Month: December 2016

There are many days when I wish I could just hear that one motivational speech that would just turn everything around. I would listen to it every day and my life would get on track and I would never look back. I would be able to grab my bootstraps and be on top of the world. I would wake up refreshed every morning, positive, motivated and hungry for success. Nothing could stop me, nothing at all.
You see right now I am out there in a sea of depression, dog paddling with a death grip on a lifebuoy, looking around for a life raft and dreaming about a helicopter. I am dreaming about a helicopter because I want to get to dry land and quick. Dry land, a place I have always dreamed about but never seen. I have only ever managed to get on a boat for awhile, until the sea gets too rough and the boat capsizes. I want to soar up high, where the air is clear and I just know that land is visible and I can get a bearing on which way to fly. Down here on the sea in the life raft, there is no sail, oar or motor; just the currents to carry me along.
People like me need a life coach service to help them sort through our mess, sure sometimes therapists but more along the lines of behavioral therapy that is a administrative assistant as well to get us on the right track. World doesn’t work like that though, sink or swim unless you can pay to play.

A shroud of darkness.
There are no forms here,
just emptiness stretched out.
Uninspiring landscape,
from horizon to horizon.

A shroud of darkness.
There are no lights here,
just twilight stretched out.
Uninspiring dimness,
no darkness or light.

A shroud of darkness.
There are no sounds here,
just silence stretched out.
Uninspiring muteness,
within and without.

A shroud of darkness.
There are no thoughts here,
just hollowness stretched out.
Uninspiring deprivation,
no dreams or visions.

A shroud of darkness.
There is no warmth here,
just cold stretched out.
Uninspiring iciness,
biting at the bone.

I am used to viewing the world from a wide field of vision, 180 degrees of panoramic clarity until age caught up with me. Now with bifocals on I have 3 different areas of vision, the area outside of the glasses and the two areas within. These new limited fields of vision I find disconnected and disjointed, at times disorienting as moving objects pass into view from blurred to focused. The sides next to the reading part seem useless as looking through that portion of the lens requires closing the other eye.

I had a thought though about how people perceive the world around them and why perhaps so many are full of fear. Their vision is restricted, people who are not like them exist as a blurred image. Because their minds cannot comprehend what they are seeing or hearing they are full of fear. Their lack of comprehension is also fed by people just like themselves and by the charlatans who desire power over others. The charlatans can see clearly but their ego’s are fed by those who follow them, so they spoon feed them what they can comprehend even when it consists of lies, they can not see the truth so they will never know the difference.

In this world there exist ideas as grains of sand; I see the grains of sand and understand them. I can grasp their meaning as they fall through my fingers. I see beyond the grains and watch how they flow together in a stream and I know why they are flowing; the pattern is clear in the moment in which I observe the stream. 

Understanding is all I am allowed and only as I actively observe. I cannot act on the knowledge or take it with me. It slips away from me as soon as I turn away and life moves on. I am in the neck of an hourglass watching as time passes away.

When regrets and remorse are the chains that bind you in a mental state of existence, how do you break free?
I keep seeing this commercial for one of the smoking cessation products and the man says something to the effect that since his child was born he has been able to quit smoking with this product. So when I see this commercial I feel a deep guilt that it took me more than a decade after my daughter was born before I quit. Additionally I continue to struggle with my addiction and cravings, when I smell cigarette or cigar smoke, I want one even after 10 years that has not gotten any easier. I have a lot of remorse that I started smoking and regrets that it took me so long to quit.
I scream inside because of how weak I perceive myself to be. Not mentally or physically strong enough to accomplish my goals. Regretting not being able to push myself through pain and injury to stay in the Army because all I did was change my location still had to push through to get through life.
So I chained myself mentally and emotionally in this spot where I feel all of this guilt and even shame that I have held onto for decades now. When I think about it I know that for some reason I do not want to let these things go, I want to hold onto all of my baggage and I can not explain why that is. Really does not make any sense.

Humble is defined as not being arrogant or proud, but also being subservient. It is an interesting concept because if we are truly humble we cannot lay claim to being humble since the claim itself would be prideful.
So being humble would be a state of living that permeates our entire life. If we remove our pride and arrogance from our lives and live a life intentionally in service too others, then how much easier would it be to live the following verse.
Ephesians 4:2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
If we live this way then surely it would follow.
Psalm 147:6 The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.

“The simple are meat for slaughter, to be used when they are useful in causing trouble for the opposing power and to be sacrificed when they are no longer of use.” William of Baskerville The Name of the RoseUmberto Eco

This passage is from a discussion Between the Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and the Benedictin Abbot Abo regarding heretics during the early 14th century. They could just as well be talking about people today. A little earlier in the discussion William states “Joining a heretical group, for many of them, is often only another way of shouting their own despair.” Change heretical to terrorist, militia, gang; it doesn’t matter, the psychological pathology is the same, only the cultural differences and level of despair truly divide them.
I want to say the most important thing to identify if we truly want to combat such groups is the despair they all share. A despair driven by poverty and fear of poverty. But behind the groups are wealthy backers who not only feed the despair but actively tap into it for their own desires for power. And as much as that sounds just like conspiracy thinking take the following into consideration.

Old Testament Micah 2
1 Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it.
2 They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
they rob them of their inheritance.

The world has never lacked for people who plot evil and use power to do it, neither has it lacked for the people who they oppress and plot against.