“That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of, or over the edge of your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will be supported.” – Joseph Campbell, the Hero Journey.

Trumpism is, at its core,  is not a political movement, but a grievance movement.

It is about anger and lament, a movement of whining that reminds me of millions of bees whining and serving their queen.

It cannot survive without enemies.

To be a Trumpist is is to be angry all the time.

The world is never good, just full of people and institutions that are screwing us all the time, every day, morning and night: the liberals, the media, vaccines, masks,  the Democrats, the government, the scientists, the IRS, war heroes, generals,  even Dr. Fauci.

What a great gift the pandemic was and is to them.

But the sound of whining that we hear every day is not the bees; it’s the aggrieved citizenry, a new nation of complainers dedicated to tearing things down but never building them up.

The challenge of Trumpism threatens democracy because democracy demands that we sometimes lose gracefully, and Trumpism is a movement that refuses to accept losing in any way.

That is a fight for the nation, including me. But it’s not a fight for the blog. It’s not where I want to be.

And I was getting angry much of the time. The difference between them and me seemed to be narrowing.

“The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there. And so it starts.”  – Joseph Campbell.

I fell into sleepy land. I woke up.

Donald Trump is the King of Grievance, the unhappiest and most ungrateful billionaire the world has ever known.

His ideology requires people to be pissed off perennially, every day, all the time, one after the other. It soon becomes an addiction; I’ve had some brushes with it myself.

This week, I’ve decided to separate my blog from the Perennially Pissed and return it to its roots. It is not a political blog; I don’t wish it ever to be a political blog; I never wanted that.

Once in a while, I like writing about politics when I think I can be helpful,  and I will do that when it’s appropriate.

But mostly I want bedlamfarm.com to be the opposite of what’s on cable news or the New York Times, or Fox News.

I want it to be a thoughtful place, a place of gentleness and passion, a place that lifts people and doesn’t try to tear them down, even if they troll.

I am complex; I am composed of many different parts – anger, resentment, frustration, and yes, empathy, compassion, and gentleness.

I have always been schizophrenic in that way. That is my illness, my brokenness. That is also my strength.

Social media these days is more like a battleground out of Tolkien than it is a common civic gathering ground.

After I started writing about the Amish, the trolls came after me, and I must be honest and say a part of me welcomed the struggle. and pictured the epic battles in Lord Of The Rings.

Wasn’t I a hero?

Well…no.

Trolls are like Japanese Beatles to me, they can do some damage, but in the end, I love torturing and challenging them and ridiculing them when I could. They are easily crushed. They are so small they make me feel large.

What a waste of time and energy. What a trap. I’m back on my Hero Journey, which started right up here a couple of miles from our farm.

I am once again stepping over the edge of my boundaries, and I know I will be supported.

These gnomes and trolls came to me after all; all I had to do was be witty and sharp to make myself feel big and smart.

They hate sincerity above all things; it’s actually quite easy to unravel them.

But that is a double-edged sword kind of thing, going to war.

Anger begets anger; cruelty begets cruelty; the trolls came to me because they sense the anger and grievance in me; in a way, they were coming home.

My anger was a magnet. When it does, they go.

I could feel my spirit corroding. I had to heal. I didn’t come all this way to battle trolls on my precious blog.

If the curse of social media is the “send” button, its salvation is the “delete” button. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice. I’m making a different choice.

It’s so easy to drift into a dark place; I have done it many times.  And how can any thinking person celebrate the coming of the Perennially Pissed?

But my 30 years of therapy – I am still talking to a therapist- and my new life with Maria and the Army of Good has also led me on a different and healthier path.

I’m still on my Hero Journey. I think the pandemic and my own ego interrupted it.

I see myself clearly, and I don’t like what I’ve seen on my own blog. I see a fight within my soul; I have to acknowledge it and move beyond it. I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward

I want for bedlamfarm.com and me is for the blog to be a refuge, a resting place, a place of laughter and hope and promise and thought, and yes,  though, and argument in good faith.

That’s what I feel inside; that’s what pushes the anger and hatred away.

“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.” — Joseph Campbell.

I think all of us will have to figure out how we want to deal with the Perennially Pissed Nation we have become.

The animals will help, so will the pictures, but it’s really up to me to set the tone; it’s my blog. The Army of Good is the miracle of my blog, not a stroll spouting venom. My response to these times is to do good rather than argue about what good is.

That’s the mission; I need to reclaim it; it never really went away.

Lately, I’ve often felt like the blog evokes Lord of The Rings, masses of trolls one after another coming over the hill and screaming in rage at the gentler Hobbits to spread evil and conquer the hopeful and the gentle.

The trolls feed on the spirit. Without something to hate, they will starve. I’m not giving them me to eat.

I suppose that is the struggle for my soul and others – between the Hobbit and the troll. I do have to make a choice.

There are too many of them to fight all the time, and if I do that, I will turn into one of them; I felt it beginning to happen.

My idea is to pursue and celebrate my original dream. Bedlam Farm is a place of good, peace, a gentle place of color and light.

Of course, the Perennially Pissed will hate that and come after it. But I was one of the people in the tech world – I wrote for Wired – who celebrated the rise of the blog as a chance for civil coming together.

The thing about a blog is that all comments have to be approved. It’s my responsibility to approve them wisely and well.

I got this fuzzy old journalistic idea that it was my responsibility to let people who attack me and my ideas cruelly have their say.

All I did was upset and disturb some of the many – hundreds of thousands – of good people who come here for other things than hatred and word combat.

I learned this week that most of them were waiting patiently for me to see the light. Hundreds of grateful messages say so and are thanking me. I hear it. I get it.

I want to shed this troubling chapter of the blog’s life and get back on the hero journey. You never finish the hero’s journey. It never ends. I’m excited. The first steps changed my life.

“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels something is lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary to recover what has been lost or discover some life-giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.” – Joseph Campbell.