Exactly one year ago I was sleep deprived after an all-nighter with someone I love, talking about life and the many hopeful possibilities it presented each one of us. Several hours later I was on a plane, moving my "home", by all definitions, to a new foreign location.

I'll never write an autobiography. What I create in my lifetime will be my story.

But it's astounding how quickly this year has gone, and the progress of forward motion…

I get fired up occasionally about individual rights (the ONLY true human rights belong to the individual – there are no group rights), or governmental mandates, etc, but it's not because I care much for politics. And I'm not an argumentative sort of person, really.

I speak out about things because they threaten my freedom, and the freedom of all those who love Life, to live it as fully and as passionately and as productively as I and they desire to.

Very few people know the "challenges" and "hardships" and "suffering" that I have gone through in my life. Some know a little, no one knows all. Because that isn't, and shouldn't be, the focus of my life.

I love Life. It is a gift, not to be treasured in a glass case and admired, but to be ridden through the mud, washed by the rains and the rapids and the waves in the sea, pushed to its limits, which should always be moving higher, growing stronger, evolving.

This quote sums it up for a lot of people: "Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved
body, but rather to slide in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn
out, screaming "holy shit, what a ride!"

I am simply so thankful to the Creator of life, for the gift of life, thankful for who I am and what tools I have been given and learned to develop, and thankful for the freedom to think, to use my mind, to create…

What is life worth, if one does not use every moment as fully and productively as possible? I have been given the great treasure of a valuable life, so I choose to value it. I choose to take pride in it, in myself.

I choose to be responsible for my own happiness, which means that no matter what I'm going through, up against, or challenged by, so long as I'm living according to my own standards, I can be happy!

Today, I am happy. I am more excited than ever about life.

Oh sure, there are challenges – and if you knew even half of them, you'd think I was crazy for not trembling in fear of what "could" happen. But what's the point of that? The potential rewards far outweigh the risks!

Happiness comes through motion. Creative motion, productive motion, evolutionary motion – always building upon the past, engaged fully in the present, creating a greater future.

Life, when lived freely, affords me – and everyone who chooses to accept it as it is – the opportunity to be, to do, to have…anything that I can think of, within the capabilities of one's mind. (I could include "abilities", but the mind determines one's potential to learn and develop abilities, whether inherent in one's nature or completely learned.)

And so I value freedom, because freedom allows me – and you, and every human capable of thinking – to truly LIVE.

All men were NOT endowed with the right TO happiness; all men are afforded the right to the PURSUIT of happiness. Each must pursue it under the power of one's OWN MIND.

I am – still, and always – high on life. What an amazing opportunity! Every day, another blank canvas, another chance to stretch, to smile, to run headlong into the world of possibilities.

For the sheer sake of how much fun it is for me to live with passion! Thanks, Yahweh, for creating and giving humanity the incredible opportunity of Life.