MakeBeliefs 2 Help U Smile & Lift Your Spirits:
It’s Time to Talk Back to Your Fears
Here’s the latest installment in our new Make Beliefs Series, ''MakeBeliefs 2 Help U Smile & Feel J_Y.'' They are created to provide comfort and hope to young and old who are feeling distressed and anxious in our too fast-changing and sometimes unforgiving world. It’s our way of making things better!
Talk Back To Your Fears
Our fears are sometimes so big and strong that they may seem at times to overwhelm us and make us feel little and insignificant. But, for now, let’s try to turn the tables on our fears by talking back to them and engaging in some dialogue with the Fear Monster. What do you want to say? What do you want to ask? What do you want to answer back? For as long as it takes to write your dialogue you will be able to meet your fears on a level of equals and maybe subdue the Monster a little. Don’t be afraid – that’s the way the Fear Monster wants you to feel – but you know better than to fall for that. You may not be fearless, but you have shown courage in your own way.
HELP! Can You Build A Hope Machine?
A reader of Robert Reich’s newsletter on Substack asked a striking question:
“It’s a very tough time. We need a hope machine! Anyone know how to build one?”
The only person I know who could actually rig together such a machine would be the famous American cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg (see his illustration above) who is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in convoluted ways. Our task today is to be our own Rube and construct a hope machine. Maybe, even, building such a machine is a far simpler task than we expected.
Perhaps the first step is as easy as decorating a machine with ‘’feathers,’’ for as Emily Dickinson, the great poet, once wrote:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -…’’
The next step in making this hope contraption actually work might be to take a big breath and make a wish wanting something to happen or to be true. Sometimes you just have to will good for it to happen in your life.
Step three: attach to the machine a box called TRUST. With ample desire and reasonable confidence, you can believe that what you want will really happen, no kidding. Finally, add a canister or gizmo titled OPTIMISTIC THINKING so that when opened its sweet fumes help you to focus on good things to come. Here comes Hope!
BUT, then again, maybe you really don’t need to construct a machine to find hope. Instead, search within your heart and soul for that spark of light inside you that gets you through life and hard times and allows you to make bad things better. I personally think hope is always there within you waiting to emerge (although, come to think of it, it might be nice to have a machine into which you could insert a penny and get a dollop of hope for the day). A thank you to Rube Goldberg for helping us think out of the box in solving the problem of the hope machine.
TELL US: How would you construct your own hope machine? How do you build hope in your life? If you had such a machine, what deep hope would you make come true? Please share.
And, by the way, is there a line or two you might add to Emily Dickinson’s poem about hope? You can use the Cloud template (also found above) to write your lines. The first line might begin: Hope is…
(You can read Robert Reich’s newsletter about hope at:)
Endangered or Endangerer? Maybe Both?
Should Humans Be Caged in Zoos?
Think of all the destruction that human beings have caused in the world – war, reliance on fossil fuels resulting in global warming, school shootings, racism, racial and economic inequality, potential nuclear holocaust, poor health care. Do you think it’s time to place humans in cages to view and study, perhaps to protect as an endangered species? Or, cage humans to protect the planet as well as themselves? These questions come to mind as I view the three photos shown here. Perhaps the one showing lions climbing a truck cage filled with spectators is even more appropriate. Which species is more dangerous? More intelligent? More endangered? Any thoughts?
Imagine How A Space Alien Would Assess Life on Earth
Or, Is there Intelligence in Space? Better Yet, What About Below?
The deputy director of U.S. naval intelligence this week played a brief video for a Congressional committee of what he described as “a spherical object” with a reflective surface as it zoomed past the cockpit of a U.S. F-18 fighter jet. “I do not have an explanation for what this specific object is,” he said. (Wow! That was a hopeful statement!)
What do you think the spherical object is? And, if it is indeed a much-awaited vehicle from outerspace, how do you think the alien controllers assess Earth? Are we seen as an intelligent species? And, any thoughts on whom you think they should abduct?
Some people have strong thoughts about this; here’s what two people wrote to a newspaper reporting on the Congressional briefing:
‘’If there are ETs watching us, they might regard the observation of Earthlings as a form of situation comedy.’’
‘’If they came looking for intelligent life, they would have left right after they got here - as there is no truly intelligent life on this planet. We have states BANNING the covid vaccine for school children…. And intelligent life would not change the planet sufficient to drive humans to extinction within the next 500 years.’’
Finish This Comic Starter at MakeBeliefsComix With A Smile:
What would your perfect day be like?
You can find this Comic Starter at https://makebeliefscomix.com/original-comic-strip-starters/ Click on this comic panel prompt or another that you may prefer and build your comic strip. You will need to log in to MakeBeliefsComix to make your comic strip (it’s free). I promise you that you will have fun.
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