Embrace your sorrows, for they define you. Too often we become obsessed with happiness when sadness is the authentic and verifiable emotion that drives us and defines our daily lives. The context of sorrow is what frames our expectation against a fleeting joy.

What happened to the Hershey's Chocolate Bar? What happened to the American Tootsie Roll? Tastes didn't change. The economy changed our tastes. The bottom line turned a candy delight into a chalky turd. Where once we salivated for a chocolate treat; now we only spit out its remains.

Where do we draw the line between relation and blood? Are we our ancestors? Or are we only our middle names? How do we adjust cognitive congruence with the reality of a missing ancestry? Are we bound by birth or by name?

Being great is no guarantee of success. All too often we have seen the mediocre rise to the top, while the best, and the most talented, languish in the dark. Take up your own spark! Light up your life, and the world of everyone else! Dedicate your service of others through yourself!

Once we were quaintly shy, now were are merely anxious! Labeling conditions for the benefit of society has always been a human fascination. As terms grow, and conditions change, we tend to toss away the old label in order to apply a fresh one -- removing the cruel history of what once was for the kinder notion of today.

There is glory in the bean. There is salvation in the nut! 40 years ago, some Midwestern farmers gave up growing alfalfa -- animal feed -- to instead grow soybeans to feed people. Today, dairy farms are giving up the cow to grow the almond nut. The cruelty of Animal Agriculture is dying, while the Human Feed Harvest is growing even stronger!

The mark of the editor is blue. Everything created faces some sort of editorial change in production. Do you honor the object? Or do you celebrate the creator? You cannot admire both without the other suffering. Every Blue Pencil is a lesson in hubris and humility; but can we accept the stings of changes?

Too often, we act in haste and not hegemony. We are instinctually programmed to react to pressure -- while the better of us choose, instead, to respond to danger instead of becoming part of the tension. The cohesion of the human soul requires a response, and never a reaction.

Are we our thoughts, or are we our vows? In the everlasting battle between mind and country, we struggle to define our private lives against our best public interests. Do we owe ourselves to our moral victories, or our solemn vows? We cannot cut it both ways!

Henry Fonda never stopped being where he was from. He was always an up-from-the-dirt Nebraskan, and the consequence of that fatality was an effect on his performances that was always influenced, and echoed in the dirt, sand, and gravel of the braided prairie. Nebraskans are famous for being friendly, but befriending a Nebraskan is altogether another matter!