Writing for Sanity's Sake

Lying is now an accepted way of life. People of all ilks try to see how much they can “get away with” when it comes to untruths. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook have exponentially increased the number of lies that are published on a daily basis, coming from the top down, among all manner of people.

Our world today is accurately described by Isaiah’s description of ancient Israel:

“None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.”

How then can we continue to survive in the modern world?

We can look again to the knowledge of the ancient text of Proverbs

. It tells us to trust in God with all our hearts; and lean not unto our own understanding. If we will acknowledge him, he will direct our path.

If we acknowledge God, and accept that we cannot understand how he created us, or our world, I believe he will give us the understanding we need to navigate the mind field of lies we must navigate every day we live in this modern world.

If we chart our course through life nowadays, based on what we think is true, we will certainly be deceived. Look around you, and you can see it happening every day, “tweet after tweet”. I don’t think God deals with us through Twitter. I think he still deals with us through our hearts.

What do you think?

Where are your memories?

I know people say we should “live for today” or “the present is all that matters”. But I don’t think so.

On some days, like today, my memories are all that sustain me. The present doesn’t work the best for me, and living for today is like an October dust devil…swirling through and kicking up leaves. It’s here and gone before you can even identify it.

More than anything else in my life, my biggest fear is losing my memories, forgetting where I’ve been, and who I’ve touched and kissed and loved. Losing me.

One of my older friends at Trade day took a nasty fall today. He said it was just a weird blank feeling, and he fell and pulled over his table while I was standing there and spilled his things. As I was helping him pick them up he kept saying he just didn’t know what had happened. There was a look in his eyes. Seventy six, just lost his wife this year. An uncertain look.

Then this afternoon I found out my Eli took a nasty fall at school and busted his chin on the pavement. He looked so pitiful and frail this evening when I saw him, and that same uncertain look in his eyes. He will remember that spill all his life, just as I remember riding my tricycle down the steps of our house when I was four and busting open my forehead. He will for sure remember this.

My older trade day friend may not remember his fall too long. He will for sure not have the chance to store it in his vault of remembrance near as long as Eli will his. And so the difference that seventy some odd years make. A lifetime started, a lifetime lived, and the memories are what makes the life. They are us, and we are them.

Where are your memories? I can still find mine most of the time right now, and for that I am so very grateful.

Remember my friend, and little Eli. They both need healing thoughts.

I got to thinking about the old saying that “life is just mind over matter….if you don’t mind it don’t matter!” Now I now that’s supposed to be funny, but really it’s kind of true. If you don’t mind what people say about you, it don’t matter. If you don’t mind you don’t have as many possessions as others around you, it don’t matter. If you don’t mind that someone cuts you off in traffic, it don’t matter. If you don’t mind you’ve gained a little weight, it don’t matter. If you don’t mind there’s a little dust on the furniture, it don’t matter.

The things that DO matter are our peace of mind, and happiness, and our relationship to the people and the world around us.

It matters how we treat our family and our friends. It matters if we help someone who asks for it, but also it matters when we help someone who needs it and DOES NOT ask for it…cause some people who need help are too proud to ask and some are so far gone, they cannot ask.

It matters if we care about humanity….not just American humanity but ALL of humanity.

So today don’t mind about the loudmouth in the aisle ahead of you at Walmart talking on their cell phone about things best kept private, it don’t matter. Don’t mind about what the talking heads on TV are telling you, in the long run it won’t matter. Don’t mind if so and so don’t agree with your politics, or pulls an online rant on you, in a month or a year, or in 100 years it…won’t…matter. Period.

Do mind about telling someone you love them…that does matter. Do mind if you help somebody who is sick, or feed someone who is hungry, that does matter. Do mind about hugging your kids, and your old people. Do mind about dealing with those around you with kindness. Those are the tenets of living which will live on far beyond us all. That is the morality upon which an unbreakable civilization will one day be founded, and out of which a new paradigm of life will emerge.

If you’re a Christian, read the gospel and do what Jesus says. If you’re an atheist treat others with integrity, compassion, and understanding. If you are of any religion, stand for the good which all religions include…don’t make up you’re own rules. Don’t surround yourself with hatred. Don’t think that revenge will end with the last person who acts with revenge in mind. It won’t. An eye for and eye only ends up making everyone blind.

Perhaps I am naive to think these things. To think that we will be able to solve our own human problems by our own human selves. But I do

I really do.

Take everything you know or think you know, and do a “role reversal” in your mind.

Now, think about it for a while…….is it possible that we (as human beings) are wrong about some things? Is it possible we are wrong about some people, or groups of people?

Is it possible…could it possibly be possible, that we are just not thinking?

One thing that I make sure and do on a daily basis is to say out loud: “I will not let hate and fear rule me!” I know that if anyone actually saw me, they might think that’s pretty weird. But, my opinion is that “vocalizing” our thoughts makes them more of a reality then just thinking them in our heads. I also really believe that part of our problem in this society is that we do not vocalize our thoughts and opinions enough to other, actual in the flesh people. We have a habit of expressing our thoughts and opinions here in cyberspace, and it’s just…not…the…same, as having a conversation in person.

For most people, excepted for the dedicated and practiced “entertainers” in our world who are adept at acting out and inciting others…for most people though, besides those entertainers…it’s harder to express hatred and fear to somebody’s face, than it is to write it out on this digital page.

Most of us are not of the mindset yet, to act out hatred and loathing by performing actual deeds of violence in person against other people…although, the instances of those who are doing so is becoming a more common occurrence. People who are on the fence….on the cusp of doing violent acts against other people, are often pushed beyond the edge of inaction to the tragedy of real action, by things they read, hear or come in contact with via the virtual world.

I hope that it doesn’t get worse. I fervently wish that we can all start to again become more communicative with each other in person, face to face. I want for there to be a world for my children and grandchildren to inhabit, in which they have a chance to live and enjoy themselves the way I have….the way we have.

If we think, like I said at the first of this post….if we think about just not ourselves, but of those who come after us in this world, maybe we can solve some of the severe problems which we are now encountering. Listen to your heart, your own heart…not the rhetoric of anyone who wants to sway you away from what you know in your heart is right.

We are all simply layer after layer upon layer of emotional content, which is spilled out upon the canvas of life…day after day after day.

Some layers go down smoothly, with nary a wrinkle..and you may have quite a few good ones in a row, before a messed up, old crumpled layer comes around and rumples up your pile!

Then it takes a lot of smoothing over before that layer is buried way down deep. A wind may come along every now and then an turn up your edges, and you recall that bad day.

Some of our journeys go better than others. Depends upon a lot of things. Some have a lot more wrinkled up layers than others.

I really don’t know why things are the way they are, all I know is that it’s quite a ride….it’s quite a process this “living life”.

I look forward to another layer of life tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll see some of you, and we can work on this big old jig saw puzzle together. I hope so.

In all of human history there has been no time like now. The only thing which sometimes bothers me is the tiny shiver which runs up my spine thinking about where “now” is.

We live in a world where smart humans have subjected the other 98% of we less technical and scientific “normal” humans to such dangers as nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, overuse of chemical agents for war, agriculture and insecticides, massive military forces, industrial pollution, poison industrial byproducts, germ warfare, and political strife over land ownership by countries and individuals.

As on of my friends stated just yesterday, homo sapiens may be the very first species to precipitate its own extinction. It’s a sobering and distressing thought. There has never been a time like now.

A time of practically instant communication. A time of world travel which is so quick, that there is no longer a real sovereignty of nations. A time when human knowledge has outpaced our capabilities and the morality of the human psyche to be able to exercise constraint in our dealings with one another, so we therefore treat each other badly.

We are at a crossroads where the spiritual part of humanity’s brain must be nurtured and nursed into a state where a deeper and more compassionate conscious develops. We have to somehow develop a system of learning which fosters the responsibility for our existence faster than our capacity for self destruction. How do we do this?

We turn the keys of power over to the new generation of young leaders who are rapidly developing not only in America, but all over the world. Our children and grandchildren who are anxious to overcome the problems this generation has created, and to create a more harmonious world. They are out there, and we must step out of their way, and demand this generations crop of old and dishonest leaders move out and give the new crop time to grow. It won’t be easy, but I believe it’s our best chance.

Otherwise turn out the lights, the parties over.

“When I was a kid I watched a black and white TV, Cowboys on that tiny screen were like superman to me.”

The opening line in a song I wrote a while back. I loved that old Philco television with the round dial that had the numbers 1 through 13 on it. We only got three channels back then though. All 3 out of Chattanooga. I thought the world emanated from there.

My world was small back then.

I worried over nothing. Then suddenly I grew up. The world became a complicated and dangerous place. People hate each other for every possible reason. Makes me think of the song “Every day People” by Sly and the family Stone. Google it and read the lyrics. They say it all. Hate…

Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be a day when humans are at peace with one another. When Jesus comes back? When the Aliens come back? When the two mile comet hits us? When the bombs fly? When will we learn? When will we ever learn? (Dylan)

I swear to you, I will be at peace with anyone and everyone who will be at peace with me. I swear I hate nobody for no reason.

I’d like to go back to that small world for a day. Watch Hoppy and Roy and Gene. They had guns….yes that’s true. They always got the bad guys. You knew who was who because one wore white hats and one wore black. Now, you can’t tell. It’s all so muddled. It’s all so complicated. We have made it that way.

Can we undo the damage we’ve done? Can we leave a world for our descendants? I’m gonna sleep on it and hope I dream a solution.

Don’t lose hope.

Why is it that although we know “scientifically” that human thought and emotion comes from the brain, we FEEL as though the emotions and thoughts we have for others come from the HEART?

I believe that Love comes from the heart.

When someone hurts you, your heart is broken…..

When you feel grief, does your head hurt, or do you feel the tightness and pressure well up from inside of your chest?

When you pick up a baby, so sweet and innocent….do you hug them to your head?

I’ve looked at all the explanations of how it’s all a “chemical reaction” that takes place in our brain.

But, I wonder how scientists know where our soul really resides within us? I think we all have that spark within us, and I think it resides in our heart.

I got out an old pocket watch the other day while I was selling stuff at Trade Day and I got to thinking about things while I was winding up that old watch.

I had watched a show a few days ago on Youtube, taking a break from watching “The British Baking Show”, about the science of quantum physics. It made me think that although we humans think we are REALLY smart, there are SO many things we have yet to discover….

I feel like we have only seen the tip of the iceberg, and know nothing about what lies beneath, under the cover of the ocean.

It’s all seems so complicated…this Universe, but then…just think, like I thought Tuesday at Trade day, how complicated some of the pocket watches that the Swiss used to make were. SO many moving parts, and yet…they kept time better than anything ever made. Also, when those wonderfully smart watchmakers’s got through with them, they knew all the new owner was going to have to do was “wind” the watch. They knew the quality of what they had made. They knew the time and precision and pride they had put into the making of those watches.

Now then, if HUMANS can make something that complicated, and make it work so well, just think what the creator of all things can do! What seems SO complicated to us in the existence of our Universe is a “pocket watch” to God.

We are only starting to realize his wonders.

This lovely cloudy morning has changed into a beautiful sunny day. It’s like a colorful and interesting caterpillar changing into a wondrous and unique butterfly.

I keep hoping and questioning whether or not we humans are still in our “caterpillar” stage. Will we leave behind our prejudices, hatred, mistrust, violence, bigotry, covetousness, and anger and embrace the beauty that can reside in each of us if we will only let it out. Can we leave the husk of all that is bad behind and soar into a new paradigm of living?

Many will say that only God can bring true peace to Earth, but even so I question why humanity would not want to try and evolve to a more loving species without the intervention of a divine being. I believe we have it within us… Otherwise why do butterflies exist?