Eulogy for Flibbertigibbetting

Gossiping about someone without giving them a chance to color the evidence is cowardly, harmful, and wrong. Gossip is born in mind, passes the lips like a subtle hiss, and brings down the greater good to the lowest common denominator. It commonly serves as a tool to make oneself feel superior to someone else. I've rarely heard accurate information transmitted regarding a person who was not present to hear it communicated. This same mistake broadly applies to religion, science, politics, management/HR, family, homelessness, race, gender, income levels, etc.

Bobby Fischer, the 11th World Chess Champion that many esteem as the best that's ever been (probably a higher percentile of Americans subscribe to this notion than abroad), taught a lesson on chess that I absorbed as a life truth. He said it is paramount to look at every square on the board that every piece can move before committing oneself to a move. Sounds like great advice for life in general, right? Silence and circumspection should attend every important decision that one makes before pulling the trigger.  This training readies us for real life when we might not have time to flesh out all the possibilities.

When we are in training or otherwise have time, here’s what has helped me through the years.  I call it T-3, and in certain circles, it is an axiom or Slogan. "Think, THINK, Think" has for me become a lifestyle, akin to Bobby Fischer's' prescription for winning chess. 1-T) Think. I briefly consider the matter at hand, then separate myself quickly from it to suspend my judgment, then return to it with objectivity. 2-T) On important issues, I consider every aspect of it as deeply as I am capable, analyzing the interplay of ideas, moves, and relational outcomes consummate to the task at hand. Then after holding on to the possibilities that seem most promising and dismissing the chaff, I select the strongest sequence of moves available, and then I WALK AWAY or daydream about anything other than the plan. Then, 3-T) Returning to the decision I made after the thorough consideration, I reconsider my options confidently but without conceit, looking for things I might have missed.

In tournament chess, the hard and fast rules are, "Touch Move, Touch Take." If you touch the piece, then you must move it or take it. Touching is a total commitment; just like speaking is not easily unspoken, one should weigh it out carefully before committing to it.

Then comes the clincher for clarity. I free my mind of everything I think I know, then reach for the piece to move, and deliberately 'almost' touch the piece several times. With the spirit of humility and gentleness rather than fear or agenda, I wait for my intuition to reveal what my logical mind missed. I can't begin to count the number of times the intuitive mind shows me what I missed in my 'Think, THINK, Think' processing.  Emily Dickenson said, “Dwell in possibility.”  How can we gossip about a thing that doesn’t feed our ego or anger?  Gossiping is a strange form of lazy supremacy.  Rise above it, and you’re bound to taste the sweetness & peace you’ve been desiring.

Negative Vision Board

It goes both ways, right? Practicing the wrong thing over and over expecting different results? Hard head, soft ass. Hard ass, soft head. Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger, if we allow it. I needed every drunk that led up to the last one (knock on wood). But if there are GOOD miracles, there are probably BAD miracles, too, though most people view a miracle as something positive. We get what we focus on or pray for.

We can make a Vision Board for a beautiful future or we can make one for a rotten future.

Grief:  Magi of the Sacred Fire

“COGI QUI POTEST NESCIT MORI” (‘Who can be forced has not learned how to die’) ~ SENECA THE YOUNGER

A 13-year-old girl I know recently overdosed on prescription drugs.  Her Godmother grieved because she promised the girl’s mom who was on her deathbed with cancer that she would protect her daughter.  Hence, the motivation for the following article on grief.

"There can be no grief without love, for a person who does not love, cannot grieve. Grief is the Servant of Love, but this Servant's duty is of 'Firekeeper.'

What is the purpose of grief?  Grief fire burns off everything that is not essential to Love. This whole, lengthy undertaking, is excruciatingly painful to the carrier of Love but is key to Love's purification.

Ironically, Grief burns off illusions and attachments, but nothing more. The only thing real is Love, and when the attached illusions are but embers, Grief itself does its Sacred Last Dance around the Dying Life of the Fire.

Then, its duty consummated, Grief throws itself upon the embers of an old existence to die in a brilliant burst of flames. The beauty of the moment illuminates beautiful mystery, and unforgettable higher learning is left alone to leave its newborn to experience life on life’s terms.

Here’s another Seneca quote: "ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes homines". A loose translation, ‘as fire tempers gold, so strong people are tempered by suffering.' To become pure gold, the original gold-bearing ore must go through the tempering process or Trial by Fire; the analogy being that for a person strong in spirit, adversity and suffering are the tempering agents necessary to refine character and bring out real potential.

The entirety of humanity is at times perplexed by its inner demons, but burn off the demons, and all that remains is true Self. Our problem is that we have forgotten who we are. But there is Hope, for our Friend Grief is the Magi of the Sacred Fire.

If Grief fails to kill itself after performing its duty, then the process of renewing attachment begins, and the cycle of grief begins anew. Wave after wave of pain drowns the fire until the Spirit learns Love is more powerful and necessary than oxygen.

Here's a poem titled, "Phoenix" that I wrote about this process from my experience, and I share it to help my friends make some sense of their Grief." Religiously stated, maybe the process was like LOVE...the ghostly gift rising like the phoenix from the curse, like Christ leaving hell. This Too Shall Pass.

Follows is a poem I wrote about grief after losing a marriage, a loved-one who drank herself to death, and more.  No matter what happens to us, we grow stronger with time.

PHOENIX

spirit body

broken,
gathered up limbs
collected for a stretcher.

he’s cutting, again.

shadow sky dips into midnight;
snail clouds creep along

straight razor moonbeams.

 

not like a nightmare,

for nightmares shift quickly
and unconsciousness' dies in the waking.

There are few pains as sickly,

As lost love spoken thickly.

ease along,

press into and face your pain,

but lean not, oh outer mind, to your own understanding.
travel through every drawn & quartered layer

 of affection vanished.
it’s a sacred space where slowness heals just fast enough

to create new skin.

~new skin~

fresh
for the next cut.
moving, sliding, inching along, just keep moving, surviving.

how many more times will you watch this full moon rising? 
it all seems so limitless, so fruitless.  
this seems the strangest life one can ever know,
this surviving surviving.

only when I realize I am both snail and blade,
my aloneness plummets like honest angels to the earth,
the high blade bathes a blood red moon.
 

~the fall murders my pain~
finally, I am

poet.

 

Repetition is the Mother of All Learning

The best way to achieve a Black Belt, like any other learning, is to repeat OUT LOUD and silently, the lessons.  Pass It On.  When we give it to someone else, they give back to us the lessons we need to take our training to a better place to teach the next lesson.  To the self-limiting Black Belt Police (the ones who say you need to have a Black Belt to teach), step out of their way and let them throw themselves on the ground.  

 

It’s Not Illegal to Be Crazy; It’s Only Illegal to Act Crazy

Jean-Paul Sartre penned, “Hell is other people.”  I thought, “What’s he talkin’ about?  I love people and do not consider people “hell.”  I summarily dismissed his words.   While I believe it is essential to have the courage of one’s convictions, I think it is imperative to question one’s convictions.  There’s always more freedom in a question than in its answer.  So, I forced myself to suspend my belief system and examine his proposition open-mindedly and in so doing, reinvented my perception.  

Let’s examine the very words we might use to either trap or free us and take a snapshot of our legalese, namely, the adversarial system and its language.  When someone's branded a perpetrator, it’s easier to call them a monster, or Inhuman, to demonize them.  We do this in religion, politics, social strata and even regarding race.  On a more subtle level, this demonization comes in gentler phraseology, such as, “Them” or “These People,” as if there is not a potential or capacity to harm others is present in every one of us. 

Fortunately for everyone, very few of us act on thoughts we have when we’re angry or upset.  It’s not illegal to be crazy; it’s only illegal to act crazy.  But some of us have mugshots to prove we were behaving crazy.  I do, but I am more than my mugshot.  Though we might get booked and photographed by the police, we are more than our mugshots.  We should not define ourselves or “others” by our worst moments.  According to Attorney Emily Baxter, “We are all criminals,” or at least would have been had we been caught. All I can say is, “Thank God life isn't fair” because if it were fair, many of us would be in serious trouble right now.

Every country and culture packages and produces both violence and forgiveness. If we fail to recognize the underlying humanity of those who commit violence, how can we ever hope to change it? And how can we empower survivors to transcend tragedy if we are ripening a victim’s ability to feel ‘less than.” Why enable safe harbor to staying at the victim stage?  Forgiveness is an inside job.  We forgive not because the offender deserves forgiveness, but because we deserve peace.  Forgiveness exorcises the demon and relieves the perpetrator of its brand; the forgiver finds peace.  Fail to forgive, and the beast stays with the victim in a self-made prison of relationship. 

When a victim owns the responsibility of being a victim, they take their power back. Victimhood sheds its snakelike skin against the rocks of compassion, which is, ironically provided by those who have “dropped the rock.”  When an offender takes ownership of their offense, they release the culprit status of self-made guilt & self-pity, which paradoxically represents another form of victimhood.  We need to hang up the blamethrower. 

The world is addicted to judgment, and lack of mercy is a global contagion.  Stop defining yourself and others by one's worst moments.  We need to stop absorbing into our Collective Consciousness stories which don't empower us.   Run a spiritual virus scan on yourself and then purge the virus from your system.  For this writer, God is the oxygen in forgiveness. 

In a search for distillation of wisdom, I was touring a graveyard reading tombstones, hoping to find a lifetime of experience all rolled into a word or sentence.  On an obelisk, I read, “The sins of our brothers we write in sand, but their virtues we carve in granite.” 

“Hell is other people.”  I focused on the word, “other.”  Ah yes, it became apparent what Sartre might have meant.  Other races, other religions, other political parties, other orientations, other classes, and the myriad of “other” Us/Them scenarios.  Quit spending time thinking about things you don’t like or don’t want. ‘Look for the Good’ in any given person, place or thing, and you’ll find it.   

EXXON Oil Spill of the Mouth

Is it right to bite one's tongue when annoyed, or let 'em have it? Should someone unload on others just because they are ill, in pain, or in fear? It seems there are so many people investing in what they don't like, emotionally, then let it gush out of their mouths like an EXXON oil spill. It's hard to undo that sort of accident. When annoyed, I wait three seconds before speaking. The decompression time is invaluable. If I'm still annoyed after three seconds, I grab another three seconds. There have been entire 'conversations' where I've said nothing. LOL! If I speak while angry, well, it has not been so good.

Truth without compassion is cruelty.

Absense of Love Crimes

Is it a "Hate Crime" or is it an 'Absence of Love Crime'? Maybe ALL crime is a hate crime. If we are willingly hurting each other, it's at least the ACTION of Hate, even if a person didn't mean to be injurious. Indifference is even worse than hate, in my opinion. I wish that someone were hot or cold than indifferent. Once we turn the Heart off, we're toast. Progress, not perfection. We can do better. Willingness to grow along spiritual lines can flip even the worst of trauma.

7 Million Are Hungry in America, 7 Thousand Have Fake Welfare Accounts

1) We pay Heart Dead politicians. Where's the morality of that?

2) 'Brain Dead' is a by-product of desensitization of the heart.

3) As ee cummings wrote, anyone who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly (love) you. Sartre said, "Hell is other people." I thought it was nonsense until I focused on the word, "other". Other parties. Other races. Other orientations. Other religions. Other classes. Other 'whatever...'

If I see you as my other me, that's the only use of other I can wrap my heart around.

A Few Thoughts on Healthy Feminine Culture & Perceptions

Females are so often taught that everything regarding self-worth is aesthetic or visual, outside-in appearance stuff. Perfect skin, magnificent hair, brilliant teeth, painted alluring eyes, and the list goes on. Commercials inundate females to look pretty, glamorous, thin, etc. and rarely characterizes integrity without physical beauty.

Yes, we are moving in the right direction, but we can absolutely do better. When I look at a fellow human beings' eyes, I look for heart & soul and prevent myself from thinking down below.

I know this goes beyond the scope of the point of simple dress code standards in our culture, perhaps, but even natural hair is to be removed from a females legs and armpits?  REALLY?  WTH! What's the point of celebrating prepubescence in adult females?

If we could dump all of the artificial BLAME MENTALITY BS from the way we view each other, our lives will be so less complicated.

But of course, correcting the course of culture to support a healthy feminine mystic based on reality will cause the commercial industry to suffer economic loss.

Me, I am good whether a woman wears makeup or not, shaves armpits/legs or not, goes to the beauty salons and comes out feeling like a million bucks from a great session with a stylist. That's all well and good, as long as it doesn't limit or define the person as less than what they indeed are, which is GOOD ENOUGH with or without botox, breast implants, or cosmetic surgery.

Love, Politics, God, HUmor, Focus, Rule 62.

Love, Only Love. God is Love. Politics is the Shadow World when ego gets involved. EGO: Edging God Out. Be not dismayed.They probably think they are trying to help you. Adam & Eve were codependent. LOL! Turn It Over, Live and Let Live, Let Go ~ Let God. YOU are not their problem and they are not YOUR problem. It's none of your business what others think of you. It also might not be any of your business what you think of you, either. What God thinks of us is all that matters. God-Esteem, not Self-Esteem.

Not Giving Up

I can't give up on my goal of speaking and writing.  It's what my life has boiled down to.  Don't quit before the miracle happens.  Health stuff has been my primary TEMPORARY obstacle.  It is going to affect all areas of my employment, whatever that looks like.  That being said, I'm looking for something that aligns with my speaking/writing goals.  If by August things are not significantly better financially, then I will consider other things.  Hazelden could be a Turning Point in July.  I'm currently studying a course with my girlfriend on marketing my business and still attending Toastmasters.  I'll be competing in speech contests over the next couple of months which could also open speaking doors.  I'm working on an essay for The Great American Think Off and if my essay is chosen, I'll be competing with other speakers to win the title for the competition.  Sometimes, CSPAN shows up to follow their contest.

 

Anyway, I'm working on a speech right now for next Monday, and will start a new Vision Board today.  My girlfriend and I will be hosting a Vision Board Workshop and I'll just be her Aide.

 

I'm not giving up, although being in pain is surely a distraction.  Prayer and diet, meditation, and attitude.  :-)

A Friend Felt He Wasted "all" of His Potential

ALL? That's a pretty big word (well, not so 'pretty').

Look, I know I'm using the "G Word" a lot, but here I go again: "In God's Economy, nothing is wasted." I used to get 'wasted' and had some lifetime consequences that most people would consider hellish. But we forgive regardless of the temperature of our hearts. That includes forgiving ONESELF for EVERYTHING so one can live a loving life. One moment of love is worth more than a lifetime of pain. It distills life to love oneself as it distills love to give it away without expectation of anything in return. Would you tell someone else their life was a waste? Treat yourself as you love others. Give yourself a break today (but skip McDonald's).

Beautiful Mystery Beyond Space & Time

An uncounted number of synchronicities has crossed my awareness the last couple of days, which lead me to meditate a titch on what slavery is and what it might mean. It seems that slavery is either tethered to Immersion or it's tethered to Exclusion. With Exclusion, the slave stays connected or 'Synchronized' to the thing resisted. To coin a well-known phrase, 'What we resist, persists.' One either backs away from or pushes away the thing targeted for Exclusion.

 

With Immersion, (my preferred obsessive mode for learning any given subject well), one delves into a discipline or endeavor and treats it like a religion, a college education, a political party, or maybe even a relationship. With Immersion, one trains their mind to 'notice' or 'create' things aligned or agreeing with their 'system' of Immersion. That is to say, it's like piling ideas higher and deeper (Ph.D.) and aligning one's life thesis within the confines of the Chosen One's Graduate Thesis.

 

Scientific "fact" never changes, said a scientist recently. He said belief and biology must be observable and repeatable in context of science. Is science his religion?

 

The paradox that said scientist might (and I say MIGHT because to be certain makes me a slave to my mastery and a Great Teacher said, "Call no man "Master") encounter is how the dream disappears when one awakens. But Eternal Progress (progress, not perfection) floats between two mirrors facing each other. If we want to change the dream, we move in-between. NOW we exist like Ether solidified, but only when we stop learning or moving. If we want to change the past or the future, MOVE. But mirrors are your free servants.

 

Truth and Falsehood both seem to teeter on the same fulcrum called Paradox. Eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Duality is a trick, a trap, an ambush. Distract the snake until he eats himself. Then the Tree of Life will be a Beautiful Mystery. I LOVE Mystery.