All Roads Lead to Rome - Not Really

    There is a new Pope, born and raised in Chicago. We have a new Pax Americana. That means that the world is being run, like the "world" was run by Rome over two thousand years ago, by the country in which we serve and live in, the United States of America.

    We are the greatest, the wealthiest, the most powerful. Our words and actions and monies have sway everywhere. The Romans ruled the known world back in the ancient days for a thousand years. However,  many peoples across the globe did not fall under their prevue back then, like the indigenous across the planet, or even the less civilized parts of Europe and the Middle East. While Rome was "in charge", there were still vast swaths of advanced civilizations like Japan, China, and India where people were not under its rule or affected much by it. Perhaps indirectly, both those Asian and other native cultures and societies managed to develop separately and independently of Roman influence.

    Likewise today in 2025, we are a mixed world of globalized powers, with strong oil-rich nations, other G8 or G7 powers linked to the U.S. but with their own sovereign interests, plus there are hundreds of zones outside of U.S. presence where they have their own cultures and rhythms external to the United States. Russia, Turkey, Ethiopia, on and on.

    We are not the end all be all. But we are a part of the world plans.

    And now we have a home grown American in the Vatican, which leads and guides the worldwide "universal" church.

    Where do all roads lead to? Not necessarily Rome or Washington D.C. or New York or London or Paris, or Beijing or Hong Kong, Tokyo, or New Delhi.

    We share the world and try to influence as we may.

    How do we lead or rule, or how do we share the planet?

    It's an us thing. Not, U.S. alone or just the most powerful. 

    All of us make up an intense, diverse, growing world of people and things.

There is a Cosmic Struggle: Solo Said "All of it is True"

    In each of us there are imperatives and truths that we must live and strive for.

    I have had a few friends that have taken their own lives. Some of them were really smart, most or all of them were brave and true, kind and strong. But, and so sadly, I think that they may have forgotten a few things. Like what? There are lots of imperatives that are true for each of us, both individually and collectively. Internal and external truths abound; we should never forget these truths, realities, battles, or struggles!

    Do not give up or stop pressing. The cosmic battles and wars are true. Each of us have stakes in them. Everywhere, all the time.

    What do I mean?

    Here it is: If you believe in it, or something, if the thing or person or system or concept means something significant to you, it is real. Do those who give up on life forget that these things were true? I think so. I write this in part to remind all of us that we are all part of the cosmic struggles that exist. May we never forget nor ignore that we are in it, and we matter in the cosmic plays of life.

    Fact or fiction, it works either way. If you believe it, as they say in the iconic baseball film, "they will come." Harrison Ford's epic anti-hero character in a later Star Wars uttered dramatically to his wayward son that all of it "was true." No more superstitions or hokey religions for his spirit, now beyond the pale of temporal life. Our hopes, fears, quests, and missions are true, you all.

    

    Empirical science is normally accepted as generally true to most people in the 21st century. However, there are plenty of global warming deniers, there are those that believe that the earth is flat, and other ridiculous ideas that have been disproven empirically. 

    In the Christian sense, there are approximately two billion believers in the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, who paid for our sins and died and resurrected in order to give us eternal life and the pathway back to God. If we believe it, it is our reality. Not provable by traditional scientific standards, but millions upon millions are ultimately convinced and convicted of its truth. Its implications bear influence in our lives from the reasons why we pick our work and mates, down to the smallest decisions and choices we make on a daily basis.

    Islam has similar conviction and presence, while the other world religions also have their impact and sway. Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, all the native indigenous traditions, all have their believers and practitioners with their current and future realities. In some countries and environments people are largely affected by their native cultures, which can be a bigger influence than religious or doctrinal beliefs and precepts.

    We have political beliefs and systems that hugely affect how we think and behave. Capitalism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism. All of them have a tremendous bearing in how we live and act. Economics becomes the harsh and real truth for almost all of us. How we work, live, travel: it affects our conversations and thought processes, and how our rules and laws will contour our very motivations, actions, and movements. Should I speed? Should I run that yellow? There are physical and moral laws that affect us in all moments. Should I have more calories? Should I try a drug or herb, or imbibe a certain drink. If I do intake these consumables, what should happen next?

    There is romance and family and relationship realities that we go by. Hugely influential in everything for most of us. Who do we live for? Work for, sacrifice, sweat and bleed for? Who do we pine and dream about? Many of these familial relations and links fit into our economic and religious imperatives. As Christians and Muslims and Jews, there are a multitude of what the spouse and the children and the parents mean to us. Not to leave out other faith traditions.

    Secular people of all varieties value human relations and commitments, regardless of the underpinning connections or implications of God and how we fit in the human family. Divinely based or not, parents and spouses and romantic interests determine much of our legal, emotional, and physical drives and efforts.

    I think that these things greatly affected my buddies Rob and Nicholas. They lost sight of some things, I presume, because of their thoughts about the above, human relations, but forgetting about other imperatives. Their jobs, their country, their spiritual and fraternal connections. Perhaps they could not see past these important things?

    I cannot explain the human brain, or our hearts.

    In the secular realm, ever growing in this modern day and age in which we live, we have much to live for and strive for. There are those who put utmost value on our planet and nature, or human beings, or animals and their environments, or some seek for less tangible things like honor, power, justice. Still others strive for more material wants, to include money and wealth, amazing possessions or experiences through adventures or vacations, highly favored achievements like races or other outstanding performances like feats of daring or skill. 

    What do we value or cherish? Beating the enemy in a competition? Beating out our own fears or apprehensions? Conquering oneself, overcoming on one's own? Working so hard that we vanquish the doldrums of self-lassitude? Reading a book? Completing a work of art? Writing a book, or a story? Standing up for the weak? Serving others. Giving a gift to a loved one or perhaps a complete stranger? Saving a helpless person or animal in distress? Paying homage to the dead? Learning a new concept, or mastering a difficult task? To land the perfect job, to execute the perfect plan, to achieve the most excellent workday, or week, or year?

    Sure, all of the above give us satisfaction and joy. Most of these can be measured and are real in ways to quantify or at least describe and depict.

    And then there are the fictions and fantasies. Oh, man! To include crushes, flirtations, dalliances, obsessions, passions, prayers, and all sorts of things based on hopes, dreams, and imaginations of things that are not truly pertinent to our solid lives or our tangible gain. Things of our mind that may not prove real enough. Yet, these ideas or distant objects may influence our motivations and our hearts, our longings in the conscious, the sub-conscious and the unconscious. These "non-real" flights of fancy can overwhelm or consume us! Like me with sports or teams or players, or a character from a film, a singer from a concert, or the people that we admire near or far on all the genres of life, from the television to all the panoplies of where we live and breathe. It could be the memories and sentiments of yesteryear, or family members or friends that we have not seen for long periods, including the dead. Even those that have passed may possess our wills and dreams.

    We long for what? For God, for salvation and peace, for love and romance, security and prosperity, for adventure and accomplishment, for some addictions or compulsions, friends and families, faith and organizations, arts and beautiful works, for causes and notions, countries and pledges, standards and laws, oaths and covenants, promises and commitments. For good food, drinks, entertainment, friendships, and on and on. Yet, there are limits to our wants and needs.

    We are only so finite, there can only be so many desires.

    There are ends to our ultimate hopes and prayers. 

    What does it all mean? We are complex and simple, intricate and basic.

    We are paradoxes. We can spend inordinate hours or years on things of nothing further, games of chance or games of the mind, on people or places or efforts that yield nothing further, nothing of import. Yet we did all that. Consumed by things of little or no worth. And most of us, hopefully, make it through.

    We hope and pray.

    We ask for forgiveness of past wrongs, of former flights of untoward thoughts or actions, we ask for pardon from our creators, the masters of our universe, the loves of our lives, the cherished ones who have moved on from this life already, the wounded and dead of past wars, past lifetimes, past eras.

    We offer them thanks and plead for mercy and love and acceptance and more wisdom and justice and righteousness and joy.

    And this is all a part of the cosmic struggle. My friends Rob and Nicholas were smart enough, kind enough, tough enough, to know that there were cosmic struggles on this earth and this time that still needed them, that despite the sadness of some setbacks, a broken relationship with a girlfriend, or perhaps sadder future prospects, or the second divorce after yet another deployment, and estrangement from his teenage daughter, that life still had battles to be fought and wars to be won.

    May we all see that. See those struggles as cosmic, and worth it, and that we must find the efforts significant of tackling and engaging and continue to live and breathe, to go on, to persist, and endure.

    Endure through the tough times and continue to fight. Take in breaths, despite the trials and setbacks. The heartaches and losses. 

    We must press on in all the cosmic battles, the overall war against the attrition and loss that cuts too many of us down.

    May I, and you, and we, persist in these battles and the wars to come, as we have made this far as a human race and that we have much more to go.

    I do not think these battles will ever truly end.

    Thus, stay the course and resolve to do better, or at least keep keeping on.

    Struggle and wriggle and squeeze what we can from this life, hour to hour, day to day, and make this cosmic battle and war what it is. Our best and only way to achieve the ultimate victory over failure. Surviving, even without complete excellence, is triumph. Lasting until the end. Pausing and resting are okay, but not giving up and quitting for good.

    Choose life, choose to give and continue sharing.

    Please.

    The cosmos demands it.

    It is not just me. It is all of us. We all matter a great deal. This I know.

    I am not sure how I know many things. But I know we matter. And, we shall overcome through continuing to battle.

    Keep on keeping on.

    

Charles Strauss, born in 1928. He Added to our Lives

    Oh, the people born before the Great Depression! Now passing away from us, like the others of his age. We know few people now in their 90s, but we are grateful that they make it this long. Dick Van Dyke, Carol Burnett. The great comedy actors and laughers such as they. Still hanging on!

    I did not know Charles Strauss much by name, but I knew his work. Growing up, "Annie" made an impression on me. It came out in 1977. Broadway, I am sure. Carol Burnett did a movie version of it. The only problem was, that version profaned too much. But the stage version was clean enough, along with all the music, and I loved it. I saw the production in Bloomington by fifth grade, and I was memorizing many lines. Many, for me. I have not been that good at memorizing things verbatim, so when I do, it stands out. Even now into my 50s I struggle, perhaps more so, to memorize. 

    This has hurt me, maybe over the last few years more and more. 

    But, Annie and the songs were formidable to me. This man made an impact on me and millions of others. "Bye, Bye, Birdie" was a good show at the high school a few years ago. We enjoyed it.

    Thanks, Charles! You appeared to a be a total winner! Nothing bad to know or say about you!

    We appreciate all that you shared with the rest of us.

    The sun has come up, and it is tomorrow. Days that are grey are less lonely because of your talents and contributions.

    God bless you and all yours, and all of us through you and your works.

    Rest in musical and restful peace.

 Did I Do Enough? Have I Done Well? Was I Who I Should Have Been?

    It is normal to question ourselves. Especially if we are going through hard times. My last two months have been somewhat difficult and disappointing. These times make me, like most people, wonder if I am good enough, smart enough, Have I tried hard enough? Was I too complacent? Did I commit too many errors? Are my priorities not correct? Did I spend too much time distracted from what is most important?

    Uff. 

    Did I make poor decisions this last year? Yes. Did I make mistakes, many of which should have been avoided? Of course. Have I had times of poor judgment and effort? Yes.

    After all this review, I realize that I did many good things, too. Overall, I did okay. I stayed above water. I lived, I loved, I tried to help others as I could.

    I believe in Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. I belong to it, and I have participated. I have asked for forgiveness , I have tried to achieve Oneness and reconciliation with Him and my family, fellow saints and brothers and sisters.

    I have hope.

    I will continue, I will persist.

    And we must look to Jesus and live. 

    Grateful for my life, my wife, my family, my nation, and leaders, beyond faults and problems.

    I must be centered and at peace. I will go forward and be grateful, content.

    And God oversees us all. I trust in Him, and His plan.

    Blog on.

    

 Love Poetry and Love, Feelings

    My wife remarked that she was proud or grateful for some of the birthing marks that she has acquired in giving birth to and raising our children. I agree. I am proud, appreciative, and forever grateful for the contributions and sacrifices that she has submitted to in order to form and sustain our children.

    I remembered writing a poem along those lines after our first child. The scars were beatific, a stigmata in a way, of pain and love, sacrifice and devotion. I did not tell her that at the moment last night, but I reminded her of it this morning. Her reaction to it back then, well over twenty years ago, was "Wow, he really does love me!" 

    Yes, I really do. I did then and I do now. She has not stopped caring, giving, sharing, loving, sacrificing for our children. She does all that for me, too, her husband.

    I write poetry; it is not my main source of expression. I like prose, like this very entry, better. But song, lyric, and poetry can hit notes (pun intended), that mere words cannot touch or cover as well.

    Roses are red, violets are blue.

    All those things: emotions, sentiments, analysis, records, are represented in stories and the arts, through the media of film, literature, song, plays, poems, visual arts like paintings and sculptures.

    My lost poetry will be found. I have it scattered across books and journals, random pages and leaves of paper in at least three stories of my house. May they not burn in a fire, and forever be lost to the vagaries of time and woe.

    Might those words and sentiments be collected and gathered, re-shared and contemplated, perhaps relaying to the once and future me and you and us what might be achieved through searching heart and mind, soul and conscience. 

    What else is there? Work, achievement, love, war, battles, races, games, all the things that we film and photograph, document and record.

    Like this.

    Blog it.

 When I was 21: I wrote in my Journal, Like My Daughters 

    I read some from it this morning, to my wife, before she swam. It helped her achieve a couple of moments of unconsciousness, also known as sleep, as she said that she had been up or awake since 3:00 am.

    "Are you awake?" Pause. "Yes, I am."

    Okay, I think. My words have their effect. I am glad to give her brain a little respite, relax.

    I wrote some poetry, or flowing words of sorts, in January and February of 1992, or 2000-8, as I called it. My journal I filled in about 10 months, the ones following my two-year mission.

    Little was I to know that I would marry my future spouse in the year 2000. Two thousand. Conan O'Brien and their show celebrated it, back in the earlier 1990s, like me counting down to the millennium. 

    25 years later, I am re-reading it, this compendium of thoughts and feelings. My wife had read from her journal from 1997 and 1998, when she had moved to Washington D.C. and Las Vegas, Nevada. She went there in April 1998, a question that I had wondered for many years. Some dates are not quite solid to her. Like when she graduated high school, or her age when her father left her home. 1991, 1992, 1993... Or 1994. 

    Admittedly, many memories and even dates get hazy in my mind, in my memory banks. I am sometimes surprised what I have forgotten. Such is life. I have reasons, many reasons, to memorize more things in the now, the present, and there are many things that I have failed to learn verbatim. Like the exercise commands of the Army. It cost me, only last summer. June of 2024. Ugh. Cost me chances to promote one more time.

    Like my failures of 2018. Not the greatest year, not the worst. It turned into much worse for some I know, so I could not have space for too much complaint. Must be grateful, I knew.

    I know that.

    So, that is a surmisal of the life of me over thirty years, well over thirty years.

    Time moves on.

A capture of one poem from January, 1992? 23rd of January (2000-8).

    "Hundreds of pages

        

     Through the ages

     Have confounded the sages

    While soul cages

    Ages and ages of many, many years "

    I penned a line, and wrote about the above. Investigating myself, my thoughts, my life.

    

    

Us in Time for a Short Period; He Begat Me, I Begat Thee

Us in Time for a Short Period; He Begat Me, I Begat Thee (We in Time?)

    We only live so long. Some make it to one hundred years. They are few and far between. My uncle Harry made it to one hundred years-old; he was gone a couple months later. Most of us do not make it to the 90s. How much time do we need? All right, his spirit left, but his body was interred at the federal cemetery in central Pennsylvania. Next to his lifelong partner, my aunt, who passed 25 years prior. Perhaps she only made it to age 70.

    I just learned of a 52-year-old woman in Arkansas, the sister of a man that I met when we were children, a cousin to distant family of mine, who died in a car accident, maybe a week ago. She is buried now. Her life chapter is over. She lived a bit more than half a century. How long do we live?

    Whether it is 33 or 66, or more, we all will have only so much time to live. To make our marks.

    Adam and Eve lived 6,000 years ago? They lived very long lives, we believe.

    Perhaps so.

    Many of them back in the ancient Bible times lived hundreds and hundreds of years. Like Noah and Methusaleh, according to Genesis.

    Us now? Lucky to make sixty, for many. Others make their 70s and 80s.

    Like our family histories, meticulously kept and worked by us living. Some ancestors have a first name, a death date, a place of birth or death. Mere basic facts. So many of us are reduced to random or incomplete date. Better than a person who never was recorded at all, and perhaps not even given a marked grave.

    Millions of us in our shared families, some only a few generations ago, are mere foot notes, blips with no further information. Since the time of the print press, many people have larger footprints in our records, and now it seems the rise of the Internet many more of us are immortalized through all the things that have captured us in the data centers, servers, and the ether net Clouds or wherever our online lives and data is stored.

    Waxing nostalgic. Thinking of existence, types of permanence, or impermanence, or ephemerality. Our meaning and place in this world.

    We, as mere blips, while eking out our lives and meanings on this mortal plane. This is what we know, for now.

    What of me, and the millions who are not notorious, but we exist in this 21st century through the social media?

    What of all this blogging?

    What of my life, now longer than shorter. Made it more than halfway, pretty sure.