This is a story about the greatest mistake in my life. But first, a few flowers.

Every afternoon, I go outside to take three images of flowers I consider art (above, the bird bath).

I’ve begun researching ways to convert some of these flowers into 3D, showing their definitions from several angles.

I might need to do this with videos. I’m considering buying the new Iphone 15 Pro Max with a new software system that can produce 3D photographs and videos inexpensively and quickly.

I can get a lot of money in a trade-off for my Iphone and buy it for only $30 monthly for two years. I can trade the old phone in for the new one, essential for my photography. I’m working with my friend Andrew to figure this out.

This could enchant my readers and excite me.

I’ve also decided to combine my art photos with writing about my spiritual work, as both are connected to my mind and consciousness.

As many know, I sometimes fight too hard and intemperately with people to avoid the greatest mistake in my life: becoming what someone else thinks I should become, saying what others think I should say.

Social media has elevated this issue because it is easy and free to tell others what to do. It’s an addiction by now.

Many people are addicted to it, and I have often felt I am a target because I have so many strong opinions about life and express them so openly. That is something I’ll never stop doing.

Every time I ask for donations for the blog, I am sent lots of messages telling me how I can change my life to make more money – sell old copies of my books, make animal photos into postcards, write children’s books every time an animal does something cute, dumb my blog for substack websites that charge people for my thoughts and opinions rather than give them a choice of donating instead.

I try to explain that I am doing what I should be doing; I just want to be paid for my work, as everyone does.

Beyond that, I have been bombarded for years with insulting, unknowing, or arrogant messages about what I should write, how I should think, what words I could use, and whether I am too old and white and privileged ever even to mention blacks, women, self-described farm girls,  or people of Asian heritage.

It’s a new way of seeing tolerance: racism and sexism as a tool for social justice. No wonder so many people hate us.

I am often intemperate in my responses; it is a real issue. It’s a trigger for me.

People have been telling me what to do with my life all my life, from my parents and my teachers onward, and it took me most of my life to figure out what I wanted to do and then do it. This has brought me happiness and fulfillment. That’s the big lesson.

The notion that we should tell writers – strangers – what to write and what words to use is a widespread habit fueled and enabled by social media and the sloppy corporate-enabled rules governing our new communication systems. Elon Musk has turned Twitter (now X) into one of the world’s largest hate platforms; he believes billionaires can and should rule the whole world.

The response I usually get when I protest is, if you don’t want to disagree with people writing, then don’t write anything. That’s the social media version of a  license to kill. They kill a lot of ideas.

Thank God Thomas Paine and Henry David Thoreau didn’t have to deal with that primitive idea. We could never begin counting the number of people afraid to post their ideas and beliefs on social media or the Internet; their thoughts are lost forever. Democracy is supposed to work the other way.

That is the antithesis of freedom and democracy.

I can promise that I won’t be one of those victims.

The very American idea that we have the right to live by our own beliefs and opinions is fading under the crush of a communications system that obliterates manners, sensitivity, and boundaries without cost or consequence.

It’s not something I want to fight about anymore; I want to ignore it and delete it from my consciousness. That is working well for me. People can go elsewhere and devour one another.

I know I can do it now because I’ve been doing it for some months.

The same tools that targeted me and so many others can be used to protect me. Lots of good people have been trying to tell me that for years, I’m finally getting the message.

The other day, I wrote that I would no longer overpraise Maria for her excellent and hard work on the farm. Several people responded instantly by saying I was wrong in seeing that as patronizing and should continue praising her so she could get credit for what she does as if that would matter to her.

I keep saying my Amish neighbors take good care of their horses, and I get a message daily from people saying that can’t be true because they are Amish and I must be lying. I gave an apple to a neighbor’s horse a few months ago and was assaulted for weeks by outraged people who said I had no right to provide an apple without studying a horse’s diet.

I wrote about a remarkable healthcare aide who happened to be African-American and the work he was doing in a white-dominated environment while black men are portrayed in the media as police victims or criminals. An African-American man wrote me instantly to say that I was racist, that an old white man like me – those were his words –  had no right to praise a young black man in a piece about race and health care; several people agreed with him and defended his blatant racism and ignorance.

A black man wrote me instantly to say that old white men like me – those were his words –  had no right to praise a young black man in a piece about race and health care; several people agreed with him and defended his blatant racism and ignorance.

I wrote about the decision to let our barn cat, Minnie (named after my grandmother), die naturally. I was barraged for days with messages accusing me of cruelty and insensitivity. How are ideas to breathe and live in this environment when strangers embrace their freedom to challenge every free thought and stifle it if they can?

So far, no one has figured out how to criticize my flower photos. People tell me I’m no farmer (true) and kill puppies in the barn. They say I lie, chat, and make up the people I write about.

 

This has all made me strong and confident, and I am proud to say I believe in myself more than ever and ignore what others think I should be. I take pride in that. I can’t tell you how good that feels.

How do I know what to do with my life?

It wasn’t difficult once I set my mind to it. Centuries ago, Aristotle wrote that “where  your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation.” That realization never comes from others; it comes from inside of us and has nothing to do with money, which many Americans believe is the key to happiness and security.

It isn’t.

Life is not about money, the American religion, no matter how much of it I have, get, earn, steal, or cherish.

Life is about doing what makes me happy to be alive, and in my case, that is writing what I want and using my talents to do good for others. I seek to try and do what the rest of the world needs, usually because so many cannot do it for themselves. That’s my calling as my life becomes fuller. “God doesn’t need our good works,” wrote the philosopher Gustaf Wingren, “but our neighbor does.’

 

The greatest lesson I’ve learned in my lengthening life and spiritual work is about doing what I was made and meant to do, which gives me great happiness.

St. Catherine of  Sienna wrote, “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.” Bless her for that.

I have some learning and changing to do. Rather than be angry at the long list of people eager to tell me who to be and what to say, I want to embrace my commitment to radical acceptance fully. Quarrelling with people and letting them disturb me is no better than submitting to be told by others what I want to become.

I can’t and shouldn’t control what people tell me to do; I can and do control what I choose to do and what makes me happy and feel joy rather than hatred and grievance. I have learned a big lesson; it’s better late than ever.