From Jan 31, 2008

There have been many synchronicities lately.

So many that “unusual” things have happened.

The most recent: I was speaking with a girlfriend about one of her friends.  She suggested that this friend do an unlikely favor for me.  I brushed it off, stating that I had never really even spoken with this person.   Today, I get a call from a phone number I didn’t recognize.  It was my girlfriend’s friend.  She was calling me to find out if she could get my girlfriend’s phone number from me because her daughter had accidentally deleted her number.

Hmmm?

It makes me very aware of what I think or say.

My intentions are to affirm abundance within my life.  I recently broke a habit of saying that things weren’t as abundant as I would have liked.

It seems that “suddenly,” life has been more abundant.  It’s pretty amazing how quickly this works.

This being said, I will affirm the following:

• We always have plenty of everything we need or want. This includes, but is not limited to: food, money, warmth, transportation, clothes, love, peace, smiles, kindness, gentleness,  etc.
• Life works out perfectly, every time.
• I have time and energy for everything.
• I am successful at anything I put my mind to doing.
• I have wonderful close friendships.
• I am filled with joy.  My life is beautiful, filled with magic, and I feel a sense of accomplishment, reward, and gratitude.

From Jan 25, 2008

I keep discovering new things I know nothing about.

The more I realize that I don’t know, the more I want to know everything there is to know.

Surely it would be impossible to learn all knowledge in one lifetime.  In fact, that’s my greatest hindrance:  there is only so much “time” I have left in this life.  I don’t know the amount of time, but I recognize that there is a limitation.

If my purpose is to learn as much as I can, then perhaps this purpose gives support to the idea that maybe we’re here in one lifetime more than once.  It’s not evidence, but it would make sense.

I have recently had a taste of how much I don’t know about human history.  History is as important in understanding human nature as is religion and biology.   In fact, history is just the past of religion and biology.  My quest is ultimately to understand people.

There are so many facets of the human experience.  Technology is a new one, but before this generation, there was still a plethora of faces, or lenses, with which one could view the human experience.  There is science, and there is religion.  There is spirituality, academia, magic, and politics.  There is evolution and philosophy.  There is awareness.  There is psychology, which may be the compilation of all human faces within one person.  Or all persons.  In order to really understand our people of today, it seems important to know what really happened throughout our past.

It is a challenge to know where to begin to discover the unknowns of these past human faces.  The information isn’t prevalent because the majority of people do not care about the past.  And, history books are never written without bias.  The ones who won wrote the books.  The ones who lost, often had their literature destroyed.  The folklore that remains alive through story telling has the bias of the story teller.  Have you ever played telephone?  It will be nearly impossible to know the truth of what our past was.

So, does this make me the interpreter, forced into placing judgment on whatever “facts” I unearth?  This is a great responsibility.  Huge.

Should I be able to somehow define a reasonable history, what, then would I aspire to do with my knowledge?  Can I aspire to be truly great teacher– as the Ones before us?  Be like Jesus, the Christians have proclaimed.  Yet, do they believe in their hearts and minds that it is possible?  Is it blasphemous to think it is?  If it’s not possible, why would one strive to do so?

Is it too late to begin my quest for the ultimate awareness?  The ultimate knowledge? Am I too old to begin, only to die half way through my conquest?  Is there a way to tap the great blanket consciousness of knowledge in which our civilization exists– so that I do not have to spend my whole lifetime learning things that previous teachers already taught us?

And once I have that knowledge, and I find my niche in teaching as the great teachers, then what?  Do I just settle into leisure or will my life be dedicated to hard work and suffering.  What is it that I want?

It is blissful ignorance that is simplest.

But I could never settle for it.

From Jan 23, 2008

As much as I never predicted any of this, I realize that I created it.

And it’s nice. It’s really good.

It sounds like self-righteousness, and in a way it sort of is. But it’s not malicious, and it’s coming from a humble heart. I want understanding from this, not judgment.

I have trudged through mud and dirt and have hurt peoples’ feelings to get here. I wish I hadn’t hurt them, because I hurt the ones I love, but at the same time, it was a necessary evil. I couldn’t have come to where I am now without having done the things I’ve done.

I’m sorry for that, but I wouldn’t change where I’m at for anything.

It’s not a cat fight, and it’s not a claw my way up to the top sort of deal. In fact, it’s none of that at all. Rather, it’s a ‘there is where I was at,’ and ‘here is where I wanted to be,’ and in getting here, I had to make some decisions for myself rather than for anyone else. It all sounds so selfish when I write it. I guess sometimes I have to be selfish.

In fact, I believe that selflessness is not always the answer. Rather, it can be, but you might not always get want you want/deserve/need. Not making some decisions for yourself can certainly lead to hurt feelings… and they might be your own. I don’t think I truly understood this concept of “righteous greed” until now. Sometimes it’s not only okay to be greedy, but necessary. Necessary evils, so to speak.

Along with the selfishness, I’m characteristically leaning towards guilt. I shouldn’t force myself to feel guilty for being happy. Somewhere in between feeling guilty and knowing this was What Should Be is where my emotion lies. I’m torn between having made what I believe to be the right decision–wherein my own happiness, my own life, was my own responsibility, and I went for what I believe will make me happy versus knowing that my decision was essentially a slap in the face to people I love more than almost anything… but obviously, not more than myself.

I’m reminded of when my best friend in high school came out to his father.

Protect others before you protect yourself? At what point is it okay–right, even– to put yourself before others? Think about it for a bit.

Was it a need for me?

Whatever I call it, I did it, and I’m happy. I miss the ones I hurt. I knew it was a possibility, though, and I proceeded anyway. It doesn’t change my love for them, nor does it change their hurt from me. This is another perfect example of how I am human, and I am comfortable with being so. All the adventures never taste as sweet as they do when you know that you earned your place, both high and low, in the experience we call life. My human adventure is vivid.

From Jan 18, 2008

Will someone please tell me what it is that compels me to go to www.9news.com and www.cnn.com? It’s mostly horrible stuff on there. It’s mostly car accidents, shootings and robberies on 9news, and mostly politics and yucky stuff on CNN. Seriously, it’s all crap, yet for some reason, I compulsively check it.

I have this thirst for knowing what is going on. I like getting my news from the internet because I skip all of the commercials and can pick which stories I read.

But there’s no point in me even visiting these sites. They’re filled with slimeballs, dead babies, and gore. And I’m not talking about the tree-hugging kind.

While you’re at it, I’d like for you to tell me why I do things that aren’t good for my body. I compulsively eat sugar. I smoke cigarettes– and I DON’T EVEN LIKE CIGARETTES!!! I don’t see a cigarette smoker in me. More than half the time I’ll go all day without one. I don’t get the exercise I crave, and I don’t eat enough vegetables.

Grrr.

At the same time, I don’t drink alcohol much, ever. I don’t put other toxins in my body. I don’t drink soda, I don’t eat fast food, and I take my vitamins. I drink lots of water. I pick the stairs over the elevator. These are all just things I use as excuses for doing the bad things to my body.

These are the mal-adaptive things that I write off as being human.

I surf the internet while I’m at work. I’m compulsive about some things. I think I’m right most of the time.

Me me me me me.

I also like hearing about Britney Spears. I killed her with a spoon once in my dreams. You know this already.

From Jan 16, 2008

One of the strangest things about this experience are the interactions we have with other people.

In the last six months, I have struggled to understand why I get the feeling that people come and go in my life. Perhaps it is because in the past I have affirmed it, and because I believed it, that was what has happened. Perhaps this is just How It IS. People come and go. Obviously the saying wouldn’t be so cliche’ had it never held some sort of truth.

I think the greatest challenge for me in coming to terms with the temporary nature of some relationships is that I often put huge amounts of energy into people. After the person has left my life, I sometimes feel like the energy spent was a waste. It’s not to say an ended relationship is an inevitable, rather, it is/was a possibility.

This is not to say I necessarily feel regret over the energy spent– I believed that the energy was well spent at the time that I expended it.

I suppose the best way to be okay with these “lost” relationships is to realize that one can never own anything– neither a person nor a relationship. Everything serves its purpose, and as long as I am able to appreciate the lesson offered from each person, it only makes sense that I would be comfortable with the ebb and flow of the relational experience.