A Variety of Thoughts About Everything

 Or Resist and Die? I was just recently on a webinar where the person speaking was talking about the new world that we are in. Where How we make an income is changing. And she said, "There are two types of people in times like this. Those who adapt and thrive, and those who resist and die". Unfortunately, I am not sure if that is the exact wording. I came and wrote it down while the webinar was still going on. And my memory got fuddled in the 15 seconds it took for me to open this up and write it. The presenter on this webinar was talking about the business world. I, rather automatically, shifted this out into the entire realm of life. Life as it is today. And here in the United States we are watching this go on in real time. We are seeing a Massive Reaction, Socially, Politically, Business, Religious, to a shift that is happening in this country. A large part of the population does not understand this shift, is scared of this shift, and is violently resisting this shift. Wha...

 Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:39, and Mark 12:31 Let me start off by saying that I am neither Christian nor any other Religion. I do not believe in any god out there. I believe that a truly Spiritual life involves a lifetime journey inside ones self to get in touch with the Creator that we all are. And, I also grew up in these United States where the predominate religion is Christianity. And I was exposed to, and later studied, the christian bible for myself. And later on a whole bunch of "holy books" from other religions. The hypocrisy that I could see being practiced daily by the "true believers" around me helped me, as much as many other things, to get to where I am with my spiritual beliefs. I am not trying to argue with anyone, or try to convince you that I am right or correct, or that you are wrong and incorrect, just explaining so that you understand where I am coming from. And if you are offended by what I say then ok. I really don't care, although I do u...

 When I was young I was in a state of defiance against everything. Occasionally loud. Usually quiet. My actions usually spoke much louder than I did. There was this Blacklight Poster that was around that I really identified with. It showed a mouse flipping off and eagle just before the bird's claws took the mouse. It was, to me, epic. It looked like this. I cannot find the one that I remember. This is close: The poster that I remember was from the viewpoint of just behind the mouse, literally on the mouse's back, and looking up at the bird and the Bird's Claws with the Mouse's Middle Finger in prominently displayed. And I really liked it. More importantly, I Identified with it. To give you an example of what defiance looked like for me, any of you that have read my previous stuff know this story. So here it is again. My Step Father decided that I should wash dishes after dinner every night. For some "reason" I took this as a massive imposition. And, I would st...

 Solitude is most definitely a double edged sword. And which side is cutting one depends entirely where one is in life. If one is in a place of Being Insecure, not in touch with Who They Are as a Human Being, and generally, not in every case, and maybe not even in the majority cases, when one is younger, then solitude can be a bad place. It will then be a place where every single mistake, every single time that one could have been a better human, every time that one felt bad about themselves, will be repeated on a loop thus reinforcing ones negative self image. Also, in my experience, every single slight, trick played on one, nasty remark, all the things that will make one mad, will also play on a loop. And ones stress level will go thru the roof and one is hating everyone and everything. So, one is either feeling extremely bad about who they are, or one is feeling the euphoria of negativity that in anger and hate. A very toxic mix. And there is also what a friend of mine called "...

 I was in a Zoom meeting today. And the speaker was just filled, overflowing with, Gratitude. It was coming out in everything that was there. The Voice, the Words, the Body Language, everything, was just exuding Gratitude. And Joy. So much Joy. And, while the words were important, and very effective in telling a story of addiction and recovery, it was everything else that conveyed the important message. That  not only is recovery possible, that recovery can be great. And I needed to remember that today. I have a lot of internal stuff going on and I am wrapped way too tight inside my own head. I could, and do, call it, getting lost in the weeds of life. And I forget how wonderful my life is. Especially in comparison to how it was the day I walked into my first meeting. And later, when I made the choice to stop using and try doing it someone else's way instead of my own. Along the way I have had many moments. Some Great, some Good, some Meh, some Ugh, and some Terrible. For all ...

In 1992 the the young Governor  of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton, ran for the Democratic Nomination for President. He got it. And then he went on despite several nasty scandals, to win the Office of the President. Four years later he won re-election and thus was in office for eight years. Again, surviving some nasty scandals. During his first campaign, in 1992, he had an internal motto. He had it plastered all over his campaign headquarters. That motto was "It's the Economy stupid". It was a way to keep everyone focused on the theme of the campaign so they would not veer off of it to far. I have taken that and reworded it to keep us all focused on the main problem with our country now so we do not get lost in the weeds of the symptoms of the problem. And one of the most visible symptoms is the Orange Felon. And people feel that if we could just get rid of him then everything would go back to normal and we could undo the damage that he has done to our country. I real...

 Here is another thing that we hear around Recovery meetings a lot. Principles Before Personalities. Seems pretty straight forward on the surface. And yet, like so many other things, more will be revealed. To begin, when I showed up in Recovery I had only one principle. Get mine. I was Self Centered and could only think about "My Needs". I had no Empathy or understanding that other people existed in their own lives and did not exist to cater to me. So the first thing that had to happen was that I needed to learn some new principles to live by. And the first ones that I needed to learn were ones that are directly mentioned in our Basic Text. It is in the part in the beginning of the chapter called "How It Works". And it says  "There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery; this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritual principles. Three of these that are are indispensable are Honesty, Open-mindedness, and Wil...

This is something that one hears in the 12 Step Recovery world a lot. Surrender to win. And when I was first starting my journey of Recovery I could not grasp this concept in the slightest. I could somewhat understand it intellectually. I just was baffled by it on any level deeper than that. Fortunately I had people who insisted that I use a Dictionary and look things up. And yes, I started this journey before the Internet was really a thing. I had to buy and actual Dictionary. Today we are going to use Dictionary.com to look these words up. Surrender: verb (used with object) to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress. to surrender the fort to the enemy; to surrender the stolen goods to the police. to give (oneself ) up, as to the police. to give (oneself ) up to some influence, course, emotion, etc.  He surrendered himself to a life of hardship to give up, abandon, or relinquish (comfort, hope, etc.). Synonyms :...

 I am a Techno Geek who spends a lot of time in what some people call the "Wu Wu" world. I am a huge believer that Science and Technology can be used as Positive tools to fix many of the problems in this world. I also am a huge believer that our current way of Spirituality, Religion, is completely broken, and we have outgrown it, and that Science can give us better ways of seeing the Spiritual in our Universe. And is doing so. And, over the years, I have heard the phrase that is the title of this piece, "There is no such thing as right or wrong" many times. I was having a discussion earlier with someone, a very enjoyable discussion over all, and this person said that. I was in listening mode for the most part and as they went on and talked about how it worked in their life I just took it all in. And I was really surprised by how this, otherwise very intelligent, person was disconnected from the reality of the world around us. As an intellectual exercise there is not...

 So. I am "celebrating" another complete journey of the Earth Around the Sun. AKA another year of life. AKA a Birthday. 62 years old. Like most people I really enjoyed birthdays a a child. They were fun with the gifts, cakes, and other foods along with we were celebrating ME. And, like most people, as I got older birthdays lost their luster. I just stopped caring about them entirely. I am not anti birthday like an older sister of mine. I just don't think that they are important. Yeah. I was born. As we all were. And yeah, I am going to die someday. As we all are. What I find important is what I do in my life between those two. The dash between the dates on the obit or the headstone. Just as I enjoyed my birthday as a child I liked all the other holidays as well. Memorial Day. I did not yet understand the significance of this holiday. Just that there was parades and cook outs. I liked all that. The 4th of July was just fun. The fire works. The parade. The small, usually ch...