Creative Deconstruction

    This isn’t a story about a man who was defeated by the daily challenges of life. This is a story about a man who fought with everything he had to maintain his family, and to give his children the best life that he could. This is a story about a man who ventured to use his critical thinking when making decisions, and despite any demoralizing opposition, maintained the courage to do what he (to the best of his ability) thought was right. This is also the story of a man who willingly accepted accountability and responsibility for any bad decisions, and was more than willing to rectify them.     This is a story of triumph despite the pain, and a story that – ultimately – ends like all others, except this one assuredly ends while walking an honorable path. Perhaps facing doubt, and not necessarily without fear, but most assuredly with courage.     This, I give you my word on. (And can only hope the same for you, to my little ones.) ...

    One of the greatest misconceptions that I’ve had, and continue to see others hold is that anything can scale. Take Communism for example, I like my household as communist as you can get. I think a communist household is a loving household and a pleasant, nurturing place to live. However to scale communism to include the nation seems a guaranteed disaster.      Now coming from the opposite trajectory. Capitalism may work in several ways when applied to a nation, but to scale down the same predatory ideology into a household? Well, living in a home where the dominant philosophy is a zero sum game doesn’t sound like a desirable place to live.      So people still think that because something works at one scale, that it could be applied everywhere, not realizing that merely scaling something, larger or smaller, changes what it is. This seems to be a law of physics. A fly can smack into a windowpane unharmed because of its densi...

My spouse is a mental health counselor, so that means I partially live in a world where mental health problems are constantly focused on. After having lived in this environment for three years, I've come to realize that I don't have any mental health issues. I would have said that timidly two and a half years ago, but I'm more certain of this today than ever, and I can't emphasize enough at how bold of a claim that is in a room full of therapists. It's almost an invitation for them to prod you. Thus, I've only said this out loud twice. I was looking at /r/preppers on reddit. It's a forum, and the topic is being prepared for when a part or all of society breaks down for whatever reason. There's something about survival situations that many are attracted to, which is ironic because we live in a fairly well-oiled machine. It's comfortable most of the time, and things work predictably. But, tying this into mental health. For most of human history our ...