“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

I'm paraphrasing or quoting Helen Keller, who said "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure". It seemed inspiring when I was 29 in need of support for creating drama in my life, fairly new at being clean and totally (as now) incapable of having a cognizant direction in life outside of work, paying bills, writing and entertaining my own madness. As I said to a dear friend recently "I'm not wealthy enough to be eccentric" Today I'm happy to be somewhat balance in awe and horror of life. I look at the world and see that my life is a bowl of cherries compared to the average Joe in China or Somalia, astounded that people would bother to sully their hands, much less risk prison to make 2 grand shipping rifles (AK47s) to that country under UN arms embargo. I think the US and Mexico need to be under an arms embargo, unfortunately the constitution and the dominant corporate powers disagree.

I'm becoming more and more disappointed with Obama, more because of my own understanding of who he is (a successful politician) rather than what he does (lie and kill). It's his job, he applied for it and apparently he got it fair and square. The fact that lying and killing (unjustified murder) is part of the job, is apparently not in and of itself, "Newsworthy" as we are suffering a Truth in reporting & media crisis along with all the "crisis" going on in the world. The fact that the FCC gives licenses for free to huge corporations still somehow does not seem to make it possible to have a decent functioning media reporting honest disturbing news. This being a very rough quote of John Madison said "It is the job of a free press to disseminate divisive ideas and issues from the margins to the center" little did I realize that he meant that literally as free postage and distribution for newspapers was the standard in this country for the first hundred years (when we had a vibrant and meaningful media) and that the us post office was the largest sector of government employment. Nope, no money for it. Pepsi is not advertising during the superbowl, the money is better spent of face book (which burns coal, another reason to un friend face book)

"Offensive and Hateful" is how our U.S. President replies to a person saying "I do not pass judgment, But don't you think the time has come for a fact finding commission" Regarding the events of 9 /11. I think that's pretty wild, I'd say the guy touched a nerve, and I'm glad he did. I don't know why, but when it comes to second rate despots, Ahmadinejad is right up there with Obama as a despot. He's not killing as many people, He does not have as many people in prisons, he's less popular, which is saying something, but he's still capable of pointing out glaring truths or at least raising disturbing questions that the mainstream media and all serious american politicians are afraid of. He likely stole and election, but hey, our own war mongering Presidents are well known to do the same. Iran is an interesting conundrum for the world: for in Iran, we see ourselves, imperfect, ugly and yet not without style, inspiration and guts. The fact that Israel is constantly on the brink of starting nuclear WW3 over Iran having the bomb is classic Jewish angst at reality. I'm fairly certain there are quite a few nuclear weapons in the Middle East and not all of them in Iran or Israel. The fact is Ahmadinejad does not really care about the Palestinians anymore than Obama shows the two have far more in common than they have to argue about. We really need to find a way to get over this little impasse. America is already on the brink of bankruptcy and martial law, the last thing we need is another front in a field of disastrous wars. I could go on but this is more than enough for a Sunday night. And i think the point (one of them) that America and Iran has significant similarity, has been made, however imperfectly, not a bad post for what started out as a personal whine.

Even rest is work if you let yourself write

So maybe I'm not as depressed as I think or imagine myself to be. I got up today on time, after sleeping poorly, because I had a Dr.s appointment and want to maintain my prescriptions for the medications that help make my life manageable. While I criticize myself, and life, for it's addictions ,I'm grateful that these medications are legal and have a minimal (yet significant) side affects on my life. I enjoy being able to moderate my drug use and even manage to quit smoking and drinking when I'm clear on the costs and seeing that i have a choice of how to live these last few or many years of my life. I drift off or "wake up" as happens, take a day or two off work, and come and go, pretty much as I please. What good fortune amidst suffering!

While I don't write much anymore, it's not because I'm not thinking, I'm just not believing my thoughts as much. I'm still angry and depressed at times, or at myself and the world. I take it far to seriously: Convinced that humanity is a blight on the planet when left to it's own devices. We seem to tend toward greed, violence and overpopulation without comprehension of how this makes all our own lives less pleasurable. I'm both frustrated with humanity and totally heartbroken and joyful when I see a child and the love, wonder and beauty that each individual is. . . I wonder if staph cells see each other as beautiful?

It's both an ironic and serious question. Ironic because I realize that it's highly unlikely that staph cells have self awareness and because the same can be said about humans and myself. . . While I like to think of myself as "aware & awake" it's clear that I drift off too sleep with consistent regularity. This is both true figuratively and latterly. I can drift off into puttering around the house quite easily and enjoyably, generally cleaning, throwing stuff away etc. only to find that hours have went by and I've not "accomplished" much or "done anything" with my day.

It's interesting today is a bit overcast and cloudy and I'm likely to not go to work (Its 2 PM) and yet I'm still fairly happy and content.

I don't feel much has changed around our "relationship" only that I have become more and more willing and able to accept it as it is (somewhat shallow and distant) yet satisfying in the appearance and reality of our mutual familiarity and comfort with each other. While I believe she is not deeply "attached" to me, she does display much discomfort and un ease with my personal pain or depression and as such is totally averse to my discussion of suicide or wanting not to "be" here yet either way, I have learned not to express or elocute such feeling directly too, or with, her.

"My" depression or suicidality is gradually declining as I see my own aging happening before my eyes. As my own presence is becoming a clearly transient experience, there is less and less need to end my life prematurely. I trust that I will and can manage to live out my days in some semblance of peace and acceptance and gratitude for the minimal suffering that I actually experience. As I listen and ponder the Buddhist teachings of Chogyam Trungpa and Pemma Chodron I accept and appreciate my life and situation more and more. As well as I see that my own personal "need" for the therapeutic process is less acute than a year or two ago. I'm reluctant to pursue another relationship, at this time. I do have the appointments and will go again this week, but I'm tempted to try to see if switching to every other week or once a month is a realistic option. It's partially the timing and partially the fact that while I'm depressed and semi-suicidal, it is profoundly situational in cause and shape. While I recognize that I'm both more and less likely to commit suicide the need for discussion and help around the issue seems less of an issue. Maybe I don't want to talk about it because I feel like talking about it exacerbates the situation and again, on the other hand talking about it seems to concertize the fantasy and desire from an intangible into a reality.

It's imperative to recognize, both for myself, and for anyone who ever reads these long rambling missives, to know how deeply I love life. How grateful I am for the blue of the sky, the sunlight on the fence, the knowledge that this whole mad wild insane world is out there running around defying death and life, as I sit and ruminate, love and suffer and genuinely appreciate some tiny slice of humanity.

I know that my life is actually very small. That while I have traveled a bit, I have always held back, even in my madness and exuberance, there has been some holding back and some withdrawal from fully engaging in life.

I don't know when I started, If I had to guess, id say when we left Wisconsin, or the year before, when whatever happened is lost to that child that was robbed of something called hope or desire to aspire.

Aspiration has always been difficult for me. Perhaps the last one I truly had was to die or to "fail" and that was when I was 12 or 13. And I guess I did in so many tragic ways. I really started to fail. I got hurt, almost blinded in my left eye, and something changed after that even though I never could say why. Yet even though I knowingly denied whatever grandeur or fame life might have held, I could not destroy the actual joy of love and the gnosis of life.

My life is like that, a long series of wounds and failures compensated by success or grace.

I have been showered with the love of so many beautiful human beings, and I must say that I know that it is love, not the need that is the gift. For too often it is our need and fears that drive, dispose of and destroy our dreams of love from ever reaching fruition.

I don't know what I'm saying, but I trust you know that you have received it.

I just know.

Sunday Musing

As I ponder life, and the world I often am reminded that "I" tend to take things very seriously, and that life is to be enjoyed. Enjoyment is an activity that happens most easily when my focus of attention on my enjoyment is either absolute or non-existent.

 

Anything between the two and my enjoyment is less than absolute. There is a varying degree of dialogue in "my" head about what's going on, a less than total surrender which results in less than total enjoyment.

 

So back to musing on life. A friend sent me one of those silly e-mails about what some people were doing on the morning of 9-11 rather than being at the place of others death.

And it does allow one to wonder at the miracle of life and the reality of death and the simple fact that if one believes in GOD that all of it is good, in my book. What we call evil, the active enjoyment of suffering, is essentially confusion and not something to be taken too seriously.

 

Now this is not to say that we should or could not strive for clarity (i.e. Good) but that the absence of clarity is not "evil" and should not be construed as such, more as the natural state of humanity, the background of life, and so Beauty and Joy arise when we glimpse or experience the absence of confusion and see the beauty and love that constantly surrounds us all, as it is.

 

Death I've been told is less traumatic than many traffic tickets. Supposedly, it's not such a big deal. Of course this makes dying a lot easier, especially if your worried about it, or contributing to your own (smoking, eating poorly, lack of exercise, drug abuse) or others, capitalistic consumerism, war, taxes, violence et al.

 

But back to the story about 9-11. If "god" saved those people who otherwise would have been "there", then all the rest that died, were meant too, and just got a pass out of this world, into the next. . .

 

Maybe I'm missing something profound here, but it seems that faith is like pregnancy, it's all or nothing, you either believe (or know) or you don't. Every sparrow that falls does so with god's love and blessing, or there simply is no god.

 

Yes, I'm aware that some people see God as allowing evil to "teach" us that good is better etc. but that is just a watered down version of what I'm saying. Essentially it's all good, it's all perfect, and it's "our" or my perception of life that is in conflict with reality or "God's will". 

 

So from this place suffering is resisting what is. Whether what is is war and violence or  the publishing of "secrets" on public websites that are then a crime for American to view if they are members of the armed forces. . . The truth is a crime, and the crime we call war is legal. . . It's all a bit overwhelming at times, yet I'm grateful for my life and "my" freedom, that has grown deeper and more profound as I have recognized my blind habits as my greatest jailer and torturer. Perhaps I will not remain so sanguine if I am imprisoned or tortured by others, yet I am inspired and given hope by those souls who have endured such realities only later to gain their freedom and shine more brightly in the world.

 

We need heroes, we need examples of clear thinking and right action. Wherever you find them, who ever they are, I hope the point you to greater peace, love and enjoyment.

American Government at war with Wikileaks and the internet

It appears that the U.S. Defense department and the President of the United States has again bypassed the constitution. the congress and the "people". Today the Pentagon in its demand that wikileaks retract its posting of the "Afghan war diary" and other information took the first step in  declaring  "war" on the strongest voice for the free dissemination of information in the world. The Defense department, the Pentagon and the President appear to have joined forces with the worlds most despotic regimes to destroy Wikileaks and the Sun Shine press.

 

It is of course obvious that the interests of power are at odds with the interest of an informed democracy. The fact that the FCC has expedited the monopoly on broadcast news is itself, not news. What is news is the bold, and violent desperate oppression, opposition and fear that the United States is expressing in its opposition to Wikileaks. We are now declaring war on the purveyors of information to protect the guilty and the interests of the powerful, the rich and the violent. It is of course only a matter of time before any news organization that reprints or disseminates wikileaks information, becomes a target as well. We are embarking upon the end of the free press. In months or days we will see America join forces with China, Russia, North Korea, and Zimbabwe among others as censoring free press and the exchange of ideas and the eventual destruction of the internet as it is. The overt intimidation and harassment and theft from of employees and volunteers of wikileak personal has already begun. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/02/jacob-appelbaum-wikileaks_n_667665.html

 

It is one of the ongoing tragedies of America, that we the people, are both unable and unwilling, to reign in the endless violence that the American Government as empire, has adopted as its standard operating procedure in it's defense of itself and its growth. The "defense" of it's stolen resources, or it's championing of the theft of such resources if they are then "fenced" to "us" (the American consumer) cheaply.

 

While America has never had a strong history of open minded dialogue or negotiation, we (as compassionate loving beings) have the reasonable expectation that it might develop these capacities in the hope to demonstrate that we can indeed lead the world in "what is right". As a nation that identifies itself as "Christian" we have always ignored the primary teaching of Christ: "To love your enemies, as yourself".

Of course, one could argue that we do. That we are a profoundly conflicted nation of individuals, who are at war within ourselves, knowing that the luxury and peace we "enjoy" is paid for by the suffering of both our troops, our enemies, and most sadly, the countless innocent children, bystanders and citizens living in the countries where we are waging war. Whether the war is against terrorism, against drugs, against other governments is irrelevant in our willingness to kill, to pollute, and too fund oppression of democracy with outcomes other than rampant capitalism that profits those who fund the US Senate and Congress. And until or unless we address this inherent flaw in our "democracy" we have little hope of meaningful change.

 

It is sad and tragic in the years since 9/11 that not once has the United States leadership honestly asked itself or the world, why we might reasonably become a target of hatred and intolerance. It is indeed telling and obvious that we have a department of defense, a department of secrecy and torture, but not a department of peace or a department of reconciliation. We have become so addicted to violence and oppression of dissent that we can no longer even imaging open dialogue with those that think or feel differently. Yet it is our obligation as citizens to take the lesson of history and be willing to be oppressed, tortured and killed for the principles of truth, equality and love. It is only a matter of time that those who will not silently consume the lies we are offered every day, become targets of our own governments oppression.

 

Our courts and leadership have chosen to protect the interests of the rich at the cost of the poor, the innocent and the unrepresented. We have chosen to protect the auctioning of election through advertising rather than the examination and dissemination of truth or even position. I fear there is no end to the hypocrisy of our violence, oppression and hatred of those that might dare to think differently.

While as Americans, who supposedly have a government that represents us, we have many values. Sadly, Honesty, Truth and Compassion cannot be truly said to be among them.

And while today the enemy is called wikileaks, in truth what will be the casualty is the internet and the ability of Americans and humans around the globe, to access and discuss issues and ideas that are deemed a "threat" to Americas "national security".

Gulf news blackout

GROUND ZERO - BIRDS FALLING FROM SKY -
BLOWING UP WHALES TO GET RID OF THE BODIES


Aqua Axel 1: ON GROUND ZERO

"I have to write this mail on a new cellphone because they have taken our phones from us. people don't know how bad this oil spill is.. i'm working in the cleanup operation and we've all had to sign a legal paper that stops us from talking to anyone.

I am onshore now and can't tell you where, but i've just finished a very long shift in the gulf and texting this... fast as i can. the military are watching us, they patrol the areas we work i cant tell you what i do cause they may know who i am.

Aqua Axel 2:

Dolphins whales, seabirds fish are all floating dead on the surface of the water... boats helicopters are scooping them away dead and dying... Whales are being exploded by the military cause they can't be carried. dead body's as far as the eye can see air smelling of "Benzene"... We've seen birds fall from the sky. Workers are falling sick we, think some workers have died. My friends are hard oil men it was ok to at the start but now we cry.

Dead sea life is as big as Genocide you wont imagine it"

Fathers Day

Happy fathers day, Fathers and sons and daughters. Mothers and Grandfathers, old and coming back fresh with gleaming eyes. I awoke today thinking about where i was last year (in France) and how quickly time is beginning to move as i age and the scale becomes a little larger. Likely such trips and freedom would not exist if  was a parent. I seem to manage a fair number of problems with tools, as well as life, much less children if i had them or a life partner (even an enemy is company in hell). I can't imagine the guilt i would feel fucking up someone else besides myself and my lovers and family.It's part of having such a narcissistic wound, an intense focus on the life, the world, "myself" tools, and the work. Life, like my car or computer or espresso machine, they are alive and have spirits attached to them that want attention and care at the least, and offerings and parts or service when ignored.

Awareness without belief in criticism helping the moral fiber, or individuation process, is a huge relief for me, my work and life. Just being willing to start over, again and again, as necessary. Learning through failure teaches us far more important messages than success. If Obama actually follows through with the opertunity presented by the spill, we can shift to clean energy. This is exactly the opertunity that exisged immeadeatly after 9/11  the direction and the focus will determine the future for decades, if not the human race.

an image from Palau, or Yap the god of construction image is carved in the "men's houses" where the men live collectively with a few shared females (usually visitors from the neighboring tribe) whose images are also carved on the houses. For many men, work is in the end what gives our lives form and either destroys us or sustains us. It is a mirror that we either polish or break. For others it is family. In either case it that which perceives which creates the image.



I don't know how to attach this image, i'll try later.

Drug store rant

I'd rather write about this than the anniversary of my old sponsors
death. As well as my dad's, and his birthday. he gave so much to the
world, and us, yet left a hole in my heart that can only be dissolved,
never filled. While i know they are here, I feel them directly in my
heart and walk and see them in my dreams, I still miss the dead, the
10 Americans in Afghanistan today, all the grief and the pointless
rage, even my own, expressed as "art" or culture our ultimately, in a
desire to help, to foster thought, a commentary on our culture.

The entire loss leader and un stocked merchandise (garden supplies)
advertising program was effective in bringing me into the store,
however the exclusion of "gift card" to medical supplies results in a
bitter taste in my mouth and no desire to return.
The exclusion of medical purchase with the "gift card" makes it seem
more like a , well use your imagination, because I want to be polite.
The exclusion belies your true corporate desire, to exploit those who
are ill or fear sickness, aging and death. Your "Rite Aid" is to the
Board members and large shareholders. They (or your board economic
manager, don't consider the long term viability of their short term,
endless growth model of business.

Rite Aid ignores and disdains the selective consumer who discerns the
unwholesome artificial "food" which is actually poison, If your going
to sell food or any other product besides medication, sell good
healthy ones. Fresh vegetables, whole grains and cereals.
Not liquor, fast food and likely tobacco products as well, the irony
is overwhelming.

While the Marin community may be over educated as well as over
consuming, they will eventually see through false images and see the
devouring maw of capitalism. The fact that it is there own face as
well leaves us questioning the future of America, and the western
consumer culture as a whole.

It's my own fault for not reading the fine print on the coupon, but
thought I'd share because you pretend to care.