Highlights in the headlights: celebrating four years of RRS

As it turns out, writing is a more common passion than I thought.  Yes, there are those whose living depends upon their ability to express themselves in words and to create something from nothing by painting life portraits on blank pages via written language.  Seeking to earn a living by such means is an honorable and worthy of aspiration.  For some, the aspiration part of that sentiment may be as high as their passion ever arises.  In my case, despite the fact I’ve kept a personal journal and written in it every day or at least every other day for the past nearly forty-four years, I’ve never earned one cent for anything I have written.

It hasn’t really been all that long ago that weblogs (aka blogs) appeared on the cyber scene and became a common sight on the World Wide Web.  I myself first noticed them in the early 2000’s, around 2003 and their number since has only multiplied.  As a disciplined journal keeper, keeping a blog seems a natural extension of that practice.  For the record, this is not the first blog I have kept.  In the summer of the 2008 election cycle, I set up a blog on website where I maintained two message boards and challenged myself to post an entry a day or every other day for one year to see if I could do it.  I kept it up for a few weeks beyond that target.      

Reason Rest Stop was a project that spent several years in the conceptual stage before coming to fruition.  In late November 2014, with the help of a tech-savvy friend, Mr. Steven Copley, RRS was established.  Aside from the first test post, it wasn’t until the following month that blogging again became part of my routine.  A medium such as this provides a cerebral analyst a platform to organize thoughts, formulate a message and find a unique and original voice amid the cacophony of a milieu that is often chocked full of repetitive memes and narratives.  In the past four years there have been a few choice posts on RRS that often get referenced in online discourses or have gotten the lion’s share of engagements on the RRS Facebook page.  Here are a few of the better pieces.

 

                 

Nobody can say we didn’t see this coming:

Excerpt:  
“In my post military life and career it has been my experience in dealing with professionals and business persons who wear their conservative and usually Republican values/credentials on their sleeve that they have a marked tendency to demand the benefit of everything (or all they can get in whatever situation) and the liability of nothing.  Several I have had to deal with possessed no real sense of shared risk or sacrifice.  Most have had an agenda, economic or professional, and the #1 item on it has been themselves.  Several have exuded an air of superiority and a heightened sense of self-importance relative to their station in life.  I have seen some take credit for all success and deny, deflect and shirk all blame for any failure.  Many have thrived on admiration from others and some have used this to serve their own selfish ends.  Just about all, to some degree, lacked empathy.  To be fair, the vast majority of them had some solid personal redeeming qualities but trying to get past all the other stuff to see them was often very difficult.  What all these people showed were traits of what the psychiatric professionals would call a narcissistic personality disorder. “

Originally posted August 23rd, 2015

Excerpt:
“I do in fact support the 2nd Amendment.  I also support the other twenty-six (less the eighteenth, of course).  The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed but it is not without limitation.  Advocating for reasonable limits on this sentiment to does not make you any more anti-2nd Amendment than advocating for reasonable safe speed limits in school zones make you anti-automobile.  You do not need a military arsenal for home or self defense.”  

Originally posted on October 7th, 2015

Excerpt:
“One basic fact of life I have discovered in that thirty-five years since the start of that salient week on my own personal timeline is that life is about relationships.  Forget about all the money you can earn.  Forget about all the property and toys you might accrue along the way.  Forget about all the advanced degrees and full-of-frills diplomas with your full name in elaborate gold calligraphy you can stack on top of one other.  All of these cannot assure you of any real sense of immortality as all will likely be forgotten about the week after your friends and family finish shoveling enough dirt on you to cover you up and place your headstone on top of you or scatter your ashes to the four winds.  You may not know it at the time but your life, the decisions you make and the actions you take can have a profound impact and touch the lives of so many others, both those who are close to you and even many who at the time may be total strangers.  Make no mistake about it, the overall metric of your existence is the number of lives you touch in a positive fashion.”

Originally posted December 12th, 2015

So many posts in 2016 could rate honorable mention but so many more in 2017 contained seemingly foreboding prophecies as reading the writing on the wall was not difficult in seeing what was coming.  Among those posts include the following:   

Excerpt:

“Read what I post now, believe it later.  Supporting this President, for whatever reason, has required a pact with Satan.  It would not be so bad if this particular devil was not working (or trying to) at his level of incompetence.  Painful as it is to watch, this is now what passes for American leadership and all who entered into this pact, be it tacit approval or active support, are now bear responsibility for the results borne by their decision.  I suppose a reasonable question is can any of them place a monetary value of a clear conscience.”


Originally posted on February 19th, 2017

Excerpt:

“The bottom line for the here and now is the Russian hacking scandal is NOT going away and the longer the President dismisses it as a “Witch Hunt” the longer it will a cause for national division.  Truthfully, there is no guarantee the aftermath of the outcome of the investigation will heal any rift be it actual or perceived in the body politic and the nation a whole.  Mr. Trump is quite the media-made showman but his coping ability with real national problems is wearing thin as the nation approaches difficult and  dangerous territory in an evermore dangerous world.  Foreign policy, economics and things that matter to all citizens like affordable health care are going to require addressing and this growing cancer on the Presidency is hindering progress to the point of standstill.  It is one thing to make a statement by voting for a businessman with no experience in government.  It is another thing entirely to ignore all ethical and potentially criminal problems that have come to Washington with him.  I will pose the query once more,
Does the end justify the means?”

Originally posted on June 30th, 2017

Probably the best post of 2018 was one made after the Teacher’s Walkout when so many pro-education Oklahomans stepped up to try to make a difference in a seemingly indifferent state government.

Excerpt:

“One benefit campaigning for public office offers most who make the commitment is the opportunity to grow in ways and directions many candidates never knew existed let alone ever considered.  One thing apparent about this particular midterm election cycle that has been notably absent in previous ones is the level of enthusiasm.  There is a grassroots Democratic groundswell of citizens demanding a change of course in state government coupled with a quality of commitment that has not been seen in Oklahoma in several years.  Whether or not this is enough to move the ideology meter from extreme right to closer to the middle remains to be seen, however, inept governance and those responsible for it have been placed on notice.”

Originally posted on May 10th, 2018

As stated above, these noted highlights were cited as the more popular ones in terms of views on the RRS Facebook page and the number of times they have been referenced in discourse. Given the amount of time RRS spent in the conceptual stage, this four year milestone marks a certain level of accomplishment. Standing on the threshold of its fifth year at 215+ posts, I wonder where it will be four years down the road. To all my regular readers, thank you all for following. You all validate that there is a market and a readership for happenings in the life and times along the Mother Road’s most conservative stretch.