Wipe the sleep from your eyes and look upon the landscape. Scratch that itch and stretch those ligaments as a final yawn delivers that boost of oxygen needed by the brain. These morning rituals run on auto pilot as the waft of freshly brewed coffee fills the air waking the brain acting as a marker during this morning routine. 

This repetitive routine has settled and become a daily ritual timed imprecisely but always finishing around the same time. Thoughts dart from one topic to the next but mostly center around what’s next. What’s next? 

  
This morning as the fog filled the streets giving a somber feeling to my surroundings thoughts stretched beyond its confines. My mood after sitting all day on a slow day at work dampened. That inner voice wasn’t holding me down it was energy that was sapped from from my person. Energy that was needed to keep up and move forward. Somehow reaching deep inside reserves that are always there were tapped as creative conditioning took over to lift my spirit up. 

Our modern love is nurtured through letters and voices communicated through a screen and live video. Our interaction not physical but emotional at times. Emotional in the sense that we laugh together. That we interact and learn to communicate even though we can’t hold each other through the night. Distance has given us a chance to approach this bonding in a different way. It’s making our hearts grow fonder. 

  
There are other positives completely unrelated to my immediate surroundings. These relate to appreciating something that can only be admired because of a strength of character, of personal conviction. What some may see as a weakness should really be seen as a strength. The idea that by dropping bombs and by using force that it will change the world. The world is changed by coercion. It is changed by convincing people that there is a better way. Violence only seems to create more if it and reading about the US president and the decisions that he had to make regarding pushing us into further conflict were welcome and refreshing. It was a really long article and it took me a long time to finish it. 

  
The article was refreshing because from the cursory impression of this election what is apparent is that there is a lack of sophistication in many of the candidates. What is fearful is that someone will get into the White House and be reactionary instead of preventative. There will be no caution with respect to what they will do and the consequences will not only be political but cultural as well. War and violence as we learn has reprocusions beyond just the immediate battle weather won or lost. These people then come back with scars that are deeper than physical wounds. We expect them to just come back and be a clerk at a shop? 

  
There is more to this but I appreciate the thoughts that came in defense of that. It was strategic and show that one gets more flies with honey than with vinegar.