An excerpt from "f'd: For Your Own Good" I do not pretend to know the truth about events that I did not actually witness. I look for answers, I do research, I watch the news and read, but in the end, it would be presumptuous to say I know the truth about stuff I have no personal connection to. But bring up the issue of election fraud, and everybody's an expert. Biden voters and social media censors are certain they know the truth, and that those who disagree are seditionists. A former Department of Defense prosecutor wants every business in America to stipulate that the 2020 election was "accurate". Since no serious forensic investigations have ever been performed, you have to wonder, what makes them so certain nothing extraordinary happened? I resent people who claim to know the "truth" about election fraud or any controversy, when they are in fact just reporting or passing along second hand accounts. In our legal system, judges allow witnesses that are willing to swear under oath and penalty of perjury that their testimony is true, to the best of their knowledge. Bearing witness means what you saw was essentially factual. But reporting, sharing or speculating is never allowed in court because it is not necessarily accurate. Similarly, news and social media reports and expert opinion should never be characterized as "truth". Most of what all of us know about current events is technically "hearsay". In our digital information world, it is nearly impossible to distinguish what is real and what isn't unless you see it with your own eyes. Even then, it is easy to be fooled by lighting, perspective, distance or illusion. Recent video technology allows for digital manipulation so it is almost impossible to detect "Deep Fake" video content. Most people vet information using a "smell test": If it smells fishy, it probably is not accurate. Would you agree that we all have to temper our knowledge with at least a spoonful of healthy skepticism? That most of what we store in our mental library probably isn't 100% accurate? "Fullness of knowledge always means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance; and that is always conducive to humility and reverence." -- Robert Andrews Millikan The recent election was a major turning point in American history. Not because of the differences in political perspectives, but for the first time in our history, millions of Americans don't think the results pass the smell test. Right or wrong, that is how they reacted to the long delays in reporting results, to the sudden spikes in voter trends, to the vast numbers of "glitches" and misplaced ballots. We have had disputed elections before, but in this instance the expanded voting windows, unverified absentee and mail-in ballots and the use of internet connected voting machines invited a deep sense of insecurity. Everyone understands just how pernicious cyber crime is, so of course many Americans feel threatened by removing the human element from the chain of ballot custody. The "truth" is, doubts over election integrity have shaken the very foundations of our Republic. For millions of Americans, election integrity has been seriously wounded, while millions more think the process has never been healthier. Without the Supreme Court weighing the evidence, this malignant tumor won't be going away anytime soon. "The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence." -- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting opinion We are living in a Post-American world. The "Shining City On A Hill" has been extinguished. There is a relic of it, but the light coming from it went out November 4th, 2020. In my mind, the "Shining City On A Hill" that Ronald Reagan spoke of in his famous farewell address in 1988 was a reference to a search light, casting it's beam of freedom across the world. For nearly 250 years Americans have been doing our level best to project that light whenever and wherever we could. We tried to set an example of how a free nation can provide liberty and justice for all. But that city Reagan spoke of is gone. If we do not have a Constitutional Republic, a nation that functions from power given by the people to the government, then we can't possibly lead by example. If the power of the individual vote is watered down to such a degree that it has little or no impact on the machinations of the government, then we are no better than the People's Republic of China. We can no longer generate that beam for the rest of the world to follow. In order to provide the light required to illuminate the path to independence for the rest of the planet, that beam has to come from a place of extreme depth of confidence, of deep conviction and powerful commitment. Democrats say, "Republicans only care about Democracy when they lose elections!" They conveniently forget how outraged they were when Trump defeated Hillary. They spent the better part of four years complaining that he was illegitimate and had help from Russian interference. So the suspicion about election interference is not unique to Republicans or the 2020 election. If there is evidence of widespread corruption of the election process, and it is now undeniable, then we must take action to not only restore the light, but root out the forces that facilitated putting it out, before the well of spiritual and intellectual strength of character is contaminated beyond redemption. Corrupting the voting process is a federal offense. It constitutes voter fraud which "willfully deprives the residents of a state the right to a fair and proper election process." Should the action result in an overthrow of a properly elected government, it could be considered sedition. Anyone who "hinders the execution of any law" (such as election laws) or joins any group that "seizes any property of the United States (such as the Capitol Building and the White House) could be guilty of sedition. Should their actions result in a coup d'etat, that would qualify as "betrayal of the Nation" and could potentially be considered treason, which would justify the death penalty.. The framers of the constitution realized that all of the value of liberty lies in the ability of the citizens to participate in free and fair elections. Article 4, S4 states that "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union, a Republican Form of Government." The obvious implication is that any purposeful corruption of our voting process would violate that guarantee (or contract). Prosecution of Election Offenses by the Department of Defense says, "The Department does not have authority to directly intercede in the election process itself." It does seem pretentious to assume that any administration that cheated would investigate itself after it takes office. Perhaps the idea of delaying election results in certain small states or counties would actually help avoid other federal agencies from getting involved. In the meantime the new administration has plenty of time to purge the old administrators...We have for 245 years protected voters from fraudulent elections with no less fervor than we protect human life. Free and fair elections are the lifeblood of our Republic. The Constitution is clear, everyone that is qualified to vote must receive equal protection in the form of a "Guarantee" that their votes will be properly recorded. But that begs a serious question in light of the process we currently use to count votes: How does the government guarantee the proper counting of votes that are not presented in one consistent form? The past two national elections have utilized electronic vote tabulation devices extensively. Their manufacturers promised they would be accurate and fast. They have demonstrated effective tabulation to voting officials across the country who have determined that the efficiency and cost savings far outweigh any operational vulnerabilities. They say they have submitted the machines to rigorous testing before putting them into full election day operation. But what voters are only now learning is that the testing procedures were designed, and for the most part implemented by, the machine manufacturers themselves. After the November election, when Trump claimed the results were rigged, most states responded by claiming their tests prevented any contamination of the electronic tabulation. The manufacturers claimed the machines were not capable of being connected to online manipulation. They said the machines are impervious to tampering before, during, or even after, the day of the election. If the machines were incapable of being corrupted, why didn't any of the manufacturers offer to have those used in the elections independently tested, or provide the source codes for the algorithms that read and report the votes? This would allow external sources to make sure that the machines are working correctly. They refused to do that. Every voting machine manufacturer has resisted any independent forensic testing. Their attitude has been "How dare you challenge our accuracy and independence!" If Democrats believed Trump's election was illegitimate, then wouldn't they have an enormous motivation to fix the next one? The Democratic Party apparatus in every battleground state has vehemently resisted any independent analysis, any investigations, and has consistently characterized challengers as the shameful doings of conspiracy theorists. In fact, it is much worse than that! Many hard drives, digital paper trails, like thumb drives and receipts generated by the machines, simply "disappeared"! In some states, thousands of ballots were incinerated or shredded long before the local voting integrity laws allowed. Once again state voting rule prerogatives outweigh any other authority to investigate voting anomalies. Social media platforms (most of whom gave massive financial support to Biden) have openly censored any discussions about voting integrity. Television news pundits have lined up in unison, repeating the mantra that all of the claims of voting fraud were "baseless". None of those people, however, noted exactly how the claims were debunked, other than to say they were subjected to a recount. How that would debunk anything was left unchallenged by the media. All six states that showed extreme swings in late night vote tallies resisted any outside audits of any kind. Instead they repeated the same systemic vote tallies which by any measure simply produces the same outcomes. It would appear that the two major parties are in agreement: Any suggestion that the voting process is corrupt is a direct threat to their foundational power and authority and should be treated as a direct attack on "our democracy". Our democracy is therefore, "Our Brotherhood", and has little or nothing to do with our Constitutional Republic. For the sake of argument, let's just assume every county that used electronic tabulators turned in accurate counts. In each of those battleground states, the results showed that thousands of votes for Joe Biden came into the tabulation centers very late. Experts explain this phenomenon as the result of Covid19 accommodations that led to late registrations, tons of absentee voting and confused voters whose ballots had to be "rendered" because they were improperly completed. That is plausible. It is what any prosecutor would describe as "plausible deniability." This is the narrative promoted by the local officials and the media. For them, all of the confusion was really just about how Joe Biden inspired millions of otherwise recalcitrant voters to go to extraordinary lengths to place their votes. How a magnificent ground game by billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Bloomberg, working alongside the Democratic National Committee, was able to reach into inner cities and college campuses, to energize idealistic Progressive Democrats to get out and vote. They explained that many of those people had never voted before and were unfamiliar with the process. That they had to overcome Republican efforts to suppress their votes, (presumably because Republicans demand voter ID) to intimidate them at the polls (because they discourage ballot harvesting and proof of current registration), and to misinform Democrat voters through extensive media advertising and mailers (which the online media cannot 'Fact Check'). If I were planning an election coup, and someone in my group suggested that excuse would be a great way to explain the voting anomalies should anyone ever ask, I would say, "Perfect! That makes sense and is perfectly plausible, and that is all we'll need!" But how does that explain the sudden upswing of vote tallies in all five swing states that all occurred simultaneously between 11 PM and 4 AM on November 4th? During a puzzling period when voting operations managers had shut down vote counting operations, and sent home the majority of volunteers and voting rights monitors. A period of time when all of the trends, as reflected by early returns and exit polls, were showing the Republicans winning by substantial margins. Anomalies like 100,000 Biden votes coming into the system in suspiciously short bursts, all occurring simultaneously in battle ground states, all during periods when the counting was supposedly suspended so volunteers could "get some sleep". None of those anomalies happened in other states. As it turned out, only the swing states saw massive increases, sometimes over 100% of eligible voters, all going for Biden, during that middle of the night window. In recent months many other anomalies have been revealed. One claim is that over 82,000 ballots in Wisconsin went missing altogether! Others indicate that nearly 15 million votes were never counted! The point is, even if we assume everything else was normal, there are some anomalies that simply defy reality. But the 'experts' are comfortable that none of them were capable of affecting the outcome. There were, they admit, certainly some voting miscues, some procedural mistakes, etc., maybe even a small incidence of fraud. But nothing out of the ordinary, they said. Biden simply won big. And to suggest anything else amounts to a racist conspiracy theory and itself disenfranchises all of those brand new Democrat voters that materialized out of thin air. I have to ask, is a small amount of fraud, as opposed to ineptitude, acceptable? At what point is fraud unacceptable? Scholars would say, if it would not have changed the outcome, then it should be considered inconsequential, and perhaps unavoidable. All elections suffer from some degree of shadiness or malfeasance. But ineptitude is different than a coordinated exercise in affecting the outcome. If the "mistakes" or "malfunctions" or "mishandling" or even "miscalculating" resulted in a particular outcome, that is not just anomalous. That is robbing the bank of credibility. That is counterfeiting the process. If anyone knew that any form of that kind of activity was happening, if they heard about it and ignored it, or if they participated in facilitating any associated activities, or found out about it later and failed to report it, they are complicit in an unforgivable crime against our nation. If we should ultimately be able to prove the election results were altered by a conspiracy, our legitimate government was replaced by an illegitimate one, does it matter whether it was, or wasn't, done at the end of a rifle? And since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have now been sworn in, they have, by default, colluded in a coup d'etat. That could be considered a War Crime. The obvious question is, "What do we do now?" A question most victims ask in the moments after they have been robbed, or assaulted. When they realize they have been played, when it is obvious that the results are terrifying, what should they do? I imagine thousands of people asked that when they realized their life savings, the funds they had set aside for their retirement, were all gone when Bernie Madoff was charged with the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Suddenly, it occurs to them that the people involved, the various reps and consultants, the secretaries and accountants, were all lying to everyone! The whole scenario was a fraud. That everything they thought they knew about the company was an illusion. And now they are left holding an EMPTY bag! There are so many questions that go through your head! I was a fool. Why didn't I see what was happening? How could I have not noticed all of what now appears to be obvious red flags? How could all those people sleep at night knowing they were stealing the life savings of hundreds of thousands of innocent people? How could any American sleep at night knowing they had committed a war crime against their own country? This is where fluffers come in. I know, you think I am referring to those notorious stage "hands" that keep male porn stars ready for the final moments of the film. No, I am talking about those folks that keep us thinking everything is alright even when we should know it's not. They are smooth talkers in finance, in science, in academia, in politics, in personal relationships, in time share presentations, and especially in the media! The fluffers that keep us from losing confidence and trust in the relationships we have with each other. Part of the challenge of living in an information era is recognizing when you are getting fluffed, because it feels so good. It's one thing to get caught up in an investment ponzi scheme. It is another thing to realize someone in your own family is betraying your trust. Most of us instinctively trust our parents and siblings more than friends and neighbors, or business partners. If a lifetime of experience doesn't count for anything, then what does? How much vetting must one do to form a sense of trust? At what point do you say, "I trust you!"? Conversely, at what point do you totally abandon someone that has betrayed your trust? No one is perfect, and no matter how long you have known a person, there will have been instances where they misled, or omitted information, or mischaracterized something that happened. We all do that. I am talking about important events and information. The truth is everybody shades the truth. My mother used to call them "Little White Lies". She said it was a normal thing to shade the truth because it protects people's feelings. When she asked my dad "How do I look?" he always had the same answer no matter what she was wearing. The same is true with fibbing, shading the truth, and outright lying. When you tell someone something that is inaccurate, but you didn't know it was inaccurate at the time you shared the information, that is not lying. That is spreading misinformation. Also a bad thing, but less malevolent than telling someone that you didn't run over their dog when you know you did. Trust is in short supply in our 21st century culture. It has become too easy to lie, and because of that, too many of us turn the other cheek too often. We see lying all around us and simply dismiss it as the price of freedom. It's OK for advertisers to lie. It's OK for politicians to lie. We lie to our children, and they learn to mimic us. The victims of ponzi schemes, or counterfeit money, or sexual abuse, or election fraud, are all confronting the same basic human failure: The fact that another human being has no regard for your emotional investment in them. In fact, they are using that "weakness" as an opportunity to steal your love, your work, your money or your vote. They are exploiting you as a commodity, or a crop. They are converting your trust into a benefit for themselves. It is the ultimate act of selfishness. We have to steel ourselves against the constant assault on our sovereignty. We cannot let ourselves grow accustomed to it. Currently our culture is in crisis (that sounds redundant). But I am pointing it out because it is not just an American problem, although it is really bad in the USA. But this is a worldwide breakdown in trust between our community leaders. We are seeing a new class system emerging from the worldwide pandemic. And it is affecting every being on Earth. It doesn't matter what political party you belong to, what religion you practice, or what the color of your skin is. This new class stratification bridges every nation state, and it is being orchestrated by a powerful cabal of super wealthy, and super powerful entities. All under the guise of "a public health menace". Americans have spent decades mistrusting and defending our lifestyle from Communists and Fascists, who blatantly profess their determination to destroy our Constitutional Republic. We have broken up monopolies that tried to hold us hostage to energy, communication and transportation extortion. The Cabal that has us currently living in virtual POW compounds is Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Transnational Corporations. Companies like Google, Alphabet, Pfizer, UBS and Blackrock Investments. They have boxed us in, overpowered our political process, and now they hold the means of production, of finance and of healthcare. They have us right where they want us. We refer to groups by acronyms. Sometimes for simplicity, sometimes as a result of branding, but often as a way of characterizing them. We call intelligence agencies by the acronyms (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.). We refer to the Food and Drug Administration regarding food controls, drugs and medicines, because they are considered the authority on those issues. So we use cute nicknames, like we do with children. We have come to assume that major government and non-governmental organizations are reliable experts we can trust. But recent events have seriously undermined that assumption. As we move through the various issues with the "Worldwide Pandemic" it has become apparent that no one can be trusted. The stories, the data, the narratives change every day. More often than can be justified by "The Science". Following the Covid narrative is like following the flight of a hummingbird. It is all over the place. Anyone who says challenging that narrative is a "Conspiracy Theorist" is nothing less than an abusive partner. They may tell you the lights aren't dimming, but you can see for yourself that they are! Why are they so afraid of information? Why are forces like social media, major media, and business lining up to enforce a narrow narrative? Why do they presume we are too stupid to notice their collusion and abusive transfer of wealth? They are fluffing us. They are trying to keep us under their influence, to keep us in line and ready for the next scene. Because they need us to keep the narrative going, to keep the population queued up and ready to accept the next demand for conformity. Isn't this Soylent Green all over again? Our nation's politics are a mess. Polls show less than 15% trust in our Congress. The Biden regime has dropped to mid 30% support from election day. Every day there are videos circulating showing "Officials" spewing contradictory data, conflicting comments and testimony, and reframing events. Chairman Jo claimed the Afghanistan withdrawal was "one of the most successful campaigns in US military history." He considers it successful to have left thousands of Americans, and our Afghan allies behind enemy lines where they will no doubt be at best, discriminated against, at worst, executed. To have abandoned 85 billion dollars worth of taxpayer funded hi tech military weapons and support equipment that will now be used against us and our interests is apparently, a highpoint in American Military history. He considers it a success story that 13 young active duty service men and women were blown to bits by an ISIS terrorist who we had intel on, and who was able to walk right past several security checkpoints. The whole Middle East and Central Asian theater of war has been a ponzi scheme ever since our invasion of Kuwait. That was a media psyop to justify a series of military incursions to build up our military and to secure oil resources. Our MIC has shipped trillions of dollars of equipment and weapons into the arena for 30 years. From the standpoint of making peace, of nation building or stabilizing the nations involved, we have essentially accomplished nothing. Of course we have been getting fluffy reports all along about how "successful" our armed services are and how grateful we should all be to our young warriors. The money flows into the tax coffers, then into the contractors and the military divisions, then it circulates around and eventually comes back to American MIC transnational contractors and a few closely held allies. It has now been laundered and it feeds the enormous salaries and bottom lines of the MIC, who turn around and grease the skids for the next scheme by funding the campaigns of both Republicans and Democrats, and by funding enormous public relations and media organizations that produce propaganda story lines to gain support for the next "Peace Initiative". Meanwhile, in California, Governor Newsom constantly says the state has a surplus. That we have a Rainy Day Fund because his administration has done such a wonderful job of managing the state's finances. But that is a whopper. The state actually has a massive unfunded debt. If proper accounting procedures are used, the numbers are terrifying. California collectively owes $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. None of which is considered in the budget process. Because new pension liabilities accrue faster than we can pay off the old ones, the state can never collect enough taxes to pay it all back. California politicians are operating a massive ponzi scheme, telling citizens that our finances are in order, failing to mention that future generations are actually going to have to pay for our current excess spending. During any given year, the state floats a bond, or increases fees on some benign service like telephone calls. It is a relatively painless way to confiscate money, and it makes sense in the short term, but it never really retires the debt. It just kicks the can down the road. To call it Good Government is a lie. It might be good 'public relations', or even good political propaganda, but it is not good government. It is true that our Governor and our State are not alone, that this form of creative bookkeeping is Standard Operating Procedure for most large government operations. It is how the United States Post Office manages to continue operating while losing billions every year. Massive government departmental cash registers never really close the drawer after each spending spree, so the transaction paper trail is inaccurate. They are cooking the books. No one ever gets held accountable. It is like counterfeit money: Most people pass the "little white lies" along without ever knowing they are participating in a criminal enterprise. After it has circulated for a period of time, and has drawn millions of people into the crime, it becomes normalized. Just remember, all of this is no different than when a man or woman imposes their complete control on their partner, in an abusive relationship. In a relationship dominated by coercive control, the manipulator uses tools to steal their victims self identity. They use isolation: They keep their victim from sharing their situation with others (control social media, close churches, shut down family events and public gatherings). They use intimidation: They keep them in a state of fear (get your shot, protect your neighbor and your family, millions have died from the Pandemic, hospitals are overflowing). They use degradation: Constantly reminding them of their shortcomings, their failures and their stupidity (Trump is dangerous and a threat to Democracy and a threat to women and minorities; if you aren't vaccinated you are killing your neighbors and the elderly). They attack their self esteem and undermine their sense of self: So they can then rebuild them into the personality they want. Which is a slave, essentially. In order to keep them from running away, abusers shower their victims with gifts and phony affection (Democrats promise free education, free healthcare, and forgive student loans. They hand out billions in Paycheck Protection welfare, while telling Americans they are the most generous people on earth for embracing millions of unvetted immigrants into their communities and schools). Our culture has been undergoing a mass version of this form of social coercion. We are being groomed by what I call the FrankenMedia and a small percentage of very wealthy Globalists who see themselves controlling 7 ½ billion people through mass brainwashing. They use the military as a training center for social justice causes and to occasionally tamp down the obstinate Conspiracy Theorists and Right-Wing Domestic Terror Campaigns, as needed. They want their victim to conform to characteristics they have given them, socially, sexually and mentally. Some capitulate, and submit to controls and simply resolve to live with no self realization. Others resist, they pack up and leave under cover of darkness. Or they go to the police or to court, and demand a protective order. Victims of Coercive Domestic Abuse are attacked, and sadly, many are killed by their partner. In a general sense, this is what is happening in slow motion, to our nation. We are being slowly choked to death by the perfect storm of a hijacked domestic election and the simultaneous worldwide color revolution brought about by the weaponization of public health mandates and the suspension of human freedoms. If we continue to accept this as a necessary evil, we will soon discover we have been consumed by evil. We have to resist. Just like some people cannot be hypnotized on stage, because they just can't "let go" and release their self control to the hypnotist, Americans have to steady our own sense of self control and recognise the subtle attempts to coerce us in television, in social media, and in relationships with our employers and our instructors, and by the community of Science First control freaks that insist these coercive controls are For Our Own Good. We are battling a highly organized and altruistic "Woke" movement. A movement that is entirely based on brainwashing and conformity. It is the ultimate cult. But ironically, it is freedom lovers that need to be "Woke". We are the ones who have to fight off the dark cloud of disinformation and psychological coercion that is emanating from every institution controlled by Big Tech, Big Pharma and the New World Order. During the week of September 11th, Chairman Jo said he was "losing patience" with Americans who refused to submit to being inoculated with an experimental new gene therapy. Because they are reluctant to be guinea pigs for something that has not been subjected to long term side effect studies, the President is blaming them for a Pandemic of the unvaccinated". Biden comes from the same mindset that has promised the end of the world scenarios for over a century. First it was the Spanish Flu, then it was Bubonic Plague, then it was Measles, then Chicken Pox, then Overpopulation, then food shortages, then smog, then HIV, then rising sea levels, then Climate Change, and now...racist anti government terrorists and mutating viruses! We have to leave these paranoid schizophrenics behind! We will have to form new institutions to replace public schools, most unions and much of our local government bureaucracy. We will have to learn to depend on each other and like minded freedom lovers and escape the coercive demands of collectivists. We will have to boycott and embargo large collectivist business conglomerates who no longer appreciate the duties and requirements of running their business in a community of free individuals under a constitutional republic. We have to educate them to understand they are next in line to have their business nationalized by coercive regulations and controls.They are useful idiots just until they are no longer useful. We are all being confronted with enormous changes in our everyday realities. Jobs are being threatened by vaccine mandates, inflation is ravaging our economic stability, and class and vaccine warfare is destroying relationships. This only happens in authoritarian societies. Does this mean we have already lost our freedom? Hell yes, it does. And history tells us that when freedom is lost, it is virtually impossible to win back. You can vote your way into communism, but you have to shoot your way out. That porno actor? If he loses his ability to perform, he won't get fluffed again! We have all lost loved ones. It is part of life, and the inevitability of death. Gathering with friends and family and sharing grief is hard, and liberating at the same time. Memorials are both depressing and uplifting, because they signal the end of someone's life journey, but they also highlight some of the most important and fulfilling parts of our own lives, the relationships we have with each other. As we contemplate the loss of a loved one, we muse about their peculiar personality traits, their strengths, their idiosyncrasies and their human frailties. So we shed tears of sorrow simultaneously with tears of laughter. That is why I say we come away with some heartbreak and some hope. Recently I went to the memorial of a lifelong friend. A man who had achieved great financial, professional and personal success. But to my surprise only a handful of his business associates showed up. And only one spoke about their relationship, and he focused only on how my friend had helped him find God. Not that that was a bad thing, but why did his professional "friends" avoid saying goodbye? The family was all there, and his son brought us all to tears describing how his dad had inspired him, shared his time with him, and led by example. His wife and daughter shared personal stories, and as a lifelong friend I contributed some childhood insights. But the obvious absence of his career-long associates left me wondering, why didn't they care enough to pay tribute to a partner that worked alongside them for three decades? There was clearly something missing. Afterward we all shared food and drinks and reminisced, but I just couldn't stop wondering why this man had so few serious friends to get up and emote over their grief? Driving home, I gave it some thought...Have you ever contemplated how your own memorial will sound? It may be the hardest thing for all of us to face: Knowing the memorial you just attended will someday feature you. What will it look and sound like? It is interesting to me how things are often said at memorials that were never said before. Why do we wait till after someone dies to express our love and affection? Why do we lavish the deceased with praise only when they aren't around to hear it? My point is that maybe we should all write our own memorial service dedication. It would be an exercise in introspection for sure, and it would also serve to remove the burden from our loved ones to have to bare their souls, and to say things about us that they never enunciated to our face. Maybe that is why so many people just don't show up at all. They don't want to face the music... When I got home I did some research and sure enough there are several websites that "help" people write their own memorial, or create their own funeral service. The idea is to create accurate histories, timelines and to feature certain hallmarks that others might miss. Sounds reasonable, but I wonder if the survivors would really be willing to just stand by and watch an exercise in self admiration. I don't think so. The last word is hard enough to get in life, but impossible afterwards. |
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