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The Wandering Baron's Quality of Light

4/30/2019

Light at Dawn - 1890

At the age of thirteen or fourteen, I briefly entertained notions of becoming a painter, but my utter lack of talent and skill quickly put those notions to rest. One thing I could never master when I dabbled around with painting as a teenager was light. Try as I might, I was utterly unsuccessful at bringing any realistic or even impressionistic sense of light to anything I attempted. It did not take me long to realize that evoking light in painting was no small feat.

One painter who, in my mind, succeeded in bringing a sublime quality of light to his paintings was the Hungarian painter László Mednyansky - (1852 - 1919).

A curious personage in Hungarian art history, Mednyansky hailed from an aristocratic family based in what is today a part of Slovakia. Despite his background, Mednyansky spent the majority of his life traveling around Europe and working as artist. Surprisingly, he socialized with any and every class of people he encountered on his meanderings and spent long stretches living a solitary and somewhat secluded life. While viewing some of his works online, I came across a reference that claims he was occasionally referred to as "The Wandering Baron."

Sadly, I do not know much more about Laszló Medyansky at the moment, but I hope to learn more about him and his art this summer when I will hopefully have more free time to indulge in such pursuits. In the meantime, I invite you to view some of his works. The paintings I have included in the selection below exemplify Mednyansky's masterful ability to bring light onto a canvas. The sublimity with which he depicts light raises it to the level of the subject matter itself; in some cases, the light overpowers the landscapes and dominates the canvas to the point of transcendence. Truly splendorous stuff, in my humble opinion.

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The Freedom of Choice

4/28/2019

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You are always free to choose the right thing. The right thought. The right action. That is the only real freedom you possess. It is always simple, but often challenging.

The wrong thing is never simple, but usually easy. When you give in to the wrong thing, it comes from wrong thought and leads to wrong action. The wrong thing is not an exercise in freedom.

There is no choice; only submission.

When you submit to the wrong thing, freedom dissolves and drips through your fingers like melting gold.

You are left with nothing of value. The surrender brands you, and the slavery to which you have submitted shall mark you as one who failed to be free.

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Peterson Not a Sell Out?

4/27/2019

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A few weeks ago a commenter on this blog criticized my dismissal of Jordan Peterson as a sell out by claiming I would do the exact same thing Peterson is doing if I were offered the same chance at success Peterson is currently enjoying.

I politely informed the commenter that, as dishonest as it would likely sound to him, I would be unwilling and unable to make many of the compromises Peterson has made over the past year or two. The worldly-wise commenter in question scoffed at this reply and launched a three paragraph tirade in which he attacked my insincerity and naivety.

The response did not bother me much; I have learned comments on blogs can be quite idiosyncratic - they tend to reveal much more about the commenter making the comment than they do anything else.

In any case, the purpose of this post is not to harangue that specific commenter, but to dispel, once and for all, any lingering doubts anyone else might still harbor concerning Jordan B Peterson. Contrary to popular belief, the man is an absolute sell-out who does what he does solely for his own good rather than for the Good.

If you do not see that after reading this post, you will never see it, and I will make no further attempts to convince you. However, if you see nothing inherently wrong with Peterson's cashing in at every conceivable turn, I humbly suggest you re-examine your own assumptions and general worldview because some major adjustments need to be made.

Regardless, I invite those who may still be sitting on the fence about JP to visit his official merchandise site where they can happily peruse a fine selection of Peterson products including ties, mugs, leggings, t-shirts, and blankets among other items. Yes, for a mere 14 euros (!), you too can be the proud owner of a pair of Jordan Peterson lobster socks.

Rumor has it Peterson has other great merchandise in the works including lobster-scented cologne and an entire range of dominance hierarchy-inspired sex toys, so make sure to check back and check back often so you don't miss out on all that great stuff!

Lobster socks.

Come at me again about how the greatest intellectual in the Western world is no sell out.

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My Failure to "Become" a Writer Is My Greatest Success

4/27/2019

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I began writing immediately after my parents gave me an electric Smith Corona typewriter for my eleventh birthday. I taught myself to type and spent a great deal of my free time writing simple fantasy stories. Though I had vague ambitions of becoming a professional writer one day, I clacked away at my Smith Corona primarily because I enjoyed it. The hours I spent writing from age eleven to about the age of fourteen or fifteen were some of the happiest of my life, filled with what I can only describe as pure playfulness disciplined by the kind of intense seriousness and concentration children display when they discover something they love to do.

When I turned eighteen, I decided to pursue writing as a profession. I enrolled as a film major at university with the intention to learn screenwriting, but transferred into the English department in my second year. For me, university was simply a means to read and absorb as much literature as possible in an effort to become a better writer. Halfway through my bachelors, I began submitting stories to literary journals and contests. I stopped writing fantasy stories in favor of creating what I assumed to be serious literature. Though I had written two novel-length narratives as a child, I began my first “real” novel when I was twenty-one. To my parents chagrin, I invested no time or effort into pursuing a vocation. In my mind, I was already doing so.

At twenty-two I experienced a minor breakthrough when the Toronto Star published a short story I had submitted to their annual short story contest. This early success validated my ambition, and I dedicated myself completely to becoming a professional writer. After graduating from university, I chose to work mostly odd jobs rather than pursue a career. I published a few more short stories and submitted query letters to publishers. I was optimistic and hopeful, but my hope and optimism faded as my early successes disintegrated into a ceaseless parade of rejection slips from book publishers and literary magazines. For a year or two I considered writing purely for money and contemplated creating material I knew I could sell, but something prevented me from doing so. In my mind, there was no point to writing if I was not writing what I truly wanted to write.

Working odd jobs instead of pursuing a career had seemed like the proper thing to do when I was in my twenties, but as I approached thirty my decision to forgo a career in favor of pursuing my romantic writer dreams suddenly struck me as foolish. I married at twenty-nine, set my writing ambitions aside, and dedicated myself to becoming an educator. I chose to become a teacher because I had hoped to continue writing, especially in the summers, but over the next decade I wrote very little and pretty much filed my writing ambitions away as a noble attempt that had ultimately ended in failure. Though I tried not to think about it too much, my failed ambition left a bitter aftertaste, and I soured not just on becoming a writer, but on writing in general.

For reasons I cannot explain, I returned to writing before I turned forty. No longer possessed by any burning ambition to make it as a writer, I wrote simply for the enjoyment of it. The feeling of intense concentration and seriousness returned, and before I knew it, I had written a full-length novel. I made no attempt to submit it to publishers, but instead self-published it through Amazon. For a couple of years I experienced a duller version of the ambition that had possessed me in my twenties, and I made some attempts to market my novel, but these attempts yielded little results. During this time, I experienced the same sort of bitterness I had felt when I abandoned my writing dreams at the age of thirty. Rather than wallow in them, I examined the source of these feelings. Once I discovered where the bitterness stemmed from, I realized these negative feelings had nothing to do with writing and everything to do with my limited beliefs about success.

As I draw closer to fifty, I find myself in the same place I was when I was eleven. A laptop has replaced the Smith Corona electric typewriter, but once again, I am writing primarily because I enjoy it. The hours I spend writing these days are some of the happiest of my life, filled with what I can only describe as pure playfulness disciplined by the kind of intense seriousness and concentration children display when they discover something they love to do.

As ridiculous and insincere as it sounds, I now understand my current “success” in writing is rooted in my previous failed attempts to “become” a writer. Though I cannot know for sure, I suspect I would have failed as a writer if I had succeeded in “becoming” one.

Of course, that will not make much sense to most, but it makes perfect sense to me.

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The Impact of "A World Split Apart"

4/26/2019

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The other day I was reflecting on writers who have had a large and lasting influence on my worldview. Many writers have left their mark. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn stands among the most influential. I first encountered Solzhenitsyn in my late-teens when I read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Cancer Ward and The Gulag Archipelago followed shortly afterward in my early twenties. As profound as these works are, it was Solzhenitsyn's speech A World Split Apart delivered at Harvard University on June 8, 1978 that has left an inexplicably deep mark on my mind and soul.

Reading A World Split Apart was a moving experience for me. The speech solidified and gave form to all of the weak inklings, vague suspicions, and slight notions that had been floating around in my mind for years. In other words, Solzhenitsyn was able to clearly state what I, at the time, could only faintly sense but not articulate. His Harvard speech provided the foundation I sought. I was finally on firm ground, and I could begin building up my own thinking secure in the knowledge that it had a sound footing.

I have included an extract from A World Split Apart below. The ideas expressed in this passage have become the basis of my own worldview and the thematic foundation of my writing. The themes Solzhenitsyn raises inevitably found their way into my novel, permeate much of the writing on this blog, and continue to drive my interests today.

Forty years have passed since Solzhenitsyn delivered the speech. The Iron Curtain has fallen, but the problems Solzhenitsyn points out have not disappeared. On the contrary, they have intensified.

At present, I am drawn to writers and thinkers who, whether directly or indirectly, recognize and acknowledge what Solzhenitsyn expressed below; I view writers and thinkers who do not address the fundamental issues Solzhenitsyn raised in this speech as either ignorant or corrupted.

Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is no middle ground here.

The world is saturated with issues and problems - the one Solzhenitsyn raises in the excerpt below stand above them all.

It is the problem - all others pale in comparison.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

I am referring to the calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness.

To such consciousness, man is the touchstone in judging everything on earth -- imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now experiencing the consequences of mistakes which had not been noticed at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible -- The split in the world is less terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections.

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.

It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless in front of the trials of our times. Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man's life and society's activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?

If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge: We shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.

This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but -- upward.

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Mellow Yellow Landscape

4/25/2019

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The tree blossoms have mostly fallen away, but the farmland and hillsides of this region are now bathed in gold as the rapeseed (canola) fields come to life. As readers of this blog have probably guessed, I am a sucker for landscapes, especially when they are drenched in rich, vibrant colors.

Canola fields are ubiquitous in this part of Hungary during mid-spring, and the stretches of bright yellow contrast well with the surrounding greenery. In other places where the fields lay cultivated or bare, the yellow provides even sharper and more startling contrasts.

Nevertheless, it is the patchwork quilt of yellow and green that epitomizes the landscape in this region - so much so, the local train company adopted yellow and green as its official colors. The train below is the kind I take to work every day for the short journey to work.

Sadly, the canola flowers have a relatively short lease on life, but by June the sunflowers rush in to fill the void the canola has left behind, thereby restoring the yellow-green mosaic for which this region of Hungary is famous.

Note: The photos above are not my own. I still haven't bought batteries for my camera even though I really ought to!

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God's Not Away on Business

4/24/2019

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"God's Away on Business" is a track from Tom Waits' 2002 album Blood Money. Dark, dreary, and ultimately depressing, the song is an acerbic examination of human depravity and societal degradation in a world abandoned by God. Saturated with world-weary commentary addressing the collapse of absolute moral values and the rise of greed, hedonism, violence, and misanthropy, Waits' gravelly voice accentuates the bitterness experienced by those who have surrendered all hope in the face of overwhelming and insurmountable evil.

Many find the message within the song off-putting. The objection is a sound one, but I suggest the despair and despondency Waits tensely growls over the dark, carnivalesque polka music - comprised chiefly of nightmarish tuba notes, disparate horn riffs, and muted drumbeats - offers a far more brutal and honest assessment a world without God than the visions of contented, pleasure-seeking life of pure materialism promulgated by our secular, atheistic rulers and embraced by almost everyone except the deeply religious.

The song is a despondent yet defiant declaration of disgust with the toothpaste-white, television-drama fantasy in which most contemporary people reside. Waits disregards the rainbows and sunshine wrapping paper and gets right to the corrupt core of a contemporary world abandoned by God. The autopsy is a bleak one. God has forsaken man for delighting in sin and corruption. A ruthless dog-eat-dog zeitgeist reigns over the morally desolate landscape, which has been reduced to a slum tenement owned by an absentee landlord.

One of the few reprieves Waits offers in the tune is the acknowledgement of God. Unlike our contemporary world, which rejects God outright, the song's narrator at least acknowledges the existence of the Creator and both relishes and laments His absence. Despite the acidic nature of the lyrics, the song does not level its bitter criticism at God, but at humanity. The singer suggests God has left and refuses to intervene because the decay humanity has unleashed upon itself and the Earth has become unstoppable and irreversible.

In the following, I offer a cursory analysis of the song's lyrics. The lyrics are simple enough to not require any sort of academic interpretation. Instead, what I offer below are merely thoughts and elaborations on the ideas the song presents. I do not intend nor do I claim any sort of definitive interpretation of the song, nor do I wish to speculate what Waits may have actually meant. When I refer to singer or narrator, I am not suggesting Waits espouses these views himself personally; I am focusing on the singer as a voice entirely disembodied from Waits. My exploration takes the world Waits presents as a given and, hopefully, offers insights into how one might avoid being poisoned by such a world of predatory nihilistic despair.

I'd sell your heart to the junk-man, baby
For a buck, for a buck

In my view, these lines represent the real core of the philosophy presiding over our world today. It is the ice-cold heart that beats glacially beneath the niceties, the politeness, and the warm, fuzzy words. This could serve as the motto for every oppressive bureaucracy we have established and for every dead-eyed individual working within them in the name of care and cooperation.

Outside the bureaucracies, these lines are the driving force of loveless psychopaths driven solely by self-interest, lust, ego, and greed. These words represent the banality and pettiness of evil - the willingness to steal something vital and valuable and exchange it for the cost of a cup of coffee. This is the philosophy of damnation writ large.

If you're looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch
You're out of luck, you're out of luck

To me, this speaks of individual indifference to the suffering of others. It is the anesthetized compassion that lays hidden beneath virtue-signalling and altruism. The complete inversion of real Christian love.

The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking
The ship is sinking

These lines mark the despair beneath the surface of our contemporary world - the impending sense of material doom masking a spiritual wasteland. Perhaps this is what fuels the rampant hedonism and pointless pleasure seeking; the desire to get one's kicks in full in the knowledge that the outhouse will one day go up in flames.

There's a leak, there's a leak, in the boiler room
The poor, the lame, the blind

An extension of the ship metaphor, but I am confused by the connection between the boiler room and the poor, the lame, the blind. On the one hand, I see the connection as nothing more than an emphasis on tragedy. Presumably, the poor, the lame, and the blind are victims of a sinking ship they had little hand in designing. On the other hand, perhaps the poor, the lame, and the blind are manning the boiler room, which could be regarded as a reference to the neglected and downtrodden working class.

Who are the ones that we kept in charge?
Killers, thieves, and lawyers

The accusation is harsh, but accurate. The Establishment certainly comprises all three. Killers, thieves and lawyers stand in antithesis to Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. The vile shape of the world is hardly surprising if such people lead it.

God's away, God's away,
God's away on Business. Business.

The refrain draws attention to the theme of God forsaking man. The lines resonate with allusions to God's wrath against Sodom and Gomorrah, but in this case God appears too disgusted to even expend energy on punishing humanity for its sins. Instead, he turns his back on his Creation, seemingly indifferent to the impending collapse his absence will inevitably bring about.

These lines are, of course, nonsense to anyone who acknowledges God as a loving Creator. Regardless of how bad things ultimately are, real Christians know God would never forsake the world He created. If anything, these lines speak to modern man's lack of faith and self-disgust. The words also contain the kind of bitter resentment typically spouted by those who shake their fists in rage against God's apparent "injustice" and "cruelty."

Digging up the dead with a shovel and a pick
It's a job, it's a job.

Perhaps an allusion to the gravedigger scene in Hamlet, these lines recall the two clowns calmly jesting about death and mortality. The cold yet callous philosophy of life as a universal joke; the emptiness of modern work, all of which also becomes little more than a tremendous and deadening waste of time and effort. Also, the excuse of the job - the relinquishing of moral and spiritual responsibility for a paycheck.

Bloody moon rising with a plague and a flood
Join the mob, join the mob

Conventional symbols of doom and destruction are supported by the call to give up one's individuality and join the collective, presumably to protest or express outrage. The fomenting of hate and shaking of pitchforks or perhaps the cowering masses fleeing in terror. The word mob could also refer to organized crime in its various forms, be it street gangs or official governments. In a doomed world where all is permitted, there no barrier to joining the dark side. For the narrator, such action appear pragmatic and prudent. If you can't beat them, join them.

It's all over
It's all over
It's all over

More despair and hopelessness. Woebegone beyond all understanding. No hope of salvation.

God damn there's always such a big temptation
To be good, To be good

These lines strike me as the most interesting. Despite his own despair and corruption in a despairing and corrupt world, the narrator still admits to feeling temptations "to be good." Ironically, he appears to neither relish nor welcome the big temptation. On the one hand, the temptation could simply signify the desire to be good in a pedestrian sense - to be nice and to good onto others.

On the other hand, this latent temptation to be good could refer to the narrator's sense of his divine self or true self, which, despite the layer of corruption and pessimism, still remains, flickering like the flame of an all-but-forgotten candle. Whichever it may be, the temptation to be good is still there, which to me reveals that God may not be away on business after all. God is there, but everyone, the narrator included, rejects Him. By refusing to heed the temptation to be good, everyone inevitable rejects the Good and actively embraces evil instead.

There's always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby
It's a deal, it's a deal

The most effective way to smother the temptation to be good is to immerse oneself in the materialistic and hedonistic pleasures the world offers seemingly free of charge. But as the lines paradoxically reveal, the free cheddar in the mousetrap is anything but free. Sin has consequences and depraved and degenerate pleasures carry the seeds of destruction, yet most are more than willing to strike such a bargain, especially if it helps neutralize the temptation to be good.

I narrow my eyes like a coin slot baby,
Let her ring, let her ring.

The simile reveals to objectification of man and the commodification of the soul. The narrowing of the eyes implies a menacing glare, a predatory focus of pure self interest - eyes that stare out at other beings and see nothing more than prey or profit. Perhaps there is a dark allusion to the indulgences coin box in a church - when coins ring, souls spring.

Whatever the case, the song leaves us in the same place it met us - in a world God has abandoned - a world of alienated beings existing in a landscape of shattered souls and abject hopelessness.

The song presents a bleak and rotten view of humanity, and I must admit there are times I agree with the pernicious pessimism permeating the tune, but unlike the voice in the song, I have never accepted the notion that God could turn his back on his creation.

On the contrary, it is we who have turned our backs on God by not heeding and giving in to the temptation to be good. The temptation exists. It is real and it is there, even within the smothering blackness the song presents. Yet we ignore it, resist it, and ultimately reject it. And for what? An aphotic existence of hopelessness tempered by vulgar pleasures and debauched distractions.

God's not away on business - we are.

Perhaps this is the message the song ultimately conveys.

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Recalling The Tripods Trilogy and "Capping"

4/23/2019

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On the train ride home from work today, my thoughts drifted over John Christopher’s The Tripods Trilogy, a young-adult science fiction series I had read when I was ten years old. It was perhaps the first science fiction series I ever read as a child, and I remember the story captivated me. Though it has been nearly forty years since I read it, I recall the novels were engrossing and well-written, with great characters and a plot my high school librarian would have referred to as a “real crackerjack of a story.”

The three books compromising the trilogy – The White Mountains (1967), The City of Gold and Lead (1967), The Pool of Fire (1968) - tell a post-apocalyptic tale in which humans have been enslaved by enormous three-legged walking machines referred to as Tripods piloted by aliens known only as the Masters. In the books, human civilization has reverted back to pre-industrial levels with most people living pastoral lifestyles in small villages. What little industry does exist is meticulously controlled by the ubiquitous presence of the Tripods, which stride over the landscape keeping close watch over everything humans do. Though some artefacts and remnants from the twentieth century still exist, such as watches, humans have essentially lost all memory of their former technologies and are often befuddled when they encounter ruins of high voltage electrical transformers and the like.

Despite being omnipresent in the landscape, the Tripods are not the primary means of control the Masters exert. The real population control happens with the metallic mesh-like skullcaps the Masters affix to each and every fourteen-year-old human in a ritualistic ceremony known as capping. The implants kill all curiosity and creativity, and the Masters render the human populace docile through what essentially amounts to mind control. Once a person is capped, he or she never questions anything or raises any doubts against the status quo.

The essential plot of the story revolves around three young teenagers who escape their homes before their respective capping ceremonies and eventually encounter fake-capped individuals and a secretive world beyond the Masters' control. These uncapped kids eventually join the resistance and fight to defeat the Masters and free humanity.

I don’t know what started me thinking about this sci-fi series I had read as a child, but my recollection of the capping ceremony and the thought control the alien masters implement in the novels struck me as an eerie analogy of our modern world. Modern people wear no cranial implants today, but they largely act exactly like the hypnotized majority in John Christopher’s Tripod novels. When I look out at the world I encounter the same utter lack of curiosity and creativity; the same moribund and apathetic acceptance of anything and everything our contemporary masters force upon us. Unlike the hapless individuals in the Tripod novels, modern people are not physically forced into surrendering their individuality and thinking – they give it away.

Freely. Gladly. Gratefully.

If he had not written them in the 1960s, I wonder if John Christopher would write the novels today. If he did, I wonder what, if anything, he would change. One thing that springs to mind is the capping ceremony itself. In the original novels, the newer version of the cap is fused onto the scalp, presumably because the device’s proximity to the brain is crucial for effective mind control.

I surmise John Christopher would have to reimagine this concept if he wrote the novels today. To begin with, capping modern peoples’ skulls would not put the device anywhere near their brains. As everyone knows, the brains of most contemporary people are located firmly in the gluteus maximus.

Thus, any mind control device in that region would probably function best if it were some cylindrical gadget, one that could be lubricated and rectally inserted.

Instead of capping, the contemporary initiation ritual would be referred to as corking, probing, or plugging. In certain American inner-city environments, the phrase “pop a cap in your ass” would take on a deeper and far more significant meaning.

Mind control aside, the procedure would have other visible side effects, the most obvious being a rather rigid, forced, and chronic penguin-like walk. But on the plus side, watching people waddle around Times Square at rush hour would be frightfully amusing. Furthermore, flatulence would be practically eliminated the world over.

And since everyone would be docile and happy, no human being in the world would ever accuse his fellow of having a “bug up his ass.” It would be a silly question to ask in the first place. The only possible answer would be, “Of course I do! And so do you!”

And I better stop there. I believe I have made my point. No need to wade farther into the Vulgar Swamp.

To return to the Tripods Trilogy for a moment – I no longer have my original copies, but I will certainly order the series for my son when he is old enough to read it and enjoy it. If you have never read this wonderful sci-fi trilogy, I highly recommend it. In fact, I am going to make a point of rereading it myself. I might just order the books sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, if this post has any other take-home message, it’s this – don’t allow yourself to get capped, on the skull or anywhere else. And if you feel you may have already been capped, don’t be afraid to remove the cap yourself.

Removing your cap in John Christopher’s novels meant either depression or instant death; removing your cap in the real world might just be your only chance at possible happiness and everlasting life.

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Blessed

4/22/2019

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I spent the previous two days with my wife and son exploring the countryside in western Hungary. Though we were only away for two days, it felt like a week (in the best possible sense). We visited three castles, a palace, Lake Balaton, the Keszthely Basilica, and a handful of small villages (I shall write a few posts about these later this week). The weather was ideal; dare I say, perfect. We enjoyed wonderful meals, explored fantastic places, and viewed breathtaking landscapes.

Of course, the best part was simply being together – enjoying the togetherness of family. When it comes to family, I am blessed – in every possible way.

I truly am.

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Exploring Castles With the Family

4/21/2019

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We are currently taking a little trip through the Hungarian countryside exploring castles, churches, and palaces. I brought my laptop with me to blog in the evenings, but unreliable Wifi connections are making this rather frustrating. I gave up on yesterday's post and will likely not post anything aside from this today.

I will resume my daily blogging on Monday.

Happy Easter

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