undamn.com

by David Donoho – 03.04.2023

via GIPHY

The time has come to give up on my dreams. Here’s the problem. I have had this idea, for years now, that I would start blogging regularly. But I have just made a liar out of myself. So stop telling the lie or stop not blogging. It is actually quite astonishing how much effort I have poured towards this endeavor without actually doing the most important part. My ideas or articles just never make it onto the web. It is like packing for an amazing vacation, over and over, but never getting on the plane.

In the three years since I have purchased the domain, I have published an equal number of articles. It has become apparent that there is something wrong with me. There is something stopping me from accomplishing my goal. I think it is time to be honest with myself, and all my regular readers (please ignore the fact that this number is zero). A little honesty would be quite refreshing. Turns out, sometimes the most difficult person to be honest with is yourself.

So, David, what’s the deal? You feel like you want to put some good into the world. But it is not so forthcoming? You’re not a bad writer, or at least the process feels good. You are able to talk to other people with enthusiastic interest on the subject of “Undamn”. Be honest with yourself. Why can’t you seem to perform?

If you want my opinion, you are scared of commitment. If you choose to do this and fail, or worse yet, give up, what happens after that? Writing a successful blog requires so much effort and you are lazier than you like to admit in job interviews. You know exactly how crappy it feels to give up. And that, my short-sighted friend, is probably one of the top five reasons you haven’t fully committed.

But remember! You also know how it feels to get back up and start moving again. You know what victories feel like. You know how good hard work can feel. Victories follow work. And it is always worth it.

Reason number two: You don’t know the first thing about blogging. I mean, you want readers to have the ability to comment directly from their facebook account. You don’t know how to set that up. Websight building is not your strong suit. There is SO much to learn.

Okay, sir! It’s true that you don’t know anything about that but you don’t have to right now. Worry about your readers when you actually have readers. You can figure out all that junk later.

Reason REALLY BIG: You are afraid of judgement. Matter of fact, this is probably the biggest damming obstacle to your goal. This is the one that makes you pause and stare at the screen in confusion and fear, while trying to figure out what words to write next. Listen, guy! I get it. You’re an over-40, hardware technician with no degree, and an insufficient paycheck. You are entirely unfamiliar with the word “successful” and you’re not going anywhere off good looks alone. You’re not all that impressive, at least on the world’s standards.

Here’s the thing though, you are decidedly moving forward from where you are at. You made that choice! People don’t need “perfect” in order to be motivated. They need “human”. They need honesty and effort. Is is usually better that way.

Okay, speaking again to my readers, and not talking to myself: I have an itch for something. I want so badly to build myself into something better. And I am. It is a slow and painful process. Perhaps painful comes partially because I am trying to make up for lost time. Like I said, I am over 40. That is halfway to the grave (give or take). I am trying to turn myself into the winning team during the second half of the game.

I am starting to wrap this up, but this final point is important. A little over two years ago I feel like I started figuring out “forward movement” and learning the art of momentum to carry me over the obstacles. I say “started” for an important reason. I don’t have everything learned yet. But the point of Undamn is to figure this out. I want to add some sort of documentation to my journey. I want to be honest with myself and any reader who finds value in my words. Pretending to have all my crap together is a lie that tastes bad coming out of my mouth. I am not here for the people who have all their crap together. I am here for the ones that really don’t.

So there it is. This is my official invitation to you to Undamn your life. Unblock your road. Figure out your obstacles and then step around them. My goal is this: I want very much to feast on the ideas that help the road to be a little less rough, whether it is my road or yours. I have no qualifications or reasons why you should read. I’m just a fellow traveler with hopefully a common directional goal: FORWARD!

P.S. By the way, March fourth is undamn.com’s unofficial holiday and the birthday of the website (I actually got the domain a few minutes after midnight on 03.05.2020). It is what it sounds like. March forth! Get yer’ butt movin’!

via GIPHY

by David Donoho – 10.26.2021

If you only had ten minutes in which you could make a difference in the world, what would you do? Would you even try?

I want, I mean I really want to do something good in this world. I would love to say at the end that I tried. And better yet, I would love it so much if at the end, someone else said that I succeeded. The biggest problem I often find myself facing though, is that there is so little time in my day in which I can carve out an hour, or even a half hour to make a difference.

But… ten minutes!?! Can I actually do something good in ten minutes?

Here is the thing. It is my belief that the devil wants you to look at your life in any way that makes you stop moving forward. Small stuff is so small. So why even bother?

My mother recently passed away. She was one of the most amazing people I have ever met. At the end of her life is when the tallies were all added up, to the best of my knowledge, she didn’t live a life of amazing and grandiose events all strung together. Her life was a good life, but it was a string of small, yet good things all tied together, one second after the next. That is what made her life an amazing and good life.

Ten minutes? It is nothing. But if in ten minutes, I could convince you that something small that you do today really does make a difference in the end, that is what I would try to do. Go! Do something good! No matter how small!

Time: 00:11:16

What can you do in ten minutes? Or what have you done? I want to hear about it.

by David Donoho
10.25.2020

Few and far between, it seems, still have a lingering love for the poet’s pen. And while I might profess to love it, I might just be lying. More often than not, I find myself reading poetry and getting bored out of my skull long before the final stanza.

It seems that poetry is dead; or is at least mostly dead. Occasionally one, such as myself, has the audacity to perform CPR on the dying monster, not realizing that what they are trying to resurrect might be better off just staying dead.

That being said, here is my sin against mankind. The month of October inspires me. At the very least, it brought me much joy to write.

The Wiry Wood
by David Donoho

I stumbled out of the wiry wood,
Relieved to find the road.
Hours long past in vain have I sought 
To find a direction knowed.

My eyes are surprised by weight of courage
Converted to stinging relief.
Wet eyes flash fire at those wicked woods
Who’d dare to cause such grief.                        

I brush off my clothes and mind my wounds.
I stretch my face to the sun.                                           
Dark places of mind have fallen behind.                     
Deliverance, at last, has begun.                                        

The road to the left should carry me home
Ere long before falling of night.                                      
A stride’s worth of steps... but wait... no,
It’s surely the road to the right.                                   

Make haste with strong step, for I’ve hours to go
upon this blessed road.                                                 
The lightness of foot and eager heart,
to travel this direction knowed.                           

Two hours pass; soon three, and then four.
I curse this adventure turned sour.                 
A little more light, a little more time,                             
How long till the Devil’s hour?                                       

A lingering thought at the back of my mind;
I’ve tried to ignore it till now. 
A sign to affirm my road aright
Is long overdue somehow.                                              

Maybe I’m wrong, and was all along. 
Maybe the left road was right.  
Perchance I missed a marker somewhere,
Hidden in fast fading light.

This thought is drowned by the deafening sound
Of my footfalls and roaring breath.
This road is silent - unusually so.
This night is quiet as death.                                          

My gaze is drawn from the road ahead.
My eyes darting side to side.
What wisdom prods all life to take cover
Where crickets stay silent and hide?                        

What wickedness waits and watches me
While I wander this darkening night?
What bird of prey flies swiftly my way
With eyes advantaged by sight?                                     

What evil stalks me, two steps behind,
And plucks at my ripening soul?
What witch, what wolf, what devil, what death?
What beast, what mischievous troll?

The mage has her spells, and Satan has hell.
Who are you that wants to have me?
If I could but hide till evil subsides;
Good heavens! What about the trees?

What foolhardy man I’ve been and am
to stand here completely exposed?
I must take my flight and hide in the night
away from this damned open road!

I turn to the woods -- those blessed woods --
With anxious and quickened pace!
I run to her shelter, her cover, I fly
To her eager inviting embrace.

The End

Before I end, I should say thank you to several people who reviewed this poem and offered up some fantastic suggestions. You know who you are. Thank you!

If you love poetry or hate it, love Halloween or hate it, love creepy or hate it, I think it would be fantastic to hear about it in the comments.

By David Donoho – 05.25.2020

Here it is! The beginning of Undamn has arrived!

“Why,” you ask, “has it taken so long?” Okay, you didn’t ask. You didn’t even know it existed. But I asked and now I will answer.

Undamn has arrived well beyond the socially acceptable “fashionably late”, because of a flat tire, better known as perfectionism.

The whole point of Undamn is figuring out where the obstacles to progression lay, and then working to overcome them. This website, a personal blog with with visions of grandeur, has been mulling around in my head for months. I have dictations, notes, ramblings, ideas, half-written blog posts and fully completed blog posts all sitting in various locations waiting to be planted.

It is about these last two that I would like to harp on right now. You see, I am a perfectionist. This is one of my major damning obstacles in life. Oh hey! Look at that. We are about to dive into my issues. I have been writing and revising and rewriting and trying to create some sort of value to share since March 4th, which is the date that I decided to bring Undamn.com into existence.

What a lovely date. It was purely by accident that it was this date and mere luck that I even noticed it. Maybe it is the dad in me that recognizes a quality joke of the finest caliber when he sees one. March 4th is the calendar equivalent of being told to get off your butt and move! (March forth! In case you are still not seeing it).

What about New Years? Oh, good old New Years. This is the party that starts with booze and ends with goals (unless you’re a Mormon, then it’s just goals).

No, I choose not to direct my life by the spirit of New Years. The motivation lasts little longer than the smoke from the fireworks. The spirit of March 4th is an all year kind of thing. There are no parties. This is the very quiet resolve to move forward. Yeah, I know it’s hard. Keep moving anyway! Encounter an obstacle? Like perfectionism maybe? Bulldoze the crap out of that. Keep moving!

Sometimes all it takes is moving forward past an obstacle in spite of your perfectionistic desire to just stop. As an example of the magic that happens when you just move, many years ago, with a guitar in hand and a chicken in the other, I wrote a song. There’s nothing too special about that. I wrote lots of songs. But here is the thing, the song was a joke. And as a joke I didn’t care if it fell flat on its face. I didn’t even care what the title was. It wasn’t a love song that had to be perfect (I half-wrote lots of those until my perfectionism told me they weren’t good enough). The funny thing is, that after all these years, I still love “The Chicken Song”. My wonderful wife convinced me that I should write another verse. It started a chain reaction. And now, after a little more goofing around and a bit of harmonica magic, it has a third verse, a slightly better name, and it has been recorded and copyrighted. “A Chicken Goodbye” ain’t a perfect song, and the recording leaves something to be desired but it’s there. And in its imperfection it makes more people happy than an unrecorded perfect version would do.

So here I am, shoving the bully hard. I will not allow my my stupid perfectionism to get the better of me this time. Yes, I know that last sentence has the word “my” in it twice. I don’t care if this blog post isn’t perfect. I don’t care if my song isn’t perfect. I am here in my imperfect state marching forth anyways!

Before I go, here it is, my imperfection at its best. Like it or hate it, let me know in the comments. More importantly, though, what are your obstacles, whether you know how to fix them or not? Let me know.