"Listen..." (P.o.t.D. 8/4/15, no rev)

Everyone speaks,
Yet no one listens to them.
Attention trumps talk?

"The Game of Life" (P.o.t.D. 8/1/17, no rev)

Multiball pinballs
Colliding, getting sidetracked
Into the gutters...

"Give Us Room" (P.o.t.D. 7/25/15, rev 8/13/17)

We do not wish to be cast as unique,
Separated by perceived difference.
We do not like being afraid to speak,
Set off by those who think we make no sense.

It's just common ground, with you, that we seek;
'Fore we can shed our fears and our pretence.
'Tis fair treatment of the humble and meek
To be allowed room to "get off our fence"...?

Is Silence Not Enough?

There are events and causes and politics and more that I closet-support.

Because I do not want to publicly broadcast my support, out of fear of being considered a member of the cause instead of an ally...

Because I do not want to post support without being able to defend my views to those who see the post - no desire for flame wars...

Because I do not want to get into long arguments, especially online, with people who have almost alien backgrounds, compared to my own.

Because I'm already stretched thin on time, and I do not want to get drawn in to lengthy research and subsequent documentation to solidify my position, when it may just be ignored by the "aliens"...

Because I do not fully trust the validity of the "news" that is already broadcast around the issue.

As I do not wish to get into lengthy debates, or spend much of my time sifting through news in fields outside of my studies; I opt to be a passive, silent information consumer. I now think before I share, most of the time, and I try to read with a critical eye.

I guess that it boils down to thinking I have no influence over things outside of my hula hoop. If I thought I could sway the masses to change their mind, I'd be more prone to get on the soapbox...

Yet, I feel I work better in the shadows, where I can break my silence, one-on-one with those who I trust and who have come to trust me.

Unfortunately, there's a power juggernaut in our society trying to wreak havoc on all the things I hold dear.

"Finding a Purpose"

Dear Human:

You’ve got it all wrong.
You didn’t come here to master unconditional love.
That is where you came from and where you’ll return.
You came here to learn personal love.
Universal love.
Messy love.
Sweaty love.
Crazy love.
Broken love.
Whole love.
Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling.
Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often.
You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are.
You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous.
And then to rise again into remembering.
But unconditional love?
Stop telling that story.
Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives.
It doesn’t require modifiers.
It doesn’t require the condition of perfection.
It only asks that you show up. And do your best.
That you stay present and feel fully.
That you shine and fly and laugh and cry
and hurt and heal and fall and get back up
and play and work and live and die as YOU.
It’s enough. It’s Plenty.

~ Courtney Walsh

Thinking about my Higher Power(s)

I have my personal experience that I can relate to. I do not know what other life-forms experience, although people's attempts to communicate their lives can resonate with my own set of memories.

There are a lot of basic experiences that have been repeated over and over, throughout time, that have generated sets of both good and bad responses. Deciding what's good and bad tends to be built on emotional reactions. (I recall a book in the last 20 years that looked at studies of how lack of emotions impaired judgements)

One of the things I love about Buddhist meditation is that it challenges me to form first-hand insights behind my experiences. Similarly, AA's programs says, "Try these behaviors, see what happens, and use that to form your own experience with a God, as you understand him"

A lot of people wring their hands over what others tell them that God is, or, more often... over people telling them Godly behavior and then practicing the opposite.

I think religion does not create a good model of how the physical world works. However, it does do a good job of looking at social interactions, good and bad, through the ages... however, religion has given rise to philosophy, psychology, even history, and influenced other social sciences - and those fields are now coupling with science to give good insights into social behavior and also abnormalities and how they can "break social rules"

So, I claim to be agnostic. If there is a God, it's much more than my personal experience and understanding. Yet, to thrive in this world, it greatly helps to depend upon experiences beyond my own. I.e., I learn from my elders, sharing in their success and avoiding their mistakes...

"Swimming With Sharks?" (P.o.t.D. 7/4/15, no rev)

Why do they hate so?
To survive vicious circles
Of intolerance...?

"'Alone!', he wails..." (P.o.t.D. 4/13/08, rev 6/24/17)

Restrain tongue and pen, in work and in play --
Emotions checked, yet lusty obsessions
Simmer, seeking to have their ugly say.
Public, private perspectives, perceptions
Entwined, interwoven, in tangled skein.
Confusing courage with cries of caution,
Tangled I am found, again and again -
I am lost in deontic ties that bind.
Now... do I cross antiquated fences,
Gaining insight, facing fears, in my mind?

Before, I would "sit in solemn silence",
Overcome my feelings, yet... highstrung... tense -
Untold wreckage building upon my soul,
Never once did I feel complete and whole.
Dwelling in a pure ivory tower,
And discontent... alone... each midnight hour.
Reason only took me farther - too far -
Inside self, loves buried in aching heart,
Encamped, enclosed, entrapped, entombed "in a
Steel cage" - a lean role sans sensual sin.

Inhibitions: respect? ... or overcome?
Note, then, the true fears from among the sum.

Look... Listen... Love... and the world unfolds!
Infinite nuances will be revealed,
From which billions of stories can be told -
Experiences that can truly heal.

Everyone has a story to tell;
Stories so deep, they cause my heart to swell!
Pensive, I will miss their insights around
Even though, like armies, do they surround.
Circled by artisans, artists, arsons;
Igniting passions, felt by all senses.
Around my prison of independence
Lay self-centered lies from self-sufficience;
Leading me to forget growth from "my mind,
Your mind, learning when we are intertwined".

Ignoring others, I find I become
Narcistic, pessimistic... my thoughts, numb.

Life is too short to live in a ship's hold;
Overcome, I must, these imagined seals!
Voyeuer, no more - engage others, be bold -
Enrich my life, sharing others' ordeals!

"Carpenter at Work..?" (P.o.t.D. 3/18/15, no rev)

Pondering our lives:
Hardness, surface, depth, and grain
Like some woods we stain.

"Wary of Triggers" (P.o.t.D. 1/11/16, rev 1/11/17)

Tiptoe 'cross the floor on eggshells,
From fear of finding shards of glass
That have stung, cut, crippled, and felled
Clumsy ogres who walked so rash.

Under each phrase, even each word,
Lies great pains - gentle souls' triggers!
Can I avoid those hidden hurts?
Perhaps... with careful word pickers...

I hope to bring peace to our Earth,
Where folks do not lash out and hurt
Those who come from different births -
Perhaps, there, all could soar like birds.

"Listen..." (P.o.t.D. 8/4/15)

Everyone speaks,
Yet no one listens to them.
Attention trumps talk?

"Helping Acceptance" (P.o.t.D. 7/25/15)

I do not wish to be someone unique,
Separated by perceived difference.
I do not like being afraid to speak,
Cast off by those who think I make no sense.
It's just common ground, with you, that I seek;
Yet I must shed my fears and my pretence.
It's just treatment of the humble and meek
To be allowed space to "get off their fence".

"Swimming With Sharks?" (P.o.t.D. 7/4/15)

Why do they hate so?
To survive vicious circles
Of intolerance...?

"Carpenter at Work..?" (P.o.t.D. 3/18/15)

Pondering our lives:
Hardness, surface, depth, and grain
Like some woods we stain.

"Technology and I"

I'm hesitant to write,
And yet, I'd rather write,
Perhaps to "right"...

I was a teenager as PC's stormed our households, and I was in my 20's as Usenet blossomed.. The web was born.. And in my 30's, blogging and social networks exploded onto the digital scene.

So, in some ways, I am a pioneer who rode the digital wave and saw society transform. No, I did not have a computer in my crib, like today's youth... So I can yearn for old-fashioned live interactions, and that can make me squirrelly.

I may not be as savvy as some techies today, able to network your office in a night. Yet, I've interacted with BBS's, Usenet, HTML, blogs, Facebook, and more over the years... These interactions have carried me through some tough times.

It's really easy for me to get raw and uncut, to treat these forums as a public diary, to just "try to be real". It's easy for me to "punch a computer", when frustrated, as I don't normally see that spill back into my real life.

However, I need to remember there are people on the other side of the screen, some of whom are true friends in real life. And I must remember my time at Cingular Wireless, when I had to weather the irate abusive customers on the other end of customer service.

So, even though the filter may be weak, and it may be easy to "punch the computer", or "flame on"... Others will take note, and others will be affected.

More dangerous, still, is that this may still build up as an acceptable practice in my mind... And then what's to prevent me from carrying such outbursts into real life, and "railing at the crowds"..?

Also... I write about outbursts, rages, and such; yet I don't think that's the only way I interact here. It may be the one noticed more, though...

"'Alone!', he wails..." (P.o.t.D. 4/13//08)

Restrain tongue and pen, in work and play --
Emotions checked, yet obsession
Simmers, seeking say.
Public and private perspectives and perceptions
Entwined, interwoven, in a tangled skein.
Confusing courage with cries of caution,
Tangled again,
I am, in deontic ties that bind.
Now... is it time to cross antiquated fences,
Gaining insight, challenging fears, in my mind?

Before, I would "sit in solemn silence",
Overcome my feelings, yet... highstrung... tense.
Untold wreckage building upon my soul,
Never once did I feel complete and whole.
Dwelling in a pristine ivory tower,
And discontent... alone... each midnight hour.
Reason only took me farther - too far -
Inside self, loves buried in aching heart,
Encamped, enclosed, entrapped, entombed "in a
Steel cage" - a lean role sans sensual sin.

Inhibitions... to be respected? ...to be overcome?
Noble confidence separates the true fears from the sum.

Look... Listen... Love... and the world unfolds,
Infinite nuances will be revealed,
From which billions of stories can be told -
Experiences that can truly heal.

Everyone has a story to tell;
Stories so deep, they cause my heart to swell.
Pensive, I will miss these insights around
Even though, like armies, do they surround.
Circled by artisans, artists, arsons;
Igniting passion, felt by all senses.
Against that prison of independence
Lies the world's lie of self-sufficience;
Leading me to forget growth from "my mind,
Your mind, learning when they are intertwined".

Ignoring others, I suddenly find I do become
Narcistic, self-sadistic, pessimistic... my thoughts, numb.

Life is too short to live in a ship's hold;
Overcome, I must, these imagined seals!
Voyeuer, no more - engage others, be bold -
Enrich my life, sharing others' ordeals!

Separate Lives [Third draft]

Note - The following is a revision of one of my earlier posts at Yahoo 360:

So, I find myself in a quandary.
How can I unify my life better?

I can see that I wear different hats at work, at play, around adults, and around children - perhaps adapting to a situational behavior standard? What personality hats do I usually wear? I am, in no particular order:

• a scientist,
• an artist,
• a boy scout,
• a follower,
• a gentle leader,
• an empathizer,
• a listener,
• obsessive at times,
• manic too,
• hyper-critical,
• super-cooperative,
• a sampler,
• open-minded...

I could brainstorm tons of hats; but backing them up with actual experiences, though, could be a bit more difficult. "Is that one more periphereal or hardware, Mr. B?"

Suppose a man is seen as one personality at the job, but a totally different man comes out at home, a la Jekyll and Hyde, if you wish -- I DO NOT want to be that type of man! It's distressing that life gets so modular, what with my family interactions, work interactions, AA interactions, online interactions, school interactions (now gathering dust) - all of which don't seem to interact much with each other.

Spheres of acquaintances - that recalls another time... I was trying to graph out the groups of people I've interacted with, a la Venn diagrams, and trying to figure out what was in common, what was different between them... and wondering how on earth to get them more "concentric"? At the time, I was thinking about what is revealed to each circle too. Who am I in front of a stranger, an acquaintance, a close friend, a lover; and how can I behave so that the orbits are more well-defined?

What's really frustrating? Overcoming barriers between two or more groups.

Examples:
"Oh, she's sooo beautiful! How I want to.. wait a sec, I'm at work - can't go there..."
...or...
"Well, this friend has one set of interests, but that one is like the polar opposite - can I get them to see eye to eye? Moreover, what might happen when they realize I share in both interests?"
...or even...
"Gee, I can see that I can communicate fairly well in writing - why doesn't that transfer easily over easily into speech?"
(Thinking on this last one, there are different rules underlying each communication, e.g. it's far more acceptable to interrupt while chatting online then it is in person. ...and I think this "different settings, different rules" argument underlies why our lives separate in the first place.)

Thinking back to flirting in the store, suppose three lovely women come into the store over the course of a night, and I choose to comment on their beauty. It's quite possible that one gives me her phone number, another gives me a stern lecture on the spot, and the third walks away seeming to be interested but follows up with a sexual harassment complaint to the manager... Without having known more about their personal backgrounds, I could not have predicted these outcomes. That's why I suppress my flirt at work. That or there's these competing ideas - "sexual attraction", "respect for work's code of conduct", "desire for my privacy and respecting others' privacy" - an example that given scenarios use conflicting and/or cooperating social rules.

It could be worthwhile to explore that idea of "different settings, different rules". To be realistic, I think adapting to the situation is actually a strength, but it has to be tempered with sticking to core principles.

You know, on the Chinese zodiac, I'm a Rat; and we're not known for long-lasting friendships... Unfortunately, I HAVE let far too many close friendships of the past drift away with time and distance. It feels like I've briefly passed through all these lives and organizations that I highly valued at the time, but that I am no longer in touch with - and that annoys me! Hence, one thought that this page could be an attempt at reconnecting with people I've lost. One day, I plan to journal my life's chronology using a list of the groups I've interacted with; but even that might be broken down into pieces, focusing on one sphere at a time (work, friends, lovers)...

All that being said, here are the visions I have for my blogs:

• where I can find and share my core values and interests,
• where I can say something once, and everyone can see it,
• where I can explore others' lives,
• and, hopefully, where I can bring together many of the people I value in my past and present and possible futures.

It would be nice to be a trulyopen book. However, I must admit there are some experiences:

• not meant to be shared with children
• ...mostly because they might not understand
• or with the total stranger
• ...out of fear of how they will use that information
• or even in a public forum of close friends
• ...due to some of the possible fallouts resulting.. recall AA's 9th step: "..except when to do so would injure them or others"

So, I will exercise a little restraint and confidentiality, not revealing all; even though that could be construed as lying by omission. Such is the sacrifice of writing in public.
Oh, but wait...! I'm reminded a line from "Dreams with Sharp Teeth":

Don't be afraid to go there.