I have a great love of writing thoughts about the things that I see, do and hear of the happenings in the world around me, but what most people don't know, is the depth and level of my internal thoughts and the related writings that come from them.
Of late, much has been happening and it seems that finally my health seems to be stabilizing. Now, that doesn't mean that everything has magically reveresed and I am getting healthier, it just means that my body has again adapted to a new paradigm, or set of instructions/conditions that it has to work in. I liken my body to a car in Cuba, no matter the state of repair or disrepair that mybdy is in, it always seems to try and run in an optimal way for the current phase it is in. This is what is called adaption, and I firmly believe that that is the one things disabled people have a thing with which the world could sure learn about. But, since I am more often than not, not dishonest about what I type, but more, reticent to put the whole of everything up for public consumption.
I have a dislike of being too upfront about my health conditions. Those who know more about me on a personal level, or were there when I have been to doctors or surgeries, have a fair idea of what my life is projected to look like. But those who know me extremely well, know that is something I will continously challenge until I am either hit with an excessive quantity of information that makes me understand that Ineed to slow down, or, my body shuts down to the point where I am in need of an armed guard to keep my from going out too often and doing stupid stuff.|
But, what is the whole situation? Often enough, I can be found counselling friends who are in need of advice ranging from what to go and see at the movies to major life changes and how to help them get through them safely. What a lot of people can't do in return, is counsel me on a lot of things relating to my health, and though they mean well with it will be alright, or other sincerely given platitudes, they can't related to or unerstand the base giant elephant in the room of my health condition, and that is it severity.|
With i think a bit of universal good luck in my very early years, I was introduced to Buddhism and thus over the years, many new and enlightening things from with which to draw from and help improve the quality of my existence. There have been theoretical concepts, that I have spent many years getting my head around, in the hope that I will somehow enlighten myself to how to deal with a degenerative condition, but at the same time, learn how to get the most out of life, within and beyond, the physical limitations of my body. I also periodically research my heatlh condition, and check for any new advances in spinal repair and rejuvination. Much of that information has not changed much in the last 20 years and that is basically, that short of breaking every vertebrae in my spine to remove the curvature and heighten exponentially, the chance of major infection, the other option is transplant, and the techonology for that is not remotely close. Stem cell rejuvination of the spinal cord is an interesting concept, and would work well if there were the possibility that it would remove the curvature, or more affectionately, the hump.
Where this leaves me, is pretty much a sentence of the encroaching and persistent decline of my spine and the semingly forever increasing moments of pain. In truth, my life span is shortened to around 60 years, give or take depending on external factors and the internal fight, which at the moment, is still there. The research I have done, has let me understand that as long as I can keep effective breathing techniques, pain management and focus all in a concerted effort with meditation and understanding, then I should be able to do this well and get some good years out of it. Otherwise, IF I let it slip, then we can bring that life expectancy down to 55. The interesting factor in this, is what keeps me sane knowing this?
This goes back to the earlier mention of an introduction to Buddhism. Again sometimes I can kind of see the universe working in ways that negates chance, but then, it could be that it was chance and it had been listening to my early information of knowing what my life was. The idea tht propels me to live each day, regardless if I am in bed feeling like crap, or out taking beautiful pictures, is the concept of Impermanence. I won't bore you all with philosophical lectures about what it is all about, other than it is a a very effective measure of making sure that each breath I take, is counted as my last, and that each moment the breath is held in my lungs, I have all the power in the world to decide whether or not Iwant to take that next breath. When in that split second of time between breaths, there is this eternal peace of knowing that I have made a personal choice, and that the universe, and my spirit, are in conjunction about the desire to live to take the next breath. When you live in this mode of thinking, all things in life are put into a perspective without wasting any time on redundant and pointless emotions of fear, sadness and stress about knowing that I may not live as long as my friends and other family, but I will also know, that I have lived a fuller life than a lot of people due to not wasting time and energy on those things that have no function other than to detract and displace my happiness and enjoyment of life into other more self destructive pursuits.
I have come to a beautiful level of peace and calm with impermanence. Maybe spending too much time beyond those that are alloted would have made me more lethargic in doing and learning the things that I would want to in life, but at the same time, it has given me that guidance to focus not in the past nor in the future, but to focus on that sweet moment of decision between this moment and the next, and renew my commitment to this for as long as humanly possible.
25 October 2015
Wow, time seems to have flown... not so much this blog. So here is a new piece of writing.
Many things occur in life, and when that life is busy, they seem to occur even faster. Living a life in this world is fraught with perils such as too much information, too little compassion and love, heightened senses of insecurity and mistrust, and other mullings that come with living in an age of never ending war and violence, and limited growth in personal and spiritual growth.
Spiritual growth is never always about what faith you follow, what deity you pray to, or even if you believe in a deity at all. Spirit, that essence in humanity that gives us pause when we make life changing decisions, is something we neglect, even theists do so. Sadly, with the external happenings in the world, things can often seem too much, and there never seems to be enough mechanisms of help to turn to. Governments are cutting from essential services and the poor, in an ever increasing orgy of arrogance and pay backs to those who have put them in power and bankrolled their election campaigns. Anyone going naively into politics, with the intent to change the system from within, either find themselves unprepared for what they encounter, or, even if they manage to keep that rebelliousness, they are placed far out of reach of having any power to do what they can. The average citizen is then left to perpetually toil away in a system that was designed to harness the greatest productivity whilst destroying the drive or inner light of the citizen who hopes to improve their lot in life. The industrial revolution, not only brought big change in how things are produced, but it brought arounud a change of how people are produced and educated to scrape by in the system. Like in 1984, the Proles, whilst still having their freedom from living under the party, have an upper, middle and lower class, and are kept enthralled by trappings to make their lives appear to be their own. Is all of this, they are used to fight the wars of the party, to produce the base neccessities for the party and to show "devotion" to the party when they are required to do so.
These are the things that I have noticed in the last decade, the decade or perpetual war, the decade of deceit and blind arrogance of the Party. I couldn't tell you if that spiritual revolution that I constantly wish for, and work for in my own little way, is anywhere close to fruition, but, the seeds are being sewn, it is just a matter of seeing whether the soil is ripe for growth.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As many of you know, over the past year, almost two, lots of changes have been happening within, and, around me. Life has a most interesting way of making you wonder if the universe has a very demented sense of humour, or if there is a controlling deity, whether s/he has a demented sense of humour, or just left the computer simulation in free will mode, and moved on to something a lot more interesting and less troublesome. I hear that my views or humour in relation to them, is quite often somewhat blasphemous and that I should show more defference when talking about the lack of control or oversight that occurs in the universe. Personally, I don't think myself some divine saint or esteemed and enlightened guru, but I often feel that all this life of pain and health issues have given me a lot of time to think and mull the universe around in my head. I still refuse many times, to believe that there is some guiding hand working in the world to bring us to a promised afterlife. If this is the earthly kindgom that we keep hearing about from many holy books and beliefs, I am inclined to think that this deity is a very psychopathic individual, OR, that we are in "hell" and are suffering for some imagined sin that we may or may not have committed, and are just waiting to pay off our infraction and return to the happy place that we are forced to forget until we return.
Sadly, I don't think that this is the case, and thus means that, in essence, we are in the "kingdom" and what we have done is pretty much fuck it up, and now we seemingly have no way back, other than continue through to the end and hope that we don't thoroughly destroy ourselves in the process. If this is what we have to look forward to, then we either have to find a alternative path to walk down, or take a stand, and decide that enough is enough, and grab the reigns of our future from those whose only interest is profit, war and the impending destruction of a majority of the world's population, and remind them, that we are capable of governing ourselves, that we are able to be responsible stewards of the earth and have the ability to live in harmony with eachother, regardless of race or belief. The only thing that we have issue with, and that isn't something that we have to worry too much about when the insidious influences are removed, is religion. The majority o history has shown, that before global wealth and banking became a big and profitible thing, religions and races were able to live together and thrive with very minimal violence and destruction of the surrounding environment. It wasn't until the advent of exceptionalism both politically and religiously, that the global balance shifted. With exceptionalism, came a complete and utter radicalization of Nationalism, and desires to wipe out the "competition" of either the competing deity or nation state. Other than wars of expansion or defence of borders, humanity originally rarely showed the need to anihilate their neighbours, because no neighbours meant no trade. No trade meant unrest at home and no money for new building projects or research, religious buildings or needs of the people when and if they were considered.
But times have changed significantly, people have no reason for ignorance in the developed world other than through choice. Poorer nations have limimted resources compared to the developed countries, but more often than not, they are prey for the developed countries due to their unmolested natural resourcues. I won't go into any of todady's ills as we have more than enough information to write down here, but, the one thing I want to say, is that without a fundamental shift of mindset in both the developed and under-developed worlds, we are going to finish in a cacophony of violence and turmoil, that we as a species, may not recover from.
Spiritual growth is never always about what faith you follow, what deity you pray to, or even if you believe in a deity at all. Spirit, that essence in humanity that gives us pause when we make life changing decisions, is something we neglect, even theists do so. Sadly, with the external happenings in the world, things can often seem too much, and there never seems to be enough mechanisms of help to turn to. Governments are cutting from essential services and the poor, in an ever increasing orgy of arrogance and pay backs to those who have put them in power and bankrolled their election campaigns. Anyone going naively into politics, with the intent to change the system from within, either find themselves unprepared for what they encounter, or, even if they manage to keep that rebelliousness, they are placed far out of reach of having any power to do what they can. The average citizen is then left to perpetually toil away in a system that was designed to harness the greatest productivity whilst destroying the drive or inner light of the citizen who hopes to improve their lot in life. The industrial revolution, not only brought big change in how things are produced, but it brought arounud a change of how people are produced and educated to scrape by in the system. Like in 1984, the Proles, whilst still having their freedom from living under the party, have an upper, middle and lower class, and are kept enthralled by trappings to make their lives appear to be their own. Is all of this, they are used to fight the wars of the party, to produce the base neccessities for the party and to show "devotion" to the party when they are required to do so.
These are the things that I have noticed in the last decade, the decade or perpetual war, the decade of deceit and blind arrogance of the Party. I couldn't tell you if that spiritual revolution that I constantly wish for, and work for in my own little way, is anywhere close to fruition, but, the seeds are being sewn, it is just a matter of seeing whether the soil is ripe for growth.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As many of you know, over the past year, almost two, lots of changes have been happening within, and, around me. Life has a most interesting way of making you wonder if the universe has a very demented sense of humour, or if there is a controlling deity, whether s/he has a demented sense of humour, or just left the computer simulation in free will mode, and moved on to something a lot more interesting and less troublesome. I hear that my views or humour in relation to them, is quite often somewhat blasphemous and that I should show more defference when talking about the lack of control or oversight that occurs in the universe. Personally, I don't think myself some divine saint or esteemed and enlightened guru, but I often feel that all this life of pain and health issues have given me a lot of time to think and mull the universe around in my head. I still refuse many times, to believe that there is some guiding hand working in the world to bring us to a promised afterlife. If this is the earthly kindgom that we keep hearing about from many holy books and beliefs, I am inclined to think that this deity is a very psychopathic individual, OR, that we are in "hell" and are suffering for some imagined sin that we may or may not have committed, and are just waiting to pay off our infraction and return to the happy place that we are forced to forget until we return.
Sadly, I don't think that this is the case, and thus means that, in essence, we are in the "kingdom" and what we have done is pretty much fuck it up, and now we seemingly have no way back, other than continue through to the end and hope that we don't thoroughly destroy ourselves in the process. If this is what we have to look forward to, then we either have to find a alternative path to walk down, or take a stand, and decide that enough is enough, and grab the reigns of our future from those whose only interest is profit, war and the impending destruction of a majority of the world's population, and remind them, that we are capable of governing ourselves, that we are able to be responsible stewards of the earth and have the ability to live in harmony with eachother, regardless of race or belief. The only thing that we have issue with, and that isn't something that we have to worry too much about when the insidious influences are removed, is religion. The majority o history has shown, that before global wealth and banking became a big and profitible thing, religions and races were able to live together and thrive with very minimal violence and destruction of the surrounding environment. It wasn't until the advent of exceptionalism both politically and religiously, that the global balance shifted. With exceptionalism, came a complete and utter radicalization of Nationalism, and desires to wipe out the "competition" of either the competing deity or nation state. Other than wars of expansion or defence of borders, humanity originally rarely showed the need to anihilate their neighbours, because no neighbours meant no trade. No trade meant unrest at home and no money for new building projects or research, religious buildings or needs of the people when and if they were considered.
But times have changed significantly, people have no reason for ignorance in the developed world other than through choice. Poorer nations have limimted resources compared to the developed countries, but more often than not, they are prey for the developed countries due to their unmolested natural resourcues. I won't go into any of todady's ills as we have more than enough information to write down here, but, the one thing I want to say, is that without a fundamental shift of mindset in both the developed and under-developed worlds, we are going to finish in a cacophony of violence and turmoil, that we as a species, may not recover from.
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