held convictions that are not easily mutable. This is the power behind the politics of the Democrat Party and the reason why my above list is constructed in that order. Many people have strong beliefs about race in particular. Ironically, the stronger the belief the more likely the person is to claim to be spearheading the eradication of racism when in fact they are like little Johnny Racism Seed's keeping the idea of the importance of race alive. The Democrats success is predicated upon pushing race to the tip top of everyone's label priority list. 

We are working too hard trying to change each others' opinions about the labels we put on one another and the rewards are seldom worth the grief that we are causing ourselves. It's like we are working all day and night shucking oysters to find a tiny pearl that we can use to buy a little bit of food while we have a pile of oysters next to us. We can forget about the pearls because by focusing on the oysters alone, we will still find them. The oyster in this case, is rearranging the order in which we prioritize the labels we give one another. Using a different set of priorities, a different list of my labels might be: 1) Christian, 2) American, 3) friend, 4) son, 5) brother, 6) nurse, 7) musician, 8) writer, etc...

The next couple of years are going to be rough. We are surely going be dragged through the mud of identity politics whether we like it or not. What we can help, is choosing to see each other in a different light - not by changing what we might think of the labels we put on one another, necessarily - but simply by deciding that we are going to put different categories at the tops of our lists. 

- A. M. Battaglia 

Emotional Debt

Most of us are all too familiar with the concept of debt. You receive a good or a service that someone else purchased for you. This luxury comes with the little stickler called interest, which is part of the price for having now and paying later. This comes in handy and is a basic part of daily life, but borrow too much and your financial ship is sunk. Third parties track our discipline in repaying our debts and in return they assign us a credit score. Generally speaking, having a high credit score is a sign of good financial health and allows for people to borrow what they need in order to maximize their lives. If your credit score is poor, then you are shackled with perpetually high interest rates which makes it even more difficult to dig out of the hole. Bankruptcy, debt collection attempts, repossessions, foreclosures, divorce... these are some of the severe consequences of overextending our means.

Emotionally, we take on a lot of debt as well and, just like with our finances, we pretty much suck at repaying it. Like financial debt, emotional debt (was thinking about calling it ED but I thought better of it) has a transaction where the debt is initiated, an interest rate, and a credit score. You also have to repay emotional debt or pay the consequences.

Emotional debt is accrued through our sense of obligation, to ourselves and to others. The transaction occurs when we sense that we are obligated to do something like, write a blog post for instance. As a creative-minded person I have always had grand ideas, ideas that seem to push and pull me in every direction. The accumulation of forces seem to balance each other out to the point that I would inevitably remain idle. But the forces remain as strong as ever. They even start to grow, and when something pulls on you strong enough you then decide to take action.

Writing was something that I have always wanted to do but I never actually got around to it, until recently. As an 11 year-old in Ohio I remember telling my friend's mom - a fabulously wise and graceful drama teacher - that I wanted to be a writer. Her response never left me.

"Well," she said, "if you want to be a writer then all you have to do is write. People say they want to be writers all the time but they never write anything. Writers write, wanters want."

How true! For most of my life I had the desire to do many things but the fear of failure has gotten in the way. The sense of obligation that I carried with me is the emotional debt that crushes the spirit. Desires are within us for a reason. They are the pilot lights that stay lit throughout the year waiting for the right time and place to ignite a glorious flame. But desires unfulfilled become a burden on us. They haunt us and remind us that time is short and there are still things left undone, and the debt grows.

In this sense, we can think of time as the interest rate. The longer you wait to get moving on something the less time you will have to enjoy that thing in your life - you will pay a price for the delay. That concept is simple enough and shouldn't be overcomplicated.

So all of my life the interest on my emotional debt was inflating it. Time kept slipping away. Wrinkles started appearing around my eyes. Much like financial debt, emotional debt can send a debt collector to harass you and keep reminding you of the bondage in which you are living. This debt collector can become more aggressive and persuasive until you finally succumb to its pertinacious demands. For our emotional debt the collector is none other than life itself.

Life will continue to call out to you. It will continue to remind you of the opportunities that exist between sunrises. As you witness others paying off their emotional debt and you realize the benefits of it, you begin to consider paying it off yourself. How do you pay off emotional debt? The same way you pay off financial debt - with a plan, over time.

Thomas Jefferson said, "If you want to know who you are, don't ask, act. Action alone will delineate and define you!"

And there it is. All you have to do to pay off that emotional debt that you keep carrying around is take action. This is the most difficult part. Like paying off a gigantic financial debt, there is a strategy involved with paying off emotional debt. I like the Dave Ramsey method of dealing with the most accessible and easy to take care of debt first, thus building confidence and momentum that you can carry on to the next, more challenging obstacle.

I will use myself as an example again. I have several different objectives but for simplicity I will narrow it down to three: be a writer, start making bread, and open a restaurant. As you can see, all three have different levels of commitment of both time and capital. I realized that the easiest thing to do was to "become a writer," or as my friend's mom would say, "just start writing." This requires the minimal amount of commitment, but it still requires one. So I started to write this blog. This is the equivalent to, say, putting $20 a month toward your debt. Since I haven't contributed to it in a while, I felt the need to write grow - my emotional interest rate was taking effect. I tried to write a couple posts, but the words weren't coming. It was forced. But the urge was still growing to make a contribution so when the first viable thought presented itself in the form of this concept, I jumped on it in order to keep my emotional credit score on the up and up (more about that later).

Now that I have tackled the basic task of consistent writing (although still struggling), I have a little bit more emotional debt that I can focus on. The satisfaction of completing the simple task has given me confidence to pursue the next - bread baking. This requires studying, learning, trial and error and continual exploration - more than simply jotting down thoughts. This is like paying off a car loan. Once I prove that I can handle both of these I will venture on further toward a restaurant (of some kind or another). This would be like a mortgage debt. The great part about paying off emotional debt is that it raises your emotional "credit score"- your own self-esteem/self-image.

Equifax and Transunion are two of the most well-known and widely used credit score generators. Creditors tell them how good you are at paying off your debts. The better you are at it the higher your score goes. When you have the highest possible score people can't wait to loan you money. The opportunities available seem limitless and the interest is negligible. You are a low risk for delinquency. Unlike the financial system that has several different hands in the cookie jar, when it comes to emotional credit you alone are the arbiter, the creditor, and the debtor while life is the debt collector.

I used creativity to illustrate the concept of emotional debt here, but the same concept can be applied to anything you have an emotional attachment to, including one another. Other people complicate the equation, however. but you can minimize their influence on your emotional credit score by implementing healthy boundaries. While that is beyond the scope of this post it might be a good topic for another one down the line. The bottom line is this - if you have an urge that won't let you be, if you have always wanted to "X" but "Y" keeps getting in the way, there will be nobody else who can make you start paying off your emotional debt but you, and once you do, you will start to see that you are capable of so much more than you think possible. Netflix and chill? How about Network and thrill!?

Einstein's Theory of, Sociology?

Disclaimer: [ Fast talking lawyer voice] I am not a physicist and I'm sure that many of you understand these theories much better than I do. I am merely using what I know of them to make my point. My aim is to be as accurate as possible however, so please, feel free to correct any mistakes that I have made. Now, on with it...

As we all continue to discuss the issue of police shootings, I want to frame the discussion in a new way, perhaps in a way that will help us all move forward, toward an America of love and acceptance. For this I will need a little bit of help. Enter our old pal, Al.

Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity is a way to explain phenomena in relation to each other, hence the root of the name, "relative." What it really tells us is that the TRUTH of what is happening depends on your vantage point. An illustration of this point that I remember from an old book (Physics for the Rest of Us was the name, I believe) goes something like this:

Imagine two people, one sitting on a train (let's call her Teri), the other in his car waiting beside the tracks at those annoying crossing thingies (let's name him Gary). In front of Teri is a table and on that table are two mirrors. One mirror lays flat on the table, reflective side up. The other mirror hovers one foot above the first, reflective side down. Between these mirrors is an electron, but it is as big as a golf ball and travels as slowly as a bouncing ball. And it is bouncing, between the mirrors, straight up and down. Got that image in your head? Great! Let's move on.

So this beam of light is bouncing in front of Teri, up and down, up and down, while she is traveling down the tracks on the train. The train is going, say, 20 mph. As the train passes by Gary, he sees the little light bouncing. "This is odd," he thought, so he starts up his dash cam and takes a video to show his wife because, let's face it, if he tells her this story without one she'll just think he's been out drinking again, and nobody needs that drama. So the train passes by as he gets a perfect recording because, thankfully, Teri's table is sitting right in the window. 

Later that night, Gary convinces his wife to go out to the car with him. She is disappointed when she realizes that it's not going to be some kind of nostalgic, "after the high school football game" kind of visit, but Gary wants to show her some video instead. She shrugs and he hits "play." As they watch the video, they notice that, since the camera was fixed straight ahead, the electron traced a sort of picket fence pattern across the screen. Gary has video evidence that the electron was bouncing up and down and moving, making this pattern. He posts it to Youtube and, of course it goes viral because, who has ever seen such a thing!? Well, one person has, and her name is Teri.

Teri knew that people would start thinking that her electron was bouncing around so she wanted to prove that it was actually just sitting still, bouncing up and down. Luckily, she had a video of this that she posted to Snapchat. Fortunately, someone saved it and then posted the copy to Twitter, where it too went viral. 

So the world is in an uproar, because we have two videos, two pieces of irrefutable evidence that seem to refute each other... Thanks a lot Al! So, what does this have to do with anything? I'm hoping that you have already figured out my point, but in case someone wants to be sure I know what the heck I'm even talking about, I'll wrap it up.

As we listen to news stories these days, it's important to keep in mind that the truth is sometimes, no, usually more elusive than what the reports might lead us to believe. The truth, like gravity, is a powerful and compelling force. Once it gets ahold of you, you are powerless to resist it. However, we have learned how to evade the truth. The forces of each diminish the further out you travel. Even though a galaxy may be hundreds of light years away, we are experiencing some of its effects as slight as they are. In this way, even if we are light years away from the truth, we are not fully free of it. A satellite orbits the earth, using the constant pull of gravity coupled with the initial inertia granted it (minus the combined effects of all other forces, of course). An idea can orbit for a long time as well, but only if it remains a certain distance from the truth. 

We have to begin to recognize what aspects of what we see and hear can be kept and which need to be discarded. We need to take the train into consideration when talking about Gary and Teri. We can't continue to have discussion about things and leave out known facts. We need to try and give legitimacy to the other points of view whenever it is warranted. We need to heal ourselves from all of this hate.

Thanks for reading and as always, if you think someone else might enjoy reading this please share!

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make thee free."

John 8:32 - KJV

A Life Has No Color

Discrimination is running rampant in our society, and it's being perpetrated by many who believe that they are actually fighting against it. It's like watching a dog, but instead of chasing its tail, its dragging itself backward in a circle by it. If it only understood that it was the cause of its own grief, all it would have to do is let go. So at the risk of a few scraped knuckles, I'm going to attempt to pry open the jaw a little. 

As Collin Kaepernick makes his way back into the headlines, I am reminded of a pair of socks that he once wore depicting police officers as pigs. So here we have a man who is touted by many as a model of "social justice" in America (whatever that is) actively showing discrimination against and demonizing the other side, thus provoking more people toward anger at the police. HE is your "social justice" leader? Good luck with that one. 

When I was a kid, we learned that you should not discriminate against people. This message seems perfectly innocuous, but I believe it might be slightly misguided advice. The problem with telling people not to discriminate against a person is like telling them not to think of a hippopotamus. We are pretty much saying, "see that _____ over there? Don't assume that he's just like all the other ____'s." I'll leave it to you to fill those in. That's an obvious problem, but that's what has lead us to the point we are at today. The solution is to change our thinking from avoiding individual discrimination to avoiding group discrimination. 

This is a good time to make one vitally important distinction. We must be able to celebrate diversity and the differences among us. I have always been way more interested in cultures and people who were not like me than those who were because I find that I learn so much more from their perspectives. I love ethnic foods, music, literature, etc... We must be able to celebrate the differences among us and be proud of what makes us unique. That's what makes America's tapestry so vibrant. But we need some Oxyclean, because these colors are fading, not from the sun, but from the mildew and mold of the cellar.

We can do better. We have to start by recognizing this one simple, yet pivotal point. If we cannot understand this then all that we have fought for, all of the wars, fire hoses, dogs, tears, bondage marks, will be for nothing. We will have wasted the efforts of all of those people who came before us and sacrificed so much for us to have what we have today. We will throw all of that away because we are being taught to hate each other. We need to turn on those who preach hate, not with hate, but with love, and show them the better way forward is together, not apart. So what's the point already...!?

It is this - people are responsible only for what they do. 

It seems like such a simple concept, but it is not how we live our lives anymore. If a police officer commits a heinous act, then he committed a heinous act. If other people were complicit in such an act or helped cover it up then they are just as responsible and equally detestable. But unless they are of the previously mentioned, no other police officer has anything to do with that act. I don't care if they work in the same precinct. Another cop in that precinct was responding to a domestic violence call at the time and has nothing to do with that incident. Yet the media, Colin Kaepernick, and the Progressive machine will have you believe that somehow every cop in America is to blame for this. This is what the media does. They encourage hate and we eat it up like goldfish,  gorging ourselves to death on their lies. 

Black lives matter. No kidding. The only part that I would disagree with is that we call lives black or white. A life has no color. 

So what's the bottom line? We need to judge people based on what THEY alone do. We can't judge people based on occupation, income, hobbies, skin color, health or lack thereof. We can't say that "cops" do such and such or "black people" do this and that. I know people who would call themselves black. But just remember that this contributes to collectivism. If you want to know how the Nazis gained so much support in a country that was not particularly racist, read Erik Larson's book, In the Garden of Beasts. I'm not bringing up Nazis to shock anyone, but it's a good example of what happens when we stop seeing individuals and start seeing members of groups.

- Anthony Battaglia

Link to the book here

Please leave your thoughts, I would love to know your opinion on the matter!

Courage or Fear? - You Decide!

I can sense a lot of fear permeating our society today, which is ironic considering the amount of security that we have invested in. Fear is a rather dangerous and volatile emotion. Often times it is the fuse that ignites the powder, propelling shrapnel in all directions, leaving destruction in its path. Fear paralyzes us. It takes hold of our mind, body, and soul. It crushes our spirit and withers away our resolve with whispers of, "you're not good enough, it's not possible, nobody cares, etc..." And these lies become the spark that ignites the fear. 

As this is not going to be a book chapter, but merely a blog post, I want to address some very specific fears. I realize that by not being black, some people might consider me unqualified, or even out of line for expressing my views on what I see going on in America. Although I don't necessarily see it as courageous to do so, I am not going to let fear get in the way of saying what I think is important enough to be said. 

Collin Kaepernick is once once again making headlines this week with his new endorsement from Nike. Once again we find ourselves mired in the same old discussions. It seems like we are almost spinning our wheels at this point. We need a shove to get out of the rut and moving forward again. But the slush is deep and the tires have lost their tread. But let's try, just for the heck of it. Maybe, if we can get this thing rocking back and forth, then we all push in one direction and bam, progress!

So, here's the shove... I think the biggest obstacle to this progress is fear, more specifically, fear within those who embrace and perpetuate the attitudes of a civil rights movement that has served its purpose. This is not my unique revelation. It is the opinion of Wall Street Journal contributor and Stanford University Fellow Shelby Steele. I have linked to an article of his that lays out his reasoning for believing that we are in a post-civil rights era, but I would like to talk about the underlying fear, that he says, prohibits us from moving forward. There are two parts, essentially - mistrust and guilt.

Mistrust comes mainly from those who identify as "the black community," whatever that is. I personally believe in individuals coming together for and due to different reasons, but there is no real "black community," just people who unite under a banner of black identity, which is essentially what leads to mistrust of those who do not (or in my case, cannot). If we have had a black president, then I must say that there is no limit to what a black person can achieve in this country, and thus the civil rights movement worked. We should be celebrating this fact, rolling out of the rut, but some need the rut because it's a safe place to be. Not very many serious car accidents involve cars that are sitting still. In other words, the fear of what it takes to move forward as a free person, one judged by their own actions is a scary proposition for many people. As Mr. Steel, a black man himself says in his article, "freedom snuck up on us." It's something new to the psyche of many black people, one that they cannot even accept as being legitimate - mistrust.

This brings up my specific problem with what Collin Kaepernick is doing, well, a couple problems. First of all, the singing of the National Anthem is a time during a sporting event when everybody comes together in unison as Americans and recognize that, despite our differences, it is being an American that unites us. The concerns of Black Lives Matter aren't the only concerns facing our country. So someone else, Sam Bradford perhaps, could protest the treatment of Native Americans. Someone else could protest the border wall, etc. The point is, that is NOT the time or place for ANY of that. Secondly, what C.K. is doing is actually counterproductive to his supposed agenda. If he thinks he is actually making things better by doing this then he is, in my opinion, sorely mistaken. What he is doing instead is watering the seeds of mistrust that have been planted in the minds of those who are already skeptical of the police. Unfortunately, the police are having to deal with a heightened mistrust, which could lead to more resistance, more aggression in return, and more shootings. I hope I am wrong. The only other outcome is an easing of police force which otherwise may have been used to subdue an offender. There was an officer in Chicago who refused to draw her weapon on a black man specifically out of this fear. He put her in the ICU and she nearly died. I spoke with an Uber driver in Chicago who was a police officer during the day and knew the female officer well. Three months after the incident she was still recovering.

The other component is the guilt that people have transferred onto themselves for things that they had nothing to do with. I will grant this point, the descendants of those who used slaves to advance their economic well-being have had an advantage that was ill-gotten. But time has passed. Enough time has passed that most big businesses are publicly owned, and the wealth that was accumulated over 150 years ago has since dissipated. Schools like Harvard for instance, lower admission standards for black and Hispanic applicants. In the spring of 2018, 15 percent of applications that were accepted for admission were from black students. According to Mr. Steele, if all students were judged equally, only 1% of black students would meet the admission criteria. 

Who are we serving when we tell people that we are willing to give them a pass based on their skin color? We are being racist. We are perpetuating the problem that we are trying to solve. We are pulling ourselves back into the rut.

Instead, let's focus on courage. Courage not to blame other people. Instances of racism will continue, there's no doubt about it. It's a problem all over the world. But we can have the courage to accept this fact and judge people based on their individual character, not paint with a broad brush. We can't say that "black people" do this, or that "cops" do that. Taking ownership for our own situation takes courage. Blame is easy, but it's a lie. Don't fall victim to this and sell yourself or anyone else short. 

Feel free to leave your comments! I will leave it here, for now, with a quote.

Deuteronomy 31:6 says it very well: "Be strong and of good courage, fear not nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."  -KJV

https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-protest-has-lost-its-power-1515800438

The Blinding Power of Free Stuff

Who can forget the 2016 presidential election? I remember (as well as most of you, I'm sure) watching in astonishment as the electoral college came out strongly in favor of President Trump. Little could anyone have predicted the impact that election would have on this country. One of my favorite talk show hosts, Mark Levin, has repeatedly stated on his radio program that what has happened since then regarding the ongoing investigations is the biggest political scandal in American history. I have no doubt that truly objective historic scholars of the future will support his view. My question is, why don't more people recognize that fact today? The answer is something that violent revolutionaries and mob bosses have known for centuries, and it's what Democrats have been working toward for about a century - free stuff.

Free stuff is great. It's probably the best part about being a kid. Granted, where you came from has a lot to do with the quality and quantity of this stuff, but nevertheless, free stuff is awesome. I will admit that, even though I was never lacking in free stuff as a kid, I still wanted more. So I shoplifted, a lot. This was a way to not only get more cool free stuff, but there was a bit of a thrill in the getting of it. That is, until I got caught. Then, reality hit me and I realized that after a while the stuff stops becoming free, but it was fun while it lasted!

Now, what does this have to do with the election? Glad I asked!

Once people have established a pipeline for free stuff, it becomes really difficult to turn that pipeline off. Jails are full of people who rob, evade taxes, steal cars, etc. Most are repeat offenders. When you live in a society that tells you that you deserve more things and that it's important to have this stuff [it's important because it will make people think you're more important], the temptation to cross the line to get it is just too much for some to resist. But what if there was an easier way? Good news, there is! Just vote Democrat! But, there's a catch. A saying that has never failed to be true for me is, "if something seems too good to be true, it probably is." Unfortunately, that applies here too (darn!).

Like I said earlier, mob bosses and drug lords use this mentality to subdue the moral outrage of the people that benefit from their magnanimity.

"Yes, officer, that is 100 kilos of cocaine. Here's $100,000 and, just between you and me, it's actually just powdered sugar."

"I did hear that Don Battaglia sent Giuseppe to see his grandma [backstory: Giuseppe's grandma is dead], but he built this school here, and Giuseppe was kind of a culo anyway," said Vinny.

And that's the other trick - make the other guy look like a culo. So as long as Trump looks like a culo and Vinny gets free stuff, he's fine with going along with the whole thing. What's the other saying, "don't bite the hand that feeds you?"

So, here we have a president who has committed no crime, no obstruction of justice, no collusion, none of it. Yet there is a special prosecutor, the likes of which has never been seen in American history, who is running a-mock and there are people who see what is going on, yet they pretend like it's somehow justified. Oh what tangled webs we weave, when first we practice to deceive. I would argue that the fundamental deceptions which are tangling the webs inside these minds are aimed within. Once we have convinced ourselves that a mistruth is a truth, it is sure to further condemn our thinking as more of our thinking is rooted in falsehood. The depth of our belief system at which point a lie takes hold determines the vastness of its ramifications. Not to get into a theological discussion here, but the belief in God (and second only to that - what you believe about God) is the most fundamental place a lie can take hold.

Now, back to my argument...

If president Trump is being grossly mistreated and we have millions of people who go along with it, then it is because they have convinced themselves at a fundamental level that this treatment is justified, not under the laws of the land, but under a moral law that they must twist in order to rectify with the actions of, say, Hillary Clinton, just for example. I mean, she smashed 9 Blackberrys with hammers... [crickets] but I digress.

The point is they look the other way for the schools, healthcare, food stamps, free college, social security (such a specious name), housing subsidies, etc.. Sounds like they have just about all the bases covered. Free stuff is powerful, and the more of it you take from someone the more of you they control.

One of my favorite rappers is DMX and his song "Damien" is a great example of what I'm talking about. If anyone cares to, they can follow the link below to the lyrics.

I hope that people wake up and realize what is going on in this country. We need Americans to say, "no thanks," to public assistance and together, we can help each other move toward prosperity for everyone. How do we do that, you ask?

To Be Continued...

Damien [lyrics]

The Journey Begins...

This is my first blog.

This is my first blog post.

This is my first blog post in my first blog... I can only sit here and wonder where it will go from here. Will one person read this (who isn't forced to by the guilt of their own conscience when I ask them to)? Who knows? But one thing is for sure, it's worth it just to begin... so here we (I?) go!

I decided to start writing this blog for several reasons - to get better at writing, to express myself in a more useful way, to hopefully inspire a few of my friends to follow along (Evan Brooks). But in the end, I think it is just better to create than not to create, and that's really the essence of what this blog is all about - creation!

Lemme 'splain. You may have taken notice of the title - Wedding Soup. Aside from being Italian and delicious, it's also a conglomeration of leftovers, scraps, bits, and pieces of other things, thrown together into one cohesive dish. That's what I will be attempting here. I will essentially be talking about anything and everything that interests me!

We are at a time of great misunderstandings and gross neglect of the truth. The truth is out there, so let's go and find it together, instead of being at each other's throats. So with that in mind, I want to help bridge some divides, or at least demonstrate that we can have vast disagreements on what we believe in, but if we are true to what we all confess, which is that we are compassionate, then we must start by being compassionate to everyone that we see. Hopefully, I will be able to follow through on that priority.

I want to encourage people to post their opinions on this blog, but I don't want it to turn into a typical social media thread. I will not be replying directly to any comments left here unless it is requested of me specifically. I will take into consideration what is being said and incorporate these thoughts into future posts maybe, but I am not going to be attempting to defend what I post in the comments section. I think this will help encourage people to say what they want to say and not worry about me, or anyone else I hope, from trying to minimize what they say. Instead, I hope that we end up with several differing viewpoints for all to consider together.

The world can be a wonderful place, if you let it. there is so much to marvel at. But our perspective and our thinking can greatly disrupt our ability to enjoy the life that we have. We only get one chance to live this life. I know I have wasted so much of mine, but being in the present and contemplating what possible futures await keep me from ruminating over what I can never rectify. Creating is also a vital part of how we reach our true potential. We can do great things if we are united and I believe, despite the current environment, that we are truly more united than we think we are.

I am excited to be starting this journey and I hope that I can encourage a few of you to come along.