Another wonderful thing I love to celebrate is my family... the journey of life is an amazing trip, and I've so enjoyed the long and winding road of my family experience!
The ups and downs, lefts and rights, rights and wrongs, lows and highs, reds and blues, ins and outs, haves and have-nots, rants and raves, winners and losers, etc. have been incredibly captivating and intriguing... for many, many years.
2015 was no different than so many of those years in the past... a constant exhilarating roller-coaster ride of rapid change in the carnival of life.
Like last year, there was so much incredible music in 2015, that I had trouble picking the song for the video recap (Three candidates were... Human by Civil Twilight, King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1 by Neutral Milk Hotel, and Stressed by Twenty One Pilots). Human ended up making the final cut.
Here's the 2015 family recap... here.
With so much going on in our world today, I'm going to break tradition and share some thoughts that I have historically refrained from introducing to the family blog. This blog was created to document family memories and experiences... and essentially share the good times. With that said, I feel compelled to add a few more comments this year.
Sadly, I feel like there is a huge push to polarize the people of our world against one another... a persistent campaign to divide and conquer. It's as if the objective is to focus our attention on fear, terror, and war.
For the record, I've long been a peace-loving, anti-war advocate for most of my life (But I am not a pacifist... I believe there are times to fight back.). In my opinion, it's times like these that we need more discussions about peace and less drumbeats of war, hatred, and division from the powers that be. As John Lennon famously stated, "War is over... if you want it." With that said, I would like to share a couple items that have recently offered inspiration.
Within the past couple months, I learned of the "Imagine Peace Tower" that was created and dedicated to John Lennon in 2007 and resides in Iceland. Being a big John Lennon fan, I was surprised I hadn't heard of it prior to 2015. Everyday the media reports on what scares us and draws us apart. Unfortunately, war sells and peace does not feed the ravenous appetite of the military-industrial complex. But wouldn't it be wonderful to see more efforts made to make the world a better, more peaceful place.
Secondly, I recently watched a remarkable video of an English speaking chap motor-biking across the Iranian countryside. What I found so inspiring was the number of times he was greeted by complete strangers with food offerings and smiling faces. Considering what my country has told me about Iran (it's a horrible, axis-of-evil country and our enemy... a single story), I couldn't help my desire to challenge the conventional wisdom. Maybe the majority of people in Iran, and the rest of the world, can envision an alternative to the never-ending wars, and imagine living life in peace.
I'll conclude by stating that it's easy to believe the perpetual conflict being pushed by the mainstream media. But I choose to accept a different reality and instead embrace the majority of wonderful and diverse people of this world who choose to live in harmony.
Thanks for reading... Peace to you and your loved ones... may 2016 be kind to us all!
-Dennis
1 comment:
Dennis, I think it is so great you spend the time to put together a video and blog recap of the family's year. We all rush through life on a daily basis but it is wonderful to take five minutes to view the images that compose the lives of people who are important to us.
While I am sometimes sad I don't get to share your everyday life, I am thankful I have shared many, many incredible moments with you, my friend.
Peace for 2016!
Allan
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