Tuesday, February 06, 2007



...I have been through a lot of pain in my life, as have most. And there was a time when I had said to myself, that if a little fairy came down and said with the wave of her magic wand she could put everything back the way it was in my "perfect little bubble" of a life...without having to have experienced all the pain, ...I would choose "NO". ...I feel that if I had not gone through all that I have in my life, then I would not have the understanding of things that I have now...for it was a long process. While this is true, I sometimes think I'd be willing to endure less understanding if it meant less pain. *lol?* But, without those experiences, I think I would have remained lost and not even known it, for it was due to so much pain that I became more connected to my own soul. But there lies a dilemma. Can you be lost if you don't even know it? No, that isn't right. Obviously you are still lost...but for the purpose of your own private reality, you are not. One does not experience the deprivation of something if they do not know they are deprived. (Arguable, yes.) For example, in this country, fully 85% of us wander around in a state of semi-dehydration (for various reasons that aren't relevant). However, most of that 85% feels no sense of thirst. In the independent reality of "That Which is True" - those bodies need more water than they get. But for sake of their day-to-day existence, little is changed. For all practical purposes, they *don't* need the water, because the lack of it causes no dramatic interference in their lives. They have a few extra headaches, a few less-lubricated sexual encounters, a few more aching joints, but they never have that coveted epiphany in which they scream "I need water, I get it!" -- Just as many live comfortably without the kinds of realizations about life, etc, that myself and others have had driven into our souls by tragedy.

Perhaps we have to acknowledge that there is something wrong before we can correct it. ...But if you don't know something is wrong, you will be *happy* with what you have. (?) Knowledge is power, just like G. I. Joe says, "Knowing is half the battle. - Geee.-Ieee.-JOoooE!" :) ...But knowledge is also pain. To a certain extent anyway. If we were *happy* -- if we were truly satisfied with everything we were and everything we were doing, we would never try to change anything. Improvement comes via dissatisfaction with the current state of things. So I am sometimes troubled by the question: Which is better, to be happy and stagnant, or miserable and driven to improve? Improvement is supposed to be good, but aren't we only improving ourselves in a desperate attempt to recapture that bliss we had back when we were One with our lesser selves? :) Though, perhaps being stagnant has nothing to do with happiness and vise versa, and you don't have to be miserable to be driven to improve. I know I can sometimes find happiness in just knowing that I have the ability to improve. Perhaps happiness can be found within everything--you just have to have a good sense of humor for life and know where to look? It is kind of like beauty--scratch that--happiness is beauty. ("?") (Debatable, I know.) ("?") Anyway....

On some levels I feel that if I had not had all the inner turmoil and strife as well as all the rage and sorrow and chaos, that I would have accomplished more with my life thus far. Or at least I would have been much happier. I sometimes almost feel robbed of my childhood and robbed of how I could have developed and of the person I could have been. But there lies a paradox. First I say that I need the torture to become who I am...a baptism in fire, if you will. Then I say that same torture is what held me back from being something more. Can we have it both ways? Logically not. I think it may really all be the latter. We *were* robbed. ...If we're the products of anything, are we the products of others assumptions about us from the time we were little, ...children growing, ...questioning, ...listening? ...Impressionable. The army used to use the slogan "Be all that you can be." No one ever really means that -- everyone assumes there will be something that you will suck at, and they treat you accordingly -- usually most people end up believing it themselves. What would we be if everyone expected us to be excellent at everything? Would we measure up or would we fail? ...At least we'd know we truly tried.

How much of us is innate and how much is a product of the environment? Clearly we have many facets of our "self" that are innate, but these can be clearly expounded upon or warped to a degree by our environment. This is sometimes a question that can keep me up at nights. Because I can not escape the environment, I cannot see how I would have turned out if I hadn't been exposed to it. What parts of myself were God-given, so to speak, and what parts are merely acquired tastes that happened to somehow be acquired in infancy? I don't know. It sometimes bothers me that I don't know. I always used to wonder about these types of things, what if this... what if that... but the past is gone and I suppose it is the *future* of this world that should keep us up at night....

I recently read a definition of the word "Forgiveness". It read: "Forgiveness; Giving up all hope for a better past." That quote has something to offer.

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