Life happens for you, not to you. That quote sits here on my screen. It is from Jim Rohn. It is a good reminder. The three second distillation, because sometimes it is that simple.

I am incredibly sad these days. It is much worse to be sad for another than it is for oneself, and maybe it is in part for myself. Maybe it is all about me.

I have felt useless, spent much time curled up in various ways and places in my time. I have gone to sleep saying it would not be such a bad thing if I did not wake, G-d knows why. I have been ashamed I did not take on the mantle of being a hero. At least that way I could go out as a hero, and be used for something.

I never felt myself much accomplished. I certainly feel I have not properly taken care of my wife. I am sure I disappointed my father. As I look now, it probably would have taken so little to make him less so.

I still have moments of my past life arise and call myself an idiot. I was always impressed by people who have a grasp on the world earlier, or who somehow lucked into the right experiences. I would guess most of those were because the people were open to experiences. I had created myself as scared. It was not going to happen to me, not then anyway.

I find it incredibly disheartening to see a twenty something with a dog. It usually means the person is substituting that for a relationship. In the end, it means the person is giving up on life.

The dogs though, they do fight for life, as does every other animal, plant and weed.

It is the basic nature of every life to want to perpetuate itself. Almost all of it is oriented to that purpose.

It is how G-d made us. It is in the nature of things, if you don't want to give it to G-d.

It is the rulebook of nature, laid out for a million years, if you go the G-d way, then distilled into the apocryphal, or true, again if G is your thing, stories.

But it works. Against all odds, it brought us here. We are the survivors. The way to negotiate the world, at least good enough, was set out, and we've played that, and the world is more interesting/​dynamic/​plastic than we'd ever thought.

It is a good place, and its basic rule set is right. It is a miracle.

And I know that is hard to believe about oneself for some people. My grandfather did not. My father struggled with it. So do I.

But life happens for us, not to us. I think I understand now Jim Rohn's Life Happens Just. It is to celebrate. And I know it can occur as the opposite, as pain, and crushing weight, and still it is. Life Happens Just, and maybe I still don't understand that phrase.

Maybe that is why I cry. It might be because the one thing I thought I was okay at, I feel I have failed at. But I think it is more than that.

And then it is time for me to go to bed. I suppose that is a part of nature I fight. Again, the dog: It knows when it is time to sleep.

And I don't particularly like dogs, but I know their place. Unless used for work, the dog's time to show up is when the kids push for one. It is a celebration of life, something to learn to care for.

It is also something to learn from. I discovered some of my ugly through dogs. I think I'd be a better dog owner now, but I think there are things more important now.

For me, it hurts to see humanity throw itself away. It hurts to see people give up on a future. It bothers me that the Germans destroy themselves. I had a theory about this recently, that it is a continuation of what they are, including the Aryan, the NAZI.

Maybe I dreamt it, because it is not clear now. Maybe the thought was that they have to find an enemy, but now they are saying the enemy is us. Or maybe the enemy was their G-d, but then when that didn't work, our G-d, and when that didn't work, existence itself.

The f'ing Grammys celebrated satanism yesterday, the idea I'd rather be king in hell than a prince in heaven.

The cost of that is just too big to grasp. That is an interesting thought. Maybe that is why I cry. Maybe it took 54 years to see the gaping maw of hell, or to see how close and enticing that is.

And to imagine someone you love more than anything in the world maybe in the thrall of that, but not even being able to know, because it feels like the doors are almost closed.

I watched my father die. I watched him check out weeks before his actual physical demise. I watched him die over and over.

I asked him before he died why he made it so hard to love him. He said “defense mechanism, I guess.” Perhaps another kind of hell.

We all create our own hell at some point in our life. Maybe we don't even create it. Maybe it finds us, and we have no idea how, or why.

I guess the invite is to not go so far that you can't crawl back out.

There are things that are true. What they are are difficult to know, and maybe impossible at the age of 18, and even those I admire that are possessed of better judgment or a better grasp than I had at their age, are still usually green.

And feelings alone are not usually a good guide. It is why I suggest good works for those who are not sure of their way, especially if it is with the elderly, or the very young, or even the crembo crowd.

Or just being good at your work. That too is worth something. I think of the DMO (Dish Machine Operator) guys at Cornell, feeding and competing with machines, but that is a conversation for another day.

Now I am way past my bedtime, but there is a little more peace having shared a little more.

I guess what hurts is I don't know what to share that would or could make a difference, and I do so want to make a difference.

I want good for you. I want good for the world.

I know I am a little insane. But maybe that is worth something too.