DMB Digest: Dumbasses Unite!

...or at least shake hands.

For a period of time, my profession consisted of crafting compelling fictions. As a professional lier, I can attest to the hazards and the benefits of living in a reality of your own making—of sharing your mental life with a bunch of disparate voices, each contending for their own point of view to be the winning one.

In the end, fiction is only as enjoyable as far as the stories connect with you, the reader. Just as effective lies must be built on seeds of truth, enjoyable fiction must be built around believable characters acting out in a manner we can relate to.

All of this leads to a singular superpower in those of us who spend thousands of hours making up stories. I present that superpower as the key missing ingredient necessary for solving the problems that continue to haunt our society. But first, a story.

I was sixteen when my high school announced we would no longer be able to bring guns onto school property. Not even the parking lot! Of all the ridiculous, bureaucratic overreaction. The year was 1992. I remember questioning out loud how the powers that be could expect me to drive home after school to grab shotguns so that my friends and I could proceed to the family ranch to hunt dove over the field of sunflowers before sunset. What a pain in the ass! After all, we’d grown accustomed to keeping a couple of 20-gauge shotguns behind the bench seat of the old Blazer. They practically lived there.

That was my world at the time—small town, rural Texas. As it turned out, my experience was not the only experience playing out across America. Go figure, but there were others. Lots of others. As I’ve aged, I’ve learned to appreciate that basic fact about the fabric of the United States of America. More than any other country on the planet, the U.S. is built around diversity. Our dumb asses have been dumb enough to hope and believe that a whole differing assortment of dumb asses could come together to create a singular people of dumb asses all enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of dumb-ass happiness along side each other.

I grew up with guns under the driver seat. Some of you did too. Others are shaking your heads right now, unable to even imagine such an upbringing. While still others are smirking because they grew up with guns under the seat, but not shotguns meant for dove hunting.

I’m sure you are aware of the continuing gun violence across our land. For the most part I tune it out (as terrible as that is). I simply can’t handle all the bullshit that inevitably spews from public figures on both political extremes. You see, it honks me off that every time there is a large enough (and grizzly enough) mass shooting to be newsworthy, we are subjected to the endless tug-of-war on gun control as if it were the be-all and end-all for preventing our democratic experiment from unraveling at the seams. Spoiler: it ain’t.

I hate to ruin the tension for those of you who enjoy the game, but the opposing battle cries of “Won’t someone please think of the children,” and “Guns don’t kill people, I kill people” won’t lead any of us anywhere excepting the funny farm.

If we could step back from the shrill, click-baity rants of our beloved infotainers (who try to pass themselves off as journalists) and drown out the disingenuous stump speeches of our elected officials we could see a solution more profound than politics or legislation. We could see the fragile state of our democracy with fresh eyes. But as a populous, we’ll need one particular superpower that we’ve left atrophying for decades.

And we’ve come full-circle. The superpower is of course empathy.

Hate season has officially been open for some time now in the United States. No license or tags are required to snipe at others during open hate season. Venom is welcome. Bitterness essential. We’re hurting. We’re scared. We’re taking it out on each other in violent ways. And much of the world is cheering on our downward spiral (some even playing their part in hastening it).

I suggest we all vote with our personal actions to shut hate season down for a spell. Maybe try some empathy on for size. Perhaps it ain’t too late to salvage what remains of the greatest social experiment in democratic equality humanity has ever produced. Just perhaps.

For further reading, I recommend: https://files.ascd.org/staticfiles/ascd/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_195910_vantil.pdf

https://www.nps.gov/abli/learn/education/upload/updatedgettysburgaddress.pdf

At the Desk This Week

My desk is still collecting dust for the most part. I’m working outside the home and enjoying some nice weather to work in the yard. My grapes won’t vinedress themselves. Other than a visit from a neighbor’s rabbit, who managed to eat several small plants out of the garden before we could wrestle him up and return him to his owners, I’ve enjoyed my small world of non-tragedy here in Idaho. My heart goes out to all of you who have not been able to enjoy such a quiet week of simple work and reflection. May peace find you.

If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…

[Click here to start at the beginning.]

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Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Boundaries, Season 2 of The Green Ones. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Green Ones until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 100 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Green Ones. Happy reading!