Straight up hairy...

Did you know that it is impossible to outrun a helicopter in broad daylight? Did you know that it is impossible to outrun radio waves? It is impossible I assure you. It's February 11th 1993 sometime in the early afternoon. This is a day I shall never forget.  Roger and I are sitting behind some bushes while watching the front of a small bank. Our getaway driver has just dropped us off and is waiting a couple of miles down the road. We are waiting and watching. We wanted to make sure that there were no customers inside the bank because we didn’t want to have anything more crazy than what was already about to happen, happen.

I was so pumped up on adrenaline I couldn't think straight. It was one of my favorite drugs.  It's all natural, takes away all the pain, all the hurt, it forces one to live in the moment, fearlessly; free.  Nothing made me feel more alive than adrenaline.  My adrenaline addiction was so powerful at this time that I had quit all other forms of mind altering and would seek out adrenaline rushes only, and clearly at any cost. This had been building in me for several months. You could say it had been building in me my whole life.  Being only 17 years old, I had to keep getting more and more, it had to be more and more intense, or it just wasn't enough, the pain wouldn’t go away. Deep down, I wanted to die, so I was doing really crazy shit just to get an adrenaline rush.  Building up to this moment was 17 years of pain and hurt. Unconsciously I was trying to kill myself.  The switch was flipped. 

Roger and I looked at each other; it was that fleeting moment of clarity, that last chance to call it off.  Looking at each other as if to say, "Are we really going to do this?" I think Roger even voiced it, but we were so pumped up there was no backing down; neither of us was backing out.  We were sure we could get away with it. We waited for what seemed like forever and no one had gone in or out, we felt sure there were no customers inside. There were no cars in the parking lot so we assumed no one was inside other than the employees. Everything had been planned out, everything was ready. We jumped up and ran into the bank. The masks were on, the gun was out, and the bag was ready.

The rush cannot be explained.  It all happens so quickly.  The distance to the door was covered, and I don’t even know how.  The man behind the counter complied.  He did what was asked of him. He immediately began emptying the counter drawers of all the money. He was a tall balding man.  He didn’t' seem to shake at all.  We learned after the fact that this was not the first time this man had been robbed in this bank. There were employees inside, back through a doorway, but they immediately ducked for cover behind their desks. The feeling that it was all taking too long wouldn't go away.  I am sure they were on the phone with police before we got out the door.

What has always troubled me the most though, was that we were very wrong about something.  There was a customer inside.  Two of them actually. There was a woman sitting along the wall, with a child in her lap. This moment is the main reason I never complained about having to do time for robbing this bank.   I never complained at all. It used to haunt me all the time, but now it only gets to me if someone asks me why I was in prison.  That’s the only time I think about it now. As soon as she realized what was going on, she covered her child's eyes and just kept repeating, "She can't see a thing, don't hurt her." I knew that we weren’t going to hurt anyone, but she did not know that, and I have always felt incredibly terrible for having done this. I didn’t go to prison for robbing a bank.  I went to prison for scaring the shit out of innocent people.

At the time though this did not register, my heart was pumping so loud in my ears it was deafening. The adrenaline rush was as intense as it could be. I might as well have jumped out of an airplane with no parachute.  We really did not want there to be any customers inside, we just wanted the money and to get out. The lady with the child freaked me out.  I never wanted to hurt anyone.  Even now, writing this, it tears me up that I did this to these people and it has been over two decades since we entered that bank. Like I said, I never complained about my sentence, I deserved it, not for robbing that bank, but for scaring the living shit out of that woman and her child.

I’ve never forgotten that later in testimony neither she nor the man behind the counter got the story right about which of us had the gun and which one had the bag, and there is a considerable body size difference between Roger and myself. That let me know how badly we scared them.  We scared them so bad their conscious minds couldn't tell what was what.  We were not inside the bank for more than a couple minutes’ tops. Time is critical when doing such things. It was straight up hairy in there.

Out we went, back across the street and onto a motorcycle that we had covered up along the Katy Trail. Our getaway driver was waiting about two miles down the trail just across an old railroad bridge. We didn't want anyone to see us get into a car.  But then we realized one of the people inside the bank had decided to be a vigilante and had gotten into his car and was racing down the road that ran parallel to the trail. Because the bridge is a railroad bridge he managed to cut us off and due to the fact that our getaway driver had noticed this from up on top of the hill, he drove away.

Our idiot plan had just gone to shit.  We were in a major panic, we knew we were not going to shoot at this man, and we knew we were not going to take his car from him, so we fled on foot. The motorcycle would only have taken us back into town and we did not see that as an option. We were officially scared at this point and so we did the only thing we could think to do; we took off running.

I won't lie, it was cold.  In Missouri it can be very cold in February, and the water seemed even colder. Small islands of ice were gracefully floating down the river. There was no time to be scared.  I jumped into the river.  I knew my only means of escaping this situation was to get to the other side. Using the bridge to get across the river was not an option; the vigilante was in plain sight on the other side, just watching for us form the road. It was so cold.  It was cold enough that my adrenaline did not keep my breath from being sucked right out of me when I hit the water.  No time to think, I couldn't think, I only knew I had to swim, I had to get to the other side.

When I finally reached the other side I somehow managed to take off running.   It’s in these moments one realizes it doesn't matter how badly one is sucking air, somehow the body will keep going, and keep going I did. If you never swim very much and then try to swim as hard as you can, you will find that even 50 feet will kick your ass. I was not in the kind of physical shape to be acting like I was in a triathlon. It goes to show how the human body can perform under duress though, because I did just keep going. Using the woods, I was able to escape the man on the road, but then the biggest problem of all came; the sound of a helicopter.  It was game over. 

The helicopter got to me just as I was crossing a gravel road, he came in fast, and I was not a hundred feet from the woods I was seeking. I’m really not sure it would have mattered.  There are no leaves on the trees in February.  I know now the woods would not have helped me much, being there are no leaves on the trees in the dead of winter. No one ever said the 17 year old me was the smartest kid on the block; obviously. I was soaking wet and freezing. I just stood there, no idea what to do. I was smart enough to know that to continue running would only piss off law enforcement, so I just stood there.

Maybe a minute or two later a highway patrol car came to a sliding stop sideways in the road. There really is no way to determine the passing of time in these moments.  It felt like I was standing there forever, yet it all happened at once.  The cop was not playing around, the man knew what he was doing, and it was like he had done this countless times. Shit was just like in the movies.  He slid right out of the car, with his shotgun in hand and was immediately aiming it right at me. I could see his mouth moving but could not hear what he was saying due to the helicopter over my head. When he pumped his shotgun, then I felt fear, because I knew then; I knew it instantly, he was mentally prepared to shoot me.

I have not felt real fear too many times in my life but this was one of those times.  When you are getting beat at the age of two by grown drunk men one does not fear much in life.   I think it dawned on him though, he could see the fear in my face. I just could not understand what he was saying so he began one stepping it towards me and yelling louder.  The helicopter banked away a bit, the roar of the baldes cleared, then I understood what he wanted. I put my hands on my head and laid flat on the ground. I did not want to die. 

Everything was a blur, I was only 17, I had no idea what was going on, and now that I was in the police car my life would never be the same. Obviously we were not supposed to get caught, yet somehow deep down, I knew I had fulfilled my purpose. I had done what I was meant to do.   The patrol officer was informing me that I was lucky he got to me before a county deputy did.  He informed me that the county guys don't have to fill out paper work when they shoot someone like the highway patrol does. 

I had fulfilled my destiny; I had killed myself without actually dying. 

It's crippling us all.

You see, I seem narcissistic to most because most have parents.  I talk about myself right to people.  Probably thinking what does having a family have to do with it?  Most have a family right?  If you are like me and you don't have a family, one must still generate that feeling for one's self.  I can't actually generate a family, but if I don't generate the feeling one has from having a family, I am lost.  It's the sense of self that comes from having parents, having a family that one must build.  No one would ever call a person narcissistic because they talked about their family, but when you don't have a family, what are you supposed to talk about?   You talk about yourself.

Ultimately this is true of everyone; we are all alone in the world, but a great many never realize it because their families are always there.  It's an unconscious phenomenon to be connected with one's family.  The only way to know what it is like to not have one is to cut those ties.  No one is willingly going to do that if their family is loving and caring.  It can be one of the hardest things to get through to someone; that their family really wasn't the great thing  they like to think it is.  I've met so many people who were abused as children and never realized it because they want to believe they have a family.  It's that bias of having an opinion before assessing the situation.  People have an opinion already in mind, an image, something made up in the imagination, and then they look at their family.  People will say, "Oh well, he's my dad," and then totally accept that they were abused as if his being the person that got their mother pregnant actually justifies abuse. or somehow that makes it okay to be abusive.  And why did the mother allow it to happen?  A great many people do not wish to come to terms with this. 

This is definitely one of the lines that is drawn in the sand by culture.  That is to say, people are either on one side or the other, one either has parents or they don't, and the culture as a whole makes sure one knows which side they are on.  There is no grey area here, except when in transition.  It's that switch I spoke of previously.  Having no family generates a certain feeling on the inside.  It causes a biological change.  I didn't want to self-destruct, so I had to fill the hole.  I tried to fill the hole with other people, but they always let me down.  They have always betrayed me.   

So eventually I filled that vacant feeling with my very own sense of self.  It's genius and it works.  I searched and searched, with all my might for the answer to this riddle.  I never found anyone to help me with it.  I've never read it said that way before.  I taught myself to love my Self because no one else did.  No one else could do that for me.  The only consequence of this is to be misunderstood, but as Emerson so perfectly expressed in Self-Reliance, “to be great is to be misunderstood.”  Most people don't understand it because they have not learned to truly love themselves, so they just think they do because they believe what the culture told them. 

I remember sitting in a pizza shop with two friends a few years ago.  My friends were both talking about their families and telling stories about their childhood.  I never engage in these conversations, so I was just listening.  If I were to talk to these two about my childhood they would forever after see me differently.  Their view of me would forever after be tainted with pity.  These two women didn't know me well enough to know about my past.  I can’t stand being pitied.  One of them was talking about how she got a spanking once for doing something wrong.  She got spanked once.  She was explaining how it was the only time she was ever spanked and how it still to this day stands out in her mind.  Her spanking amounted to a couple swats on the butt.  Where I come from that is a warning.  In her mind being spanked once was traumatic.  I remember looking at her and thinking, who would she be if she had been raised like me?   Who would I be if I had been raised like her? 

People with families are dependent on their families even if they don't think they are.  Looking out, I can see that everyone is connected unconsciously, which is exactly the problem; it is unconscious.  Most are totally unconscious that they have an unconscious mind, not to mention all it's enormous powers.  One can't consciously turn off the unconscious connection.  It just is.  We are all connected; it’s just a matter of degrees on how much that is so, and how aware one is of that fact.   

Without having the experience of not having a family, one cannot know what they would be like without it.  The John Doe with a family and the John Doe without a family are entirely different John Does.  People can intellectualize about it all day, but they won't actually know until it happens.  Look up the statistics and life stories regarding men whose spouse dies.  The John Doe after his spouse dies is never the same again.  These events change us physiologically.  These events change our very function.  Think about how this plays out in the entirety of a life.  Think of the child thrown under the bus from day one.  As if that person will ever act like all those with a family.  A person with a family can only imagine.

Can you see the huge problem this issue creates?  For the most part it is people with families calling the shots.  The ones who never really wake up in life because their whole life was lived in comfort.  Even in their most frantic states they are safe.  Almost all of the health care people, the teachers, college professors, doctors, lawyers, nurses, judges, and politicians, almost all the people making the important decisions about our communities; most of them have no idea what is really going on.  They make huge life changing decisions regarding things they truly don't understand at all, and they do it all day long. 

I've met so many of these people over the years it overwhelmed me.  The bitterness of it got the better of me for a while.  I spent enormous amounts of time alone attempting to wrap my head around it all.  I've spent most of my life searching for a like mind.  College was more disappointing in my life than the woman who gave birth to me was.  I got really depressed because of how ignorant college was.  It’s not fair to expect that woman to be intelligent simply because she gave birth to me, but it is fair to expect the people in charge of colleges to be intelligent.   I truly believed that when I got to college I would finally be around intelligent people who understood what was going on in our culture; it was a huge disappointment. 

I learned that the word education has no value in public education.  During four years of college I found two people who understood, maybe three, because that last person was borderline aware.  The cards were still on the table for her.  Almost all of the people that I met take their life for granted with no genuine appreciation at all.  They are so blinded by the lies of this culture that even when they think they are showing appreciation they really are not. 

They take so much for granted.  They assume so many things simply because they were told to.  You get it right?  They are the ones who complain about health care then feed their kids McDonalds.  Complain about the economy, but are in debt to Bank of America.   My favorite was the college administrator who talked about health care issues while his college fed the dorm kids poison like it is going out of style.  How does a guy get to be one of the top administrators of a college, which is a multi-million dollar business, yet he can't even recognize something so blatantly obvious right in front of his face?  If you don't want health care problems, don't eat poisonous food.  It's common sense, yet an "educated" college administrator doesn't see it?  He is blinding generations of children from the truth and he doesn't even know it.  Perpetuating lies for a salary.  He openly participates in feeding children poison for a paycheck while calling them educated as they do so.  It really is absurd if you think about it at all. 

The truth is, that guy didn't know how to take care of himself, yet he is deciding what is best for others.  If he doesn't even know what is best for himself how can he possibly know what is best for someone else?  It's everywhere.  This is why I don't care what others say.  This is why I don't care about their rules and regulations.  It's why I don't care if people think I am narcissistic, or an asshole.  It's not that I hate them, or even dislike them, I let the bitterness go, but that I see them for what they are; decisions made by ignorant people.   

We are all connected.  It affects us all.  People with no real education, no understanding, no awareness, yet are in charge of our communities, big and small, are letting terrible things happen.  Most of them just want that paycheck.  They want recognition.  They aren't making those important decisions for our well-being, but for their own paycheck and notoriety.   I don’t understand why they can’t do both; handle our over all well being, and make money, and have recognition?

It's crippling us all.

Sticking up for myself.

I am going to stick up for myself.  For the most part that is what telling my story is all about; sticking up for myself. It’s a fulfillment of my personality.  It may seem narcissistic to some, but I challenge that idea.  I merely lead by example.  Not just me, but we, should be living this way.  That is not my opinion that we should all live this way, it is a precise summation of a large mass of knowledge. 

I can scientifically prove my rarity.  I am not saying others cannot do the same, but that I actually took the time to do it.  That I even took the time to figure this fact out makes me rare.  This is why it is not narcissistic; I merely wanted to know my Self.  It's a spiritual law that I abide by.  To know the Way is to know one's Self.  To know one's Self is only the beginning.  Turns out that is no small thing.  It also seems to be true that sharing my story helps others realize this fact about themselves.  If you come to understand where I come from then you will be forced to realize that you can do it too.  If I can figure it out; anyone can. 

I can safely say that if you were to meet me you would be meeting one of the rarest kinds of human on the planet; an aware one.  I am not making that claim lightly.  The thing that makes me so rare is a combination of inherent rarity and learned rarity all brought together into awareness.  It isn't enough for me to simply be a little better than the other guy; I need to be way better.  It is inherent; it's in my nature to not want anyone to be better than me at anything.  It drives me crazy.  I chose knowledge as the one thing I would exceed all others at.  There is no reason at all that anyone should be more knowledgeable than me, ever.  If that were to be the case it would mean that I am slacking and need to push harder.  Naturally no matter what I do some people are going to be better than I at things, but believe me when I say that I made sure that I am at the top of my own niche.

I did the smartest thing that anyone can do.  I am not bragging, I am stating a fact.  I am leading by example.   It doesn’t make me special to do something that anyone can do; it just makes me rare.  I've read hundreds and hundreds of books.  I am actually into the thousands now.  I had over 900 books logged in my journal before I was twenty one.  I've done something almost no one has done with all that information; I synthesized the situation of life. It’s in my mental nature to do such a thing.  You could say it is what I was born to do. 

I looked at life and asked myself what was the most important thing I could do.  My conclusion was to become as aware as I possibly could in regard to life.  From the moment that decision was made I went at it with all my might.  I didn't just read; I applied.  I discovered the truths within myself to see what was what.  I apply two of the wisest rules; I put aside my opinion until after I gain the knowledge, and I don't believe anything anyone says until I experience it for myself.  I make my own way. 

While everyone else was getting a job, doing what culture was telling them to do, conforming, I was figuring out what the hell is really going on.  I've studied other people all my life, but there is a flip side because I also spend large periods of time alone.   I have a quirky personality and at a young age I learned to use it to my advantage.  I studied others, then studied myself, back and forth, reading the whole time.  I've also spent thousands of hours in conversation regarding life.  I am relentless in my search. 

Even as a child, when everyone else was doing their thing, I was studying, always aware of things no one else was ever thinking about.  As an adult my research has included mainly psychology, history, metaphysics, theology, philosophy, astrology, physics, personology, and most importantly culture.  I hold culture as the most important context for study.  I think of myself as an anthropologist.  I study human beings. I synthesize all the information I take in into what it means to be alive at this point in time.  Unfortunately I have been going about it as a starving artist, so I don't have the typical material items that speak of success.  I stayed in the trenches in order to do the thing, and that made me quite successful in ways that had nothing to do with money.  Chasing those experiences with nothing but a desire to learn taught me to master changing itself.  By doing this I gained a real education. 

Without even believing in god I was living a complete spiritual life.  My prayer for a long time has been to know the truth, regardless of the cost.  The prayer of an idealist in effect, because it doesn’t matter if the source of one’s faith is a real thing or not; it only matters that one have faith. It only matters that one believe, and I have always believed that I would make it.   You will come to find out that the feeling of faith is the feeling of the mind and body radiating out into the universe one’s wishes and desires.  It is powerful stuff. 

Ultimately though, it's like trying to explain running a marathon to a person that has never even ran a 5k.  How do I explain the effect of reading thousands of books to someone who doesn't even read a book in a single year?  The answer is very carefully.  The trick is not expecting one to even know how to run.  It takes time to build up an ability to run for hours.  It takes time to take in lots of books.  Just realize it doesn’t matter what one’s current ability is; what really matters is one’s desire to do it better today than it was done yesterday. 

I recently read a 550 page novel in less than one day.  I still slept, ate, showered, and did my other daily things.  I took a literature class in college and had read all the novels before class even started, for all my classes.  You see, the unconscious mind remembers everything.  All those books are in my head.  Through reading I taught myself to trust my intuition, which is the unconscious speaking to the conscious mind, so that all that information is with me always.  This phenomenon makes me seem psychic to some people.  I don't have to remember which book, said what, I just have to feel the totality of my mind and I just know.  The marathon runner does not think about how she runs, she just runs.  She has completed her training if she is racing for her personal best.   It's that moment of clarity when it all just happens.  To the person who never reads books this trait seems magical or psychic, but if they would train their mind they could do it too.

People often want to know how I know things about people like I do.  I just shrug; I did the thing.  I found out what's up.  I put in the work.  I embraced my ability to sense and feel other people and used it to understand what is really going on.  I focused all my mental abilities on studying people so that I could help them see themselves.  Anyone can do this.  Being able to do this is not what makes one rare, but actually learning to do it is what makes one rare.  Virtually no one does this.  Nearly everyone forms an opinion and then takes in information.  That process guarantees a bias.  It is one thousand times better to take in the information first, and then to decide what is what. 

No college degree.  No certifications.  No titles.  When one can check out books for free at a library, college is a scam.  I've learned more from one book that I got for free at the library than I have an entire semester at college taking five different classes that cost me thousands of dollars.   Certifications are a way for someone who knows less than me to take money from me.  That is clearly unacceptable.  Titles cannot convey knowledge.  Getting a certification is a literal admittance that someone else knows more than I do about something.  Why have they not come to me for a certification?  What title is there for reading thousands of books and applying them?  What title is there for living life to the fullest?  What’s the title for mastering one's circumference? 

Magician?  I like that title.  It’s an archetype that speaks to my soul.  If you could somehow magically have the knowledge I have your life would be transformed instantly; like the magician chanting the truth; healing in effect.  Perhaps, if I am lucky, someone out there will find my words magical, and just like magic it will change their life forever after.  I would consider that a dream come true. 

In my journey of self-discovery I came upon some other quite interesting information.  Everyone should know their Self.   In my own story though, let's add to this rarity equation the Myers-Briggs personality test.  I score as an INFJ.  As a male they say I have the rarest personality of the sixteen types.  .05% of 330 million is 165,000.  That's pretty rare.  Now let's add that my IQ is over 120.  That means of the .05% male INFJ's, less than 10% of them have an IQ that is higher, unless all INFJ personality types have a high IQ?.   I am assuming they do not.  That brings it down to 16,500 people in the US.  Of those how many are awake and aware spiritually with a legitimate education on life?  How many are self-taught?

By the way, I don't think IQ means one is any more capable of making good decisions in life than anyone else.  If anything, having a higher IQ got me into more trouble than not.  They literally test you for it if you get into trouble at a young age.  It has by no means been a good thing in my life over all, but it does give me a means of realizing the differences in people.  I feel like my IQ comes through in my ability to calculate and manipulate objects.  You would not ever want me calculating on you because I will go all MacGyver on your ass.  The Cat in me turns into a lion. 

In the beginning of the story you are going to realize I am even rarer.  The statistics are pretty dramatic regarding males who are raised as I was and how they are in prison, more often than not on death row.  So how many of those INFJ types, were raised in violence?  To be honest I am kind of proud of this one.  Much of my integrity rests on this fact.  Not many who went through what I did pulled their head out of their ass.  Almost all of them are lost.  Hell, most people, who weren’t even abused, never pull their head out of their own ass.  I’ve worked long and hard overcoming what was done to me so that I never hurt anyone.  I stepped out of culture.  As Mark Twain described education; I am truly educated because I unlearned everything.   If you knew about the mind as I do you would understand how important this point is, and that it is the very source of my rarity. 

All my various quirks of personality can be accounted for in personology and astrology literature.  Yes, it is true that around 10% of the time these texts are not accurate, but that in no way means the whole system is wrong.  The evidence is overwhelming.  I am patiently waiting for scientists as a whole to realize they do not understand nearly as much as they would like to think they do regarding personality through time and location of birth.  If you sat down and read my personology and astrological information you would be amazed.  It describes things about me that are not true about anyone else I have ever known.  Because I am introverted no one knows those things about me.  These texts saved my life in many ways because they were the only thing ever in my life that actually understood me.  What's even crazier is that the people who wrote those things about me don't even know me.  It is astounding how accurate it is.  So part of the story will be wrapping the mind around the significance of our birth, which has nothing to do with culture at all. 

I was born on The Day of No Nonsense, in the Week of the System Builder, during The Way of Influence.  This info is from The Secret Language of Birthdays, and Relationships, by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Elffers, which can be found for free online.  These books are must have prizes in my personal library.   Suzanne White, in her book A New Astrology, gives one of the most profound readings on my personality that I have ever read, based on the fact that I am a Virgo/Cat.  Until I achieve that level of understanding I will be amazed by her ability to so succinctly describe me without having ever met me.  It is profound. Truly a miraculous phenomenon. 

You see, astrology is like asking two different people for an assessment of the same person.  Think of the way you would describe your husband or wife, and how their brother or sister would describe them.  You are going to get two very different descriptions, mixed with more than a few similarities, but which is wrong or right?  They will both be right.  Astrology is the same.  It all depends on who you are asking.

I made a goal and that was to know my Self.  I applied the strengths of my personality to achieving this goal.  I took in as much information as I possibly could.  While the first part of my life happened to be a living nightmare, the rest is going to be everything but.  I've learned the mental tools to accomplish anything in life, and I spend almost all my time improving either myself or others.  But it is important to remember what I said earlier about synthesizing.  This is not my opinion.  It's a fact.  I suspended my opinion in the face of the evidence, which generates true knowledge.  Opinion goes away in the face of so much knowledge.  It's not good or bad, right or wrong, it just is.  If you don't believe me go find out for yourself.  It is one of my all-time favorite things to do; I love to tell people I told you so.  Go read all those books and apply it all to your life.  Then you won't have an opinion either; you will just know.  Then you will be alive and aware in the moment. 

This is for those who don’t wish to be like all the rest. I’ve built a mental system, and I am sharing it here so that maybe it will help someone else find their way.  Maybe that person is you.  The truth is out there.  It is simply a matter of removing your personal bias and seeking it. 

I would never have survived if I didn’t unlearn.  In the end I think I am one of the lucky ones because it forced me to wake up and step out of this whack culture.  We all need to be awake and aware, regardless of how we were raised.  It shouldn't take childhood abuse to wake someone up.  I took away my emotional attachment for the way I was told things should be, and I threw it away.  Absolutely everything I was taught as a child was wrong.  I had to relearn it all in order to survive.  Of all the things that have caused suffering in my life, nothing caused suffering like believing lies.  The reason there is suffering in the world is because so many people believe lies.  Even now I find them lurking in my mind, as I wish things were different. 

So that is what this is about.  The removal of suffering through the awareness of reality; to see things for how they really are.  Primates flying through space at thousands of miles per second, on a round rock, spinning around a star.  It's really crazy if you think about it.  What it means to be alive.  

Life in effect.

It’s that moment that I hope for.  It’s the main reason I do what I do.  It makes all the criticism and hate I receive worth it.

It goes by different names, but not many understand it.  Only my closest friends, those who take the time to actually get to know me, understand the purpose of what I do.  Narcissistic, cocky, arrogant, ass, on and on that list goes.  It is easy to judge the surface of someone’s behavior, but it’s another thing to look at the depths to see what is really going on.  My “in your face” antics have a very specific purpose.

I am all about sticking up for one’s self.  I am all about leading by example.   Most people will readily admit that this culture is whack, but then will keep adhering to its social norms.  My favorite spiritual guide, Jiddu Krishnamurti points it out quite clearly when he says, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”  After reading that, it should be easy to disqualify the adjectives such as narcissistic, cocky, arrogant, and ass from the mouths of those who have not stepped out of this whack culture.  They are well adjusted to a sick society and see healthy behavior as a negative.  

During this past holiday season, while spending time with family, a close friend of mine had her younger brother read my Motherless blog.  She said he did not read them all, but read several of them, and after reading them she asked him what he thought.  Keep in mind that her brother knows me, but did not know it was my writing that he was reading.  He told her that it was really messed up that people raise their kids like that.

You see, her brother looks up to me in a certain way.  I am a whole list of things that he is not, but wishes to be.  Confident, or as some say cocky.  Sure of myself, or as some say narcissistic.  I do well with women, or as some would say arrogant.  I am self made, or as some would say, an ass.  He and I have even talked about his position in life.  He never called me those seemingly negative names because deep down he wishes he was those things too.  

After he read some of the blog posts and told his sister that it was messed up, she told him it was me that wrote it.  All he could say was Wow! with a shocked look on his face.  He had no clue that I would have been the author of those stories.  

The issue is, he was not raised appropriately either, he just wasn’t physically abused.  He wasn’t raised correctly at all.  So you see, when he realized it was me who wrote that, he was directly faced with the reality of the situation; he can be just like me.  Not in personality, but in awareness.  If I can do it; anyone can.  If I can overcome that abuse and neglect, so can he.

For me, that is what it’s all about.  I tell my story for just that reason.  When people see how amazing I am, realize where I come from, then they too realize that they can be just as amazing.  By sticking up for myself, and leading by example, I show others they can do it too.  What could possibly be more fulfilling than that?

When people see me in public they cannot even imagine what I have been through.  They cannot even imagine that I spent most of my life with no confidence, no self-esteem, no self-worth.  I spent most of my life just like my friends brother.  If I didn’t tell my story how would he know that he too can climb out of the whole?  Life in effect.  I don’t act special because I am better than anyone else.  I act special because that is exactly what I am.  I am just patiently waiting for everyone else to realize that they are special too. 

The only medicine is truth.

It is potentially the most difficult part of dealing with being motherless; loneliness.  

Have you ever noticed when you are in love that your body changes?  Being an alpha socially creates change too.  There is actually a long list of phenomenon that creates a physiological change in the body.  I like to think of them as switches.  Puberty is one of the easiest to realize.  A switch flips in the body and it changes accordingly.  There are many social situations that change us physically.

Some of these switches cause self destruction.  Feeling like one has no place in the world is such a phenomenon.  These switches are the primary reason for addictions.  Most drug addicts are lost in life, their physical body changes, and down the path of self destruction one goes.  There is a long list too, that causes this self-destruction switch to engage.  Being lost in life is not the only one.

This fact of human life creates a huge problem for those of us who don’t have that sense of family.  We are constantly fighting with our own body to survive.  It is quite a conundrum.  One has to convince themselves that they are worthy of life despite all the physical facts that say otherwise.  Culture and society is forever wishing to rid itself of the motherless child.  This is the basis for what Kahlil Gibran says, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”  Those without mothers and fathers fight for their lives every day.  Nothing builds character like that kind of suffering.

Society piles it on, expecting us to be like those with mothers when we are not even capable of knowing what that is.  Casting us even further into a physiological separateness death spiral.  The feeling of loneliness never abates.  Lost in life.  It’s unimaginable.  I’ve imagined it so many times, having a mother, and it never comes to be.  I’ve only ever returned to my loneliness when the illusion crashes to pieces.  That is the price of praying for the truth.  

How would I ever truly find my own sense of self always relying on another?  Always believing a lie? The sense of self that would have come from such a relationship is unknowable to me.  When a mother forsakes her child there is no recovery of that motherhood in the child.  Who but our own mother could love us in that way?  It’s an unseen thing.  Once that failure is imposed on a child it is forever after as if cast in stone. The only way out is to turn off the switch.  To bring about such a state of mind that defies society is a difficult task.  It requires standing all alone in the energy of the masses and being okay with that fact.  Rare is that individual.  

Did you catch it?  The longing for a mother forced on me by this culture is a real thing.  I long ago quit counting how many times I was looked down upon with horror for not loving the woman who gave birth to me.  Society has forever blamed me for what was done to me.  Forever wished for me to defy my self.  If I was born into a different culture where everyone was motherless would it even be an issue?  The cultural pressure to be some one way is a very real thing.  It is practically assumed that everyone has a mother and if you don’t no one wants to face that fact.  Hardly anyone knows what it is.  When I am near such people I can feel it.  It is a real thing.

So why did the poet say, “the most massive characters”?  It is because anyone who overcomes such an ordeal must have such a character, or they do not survive.  There is no middle ground.  The casualties of this phenomenon are untold millions, correction; billions.  It is overwhelming how many do not make it.  To overcome it requires one to have a sense of self that stands alone in the world.  All the while, while attempting to build this sense of self, the world is ever trying to force it to conform.  Overcoming this forces one to be different than all the rest by that same sheer force; it is do or die.  Those who never know life without family, without a mother or father, are under the illusion that they are not alone.  Their entire lives are built on a lie.  Being motherless forces the truth into the mind, or it destroys it.  

In spiritual life, success is measured in ones awareness of the truth.  Not material possessions.  Not fame or power, but recognition of truth.  The truth is we are all alone in a certain way, no matter what one believes, yet we are all one.  You who have a mother, she could be taken at any moment.  Your fathers could cease to be at any second.  Then what?  You will have two choices; face the truth of loneliness and battle your own body, or fill the whole with something else quite temporary and never realize the truth.  It requires a massive character to live life with the switch flipped.  It requires a massive character to undo it.  

Unlearning culture, stepping out of culture is the path.  It's the only remedy I found that worked.

Should you ever see one suffering, know they are alone.  They are lost else they would not be self-destructing.  Know that they are living a lie.  It is easy to condemn the drug addict, the inmate, or the sick and corrupt, but you see those things are only the symptom; those things are the running nose, but not the cold; the sore throat, but not the virus.  The cold is tearing at their hearts.  The virus is destroying them.   The only medicine is truth.  Only the truth can set them free.  

Look how many have mothers, yet still self-destruct; they are living a lie.  

For some of us, it is the single greatest source of our sense of self; that we survived it at all.