Spiritual

There can be no telling of this story without god.  Spirituality is just a plain fact of my life. I'm currently reading an incredible book that talks about religion. It has turned out to be one of the better books I've ever read. The book is called Ego and Archetype by one Edward F. Edinger. I am in debt to this man for putting this book together. It is that good. I'm not sure how much Carl Jung I would have had to read to figure out what Edinger has said in this book. This man laid it out in a single book that is quite easy to read. He had to do a lot of homework. It is not easy to understand all that Jung was trying to say, and anyone who understand history knows that because of the culture Jung could not say everything he knew. I've learned the most about Jung's life work reading the books of others who studied him. This book is one of those, and it has changed my life.

The book is primarily about three things, the ego and its relation to the Self, the symbolic nature of the Self, and how myths when explained psychologically are a path to the Self. Of particular importance to me is the story of the Lord Christ as a psychological phenom. When the stories and dreams of the bible are interpreted as how the psyche develops a whole new world is born. Of course all of this is of great significance to everyone, but this is incredibly important to me because of my childhood. I've engaged the Lord Christ in my life for a long time now, and as has been perfectly explained to me having read this book much of it went exactly as it should have. Waking up, growing up, purposefully increasing one's consciousness is not exactly fun. It's actually the opposite. It can be fucking terrifying. There is always a phase in growth known as the "dark night of the soul". 

On top of that, it always scares me when I read about how some people's psyches are permanently damaged due to childhood trauma. Edinger speaks of this. He has first hand experience of such people. I cannot help but ask myself, am I one of these people? That is a terrifying thing to have to ask one's self. I still feel much as I did when I was a child; no one loves me. By even asking this question I am giving voice to what I have been being told my entire life; there is something wrong with me.

The way I think of it, it's a double bind. Perhaps a triple whammy. Everyone, even if not abused, develops an ego, and must go through psyche work to find the Self. But the abused person, semantics; either develops a different kind of ego, another ego on top of the ego, or the link between the ego and the Self becomes broken. I can make a solid argument that because everyone in this culture is so ignorant of what it really is to be a human being, that all children are abused, so there are some fine lines about this ego business. I've never met anyone living in harmony with nature and culture. I'm sure different analysts, and psychologists have all manner of ways of describing these ego problems. I've read enough psychology books now to know this is exactly the case. Does it matter though what words we use to to describe the phenomenon? We know it is happening. 

That's why I am telling my story, because surely I am learning here too. They almost all agree one must tell their story. Humans are story tellers. It's why we have a frontal cortex.

It seems to me the real break to my psyche happened in two parts, at the same time it seems. One with society, or culture, and one with god. Not only did my own culture cast me out, so did god.

My family was already broken, I just didn't know it yet. You see, I had no idea that my situation at home was not right until I started going to public schools. In my child eyes, it was all I knew, and being it was all I knew, that is how I thought it was for everyone. I remember it as a feeling, I felt normal. I mean to say that when I went to kindergarten I acted my normal, and because I thought everyone had the same normal, that I would fit in. It took me a long time to figure out why I never fit in because this assumption was just how I saw it. Denial in childhood for self protection perhaps. Obviously, my home life was not considered normal or healthy by cultural standard projections, and so it started dawning on me very slowly that something was terribly wrong with me. This is perfectly normal for a child at this age to make that assumption. All children at this age believe the whole Universe revolves around them. I had no way to realize it was my parents who were fucked up. It wouldn't be until adulthood that I fully put the puzzle together

I was sent to the principles office the first week of kindergarten. My public school career started off wonderfully. For some reason when the teacher stepped out of the room I got up on top of the table dancing, acting a fool, to which she conveniently re-entered while I was mid stride. I don't remember why I was doing this. I was probably just showing off. I was probably unable to contain my anxiety. I was probably already longing for the attention of some girl in my proximity, hoping to be loved. 

I remember too, in those first weeks of school a girl sitting next to me, who asked to go to the bathroom, and was told no. The teacher said she could wait. A couple minutes later I could hear fluid hitting the floor. This was when we were all still unsure of how it all worked. She had no way to articulate, to stick up for herself, that she could not wait. She ended up peeing her pants, and I laughed at her. Donnie had apparently already effected my sense of humor. I got into trouble for this too. No one knew of course that I got beat at home for wetting the bed every night. I didn't know what shadow projection was at five obviously. Needless to say I didn't really make any friends in kindergarten. Technically I shouldn't have even been in school yet. I was too young. I didn't make the cut off date birthday wise, but JoAnn was in a hurry to get me off her hands. I passed the tests, and did well enough, so she was able to convince them to let me in. I was always the youngest in my classes all the way through high school.

I didn't do well in public schools socially, big shocker, and it only strengthened the brainwashing that something was wrong with me. I was always in trouble. Due to the fact I have never been able to remember anything actually traumatic in the first six years of my life, and the way my life darkened at this time, I've always wondered if someone at the school got a hold of me. In the city where I currently live, still in the Midwest, only a few hours from the small town in which I grew up, I've seen several people arrested for engaging children in public schools sexually. It happened four times that I know of in two years. Maybe the principle was spanking me too. I just don't remember. I do know that my life went dark. I lost touch with my own psyche. I lost contact with the Source. 

It turns out, that when a child realizes that the thing being done is known to be unacceptable, that one's self worth really goes down the toilet. If everyone gets beat, and beating kids is okay, then somehow the psyche can bear this, but once one knows that they know they shouldn't do it, and they are doing it anyways; darkness ensues. Real deal darkness. This is what makes sexual assault on a child so debilitating, the perpetrators always know they shouldn't be doing it, and the child can always feel this. As far as I can tell, for me it was violence, and the man doing the most violence found it quite acceptable.

Kindergarten for me would have been 1980. It's fucking 2017 now. I watch a ten year old, and a five year old go to school every day. I walk them to school most days. It's only a couple of blocks away. It's an inner city school, and even though it is not a large city, this place has all the things a big inner city would have. Prostitutes are known to hang out at the gas station across the street from the school at night. Drugs are everywhere. Third graders are talking gangster, acting like thugs. My wife over heard a kid in the forth grade, upon being asked by his teacher what his plans for the evening where, that he was going to Netflix and chill. If you don't know this is slang for having sex.

I've learned that the people in these bigger cities are just as ignorant and repressed as those who live in small towns, they just have a trick up their sleeve. They will not be racist, or sexist, or hate gays, or eat better, and then will think they have the upper hand. They will have some trick for tricking themselves into a sense of superiority over the person living in the trailer park, the person who is one rung lower on the pecking order, but usually they are just a little better with money. If you delve into their personal lives they will be just as ignorant and repressed about what it is to be human. They will think because they dress better, eat at better restaurants, have a nicer car, do more "city" things, that they are not just as ignorant and repressed. It's just a fancier way to be ignorant. It's like most rich people that I've met; take away their money and they end up being more white trash than those in the trailer park. 

This is the case at this public school I walk to; it's the same as any other in the Midwest. These school teachers are not trained whatsoever to deal with these kids, living in one of the highest crime per capita neighborhoods in the whole country, who are all being abused at home. They think that college degree makes them actually intelligent. If you ask them they will tell you they know how life works. Now I'm not saying there are not intelligent public school teachers, there are surely some, but I can promise you they are sufficiently buried in the culture and bureaucracy that they have no voice. It makes it easy for me to see, why instead of asking what was wrong with my home life, they simply said; there is something wrong with him. That is much easier to do

 

The point I'm trying to make is that nothing has changed. Four decades later and nothing has changed.

The ten year old is an introvert. I am an introvert. This ten year old isn't being abused like I was, and the public schools social environment is still fucking up his sense of self with their mass ignorance. He gets picked on, and made fun of. His teacher calls him to the front of the class despite his terrifying introverted fear of doing so. He has a list of things he has to deal with. I think to myself, what chance did I have? This kids mother loves him, and she shows it. For me it was even worse when I went home. I was trapped on all sides with no way out. 

Most "educated" adults don't really know what the unconscious is, much less that there is multiple layers to it. We have our own personal unconscious, then there is a collective unconscious, and then there is a level beyond that. We could go out right now and find all kinds of public educated fools with psychology degrees that have never even studied Jung at all. How is a child going to manage it? I'm saying this, because if most adults did have this awareness, then it would be in the collective unconscious, and this outward pressure of ignorance would not be dictating more ignorance. In other words, if the majority find it acceptable to be different, and realize things wisely, this can be felt by everyone even if they are not aware of it consciously.

If you were born in the Midwest as I was, you would have been immersed in the most ignorant of collective unconsciousness. This would have tricked you the same as me. Profound ignorance regarding life, and what it is to be human would be the norm. I remember reading something in prison, about how only three percent of the population was actually functional. My counselor was giving me this information in his attempts to rid me of some of my loneliness. He was trying to help rid me of some of my shame letting me know that most everyone is dysfunctional. Not three percent of the prison population, but three percent of the actual population. This was one of my first hints that not all was as everyone was pretending it to be. This mentor of mine was showing me a bit of the cultural facade.

In Hermann MO, the year 2016, the recorded population was 2,366 people. I can't imagine it was much higher in 1980. This means there were potentially eighty adults at that time who would have been considered functional in my collective unconscious. Seems to me they were terribly outnumbered.  

Put this into context please, for yourself. If you're in a room with one hundred people, and only three of them know the actual way something should be done; are they going to win out? Say you are at work, and there are one hundred employees debating an ethical or moral issue, like say, spanking, and only three people know that spanking is wrong; what is the social standard going to be? Mother fuckers are going to be getting beat. Make it ten percent. Even if ten out of a hundred wouldn't be enough to sway the field.

In 2016 the state of Missouri claimed there were six million people residing within. Going by this estimate of three percent, there are roughly 180,000 functioning adults in this state. Now if we take into consideration where Missouri stands as a whole culturally, I'm going with this number being way too high. Missouri is going to have a lower average than quite a few other states. Intelligent functioning adults don't tend to live in run down small Midwestern towns where most everyone is bigoted. Hermann, MO isn't where one goes to find a nice job. There were no jobs. The founder of the town had skulls and cross bones on his fucking tomb stone.

  

I remember getting kicked off the bus. This riding the bus business created so much turmoil in my life. I've been responsible for children as an adult and went out of my way to keep them off the bus because of my own life experience. I was getting into trouble on the bus constantly because other kids would pick on me. I have this particular personality that sticks up for myself. I was born that way. I have this crazy thing about not backing down from fights even if I know I'm going to lose, especially if it is on public display. Fuck that shit. Ride or die. I would even try to fight high school kids for picking on me. I didn't give a fuck. If I couldn't fight directly I would calculate behind their back. Because it bothered me so much to be picked on, I was picked on even more. It was a vicious circle, and I didn't have what it took to get out of it. In the early 80s the worst thing for a boy was to be called gay. It didn't take long before I was being called Ben-Gay. The name comes from an analgesic heat rub. Add to this that Donnie would constantly belittle, ridicule, and beat me for being emotional and sensitive. I got extra beatings for crying like a pussy, as he would put it. So when the kids tried this shit, not being so big as Donnie; I was willing to fight for my honor.

  

Every day on the bus it was some drama. When the bus driver finally took actions against me this put JoAnn in a bind. She had to work, she couldn't afford to take me to school. She didn't even have a car. Donnie used the car to get to his job, and he was gone long before I needed to be at school. She was a stay at home babysitter. I was too young, the school too far away, for me to get myself there. My life was basically threatened at home to not get kicked off the bus. JoAnn ended up going into the school with me. She had to make it work. They worked out a deal. I had to sit in the front seat behind the bus driver. If I was good I got a blue piece of paper that I would have to take into the principle every day, and then I was allowed to raise the flag at the school every morning. If I got x amount of white papers in any given period of time I was off the bus. What they did not know was that I found it incredibly embarrassing to raise the flag. I was being punished for being good. To be singled out in such a way was torture. So there I was, being tortured on all sides.

Everyone was picking on me, even the people who were supposed to be looking out for me.

When the next school year came around the paper thing dropped. I'm pretty sure it was the first grade when I was raising the flag. One day, this kid JoAnn babysat was sitting in the same seat with me on the bus. A bunch of kids were making fun of me, and he started chiming in. I really don't know how to say it. When people make fun of me publicly I can feel it inside. They might as well be striking me physically. Since JoAnn babysat this kid, in my mind he shouldn't have been chiming in. He should have known his place. He said something extra mean, everyone was laughing, so I grabbed his head and slammed it into the bus window such that the window cracked.  We all know how it went down when I got home that day. It cost Donnie money that time. Money he didn't have.

There was no where safe for me.

Of course we went to church. We had to go to church. No one was a good person if they didn't go to church. Church sealed the deal. The church was directly across the street from the gas station Donnie ran. A small white church with that classic Christian feel and look about it. The steeple on one end of the high pitched roof. The classic steps leading up to the door. The wonderfully placed stained glass windows down both sides. Large yard in front of the entry. It wasn't a Baptist church so it had a much lighter feel to it. Serene feeling compared to the Baptists churches I had attended. I could feel the Lord there, and this added to the dupe. 

Maybe it wasn't school that made it all go so dark. Maybe it was what I was hearing at church, while at the same time experiencing the school. Maybe it was that both of these things were happening at a time when I began to remember. The church duped me the mostest. The school did not have that energy. I can still feel the energy of churches. It's a thing. I know others who have this same sense. I'm not going into metaphysics and magic right now. My five year old self didn't know anything about metaphysics or magic. All I knew then was what they were telling me, and that I could feel and "see" things of which solidified the concept of god in my mind. 

If I take the Myers-Briggs personality test, I score as an INFJ.  Normally I would be quite skeptical of such a simple test being revealing of my personality, but when I got on INFJ blogs and read first hand accounts of other people's experiences of social life as an INFJ it was a critical moment for me. I cried. My mind was blown. It confirmed that in certain ways I was not so alone as I had believed. It lessened the noose that is always tight around my neck. Perhaps after all, nothing was wrong with me. Not ever really having a sense of self, never knowing who I really am, always wondering how I would be if I had not been abused, reading those peoples stories affected me profoundly. I've always had to be other than I am in a certain way in order to survive, but obviously even for the craziest of people that only goes so far. We all, even if we go stark raving mad, follow our own natures to some degree. It appears that I followed my nature as well.

Turns out that a male INFJ is the rarest of personalities, something like less than one percent of the population. A male INFJ is by cultural standards quite feminine in many aspects of personality. Sensitive, and emotional being two of those things. Those two things got me beat and ridiculed more than a little. Turns out, no one was ever going to know me. This is a double bind of the worst kind. I can't not want to be known. My heart longs for it to the point of constant pain. This hole they created with their abuse, abandonment, and neglect was too big for me to fill on my own. I was going to have unknowable qualities without the abuse.

I must find god, for it's only god who knows me. 

Unfortunately, I was in my thirties when I found this out, so this INFJ information did my five year old self no good. Being an INFJ ties in with spirituality because what this means is, is that I have an ability to see things others do not see. I can practically see the unconscious activity of others. And so if we are talking about god, which is the unconscious, I have a personal window into that realm. I can see things going on that others do not notice and it doesn't take anything extra on my part. It happens naturally for me. I was never able to figure out why everyone else couldn't see what I saw. This added to the idea that I was flawed. This added to my loneliness. This ability also made my life synchronous in a way, or I should say, I could see synchronicity when others could not, and I attributed this to god. These ignorant small town Midwestern folks thought of god as some guy up in the sky, handing out punishment and rewards. I could see this happening, so it proved to me that god existed. That there was this force operating behind the scenes, and that force must be god. I knew this because I could "see"it. 

It would be a long time before I figured out this was not how it works. The issue was that my little child mind could not see the bullshit of organized religion, of the culture. I could not tell the difference between the personal, the collective unconscious, and the deeper levels of the unconscious.  To me it was all god. I had no way to separate out the lies from the truth. I did not know how to defend myself against this storm, so I swallowed much of their bullshit whole. This made my life dark.

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to him belong
They are weak but he is strong

Over and over again I would hear about god loving his children, protecting them, yet everywhere I went, especially at home, that was not the case. I learned that not even god loved me.

Semi-remembered stories

I'm forty two now, but even if you had asked me about my childhood when I was sixteen I wouldn't have been able to recall anything under the age of four. I've got some memories of kindergarten, but not at home. I've never remembered the violent or stressful times, which would have been most of the time. They've studied this too. That is how it goes. Children who undergo violence and stress, their brains don't develop the same as a child who doesn't. They say it changes one's DNA.

These first four years of my life I've never remembered anything. I used to repeat stories though. I'd even imagined them after hearing them, as if to make them my own. Pretending. Imagination is powerful stuff. Of course, I had my favorites. Some I would tell, and some I wouldn't.

They lived in Mexico, Missouri. He had a job at a steel factory. He ended up working there for decades. I've no idea what she was doing. I just know she dropped out of high school. Their parents had to of been helping them even though they created so much shame for the family. Of course they had to get married.

My brother and I are three years apart. I've been told he didn't learn to talk until he was four or so. They say I would tell people what he wanted or needed. I talked for him. My brother and I have distinctly different personalities. We've always handled things much differently. What was going on that my brother feared to talk?

There is the story about Barry beating me when I was two and a half for spilling his tool box in the basement of their house when there was water all over the floor. JoAnn let this one slip. For her to even bring it up means that he really went to town on me. Him being drunk means he didn't hold back. She was needing Barry to seem a monster to alleviate her of her own guilt and shame for ever even being with such a fuck. She played the same game as the grandparents; blame the other side.

You see, I'm piecing together the puzzle here on my own. This dude was maybe twenty years old, a factory worker in a small shit town, and a drunk already. He was drunk when he beat me for knocking over his tool box. The house most certainly was a rental, and there is no way their financial status was good. We all know how money stress makes for bad decisions in life. The shame he would of had. The terror of real life all around him. He obviously would have been taking it out on me and her. He obviously did.

I thought about it a lot. If he was insensitive enough to beat a two and a half year old baby what the fuck else was going on behind closed doors? It must have been enough to have me wanting to burn the place down at three years old. I'm old enough now to know that the shit people do behind closed doors is a hundred times worse than the shit they do out in the open. This is particularly true when it comes to typical Midwest white trash.

Barry and JoAnn eventually separated because one night, when driving to her parents' house, she fell asleep a few miles from their house at the wheel.  The car rolled several times through a ditch into a cornfield. Luckily this happened near the only farm house on that stretch of road. My little brother was thrown from the car, and I stayed in the back seat. All the blankets must have protected me from harm, and my brother too, somehow came out unscathed. Being tossed from the car must have saved his life. JoAnn was wrecked. The steering wheel and her got into a fight and the steering wheel won.

When people showed up, no one realized I was in the backseat of the car. Everyone was focused on JoAnn and my little brother. I still to this day cannot grow a proper beard because if I end up in a car for too long I pull it out. A thirty minute car ride can result in half my beard being gone. The anxiety is still too real. Obviously my body remembers what my conscious self does not. I've learned that when the conscious does not recognize reality the unconscious finds a way to tell the story. We'll talk about that concept a lot more as the story goes.

When Barry showed up at the hospital he went crazy on JoAnn, accusing her of trying to kill his kids. Drunk. She must of been making the drive in the first place to avoid his drunk ass. Some typical white trash shit. Somehow this was more than JoAnn could take, but that can't be. What was going on behind the scenes? What bullshit did these two have going on? No one knows. Neither of them had any idea what the fuck they were doing. Still to this day that is the case. Some day I'll unlock my body, and will know consciously, but until then I'm making safe bets.

I'm betting she already had another man in the wing. She always had other men in the wing. She was always sleeping around, so there is no reason to think it wasn't happening when she was younger. She was after all that little girl doing whatever she could to get a man to love her, which most certainly means spreading the legs. I'm not hating. I understand the plight. I'm just calling it for what it is. Since the dude had no self esteem, his wife sleeping around would have been absolutely maddening. No one would have said JoAnn was ugly. 

Then there is the story about me when I was threeish. After the car wreck. Grandma Ann told this story. She said I came to her house once, and had threatened to burn down the house so that my mommy would move back in with my daddy. I was probably fourteen or fifteen when she told me this. I remember asking myself, "Goddamn, was I just born fucking violent?" How does a three year old even come up with something like that?  What was going on around me that even made that an option for my three year old self? Hearing that story changed something in me, and while I do not remember being three, I've never forgotten that story.

There is a story of Barry giving me beer. Wanting to seem cool. I still love beer.

My left hand point finger looks different on the tip than my right. My grandfather made a toy box for my first birthday. I cherished this box for a long time in life. It was made of plywood, with the alphabet engraved across the top, and the year it was made. He carefully painted the grooves of the letters with different colors, and stained it nice like. It was a big box too. When I got too old to play with toys I kept clothes in it. Anyways, one day my brother closed the lid on my hand and I lost the tip of my finger. It's a permanent reminder of this time in my life. I eventually lost the box when I separated from the first wife. I left it with her son. Since I'll never have children, at the time that was as close to a son as I was going to get. He once upon a time called me dad after all.

She left Mexico Missouri after the wreck, and my life continued to become more of a wreck.

The last real gank

You will have to bear with me nerding out a bit to get to the good part. Sorry for ya. Deep down I'm just a nerd.

I won't lie. I'm a gamer. It's one of my favorite drugs. I've gamed as hard as I've done most other things. First it was Ultima Online, then EverQuest, then World of Warcraft, and after finally getting tired of the grind; League of Legends. I player killed so much in Ultima Online that I was famous on the server. I quit playing when the Japanese players that we warred against all the time figured out a bug and looted my house. That was a game in which one could loot the players killed. I had amassed and incredible amount of stuff. In that game, player killing was such an issue they eventually changed the dynamics of the game to get rid of Player Killers. I guess you could say I had something to do with that.

I checked out of reality once for almost four straight years during my first marriage playing EverQuest. It was the first of its kind. An absolutely huge game. It was amazing. It would have been an ungodly amount of play time if I could have, or would have added it up. Then came WoW, which was a huge step up from EQ. Incredibly addictive. There is a function in WoW that will tell a person their total game played time for each character. I added this up once, and I had over half a year played time in total. I kept playing the game long after that tally too. I had four maxed level healers, with decent gear, and a geared out PvP shaman. My brain still drools sometimes thinking about jumping into a battleground, and turning the tide in a 40v40 with the mad heals.

If only I could somehow convert all that played time into even more book reading; I'd be one of the smartest, most knowledgeable humans alive.  No joke.

My favoritist thing ever was the player versus player, otherwise known as PvP. I loved for the pvp. I love to win team fights. I love to win. These games let me let loose with the competitive side of myself. So naturally, League of Legends is to me the best game ever made. League is not a Mass Multiplayer Online Role Player though, it is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, and these are two totally different things.

In League of Legends it's always a 5v5, with the same map, but with a huge variety of champions to choose from at the beginning of each match. I'm not going into the specifics, but the point is twofold. One is the ganks, the other is the insta-karma, and these two things go hand in hand. Ganking is a gamer term. To gank is to take something which is not yours. You can gank kills, read here other players, gank monsters, gank towers, gank wins. My win/losses in League is in the thousands of games played.

You see, I noticed playing League what I call insta-karma. Say someone keeps getting ganked on your team, and you talk shit to them for sucking; next thing you know you've been ganked. That's insta-karma. It happened so much, either my own karma, or watching others in game, that it kind of got creepy. I noticed with the video games, because so much of it was totally random, that the synchronicity was much higher, it happened much more. Who was deciding who gets qued with who? Shit was random. And this is why I know it to be creepy: It can be looked up; the human psyche effects random number generators. Happens to not be so random with the karma.

This is the story of the last time I ever ganked anyone in real life. Unlike in the video games, where the insta-karma can happen literally within seconds, in real life it usually takes a bit longer. In video games there's no real danger. No friends lost. No blood shed. No life changing karma. In real life it can get really ugly.

I don't remember exactly why I didn't like this guy. Goofy ass white guy named Arnold. I think he said some dumb shit to me like he was smart. I hate that shit. On top of this I wasn't afraid of him physically. Problem was, I was still in two house, still a noob. This house was 90% blacks from mostly St. Louis. It was something he said, something he did, he rubbed me wrong. Thinking back on it I can't believe I did what I did. None of the whites approved, but I didn't bother checking with them either. I was still riding solo. I didn't know anyone.

Anyways, for some reason Arnold went to the hole. My time for retaliation for his smart mouth had arrived. In Booneville, there are metal lockers between the bunks, and one at the foot of the bunk, out in the aisle. Whoever is on the bottom bunk, gets their lockers between the bunks. Arnold had been in prison long enough to have a bottom bunk. The bay he was in had eight or nine bunks on each side of the room, with a good ten foot gap for an aisle down the middle.

The lockers are rectanglish, about 3.5 feet high, 3 feet wide, 3 feet deep, with a common style dial a number padlock to keep it closed, which they sold at the canteen. Same kind of padlock your parents probably bought you for your gym locker in high school. The lockers were made of the same type of metal like public school lockers too, you know, thin enough if you grabbed a corner, you could make the door wobble by shaking them vigorously.

Well, it makes way too much noise to use something to hammer the lock off. The guard would hear a boot smashing at the lock, so if you want in someone's locker you have to peel the top and bottom corner down towards the middle, much like you'd fold a paper airplane. The locker had a bottom compartment with two shelves. Arnold's bunk was in a different bay than the one I stayed in, so while he was in the hole I just rolled into his bay, and started pulling at the top corner. Man oh man was I a fucking noob.

Before I even got the top corner really pulled down at all, the gangsters jumped in. Seemed like at least ten of them were swarming in like that shit you see in Black Friday videos. I just jumped into the deep end of the pool not knowing how to swim. In other words, I really didn't even get anything out of the locker. They took it all. Had no idea a locker could be emptied that fast. His prison issue shit was all that was left behind. You can bet money they had all done that shit many times before.

Listen to me, I was so noob I didn't even know these dudes' names yet. When Arnold's locker got swarmed like that I knew I had made a terrible mistake. They practically shoved me out of the way to get at this guys stuff. I was just another punk ass white boy to them. They didn't even know my name.

Guess what? Can you guess? I bet you can't. A gangster was keeping his shit in this Arnold guys locker. Said gangster was also in the hole. When said gangster got out, guess who all the gangsters who took his shit said got his shit. You guessed it, the noob ass white boy in the other bay. They didn't even know my name. They just pointed me out. Turns out there are minimums on how much shit one can have in their locker, so this gangster was keeping his extra shit in the white boys locker. That's a hustle. This white boy Arnold was relying on a gangster for protection. I had no idea who was who. None of the other whites were going to come to my aid; I had made a bitch move. Man was I feeling low.

I had to wait for the blow back. I didn't see it coming either. I thought that Arnold just lost all his shit even though I didn't get any of it. I was wrong. It was a week later when the gangster got out of the hole. Arnold had already been out, but he was powerless. He never said anything either. No one was saying anything to me. Even knowing it was me who started the locker peel, there was nothing he could do. Let's call the gangster Red, he was what they call a red skinned black guy.

The same day Red was out of the hole he was in my bay questioning me, demanding his shit back. I kept telling him I didn't have his shit, to which he asked, who does? Now, look here, I'm not totally fucking stupid. I wasn't so noob that I didn't know I couldn't tell him, and even if I had wanted to tell him, I had no idea the names of these other gangsters so I would have had to literally go and point them out. I didn't know their level of power or which gangs they were in, and that mattered more than anything. I had already made a terrible move, but now it would get even worse. One more wrong move and I could easily have half the prison hating me. I could mark myself for straight up hell. A couple of those gangs were ridiculously large, and every member would have had associations with other gangs, not to mention the Islamic Brotherhood and the Muslim nations. One wrong move and I'd have the entire lower hill on my ass.

One wrong move had already put me in tremendous danger. Luckily for me though, Red wasn't in one of these notorious gangs, he just had his own crew. I didn't know this though. I had no way of knowing. I was shooting craps penitentiary style. When he kept pressing me, I eventually smarted off, and told him that if he was so gangster he shouldn't need me to tell him who gots his shit. I wasn't the only one who hit that locker. Check mate. Well, sort of.  He wasn't finished with the issue. He wanted his shit back. He tells me he's coming back, and when he gets back he wants his shit. Turns out he didn't have enough gangster power to actually get his shit back, so pressing me was his only option.

Man the tension was fucking thick. My childhood of violence had prepared me anatomically for this type of stress. I wasn't going to crack. I know for sure he wasn't coming back alone, and remember, I was in a housing unit with one hundred inmates and only about twelve of us were white. Who knows how many gangsters were in there just looking for any reason whatsoever to whoop a white boy.

There were two other white boys in my bay. They both had been in for awhile. Long haired chill type of cats. I went to them for advice. I didn't even bother to ask them for help. I could tell thy were just looking for a good show. They explained to me how it was going to go down, the house politics and what not. They ended up playing an old school Metallic song for me to get me even more pumped. I ended up getting one of them to let me barrow their extra padlock, which they weren't supposed to have, which meant a guard wouldn't know where it came from. So now, not really feeling relieved at all, I am at least armed. I now had a padlock in each hand, with the ring over my middle finger. The extra weight of the locks also helps land nice solid punches.

I could feel it. The air around me was humming. Always the cacophony. Those housing units were always a fucking circus of gangster shenanigans. He was getting his boys together. I could sense it. I was just sitting on my bunk, heart pounding, waiting for them to come into the bay. Mentally going over all the different scenarios I could imagine. How I was going to fight my way out. I had a real advantage at this time that they did not know about. I grew up getting the shit beat out of me by a step dad. I wasn't afraid to get my ass beat. Been there, done that. I was just wanting to get it over with. I can't stand the waiting.

Soon as the guard went down the hall to the rec room, here comes Red with six other gangsters. I could hear them pumping each other up. The bay I was in was a small one. There were only eight bunks down one side of the room, and I was third from the end away from the door. I had plenty of time to see them coming. Because the guards always liked me so much I had gotten myself moved to this quieter bay. The guards loved me for keeping it real as they say. The space between the lockers at the foot of the bunks, and the wall wasn't enough room for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder. I stood ready to fight in that space. Before Red gets to me with his boys I'm standing in position so they can't surround me. I've cut them off tactically. This was incredibly important. You can't ever let them surround you.

Red is acting even more gangster now that his boys are with him. His speech is dramatically gangster with his boys. I was still struggling with the ghetto speak. It can be really hard to understand. They are all fidgeting. He again demands his stuff, and again I tell him I don't have any of his stuff. That I didn't get anything from the locker. He looks at my hands and asks me why I gots a padlock in each hand, and I immediately respond, for the same reason there are seven of you?

Believe you me, I was going to wreck one of these gangsters. One of them wasn't going to make it out of that bay unscathed. They could feel it. Believe it or not, because of my fearlessness I had the advantage. With two padlocks in my hands the cops were going to get involved. There was going to be blood. With it being a six on one, I wasn't going to get into any real trouble for maiming a gangster. Straight up self defense right there.

Red turned and walked away, talking shit of course, but he turned and walked away. None of his boys were willing to fight me for someone else's shit.

It was going to be awhile before I was safe though. It was going to be awhile having to, even more than normal, watch my own back. I had some sleepless nights.

I've never ganked anyone in real life since that day I hit that locker. I swore off stealing from others. I realized then, how that shit goes. It was a spiritual moment. I reaped what I sowed. What comes around, goes around. I got mines. Turns out real life goes just like those video games. Insta-karma. 

Tough pill to swallow

It's weird how shit goes. JoAnn will brag about it, like she did me a favor, and I'll have to be honest and say, I guess she did, but whatever. My wife contacted her in this past year, letting her know she ain't off the hook. She just tried to talk herself up. She's always said she did the best she could, as if her best was good enough. Someone's got to make sure she knows her oldest son still suffers because of her actions. Don't jump to some lame ass conclusion here either, don't judge me. My life has followed the trajectory of a violently abused male almost perfectly. I'm not being a victim. I'm acknowledging shit for what it is. She is a pro at blaming everyone, and not taking responsibility.

Supposedly they put her on medication as a child, and it messed with her, so she prevented me from being medicated. Props. That's one of her great parenting achievements. What's weird, is that she didn't have no problems turning her head the other way, letting dude beat the shit out of me, choke me out, humiliate me daily, but putting me on medication was just too far. Goddamn these people were ignorant. Still are unfortunately.

I'm debating getting back into their lives, and let me tell you that stirs my pot.

Of all the people in my past, my grandmother is the one I have the fondest memories of, and she was the one that wanted me on medication. Matter of fact, she still to this day says that shit right to my face. I need medication. Even now she thinks that I should get something. I just tell her if I'm going to medicate I'll smoke weed, please and thanks. Honestly though, I don't even smoke anymore. Over these decades of dealing with my shit I can finally just sit in it sober and not want to die. I want to say to her so badly, "No grandmother, what I needed was a mother who didn't let others abuse me, who herself didn't abuse me." This "mother" of mine is of course her daughter.

I went many years without talking to my grandma. After I finally worked up the nerve to tell my parents to fuck off, I pretty much quit talking to all of them. I held them all accountable. Recently, though, some shit went down, and I ended up calling her. I was in the weeds. Going through what is commonly called a "dark night of the soul", and had reached out for help. Naturally, as is always the case, the Universe synchronized, and help arrived.

I basically found out that in this life I'm here to experience two things, one of my lessons is unconditionality, and the other is strength. The way it was explained to me was that it is not a test, not a pass or fail, but that it's simply what my life is about in a way. Strength and unconditionality. I was also told that I am a truth seeker, and that I bring the truth like a hammer.

I found this out by having an Akashic reading done on my life. The reading was specific to my current blocks in life. You know, the things that are affecting me at this juncture, going through another shedding of ego, read here, dark night of the soul. I know a lot of people will be highly skeptical of this, but all I can say is, I was told things about my life that it simply was not possible for the person doing the reading to know. Absolutely impossible. I spent a whole week trying to wrap my mind around it. Constantly analyzing how this person could have known the times in my life when I made particular vows, the times in my life when the storm changed directions. How could this person have known those things about me.

On top of this, the same person did an Akashic reading for my wife, and it was even more crazy, the things this person knew, there was simply no way they could have known those things about my wife. For me, this put to rest any skepticism regarding people being able to access the Akashic Records. I don't know what to say other than that I am an incredibly skeptical person about such things, and I've not managed to discredit it. I've read a significant amount of material regarding this spiritual phenomenon, from Edgar Cayce, to India mystics. It's not a difficult subject to look into.

After a two hour conversation with the Akashic reader, regarding my life, hearing this information caused a lot of things to click in my head. Suddenly a lot of things made since. There have been so many instances in my life where I loved people unconditionally, for no real logical reason. Matter of fact I've always taken a ton of flack for it. I follow my inner voice though, an my intuition simply requires it. The issue that stood out to me was my arbitrary application of this phenomenon. So naturally hearing this, I realized I was not applying this principle of unconditional love to my family.

This means I was, and have been, making my life far harder than it needed to be. 

I called my grandma that same day. She had always been the one who loved me unconditionally. Even though she doesn't know exactly what love is, she falls short, if I called her, she would help out despite any dislike of my choices. It's a weird feeling let me tell you. First, it's her daughter who threw me under the bus. Second, she was that sole human that kept me from being a straight up psychopath. That's a weird spot. It really brings to light that ancient Chinese saying I love to use, "For every great Sage, there is a great Robbery. If you look up legit psychopaths, they are the ones who get abused, but never have any support at all. Grandma was that support for me, because when I was around her I was safe from harm. When I was at my grandmothers, no one harmed me. Third, she was always wanting me medicated, because she believed something was wrong with me. Fourth, like I said, I've always been able to tell she doesn't like my personality. I'm a fucking truth seeker, and this woman avoids the truth like the plague. Fucking whack am I right? It's the perfect mixture of mind fuckery.

I'm still tossing it around in my head, I could just as easily make an argument for holding them unconditionally accountable. It wasn't me keeping them ignorant in life. It wasn't me stopping them from reading books, studying, figuring out what is going on. I've always said if my dumb ass can figure it out, anyone can.

My grandmother is the reason JoAnn left her second husband. I was eleven years old, round a bouts, maybe twelve, and he finally choked me out in front of my grandmother, at my grandmothers house. I was crying about something, and he just put his hand around my throat to make me go silent. My grandmother had to of been livid. She forced the issue that JoAnn could not do herself.  JoAnn was told that if she didn't leave him the cops would be called.

It's a Jedi mind trick; loving unconditionally.

When I finally called her, me being me, the conversation tends to the deep side. I hate small talk. She literally said, point blank, that she avoids anything that makes her uncomfortable. I was trying to explain the dark side of child abuse. An effort to justify my actions. She admitted, if her beliefs are put into question at all she abandons ship. My entire childhood, she never let anyone rock the boat. She would not say anything to anyone if it might upset them. Naturally she was the source of much abuse, just from her inability to confront bullshit. Nothing has changed. Had she stood up and been confrontational with the bullshit when I was a much smaller child, I would not have been abused for so long.

It seems after all this time, some things never change. The inability to feel the feels holds everyone back. It's by no means only my grandmother.

I talked to one of my brothers recently. I got his take on the current situation since I've been out of the loop for so long. They are all busy repeating the cycle. Fucking up their own lives, acting like they know what they are doing, when it is clearly obvious they do not. This is extremely frustrating for me because at this point in the game, so many people have dedicated their lives to studying abusive families; the shit has been spelled out. The fix is not a secret, it's public information free at any library in the country. Hell, some people who don't even study up on the subject work it out. Not my brother, but the others. He pulled it together in his own way. One of my brothers at least, has risen above the shit a bit. The rest are still being as ignorant as can be. They won't hear what I got to say either, so we don't converse. They wouldn't understand what I got to say. They think they are educated with their high school diplomas, college degrees, their shit jobs, watching TV, fucking off life. Even the dumbest of monkeys has an opinion.

I don't mind people being dumb, ignorant, and/or stupid.  I mind them being those things while pretending they are not. It's quite a distinction. 

What a mind fuck. You see, I've a real problem with Stockholm Syndrome. It's one of my crown achievements in life; I never had Stockholm Syndrome. Before I was thirteen I bragged openly about hating my mother, and father. I did not love my abusers. I wanted too, and I wanted them to love me, but I knew it was not the case, and I never pretended otherwise. Of course my monkey suit wants monkey love, but as the condition of unconditionality requires; I must love myself unconditionally. I've always refused to love those who abuse me.

Unconditionality. I think I may have let myself down. I can't tell. I think I might have done myself right. I can't tell.

How am I going to pull this off? How am I going to live my truth, and yet, be in proximity to my abusers? It's going to be a Jedi mind trick. She saved me, she fucked me over. She loves me, she doesn't like me. She would do almost anything for me, except call out my abusers. It's weird how shit goes. For every great Sage, there is a great Robbery. Fucking life.

I'm going to go see her soon. If nothing else, perhaps I'll come home with a recovered childhood memory or two. 

You see, I've also always had a problem with forgiveness. Bitterness. I've always said, had they even slightly taken care of me I would have been an Olympian. I have the natural athletic gifts that is necessary to be a champion. I have the intellect to succeed at anything I do, but they brainwashed me. They so thoroughly convinced me that something was wrong with me that I still fuck up my life. She still thinks something is wrong with me.

You see, the main perpetrator of my abuse has finally died. This was my youngest brothers father. When we talked on the phone he told me about how it went down, when he found out and all. I'm not here to tell his story though, but let's just say he doesn't or didn't get upset that I celebrated. He didn't get mad at me because I was glad the dude finally died. I think this particular brother is the only family member who acts understanding towards me about the situation. This brother of mine isn't plagued by Stockholm Syndrome. He like me, keeps it real.

We talked about forgiveness though, and he made a valid point. He said he could forgive his friends for wrongs, because he chooses his friends, but we didn't choose our family. This makes sense, in a worldly way. Why isn't it that our families are held to the higher standard? Why doesn't it make sense that instead of having to accept a shit mom, we say our mother should have been the last person in the world to abuse us? But then, which I didn't point out to him, comes around this business of the Akashic Records. It turns out we do choose our families. We do choose when and where we incarnate. All the Akashic Records peeps agree, we pick our families so that we learn particular lessons in order to grow our souls.

The purpose of life: to grow in consciousness like a tree grows up into the sky, while at the same time growing deep into the ground.

We can't be using logic if we only pick and choose which part of the Akashic Records we want to hear. We don't get to pick and choose. Doing so is all ego. I don't get to pick in choose with my ego, and then claim I am being aware in the truth.

In a previous life I was part of a banking cartel. My father was jealous of my abilities, and had my wife killed. I've always felt my parents were secretly jealous of my intelligence, and that is why they shamed me so badly. If you've read other posts from this blog you'd know I robbed a bank when I was seventeen years old. I got some serious karmic shit going on. Serious trust issues. Money issues all my life. There's more to it than I'm saying here, but it is obvious I'm working off debt.

Why would I go into the mathematics of incarnation here? I tend to shed my beliefs in the face of facts. Do your own homework. My other blog clearly points out the bullshit of this culture. I'm not here to convince anyone; I know what I know.

Somehow I've got to pull off a Jedi Mind Trick, and work my way out of this mind fuck. Rise above. No one said life would be easy. I just read that still today, 2017, Africans are being sold in broad daylight as slaves. We all live in a rape culture. Why should my life have been easy?

Following the shamanic path, I'm going to have to get over myself. Rise above my bitterness. I'm going to have to see these people for who they are, not for what they did to me. I'm going to have to shed some more tears.

I'm going to learn to be unconditional in all ways. It's going to be a tough pill to swallow. 

Getting it all wrong

It’s a serious problem; getting it all wrong. Not talking about a little bit wrong. I’m talking about being totally fucking wrong. Let me explain what I’m talking about. When a person is abused horribly in childhood, they lose their identity. They have to become something other than who they are, because who they really are isn’t cutting it. In order to survive, the psyche breaks. It becomes two things, and the true self goes into hiding. This is a well documented phenomenon, and doesn’t really need explained. If you don’t understand this concept you will need to do some reading.

It really is a terrible place to be, Who am I? It’s the rarest thing going for a human to actually know who they are.

There is a small book written by a famous guru from India, Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. The title? Who am I?  I like to read the stuff of sages. Right or wrong, they cause one to actually think about what is really going on. I kept this book on my coffee table for many months, pondering life at a time when my life seemed to be the greatest it had ever been up to that point. I was living a lie though.

I didn’t know who I was at all.  I definitely know more now, than then, but the inquiry persists.  When that book was on my table I was perfecting my facades.  Perfecting yet another persona. I knew what everyone else thought I was, but I had no idea who I was.  I had almost full control over how others perceived me. It was a game I was playing. A skill I was perfecting.

I’ve had to be, what I needed to be. Since there was no safety in my life ever, I was only ever a reaction to that.  Without a sense of safety it wasn’t safe to be me. The real “me” was scared to death and was buried quite deeply, and safely beneath a Fort Knox of defenses. So deep even I could not see it.

When I was a child being me caused beatings, abandonment, anger and neglect. In my story, I’ve had to be other than I am from the get. This means that never not once in my life have I felt safe. Note the important word: felt. By the time my childhood was over my body was stuck in hypervigilance. Hyper protection mode. I learned the world was violent and dangerous, and that I had to be prepared to defend myself at all times. Matter of fact, that decision wasn’t even up to me. My body did it for me. My body did what I could not.

I remember being in my mid twenties, sitting in a psychology class at the local community college, and the whole time I was plotting out all the courses of action I would take should shit go awry. If the building catches on fire, I’m going out this window. If this guy does something crazy, I’m going to beat his ass in such and such a way, and escape such and such a way. At all times I was calculating my proximal safety.  And never ever was my safety ever actually in question.  I remember judging everyone else too. While I’m sitting there calculating everyone’s thoughts, and motivations, they were thinking about cookies and TV shows. I was prepared, they were clueless.

What was I defending though? What was I protecting? My emotional body, my psyche, my physical self, my soul? The truth is my body no longer needed a reason. It was a permanent state of affairs. It was never up to me, and even if I had wanted to, I would not have been able to stop it from happening. Who was I? I was a perpetual preparer for disaster. Nothing was safe according to my body. I was in a perpetual calculating mode of existence. That was my normal. That was my life. I didn’t have another way of being. I didn’t know there was another way of being. I just knew I didn’t want to be like the TV watchers sitting all around me.

I recently read an article that resonated with me deeply. Synchronicity is an amazing phenom. It’s important that you read this article, linked at the bottom. It’s something that I’m sure will have a profound effect on anyone who was abused as a child. The science and study of abused people is drastically closing the gap. Soon it will not be a secret regarding how to answer the question; Who am I? The author says it better than I’ve ever heard anyone say it.

“Anytime someone told me to 'love myself' I felt so damn angry because those of us with complex trauma literally formed our 'self' as a being who has had to not love ourselves in order to stay connected with others around us. We learned instead to be connected to others' projections of us, demands, violations, perceptions. We learned to derail our social engagement system into being perfect, being good, being the caregiver, not feeling, not knowing, not needing....many of us have deep core wounds around the paradox of love: what we were taught by trauma and neglect to recognize as love and as safe, is actually unsafe, but our autonomic nervous system developed in these relationships and so we physiologically recognize abuse as love, as the most familiar, as what we are seeking and often, what we deserve, when we reach out for connection.”

That is some freeing shit right there.

In my own life, I’ve never experienced the feeling of love. Not real love. Only abused people will fall in love with an abused person, and abused people don’t know how to love. Even if it were to have happened to me, I would have had no idea. Just like safety. It’s totally happened for me. I know for a fact that there have been many times in my life where I was perfectly safe and sound, but my body did not acknowledge that. It has stayed hyper vigilant 24/7. As you can imagine this state of hypervigilance makes a personal relationship nearly impossible. Particularly if one is trying to be with people who do not have the complex trauma. The “normal” person becomes exhausted rapidly in the face of constant vigilance. They will break under the pressure.

So where does it go wrong? Everywhere.

My first real acknowledgement of getting it all wrong came in my early thirties. I came across a book called The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida. Let me tell you, do not be thrown off by the title. It should read the way of the Superior Human. If you take the time to read this book, which I promise will change your life, you will find in the introduction the explanation for the seeming sexist title. This book is for everyone. He centered it on a specific gender for the ease of writing out the thought. Not because it is for males only.

Anyways, this book made me realize that I wasn’t as fucked up as I had been thinking I was. It caused me to realize I had been living a lie. All my life I thought I was doomed to be with “crazy” women because of my mother. This belief only further fueled my hatred of that woman. My mind was creating stories to validate my hatred. It’s a well known phenomenon that us humans typically get with lovers who are like our parents. So there I was, purposefully staying single, because the only females who ever came my way; were “crazy”.  I was refusing to play the game anymore. I couldn’t stand being reminded of my mother anymore via my own personal love relationships.

Well, David Deida perfectly explains that the most masculine males are attracted to the most feminine females. It’s a matter of polarity. So if you are like me, having been hypermasculinized, really feminine females seem like the craziest thing in the world. It amplifies the polarity. They are whimsical, emotional, they are not logical. They are the exact opposite of a really masculine man. We’ve all probably heard sexit jokes about nobody being able to figure out women. So it turns out, that even if I had been raised even remotely appropriately, I was still going to be falling in love with the “crazy” ones. All along I was blaming my mother. Blaming myself. Just happens to be that my mother is one of those females. You will probably have to read the book to get the full effect of what I’m saying.

It’s a polarity thing. Neutral people get with neutral people. Everyone has their own mix of masculine/feminine, and we are only drawn to our equal opposite. Alpha males cannot resist alpha females, even if it drives us crazy. That is precisely what attraction is.

So there I was. Beating the shit out of myself about how fucked up I was because of my mother and all along it was nothing more than my being an alpha male. Who am I? I’m a fucking alpha male. Abused or not, that was going to be the case. I can’t get back all those wasted years living a lie.

That example is far from the only lie I’ve lived. I just came to the realization this past couple of weeks that once again I got it all wrong. Completely wrong. You see, all my life I’ve had issues with money. No matter what I’ve tried, no matter how hard I’ve tried: I always fail to keep a job. I was chalking this up to narcissism. Chalking it up to my abuse. Doing the same thing I did as a child, believing everyone else, and stuffing my true self deep down.

Try to understand something about a narcissist. What this means is that all of one's energy is going into self protection. If you ever find yourself in the presence of a narcissist, it’s as simple as this; all their energy is protecting their true self, who is buried beneath it all. That person only seems selfish because they’re stuck. That person desperately needs love. Be aware, that person doesn’t even know they have a choice to be otherwise. The permanent state of hypervigilance requires all of one's energy. There’s no energy left over for anyone else. No energy for anything else. Nothing but self protection.

So any job I’ve ever had, whenever more than I could bear was placed on my shoulders, job is over. We all know in this culture that if you go to any kind of typical job whatsoever, one is being used. One is making the guy at the top more money than one is making for their self. Surely it makes sense, looking through the lens of narcissism, that I can’t afford that.

This story sounds good doesn’t it? Makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Well, it’s not true. It just sounded really good at the time. This is a story given to me by others. It’s really easy for people to pick on traumatized individuals. It’s easy to say, the reason they don’t fit in is because they were abused. The problem is, no one was born to fit into this culture.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mozilla-004&hsimp=yhs-004&hspart=mozilla&p=monkey+grape+cucumber+video#id=2&vid=63e292108301692f839f0abb12b977b3&action=click

Here it gets deep. I explained it to a friend recently like this. No one has parents who legitimately looked into their child’s true self, and then raised them accordingly. Everyone of us has been told from birth certain things about how we are supposed to be. The simplest example of this would be; boys are this way, and girls are this way: conform accordingly. This means, anyone raised “normal” or typical, has really just been indoctrinated at birth. Technically speaking they are split too.

One of my favorite thinkers worded it this way, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Jiddu Krishnamurti said this. We can all look at this culture and tell it’s whack. So why conform? Well, as children we don’t have a choice. As children we are unable to question. We simply absorb. So it stands, that here in America, every child is adjusted to a sick culture.

Being that we are the result of millions of years of evolution, and this culture has not taken that into account regarding raising and educating children; everyone has been split off from their true self. This means you. Even if you were never beat, never harmed, never neglected, even if a harsh word was never spoken your way; the culture got you.

For the person who suffered complex trauma, like me, it is a double whammy. Not only did the culture break my psyche, but then I had my psyche broken from the break. Instead of just tearign a piece of paper in half, my piece of paper got shredded. So the question of Who am I? has become profound.

Want to know something I’ve noticed in life? Anyone who I’ve ever met that was raised “appropriately” is asleep at the wheel. They never even grasp in the slightest way that their piece of paper has been torn into two pieces. They are half a person. Mystics consider these people dead already.  It’s only the abused people who wake up to the bullshit of the culture. Think about that when it comes to the word indoctrination when I use it, and the techniques prescribed on how to raise children.

Can you see how difficult this task has become? Even raised appropriately, asking the question Who am I? Is going to be a serious challenge. One has to find that other piece of paper.

Back to the grip. Turns out my failures had nothing to do with narcissism. Turns out I am a truth seeker. Turns out a legit truth seeker cannot sustain energy when what is being done is not true. If it isn’t in line with my truth it is untenable. I’ve always known I was a truth seeker, but I never knew how that plays out in a person's life. I’ve never actually known another truth seeker.

A truth seeker cannot sustain living a lie. In other words, once it has been pointed out to me that I am living a lie, I change immediately. It is instant.

I smoked weed every day for over ten years. Someone pointed out to me that I was holding my wife back by doing this. I quit on the spot. If I say I love my wife, I cannot hold her back. It was an instant change. I cannot live a lie. I simply cannot do it.

So….If I take a job, and I’m being told one thing, and it turns out to be another: Done on the spot. Doesn’t matter who it is, or how much it means to them that I stay, or even if I will be homeless. I will literally be homeless before I will live a lie just to make money. Matter of fact this has happened to me many times.

Surely you can see all the external judgements this causes in this greedy culture. In this sexist greedy culture if as a male, one cannot provide, one can’t “man up” and go to work no matter what: one is a failure. There is a tremendous cultural pressure on a male to perform. As a truth seeker though, I cannot live a lie, and obviously it is a lie that a male must perform. Who made that rule? The same people who do not take into consideration of what it really is to be a human being. Think about this. Who decided this?

Using me as a guide, consider how much I’ve beat myself up saying something is wrong with me. That I’m fucked up. That I’m flawed because I can’t do what “everyone” else is doing. All my life I was believing others, instead of listening that small voice.

How much are you doing that? Simply because you don’t fit into that mold that culture stamps on everyone.

Hope you wake up soon. We need more people who know who they really are, that will be the only way the shit show stops.

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Am-Teachings-Bhagavan-Maharshi/dp/818801804X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1508520839&sr=1-2&keywords=who+am+I%3F

http://www.crazyherbalist.com/blog//part-2-cptsd-poly-vagal-theory-and-falling-in-love

https://www.amazon.com/Way-Superior-Man-Spiritual-Challenges-ebook/dp/B004A8ZWM4

Lit my fire

Once I knew I was going to be involved with the community garden movement in Springfield, I surveyed my surroundings and went to work. I think that a lot of research has to be done, and even though I’m not the best at it, I still do what I can. One of the things I’ve been doing is pestering local businesses about composting. Each place is different, and has unique situations. This idea has been met with much resistance.

When I was looking for a part-time job, it was crossing my mind that I might have to resign myself to working in a kitchen again. I had used my personal power, I casted a spell; I am done with cooking. It’s not uncommon though for the Universe to back me into a corner. The first restaurant I approached sealed the deal though. The lady was very receptive to the idea, but then she said, if it’s going to get done, she’d be the one doing it. I asked, are you the owner? She said, no, she’s just a lowly waitress. She takes me to the back, and on the cook line was a guy who hates his life just radiating negativity. He doesn’t give a damn about composting, nor will he. That self loathing though, got me like, I’m going to just live under the bridge; I’m not working in a kitchen.

So right here is my problem. These people ruling over me, making decisions about my life, aren’t even smart enough to recycle wasted food. If I applied there, that guy would have been my boss. These elected officials, store owners, city officials, etc. they have college degrees, and important jobs, and they are acting like they know what is best for me, yet they aren’t even making sure the simplest of intelligent things are happening. How hard is it to throw compostable materials into a separate container, and put a lid on it? People brag about how advanced, and great America is, yet we can’t even do the simplest of things. Everyone knows damn well, it’s the intelligent thing to do. If someone makes an argument that being wasteful is the right thing to do, that person is dumb. That will be scientifically verifiable.

Keep in mind, Springfield already has a compost system in place. They have several locations within the city where people can take their yard waste; leaves, grass, small branches, etc. They also get tree mulch from their city owned tree trimming trucks. They have a composting site outside of city limits, already selling compost. There is a full fledged trash service already running. There is no reason the businesses who routinely throw out large quantities of food can’t be composting.

Now some libertarian somewhere will be shouting. Small business owners will be shouting. Just another fee! Just another rule/law/fine. Another bureaucratic card in the deck. Sadly, this is the result of our failing public education system. If we had a legit public education system people wouldn’t need to be told to compost, and not be wasteful; they’d just do it because it’s the intelligent thing to do. Properly educated people in mass, do the better things. Because our American public education system fails to actually educate people they have to be told to do the right thing, by some authority figure, or they won’t do it. That government funded public education system creates a populace that needs said government. People won’t own up for this fact, but what they will do, is still walk around like they are smart, and educated. They have a piece of paper. These are important people!

Case in point, the locally owned coffee house. I do my best to support local business. This place makes great coffee drinks. I’ve been slowly learning though, that a lot of small business owners might as well be a Wal-mart exec. Some of these people are greedy assholes to the max. I’ve met several now who are straight up bullies, and treat their employees like shit. There fundamentally isn’t a difference between these people and the King who farmed his peasants for gold and labor. Same shit, different degree. These people seem to embody this attitude, that they are more special than the rest, because what seems to me, no other reason than that they go to work every day ruling over people who are less fortunate in life; just to make a paycheck.

I was house spousing when it started. I didn’t have any money personally. My wife bought the things needed to get the composting started at this coffee house. A rubbermaid, food grade, 32gal Brute container. Lid sold separately. White, like the ones used for ice. Then there was the dolly, because a 32gal plastic container filled to the brim with coffee grounds can’t be picked up by a single guy of my size and strength. It took a grunt to get it tipped back on the dolly.

What I was constantly thinking about was what it would take to keep that single coffee house in coffee beans. I’m going into urban farming. I’m thinking I would need fields and fields of coffee trees. I, of course, had to google this. According to the casual search, I find; “Since the average coffee tree produces 10 pounds of coffee cherry per year (2 pounds green beans), then 16 coffee trees are required to supply the average American's coffee drinking habit.” That container weighs hundreds of pounds when it’s full! It gets dumped every five days on average! The wet coffee grounds probably weigh more than the fresh berries. It would be way more beans per five days that was being composted. Probably close to twice as much, if not more.

This is just one coffee house. Just one. How many coffee houses are there in America? Google knows; https://www.statista.com/topics/1670/coffeehouse-chain-market/

This is insane! Where are all those trees? Look it up. Slaves are everywhere. The Steinbeck story, Grapes of Wrath, is alive and well. It’s still happening. That story is powerful.

When I started collecting it, and a couple times during the thing, I made sure I explained my situation. I was volunteering for some non-profits. I would keep the manager posted on my progress. We were going to grow flowers to put on tables and at the counter. It was going to be cool. My goal with the flowers was to just raise awareness about the community gardens in general.

I paid with the stuff with my own money. I was dumping the coffee grounds at the community garden behind the youth center. I took the first couple of loads home to experiment with. I’d never used them in gardening with that kind of quantity. The local horticulture specialist says they are considered a nitrogen source. Google agrees. This guy knew I wasn’t always going to be able to pick it up same day it was full. I always make sure the boundaries are covered. He knew I had way more going on than just picking up their compost.

What I didn’t do, was establish who the owner was, or the boss. My dealings were with the manager. He’s a nice guy. Every employee I met was excited and happy the grounds weren’t going in the trash anymore. Most of the employees are millennials, hipsterish, college kids, and artists. I dig it.

I would get a text or call when it was full, and then I’d go get it. Sometimes though, it wouldn’t be until the next day. Sometimes I had stuff going on. This particular time I was exhausted. I woke up so sore that morning I couldn’t walk normal. I’d been doing what I call third world labor on a local farm. It is back breaking work in the sense that one is bent over perpetually, non-stop killing weeds. There is such a long list of things to do, nothing could ever actually get done fast enough. It really is hard work. It is a legitimate humbling experience.

It was weird to me at the time. So many times I could feel it, that the compost would be full. It was a weird thing. Of all the things to be linked to, why the compost tub? Well I know now. That manager was the one wanting the compost to happen, and his boss did not. This is why I always got the vibe from him to not inquire about the boss. He was being as sneaky as he could be without ruffling his boss’s feathers. I’m sure he could tell there would be problems.

Let me tell you; this “boss” guy is a legitimate dumb asshole. I’d not done my homework on his personal life, and story, but I’ve seen his type enough now it’s like reading one of those cheesy romance novels. Everyone knows how it’s going to go. This guy, I guarantee, is the textbook douche bag, who has never read a management book in his life, ruling over poor people who want a job, to feel good about himself. He only has his position of power because he is a big person physically, and has a strong personality. He’s done no homework in life.

I go in through the back door. I’m wearing my big straw hat because the sun is already blaring. I have to walk the dolly several blocks, to the garden and back. He sees me, and then turns to his manager to verify that it’s me. He is clearly stink eyeing me. He’s damn near glaring at me.

I could tell that some mad passive aggressiveness was going on before I even got to the coffee house. I could feel it. When I got there, they had overfilled the container so much that I couldn’t get the lid on it. It was literally heaping up a full foot high above the rim. They had just kept dumping the grounds on top, with the buckets I had to purchase. They didn’t even come up with the small buckets to use at the bar. I had told them that I really didn’t mind it being full af, but heaping that high out the top isn’t full; that is heaping. It is obvious that I couldn’t put the lid on it, and dolly it out. I literally stated that I was confused and didn’t understand.

All the way to the garden, and back, I’m plotting. This time I made sure to walk it home too. I wanted to make sure it’s good and clean going back. I rewrite my contact info on the lid with a sharpie. I’m too old for this passive aggressive crap.

His stink eye sealed the deal. I knew without a doubt this guy is being an asshole to me. It was really busy, but I’m not dealing with passive aggressive crap. There is something inside me that refuses to bow down to anyone. I must stick up for myself, or I can’t hold my head on high. I start letting them know that I can’t do my part if it’s heaping out the top. It should be common sense that I can’t dolly it out like that. This guy is glaring at me practically. He’s a big burly barrel chested bastard. Grey hair. He’s got to be in his fifties at least. Way too old to be being a passive aggressive asshole. I can promise you, that’s how he manages his employees.

He’s talking to me like I’m on the payroll. He literally smarted off to me about picking it up on time. Like literally said it out loud. I tell him, I’m not being paid to do this. The trash service comes at specific times, like clock work, because you pay them to do so. This is volunteer work. I am exhausted. You guys didn’t even ask why I couldn’t make it. I tell him that in most cities businesses pay to have their compost taken away. It is a paid for service, that has been being done for free, and at my own personal expense.

The manager did his best to displace the situation. He tried to tell me to come back another time when they weren’t busy, but his boss wasn’t having it. The real truth is, and he said it out loud, is that it is extra work for them to take it to the back. He’s says to the manager we’re done with this. He keeps talking to me like he signs my paycheck. This guy, he doesn’t even know my name.

He asks me if I need help getting my stuff out, as he struts to the back. He smarts off again about not being able to pick it up on time. I never agreed to that. How hard is it to just throw it away like you were doing before, until I could come and get it? How hard is that? He says something dumb under his breath, and I just smart off, as I walk away, about him going back to throwing it in the trash like a smart guy.

This lit a fire in my ass. This gives me a reason to be in city council now. These people shouldn’t be allowed to litter. I can’t even sit on the sidewalk in this city without a cop harassing me. I know for a fact I would get fined, and have to go to court if I was littering. Throwing useful things into a landfill is littering. It’s stupid. It’s wasteful. I shouldn’t even have to explain this to people, that is how good American public education works.

I’ve seen firsthand the amount of food wastes grocery stores throw away. I’ve seen how much restaurants throw in the trash. Now I’ve seen what a coffee house is throwing away.  

This guy wants to be a dick to me; I’m going to make sure he has to pay for that composting service.