Sleepy Brain Talking
To a Dream Walker
Sometimes a phrase will bloom in my sleeping mind. Usually around 2:30 AM. A sequence of words which in that moment seem too precious to lose.
I will arise and stagger to my laptop several rooms (and two dog gate barriers) distant.
The boot-up sequence and I will commune.
Is the subconscious message really all that important or elegant?
I refuse any temptation to rise to a level of active thought.
Morning light will get a chance to offer an opinion.
For now, here is the Word document. There is the mystery message. Save. Sign out. And to all a good night.
Here is the unrhymed couplet I saved several nights ago.
1. Captives of Faith
2. Servants of Good
And here is why I now imagine I found the thought profound enough to retain it for later consideration.
Captives of Faith
Angels may dance on the head of a pin. We the People are trying to find balance on the hinge of history. That is proving difficult in the context of the purposeful chaos of Trump 2.0.
Where is up?
What is down?
Is there still a left? A right?
And what about time? Is it now like truth? A variable?
The cruel, callous, and corrupting consequences of the implementation of the Project 2025 are upon us in an unceasing flood of illegal, immoral, and self-serving edicts. Each of us will be forced to consider our true allegiances. We have no choice other than to protect and promote them to some likely uncomfortable measure.
In the darkness of the moment, our faith is the only light available.
We cling to it with a second righteousness.
Our inside voice is assuring us that our wise grandmother was right—all things work to the good.
And that the founding fathers of our 238-year-old experiment in self-governance were right. We want, we need, we insist upon inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Servants of Good
It is natural to believe our moral compass knows and aligns with goodness.
It is plumb crazy to deny that evil exists. It does. And it is not happy with anything less than total control and dominion.
It is a hill too far for me to label Donald John Trump evil. He is too weak to be interviewed for the position of doorman at the entry hall to hell.
Elon Musk may have wet the bed as a child, set the house on fire, pulled wings off butterflies, even seriously harmed puppies, kittens, and playmates. Still, he is just a pretender in every arena his life invades and befouls. He knows how to make babies. He has no clue about how to sustain and nurture life. Or any apparent desire to understand, master and practice the concept.
These men were born to, and raised in a context of, privilege.
They may be proof of the concept that good is just a life lived not desiring or doing injury.
The implementation of the Project 2025 playbook is intended to force to their knees those attitudes toward equity rising into favor and law from Wilson to FDR to Johnson, Obama, and Biden.
Trump promised (once again) to turn back time during his campaign for a second term in high office.
He won the chance to unleash a Time of Terror and execute a Tour of Revenge against those who would hold him accountable for crimes committed and civil misconduct before, during, and after his first term in office.
Politicians, pundits, media moguls, captains of industry and commerce, as well as representatives of governments abroad have hastened to bend a knee before the Mad King. They pay to play in his self-serving sandbox.
He, his enablers, and his MAGA cult members ask non-believers to at least accept, if not adore, him and his corrupt ways.
Tough nuts.
And, also, no deal.
Serving two masters well, fully, and faithfully is not possible.
Goodness pays itself in its own coin.
Donald John Trump stiffs everyone all the time.
I’ll stick with a steady payroll.
You?
Clear and crisp, Susan. If phrases of brilliance come to you at 2:30 a.m., you might try another option. Instead of getting up and jumping over the dog barriers at each door on the way to your writing room, I can show you the app --built in to iPhone that a lot of Substack writers use.
Nothing to download or install because it's always there. Because your iPhone automatically updates, you have the dictation or tape recorder feature. It is in your utilities folder or right on the face with all other icons, and it is called VOICE MEMOS. Gone are the days of buying a tiny tape recorder, tiny tapes, and batteries. Tap the VOICE MEMOS icon, then tap the red button at the bottom and talk. Press the button to stop. Everything you record stays there and if you do this a lot, you see a list of your recordings when you tap that icon.
Don't worry about going on too long because the recorded voice storage capacity is more than a 500-page novel.
Once you feel secure that your every word and thought is captured and you can go back to sleep, the next Substack writer trick I'll show you is the OTHER app on your phone that they use to turn that recording into a transcript so that you can dump those words right into WORD and go from there. You can always edit out and change words later but the joy of capturing every thought --genius or rambling, as rapidly as it comes is why writers use VOICE MEMOS.
No matter what Misters Mump do, YOU get to choose your response. Acting with grace is always the right choice.