Families

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The nuclear family, in its brief heyday, was fundamentally an economic strategy, one that made it easier to control the supply of workers and organize childcare and domestic work so that women were doing as much of it as possible for free.  This arrangement no longer makes economic or emotional sense — and millennials know it.  Almost half of us, after all, grew up with parents who were divorced, or in single-parent households.  But the nuclear family remains the only form of family with cultural legitimacy.
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Here’s the lesson I had to learn:  “Traditional” nuclear families today are no more stable or secure, no more or less likely to lead to lasting happiness, than “alternative” households.  In “The Sirens of Titan“, Kurt Vonnegut spends hundreds of pages coming to the conclusion that the purpose — or at least a purpose — “of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”  The problem with found families is exactly the same as the problem with every other sort of family.  There is no perfect structure, no single set of rules, that can guarantee that people will always be decent to each other, will never have growing up to do, and that nobody will ever get their heart broken ever again.
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And that, I suppose, is what family means.
It means you love whoever is around to love.  That doesn’t mean you have to like them all the time.  Love takes work.  Living together takes work.  Sick and tired of waiting around in the antechamber of socially sanctioned adulthood, millennials are setting up home right here.  We are not waiting for our “real lives” to start.  We may never have the security or stability we were raised to desire, but we can still have commitment and community.  For me, this is my real life.  These are the households and relationships where I have grown up, learned how to take care of myself and other people, had my heart and brain and favorite mugs broken.  These are our real lives, brief and beautiful, stupid and unlikely, and we would live them far better if we were given permission — beyond the wish fulfillment of fiction — to believe in them.
—    Laurie Penny
From her article: “Live Wrong And Prosper: It’s The Future Of Families“
Appearing in:  Wired Magazine, dtd: July / Aug 2020
Online at:  https://www.wired.com/story/live-wrong-prosper-covid-19-future-of-families/
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2015	An Appetite For Life
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2014	Pass The Soul
2013	Zapping Music And Art
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2011	Wolves At The Door
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The Beauty Of Life

Peace is the beauty of life.  It is sunshine.  It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family.  It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth.
—    Menachem Begin
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On This Day In:
2020	Better Sooner Than Later
2019	Possibilities And Challenges
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2018	What I Tell You Three Times Is True
2017	And So On
2016	Kept
2015	Envy * 2
2014	Destiny For The Talented
2013	I Do Not Fear It
2012	Until Found
2011	Reducing Goods To Data
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Awakening The Glow

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him
—    Albert Camus
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On This Day In:
2020	Golden Eagle
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2019	#45: Who Lost By Three Million Votes
2018	Torn Between Two Loves
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2017	I Think They Are Starting To…
2016	Living There
2015	Bookin’ West
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2014	Winning?
2013	Still Inventing
2012	Motivated
2011	Waiting In Line At Starbuck’s

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Lessons

Love Don’t Love Nobody
Favorite Line(s):
I gave her all the love
I have within’
My love was strong
Somethin’ went wrong, no!
It takes a fool to learn
That love don’t love nobody
It takes a fool to Learn
That love don’t love no one
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On This Day In:
2020	A Liar As President Corrupts Us
2019	Is It Dark And Quiet For You?
2018	Undeniable Requirement
2017	Orange Corrosion
2016	Both Particle And Wave
2015	Deep In Debt
2014	The Difference
2013	My Heart Is Described
2012	Keen To Be Alone
2011	The Ideal Business…
2010	55

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Seeking Happiness

Love alone is the only reasonable activity or pursuit of humankind . . .   For love not only annihilates our fear of meaningless but empowers us to seek the happiness of others.   And this indeed is our greatest happiness.
—    Leo Tolstoy
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2020	Expectation For The Near Future
2019	Indian Myth
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2018	Nothing
2017	Approval First
2016	In Search Of Words
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2015	At What Price?
2014	Intricate And Subtle Order
2013	Attention To Detail
2012	Aequanimitas!
2011	Consider This

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Put ‘Er There

Where there is no love, put love — and you will find love.
—    St. John of the Cross
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2020	And In The Back
2019	Sunlight Stream
2018	Wars Without Taxes
2017	Multiplication And Division
2016	I Went To The Woods…
2015	I’ve Got To Run
2014	Which Is It?
2013	Making You Stronger
2012	Sick Of Being Sick
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2011	Clear, Specific And Measurable
2010	The Runner’s High
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Is It Too Late?

I’ll Have To Say I’ll Love You
Favorite Line(s):
Every time the time was right
All the words just came out wrong
So I’ll have to say I love you in a song
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2020	And Then There Was Yellow
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2019	Sin Less Every Day
2018	Probably Only A Little Easier
2017	Stars Above
2016	Where Do You Stand?
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2015	Leaving On A Mid-Night Train
2014	Questioned Faith
2013	At Home In Fire
2012	A Tale Of Two Books
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2011	Back At The Millstone
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And Keep Doing So

If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away.
—    Mark Twain
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On This Day In:
2020	Well Over!
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2019	Carrying Humanity
2018	Not Necessarily In This Order
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2017	An Accumulation Of Acts
2016	Here’s Lookin’ At You Kid
2015	How To Be Omnipotent
2014	The Promise Of Future Love
2013	Christian, n.
2012	Praise
	Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
2011	A Few More Lyrics From The Past
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Short, Swift, Haste

Life is short.  Be swift to love!  Make haste to be kind!
—   Henri F. Amiel
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On This Day In:
2020	Can We At Least Set The Bar Higher Than An Incompetent Liar In The Oval Office?
2019	Uncertain Times
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2018	Satisfied
2017	In The Mind
2016	Dreaming
2015	The Best Medicine Is Also Contagious
2014	Eyes Off
2013	The More Things Change…
2012	The Delicate Moment Of Giving
2011	Ready, Shoot, Aim!!

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Why #45 Is So Pitiably Small

Whoever gives nothing, has nothing.  The greatest misfortune is not to be unloved, but not to love.
—    Albert Camus
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On This Day In:
2019	Yet We Should Keep Trying
2018	Let Us Dare
2017	Two Good To Be Real
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2016	Learning Subtle Differences
2015	Dog Eat Dog World?
2014	And Sometimes Blogs About It
2013	Outside-In
2012	They Are All Perfect
2011	Delegation – The “How-To’s”
2009	Diet Update and Other Bits & Bobs…

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Why I’m Happy

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.
—   Victor Hugo
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On This Day In:
2019	I Think Impeachment Is Another Test #45 Has Already Failed
2018	Second Chances – Rice, Now Trees
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2017	Small Hands, Small Grasp
2016	Two Murrow’s
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2015	Not Mine, Anyway
2015	South By South East
2013	Don’tcha
2012	I Hear A Distant Thunder
2011	A Poison Tree

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Resting

Live simply.  Love generously.  Care deeply.  Speak kindly.  And leave the rest to God…
—    President Ronald Reagan
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On This Day In:
2019	One For Two
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2018	The Worst
2017	#DonTheCon In The Oval Office
2016	Are You Like #AmnestyDon And Sarah Palin?
2015	Begin Today
2014	Look Again (At Life’s Illusions)
2013	None Knows
2012	Yet
2011	No End In Sight
2010	Back At It…

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Everything I Hoped For

You Are So Beautiful
Favorite Line(s):
You are so beautiful
To me
You are so beautiful
To me
Can’t you see
You’re everything I hoped for
You’re everything I need
You are so beautiful
To me
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On This Day In:
2019	Somebody’s Watching You
2018	First From Within
2017	Or Vote Against You
2016	Cupid Must Say It Too
2015	Some Of This And A Pinch Of That
2014	Consensus Is Only One Side
2013	Not Ought
2012	If You Want To, If You Have Something To Offer
2011	I See Lots Of Fools
2010	Orange Inside!!
	And The Band Played On…
	Happy New Year!!

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Every Sign Was A Northern Star

Bless The Broken Road
Favorite Line(s):
I set out on a narrow way
Many years ago
Hoping I would find true love
Along the broken road
But I got lost
A time or two
I wiped my brow
And kept pushing through
I couldn’t see
How every sign
Pointed straight to you
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On This Day In:
2019	Stuff Happens
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2018	Looking Into Golf
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2017	Improvise
2016	Got Leisure?
2015	It’s Been Hurtin’ For Quite A While Now
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2013	Eureka
2012	Slow Me
2011	He Said What?!?
2010	Gritty
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Why #45 Is Always Crying

Hell is the suffering of being unable to love.
—   Fyodor Dostoyevsky
From:   “The Brothers Karamazov“
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2019	I Think Reading Books Is A Good Place To Start
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2012	Looking Up
2011	Et Tu Brute?

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