Category: passions

February 14th, 2017, A Tribute to True Love

Posted on by D. L. Keur

I’m in love. I have been for decades. Oh, yeah. In love with life–that, too–but I mean with the man who is my husband, Forrest Wayne Lineberry. For years, after a very ugly divorce, due to the bills that divorce wound up ladling upon me, we lived in a space that measured 14×18. Feet. It included one tiny bathroom with a shower, one tiny kitchen, and the bedroom/living room. Two cats, three birds, a hamster, a frog and a tercel in an aquarium, plus a 55 gallon fish tank filled with very old, very long-lived fish resided there with us. My horses and livestock didn’t. The horses I boarded. The livestock went to Dad’s.

To say we were poor is an understatement. Still are. The divorce took everything and more. (Yes, I got screwed, having hired an attorney who was honorable, while my ex- hired one who was Machiavellian, more the fool me.)  The divorce took my relationship with my father, as well, a man who, because of his Dutch Reform upbringing, believed marriage was for life, never mind any abuse.

Anyway, I fell in love. With my bodyguard. If you ever want to know about that, watch the movie, The Bodyguard, starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner.  Except, unlike that movie, the bad guy wanting to do me harm wasn’t some wacko or some jealous relative, but rather the man divorcing me. I wasn’t a wealthy, successful singer with a beautiful voice, and Forrest was only a skilled martial artist, not a trained ex-Secret Service man.  Oh, yeah.  And, in the end, we stayed together.

I’m wishing for you all the same love and commitment we have with and for each other–a cherishing–in your relationship with your significant other. There really is no substitute for it. So, find it, keep it, and don’t ever settle for less, no matter what you have to give up.

Sincerely,

Me.

 

Live Now.

Posted on by D. L. Keur

An  art friend of mine has recently begun posting some secular humanist perspectives over on G+. He turns off comments, perhaps to avoid discussion…or, maybe, to fend off trolls.  Of course, it could be that he considers anyone who might choose to discuss the topic to be a troll.  He’s rather odd that way–easily offended, easily riled, easily disquieted.

Anyway, his posts got me to thinking about the mindset of atheist secular humanists, especially those who perceive life and reality as reducible to clear, concise mechanical processes that include chemical reactions and Newtonian physics. He’s a retired engineer, so this mindset comes quite logically and naturally to him and his. Dwelling in the strictly empirically measurable pragmatic, any idea of something more than life as a chemical reaction and consciousness as a neurological function is quite alien. Having myself dwelled in mechanism, pragmatism, atheism, and stoicism for a solid decade or more of my own existence, I can understand the very solid, stolid stability provided by it. What bothers me is that what he’s doing is no different than the proselytizing of the fervently religious. In truth, it’s no different.

Here’s the thing, though: Does it really matter what he believes versus what someone else believes? No. His beliefs give him solace, just as those who believe that their loved ones have gone to join Jesus or entered Nirvana or…do them. The fact is there is no proof or disproof of continuance of the self/soul/spirit upon the body’s demise, and, truly, it really doesn’t matter. Live now.

Sheer Joy…And Not Much Drudgery

Posted on by D. L. Keur

Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.comWhen I quit doing web developments a few years back, there was sheer relief and a rewarding sense of freedom, of being able to breathe, again.

Then I closed all but four of my own websites, allowing only zentao.com, dlkeur.com, ejruek.com, and thedeepening.com to remain active, thedeepening.com changed from promoting other people’s books and novels to its original intent.  More relief, more freedom, more space to breathe and try to follow my own projects.

This year, I began to ease back on doing professional graphic art.  I retained a handful of good clients, but, mostly, I say “no” to the requests I get. First off, it’s a real pain to have to deal with people who, not having a real grasp on what they actually want, have set ideas on what they think they want. Then, when you produce that, after they approve it, they decide months down the road that it’s actually not what they want, and they get all sorts of upset when you tell them they’ll have to pay for another design to be conceived and completed.  It’s pure drudgery with not much reward for the soul, regardless of how well it adds to the bottom line.

Now, I’ve turned my focus to my true love in life–writing novels–and, while there’s still some drudgery involved–reading and editing that manuscript yet one more time; promoting what’s already published–there’s sheer joy and happiness for a story well-told and appreciated.

Truly, I’m almost as happy writing as I am riding.  Only being with Forrest trumps it all.