radical druid Posts

There’s always been a certain element, usually vocal, that’s wanted to roll up the Constitution and swat anyone that’s doesn’t look and think like them on the head with it.

Just to feel superior. Our government was intended to keep that kind of bullshit at bay, for the greater good of everyone whether they looked like you or not.

The point was to keep those assholes out of “public” self service.

So what the fuck happened?

That really hasn’t worked out.

© 2026, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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If New Orleans teaches you anything, it’s that everyone is always on their way to some kind of parade. The whole of life is a p’rade. We are either building and decorating the float, riding it, throwing something from it, or watching it go by and hoping to catch something. Sometimes you have to know when to turn away, too. Like when David Duke was Grand Marshall of some Krewe running thru Metairie some years back, and when his float rolled up, almost the whole crowd on the sidewalk turned their backs on him. A parade is like that. It’s a living organism. And like any living organism, it needs care and feeding. And cleaning up after. All parade essentials, definitely. Open containers don’t hurt either. Or comfortable yet stylish shoes.

The other thing you learn about parade culture (and isn’t that actually what culture is, a parade to begin with) is that some folks look like they may say they’re not on their way to a parade at all. They may even deny having any intimate knowledge of said parading activity, but almost EVERYONE you meet at any time anywhere is wearing a costume. Suitable for parading, no less. We spent a lot of time figuring out exactly what we’re going to wear this season. Every season. Y’all know there are whole industries making bank on that.

So here’s the takeaway: it’s a parade and nobody is who they appear to be. That should be good enough to start with.

© 2026, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Sometimes, staying motivated is a slippery slope. Well, maybe slippery is not the right word. Often, I feel like Sisyphus. I spend all day pushing an incredibly heavy and unwieldy boulder up the hill, only to find that when I wake up the next morning, I’ve got to do it all over again. Of course, the boulder represents my attitude, outlook on life, likelihood of ever laughing or grinning again, my sense of creative worth and meaningfulness to the rest of existence. The hill is the y-axis representing the challenges of work, finances, interpersonal relationships, endless to-do lists and tasks from unfinished projects, unfulfilled longings, bitter memories, and the general malaise suffered by those who look out at the world and see very few indications that it was designed with them in mind.

But it was never supposed to be easy. They say that the genius in us takes care of the genius in us, but whoever said that was probably safely assuming they themselves were not a genius. In fact, it takes a special kind of not special to assume that the world is somebody’s oyster. It may be an oyster, but genius is the grain of sand that gives that world such an intense kind of irritation that it is forced to create a pearl to enbalm the wound – an end result that someone, somewhere, is willing to rip out to make a profit from, regardless of whether the world survive the process. And then the profiteer will likely have the gall to complain that the genius was gone too soon, ahead of their time, so young, long before they could be more fully exploited and drained of whatever lifeforce gave them any purpose whatsoever.

© 2026, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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When we say, “at the end of the day’, to somehow provide justification for whatever decision we just made that some observers might consider extremely selfish, short-sighted, and perhaps even senselessly stupid, do we mean that day, or some other non-specified 24-hour period, either in the near future, now or at the hour of our death?

If we’re considering anything other than everything to up and including but not in any way creeping beyond right now, I think that qualifies as a premature decision. After all, it’ll all get better in the end. If it ain’t better yet, it ain’t the end.

Which makes me think about once-in-a-lifetime things. I mean, how do you know? Really know. Maybe you’re extremely lucky. If you consider that everything good only happens at most a single time (like so many out there think about this human life). Until you live it all the way through, there’s no way of knowing one way or the other whether any given opportunity will present itself multiple times.

And if you think that way, you really are perpetually in Neverland. I mean, the minute you say, “No, that will NEVER happen” you put that energy out into the universe. It wasn’t there before you made it up. You’re tearing up your own level playing field a little.

So maybe your first “journey” isn’t that grand, and you miss your own bed and the food you like and everything just so all the time. But let that shit go. All of it. You’re gonna have to give up sooner or later anyway. It’s good practice.

The truth is that everybody alive is living proof of reincarnation. You’re the same person you were at five years old at 50. But not. I’m not the same person I was five minutes ago. We are already in that time’s history.

What’s that expression – a coward dies many times, a hero only once? Well, if you made it fifty, you’ve died and been born again a whole lot. Every day. Every day I have the blues. And if you don’t look and feel past them, you’ll still have birth pains every morning.

See you tomorrow. LOL.

22 JUN 2026

© 2026, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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The point would be of course to keep going. After all to let such a talent go to waste would be so much worse than seeing it die young. Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful annuity. How much better could it be? It’s almost nepotism in reverse. You get to hate your parents by making them famous. Think of how much energy that takes up. How many other really useful things you could be doing, some maybe also a little beneficial? Who knows? The possibilities are limitless.

There’s no shame in a little profit. Even in a pure bartering system there’s allowance for that. Everybody knows that somebody’s getting a better deal. The difference between ideal and actual capitalism is that in one case, each party thinks it’s them that won the deal, and in the other case, both parties think the other side won. They of course would both say that for both sides to be happy about that, either way, is socialism. But let sleeping dogs lie, I say.

So you keep going. Always something to prove to somebody, after all. Stuff upper lip. Someone is always going to find a yardstick that someone else just casually left lying around. These things happen by chance, right? No way you’re basing your conduct on some wildly pejorative control based stereotype used to prevent actual human connection. That would be some high level mind control shit, right? That’d cost a few Teslas, wouldn’t it?

It’s not wrong to say that’s not much of a point. That’s fair. That tenuous bit of wispy possibility nonsense is not a solid foundation for any kind of social improvement project, be it political, educational, motivational, vocational, spiritual, or correctional. But it’s something. If you can identify a touchstone in today’s world that everyone recognizes as the same thing, regardless of how differently it may symbolize or be manifested as something(s) quite more or at least more manifest, then you’ve really got something, haven’t you?

Not sure what that something is, but I think it has something to do with keeping on. Darwin suggested that natural selection provides an organically motivated means for limiting the overwhelming, exuberant, explosive, and completely self-absorbed energy that any species feels just upon realizing it is alive. The law of the jungle. Not actually the law of the jungle, but how a non jungle dwelling white man saw a system where he might not always win. That’s where laws come from, you know.

It’s like that old question the Shadow used to ask, “Who knows what Evil lurks in the hearts of men?”

Evil is in your mind. And it gets on your tongue. Then it gets in somebody’s ear. Then it’s in another mind. And another mouth. Then in somebody’s fist.

Or you could just spit it out.

Nothing is not an option. Nothing is what’s left if you make the wrong choice. It’s all that’s left either way. But losing it isn’t that big a deal.

Nothing lives forever. Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything.

That’s why you keep on keeping on. Because what else you got to do?

© 2026, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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I never do what I want, that’s such an obvious reason. That makes everything that you want come and go like the seasons.

It doesn’t matter sometimes whether you’re coming or going. You either fight with the current or end where the river is flowing.

Sometimes I want to believe in what you’re selling, and other times I’m correcting your spelling,

but at some point it could all go either way. And if it does, well, who am I to say?

I never say what I mean, so that’s why I took up singing. Maybe there’s more than that, but that’s all the baggage that I’m bringing.

You only hear what I say, but that’s not a conversation. And without a connection, anyway, not even good vibrations.

Now maybe your kind of trauma and mine aren’t the same, but that’s the same water under different names

And all of it is wet in its own way. And if it isn’t, who am I to say?

19 APR 2026

© 2026, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Between the past that lingers on
and that not quite yet happened time
we call the future, but it’s not,
we plan and fret and carry on
as if all time were just a thing
we use to measure out, by spoon,
more ways to waste this precious life.

We live in shadows, then and yet,
because we choose not to forget
nor let the world unfold unless
we somehow guarantee success.

Between the past we cannot shake
and what we fear may come to pass,
the simple, straight, and direct now
is lost to celebrations of our sorrow.
Time is not a ribbon.
It is not a frozen frame of film
from some great movie of our lives.
To watch it that way is to destroy the camera.

We live in shadows, was and could,
because we think we must, and should,
control the way that life proceeds,
despite our thoughts, our dreams, our deeds.

17 APR 2026

© 2026, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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