Gehenna Part 1: Vision without sight

                                 ** Under Construction!!!**



Part 1:
Gehenna:
Vision without sight, how do I teach a blind man to see?

        Aegroto, dum anima est, spes esse dicitur. (It is said that for a sick man, there is hope so long as there is life.) I will ask for your patience, reader, for at this point in my personal development, I often feel as one who is wandering in the darkness carrying a candle behind her.

    In hopes of creating some light around me, rather than ruminating about the minutiae of life, I would like to use my vantage point of time to explore the plethora of complications prevalent for me.

    The vanguard of my meditation lies in that life leads to the vast majority of people suffering and juxtaposed to this is the all too human adapting of our attitudes toward pain.

    I posit that my every day being, in and of itself, presents real scenarios and can draw out very real emotional responses to the nature versus nurture problem. Sine qua non to the latter is the hallmark of an entwining confusion of suffering fashions itself before us. 
 
     Exploitation creates no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest and the torture of others. I believe that never in my days, has the imbrications of the latter been clearer than my recent interactions with medical doctors here in Ohio. The sycophancy demanded of me has evoked an affective response so I forewarn the present audience.

Learning to suffer in a world full of pain…

Gehenna Part 2: Lost but now I'm found

Part 2: Lost But Now I’m Found

     “Life is a grotesque practical joke constantly pulling away chairs from under… [human] dignity and reason. Nothing is sane, reality is a hall of distorting mirrors reflecting the grimness of our own pretensions.” (Milton Schulman)

   From the somber décor of gray monochrome, an intransigent stranger emerges almost inaudible. Without false modesty, she attempts to escape the game of the rules. Stipulating absolute conditions doesn’t interest her, she simply wants to be; she wishes to know herself, her limits, and what similarities the world around her shares. She pitilessly expels air in a vulgar attempt to communicate, to understand, but her words seem to fall into veritable voids (deaf ears).

     She integrates and disintegrates concepts, she both sees likenesses and differences; she does not fear “chaos” nor “order” only mans ability to say one thing and mean another. I’m condemned to the harsh moments of reality. I cannot free myself from memory, and in the habiliments of black my eyes set sail to a not so distant possibility of the grave.

   Dionysian and Apollonian intellectual aspects (as Nietzsche categorized) should balance out, there must be a moderation of all things in life, for life to sustain. Our all too passionate nature perhaps leads us to the inchoate quality of being, that binds us to contradicting impulses and constantly leaves us to recreate a construction of who we are in the eyes of other.
   
     With fists of rage I slam the grounds of reality. With a hammer and anvil I seek to pound away the residual garbage that masks the love that I most dearly advocate.

   My time is a slice of life cut off, separated from all of the others, and then captured on this piece of paper. To have a moment when everything else stops and takes heed to your words, your pain; is this captivating ideal not what each of us strives for? I mean, do most of us not toil through a lifetime of hardships, hoping solely for those precious few seconds when we finally can be heard?

    Do we not all secretly long to be understood?-- and, do we not also long secretly to understand others? Don’t we want to be tolerated and accepted, included (rather than omitted), and contribute our small part to this world?

     “Chaos is what his confession echo’s… against. Chaos and time and circumstances and the old news, the bad news that we still walk in circles, each of us trapped in his own little world. Behind bars. Locked in our cells.” (Edgar Wideman, Our Time)

    Endowed by powerful insight, I now embark on the terrifying voyage of exploring my own inner depths of pain. Underneath the veneer of society I have lay dormant, a sleeping giant perhaps, waiting to emerge when the moment was right. May there be light in my virile inquiry, for my capacity for true Knowledge is grossly limited. This having been said, shall be proceed on am ambivalent struggle?

Who never ate his bread in sorrow

Who never spent the darksome hours weeping

And watching for tomorrow

He knows you not, you Heavenly powers.

-- Goethe The Sorrows of young Werther, 1774

     The German Storm and Stress proto Romantic movement of the late 1700’s, emphasized strongly the importance of literal physical suffering but gave violent expression to difficult emotions extolling individuality and subjectivity over rationalism. Becoming distinctly aware of oneself and motives became paramount to life. A new esthetic imbued with extremes of emotion and greater human freedom from despotism became suddenly imperative. So I question back to you, my critics, who doesn’t feel?

     Vedanta Hinduism says that we have 4 Puru artha (or goals) in life from which we each must choose: The dharma life emphasizes religious, social and moral righteousness in both spiritual and ritual courses of action; The artha choice has material ad financial prosperity as its focal point; fulcrum to the kama way of life is material pleasure; and finally the quasi-escapist route is the Moka to opt out of everyday being in a sort of spiritual liberation or renunciation as well as detachment from the joys of everyday being. A goal implies a want. Man is said to suffer because he wants and desires (tanha). The 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism teach a follower to seek and acquire: “an extinction of desire which leads to liberation”.

** Epicurus of Samus (341-270 BC) Greek Philosopher who founded the Epicurean school in Athens: sought happiness, the chief human good, which was attainable through freedom from anxiety and fear. He believed that any research that didn’t contribute to peace of mind was… futile!!**


      According to Schopenhauer, if we know great suffering (I.e. pain) we can deny our Will. We can either lead ourselves to loss of will to life or, have a knowledge of the essential nature of life in the world through the observation and compassionate realization that others also suffer, just as we do. As mortals we can stay in the self-absorbed, childish and ultimately destructive tendencies to deny our pain scapegoat our accountabilities and sever ourselves from reality. To subjugate our emotions into insatiable hungers--un-fill-able needs and to become human sink-holes is SAD!

     Addictions or frivolous pursuits inevitably construct relationship problems and leave us unaware of a greater reality around us. I think that addiction is the great implosion-- the collapse of society into itself. Overindulging and impulsive behaviors left unchecked… pleasing and entertaining oneself… whilst living at the dangerous base of Vesuvius, leads only to death. The experience of the fall of man… seems as a result of man’s freedom to decide his course of action. High-risk behavior is not an illness it’s a choice; just look what happened in ancient Pompeii.

        Historically speaking, pain is constituted as not only necessary but also as a passageway to higher being. Dante says that in hell, we should: “Abandon all hope yea who enter here”. Thus he warns us that our expectations and desires will guide us astray… “At the midpoint on the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest-- for a clear path was lost…”(Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto 1)

    History warns against and condones selfishness; teaching us to learn from our experiences of suffering… “There is no greater sorrow than to remember a time of joy, when misery is at hand.” Expectations, expectations, expectations; they are everything in the mind of mankind! Suffer gracefully, friends…

Gehenna Part 3: A Fisher of Men

Part 3: A Fisher of men

      In my isolation I dig, unearthing a grief buried deep inside, sorrow opens her mouth and swallows me whole. The jaws of darkness crunch down devouring all; behold the exploiter’s hell (for hell be my indefinite surroundings), my life, this horrid sadness that plagues the very essence of my being. Bombarded by chaos, nightfall embraces my shadowed soul. Fueled by the pangs of hunger, in wreckage I open my eyes. In time of crises I, the mercilessly exploited, seek unity with humanity.

     I will not tolerate the dull acceptance acquired by habit, as if it were mankind’s common lot to live in this wretched condition. I strongly believe that no matter what emotions are impinged upon me, that the most important dimensions of life are those that delve into are choices and mentalities. Unveiling the guise of the battlefield of the capitalistic world’s apathy is imperative to me reinforcing my bond with other sufferers. May I now delve into a deeper gaze into understanding the human world? There are dark lines obtrusively present in the modern world, experiences that lie beneath our everyday being, that are rarely examined.
 
    Augenblick. A harrowing moment of thrownness has jettisoned into my conscious thoughts, who am I and who am I to become… and, does it matter? Is suffering a quintessential exponent of my life? Does the quest for happiness spur my cause for dread and misfortune? I am a naked women delving into dangerous territory called “perhaps”. On my tiny vessel of maybe’s I present you with coruscating postulates that could be deemed as non grandus anus rodentum, by less reflective individuals.

         Smoking in America incorporates 8.6 million people. At 5 minutes a cigarette approximately 43 million minutes are wasted if each smoking American only smokes one a day (that‘s 716,667 hours; 29,861 days; roughly 82 years of productivity set-back nationwide by cigarette smoking). Switching those minutes to numbers the cost per pack of cigarettes is $5.50 which makes 47.3 million dollars spent on cigarettes if each smoker only smoked one pack in the course of their lifetime. The estimated health care costs reached $96 billion in 2010 of smoking caused-- health-related illnesses.(www.lung.org)     

    Consuming alcohol was estimated at only $65 billion annually in health related costs in America(www.scu.edu/ethics).
 However, the estimated costs of alcohol abuse in 1982 were economically predicted to be $184.6 billion a year (www.Samhsa.gov/) .

   Substance abuse was estimated at a healthcare cost of $114 billion and $414 billion on total economic costs last year. (http://medical-dictionary.com).  



      STD’s infect 12 million American’s per year according to recent statistics (www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals); costing a mere $17 billion in health care. For 25 different STD’s there are more that 55 million Americans currently suffering from sexual choices. STD’s kill more than 4,500 woman a year.   

    “Get America Fit” campaign claims that 60 million Americans are obese. More than 1/3 or 35% of the United States Population is morbidly over weight. 9 million children, 1 out of 7 preschoolers are entering the gamut of our #2 cause of preventable death…(heart attack which can be associated is the #1 actual cause of death in America on a different set of statistics). In 2000, $80.2 billion dollars were spent of health-related illnesses to overeating Americans (www.ncbI.nlm.nih.gov). WTF??  

     Gluttony for Aquinas was a, “sin against God, just as all mortal sins in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.” In Dante’s Purgatory, penitents were bound and laid face down on the ground in dirt for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts. Avarice is a blanket term for greedy behavior and coveting also includes the common thread of Greed: an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs, especially with respect to material wealth.
 
     ~6.6 million hate crimes are committed per year that cost an estimated $50 billion a year of each state’s taxpayer money and $5 billion a year federal taxes just to house criminals in jail… mind you… and 40 million adults are severely affected by stress so much so that $200 billion a year is consumed by related problems…(www.fbi.gov)
 
    So… if your average true-blue American is wondering were all the $ and time goes… it’s to paying for the spoils of the “good life”… at least for those “independent individuals” who have time to exonerate themselves from the trials and tribulations of work to enjoy addictions and life’s excesses of pleasure!!! Talk about carnal errors Evagrius Ponticus, John Cassius and Pope Gregory I... Dante’s precursors to his Divine Catharsis. 

      Filippo Argenti of the Adimari family, while guarded by Phlegyas the avenger, resided in the river Styx for his gluttonous ways. In the 7^th Terrace of Purgatory--the Lustful-- the poet Arnaut Danials weeps recognizing his own mistakes, and sings these words: “Ara vos prc, per aquella valor/ que vos quida al som de l`escalina,/ sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!/ Poi `ascose nel foco che li affina.”(Dante’s Divine Comedy, 760) ... Translated roughly… “I pray you, by the power that conducts you here, be mindful of my pain…then he hid himself in that fire which refines”.

        …In the scope of The Divine Comedy, this occurs just before Dante the character walks through the threshold of earthly paradise. The sun is at the point of day’s departure, Dante is afraid to pass through the flames and the entire experience presents the example of active and contemplative life.
  
     So what’s the point? How do we respond to the vicissitudes of life? Do we make self absorbed and ultimately destructive choices to entertain ourselves and please ourselves? Or, quite to the contrary, do we attempt to resolve our pain and suffering by living a life of moderation and by assisting Others? Across the threshold of pain, I do believe lies salvation. Absolve yourselves of addictions friends, find peace in the mundane existence. And as a famous Jamaican once said, “Don’t worry Be Happy.” Everything is going to be all right; just have faith.

Gehenna: Part 4: Wandering Child

Part IV: Wandering Child
　

    Understanding, or attempting to understand, the world seems to be a favorite past time of the reflective thinker. Man has pondered, from the beginning of written history, one particular question: man asks why, and seeks the ultimate answer to why.

   This line of questioning is very much at the root of this paper and growing from it stems the question of divisions. “Shall I first invoke the Muses?--or, praise Apollo and his dynamically balanced opposite (so’s not to be subjected to that same unnatural act which befell Pentheus)?

      Should I pour a libation to Thoth?--or, perhaps, call upon Janis or Krishna or the one-eyed He, who is the mighty perch of the ravens, (Hugin and Munin, him whom drank from the well, well guarded by Mimir)?

       Oh, indecision… The grotesqueness of physical youth plagues me. I’m quite inadequate to state anything more than a problematic “may”.

    Perhaps my impossibility trope is not necessary. Perhaps none of this inquiry is necessary. Perhaps I’m not necessary. How difficult and disturbing my line of questioning becomes!
     
       Intimacy-- as the movie Love Guru said--is: “Into Me I see“. The guru states that: “If you Can’t love yourself, you can’t love another”, With such pearls of wisdom as: “No where… to now here”… “To know something is good… to do something is God”… the movie challenges us to Love one another and be compassionately active in others lives.

         Barukh Adonai yom Yakamas-lanu ha`El Yeshuateinu. Blessed be the Lord, who carries our burden; the God of our salvation. Selah. Psalm 68:19
     The God that daily burdens us to performing work (avodah) to repair the world (tikkun olam) leaves us as co-laborers with Him as our Salvation. We are yoked together as beasts of burden. A yoke is not the burden but the means of bearing the burden. Yeshuah helps us with this burden.


         Ha’El Yeshuateinu… The God of Salvation… bears peace all around. Barukh attah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, she-hecheyanu ve-ki-ye-manu ve-higianu lazman ha-zeh… Blessed is the God that has sustained us and kept us alive. “ For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” Psalm 100:5  Barukh attah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, hatov vocative.     

        Disturbance lies the counterbalance to empathy. If one may put their hand on the man from Galilee… and take a look at yourself … you can look at others differently. When observing compassionately Other, we find a much different way of Being for ourselves.

    To demonstrate all of the 7 holy virtues of Humility, charity, kindness, patience, chastity, temperance and diligence in their acts… one need only remember the Golden rule. “Do onto others, as you’d have done to yourself.“ With compassion we can find salvation in the selfless acts of love that assist others in times of need. We can share another’s burden and thus lesson the Atlas like weight of the world. 

        Through empathy, we can recognize a problem and help subside a Herculean effort for another. Through caring, we can turn a tantalizing situation for a friend-- into a simpler more easily resolvable issue. Two minds are far better than one-- grabbing a second human to compliment your efforts, instantaneously doubles our IQ-- and 2 backs, 4 arms and 4 legs make our strength far more powerful and efficient! By sensing another’s plight, by communicating, we can actively assist and hold hands standing against a fight to survive.

    
      The vicissitudes of life plague us all. No linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) or physical ailment can deny us this. We are irreversibly connected to a need to survive and, this commonality is irrefutable. Because we have needs, desires and we exist only in the presence of other… then, we must accept the suffering that comes from expectations (unrealistic or not) that are ingrained in each of us. Disappointment and loss are inevitable, but how we respond to our misjudgments is not written into stone until after we have acted.

       I am of the firm belief that it is our responsibility as autonomous individuals in a modern society to be tolerant of differences and set-backs. The freedom of man comes at a high cost. We each are liberated into a Sisyphean conflict within ourselves. Do we do or do we die? A quest for survival places Ananke or Maat force-constraint-necessity.

   The Germanic ideal of chaoskampf --struggle against chaos-- is man‘s desire for certainty pinned against impulse and wanton lusts for pleasure. Necessity versus Desire.
   
      Chaos vs. Order. The excitement of spontaneity facing the most indubitable comfort of normative Form. Wants versus Necessity. Our independence against economic constrains is paramount to our existence; as is our social need to be included is irreversibly connected to responsibility. 

     Now days, life seems to offer few pigeonholes such as the haughty Pharisees or Autokrator’s. Pejorative life ambassador’s that rule with despotism and absolute power have dampened in popularity. Concentration of power to one individual is so highly frowned upon, that it’s almost silly when one proclaims that something: “Simply isn’t one’s fault”. The kid with the milk mustache, holding the empty carton, by law of simplicity, is guilty of drinking the milk.
     
     Since Moses descended Mount Sinai, proclaiming to the Israelites that they were now the chosen people -- equals in the eyes and favors of God, and thus denoting the Atum, chosen man of God such as the Pharaoh-- life has been a whirlwind of individual and spiritual developments and discrepancies. Ultimately, the question arises can we accept our suffering, our pain, and own responsibility for our actions? Can we assimilate to Being and live authentically?

     Galatians 5:22-23 speaks of the fruit of the spirit being gentleness, kindness and self-control (fruit is mentioned 42x’s in the bible mind you). The word Love is mentioned roughly 697 times give or take a few pending translations (wrath is the only word mentioned more it’s around 800 times).

     Love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious… In 1 Corinthians: “The greatest of these…[virtues] is Love. Chara the Greek word for joy is a sense of constancy and hope. Being grateful and in the service of others allows one to suffer in joy. When I think to myself, “Why Me?”, I try to remind myself that I need to focus on being thankful for the opportunity to be alive and to serve in the changing of the world.

         My attitude is a matter of choice even if the circumstances currently present were unforeseeable. No matter what circumstances we face in our lives, as James taught the apostles… we must endure. We as individuals have to cultivate joy, look for things to be grateful for…use adversity for some good to change the world positively. If we can see the silver linings of the grey clouds, together… perhaps there is hope?

    I praise God for the blessings of the small things like birds, trees, water, breezes, food, puppies and chocolate… whatever, you get the picture it’s the little things in moderation that give me a sense of pleasure.

      Thessalonians 5:16-18 teaches to give thanks in all circumstances, blessings in another day of creation. A perspective adheres it may not give way. Philippians 4: 6-7 teaches that death is not the last thing.

    The English word for worry comes from the German word to strangle (ish kabbible-- I should be worried, right… can’t you take a choke??).JN 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” The word to choke seems exactly appropriate for the gut wrenching feeling that overwhelms us when we worry. In Philippians 4:7, “The peace of God, which passes all comprehension, shall guard.. [our] hearts and minds”; promises a peace which passes understanding if only we fear not and don’t seek an escape, withdrawal or removal from our problems. If we manage to not be apathetic, indifferent, unconcerned in situations

         “So as you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I’m going to spit you out of my mouth” Revelations 3:16... Apathy… Aquinas called Acadia an uneasiness of mind, Dante a failure to love God with all one’s heart, all one’s mind, all one’s soul… a sin characterized by an insufficiency of love. Sloth the sin of omission rather than commission… and have faith that: “God causes all things to work together for good of those who love God, to those who are called to his purpose” Romans 8:28.

      Since emotions and expectations are a part of life, albeit annoying, so is anger. (Even the work of Christ included a temper tantrum that destroyed a temple’s misconduct in a rage by overturning tables…Righteous justice… Matthew 21:12). Peace is a heart that’s tranquil even in the midst of adversity… we often worry about things that are not real likely to happen. When we change our focus from ourselves to others we find a sense of peace.

Gehenna: Part 4: Wandering Child...Section 2

        

  

       Unprovoked shark attacks are estimated at only 2,320 between the years 1580 and 2010...chance of being hit by lightening is 30 times greater--www.infoplease.com--… Crocodile’s with 5000 lbs --2.5 tons of pressure bite-- will go a year to 2 yrs without eating and cause less human deaths than hippos and the less than 100 accidental occurring bites cannot even begin to compare to the parrot’s 700lb per sq inch pressure bites of 3310 confirmed bites a year on humans.www.bobinoz.com. Deer are the number one killer of humans amongst animals not bears or snakes or spiders. And dogs top the charts of nasty encounters at roughly 4.7 million hospital confirmed encounters in the year 2011.

Human bites often are more dangerous and infectious… NYC had 1,587 confirmed in 1987... unfortunately we destroy animals when they bite, humans don’t subside to such punitive (Draconian) consequences.

 

“What is real?”

“Real isn’t how you were made”, said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up.” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse, “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.”

“Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand… once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.” (Margery Williams The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real)

      I think we suffer because we… ARE. Denying suffering is toxic.

   Some of us are not the best examples of Eugenics. The myriad of problems associated with the physical inability to sense warning signals in order to automatically preserve ones own existence can be detrimental to ones health. But being denied the genetic ability to know if ones physically hurt does not make someone less of a person, does it?

    Am I minimized as a person if I feel less physical sensation but more emotional turmoil? Tactical sensation is but one small aspect of pain.

   Suffering has extreme emotionally and psychologically driven aspects, and pain interpretation itself is a subjective experience. Not having my nerves growing properly, for me, has resulted in me often feeling odd or strange.
 
   I see a funny household pet wiggle at a scratch, I watch children receive gentle caresses, I wonder if things “touch nice”.        

    I constantly seek input from my environment and have to trust others for danger sensation.

  I long to have the comfort and satisfaction most people enjoy from a soft kiss, but my world is a little different.

   I am different but adequate and equal. Because my internal world is amplified by my inability to receive direct tactual input, I tend to empathize and assist others.

    I am always scanning my environment for clues and this awareness makes me a quick responder to another’s distress.

   I can realistically remove hazards such as small fires without others getting harmed. I can take hits and collisions into my body to save another. I get damaged but because I can’t feel I tend to fear less of the immediate and take the impact if another is in threat of destruction. I.e. I have been willing to sacrifice me for other in the past.    


      

     My body may not be able to adjust to the basic changes of the world.. POTS is a gravity problem, neuropathy leaves me prone to lesions, unnoticed bleeding, bruising, breaks and muscle tears.

   I am human Novocain (Dayton Children’s Genetics Department) and often my intensity leaves others to call me a super nova. I don’t know rest or sleep. Comfort comes hard. Anxiety is extreme.

   Malaise and sorrow often creep into my days. I am in organ failure. In pursuit of self-conquest, this little Dysautonomia has found herself putting her OCD plunderers’ fears aside.

  I have to either find a way to survive or make one.

  Ravenous creatures rip at my mind tearing away my every thought. What is this I feel… Pain?

  I do believe that the swelling of infection is causing the most severe discomfort of physical nature any mortal has ever bore!!!

  In the face of apathy on the part of Ohio medical practitioners I fly with impunity.

    100 visits to ER’s in the last 2 years have yielded nothing but insults. “Crazy” the nurses have called me. Not a medical diagnosis, I say.

   “Manipulative and deceitful… liar”, so says a fool unwilling to test the validity of a statement. Ignorance and arrogance are not a virtue and yet I am subjected to intolerance.

    “I’m mad, you’re mad, we’re all mad here” said the cat in Alice in Wonderland. But accusations without willingness to investigate warrants a blatant waste of time and harms life. My LIFE!!

   I have been dropped by Doctors who believed the cure to vomiting for 7 months straight was comeback for another visit in 2 months.

      “Nothing needs to change, everything’s all right”, I was told over and over again. So long as the doctor wasn’t in discomfort all was well.

    “Away and mock the time with fairest show; false face must hide what the false heart doth know… what’s done can not be undone.” Lady Macbeth spoke of the crossing of the Rubicon, past the point of no return… when a wolf in sheep’s cloak is exposed there can be no turning back.

    Local medicine has refused me basic treatment after finding the stabbing pain from my back spearing through my chest to be a 0% gall bladder functioning. I was and Am SICK!!!

    My mental disorder is actually my organs failing, an all too physical problem being met by others apathy. My life has an all too human the animal problem agitating it!!!
      
   With my liver potentially failing, this big pupil, pupil of life seeks an end to the patronage of patronizing fools.

  With courage and patience I am attempting to effect my fate and utilize my God-given right to turn the other cheek and run like hell to a state, that is not in confusion of what a person is paid for… to do their damn job!!!

   I fail to be impressed by: “I won’t do my job and no one can make me”, statements being made here in Ohio. Medical doctors are being paid to practice medicine, not to give face and act as a billing agency to abscond with insurance funds.

   I will make all efforts to exonerate myself from the tolls of village idiots and try to find someone that will furnish me with assistance or at least basic human to human comfort. I struggle. I suffer because I care.

   I desire to live and thus I feel… sad.  “My heart is sick and sad“(Chief Joseph)… I breath I Love… dum spiro spero… and God is Love.

  For this, I fight. Today I stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back into me (Nietzsche). The surgeon has not contacted me again nor has the specialist.
 
   Hope is wearing thin. I have found little response nor recourse for derogatory and blatantly malicious behavior on behalf of local doctors.

  The state medical board offers no recursive actions. I can not accept that a miracle is my only answer. I am sadly prone to Lessing’s Ditch, (I’m in dire need of the “Proof of Power”).

    I believe in God but not to the extent of losing rationality and logic. I can not make a leap into the metaphysical hope that things will mysteriously “just make themselves better“. I believe that without human custodianship, without human intervention we fail grotesquely as a species. God gave us the ability to help one another in times of great pain and suffering.

   That great ugly ditch of apathy strikes me as nothing more than a slovenly lack of courage and concern for others.
       

Speed wise-- cheetahs run 60 mph, average  household    

                 cats and dogs run twice the speed of our record  

                 breaking Olympians this year in London… strength

                 wise… (10) a bear lifts .8 times it’s body weight

                 1500 lb body lifts 1200 lbs (9) a mussel can hold 2x’s

                 its body weight on its very strong but small shell (8)

                 an  anaconda can squeeze something 550 lbs the same

                 as their body weight (7) Oxen can pull or carry 5x’s

                 body weight across rugged terrain…their weight is

                 1300 lbs and they can pull 2000 lbs (6) Tiger can

                 carry 2x’s their body weight and jump a 10 foot fence

                 with its prey… weighing in at 600 lbs a 1200 lb animal

                 can be what’s for dinner (5) an eagle is the strongest

                 bird that can fly with 4x’s its body weight (4) a gorilla

                 can lift something 10x’s its own body weight…a 450lb

                 gorilla can lift 4600 lbs meaning as many as 30 adult

                 humans at one time… top that man… (3) the leaf

                 cutter ant can lift something 50x’s it’s own body

                 weight… imagine a person who can lift a truck!!! (2)

                 elephant are the strongest mammals according to the

                 internet…tipping the scales at 1200 lbs an elephant

                 can carry 20,000 lbs meaning 130 human adults could

                 catch a piggy back ride without strain (1) The

                 rhinoceros beetle is not only the strongest insect but

                also the strongest animal compared to body weight…

                benching 80x’s their own body weight… man is weak

                without a big brain and cooperation that bridges the

                gap of time and removes the chains of darkness--

                   scienceray.com/biology/top-10-strongest-animals-compared-to-

                   weight

Gehenna: Part 4 Wandering Child: Final section

 

Death is before me today, like the recovery of a sick man… like the longing of a man to see his home again, after many years of captivity.

--Ancient Egyptian Poem

 
     Perhaps I will be consumed by death. Maybe the jaws of that great Devonian night will crunch down on my mortal soul.

   Perhaps I will fall into the devilish clutches of the endless acts of inhumane injustices and become but a number on a list somewhere. All of my authenticity may be negated by men refusing to reach their hands out to help a drowning innocent in the Stygian sea of doom. Perhaps the river Styx shall be my libation and Charon shall escort me to a Tartarus state of non-being. Who knows.

     My family is primarily deceased, and I fear not following them, for we have been promised to be together again. Draconian justice happens. As for my life, so long as there is breathe… pneuma… I will not be enslaved my lack of caring for I am master of my choices. When a secretary says who cares… I respond… “I care”. 

      When a complete stranger mocks my existence I wonder to myself what kind of disease of thought could prompt an individual to make such a rash judgment and be unwilling to modify their opinion in face of overriding evidence to the contrary provided. When my actual deeds, my reality, is passed as insignificant and unsubstantial in comparison to the thought in a ditzy fake blond that bleached her hair to death’s head… I sigh…This is SAD!!! 

     Pandora’s box opens when man has no re-pro-caution’s, or consequences for his actions. When accountability is lost, chaos will ensue. When impulses can not be kept in check an eruption of disorder will destroy our sense of humanity. I will not reduce myself to the disarray of such disorder. I am civil. The primitive being of addictions and fetishes will not consume who I am. My gentle, caring nature with persevere.

     Superficial dreams of miracles for extreme change are against my immutable character. I cry as the ignorant drive towards Earthly utopias, carnal pleasures. Pride and prejudice run rapid; malice and egoism are but corrupt alternatives to moral base. I immerse myself into this world with compassion, my heart is on fire and my spirit burns ever true.

   As the Phoenix, perhaps I too, shall fade into the rank miasma of my environment smoldering in the ashes of demise; but I will die knowing I stayed true to me… I loved and tried. I was not afraid to put forth effort. I hope that my life has had Reason. Zapfre’s Sublimation… I aesthetically contemplate how a man: “can have the word goodness in his mouth…[or peace, salvation, love” and a bloody knife between his teeth”(Eugene Ionesco). 

      My subject of cognition leaves me in a self-emanating torture. I realize that I must die, death is a constant, a certainty, that no man has escaped thus far (not even our Messiah) and yet I have small hopes of lingering on just a little longer.

    Life is such a habit that it’s hard to break, I am so imbued with the rituals and desires of continuing existence that, I can not penetrate the origin or root cause of where this disorder stems from. I greedily long for a few more days, for a little more time, a more satisfactory answer or two would suffice.

   I long for… no, I just long… and thus is the nature of my pain and suffering. I abhor myself for clinging to life, I know that I shouldn’t and thus again I “should-all-over-myself”. Oh! Oh! Behold! The infinitesimal troubles of youth. The fallacies of misplaced concreteness. 

   The possibility of not being… the unknown… still scares me. “I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens”, said the wisdom of Woody Allen.

     “Among the functions of the soul are lowly areas, he who does not know that side of her, does not fully know her.” (Michael Montaigne)

 

                  In a cabin tucked away, in the forest of my mind, a silence so deafening and disturbing reminds me of nostalgia’s existence. As darkness approaches my shelter, wearing a familiar shroud, I find myself praying to my silent vigil just to find the strength to live.

     Eye to eye with utter despair, I cry; for there is nothing so frightening as facing this unknown darkness. Although afraid, I am reminded of the fact that there is no change, which does not begin within this dismal place. With courage and patience I find, that this vast, dark, inner space, gives birth to light. 

     Trudging upward out of hell’s black depths and at last emerging to see the shining world, my definitive awakening (new sight, insight), perhaps may be indemnity enough for having endured depression.

 

Out of sheer strength,

I survived the inexplicable agony of my

metamorphosis (unlike Gregor Samsa).

 

         Hopefully, in the near future, I will learn to accept these deep moods as part of me… for they seem to be an essential fluctuation that I endure… “An empty stillness which precedes creative work.“(Karl Jung) I’m emotionally expressive… I’m a highly sensitive individual, and I need to accept that I am who I am! 

     I wish that I felt my work was done. But I fought the good fight and will continue to battle on. It ain’t over till it’s over, right? Till the fat lady sings? (Probability is that she will be American based on obesity statistics!!) I know the world goes on. I recognize that I am but a speck in the sands of time, but I still ask myself what was it all for?

   What did all of my sacrifices accomplish, if anything? Did I bring others a small shred of comfort. Is there sentiment in Being? My nuclear family is uniquely dysfunctional (Dostoevsky). I sit starring at empty chairs and empty tables where my friends will join me no more.

     Tortured and neglected, raped and beaten. Did my acts counterbalance the male treatments I received in life. Did any of my efforts make life a little more bearable for others? Did my empathy matter? I’d like to think so…if I did what I set out to do in my early years than like a guided missal I hitched my wagon to the star of Love and only slightly strayed on my pathway to heaven. I suffered but did so with grace. I thoroughly believe that my actions and choices did the least amount of harm and therefore were Just.

     I have ultimately been the author of my own destiny. I have not deflected accountability or responsibility. I have stood my ground in judgments and swift often cruel punishments.    

       I survived for a long time, and thus I have cultivated my garden of life. If others destroy, then that is their choice. If anyone would like to help me, then that also would be a viable option. I believe in an overarching structure in the ubiquitous “stuff” of life. Ockham’s razor.

   I hope that there is an ultimate Reason and Good and Order in the Universe-- a watch maker so to speak with a Natura non saltum facit. I maintain the firmly planted belief that God will choose the best in life.

   I seek to justify the imperfections in the world, the people who seem to suck all of the air out of a room upon entry and force others to walk on eggshells around them… “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved-- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”(Michael Montaigne)
 
      I seek a consolation of dilemmas like anyone else. I desire that there is a Knower, an Odin (if labels are not so important) a holistic world view that is not susceptible to imperfection, selfish desire and personal propaganda. I long for a better way to Be in the world vs. of the world.

   I loathe the fatuity of fortuitous self-emanating prophecies of self-absorbed peoples. I don’t like hypocrisy in medicine any more than I enjoy it in churches (I.e. why I personally believe most atheist are non-believers… long term harassment and exclusions for the sake of so called religions. The spoils of absolutists is burdensome and, tires those around them quickly). 

      Demise is a necessary part of sentient mortal being. It is important to my freedom as a human to know that death is inevitable. Accepting when is a different story. I feel as though I’m fighting alone in vain.

    Battling, without supportive evidence that my immediate survival/ continuation is possible, is kind of silly. I struggle with and for me though. I’m my own best advocate. For the 1^st time in my life I am simultaneously in spiritual, emotional and even physical pain. My chest hurts. It hurts to breath. I’m so sick of vomiting. Pain insensitivity my ass!

       Christ was right to call hell a garbage dump, but I’m beginning to believe that mid-evil Ohio itself with it’s apathy is my worst nightmare. I’ve continued to try to make a heaven of this place, but it’s seeming too much work for my little female self. My body is breaking down.

   God put life in motion, the rest is up to man, I just wish I had more assistance right now. This Nemesis cries out… a bear can be a teddy or a grizzly depending on the situation needed…. Embrace me, please, I suffer just as you do, fellow mortals!!!

Gehenna: Part 5: Child of Darkness

Part V: Child of Darkness
 
      Since childhood, I have had a love of building bridges. I am naturally interested in bridging gaps. In particular, I feel drawn to examining ways in which chasms disparate findings and theoretical constructs may parallel, complement and ultimately fertilize one another.

    For me, this inquiry was particularly fascinating. The opportunity to “quiet myself” and leave myself open to the inside world of another; and, to compare how his life was similar to my own, was incredible.

     My initial enthusiasm was met with some hesitation due to my predisposed tendency to bristle at the idea of putting a unique human being into a “box”. This trepidation, however, was lifted when I finally realized that I could tell about my subjects personality and still preserve the Gestalt (whole is equal to more than the mechanical sum of the parts), of my authentic, evermore forming friend.
 
     In addition to my being thoroughly entertained (by my interview with this Dasein), I believe that he also benefited from our encounter. My friend seemed amazed when I casually mentioned something personal about “him”, that he had never told a soul. It wasn’t until a little into our conversation that I finally confessed that I knew so much about him, mainly because his life (to quite a remarkable extent, might I add), mirrored my own. 
 
     I seemed to understand him from the inside-- how he struggled and why he felt the way he did. From my own personal experiences, I know how hard it is to try to learn to accept and value myself.

    In addition, I am most indubitably aware of how deep the desire is to find an understanding and completeness in life (then again, who isn’t)! My subject and I share a common battle; we each strive for a peace (both internal and external). “Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih, shantih, shantih.” I suffer, as he suffers, and we experience mortal anguish and pain as a necessary key to understanding ourselves and Other. 
    
     The Dasein walks out of the restaurant and onto the street. The sun has long since set, but this doesn’t worry him though; because after all, night is the mother of all council. He moves, “In hac lacrimarum valle”, slowly approaching his destination. Just as the mighty Aeneas, the Dasein too is a being that knows defeat and disposition, love and love lost. He knows about war and hatred, the ugliness and waste of it, but still he fights when he has too, with hatred and passion. He is dutiful-- oh, what a hard and weary duty he must endure-- he bears his fate with courage.
 
      He glances at a small chestnut tree and briefly reflects. The flora reminds him of the impasse he had recently crawled through in the hour prior. He grins as he continues on his way.
  
   The Dasein notices the bus parked at the stop ahead of him. With his eyes fixated on the vehicle, he quickens his pace. He endeavors to catch that bus; his stride widens until his last few steps(onto the intended transportation) are nothing less than a full bound. He smiles, a sense of accomplishment fills him as he pays his dues. He floats to the back of the bus joyously and takes a seat.
 
     To his right are two gentlemen who are engaged in a heated conversation. Upon further investigation, the Dasein finds that they are bickering about politics. One man calls himself a Democrat, and the other refers to himself as a Republican. Although the two views seem to originate from the same stem, the men still obstinately argue over their perceived differences.  
 
    To his left sit’s a couple. The woman starts to cry and the man snaps yet another bitter comment her way. The Dasein empathizes with her pain, but still he remains silent (so’s not to cause any stir of trouble in route home). “How can someone be so cruel and inhumane?” he asks himself. He listens to the tumult and shakes his head in dismay at what he’s hearing. 
 
    “Slaves struggling in their prisons of stone”, he remarks. He sees through their guises, and questions whether or not he was ever so shallow as they. He senses the in authenticity in his fellow riders. He is overwhelmed by an intense desire to scowl.

    Suddenly his train of thought shifts. He giggles and reveals to himself the fact that he has become a prime example of maze way re-synthesis. Who is he to judge their genuineness or lack thereof? He ponders whether they recognize as much of him, as he does of them. 

     “Probably not”, the intuitive feeler says to himself. Although he hides little to nothing, he realizes that he has depth and, depth can never be fully transparent.

    He finally resolves that he has few things in common with these people around him. Location, location, location. This idea fills him with a zealous enjoyment as he hops off the bus and heads home to his understanding wife and beautiful kids. His enigmatic eyes sparkle as he revels at the opacity of the here and now. Just as Atlas, he too is burdened by the world, and similar to Sisyphus he must also endure the absurd. Contrary (perhaps even in spite), to these setbacks the Dasein smiles.

 “[For]… he who has a why to live, can endure almost any how.”(Nietzsche)



“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

mit diese Herz hab ich die macht-- with this heart I have the power

 












 

The Champion (who lived toilet trained)

“Writer--a depository

Re-depositing waste into

The world”

Deep is the sinkhole of the mind of man

As he looks down the

Whole of existence.

 

6-feet deep in shit beneath the surface

Of a reality of the unseen

How much ground can pile on top

Of the shoulders of the Atlas-like man of letters?

 

How much bullshit can he spew out into the world

Of forgotten promises

Fallen dreams of fairytales

On the surface sets a promise a mass that sets her sails

Aboard the ship of uncertainty

I am tied upon a mast…

Odysseus avoids the Sirens

I release the past!

Resonating--resignedly--

Purging is the practice of cathextion par excellence.

 

The German and the Gentleman

“Consumption.”--he said with his mouthful!

The gentleman: “mastery of a skill, why the Sam-hell would anyone bother to do that? ‘Efficient?’ what kind of numb-skulled, brain-surgeon thinks anyone has the time to acquire anything like a lesson from another. I say… by George I’m too busy! I run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to repeatedly avoid the rat race of the city, and you are so convoluted as to think I have a moment to waste on being more efficient?…Well, I’ll tell you a thing or two Mr. OCD efficiency officer--with far two much time to parade around policing out judgments on another- get a life, will ya! Come on…I have an agenda today:

Breakfast

Drive my car

(From my house, with my things, which I obtained from my…)

Work

Lunch--eat, drink and don’t be merry

Work

Busy-busy-busy (didn’t get any work done got side-tracked)

Dinner

(my God who has time to shop)

Love on the wife--no mate (wife’s too dehumanizing and possessive for a politically correct properly core family such as ours--she says)

Sleep

Pete and repeat were brothers and I have to do this because it’s necessary. This is ALL I have to do today.

Can you believe it? Like I said, I got no snow-balls chance in hell of getting a second for myself! I have rights you know--who has the privilege of obtaining anything from others?”

The German: “Bountiful are the “duties” of an American man suffering the condemnation of the human condition. That’s why shit doesn’t get done!

Yeah that’s sarcastic repressed, and often expressed anger. Cope-u-lating: the process of fucking up while you cope. That’s where all the fuck-ups come from--ya know?-- the Elysian fields-- I think, that’s Greek to me!”

a bonmot cliché!

 What’s in your drawer? A jewelry box with Pearls of wisdom; what else would you keep in the kitchen but valuables?

Mr. Rogers: “Roses are red and violets are bluish

If it wasn’t for Jesus, we’d all be Jewish.”

Ms. Rogers: “Thank God Jesus came! So our mothers didn’t have to be virgins and we don’t have to be perfect children!” (wink, wink)