Sweet spot

Been sick lately. Usually my body has no problem defending itself from light stuff like coughs and colds. My son got a cold and I managed to help his body beat it within a day or two. Full out assault with natural medicines to help his little body fight it off before it got a good hold of him. He started to cough this horrible barking type of cough about a week ago. The miracle cure was apple cider vinegar, which I gave to him warm with honey and organic apple juice. Luckily his body had no problem with it (I get burning in my belly if it take it too many days in a row)…and it kicked the crap out of the cough. I supplemented it with a bit of colloidal silver and a few doses of Vitamin C. Suffice to say that it was the perfect amounts at the perfect time and his body booted out what threatened to be a long and annoying illness (maybe would have lasted a week or two).

Right….so in the process I got sick. I took lots and lots of stuff including many doses of oil of oregano under my tongue – fun to see how long I can leave 3-4 drops there before I start crying in pain…..I’d explain the values of all these things but if anybody reading this really wants to find out I suggest doing the research on your own – I’m too lazy to do the links tonight. Now usually my body doesn’t get sick…at least it hasn’t in the past year or so since I started working on my mental and physical health. This time I’ve been slowly losing the battle.  The symptoms are still very light, but gaining a bit of ground – been almost a week-long battle in my body and I am still only barely sick. Tonight I had a moment of weakness which will surely cost me dearly in the battle, but it was just so enjoyable that i don’t care…it looked something like this:

Breakthrough

The very best part of a struggle or difficult period is the moment that the resistance gives way and we have that magical breakthrough.   In one instant all the work comes to fruition and we are rewarded with a wonderful release.   The process is akin to reaching orgasm during sex – with one key difference.  With sex we truly enjoy the entire process because it feels great the entire time.  So why don’t we enjoy our struggles in life?

We seem to be very superficial and weak creatures at first glance.  Short-term memory driven pleasure seekers that cry at the smallest scratch.  But when we are truly tested, we often rise to the occasion and sparkle with tremendous depth and passion.  Once through….we all too often return back to the shallow realm of waiting for highs or lows to snap us back into the present moment.

First let me talk about the risks involved with massive breakthroughs.  The biggest and most obvious risk is to sit back and spend too much time feeling proud of ourselves for our achievement.   While I definitely support the idea of reward and nurturing confidence, we run the risk of falling into arrogance if we spend too much time in that space.   We quickly moves from the realm of not knowing the answer to thinking that we know many if not all of the answers.  It seems to be a natural process for a mind which favours simplicity.  Our minds seem to take every experience and catalogue it so that it can be applied to any future scenarios.  The problem of course is that the mind rarely if ever accounts for novelty.  This means that when a similar (but distinct) obstacle arises in our lives…we immediately apply the methods that got us through the last…but maybe it backfires or fails.   Now…if you have back-up program 175B then it should kick in and tell you that there is absolutely nothing wrong or nothing to fear in making mistakes…..

If you do not, then your mind must regroup and come up with a novel way to address a novel problem.  I believe that with enough life experience and learning, it is possible to reach a place of pure novelty creation  – kind of like being in sync with the novelty which surrounds us constantly.  Imagine a place where the struggle is just as pleasurable and novel and fun as the breakthrough.

Starts and finishes

I have been having very intense experiences lately. It’s kind of hard for me to tell if it has to do with premonition or not, but I haven’t felt anything along these lines in about 13 years. Much thought about life and death – been cause for much anxiety. It has all made me realize just how far I really am from being at peace with my own eventual end. In fact, I rather fear that place. The thought makes me feel uncomfortable in my own skin – it brings me to a place that is so hyper-rational that I essentially lose touch with my own body and lose myself in the world of ego paranoia. Because let’s be honest about something – if there is nothing after we die (not as we know ‘something’)…then it matters very little what I feel about it when the moment comes. Not only is worry useless, but the real kicker is the concern that one specific part of us has for something which it will likely never experience – it’s own annihilation.

My personal belief is one that has something enduring past the moment of death, just not anything related to our ego, or our own impression and understanding of ourselves. I believe that everything which we understand to be ourselves, that is, all that I have as a mental concept when I say the word “me” disappears. Perhaps the very core of my life essence, that same thing that makes all creatures on this planet look out from their center and BE outwardly and inwardly….that perhaps makes the journey, but there exists no identity attached to it. This is my belief. Given that this is the way that I see things, it makes that specific part of me quite anxious at the thought. Nothing on this planet wants to end. I mean that – absolutely nothing. Not a virus, not a bacteria, not an ant, not a plant, not a dog, not your brother or your grandmother or your son or even you. This is why everything struggles in the face of its own demise. This is why you need to take antibiotics for the full seven days, hehe. I’m certain that once we have the science to show us – we will learn that everything has some sort of consciousness of itself, and fights for its survival without really knowing why or for what…just that it wants to be.

One last thing. I have seen one thing. Life gets more powerful as death circles. The moments that I have had in this lifetime (not many) that have had me at that precipice have been the ones when I clearly felt more alive than ever. As if the two (life and death) crystallize one another…..Jesus Christ said that in order to be reborn into this world, one must die first – I’m not sure that people (myself included) realize what this means. I do not see a difference between the death of the ego and physical death because the experience would undoubtedly be the same for the part of us which worries about it.

Critique

This post and the last one have been in my head for a couple of days now – only getting to them tonight.  I wanted to blog about another interesting theory regarding criticizing people.  It seems to me that in order to criticize a person, you assume one of two things:

1) They are in fact incapable of doing whatever properly – or more specifically incapable of doing whatever to your satisfaction.

2) They are not doing their best.

The second thought really fascinates me.  It comes into play for lots of people when they criticize people (and/or their actions) and get very passionate about it.  I have two major issues with this reasoning.  The first is how can a person honestly know where another person is at.  The second is that people in glass houses sure do throw lots of rocks.

It’s like back-seat drivers who live in the world of fantasy, the world of imagination.  What is criticizing and blaming, other than trying to put someone else down?  Think politics, think our childhoods (our horrible parents), think high school, think our neighbours, think our children, think everyone else but me.  I think that criticizing is usually a sort of masturbatory mental game isolating one specific aspect of a little corner of life and showing how much better we are at it than whomever we are criticizing.
It’s essentially a waste of time unless somebody outright asks us to do it some constructive way for them – or if they work for us, at which point they just have to do things our way.

But to get back to my point…it’s that imaginary moment in our heads, when we think about the person doing or saying something or other.  Our caricature of them is usually laughable.  We  need to create a dramatically exaggerated thought or image so that we can even believe our own storytelling.  It’s a really good thing to keep in mind when we get upset with another person – to try and maintain something real in the mental game, it will usually protect us from saying nonsense (or worse, actually believing nonsense).

Favours

It’s funny to wonder sometimes whether someone is asking for you to do them a favour – or whether they are requesting that you do something specifically the way that they want you to do it.  This comes up lots in relationships.  “Can you do this for me?”  ….   “No, no, no, you have to…”   “Oh jeez, was it so difficult to…”

It ends up being passive aggressive sometimes when people ask for favours when they do not allow you to do it as you see fit.   If I am to ask a favour of somebody, then they are in fact doing something for me which they have no obligation to do – I should just say”Thank you.”

Short one

My son was explaining to me in tremendous detail (show included)  how his toy cars were crashing into each other and how they flew through the air.  I smiled to myself because he just went on and on and really it was just nonsense that he was yapping about.  I also realized that maybe someone else watching would become bored almost instantly – for me it was the greatest show on earth.   After the cars, he was showing off how he could wrap his arm around his head and hold his ear,  AND dance at the same time.  He asked me if I could do such a feat…..

Wrestling with demons and losing control

Have you ever just flown off the handle? Had a series of moments where you genuinely let it happen without exercising control? Well I have. I can be a seriously mean S.O.B. – and I feel that this blog would not be honest if it did not include the wide range of human emotions and experience. Within me and within everybody exist what can be considered demons and angels. One tries to maintain some sort of order and structure to what comes out in our day to day life – but once in a while….

A specific set of circumstances come together to form the perfect storm. Maybe a physical pain or problem, a headache, a bit of stress, some major emotional event that pushes you to your limit, maybe a belly ache, maybe someone who won’t listen to you, maybe someone is upsetting you, it can be all sorts of things. Once in a while it sets up a scenario in my life that I do try my best to deal with and resolve – and sometime I just plain fail. Sometimes I prove unable to surmount the feelings and I lose it.

If we are talking about these extreme scenarios, the control switch cannot be found after very few moments (in normal scenarios, several opportunities to shut it down become available)…it builds like a roller-coaster, eventually culminating in what is usually a most regrettable event. Maybe we say things that we shouldn’t, maybe we fight with the wrong person, maybe we hurt ourselves, maybe we hurt others, maybe we act rashly, etc. etc. I’ve gotten to a point before where I couldn’t look at my own reflection because it gave me shame to see where I was. I was a monster to myself.

The one positive thing about these things is the ability to relate to others going through difficult phases. I can be far more understanding of a person struggling with their own demons.

I try to get back on track at the very first chance that I get. The moment that I can get my footing back and am no longer sliding down the slope, I begin to walk properly once again.  I don’t think that it is always as much about how fall down I fall – as much as my ability to pick myself back up and continue on my way.  I imagine that those close to me would disagree with this last statement.

Beach day

Sunday has traditionally been the day that I go to the beach with my son. On most occasions, we are joined by my ex (his mother). I live in a tropical part of the world, so as summer comes along – the water gets nice and warm. The beach where we went had these massive waves today – some were 10 feet high. Awe inspiring really. I had brought my boogie board with me, so off I went into the ocean without wasting any time.

I think that one of the keys to survival when the ocean is throwing those size waves at the shore is having a great respect and appreciation for the power exhibited. The waves were also rolling in at a fairly fast rate, so a small period of not paying attention could bring truly undesirable events. I made my way out a bit and tested out the strength of the waves.

The undertow was tremendous, so it was important to place myself in good position to either catch the waves or be able to either swim below them or get far enough away to not get broken in two. So how did I do? Not bad really. Never did have the balls to try and ride one of the huge ones, but did ride a whole bunch of fairly big ones (5-6-7 feet). Also had my board smashed into my head by one of the bigger ones because I didn’t get away in time. Got flipped around on two occasions for the same reasons. On the whole it was awesome!

There were a few kind of magic moments. I found myself waist-high in this warm water covered in lots of foam (waves breaking nice and hard made for foam everywhere). It was like being in a jacuzzi. I was careful not to get lost in reverie, but the whole moment was overwhelming. The sound of the waves crashing and the foam bubbles popping in the sun, the warmth and smoothness of the ocean water all over my body, the sun blazing down with tremendous force, my body tingling with life because I was pushing it to its limits (I actually was left breathless two times where I just had to go an sit down from being so exhausted from battling these huge swells) – I found myself truly in the present moment and loving every second of it. Each wave rose from the ocean, slowly forming and edging its way towards forming a crest, and then this kind of timeless moment just before they broke with a thundering crash.

Once I was tired of playing with the board, I spent a good chunk of time just playing around with my son in the waves and sand on the beach. He’s growing up very comfortable with the ocean, I think that by the time that he’s 7 or so he’ll probably be a phenomenal swimmer (he is only 3 and a 1/2). That reminds me, at one point these three cute girls swim out into the waves and end up beside me. They were just swimming, no boards or anything. While I was struggling not to get killed they looked like dolphins gliding below the mammoth waves and body surfing the others. Gave me a bit of perspective to see them move with such ease in the water (local girls for sure)….and then to see them on the beach after I got out – myself trying to catch my breath and these girls relaxing with a cigarette, pretty funny. I must be getting older.

Same day, different post

Just a few more notes about my last post.  I can only really work on that which relates to me.  Everything else involves too much guesswork and inevitably is egoistic in thinking that  know what is best for other people.  With respect to my ex-wife, there are two key aspects which I focus on in my homework.

The first is how she affects me.  I continuously work on disabling the stranglehold which I have permitted her words and actions to have over my feelings.  I have been working with the utmost attention to disconnect myself and be able to choose my reactions more maturely.  She has gotten used to various paths which produce specific fruit for her, so I cannot really blame her for continuing to try – but I can work on having new responses.  The biggest challenges involve guilt and being threatened with things that are of importance to me.  The latter is easier as I have been able to extremely limit that which she has influence over in my life.  I ask for NO favours and have never been in debt to her.  Guilt, well guilt is something that I am learning to get over.

The second key element is how I behave with her.  I have as my goal the ability to be impeccable in my actions.  Lofty goal, I know.  But if I really pay attention and consciously act whenever I interact with her, then I can truly reduce the times that I am the cause of unrest or problems…bring it down close to zero.  Even if she wishes to blame me for things, if I can get to this point then I can honestly feel free of any accountability for scenarios.

I think that life in general is like this.  You can only do your very best, but as long as your very best is where you are as often as possible – then you are doing perfect.  Many people fail to recognize this in their lives because they have some sort of objective concept of perfection which compares their actions to something objective and not to themselves.  The key is realizing the subjective perfection that is achieved each time that we are free to be ourselves and act from our center.

I had a moment of weakness this afternoon with my son.  I had a wonderful morning with him and find myself on the cusp of maybe starting up an interesting business alliance…great day really.  Out of nowhere I had asked him to take his sandals off before going on the bed.  He looked at me with that face of “I’m going to push the line right now.”  I told him clearly that I didn’t want to get angry, but would do so if he didn’t listen to me.  Well he didn’t.  I raised my voice with him.  Now, normally I would say that it was all fine and justified – but while I told him to take his sandals off I find my voice being much more severe and harsh than I wished it to be.   I heard my father’s voice.  It scared me almost as much as it scared him.  I’m not sure where it popped out of, but it was a bit surprising to say the least.

A little while later, before we had a nap together, I spoke to my son about that moment (which lasted about 5 seconds)…he started to cry.  I explained to him the importance of listening to me and also apologized for losing my cool.  I explained to him that it isn’t an easy thing being a daddy and that I am doing my best, but that I made a mistake in allowing too much force to enter into my voice.  I told him that we all make mistakes, and that he too makes them and will continue to make them as his life goes on.  I am trying very hard to teach my son honestly about life.  This includes admitting when I make mistakes and sometimes expressing difficult emotions with him.  It is not always easy, but I whole-heartedly believe that it will be something that he respects and appreciates as he grows up.

Some people are best left be

Ex-wives for example, people who are so very used to the comfort and normalcy of being able to pull strings and get reactions. I believe that these connections may take years to properly morph into something functional. I’ve been divorced for a few years now, but as we have a joint-custody agreement, the contact and connection between has remained strong and often troublesome. But seeing as my son is the key element, it is a necessary evil (our difficulties) that sometimes passes between his mother and myself.

I consider myself to be a fair person, and a kind person – and a generous person. She’s also a good person, just that she has gotten used to an unhealthy way of being in relation to me (as have I in relation to her). She often becomes akin to a little girl that cries for attention, if the attention is not provided then she throws a tantrum or looks for whatever she can touch or manipulate in order to force attention upon her. When I am more generous with my time and energy – I’ll tune into this and try to provide some useful energy or assistance to her without getting involved in her drama. When I am less generous, I just cut off ties for the most part with her and let her deal with her issues on her own.

For example, she may be in a rut and wants someone to feel shitty with her – instead of joining her, maybe I’ll help her do something totally different. I used to be generous with my money, but she has recently declared her independence from me.

I applauded the event, seeing as she wanted to do her own thing without my help – unfortunately for my son, most of the things that we do together as the three of us involve spending money, so he no longer gets to spend time with both of us at once…kind of a baby and bathwater thing. Unfortunately for her, I felt that it should be fair that I remove all help that was not necessary. What annoyed her was that I used to wash my son’s laundry all the time at my place, even when he was staying with her. It was a favour and it was clear that it would eventually be her responsibility to wash his clothes when he was with her. I give her more than enough money each month and explained that she could easily bring it to a laundromat (she has no washer and dryer) – well out of pure laziness she didn’t want to do that and got pissed off. All the same, we eliminated free lunches and such as well as laundry.

So her business has been struggling lately and she is way behind on her bills. Both her cellphone and land-line have been cut off and as her business relies on appointments – there has been no way for her to get calls….so I was at the telephone office to pay my own bills and decided to pay hers. I know, it was a mistake and while doing it I realized that it would probably bite me in the ass. And it did…..she called me on her now-working line to give me the height of shit that she didn’t want my help. My bad.

The crux of the problem is that if two people have problems while they are married, and decide upon having a split-custody agreement with their child – well those problems still need to be addressed. Aside from the stupid ‘favour’ that I did today, I have pretty much removed all influence that I can have in her life and that she has in mine. As such, she cannot threaten things and she cannot blame me for everything in her life. It has been somewhat successful. It is a work in progress…

Off to play with my son.