C. A. R. E. - 28 August 2026

 Focus for today: 

The word out of the C.A.R.E. model is ...EQUANIMITY

 E. - Equanimity: August 28, 2026

Gratitude is always here but I plan to type the word out every time I post something. 

I never heard of equanimity in the context of human action. My vocabulary just did not extend to this word, but I have found it to be a word full of meaning for recovery. In this daily exercise the purpose is to give me a foundation for working through my recovery to resist craving alcohol, but also how to set and structure my life. 

Equanimity is a key almost crucial ingredient. Equanimity is one component of living with "Wise Intention". The focus here is conduct yourself in a way that cultivates a lack of self centeredness. Be generous, don't focus on yourself. Clearly there are issues you have to address everyday but in interaction with others the focus needs to be gracious. Be patient. 

Equanimity is a heart practice of Buddhism. I have to make a conscious effort to make sure that my daily intentions are pure. Not that I let the world take advantage of me, but that I look for ways to treat others well, knowing that will return to me in a favorable way eventually. 

Many old adages apply here but I think one that is central is that you reap what you sow. If you plan discord, then discord will grow. If you intentionally look to plant love, respect and determination to be fair, then karma will reward you. 

I'm writing this to someday translate into a book, so I won't always get my points out as coherent as I'd like. My plan is to have these daily writings make of the crux of the book.

Another use could be, if anyone reads this, is to have a community of people who want to try this C.A.R.E model and we all write about its impact and share insights and help each other be better. 

Stay off traditional social media for a change and collaborate on something healthier and sustainable. 

C. A. R. E. - 27 August 2026

 Focus for today:

The word out of the C. A. R. E. model is ...CONSCIOUSNESS

C. - Consciousness: August 27, 2026. Today I have gratitude for another opportunity to just stay focused and on track for the most important priorities in my life. Also remain conscious of the main thing and that is first sobriety, love and right/wise actions for my family and then ultimately WISE MINDFULNESS. 

Mindfulness is all the 'rage' or whatever word you want to use but it's basic and is what we all do to focus at various times throughout a given day. We all do some form of it unconsciously and to me the main focus to work through life is to be mindful intentionally. Purposely set aside time to focus on freeing your mind so you can act and not just let life and situations that actually require time and attention drive your day and overwhelm you to the point you give in to cravings. The idea is that I get to a point that no matter the circumstance; I am equipped to deal with it sober. 

In the Recovery Dharma book, it talks about it this way. Be present! Meaning be completely attentive to what is going on in front of you. It is the old adage, take a deep breath first then react. Be sober so you have no excuse for not fully understanding situations you are in. Be in the present for those around you out of just basic human decency. My son said something to me that made me understand what being present it. We were talking about his teen age years and while he acknowledged that I was physically available; I was always distracted by either alcohol or my job or school or something other than being entirely focused on my family.

I never really took the time to define mental and physical boundaries nor did I ever truly make my family the actual highest priority. I thought I was by going to work everyday but that is never truly enough. I know that I have to find a way to be totally present and to make hard choices on what I spend each day doing. I did not think and was no where near thinking 'critically'. 

Doing this writing and posting about words of value or affirmation within the C.A.R.E. framework is my attempt to focus my mind everyday (morning or night) on what matters to me. During this time writing I will gauge my progress and see if I make good on my recovery goals. 

One comment on Current Events (For Today)

AI the savior or boogeyman? Who knows, I love what you can do with all the free stuff I've messed with. I get the concerns but this article describes in a real way how this technology is being safely developed. 

The issue that bothers me the most is the insistence on demonizing China. China is doing exactly what we wanted them to do minus a shift to some version of democracy. So the fuck what! China studied Europe and the United States in 1978 and 1979 after coming out of the horror years of Mao. Now 40+ years later, China is a capitalist economic nuclear reactor. Just growing with no end in sight BECAUSE....China is working aggressively with all the African countries that the United States only wants to put a military base in. China has assumed the role of the world's lone super power because the United States doesn't want to lead anything anymore. That is all I will say about that last bit today but unless I see 80 percent of the electorate vote Democrat in these elections then I know that ultimately the Trump MAGA, Project 2025 folks will get everything they want. 

I hope Canada will allow me to immigrate? Anyway, good article below. 

Anthropic's Road to a $1 Trillion IPO | Claude & AI Growth

I am fortunate to have come across this article posted above. It gives me hope in a real way. Read this because in a nutshell, this describes a proper way for a major multi-trillion-dollar AI enterprise to run. Anthropic is registered as a Public Benefit Corporation and cannot be sued by aggressive shareholders into shitty decisions that hurt the public. Most of that last sentence is lifted directly from this article and this constitutes my citation of that material. 

C. A. R. E. - 26 August 2026

 

Today under the rubric that I described in the "Main Reason for this Journal" post, I am going to work off of randomly generated positive affirmative action word for today. I'm going to play around with how I do this but will work it out for one or two weeks then start sharing more broadly, linking my bluesky account etc. 

The word out of the C. A. R. E. model is ...ASPIRE

C. 

A. - ASPIRE: August 26, 2026. Today I have gratitude as always, even when it is not the best day. I am here and able to put this time in to be intentional about my day and my life. 

I aspire to just keep doing the things I tell my family that I am going to accomplish. I have not lived up to the ideals of being the best husband, father that I could have. But I just want to aspire to remain sober and continue to live a righteous purposeful life with intention to do no harm, to myself or anyone around me. Much effort goes into living this way. 

Recovery Dharma introduced to me at a method to order yourself more directly if you have the patience to do so. First, acknowledge the 4 Noble truths about suffering; then take each of the Wise actions from the 8-Fold Path. Then choose one for the day to think about what it means and how you can apply say, 'Wise Understanding' to your life. You will need to buy the book for the best experience, but you can use it to, order and structure your day or activity. 

R. 

E. 

The eight factors of the path to read and meditate on are: 

Wise Understanding

Wise Intention

Wise Speech

Wise Action

Wise Livelihood

Wise Effort

Wise Mindfulness

Wise Concentration

I will go into these in more detail while I am actively following this methodology for sobriety. 

More to come and more consistently in this chapter. 

The Main Reason for this Journal

 On the blog page I have a rubric of sorts I came up with during my first stay in jail last year. 

Then I went further and went to in patient rehab and worked on this idea more. 

The focus is on my recovery, but it can be anyone's. I feel the need to document everything I've been thinking about for the last 18 months. These truths about living my life with much more purpose and meaning have helped me get to a place where I finally feel like I have my own life. 

I began to develop my own thesis on what is ultimately wrong with America in general and it's that people just do not care anymore. It is frightening at times to see just how close the United States is to hurtling either itself or some major part of the world into a deep abiding economic and climate stressed depression. 

Since I have my own internal demons to conquer, I decided to develop a way for me to focus myself on staying sober and acting more intentionally every day. C. A. R. E. 

Each letter is associated with words of positive affirmation. 

Each morning (preferably) I will write a letter; i.e., A and a positive affirmation such as "Atonement". That will be my focus for the day. To pray, to seek and or to work on something that is directly related to working to be better than my former self. 

That is it for now. Pick a different letter each day and an associated positive word and focus everyday on something related. Also...take a look at a book called Recovery Dharma. 

Copied here is another thing I do daily (most of the time) and that is focus on the core principles of Buddhist mindset for daily life. 

FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS AND THE EIGHT-FOLD PATH

I.                THERE IS SUFFERING, I COMMIT TO UNDERSTANDING THE TRUTH OF SUFFERING.

II.              THERE IS CAUSE OF SUFFERING, I COMMIT TO UNDERSTANDING CRAVING LEADS TO SUFFERING.

III.            THERE IS AN END TO SUFFERING, I COMMIT TO UNDERSTANDING AND EXPERIENCING THAT LESS CRAVING LEADS TO LESS SUFFERING.

IV.            THERE IS A PATH THAT LEADS TO THE END OF SUFFERING, I COMMIT TO CULTIVATING THE PATH.

EIGHT-FOLD PATH

1.       WISE UNDERSTANDING

2.       WISE INTENTION

3.       WISE SPEECH

4.       WISE ACTION

5.       WISE LIVELIHOOD

6.       WISE EFFORT

7.       WISE MINDFULNESS

8.       WISE CONCENTRATION

In the Recovery Dharma book; each element is explained and shows you the relationship to a mindset change required in addiction recovery. 

I will endeavor to persevere' [credit to the movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales]

One comment on Current Events (2nd for Today!)

 Bessent announces campaign to create economic onslaught against Iran and its partners

Damn, this dude just said...do exactly what we say, when we say or your out of the US Financial system. Whew! Looks like we will all know how this plays out immediately. Our economy sinks and Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the entire Global South could join China and freeze out the US, lock, stock and barrel. It might hurt initially but would destroy the United States. Won't happen but some version of it could happen. What then?

The Abandoned Order: Learning to Live in a Post-American World

Read the above article to answer What Then? 

This article is the realist essay on the state of the world given the hyper stupidity coming out of the United States government that is our face to the rest of humanity. 

One comment on Current Events! (For Today)

The United States is completely delusional. There is no competition. China is on par and ahead in many areas and just no longer needs anything from the United States. You can talk, Uighur, Tianne man Square, Mao's 80+M killed. It does not matter anymore. We wanted China to be like the west and now they are beating the west at their game and not converting wholesale to democracy. China is currently working and yes there are issues, but they are largely China issues. Bottom Line: The United States is on a decline due to stupidity in all critical areas of government and leadership.

I wrote the above in the comments to an article similar in content to the one copied below. 

Has the U.S. lost its dominance to China? : NPR

I spent 37 years, my entire adult life serving the United States, first in the USAF (20 Yrs) and then roughly 17 years in a variety of roles, ending at the Pentagon as a Program Element Monitor. USAF acquisition employs military and civilians to work in the Pentagon to assist with the development of the future years budgets, coordination with Congress and the rest of the many stakeholders in the Pentagon. That is what I did for the last 8 years until I resigned in April 2026!

What is happening in our White House is not anything I ever envisioned being allowed to happen in this country. Living in a nation's decline is hard to watch. We can turn it around but the only way is for every American no matter what you believe or don't; has to vote Democrat...just this once (well twice - Mid-Term and Presidential). 

Nothing that this new crop of socialist democrats are talking about will see the light of day at the national level in any meaningful way. That is not a reason to vote Republican in any way shape or form. 

Our lives depend on it and that is the first time in my life I have truly felt this way.