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The youth perspective on Alberta Independence is brilliantly all-encompassing. I’ve discovered this as MayCee and I have increasingly talked to more youth and gathered their testimonies on our Instagram and TikTok. After nominating other youth as tribute I figured it was my turn.

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As a young adult, aged 23, I still find my perception molded by others and this topic is no exception. After listening to all the questions and concerns, if ever there is a ballot in front of me to vote Alberta out of Canada, my pencil will be checking "Yes"; and doing as such with confidence. You may ask "Confidence for What? Alberta's success?" Verily, no.
I'm not always naive and on the subject of forming a new nation (fostering a new culture by consequence), I'm indubitably not naive. That's a big ask, an important one; and anything that important is bound to be difficult. Howbeit, I am a Harry Potter connoisseur so in the words of Dumbledore: "Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is right and what is easy."

I'd be voting yes with the confidence that my future is finally in my own demure fingers. I want kids, a property with real grass, a car that won't breakdown in two years because it's second-hand. My best friends are leaving Alberta because they can't afford rent, insurance, schooling, and appropriate food.

They said to me upon our goodbye, "we wish we had what your family does." The only reason I can afford to be as politically involved and entrepreneurial as I am, is because I have 7 people, 7 incomes, holding myself and the other 4 young adults in my household afloat. I have a rare gift that my friends don't, and they know it; that mutilates my heart.

I understand why the older generations are afraid of starting something new, but what they grew up with is obsolete and I'm suffering for it. If I'm a traitor to Canada for voting for a better future, they're a traitor to their grandkids for voting against it.

This isn't about Canada, it isn't about Alberta, this is about the youth. I'm choosing the youth because relinquishing Canada is nowhere near as treacherous as remaining in it.

My testimony is the result of apathy from all Canadians; the lack of involvement and education in our population has left us all equally derelict. I have to do something to change it, even if it's arduous;

so I'm voting yes to Alberta Independence.

~Madison Holmes

To Be a Lover, or Non-Lover: and Why to Write about it.

@HomeWithHolmes — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:02:20 GMT

"What is love? Well I sure know what it's not."

Socrates learnt to agree upon an absolute definition before assuming the nature of any given thing. Howbeit, when it came to the attributes of Courage, Beauty, Temperance, Friendship, Piety, Knowledge, and Virtue (from the Laches, Hippias Major, Charmides, Lysis, Euthyphro, Theaetetus, and Meno dialogues respectively) he and his counterpart came upon naught. I just finished the Phaedrus dialogue which is a pleasant narrative of Socrates going on a walk with this young man to specifically discuss a paper: The Lover vs. Non-lover; which is better?

I related to the experience because often on the way to cleaning a house, or perhaps just a convergence in the kitchen, myself and my dad will discuss the podcasts we listened to that day and the books we're reading; offering accounts of comprehension or nuance. I embodied Phaedrus in this Dialogue: zealous about new knowledge I've found and the potential for sagacity in its pursuit.

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Part 1

Phaedrus begins by reading a paper on love to a reposed Socrates under a tree. Passionately agreeing with the paper, Phaedrus reads how the 'Non-Lover' is in better affairs than the 'Lover' by all accounts. Why?

In summary: because the 'Lover' is incapable of differentiation between themselves and their beloved. The Lover is jealous when their beloved is regarded by others, desperate for their attention, dysfunctional in their absence... Au contraire, the 'Non-Lover' houses the relationship with their beloved equally to those of others. The Non-Lover has many friendships outside of their beloved and therefore is not debilitated beyond their lover in any sense of the manner.

By the definitions laid above most people ought to want the Non-Lover from both others and themselves! This is pragmatic if you consider love infatuation.

I have personal experience with dealing, and receiving infatuation. Once I was the girl who gleamed with envy when my beloved was fawned upon. Any attention they bestowed to someone else somehow meant- I became insignificant. I put all my worth in the cracks of their palms and wondered why I felt hollow looking in the mirror. After years of strain I scrapped the self-deprecation away with each painful poem and journal page (which you can buy here). Megha Lillywhite said in our episode on "The Notebook" that Allie could not have loved Noah, or anyone properly because she did not know how to love herself.

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The Notebook isn't the Best Romance Ever??? - Megha Lillywhite (Real Love Culture)

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3 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · @HomeWithHolmes

Sounds whimsical, alas from experience I can vouch: I did not hallow my surrounding relationships because my inability to navigate my being was wretched. The dynamic of the aforementioned Non-Lover is a glimmer of how I transcended my disparaged notion of love. I gave myself distance to learn what my values were; what I verily wanted to extract from both myself and life. What did I want to ask of others? Could I first ask that of myself?

I learnt to befriend the lady in the mirror enough to treat her like she was worth caring for, serendipitously by befriending and serving my sister, my brother, my mom, my father...
The tenet that treating your loved one as a friend equal to that of others, obviously lacks the context that you will spend more time with your lover than anyone else on average and know their deepest darkest secrets. Lo, recognizing your lover has their own idiosyncrasies as every human being with a brain does...if that means treating them equal to a friend, then I concur with the Non-Lover.

Accounting for my context, I agree that if a lover meant infatuation, the Non-Lover archetype indeed takes all precedent. Contemporary sage, , is cricketing in my head however: "Infatuation isn't love!"

Socrates acknowledges this aberration in his second attempt to define love. I commenced with the quote, "We may not know what love is but we sure know what it's not", as both a humble exercise to grant love the hallowed essence I believe it deserves, and to house the inquiry of Love's mien by this two-part panegyric.

From personal experience, the quintessential Love finally unearthed itself to me when I quit convoluting it. Love is easy, because it is natural. It is an embodiment, and a choice. Not the pragmatic choice that says, "love him because he will be good for your children" nor the capricious choice depicted in Romeo and Juliet. Rather it is the choice that allows yourself to be enveloped with someone; a choice to be vulnerable and trust your life in another's hands. Love is Faith entirely encapsulated in one individual!

I love my sister and I unironically exclaim that "without her I'd died" because her friendship unveiled to me the nature of love, and all things beautiful and worthwhile in the first place. She taught me that friendship is a robust foundation in love because it guides the passion with purpose into its heavenly status; forever unfettered by despondency because friendship is relishing beautiful things about other people. That isn't to say that without friendship a lover is lost, rather I find it may just take further time to mature compared to already having that foundation. Without MayCee, "love" wouldn't have meant anything to me.

This account is to affirm that the 'Lover' is not infatuation nor the equal treatment of every relation, rather a universal experience of awe-struck trust that invades even the most elusive of crevasses. You may think my description “pleasant” lo it is vehemently deliberate! If I deemed some other description veracious then that is the one you'd be reading. Socrates in his second attempt to refurbish the tenet of love landed amid the sentiment that "love is a sort of divine madness." I can only advocate for that so long as it doesn't imply a senseless madness like that of the Oracle of Delphi, because love isn't a dulling of reason but an enthralling of everything: the senses are brightened by love not flung into frenzy.

It gives sense and reason to the body - the mind.

Part 2

To spring the second half of the dialogue, Socrates claims (not verbatim):

"Only rhetoricians speak and write of things they do not know: generalities and relativism over absolute truths. Why write at all as if one knows? Writing is a mere recreational activity pretending to denote reality, but clearly chiefly a symbol or representation of it."

Socrates is expressing the very factual statement that writing is a mere re-presenting of what has already been presented; life. A memoir is not the experience but a re-calling of one. I first heard of this tenet from Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and His Emissary" and it unveiled a plethora, like religious dogma; the left-hemisphere phenomenon that some people will regard a piece of paper or book as more valuable than a living demonstration of the values in said literature. Does that mean writing is worthless because it is the second edition of life? By Heaven No!
This is where Socrates and I defer.

It may seem a sage statement to say "speak not of things which you do not know"...but then we'd have to discourage every child from speaking for there is a myriad they are ignorant in, we'd have to discard the scientific method which relies on the primary process of hypotheses rather than certainty, questions about beauty, faith, God, love, spirit, soul, and any unknowns of either universe or self would all be redundant for absolute answers would elude everyone (even Socrates states he doesn't have such wisdom).

There is more of the world than us! Thus we are bombarded by more unknowns than knowns on any given day and any given moment. That isn't to exclaim human beings are incapable of lofty discoveries but rather to acknowledge the inherent immensity of the universe. If we should only speak and write of things we know, it would be incumbent upon us all to mute. Alas the purpose in writing and speaking is to explore those humble unknowns.

Yes some people are rhetoricians and sophists and they utilize writing and oration as a tool to manipulate and re-present life with the apprehension that it is life's equivalent; but that is the left-hemisphere's version of it. The right hemisphere speaks and writes in attempt to reach out beyond itself towards all that is uncertain. No discoveries were made by clinging to the realm of the absolute, we ventured asunder it and towards potential.

I talk and write of things I don't know on a quotidian basis because there's more I don't know than I know and I'm willing to look the fool in order to even approximate closer to the truth. That is why you are reading this, because I'm demonstrating the process of acquiring truth by delivering my incomplete knowledge.

I recommend the Phaedrus dialogue to discern for yourself Socrates and his negotiation of "the truth about love". I'm in the middle of the Symposium dialogue which is another extemporaneous dialogue consisting of dinner table panegyrics for the God Eros; so I'm gaining more context from Socrates and the Greeks on Love hence! Truth is an endless pursuit and it needs to be pursued, because truth is the fascia of our entire existence encompassing all things.

~Madison

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Old Dog New Tricks Day 44

@HomeWithHolmes — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 13:07:56 GMT

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Why do you want to Separate from Canada?

@HomeWithHolmes — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 15:33:25 GMT

Before I go on to share with you my response to this post’s title, I would like to state that there is a lot more I could add to this topic because it’s a continuous quest for understanding and perspective, including more of my families unique circumstances that I only touched on in passing. However, for the time being, I’ll just say this...

I’m in favour of Alberta Independence. I’m in favour of independence in general. Still, I wanted to understand what that word actually means. I always said to myself that no one is truly independent; the formation of the self is dependent on the other and vice versa. It’s the classic, “no one is an island unto themselves.”

If Alberta separated from Canada, the reality that many critics and skeptics pose is correct. We have to consider our global neighbours, our Canadian neighbours, the complexities of creating a new constitution, currency, services, and so much more. The fear of leaving behind a system you’re familiar with for one with so many uncertainties is very innate. However, the adage “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” carries with it a fallacious assumption: How can you be certain that the devil you don’t know is a devil if you don’t know it?

I’m 22 years old. I was 19 when I attended my first Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) meeting to learn about the past and present struggles of the generation before me and how it’s original intention was to use independence as leverage. The idea that’s being circulated today by those same critics and skeptics of fighting for a better deal within Canada isn’t new. In fact, it was the original objective of the concerned citizens of Alberta to do just that. Concerned, with the same issues that every one of us face now. Following these peoples journey, their goal was to listen to the concerns of the very people who call them traitors today. As I previously stated, their inquiries are legitimate to the extent that they are prepared to conduct a sincere search in good faith alongside their fellow human beings. They did the research they asked for, but did they take the time to read it?

My family has been researching alongside every citizen that has a question, weather or not they legitimately want answers, or are playing devils advocate for the sake of it. Nonetheless, we concluded that history shows both balkanization and unification can be infiltrated, become corrupted. The Alberta independence movement is no different. Alberta leaving could result in a not so new neo-colonial, Operation Gladio type tactic where we could get gutted, we could be subject to interference. But what about domestic interference?

I’m already gutted when I feel I have to ask my 50 year old father to go back to the rigs because my ideas, talents, ability to learn and create, isn’t enough for me to make a life for myself. Is it because I’m not working hard enough? I’m praying that to be the case because at least it serves to remind me that my fate should and is in my own hands. However, as my generation is quick to accept, sometimes the environment and the way the system is structured is meant to fail you. This is the sad reality I and many other young Albertans face. How can we rely on ourselves in a system that actively operates to shun self- reliance? The answer as far as many of us are concerned is, we don’t. So we leave to the U.S. or somewhere where we know our talents won’t be surrounded by an inflation of regulations and taxes that punishes us for having ideas meant to value human life and personal dignity. At least that’s why my friends have left.

No one is an island unto themselves. Unfortunately, this means the shoulders of the previous generations that my generation is forced to stand upon, having to move back in with our parents, has us all wondering, what exactly are we looking at while we’re standing on them? The devil you don’t know. The devil you ‘don’t know.’ Potential. That’s what Alberta Independence is to me. That’s what I hope, as is the case for many of us—nearly everyone—who are unaware of what Alberta looks like as a nation. That it may allow each of us to take a risk on our own failures and accomplishments. Not the mistakes, which are called Bills and policies and regulations that are all the way across the west that I know I didn’t consent to. Not even the ‘deals’ that our provincial government is implementing that I, once again, didn’t consent to.

Alberta Independence to me is a chance for my generation to participate in the best thought experiment of our time. What does a prosperous country actually look like? The campaign to ask and research that question should go for any person, across any nation, always. That’s why I believe we shouldn’t resort to labels, we should remain non-partisan, our future is a discussion that should be taken seriously by any person of any affiliation. We need to study the complexities together, and we need to build a path forward. Are we not working hard enough? To some degree, yes. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “It’s a Republic if you can keep it.” That means having an informed and moral citizenry. That’s why my push to answer the question won’t stop once the referendum(s) are complete. My sister and I have been collecting various testimonies from other youth and they know Alberta has the potential to be great, but it has no support for it where it stands today. We can’t build a path if our tools of communication, resource and energy extraction, refinement, wealth and savings, keep getting threatened and taken from us.

I’m young, so the idea of wanting to start over and try something new isn’t too difficult to comprehend. The amazing part though, is as I’ve been in the independence community for some time now, I see there’s a lot of older generations fighting for it. That is super important, because they have the context of living through both liberal and conservative governments. That’s the interesting part. Both parties still have bad actors who have showed signs of not listening to and tyrannizing Albertans. So the clear pathway to me is, we listen to one another to solve why we can’t afford groceries, why we can’t afford homes, why we can’t secure jobs, by discussing the root causes and structuring a better constitution, a better currency, a better immigration system, a better energy development strategy, a better education system that teaches us about all these processes and more. We become our own politicians, our own public servants for ourselves and for each other. Not because we hate Canadians, not because we have all the answers, not even because Canada can’t change, but because someone has to start leading by example. Before anyone could be inspired to run the 4-minute mile, someone had to run the 5-minute mile to show that it was possible. How much better could better be if we we’re all aiming for it?

MayCee Holmes

New Poetry Anthology

@HomeWithHolmes — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:06:27 GMT

It’s here, after contriving this idea 5 years ago it finally came to fruition ~

The core tenet behind this endeavour is as follows:

I’m 23 years old, I listen to podcasts and read books from University Professors and former Colonels and Economic Experts and Historians (and I understand…most of it), I’m involved politically and have been invited to speak on numerous stages on behalf of the youth. From the audience’s perspective, I’ve become a laudable individual.

“I admire your dedication Madison!”

“I wish I could do what you do!”

“What a mature young lady.”

Every laudation granted me however, recalls to me this poetry.

This anthology is the annums of emotional negotiation that conceived my contemporary identity. Identity is the precipice of concerns for teenagers and when they regard others they either fail to put into context, or were not given the context, that even their seniors are negotiation their identities hence.

Secondly someone said this to me, “My daughter would love you -

…she’d never guess you were an Alberta Separatist.”

The aforementioned daughter is a self-identified lesbian Pride Flag enthusiast.

Sound like the sort I associate with?

That’s the kicker, I do.

I have a whole array of opinions that those dearest to me are privy to but my core belief is that people are not walking ideologies.

This poetry anthology is proof that I was once just like them. It’s for the parents that have kids they wish were more like me. It’s for the kids that would disagree with my “politics” but love me for all the other experiences and passions I deal with quotidianly. I have active friends who avoid politics but this poetry anthology is why they stay friends with me.

I’m not me without this poetry.

So please if you know a youth and find yourself thinking “how do I reach them?” Surprise them with a copy. Nothing transforms relationships like poetry they can relate to, from someone that on paper is “against everything” they "stand for.”

Happy Reading ~~

Poem Anthology

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Origin's of Axioms - E.M Burlingame (Who's Battlefield are We On?)

@HomeWithHolmes — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 01:23:17 GMT

Poetry Anthology

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Third and final in the series following “Not Getting Dumber” and “The Neural Forge of Sane Complexity…

3 months ago · 24 likes · 2 comments · E.M. Burlingame

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Old Dog New Tricks Day 43

@HomeWithHolmes — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:42:25 GMT

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Can you Write Something for SubStack?

@HomeWithHolmes — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 23:39:57 GMT

Let’s ask the question that comes right after ”Can you write something for Substack?”

“Do I have anything important to say, or worth reading?”

I’m addressing this for my first Substack because the answer is emphatically “YES”! Not because I am a self determined narcissist do I respond this way, I truly act out the confidence needed to walk with my head held high and my shoulders back. For all of us here on planet earth, we have something to offer. If we feel like we do not have anything to offer; there in lies the problem.

All of us have our innate qualities, feelings and abilities we are born with: I like to call them “a persons forte”. For example, I am a master organizer. I have been as long as I can remember. I can organize things, people, events, etc. Therefore I have a strong propensity to notice even the smallest amount of detail. This spreads out into the things I do, and the relationships that I have. On the other hand, your “forte” might be creativity: finding the most amazing solution to an otherwise grave situation. I am no good at coming up with solutions that are out of the ordinary.

My point is, everyone has something they are truly good at naturally. If you accept this about yourself you learn to embrace your talents. You then, can excel at certain things. Feel confident. Build your self esteem.

Now let’s talk about the areas you are not so good at…

There are many areas I am not so good at. The beautiful thing is, I can learn new things. I may not be as good as someone who’s “forte” it is, however, I can learn nonetheless.

Why do I bring all of this up? It was Jordan Peterson who taught me it is impossible to end fear altogether, so don’t even try. Accept that fear is a part of life. When you decide to be brave, then there is the absence of fear; crush fear with bravery.

I say this to you: Because (shouldn’t start a sentence with because lol) this will not be my only substack, but the first of many, I choose not to listen to any voice in my head that says “what I have to say is not good enough, it’s irrelevant” or “my life experience isn’t as exciting as someone else’s.” One of the wisest things I remember from the bible is Galatians Chapter 6 verse 4-5 Easy to read version: “Don’t compare yourself with others. Just look at your own work to see if you have done anything to be proud of. (5) You must each accept the responsibilities that are yours.”

Or NIV (New International Version): “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, (5) for each one should carry their own load.”

What I have realized over the years is, someone will connect with what I write, or I might make someone think, or……… the possibilities are endless.

“It’s a dangerous business Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” - Gandalf, LOTR quote

Therefore, welcome to hearing from another member of

Mama Holmes

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