What Makes You Happy?
At this moment in time, there are enough news reports around the world that appear to exist with the sole intention of either demoralizing or alarming you. Both go hand in hand in the game that the social engineers play. If you’re on social media—and most of us are—it’s sometimes easy to skip over the celebratory posts your friends put out there to instead concentrate on the latest report of Drag Queen Story Hour or what trans person has been elevated to the heights of royalty by said social engineers.
But I have taken note that my friends have been posting a lot of Ws lately. One person posted a picture of a few just born baby turkeys. Numerous people have been celebrating their children’s accomplishments. A few have been traveling both foreign and domestically and are posting pictures with huge smiles that tell me they are enjoying themselves and not obsessing over the most recent tragedy porn being posted on social media.
But the thing that gives me the most hope—the one way my internet friends make my life better—is that so many of them have not lost their sense of humor. When I scroll through my timeline, the jokes are always waiting for me. Even when it’s something deadly serious, I can rely upon my peeps to make me smile, chuckle, or genuinely laugh out loud. Those moments when your friends type a few words that cause you to forget about the dread du jour that the social engineers have thrust upon you are to be cherished. If we ignore the simple things, the precious moments, and the celebrations of life we do so at our own peril. It should be obvious that living happy lives is the one thing the powers that be don’t want us to do. Living a happy life means we are not falling for their lies and, as we need nothing from them, we ignore their social engineering. It may be the greatest form of rebellion that we can perform at this moment.
I am not on social media anymore, even though I do peep in on Twitter comments linked from news articles. I live in rural Missouri and there are so many things that make me smile. Here are some:
Ava, where I live, has had a 1,000 year rivalry with Mountain Grove, the town in which I work. I rib the older guys when we win a game against them and they line up early to give it back to me when they win.
My neighbors Rich and Shelley are building a successful, locally raised and humanely cared for, livestock business. I purchase raw milk, eggs, beef and homemade cheese from them every couple of weeks. We trade back and forth and they always give me the dime tour on new additions to their growing endeavor.
My garlic. I grow hundreds of garlic plants. Planted in the fall and ready to be picked in July. Seeing them go from just a few inches above ground to nearly 4ft tall in summer is a joy. The top flowers into this beautiful 'Scape', which is not a true flower but the butterflies and honeybees inspect it for nectar, then knock off some seeds which helps in spreading out some 'volunteers' all over my property.
My ornamental crabapple tree. It is blossoming now and within a couple of weeks, I will be able to place my ear next to the tree as its entirely is engulfed with the low buzzing sound of the flowers completely covered with honeybees busy working the nectar.
Strawberries. We get wild strawberries out here. They grow pretty early, are small and the sweetest thing you will ever taste. If I am out mowing or just walking my fence line with my coffee, I will catch sight of a couple of them and scoop them up to eat before the deer and rabbits find them.
Jake's beagles. My neighbor's son has 4 beagles. He lets those damned things run all over the county and you can hear them for miles, hunting and scaring up rabbits. I get so pissed off and then they show up to say hello. They are a couple of feet long, long floppy ears and when they see me they roll over on their backs and I say: 'Oh......alright. You are all very cute'. I pet them and then they run off again to terrorize more rabbits.
The morning quiet. I get up around 4:30 every morning. I make my coffee and sit outside with nothing except that strong, rich brew. I listen to the stillness, gaze at the splashed stars of the Milky Way and am thankful for being where I am.
Those are some of the things, and that makes living in this time more enjoyable.
Absolutely brother. The best way to agitate @$$holes, is to keep on keeping on. Out delivering fill dirt this morning. And loving every minute of it. God is great 👍. Living life is always awesome.