How do we learn to trust one another? (#912)

How do we learn to trust one another? We have shared interests to start. When we can all agree on some generalized process or policy then we are all self-vested. It is a starting point at the lowest level of interaction but at least a beginning. I have been a big fan of doing unto others as I would have them do unto me. I know that is a biblical quote but it is appropriate in this context. My word is a very valuable thing to me. Even to the point of pausing as long as it takes for me to be able to keep it. I cannot give my word to someone or even to myself and not follow through. I just cannot. If I ever did examine why I have made keeping my word a foundation to never go below it is out of disappointment in my own life. Promises not kept in order for someone else to gain an advantage. Disappointment aside, I need to have boundaries in my life and this is one. It isn't that hard to do, I am just cognizant of the words that come out of my mouth and the meaning of those words. It is funny to me or better yet, different for me to have evolved into a man who takes what he says seriously when most of my early life was all about joking and being cavalier. A student of learning how to be who I am has a lot to do with it as well as behavioral changes that respect my body and mind. My own personal growth toward becoming a member of society that reflects the better and best of humanity is appealing. I want to be part of the human race and contribute in a way that lives up to my own abilities. I am finding ways to discover commonalities with others and sticking to my principles of being honest and trustworthy. It is not that hard to do when I look at what the priorities are in my own life. I have changed quite a lot over time and the changes have been good.

Having fun is where we find ourselves (#911)

Can any one thing bring about so much clarity to us, individually, about who we are? Having fun seems to put many things into perspective for us. I suppose it is because until we are reminded of that part of our nature we tend to forget that having fun really is one of the very few things in life worth experiencing. For one thing it makes us happy and those around us can feed off of that from us and for another it releases endorphins within us to help us feel better about our own physical selves. But the main point I want to make here is that when our mind is free from stress we are better able to "find" ourselves. I remember from the sixties and seventies when finding oneself was a common theme. I always thought it had to involve geography, and at times it did but not as the highest factor, no, it involved having a clear mind and focused direction about our own personal principles. Finding ourselves is always an inside job. Each of us must reconcile ourselves with what looks back at us in the mirror. I have found that having fun, laughter etc... I am able to see the world around me in a new and hopeful way and the world within me as it really is. I am certain many would argue with me that having fun is to be discounted and serious mindsets are our greatest features. I believe it has to do with that old principle of work ethic and nose to the grindstone philosophies. Although admirable, seriousness and work ethic are only part of who we are, our nature has provided us with the ability to not only laugh at others but at ourselves as well. I do not condone making fun of anyone with intent to harm or belittle, however when the opportunity to see fun in something or someone a playful sense of propriety is assuredly appropriate where no harm is done. Keep on smiling and enjoy this life, it is not eternal and having fun is a choice.

The power of silence (#910)

I want to talk about silence and its effect within a conversation. Silence is a response. It is calculated to let whomever else is speaking to have a full run of getting out of themselves whatever it is that is propelling them to speak. I do not have to have an opinion or words of wisdom, neither do I need to say some soothing agreeable comment meant only to pacify. I can just be still and say nothing. Not in a rude way of course but just to be available as a sounding board. I have been on the other side of such conversations and when I was finished I realized that I just needed to talk and nothing anyone else said mattered in how I ended up feeling afterward. I also find that by saying nothing I give the speaker something else to consider, whether they should ask me why I am being quiet. I do respond by saying that at this point I didn't think anything I had to say would be of any value. Simply hearing a diatribe or litany of words in succession doesn't help to make me a wise and sage soul worthy of some great pronouncement. There are times when I have to bite my tongue when a response is so obvious to me but I do still remain quiet since I know that unless I am prompted by them for a response, the speakers will hear their own words. I am not trying to come across as anything other than someone who cares to listen but I prefer not to say anything back since whatever I may say will certainly never truly fulfill the speakers hopes for a remarkable comment from me. How does that old saying go, better to be quiet and thought to be stupid than to open my mouth and prove it. Well, not that bad but still along those lines I have found it is better to just listen and let the speaker's own words work on them in hopes they find their answers that way.

No man's land (#909)

A place of little distinction. It is like the only place in the world where there is no safety from anything. How does one get out of this place? I know the answer and it is the same answer all of us have had at one time to discover, time. Time heals all wounds although healing is one thing, pain from the wound may endure for a lifetime. Such is the gift of life, it is no discerner of type only of the willing. lol. To give from oneself or to accept from another is it's only demand. Embracing all of reality seems to be the best solution for finding relief. Growth can only happen when one is able to endure and move beyond whatever may confuse or take from us. I am still like the child who is wide-eyed and seeing the world for the first time. The unknown of everything is still splendor and magnificent. The same goes for how I am affected by those very same awarenesses. Take everything I ever thought I was and throw it away, since I am not the creator of me, I am the one who is left with of what happens to me. It is rightly so to be that way. As much as I want to think that my mind, heart and spirit are in control, I know for certainty that there is more to what I am than what I can think or feel. It obviously is our human interconnectedness but it is also something greater that has real influence and attraction far outside anything I can control or dismiss. Life will always be the magical experience it has been throughout time and I am learning even at this late date in my own life cycle that I have little to do with how it moves both within me and outside of me. I can take comfort in the one thing though and that of time will eventually work it's way through me. Until then I need to keep my wits about me and during my time of trial in no man's land I hope to keep my head down and not do anything too foolish.

I don't know why (#908)

It is hard not to be able to know why. I have to just go with what I do know and let my better or best internal principles guide me. I am sure I am not the only one who feels less than adequate for not being able to know why a thing or circumstance is the way it is. So my personal frustration and eventual acceptance is not unique. I accept as well that I am not the only one who has a sense of incompleteness either. A thing I know about myself is that I like mysteries but even more I like them solved. When the why of a situation remains unanswered I have a real angst or grist sensation that does not fade quickly. It is obvious to me that my curious nature is huge within me. Little else, besides my personal emotional feelings have such sway over how I spend my time in deep concentration. Perhaps my curiosity may be more unique to me than other shared instincts I have with most other fellow humans, given my relentless pursuit of answers, it's possible. I accept that my craving or compulsion to know things is at a high level of interest to me and as such I have developed a mechanism to cope with the never-ending disappointments strewn at my feet. It is bad enough that I rarely get to have things I most desire in my personal emotional life but also to be thwarted in my logical quest for conclusions into the unknown is doubly irritating. I have found that accepting whatever happens as an answer is helpful. Even a dead-end means to turn around and go another way. There are no "deserves" here in life for me. It seems that serendipity is the great determiner not some master plan of providence. Why a thing or situation is the way it is will most likely escape me more often than not but I am persistent and I will keep trying to live as my nature best wants me to. The significance of my curious nature to know has yet to be revealed to me.

The order within the chaos (#907)

It is inevitable that we look at life in terms of our understanding. What simple complexities we can agree on become our foundational structure for living. The duality of realities we exist within, what we know and what we don't know, is our way of coping with the mystery of life. Form and structure are the keys to us living in a world where there is no sovereign. We must agree amongst ourselves to keep from harming each other. We are still working on that but there is great hope that we will endure to find a complete solution. We must also find ways to compliment our existences in a way that allows for equality, respect and justice. This part is more difficult in that there are parts of our natures that slide into selfish habits instead of compromise toward fairness. Some doctrines we have implemented in order to maintain ourselves and keep ourselves busy have inherent flaws in them that give rise to lesser traits of humanity. The constant struggle to enlighten ourselves into a better paradigm of utility is being oppressed by those who most benefit from the friction. It is somewhat of a survival instinct gone awry by those who see opportunity only for themselves and theirs in the present and not the vision of what the future could be for all of us. How unfortunate that opportunity for some outweighs balance for all of us. Somehow though I have hope for the best of who we are to steadily grow into our psyches and the day will eventually come where the chaos of the unknown will not give rise to selfish opportunism. It will certainly not happen in my life time if the current rate of events, maintains its slow learning curve but beyond you and me there is greater hope for order that actually resembles what is best within all of us.

Societal positions change but personal principles don't (#906)

Actually, my societal, environment, religious, political and economical positions haven't changed much, but they have changed somewhat. However what I hold dear to me in how I act on my morality, ethics and justice have mostly been absolute. Certainly I have failed in my own eyes to be as perfect as I expect myself to be in acting on my principles but they have always guided me when I have had my wits about me and even when I didn't I instinctively reacted so out of my subconscious. I am who I am on my core virtues. There is nothing more valuable to me than my thoughts and actions regarding my principles. Again, I am human and as such I have let myself down in my own eyes, but not out of some lacking in my principles but some lacking in my ability to be the best I could possibly be. Knowing this about myself gives me some insight into how I perceive my duty within society. I am no master of sociology or psychology but I am a master of knowing the difference between what violates my principles and what doesn't. I know this by the regret and remorse I have felt at times when the defense of my principles were lacking. I find it difficult to express to all of you my vision for humanity, my perfect scenario for all of us to live like. I will try again here, all of us deserve to be treated with respect and dignity to the utmost degree. We are all special in our own ways. The way society is structured today does not do this. I often remember the ghastly photo of the little black child in the desert lands of Africa, kneeling over with hunger and thirst as the vulture stands no more than 10 feet away waiting for it's next potential food source. I will never accept the apologists of today and their spin on how we all need to stand for ourselves and there is no room for helping each other, because it is a sign of weakness. My heart breaks when I see those who know nothing of despair and ill treatment condescending and pontificating on how they are the real special ones and most everyone else is just unworthy.

Embracing diversity within all species (#905)

My imagination is filled with possibilities when I look around the world and see all the different shapes, forms and sizes of individual entities. It is amazing to me that I am blessed with such an array of life forms that distinguish themselves in appearance and cognition. The world is an imperfect place and many things here are unjust and unequal, however we all do share some important similarities. We all need love in our lives, we need subsistence of some form or other and we need to be free from oppression and ignorance. The fact that we are all more similar than different says a lot about our interconnectedness and ultimate relationship with each other. None of us has any knowledge of fact about how we got on this planet and that we are here together speaks volumes about how we may all be related in some form or another. Our survivability traits are the same, our biological make-up is similar, our brain and nervous functions are on the same thread of evolution. I have spoken of this before and will again here today, we are too much alike and as such whether fish, birds, insects, reptiles, mammals, or human beings, we are all animals. It is this very diversity of life that gives us hope that, for one, we are not alone and two, we can learn from each other in ways we could not if we were all the same. Within our own human species we have variances that give us pause to imagine possibilities outside our own understandings. Diversity is a wonderful paradigm not a burden or cause for confusion. We are all majestic in our own individual ways that pleasantly surprise me with perspectives. I am just another of the human species on this planet and I will not allow my life to be just another pigeon-holed experience. I want me to be as individual as all the rest of us out there. Embracing your diversity and my own is exactly how it should be.

Peace is in being still (#904)

The quiet act of nothingness. I am a big fan of not moving in any direction. Time will continue regardless of what I am doing or not doing. In that awareness, I find my purpose for whatever thought or action that is next required of me. Whether survival or enlightenment, the motion I expend must be in forwarding my principles and their ideals. It only comes to me when I choose to be still, then I can next move where I need to go. Even in typing this post the pauses I experience are part of the texture of what is being expressed here. As old as I am now and trying to change my behavior that has been with me since childhood is challenging but not impossible. Even the nervous back and forth of my knee or foot or the constant touching of my hair or face is what I am trying to stop doing. I don't need to let my mind wander to places and ideas as if a short film is constantly running in my head. Just being still in this very moment and on into the next is the value I am trying to achieve. Meditation is one form of what I am talking about here but not what I am mainly describing. For me, just to not think or have any thought come into my mind while I am just listening to the noises in my surroundings. I know it is difficult not to think because if I am like everyone else it seems that there is always something that needs to be thought about. However, I find that I don't need to prethink a lot of things but instead just trust my intuition and let my principled life express itself in real time. Trusting that what I really care about will show itself as true. These thoughts come from being still and knowing the peace that being still brings. It is a process that works for me.

All of us are afraid (#903)

There is no doubt about it. We all feel fear at times in our lives. No one is immune. However we do not need to let fear dictate who we are or what we do. We can respect that we have fear and still work through it. Fear does not define us as cowards, instead what we do with the fear in the form of our actions will define us as either cowardly or courageous. We will know which it is since we cannot escape our own judgment. One of the ways I overcome fear is to stand firm for a moment and remember what my principles for living are. We should all take the time to do an inventory on what kind of person we want to be. We have that responsibility to ourselves to imagine a framework of what ideals we will defend regardless of the opposition to them by outside forces. Having a quality of life is far more satisfying than just having a quantity of life. Fear is one of the greatest catalysts in determining what we reflect back out to others. In order for us to control, yes we have a choice, what that reflection will inevitably be, we must have a foundation to draw from. Fear will always be a challenge to every one of us and as such we all must continue to struggle against it with conviction. We are human and have great swings of emotion within us, nevertheless, we are also logical and have the reasoning ability to analyze all that comes our way and devise an opportunity for our high principles of living, ie... honor, justice, compassion, being noble etc..., to manifest an action that overrides fear and displays courage. All of us are capable of presenting the greater instincts within us, it is the lesser instincts that are easy to portray, however great satisfaction is received when we ascribe to be the greater of who we are, through walking through fear into courage.

The power of your vision for the future (#902)

There are so many of us and life is so complicated that envisioning our desire for the future sometimes is too difficult. I get that. However, in my mind I can make things the way they could be in order to see how things should be. I try not to get too specific as it bogs me down and gets me off track. Therefore I generalize a society that has no past to weigh it down and instead think on subjects that involve society's future. Things as they should be in the present and hopes for the future. We all should have this insight into how we would like the world to be if we could somehow magically make it so. Our futures will come from our imaginations, of this I have no doubt, regardless of any environmental anomaly. Therefore again, it is up to those of us who are willing to share what our individual visions could be. Our time on this planet and in existence can be mathematically calculated to some specific extent. We have the time to formulate some concepts that are worthy of each of us and making them known can only help all of us. This is why I believe so strongly in democracy, it allows us all to share in our future vision toward a reality. Now we come to the part where we need to understand that shaping our lives within our current society is albeit important, it is not our main ideal here. We are humans who have been endowed with extraordinary abilities of mental acuity. To only use that on the daily struggles of survival and material wealth is lessening the gift. We have greater individual priorities toward experiencing life for it's real and true value, moreso than just nudging along in the societal status quo. What I am saying here is this; our dreams and aspirations, not only for ourselves but for humanity, need to be formulated and shared so that we are all a significant and important part of this journey within our lifetimes.

Time takes care of itself (#901)

Here I am sitting at 55 years old closing in on 56 and in my mind I am still the child I was back when I was 5 going on 6. Of course I know more and have done things but is essence for me it has happened in the blink of an eye. I have no gauge on time. It is as if time is non-existent. I know that my life has been lived throughout all of the seconds I have been alive but the sense that I feel time, is not there. I only feel the effects of living here in this existence as measured through time. What that concept leaves me with is how I want the destiny or fate of my life to reflect back to anyone who may be watching. As I go about my daily rituals and curiosities, I am understanding that time will take care of itself and I don't need to focus on it as a factor. My life will be what I make of it and throughout all of the thoughts and actions I get to experience, time will register itself. It has been important for me to also recognize that my life has an end. It will not go on forever in this dimension. That knowledge and acceptance has freed me to just enjoy the very moments I exist. The calmness or peace I feel is rather quiet with a hint of dullness. lol. However, within that calmness I am able to focus on my thoughts and actions in order to project out from myself the principles for living that I have endeared to myself. My life will last as long as it does and that I am not fretting over it or running around full of anxiety over it, is refreshing. I have said this many times in these blog posts about how life is not only special but a gift. I am on the merry-go-round and it is my choice to enjoy the ride. What else I am doing though is expressing myself in a manner that befits my nature. Regardless of time, I have found a peace that relegates time to an irrelevancy.

The arc of the Universe (#900)

For those who have a belief system the title of this blog bears little consequence as to mission. It seems that living to die properly is the goal of many who have belief systems. The afterlife is the goal and being alive is the means to get there. I understand this and it does make sense to me since at one time I also held a similar belief system. But I do not now and I see the greatest adventure to my being alive is to help make living life as purely sweet as possible. What happens after I die is no concern of mine since in all reality I am going to die anyway and anything after death is out of my hands. I may allow fear to requisition my mind and lead me toward answers given on faith but that is not how I operate. I will never again choose to act out of fear when deciding my principles for living. I will instead courageously stand up and embrace the unknown with my human instincts of compassion and curiosity. Their is true nobility and honor in accepting reality without adding mysticism to it. I am not talking about logic and reason as a comfort, there is no comfort in life as to assuage the unknown. There is only the unknown and how I confront it every second of my life. No one will ever be able to say that I defaulted on my life to a position that ascribed me as having it all figured out and then went out and told you how you should live. It is incumbent on all of us to be the bearer of our own strength and hold our personal gravitas with all our might. It is strange that instead of embracing the unknown with bold insight we are instead allowing ourselves to be placated by fear and it's illusions. The arc of the Universe is wide and in the end I will not ever have seen the swing it takes in it's pendulum like motion, however I will know that if I could I would stand as a sentinel and adventurer to probe it's understandings.

The skeptic versus the cynic (#899)

A skeptic is: "a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual."-Dictionary.com; whereas a cynic is: "a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view."-Dictionary.com. It is objective to be skeptical about things that are uncertain. It brings about a sense of wanting to know or learning to the doubt. We should, everyone of us, be skeptical about anything that has doubt to it. Looking at every side of a doubt helps us to diminish and/or eliminate a particular skepticism. On the other hand, cynicism, equates to a philosophy that is founded on the principle that selfishness is paramount to any other action. Cynicism does not allow for objectivity to define it's outcome, instead it is subjectively arrived at for whatever the individual's need determines. When I think about a generalized definition in my mind of what a cynic is like, I think of a cynical caveman and his constant survival mode, where he must take all he can get without reason to what others may need. A skeptic is actually in a different paradigm. As like the caveman example, the skeptical caveman takes what he needs but with a conscious thought to how it may effect others. In the evolutionary scale of definitions between these two concepts, the rationale for the cynic is embedded in it's actions, whereas the rationale for the skeptic is not hindered by a predetermined thought-to-act reaction. An analysis is still available to the skeptic whereas analysis does not factor in for a cynic. The evolution from being cynical to skeptical is like the evolution from cro-magnum man to Neanderthal man. An evolutionary leap that progresses enlightenment and sets humanity up for it's next evolutionary leap.

The smile on my face (#898)

Life is a good thing. I was sitting here with my eyes closed focusing on all of the everyday events that make up my life and I began to smile, which gave me the title of this post. It does not matter what happens to me in life. Although certainly I fight, scratch and claw for the best for all of us, but still, whatever happens is just another opportunity for me to rise above and work through whatever it is. Another obstacle or enjoyment, depending on the circumstance. It is my destiny to live with what comes my way. I want to be able to feel and think correctly about my responses when I give them. It has been getting easier, which is great, since I have this above-it-all-approach. Not as a condescending attitude, not even close, more like an elevated view above the situation so that I can actually see myself within the circumstance. Like having two different perspectives at the same time. I see the action around me but I also see the larger ramifications as well. Same with thought, I get the immediate thought response in my head but I also get an overview of how my immediate thought would play out. I can only attribute this to experiences having piled up and me being able to sense the similarities and differences. I was not taught to have a check on myself as a strategy. I had to learn the hard way through trial and error. Lucky for me that I have survived my trials and errors, many don't. It would seem then to make great sense to be able to teach others how to regulate their actions and thoughts through some sort of filter before engaging them into action. I can smile these days because life is just a bunch of opportunities to do something that can have an impact on not only others but on my own sense of my self-worth.

The hardest thing I have ever done is nothing (#897)

I have worked as a underground copper miner, a framing carpenter/sheetrock hanger and tree logger. But in all that strenuous activity, I have found something that is even more trying on my soul, doing nothing. In particular I am talking about something that has captured me so utterly that doing nothing about it is excrutiating. It is an emotional destiny that I recognize but can do nothing about. A matter of the heart. I have come to understand a process that fulfills my ideal of fate, it must be pure and not manipulated. This process must come from outside of me and inside the other. The great romantic I have come to embrace for myself. I have had lesser in relationships, manipulated to fit my desire yet, over a short period of time, I had come to recognize that without a pure connection, without influence, no relationship I have had could be sustained. I know that the path I have come to walk is very unlikely to bring me fulfillment but it is the true way for me and I will live with the consequences. Even talking about it here seems a violation of the true nature of providence, however I feel a need to be up front about this today. My soul is wrestling more today than normal and that is why I am opening up somewhat. I have found that self expression of my own struggle in life at times can be a release of some sort which gives me greater perspective and understanding about my emotions. I will continue on in my life regardless of what the final outcome of it will be but know this, I am no different than anyone else when it comes to establishing a foundation for myself that I must never allow myself to go below. I feel better now just having gotten that out and I thank the Universe for allowing me the chance to feel like a human and even talk about it.

Force versus will (#896)

I bring this up since it seems there are those in our society who wish to apply force to their convictions to overcome our will to stop them. They somehow have gotten the notion that what they have arrived upon is better for us than what we think for ourselves. The first indicator that something is wrong is when a group or individuals of like mind think they have to use force to get everyone else to accept their plans. I have been spoiled my whole life by being privileged to live in a Democracy that has been bought and paid for with the blood and treasure of those who came before me. It is my duty to carry on their great sacrifice and keep our Democracy intact. So when there comes along certain folks who see privilege as a right and attempt to allocate their personal standards on the rest of us with ulterior disdain, I find I must step up and confront such action. All of us have an individual will of our own and as citizens of America we are responsible to defend the rights, hard fought and won for maintaining citizenship. For us to shirk our duty to our great country by cowering to the effects of power used by those who would force their will on us is unacceptable and should never be tolerated. Our society has some inherent problems within it when it is possible for a few to have control over the many through coercion or duress. We must root out those who would not hold our rights as sacred as they hold their own. The absurdity of thought that allows some to think that they are the only ones capable of imagination and leadership. In a Democracy like ours, we all get to sign on to whether our future moves in one direction or another. It is thorough Democracy where we have the best chance of sharing different ideas in order to find real solutions that count amongst us all. It is not by the force of a few who wish to think for all of us.

The state of my being (#895)

This is where I am at. I am an individual human being. I have the ability to reason that I exist. I have emotion about situations and circumstances. Nothing much else except the willingness to defend my survival. As a foundation of who I am this is a very well put together insight into me and all other humans. If this is all I would accept as me then my life would be as it should be. However, I have something, as well as all others, that takes me away from my baseline. It is known as the ego, described as such: "the "self", "self-concept", "false self", "conceptual identity"...-Wikipedia. My, and all of our, ego is an enculturation and a false positive reinforcement within our society. For some reason it is given status as an individual characteristic that has enormous benefits to society. It is part of that whole rugged individualistic nature that had the will of force to tame the barbarous world. Unfortunately, creating a mindset buried in the concept of self as a rule, we have inadvertently created an illusion or false identity of what humanity is. If perfection within life is a noble ascertainment to seek and experience then the idea that we would elevate ourselves above who we are is the wrong way to go about it. For me the opposite of ego is humility. In my blog definition I define our natures as having both compassion and curiosity as our true instincts. Humility is the logical by-product of this combination of natures, not ego, which by it's definition is a "false self". It seems to me that fear is the only purpose for ego and that recognizing this about fear and it's negative connotation, any ego related concepts would also align with negativity. I often must realize that to move closer to humility I am crushing or eliminating ego to get there, thus my belief that to get to humility I must stop my ego. That is the state of my being and I hope and wish our future has less ego and much more humility.

The importance of knowing our natures (#894)

I will say this again here, we are compassionate and curious. When we are being denied these two natural instincts, other less savory natures replace them. That is who we are. We always need to find our way back our two true natures. I know many of the arguments against my perspective of what and who we are. They give examples of choices made in direct contrast to my concepts. I know this but do the choice makers know? We are not taught to delve into the memories of our innocence after we were born and before we were indoctrinated into our culture, generally. We were born with innocence of curiosity and caring. We wondered, and we needed and expressed care. Our emotions were keen and joyful before we came to realize we were being judged by society. Learned behavior has been our downfall since our society is not based on humanity, it is based on the ruthless competition that has captured our baser instincts, namely competition with each other. We don't celebrate the miracle of our being here in existence, instead we condescend toward those who come up short in the competition. All the generations of humans who have preceded us have not perfected a world where all of our talents and individual uniqueness is the highest priority. We have instead evolved from our early beginnings into a society that values cunning and selfish devotion to an artificial means for bartering. The value of maintaining our true natures is subordinated to lesser values of greed and segregation. It is embarrassing to me to see how friends and family value material things so much that they would turn their minds off to the real pain and suffering around them. Is this our true nature, to turn from humanity and instead embrace the illusion of self-importance manufactured by ego? This post today is to highlight the FACT that we are human and denying our natures as human only devalues and will eventually negate who we really are.

Reality trumps illusion, or so it should (#893)

I have this concept in my head that if I keep a good vibe going, in my head, everything will be okay. How do I know this? I don't, but it is all that I can understand to do. That is an example of feeling helpless about what is going on around me and my way of coping with that reality. Everything that I see and know that is wrong is so overwhelming to me that it is impossible for me to change it. So instead of changing the wrong toward the right, I tell myself that everything will be okay and just keep going about my business. Somehow the better of all our natures will somehow make things right. In the meantime I need to get mine and not worry about whether you get yours. Others in the past have gotten theirs so why should it be any different for me? I have to trust in this system that had worked for my parents because it is what I know. I deserve the same benefits from society that they got. It is much easier for me to live in this illusion that if I just do what has been done before me everything will work out. The reality is that life and times have changed. It is when I look at reality through the truth of it, I see what I can't keep doing. I cannot keep pretending that everything is okay. I have to allow myself to look at the world through today's eyes, not yesterdays. This means that what has happened in the past no longer will be acceptable in the present and future. Things aren't going to be okay until I and everyone else prepare to change the way we do things. It is not easy to recognize change let alone be a part of the change, however, it is what we must do, otherwise we are not living in reality. Here is our society's dilemma in a nutshell, some of us recognize and want to effect change and some of us recognize change but choose instead to ignore it, and put our trust in the illusion.

When hoping for good, never give up (#892)

I don't mind living in a bit of frustration if it is for a cause that is right and good. I can disassociate myself from the frustration by compartmentalizing the idea and moving on to other hopes and realities in my life. Such is my complexity. I can reserve and have patience over something that carries a noble principle and when the time comes for it's possible fruition I can continue with my unswerving devotion to it's application. There are other times where the hoping for good and not giving up will unfortunately never materialize. Regardless, my nature is to have no expectation but to only try to make good things happen. It is not in my control to actually make the good thing real. I consider it a burden and an honor in duality. The honor because wanting good things to happen as a priority in my life is not something I had always been able to do; and a burden since it weighs on me that I cannot help make the good thing happen and must wait while events align for the possibility of a successful conclusion. I have actually lowered my vision for my life from my earlier assumptions about my ability to effect change. I am not the wonderkind of my early mind and instead I am just the thoughtful wish of that today. By that I mean I can do what is inside my power to effect change but not outside my power. In the past I would have given up on my hopes for better things because I was unable to make the change. Today, I bide my time and hold the hope close so that when the time for a chance of it happening comes upon me I can be ready to do everything I can help make it so. I have evolved from the avenging angel out to set the world straight, who would get disappointed when failure was my result to a more pragmatic turtle, still running the race to effect change but biding my time in order to maximize my effort to help.

The value of virtue (#891)

If only as a reminder for me to shape how I think. I have been thinking about this world we live in and how virtue is less than a priority when it comes to power, prestige and wealth. The worth of us in the eyes of a structured system of society usually has little to do with virtue. Let's define virtue here now: Virtue = moral excellence. Now, competition in society does not base itself exclusively on morality, winning or the perception of winning is of a greater ideal if it produces success. In our society, having a monetary advantage is considered success. It is easy to see how winning can be divorced from virtue since, like winning in economics is a zero sum game. For every winner there will always be one or some who will lose. It is the competition that has become the illusionary virtue through a confused logic. Time has allowed for competition through games to have been perfected to advantage some at the expense of others. In theory of course competition when evenly balanced in every way can be a virtuous form defined by equality. However, games are meant to be channels to produce a winner at the expense of losers and therefore games mostly cannot be defined as virtuous. If games were left to the concept of fun where no one is adversely affected by winning or losing then the virtue in that can be found in sportsmanship, not unlike an Olympic games festival. What we have done instead is elevate competition to an ideal to be applied in every facet of our society. Whether government, education, economics, religion or science, we have turned from a curious state of being into a state of being that has to distinguish whether some of us are better than others. It is an ill designed structure encouraged to segregate us and define us in ways that detract from our core natures toward an illusion, not toward virtue.

Patience is trying; impatience is worse (#890)

The struggle within me. I know that discretion is the better part of valor, but sometimes I want to just jump out of my skin! However, it is during these rare moments that I have found the patience to be still instead. That old saying of "it is better to be happy than right" has begun to come a philosophy for me. I do not rest there but in the moment discretion does make sense. Today's post will have many cliches I see. lol. "What comes around goes around" is my new sense of reality. I can calm myself with this knowledge. Pragmatically though, I know that some will always get away without feeling the just desserts for their actions but for the most part the whirligig of life brings in it's revenges. I am on a roll! Anyway, I have the faith of a mustard seed in that even though I cannot see the reciprocity of every action, I know that every action will have an equal and inverse reaction as a result. I am confident that this is true. I use my own experiences as empirical evidence. I never get away with anything without some due come calling on me in some form or another. Back to patience though, it is welcoming to me that I have a calmness even a serenity of pause that allows me to not react out of instinct with abandon of a sense of deserving something. Instead I can collect my emotion and stabilize it before I do something regretful. I believe this can be a learned experience and that time is irrelevant as a necessity. In other words I don't have to be old or wise to have figured this out. It is a self-control that can be applied at any age. I wish I had figured this out when I was younger but then again, It was rare that I would listen to anyone when I was young, because I was so full of my own self. Today I choose to be happy instead of right all the time, well most of the time anyway! :)

No compromise when it comes to love (#889)

It seems that most things in life involve compromise as a strategy. I agree with that because when we can all share in some way with each other there can be progress and bonding from it. In politics, belief systems, economics and other civilized paradigms, we can find ways that mutually benefit us to maintain respect, peace and harmony. There is one area in my life where I cannot compromise, and that is in the ideal of love. I am not speaking of love generally, but love between a woman and myself. I have never married but I have gotten real close two times and less close another time. However I managed to sabotage those relationships out of some deep doubt that I wasn't in love, but instead wanted a mate. It has occurred to me as I have gained better insight into myself that in the area of getting married to a woman requires of me to be truly in love with her. I know this about myself now and it explains a lot about my previous behavior. Why is being in love with the only one woman so important to me? I suppose it has something to do with my upbringing. Throughout my life I have seen many family members and close friends marry twice, thrice and more. However, even with that there is more here for me on this subject of love. I am a romanticist, a true love must reside within me that takes my breath away and causes me to act in such silly ways. I need that for me. I don't know and won't presume personally how others deal with this. But I have seen much evidence of some marrying for security, status and revenge. Yes even revenge, as a way to get back at someone who has hurt them. For me marrying for love will be my strategy and if I am unlucky and not able to find that love well then that will have to be fine enough. No one deserves anything and neither do I. I just hope that I haven't messed things up so badly in my life that a true love is too late for me.

A priority; Equality of opportunity (#888)

Life must be held dear. Those who are born into this world need to be healthy, clothed, sheltered and fed but also given the same starting point as anyone else. Otherwise we are a species who prides itself on the chaos of barbarism instead of reasoned logic. What we have today is a mixture of both barbarism and reasoned logic but the mixture is beginning to favor the barbarism as a popular ideal. This dismays me in that barbarism has had no success in modernizing and advancing an enlightened society. The history of barbarism has changed over time as laws have civilized it's worst effects but what remains are the selfish, survival of the fittest concepts. It seems that a portion of our society believes that this provides motivation for all to achieve to greater heights. What is not considered though is that most everyone starts from different stations in life. When those stations are at the bottom of our economic ladder, the ability to measure up becomes exponentially more difficult when measured to those who are at the top of the ladder. Strictly by having greater resources have the wealthy been able to maintain a higher rate of success and the less well off having little success in attaining a balanced education, with equal opportunity, in order to improve their station. The logic is indisputable as to success for the wealthy and them having a greater chance to achieve in life as opposed to the little success for the not wealthy in life. What I believe to be a strived for goal for our species is to treat birth rights the same for everyone. We must create a system that places equal value for every human. I do not necessarily know what the system will look like but the effect should have an equal footing for all who are human. Working backwards from the effect seems to be a logical way to create a system for living and I for one am willing to help get us to an equal opportunity scenario.

When the words will not come (#887)

Every now and then a moment like this is how I start this daily posting. I have no idea about what my subject is and I still don't. However, I type and words keep coming. I suppose the lack of any real good idea shouldn't stop me from talking to you about whatever comes into my mind. Maybe that is the point of all this anyway, just having a conversation about whatever I can think or not think about. This has been my trusty wall to come to and get whatever is off my chest, off my chest. It has grown into something more though, it is my imaginary friend, who is always there waiting for me to post 250 to 300 words or so about anything that has my mind captivated. I started doing this everyday as a way to document my feelings and opinions about how I see the world. The everyday part has been violated twice so far but quickly remedied within a few hours. On day 3 I forget and added two posts on day 4 to make up for day 3 and to fulfill day 4. Then on day 621 I believe, I was so sick that I did not post that day and was horrified to remember the next morning that I had not. I again posted two posts to get myself back some semblance of continuity although it is imperfect it is a true reflection of me. What is interesting at this very second is that I now have a couple of subjects floating around in my head that I could write about today but I would have to clear this post of stream-writing and I do not think I should. It is real and a snapshot of what my mind is doing at this moment. My posts don't always have to make perfect sense although I do try to keep them understandable within the streaming flow of consciousness. It has been very rare where I will get up from the keypad before I have started and finished a post, unless of course to refill the coffee cup or let the cat in or out. I do not string out a post, I write it out in one sitting. A true stream of consciousness writer I am.

The best of who we are (#886)

Within all of us is a knowledge of what we should do to be right with ourselves. A consciousness that guides our principles. What has happened is that we tend to dismiss our moral/ethical compasses when we see an advantage that benefits us somehow. Instead we should be holding ideals up in almost every instance. Nothing is absolute, therefore, there could exist a situation where principle must take a back seat to another priority. I cannot think of one but regardless of my imperfect abilities, I must acknowledge that in a non-absolute world a possibility exists, in theory. However, as abstract as that was, we humans seem to have lowered our standards to such simplistic levels that we now see something done wrong and cynically shrug our metaphorical shoulders and accept it as what everyone is doing. Not that it is right but that it is acceptable. That is the tragedy of our society at the moment and in the past, we are willing to accept a less-than principled outcome for our overall actions. We are creatures of the status quo, rarely questioning our motives as long as we are having some need fulfilled. Sometimes I am left to wonder if our natures are so buried within our resignation that we lose complete sight of our basic will to overcome that which is in contradiction to our hopes. A subjection to lesser ideas for living in exchange for less struggle to achieve. It is unfortunate that we as a species do not control our system of living to amplify our best natures from birth to death but instead waste our greatest potential on trivial survival techniques. We are not subjects to be used and discarded, we are miracles to be nurtured and loosed on the unknown. Currently our potential is fettered and harnessed by paradigms designed to suppress them. What should be, as a system for us, is a designed process that highlights our inner strengths and knowledge to maximize our personal potentials. Letting the best of who we are out.

Thinking outside the box (#885)

A common enough phrase used to allow us to consider other options that exist outside our usual way of thinking in order to effect our doing. This really comes back to being changeable. I have a friend who is all the time talking about how his situations in life are always changeable. Thinking outside the box is the same premise. For me, it all comes back around to doing things that are comfortable and falling into a regular patterns. Well that is not sensible when all that is around us is in a constant state of change. Nothing stays the same except our will to perceive it as so and even that must change, thus thinking outside the box. I have found that what works for me is to understand that I am not very qualified to know absolutes. I do not pretend to know things based upon assumptions, best guesses or just outright fantasy. this world and the existence that it presents to us is outside our control. We are born into this and have no say as to why, if any, there is a reason for it, besides the physical actions that brought about our birth. Given that we are all clueless about why we are here as to a purpose, we must leave open any and all interpretations about it. I have not settled on anything as an absolute since there is no evidence of there being any absolutes. There are faith systems used to mollify the fearful, but those require an absolute faith in them and I am not capable of doing that when there are still other possibilities. I do not lie or give false evidence of having an unconditional faith as a perfect answer to our reason for being. I prefer instead to remain in my truth of which defines this world's existence to me as unknown. I am satisfied for now knowing that I don't know. At the very least I am at the truth of what I know/don't know. I will continue to think outside the box in the hope that someday I will have an idea about our universal existence and what it means.

Maintaining trust (#884)

I know how to maintain the trust others have accepted from me. I do not violate the trust. It is usually in the form of my thoughts, words and my actions. The key here is my thoughts. I have to build a mental castle around principles that define me and protect them from not only outside forces but from inside influences coming from me. Yes, I battle against my forgetful nature, not unlike everyone else, in order to keep my trust intact. I have had my trust violated so many times when I was younger that it is difficult to imagine that I hadn't lived out the rest of my life as a cynical man. However, a change came over me that exposed this reality to me, it being, I am the one who can offer trust to others and actually keep that trust if I work at it. I can only control that which is within me, not real easy but doable. With that, the trust I offer to others is of value and I want those who accept my trust to feel secure in the fact that I value my own offered trust. There is no ulterior motive for me to want you to trust me, there is only my honest intent to have a life full of principled living and honest sharing. It is of no comparison when weighing money with principle. I choose principle every time. Money is an artificial means for barter, my trust is a real means for friendship and companionship. No amount of money can buy that. Neither can power or influence compare to trust. There is no artificial means of conveyance that can measure up to the virtue of principle with the outcome of trust. To maintain trust I must think of others first and protect the investment others have made in me. I consider myself as a bank where people can go and deposit their wealth of emotion and knowledge and know I will protect it. We are all ever-growing in this reality of existence and having a confidant to share those growing pains or troubling experiences helps us to become better people. Maintaining trust within those I share it with is precious to me and worthy of my full attention.

I demand more from life (#883)

Things must change so that living to survive isn't our only reality. This current overall existence we are part of needs to be changed so that life has more meaning and discovery. Are we to bind ourselves to a philosophy of economic survival as the main destiny for our lives? Is this form of society that worships at the feet of consumerism all we can expect? Somewhere back in our history decisions were made that got us on this course of structured civilization with consumerism as it's prize. We occupy ourselves with working to create things of artificial value and then spend our time and energy acquiring them. This is not a bad thing amongst other options for living but when it is the primary reason to while away our lifetimes then it is not a good thing. There must be more balance in the structure of our societies. We need to have as many options to choose from while we are alive to give the true expression of our own humanness a chance to be fulfilled. We are the ones who are holding ourselves back, while certainly there are obstacles to change all around us, ultimately, we can change things from the stagnant status quo. The main problem we face in uniting to change our reality to a more human friendly structure is that we are so beat down from the existing one. It is like that old saying, "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know". A time must come for us to find the purpose within us that will elevate us beyond the safety and security of little to the freedom and challenge of much. I am dissatisfied with the status quo and how it favors few at the expense of the many. Such disproportionate outcomes are not fair to either the few lucky or the many unlucky. We all deserve a life that we can build for ourselves that includes the best we can be for all of us. We have the ability to change our own existence into whatever we would like.

Value is in the hard (#882)

Nothing comes to me easy! Everything I need or want has a price to pay that involves much effort. Thomas Paine's statement "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value." rings solidly true for me. Material items are just things to occupy my time and some of them like this laptop computer have greater value than other things I have. However, what is really valuable to me are shared human qualities. My point is that I don't wake up everyday ready to jump about with excitement. lol. I am like everyone else, I have both good and bad moments. But I refuse to stay in the bad moments once I recognize them. I work to pull myself into another way of thinking that elevates my hopes over my despairs. I place value on my moods and working hard to make them better dominates my time as a worthy venture. I like to think of myself as the new born child still with the ability to change everything in order to survive. I say this a lot but it will always be true, I wasted a lot of years not working on making myself a better human being. I quit on myself through cynicism and an I-don't-care attitude. That was easy and required little effort on my part. What I received from that casualness of non-caring was little to nothing of value. I did not respect myself or others and when I wasn't deluding myself with propaganda I was despondent and worthless in spirit. I have discovered that anything worth having and/or being is a hard fought-for endeavor. I have to expend thought and energy toward principled ideals if I am ever going to respect myself and allow you to be respected in my eyes. There is an ethic to be had by applying myself toward improvement. It is in the trying hard and standing up for the better and best of my nature that brings worth to me. That is where working hard brings value whether I actually succeed at what I attempt or not.