Fighting Against Gravity

Standing up and sitting down is not supposed to be this difficult. When I stand the pressure against my head makes me feel like falling to the ground. My legs are taut and there is a strange vibration in my shoulders. When I sit down there is a similar pressure exerted upon the bulb of my head. It is as if a divine hand is trying to press me deep into the ground beneath my feet. When I do stand up and the dizziness has passed I am able to walk quite normally however I am often weary that I will trip or fall. In public I am often mistaken as being drunk and or demented because I find it difficult to walk in a straight line and I often trip. When I get to dizzy- I push myself into a corner where I lean my shoulders against a wall for stability. Sometimes standing on my head is helpful- but when I do this in public I notice that I scare people.

I have battled against gravity most of my life. Ever since I was a teenager I have been aware of an impossible weight that has burdened not only my soul but also my physical body. When I was seventeen I lost a beloved girlfriend because she decided that I was a freak. I would stay in bed for weeks afraid of this pressure that was always causing me to dissociate from my environments. When I walked around I would often have to use the stolidity of walls to garner the equilibrium that I needed to carry on. I was much younger then and I did not realize that gravity was the cause of my ennui. I thought that it was some kind of brain tumor that was causing my physiological disturbances and I was certain that death was just around the corner.

For years I have practiced counting each step. I am hypervigilant about each step I take- noticing every degree and angle that I place my feet in. Fighting against gravity involves the utilization of certain mental capabilities that most of us take for granted. I can not walk and talk on a cell phone or listen to an ipod. Instead I have to be alert and exert effort against the gravitational forces that seek to destroy me. For the past few months the pressure of gravity hanging itself upon me has caused me multiple sleepless nights in which I spend the majority of the night doing laps around my refrigerator. When I have the mental acumen I will lean my head against the kitchen wall and while standing, I will read a book. I will spend hours reading in this position until the ringing in my ears grows to loud or the pain in my neck becomes intolerable.

There is a Gravitational Equilibrium Center a few hour drive from my home that my wife wants me to visit. You stay at the facility for a week and spend eight hours a day in a Gravitational Flow Device that is supposed to balance out the bodies electromagnetic field and reverse the negative symptoms of gravitational pull. I had a brief email exchange with a middle aged woman who suffered from a similar ailment as I. Nausea, dizziness, palpitations, tremendous pressure and chest constriction were a daily part of her life. She told me that the Gravitational Flow Device changed her life. Now she lives on earth rather than feeling like she is battling to stay above the earth. I have thought about going but I have become so used to fighting against gravity that I am afraid of what I would become if I did not have to fight this battle. I mean, what would I do with myself if I did not have to count every footstep? How would I remember that I was alive if every time I sat up or sat down I did not have to feel tremendous pressure? In a way fighting against gravity is a blessing- without the struggle I might be normal.

Last night my wife found me at three in the morning standing on my head while reading Tolstoy’s short story “The Death Of Ivan lliych.” She looked at me like the freak that I am and said “I don’t understand how you can live like this?” before she went back to sleep. All day today while I was suffering through various fits of dizziness and dissociation I thought about her rhetorical question. Why do I want to continually struggle against gravity? Why not go and spend a week in the gravitational Flow device and become normal? The only answer that I have been able to come up with that I can fully accept as legitimate is- I have become attached to my “dis-ease.” Fighting against gravity gives me meaning, it defines who I am and it gives me a reason to get up in the morning. I have taken on the weight if the world- and this makes me feel like I have a purpose.

The Bank Teller

Let me tell you somethings. Did you know that every time we inhale, we absorb oxygen expelled into the atmosphere as a waste product by the earths plant life? Every time we exhale, we expel carbon dioxide as a waste product into the atmosphere where it can eventually be absorbed by the same plant life? Did you know this? Let me also tell you that no matter where you live upon our beautiful earth you are breathing in trace amounts of depleted uranium from the bombs that the U.S are using in Iraq. Did you know that over twenty thousand children die a day from starvation? How about the fact that a plane never went into the Pentagon? Did you know that 9-11 and the war in Iraq (which has terminated the lives of over one million Iraqis) are a result of what is called War Games? Let me also tell you that Lao Tzu, the Chinese mystic believed that if we can somehow expand our narrow image of ourselves and live from our wholeness, then many of our problems will simply disappear on their own.

This is why I took the job as a Bank Teller. It allows me the opportunity to tell strangers things that they would otherwise never know. Costumers come into the bank where I work and think that they are only coming in to deposit or withdraw money. They are usually impatient and in a hurry- stuck in what Lao Tzu would call “Narrowness.” Rather than just taking their money or giving them their money I like to tell them things- expand their consciousness. It is one way that I can make an active contribution to my community and to the human race as a whole. Did you know that writing poetry and reading poetry helps you maintain dignity, it will help you to be better suited to defend yourself in the world? I said this to a middle aged women the other day who seemed aggravated and in a hurry. I could tell that her life had become a collection of material pursuits and failed dreams and I could see the frustration in her eyes. “I have always wanted to read poetry but I never have the time,” she said to me with a glimmer of hope between her eyes. “Well, you might want to make time.” Today she returned to the bank with a book of T.S Elliot poems in her hands and she seemed refreshed. “I am making the time,” she said to me with a smile as I withdrew cash for her.

Often times people come into my bank to find out about bank balances, interests rates, mortgage payments, and fees. I give them the information they want but I usually prefice it with information that I want to tell. I have a sense of urgency within me that drives me to say something. Did you know that Spirulina, dried prunes, beef liver and beer are excellent sources of copper? I said to one man who looked to me to be suffering from a copper deficiency. Because of global warming and soil erosion, human beings are no longer getting a proper amount of this valuable mineral in their diets. The lack of copper in our diets may be responsible for the majority of contemporary diseases. The next day this man came back to the bank to show me the bottle of copper supplements he bought. It is by demanding dignity and respect that you gain it, I told another costumer who was being passive aggressive with me and refused to tell me how she was really feeling. Something was triggered in her when I said this and she straightened up her posture and left my bank looking more confident.

The managers at my bank are on my back. They have accused me of spending to much time with my costumers and not moving the line at a quick enough speed. Did you know that capitalism is used to exploit workers by making them maximize profits in the quickest amount of time? “I did not,” one of the managers said to me with a look of stupefaction upon his white collard face. Yes, capitalism exhausts the worker for the betterment of the organization that they work for. This is what drives capitalism. Use the worker to maximize profits for the company. When the worker gets worn out or dies- just fill the vacancy with another worker. There will always be workers because in capitalistic societies only the very few get to enjoy the wealth of other peoples labor, I explained. “Look, you are one of our best Bank Tellers but you need to stop spending so much time chatting with your costumers so that we can maintain our banks reputation for giving expedient service.” Then he walked away without waiting for my reply.

Did you know that I am going to get fired from my position as a Bank Teller? I am expecting it any day now. At the staff meeting yesterday the bank handed out a list of strategies for normalizing behavior in bank employees. One of these strategies was to replace words with a smile to speed up the line. “Smile more and speak less.” I am not a very good employee because I do not like bosses. I don’t like being subjected to their expectations. Did you know that a real culture functions to limit greed. Our culture functions to increase it , because we are repeatedly told, it’s profitable to do so, though the majority of profits go only to a few people, I said to every one present at the meeting. People who go to work for corporations essentially abandon their integrity as individuals in order to serve the corporation, I added to the consternation of the managers. “Okay that is enough just keep smiling and maximizing profits and that is all,” the head manager said and then ended our staff meeting. If you have lost the capacity to be outraged by what is outrageous, you’re dead. Somebody ought to come and haul you off, I said on our way out from the meeting. Like I said, I have a sense of urgency- I have to say something.

Did you know that we pity Muslim women for wearing veils, yet almost every face in this country is veiled by suspicion and fear? You can’t walk down a city street an get anybody to look at you. People’s countenances are undercover operations in America. Oh, and let me also tell you the most important thing I tell costumers at my bank. That love is not abstract and cannot lead to abstract action. Love is the catalyst for concrete action, which is taking responsibility for what we do here and now. Love is not just a feeling. It’s an instruction: love one another. That’s hard to do. It does not mean to sit at home and have fond feelings. You’ve got to treat people as if you love them , whether you do or not. I know that I am holding up the line, and that I am going to loose my job as a Bank Teller- but I have to tell these things……….

Meditation Is For Loosers.

I used to meditate every day. In fact now that I do not meditate every day- a certain guilt lingers in my gut. I feel like I am missing something. But I find it difficult to assume the lotus posture from day to day. Instead I get caught up in the silent fury of the day and try to spend as little time as I can erasing my thoughts. The other day a millionaire friend of mine said to me “don’t worry, meditation is for loosers.” I thought about what he said with intense consideration. I wondered if I was looser. “If you need to sit in silence and get all the thoughts out of your head….then you should live with cats and dogs,” he said to me when we were discussing meditation. “We are living in tough times, maybe the end of time as we know it…and as far as I am concerned when the plane is falling out of the sky I want to be around people who are going to work hard, brilliantly to bring the plane back into flight rather than people who are just going to sit there with their backs straight, clear their minds and focus on breathing. Meditation is for people who can’t handle the heat or the stress of their own mind…as far as I am concerned they are loosers,” he said before excusing himself from the room to make a gin and tonic.

Maybe meditation is for loosers. The minds of men and women, which become so compounded by unruly thoughts, needs to be controlled. But do we really need to assume some Asain posture and focus on our breath until the mind stops jabbering back and forth. Can’t we just find some activity that we love doing, some book that we love reading, or some worth while form of activism and pre-occupy ourselves with doing these things rather than turning off and going into a state of vegetation. A meditation teacher of mine once said that in a time of crisis meditation was one of the more pro-active things a human could do. I always thought that this was a nice way to rationalize away his inactivity….his looserness.

The world is in a state of degeneration. Every species is in decline. The human animal is destroying itself quickly. The sea is turning black. It makes sense to think “why not slow down and meditate. If everyone in the world did this we could avoid global warming, wars would end and things would return to a state of balance.” Maybe so, but like my millionaire friend said, “when the plane is going down I want to be around people who are doing something.”

Yesterday I saw a sign that said “Meditate For Global Warming Inside.” I went into the room which was filled with all different kinds of people meditating. Hundreds of human beings sitting silently together sharing the same silent air. Incense was burning and there was a Tibetan man in Buddhist garb sitting on a throne in the front of the room directing the meditation. A women waved me over towards an empty cushion upon which I sat and assumed the lotus position. After a few moments of settling my restless mind I focused on my breath and began to relax. As I shut my eyes the woman besides me whispered into my ears, “imagine the possibilities.”

After twenty minutes of sitting silently in meditation I could take it no more. I kept hearing my millionaire friends voice saying “meditation is for loosers.” I kept thinking about all the things I could be doing with this time. I could be finishing the book that has taken me weeks to read. I could be making art work, I could be walking in the woods, I could be paying bills, I could be doing all the things I am constantly putting off- but instead I am sitting here doing nothing. The Tibetan in the front of the room said “be mindful of our restless minds. Don’t allow our thoughts to carry us away. Stay here now and be nobody. Emptiness. A vessel of the divine.” I did not want to be a vessel of the divine. I wanted to be a vessel of myself- so with rage in my gut I stood up and said much louder that I expected to “meditation is for loosers.” The whole room of silent, peace loving meditator’s turned around. Some looked shocked others looked enraged. As I turned around and walked out I had heard someone yell at me “you are the looser!”

Maybe I am a looser. I am almost forty years of age and I am yet to have any idea what I am going to do with my life. I still take money from my parents and my credit is horrible. Depression often sneaks up on me like an entity that wants to steal my soul. I spend a lot of time staring and blank walls mystified by the fact that I am in the prime of my life yet I have little ambition. The desire to make money and succeed is as strong in me as it is in a slug. I’d rather spend my days playing my trumpet than working away my life. It is possible that I am a looser. My millionaire friend is always impressed by my ability to do nothing. When I tell him that my strategy to prevent global warming from destroying humanity is to make as little money as possible and to stay at home as much as I can, he sneers at me in disbelief. He like most people does not understand my form of activism. “You should just spend your days in meditation,” he says to me. I know what he really means. He is saying to me, “you are a lost cause, a looser who can not save the world and this is why you should meditate.” We are at the edge of the roof, maybe it is not such a bad idea to just sit down and be still.

The Prophet

I have been down so long that it looks like up for me. In fact, I have decided only to look up from here on out. I am in no way deciding to become an optimist but I am making the choice to focus upon the salmon rather than the bones. After all- looking down only cultivates a feeling of impending doom that will nag at your bones until they are broken.

The myth about looking up is that all things become filled with sun and shine. This is untrue. The sun and shine are there but so is the universe and the darkness beyond. You see, this is the job of the prophet- to see beyond the sun and sky and into the depths of eternity. This is not an easy undertaking for a man such as myself who is easily blinded by the sun and preoccupied with a fear of the dark. But it is within this darkness, which sits just beyond the sun, that I look into every day with a full commitment towards revealing a truth that most ordinary mortals are to blind to see.

You may not need a prophet to inform you that these are troubling times in which we now exist. So troubling in fact that Therapists and Psychiatrists are being trained on how to deal with a very new form of anxiety called “eco-anxiety.” This is a form of anxiety that has become more chronic in the past few years with the rising information about global warming, toxins in food, toxins in the home and toxins in the air. I admit that I to may be suffering from this avant-garde form of anxiety. My life has been made more nervous by all the daily decisions that I have had to make in order to remain healthy. Even though I am a prophet I still have to be careful that my meat does not contain antibiotics and hormones, that the water I drink has been filtered, that I eat only organic food so as to reduce my exposure to pesticides and that the environment in which I live does not contain toxic materials. Granted, I am rarely able to do these things consistently so I end up with chronic anxiety because I know that the world in which I am living is making myself and everyone else sick.

Maybe this is the most difficult aspect of being a prophet- “the knowing.” Knowing so much that you always have to be on-guard about what you eat, drink, wear and breathe. In prophet circles this is referred to the as the curse of “knowing too much.” Many wonderfully gifted prophets that I have associated with have lost their mystical/metaphysical talents because they have “known to much” and as a result developed panic attacks. In order to cope with the oppressive burden of panic disorder they have elected to go onto medication and I believe it is common knowledge that all modern day psycho pharmaceutical drugs destroy the prophet’s ability to prophesize. The prophecy is enough to burden any ordinary prophet and the immense amount of personal spiritual work that I have to do in order to bare the weight of prophecy swallows up most of my time.

There was a time when I was a social creature. I spent a lot of time hanging out in bars and spending my entire days sitting in cafes. I had several girlfriends at a time and I enjoyed several sexual rendezvous a day. Now that I am older and a little less confused I rarely leave the house during the evening and during the day I am preoccupied with the work of prophecy. I have very few friends, because when I get around them I only feel aggravated by their inability to “see past the sun.” Or maybe it would be more correct to say that I am jealous of them, envious because they have no idea what is going on. They just don’t know.

I, on the other hand, know all to well. I connect the dots between earthquakes in China, floods in Burma, tsunamis in Indonesia, floods in New Orleans, rising food, living and gas prices, widening gaps between rich and poor, toxic air and food, wars, genocides and chronic battles for domination and power all happening in different parts of the world at the same time. This knowledge makes me wonder if I may not be a prime candidate to be diagnosed as suffering from “eco-anxiety.” After all I do wear a respirator when I ride my bike (to protect against gas fumes), I take two-dozen supplements a day and drink green algae drinks all through out the afternoon so as to stimulate detoxification of my vessel (body). Some think that I am over reacting and some call me paranoid- but because I am a prophet I know that they think this because “they just don’t know.” Some day soon I think I will let the whole world know what I see when I look up. Then we will all be able to be anxious together and I wont have to feel so alone.

Squeezed.

I am a man who is being squeezed from the inside out or maybe the outside in. I do not know which comes first- the outside pressure or the inside pressure, but if Karl Marx was right when he said that society determines the behavior and health of man/woman kind- then it is the the world that is squeezing me. Between the pressure that the earth is placing upon human beings to change or be eliminated and the pressure that government is placing up the individual to pay up or go broke- the outside is squeezing me like a balloon which might just burst. Between rising gas prices, food shortages, recessions, depressions, wars, deficits, unequal distribution of wealth, rising costs and poor environmental conditions, my chest feels as if there is a large leather belt buckled tight around it. My fingers and and toes pulsate and I have noticed that my face has grown pale. My vision is clouded and I can constantly feel my heart beating. The stress of the world seems to have nested upon my skinny left shoulder.

I have noticed that I am not alone. I have noticed many suffering from similar ailments and running around desperately searching for relief (yoga, meditation, eating, drinking, consuming). People do not seem to be getting along, wherever I look another relationship has ended, another person is struggling to survive and another person is experiencing some kind of transformational event that is threatening the sanity they seem to be slowly loosing. All around me people seem squeezed. I can see it in their eyes. I can hear it in their voices and I can certainly feel it in my gut. Human beings are fighting for their lives.

I have heard it said that 2012 marks a monumental time in the history of our planet. Thousands of years ago Mayans have predicted that this will be a time of great transformation that will result in change that our human minds can not currently fathom. Physics believes that the closer time gets to an end the faster it gets- time speeds up. Along with the sppeed up of time comes a kind of constriction and anxiety within all those who are subject to this elevated blood pressure of time. Animals (humans) become more frantic and stressed, things start to break down and people feel squeezed. Like there is not enough minutes in the day. Chaos can ensue.

It is my belief that the earth is experiencing symptoms of this larger breakdown. The sky is literaly falling and some see it and others have managed to distract themselves enough so as not to have to deal with it (but they still feel it). Others feel the squeeze. There is a pressure upon us that seems to be forcing us into submission, to the transformation that needs to occur within ourselves and upon this planet. Maybe being squeezed is not so bad. Maybe I can look upon my pulsating toes and finger tips as a gift from the universe in which I have accidentally found myself living. Maybe I am being forced to awaken to what is going on around me, outside of me- and change what is taking place within me. After all, physics tells me that I am just a microcosmic reflection of a larger macrocosm…if I can un-squeeze myself- than maybe I can un-squeeze the world.

A SENSE OF HUMOR FOR SALE!

I noticed a sign in the window that said “sense of humors for sale.” I thought that this was a rather awkward thing to be selling and my interests were aroused. I went into the small store that was poorly lit and had many shelves without anything upon them. The walls were bare and no one stood behind the counter. There was an eery feeling that ran through the vacant shop and as I turned around to leave I was startled by a voice from the back that said, “good afternoon young man, can I be of some assistance.” I turned around and noticed a tall skinny man who looked similar to me standing behind the counter holding an unsmoked cigarette in his hand. “Yes,” I said- “I am curious about the sense of humors that you have for sale.” “Oh yes, I believe we have one left,” he replied looking up at a shelf that had nothing upon it but dust. “Would you like to try it on,” he asked?

The dressing room was illuminated by a yellow neon light and there were no mirrors on the walls. I commented upon this to the salesman who continued to smoke his un-lit cigarette and said “we do not sell anything that you would need to see on, so why have mirrors I ask you?” He seemed a little defensive so I asked him another question. “What kinds of things do you sell in this store?” he looked at me with an expression of annoyance and replied, “why don’t you try on the sense of humor and then we will talk.”

I put the sense of humor on by rubbing a very cold cream into my chest. He wanted me to take off my pants as well and rub the cream into my legs but I felt uncomfortable getting naked in this strange environment. I rubbed the cream all over my chest and arms and then was given a cloth to wipe off the residual cream. “Give it a few moments and then you will notice a change. The cream that I gave you was a starter cream. The effects only last a few minutes. If you decide that you would like to purchase a sense of humor, we have a permanent cream,” the salesman said to me as he motioned me over towards a chair where I was supposed to sit and experience the sense of humor.

Within seconds of applying the cream I started to notice a chuckle in the back of my thought. The salesman put up various pictures on the shelves and asked me to observe these photographs. There were photographs of Hillary Clinton, villages destroyed by bombs, a soldier in Iraq carrying a very large gun and of George Bush and John MacCain. There were also photographs of prisoners being tortured, the atomic bomb, people suffering from starvation, animals stuck in small cages, two men having sex with a woman, hospitals, ghettos, a man begging for money, and a dead body that seemed to be so violated that I could not tell if the body was a man or a woman. The salesman also placed white pieces of cardboard on the shelves that had words like CANCER, DEATH, POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT, GREED, GLOBAL WARMING, CORRUPTION and INJUSTICE written on them. The salesman said something like “now feel free to take your new sense of humor for a test drive,” and then he walked away. I sat there alone in the cold room and observed all many photographs and words for a few seconds- and then it happened.

The laughter was so intense that I was unable to control it. I laughed like I had never laughed before in my life. There was a feeling of great release that caused all of my stress to dissipate into thin air. All things that normally were causes of stress and despair for me seemed to no longer cause me any aggravation. I looked at the photos of George Bush, Hillary Clinton, the soldier and the dead body and my normal feeling of constriction and anger seemed to vanish. All I could do was laugh. I could see the humor in the ridiculousness of human behavior and I was able to laugh at all the ways that we take ourselves SO SERIOUSLY. I saw the ignorance that most human beings seem to suffer from and all I could do was find this ignorance very funny. When I looked at the words my laughter increased because I was able to see how funny it is that human beings create the very things that they fear and do not want the most. I could not believe how funny all these realizations were to me. I saw the whole divine human comedy in which we are the actors on a stage creating our own tragedy. How fucking funny is that!! We do it all to ourselves and then think that we are free!!!

Finally, after my allotted period of time was up, the salesman returned into the room and began taking the photographs and words off the shelves. “You can take off your sense of humor now,” he said as he still held the un-lit cigarette in his hand. The moment he said this to me my laughter halted as if someone had suddenly applied brakes. I wiped the tears from my face and tried to compose myself. “When you are ready please meet me back at the counter and we can talk,” he replied as he walked into the back room. I sat in the chair and tried to assess what had just taken place. I felt what turned out to be a pulled muscle in my upper back (from laughing so hard). I took a few deep breaths and decided that I wanted to purchase a sense of humor.

“We sell all sorts of potions and creams. Not only do we sell sense of humors but we also sell, happiness, IQ’s, ambition, sex drives, maturity, wisdom, feeling successful and we just ran out of love. We sell what we can to make life more worth living or should I say to make life more enjoyable. That is our intention- however, not many seem to want to purchase what we have for sale. It is almost as if people have become so attached to their suffering that they fear change. They are addicted to the way things are because that is how they think things are supposed to be. Little do they realize that we human beings have it all wrong. We have been conditioned to suffer and we do not even know it,” the salesman said to me as he sat on a stool with his arms crossed. “How much does a sense of humor cost,” I asked? “I can sell you the cream for $75.00 and it also comes with a one month warranty. If for some reason you find that it is not working for you- you are welcome to return it and I will give you your money back. I think this is a good deal because after all a good sense of humor is priceless.”

The Trappings Of My Mind

My mind has been doing things without my permission for the past few years. It began with very subtle thoughts such as “you should steal this,” “you are a failure, “you can’t breath,” or “you might have this disease.” I tried not to pay much attention to the workings of my own mind by smoking weed and drinking two bottles of red wine every day. Whatever it took to put these mischievous thoughts out of my mind- I did with a passion. But life went along as it normally tends to do and everything changed including the thoughts in my mind.

Now I realize that all human beings suffer from the condition of negative thinking but I believe there are variations of effect. Some people are able to immediately transform their negative thoughts into positive ones and others are able to ignore the thoughts that enter the confines of their own mind. Others, who are not so fortunate- may be dominated, overcome by the negative thoughts that their minds generate. They look towards food, drink, chemical substances, television, film or novels to distract themselves from the negative thoughts that have a tendency to colonize their minds. These distractions work for an allotted period of time but the negative thoughts seem to return with a fervor and force that no amount of inoculation can put down.

This is where I have found myself these days. I have met with nueroscientists, psychiatrists, chiropractors, and healers all to try and garner some support around gaining some control of my own mind. I have done daily exercises to turn down the left side of my brain and turn up the right side. I stand on my head every day for twenty minutes and I eat alot of fish which has been said to balance out the right and left hemispheres of the brain. But still at different times of the day the negative thoughts come at me like a wave which is determined to drag me under. What is a man to do when his own mind is working against him?

The past two years I have made many changes in my lifestyle. I no longer steal, cheat , lie or act without a motivation to be loving (most of the time). I exercise every day and I make every attempt that I can to sing or hum when I walk and to meditate when I sit. My hope has been that by using my mind in positive ways the negative thoughts would start to fade away like fog around noon time. Instead, the better and more hole I become- the more intense is the volume of my negative thoughts. It is like there is a devil in between my brain cells.

Nowadays, my negative thoughts seem to have been mainly centered around death. Every time I get comfortable or relaxed there appears in my mind an agitating thought about my own death. I see myself dying in various fashions and the thoughts are so vivid that the ensuing apprehension and fright stimulates my heart to beat rapidly. My body constricts and I have to fight against the impulse towards flight. The negative thoughts have become so frequent and strong that I have almost rendered myself powerless in controlling them. When a negative thought comes in which I see myself having a heart attack or being hit by a car, all I can do is take deep breaths and tell myself to relax. What is a man to do when the most dangerous place on earth is within his own mind?

When I sit in meditation, drive my car, go for walks or do just about anything- I am filled up with these intrusive negative thoughts. They scare me out of being ambitious in my life and instead I feel pity for the man I have become. I have grown depressed and conquered by these thoughts which have invoked a silent fear which resides just beneath my chest. There is really no place that is safe for me so I have taken up prayer (I am still trying to figure out to whom I am speaking). I eat less and take foot baths before I go to bed in the hopes that this mini baptism will perform the miracle of eliminating these negative thoughts. But instead my mind is a living entity that has its own set of rules which I am to weak to defend against. It is like the nueroscientist told me “as a result of many years of suffering from anxiety, worry and hypochondria-sis your left brain is at war with your right brain.” “What can I do about this?” I asked him. “The only thing that I know of is prayer,” he sternly replied.

So I pray, I sing, I stand on my head and I try to act with an intention towards love rather than hate (most of the time). I am doing all that I can to gain control of the workings of my own mind without giving myself over to medication, surgery or a Buddhist monastery. I work hard not to manifest the fears that I carry around inside my head and I have even started volunteering some of my time (to keep my mind off my thoughts) to help suicidal illiterate soldiers who have lost limbs in the war learn how to normally function in society. Sometimes when I talk to these veterans about the war which is raging in my own terrified mind they seem to be the only people who understand what is going on. “Ya, it is like a kind of post traumatic stress disorder that you are suffering from,” one soldier told me who had lost both legs in Iraq. ” “Rather than fighting in an actual war you are suffering from the terror that your own mind is generating…you are in a perpetual trap,” the soldier said. I could not have agreed more with his comment and to this day all I think about is how I can survive the trappings of my own mind. “What can I do?” I always ask but no one seems to know. “If only there were more answers, I would not be in the situation I am,” one suicidal soldier replied.

The Cricket Who Talks To God

What is it that I can do that can help raise the consciousness of humanity? How can I- an underpaid high school teacher who suffers from anxiety and various health ailments participate in the evolution of human kind on earth? I realize that these may be big questions but I also realize that they need to be asked, now. I have often heard it said that humanity is at a vital turning point in our history upon this earth. Many of my high school students justify not coming to class or doing their homework by saying that the world is going to end soon anyways, so why worry about school? Sometimes I find it difficult to argue with a perspective that I find may be true- but I try to keep my mind upon transformation rather than liquidation. If I only had some version of an answer then I could cleanse and heal my mind by writing a book and traveling around the world doing consciousness workshops- but I am afraid that there maybe no answers, only cricket’s who talk to God.

There is a cricket that sits upon my deck day upon day as if it is in a deep state of blissful meditation. I am convinced that this cricket is praying to God. It seems to be that the cricket is channeling some kind of divine energy for the sake of all life uponn earth. I have tried to communicate with this cricket in various ways, but each time I get close to connecting I am met by a strange energy which feels like an electric shock. So I keep my distance and pray along with this cricket at certain times during the day.

The cricket seems to be staring at the sun with its eyes wide open. Be it that I can not stare at the sun I keep my eyes shut and do what certain Harri Krishna’s refer to as sun divining (it is when you stare at the sun with your eyes close and feel the heat against your closed eye lids). I ask the cricket if he/she/it can take a moment and listen to my prayers and then relay them to God. There never seems to be any form of communication that suggests the cricket is unwilling to do so, rather I feel like he/she/it is saying “okay go ahead, lets hear it:”

I feel so blessed to be alive, to be breathing and free from a hospital bed or jail cell. I feel so blessed to have all of my family alive and well at the moment because I know that at any moment this will change. We never know which time the phone will ring and bring news that will forever alter our lives. We never know when our own lives will be altered in the blink of an eye. Everything is always changing and it is this movement that keeps human beings terrified- living in constant fear. How is it that we can be free from this fear, let go of our constriction and tension so that we can live with and in the chaos without terror…with peace and health and wealth? How can I participate in giving something to humanity that will help us evolve out from our fear and into a state of connection to gratitude and love? How can this be done? Fear is destroying us and the natural world- quicker than I could ever imagine….what is the answer. I am asking for an answer that is greater than just recycling, going to protest marches and workshops on weekends and doing Yoga. If you tell me I promise to give free lectures around the world. I will spread this answer like a wild fire. There is no greed here, just my will to save myself, the earth and all those who live upon it. Thank you for listening and considering my prayer, peace…Amen…well maybe there is a little greed.

When I am finished with my long winded prayer the cricket is in the very same position that he was prior to my prayer. I do not know if he received and relayed it to the appropriate authority, but I suppose this is where the power of faith comes in. I offer the cricket some water or wine and when I get no reply I leave it alone in what looks like a state of divine rapture. This is a cricket without fear…and I want some of what he’s got.

This evening I went outside to see if the cricket who talks to God would not be interested in relaying another prayer for me. I opened my front door and noticed the cricket was not in his same spot. I felt a sadness come over me that I had not felt in some time but then I remembered that nothing lasts forever. I looked up at the moon and took a deep breath and then went back inside. I decided that I would make a nice dinner for my wife and I- and as I took out the fish from the refrigerator the phone rang. It was a trauma nurse in Los Angeles telling me that my mother in law is in the intensive care unit and in critical condition. The doctors were awaiting the results of a Ct Scan that would show if there was internal bleeding, hemorrhaging and a broken or fractured spinal column. A speeding car cut her off while driving on the freeway and she lost control of her automobile and ran into a tree. When I got off the phone I put the fish back into the refrigerator and went outside to search for the cricket before giving my wife the news.

I’m Searching For A Cure.

I have a new perspective I would like to share. It may change the world- and your life. It is a rather simple perspective and will take only a brief time to apply to your life. We can all learn how to build upon this perspective to create a better life for ourselves and our family (if we still have one). My perspective is rather unique. It is based upon years of struggle and unfulfilled potential. It has been cultivated like a fine wine through the several circular evolutions that have gotten me to where I am today. It is a perspective that is based upon not just love but also hate, not just right but also wrong, not just you but also me. It is a perspective that comes from my heart and I would like to share it with you.

What exactly this perspective is I am uncertain at the moment. I am patiently awaiting its arrival and the moment I receive it I shall let you know. It would be nice if this perspective was something that you could use to transform your own existence into that which you most desire. If you could use this perspective to free yourselves from poverty, pain, debt, illness and addiction than my expectations will be fulfilled. I know that this perspective can somehow change the world and save it from collapsing in upon itself- but I just need to find it. Time is of the essence. As a species we are struggling to survive and I feel the great burden of being able to come up with a solution sooner than later.

I spent the afternoon in the library searching stacks of books for this perspective. I found tidbits of wisdom such as “learn to identify a good feeling from a bad feeling,” or “we create our reality by feeling not thought.” I tried to incorporate these ideas into my own experience but all that happened was I became hungry and wanted a beer. I searched on the internet for various perspectives that could somehow provide the solution- but nothing appeared upon my screen that seemed to be adequate, other than Oprah’s recent interviews with Eckhart Tolle and a few things by Deepok Chopra. Today I will search no more because if a perspective is to take form in my mind- I feel like it will happen without the involvement of my own will.

It is terribly important to me that I offer you a perspective that will change your mind, give you hope, reunite you with your soul and start you off upon a path that will fill your life with meaning and purpose (this is ultimately the revolution that I would like to wage). I want for this perspective to do the same for me as well, but I am willing to sacrifice myself for other peoples enlightenment. As soon as this perspective come to me I will write a blog entry entitled, Perspective Found, but for the time being, while I wait I am going to go sit in the sun.

Stop Telling Me What To DO!

People are always telling me what to do. Do not do this, do not do that or it would be better if you did this or why not like that? It is getting tiring and I get it from all sides: wife, parents, sister, boss, government, police and in-laws. It seems as if I may be incapable of making decisions on my own without first being told what to do. In fact, I am so habituated to being told what to do that I believe that I have become fearful of thinking for myself, because I am afraid I may fuck up. After a lifetime of being told how and what to do I have reached a point in my adult life where I have no idea what to do anymore. Instead of doing something I have resigned myself to a life filled with doing very little– in the hopes that I can avoid having people tell me what to do. I have become what my mother feared would happen to me- a passive participant in the days of my life.

My father is infamous for his need to control. It is impossible for a person to go to the bathroom without my father telling them how this should be done. My father’s intentions are good but his words have hurt more people than a burning building. Growing up under his tyranny has caused what is a fatal blockage in my own decision making process. All of my life, and still to this very day- I am a grown man who is a little more than a reaction to being told what to do. If you ask me what we should have for dinner, I will reply- “I don’t know. You decide.”

Most lessons in life seem to be hard to learn. We have to err, to mess up, to fail in order to slowly understand how to get it right for ourselves. This is what I call the process of education (far more important than anything we learn in school). When we are always being told what to do (because someone wants to control our behavior) the process of education is stunted- blocked. What you get instead is an individual afraid to think for him/herself, to mess up on her/his own- to find his/her own way. This is what I call conformity, and these sorts of individuals become loyal corporate executives, lawyers, doctors, politicians, employees- you and I.

As a result of a lifetime of being told what to do I have become a stubborn non-conformist. I have fulfilled no ones expectations of me and am afraid of the idea of doing so. I have worked in offices, restaurants, mortuaries, shoe stores, record stores, schools- trying to hide from the shackles of a career and going through jobs quicker than the time it takes most people to eat lunch. I do not pay parking tickets, I do not respond to creditors, I do not listen to the police, I do not pay my taxes (especially when the money is being used to fight a war) nor do I do anything else that I am told to do. Instead I do nothing. I eat, sleep, write, paint, go to work at a job that I am soon to quit (because they will not stop telling me what to do). Even though my wife, father, sister, mother and society all still try to tell me what to do- I have learned how to shake my head, smile, say “okay” and then proceed to do nothing at all.

Electromagnetic Freak #3.

Last night was one of the more tempestuous nights in my life. The past week my EMRSD (electromagnetic radiation sensitivity disorder) has been very manageable. I experienced only small amounts of symptoms which seemed to bother me little. I was not hassled by the zapping and palpitating sensations nor was my body chronically filled with a buzzing vibration. The feelings of impending doom were lessened and I was beginning to posses the hope that I may possibly have the chance to live a normal life free from EMRSD.

Despite the fact that I have been keeping my wireless exposure to a minimum (I no longer carry a cell phone, I avoid areas where there is a lot of wireless or cellular activity and I limit my internet use to one hour a day) and maintaining some control over my stress and fatigue- last evening all of my symptoms returned like a force of nature. I drank a Belgium beer before calling it a night- despite alcohol being a main cause of palpitations, I have found that the booze helps me sleep. Outside it was raining and the cold air coming through my open window felt dry and electric. Little did I know that the heavens were soon to release a thunder storm, the likes of which I had not lived through before. As I was about to drift off to sleep I was zapped awake by an electrical sensation which caused my heart to race and beat irregularly. I was able to calm myself down enough so that I could fall back into the wonderful world of sleep. But sure enough I was zapped awake again with what felt like an electrical discharge to my brain and heart. My heart raced and flipped flopped like a car engine that was stuttering to a start. My fear and frustration got the best of me, so I climbed out of bed with a heavy heart and went to the kitchen for water (which I drink a lot of because I recently read that tap water in San Fransisco and the surrounding bay area contains trace amounts of sex hormones and anti-depressants both of which I need).

A flash of bright light startled me as I was drinking a glass of water over the sink. This minor shock again caused my heart to race and my mind to unleash scary images of me dropping dead on the kitchen floor. Then there was a loud roar of thunder as if the heavens above were trying to tell me to stop thinking such horrible thoughts. I did some deep breathing exercises in my dark living room which smells like a combination of cat piss and bleach. I burned some sage and did a Yoga pose but the smell sent me back to bed (I am convinced that the sour smell is from an undetected gas leak in my home which is contributing to the symptoms from my EMRSD).

My wife was snoring away soundly in her sleep as I struggled to remain amongst the living. I took deep breaths and remained lying upon my back as I listened to the sounds of thunder and rain that sent my sensitive heart into occasional spasms of fright. “Why am I so sensitive,” I kept repeating over and over to myself as I tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable spot on the mattress. I could feel my heart beating in my ears and pulsation all around my neck and arms. “Why has God forsaken me!!,” I wanted to cry out into the night but instead I tried to calmly reduce my anxiety by repeating a mantra over and over in my fear filled head. As I began to drop off into slumber I experienced some minor zaps and a few thunderous shocks but nothing that threw my heart into a spasmodic sprint. Eventually I was able, after hours of struggle, to join my wife in the world of silent slumber.

This morning I awoke with the relief of one who has just survived a life or death situation. I was overcome with a joy to still be living. Everything looked as if I was seeing it for the first time. After my usual breakfast of yogurt and bread I did some research on the Internet about electromagnetic radiation sensitivity disorder. My concern was that years and years of weekly zapping was weakening my heart. I found information that reassured my anxious mind but also I found a strange article that unsettled it. It was about a woman who suffered from the same ailment as I. Not only was she sensitive to wireless and cellular technology but her condition was aggravated by the weather- especially thunderstorms. During such storms she experienced terrible zappings, palpitations, irregular heartbeats and a racing heart beat that normally sent her to emergency rooms in a state of fright. I suppose I feel some relief in knowing that I am not alone, but today I have been depressed. Knowing now that my EMRSD can be aggravated by the weather has made me feel as if there is no escape. If it is not one thing it is another.

“the falling sky”

I was talking to my grandfather today (who still does head stands and smokes at the age of 91) and he told me that he was glad that he was not my age in this day and age. I asked him why and he told me that it was because times seemed really hard for most decent people. It almost reminded him of the depression. “Everything is so expensive and everyone has to work all the time to afford to live in this society. Government does not care about the people anymore, politicians are greedy and the environment is saying enough is enough. This ain’t living it is more like a perpetual state of worry.” I could not disagree with him but I had to mention that yes for most these were very trying times (violence and disease rates are at an all time HIGH- the effects of stress) but lets not forget that the few, the very few- the rich are living like kings and queens as we speak. This is what is inherently wrong- there is a great imbalance between rich and poor and this imbalance eventually will tip the boat. My grandfather said “you said that right” and then proceeded to do a head stand with a cigarette in his mouth.

Thoreau said “that the cost of something is the amount of life that you are willing to exchange in order to have that thing.” The bigger the pond you swim in or the more advanced the technology is on your automobile or computer system- the less time that you have to live (free from work or worry). Those who are unfortunate enough to have mortgages or car payments that they can barely afford are the ones who are being robbed, literally of their life. Those who have more material possessions to up keep have less time to live. This is what many theorists refer to as the myth of capitalism. It is a trap.

I try to ride my bicycle whenever I can. This not only gives me much needed exercise, but I also feel as if I am waging my own strike against high gas prices and the epidemic dependency upon cars. Yesterday as I was riding my bike I was thinking why not sell my car, sell as many things as I can and live simply? I decided that it was more important to me to have time to live (to take naps at three p.m. or to play my guitar at a cafe around noon with not a care in the world) than to work. Am I trying to afford not only my social status but also the very things that have given me a sense of self or would I rather have less but gain time?

When one starts to identify themselves by the things that they own or the work that they do…some form of basic life is surrendered for work (the need to make money). As I rode my bike past all sorts struggling to get back to work after their lunch break, I thought of my grandfather standing on his head. I giggled and thought to myself- it does not need to be so difficult, just live simply, need less, learn to value what you have (for the long term) and ride a bike or walk when possible. If more people could do this the end result would be the solution to the social, psychological and environmental catastrophe we all now live within. My grandfather likes to call this catastrophe “the falling sky.”