Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

I’m not into looking back on things or making promises each New Year. That makes it too easy to skip thinking for the rest of the year. But 2023 was a landmark year for me.

I decided to tackle some health issues that have been put off or neglected.

I ended up in surgery two or three times, mainly to rebuild a foot that had collapsed. It took over two years, but the foot was rebuilt last year.

As a result, I am healthier than before.

My food brace is a miracle; I don’t miss my big toe at all; it was amputated to help my foot get walking,  my kidney stone was blown to bits by an air gun from outside, and I rebounded from a collapse and fall that left me with blood on the brain and a severe concussion that lingered for a couple of months, and pops up now and then now.

My diabetes is well under control, and my diet has evolved to the point that I love what I eat, and what I eat is healthy and nourishing. Maria was at my side, and I didn’t even want to think about my life without her. My heart is strong and healthy. I’m losing weight slowly but steadily, in the right way.

Zip is a significant addition to the farm, to Maria, and especially to me, as he seems to have adopted me, along with his commitment to hunting, torturing, and eating small things. My implant is secure and appreciated.

Zip is my animal brother at the moment., my counterpart, my buddy. I’m unsure what is happening, but he is watching out for me. He is my animal of the year. Our three dogs – Zinnia, Bud, and Fate, are healthy, strong, and loving; they are suitable dogs for us.

In 2023, thanks to my intense and perceptive therapist, I began to come to terms with my lifelong affection of severe anxiety.

I felt less of that than ever before, and I am learning how to speak directly to my demons with phrases like “I need to rest tonight, see me tomorrow,” and “I have the right to be happy. Get lost.”

I’ve made substantial progress with this illness for several years now, and it is almost to the point where it is just getting boring and irrelevant. I’m sick of it. It’s time to move along. I haven’t needed or taken meditation for years, and I don’t miss it.

I also made progress with my battle with Trolls, busybodies, yentas, and assholes who were occasionally coming after me, making me angry and defensive at times. My anger was polluting my blog.

I overreacted way too often. Some readers got hit with friendly fire, for which I apologize. I was attacked too often and too cruelly as a child to learn how to deal with this properly, and my blog and the oppeness drew a lot of fire.

In response, I sometimes got cruel and nasty, finally realizing that this is not me or who I want to be. The happier I get, the less sensitive I am to what others might think of me. The best defense is being better.

I mastered the art of deleting and letting go. Social media is a technological wonder, but I sometimes wonder if it isn’t tearing humans apart from one another in a variety of ways. I didn’t want it to happen to me.

I am getting very few nasty messages these days; they move along and look for fresher targets without my responding. This has dramatically helped my blog become what I wanted – a safe, entertaining, thought-proving, and uplifting place.

My readers have been pleading with me for years to pay less attention to these broken people; the message finally got through and took hold.

The peckerheads, as I like to call them (and the hordes of social media people who believe they have the right to mind other people’s business), don’t matter, and like magic, they are gone. Perhaps they were never confirmed.

Without my response, there is nothing in it for them. They are precisely like the bullies who came after me in the schoolyard. They are broken people and need to be seen in that way.

Coming to terms with this is helping bedlamfarm.com become the blog it should be and that I have always wanted it to be – a safe, uplifting, and colorful place. The trolls enabled me to understand what is essential and what is not. They do not belong in my head or on my blog.

I think 2023 was crucial in other ways.

Our Amish neighbors have bought the property across the road, and we are grateful for them. They are wonderful neighbors.

I’ve decided that politics and the chaos around it are not where I wish to spend my time and life. Labels and politics no longer have any meaning for me. I’ll vote as any citizen might, but I’m not jumping into that poisonous fray, and Donald Trump and Joe Biden will not define me. Politics in America is now a toxic sinkhole; I’m not jumping in.

Beyond this, I have worked and continue to work on aging gracefully. I don’t do old talk, and I rarely talk about the cost of medicine or the trials and tribulations of aging. There are sad and painful things about getting older – you see a lot of people you know die – and there are beautiful things about aging. I feel free, liberated, wiser, and more creative than ever.

I will not speak poorly of my life. Thanks, Rev. Graham.

Our sheep and donkeys are aging, and we expect some deaths in the coming year or two. We accept this, painful as it is, is life itself.

My photography has become a central and driving element in my life. I have two Leica cameras again, each old but in good shape. And I am fond of my iPhone 15 Max Pro and its exceptional camera. I’m still going to Leika school and learning, and this spring, I will be reading with a macro lens that allows me to get close to flowers. I will continue working ot make my photography better, the artist in me is being liberated.

This year, I will continue working with the Mansion residents and the refugee children in Albany, many of whom have moved with Sue Silverstein to Bishop Gibbons High School in Schenectady.

I’m working with Sue to ensure her art students have the necessary supplies and equipment. My goal remains to do some good every day, from smiling at people to thanking them for their excellent work to taking portraits of people I love and like to bringing fresh flowers and food supplies to the immigrant workers on local farms.

It was a good and landmark year for me, and I hope to have another one in 2024. Grandma Moses was right; life is what you make of it at any age. Late in life, I’m discovering my cruising speed, working hard on the spiritual elements of my life, meditating daily, and bathing in silence and purpose.

I have strengthened my connection to my daughter, Emma, and her daughter, Robin. I am working to better my understanding of money and how I use it in my life. And I work daily to be a worthy, understanding, and supportive partner to my amazing wife. We have never been closer or more supportive of one another.

I believe in acceptance and gratitude. I love every day on my farm and my time with Zip, Lulu, Fanny, the sheep, the dogs, and the big men in their trucks, which help keep our farm healthy, intact, and beautiful.

Life is precious, life is good, I am determined to make mine meaningful and to embrace compassion and empathy in my life. I am embracing ideas of mindfulness and the value of living in the now, the only part of my life I can control.

As always, I will not permit anyone to define me or listen to strangers who would tell me what to do. I am a better human now than the year before, and my purpose is to be better by 2045.

 

I need to be honest, not alarmist. We live in a fearful time, a bitterly divided country facing frightening changes in our planet. I’d have to be a turtle not to feel or notice it.

But I would be worse than that if I had continued to let fear govern and shadow my life. Life is too precious for that; fear came close to doing me in.

I will always have fear inside me; it was built into my soul. But it gets smaller and less powerful all the time and no longer keeps me from living the life I want.

Here is one post about trying to beat fear down in a challenging world.

My choices are to accept fear as a part of our lives or to be devoured and crippled by it. I am preparing for fear this year, as I have in the past. And I have a wonderful new mantra and motto: I Have A Right To Be Happy.

I’ve tried many things in my lifelong pursuit of a fearless life, or at least one without morning panicking or shivering when I read or see the news.

I’ve had hypnosis, talking therapy, valium, psychics, shamans and seers. I am officially diagnosed (extreme anxiety) as being mentally ill and have been studying and experimenting with what I call Fear Blockers for at least 60 years.

I am always healing, and sometimes, I feel normal and sane. It’s a strange but uplifting feeling. I know now that I can be happy, inspiring me to work harder and be more challenged to improve.

As some of you know, I don’t preach or tell others what to do, and I am not a therapist or psychologist. I share what I have learned and what works for me. Take or leave it; some part of it may work for you. That’s the hope.

There are a whole lot of anxious people in our country right now. I see and feel this but will not let it dominate my life, emotions, faith, and hope.

Here are my primary fear blockers, things that have worked for me. I choose to learn how to love life and acknowledge its many beautiful and excellent parts. I can get stuck in the muck or live in the light.

My choice is not to bow to a presidential candidate, not the media, not trolls and grievances on social media, or people whose spirit is eroded by fear and worry.

When people try to take my happiness away, they are also attacking my dignity and freedom. Some of my ideas:

– Radical acceptance. Radical acceptance can be defined as the ability to accept situations that are outside my control without judging them or letting them define me. This has dramatically reduced the suffering that they cause. So has my motto. This morning, I woke up in panic as I often do, and I said directly to the fear: “I have the right to be happy. Go away.”

It worked. Miracles do happen. Change is possible. Hope is eternal.

-Extreme anxiety is not a natural human condition but a learned and acquired one. I got help, and help helped me learn how to live a beautiful life.

-I reject self-pity. Billions of people on this planet have it so much worse than I do; many live in hunger, persecution, sickness, and without freedom or hope.

I have the right to be happy, but not to forget that I am also one of the world’s most fortunate people, as are almost everyone I know, and for all our turmoil, conflict, and suffering.

The past doesn’t matter; the future is not knowable. Now is where I belong and where I live.

 

-When frightened, I go inward, not outside, for relief, balance, and grounding. No one can take that from me.

If I am not secure and hopeful, the fear will nibble away at me, a biological rate eating at my spirit.

I step outside myself – go somewhere, see someone, and do something outside my routine. I step out of myself and into the world.

If I succumb to self-pity and complaint, I’ll become someone I can’t accept or respect.

-When I feel fear, I do some good. Doing good is an anxiety killer; doing good feels good, just as being angry and resentful feels awful. I’m not joining the Armies of the miserable, left or right.

. Millions now feel hurt, fearful, and hope for something better. I believe that is coming. Doing good has sustained, grounded, and uplifted me for years now.

It is a powerful healing element in my life. Again and again, it keeps me from falling into the abyss of fury, resentment, and self-pity. I cherish the Army of Good; I want to be one for the rest of my life.

-I reject grievance and judgment. I do not speak poorly of my life. I do not presume to tell other people what to do or to mind their business while hiding behind my computer.

I let go of hurts and rejections, even of cruelty. Letting go of life is as important to me as living it. I am responsible for my life, I blame mo one for what has happened to me.

 

-Animals are one of the most potent medicines in my long experience with fear.

At every juncture, a dog, a donkey, a cat, and even some fish have lifted me, distracted me from fear, calmed me, taught me how to live in peace and simplicity, and got me outside myself.

The thing I love most about my dogs is their hopefulness. They feel hope daily – for walks, treats, work, and attention. Those things all work for me as well; they suck fear up like a straw-sucking soda. The thing I love about Zip is his independence and big heart.

–Fear and media. I was a journalist for much of my life, and I respect journalism and depend on it. I also see sadly that it has been corrupted by corporatism, which puts profits above any other ethic or purpose.

Like him or not, the media’s coverage of Donald Trump for profit has been its lowest point in modern history.

I know what the news is; it is not in charge of my emotions, nor can I trust it any longer to tell the whole truth.

The minute Wall Street began buying newspapers and TV stations, the soul and heart of journalism began to die. It is now a pathetic echo of its former, often glorious self. Small wonder fewer and fewer people respect it or listen to it. I don’t look there for truth; I look inside of me.

-Fear and politics. I do not permit political, political, or label to govern my life or emotions.

I won’t join that fray, not last time, not this time. The people who do that are miserable, angry, and resentful. That is not who I wish to be, but sadly, that is what politics is for now. Politics and labels do not define me; I get to do that defining, for better or worse.

Hatred has always been a part of the human condition. So is love and compassion. It’s up to me and every other human. I fully embrace the once-strange idea that we will soon enter a Spiritual Coming because it feels better and is better.

-A spiritual life. The main questions for my spiritual direction are: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What does prayer mean to me? What do I wish to be? Is there a God for me? How does my notion of God speak to me? Where do I belong in this spiritual realm?

-More than anything, spirituality – far beyond its deeply religious roots – has changed me and taught me how to live in peace and harmony, find love, and be gentler and kinder. Spirituality has taught me to respect fear and accept it, live beyond it with dignity and fulfillment, and a heart for helping others.

 

-I am not one of the most essential things in the world; I am just another person trying to make his way with grace. I am not important enough to feel sorry for myself. I can learn to feel empathy instead.

What does it mean to be happy? It means I have a purpose in life, not to hurt people or abandon them to poverty, sickness, and need. It means I can be what I call a good parasite. I take my happiness from love, writing, pictures, and the need to help people who are vulnerable.

Spiritual guidance is about the basic search for meaning. I allow all of the daily experiences of life, good or bad, joy, loneliness, fear, anxiety, insecurity, uncertainty, doubt, ignorance, the need for affection and support, and the long, long cry for love – to be recognized as the core part of the spiritual quest; it’s the heart.

I believe that pain and fear are essential for growing and learning.

I am grateful for this challenge and difficulty and for the journey on the long walk of humanity, happiness, and faith.

I have the right to be happy. My spiritual work has given me a path to happiness, not a perfect life, but a rich life lived in hope and meaning, not in the fear and brokeness of other people.