Journal Entries
Building a life
Posted Jul 8, 2000
Life, as we know it, is a series of random events with seemingly correlative links of a causal or active type. What we do sometimes affects the everyday occurances of this life, but more often, the events of our life just happen to us and we have little control over tham. We simply react to them. What most people try to do is a build some artificial construct with which they can delude themselves into thinking they have control of their world and their life. This process is accomplished by little steps, or building blocks. First one learns a few things about the world, unlearns a few others(like the fact that almost everything is out of our control), and learns to believe a few things that are obviously wrong. Then we apply these things to our lives to make our "careers" or path in life. We then surround ourselves with things that make us feel safe, comfortable, and in control. We buy houses, cars, couches, and a TV, hopefully with a remote control. We buy many things that we can turn on and off, in order to make us seem powerful. The last step in our life construction process is to create children that we can grow like garden plants, and clip and prune and shape them into new self-powered life building plants. Then we let them out into the world, and hide in the life we have built, happy without the knowledge that it is all a farce, and that we exist-and that barely, but our lives do not. They are just fictions that can be erased in a second with no effect at all on the way the world works. We spend our whole time on the planet trying to hide from the fact that we are each just a walking reaction to the stimuli of the natural world. So we build our floor, a base of beliefs to stand on, walls of control exercises, and a roof of young people who will bear the brunt of the events of the world until they are old enough, and have built enough of a life to hide protect themselves from reality.
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Latest reply: Jul 8, 2000
smell the roses along the way
Posted Jun 23, 2000
We all have to be happy with our chosen path, but there are many paths to choose from, not two, as you will be led to believe through reading the bible, American poetry, or Led Zeppelin song lyrics. We encounter small trails in the woods, and to choose to explore them is our right and our joy. Choose to explore these small paths and your courage may be tested, your will and your determination, and perhaps your skill will be brought into question, but maybe only by yourself. The little travelled paths are always the most fun, and often the most adventuresome. One thing nearly everyone will acknowledge is that there is more to see in the woods than on the road. Realize, then, that no matter which path you take, the destination is always the same, and our end is inevitable, so those who wander may enjoy more time smelling the roses and forget the flowers that will grow over our heads at the end of the road. .
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Latest reply: Jun 23, 2000
oops sorry
Posted Jun 19, 2000
sorry but the last journal entry is repeated twice, carry on
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jun 19, 2000
oops sorry
Posted Jun 19, 2000
sorry but the last journal entry is repeated twice, carry on
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jun 19, 2000
The troubled
Posted Jun 19, 2000
Tonight was Father's day. A guy walked in today who wanted someone to vent to. It seems his brother killed himself last year. It was his brother's birthday today. He said that his brother killed himself because he was molested as a child by a police officer he knew and trusted. The police officer was convicted of molesting 3 other boys but, due to the injustice system he only served four months of
an 18 - months sentence. I empathized, but I did not want to see his anger. I did not want to hear his need for vengeance. I did not
accept his pain as an excuse for drunkenness or ranting to myself or to my other customers. I had to warn him not to bother the other
people in the bar, that they did not need to share his burden. Eventually I had to make him leave. As a bartender I accept that I have to listen to the problems of others, and as a human being I feel compassion toward those in pain, but I was obligated by my position as a server/host/security guard to hold him at a distance in order to protect others from his sorrow and his anger. I could not be his friend, his shrink, or his priest. The result was that his pain was unabated, and I could do nothing to change that except to say how sorry I was and that I understood his anger. I also suffered because I was denied the ability to reach out and share my self with him. His story made me feel sad and frustrated but I could not open myself up to him and share my pain. I could not offer him comfort. I could only listen and maintain that good-listener look of minimal concern. The forced detachment we tend to adopt when faced with the pain of others is harmful to ourselves and to them. If only we could allow ourselves the freedom to share each others sorrows they would not become such a heavy burden to bear. With each denial of this comfort, our own burden increases and the distance between each individual grows.
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Latest reply: Jun 19, 2000
oldpinkdog, Counselor of Alcoholic Culture Jammers(Banging their heads against the wall of willful ignorance)
Researcher U138215
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