Beloveds, what would it take for you to be consistently happy for even one whole day? There are times when, Truth be known, you really wonder what’s going on and how much the world at large, if at all, acknowledges you. You may feel undervalued. You were born too soon or too late, and the world, alas, doesn’t see you reflected in the Light that I, God, hold you in.

Of course, you have friends who value you as you are, and you value them.

There are other times – the way you experience it – when you feel forced to deal with the “establishment", or you are plum in the middle of the “system” wretchedly as you are being demanded to follow another’s bidding onto a track different from the one you want to be on.

As far as you can see, you are supposed to be the customer, yet these erstwhile authorities seem to live in a world that overwhelmingly expects you to dance to their tune and hop to it. You hadn’t realized that you were obliged to think as others think, as though you were born to obey. What has the world come to?

At these times, you wonder what these paragons of virtue are thinking, or if they are thinking at all.

They seem certain you are supposed to be under their thumb, and how you want to live your Life seems to be beside the point, as if you have no right to make your own decisions for your own Life or for your own children, as if you are asking too much to be able to breathe for yourself. You feel you are being shanghaied. You say: “Heaven help me.”

Sometimes you feel you may be living in a bizarre sci-fi story where you are crazily obliged to purchase a dog license. Is this really necessary?

You are not yet forced to take a flu shot so far as you know for the reason that someone else sincerely believes a flu shot is good for you, no matter what you say about it, as if it isn’t your born right to choose.

Your Heart may cry out:

“World, stop ordering me around. World, get off my back! Take care of your Life and leave me to mine. Since when do you see me as free game for you to order around. What happened to live and let live. No one has to breathe for me. No one is to decide that some of my idea are to be set aside.

Never in my Life have I been a delinquent or an upstart or dissenter. My inner hippie HA-HA is coming out. I might like to live off the grid.

“Self-Appointed Authorities, the last I knew, this is MY Life. I can still move my arms. I can still say No. Let me be me.”

Sea Fever by John Masefield, England Poet Laureate, 1930

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.