WE DON'T HAVE A PRESIDENT FOR 4 YEARS,

WE HAVE A TELEVISION SHOW.

HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE

HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE

I am one of those hurt people. I was hurt as most of us were hurt by the people who loved us the most. We do the best we can as parents. We do what we think is best for our children but we, like our parents before us are disabled by the unintentional woundings we seem to give to one another.

Look at the world we live in today. The world has always been like this. Feel this world we live in today. We are not okay. We can be better. We just have to pay attention and relearn how to care instead of suppressing our pain until we are so desensitized that we have no empathy for one another’s painful struggles. Caring is a choice and with caring comes deep pain. Feel the pain that comes from how we treat each other. How we treat our neighbors, strangers, family members and all who look and think and act differently from us. It scares us and from this fear comes separation. This is how we protect ourselves. By separating from one another. This is what is wrong with us. We are the problem. 

If we can be what is wrong with the world than we can become what is right with the world. We can choose to care and face the deep sorrow and pain. We can allow ourselves to feel our own sufferings and then learn to feel for the sufferings of one another. Because whether we admit it or not-we are family. 

It’s called humanity and in order to create a world like the one we live in today we must abandon our humanity, our compassion, our sensitivity. Being out of touch with our own feelings we lose touch with our sensitivity and this suppression of sensitivity is our downfall. Our fearing makes us smaller and less than we can be, less than who we truly are. I believe that we are all grieving and most of us aren’t even aware of this sorrow and what is causing it. 

We are….what’s wrong with the world. When, if ever-will we become brave enough to open our hearts fully and make right this world we share?

A BLADE OF GRASS

A BLADE OF GRASS

Stop.

Be still….quiet.

Wait….

Patience-

Miracles will appear.

A blade of grass reaching for light 

Breaks through concrete,

And reaching for light, we too

break through the concrete confines

in which we hid our precious hearts from one another

And ourselves.

We sought protection.

Forgive us…

Understand us…

IMPOSSIBLE FEATS

Impossible Feats

Impossible feats

Inspire me,

Return to me my faith

in man,

After all the broken words we speak,

After our daily mundane agendas are achieved,

After cruelty and selfishness...

A juggler does the impossible!

A piece of art blows your mind!

Or better yet,

You see a loving kindness,

A human being humane,

This is what inspires me

and drives me back 

to sane.

HOW DOES THIS IMPATIENCE FUCK UP MY WELL-BEING?

I began driving to LA for the holiday at noon today. By the time I git to Del Mar the traffic was stop and go. I realized that many people are taking time off work to celebrate Thanksgiving for a number of days. I have a problem with patience-I have none!

I have been very impatient all my life. I am 68 years old, retired and have no deadlines to make. I have all the time in the world yet still I have an incredibly tense bout of anxiety when things don’t go as I plan. Which is often. 

When I am trying to achieve something or get something done I often slip into an “urgent” mode. My mother was an Urgent person. She had, I believe, PTSD. Her father molested her sister and tried to molest her as well. Growing up in fear will fuck you up. I also grew up in fear. My mother was alcoholic and very unpredictable and explosive. My brother who was almost 6 years older than me was reliably cruel and threatening. I believe I too, have a form of PTSD.  I never knew what to expect growing up but I was prepared to fight or flee whenever I was home. 

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Besides inheriting my mother’s anxieties I was also groomed to speed through life by a school system which encourages speed. Who can answer the math flash cards the fastest in class? Me. Fast is good, fast is praise worthy, fast equals “safe”.

At one level or another I know my impatience is sourced by fear. The response shows up in anxiousness, haste, tension and illness. We are not meant to run on adrenaline and I know that many of my health issues are directly related to a lifetime of of operating so frequently as if there is an emergency. Even with awareness of this problem I still find that it is an automatic reaction with me, deeply wired in at an early age. I don’t know if I will ever be able to change it. I’m sad about that. 

Racing through projects, journeys and even conversations is habitual and what is it that I hope to find once I finish these God Damned tasks? Peace and serenity. The irony is obvious; hurry up here and now so you can relax later.  But why not relax now, I ask myself.

The logical solution-says my mind-is to relax now as your are doing this, that or the other. All goals and tasks can be achieved with a relaxed energy; results are often better when I go slowly. I make less mistakes. And most importantly, I breathe easy and feel happier. 

The truth is that at this time in my life I have zero excuses for rushing. I’ve been retired with plenty of time on my hands for 6 years now. Perhaps it’s showing up so clearly now is because at 68 years of age I simply don’t have the energy and strength required to do things quickly anymore. Part of this has to do with the increasing physical and mental constraints that aging brings. But that is the subject for another piece.