A Variety of Thoughts About Everything

 As anyone who knows me or has been reading this blog for a while knows I am an addict in recovery. I have been clean in Narcotics Anonymous for a little over 28 years. I am NOT any type of spokesperson for NA or any other way of recovery. I am now, and forever, only speaking for myself. It is my thoughts, experience, and opinions that I speak, write, or in any other way share. Having said all of that I think that I have a voice, a voice that is completely missing from this topic, in what is going on in drug policy, and especially the so called "War On Drugs", in the country and world. A little bit of a back story. I grew up in a small town in New England that was, quite literally, the back end of nowhere. And in this town growing up, mostly in the 1970's, you could get pretty much any drug you wanted. Same as in the big cities. It might be stomped on a little harder, and there might be "supply chain issues", IE a dealer busted, that might temporarily cause a sh...

 There is this wonderful song by an artist called Aloe Blacc. And in it is this line "All this time I was finding myself, and I didn't know I was lost". And I got to thinking about that and well, here ya go. So many of us humans spend time Being Lost and a lot of that time we are totally unaware of this. We are just stumbling thru life trying to be the person that our family, friends, the society around us expect us to be. We are totally disconnected with the inner part of ourselves that knows that there is more. That we can, and should, be more. Or something/someone else. And somewhere along the way we can sometimes sense it. That something just ain't quite right. And most of us have no idea what to do with that information. And life goes on. And, for most of us, life is fine. Nothing really bad is going to happen because we are not living up to who we should be. Nothing will make our life terrible just because we are, on a very deep level, being a fraud to ourselves...

 I believe that all Humans are born with impulse to create. That each and every one of us has a very specific way that we are supposed To Be and to Create from that place. And the ways that we are meant to create and the end results of these creations are as many and as varied as the people who are now on this world and have ever been here. Some ways of creation may be similar, and sometimes almost indistinguishable from other ways. Yet each and every one of us is unique in some way or another. As everyone else is also unique in some way or another. Yet we all have many similarities we share with everyone else. Making us very similar unique people. With the power to create uniquely similar things in similarly uniquely ways. I also believe that every single act of creation has an effect on the world around it to one degree or another. And, there is also creation of Light and Dark, Good or Bad, Positive or Negative, Yin and Yang, natures. Everything that we create is in one part or a...

 I am looking around at the mess that this country, and a lot of the world, is in right now and I see a lot of people asking this question in one form or another. And I have an answer. And it is probably not one that any of us are going to like. The short answer is that we all are. Every single one of us collectively and individually. The Blame, the Responsibility, is completely collectively each and and every one of us. Without exception. And No, this is not a case of both sides are as bad as the other. While we are all Responsible we are NOT all the same. Now I know that it is not "fashionable" to take responsibilities for this mess. That we have been conditioned to look at "the other side", or both "sides", and blame them for this mess. The reality is we are all responsible. There are, however, some who are more responsible than others. Those are the ones with Intention. We shall talk about it all here today. First off the ones with Intention. I have ta...

"And How Well We Keep It" I like to read. I have ever since I learned how to read. Very early in my reading "career" I fell in love with, among many genres, Science Fiction. I still read a lot of Sci-Fi. There was one book that I read a long time ago, and shall soon reread I think, and very early on the two protagonists meet. And after they meet and separate the "Hero" is discussing a matter involving some things with another person. And, almost as an aside says the following about the other protagonist: "I admit I hadn't any notion of the part that W****** played in the matter - he's apparently an absolute devil." Now the person he was talking to was rather rattled by this and basically asked who had told him such a thing. And the following dialog took place: "No one. It's obvious isn't it?" "Not to ninety nine percent of the civilized worlds it isn't. What made it so obvious to you?" "Certainly any m...

 ... The Right Thing Usually Isn't. I was listening to another one of those stories on social media. And this line was said. And I thought that I really need to tackle this. Not because I disagree. I agree with it totally. Because I really want to unpack this and see what it looks like for me and maybe see something that I am missing. Whatever that unknown thing may be. Now let us look at the environment that surrounds that statement. I believe that Society that we live in makes this statement relevant throughout our history. If one studies history, as I do, we can see that Appearance has always mattered more than Substance. As long as everything looks good then everything is good. Right? The fact that inside everything is barren and broken, that there is no happiness or peace, that every day we feel a little more hollow and/or dead inside, none of that matters. Because we MUST keep up appearances'. Even when we are committing a wrong and hurtful thing, or looking away from a w...

 Some of us were talking a few days ago about Forgiveness and what it is and the process to be able to actual be able to forgive and not just say it or think it without meaning. And during this time someone talked about Being Judgemental of others and how that gets in the way of being able to forgive. So, before I continue, it is time to define the difference between making a Judgement and Being Judgemental. And, as always, I shall use dictionary.com as part of this. Judgement (Noun) 1) an act or instance of judging.    Synonyms: determination 2) the ability to judge, make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, especially in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion.      a man of sound judgment.    Synonyms: prudence, intelligence, wisdom, sagacity, perspicacity, discernment, discrimination 3) the demonstration or exercise of such ability or capacity.      ...

 One of the first things I wrote when I started writing this blog was a thing called " A Star Trek World ". And in that I talked about what that world looked like for me. It was, and is, a beautiful way of seeing the world. In my opinion. Since then we have had the National and International disaster that is Donald Trump. The ongoing Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza. The invasion of Ukraine. And rising tensions around Taiwan. And there is more. In Africa, Asia, North and South America, everywhere. There is a heck of a lot going on in this world right now which says that we are in trouble. The most troubling thing for me is not all of these things going on around the world. As horrific as they are. It is the very sharp divisions that run thru our various societies. Everywhere in the word we are seeing our societies getting fractured. Along Political, Sexual, Religious, Racial, etc, lines. All of the ways that we use to identify who we are is being used to further the separation from e...

 ... and what that means about us. In the last few months I have had a lot of stories show up on my Social Media newsfeed. And these stories all tell variations of the same story. In that story the narrator is either an angry old solitary man, widowed and retired and/or a biker. If retired a mechanic or some other type of person who works with their hands. Or someone who is really hurt and isolated who is sometimes thinking of extreme solutions who is a younger person in the finance or tech side of the world. In the narration there is usually some sort of talk about how the world is really loud with a lot of shouting going on in the media etc. And something then happens where the narrator has to interact with someone who is their complete opposite in everything political etc. And it becomes a heart warming story of people who disagree helping each other to survive in this loud and cold world. And, no matter whether the narrator is the older or younger person, and it is usually the ...

Throughout my life I have been in places where I feel like I have finally become someone and feel like I am finally able to just be. And then it all falls apart and somewhere down the road I find that I have gone thru another transformation, and that I have now become something other than I was. And then I settle down again to another time of Being. And the trap is that I then think that I have arrived, that this is it. And feel as if there are no more transformations left now. The problem with that is that then gets me into a place of Being Stuck. And, as anyone who has ever had a car stuck in deep and sticky mud or clay knows, once one is stuck it is difficult to get moving again. It usually, almost always, requires assistance. And, for me, Asking for assistance, asking for help, is the one thing one must never do. When I was young, very young, I learned that one cannot ask for help. One will never get it. In fact, one will usually get the exact opposite of help. What I could not see...

I was watching a blurb on a video channel from a fairly popular streaming show today. The scene was an elderly man talking to his very elderly Father and inviting him into his home for what is left of his life after years of estrangement. And at the end the Father said to the Son something to the effect of "I don't deserve this". And the Son replied "What does deserve got to do with it Pops"? And that kicked off a line of thinking that lead to this. A long time ago I went to a city that I had never been to before to visit family. A big event was happening and family from all over was coming to be a part of it. At that time I had about three and a half years in recovery from addiction. And one of the things that I had been taught from the beginning is to find a meeting when in a strange place. Well, this was a strange place indeed :-). So I called the local hotline. They told where there was a meeting about 15 minutes away from where I was in a little over an hou...