you WILL take responsibility for what happens to you

Ancient writers were long aware of the constant spiritual struggle going on to define words since it is mentioned in the Bible. It is also particularly prevalent in recent years as seen within the persistent political struggle going on between groups and the individual. 
Responsibility
My definition of the term, responsibility, may differ from various others. Responsibility means that whatever happens to you, we each are responsible to ourselves for it. There is no indication of blame in this word but today there is surely an strong expectation of its presence. This is the successful attempt to shed blame to someone other than the one who suffers the consequent event.

 I originally called my view my baby in the well theory. My point was that although the baby may not be to blame for accidentally falling into the well, if the baby is in the well then it is the baby that suffers the consequence and so that it is the baby alone that must respond to that event, most likely by drowning.

Although someone may be to blame for this event, or the jurisdiction over it, blame is not individual responsibility. Just as intent is not conviction or innocence, but rather only relates solely to the penalty, it is changing the meaning of words going on in academia that reflects a strong contraction of words rather than a healthy multiplication of meanings which would be present in the language of a healthy culture.

The clear desire to use fewer words for many different things, vague neautral words as well, is the opposite of a living language that expands, growing, rather than contracting, words and meanings. This is done by proponents for the purpose of reducing everything to the same thing. So growth is contained, today by one view such as  globalism, in order to control people by making them all similar. The existence as well as the rights of individuals are not welcome in this arena of knowledge destruction.

There are many words suffering in this overall struggle. For instance, where popular vote is more desired than the electoral vote. The electoral vote is evidence of a republic, not a democracy. The electoral vote is designed, as is the constitution itself, to protect individuals in small groups from individuals acting in large groups, Otherwise farmers would be the slaves of city dwellers, and the society would soon reduce itself to rubble. Therefore, the electoral vote protects what is called by the group desiring control groups like the snubbed as flyover country.

Immigration also has a definition, which is primarily to keep one particular ethnic group from gaining control over other ethnic groups as well as to make sure emigrants do not suffer neglect from the advantages of existing social structures, like hospitals, education, or the police, to name a few. Too many, too quickly, is an invasion not immigration. There must be time to assimilate if we are to keep our melting pot simmering without boiling over in order to serve those joining it.

But boiling over, whether we are aware of it or not, is the goal of agents of change. Shrinking the language, making everything the same, perhaps even including bathrooms, is a part of that strategy,

the various stages

One truth that stands out for me is that the truth cannot be told by those who know. One example is growing old, if that is, if you are lucky enough to actually grow old. First you find that your stamina does not serve as previously. My father called it weakening down. I knew what he was saying but had not idea of what he was talking about it. However, that was the first stage, and it is entirely concerned with strength in the latter stages.

You hardly know when you start forgetting, but a good indication is that when your friends finish your sentences that your realize you are in what the government calls the donut hole. Actually, in point of actual fact, since I am convinced everything has a purpose, this is the stage designed to ease you into the various stages of body death. It is commonly known a failure to fall down. Young people in their power years, 40 - 60, cheerily patronize you assuring you they understand you what you are saying, but then go ahead and do what they want, and that without telling you anything about it. This is what sets you up for your later realization you were stupid, and likely more so at the present moment.

It is possible for anyone to slowly die inside before they can be recognized as dead outside as well. So it is at this stage you want to set your automatic coordinates for everything that you hope to see happen when you shed your bod like and old coat. This is when the reflection that hits you hard is your realization that young people are all good looking. We are not aware of this when you are young, only when you are old can you recognize this. Then it is largely too late. Also, money, money starts arriving in inadequate sums only when you realize you are losing claim to it.

Strength is wasted on the young, only when they lose it can that be confirmed. Once again being told about this cannot be told. Once you realize it, it is not only too late, you find yourself laughing about it with kindred knowing souls. Laughter of course, is the opposite extremity of weeping in public.

When I was young and strong I did not know enough to write about it. When I was older and wiser, I no longer had the energy or the health.

outsmarting stupidity

I often tirelessly like to brag about my enviable brilliance by saying, I am so smart I have out smarted myself many times.
 Every year end I look back and my mistakes standout in stark contrast to common sense. I don't defend them, I just make new ones the following year.

I rank stupidity right up there alongside suffering as examples of the persistence problem in my definitions. Why are many of us so stupid in reflection and so blindsided by suffering? I wrestle with these problems because I need to consolidate my faith since I believe it is my engine of success. Everything happens because of faith and the directed strength of it. This is because we really are at bedrock, stupid. Why do I say this? It is because there is so much more that we do not know as opposed to what we actually know.

The unreliability of witnesses
Even what we know is subject to doubt in view of all the different outlooks given by equally different witnesses. (Example: Different views of Christ in the Bible are stumbling blocks for atheists butfor me when I reflect on it, it is collaborative since people all give defferent views like various perspectives as if from different orbiting planets. It is an indication of the lack of collusion or purposeful construction.) So even the more we know buries us in even deeper awareness of the lack of all the facts, as we like to call them. And what do we do with parallel facts? Can we also question proof? Continuing...

the tall tales of terrorizing talk

The previous post is really a boil over coming out of Corner Table at the Naked Eye  and needs explanation. (Click bold.) Since this site is actually bedlam contrasted to the rest of these sites, redact rules are in place to keep entries within the overall site format.

Which are? The Naked Eye, like everything else, is an account of the views of those who post there. Therefore it developed around politics. The Sunset Strollers began more as an abstract demographic site not a concrete political one, which is to say the Naked Eye became a gossip he said she said site.

The first rule was that they should stay on the subject and could not refer to actual persons. This was to keep discussions on issues and policy, not propagandizing individuals skilled in the fire arts, the fallacy art of argumentum ad hominem name calling. Most political discussions end up this way, so no naming of individuals was the reason for that rule. People can get around this rule right out of the gate as it now appears from their first outside post.

The next rule was intended to keep matters in generalizations, not specifics which always seem to start the fires burning. Some here think that is good, but the establishment around here agree that it is more like two people talking and belittering their own talk into the confusion of simple jamming.

The Naked Eye may eventually have to get their own rules, their own editors, and go off on their own.

believing with a straight face

Everyone talks for their own benefit. They are not really trying to persuade anyone but themselves. That at least is the way an individual mind would approach things. On the other hand a group minded person seems to be persuading others since they offer supporting reasons for their view while attacking with an ad hominem a story no one could seriously believe with a straight face.

I viewed a stark example of this on television. It began with a member of the reviled party detailing amendments he was suggesting so a member of the imposing party so as to gain their support. This extended effort, explaining fine points and whatnot, was then turned over to a member of the imposing party for his chance to respond. Quickly he spoke with great urgency,
  you are holding a gun to the head of our children! 

This was immediately accepted right on the spot and the scene shifted sharply to a commercial.

Life may not be rehearsal but it certainly is an experiment.

we never die

No one seems to die now that I've luckily reached the final innings of the game. They pass instead. This implies a continuation process is ahead. And as well, many operate on a new definition of forever. They all know... continued among the Memory Stones link found the the left column this date.

blaming God instead of ourselves

When God does not answer prayer, quite often I hear that God is to blame. They do not admit blaming God but go along with their idea, their own idea, that God, who decided they say not to answer that particular prayer for reasons that a good for you. God is in control and knows what He is doing it is said. This seems to me to be avoiding the fact that God cannot change His mind, nor can He lie. There are literally trillions of things He cannot do or He would be acting against Himself. So who is to blame then?

Quite obviously we are. Jesus asked a sick person, do you believe I can do this? They answered yes. Jesus said then let it be done to you according to your faith. This does not mean who do not have any faith or that you are not saved. It means you do not have enough faith. God does not change His mind. He cannot change His mind. We should be careful of finding we are avoiding our own responsibilities and pushing it off on God. God's promises are turned off that easily.

believing God but not His power

There are many Christians who believe in Jesus Christ but do not believe in his power, I call them Christian atheists. When the devil doubt cannot undermine a Christian completely then he will settle for destroying their faith by attacking their belief in the power of Jesus. Jesus without any power is just as good but since they believe in Jesus then I call them atheists but Christian atheist because they do profess to believe in Christ, See the importance of defining terms in Jesus Talking this date, linked in the left side column this date.

Tears in the rain

One of my top all time favorite quotes is said by the actor Rutger Haur in the conclusion of the first film Bladerunner when he contemplates, All those moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.

I recall reading about the last reputed survivor of the revolutionary war. He was 115 years old when he died. I figured out at the time that had he lived a second 115 years he would have been dead an additional 34 years already!  Everyone wants to live and avoid great changes from what we are used to previously. But in the time field we can never win apparently.

Think about John Keats for example. He died pauperized at 21 most likely thinking he had not received any great attention as a writer. As it just happened I had just finished reading about another writer of his time who lived in country estate luxury to an advanced age popularly successful and with respectable wealth. Contemplate this comparison however, now that they are both passed so long ago. What can we make of it now? How do we figure time with such a background.

My memories, such as they remain, suddenly leave me in Boston where there is a cemetery attached to a church. Here my high school graduation was held. Outside a stone announces the presence of the remains of  Benjamin Franklin's parents.
(This thread continues this date in the link in the first column, Specific Theory of Existence.)

how long does faith hold out?

Christians in some numbers have called other Christians who believe in faith liars because they believe in things that are not as though they were. This of course is the definition of faith as given in Hebrews. The hinge word here seems to be persistence and the lack of persistence. When persistence fails then my faith fails. Fears are the opposites of faith. Most know that but apparently do not know when they declare God did not heal someone that they are saying it was all God's fault and not their own lack of persistence.

taking offenses is offensive

If I take an offense, for any reason whatever, from anyone, then I by virtue of having taken the offense, have become an offensive person. The act does not have anything to do with anyone except me, the offensive person.
             Nothing anyone can say should have any influence upon me unless I have given control over myself to others. If however, I do take an offense then this shows I am part of a larger group rather than being an individual within the group. From this you can tell a lot about a person, politically being only one portion of their personality thus revealed.
            Salvation is only available to the individual. However, the individual can chose to be part of the group. Whether they would gain salvation from that servitude is doubtful since nothing happens to the group without individual majority input.