The Human Universe – Rituals and Traditions
The human universe is vast and varied, and every now and then I like to use my unique neuron firings to try to examine…
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The human universe is vast and varied, and every now and then I like to use my unique neuron firings to try to examine this story of us. Apologies for its length, the thought was easier to see than the explanation of the thought.
Rituals, traditions, there is a definite large scale change happening to our collective consciousness and I am not sure if we can always recognize that. To do so would mean to step outside of our little spheres and look at the entirety for the patterns. We are always told not to forget history or we are doomed to repeat it. The curious thing is though we seldom rewrite that history with what we know now. The classic human reaction is to lock in those events and thoughts of that time and there it is, that’s our memory of it, or our belief. Throughout life we collect a good sized pile or two of these memories and beliefs, these automatic reactions more than anything else. Most of what we learn and accept in society today has come about out of a ritual practice, or a tradition of continuing the acts from one generation to the next. The patriarchal family group, the standards and mores of a particular region, the practices of a religion, the education processes, the peer and contemporary pressure. For a great deal of our nation’s history we have been at an unease about this growth thing, this constant change. The one thing about many of the biggest names in our history is they liked to make things perfect, but they never could. Because the game kept on changing and the rules of the game would leave all of the best planning in ruins or unmet. So, in our lives we have incorporated, through many ways and practices a way to accept our ways through ritualistic beliefs and environments. We do this for stability, to know what tomorrow may look like, like I said we don’t like change. Yet, when examined, we seldom carry that ritual as it is, but as we should have it, what feels good. At this time we ridicule some and place others on a pedestal. The ones not willing to adapt and change fall to natural law and begin to vanish. In cultures, as in life, things do age, and do change and even our own muscles will tell us that with great change often comes great pains.
Ritual is arguably a universal feature of human social existence: just as one cannot envision a society without language or exchange, one would be equally hard-pressed to imagine a society without ritual. And while the word “ritual” commonly brings to mind exoticized images of primitive others diligently engaged in mystical activities, one can find rituals, both sacred and secular, throughout “modern” society: collective experiences, from the Olympics to the commemoration of national tragedies; cyclical gatherings, from weekly congregations at the local church to the annual turkey carving at Thanksgiving to the intoxication of Mardi Gras; and personal life-patterns, from morning grooming routines to the ways in which we greet and interact with one another. Ritual is in fact an inevitable component of culture, extending from the largest-scale social and political processes to the most intimate aspects of our self-experience. Yet within this universality, the inherent multiplicity of ritual practices, both between and within cultures, also reflects the full diversity of the human experience. It was then neither pure coincidence nor primitivist exoticization that placed ritual at the center of the development of anthropological thought: it was instead ritual’s rich potential insights as an object of sociocultural analysis.
An observation occurred and it came from the weirdest of places.
I still enjoy a good video game mind you, yes, a kid at heart it allows me to connect with some of my younger family members too. Now there are some things going on in that environment that I notice, being that I see things a little differently at times. I may not notice the guy who is going to kill me because I am noticing the herd mentality. The bullying tactics and the unfair advantages. Most gamers know that there are plenty of players who cheat, they game the systems to gain an unfair advantage and use that advantage to bully and demean their opponents. They are not looking at this as cheating though, rather an entitlement. They believe that since they have the ability then the rewards should allow them to do as much as they please, it’s their “right.” It is not about bullying the other players to them, it is about personal gain and freedoms brought about by the rituals of online play. It is their world alone and you are an outsider. To many that thought pattern applies to the real world too. We all know there are criminals and good guys, and in that we have allowed this to blossom as it has in our society.
I still enjoy a good video game mind you, yes, a kid at heart it allows me to connect with some of my younger family members too. Now there are some things going on in that environment that I notice, being that I see things a little differently at times. I may not notice the guy who is going to kill me because I am noticing the herd mentality. The bullying tactics and the unfair advantages. Most gamers know that there are plenty of players who cheat, they game the systems to gain an unfair advantage and use that advantage to bully and demean their opponents. They are not looking at this as cheating though, rather an entitlement. They believe that since they have the ability then the rewards should allow them to do as much as they please, it’s their “right.” It is not about bullying the other players to them, it is about personal gain and freedoms brought about by the rituals of online play. It is their world alone and you are an outsider. To many that thought pattern applies to the real world too. We all know there are criminals and good guys, and in that we have allowed this to blossom as it has in our society.
We have primarily taught the past to steer the future, that has been a tradition since forever. It is important as we have know, but we do and have kept repeating it, continuing it and finding limited solutions at best. Our newer generations are not practicing rituals or passing them on, but replacing them and dissecting them to their liking. Just like those before us, but in an entirely new manner. In our past we have dealt with the issue of stopping them from growing larger, hit them while they have no power. The rules have changed and the power can now, not be cut off. The way to deal with unsavory rituals, the ones in which we would hide or form secret societies with. The ones in which we could speak freely of our feelings and thoughts, yet still confined to the pockets of thought where they were. Hate wasn’t regional, but the groups acting on it were certainly not everywhere. Let me stop here and say that the fault is on everyone for the place we find ourselves in today. The good, the bad, and the ugly have come from the very goo we have to witness today. This whole experiment in society building has reached a point where change and ritual are not only exceeding our abilities, but pushing our whole concept of what those two things mean.
In the last fifty years alone we have been enlightened even farther to our great potential. In that same time we have been shackled to a past that will not allow the change to happen at a pace in which it is coherent. We set that up with the continuation of rituals and traditions more than anything else. We have let the children be themselves and we have seen that human nature will take over, we will be lazy, we will find the easiest solutions, we will change what we want to suit ourselves. We have done a great job of that in this capitalistic mess we live in. We have created and exceeded our own expectations, while at the same time generated more expectations than can be met all at once. We have been defined for all too long as a sex, or a race, a color and a religion, we have been defined by so much that we are not, that the definitions we find in the rituals of today often leave us hollow and reaching for something else. Reaching for this has left us as digits of binary code, some forsaking the program to save the digit. Ritualistic ones and zeroes, either on or off, for or against.
In recent decades, however, ritual has undergone a rapid retreat from the forefront of anthropological consideration. Although ritual’s role in the initial formation of anthropology does not grant it permanent immunity to transitions in scholarly interest, its recent departure also should not be casually interpreted as proof of irrelevance.
There is evidence that the path we are on can lead to a great changing in humanity. With the sheer number of people on this planet one thing is pushing to the forefront through all of this ritual. That natural law of humanity, those basic instincts of good over evil. Being governed does not have to be a contrast to freedom, yet it is being looked upon that as the very cause of our disapproval. They call this the information age and it could very well be that we are going to look back and call this the disinformation age. Some taking the dis part of that to literal extremes. The ritual of information was handed off long ago, for every cheating video game player another site or source of propaganda, lies and mischievousness. For every community group helping out the disadvantaged, a marketing company dissecting the bits and pieces of us all to better help the change to binary. Not because they see a wrong with what they are doing, but instead they see the right in what they are doing, simply because they can. The coding for the human condition in our society cannot be done simply by a government, it is done sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly by our individual codes.
Just as in the past we have seen the great changes that come with progress. I am wondering if our ancestors dealt with the same kinds of angst and grief they saw in the next generation? From what I have heard in the simple part of this, yes, I can’t stand your music, or attitudes is a lexicon of this. This change is similar to the other changes in US, yet now the reach and power to dismiss and shut out the damaging or backwards traditions and rituals have reached a point where the limiters are off. The binary codes not lining up for the program but themselves. A Tron of another name, the little guy seen in everything because that is what their actions steered their beliefs to. What we are seeing now is an anarchy of information and disinformation and the reality, the thing we hold onto for truth, is lost in the noise of it all.
There is a hacking of the American conscious going on right now. It is exposing our vulnerabilities and our strengths. It is infringing on the very rituals that have kept this grand experiment afloat for so long. Its meaning is derived from those who think they have the right because they have the ability, not the experience. A deep rooted intrusion into our very personal binary codes, our very personal beliefs and our most tenured of hostilities. There is change happening beneath our very eyes and we do not have all of the answers nor do we even recognize it for what it is. A disruption to a long standing tradition of checks and balances and one that has not been at a pace we are accustomed to. This is not a time when we can just hack the system and see what happens. This requires a lot of time to program the right results, and time is something that this human universe may not have enough of.
There is a hacking of the American conscious going on right now. It is exposing our vulnerabilities and our strengths. It is infringing on the very rituals that have kept this grand experiment afloat for so long. Its meaning is derived from those who think they have the right because they have the ability, not the experience. A deep rooted intrusion into our very personal binary codes, our very personal beliefs and our most tenured of hostilities. There is change happening beneath our very eyes and we do not have all of the answers nor do we even recognize it for what it is. A disruption to a long standing tradition of checks and balances and one that has not been at a pace we are accustomed to. This is not a time when we can just hack the system and see what happens. This requires a lot of time to program the right results, and time is something that this human universe may not have enough of.
Originally posted on Blogger: The Human Universe – Rituals and Traditions.
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Talk Without Limits – Two
Sometimes getting caught up in the moments of your life will paint it with colors that just don’t apply to the real pigments of…
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Sometimes getting caught up in the moments of your life will paint it with colors that just don’t apply to the real pigments of it. The too much of one shade or another creeps in on the carefully blended ones and it leaves a less than appealing shade. In the last few years the painting is happening around the clock and the real colors of life have taken their place and there is no more painting over them.While these colors and shades have been around all along, they have recently began to bleed out, in some cases quite literally. The atmosphere of a country at a focal point, its people ready for change, and equally ready their own personal manifest destinies. You could claim a massive lack of understanding from all corners, ignorance, and divisiveness. You could claim cronyism and unfair advantages, cheating and illegal activities, it’s the government, it’s those people, it’s business…Whatever the basis for the blame or the belief, understanding or lack thereof, there has been progress in this painting party. When you clean up after throwing mud around so long, you see where the fresco’s and pigments of colors really go.
Pardon me for dragging you through that eloquent dog pile. This is Talk Without Limits, We have been pissing on everyone else’s legs for a long time now. Race relations, Political stripes, antagonism towards everything, reveling in the madness of condemnation. We have almost found a cure for genetic blindness, yet we are celebrating a demagogues demise like it is something to be proud of. How the blank did he even get there anyways? This really small pettiness that has driven us mad though, has actually done some good, we are done with it inside, all of us. In this world right now more than anything else, people are intolerant of intolerance. That is a double edged sword though, for one is the other and the other is the same, it is a cautious path we go forward on.
We have brought race back to the spotlight again, and womens issues. We have denounced the acts of war once more and we are making progress and inroads against oppression. The examples we have now have been reduced from the past, there is in much a motion of progress. We have taken steps and more steps to ensure that the rights of all people and their various orientations, no matter what they are, are protected and respected. We have shone a light on the manners and ways in which we slight and demean and make this world a darker place. We are sharing our understanding with those who will listen and we are finding voices which disagree and those that point to a different color, a different view. We are climbing out of the goo of our evolution once more and we really have been making steps, grand steps in this painfully slow process.
It is all to easy at times of darkness to believe that the shades of life are muddied and unwanted. There will be a time when those things do receive the suns light. We have started a grand discussion and began finding solutions again to those things instead of just denouncing them and frolicking in the misery of others. From political change to personal change, civic duty and an understanding of our place in things this discussion and education on life will continue. We can stop pissing on peoples pant legs and start picking them up, slowly but surely. From millenials to LGBT rights, from right wing nutjobs to whiny liberals, men and women, to colors and creeds, it is really working when you look at the big picture.
Originally posted on Blogger: Talk Without Limits –.
When All My Heroes Are Gone
I had to apologize to my Father yesterday, he passed away in 2000. I had just had coffee with a friend, and we discussed…
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I had to apologize to my Father yesterday, he passed away in 2000. I had just had coffee with a friend, and we discussed everything under the sun and then some. As I left I felt a strong sense of remorse, I stopped and looked up and said my piece. I don’t know why either was my last thought…I have always had heroes, and even though I was too young to understand, I knew from the start that my Dad was one of them. He was a soldier and a war hero, along with all the rest of them from my childhood and younger years. The white hatted Cowboys and the colorful supermen and women. Bionic or biological, tough or just pushed too far, there were always heroes to be found. A sense of belief if not in the character, a belief in the principles are found and admired. In that framing, a belief also came that I could aspire to be anything… and that I could succeed.
The heroes and beliefs I formed through those years would not leave me, rather though they would be tempered with time. Those heroes from life became bigger in some cases and diminished a bit in others. They will always be there in some form though, in personality traits or parts of my belief system. The Rocky theme will always represent something powerfully meaningful, Taps will always make me cry. I was raised with a belief in the grander purpose of things, and a hearty respect for those who did the toughest and thankless jobs to keep this country going. I had to apologize to my Father again later on, this type of despair was deeply personal and at the same time everywhere else, in a very public way.
I looked back on the heroes, the same ones shared by that old friend in many cases, the principles tempered differently apparently. What was that supposed to mean? I understand I hold a good amount of pure and simple nationalism, I also temper that, I thought, with a balanced world view. Not only the meanings of the battles raging but the cost to the participants, long term and short. The heroes sometimes change faces, but their messages and missions all too familiar, all too persistent as they ring on. I wondered what their messages meant now? I wonder if their sacrifices would be remembered? I mean we don’t celebrate the heroes from the long lost civilizations, seldom remembering the name of the most memorable, let alone the battles purpose, the principle upheld or the freedoms involved.
I had to apologize to my Father, in this state of the world and nation at this time I felt and feel that I have let him down. This nation is at a brink of so much infighting and just plain resentment he would not recognize it. He would not feel as if the things he and so many before had fought for had been protected and cared for in the proper manner. The foundations of the institutions that bear the flag under assault from within, He would be screaming Benedict Arnold left and right, I am after all my fathers son. No, this is becoming quickly unrecognizable as that nation filled with a pride greater than the partisan and intolerant, the bigoted and the demeaning thinkers. The scars of this war will be mostly unseen, but they will breed the same dissent as before, the same battles saved for a different day and a different time.
I said I was sorry because I don’t know why so many would choose to believe that this country was so bad off. That its people were either elitists or deplorable’s, an education being held against one and good old hard work the other as if that is the problem. The negativity of a people so free that they can dissect the personal correspondences of the most powerful people as if they understand it all. The judging of one another for a myriad of reasons to justify our discord, our will over others, our manifest destiny.
I told him I don’t know, but this certainly was not envisioned as the nation you wanted to go home to when fighting in the South Pacific. This probably was not the country you thought it was going to be when you marched for civil rights. This couldn’t have been in your thoughts when your ninth child was brought into the world, or your twentieth grandchild. The hard work to get ahead, the pitfalls of life and whatnot bringing it crashing down just to start over again. For all of those guys on both sides of the aisle that fought for the chance to make a better place, I really don’t think that this was part of their plans. I felt a great remorse, we have stepped way beyond that pale, into a skin that just doesn’t fit.
In this world today I do not see heroes being made, sans the colorful cinematic ones. Their violence permeates the messages more than anything else, the might is right mantra carried on sometimes. I see the heroes today not in the politicians, or the superheroes, not in those but the most decorated of soldiers. I see them mostly in those trying to get by, who accept that life and their happiness are dictated by their choices and nothing more. Those who share when they can and ask for little when they need. The lessons of my childhood heroes being fortified in everyday regular people, the heroes unheard of. It is their country too after all.
When the story of a people changes and that narrative does not meet the history of it, those heroes go away. They do not meet the standards of what it means to be something, someone, a subject of a story, a remembrance of a deed. I do not know when my heroes will all go away, or that the country in which they were formed survive the change enough to carry them. I know when I look around at the hurt and fear, the confusion and the deception in the world today, my heroes are still here. Filling the pages of a discussion board, or the local market, the principles I hold dear showing up in every one of them, no matter the differences. I hope their stories continue and the America I know will live on. The apology to my Father for this detour of national civility was warranted, but this shaming of a nation and its people, by its own people was not. For what will be left to save when all my heroes are gone?
Originally posted on Blogger: When All My Heroes Are Gone.
An Asterisk In Time
I have been trying to wrap my head around this acceptance that is now forced upon me. My writing going forward is not for…
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I have been trying to wrap my head around this acceptance that is now forced upon me. My writing going forward is not for posting to the general public, but rather back here in the tiny hole I have tapped out keystroke by keystroke. Something that once bled from my hands and mind as easily as water has turned into a cold gray cinder block of fluidity. I am amazed that I have typed this much without a curse word or fifty. I have to use this all in my recovery as well because I am almost five now in sobriety years and that is always a touchy time. How all of this is going to play out in that arena is hard to say right now, but I do not wish to go back to those rooms, I do not wish to be a part of something that would support killing off my country.
All of this has turned my world and my views upside down. I am someone who has the greatest of empathy for others and can forgive with just a thought. Here I am though on the other side of the fence, a growing apathy and indifference of all that which I used to hold so close. This caring about others is now somewhat against the principles that was voted in, the hatred something natural to not only absorb but revel in. If people think that we are going to somehow get along now, that somehow the whole point of this was about government then they are very wrong. This was about everyone people see on a daily basis, this was about your neighbors, not their candidate, but them personally. Some thought they were taking something back and really all they were doing was losing it all, because the people were lost, the spirit was lost. This was more than about the land and money, the jobs and everything else. For everything up to this point in the country’s history is gone, whatever the new name is for this place will be it started last Tuesday evening.
Sure, there are a lot of things I want to vent about. I want to scream at the 200 million registered voters who just didn’t vote. I want to scream at the Sanders and Steins and Johnson’s pointing out that their votes for were great big old FU’s to everything they stood for themselves. The idiocy of this all has taken me back into a dark place that I haven’t been at home in in a very long time. A place that I have to get used to again apparently for the lights have almost all been extinguished. A primal Klingon scream from my soul, releasing the last of its light to the cosmos for good. The death throes of a once valiant nation and people reduced to a skid mark on the underwear of history.
For someone that just wanted to be useful and help people to someone that just wants to use a baseball bat on them instead. That is the callous horseshit that this has produced, there is no makey nicey now. Answering the door with a shotgun again, making sure that I am armed when I leave, don’t look too redneck or too casual, put on that mean mug that says you will snap their necks if anyone even peeps. The cable guy came to the door last night and he was wearing a bright red cap, my heart sank and started pounding with anger. I have not watched any news since Tuesday evening, and I guess this is going to need some work on the recovery front as well. I have such a small life this will hardly effect me I hope. I also have large thoughts though and this has diminished them into fits of hope, fits of light, surrounded by walls of darkness so freaking high. Yet I am alive today thanks to the ACA alone and I just wonder if that doctors visit yesterday was the last one I will ever have. A friend had her surgery for this morning cancelled by the doctor awaiting repeal of the ACA, she will have to live in agony, if she lives, until such time the lawmakers decide what is best for us.
I lost a lifetime of history with this one, for everything I once knew will be changed and wiped out. Without a solution to anything I am afraid we are simply doomed, there is no mulligans in country building and maintaining stuff, at least not ones you can pull off too many times. I would have never thought I would see the day that Reagan Republicans would vote for the President for Life of Russia.
The riots that started have not died down and my wife had to change her routine this morning. It seems five people were shot last night at the stop where she catches one of her busses downtown. Hispanics are being openly castigated and told not to do business at some places. If people want to see power, that can be arranged and I hope to go into that later on. But the madness of politics and running this nation still holds no power than absolute striking. If the government wants its people on its knees, then we can make it lay down before us if need be.
I have been trying to write this for hours that seem like weeks. Trying to understand when the dimensional slip happened, when did the Universe go sour? There is the theory of ultimate universes with endless outcomes, I guess we get the one with the crappy ending after all. The words and thoughts I am getting are fluent and understandable, but would only make sense to others after some good hard filtering. So I am writing a bit and then working on some artwork, and writing my latest/oldest book in my head. Like I have said many times before, I have no idea what this writing stuff that I am told that I am apparently somewhat talented at is going to lead to. If it takes me away from here, for any length of time at the moment it can’t be all that bad. A needed therapy, even if it is in fits and starts.
There is still hopes of a miracle in the checks and balances established years ago. I thought there would be a few more of them used in the lead up to this point. There were so many failures on so many levels that I can’t go into them all. The biggest one is the voices that needed to be heard for once, got shut out at the most crucial moment in our history. The good that was done, the history behind it all not showcased, instead this became a crotch induced panic from both sides. A ex acquaintance who threw us into this said that it was also a rebuke of the militant feminism being hammered out on men. After holding down my lunch and thinking about laughing my anger came and like people say it is a dubious luxury that anger stuff. It allows all of the building of good habits to be eroded, and wiped away, anger, hate, pity, fear and just plain old pissy-ness sets in easily around you. Flowers stop growing on the hopes of a future and the weeds begin on our graves.
This was an historic election, one in which a few million people elected to throw away a nation. The stars were out when I started this and they are out once more as I finish it too. I am glad that I write Science Fiction and fantasy books and that my imagination can take me to worlds far far from this maddening and even frightful place. It makes me think that maybe like those primal screams that allows the soul to be released to the stars, this was in effect the same thing. A primal defiance, that would only leave the thought of America as distant as those little points of light, and a hope of a future together that still remains outside of the grasp of humanity. Somewhere beyond our home, the carried principles will remain, the carried promises are given, and the flag will represent not hate or oppression, but hope once more. May we be forgiven our sins, our shortcomings, our nature, may we be forgiven?
Originally posted on Blogger: An Asterisk In Time.
The Pen and the Pendulum
This last five days or so has been one of deep reflection and filled with a thirst for understanding. Not of the world outside…
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This last five days or so has been one of deep reflection and filled with a thirst for understanding. Not of the world outside as much as the inside, and what things that happen in society and the world at large really mean to this life, this direction, this passion of mine. Sure, I could easily go the apathetic route and just put on an aire of not caring one bit, but that would be ingenuous. I could also start wallowing in what the assumed consequences could be and that would do me very little good if any at all.Yes, anger, amazement and astonishment, disdain and pure rage ran deeply through these emotional pathways. In the old days I would still be on a bender, trying to assuage my reality with chemicals of one kind or another. Trying to argue and manipulate my world into something that I could handle, not manage, but handle somehow. I am noting that at almost five years sober at the moment, I have had a more honest and meaningful life in that amount of time than I did in the thirty or so years before that. Not that my life did not have meaning and eventful things and growth did happen, though the context and connections of it all were lost, the same mistakes and character faults repeatedly making life…well… unmanageable.
It is probably amazing to some of those around me that knew my old self, this emotional sobriety not escaping my notice at times too. It is humbling in itself just to see it, it is even more valuable when used though. So when the pendulum of change and life start swinging erratically, the pen can sometimes provide light to that much needed pinnacle of stability.
So what is that supposed to mean anyways? Like I have said, an emotional sobriety or stability for me is fairly new in my life. In keeping with the practices that keep me sober, one of them is allowing me to being able to examine more easily the human condition happening to me at any given point. That practice can and should be used at any given time and during times of great disturbance, doubled and tripled down on. So I started from the outside, the things that were bothering me the most, the resentments and fears. Turns out, just as before there was nothing but unmet expectations of the way I wanted things to be. I have been through rejection and embarrassment, through losing and I have been in many positions that were not the way I wanted them to be.
My University of Washington Huskies Football team were undefeated until last night. Embarrassed at home on the biggest stages of their careers, their play completely unexceptional. Yeah, I have been there myself before, many work and social situations completely blowing it. I said to myself that that’s ok I guess, I mean they didn’t owe me anything… They didn’t owe me anything… hmmm Now that took me down a trip on that road I am familiar with. That road of it’s none of your business what other people think, right size your own expectations and when has life ever really been just what you envisioned it to be? Humbling? Yes, and also frustrating, embarrassing, challenging, defeating and most of all very telling. It will be this way for myself, for my football team and for my country going forward, a response is called for, the reaction will be insufficient. So what is the response? It will be subjective as everything always is, but it will take work, firstly, I suggest I look on the inside.
I have been through many things in my sobriety that would have made me drink in a heartbeat before. Health issues, deaths, some of life’s most challenging problems, I didn’t have to drink over it, I did not need to lose my sense of hope and just plain knowledge that things can and do change. The very best part of it is that if the expectations are for one thing they hardly materialize. Rather it is the right sized and proper minded expectations that will more often than not be exceeded and even then sometimes to your wildest dreams. I went back into what I am owed, which is nothing in all honesty. I can count the blessings that I have received through work, and a way of life, and a country that protected my ability to have these things, but I am not owed. I would gladly be humbled by being able to accomplish and hold onto a smattering of this things freely given to me. So with the expectations at a proper level, the issues that most trouble me these days are grandiose to say the least. Then the dubious practices of self destruction, second guessing and ego massaging is not introduced and the real causes are revealed.
So in my recovery, the patterns of deceptive thinking and egoistic thoughts were laid more bare, their entrails easier to follow, the messages decidedly returning to the same point, the same drone. As default settings we humans are selfish, it is part of that whole survival business. When the survival part is taken away, that selfishness gets misplaced onto just about anything and everything. When all of these factors converge, I myself have to hit the brakes and stick my head out of the window, or pull it out of my inverted behind. So, first of all my ego and my selfishness, my wants and not needs were bashed horribly by factors I as yet understand. My expectations were obviously set too high or on too big of a pedestal, so when they did not get met my thinking went into a different mode. That right there was the part that really set off the alarm, I could tell that my thinking was toxic, was not going to do any good to me or those around me for the time being. I went back into the practices, the meditation, the prayers and the cleaning of my energies. For too long I had held a poisonous resentment that I thought would be relieved trough vindication by others, by life, by a vote, that it was fair and on my side. It didn’t happen that way and the blade was thrust even further, twisted and the reality set in some more. Because I couldn’t get out of the way of my own thinking without some concerted effort, or work again. I just had to think about it.
I had with all my heart thought that I was being open minded, when instead I was closing off portions. Not walling it off but throwing up the shield in certain directions at times. When the great disappointment came I didn’t remember enough of my practices. I did not just think that I am not owed anything from anyone or anything. I have expectations that are either going to be met or not and in that regard, how can I be let down unless I do it to myself. There are great challenges that await me in my real and individual every day life, they will not be magnified or made minute by very many outside sources at all. The pendulums of life will swing whether I expect them to or not and at times like this I must always remember it may be the pen, and not the pit that sets the balance again.
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Originally posted on Blogger: The Pen and the Pendulum.
When Christmas Ages Out
On the fiftieth Christmas that I got to spend with some family I observed quite a bit. It has been a year of so…
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On the fiftieth Christmas that I got to spend with some family I observed quite a bit. It has been a year of so much change, why should it stop at the family doors.Let me start by saying that the overall message I got was to stay far away and quiet and to just send money. My family I have found even more convincingly values the worth of a person by how much they make, how much they don’t need anything from anyone. So since I am going through so much change, giving them what they want will be job number one.
My being unable to drive is a hindrance and a burden on people around me, so if I cannot get somewhere on my own I won’t ask for a ride. The money we make is barely able to support us and falls short about time for rent, I will not ask for help. I will just let the consequences of being ill take its course and try my best to live through the outcome. I will stay my distance from family and friends because apparently I am not doing anything right enough for their standards, so instead of insulting their sensibilities I just will simply grace them with my absence.
I have been trying to find the next steps in life and I am getting there slowly. This Gifted/HSP business has given me the last part of my psyche that was needed. Though now that I am becoming whole, for once in my life, I am losing everything else that I held dear and close, my country, people, and my family. If you have kids there is a reason to celebrate, a reason to gather. When you are alone with your wife though, you find yourself a third wheel and looking for an exit. It becomes a point where it is not your family anymore, just a collection of strangers that judge you from a past you cannot change. A future you are trying to define.
On Thanksgiving my brother was giving my wife and I a ride home. His daughter was getting married in three weeks, the week before Christmas. He asked me if I wanted to make a little money and he then said he needed a couple of large chess pieces for the head table. I had never done anything like that before, but to help out I said I would try my best. Now with three weeks and my limited abilities to stand still for long periods, still about an hour at most at a time. I already had a week’s worth of work on pens and gifts for a friend out of state. The wedding was a timeline I couldn’t not meet, my brother has been there so much for me I couldn’t let him down. So I finished up the pen orders and once again I painfully put my friends gifts on the back burner. I turned my attention to the big project at hand and went into creative mode. It really didn’t matter too much, my plans blew out on the first try, the weather had gone into the 20’s and my shop had no heat. With less than a week to go I went at it again, cutting and gluing hardwoods, bringing them inside to dry, to try to cure enough to turn them. You can’t wear gloves with this kind of work and my back was fried early and often, but I plugged on through missteps and learning curves. I put in about thirty hours in those last few days, neglecting my health to get the job done. My sinus’s were making my ears feel like spikes being hammered in, my back was swollen and numb, and I couldn’t feel my legs for the most part. As my hands were turning a curious shade of blue/white and my arms were just shaking from the overuse, I got them done. The morning of the wedding day I was putting on the finishing touches, the paint and crown and wedding ribbon colors, all of which cost no small amount to us. I used our food money to finish these out believing it was going to be replaced.
At the wedding I was fried, I had only gotten a few hours of sleep because I had gotten myself tired beyond my norms could take. Brought a gift and the chess pieces, and even though people liked them it was not about that and I understood that well enough. Nothing was said by my brother about payment or anything and I just let it be, I would see him at Christmas when everything had calmed down. On Christmas day when he was driving us home, all he could do is be upset and ask about the forty bucks I owed him for a propane heater that he got me, yet I had no way to get propane until well after it was really needed. I told him I thought I was going to get a little something for making the pieces, at that he just scoffed, and I told him I would get it to him as soon as possible, the electric utility had jumped our butts this last week and took away our Christmas giving. I am now the bad guy again, and last night I figured it all out a little bit more.
My Mother and my brother are not on my side, they just don’t want any undue guilt. They probably think they failed my late sister. So they don’t want to fail me, at the same time they don’t want to put in the effort as much and fall short again. The good thing is my wife and I have no kids, so there is no real collateral damage so just let it happen more. My brother has at least heard a few of my articles and he says they are well written at least, my mother just listens politely and says ok, forgetting it as the words pass from my mouth. Like I said, it’s how much you make, not what you make that is the only thing that would make her proud of me, so I am just going to stop trying. There is just no pleasing some people no matter how much you try, and that includes Moms I guess. My brother is acting like he is picking up another son of some kind because of my neediness. That is going to get nipped in the bud here immediately, and so is everything else.
You see I just will take the advice that has been so overtly delivered. I will take the hint and stay away, don’t share what I do, don’t need for anything. Don’t ever let on that I am making it or not making it ever again. Because as much as those two would like to think they are being shining knights, they are also using every bit of my trust and what is happening in my life to make gossipy and just wrong statements about me and my character. Mixing in all of my old actions with my new and coming up with a hybrid of a person that fits neither realities as they really are. Like in AA, they will tell the truth about you, just not to you. With ten bucks from a scratch ticket given out as a stocking stuffer and a house with no food in it, they will never know. I will not tell them, I will not break. I would rather blow my brains out than ask anyone for anything ever again, especially family.
So Christmas has changed for the different, for the rest of my life and I guess you could say that Santa has died in my tiny heart. This year my country has changed, my “friends” have disappeared, my family has made things clear. My inner self has been put to peace in a barren land of tomorrows, those things that I only wanted understanding from are lost to time and to the years life. They say that this gifted life is lonely and I understand that much so succinctly. They say it is also painful, and I have to attest that it is, I am learning not to suffer so, but it doesn’t mean I will not.
I will not ask for anything, and in return I expect nothing. Dreamers have no value.
Originally posted on Blogger: When Christmas Ages Out.
The Un-Civil War
I haven’t felt like writing too much, the pains inside are still churning and morphing into the next assemblage of beliefs, truths and lies.…
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I haven’t felt like writing too much, the pains inside are still churning and morphing into the next assemblage of beliefs, truths and lies. Politics like anything else, digs in sometimes and you want to believe you know how you will be governed, how you will live your life, what to expect. We are a precognitive species, we act and react and respond to those upcoming things, out of reassured expectations. I expect to burn myself if I touch a hot burner, yet even that fact is being portrayed as fallible.I understand completely the thoughts of both and even all three, or four sides in this debacle of Americanism. One against the “establishment” which makes no sense, since we can change that at any time through voting and doing our civic duties properly. One the would pit the best qualified against the least in history. The others trying to do just a little of both, trying to turn the great ship Liberty around in the dry dock. I get it, but it was never really what is was made out to be, that’s what people have missed completely in my opinion.
This was never an election, it was never a case about qualifications and merit, duty and service. This was just whipped up foam of rage, indifference and yes, pure hatred. Even though I don’t use this word myself, I would have to say that the margin of victory in this one was made up of people who just want to beat that n***er back down to his place… They were still incensed about that whole bit, no woman, no one person other than a white guy was going to get in there. They complained about it for eight years, everything and anything he did was just to get back at the white folks. That was the margin of victory, but for most of them, for most of the victors. They just didn’t try, they just wanted a Jesus like figure that they could worship, they got that part. What escapes me the most is that they didn’t even ask him what he is really going to do? If those people think that the other liberal white guy would have made it, I disagree. A Jew in the white house would be worse than a woman to the kinds of thinking that elected (*).
This all brings us to what happens now? And what did we really do? Well let’s first start off with the whole nose to spite the face bit. Now that that is out of the way, let’s talk about the vote, the reasons why some things mattered to some and some, but worse offences were ignored or poo-pooed out of indifference and ignorance. That in itself was a great big wake up call, how this fake news and info was WiFi’ed into the heart of America, how the very vestibules of American dignity was actually replaced almost painlessly with anger, apathy and screens. This last election was a culmination of carefully planted doses of dopamine and adrenaline, mixed in with plenty of testosterone. It was a movie being directed by those who have done this better than anyone else for centuries now, with a master director and a studio at his beck and call. Those who deemed themselves to be intelligent fell for it hook, line and sinker, it was a rallying cry from the dumbest among us that our educations were way below that 14th in the world mark. It is the difference between watchin Ancient Aliens as a collection of information put together crudely and with intellectual dishonesty. Or believing the stories as told because the notion of being outside the “establishment” of things. That whole concept of establishment seems to have been replaced with any system or organization that you don’t understand, that you must destroy to bring it down to your sensibilities. America has a huge coping problem and it is just going to get worse, much, much worse.
Because here we get into that whole what happens now part. While no Edgar Cayce am I, there is plenty of precedent that follows these kinds of historic shifts, these tit for tat’s. Like I said, these folks have been doing it better than anyone since before we were a nation, so there is no surprise that they would still be above all in their use of their abilities. For a vast part of the last century and into this one America has been the heart of the world economy. Our military spending alone could support a vast economic market of its own. That is going to change more and more now, and at a faster pace than projected. The world economy, as a whole will shift to Asia and the alliances being made will make it a lot harder to sustain even a portion of what we have now. We grew a very satisfied and fulfilled vision of the American dream and now for the most part, people just want to rest on their laurels. Talk about a glorious past while defeating the very meaning of our history with their gallant fight against the “establishment.” That establishment is us in all honesty, all of us and there has been a line drawn that some don’t just want any of the other ones here anymore. Both sides have drawn the line, but the ones who wish to actually start this un-civil war have taken the helm.
Not just the economy, but the country and its foundations have been undermined and bastardized in the most heinous of ways, yet it must be those others who are to blame. There will be no winning of this un-civil war, the belief goes beyond reason, the messiahs do not need fact or intellect for they simply need blame. They are not the ones who will be feeding America and working on jobs, they will be the ones bartering for pennies in Chinese on the crops, while they rot in Port storages. They will be the ones creating their own economy because they cannot afford basic white bread at seven bucks a loaf. The biggest belief above reason is the smallest piece, the minute gesture when a Machiavellian slight of hand in a backroom Bolshevik deal handed an entire people over to their antagonists. How are people who “jus wanna work and feed my famly” supposed to understand their diluted and disturbed actions?
In the end, when the real meaning of handing over the world economy and security to a Potentate and a Putz is revealed. It will serve us right, for we did too little or too much to share the dangers. The states will begin to rupture, the people unsettled in all their forms and colors and beliefs. This was never an election, it was never about the highest job in the land. It was just the beginning of an unholy and un-Civil War.
Originally posted on Blogger: The Un-Civil War.
The Cost of Living
In today’s world that title is thrown out there to speak of a lot of things. The cost of housing, and food and electricity,…
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In today’s world that title is thrown out there to speak of a lot of things. The cost of housing, and food and electricity, you throw them all together and that is your penance. You must be responsible enough or dirty enough to succeed in covering your cost of living. Through hard work or in some cases none at all, people are programmed from the beginning to cover their costs. There is a price for living in today’s world and the rest will be culled by societal natural selection. The fittest survive, the others struggle, while some just simply walk around in their meatsuits, the walking dead. That is our grand society, that is the nature of our success, we enslave from the get go. Program and pull levers to make our offspring just that much more efficient. The system has gone well for so long and it has produced some amazing success, but it is an old and unthinking model that allows nothing else to replace it. A conscription before they are even born, expectations created and a model of cost that lay ahead.The models that show how to keep up with this materialism and greed do not look well. The future of this possession of things do not quantify a cost of living. In simple terms, we are using it all up at an amazing rate, we are in a great extinction, our actions speeding up the tables of despair and disaster that await us. A dystopian future is not the plot twist of Sci-Fi movies any longer, we have stepped lively into the foyer. The one way mirror of perceptions has succumbed to the heat and has now become a delusional fun house prop. The words of God reduced to a shopping list, redemption, the price of a latte at the Church of Mermaid. I really don’t think in all my heart that this is the way it is supposed to go? So what happens when it is all gone, or not enough? When we have everything? The human condition has a thing for some veil of control, it has a very hard time believing it doesn’t have one. The same things go for our “things” tactile or fictional, we must have more, like the best of drug addicts.
It is not like this all over the world, yet. There are bastions of humanism, all over the world too small to be noticed, too numerous to be dismissed. Each or all exploring different avenues to this cost of living bit. I find it curious that the people who do not want to share as much as they should in this world are the same ones that want many more to soak up the overall costs. To me they are the outliers in control, not the overall mass. The overall mass of humanity is basic in instincts and most notably not a model of materialism, of greed, of intolerance and anger. The cost of living is not a burden to them quite as much, the material possessions, the need for status born or garnered not as much a concern. We have long turned against our humanity embracing anything but who we are, the baser brains winning out. It is like climbing up a six foot ladder of accomplishments knowing their are higher ladders, but choosing to tip over the six footer and do it all again. A lot of work to get just a few feet above the ground, over and over again.
Maybe the teams had to be evened out over a larger time. That survival instinct constantly stronger than that reasoning one. The thinkers and ponderers always relegated to insignificance, the weapon wielders appealing to the have it now blood lust we are accustomed to. The cost of living has many more layers than the basic survival ones, the costs of living in today’s society a bi-polar meltdown waiting to happen. The needs of the one insignificant in the have it now and let it go nature of things.
Empathy is being reduced to a mental health issue, compassion a reason to get the guns, and tolerance a binding that dilutes the lines of thinking, reason and sadly humanity. The cost of our actions and consequences of our inactions is evident more so as we go on. The ironic silver lining on this corruption of the nature of us is we do not need to have any more for it to continue, for it to destroy us. We have enough to do the job well enough already, the cost of living…
The cost of living today as always is more than the money needed to get by, more than the shiny possessions that you can’t take with you. It is about feeding yourself and taking care of those you love. It is about the safety and rights of all Earths creatures great and small, the Earth herself. It is about joy and a harmony that has seemingly been lost to the insignificance of greed and ego. It is about giving the best chance at tomorrow to those we don’t know today. There is a convergence of this belief happening throughout the lands and it transcends religions and political beliefs. The cost of living has never been more displaced as a title onto money and possessions, land and things. The true cost of living is to ensure that we do not commit to the future our baseline animal selves. But the commitment to a future that we could be truly more than the culmination of the worst of us.
The cost of living is in each and every beating heart, it is displaced by those with a more urgent need for ego and self. It is not lost on the madmen and housewives, the armchair philosophizers and the retired chefs and Marines. There is a greater endeavor that we are about to embark upon faster than we are accustomed to seeing, it will shape humanity as it will our home, our planet, our loved ones. In that endeavor I know which road that I wish to walk, which I wish to be the foundation of, that of my fellow people, no matter the creed, the color, the identity. In this great collection of minds that we have allowed to spurn us from our intended future, a glimpse behind the scenes reveals a very different reality. That we are not the enemies of thine enemies more so than the good of our beings. When those things are understood by all, that cost of living today, shall be made infinitesimal, and that investment in all shall be reward beyond comprehension. There are responsibilities in this life and a cost of living, but so far I don’t think we have the instructions quite right.
Originally posted on Blogger: The Cost of Living.
America – I’m Lovin’ It!
Welcome to America…. Can I take Your Order? As this week begins, I am reminded again that the events and results from the previous…
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Welcome to America…. Can I take Your Order?
As this week begins, I am reminded again that the events and results from the previous year are trying to push themselves into this one. We are just short of that time when we permanently scar the buttocks of the nation with an asterisk and a question mark. When we hand over the government to those who wish to erode it away. Globalism made to order for a few, the people still a commodity being traded away in the most covert and overt of manners.
I have written about the outright antagonism that the Russians have engaged in, the voting and manipulation of the American psyche. Breaking in to C-Span, dogging our cyber security and basically just laughing at us, we apparently are not going to do anything. There are others involved in this as well including our pals the Israelis, if there was a closer tie to another Super Power in this world we would be closer to China, but the Russians are working on them as well, so here we are. The Bolsheviks already wreaking havoc on an EU vote, and Brexit.
First of all, we will give them a nice big loan because they don’t have very much money left. That, or we will lift our sanctions to enable them to enrich themselves from our markets. They will continue to play the mafia style cowboy with materialism and actions, and instead of a Nation State going out slowly over its own mistakes. We will prop up our antagonists and even make them out to be a bunch of super great guys, the greatest. If folks don’t notice, which as a country we take the cake, it will all be taken away in a matter of a few years and not decades. Our buddies are set to corner the Natural Gas market for most of Europe for starters, deciding prices on that is better than having a butt-load of oil to have to deal with. The market would be theirs and theirs alone to Baron over, a hoard of money to compare with the Saudis soon available. With manufacturing to their direct South, and rare Earth metals and technology within easy grasp, their economy can explode with the help of China, India and their new found friends in the Middle East. The sump pump kicked into high during a tsunami.
As I said though we don’t pay attention to the rest of the players, confident that we are just too good to fall, too big to fail…
The current landscape of tantrums is reaching epidemic proportions. Self-righteousness and greed on full display, hammering away at the hands of time thinking it will slow them down or stop them somehow. Blame is the game in this imaginary landscape, and ideals unmet become all too personal with the blowing of Pavlov’s whistle. If you do not know the story of Pavlov’s Dogs, it is sadly and appropriately suited to todays human climate, at least here where I live. In other words, I have never seen a bigger bunch of uneducated, ill-informed, short sighted fools in all my life. If even any of this comes to fruition that scar on the buttocks get’s deeper. Way too much overthinking, this world business is easy, how to get it done is the hard part, so when we go and change things with gifts even, they become obvious to this layman.
America has given away the keys to the house and took up residence in an apartment. Maybe it just took a Chef to see the plain and hard truth. We have been turning into the Service Industry for the world for many years now and it will just continue. We are climbing into that lack of substance and rule so much that we may as well be Grand Central Station for the rest of this mass we live on. We are not setting any examples that are notable except the ones that describe our fall from grace, our rest on our laurels bravado, our participation awards. Just showing up every now and then on this world stage is not going to get the job done that we thought it did, our protests go unto deaf ears and blind eyes, and are being made more illegal every day. The cost of freedom… I doubt many alive really know what it took to get here in all honesty. A house of cards and mortar over two centuries thick.
We are the fast food industry, and the get it now industry. We are everything at once and losing that ability to be anything to a one, a person, a part of the fabric, a part of something bigger. Dreams have been usurped and replaced with only materialistic determination, forgetting probably the oldest adage that you can’t take it with you. I wonder if people had to give up everything they had when they died, what that would mean to how we learn about life, about the world, about ideals? It is a curious thing this journey that our species is on, it seems like we have settled for the antiquated model while undermining any chance of a success with a new one. I wonder how some of the folks here who are hell bent against other races will like being under their employ. When our markets change and we become the third world vacation spot for the rest of the world, I wonder how those good ol patriots are going to enjoy waiting hand and foot on those very folks. Shining shoes and being yelled at for not speaking the language of their guests. Their homes sold to foreigners so that they could afford to move into the boxes stacked on end while those same foreigners look down their noses at the smelly urchins.
Which goes to show that having everything is great and all until other people can afford it better and start buying up your share of things. Because that is what this world is running on, who can get it and hang onto it, or sell it. Brand it, bag it, and price tag it, all of it, that’s the beck and call we are answering. For a hungry world outside yet another commodity on the biggest scale, and the resentments of a once free people. Welcome to America – Can I take your order?
Originally posted on Blogger: America – I'm Lovin' It!.
Parting Out the Wreck – Apathy Inc.
I had a dentist appointment yesterday morning, I set up the cleaning and work etc… Then on my way home I decided to stop…
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I had a dentist appointment yesterday morning, I set up the cleaning and work etc… Then on my way home I decided to stop by a meeting I rarely attend anymore, the mix of toxicity a little too much to take at times. There were a few people that had known me from my beginnings in recovery, and I shared a bit. When, after I shared one of those people said they knew me, would do anything for me, but disagreed with something I had said. I didn’t care if they disagreed, that was a given really, it was the part when they said they knew me, that is what stood out in my mind the most. So in pondering these things like I do, I really had to disagree with that statement.
I have been tested medically and intellectually to find out about this Gifted business. I have passed with flying colors so to speak in their testing. So if it is a real thing then I definitely have it, and if there are others like me, which there are, they have it too. Now this person that was speaking of me is not the same make and model of us Homo Sapiens as I am. I am an introvert and an artist, this person was an extrovert with extreme OCD behavior. In my opinion is would be nearly impossible for this person to comprehend me and my life, mindset. It is just not built into his program and cannot be taught in this societal model of today. I can readily encompass in my observations and empathy what it is like to be them, but not the other way around. We do no training in this, we are raised for the most part to believe that the human model is as straight as a book’s binding and everything else is of the pale and outliers. Society even has a formulaic equivalency test, you do this, then that, then that, and you get to choose this or that. It doesn’t work perfectly every time, so those mistakes are the price the rest of them have to pay, until it is inconvenient.
Today marks the day when that choice has been made. A gathering of troglodytes dictating the way things are to people they do not know. I know what the phony vote tallies said, I know that the majority president is actually the minority viewpoint made bigger by falsehoods and downright lies and indignation. The thing that awaits now is the slow peeling of the duct taped eyes, the painful realization of the truth in all details. The cutting away at the very pieces and people that has held this fabric together for so long. It will happen today, it will happen tomorrow, and for nothing but the love and power it will continue until we either live as soulless kings and queens. Or fall to the gutters in our uneducated attempts at coping with a world that was VR’ed into frail hearts and minds. As we roll into the Service Generation, and the model we are using is the one from a different time, a different and unknowing mindset. We will part out this wreck and follow the advice of a far off dictator, a fallen land who wishes nothing but to defeat us in all our forms. This is by far the most tragic of wrecks, following the most heinous road in a land built for the long haul, not some magical Monster Truck that is only good for one show, one roll of the dice.
Forgive them their sins for they know no better, their evidence an illusion, their indignation misplaced and their carburetors missing some vital parts. They know not of a world of others, the world is but unto them and them alone, the pattern must be upheld, the Edsel’s must be produced en masse. The factories will be subject to relocation, the empty buildings simply a beacon to another time. The fabric that covered the interior reduced to a torn out and molded example of elegance and duty, honor and humanity. And we will drive them proudly into that unknown country – the future with our noses plugged and our heads held high and mighty. The empathy gene is non functioning and I am afraid with little more work it will be turned off for generations to follow. The cold hearted future of robots simply replaced with the robots made of us. The genome a playbook now, forget any courts, it is the programming that is at play now more than anything.
Not simply parting out the pieces that we were graced and have given all for, but parting of the people into disposable and invaluable status’s. With all of those in between falling into the cracks of either their own making or simply society’s. What will be left will yet to be known, it will be a much hollower existence, it will be a much unhappier environment, life at its baseline, and kept there. It will not be what you can afford, affordability will be nonexistent, it will simply be what you can grab and hold onto. Our parts failing, our division our downfall, with all hopes that our parts can hold together we may yet get another chance to travel down this road to progress. The silver lining may be an end to the mentality that got us here again, once and for all. The claims of power meaning nothing when the masses move the other way pushing the Edsel we have yet to improve forward into this new millennium. The greatest of humanity will rise above the madness, and to borrow a phrase from a recent time, this will be the beginning of an American Spring, a beginning of the knowledge that the thing we must take back is not our government, but ourselves. Our honor, our ongoing oath and duty to that lady in New York’s harbor torch. To the memories of those who fought for liberty and freedom for what those things really mean, not the definitions being made today, in private, in some board room or limo backseat.
In the dismantling of our greatest endeavors, our greatest honors, we will not profit from it in the end. For that hollow existence will cost us more than we will ever know as we go silently into that good night. While parting out the future to Apathy Incorporated.
Originally posted on Blogger: Parting Out the Wreck – Apathy Inc..
Apathy Inc. – Laughing My Ass Off
Being the youngest in a large family I was always on the run, being held up to someone else’s ladder, someone else’s ideas for…
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Being the youngest in a large family I was always on the run, being held up to someone else’s ladder, someone else’s ideas for how I was supposed to be. This continued for the rest of my life, even to this day, with family members “doing much better” than I am. A very tall brother who looks amazingly similar the epitome of a good son, I was always a disappointment on so many levels. Being a sensitive person and simply not the archetype of my brother, the doer, the worker, the father even.So it goes to say that I heard the words “grow up” quite a bit. Why can’t you be more like your brother? Why can’t you do a better job at life? You are so talented what are you doing cooking? You must be lazy, or unmotivated, or something is wrong with your head? All the while not realizing that I was really going to be ok, I just had to get away from all the examples I was not. I miss my sister a lot these days and I think we were just the same in this gifted business, I would have loved to bring her this information out today. I think the very same factors of fitting into a box she couldn’t imagine kept on shattering her psyche and toxicity of it all took her to that last step, that last drunk.
It is a serious business this growing up bit. I have had a heavy graduate level course over the last six years or so. So when I think back to those who would keep their perspective of me is some distant memory, which is many in my family since they seldom if ever speak to me. I have to start laughing, and when I look around the country and the people and their comments and attitudes, I have to start laughing. I noted it in the prior piece, that we don’t teach coping skills, we don’t teach people reason or logic, so a lot of those very same people that would tell me to grow up I laugh. One of the only things we teach anymore is expectations, and people, many of those who would have me “grow up” have done little of it themselves.
Resentments and spite, anger and all of the things I was always told not to do because I had to “grow up” is all I ever see anymore. A bunch of other people’s children that never got the message or abandoned it for some belief or another. I see the resentments of good people poisoning them while they wish the other person ill. I see the spite in people’s words and thoughts, including my own, that just ferment this stew into a hot mess even more. The anger and fear being used like Duraflame logs, being bought by the time slots, and stoked during peak times by the suited circus performers du jour.
Yes, this is a time of infants facing mortality, we did not grow past our primal stage, we did not reach any higher place on the circle of life. We have been a regressive species determined to undermine those things we simply do not know, for the artificial security of those things we think we do, those things that don’t work.
So yes, at this point in my life and perceptions I can laugh, and laugh loudly at this display going on before me. I can laugh at the lessons that people attempt to teach their children, while all the while holding and using those very childish precepts in their belief systems. Acceptance of this, the side show circus going on before me would be ingenuous and fake at best. It is just a metaphor come to life on a huge scale, an analogy of the best of childish reactions. I really can understand that concept from Star Trek, that first directive, do not interfere with the natural progression of a planet or it’s people. We are a prime example of giving primates too much to handle, the Planet of the Apes without the costumes seems to be right here, right now.
Yes, I sadly laugh, I sadly see those reaching, and I see those who believe they are when they are not. We simply don’t care, not that that’s the truth really, more like we just don’t care enough… yet. Growing up is a real thing and there are fewer and fewer willing to go the distance, too afraid of the mirrors, and the reality that they just will not accept or see ever in their lifetimes. There are too many employed by Apathy Inc. trapped by the doors that will open if asked, the sound you hear is myself, laughing my ass off at those “grown up’s” inside.
Originally posted on Blogger: Apathy Inc. – Laughing My Ass Off.
It’s Personal – Talk Without Limits
The slow grinding is still going on in the grout that is us, the people, the We, the ‘Mericans, the ostracized and the enabled.…
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The slow grinding is still going on in the grout that is us, the people, the We, the ‘Mericans, the ostracized and the enabled. There is a lot of this give the guy a chance, just wait until he brings jobs etc… My wife just unfollowed an old friend, others are dropping from acquaintances to strangers, from friends to frienemies. This fracking that has been put through our collective skin in wreaking havoc on the people. It is sadly mistaken by some to be just a phase, just some extra anger to get through, but I don’t think those folks really know what has happened.In reading some comments on the march this weekend, I was amazed the comments from women who were disregarding the reasons and angst that these women have for going through this, again. Women are not oppressed, they get whatever they want, blah blah. It struck me then how big this disconnect is, this whole notion that we are just going to somehow “get over it” and that these are normal things happening to the country and her people. Sorry to burst your bubbles, but this is and will always remain personal, very personal, much more than politics or a vote. So get that whole notion of getting along right out of your heads, this was an invasion of the worst kind and the resistance is a heck of a lot more powerful than folks think.
Some seem to think this is what they went through for the last eight years, some sort of personal attack on them, that is hardly the case. Obama was elected on a mandate, meaning he had the support of the people to make sweeping changes. (*) was not even properly elected let alone a mandate and those sweeping changes he is making are not supported by the people, not even his own at times. Yeah, folks may think that this is somehow the same kind of thing, when it is much, much worse. This is and has never been about ideals, that is obvious, this was a personal beat-down delivered through a sucker punch and a lot of collusion. So for those who had ever complained about Hillary and supported (*) then you don’t have a thing to stand on and never did. The good thing about this current situation is now, all of the blame is on him, all of it, and the daily pictures and stories on him will make us all forget about the past in a heartbeat.
This was never an election, it was a temper tantrum and fix in the biggest possible sense of the words. Some got the person the voted for, good for them, just don’t ever think that it will all be OK somehow, that we can all get along because that was never the intention. This was about fighting, this was about bigotry and hatred and this was about more than the small minds could ever have imagined. Am I going to hate my fellows? No, but I will not allow their desire to roll back the hands of time, to roll back into the arms of hatred and ignorance to ever go unnoticed. To magnify the human suffering that can only get worse with a disconnected dictator from Planet 9. Sorry, folks won’t just get over it, and it seems like there was some things the right wanted to prove, if only to themselves. If that’s the case then what’s the plan? What do folks really have to look forward to? Just like us a great majority of (*) supporters have no idea, they just wanted to feel right, to feel empowered, It is funny as heck that they discount feelings an then turn around and run on those very things.
This was a personal attack from day one, the left has been awakened, and if you think that people are ever going to forget this one. Sorry, your resentments will pale in the light of truth, it’s on now, it’s personal.
Originally posted on Blogger: It's Personal – Talk Without Limits.
Acceptance and Tolerance
I know some of you have been following my story for some time, others not so much and others really don’t care. Whatever you…
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Acceptance and
Tolerance
I know some of you have been following my story for some
time, others not so much and others really don’t care. Whatever you have
gleaned from my pieces on my recovery, the one thing that cannot be mistaken is
the novelty of my first five years. It is within that novelty, and that
constant reaching and trying that has left me here. Smothered with perceived acceptance
and tolerance, little understanding and utter silence.
I walked into my first meeting with a cane and three
herniated disks in my back, a broken bone in my pelvis and sciatica that would
drop the biggest tough guy. Not only did I have my alcoholism to get a handle
on, but I had to jump through the hoops of a pain management clinic I am still
with today, and a number of other issues. Now I can’t say my troubles are more
or greater in difficulty than others, I am just saying that there is a novelty
of it, one that has been missed and misplaced for a long time. I have brought
this up because of something my Grand Sponsor said at a meeting and directed it
at me. The lazy bit, not going to enough meetings, not getting a job, or being
involved more. I was furious for a second until I realized that just like my mother;
there would be no pleasing or making proud this person. They don’t even know
how to begin to get who and what I am and what is different about now. Very
much in the vein of people are all alike, so their actions and reactions must
be derived from the same motivations. Sorry, that never fit me and that has
been the problem. Putting regular folk’s motivations and thoughts behind my
actions will leave you curiously frustrated in no time. I don’t follow that
mold and never have I you want to know what or why I am doing it; you should ask
me because you may be surprised at my reply.
I am not ungrateful; this man helped me much understanding
alcoholism and myself even better. I would not have found my other genetic disposition
without his help in some way. This Gifted business is a very real deal, and
when I found groups of like minded and tested individuals I was complete. For
the first time in my life I had the last set of questions maybe not answered
but a direction given to answer them. The timeline of events and actions to the
lay observer in my recovery has been too complicated to care about and too unbelievable
for most to accept.
In the first five years of my recovery from drugs and
alcohol; I have run the gambit. Change everything is a motto of sorts in the
rooms, change is fine when you are willing. Yet when you are forced to change
everything because of one thing or another, and you are in fact cruising along;
people in the rooms don’t care. Grand Sponsors as well. Innuendo and suspicion,
back talk and everything else runs the best of folks away, smothered by the
acceptance and tolerance that people who told them they were friends and
family. They will speak the truth or lies about you, but not to you, how is
that for this honesty business that is being coddled away. I have had three
back surgeries, swine flu, acute diverticulitus, Intestinal cancer, bladder
infection, kidney infection, pneumonia three times, and now a rare sinus issue
in which my Eustachian tube stays open on my right side. That is after they
removed the polyp, and after my genetically prone to clotting blood had been
managed into a less painful consistency. All they while not being able to work,
dropping over a quarter of my weight and half my muscle mass. Exacerbating my
back once again; Never mind the two times I had bad reactions to medications
and almost died on the table one time, my blood becoming too toxic for me to pump.
Toss on the fact that I am sensitive to medications and it is a blessing to be
here at all. I would call that novel; I would call that just not a normal way
to go through the first five years of finding yourself. I am working on
resentments still, because I have to keep on practicing the practicing and doing
what I can to keep going. I am not a writer, I am not an artist, I am not
anything to anyone, and that’s ok. I am something to me; I am busy on another
level mostly unseen by the outside world. I am an introvert and an empathic and
it pains me more when people just don’t get it. Yet, it is here I find myself
mostly alone in this recovery business because I am absolutely smothered by the
tolerance and acceptance that has been shown to me over this time. So please
speak to me and ask things about me from those who know. Assuming that you know
my story is kind of hard when the first thing you said is that you haven’t been
listening.
I will eventually get through the gambit, I am almost there
now. I never have fit the molds of expectations around me. I just got all my
wisdom teeth pulled a week before my 51st birthday; I am in Physical
Therapy and I still suffer from intestinal issues and diet. I am trying to gain
weight and find it difficult at best. But I will put away my thoughts and
dreams, I will bury them once more to be found in the dimply lit areas of life;
and I will move on. It is all about acceptance an tolerance and change, I just
have to accept that my dreams and expectations are just that dreams and expectations
and I can’t live my life if I don’t simply move on and forget about this part
of me once more. Cheers.
Originally posted on Blogger: Acceptance and Tolerance.