Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Pay the president's Ransom

Pay the president's ransom.
We can always tear down parts of the wall later...perhaps using parts for infrastructure.
It seems to be always "us against them" under this leader.
Let's keep some of our American humanity.

https://youtu.be/RyzDRc34l2g


From my book, Life in the Aftermath of a Psychopath

Armageddon Came Stealthily
“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ~George Orwell

Once upon a time in a land called Earth, a species known as hominid developed and populated the great globe. Surviving travail and cultural crises, the societies rumbled forward – many individuals and groups striving for the betterment of mankind. There did occur apparent deviations from global empathy, but the other sectors of mankind continued to right their vector momentum and crusade toward higher goals of mass survival and opportunity to thrive as both individuals and congregations.

The criteria focused upon uplifted values and ethical perspectives for both mankind and the Earth. As the citizenry grew, New Thought in the molding of ideas acted as a placebo in calming and guiding the more highly educated and industrialized beings. With the study of this domain of knowledge, presences could choose thought patterns and people with whom to associate. This path carried them away from the hubbub of troubles and daily engrossment in procuring the needs for base physical continuation and those of remedially soothing influences on emotional drives. Preoccupied with attainment of beliefs and systems of convictions of truth, and with confidence in this habit of mind, the inhabitants with all the privileges of free men became less aware of other activities in their realm.

The great institutions of learning had categorized knowledge, functionality, reasoning, and had even established schools of remediation for aberrant intent of cogitation. Within this finely tuned paradigm developed a tumor-like deviation of being whose thought processes did not house the ability to experience empathy. The vast scholarly institutions held that this was a psychological impulse of will, could be corrected, and went about the business of formulating treatments to reestablish balance for the individual, and thus, society as a whole.

Insurgency began to arise within small numbers of natives who disagreed with those within the great halls of understanding and their comprehension of truth. Straying from the hallmarks of data and using primitive observation, these rebels began to formulate a new idea – one divergent from the psychological treatment vectors. This new concept began to take shape as those within society reported horrific anguish from contact with a differing strain of hominid. In these encounters, individuals found themselves mesmerized, deprived of their original self-hood, callously used, devalued while following
the best and highest forms of their belief systems, having their values and purposes shaken, and then unceremoniously “left for dead.”

Rarely could aid be found to salve the damaged psyches of the victims, for the true believers of the old psychology formats simply were unable to fit the data into their stable and well acknowledged schools of belief. Could it be that this uncustomary encounter with a divergent strain of citizen could be more than a mutual tangency with an abnormally motivated being? What if an influential drive was not the root, but an intrinsic style of operation? How were the majority of presences to relate to this, and more to the point, how were they to protect themselves from emotional harm?

These relationships proved unavoidably destructive to the well-being of individuals and filtered to society. The insurgents pooled efforts, information, and unified contact to discover an amazing similarity with experiential reports. The strange behaviors of a group of beings whose common description could be a total absence of empathy began to form the base of understanding an event-horizon for any who remained in contact. The most honored notions of forgiveness could not hold stasis and a return to valued normality with this uncharted manner of conduct.

To remain viably humane and uphold the values of their domain, the primary citizens recognized that the exclusion of “the others” was not an option and yet, there might be no rehabilitation possible for this new strain of presence. They would need to define a new application of learning which might offer tools to formally acknowledge actions coupled with intuitive feelings of those coming in contact with the alien co-citizenry.

In addition, techniques would be required to heal the damaged persons left in the wake of such predators. The glorious past eras of golden virtues might have faded, but a fearless approach to handling the challenge of meshing two entirely foreign ideologies for joint survival on the globe called Earth would stand as a gateway. This ascension would bring change to the tried and true beliefs of the departed generations and perhaps a tarnished overview of life as that given by the prophets and teachers of great creeds.

Today would prove an opening to a road of awareness. Knowledge, itself, is not power, but the ability to use that information and to do so with righteous intent would mark an evolving humanity as it strives to incorporate the incompatible into a new world. We, the insurgents are not the same. And so, it begins......



Saturday, May 19, 2018

That Was an Adventure....Let's Not Do That Again

In today's climate, I find myself quite engulfed by the politics and emotional divisiveness.  It's difficult to navigate everyday life with the dissonance of beliefs, loyalties, hopes, and aspirations.  I am reminded of the movie, "The Untouchables" which focused on heavy-duty right and wrong and then exhibited the comeuppance as an apparently minor-framed legal strategy of tax evasion; devoid of the anguished disturbance of atrocious acts by mobsters in the power seat.

And yet, there is always accountability.  It may not arrive swiftly or with the apparently appropriate garb of justice, but reaching destination, it does.  In  my status of an older person, living hand-to-mouth, I attempt to live with a sense of gusto mixed with acceptance and tolerance.  The rule of law imbues me with a significance of purpose and reminds me of the reasoning for decency and responsibility for my own actions as well as with an understanding of history.

Taking this into my personal daily existence, the inevitability of needing to become more active in this creation of functioning brings home the awareness that we each must act within our scope.  It isn't really the association with religion but the sheer excellence of courage in being the best we each can be in any moment.  Morality and ethics, as terms, tend to overlap.  I suspect the "norm" of humanity - putting aside sociopaths and psychopaths - feels invigorated when in the company of goodness.  Not always an easy engagement for participation when loyalties come into play.

Nonetheless, this idea of starting-stopping-and picking up the pieces to go again is certainly worth the effort.  While making a difference today - in this here and now - we also send out the roots for new blossoms in tomorrow.  My amazing three-year-old granddaughter and I were playing with twigs and interacting with the ducks at the pond of our local park.  In the blink of an eye, she slipped into the shallow water.  Swiftly pulling her out, I think grandma still lost about five years of life.  Being the true connoisseur of her life, she stated as we were drying her and checking for injuries, "phew, that was an adventure.  Let's not do that again."   Amen.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Reservation for One...



Looking back over my blog posts I see an interesting education and coming to know myself.  At 64, I am not where I thought I would be, but I am ready to engage with new adventures.  Life with a psychopath truly found a turning point for me in my beliefs.  One of the most fascinating awareness mile markers comes with the other-side-of-the-mirror view:  I no longer need or have any desire to placate.  That doesn't mean that kindness takes a seat at the back of the bus.  I can remember in my youth, having no desire for confrontation.  Funny, but these days, I am more "me" than ever before.

I suspect much of this is the passage of years and the dearth of rampaging hormones.  Life lessons are like a delighted toddler.  They are experiences that reach beyond themselves...and say to any within ear shot, "hey!  This has been great or upsetting AND always add, 'what's next?'"

If we really do live in a lively hologram, perspective plugs us into a direction.  When I found myself the recipient of illness recently, cleansing my upper GI with outward gusto at times had me focus on notes of importance: "don't worry about me but SAVE the DENTURES!"  Nothing makes one as keenly aware of the lower ranking of aches and pains like a bout of bronchitis.  Working to breath sort of puts all those on a back burner.
demon sickness
I know I am leaving illness behind when I move more quickly, enjoy what I am doing...AND find music a joy again.   There was a great TV show a few seasons ago called "SMASH."  The dynamic characters and scintillating dialog made this behind the scenes of a Broadway musical production deliciously engaging with the soap opera style interactions.  "Let me be your star" could be said by us all to ourselves and the universe of our making at large...

Fade in on a girl
With a hunger for fame
And a face and a name to remember
The past fades away
Because as of this day
Norma Jean's is gone
She's moving on
Her smile and your fantasies
Play a duet
That will make you forget
Where you are
The music starts playing,
It's the beat of her heart saying
                                            Let me be your star.                                                    https://youtu.be/vT8RNEzRFVM 

It isn't so much that I am re-inventing myself as deciding it is Ok to be me.  Life might appear as in the song from the same TV musical, Bombshell, "They just keep movin' the line."  Growth and change are all part of perspective.  
                                                             
                                                               
Today I find unbelievable joy with interacting with my three utterly amazing grandchildren.  They are unique, gifted, full of blissful expectation....And have the superb gumption to visualize vitality in this life experience of now and tomorrow.  Wherever they go in destination, they will create their own fortunes and I get to be a part of the grandly bold emprise.  

I am reminded that "of course, it's very easy to be witty tomorrow, after you get a chance to do some research and rehearse your  ad libs."(Joey Adams)  in the meantime, I am going to expand my views and vantage point.
                                "Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it."
                                                                                        ~George Carlin
                                         

Sunday, May 1, 2016

"Life is a Highway....dummm dummm dummm!"  (by Rascal Flatts)..

Well, isn't that the truth?

Discovering that I really don't have the answers that I Thought I wanted has come to be a lovely surprise full of laughter and Fun!  Who would have thought this?

I have always supposed words to be the way to an ethereal realm of meaning.  Imagine my thrill to find that we already live in two (and more) dimensional realms.  Life certainly hands amazing experiences - not all of utter joyful makeup, but Surely ALL of our choosing and responsibility.

Ugh...and that is good?  But, of course!  Do I really want to change the past?  No....I have come to like the me I am today.  

My stumbling upon authors has opened ideas from Vernon Howard, Napoleon Hill, Guy Finley, and Jim Rohn, to name but a few.  The concept of gratitude seems to have produced the horse-fighting-its reins syndrome within me.  However, grateful I am.

Not having answers means I work with two old battered knees, and fluxes with money, even an oddball scene or two when I feel the need to do battle to release anger.  But the wondrous light of awakening knowledge is that I am but part of something quite stupendous.  I don't need a title...or a job classification...or even conversation.  There exist moments of simply being.

My life is blessed with three unbelievably joyful grandchildren - boys and a girl with differences and choices as expansive as a painter's palette.  They bring a youthful approach to my world and the excited expectation of faith.    As James Allen says: "You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you."

These magnificent presences are a gift of Truth and being part of a cosmic club of  (taking a twist on Forrest Gump's line) "Reality is as Reality Does."  Challenges and Ecstasy flow.  I very much enjoy Jim Rohn's thoughts on "winter always following fall" and that the adventure isn't that our world changes, but that we work on ourselves to bring about alterations. I am invited along the theme park's rides as I share the lives of these enchanting beings.  


The feel I held once for wishing to communicate has moved away from its original track.  My thought is not to preach, teach, or evaluate.  I simply want to share the new leg of this adventure for me.  I don't have to seek the "right" or smooth avenue, All I realize I should do is be an improved me...looking for the presents of this life and being the good I want to see...maybe incrementally, but always moving and enjoying this new-found  decency.

    Enjoy your today....

I love the movie, "Spy" with Melissa McCarthy.  And I occasionally feel this way myself.
        Elaine Crocker: [referring to Susan's disastrous training video] I must have watched this          fifteen times now because what the fuck? I almost put it up on YouTube.