It’s strange to me now that a year ago I started this blog with the attention of uploading mostly images about love and beauty in the world. It was intended mainly to be a tribute to how much I love my husband and sons. I uploaded a couple of pictures, a few song lyrics and then forgot about it.

The other day I was reminded about it out of the blue and thought it would be neat to start up again. I wanted a place to be myself and revel in the things that interest me with a certain level of anonymity. That may sound cowardly…and it is. But to be perfectly honest, it’s a selfish need to “protect” my sons. We live in a very um, conventional place. The people here are mostly white, mostly christian, mostly republican…mostly “good, upstanding American folk that support the troops that are protecting their rights and freedoms from those good for nothing terrorist scum that would just love to see all us all blown to pieces.”

Up until the last year or so, my husband and I were partially indoctrinated in this belief ourselves. Well, we have had an issue with religion for a while and we did admit that our government wasn’t perfect, but basically we were eating up the rest of the bullshit wholeheartedly. But slowly we began to wake up.

Things that made sense before somehow became foggy. 

Things that I had never thought of before were somehow THERE. I had a buzzing in my brain…it was suddenly full of questions.

I’m an avid reader and had a sudden longing to reexamine a few of the classics;  a few I’ve read before (but now realize I didn’t fully understand) and some of those I had heard of but never had the time. Among these were “Animal Farm”, “1984”, “Anthem”, “Fahrenheit 451”, etc…

Amazingly enough, around this time my husband somehow begins listening to lectures by Noam Chomsky on his way to and from work. Immediately he is hooked. He calls me on the phone to repeat quotes, we lay on the bed after the kids are in bed for the night, listening to Noam speak from my husband’s iphone. He begins searching for more information, more lies that we have always taken for granted as truths.

Things begin to get a little scary when you start to realize what all is out there; When your whole foundation of belief is examined and you realize that it isn’t concrete you are standing on after all, but quicksand. Every “stone” has to be reexamined, every last pebble.

For a while, I felt lost. I felt like I didn’t know anything for sure anymore. You have to dig so hard and so long and learn everything you can about something before you can form an opinion. I’ve learned that people we deemed as hero’s before are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. Our most hated enemies are turning out to be not that different from ourselves.

So, we are slowly learning. My opinions are changing…I’m trying to build a solid foundation this time. One I choose for myself after extremely careful examination of each tiny stone I add to it. It will take a long time I’m sure. It’ll be shaky and constantly changing for a while, maybe forever.

I still have a lot to learn…I’ll be learning until the day I die. 

We slowly, carefully pass on what we learn to our sons. We are cautious to always tell them “this is our opinion. Others think differently…in the end, you have to choose for yourselves.” To most children their parent’s word is law. They unquestioningly believe whatever we say, no matter how bizarre. We don’t want to brainwash our children into believing as we do (especially since there are still tons of things we aren’t quite sure of), we want to set them free to believe in their own way after learning as much as they can on the subject. And when they are old enough to understand what their beliefs actually are, what they mean, THEN and only then do we want them to have to answer to the hate and resentment that will arise from their peers, their teachers and classmates, etc.. As their mother I want them go into battle fully armed with the knowledge of what they are fighting for and the utter belief in it before they have to fight…I don’t want them fighting my battles for MY reasons. Hence the reason for my desired anonymity while they are still so young.

I hope that this blog gives me a safe place to organize my thoughts and figure out exactly what I believe in again. At this point the only things I can say for sure are: I love my family and I love the possibilities of humanity. I want to be a good person and help those that truly need it and deserve it. I want to make a difference. I want to live an honest life (eventually). I want others to be honest with me as well. I want to discover the truth, as much as it exists and live a “true” life, not an illusion. I want to help my sons become the best versions of themselves and teach them to always question, to never accept a fact until they examine it with their own eyes and deem it so. I want to teach them to think of others, to help as much as they can, to think about their impact on the world and strive to make it a positive one. I want to do the same… I want to enjoy what life has to offer so far as beauty in nature, music, good literature, the love of your family, wine, the pleasure of a good joke and the ability to laugh at yourself. 

I just want to be free…and I’m finally getting there.

amodernmanifesto:

ircimages:

How America is destined to search the webs.

Upon seeing this, I would type in: “Communist Al Qaeda Palestine Iran supporters join” and then leave for Canada.