Just the Way it is....

People have some deeply held convictions.

Convictions that they allow to influence all they see, know and feel.

I've said before that I live at a kind of crossroads.  People show up who need a shoulder for a little while then they make their way to whatever.

I think my last brush with so-called "romance" was the most stark example of that.

Oh lord!  We're not going there again!  No worries...

But it did show me just how deeply divided otherwise like-minded people can be.  The sin of ideology I call it. 

A sin that takes one small aspect of someone's makeup and inflates it into a lifestyle.  A insular cocoon of circular logic and prejudicial perspectives impenetrable by anything that threatens the ideology.

We are what we are no matter what...That's just the way it is...

No, that's the way you want it.

The saddest part of it all is that the world quickly goes from a wide vista of opportunity to tunnel vision.  Creative thought, compassion, insight is all framed within a narrow view.

I've looked at the other side.  Tried to understand what it was that was so different about me and them.  Spoiler alert, it aint much.

What I found wasn't a pack of rabid savages.  Just fear.  Fear of losing what never really existed.  At least not without acknowledging what the real cost of their utopian vision was.  A vision that wasn't their own by the way. 

We tend to divide ourselves into tribes based on...whatever...

Far more scholarly authorities than I have written a mountain of tomes on the subject.  You've no doubt already seen their work.  I won't bother to rehash it here.

We live in a society that recognizes that we tend to seek out only that which supports our own world view.  The dangerous part is that the media has seized on that premise and eschewed objectivity for a tantalizing revenue stream that preys not on facts but fears.

Conservatives do it.  Liberals are no better.  So long as the other guy is the boogeyman we are sufficiently distracted to cede our own power to propaganda and rhetoric.

The propaganda feeds the machine.  The machine pumps out endless rhetoric and red meat. 

There is no compromise so long as the machine is churning.

Your heroes?  Your pillars of democracy?  They're the face of the machine.  A construct to divide otherwise like-minded people.  To keep poking that sore spot until you wretch and scream in pain.

The drug?  The cure?  Throw a bone to salve the wounds they created.  Just enough relief to keep the faithful working toward their own destruction.

We are in this country literally in the grip of mass scale Stockholm Syndrome.  I don't care what color the map says your state is.  Neither side will ever do anything to upset the machine.

Examples?  Glad you asked...

Obama claimed to fix Student Loans.  Nothing really happened and millions are still indebted to a corrupt system that enslaves borrowers for debt that should never have existed in the first place.

Trump promised prosperity with protectionism the result of which has nearly bankrupted thousands of small businesses and farmers who suddenly find no markets for their goods.  Multinational corporations can care less.  But Mom and Pop?

The saddest thing is that all the time we were waving our banners and wearing our MAGA hats we were surrendering our own power in favor of a fantasy.

A fantasy that will deprive you of life, love and occupation should you identify with the wrong side.

Nothing will change so long as we continue to exist in a fog of ideology political or otherwise. 

This is the true challenge to the evolution of the human race. 

To resist the urges of the lizard brain.  We are where we are because of what we allowed to happen.

This is on me, you and those that came before you. 

But if you're committed to your ideology, have no fear.  Reason has no value and facts are malleable.  Enjoy the appearance of a civil society and the shiny chains you've made for yourself.

Some of us knew but nobody cared to do anything about it.

How Long...

No, nobody's secrets have been revealed.  Just a song that's been buzzing around my head that I happen to like.

I'm painfully familiar with the subject matter, however. 

More than once...

Thankfully not recently...Well, at least not that I have any right to bitch about.

Just a cool song. 

Leave it at that....

Tarot - Divine or just Divining your own truth

   

Yeah, I misspelled Dynamic....dammit....Oh well, Not much else to say.  The video is self-contained.

Enjoy!

Too much YouTube lately...

I really gotta lay off the YouTube tarot reader channels....lol

But seriously it's just far too easy to hear what you want to hear.  To read reality into fantasy.  I've gotten to the point where I am seeing more "product" than "message" in so many of these people.  Often there's no real message just a PayPal link....

But when we need to hear something, when we need an answer that isn't forthcoming: it's not out of the question to find it in a nontraditional way.

Even if it's just affirmation of something you already knew, sometimes it's helpful to hear someone else say it. Although it would be better to come from a friend, often that's not an option.

If it seems "spooky" it's only because we're hearing what's buried deep inside.  Airing of our own deepest fears, hopes and dreams.  It can be jarring to have to face that which we've shoved down into dark forgotten places.

Very seductive stuff this mysticism but ultimately seduction is just pretense to something that is ultimately fleeting and temporary.  Treat it accordingly.

I do believe there are things we don't understand and forces without name but I don't believe anyone has any special communion with them.

They just are...

Some people are just more in tune is all.  

All religion is superstition.  A tool to keep you interested in the underlying message while regaling you with tales of great floods, fire from the skies, virgin births and impossible magic.

Learn to separate the message from the performance.  

Tarot readers frequently use the word "resonate" when beginning their readings.  That's both a disclaimer and an admission that what you find there isn't a message from the stars.  Rather it's a message you've already received but hadn't heard.

You just weren't listening yet.  You had to find (pardon the pun) a suitable medium. 

What do we do when the reading doesn't "resonate?"  We move on to another until we find one that does.  So where is this message truly coming from?  

The answer is the reason why there are so many different religions in the world.  So many belief systems that resonate only with that which aligns with what you already know deep inside.

Believe in that which sustains you but never allow belief to rule you.  Belief is more guardrail than steering wheel.  The path is always your own.

If's fun to think that there's some chorus of angelic beings invisibly guiding you into romance and fortune but the reality we know says something far more mundane is at work.

Putting your life into the hands of practitioners of mixed mythology can only lead to dark ends.

We have to admit to and live with the consequences of our own actions.  No, the devil didn't make you do it rather your own devilish tendencies did.  Own your actions and you own your power. 

Spirituality in all it's forms is a great tool.  I don't deny that civilization could not exist without it.  A grand performance to deliver otherwise dry material.  A narrative to keep us from each other's throats and lesser angels for fear of repercussion from God Almighty.

I have no problem with that.  I have no problem with anything that leads someone to a more positive path.  I just don't let the message get lost in the packaging.  

I'd just hope that at this point in mankind's evolution we wouldn't be so dependent on the narrative.   

Here's what I'm NOT doing

I'll reiterate this once more.  

These posts are points in time.  That doesn't change the meaning or the truth in them but every day brings new thoughts, new decisions and new clarity.

So here's another entry into the journal.

I'm aware of the sadness and disappointment in my life.  I'm in touch with it, I own it, I understand it.  That I react so strongly doesn't mean I've given up, that I'm going to stop trying, that I believe things will always be this way.

Perspective is important but sometimes the lens is clouded and I end up groping around in the dark.  During those times all I can do is try to understand where all this crap is coming from.  I don't deny my feelings, that's just lying to yourself.

Lying never sits well with me: made worse when I'm forced into a lie of omission.  When things are left unsaid because airing them exposes dark places in others that they don't want to own.  When feelings are bottled up and shoved down.  To lie to myself about what I know and feel to keep the peace.

The question is:  Is it a peace worth keeping?

Is it worth shackling your soul just for the hope that "If I just wait it out" things will get better?  Will someday bring freedom?

Someday is now kids...

If you feel like you have to deny your own intuition, your own deepest held beliefs just to be accepted then I submit that whatever you're seeking approval from isn't the right place for you to be.

We all must suffer to learn.  That is the human condition.  Remaining in suffering, however, is not.

I express what I feel and eventually I can release it.

I can have bitter disagreements with people but I know that it's a temporary state.  I will always extend a hand and open my heart if the will is there.  

That doesn't mean I'm OK with being taken advantage of but being human I know that I don't always do the right thing and sometimes my decisions aren't based on my better angels.

We all do that.  

What I will NOT do is allow myself to be defined by someone else's prejudice, bias or intolerance.

I will NOT sacrifice myself for anyone who isn't willing to do the same.

I've got a lot to offer, there's nothing wrong with me and I'm capable of great things.

...and I know...

Those that choose to deny the pettiness of a societal premise that says we are more different than the same.  That look beyond this tiny spec of time and see the larger canvas.  That refuse to let fear, indoctrination and ignorance rule them.

Those are my friends.  Those are my people.  

And even if I must walk my path alone, I believe that if that is the core of my being....

I can't be that unique in the world.

I will NOT let anyone take that from me.  I don't claim that I'm always right, that I'm perfect or that I alone have the answer.  

I just won't allow anyone to project on me that which they refuse to deal with in their own heart.

It's up to you to NOT be lazy and listen to what you know to be right instead of what you THINK to be right.  

Love doesn't require thinking.  It just is....or it isn't.

I will NOT make it more complicated than that.

What will you do? 

C'mon...I dare you.

I dare you to reach beyond the grand facade of expectation, entitlement and fated outcomes.

I dare you to be more.

I dare you...

Not a Role Model for your independence...

A lot has happened...

A whole lot of nothing...has happened....

I think about people and experiences I've known but in the end they all led here.  Just me sitting alone, late at night in a dark room typing essays that nobody's going to read.

Confidence is something that's always been difficult.  Made more so by people who think it should come easy to me.  I suppose I put on a good show.

Talk is cheap and I hear a lot of it.  I suppose the occasional accolade should stoke my ego but I tend to take long views both fore and aft.

What I see in all those dawns and twilight's look pretty much the same no matter what I try.  I never quite fit and never quite get where I want to go.

Bad choices fueled by bad experiences have made me wary in these later years.  Of course my options have always been rather limited.  Either by consequence or fear of repeating past mistakes ( which I inevitably do anyway ) I can never quite believe what I'm told or what I see.

Or what I feel, apparently.

Someone told me once that they didn't understand how I could live this way but admired and wished they could as well. They see it as some kind of virtue of independence

I'll let you in on a little secret...I hate it.

But as the consequences of my birth and beyond have  come into my life and I sit here once again in the dark pouring out my heart to no one I can tell you this.   This is nothing to aspire to.  

That I live a life that's barely lived and worse get chided for it does nothing for the ego.  To live this way is to deny all but that which is necessary. "Necessary" means a lot less than you think by the way because that's the way it has to be.

Someone once asked me where I liked to go on vacation. My answer, "I haven't been on one since I was a kid."  Shocked disbelief was the response...

It's not that I envy those who do such things it's just that the price for doing them was always too high.  Something wouldn't get paid, someone wouldn't get taken care of, something more important than me had to come first.

That last one I think is the key.  

I'm a great one for giving advice and comfort.  My reluctant martyrdom has essentially stripped me of so many of the  things that color most people's lives. That makes the world just shades of gray more often than not. On the upside a lack of color tends to bring out definition to see things more clearly.

That makes it easier to cut through so much of the inconsequential garbage that people seem to hold so dear.


No, I don't believe anything I see on Facebook or Instagram either.  Nobody's life is that amazing nor do they have that many adoring friends.  

But maybe that "garbage" wasn't as inconsequential as I thought it was.  

The difference between them and me is simple.  Throughout my life even if I  believed I wanted to do something for myself it was really to please someone else.  If I started down a path of my own making I'd abandon it if someone needed me elsewhere.

True, ultimately that was my choice but the reasons for making it were never really my own.

Every time I thought I was on the brink of escape I heard the hollow echo of the other shoe dropping and the illusion vanished before my eyes.  

Leaving me here...again.

So as I go on with baggage in tow it's hard to see how anything can really change for me.  The best I can do is appreciate what little joy I can gather but all the time knowing that even that can easily be taken away.

Indifference, an unkind word, ignorance, cruelty.   I see it and while I  try not to let petulance consume me, there are days when those things can cut me to to the bone.

It's worse when it comes from someone you care about though.  When you realize that what you thought you'd broke free from has just changed its face.  There it is again, same shit different DNA.

As I've found, every relationship has an expiration date and every moment is weighed against self-interest.  When you're of no use, when you don't fit the agenda I find where I may seek compromise they seek the nearest exit. 

Or I do...

There's been a few times when the writing on the wall forced me to be proactive but the shoe was still destined to drop.  I've seen it too many times to deny.

It's not sad, it's not self-pity, it's just the way it is.  It's my truth no matter if family, friend or vocation are involved.

I suppose I just expect too much from people.  I have an impossible standard that I may not hold them too but wish they could meet.  

I can't help it.  My own experience just keeps showing me how shallow the depth of things like compassion and love have become.  It's as though everybody walks around with little scales above their heads measuring every interaction to make sure they don't give too much.

Others have had far worse, I acknowledge that.  I'm always cognizant of that but I don't live their lives.  What's wrong is wrong but it seems I can't go without denying the relevance of my own feelings and desires in lieu of someone else.

I've finally come the realization that my feelings don't really matter. Mostly because they're too intense, too real and when revealed force others to look too far inward for their own comfort.

I'm not homeless, have bullets flying over my head or afflicted with some incurable disease but I've never really known comfort or peace.  

Not in the way it matters.

I thought I did once but like all my illusions the shoe dropped dispelling it into shattered memories.

That's the reward for being who I am.  

There's nothing here to aspire to save the fact that I still have love in my heart and a desire to do the right thing.

....for as much good as it's done me. 

This isn't independence, it's exile...