“What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.” The Buddha

I don’t know about you, but time and circumstance are how I mark my life. What happens and when it happens are life’s finger prints. The end of a year and the start of a new one are the past and future’s bullseye. Doing this writing thing I do and how I do it, makes it impossible to ignore.                                                                      

Being a Gemini, this duality is right up my alley. When I first started learning about the characteristics of my sign, seeing the two-headed Janus was just perfect for this time of year. Gemini Alley separates yesterday’s internal monologue from tomorrow’s. Long before I got into this writing thing of mine, I learned that my sign spawns a creative breeze blowing in between myself and myself. I am like a word mirror, sharing the view with you.

Yesterday and tomorrow embrace each other, jamming the present in between the two, leaving little room for the stillness of the moment. I realize this kind of talk can easily sound like some esoteric bullshit, a place I don’t particularly care to hang out. We tend to short change the present, which is all that really matters, after all. 

 When I look through the eyes of Janus facing the past, I think about my longevity and my loss and my love. The first two are inseparable. I clocked 80 this year and I am not talking about motorcycle speed. I don’t care how anyone else chooses to frame it, but it is fucken old. I now keep an eye over my shoulder, making sure that fear keeps its distance, a dark figure lurking around every corner. I know I am supposed to say we are a vessel of energy, entering us at birth and passing through when we pass on. Now, I actually think about shit like that like that and I can’t say I’ve bought into it totally yet.

Linked with the energy flow business is the truth regarding the  temporary nature of everything in our lives. Truth is an incredibly abused term, but the idea of impermanence is inescapably true.

I get a pretty high rating in the loss arena, some a given, like the loss of grandparents, parents and friends along the way. I don’t like thinking of my time as lost, because it wasn’t and what matters is my time left. At times, it feels like a secret, internal wrestling match. Come to think of it, we can’t forget the Gemini business either. Just think about Janus flipping around to stare at itself, a face off! Thankfully, I don’t argue with myself and we are quite civil toward each other. 

I lost a son this year. He was named after my father, who died when I was nine. Sometimes, there are no words, just silent sadness.

Even though I saved love for last, it is always first, but I needed to get your attention. I think our capacity to love increases with age, not in its depth, but in its width. I don’t know of an instrument that accurately measures love’s intensity. We all have one of those tools, but each is precisely calculated to reflect our unique calibration. Poetry is close as you can get to a common language. Having gotten all the way up here, I can safely say that love generosity is a reflection of it’s internal intensity. The deeper you feel it, the more you want to share it. OK, it’s one guy’s opinion.

I’d say it’s been an intense year for me, which is by no means a complaint. It was the first full year I have had no schedule, professionally speaking. So, there I was, tangoing with my 80th, having a shitload of time on my hands. You know, if someone wants to become a doctor in their 80’s, I wish them all the best. As for me, I love having time to think and to feel, both grateful and truly humbled by this gift of time.

For those of you who watched Stranger Things, 2025 was the Upside Down World right here, no contest. Our very own Vecna plopped his sorry-ass self on to his solid gold toilet, hurriedly purchased from Home Despot. Whether you spent any time with that series or not, you’d have to appreciate the incredibly imaginative production. By contrast, this one of ours is flat, barren, parched, crude and the only audience that loves it is the 0.0001%, profiteering as a direct result of financially empowering Vecna.

It is a cruel kind of joke that the uber wealthy can be so inhumane, overfed and anxious to starve everyone else. Our political system is just a board game for those folks. I am not sure when they started grooming their perfect Manchurian Candidate and why he had to be orange, but they scored big time with this tool. Here is one huge problem for them, these bastards know no limits and keeping with the movie theme, I see the guy exploding in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. They have Fentanyl Souls and can’t say no. 

Now, I’d be wondering what the hell that pirate image is doing attached to this story? Why bring it up here? This image is lifted from a Japanese anime franchise. The Straw Hat Pirates fight for the liberation of oppressed people. The flag has been taken over by young protesters all over the world, spearheading the overthrow of governments in Nepal and Madagascar, making its presence felt in others, even Iran. In our country, the cancerous growth of our military this past year has been like the bursting of an infected boil, finally showing its ugly face to all. Waiting for the flag to start waving here.

I don’t know what Janus sees for the coming year, but change is coming, because change is constant. Vecna is thoroughly intoxicated by his power. I think it is the kind of power that destroys itself and he’s gonna have some billionaire help, beyond his rotten, putrid soul. Our country has been stolen from us, an act of political piracy and we have to figure out how to take it back. The Frigate America is way off course. A compassionate shore is where the light shines on this dream, turning our backs on this global nightmareJust read that our Vecna actually had Vanilla Ice perform at his gold and marble, Mar-a-Lago New Years bash. I think it is a perfect close to this little ditty of mine. What can I say after that?

Bring on 2026. Ship Ahoy! Time for mutiny! Arrr!

PS: Apologies to Henry Creel, the real Vecna.

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