i have been very distracted by all that's happening on all your blogs lately. i've lost track of the voice in my head. my voice. not your fault. it's easy to do. keeping the balance, focus, momentum, flow - always a challenge for me.

anyhow...

i'm a bit off today. not so much because of daylight savings but because i slept until 1PM, 12PM really, but still. That's the afternoon!!!

Guess i needed it.

i watched lots of nickelodeon this weekend too. yup. just a wierd weekend all around.

will smith was the kid's choice for favorite movie actor (Kids' Choice Awards were sat nite, 'case you didn't know) and he did some preaching on stage and said that kids needed to do two things in life: running and reading.

running because when you're running and the little voice in your head is whining and trying to get you to quit and you listen to that voice, but keep running anyhow, there's nothing in life that will make you quit. you'll be unstoppable.

reading because there's nothing new in your life that hasn't happened to some billions of people who have written about it and have lots to share and teach you and help you with.

so maybe it was nickelodeon on a saturday night and i was pretty much home bound all weekend. but it was true. and it has been what I've been doing lately to get myself through this stretch of life.

i'm not "feeling" the internet tonight. but i'm still here. i read something (radiohumper linked) on "killology" and skipped some parts but got to the bottom of Col. David Grossman's lecture. which confirmed things i had only imagined about combat, warfare and violent videogames.

he said a lot and particularly a few things i have to quote here:

"You see, the essence of psychology is this: you're only as sick as your secrets. Whatever it is we can't talk about, those hidden factors, that's what eats us alive on the battlefield."

and

"The whole of human history up to and including World War I, I submit to you, was the same story over and over and over again. It was empire rises, empire expands, empire clashes into another empire, empire falls. World War I, from one perspective, was the Kaiser versus the Czar versus the King, and of course we get all the historians out there that can tell you the word 'Kaiser' and 'Czar' are simply derivatives of the word 'Caesar'. Two thousand years later, all we've got are Caesars smacking heads."

and

"And this is a true story. There was a photographer there, and a reporter there [World War II, when Americans were retreating in terror through a forest, pursued by Nazi SS. Reserve troops and paratroopers were called in to stop the Nazi advance under very difficult conditions], and what happened was this. There's one American tank, 30 tons of death, fleeing down the road, and this one lonely paratrooper walks out in the middle of the road. And he's got hollow, sunken eyes, three days growth of beard; an M1 dangling from his hand and a bazooka on his shoulder and he walks up and he stops the tank and looks at the tank commander and he says, 'Buddy, are you looking for a safe place?' The guy says, 'Yes.' He says, 'Then get behind me because I'm the 82nd Airborne Division and this is as far as the bastards are going to get.'

Now you understand how that applies to you all? When we talk land warfare, do you understand how that applies to you all? For the rest of your lives, you're going to be faced with individuals who are fleeing. They're fleeing drugs and crime and poverty and violence and oppression, and the fear that lurks in the hearts of every man and woman and you have the authority and the responsibility and the mission to stand up and say 'Friend, neighbour, brother, sister, are you looking for a safe place?' and they'll tell you, 'Yes' and then you tell them, you tell them, 'Then get behind me, because I'm a soldier and this is as far as the bastards are going to get.' And as you do that for the rest of your lives, may God bless you and your families in every endeavor."

.... endeavor.

and that's really what it's about isn't it?

there's nothing wrong with being a hero. people will always want leaders for the wrong reasons. it doesn't make it wrong to have them.

i have no problem with leaders. i respect what a coach can do for a team. what a captain does for a ship. i guess i accept that the most successful enveavors are accomplished under successful leadership.

parenting is leadership. teaching is leadership.

i am no longer so angry and bitter about someone hurting me or letting me down that i cannot respect or better yet appreciate leadership.

but i am much pickier about who i follow. you know? a bit more discriminating.

i also watched the incredibles this weekend. clever folks them pixar people are. it definitely had a strong message about heroes and life with and without purpose.

the pain of purposelessness is similar to the ache of loneliness. emptiness and apathy.

a friend of mine, unhappily unmarried and trying to come to terms with it was hung up on something she heard from another woman twenty years her senior, also unmarried and childless and seemingly at peace with it all. in response to her query the woman answered, "it is hardest to know that you're not at the top of anyone's list."

and it's possibly unbearable when you're not on the top of your own.

oprah said in a recent interview with Barbara Walters that she has accepted that husband and family was not in her cards and the world's children are her children. there is plenty for her to do in the world.

which is a powerful example i thought of a woman who is not defined by her role as wife and mother. yet what a mother she has become to so many.

which is how no more dishes began in the first place. one woman's not uncommon attempt to find herself in the midst of the dishes and diapers and antidepressants.

her desire to be at the top of her list.

and she's getting there.

by george she is!

um, who's george?

hahahahahaha

time to go ....