If reality were anything like Reality TV, I’d need:

a) Some really good drugs to escape the “Reality TV” reality.

b)A total lobotomy

c)A short measure of rope, a strong beam in the rafters, and a stool

If you answered “any of the above” to this question you are not alone, and Fox News is not your news source of choice. I chose a and c; in that order. I don’t trust b. I’d probably end up the patient on Medical Bloopers and Practical Jokes because of my crappy health insurance, and be left with the capacity to know just enough while being unable to do anything about it: The Real Hell. But the drugs or the rope; definitely worthy options to any real world where a real Paris or Nichole could travel freely about the country carrying tiny dogs in big bags while invading the lives of the "little people" with their little minds. The scenario sounds more frightening then living in the reality of a nuclear winter.

So, how the hell did we – the viewing public – get here, in this vast wasteland known as Reality TV? When did the concept of entertainment start bleeding – make that hemorrhaging – into this concept? Don’t we – at least in some small measure – turn on the tube to turn off the florescent, caffeinated, daily ritual of reality for a little while; To escape from the likely to the unlikely, be it through learning, laughing, pondering? If you accept that basic premise – even to a small degree – then doesn’t it smack of insanity to say something like, “Tonight I’m going to go home and escape from reality, and watch a little Reality TV?” Somehow it makes more sense to say, “Tonight I’m going to go home and escape from reality, and do a couple lines.” This is your brain; this is your brain…. on Reality TV. . . . .

Reality TV has been around in some form since the old Candid Camera days; there’s something in the human condition that loves sneaking a peak. But today’s so-called Reality TV invites you to peak, then pokes your eye out and sucks the common sense clear through your orbital cavity without many knowing what hit them. Those are the poor souls – the potential fried egg donors – who will be destined to roam the earth blinded of reality; desperately seeking tall, thin, vapid, blonde females carrying tiny dogs in big bags.

After pursuing a here-to-fore unexplored interest in the work of journalist Hunter S. Thompson, I visited Anita Thompson's blog to explore a little more. Did I say, "unexplored?" Strike that. It was more an "inhibited" interest; because while Hunter was ripping the corset off journalism and knee deep in Gonzo, I was changing diapers, and knee deep in - well, some things really are better left unsaid. I could say that I was too busy, but that would be disingenuine - because what it was, was that suffocating fear and the good girl's gospel that kept me to the path of straight and narrow: Keep away from the boogie men in the woods; boogie men in colors of dissent and outrage with hues of something different; men like Hoffman, women like Steinem – all out there ready to pounce and make you something we’re not. Ooh, scary. Problem was, I was being fed this mind enema by the most dangerous variety of boogie man; the despotic variety: The ones that need to keep you on their path and maintain control; the wolf in sheep’s clothing (my apologies to the wolf). But I digress, which is to say that I've gone on far too long making excuses for why I’d covered my ears to the sound of discord, which wasn't really discord at all. The focus from which I digress is, that - after being viciously attacked on the "path" - I've disengaged to find myself swimming in a sea of diverse and interesting path shuckers; Hunter Thompson included. It's deep, and it's rough, but I like it - and I'm finishing my journey here. Because - for path shuckers - it's either sink or swim, and to sink is to leave sleeping dogs lie, to leave still boats un-rocked, and to leave old adages stand. One such adage appeared in Anita's blog, and it inspired me to write her. The adage - overused, misused, and short on substance as are most - was, "Your body is your temple." The following is my response:

True enough, “our bodies are our temples,” but there's no more significance to that adage then if it had said, “to speak is to talk.” Old adages tend to sell the human condition short; like this one. Too many will find a shallow meaning in the words; equate body to soul, and temple to some sacred shrine of an aesthetically pleasing God. Feeding the body gets tangled with feeding the soul, and – in the case of this old adage – it starts resembling a myth, because a temple is no more than a construct of brick and mortar if there’s no humanity inside. The paralyzed man in a wheelchair, the single mom – who barely earns enough to feed her kids; forget about her own "temple," the baby born in a twisted body, the chemically toxic, hairless woman fighting cancer, the young man robbed of aesthetic distinction from fire, all live in temples of declining, deteriorating, disheveled structure. I have known these people, and have found their “temples” more worthy of “worship” then some of their finest, gold-sheathed counterparts. They are people full of substance in thought and compassion; rich in integrity and enthusiasm, who will not overindulge in self-pity or hatred: If these qualities nourished the body as well as the soul, they’d all look like Spartan Gods and Goddesses, and then – and only then – would I stop cringing when I heard that old adage. That’s just my own “Gonzo body wisdom,” and I take inspiration from the “pathshuckers” – whom include such uncompromising champions as your late husband – to yell out when the Emperor is bare-assed, or the old adage sells us short.

Over the past few years I began to seriously question my values. I blamed them for bringing such misery and hardship into my life. Thirty years of honesty, devotion, of doing “the right thing,” of always putting the needs of my family first; they seemed only to make me easy prey for those who would use them to their own devious gain. After all, honesty is fertile ground for trust too easily betrayed. Hard work is never valued when given freely. Unconditional love leaves no room for any condition; not even the condition that it be returned. And placing the needs of family first can only leave last place for your own needs. Of all my beliefs, justice has been the one most keenly tested. For all the injustice of the past few years, ultimately what does life say of it when life is cut short from a young woman who held all those same values in abundance, while lavishing long life on those whose only values are placed in one’s self? Truly I felt the biggest betrayal in the values I held, rather then those who would exploit them or a society that would misrepresent them.

I spent a couple of years bouncing around in all directions, with no direction other than despair and resignation. There were brief moments of epiphany and euphoria; looking back on them now, I believe they were the remnants of my convictions that refused to surrender. But for the most part, the past four years of my life have been mired down in self-doubt, self-pity, and self-blame; admonishing the values that made me who I am, taking refuge in a dark and lonely place.

I wasn’t very far from the slippery slope of cynicism; of becoming an old curmudgeon angry at the world, deriding the values I’d once held so dear. Then - and I’m not sure if it was more the time of reflection that heals, or the sudden and tragic death of my niece – I began to get angry in a positive way. First, I felt anger toward myself, for doubting my values and blaming honesty, integrity, compassion, and justice. Then, the anger spread to those who used and abused my values; the trusted, the sociopaths, those practiced in a certain smile and the right words, the manipulative and cunning. The anger spread even further; to a government readily willing to lie, a collective social conscience rendered impotent by those in power, by the hard-working getting poorer, by a brand of compassion used as a publicity tool, by an integrity slapped down as unpatriotic, and by a society that has failed to evolve past a narrow focus on love. Most especially, I was very angry at all those still walking the planet, breathing the air, who were not denied a full life as my niece was, and whom squander away all the days she was denied with hatred, self- aggrandizement, greed, discontent, and social atrophy.

Now, all that anger has brought me to this place of determination and, more importantly, hope. No, I will not let the thieves and liars defeat my integrity. No, I will not allow society’s acceptable “norm” beat down my compassion. No, I will not allow one man to corrode my capacity to love unconditionally. And, go ahead, make my day, just try and make me doubt what I know to be true in my heart.