Owed to Solitude

[amd1953]

I owe a lot to my current situation in life.   In fact, it's probably as close to heaven on earth that I will ever get.   I've served my apprenticeship in the School of Hard Knocks.   It was actually a life sentence with no time off for good behaviour.   I think it was Mr. W. Shakespeare who said "All the world's a stage".   And that is precisely what we are - actors on a stage.   Some of us play our parts really well and fool the audience into actually believing what we say we are.   Then there are those who find it impossible to be anything other than what they are.   Not good actors at all.   That's where I make my entrance.   But I don't play to the audience any more because it is a complete and utter waste of time and effort.   Now that I have settled into retirement, I can stop the acting and the pretence and be whatever I choose to be.   It's a great pity that we have to spend the greater part of our lives playing to an audience.   Some people get away with turning their backs on the bright lights and sink into blissful anonymity.   This is what I am trying to do now so that I can gather a little happiness around me before I drop off the perch.   When I think back, I seem to have spent so much time trying to keep everyone else happy and giving in to do things when I don't want to.   I never had the nerve to say no so I guess I was a real pushover.   I think it's time to turn the page on the script and write my own dialogue for a change.   Or is that asking too much?   I'm not really sure myself.   Maybe I am expecting too much.   Shame on me eh?   But there will come a time when I run out of choices and that will be the end of it.   The curtain comes down on another production.   I only hope it doesn't come too soon.   If we do what we want to when we want to do it, we are called selfish.   I have nothing left to give.   It's all gone.   The audience have gone home and the stage is a dusty platform waiting for the next deception.   Sorry, production.

[amd1953]

Hello therising,

I sometimes like to imagine myself drifting aimlessly in space but then I wake up to find myself drifting in reality.   It's like sitting on a raft in the middle of the ocean at night.   All you can see is darkness and the stars in the inky black sky above.   When I look at the ocean, that's inky black too.   There are other times when I would like to be lost in space.   I have enough supplies built into my spacecraft to last me a lifetime.   There are no other people to worry about and therefore, no one to compete or fight with.   No wars, no invasions, no secrecy, nothing!   No cold silences, no blaming, no hypocrisy to deal with.   I like to call it a spatial truth.   Absolute truth is incontrovertible.   If you don't want to get eaten by a shark, don't go into the water.   If you can't stand heights, then stay away from mountaineering.   It all seems to be commonsense stuff but how many of us heed the warning signs?   I saw the warning signs when I was about five years old, but I didn't realise how important they were.   Now, at the age of 72, I feel the sting of defeat.   I try to imagine being 14 again and it is easy for me to do.   How does one mature; by living and experiencing the good, the bad and Clint Eastwood.   The ugly is always there too.   Life is harder if you don't have the right appearance, the right temperament, the right skill set, the right answers, the right mindset, the right worldview or the right education that labels you as one of the chosen few.   Good people are just as prone to evil as the bad ones are.   I haven't worked out which one I am yet.   Perhaps a delicate blend of both saint and sinner.   I guess it all depends on which way the wind is blowing and if there is an r in the month.   As a metaphysical believer, I am a true Aquarian.   If we have nothing to believe in, then that is nihilism.   The truth is only relevant as long as it is believed.   I gave up on trying to explain myself decades ago because it was just too exhausting to come up with new reasons every time I was challenged.   Now I am nothing more than a speck of dust in the cosmos.   A free radical.   A rebel without a cause.   A true believer in something and nothing.

amd1953

[therising]

Hi amd1953

Though it is a while away, I greatly look forward to retirement. Much like yourself, the opportunity to have the time to delve into what's mind altering or mind expanding excites me. While I'm so easily led to wonder about so many things, I do fear becoming a full time researcher/wonderer in front of my laptop. Perhaps, to some extent, it's meant to be about theory and practice, as opposed to simply wondering and investigating the theory side of things. Kind of like investigating how good for the nervous system, vascular system, endocrine system etc walking down country lanes can be (compared to the dis-ease of city streets). I could research 'til the cows come home yet not step foot on a single country lane. To imagine all those energy systems at peace within me is one thing, to practice actually feeling that sense of peace run through those energy systems is another. Or I could investigate how good certain meditations can be when it comes to gaining a desired sense of emotion or I can practice meditating on intergalactic travels and feel the emotions that come with such travels within the mind 😊

I smile when I think of Pessoa, while wondering how the DSM-5 would label him in this day and age. I imagine it would see him labelled with many conditions, as opposed to being someone who is naturally brilliant, observant, deeply feeling and wonderful etc. What medication would he be put on? What therapy would be recommended to him? Would he still be his natural self, with all his unique ways, once experts got a hold of him? I imagine not. How many like him are out there now, misunderstood through labels?

I would have to say I'm in the process of no longer explaining myself, who I am, how I think, what I believe in and so on. I think justifying who we are, on some level, definitely becomes exhausting and it can become depressing too on occasion. Of course, we can be more than happy and even joyful to reveal who we are to those who don't grade or degrade us or who don't label us in some ignorant way. There can also be great  excitement in sharing the revelations that lead us to wake up to what we were once asleep to (who we truly are). Waking up together in this world is truly something special indeed.

[amd1953]

Hello therising,

I think you will find that time will pass quicker as you age.    It will happen in the quickest possible time, and you will wonder where it has all gone.   No matter whether we are shallow or deep thinkers, there is a price to be paid for all of this.   I like to refer to it as the "cost of living".   Some people work it out much quicker than others.   I am one of the others.   I always thought that it would be great if I had someone to advise me and help me along the way.   The first people who came into mind were my parents and then perhaps teachers might take an interest in some of us.   My parents bombed out very early in the peace and I became an asset rather than a fellow time traveller.   But say little of that.   I have certainly learned all of my lessons.   The only bad thing is that it was all too late to make any use of them.   When I was a child, I read of faraway lands and fantastic magical creatures.   The sky was always blue, and the grass was always green wherever you went.   People were kind and respectful to each other and when it rained, you never got wet.   Reality is stranger than fiction.   How dare we allow ourselves to venture into the fantastic rather than face what is jokingly referred to as reality.   Well, the shocking news is that there is no real world.   It all happens inside our heads.   I believe it's what they call "mind over matter".   But enough of such frivolous speculation.   Let us hasten to the fair and be amused by dancing bears and jugglers.   If we fill our days with such novelties and entertainment, we might just be able to work out our next move.   Mine is to read more philosophy books while pushing my eyesight to the absolute limit.   I come to praise Caesar, not bury him.   A little twist on a timeless classical quote.   If I have some time to spare, I might even consider consulting the Oracle at Delphi.   

amd1953

[therising]

Hi amd1953

The 'cost of living', I like that. Perhaps if we 'pay' with our attention, the wisest investments of our attention offer the greatest returns. Poor investments of our attention are where we end up paying penalties. For example, we could invest our attention in relationships that help develop us in the most liberating of ways, where the payoff is joy and greater consciousness or we could invest it in relationships with people who degrade us or bring us down. With the latter, it can end of costing us our self esteem, our freedom (to be ourself) and so much more. The challenge is to invest wisely.

How much easier life would have been if we'd been told from the very beginning 'Your task in life is to travel a landscape. There will be mountains to climb, valleys to navigate through, dark parts, brilliantly lit parts, parts with exciting scenes, incredible treasures to be found etc and there will be people you meet along the way (fellow travelers). Now, if you ever find yourself lost at any point, your job is to find the best possible guide'. Why does it take decades to finally work that out? So much time wasted by not finding the right guides. To be fair, some were never given navigational skills themself. Also, why does it take so long to work out that we have a compass in our pocket, one that comes in the form of 'feelings'? This feeling tells us we're heading in the right direction, that one tells us we're way off track. With such a compass, we can find our way out of grief, out of anger, out of oppression or even out of certain types of depressions. How does it feel to be told 'You are one of the most incredible people you'll ever know, one of the most amazing people, one of the most evolving people who is in a state of great sufferance at the moment, in the darkest part of your landscape' vs 'You have depression'? Which feels more liberating, more promising?

We are definitely the creators of our reality to a degree. In our reality we could declare 'I consult the oracle of Delphi' or keep that to ourself. We could go into meditation and imagine meeting with the oracle, imagining what she looks like and sounds like and what her nature feels like. We could ask her a question that plagues us and she could give us the kind of answer that would blow our mind. People could say to us 'You are mad, suggesting you can channel the oracle of Delphi'. Who is really the mad one though, the one that finds all the answers so easily outside the square or the one who insists we do nothing but suffer without the answers while remaining inside the square? Who cares where we gain wisdom from, as long as we gain it. 😊

[amd1953]

Hello therising,

Expecting fairness from this life is a bridge too far.   While we may always wish for it, the genie remains in the bottle.   Although I have known this word for decades, I never hold my breath when it is used in a sentence.   Sometimes, it is much better to expect the worst than the best.   Sad but true, I would suggest.

We do create reality for ourselves and others.   Careless, harmful words are a sign of a broken society.   I have always hoped for peace and harmony, but the desire is now on the wane.   I have withdrawn from this life for many reasons.   One of them is to try to maintain my own sanity.   As I have said so many times before, I wish everyone well, but I can only absorb so much negativity before I start losing the will to live.   It is better to make a tactical retreat than a forced one.   I would much prefer to live in peace and solitude than lose my bearings in a society I do not mesh with.   Of course, we talk of society as if it was one solid mass, but deconstruction permits us to immediately recognise that a society is constituted by individual people.   Whatever their intention might be we are expected to surrender to majority rule.   The minority is then pushed to the periphery of the society.   One bad word from someone completely disrupts the matrix theory.   Nature creates both harmony and chaos in a single thought.   Predators will always seek out their prey.   It is one of the basic laws of the food chain.   I have never seen anyone pulling a zebra from the jaws of a lion.   As much as we fight against it, inevitability assumes an overriding dominance over fairness.   The lion eats meat and the zebra eats grass.   Therein lies the natural order of things.   I began by expecting the world to follow an unspoken set of rules in which everyone was treated the same.   Now, I understand that fairness is a paradox.

amd1953

[TrueSeeker]

Hello amd1953

I agree with you that this world is not perfect and it's the creation of the "majority". I believe that we're all free to do what we want to do and if this world is a creation of the majorities way of how things should be done then let it be it. I personally think that the world can be much better and happier and I don't want to settle for something that someone else decided that it should be done certain way.

Dr. McFerrin Stowe said that no matter how inhospitable or crazy the world may seem, and no matter how badly others may treat you, it is possible to create your own world that reflects your own values.

I strongly believe in that. It's up to us who we invite into our lives and how we live it. Ok, we still need money to survive and follow the laws but we can still strive to live the way we want to live and not follow cultural standards that aren't really working very well anyway.

[amd1953]

Hello TrueSeeker,

It is the easiest thing in the world to look back on our past mistakes, failures and disappointments and then come on to a forum such as this and lament the loss of something we never had in the first place.   In the past, if something negative happened to me, I would analyse it and then brood over it for ages.   I always saw myself in the worst possible light and I never gave myself enough space to forgive myself.   I absorbed the pain of the world and told myself that no matter what I did, it was all my fault.   It took me decades to realise that what I was doing would never set me free.   I had to physically and mentally change my way of thinking and create a new system of thinking that allowed me to selfheal and then move forward towards something better.   Life will never be fair as long as we have to interact with people.   There will always be arguments and misunderstandings.   Some people know how to handle the pressure of confrontations, but others do not.   We allow ourselves to absorb the anger instead of neutralising it by refusing to let it have an effect on us.   Some people cannot walk away from a bad situation.   There is a sense of fighting for our dignity and winning the argument.   After all, we have our public reputation to defend.   What nonsense!   We should walk away from anything that causes a ripple on our pond.   

Another valuable lesson was to stop worrying about what other people thought about me or anything else.   Yes, we are all entitled to our opinions but sometimes they should be kept to ourselves.   It is all part of staying well and of staying focused on producing our own harmony.   No one else is going to do it for us.

amd1953

[TrueSeeker]

Hello amd1953

Yes, I don't think that there's a single person in the world that we'd agree on everything with. I believe that we're all different as we all have different backgrounds, lived different lives and chose different paths. And I'd myself choose solitude over people that make my life difficult.

I've done many mistakes in my life. When I look back, I know that all I did was my best, I couldn't have done any better than that. Yes, some of it worked and some of it didn't work but I didn't know that then. I definitely have my share of mistakes that I tried and still trying to fix as much as I can. There are things that I don't like and I can't do anything about like the background I was born in and these are very hard to accept.

[amd1953]

Hello TrueSeeker,

One important life lesson I have learned over time is to ignore the negativity generated towards me by other people.   We all have our own unique personal problems and sometimes we project our anger, disappointment and frustration on other people.   Of course, there are those who can control their response to this kind of behaviour but for those who feel the need to retaliate in the hope of gaining the upper hand, there is one essential question to ask.   What am I displaying about my own self by striking back at the person who has put me down?   The answer is to not respond at all but to simply walk away from any confrontation.   In the past I allowed any personal attacks to play on my mind but the more I considered my options; I chose to deal with this issue by not allowing it to control my basic instincts.   People can be rude and insensitive, we all know that, but to allow your buttons to be pushed and act on instinct, it is far better to show a strong resistance to being baited.   Instead of a response, the answer is a wall of silence.

amd1953

[Emotions26]

Saluti amd

I have not been able to find any words of interest to write.

I have been unwell for several reasons and the brain intrigues me so much how an unwell mind can affect us physically and and unwell body can affect us mentally.

Of course mind and body are one.

I have read some of your discussions and thought best not to try to join in as they were quite different to our style of connecting. Of course.

Similar content with a different style which was good for you to have a change.

Change is good even when we do not want it.

Refreshing for you to write to others responding to their style of writing and their way of thinking.

In my real world I had not been writing for so long and then just out of nowhere I wrote several pages.

I cannot remember what about or even where I put them.

I have so many loose pages as well as books as I think that I mentioned ages ago.

I still only write when the thoughts come almost begging me to put them onto paper.  A message from my mind to myself "write, write, write"

I have no set style of category. This is how I like it. I even wrote some prose. I quite enjoy that.

I think I read that you have been busy writing away.

This weather at this time of year which is particularly colder, wetter and gustier than past winters lends to opportunities for thoughts to flow.

I cannot do all of the gardening now.  I still enjoy pottering though and have created new areas of interest with different styles and species of plants.  This is my grounding. My sanctuary.  Birds close by.  Butterflies fluttering in and out of bushes and trees.  Bees hovering and some kind of native animal venturing out from one of my bushes from time to time.  The family of possums still residing in my huge tree leaving trails of evidence of their presence on the path alongside.

I am happy yet sad. I am content with my own company yet at times lonely.

Then again at times I am hungry and thirsty and others quite sated.

I am learning to not expect so much from life and notice what I have. I am aware of what is all around me.

I have much.

I hope that you are well.

You certainly sound more content and settled.

Take care

Ems

Each moment signals