Author: tomgrasso (Page 30 of 38)

Perhaps the essence of health is in the foundation of truth.

This would be nothing special except that perhaps I have spent my life running from the truth in one of its many forms. It seems the more I discover the truth the more I realize how afraid of it I am, or was, or will be. The truth has never been my friend, whether from the parents who denied me of it, or the childhood spent finding ways to bend it, or adulthood lived ashamed of it. No, I have become so unfamiliar with truth that it seems almost foreign to me, and those things foreign to us seem to scare us the most.

Yet love, if not life, demands nothing but the truth from us all. Whether it be the reality of suffering, the loss of love, the bitter chill of hate and intolerance we are forced at some time in our existence to face truth head on. We may be ugly, we may be fat, we may be mean, we may be short, we may be…

We may be, period. Regardless of what follows that simple grouping of three words, we may be. Truth is those three words, and what follows those words are perception bound in a need to be something else. I may be ugly, depending on the one describing me. I may be fat in in a room of those thin. Yet I may be, or I am, regardless of what follows.

It is this simple truth that helps me cope with such a fear of that truth. If what I am is and what follows irrelevant, is the truth really to be feared? Is the judgment of others that which need concern me at all? Is it just that the I fear not the truth, but that judgment of others? I can see in my life that there were very few times I feared the truth, yet I can see clearly how I fear the consequence and the judgments of others. Perhaps the best way to find truth is to disregard the judgment of others and to just allow what is to be.

Simple enough, let the test begin.

Flashback to an 8 year old boy, removed from all he had known and all he had loved. Gone were the friends he cherished, the play times he took for granted, the neighborhood that was his world. Entered by marriage into a new world: lonely, desolate, foreign. This new life, he was told, would be so much better than the life of poverty and single parent family he had endured for as long as he could remember.

The question quickly became in his mind, “better for who?”. The answer was all too evident as time was to pass.

He withdrew to things. In a new home on a busy highway the boy now sat alone where they once were more friends to count. The kids – the only kids he could ever remember knowing – were gone, replaced by trees, his toys, and the many trucks and cars that went zooming by his new home. He learned to hate the people who brought him here. Not really a “hate”, but a resentment caused by the fact that they simply would not understand what they had done to him. The fact that they did not care only compounded the issue, children could adapt and overcome anything it seemed. Well, at least those things their parents thought we necessary for them to overcome.

So he created a circle of attachments with his toys he had brought to this new world. He didn’t have many at this point, so he struggled to keep them working and close by as to make sure they were not discarded like his life had been. The once busy youth found himself replacing his friends with toys, he loneliness placated only in the times he would share with the only remaining vestiges of a life he wished he could return to. As he saw it, he was not poor in his old life, but he certainly was in this one. Sure, the house was bigger, the food better, and the clothes nicer, but he could not help feeling as if his soul was starving and that he had instantly become poorer the last time he left his old yard. The last time he saw those friends he would never see again was the moment he became the poorest person in his world.

One day his new father explained to him that his old “junk” needed to be cleaned up and thrown away. The boy had been conditioned by his mother to love this man as a sinner loves his savior, that the world would begin and end with this simple man who, nice as he was, was not the savior this boy needed. Sure, he would learn a lot as from this man as time went by, but he never would enjoy a relationship that all boys need with their father. Later in life this boy would question whether or not it was he who kept the relationship from thriving, but such perfect hindsight only confirmed that the lies, the beatings, and the man who stood by and let them happen simply was not worthy of such trust. He was a good man, he was an kind man, but he was not his stepson and his stepson was not him. Such are the ties that bind us through the acts that create us.

The man wished to clean out his new son’s “junk”. The boy simply had no choice in the matter, even as he was employed to assist in the carnage. With all of the strength he could muster this young man took all those things that bound him to his wealthy existence and threw them into bags. Gone were the things that calmed him in his times of loneliness. Gone was the stuffed pony he had had since his life began. Gone was the wind up radio that played music to him in his infancy. With each toy he played one last time before sending them to their doom. With each toy he held back tears that were months in the making.

Off to the dump they went. Dumps were the benefits to the new farming life his mother had conscripted him to. There, all kinds of things were sent to their graves. Today, a vast chuck of his life was being laid to rest, and with these things the domination of desolation was sure to be complete. With each toss his heart shattered just a bit more. He needed to be brave, this test was one he must not fail, and the tears that were streaming down his face he reasoned were from the bitter cold winds ripping at his soul. Finally, the carnage was complete, although the end had not brought with it the peace he so desperately sought.

One final goodbye to his life was all it took. He saw it instantly under the other debris brought by his new father to this land from the house they have bought. Under the garbage his stuffed blue pony looked back at him as if to say “you betrayed me and are leaving me to die in this hell.” Those eyes looked mysteriously sad and disappointed, and the guilt took over this young boy’s heart as if fell into the pit alongside his friend. Still, he must remain strong and brave, lest his new father abandon him like all others had before him.

The ride home was a blur. The man was talking to his new son, but the boy simply was walking elsewhere. Somewhere between the dump and home, it became apparent to the boy that his strength was misguided, that it was not in acting complicit to the betrayal he had just committed that there was strength, but standing up to it. The tears from the months of change, the loneliness that change had spawned, and the emptiness that his new life had caused. No one had noticed, no one had cared, but now the boy was going to let it out. And let it out he did.

To the man’s credit, he heard the boy and took him back to the dump. Nothing looked the same to the youth, and the pony he could not find. He looked for as long as the man would allow, but saw nothing of the friends he had betrayed without a peep. Perhaps had he just spoken sooner none of this would have happened. Perhaps if the man could feel any sorrow it would not have happened either.

In adulthood, the boy realized that the man took him to a different dump, as to let the boy continue to believe that it was he who had failed his friends. The boy who would become a man realized just how much of an impact that day would have on him, even decades later. This is but one story of a life lived from underneath the greatness that could have been the boy, if only he could have understood sooner the reason for it all.

It is not this night I fear, but the dawn that shall break it.From whence such fears arose I cannot be certain, but fears divine they are in such scope as to shake the very foundation of their end.I walk alone, I think alone, I am alone; such things may or may not be true, but such things are surely the tremors that break the stillness of this night.

One can be lost and yet be found, and truly I am such a man.I look around me and smile brightly at the sights of love’s existence in my own, knowing full well that this breath of emotion is born in the darkest recesses of my being.I can feel this joy born of sorrow, and take notice that they are becoming equals in this tired soul.Such a lofty accomplishment I can bear as not my own, but of that of those who would bother to offer me the precious love that finds me even when all seems lost.I fear my single accomplishment without them would be in being lost, in being left to darkness, in grasping at straw figures who seek to keep me lost.No, anything that I may appear to be or do is me at all, but of those who provide the foundation to this shaky ground we call life.

And to them, I meekly offer you my effort, my heart as it can be given, my soul as it can be shown, and my life as it can be lived.

Step One

These feet are heavy as I bear more than the weight of my flesh upon this Earth.I do struggle with the weight at times, full well realizing that I am the stronger for the struggle.A wise man once cracked “That which does not kill me shall only make me stronger” without realizing that it isn’t the death that makes us weak, but the refusal to live with that which could kill us.Perhaps he did realize such things, perhaps he did live with such a weight to bear.

Still, I am left to seek out a stronger version of my self, that which is strength in not being so “strong”, that which finds solace in more than me.It appears to be a big step, likening that to each step on an old, rickety rope bridge stretched across valley to which there is no end.The pulse quickens at the thought of it, and the weight I carry on my back seems to beckon me not to step upon that bridge.Step I will, either toward a new landscape or into the obscurity that comes with the fall.

Greater risks have lesser men taken, but one must surely recognize the challenge of the mind.Leaving such comfort as the Beast finds itself in is an abnormality unto itself.Beasts marks their territory in the attempt to never leave the familiar, and they will fight to the death to remain in such comfort.Yet man must learn to tame his Beast should he seek to reach for that which is beyond him, for as we lift our leg to mark the spot we call our own our eyes always seek that which is beyond it.It is the Beast, our minds, that either ensures our imprisonment to the boundaries we cause or allow us the fortitude to step on that bridge that takes us beyond it.

I choose to step onto the bridge.I would risk the fall in order to seek what I cannot see.My sight has failed me before, many more times than I dare count, so I have learned that I can only trust what I see when what I see feelsright to that which the mind does not control.I simply cannot cling to that which I call “me” when in the eyes of those I love the tears form at the sight of me.Me is not all that great, it is what that me can become that may show the full potential of this life.So onward I step, outward I reach, all the while trust the inward part of me that remains when the voices are silent.

This endless frigid night surely does test the strength of nearly every being who shall pass underneath such a veil of darkness. To search but for the smallest spec of light seems to be my life’s endeavor, so far all for naught save that moment in time that all seemed so bright. To lose such light is to stumble harder than before it shone, for the darkness never seems so dark than after such loss, after all is gone, after that slightest bit of warmth has touched your soul. Nothing seems as cold as the night after the warmth of day. One is left to wonder if the gift of sun is worth the pain of losing it, if such a taste of warmth is worth the bitterness of the cold to follow.

Yet it is quite obvious that it is the human endeavor to search for light in darkness, warmth in cold, love in the face of hate. All that does and all that is is contained in the essence of but the smallest sense of light barely visible to those who savor darkness or have more light than they need. Yet each feeds off the other, for we cannot have the joy of warmth without the dismay of coldness. We must suffer if we are to experience the bliss of enlightenment. We must cry to see a smile, we must hate to feel the love, we must die to seek out life.

The essence of life, its purpose, is to experience it. The purpose of life isn’t just to love it is to hate. The purpose of life is not just to be happy, it is to experience unbridled despair. The absoluteness of life is not in just the good, it is found in the bad. If you are to take every ounce of the negative in life you surely will find the positive born, the joy created out of despair, the love found in the bounds of hate. Without one you do not have the other, and both must be lived if either is to be found and appreciated.

Embrace both as they are, appreciate them, and accept them. Only in the acceptance can you find the peace for which you search, that tiny spec of light that will help guide your way.

Today I struggle more than most. It’s an odd struggle for this day, for there is just something not right, although I will be damned if I know what it is. There is a lot on the proverbial plate, the job, the move, the lack of something, something so tough to pinpoint yet so easy to see.

Have I failed?

I am not sure, perhaps time will tell. The truth is that I am not sure I feel a failure here, but I know that what I what I feel is not success either. I know enough to see that I this is but one step in this journey. A small step indeed no matter how big it looks today, or a huge step indeed no matter how small it looks today. The truth is that I am not sure what to call this moment, or the moments that have got me here, or where I am heading. Have I failed? Have I done something so momentous that our lives will have found great significance because of this moment? All I know is that I do not know what to call what I have done or not done, and perhaps that lack of knowledge is what is creating the struggle itself. Perhaps it is not even really a struggle at all, but rather a lack of acceptance that things just are as they must be.

I walked outside tonight under the bright full moon and starlit sky. I am small, no doubt about it. Those stars above shone such light millions of years ago when greater men than me struggled greater struggles than I have seen. That moon has cast shadows on men with more to bear than my small fate. I feel alive in this presence, yet I feel lost in the weight of such small matters as those my mind must bear. I can see that perhaps what seems like failure today might mean the greatest events to those I love tomorrow. I stand in the glow of knowing that the greatest successes of today can mean the height of suffering tomorrow, and that life is like the changing phases of the moon I am standing under – one moment it is full, the other it is not, and there is nothing I can do to change it. I can see clearly that the weight I bear weighs little and that none of this matters, that time and space and love and lost mean little while meaning everything. Such matters of existence are like a waves on a beach, they only matter at the moment they break and are quickly replaced by yet another moment of undulation.

Who am I?

“Timeless question, ageless thought, all that’s endless, all for naught.” I guess the identity we have in ourselves is the temporary filler to our existence. I have never been able to answer such a question, nor have I been able to answer the sure follow up: “Does it matter?” I honestly don’t know who I am or what I am good at. Perhaps I can answer my insecurities at what I do well by understanding all those many things that I don’t do well. That list would be just too long to offer those who can barely muster up the will to read even the smallest thoughts I share. Yet I list them in my mind in such repetition as to believe that all those things I don’t do well are who I am. In this, is it fair to say that I am all that I do poorly regardless of that which I do well? And if, in fact, this is true, is it the lack of acceptance of who I am that is the cause for my suffering?

Is part of love, life, being and truth the acceptance of who I am regardless of what the judge says is the best or worst of me? Is accepting that which I do that makes you cry as important to happiness as accepting that which puts such a lovely smile on your face? Is accepting those moments of imperfection as important to happiness as embracing those moments of shear and utter perfection? It would seem so, for without the bad there can be no good, and without the pain they can be no contentment. That is not to say that one should be so content in acceptance as to not strive for the best of oneself, it is to say that in dwelling on such matters of imperfection that one cannot see or attest to the perfection. It is in the focusing and dwelling on the armless sight of Aphrodite that one cannot see the perfect beauty that is the rest of her. Perhaps when we focus on such beauty the lack of arms bothers us not at all.

So I am left to wonder, does who I am matter at all to me or to those who wish to know me? Do I submit to the judgments of others whose whims would be so meaningless as to change with the seasons? Or do I just accept that which is and bask in the beauty that this moment provides regardless of the fact there are no arms to embrace me, no lips to caress my own, or no longing in others for that which they see as who I am? It could simply be the armless masterpiece to which I find solace, for the rest of it is shear beauty.

From the internal arises a heat, and from the throes of such heat comes the animal within. Such violent primitive emotions do come from the essence of man without spirit, the meaningless set of values without value, the loss of Being in humanity. Yet come they do, and in the absence of Spirit to subdue the animal within, man simply reverts to the lesser of his self.

In my experience it appears at times as if man can only act in the absence of spirit. Such violent sense of nothingness can be met with much of the same or act in a much different sense of self. Violence is the lesser form of man, a Beast, but it would seem a form sometimes that is unable to hide itself. Such form is the dichotomy of man, turning the industrious willer of good into a destructive force of nature.

In such a thing the Lone Wolf has indulged. In his life he has resolved to pacificism, then violence, and now to the mixture of the two that survives him today. The Beast has shown itself on more than one occasion, surely leaving its mark of lust and misery. Creation had given the Wolf the talents of the beast along with the talents of a peacemaker, and to such ends both had shared success and failure. At times the Wolf, feeling gray in his years, longed for the tinge of control the Beast allowed, but left such thirst to the gods of time passed and challenge wasted. The scars of the Beast remained on his body, while the glimmer of Spirit remained in his eyes. It was such spirit that seemed determined to keep the Beast in slumber, as to not to allow its return regardless of the heat of the day. Today’s heat presents such a challenge.

It seemed to the Lone Wolf that all things must remain as they are despite the idiocy of the world around him. Others in their packs stayed true to the lies of the pack, and dismal paradox of behavior not understandable. They would invent such provocation in others to warrant the attack, while preaching preach and love. To the Lone Wolf is was quite apparent they had lost their way, that they were so blinded by the value they had in the pack that they could not see they were leading it to disaster. It seemed obvious that others were working in sincere diligence to destroy the thing they claimed to love the most, so much so that it also seemed obvious that they hated that which they said they loved. Why else would they be so determined to destroy it? Warfare had never “created” anything, and the endless attacks on the packs around them seemed to create the exact opposite of what they were intended to create. Pack leaders, often left remote by poor leadership and bad decisions, quickly undertook such attacks to keep unity in the ranks. When the lead dogs made the wrong turn and water become scarce, and attack on others materialized, and the attack and the “threat” it was designed to end became the focus, not the mistakes that led to the thirst.

Sad state, these affairs, and as the snow turned red with the blood of hatred and blindness. The Lone Wolf marveled at how much he could see without the blindness of the Beast, he could clearly see the anger others could muster in those who followed without question, he could clearly see the threat that such blind allegiance could create. Patriotism, once the foundation of the pack that ensured its survival, seemed to be the thing that ensured its demise. He with no allegiance could easily see such folly, with no leader to subscribe one could easily see the failures of such subscription. No, the independence of his individual self, the strength that all that is provided his Spirit was enough to get him through the toughest of days. He needed no pack, he needed no leader, he needed to die for no thing or no one save those the voice of his Spirit directed.

That was not to say the Lone Wolf did not love. He loved often and freely, without prejudice and without bias. Still, he knew when to keep his distance, although his love did not. He could love those he would fight, he could love those he did not agree with. Such was the freedom he could enjoy in the unattachment his life had provided. He need not hate any thing or any one, he need not care what they thought despite his pleadings that seemed to be saying the contrary. He could bare his teeth as if to hate but out of love, for the hoping the sight would end the foray before it began. When it did not, he did not hate his adversary, but rather felt sorry for their mistake, that if just to leave him alone would be quite enough.

It seemed amazing that there were others who just could not leave him alone. They needed him to think like them, to assimilate into the pack. He could only surmise that they feared his independence. It was true that the leadership did, for a pack without the need for leaders had no need for them. They, the leaders, were weak without they, the followers. They were nothings, the leaders, without those on whose fear they could prey. If the followers only saw the strength in such independence, the leaders would become nothings. For their part, the pack feared his independence, for there was some comfort in knowing that the sum of the whole was the whole of the some. If they all were alike, in thought, action, need and desire, there would be no need for fear, no need for greater security.

In this, the battles they waged were not about threat of others, but the threat of others to the selfs that the pack had created. Those others did not think like them, smell like them, or howl at the same moon so they had to be a threat. They needed to assimilate or risk the pack’s security. After all, there is no greater loss of security to the pack then the loss of dependence, whether leader on the follower or the follower on the leader. Dependence is security, and the thought of independence raiding such security was insecurity into itself.

It was all so eerily apparent to the Lone Wolf the day he found his independence. He sought higher mountains, thicker forests, clearer streams and air so pure it cleared is mind of thought with each breath. He sought to roam where hisSpirit took him, not where some drone deigned it proper for him to go. He raised his head to the Moon, and howled a yell that told the world around him, every creature that he was free, and that he was alive.

I guess we all wake from our dreams sooner or later.

To some, the awakening results in the understanding that they just are not equipped to make others truly happy in life. They cannot forgo what drives their mind to work, to awaken, in the sake of some semblance of selflessness when that mind drives them to selfishness. To those imprisoned few, it seems obvious that others cannot see the branch they have whittled away for those others can only focus on the twig still being held onto. Forget the branch dropped in selflessness, it is unseen and unacknowledged, for that twig seems to hold much more weight in the eyes of those who need not carry it.

In that way, others cannot see the changes made within such a mind, where they want to be selfless but perhaps not in the way others need them to be. It is difficult for those who so desperately clung to the branch to let go of the twig, for that branch was everything to them – their survival, their selves, the only thing never allowed to see the light of day now awoken and as strong as ever. The others cannot see you chipping away at that branch, slowly ridding the mind of the weight of it all. They can only see the empty soul they wish you had, rather than the great reduction of weight you have worked so hard to offer. The Wolf but wags his tail at the sight of such masters, proud of the whittling away he has done. The Master removes such pride in the reminding that there is so much more wood to go.

But then you awake. You awake to the fact that perhaps the reason the others no longer see the effort is because they don’t care to. There is no love, no understanding, just a cold hearted reality that says “you shall conform or be cast away”. They don’t see you as the laborer working to cast away the branch, they see you as the labor. They are tired, they are angry, and they could care less about what blisters your hands employ in such work, they only care about having it in the time and manner they see fit.

True enough, their vision is fair, the sweat the brow has spent yesterday does not mean it anything but dry today. They, the “loved” ones, are there with you, becoming wet with the perspiration you offer as your go about your work. They share the blisters, blisters not theirs to have, yet they share them nonetheless. They simply tire of the work, care little for the results of the labor, just as they begin to care little for the laborer.

There comes a time when the laborer decides to bear the burden on his own. No, it is not fair for those loved ones to share in the passion of such work that the mind dare fight, and it is not fair for the laborer to bear the brunt of effort not just of the job at hand, but also of curing those who share in the work. At some point, the man must rise above himself, alone and of good will, to better himself through suffering and the anguish of effort. He must turn what he recognizes as in need of repair into repair, not just recognition. At some point he must simply walk away from the crew to aspire to such greatness.

He is therefore resigned, he feels, needing to lose that which he cherishes the most not to hurt them, but to save them. He is nothing in their eyes, part of the Creation of his mind, yet created nonetheless. He simply is not good enough to be in their employ in any aspect of work, for he has not succeeded even in the crafting of the twig he now holds. Perhaps he needs to walk and not return until the twig is left floating in some deep and angry river, gone forever. Perhaps, at this point, the removal of both the twig and the branch is pointless as it is in his world, for they have but left him in the Angry River a while ago. He is irrelevant to their cause, and as so is irrelevant in his own for his cause was so closely tied to theirs. He simply must not walk in a path made for 5, he must find the path made for none.

So there he sits, alone but holding his twig. The realization that the calls for him were not made in need for him at all sets in like a stone on the soul. He sees the world clearly as the Lone Wolf of yesterday stirs within, he is not needed, not wanted, not seen as a way to love but an impediment to it. They will not disagree, they will not argue such a point left true, and if they did he would hear none of it. No, those who demanded the work will just forget he existed, and as the cold wind sets in they will not dare think of his plight. They will bask in their warmth, in the glow of the fire, thankful that the chill will not dare touch them this night. They will smile, they will laugh, they will love without one careless thought of he who tried but failed. If they hear of his demise they will but believe it was his own fault, for he could not whittle fast enough to be one of them. He did not conform fast enough, he did not see his work as necessary enough, he did not but see the burden of life pulling the sled in the honor of those riding in it. It is true enough that the riders cannot fathom the mind of the Dog, cannot see that he just wants to arrive and considers each step as his destination. He cannot be here and there at the same time, he must be here first, either with those who care enough to go along for the ride or without them, but he will be here all the same.

The questions remains as such forks in the road, which direction should be taken. Either way he will walk, but the path either narrows for none or widens for all. Perhaps the choice should not be made by others, those who see the walk as way too strenuous for their own legs to bear. Perhaps it is time to say “I shall go on without you, just wait for soon there will be another sled for you to ride.” Such a sled must surely be much more comfortable than the one he can provide, one that means you need not walk at all. Such happiness is what is deserved, what is desired by him of those who were so worth the effort in the first place.

Perhaps in the lonely walk he must endure such suffering so that he may find his self. Perhaps it is too late for the others he holds on to with so much love in his heart but so little understanding in his mind. Perhaps he will find such love in the self, such love that others can share but that he need not cling to. Perhaps such a treat will be found in the loss of the branch he once clung to so proudly and in its place lies the knowledge that it need not be there at all. Perhaps his riders will enjoy his company for his company, not the company they thought he should offer, company that he could not provide at that moment. Perhaps they will not require a ride at all, but just ask him to sit in his own way in front of the fire to share in its warmth not on their terms, but just in the way things are.

To such an end one can only dream…as the stirrings of slumber’s end wreaks havoc on such memory.