Author: lifeafterdoorkicking
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On Wishing Power To the Persians
I’m not a foreign policy expert, and I don’t pretend to have answers here. I’m very aware that situations like this are complex, and that well-intentioned ideas can have unintended consequences. What follows isn’t a proposal so much as a set of thoughts I’m still turning over.Watching what’s happening in Iran has been unsettling. From…
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Hindsight, Tribalism, and the Refusal to Deal With Reality
Every time a federal enforcement shooting happens, the same pattern emerges: facts secondary, certainty instant, outrage filling the vacuum before investigations begin. Within hours, the story is fixed: enforcement is illegitimate, resistance is innocent, and context is optional.The recent immigration incidents aren’t notable for simplicity — they’re notable for how quickly the public abandons reality…
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Power Is, Was, And Will Always Be the Rule
Every time a major power acts decisively, someone warns that “a dangerous precedent has been set.” That assumes history was ever governed by precedent rather than permission. It wasn’t. States have always done what they could get away with. What changes is only who notices.What feels destabilizing today is the recognition of a truth we…
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Season’s Greetings from Life After Door Kicking
Merry Christmas and happy new year. If you celebrate something else I hope that goes well for you.This year reminded me that survival isn’t the same as living—and that clarity usually shows up after the noise fades.To everyone still sorting through the wreckage of bad systems, bad years, bad decisions, or inherited lies: you’re not…
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No, You Don’t Have to Force December
I get the desire for cheer in December. I really do. The winter solstice gives us the shortest day of the year. The world tilts and shrinks the light. Things go gray. Cold sets in. It’s only natural we’d want to fight that back—with lights, with laughter, with plans, with cheer.We’re not wrong to want…
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Knee-Jerk Empathy Leads to More Victims, Or why “doing something” isn’t the same as doing something useful
In the wake of tragedy, familiar arguments rush back into the headlines. Recent shootings—both abroad and at home—have once again reignited the gun control debate, accompanied by alarming statistics and emotionally charged claims. That reaction is understandable. Grief demands answers. But urgency is not clarity, and too often this debate relies on misleading definitions and…
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Democracy Isn’t Dying—It Was Designed to Decay
In 2016, something broke in me—not emotionally, but philosophically. It wasn’t just the candidates. It was what they represented. On one side, a career politician who embodied every manipulative, transactional instinct of the political class. On the other, a billionaire game show host playing populist messiah. Presented with this absurd binary, I assumed this had…
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The Cost of Isolation: Six Lives That Prove We’re Meant to Be With People
And Why I Still Fight the Urge to Pull Away Isolation is tempting. Quiet. Predictable. Controlled. I battle with the urge to isolate. There are days when even stepping into a party, a store, or a casual conversation feels draining, like the world is tapping a vein and taking what I’ve got left. Sometimes it’s…
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Two tales one city
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it? Picking a “favorite” place isn’t easy. You’d think I’d say Las Vegas since I grew up there, but that’s home, not a getaway. I’ve taken a few California trips, and I’ve technically “been” to Germany and Ireland—if airport terminals count as cultural experiences.…
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The Luxury of Forgetting: How Comfort Has Made Us Fragile
Before we dive in, let me set the scene: I had a whole December lineup planned—light, festive, easy reading. Been ready since Halloween; I had the idea right after doing true crime for October, just to keep things cozy and low-key and avoid bumping into politics or mental-health vibes this month. Then the lineup disappeared.…
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Life after door kicking. 