Daddy on the Edge Of Year Two

Welcome to the first day of Daddy on the Edge - Year Two!

(Huzzah, huzzah! General Merriment Ensues!)

Yes, today is the anniversary of this blog, and I've been taking the morning to reflect on year one of Daddy's run here in the blogosphorium. I can take solace in the fact that, unlike so many of our elected representatives, I kept my initial promises to the reader - here's what I wrote a year ago;

"What might you expect to find here? Yeah...I'm kinda wondering that myself. Random insights? Probably. Inspirational messages? Possibly - if we're lucky. An eclectic potpourri of whatever the hell happens to be on my mind at any given time of the day or night and then gets spewed across the screen before I can think about it enough to stop myself? Oh yeah...there's gonna be plenty of that."

I think I've done a damned good job in keeping to that. Lesson to politicians - Only make the promises you know you can keep. If it serves no other benefit than that you don't open your mouths as often, then it will still be a win.

So, what's in store for year two? More of the same, I would think. I can't seem to stop myself from blabbing my innermost thoughts into the digital ether, and enough of you seem to like it, so I'll just keep babbling, and hope that you'll politely tell me to shut the heck up when you've heard enough.

I'm also going to try to point out the success stories of people that are trying to make a real difference in this world. People that you may not have heard of, but who need to be known and spoken about hopefully on a par with the amount of times that Lindsay Lohan or Carrot Top or the name of any contestant on "Big Brother" comes up in the daily conversation. Here's the first guy- I have a hard time believing that this guy is real;




Here's another example of what can happen when you don't wait for congressional approval or a government mandate or any of that other..nonsense...



What one of the women in this video said grabbed me, and it will more than likely be the driving theme of Daddy on the Edge, Year 2 -

Who is the government to define progress for us when that progress does not reach everyone?

The government has shown us what it is largely about - tax cuts for the uber wealthy, tax giveaways for major corporations, rewards for shipping jobs overseas where labor is cheap - there's a lot of talk from the Hill about fighting for the American People. Well, it's pretty easy to see exactly which American People they're fighting for, and it ain't us. Waiting for a government that's "just not that into us" to change our world for the better cannot be the answer. Fighting over the talking points that right and left wing media insist we banter about is not the answer either - that is simply a diversion and makes us part of the problem. To be part of the solution, we need to follow the example of the people in these videos, and help ourselves... help those of us that need help the most. That is Daddy's Christmas wish; that each of us can do more to be part of the solution and less to be part of the problem.

That is Daddy's Christmas wish. Since Daddy lives in an interfaith household, Daddy gets a Hanukkah wish as well, and that wish is this;

Have Fun With It.

It took me the better part of forty six years to realize this - Life on the planet works easier when you don't take it so seriously. Maybe you have to reach middle age to figure that out, because at this stage of the game, I have almost completely stopped caring about what other people think, and that has been a magnificently freeing experience. You feel lighter without others expectations of who you are weighing down on your psyche. "Yourself" is a fun person if you let them be...so be "Yourself".

I will leave you with this final video. I have asked Christopher Walken to illustrate the concept of this last paragraph, and he has graciously agreed (okay, so that's BS, but it fits, so roll with it, k?). So, without further ado, I give you Christopher Walken;




Thanks for walking the Edge with me,

Daddy