Desert This

Great friends like great loves are rare. Fortunately great friends are more common and thank goodness for that since great loves are almost mythical. Nothing in this world is more satisfying than being a part of a group of people who protect you. Short of gang activity groups of ethical law abiding friends can move mountains. There are plenty of sappy lyrics in the world but when it comes time to pay the bills you have to bring this awful thing called reality into focus and you must deliver. When people fall through the cracks what money can't buy is useless. They need money. And they need it like a transfusion - we all do. It's the law. Without money we die, period. Our western society is built on this silent but omnipresent law. It is enforced with German precision, for without money we have less than many of the poorest people of India or Africa as there is often no mechanism to save people from the ravages. Especially for sudden falls from grace. Those are the hardest falls... falls that knock you to the ground with crushing force and numbing psychic shock. To get up off the ground disoriented broken and helpless has to be one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable. One stands up broken and confused and aware that today is very different than yesterday. It is at this time they must gather energy that appears to require more than we can give at that moment, but we must find that 110% simply not to fall again. God is summoned and held to account. And friends are tested as much as our faith in ourselves. The silent indifference of the careless ones falls away from us as the true ones come near to hold us as we take our first steps back into productivity. And so we begin again. Our days start with the inspiration from those who had faith and from the faith we rebuild our confidence and deploy love and ambition and express our gifts in useful service... we press on and go on to build a more beautiful stable and secure future. We go on to become protectors and guardians. Ones who possess the knowledge of one of the sweetest secrets of life deeply imbeded in our souls. Without the help of others we can fade into oblivion forever. And with any luck we will remember them 0r others like them if life turns against them. You will take great joy in the process as you tend to their needs. As you help them stand up, shaken and oblivious, you will know exactly what to do.

Less Parinoid

My last post about trust was rather paranoid, but you have to understand that people come into our lives at time when they all appear to want something. Then other people enter our lives who will not give. They will not give love, time or resources unless there is something in it for them. And usually what is "in it for them" outweighs what they must give in order to satisfy them. It is a selfish cynical world and perhaps I have joined in the ranks of those who find our world, our American "culture" to be disgusting. Perhaps I am just a victim or perhaps I created a victim lifestyle but the truths of our lives, our history and our experience speaks to the truths of our honest and unbridled words. The longer I live the more I appreciate my own personal virtues. If I separate out genuine virtue from fanciful imagined virtues and completely delusional ideas I myself might actually have a little bit of genuine virtue in my life. At least enough to claim that I "did no harm."

....The vision I have for tomorrow rolls out before me with changes to the fabric. Each change an improvement based on newly-calibrated illusions (An illusion is a false mental image produced by misinterpretation of things that actually exist)whereby I do not dismiss the idea that I might be "a little bit off" in my interpretation of reality but closer to identifying the truth in any given matter.
....Identifying Truth is tough. It is tougher than one might think, especially as we get older and get more honest with ourselves. Honesty and truth are not mutually compatible concepts. It is this fact that helps me to understand that life is not automatically a clear perception of truth when stuff gets processed through our prejudices, learned (bad) behaviors and ideas as well as cultural trends and influences. Harsh words like "lie and self-deception" do not escape the honesty in this discipline. Most of us lie to ourselves constantly and we lie to others. .....A truly disturbing fact. "Opinion" being the literal battlefield where ego meets truth and truth meets genuine reality. These enemies are all lies great and small. Lies we tell ourselves every day. It takes a noble strong and brave person to face them. Distilling these lies down to a workable mass then removing our ego and self-deception from them, then literally moving outside ourselves to view them to dissect them and re-assemble them into coherent harmony with universal truth can be daunting task. Once re-entering the atmosphere of our selves the new application of the new formulation can lead to a better life and a more satisfying existence. However to integrate this new information into life takes a masterful manipulation of political and emotional change to realize any genuine results from such changes. In fact as personal truths get closer to universal reality our lives change in ways that can not be imagined but until we have forced our deepest lies and painful illusions through the filter of truth we are fed into a loop of denial, selfishness and ego that will destroy us quite completely without this examination. All the while wondering why our lives have not changed. It is at this point that we begin the cycle if self-deception once again. Only to realize the same outcome. Change is never easy. Truth is often hard to take. Still we are privileged to live in this century of rapid change. To survive as the humans we hope to become there is little room left in the world for lies. Sadly reality can be too harsh to face for many people, but it encroaches anyway with harsh lessons for the uninvolved which makes them part of the problem. I guess the buck stops in the comfort zone. The comfort zone is certainly another topic for another post. All the best for now.

Dangerous Women

“There are dangerous women in this world.
Some are lovers blind to the consequences of their actions.
Some are wives enraged by the betrayal of those they trusted.
Others are predators, deviously setting traps to get what they want.
If you're unlucky enough to come upon one of these dangerous creatures, the safest thing to do is run the other way.” .........I do not trust people. This year even less than last. Women less than men. It is a good day when the smelling salts finally hits your cerebellum only for your to realize that people CAN suck so wildly that most of them APPEAR so useless as not to benefit us in any meaningful way and will always be suspect. Gay straight male or female all people are potentially dangerous. The realities of life our parents worked so hard to shelter us from hit us harder when they finally blow through our lives. Sometimes our disbelief forgives too quickly the sins cast against us and we delude ourselves in fantasies of denial. For some of us this practice is repeated until the day when the lesson finally connects our brains with the truth. People can not be trusted. The paradigms shift and the greatest paradox of life takes its place as the sad fact of life that it truly is. Which is if one man can take away something from another man (or woman) he/she will. Once we have learned and understood this lesson we can still trust people but we verify, check and re-check and we allow time to season relationships and we test the waters of trust more and for longer periods of time. We look for character flaws and weakness in spirit. We watch for pretensions and disorders while we seek out good mental health and a relaxed confidence of one whom might not subdue us. But in the end as the stakes get high we stand to loose it all - everything we have worked for to another we have trusted. A wife, a husband, a child or in a court of law. What we have is so easily taken from us as the line people who would rob us grows longer as times get tougher we must take great care in giving to others and also to make sure when we take from others that it is agreeably our due.

Re: Days of silent wandering and fear.

Xanax calms fears and anxiety when living in a world where one is convinced that either he has lost his mind or every else has lost theirs. When you are relatively convinced that it is they who have lost their minds one relaxes a bit but only to discover that as one gets older one must form bonds with people one can trust absolutely. In this regard I see the need for secret societies, groups of people dedicated to protecting one another.

In fact I would be honored to be a member of such a society such as the Elks, Free Masons, or the like. Often churches play the same role but to a much less secretive degree. Groups are essential to survival and we who have shunned them for reasons only we might know live at risk. That is why I believe I will begin to research the different secret societies. Ferret out what they consist of and try to understand the full embodiment of a choice group tailored to my needs. Everyone needs a family and quite often we Americans find ourselves, as we grow older, alone. We have much to give as older Americans and service becomes more important.

This is why I believe it is time to research which club or organization I will join. Many are by invitation only. And quite often they are completely inaccessible. If anyone is aware of an interesting club or group let me know?