A Bit About "Love"

I find the events that have unfolded today to be incredibly troubling. I find the things we choose to care about to be incredibly troubling. I find that fact that so many people are claiming "Love won" today to be the most troubling of all. Do we even know what love is anymore? It has nothing to do with sexual preference or even to do with what is legal and illegal. Do we truly and sincerely even know what love is? Love can't be bound by laws...it's not dependent on a system of beliefs.

I had no level of interest or care or concern for this Supreme Court ruling until I started hearing this phrase on the radio and seeing it running across social media. Now I am deeply saddened. Love didn't win today. Love was subverted today. Love is a force that binds humans together. This is a principle that no sane person can argue with, regardless of faith or belief system. It is universal. Had love been allowed to have it's chance, we would have come to an equilibrium as a people, on our own, without the dictation of 5 people in black robes. Had love won today we would have needed no Supreme Court Decision whatsoever.

"We the People, in order to form a more perfect Union..." These are the first words written in the constitution. Have we forgotten what these words ACTUALLY mean? At their core, they have nothing to do with country or society, but with a way that people must stand together and interact.

More and more I'm convinced that we as a people spend more time talking about left government and right government and religion and non-religion and tolerance and ideology than we do remembering that we are a people. More importantly, we are a free people with a great and heavy responsibility to maintain that freedom. How did all of that go again?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is the entire premise of the constitution. It's why we have a constitution in the first place. It's why we have Government in the first place. It's why we are a society. Why we call ourselves Americans. It sets us apart from the other nations of the world. Let me break this down.

A more perfect union is a place where we, as a people, are unified. Where we help each other. Where we live together in peace (peace...doesn't it talk about that too?) and harmony. Does it mean complete agreement? No. Does it mean one system of beliefs? No. It means one people, working together. A more perfect union.

Justice. What's that? Justice is the Rule of Law. Justice binds a society into one unity. A system of laws is necessary for freedom and for laws to exist, laws must be enforced. But it goes deeper than that. Justice also require morality, and a willingness to defend that morality. Now I'm not talking about the semantics of morality here based on what someone can do in their bedroom or what is acceptable at the dinner table. I'm talking about laws that govern the human race and define its prosperity. Integrity, service, tolerance, freedom of conscience, procreation, are all things that humans must live by if they wish to prosper. This cannot be argued with any merit. History shows us time and again societies lacking in these ideals and how they crumble to pieces.

Insurance of Domestic Tranquility is not a 18th century endorsement of Obamacare. It's the idea that we should be at peace, one with another. Ferguson, MO? That's not Domestic Tranquility. Baltimore? Nope. Charleston, SC? Nope. And it's not about guns either. There were plenty of guns when this preamble was written. Here's the thing. There are terrible people out there. There is evil in the world. There always has been and there always will be. It is our job to watch out for one another and protect one another. When we can discuss our views without anger or malice, then we have established domestic tranquility. When many belief systems can live together without threatening each other, we have domestic tranquility. When 5 people dictate the laws of an entire nation, while the nation engages in a war of words fought over a million battlefields in the digital world, our domestic tranquility is a pathetic joke. Certainly there is no place for love in that world.

 Along the same lines, when our domestic tranquility is threatened, it is our duty to provide for our common defense. Our common defense. Not my defense against people who hate me. Not your defense against people who hate you. Not defense of the left against the right or defense of the straight against the gay. It is a common defense. That which threatens one of us threatens all of us. Remember, we are a people. Love isn't just a passive thing that we all have for one another. It is shown in our actions, and in this specific regard, it is most necessary. There are few more potent acts of love than the defense of those who do not necessarily agree with you. In this time there are many threats to our nation, within and without. How are we to stand against these threats if we are not willing to defend one another? I reiterate, in this world full of warring words and ideals, there is little place for love, and certainly no common defense to be found.

Promotion of general welfare is simply a fancy call for us to help one another. This is not limited by a system of beliefs. It is universal, regardless of our beliefs. If you'll recall, the inalienable rights we have, as declared by our nation's founding fathers, were enumerated as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What could be more appropriately defined as general welfare than our individual ability to help one another pursue happiness? No good person desires to be unhappy. I truly believe that no good person desires for another person to be unhappy. Does this mean that in a perfect society we all sit quietly and say nothing so we don't offend each other? Absolutely not. In a free society we should be able to freely exchange ideas in a manner that enlightens us all and leads us all to our own measure of individual happiness. If your idea of happiness is marriage to someone of the same gender, it is your right to pursue that. That pursuit happens to be in conflict with my religious beliefs. Does that mean we cannot abide together in the same society? Absolutely not! It does, however, mean that we should exchange our ideas on the matter and do our best to promote the general welfare for both of us, so that I can continue my religious beliefs and you can continue your pursuit of happiness as a married homosexual. You don't get a free pass from promoting my welfare simply because you disagree with my religious beliefs, and I don't get the right to disregard your welfare because my religion doesn't condone your lifestyle choices.

And lastly but not leastly, we must ensure the security of the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our prosperity. Liberty, at its heart, is a protection of our freedom to choose. Not freedom to do whatever we want, but freedom to define our lives as we wish. Do you wish to become President? Play Basketball in the NBA? Build a massive corporate empire? Save a species of animal? Open a cafe in a big city? Write a book? Star in a movie? What we make of ourselves is what defines us, and our opportunity to make of ourselves what we choose to strive for is what makes us Americans. They say that the American Dream is a financial one, but is that not simply an understanding that with financial success comes ones ability to do whatever they desire? America is the Land of Opportunity. Ever has it been thus, and ever shall it be so long as we continue to maintain our own liberty, the price of which is this Union we belong to and the responsibility as its people to ensure its prosperity.




A government is nothing more than a construct made up of people. Our government is set up to be run "by the people, for the people." And in this regard, we have lost our way. We cannot separate ourselves from this government. We cannot allow a decision of 5 non-elected justices to define our roles in this society as a people. If we as a people had been behaving properly in the first place and operating as a functioning society, this decision would have never come to our attention! Homosexuality is not a new thing. The desires of homosexuality are not new to society. Their survival as a group is not dependent on this Supreme Court Ruling. This decision matters very little to them in reality, and even less to the rest of us as a society. What does matter is that we as a people let the government get involved in the first place. The sad truth is that this Supreme Court decision is simply evidence of a society that must pay for its own mistakes. 

The instructions given to us as a people by our founding fathers provide a simple road map to prosperity. They took great care in compiling these ideals, and many gave their lives to set up this Union in such a way that we would have the opportunity to even live these ideals. And at the heart of all of these instructions is the concept of love, that binding force that ties us together as human beings. When love wins out, I believe that government is minimally necessary (regardless of how big or small you think it should be) and when we are operating as we should as a society these kinds of events have no place among us.

So when you think of the events that transpired today, perhaps you ought to think a little less about the idea that homosexual men and women are legally allowed to marry one another and proclaim "love won out!" Instead, perhaps you ought to think about the blow this decision was to our society, and the subtle reminder it is that we have lost our way. Indeed we have forgotten what it even means to love as a people must, in order to remain prosperous.

A Bit About Me

This post is dedicated to my family. I love them, though they don't often hear from me. The truth is that I miss being a little kid, when it was easy to give a hug and hard to feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. Some day I will remember how to be a good little brother. But right now I'm just working on being me.

What causes someone who never shuts up and always has something to write about to neglect a venue such a this for several years? Many would claim writer's block. Or a business schedule. Or a waning interest. Or some other excuse of "oh I always meant to but..." 

The truth is, I haven't written on here for years because somewhere along the way I lost the courage to be honest and strip down the thoughts in my head into a cohesive message of what I was seeing in the world around me. I started this blog as an outlet for my insight. As a little window into the way I see things for the simple pleasure of anyone who wanted to take a peek and see if they could identify or profit from my tiny little view of the world. 

That only works as long as I'm aware of what I'm seeing. I can only open up and give those little insights if I have the presence of mind to actually open my own eyes and see first. For too long now my focus has been solely inward. I've been selfish and egotistical in the ways that make me very disappointed now looking back. 

It's easy to make excuses for ourselves. It's even easier to justify our circumstances or make ourselves feel like we're doing the best we can.

But the truth is we're not doing the best we can. I'm not. Perhaps you are, and if you honestly are, then I salute you and applaud you with as much respect as I can muster. For me, though, the sad fact remains that I have yet to achieve "doing the best I can." Maybe I'm just too full of myself to accept that I'm a lesser mortal. If that's the case, then I fear I have much more learning to do than seems currently evident. 

Evidence from my life, though, suggests that for various reasons I have allowed myself to be blocked or unmotivated or discouraged from achievements that were well within my reach. For whatever reasons applied at the time (there have been many over the years), I've made the decisions that resulted in failure.

I have to own up to that. With that ownership, though, comes power that I have never before experienced. Sooner or later, I will most assuredly be at my best, where I can claim with all honesty that I am doing the best I can. This is because I am learning to overcome. 

It takes awareness, which requires openness and honesty. It also requires a great deal of humility, and this I have had much trouble with. You see, when you are honest with yourself, and unashamed of your flaws and unwilling to feel regret for your mistakes, people will find issue with you. They will taunt you and seek to ridicule you and make you feel like you are often walking the wrong path. And that's okay. Just as you are broken and trying to figure yourself out, so too are they trying to both figure you out, and figure themselves out. The truth is, we have our own path to walk. Stay firm on your path, and sooner or later you will find the voices fading into the distance as your path takes you onward. Humility is simply a lack of concern for how dirty your boots get while you walk your path. Is it not? 

For a long time I felt that my biggest failure was in letting myself be scared. I thought that I had let fear get the best of me. Every time I saw failure in my life, right there next to it was something that I had been afraid of that was holding me back. 

I have been wrong. As I've pondered many of the mistakes I've made, I've come to realize that I was fearless. I made the mistakes that I did because in reality I wasn't afraid of the possible consequences. I am still fearless. Very little scares me. Not death, not ridicule, not shame or even failure. 

The truth is that I have been apathetic and lazy. Every aspect of my life where I messed up, at the end of the day, happened because I didn't care. I'm a smart guy, and I'm resourceful. I can do anything I set my mind to, so long as I take to time to learn about it and grasp an understanding of it. Watch me take something apart some time. It's a long process. I have to analyze everything and understand where it fits. That's a hard path to take.

When you take a hard path, you have to be prepared for the stumbling blocks along the way. There are walls and trenches and puddles. Sometimes you get stuck. Sometimes you get hurt. You have to overcome. You can't overcome when you don't care.

I had to overcome many obstacles. I still do.

I had to figure out why I needed to keep moving forward.

I had to find out what I believed and what I cared about and what I wanted.

I had to figure out what path I walked. And more than that, I've had to figure out why I walk that path.

These last few years have been hard, and though I've made many mistakes, I have very few regrets because, in reality, they've helped me learn. Now I've put the puzzle together and I have a deep and complete understanding of who I am and what I seek. I know what I stand for and what I believe in, and I know what I want out of life.

At the end of the day I know some of the finer details may change. I know I will make more mistakes. But I am also confident in claiming that I will never again lose my way, for I know of a surety the path that I am on is the right path.

My boots are going to get dirty. And I don't care. I have much to give those around me, and I've come to believe in the power of my own potential. Understanding gives me strength and confidence.

The truly beautiful thing, though, is that I'm not unique or privileged in this blessing of strength and understanding. It is there for all of us to find if we seek it. We have a promise, that if we do all we can and follow a straight and narrow path-- a path marked for us by one who came to Earth and overcame all-- we will overcome everything that stands in our way.

I am not alone in this promise. That, to me, is an incredibly special thing.