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How I Act and/or React

 When I was young I developed a set of really unhealthy coping mechanisms to a life that I did not like and scared the living heck out of me. One of the biggest is I became a Reactionary. Instead of having a considered response to anything I had an emotional reaction to everything. They were automatic and required no thought or consideration. I was like a push button automaton. Everything I felt, said, and displayed just rolled out. No thought required. And for many years that is how I rolled. And I kept wondering why my life was a mess all the time. As I began a journey of healing and discovery I had to learn how to Respond instead of React. And when all I have done in my life is react then replacing it with responding is difficult. To say the least. And just to clarify, a Reaction is an automatic response that requires no intellectual effort, no thinking, and is preprogrammed, and usually fueled by emotion. It happens instantly. A Response is something that does require thought. It r
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Evil is Banal

"What chilled and almost cowed him was the union of malice with something nearly childish. For temptation, for blasphemy, for a whole battery of horrors, he was in some sort prepared: but hardly for this petty, indefatigable nagging as of a nasty little boy at a preparatory school. Indeed no imagined horror could have surpassed the sense which grew within him as the slow hours passed, that this creature was, by all human standards, inside out—its heart on the surface and its shallowness at the heart. On the surface, great designs and an antagonism to Heaven which involved the fate of worlds: but deep within, when every veil had been pierced, was there, after all, nothing but a black puerility, an aimless empty spitefulness content to sate itself with the tiniest cruelties, as love does not disdain the smallest kindness? What kept him steady, long after all possibility of thinking about something else had disappeared, was the decision that if he must hear either the word Ransom or
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I Am The Creator

 So many different times in my life I was in a place of misery that I was not finding enjoyable at all. In my negative, at that time, view of life I was not finding any part of my life uplifting or enjoyable. And I had no idea that it could be any different. I just figured that this was my life and that was all there was to it. Nothing was ever going to change. Pretty bleak way to exist in life in my point of view. Many years later, or ago, depending on the perspective, I began my journey of life. And I say began because I feel that I was not truly living before this. I was merely existing. Going through the motions one could say. And as I learned how to be a Human Being I began  to see that all along I had been making choices about how to live and, more importantly, who I Am as a Human Being. And even though those choices were made not knowing that I had choices I was still making those choices. By default. It is kinda like the old thing in court, Ignorance of the Law is no excuse for
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Well That Didn't Look Like What I Wanted

 I remember when I was young, probably in my preteen years, I had this fantasy about being a Rock and Roll Drummer in a band. I obsessed over that idea for several years. So one day my Step Father handed me this square thing made of wood with a round rubber pad on it. It was a gift, I think for my birthday. And I had no understanding of what this was. He tried to explain t me that this was a drum pad. And that this is what new drummers started with to learn timing etc. And he was correct. I now believe that he went to a music store and the people there had explained all this too him and he had given me that to help me to get started based on their advice. So I believe. I will never know. This did not look like a drum set to me. This did not look like anything having to do with learning how to be a drummer. And it was definitely NOT what I wanted. And today I feel badly about this. After all, my Step Father, Henry, was doing the best he could to help me realize a dream that I had. And I
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Time

 "Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived." Jon Luc Picard, Captain/Retired Admiral Starfleet (Played Marvelously by Patrick Stewart) When I was young, very young, the word Time had no meaning for me. It was the moment that I was in that was important. A day was an incomprehensible eternity. I could not fathom what that meant. It did not matter, to me anyway, that I had no concept of time. After a bit, a few years I began to get a stumbling concept of time. It began when I started noticing that each day, while long, was not infinite. It had a beginning and an end. And, after some more time, I began to distinguish hours, minutes, and seconds. My sense of time and it's meaning began to flesh out for me. Later on in life, when I
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When Depression Hits

 For the last few weeks I have felt myself slipping into a depressive episode. So I, of course, did what I do best. Ignored it, denied it to myself, and pretended that I am just fine thank you very much and how are you doing? I am not just fine thank you. I have been having to deal with depression for most, if not all, of my life. And I have not done a really good job of it over the years. The last several years I have gotten better at it, and I am not real good at it. As people who have been reading my writings for a while know I grew up in less than ideal circumstances. Not blaming anyone, we all do the best we can. And sometimes the best we can do is not that great. Just as true for me as anyone. And in those times we did not talk about things. Especially not mental health. The stigma around mental health issues was even stronger then than it is now. And it pretty potent still. So I learned, at a very young age, to not talk about things. To stuff them away as to be unseen and unhear
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Being a (Step) Parent

I was talking with a friend on the phone today. A person that I have not spoken to in a few years. We used to talk on a regular basis and then life happened and we drifted in different directions. Nothing bad. We just stopped talking. And he was talking about being married now, which I had known about, and being a Step Father in a blended family, which I had also known about and had not really stuck in my head. And as he is talking about this, especially around Christmas and other Holidays when everyone wants to celebrate with this child, I was also hearing the Joy and Pride that he took in being a Positive Role Model for this child. As he was talking I was reflecting back on my growing up in a blended family like that, with a Step Father, with family that was not biologically related to me, and reflecting on my very different experience. I have written enough about my growing up life in other places for you all to know what I am talking about. A brief summary, it was very different fr
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