233.4 lbs

… some snacking last night… alcohol… only 13K steps… no weight gain or loss…

… HCR meter distressing this AM… a report from years ago that the Republican party has moved so far right that it wasn’t possible to govern… it is worse now… there is a real chance 45 will become 47, even as the Biden/Harris administration attempts to rescue Ukrainian Democracy from the Russian fires of hell…

… the first Black woman will be appointed to the Supreme Court… the news pundits act as if she will make a difference… i am pessimistic about that… if things go the way i believe them capable of going, we may arrive at a place where she is removed from the Supreme Court… it is hard to imagine an authoritarian government allowing her to stay…

… my foundational thesis remains as it has been for at least a decade… the mostly white patriarchy is attempting to make sure it has the reigns of power forever… Democracy is not convenient so they will get rid of it… what the majority of citizens want does not matter, just as facts don’t matter… the mostly white oligarchs want something else… how to hold on to self and principles regardless of what the patriarchy does…

… i keep looking for a lever of understanding to pull, that anyone could pull… or at least a “don’t worry be happy lever”… such an insipid sentiment… i read philosophy looking for that lever, that revelation that will let me understand how it can be better or at least help me be at peace when it gets worse… i am learning that these things happen in cycles and one does what one does… Socrates chose a principled position… it didn’t stop the cycle… he was executed… his legend continues to this day… how has that legend helped anyone?… has it stopped or even appreciably altered the cycles?… a far as i can see, what he railed against in his day continues to come back in cyclical waves of human misery…

… i think of myself a feeble imitation of Socrates… as if his blood line diminished in Socratic intensity to the point of barely flavored tea or coffee in me… the cycle is at a place that won’t be to my liking for a good long time… long past my death… one needs to cope as best they can… to have horizons… to bequeath something positive to the future…

… how am i to be happy with my remaining years?… will i contribute something meaningful with them?… i continue to make the work i have always made… images from walks… a refined selection of those images… these journal entries…