Evening Walk

He likes to run and read the trees
for proof of tales he learned from the breeze

I like to breathe the still evening air
And see color bursts in the atmosphere

He leads us down this trail and that
scouring the ground to see what is what
probing around for passerby news
gathering from grass clandestine clues

I faithfully follow after
Playing my part in the slowing hour
Feeling deep green gently fade to gray
Witnessing the world slip off her day

As the last few birds sing to sleep
the light in which dark begins to seep
my friend and I stroll the roads alone
out in day and at night, coming home.

Pouring Rain

Drenched with pouring rain on a warm summer night
holding tight we fell down slippery slopes
of love and lust tangled in passion’s delight.

Feverishly driven forward with no hope
we could ever return to clean calm restraint
where under the blue grey then dark dotted sky
we’d watched our tower rise not knowing why
or where it would lead should we dare start to climb.

Still, in, through and up we flew rapt by its might
and like half starved lions suddenly tore
into life out of breath in thundering skies.

Union

Slowly, so willingly

I lay myself bare before you

wondering, thinking, hoping,

knowing you've got the right eyes.

Steadily, so smartly

I dare to discover your world

wondering, thinking, hoping,

knowing you're bare before me.

Slowly, so warmly

I move forward to feel your heat

wondering, thinking, hoping,

knowing the fire will soothe me.

Softly, so saintly

I go through your spirited soul

wondering, thinking, hoping,

knowing it flows on and on.

Slowly, so wonderfully

I interweave your hand in mine

wondering, thinking, hoping,

knowing your grasp will be light

Assuredly, so boldly

we'll wander exposed to the world

wondering, thinking, hoping,

knowing our bond will guard us.

Child Abuse

Oh misplaced me,
stolen soul
who should clearly be
spiriting near.

Standing by you,
tortured child
ready to rescue
allay your fear.

Free you from pain,
fathomed cruel
societies bane
your real nightmare.

Oh angel guard,
trusted dear
fly past kind regard
set salvation here.

Questions

I have several questions that I would like to have answered by the U.S. President, a man whom I would like to remind everyone is accountable to all of us. The questions I have should also be answered by the Congress, a body that, in my opinion, has failed to ask the correct questions thus far. My first question is, how much is this war with Iraq going to cost the soldiers and citizens of the United States? How many lives in the end will be lost or significantly affected or even hindered by non-fatal injuries? How much more of the taxpayers’ money will be spent on worthwhile projects in Iraq and how much more money will be lost or squandered on projects with no lasting benefit? What are the ultimate goals, how are we to measure progress toward those goals, and when do we expect to meet them? Clearly these are all questions that should have responsibly been answered to the satisfaction of the general population before the war with Iraq began, yet they have never been asked.

They are not unreasonable questions. In fact, I think they are common sense, and I think we should absolutely refuse to accept any amount of spin, half answers, refusals to answer, or indications that this is ‘hard work’ requiring ‘patience’ from the citizenry. Whether we agree that the United States should have gone to war with Iraq or whether or not we agree that we are now responsible for and can benefit from the rebuilding of Iraq, I think we can agree that the people in charge of this country should be held accountable and made to answer questions we deem important. If the government then refuses to provide straightforward answers to the questions asked by its citizens then those citizens should have an opportunity to file suit and have their case tried in a politically nonbiased court. We the people have the people have the power to vote, and between elections, we have the right to question and to challenge those who have been voted into public office. At several points in time during the history of the United States the importance of these rights has been clear. This is one of those times.

Stuck

Stuck: to bring to a standstill; render unable to proceed or go back.

We like to keep moving and are typically in a hurry; places to go, things to do, responsibilities to meet, people to please. And the people we try to please include ourselves. Certainly; mix in this concept of making ourselves content or happy, and you get an awkward situation wherein we struggle with and against our individual worlds. We have our needs and wants and ideals and values and others in our world have their needs and wants and ideals and values and they don’t always coincide. Sometimes we can work together to meet our individual needs, but often we are in competition.

How many examples of this competition can you think of? One only has to think of the salesmanship of politicians to begin to understand the competing needs, wants, ideals, and values of the citizens and organizations they represent. What about the legal system? Why exactly are corporations allowed to act as individuals, having rights separate from those of its members? Because the corporations have needs, wants, ideals, and values of its own that are sometimes or often in competition with others and the corporations have to be able to defend themselves against individual people. It sounds a little off, doesn’t it? The idea that a corporation with all of its members and the power inherent in collectivity has to be able to defend itself against individual people is a legal idea defining the rules of competition. Many feel that the rules are not exactly balanced.

So, in this world of competition where some individuals hold more power than others, how can we ensure that the needs, wants, ideals, and values of everyone can be realized? That is what we all want; to ensure that all of us are taken care of? None of us is any better than anyone else, right? How do we do it? Is it reasonable to expect that it can be done?

Moving forward we identify first where we want to go then determine how we will get there and try to predict any problems we may face along the way. We don’t want to get stuck on the way to meeting our objectives. Naturally, we don’t want anything getting in our way. The greatest problem that we have is our lack of sufficient vision, but we don’t always realize that and if we do realize it, we don’t always give the fact enough credit. We don’t see that we are the problem or we fail to admit to ourselves and others that we are the problem. And in doing so, we automatically get stuck without realizing it. The key, therefore, to staying free is to be aware.

Lessons learned?

Global nuclear war, the hole in the ozone layer, global warming, three ways that the human race has created the potential to have or actually had an extremely detrimental effect on the planet and subsequently, our own ability to exist. Are there more? It seems to me that while it is clear to us that we have the power to significantly alter the world to our own detriment, we fail to recognize the fact that we have to begin at some point to understand at all times the effect we are having.

I suppose that it is easy to simply argue that we can not be expected to walk on eggshells regarding progress or development in fear that we might be hurting our environment. But I'm not talking about walking around on eggshells and putting an end to or significantly stalling progress, I'm talking about developing our awareness of the things we take for granted and the effect we have on them. And I think that we will find greater progress through understanding the things we have to gain from this awareness and all of the many resources that are available to us and will continue to be available to us if we take care of them.

Interestingly or ironically, it seems to me that the answer lies with the Native American culture our society worked so hard to wipe out. The answer lies in their value of and extreme respect for the earth that sustained their lives. That is clearly not the only source, but I think its an important one.

Inside a flower its beauty grows
and when it blooms, its beauty shows.

The best teachers also learn and the best learners also teach.

Assholes and Angels

The first thing you should know is that everyone in this world is an asshole. Right now you should get over any idea you might have to the contrary. Everyone is an asshole, and that is okay. And this does include you. Now, everyone shows their asshole in a different way or in many different ways. Some of us are bigger assholes and show it in more ways than others. And all of that is okay. To a degree.

And just as everyone is an asshole, everyone is also a compassionate, caring, heroic person. Please note that this also includes you. So, while you are getting upset at the idea of everyone’s asshole, stop yourself and think for a bit about everyone’s heroic, caring side and begin to realize a very helpful fact: While a great many people wander around being one or the other all of the time, you get to choose which acts you allow to affect you. And not only that, you get to choose how they affect you. You can choose to focus on the good acts and in effect will be choosing to collect in your memory a set of good to great acts that will make you feel good about where you have been and what you have seen. This does not mean that you have to be blind to the negative things; it just means that you do not have to focus on them. You can see them and at the same time not let them affect you in a negative way.

I think we all have a responsibility to do something good when we see something bad Given that we have a chance to help. On a rare occasion this may mean that we have to be heroic. Here we need to make sure that we do in fact have the resources necessary to help, i.e. we need to make sure that we can help without hurting more. This includes ourselves, we don’t want to get ourselves hurt very badly while solving a simple problem. Be careful and good luck. I will let you debate whether or not this is a responsibility or an opportunity.

Knowing that everyone is an asshole and assuming that it is okay do a degree, you have to agree that it is okay for you to be an asshole. To a degree. It is okay for you to be an asshole on occasion simply because you are not omniscient and subsequently can not be expected to know every second of every day whether or not you are being an asshole. This is not to say that you at times will be perfectly aware of the fact that you are being an asshole. At those times you have a responsibility to stop being one and start being good. This will often involve apologizing depending on how much damage you have done while being an asshole.

There will also be times when you are not aware that you are being an asshole but others are and are willing and able to point it out to you. For this you should thank them, because they have given you an opportunity to do something good. Now, if someone believes that you are being an asshole and tells you about it, but you are unable to see it, lets hope that if they are right you will eventually be able to see it. If they do tell you about it and you see it and agree but do not subsequently do something good, please know that makes you an extreme asshole. That is very bad. If you find that a people are often letting you know that you are being an asshole, please try to learn to recognize it yourself and then subsequently spend more of your time doing good things.

Sometimes you may be told by someone that you are being an asshole when you really are not, but they are unhappy or just being negative themselves. Also, at times you may think that you are being an asshole when you really are not. In either of these cases, it does not hurt to get a second opinion. Ask someone you trust to help you understand whether or not you are being an asshole.

To sum up, acknowledge that you will sometimes be an asshole and that you will also sometimes be a caring, compassionate, heroic person. You have a choice regarding whether or not you focus on good or bad things, and you can see bad things without focusing on them to a point where they affect you negatively. When you see bad things and are given the chance, you have either a responsibility or an opportunity to do something good. This may mean heroics. Be careful. You also have a responsibility to be aware of and control your own asshole and to act accordingly when someone is able to make you realize that you are being an asshole. You have a choice. Choose to focus on good things and choose to be good. If you can do this, you will do very well with most aspects of life.

What men lack in sophisticated grace, they tend to make up for with brute force.

Reality

I think that I am finally beginning to understand a concept that has been introduced to me several times by several different sources. I am beginning to understand that I have the option to choose what I see or hear or taste or smell or touch. I get to choose my own interpretation of the world around me. We all have the option of choosing our own interpretations of the world. We get to choose what we see.

It sounds simple. I have to admit that I was completely sure that I fully understood this before now. I was not a ‘victim’. I was a very independent person, making my own decisions based on independent interpretations. Or so I thought.

I think my first clue came after I watched ‘What the Bleep do We Know Anyway’ which states that while we typically take in a few thousand bits of information about our environment, several million are available to us at any given point in time. I took this to heart and one day, while driving a route that I drive on a regular basis, I focused on different aspects of the environment. I was in a public park and driving slowly, so it was easy to focus on a variety of things other than just the road in front of me and other cars on the road. On this day, instead of giving my attention only to where I was going, I focused on the sounds of the birds, the trees, and the sky in the background as well as the road. The interesting thing was that when I got to a stop sign, which I stop at on a nearly daily basis, I had to think about where I was! I actually had to think about the direction in which I needed to go, left or right. I never had to think about it before, I just knew from years of practice.

For the sake of efficiency, I understand the value of having a pattern or process that informs the next step, but I also understand the value of challenging the status quo in order to see and experience new things. How many inventions would never have come to light had their creators not challenged the status quo?

Notice also that I did not limit my focus on the road ahead, I merely expanded my focus to include other things as well. I don’t presume to think that I can be omniscient or nearly so, but I wonder now how many things I can be aware of. I’ve often heard and talked about the ‘filters’ that people use to view the world. I understand the value of these filters, but at the same time wonder how they might be expanded. I wonder how my own filters might be expanded and what the effect of that expansion might be.

I’m not the most social person, tending to think of myself as a bit awkward and out of step with the rest of the world and subsequently uncomfortable in many social settings. This lack of comfort and its effect on my actions has often been a source of frustration for people around me and several of them have challenged my beliefs. What if they are right? What if I expand my understanding of the social experiences that I have? What if I expand the amount and types of information I take in while relating to others? What would be the effect of this change to that particular filter?

Statisticians tend to refrain from saying, “I know”. Instead they typically say, “I think”. And these are people who deal with large amounts of data using (hopefully) unbiased, mathematically based filters. I think I’m going to start using this practice of saying “I think” more and “I know” less, and I’m going to work to expand my filters in any way that I can.