I require the solace of the shadows and the dark of the night. Sunshine is my destroyer. — Legend

I like to blend in with the background.  If you’ve met me in a large gathering, I’m usually in a corner, talking with one or two people.  I will be friendly and affable, but I try to not to be in the center of activity.  I’m not a complete introvert, but meeting a bunch of new people at once exhausts me.  I’m much more comfortable meeting new people in a one-on-one or small group gathering.  For some reason, the anxiety isn’t there.

Bubba was my best good friend. And even I know that ain’t something you can find just around the corner. Bubba was going to be a shrimping boat captain, but instead, he died right there by that river in Vietnam. — Forrest Gump

Losing someone close is one of the hardest things we can do as human beings.  Our closest friends and family keep us going, inspire us to do better, and prop us up when the world kicks our knees out from under us.  Their dreams are our dreams, their loves are our loves.  The best memorial we can give them is to try, as much as we can, to continue their good works and brings their dreams to reality.

Get out of my way son, you’re usin’ my oxygen. — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The more I am forced to get to know people, the larger percentage of the people I know don’t contribute enough to the rest of us to justify the oxygen they consume.  Not everyone is a hard charger all the time, and nobody has all the answers, but you’d expect that most of the people would have a few of the answers and be able to meander in the general direction of a goal.

Then again, I’m a starry-eyed optimist.

I gave you life so that you could live it. — My Big Fat Greek Wedding

I did not raise my children to look at pictures of trees on a screen.  Neither did I raise them to tour the world on the Internet.  I want them to go for walks, play in the yard, and travel the world.  I want them to jump into cold water, walk across hot deserts, and hear a soprano sing so beautifully it brings tears to their eyes.

Life is too precious to spend it indoors, cut off from the world.  Of all the lessons I want my kids to learn, I think that is one of the most important.

Yeah well… sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand. — Cool Hand Luke

Like the song says, nothing’s freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.  Anti-rights groups were on top of the world after they had painted us into a corner in the 1990’s.  Pro-gun groups had played nice for seven decades, trying to find that one line the other side wouldn’t cross.

Finally, something clicked.  They’d been painted into a corner, and realized that the next compromise would be a surrender.  Having not much left to lose gave them a freedom to gamble, to fight back, and to find a way to win.

The new, more aggressive approach to defending our rights and clawing back territory already lost has been working for a more than a decade.  Beginning with the advent of  shall-issue concealed carry in many states, through the lapse of the Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, through today, where even the bastions of Chicago and Washington, D.C. are being forced to confront a populace that is not only screaming about gun rights, but also economic freedom, free speech, and government security overreach.

Having nothing in our hand played out pretty well for us so far.  Hopefully we can keep the momentum and don’t overplay it.