I had a bad day yesterday.  Normally I reserve the bad day stuff for my private blog.  But I've got a handful of friends out here who would probably appreciate me saying what's going on.

If you made it through the Treat Me Like An Athlete post a few days ago, you know my insurance is pulling a loophole on me, I've had allergic reactions lately to a couple more key meds, and I'm dealing with the idea that the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies, and the medical field are enabling a severe prescription medication abuse problem on top of chronic illness and the resulting depression, which are hard enough handling alone without also having to practically go into rehab.  Boy, that was a long sentence.

After 20 years of dealing with *stuff* while I managed to get my college degree and hold jobs, I had to make some pretty tough decisions this summer about how I'm going to keep surviving.  And this last year has not just been a turning point, it's been a very eye opening disaster full of one big problem after another.  This summer is a culmination of me getting pissed off enough to start standing up to the way U.S. corporations dictate how doctors have to handle long term chronic patients, and what I'm doing in my own life to walk away from that.

So here's the down and dirty.

I received my official permanently disabled handicap placard (hang tag for my car) on August 15th, just ten days after my 15th anniversary, and during the 2008 summer olympics in China.  The irony hit me kinda hard after 20 years of fighting against being labeled disabled.  (Kewl, that rhymed.)  I am no longer considered ambulatory beyond 50 feet without having to 'stop and rest', which for me means nearly having to lay down on the ground for 15 minutes.  The same day I received the hangtag, I was valiantly trying to keep up with Scott in a Penney's store, where he was buying a much needed pair of jeans during a back to school sale.  A softlines associate noticed I was having difficulty (I get VERY slow, and lose my balance a lot, I have to hold on to Scott or a cart as I walk through stores) and offered to get me a wheelchair.  I'm not even 50 years old yet.  I've known for 20 years this was coming, but it was still a shock for it to become real, and once out of her sight I lost it.  Once I was able to stop crying enough to talk (I'm aspie, I freeze up when the tears roll), I asked Scott if I really looked ~that~ bad.  He said yes, I really do look that bad.  When the fatigue hits, I look like death warmed over, and it doesn't take long for it to hit.  People tell me my face drains and I look super white, even with makeup on, and they can't help telling me this.  I scare people.  I scared my physical therapist the last day I was there.  So I have to face it- if I wanna hang out with people while they shop, I need to be in a wheelchair.

So yesterday I saw my psychologist.  I go once a month now.  I am nowhere near clinical depression, but I still deal with the impact of constant illness and living with facing the disability now, on top of still learning how to socially interact more successfully because of the Asperger's.  He said I was making some pretty powerful statements about sanctioned medication abuse (I have been on handfuls of *everything* over the years) and how I believe that until the medical community admits that the fibro/depression/medication combo really does kill people, and as long as insurance companies keep dictating the limits on health care (as in being more likely to spend tens of thousands on back surgery, but no more than $1000 a year on physical therapy, chiropractor, acupuncture, and massage combined), chronics are screwed.  As long as corporations keep pushing poor nutrition for sales (I speak specifically of coke and pepsi products here, and any other company using high fructose corn syrup, which nails me to the floor) and as long as uneducated people keep supporting it, chronics are screwed.  As long as the medical field's hands are tied on being autonomous and caring for long term patients, chronics are screwed.

Then we talked about what I've studied this last year in terms of viral infections and their long term effects.  I'm not just some health nut reading alt treatment from tv doctors selling something.  I'm educated out my ears, I am very good with technical data, and since I'm so experienced at being a 20 year patient, I feel I'm qualified to study and assess this stuff.  I understand the blood tests they do, I've actually been trained how to write a medical report in college, stuff like that.

Some of you know I carry antibodies for a number of weird stuff, including lyme, epstein barr, bartonella, lupus, CMV, and a weird little herpes virus (there are thousands) that lives on the 7th cranial nerve and activates into Bell's Palsy, among other things.  The problem with blood testing for these viruses is that simply seeing antibodies doesn't tell you whether or not the patient is in active progression.  Some of the tests come with titer scores, but like with lyme, unless your titer is high enough (even being initially positive) to warrant pursuing with another test for actual diagnosis for an actual disease 'process', you're screwed.  While doctors in Sweden and Canada and other countries are actively treating advanced lyme, the U.S. is essentially ignoring the fact that there is latent progression for many years, and by the time there is enough damage to be seen on an MRI, it's too late, you're screwed.  Because lesions throughout your nervous system (and brain) are no fun.  Same with epstein barr, it can actually be pretty serious IF you are one of those people who keep having complications, but unless someone is actually tracking and studying your health record, all this stuff gets lost in the paperwork.  So I've come to know my little viral buddies pretty well, and I know that they can all cause some serious complications down the road, leading to DEATH.  Oddly, having a multiplicity of these all in one body doesn't seem to ever have been studied...

But as long as we are categorizing fibro and lupus into separate *non* terminal issues and ignoring a conglomerate of viral antibodies all piled into one host, I'm pretty much just another 'healthy' looking person getting a disabled hang tag because I'm lazy and pending for a court case because I don't feel like working any more.  If you are not familiar with chronics and terminals, there really are people walking through parking lots out there who REQUIRE that you limp out of your car if you display a handicap tag, because if you don't have a visible limp or deformity, you can't possibly be having a 'real' problem, such as a lung disease, heart complications, myofacial (muscle) pain, cranial nerve damage, whatever.  I even had a nurse tell me to my face I was AMBULATORY and the doctor would NOT give me a hangtag, but it was ok for her to have one because her 17 year old son has the mind of a 3 year old.  I'm pretty sure he's ambulatory, too, and not driving, and I'm sorry, that's still pretty lame if he's healthy enough to walk and needs the exercise.  So I've been through the hateful responses, yeah.  People with chronic illness are judged pretty harshly.  Sorry I don't look like Quasimoto, guys.

I talked with the psychologist about what it's like to have to go to work on handfuls of meds for years, to have to face coworkers who scoff off your problems, to learn to hide it all to avoid the constant whispering within earshot.  He asked me why don't I just not worry about it, just ignore it, and I said YOU try it.  YOU try coming in to work every day and people telling you that you don't *look* sick, that it's all in your mind, telling you to 'think healthy', being stuck listening to advice from people who have no idea what you're going through, generally not treating you well because you're branded a whiner, a faker, an attention getter.  There is nothing worse on this planet than negative attention, and I'd rather die alone in a corner than surrounded by people who are arguing with me about me making stuff up because I have a psychological problem, or giving me lectures on vitamins and herbs.  I've actually had bosses lecture me like that, too, just for bringing in a doctor's note saying I needed to wear athletic support shoes on a hard floor on an 8 hour a day job.  I have been through every conceivable harassment, and I've seen other people with health problems get treated just as badly.

So when the psychologist asked me if I really am going to try to go medication free (what choice to I have???  I'm allergic to everything), I said it would be NICE to be able to take a pill, but I've gotta get through the next five months with no help at *all* from ~anyone~.  I'm on my OWN.  No pain therapy, no drugs.  My drug tolerance is so low nowadays I don't dare go over 1/2 a vicodin at a time.  I know people who take 3 at a time with xanax just because they are drug abusers.  Must be nice.

So yesterday was tough.  I cried.    I had to face hard stuff.  I told him about the other two women I know, both my age.  One is DEAD already, the other has aged twenty years in the last ten trying to keep pulling all this medication abuse and going to work crap.

But I'm not the kind of person who can sit around and whine except on my private blog.  I hate cell phones, so I never call anyone for support.  I'm aspie, so I don't verbalize well with others anyway.  My 'social network' is a small flock of chickens while Scott works all day.  I have a really different way of approaching pain, sadness, fear, anger, depression, whatever.  I plunge headlong into my demons and take them on, and I'm telling you, to admit after 20 years that I'm as much a prescription drug abuser as any actor out there (thank *God* I've come up allergic to so many drugs) and that I'm really pissed off that this is *~*sanctioned*~* treatment for people with REAL problems while I'm lying in a metaphorical ditch by the side of the humanity road, I'm ready to start facing off with the CEOs out on private golf courses who are dictating this lifestyle to me.  I'm ready to take it all on and show the world I can survive this without their bullshit.  I'm all for medications helping people, but when it's handed out like candy to just any ol' body and the insurance companies endorse that behavior and tell me I'm out of benefits because of some legal loophole, that's bullshit.

I'm still working on the survival plan.  I've already spelled out in previous posts that medication information is vital, nutrition and hydration are key, letting go of formalized sleep patterns is crucial, and that getting up and moving around are what quality of life boils down to.  So what next?

Well, I'm going to dye my hair blue this weekend.

It's bad enough that my hair is this thin (I'm not a hair puller) and strangers automatically treat me real nice as if I've got cancer or something.  But I've gotta play with it before I lose it all.  It's so bad I have to keep it short now, because it's much more obvious when I grow it out long.  It only looks this bad when I've slept on it.

And don't say Why don't you get a wig?  I hate stuff on my head, and it takes very little to make more hair fall out.  The only hair product I use any more is Pantene shampoo/conditioner.  Everything else breaks my scalp out.

So this is me learning how to use short hair to look better.  This is me a year ago.

This is me last April.

This is me last May.

This is me in high school.  (That's my brother in the window.)

This is me about the time I was first diagnosed in my 20's.

This is me in my 30's.

This is 7 years ago when I turned 40.

This is me just 3 years ago.

This was me about 2 years ago before I finally chopped all my hair off.

I miss my long hair.

And I've decided to be a mall walker.  I can make it to the mall once a week, and walk like a turtle even a little distance, crash on a bench here or there as long as I need, and the old people zipping around me can drag me out of the racetrack if I flop on my face.  I've got to get out with people.  I need spotters.  I can't go walk a nature trail and wait for someone to find my body.

So that's a big decision, get out of the house on my own for something besides doctor appointments.  Plus I've still gotta continue the new physical therapy exercises I've learned this summer.

I've been watching a movie called Dark City over and over again lately, and finding it on a youtube with this song was really cool.  This is exactly what I feel like I'm going through psychologically.  This has been very powerful for me.

I think the hardest part for us to grasp in the whole quantum thing is that our car batteries still die even when we don't observe that we've left the dome light on all night.

The second hardest part for us to grasp is the reality in our heads not necessarily being the reality outside of them, although most of us can usually come pretty close to describing the same basic thing.  However, this stops working when something like a person crazed with jealousy is determined that a spouse or partner is cheating when they are not.  Sometimes what's in one person's head just isn't in anyone else's.  Like drugs or something.

Little kids have to learn to synchronize their 'realities'.  We learn as toddlers and early grade schoolers what personal space is, that we don't make the rules, that becoming a group doesn't take away our pride in our individual achievements.  We learn that there is shame and guilt and hopes and dreams.

Then when we hit middle age we review everything we've learned and have to untangle it all before we move on, because if we don't, we get caught up in a selfish 'stupidity' phase that crashes other realities around us.  Some of us become 5 again.

I have figured out that it all boils down to selfish vs. selfless.  Learning to say please and thank you.  Validating other people's feelings and experiences while we learn to gracefully apologize for the pain we put others through at various times in our lives.  Through everything else we do all day long for years and years, this seems to underlie everything else.

Simple, right?  You'd be surprised how many people don't get this until they wind up in AA.  People who never drink sometimes never learn this at all, despite very elaborate belief systems spelling it all out.  I've never been to AA myself.  I just seem to keep having to learn everything the hard way (yes, even addiction), and being aspie, I tend to think a little too much about it.

Before you blow me off, I've done it all, too.  20 years of insomnia while kids grew up.  Evil bosses and anything and everything going wrong all at once.  Realizing that my idea of being nice was ignoramous shallowness.  Actually believing Crestor was the answer.

What's it all for?  Why are we here?  Personally, I think it's so we can learn to appreciate.  And to learn to be strong in the dark and stand steady when it seems everything else around us is 'falling apart'.

Why am I saying this?  Why is it important?  And what the heck does this have to do with synchronicity and physics and selves?

Some of us scifi junkies are already used to the idea of alt selves in all conceivable alt worlds, which nulls the concept of responsibility for our actions.  If I am simply living in one aspect of all possibilities, does it matter what I do?  Whatever I do in this world, it will simply be different from all the other possibilities.  It will have no other significance or meaning in the 'big scheme of things'.  Because there is no big scheme, just some runaway Alice in Wonderland funhouse full of mirrors.

Terry Pratchett introduced a character, a witch who was able to use mirrors to change reality.  But when a sister witch asked her near the end of the book which one was really her, she ran searching through all the mirrors, unable to ascertain who 'she' was.  The sister shrugged and walked off, knowing that THIS is 'me'.  No matter how many worlds might be 'out there' or what we might be able to concoct in our heads about ourselves, who we really are is standing right here.  It's not our clothes or makeup or what we own, it's not who we pretend to be with attitudes and accomplishments.  Stripped down to our naked souls, who we are is either cruel or kind, craving or content, stubbornly closed off or open to learning.  It is NOT happy or sad.  For some reason we've got this notion in our heads that our quality of lives on this earth depends on some kind of happiness level.  That only leads to the selfish vs. selfless thing I mentioned.  If you have to be 'happy' to be fulfilled, you are missing a really big boat in the sea of spiritual life.  All it takes for *me* to be happy is half a vicodin.  For others it might be a margarita.  See the problem?  All happy can ever be is a gauge against 'unhappy'.  Those are simply tools our minds use to assess that we have internal conflict, and easily disposed of.  It is not the goal itself.

I said in my last Synchronicity post that our bodies teach us.  Our bodies know exactly who *they* are.  They are well grounded and rebound off the walls, no matter how much actual space is between the atoms in our bodies and the walls.  It's like playing one of those Mario games where you're looking over Mario's shoulder and telling him where to go, but since you're behind him he never sees you.  His 'body' follows all the rules- it can't walk through brick walls, it falls short on impossible leaps across chasms, it can't fly or run upside down unless it has some kind of help.  Our own bodies operate like that, within preset parameters.  That's why it's impossible to float through the house when we sprain an ankle.

What our bodies CAN do is sacrifice their lives for us.  We use our bodies the same way a rider uses a horse.  A rider can keep a horse running until it literally drops and dies.  That's what some of us do with alcohol and drugs, or crazy lifestyles that require constant activity and sacrifice, or even crazier lifestyles of uber neglect.  Our bodies will do everything in their power to serve us until they literally just can't any more.  Do we care?  We get mad at our bodies.  They hurt and keep us from doing everything we want to do.  They aren't pretty enough for us, so we punish them with starvation.  Or we take advantage of our bodies, using them for pleasure to the point of emotional gluttony while we use food, sex, and drugs to get 'high'.  When this gets out of hand, other people actually die for our pleasure.  Sex abuse is bad enough, but having to cover it up in monstrous ways completely makes my point.

In the end, we learn that when we abuse our bodies, we abuse ourselves, our souls.  When we 'let go', as in Eastern religions, Christianity, and The Force, we synchronize our spiritual selves with our physical selves.  Letting go is scary.  We misinterpret it as 'death'.  Death of addiction, death of being in a rut, death of a way of thinking and behaving.  Sometimes actual death.

'Mental health' is a radical new concept in human history.  What is mental health?  All things considered, mental health is being able to successfully integrate our physical world with our emotional and spiritual worlds.  Mental health is being able to objectively assess who we are, where we are, and apply that assessment to how we are.  When we schism or skew from this balance, we become 'unhealthy'.  We get caught in obsession, trauma, or emotion, and aren't able to successfully 'move on' with reality.  Up until the last couple of hundred years, the only people remotely interested in mental health were mystics, priests, and I'm not going to list all the 'oddballs' that have shown up throughout history.  My favorites are the old testament prophets, with the balls to go up against entire oppressive social systems that used and abused religion to establish controlled institutionalized cultures.  Interestingly, this kind of rebellion is at the root of nearly all organized religions on the planet.  But once they organize, they again become institutionalized oppression.

So where are we on the mental health scale nowadays?  It seems like the more access we have to information and knowledge, the more frightened people become and turn to alternate 'answers'.

This is an excerpt from a private post I made on another blog last year.  I can't link to the post because it contains other things that are more personal, but I will share this part.  Think of this as a continuation of thought from my last Synchronicity post and the way we 'run into' each other out of the blue and have unusual experiences.

Escape to Witch Mountain and Return to Witch Mountain are on the Hallmark channel this morning.  Those were about my all-time fave movies growing up.  I always felt so alienated from my own parents, I wished all the time I really did come from someplace else.

Ran into a woman in Walmart Friday, very unusual experience.  She asked about my earrings, which looked Indian, and said she had lived in New Mexico.  I said I grew up in New Mexico, and from there we talked over an hour.  Not the usual talk.  It was almost like we were comparing notes, checking to see that we're on the right track or something.  She is a nurse and teacher and married to a physicist that works in the military, so they move around, and she is very into Native American spiritualism, raised Catholic, into energy healing through acupuncture, etc. Very emotional, the opposite of me.  Sounds like she'd done some really cool stuff, including a sweat lodge ceremony, but kept mentioning how everything affected her so deeply, so I told her she was born with the burden of feeling very deeply in this life, and many people don't understand that truly is a burden.  Saying that had so much meaning and validation for this woman that she hugged me and thanked me for understanding, because she always wondered what was 'wrong' with her for things to affect her so deeply, and she kept running into others who confessed that her deep feelings and tears helped them make monumental life changing decisions themselves.  She knew it meant something, but what?

I have been tuned into synchronicity for most of my life, and not because I ever knew what the heck it meant.  I seem to have an edge or something.  I see things others don't, and I've never known why.  When people like this (who are very open to spiritual awareness) run into me, they automatically 'recognize' me and cannonball right into a whirlwind of crash counseling.  It seems that since I am so able to speak openly without judgment or emotion, that frees them to be so completely honest about themselves that they spill their lives to me without reservation.  Over time I've learned to expect this, and even though I'm aspie and naturally cringe from human contact, I have a strong feeling I really am 'somebody' that these people recognize somehow, and that I am meant to help them assess where they are and how they're doing on whatever they are learning in this life.  That seems to be what I have a knack for.  I ask questions in all the right places, point out things that are obvious to me but not them, and I'm getting really good at helping them zoom out and see a bigger picture in the shortest possible amount of time, since we never see each other again.  We instantly know somehow that we're not 'friends' in this life, but we 'know' each other, and dang I can't tell you how many times this has literally happened to me.  I no longer question it.  It just happens.

We all have our spiritual challenges, and hers is handling the deep feelings of herself and others around her.  I myself am cushioned from that through the Asperger's, and even though I have deep feelings, I easily divorce myself from being emotionally caught up.  I don't know that either way is better than the other, but we certainly live on opposite ends of that spectrum.  But it was very cool feeling so synchronized within seconds with a total stranger, talking about things we'd learned in this life as if we were meant to meet up and compare notes.  I told her I grew up basically Mennonite but had progressed into a sociology/anthropology degree and self taught physics, and that I'm feeling like there is way more to God than the simplistic religions we follow, and that it's counter intuitive to keep God at a shallower level than even we live ourselves.  God is far too commercialized and stereotyped to be God any more, and mass religion has become a social science taught to young pastors in college.  I think there is a new movement trying to get away from that, seen as evil by mainstream Christianity, to the point where American Christians have become almost as closed minded and dangerous as zealot Muslims.  (Bombing of abortion clinics, for instance.)  I agreed with this woman that the only thing that can save our nation from complete downfall is getting back to the simple spiritual roots and connection to God that the Native American Indians felt all along.

Total stranger.  She put great stock by the coincidence.  I don't think anything is truly coincidental.

I've noticed that we seem to measure our progress with symbolism.  Some people are into crystals, this woman was into turquoise and told me of a special collection she has that carries deep significance.  I was very attracted to turquoise growing up (I'm really into blue) and kept a secret stone with me for years.  But I realized before I reached adulthood that hanging onto pieces of earth or sky is just symbolism.  We can let go of the real objects, because they only represent the deeper meanings within.  They trigger feelings and thoughts, sometimes memories, but they aren't to be hung onto until death.  We are here to learn, and then we let go.  Of everything.  Even a diamond in a ring is just a chip of rock and a strip of metal.  It may be a representation, and it may have great meaning, but in the end, if that means more than the actual love we give to someone (look at all the divorces...), then it's just junk.  I think it's sad that people can put more meaning into rocks than they do the people in front of them.  I understand the attraction to turquoise and crystals (or pink feldspar  heehee) because I really like geology and the history of rock formation, but whatever energy flows through them and us is easily channeled just by letting go of negativity and relaxing, whether we are conscious of it or not.  I don't think it's necessary to be conscious of it.  We should be more aware of how we hurt and neglect each other than how energy flows through a rock.  This is where the Buddha failed to open the seal in Revelations.  (Many tried.)  It had to be someone who was willing to let go of everything ~for love~.  Not just let go of everything, period.  I don't think it matters whether this is mythology or 'real'.  The truth behind it is the point.

I feel very tied to this earth.  I love the moon cycles, I love the weather cycles, the growing cycles, the ancient history of rocks.  My body is of this earth.  But my spirit isn't.  I love being here and feeling it.  But if I teach my spirit to hang onto things of this earth as powerful symbols, like a rock, then my spirit is missing the lessons we learn from letting go.  Part of our fear is letting go and moving on.  We hang on to things in our past or our present with fear and the dread of losing something we let go of instead of moving forward with confidence.  If God has truly created all this, nothing will ever be lost.  Us hanging onto something won't preserve it.  It will be preserved always.  Everything we do or experience will always be a part of us, whether we are physically hanging onto it or not.

I wasn't able to tell this woman that.  I didn't think she was ready to hear it.  I think she still needs her 'teddy bear', and I don't say that condescendingly.  I know it's hard walking without a comfort of some kind.  She has a lot of fear and depends on not only a strong support network but material things and the guise of spiritual healing.  As we go forward it eventually all falls off, until we are naked before God.

A little deep today...

But that's what I believe.  When all is said and done, it all boils down to us and God.  I know he loves us, but he's training us to become strong.  Part of becoming strong is being stripped of comfort and learning to walk alone, still being able to truly love without the reward or promise of having that love back.  I know we're never truly alone, but I mean without any social support.  I have been challenged through this whole life being stripped of comfort and walking alone, and I think the joy I've learned is deeper for it, and things I've learned about love and forgiveness and self sacrifice make more sense than to someone who hasn't suffered this kind of challenge.  I still have a ways to go, but at least I'm not moving backward.  I think it's important that we learn we are the ones who create the love we search for.  We become what others need, whether we ever get it for ourselves or not.  It's possible to love completely without being loved back.

It's enough that most people go through fear and loss, crippling illness and disfigurement, abuse, horrible disillusionment.  Some have more to carry, some have less.  But I see that we all carry pain and sorrow in some way, and that we all have the opportunity to become strong and learn joy that we'd never have known if our eyes weren't opened in this fashion.

We are to learn to be content with who we are and what we have.  We are to wait patiently for God.  We are to enjoy the gifts the earth gives us to survive, like food and water.  And we are to learn to forgive others for not being like us or what we think they should be.  Beyond that, it's all distraction.

I don't know why that woman zeroed in on me, but I gave her a big hug and enjoyed listening to her and asking her questions.  I'll probably never see her again.  I hope it helped her.  I'm not sure what she needed from me, but I think she felt validated and relieved to talk.

Some of you might have caught that I'm kind of into a holistic religion thing.  I don't think eastern and western religions are that different from each other, just like me and this woman aren't that different, even though we've lived very different lives and have very different ways of looking at things.  Our conclusions are the same.  It's better to live positively than negatively.  It's better to care about others than not.  'God', in whatever form you hold him, is a constant that has never left the human consciousness.  Forgiveness is better than holding grudges.  Kindness is better than being harsh.  In the common human experience, we are all heading the same direction.  I don't think it matters if you believe in multiple lives or cold hard science.  What matters is that we care about the people in front of us in spite of how we are different or what we believe.  When we stop caring, we inflict pain or neglect, and that in ANY religion is bad.

I live in the bible belt.  I have seen more religious persecution and abuse by common Christians than anyone else they say inflicts them.  This woman I spoke with was so astounded that she could speak freely in a Walmart, of all places, that you'd think we lived in a society where freedom of speech and the right to practice religion didn't exist.  That's how you live around Christians in my area.  I grew up Christian, I'm still Christian, but I can't sit in a denominational church and pretend that's right.  The brainwashing that goes on is incredible.  I'm surprised the local city Assembly doesn't hand out koolaid during their huge July 4th extravaganzas that draw upwards of 30-40,000 people.  The same enthusiastic people who put on those shows will turn their backs and walk away when a student is nearly beaten to death by a bible group on a public college campus for wearing a Batman t-shirt.

I wasn't kidding about that.  I live in a religious war zone.   My own neighborhood drove a black family out just a few years ago, and it's not just because this is a rich neighborhood.  The KKK is alive and well, in spite of what people think.  Some people in these parts are so superstitious that they think science is ruining us.  They refuse to get shots for their kids.  I could go on and on.  The unspoken fear and violence is ridiculous, in spite of living in such a modern age on the verge of comprehending what world peace could be all about.

Ok, back to here and now.

I know this world looks like a pretty crappy place sometimes.  There are people on this earth who have watched their children go through agonizing illness and death.  There are people who lost parents as children themselves and felt lost and angry.  There are people who are laying in rows of beds having chemotherapy treatments.  There are people starving to death during famines right now.  There are people in prisons being beaten nearly to death knowing that they'll never see their families again.  There are people committing suicide all over this planet because they feel they have no hope, no future, no one who cares.  Why am I saying this?  I'm not a softie who sheds a tear for the sufferings of mankind.  Neither am I a literalist saying this is all a waste.

And it's not just that.  Some of us have ourselves been through physical and emotional abuse that would curl some peoples' hair.  Some of us have been through illness and sadness that would take down the strongest titan.  Some of us know what it feels like to suffer without end, to anguish without comfort, and to regret without forgiveness.  Life on this planet is truly horrific if you look at it from certain angles.  But along with the truly horrific comes the 'waking up'.

When something feels good, we don't change.  We don't think about anything else.  It's like being a turtle sunning on a log over a pond.  As long as a good feeling is there, we don't move.  We could stay like that forever, basking in feeling good.  It wouldn't matter if something across the pond was flailing around for some reason, as long as it wasn't interrupting what feels good to us, no problem.

What wakes us up?  Suddenly the sun is too hot and we've got to flip off the log back into the water.  Or our stomachs growl to the point where basking no longer feels that good.  What wakes us up is discontent.  What wakes us up even more is when whatever caused the flailing across the pond comes to our side and either starts us flailing or eats whatever we were going to eat.  Discontent becomes emotional.  Emotion helps us deal with the disruption.  We either fear and run, or grow enraged and attack.  We want to bring the balance and good feeling back.  Sometimes we have to fight for it.  This world seems to be specifically geared to create discontent and misery.  Those are what drive us to move, to think, to act.

That was about as simplistic as it gets, wasn't it?  But that's where it all starts.  We are a world of extremely discontented people, jealous of a few of the people who 'have it all' or who get to be powerful.  We feel angry, fearful, and a whole bunch of other feelings about not being able to control a lot of things in our lives.  We hang onto symbols and beliefs to 'get us through' when times seem hard.  This is where 'letting go' begins.  This is the kind of stuff Buddha and Yoda and Jesus and Mr. Spock and a bunch of others were going on about.

We are the ones who hold ourselves back.  It's not the government, it's not our neighbors, it's not our parents, it's not our bosses.  We are the ones who act and react.  Some of us got more out of Vulcans and Jedi growing up than we did going to church, and as far as I'm concerned, if we have to create mythology to survive modern thinking, so be it.  If it helps us follow the same path we were meant to be on anyway, so be it.  Because all of this is already inside of us.  This is what we feel as synchronicity.  This is us waking up and noticing who we are in this 'reality' we are in.

We're almost done.   

I wrote a post a few months ago called Stars on a blue spectrum where I wind up saying what I remember and want to get back to is ~joy~.  Anyone following this blog knows I'm anti-happy.  I think it's a very misleading concept.  But what I am is pro-joy.  I think joy is a much more intense happiness, a delightful happiness, a bliss not contingent on a thing or event.  Joy comes from within.  I believe joy is where we come from and go back to.  I also believe that we are meant to be more than just content to soak up a little sun.  Anyone who is born and dies on this planet is ~special~.  This is the *hard* class.  This is the class where we really get thrown into the grit and have a chance to come out with much more than those little gold stars we used to get in the 3rd grade on those timed addition tests.  This world is an icon of challenge, and everything in it is geared to channel us to think and be and do.  All our greatest stories, myths, legends, and movies are about personal challenge, trials and tribulations, and either growth or tragedy.  Our physical bodies are perfect places for spiritual minds to develop.