Problems Need Energy to Live"

"Problems need energy to live."

– Tony Robbins.

 

Are you a blogger?

A writer, maybe?

Definitely, you are a reader—because you are here. And I am grateful you found me and are sticking with me.

With the plethora of words, podcasts, websites, Instagram, Facebook, Substacks, journals, and various publications available, it is a privilege that you take the time to read me.

I fluctuate between falling into a hole with brain-eating alligators with Jia Tolentino, who, on May 3, 2025, wrote in The New Yorker:

"My Brain Finally Broke."

"Much of what we see now is fake," she wrote, "and the reality we face is full of horrors. More and more of the world is slipping beyond my comprehension."

Yep, been there, done that.

I don't have to tell you things are bad, so I won't.

It is so easy to complain, to worry, to rail at injustices, and to be afraid most of the time. What if we stopped feeding the fears?

An old Native American saying goes like this: Two elders were watching two dogs fighting. One asked the other. "Which dog will win?"

Said the smarter of the two: "The one we feed."

 

As a writer, I often wonder what I am doing here.

 Am I boring you while I indulge myself?

This is a question every writer faces. What am I doing? And for whom? Does it matter?

Why do I feel compelled to write out my thoughts and put them out there?

(The Muse has us by the throat, imploring us to do the work, but she leaves the skill and practice to us.)

That's the journey.

 

Yet, if we don't share our thoughts and feelings, we are in deep do-do.

Our voices matter. You matter. Our government matters. Saving the animals matter. Saving the people from demagoguery matters.

If the light doesn't shine, the dark side wins. The little boy who spoke up when everyone else saw a naked Emperor and dared say: "The Emperor has no clothes," stood for truth.

Heavens, some are plenty happy to spew out filth, anger, hatred, bigotry, anti-this this, and anti-that. –See how loudly those voices are raging in our awareness, our consciousness, and probably burrowing into our subconsciousness.

So, speak up. We're tired as hell and not going to take it anymore. We're the people, for God's sake. We don't bow to tyrants.

If anyone ever blames you for being selfish or self-indulgent, blow them a raspberry and get on with it.

Where does the advancement of the species come from?

From those willing to put in the time face the repercussions, lay their hearts on the line, and thus change a civilization.

 "You're just a simple bricklayer," commented an adversary to a mason sitting beside an immense pile of brinks.

To which the mason replied, "I am building a Cathedral."

Saturday, June 28, 2025

"Inherit the Wind"

"Inherit the Wind"

 Lawdy, Lawdy, last night, I watched Inherit the Wind, starring Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott, and it was pure cinematic genius.

It was a made-for-television (1999) dramatized version of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925—my gosh, 100 years ago—when a high school teacher (Scopes) was arrested for violating the Butler Act by teaching evolution in a public school.  

Watching Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott, those two veteran actors, go at each other had me on the edge of my seat. I was afraid one of them would burst a blood vessel.

This version used fictitious names for the real attorneys Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, who were the attorneys in the actual 1925 Scopes trial.

When I was 21, I attended the play "Inherit the Wind," performed by the Thespians of Linfield College in Oregon. The actor who played Defense Attorney Clearance Darrel should have gone on to the New York stage. I came from a Protestant background, and when the Darrell character slammed the two books, the Bible and Darwin's Origin of Species, together, stuck them under his arm, and walked off stage, I felt I had been hit by an anvil.

I went on to major in Biology in college, where evolution was considered a fact.  Hey, young Darwin was just a field researcher who went to the Galapagos Islands, observed the animals he found there, and took notes.  But when he published his findings, it stirred up a hornet's nest.

In school, if you wanted to debate the Creationists, they said to take it to the Theology department. Two professors did have a go at it, but they didn't have the skill of Lemmon or Scott.

Years later, I watched the 1960 version of the movie Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracy and was unimpressed. (I still had the college play ringing in my ears and thought it couldn't be beat—until last night.)

Over the years, I didn't understand why the debate between Creationism and Evolution was such a big deal. I don't know how the Universe began or how life originated on Earth. It is an ongoing study. God is God; he doesn't need humans to defend him. Some people must think God doesn't know what a Quark is. Does He know how to smash an atom? Does He need constant admiration? Would you if you were God?

Some fundamentalists are so insulted they get blood in their eye if anyone says they came from animals. They should be so lucky. They are lucky to have life, no matter how it came about.

It's still a mystery.

This rendition of the play was apparently meant to be a parable against the McCarthy era, where beliefs were fanned to white hot intensity to believe there was a communist hiding under every rock. 

 I was encouraged last night at the end of Inherit the Wind to see that a great throng of people can champion a belief system; they can write laws to defend it. They can threaten opponents, and fight for their side. They can spread lies, propaganda, innuendos, and fear. Yet out of the morass will come an individual who will rise from the crowd and defend the right to think.

 

Inherit the Wind: 

"He who brings trouble on his house will inherit the wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise of heart."

Proverbs 11:29