Monday, November 14, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
MAROONED
Marooned.
Ever read stories about being marooned on land? Well, here is a tale of such an adventure, which at the time is happening in a country known to the world as the United States, where all dreams could come true if you have a job, money and no scruples. It is also the land that is beleaguered by its own people, regulated to an extreme, where the inhabitants put six, (spelled 6) locks on their doors to frustrate B&E artists. Three locked and three open, so when they try to open all six, they will lock the open three. It is a very safe country, I was told, one just has to be very careful and if possible, carry a big gun. With the holiday season approaching, people have their Christmas presents sniffed by especially trained dogs and members of the bomb squad open the packages. At the airport of a large city on the Pacific coast are more armed personal in uniform, under cover and very stern looking, than travelers, but it is safe. One is allowed to breathe, not too deep, and in a certain way, that will not offend the authorities and does not sound threatening or condescending. During a briefing I overheard a person in charge of some uniformed security guards instructing them how to handle people, and it was very informative.
“You have to be firm with the people and authoritative. Be in charge and don’t apologize. They have to know and follow the rules or they will want to do things that will create problems.”
Surprisingly, he did not display his Swastika.
Standing outside of the terminal, I witnessed a very efficient dealing with an empty cardboard box, about a foot x foot x foot in size. A security guy looked at it, circled it, kicked it, bend over it, (to sniff perhaps) straightened up, readjusted his uniform, kicked the box again, and then talked into his lapel. Within a minute other uniformed men showed up, surrounded the box and ordered it firmly to open up and surrender peacefully. One especially courageous man, about 6’ 3” (190cm) took the initiative and opened the box and removed a very mean looking piece of cardboard. I expected him to slap handcuffs on it but instead he put it back into the box and arrested the whole box for trespassing, illegal parking and loitering. The vagrant was then herded into a nearby-parked van and taken into custody. The whole procedure did not take more than ten minutes, an astonishing performance under the circumstances.
The box must have been abandoned there by some frustrated patron since there are no facilities to put luggage into temporary storage while waiting for a connecting flight, possibly due to the fact of terrorists targeting innocent wardrobes and are intent to blow up sleeping bags, underwear and other assorted items for not converting to some true religion.
I also met a few other remarkable people, wearing a uniform, humane, friendly, helpful and understanding, completely out of line with the norm and in mentioning them, I want to honor them by putting their name in here. Erick Mencose, Supervisor-HSSE for Servisair, a very friendly and generous man I had the pleasure to meet, Anthony Doyen, open-minded and a real humanitarian, serving to save lives and I hope to meet again somewhere. Another gentleman who’s names I only have as Russell and a young woman, Edith with a personality to match her beauty and Dan Freeberg, a volunteer VIP in the Tom Braley terminal.
These people made the difference in being marooned in an airport, anxiously waiting for the other kinds of authorities to decide my worthiness to return to my vessel in an island group called French Polynesia that has been legally taken over by the power of the gun from the native population.
While I’m awaiting the decision, I push a cart with my sparse belongings from my temporary sleeping seats to the bathroom, the coffee shop, and the seats along the walls, where I’m able to plug my damaged computer into an electric outlet to be able to write this story. The daily trips Down Town to retrieve email messages from my friends and find out another disappointing piece of news, has turned into a pilgrimage, lugging around 25 pounds each packs, is wearing down the heartiest and when strangers nod in greeting, one knows, a certain familiarity has been established. The next I know is, they will call me by name and will ask me for a drink or to lend them money. Being in this situation is rough but I have seen a lot of people in LA, much worst than me, out on the street and it blows my mind how in a country with so much wealth can exist a poverty like this. It seems the wealthy have forgotten where their wealth come from. Nobody can work that hard to have millions without screwing someone.
The new PC computer I purchased in Canada and the Mac must have been subjected to some rough handling also because the screen is broken and no longer useable. Filing a claim with Air Canada is a hope to get the computers fixed along with the luggage suitcase. The stickers “FRAGILE” seem to invite some people to test the resistance of the items in question and thus maintain a low level of unemployment in the industry. I believe it is called “Creative Job Maintenance”. Of course, it is a very annoying fact when the owners of those broken items complain and want compensation, but hey, job security is a desire most people can’t ignore. This computer was to work as a navigational instrument and has not even been installed with the charts and drivers needed, it was a virgin machine, and it is a shame to see it going down this road. Even the suitcase’ interior plastic liner has been shattered and I wonder what elephant must have stepped on it. Very much to my astonishment, the bottle of maple syrup is still in one piece although it has been to the side where the shattered plastic liner was; Tough Canadian. Now I’m hoping the airline will replace the whole thing and the question is; will they do it?
Ever read stories about being marooned on land? Well, here is a tale of such an adventure, which at the time is happening in a country known to the world as the United States, where all dreams could come true if you have a job, money and no scruples. It is also the land that is beleaguered by its own people, regulated to an extreme, where the inhabitants put six, (spelled 6) locks on their doors to frustrate B&E artists. Three locked and three open, so when they try to open all six, they will lock the open three. It is a very safe country, I was told, one just has to be very careful and if possible, carry a big gun. With the holiday season approaching, people have their Christmas presents sniffed by especially trained dogs and members of the bomb squad open the packages. At the airport of a large city on the Pacific coast are more armed personal in uniform, under cover and very stern looking, than travelers, but it is safe. One is allowed to breathe, not too deep, and in a certain way, that will not offend the authorities and does not sound threatening or condescending. During a briefing I overheard a person in charge of some uniformed security guards instructing them how to handle people, and it was very informative.
“You have to be firm with the people and authoritative. Be in charge and don’t apologize. They have to know and follow the rules or they will want to do things that will create problems.”
Surprisingly, he did not display his Swastika.
Standing outside of the terminal, I witnessed a very efficient dealing with an empty cardboard box, about a foot x foot x foot in size. A security guy looked at it, circled it, kicked it, bend over it, (to sniff perhaps) straightened up, readjusted his uniform, kicked the box again, and then talked into his lapel. Within a minute other uniformed men showed up, surrounded the box and ordered it firmly to open up and surrender peacefully. One especially courageous man, about 6’ 3” (190cm) took the initiative and opened the box and removed a very mean looking piece of cardboard. I expected him to slap handcuffs on it but instead he put it back into the box and arrested the whole box for trespassing, illegal parking and loitering. The vagrant was then herded into a nearby-parked van and taken into custody. The whole procedure did not take more than ten minutes, an astonishing performance under the circumstances.
The box must have been abandoned there by some frustrated patron since there are no facilities to put luggage into temporary storage while waiting for a connecting flight, possibly due to the fact of terrorists targeting innocent wardrobes and are intent to blow up sleeping bags, underwear and other assorted items for not converting to some true religion.
I also met a few other remarkable people, wearing a uniform, humane, friendly, helpful and understanding, completely out of line with the norm and in mentioning them, I want to honor them by putting their name in here. Erick Mencose, Supervisor-HSSE for Servisair, a very friendly and generous man I had the pleasure to meet, Anthony Doyen, open-minded and a real humanitarian, serving to save lives and I hope to meet again somewhere. Another gentleman who’s names I only have as Russell and a young woman, Edith with a personality to match her beauty and Dan Freeberg, a volunteer VIP in the Tom Braley terminal.
These people made the difference in being marooned in an airport, anxiously waiting for the other kinds of authorities to decide my worthiness to return to my vessel in an island group called French Polynesia that has been legally taken over by the power of the gun from the native population.
While I’m awaiting the decision, I push a cart with my sparse belongings from my temporary sleeping seats to the bathroom, the coffee shop, and the seats along the walls, where I’m able to plug my damaged computer into an electric outlet to be able to write this story. The daily trips Down Town to retrieve email messages from my friends and find out another disappointing piece of news, has turned into a pilgrimage, lugging around 25 pounds each packs, is wearing down the heartiest and when strangers nod in greeting, one knows, a certain familiarity has been established. The next I know is, they will call me by name and will ask me for a drink or to lend them money. Being in this situation is rough but I have seen a lot of people in LA, much worst than me, out on the street and it blows my mind how in a country with so much wealth can exist a poverty like this. It seems the wealthy have forgotten where their wealth come from. Nobody can work that hard to have millions without screwing someone.
The new PC computer I purchased in Canada and the Mac must have been subjected to some rough handling also because the screen is broken and no longer useable. Filing a claim with Air Canada is a hope to get the computers fixed along with the luggage suitcase. The stickers “FRAGILE” seem to invite some people to test the resistance of the items in question and thus maintain a low level of unemployment in the industry. I believe it is called “Creative Job Maintenance”. Of course, it is a very annoying fact when the owners of those broken items complain and want compensation, but hey, job security is a desire most people can’t ignore. This computer was to work as a navigational instrument and has not even been installed with the charts and drivers needed, it was a virgin machine, and it is a shame to see it going down this road. Even the suitcase’ interior plastic liner has been shattered and I wonder what elephant must have stepped on it. Very much to my astonishment, the bottle of maple syrup is still in one piece although it has been to the side where the shattered plastic liner was; Tough Canadian. Now I’m hoping the airline will replace the whole thing and the question is; will they do it?
Saturday, October 8, 2011
RESURRECTION
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2011
Well, well, Look what the cat just dragged in was my first remark upon seeing the man I thought to be dead, lost in the mountains and crevices of Tahiti. This man, Chris, who was my guest on Symbiosis for a few weeks and regaled me with unwanted quotations from his bible has left my boat to crew on another boat while I sailed to Moorea for a week. Upon my return I heard he did not returned from over-night trip and was overdue for several days. My friend Erik and I thought to organize a search party in Chris behalf, but have been told, the local police force was looking for him and so we waited to hear what they would turn up. Fourteen days went by and we thought Chris to have crossed the Jordan, kicked the bucket, and I announced his most-likely demise over the VHF radio as I have had conducted the Cruisers Net Control. One morning. on the day of my departure from Tahiti, I heard a hollering of my name from the shore and since they were only two people who would call me by name, I wondered who possibly it could be. One was Erik, but he was on his way to New Zealand and the other Chris, who was presumably on his way to his heaven. But there he stood, on the dinghy dock, skinny like a starving scare-crow and scratched up as if a cat had him worked over, substituted for a mouse, The grin he wore threatened his ears to disappear in his mouth, without any decency to at least look half-dead after two weeks being lost. We greeted each other with a hug and words of surprise from my side over his return from the dead and without the need to go to Jerusalem. He then proclaimed his rescue as god's doing but it seemed to not arouse his suspicion it may have been the same faculty that put him in the situation in the first place. I guess that had to be the competition putting him there. He has got an interview out of his ordeal and I'm sure, the religious fervent got a boost and god is rubbing his hands; more souls for his heaven. Nevertheless, I still felt relief of him being among the living and not only because of him being alive, but also because there were a few items on the boat that belonged to him. I intended to plant them on the mountain he hiked on but without me getting lost in the process. This now was no longer necessary. Now, since I had no way to put him on my crew-list, I signed out already, he decided to bunk with the boat he came with to Tahiti, Captain Bryan on "Star gap". They did not go along very well, but Bryan did assigned him his forward cabin for the next day and I left the next morning to get propane with Chris and after we said our "Good bye's", he returned to "Star gap" and I left for Rarotonga.
The picture here is of a Polynesian warrior and performer of the traditional Polynesian dances and is from the Marquesas.
Well, well, Look what the cat just dragged in was my first remark upon seeing the man I thought to be dead, lost in the mountains and crevices of Tahiti. This man, Chris, who was my guest on Symbiosis for a few weeks and regaled me with unwanted quotations from his bible has left my boat to crew on another boat while I sailed to Moorea for a week. Upon my return I heard he did not returned from over-night trip and was overdue for several days. My friend Erik and I thought to organize a search party in Chris behalf, but have been told, the local police force was looking for him and so we waited to hear what they would turn up. Fourteen days went by and we thought Chris to have crossed the Jordan, kicked the bucket, and I announced his most-likely demise over the VHF radio as I have had conducted the Cruisers Net Control. One morning. on the day of my departure from Tahiti, I heard a hollering of my name from the shore and since they were only two people who would call me by name, I wondered who possibly it could be. One was Erik, but he was on his way to New Zealand and the other Chris, who was presumably on his way to his heaven. But there he stood, on the dinghy dock, skinny like a starving scare-crow and scratched up as if a cat had him worked over, substituted for a mouse, The grin he wore threatened his ears to disappear in his mouth, without any decency to at least look half-dead after two weeks being lost. We greeted each other with a hug and words of surprise from my side over his return from the dead and without the need to go to Jerusalem. He then proclaimed his rescue as god's doing but it seemed to not arouse his suspicion it may have been the same faculty that put him in the situation in the first place. I guess that had to be the competition putting him there. He has got an interview out of his ordeal and I'm sure, the religious fervent got a boost and god is rubbing his hands; more souls for his heaven. Nevertheless, I still felt relief of him being among the living and not only because of him being alive, but also because there were a few items on the boat that belonged to him. I intended to plant them on the mountain he hiked on but without me getting lost in the process. This now was no longer necessary. Now, since I had no way to put him on my crew-list, I signed out already, he decided to bunk with the boat he came with to Tahiti, Captain Bryan on "Star gap". They did not go along very well, but Bryan did assigned him his forward cabin for the next day and I left the next morning to get propane with Chris and after we said our "Good bye's", he returned to "Star gap" and I left for Rarotonga.
The picture here is of a Polynesian warrior and performer of the traditional Polynesian dances and is from the Marquesas.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Manifestation.
After leaving from Manihi in the Tuamotus, enroute to Tahiti, I stabbed my toe on a block and broke a toe. Nothing new, but painful still. Fixing it with masking tape, intended for use on other things but broken toes, I set sail to Rangiroa in hopes to have someone looking at it. Well, someone looked at it all right, handed me some more masking tape, just what I was looking for, and advised me to take it easy. I would have loved to go snorkeling there as I heard wonderful things about their drift-dives but could not put on fins, for goodness sake, I could not even row the dinghy, and so I became a prisoner aboard Symbiosis. My plan, to arrive in Tahiti just a couple of days after my daughter, had to be canceled. The time I had on my hand now, I used to rearrange the boats inside as I had now more space. The winds inside the atoll blew with about 15 knots and if my toe would not have been broken, I could have rowed the dinghy ashore and send a message to Jeanette about the delay but it did not let off. I waited and when the wind finally eased, I left this lovely place. Once outside the atoll, the winds were coming from the NE, made for a good ride, but I had to hand steer most of the time and it made it impossible to rest. At night it occurred to me, to rig the wind vane and see if it would do the job as it was supposed to and it seemed to hold course and I stretched out on the cockpit seat and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes an hour later, the trim tab jumped the groove and floated on its pendant like a hooked fish, faithfully in the wake of Symbiosis. The course was steady 360 degrees instead of 215. After resetting the course, installing the trim tab, trimming the vane and relieving myself, I returned to my place and kept an eye on the steering unit for an hour. It held its course. I closed my eyes to rest. Again, awakening about an hour later I found the boats course to be a steady 360 degrees. The trim tab was still in place. The conclusion is; the boat wants to go to the North Pole and just waits for me to close my eyes to change course. I guess it’s a battle of wills.
In the late afternoon I sighted land, Tahiti, and watching it, my thoughts turned to my childhood dreams, when I first heard about Tahiti and how much I wanted to one day see it and live there, how my dreams turned into reality. In the evening I entered the Passe de Taunoa and turned starboard toward an industrial area, winding channel, no lighted markers and almost running into a reef, managed to find an area to set anchor and sleep. There was no one in the area where I anchored and I found out later; it is not allowed to anchor there because it is a shipyard. It makes no difference to a dead-tired sailor, but nevertheless, I weighted the anchor and followed my track out the harbor and into the entrance to Papeete, followed south along the airstrip and ended up in marina Taina. This happened to be in the morning hours before I had any breakfast and to my surprise, there is a voice sounding just like that of my daughter. Poking my head out from the hutch, there is Jeanette in the flesh, in a dinghy with a fellow names Mike from a boat called “This side up” I saw first time in Hiva Oa.
They hooked up and Irma, my ex-partner, will sail with him to New Zealand while Jeanette will be with them for a while in this area until she returns to Canada, unless a shark will get to her before she can make her escape.
So, here I am, without crew, no computer I can use to navigate with and no paper charts from the area other than small scale, lots of detail but useless for longer passages.
A very good friend has sent me some money to prevent me from eating my socks, (I run out of shoes) and now as I’m getting popular doing massages, I am able to buy some delicacies like bread and butter and food for my and Irma’s cat. In case I find a boat to sail to the mainland, I will leave my boat here for a few weeks while getting my account reactivated in Canada and then return.
Ah, the adventures one has when one has decided to be free.
Shark encounter
Moorea is just 15 nm downwind or leeward, as we sailors
would say, some may say it is west, but hey, it’s the same in
the end. From Tahiti it was just another Island and it has
been luring me to go there since Mexico and for more than a
week I looked at it, thinking of it as my new home, and it
seem to get closer to that reality, as the German embassy is
working to get my German Passport and perhaps even the
Hungarian too. I’ve been told because I did not file a request
to cancel my citizenship when I became Canadian, I still
have it. That, indeed, is great news and will make living in
Fr. Pol. possible.
Looking at Moorea for this long time, without money, no
work, except for the two massages, I set sail to the Island of
my dreams with a Dutch friend, Erick, and with little wind an
a lot of motor, we made the trip in 3 hours. Sailing into Cook
Bay is easy and the edges of the reef are well marked, with
a leading line and range lights, anybody could do it. Erick is
good crew and we set anchor in 12 meter water close to the
Bali Hai hotel, next to another known character, Bruce on
S/V Loki, named after a Norse God of mischief. Erick and I
went ashore to do some internet and I found a mail from my
daughter, demanding in a thinly veiled tone to make sure I
will deliver her jacket she forgot on my boat and find out if
indeed my ex-girlfriends cat could be taken on a plane to
Canada. Oh, how I will miss that cat.
I replied to her letter and then went to watch a much more
pleasant show on DVD about people in jail being beaten and
abused.
On Sunday we decided to see some sharks and swim with
them and some Stingrays, sliding up our legs and letting us
pet them. I managed to touch a shark with my hand and its
skin felt like sandpaper and it bolted off like a stung cat.
There were about 10-15 all around us from about 5’-15’
(1.5-3.0m) big and it was not a bit dangerous as some
stupid movies would have you believe. I dove with
hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos and nothing happened
there either. There is a possibility, sharks want to clean their
reputation and present themselves from their best sides or
they just eat tourists, in which case I admire their choice of
selectivity. They certainly taste better after the sharks
scared the crap out of them. I’m sure Hannibal Leckter
would agree.
The Stingrays were as big as a kitchen table and when they
touched, it was like gentle hands were caressing the body.
This brings to mind a question, I wont say from whom, if
fish have teeth, and from my observations I can say: most
living beings, especially the bigger ones, most certainly have
teeth, with the exception of hockey players perhaps, and if
they decide to eat you, they will use them, unless somehow
they learned to manage knife and fork.
Then I met a pro kite surfer by the name of Tamataro who’s
got to be the worlds best kite surfer. He is the one who
surfed over the Golden Gate Bridge in SF. Now, that’s
awesome. I am looking forward to learn this kind of surfing
and take lessons from him when I got settled here.
would say, some may say it is west, but hey, it’s the same in
the end. From Tahiti it was just another Island and it has
been luring me to go there since Mexico and for more than a
week I looked at it, thinking of it as my new home, and it
seem to get closer to that reality, as the German embassy is
working to get my German Passport and perhaps even the
Hungarian too. I’ve been told because I did not file a request
to cancel my citizenship when I became Canadian, I still
have it. That, indeed, is great news and will make living in
Fr. Pol. possible.
Looking at Moorea for this long time, without money, no
work, except for the two massages, I set sail to the Island of
my dreams with a Dutch friend, Erick, and with little wind an
a lot of motor, we made the trip in 3 hours. Sailing into Cook
Bay is easy and the edges of the reef are well marked, with
a leading line and range lights, anybody could do it. Erick is
good crew and we set anchor in 12 meter water close to the
Bali Hai hotel, next to another known character, Bruce on
S/V Loki, named after a Norse God of mischief. Erick and I
went ashore to do some internet and I found a mail from my
daughter, demanding in a thinly veiled tone to make sure I
will deliver her jacket she forgot on my boat and find out if
indeed my ex-girlfriends cat could be taken on a plane to
Canada. Oh, how I will miss that cat.
I replied to her letter and then went to watch a much more
pleasant show on DVD about people in jail being beaten and
abused.
On Sunday we decided to see some sharks and swim with
them and some Stingrays, sliding up our legs and letting us
pet them. I managed to touch a shark with my hand and its
skin felt like sandpaper and it bolted off like a stung cat.
There were about 10-15 all around us from about 5’-15’
(1.5-3.0m) big and it was not a bit dangerous as some
stupid movies would have you believe. I dove with
hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos and nothing happened
there either. There is a possibility, sharks want to clean their
reputation and present themselves from their best sides or
they just eat tourists, in which case I admire their choice of
selectivity. They certainly taste better after the sharks
scared the crap out of them. I’m sure Hannibal Leckter
would agree.
The Stingrays were as big as a kitchen table and when they
touched, it was like gentle hands were caressing the body.
This brings to mind a question, I wont say from whom, if
fish have teeth, and from my observations I can say: most
living beings, especially the bigger ones, most certainly have
teeth, with the exception of hockey players perhaps, and if
they decide to eat you, they will use them, unless somehow
they learned to manage knife and fork.
Then I met a pro kite surfer by the name of Tamataro who’s
got to be the worlds best kite surfer. He is the one who
surfed over the Golden Gate Bridge in SF. Now, that’s
awesome. I am looking forward to learn this kind of surfing
and take lessons from him when I got settled here.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Chapter 2
ALIEN?
I falsely presumed to have originated on this planet, but that assumption was corrected about the age of four when my alleged parents told me the truth. A stork had delivered me to them from another galaxy, which accidentally dropped me on the Earth.
Reluctantly I admitted the possibility, after observing the predominant species on this planet. Although I looked like them, there seemed to be emerging evidence that I was different. The herd mentality is still very strange to me, as I did not like to be in big groups. Moreover I don't have the tendency to self-destruction, and I like to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
It was a very lonely time while growing into my teenage years. I wanted to be like other kids, but they must have known of my off-world origin, because they picked me last for soccer teams even though I wasn’t the worst player. I seldom had more than one friend at a time, and seemed to see things that others did not. For example I noticed that it was not raining between the raindrops, and that a glass filled half full with water was also half empty.
Indeed, a friend of mine got very upset about my observations, and informed me that was the reason nobody liked me. At first I thought he meant they did not like me because the glass was half empty or only half full, but then he clarified that it was because I did notice both, and they did not. Hardly my fault, I thought, all they had to do is to take notice by looking, but it was too late. My reputation as being strange escalated into "weird" and "out of this world" in a negative way. I became known as "the spaced out kid" or "Sputnik" for short.
In order to live with such people I went undercover. I did the same things as them so I would not be discovered to be an alien, although I was not convinced yet of my alien status. As years went by I felt more and more a stranger, and noticed in conversation with others that I was not interested in talk about trivial things. Who was who in the music world or in sports, when and how many goals someone scored, just left me cold. On the other hand, I was interested in discussions about how big the universe is, or when God started his life and who created him. This was definitely not the way to break down my fellow schoolmates' suspicion about me, and reading science fiction stories did not help either.
My popularity was limited to stirring up the teachers, particularly Father Juergen, a corpulent man who was easier to jump over than to go around, and who had a voice that reminded me of the chirping of a sparrow just before the cat got hold of him! The way he moved about in front of his desk in sudden spurts as much as his mass allowed, his head jerking and swiveling on a thick double chin, brought out my cat nature and tempted me to take a swipe at him. His piggish eyes, with heavy bags of dark rings fitting his red thin remnants of hair, were arched in an inquisitive way as he waited for questions he could authoritatively answer.
Except for my questions that is. To this day I'm convinced he would have loved for me to be put in a cauldron with boiling water like a side of pork, so he could watch me squirm. No wonder I put my most challenging questions to him, it was a match made in heaven and the other students loved the way the class went when he and I had our battles. They just sat back or played battleship.
My other victim, our history teacher, loved asking me questions. I answered with a question of my own which he refused to answer, and instead he insisted it was important to remember when Charles Charlemagne became king of the Franks. I wanted to know for whom it was important. It didn't seem important to me, and what relevance did it have for this moment? The war was on, and we created history instead of digging up bones!
In one instance we had a discussion about borders. My point of view was that borders were artificial man-made divisions because people did not want to share with others what they had, and so created enemies. He rejected this with a wave of his hand; saying "why" was irrelevant because the fact is that there are borders. I replied that that will change with time, and perhaps one day there will be a world without borders. "Dream on", he said, and continued rattling off dates and events. I envisioned a unified Europe when I was twelve, and people laughed at me for saying it. Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but it is almost a fact now. Maybe it was only wishful thinking, or perhaps being an alien allowed me to see into the future?
To my delight I discovered some fellow aliens. They were also working undercover to change our species suicidal attitudes and greedy behavior, by giving living examples and advice on how to live in love and mutual respect for everything and everybody, authentically and with awareness for the benefit of existence. Death and destruction are poor alternatives. How much do we need and take with us, to die satisfied?
I embarked on my journey with a sailing vessel to learn more about this planet called Earth, also known as Gaia and Terra, and found it to be a place of great beauty that is attacked by the greed and ignorance practiced by its occupants and called “progress”. They make movies and write sci-fi stories about aliens attacking Earth and invariably are portrayed as the enemy. It's strange to see people looking for an enemy outside of themselves, fighting and killing each other to eliminate their foe, blaming others for their situation instead of looking inward where they would encounter the real enemy. They are destroying the planet they are living on, and it is not an enemy from outer space they need to worry about! They do a great job this far and we couldn’t do better even if we wanted to.
This planet is covered with water more than 70% and only about 1% is usable for everything that requires fresh water and the inhabitants are treating it as a garbage dump. Out of sight to them means it is gone. Fact is, all this usable water has been recycled since life on Earth began and in the meantime we put so much garbage into the water, air and soil that the filtering effect has been compromised to an extent that we now need to buy water in stores which has been artificially filtered to be consumable. In many places on this planet, I can assure you, my toilet is cleaner than the surrounding water! Remember: there is no water coming from an outside source to replace our dwindling supply of good, healthy water.
Slash and burn is practiced on land. Clear-cutting destroys habitat for all living beings including humans. Only mechanical robots don't need clean air to breathe. I like calling this planet Aqua-world because there is so much water. Many of those other aliens prefer to be on, near, or submersed in water, so there is a possibility where we come from is a water planet also.
However, I also met a great number of natives to this planet who are using floating vessels and enjoying the waters while adapted to the herd mentality with the attitudes of sheep. They allow others to think for them and to do as they please. This is similar to their land dwelling cousins who are satisfied with solid ground under their feet, and feel secure as long as there is nothing moving. Death is like that, not moving, stable and safe. Death seems to be the most desired condition for many. That might explain the self-destructive tendency. It is very evident in mass-opinions like politics, religions, cultural identities and worldviews. It can be found on football fields, sports arenas, in churches, temples and battlefields. Instead of teaching and promoting individuality, they created institutions called schools and universities where mass conditioning is carried out. Don't move your mind, don't rock the boat, and don't question authority!
Can you imagine the stupidity of priests blessing soldiers going to kill, writing bible versus on guns and bombs and tolerating it? As a matter of fact, it is defended as the right thing on mass media. If that is not the ultimate in religious stupidity and hypocrisy claiming to teach love, I don’t know what is.
The galaxy of my alien species discovered individuality as the preferred method of coexistence. We come together as individuals to perform a task that requires group effort. When the task ends, the group dissolves into individuals again, following their own bliss without a trace of herd mentality. We have no politicians, priests, bureaucrats, lawyers or leaders, and therefore we are not imbecile followers. We've learned to resolve our issues without the involvement of others who have nothing to do with the problem. We are not looking for who did what to take cheap revenge, but look at the problem and work together to fix it. The problem is the issue, not the person. People can be educated, not problems. We don't believe in punishment or rewards, or in inducing guilt and shame in others. We have no conformists. We keep no secrets from each other, because only the one who knows a secret benefits, and all others are left out. We understand that possessions create thieves therefore we share. There are no wars, no hunger, and no greed. Nobody has more rights because they have more than others; there is no privileged class.
If this sounds utopian, try a different approach to education. First you must educate your educators because ignorant educators can only teach ignorance. Ask yourselves why you'd place belief before knowledge. Believing is easy. All one needs to do is to tolerate being dunked under water and say: “I believe, I’m saved.” The only thing you will be saved from is the work required to think for yourself and acquire knowledge.
You know, one man with one eye may lead a million blind but will never follow a million blind. A person of knowledge will transcend beliefs. Remain inquisitive until there is no doubt left. Find out if what you've learned is indeed the truth, or if it may have changed over time. Any person who "knows" has a closed mind. Nothing is certain because everything changes, so remain open. Become role models, teach with your being, and remember, nobody ever learned swimming on dry land. How can you enjoy the sweet fruits of your own cherries if you plant thistles instead of cherry trees? Think about this.
Of course, it is not that easy to shed old habits, and I acquired many of them during my stay on this planet, being surrounded by humans and educated by them. But in the end I remembered that all I have been taught wasn't necessarily the truth. The problem isn't what I was taught; but rather that I believed it. Not that I had much choice. After all I did not have any other aliens around me, and if I did, did not recognize them at that time. It's nearly impossible when society's education puts a blindfold of ideas over one's eyes through which to see the world, and we grow up believing them and thinking we are thinking.
As it turned out, fortune led me to my parents. They had been educated Roman Catholics, and my father had been a soldier in the German army during the Second World War. During his service his beliefs had been shaken off, and he questioned everything that he heard and thought to be true. My mother still wanted to believe and searched for God in every religion, and found it nowhere. She insisted on me reading the bible every day. So on one side there was my mother who pushed me to read and believe the bible, on the other side was my father who warned me that living in Hungary under the communist regime, I would be subjected to brain-washing in school by listening to the same propaganda every day.
Four years of school in Hungary proved to have been enough for me to recognize (after our escape in 1956 to Germany) that the same thing happened in the church. On top of all that, now my soul was threatened with hellfire for eternity, if I did not believe the teachings of the priest. Siberia sounded better each day!
The questions I asked during religious studies were enough to arouse the suspicions of the priest, who had the ears of God and could sentence me to hell. I stopped caring what would happen when I discovered that he could not answer my questions, and just wanted me to stop asking them so he could continue with his lectures.
At the age of thirteen, after a determined refusal to go to church on my part, I wanted God to punish me with death so my mother would cry over my grave for trying to force me. Challenging God was the ticket. Shouting an insult of the worst kind I could come up with, and believe me, Hungarians have a monopoly on choice words when it comes to insults, I expected a lightning bolt to strike me as swift as a pick-pocket in the streets of Agassiz.
Strangely enough, no lightning struck, but instead I had the sudden recognition that there is no God outside of existence. All of existence including me is the same thing. There is nobody to punish or reward me.
This insight opened doors I never even knew were there, and when the police found me and took me home after my parents' alerted them to my disappearance, my mother thought I had a nervous breakdown after listening to what happened, and decided to have our priest look at me. After a 15 minute evaluation of my condition he put his hand around my neck, and with a red face demanded of my parents to have me undergo an exorcism because the devil got hold of me.
As my mother and father were more loving than the servant of God, they took me to a psychiatrist who listened to me for four hours telling him what I did, thought, felt and experienced that night in the park. He then called my parents and inquired from them if I had any Buddhist, Hindu or Eastern philosophy training. Of course not, we are Catholics. Why?
"Well", he said, "what I gather is that the things he says are eastern in concept but I need to see him a bit more to be sure." When they asked what he thought had happened to me, he answered: "Whatever happened to him, I wish it would happen to me!"
That episode of my life is etched in my memory. It has influenced my ways of thinking and observing events around me and has affected my path in life, especially around the issues of freedom, religion and education. When we are taught what to think, that is not freedom. Being taught how to learn is closer to it.
There are laws; civil laws, corporate laws, criminal laws etc. that mostly originate in some religious superstition about moral concepts and conduct. Some are based on common sense, but all are limiting freedom. At least common sense laws are arrived at by common agreements between different people, while the others are imposed.
Take the Ten Commandments; all of them suppress emotional expression. How on earth are you going to explore your potential if you have to stuff it down? How would you know how to correct an error, if you do everything right? How could you know what a mistake is? What is a mistake anyway, and how could you fix it and develop solutions if you won't experiment? We all are making mistakes, and when we use intelligence we learn from them. Too bad only a small percentage of humans are wise enough to do so.
Remember: A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor. We have to have challenges to grow and push the boundaries to discover new things and ways or we’ll grow stagnant. Remain inquisitive, it’s nature’s gift to us.
God never gave commandments, Moses did! It is said: God loves unconditionally so why would he give you commandments? Moses did that because he could not handle his sheep any longer. After 40 years of being too stupid to find his way out of the desert, his control over his flock was slipping out of his hands. He needed a law that cannot be questioned. He had been a lawyer at the court of the pharaoh before his odyssey, and that's what lawyers do, they insist on laws when intelligence fails. Moral of the story: Never leave it to a lawyer to find a way out of the desert!
So what is this lawyer guy to do? Call on a higher authority, that's what they do, even today. Stupid people never cease to amaze me. They are imbued with God's immortality. Nobody dares to question it. I remember a guy who answered me about why he believed in God? "Just in case", he said. Mind you, he kept doing all the things that will take one straight to hell according to the commandments. And so do millions, causing me to wonder why are they going to church and claim to be of any faith? Might as well use that time to make love to someone, at least it will be real fun.
All these fantasy ideologies have not created any peace and I daresay, do just the opposite, but humans cling to it as a monkey to a fistful of peanuts, even though their freedom and life depends on letting go.
There was a guy named Marx who said; "religions are the opiate of the masses" and another one said; "if one has science or art, he has religion". More likely if they don't have science or art, they have religion. On my planet we would choose art and science any day.
When sailing down the coast I ran into some heavy weather, and it put me in danger of losing my life every second for two days, and I remembered a priest saying "there are no atheists in foxholes". How would he know? He was never around those people when they died. How would he know unless they survived and then credited their escape with God's mercy? What kind of hogwash is that? During all those hours of howling winds, crushing waves and life threatening situations not once did I call on God or even though about it. I was too busy surviving.
Someone asked me if I was afraid and I answered no, I was too scared to be afraid. Scared that the boat would break, or that my daughter would be very upset over my lost at sea status. Was I afraid of dying? Hell no! I was more afraid of not living! And live I did, and still do. There will be time enough to relax from living when I'm dead, but I'll refuse to die before I've lived, and there is no better time than NOW to live because there are no other Now.
Death will come to all of us (except to Texans. If they cannot take it with them, they aint goin'!) And we never know when that moment comes so you might as well live now and enjoy every second fully aware, or you'll die regretting not having lived. Unawareness of living is the same as being dead. In an unaware state we hurt each other. Just imagine not having the chance to say you're sorry to someone you hurt before they die. Or imagine you wanted to see the world before you die, and you are dying with a million dollars on your bank account without having done so, because you were too busy piling up the money.
Death is the only certainty and once you fully understand that, you are free to live and be unconcerned about death. She will come regardless of who or what or where you are. Don't act dead while still alive. Live it up!
A Zen student asked his master: "Master how should one live his life?"
The master answered: "By preparing himself for death."
"But how can one prepare himself for death?" asked the student.
"By learning how to live." was the old man's reply.
Robin Williams, playing Patch Adams, used the words in a sense that death is not the enemy, indifference is. Why are we so afraid of death? It's the natural end of life. Let's be prepared for that.
This message is thousands of years old and we still do not understand it. Maybe we teach the wrong messages. Millions suffer fear from countless diseases, and the worst of them all is fear. In fact, fear causes most disease.
Religions induce fear if you don't believe what their leaders want you to believe, and induce hope for an eternal life if you do believe what they say. Some even promise a reward if you do their God's will, according to what they tell you God's will is. And then we are stressed out over which God is real, and what is the true will of Him, Her or It. Nothing kills better than stress.
What a big surprise when you arrive at the Pearly Gates and there are no virgins, no Saint Peter, just an old hag without teeth asking you to give her back her youth. Know that if a God wants something from you he or she will tell you that him or herself. Never let a person tell you what the will of God is. They only want you to further their objectives without putting themselves in danger. Don't be a sheep no matter what they promise you.
Our planet has no sheep, and nobody tells you what to do, what to think, or how to feel. We understand there is no right or wrong, because that would mean there is judgment. Situations exist, and if the situation is undesirable we change it when it is in the interest of all by consulting with each other for the highest good of all concerned, and act accordingly. We may not always come up with a solution that pleases everybody and then we sacrifice our idea in favor of the other and see what happens. There are no guaranties in anything, and knowing that allows for flexibility. That's why life is an adventure, or in the words of Forest Gump's mother, "Life's a box of chocolates". You never know what you'll get.
If I'd known what to expect on my travels, I would never have left. This world is the best so far. I've never learned this much about myself while living on land. There were always others around me whom I'd been busy observing and comparing myself with, and never had time to find out who I was. It took only three days alone in the open sea to find the person I searched for all my life, me.
I watched waves, clouds and the winds and there were no two the same. They mixed and formed other patterns, shapes and appearances, and reality was the result only in the moment, not in the past or the future. Patterns dissolve and form new patterns every second, and even that are too long a time span. It's like observing along a sharp knife-edge, without width.
Other things became clear to me also. The way reality is, or the way I see it, is the interference of waves from many sources. We all contribute, making waves of our own design, and the results of all those waves together create reality. Of course, what I think will affect reality, but so does everybody's thoughts, and the interference of all those thoughts is what reality is. Some are small, others huge but they all contribute to reality, and we are able to affect the size of those waves. We all need to learn about cause and effect so we can make wise choices.
Ah well, these are just my ideas and I will not claim them to be the truth. Surely these thoughts have been thought and observed before, but not by me. For me they are new and therefore significant insights. The good news is; if I can have them, anybody can have them too, and you don't even have to be an alien.
ALIEN?
I falsely presumed to have originated on this planet, but that assumption was corrected about the age of four when my alleged parents told me the truth. A stork had delivered me to them from another galaxy, which accidentally dropped me on the Earth.
Reluctantly I admitted the possibility, after observing the predominant species on this planet. Although I looked like them, there seemed to be emerging evidence that I was different. The herd mentality is still very strange to me, as I did not like to be in big groups. Moreover I don't have the tendency to self-destruction, and I like to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
It was a very lonely time while growing into my teenage years. I wanted to be like other kids, but they must have known of my off-world origin, because they picked me last for soccer teams even though I wasn’t the worst player. I seldom had more than one friend at a time, and seemed to see things that others did not. For example I noticed that it was not raining between the raindrops, and that a glass filled half full with water was also half empty.
Indeed, a friend of mine got very upset about my observations, and informed me that was the reason nobody liked me. At first I thought he meant they did not like me because the glass was half empty or only half full, but then he clarified that it was because I did notice both, and they did not. Hardly my fault, I thought, all they had to do is to take notice by looking, but it was too late. My reputation as being strange escalated into "weird" and "out of this world" in a negative way. I became known as "the spaced out kid" or "Sputnik" for short.
In order to live with such people I went undercover. I did the same things as them so I would not be discovered to be an alien, although I was not convinced yet of my alien status. As years went by I felt more and more a stranger, and noticed in conversation with others that I was not interested in talk about trivial things. Who was who in the music world or in sports, when and how many goals someone scored, just left me cold. On the other hand, I was interested in discussions about how big the universe is, or when God started his life and who created him. This was definitely not the way to break down my fellow schoolmates' suspicion about me, and reading science fiction stories did not help either.
My popularity was limited to stirring up the teachers, particularly Father Juergen, a corpulent man who was easier to jump over than to go around, and who had a voice that reminded me of the chirping of a sparrow just before the cat got hold of him! The way he moved about in front of his desk in sudden spurts as much as his mass allowed, his head jerking and swiveling on a thick double chin, brought out my cat nature and tempted me to take a swipe at him. His piggish eyes, with heavy bags of dark rings fitting his red thin remnants of hair, were arched in an inquisitive way as he waited for questions he could authoritatively answer.
Except for my questions that is. To this day I'm convinced he would have loved for me to be put in a cauldron with boiling water like a side of pork, so he could watch me squirm. No wonder I put my most challenging questions to him, it was a match made in heaven and the other students loved the way the class went when he and I had our battles. They just sat back or played battleship.
My other victim, our history teacher, loved asking me questions. I answered with a question of my own which he refused to answer, and instead he insisted it was important to remember when Charles Charlemagne became king of the Franks. I wanted to know for whom it was important. It didn't seem important to me, and what relevance did it have for this moment? The war was on, and we created history instead of digging up bones!
In one instance we had a discussion about borders. My point of view was that borders were artificial man-made divisions because people did not want to share with others what they had, and so created enemies. He rejected this with a wave of his hand; saying "why" was irrelevant because the fact is that there are borders. I replied that that will change with time, and perhaps one day there will be a world without borders. "Dream on", he said, and continued rattling off dates and events. I envisioned a unified Europe when I was twelve, and people laughed at me for saying it. Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but it is almost a fact now. Maybe it was only wishful thinking, or perhaps being an alien allowed me to see into the future?
To my delight I discovered some fellow aliens. They were also working undercover to change our species suicidal attitudes and greedy behavior, by giving living examples and advice on how to live in love and mutual respect for everything and everybody, authentically and with awareness for the benefit of existence. Death and destruction are poor alternatives. How much do we need and take with us, to die satisfied?
I embarked on my journey with a sailing vessel to learn more about this planet called Earth, also known as Gaia and Terra, and found it to be a place of great beauty that is attacked by the greed and ignorance practiced by its occupants and called “progress”. They make movies and write sci-fi stories about aliens attacking Earth and invariably are portrayed as the enemy. It's strange to see people looking for an enemy outside of themselves, fighting and killing each other to eliminate their foe, blaming others for their situation instead of looking inward where they would encounter the real enemy. They are destroying the planet they are living on, and it is not an enemy from outer space they need to worry about! They do a great job this far and we couldn’t do better even if we wanted to.
This planet is covered with water more than 70% and only about 1% is usable for everything that requires fresh water and the inhabitants are treating it as a garbage dump. Out of sight to them means it is gone. Fact is, all this usable water has been recycled since life on Earth began and in the meantime we put so much garbage into the water, air and soil that the filtering effect has been compromised to an extent that we now need to buy water in stores which has been artificially filtered to be consumable. In many places on this planet, I can assure you, my toilet is cleaner than the surrounding water! Remember: there is no water coming from an outside source to replace our dwindling supply of good, healthy water.
Slash and burn is practiced on land. Clear-cutting destroys habitat for all living beings including humans. Only mechanical robots don't need clean air to breathe. I like calling this planet Aqua-world because there is so much water. Many of those other aliens prefer to be on, near, or submersed in water, so there is a possibility where we come from is a water planet also.
However, I also met a great number of natives to this planet who are using floating vessels and enjoying the waters while adapted to the herd mentality with the attitudes of sheep. They allow others to think for them and to do as they please. This is similar to their land dwelling cousins who are satisfied with solid ground under their feet, and feel secure as long as there is nothing moving. Death is like that, not moving, stable and safe. Death seems to be the most desired condition for many. That might explain the self-destructive tendency. It is very evident in mass-opinions like politics, religions, cultural identities and worldviews. It can be found on football fields, sports arenas, in churches, temples and battlefields. Instead of teaching and promoting individuality, they created institutions called schools and universities where mass conditioning is carried out. Don't move your mind, don't rock the boat, and don't question authority!
Can you imagine the stupidity of priests blessing soldiers going to kill, writing bible versus on guns and bombs and tolerating it? As a matter of fact, it is defended as the right thing on mass media. If that is not the ultimate in religious stupidity and hypocrisy claiming to teach love, I don’t know what is.
The galaxy of my alien species discovered individuality as the preferred method of coexistence. We come together as individuals to perform a task that requires group effort. When the task ends, the group dissolves into individuals again, following their own bliss without a trace of herd mentality. We have no politicians, priests, bureaucrats, lawyers or leaders, and therefore we are not imbecile followers. We've learned to resolve our issues without the involvement of others who have nothing to do with the problem. We are not looking for who did what to take cheap revenge, but look at the problem and work together to fix it. The problem is the issue, not the person. People can be educated, not problems. We don't believe in punishment or rewards, or in inducing guilt and shame in others. We have no conformists. We keep no secrets from each other, because only the one who knows a secret benefits, and all others are left out. We understand that possessions create thieves therefore we share. There are no wars, no hunger, and no greed. Nobody has more rights because they have more than others; there is no privileged class.
If this sounds utopian, try a different approach to education. First you must educate your educators because ignorant educators can only teach ignorance. Ask yourselves why you'd place belief before knowledge. Believing is easy. All one needs to do is to tolerate being dunked under water and say: “I believe, I’m saved.” The only thing you will be saved from is the work required to think for yourself and acquire knowledge.
You know, one man with one eye may lead a million blind but will never follow a million blind. A person of knowledge will transcend beliefs. Remain inquisitive until there is no doubt left. Find out if what you've learned is indeed the truth, or if it may have changed over time. Any person who "knows" has a closed mind. Nothing is certain because everything changes, so remain open. Become role models, teach with your being, and remember, nobody ever learned swimming on dry land. How can you enjoy the sweet fruits of your own cherries if you plant thistles instead of cherry trees? Think about this.
Of course, it is not that easy to shed old habits, and I acquired many of them during my stay on this planet, being surrounded by humans and educated by them. But in the end I remembered that all I have been taught wasn't necessarily the truth. The problem isn't what I was taught; but rather that I believed it. Not that I had much choice. After all I did not have any other aliens around me, and if I did, did not recognize them at that time. It's nearly impossible when society's education puts a blindfold of ideas over one's eyes through which to see the world, and we grow up believing them and thinking we are thinking.
As it turned out, fortune led me to my parents. They had been educated Roman Catholics, and my father had been a soldier in the German army during the Second World War. During his service his beliefs had been shaken off, and he questioned everything that he heard and thought to be true. My mother still wanted to believe and searched for God in every religion, and found it nowhere. She insisted on me reading the bible every day. So on one side there was my mother who pushed me to read and believe the bible, on the other side was my father who warned me that living in Hungary under the communist regime, I would be subjected to brain-washing in school by listening to the same propaganda every day.
Four years of school in Hungary proved to have been enough for me to recognize (after our escape in 1956 to Germany) that the same thing happened in the church. On top of all that, now my soul was threatened with hellfire for eternity, if I did not believe the teachings of the priest. Siberia sounded better each day!
The questions I asked during religious studies were enough to arouse the suspicions of the priest, who had the ears of God and could sentence me to hell. I stopped caring what would happen when I discovered that he could not answer my questions, and just wanted me to stop asking them so he could continue with his lectures.
At the age of thirteen, after a determined refusal to go to church on my part, I wanted God to punish me with death so my mother would cry over my grave for trying to force me. Challenging God was the ticket. Shouting an insult of the worst kind I could come up with, and believe me, Hungarians have a monopoly on choice words when it comes to insults, I expected a lightning bolt to strike me as swift as a pick-pocket in the streets of Agassiz.
Strangely enough, no lightning struck, but instead I had the sudden recognition that there is no God outside of existence. All of existence including me is the same thing. There is nobody to punish or reward me.
This insight opened doors I never even knew were there, and when the police found me and took me home after my parents' alerted them to my disappearance, my mother thought I had a nervous breakdown after listening to what happened, and decided to have our priest look at me. After a 15 minute evaluation of my condition he put his hand around my neck, and with a red face demanded of my parents to have me undergo an exorcism because the devil got hold of me.
As my mother and father were more loving than the servant of God, they took me to a psychiatrist who listened to me for four hours telling him what I did, thought, felt and experienced that night in the park. He then called my parents and inquired from them if I had any Buddhist, Hindu or Eastern philosophy training. Of course not, we are Catholics. Why?
"Well", he said, "what I gather is that the things he says are eastern in concept but I need to see him a bit more to be sure." When they asked what he thought had happened to me, he answered: "Whatever happened to him, I wish it would happen to me!"
That episode of my life is etched in my memory. It has influenced my ways of thinking and observing events around me and has affected my path in life, especially around the issues of freedom, religion and education. When we are taught what to think, that is not freedom. Being taught how to learn is closer to it.
There are laws; civil laws, corporate laws, criminal laws etc. that mostly originate in some religious superstition about moral concepts and conduct. Some are based on common sense, but all are limiting freedom. At least common sense laws are arrived at by common agreements between different people, while the others are imposed.
Take the Ten Commandments; all of them suppress emotional expression. How on earth are you going to explore your potential if you have to stuff it down? How would you know how to correct an error, if you do everything right? How could you know what a mistake is? What is a mistake anyway, and how could you fix it and develop solutions if you won't experiment? We all are making mistakes, and when we use intelligence we learn from them. Too bad only a small percentage of humans are wise enough to do so.
Remember: A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor. We have to have challenges to grow and push the boundaries to discover new things and ways or we’ll grow stagnant. Remain inquisitive, it’s nature’s gift to us.
God never gave commandments, Moses did! It is said: God loves unconditionally so why would he give you commandments? Moses did that because he could not handle his sheep any longer. After 40 years of being too stupid to find his way out of the desert, his control over his flock was slipping out of his hands. He needed a law that cannot be questioned. He had been a lawyer at the court of the pharaoh before his odyssey, and that's what lawyers do, they insist on laws when intelligence fails. Moral of the story: Never leave it to a lawyer to find a way out of the desert!
So what is this lawyer guy to do? Call on a higher authority, that's what they do, even today. Stupid people never cease to amaze me. They are imbued with God's immortality. Nobody dares to question it. I remember a guy who answered me about why he believed in God? "Just in case", he said. Mind you, he kept doing all the things that will take one straight to hell according to the commandments. And so do millions, causing me to wonder why are they going to church and claim to be of any faith? Might as well use that time to make love to someone, at least it will be real fun.
All these fantasy ideologies have not created any peace and I daresay, do just the opposite, but humans cling to it as a monkey to a fistful of peanuts, even though their freedom and life depends on letting go.
There was a guy named Marx who said; "religions are the opiate of the masses" and another one said; "if one has science or art, he has religion". More likely if they don't have science or art, they have religion. On my planet we would choose art and science any day.
When sailing down the coast I ran into some heavy weather, and it put me in danger of losing my life every second for two days, and I remembered a priest saying "there are no atheists in foxholes". How would he know? He was never around those people when they died. How would he know unless they survived and then credited their escape with God's mercy? What kind of hogwash is that? During all those hours of howling winds, crushing waves and life threatening situations not once did I call on God or even though about it. I was too busy surviving.
Someone asked me if I was afraid and I answered no, I was too scared to be afraid. Scared that the boat would break, or that my daughter would be very upset over my lost at sea status. Was I afraid of dying? Hell no! I was more afraid of not living! And live I did, and still do. There will be time enough to relax from living when I'm dead, but I'll refuse to die before I've lived, and there is no better time than NOW to live because there are no other Now.
Death will come to all of us (except to Texans. If they cannot take it with them, they aint goin'!) And we never know when that moment comes so you might as well live now and enjoy every second fully aware, or you'll die regretting not having lived. Unawareness of living is the same as being dead. In an unaware state we hurt each other. Just imagine not having the chance to say you're sorry to someone you hurt before they die. Or imagine you wanted to see the world before you die, and you are dying with a million dollars on your bank account without having done so, because you were too busy piling up the money.
Death is the only certainty and once you fully understand that, you are free to live and be unconcerned about death. She will come regardless of who or what or where you are. Don't act dead while still alive. Live it up!
A Zen student asked his master: "Master how should one live his life?"
The master answered: "By preparing himself for death."
"But how can one prepare himself for death?" asked the student.
"By learning how to live." was the old man's reply.
Robin Williams, playing Patch Adams, used the words in a sense that death is not the enemy, indifference is. Why are we so afraid of death? It's the natural end of life. Let's be prepared for that.
This message is thousands of years old and we still do not understand it. Maybe we teach the wrong messages. Millions suffer fear from countless diseases, and the worst of them all is fear. In fact, fear causes most disease.
Religions induce fear if you don't believe what their leaders want you to believe, and induce hope for an eternal life if you do believe what they say. Some even promise a reward if you do their God's will, according to what they tell you God's will is. And then we are stressed out over which God is real, and what is the true will of Him, Her or It. Nothing kills better than stress.
What a big surprise when you arrive at the Pearly Gates and there are no virgins, no Saint Peter, just an old hag without teeth asking you to give her back her youth. Know that if a God wants something from you he or she will tell you that him or herself. Never let a person tell you what the will of God is. They only want you to further their objectives without putting themselves in danger. Don't be a sheep no matter what they promise you.
Our planet has no sheep, and nobody tells you what to do, what to think, or how to feel. We understand there is no right or wrong, because that would mean there is judgment. Situations exist, and if the situation is undesirable we change it when it is in the interest of all by consulting with each other for the highest good of all concerned, and act accordingly. We may not always come up with a solution that pleases everybody and then we sacrifice our idea in favor of the other and see what happens. There are no guaranties in anything, and knowing that allows for flexibility. That's why life is an adventure, or in the words of Forest Gump's mother, "Life's a box of chocolates". You never know what you'll get.
If I'd known what to expect on my travels, I would never have left. This world is the best so far. I've never learned this much about myself while living on land. There were always others around me whom I'd been busy observing and comparing myself with, and never had time to find out who I was. It took only three days alone in the open sea to find the person I searched for all my life, me.
I watched waves, clouds and the winds and there were no two the same. They mixed and formed other patterns, shapes and appearances, and reality was the result only in the moment, not in the past or the future. Patterns dissolve and form new patterns every second, and even that are too long a time span. It's like observing along a sharp knife-edge, without width.
Other things became clear to me also. The way reality is, or the way I see it, is the interference of waves from many sources. We all contribute, making waves of our own design, and the results of all those waves together create reality. Of course, what I think will affect reality, but so does everybody's thoughts, and the interference of all those thoughts is what reality is. Some are small, others huge but they all contribute to reality, and we are able to affect the size of those waves. We all need to learn about cause and effect so we can make wise choices.
Ah well, these are just my ideas and I will not claim them to be the truth. Surely these thoughts have been thought and observed before, but not by me. For me they are new and therefore significant insights. The good news is; if I can have them, anybody can have them too, and you don't even have to be an alien.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Agreements
Often I’m running into trouble like a mosquito into a Mack truck with my fellow humans about my ideas and opinions, head-on. And it starts so promising; “Oh, I like the way you think” and “how interesting, I never looked at it that way and then comes this: “I don’t agree”.
As if I share my views with others to have them agree or disagree. I couldn’t give a fiddle. I’m not looking for converts or followers, a herd of sheep to look after. I’ll leave that to theologians and politicians. Let them be happy with sheep and use their wool and lead them to the slaughterhouse.
If they need to agree, why don’t people just tell me what they want to hear so they have me telling them what they already know and support their opinions and beliefs? But I notice that humans need others to tell them what they want to hear so they can feel safe and secure in their own views and opinions no matter how stupid or smart. Don’t look to me for any kind of support of ideologically infested craziness.
Long ago I found out that I didn’t learn anything by listening to others sprouting my own views but for the majority of people this seems to be the normal thing to do. We come up with an idea or someone planted it sometime into our heads and then we keep playing with it until we really believe it is the truth. It then becomes a point of view from which we measure and evaluate other ideas, accepting or dismissing them by agreeing or disagreeing, depending if it fits into our point of view or not. I think that only when we listen without agreeing or disagreeing can we learn new things.
Now, I am not free of points of views and when I listen to other people’s opinions and I become aware of wanting to agree or disagree I stop and exam why I do that. Invariably I discover identification with my own ideas and the need to defend or cherish them. However, ideas can be made and discarded in a blink of an eye without loosing anything of importance but we are so proud of our “product” that when someone dares to question it, we go to war.
I became aware of this odd behavior when I had a conversation with a couple of mixed culture. During our pleasant chat I noticed how a tension came up between the couple and when I asked if there was something the matter they explained to me that they had a different view about what people need to do to be happy and then they laid out their ideas. Her idea was not his and when I asked why love was not sufficient to be happy and why it was important for one to go along with the others point of view when all that really mattered was the love they shared, both defended their ideas with teeth and claws.
This couple was very indicative for how the world got to the point of self-destruction over ideas. Love and peace are sacrificed for ideas. Love is a feeling and an attitude of acceptance and so is peace. It has nothing to do with ideologies. Even an atheist knows love and peace but we mix-up ideas with feelings and then ideologies and dogmas create an attitude of who is right and all is lost. Love is not an idea neither is peace. We fight over who is right when it is about what is right.
And so it is also when we are on the same playing field. We’ve all had experiences how we seem to go along just great, we feel one with each other, in fact so much that we know what the other thinks or is going to say, and then we feel that the other is taking over and takes all the stage and we diminish to virtually nothing. So in order to be noticed we stir up some controversy. Then when our idea is being opposed, we start to defend it because after all it is our “product” and so the war is on.
Let ideas be ideas without the need to agree or disagree, see if it works for you, if not, see it as what it is, another view and if it is working, TA-DAA, you’ve just learned something new.
There is a view in the world that we need to agree on things to accomplish things and I can see the value in that when we set out for a task to do like building a bridge, a house or have a common goal, when ideas need to be coordinated to have the desired result but it needs to be restricted to the result to accomplish the task and not to satisfy feelings.
If we need to have others to make us feel good, to have them to be in agreement with us, then that’s a sure sign of fear and of our own incompetence and it would be wise to look for different ideas to learn from and those ideas are not going to be the kind we already know. Our ideas got us into the situations of incompetence and fear in the first place and will not help to get out of them but will get us deeper into it. So the question is: What are we going to do other than what we did so far?
Someone said: Doing the same things you’ve always done will get you the same things you’ve always got, therefore we could define ultimate stupidity by doing the same things we’ve always done but expecting different results.
I’d like to point out that pushing takes us sometimes to places except through doors marked “PULL”.
By insisting on doing things the way I believed to be the only right way to do it, I got into some real hairy situations.
In my youth I did get into fights like most boys and I learned a few tricks to walk away from a confrontation victoriously. But in one instance I run into a guy who previously was beaten by me and knew my trick to grab his wrist and diving under his arm and thus ending up behind him with his arm twisted up on his back.
This time he knew what to do and when I grabbed his wrist and dove, he simply turned with me and I ended up looking into his face with my both hands on his wrist while his other hand in form of a fist reshaped my nose. I needed a new technique along with a new nose and realized that there are many ways to skin a cat, not the same cat though.
A suggestion to have more peace in the world is that when we let go of our ideas as an important fact of life and strife for harmony and tolerance instead, the frictions in the world will be lessened and we could begin to promote a better understanding of each other.
Agreeing or disagreeing only creates friction that will lead to conflict and argumentations and if we look at the world today, that is what we have now and it is not advancing peace. So let’s focus on Love and Peace like the idea was in the 60ties but never got carried through.
When we put our intentions toward harmony and peace in all our dealings with others and looking for a way where no-one walks away feeling like a looser but all feel they won, then we are on the right track. It is not an easy task but it’s doable. What we need is to put more effort into it and examine why we need to be right. Set up a dialogue and listen to each other.
Just think: Even a terrorist fights to create peace. We may not approve of the method but behind it is the desire to have peace. So what the hell is the problem? That’s what we’re fighting for too but fighting can never create peace. It’s like fornicating for virginity.
Only peace can create peace. Wars ended only because they run out of resources and people and were too weak to continue but not because the lack of ideas. And the wars have always been about ideas. One group did not agree with another. Look into any family conflict, what are the reasons for arguing? Ideas that one person has and the other does not.
When they put their efforts into solving a situation, all of sudden things go smoothly.
That is called agreement for a common goal and not common feelings. I once had to tell an employer to tell me what to do not how to do it. What mattered was the end result, not the method but this fool was insisting that I should do it the way he did the job even though my job was better and easier than his way.
He told me that he did it his way for more than twenty years and if it were good for him, it would be good for me too. I replied that his forefathers dragged their knuckles in the dust and I wanted to know if he was doing that also.
It seems to me that people feel security only when others following their lead and maybe feel their leadership is threatened when others find other ways. Perhaps they think when their clique see different approaches they will secede and leave them behind and instead of adapting new ways they try to force their methods on the group. They want us to agree with their ways so they can feel secure.
That’s how traditions are created and it is one of the most retarded ways to keep people in line and isn’t it funny how well it works? When someone mentions traditions almost everybody pays reverence and nobody dares to question its validity. We abandon common sense and good judgments in favor for tradition. We agree to stupidities because it is a tradition.
It is time to wake up from “Zombie-ism” and question tradition, established procedures and customs. Let’s start fresh and ask why it is important to follow someone’s lead and ideas.
There are possible necessities to come together under one leader for a given task but once the task is finished be an individual again and stay away from habits, they only create a rut and it takes a lot of effort to get out of them. Have the guts to be you because it is impossible to be somebody else.
I heard a story about a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and all the contestants have gotten onto the stage, did their little gig, including Charlie Chaplin, and then someone else was declared the original. That other was more real than the real Charlie Chaplin.
This is how people are more attached to ideas how things should be instead of how they really are. But do remember: Life is not a “should be” affair. It is what it is and no agreements are necessary to the authentic individual. That is what it means to follow your own heart and as long as no one is harmed physically or repressed in the enfoldment of their individuality, we are on the right track.
As if I share my views with others to have them agree or disagree. I couldn’t give a fiddle. I’m not looking for converts or followers, a herd of sheep to look after. I’ll leave that to theologians and politicians. Let them be happy with sheep and use their wool and lead them to the slaughterhouse.
If they need to agree, why don’t people just tell me what they want to hear so they have me telling them what they already know and support their opinions and beliefs? But I notice that humans need others to tell them what they want to hear so they can feel safe and secure in their own views and opinions no matter how stupid or smart. Don’t look to me for any kind of support of ideologically infested craziness.
Long ago I found out that I didn’t learn anything by listening to others sprouting my own views but for the majority of people this seems to be the normal thing to do. We come up with an idea or someone planted it sometime into our heads and then we keep playing with it until we really believe it is the truth. It then becomes a point of view from which we measure and evaluate other ideas, accepting or dismissing them by agreeing or disagreeing, depending if it fits into our point of view or not. I think that only when we listen without agreeing or disagreeing can we learn new things.
Now, I am not free of points of views and when I listen to other people’s opinions and I become aware of wanting to agree or disagree I stop and exam why I do that. Invariably I discover identification with my own ideas and the need to defend or cherish them. However, ideas can be made and discarded in a blink of an eye without loosing anything of importance but we are so proud of our “product” that when someone dares to question it, we go to war.
I became aware of this odd behavior when I had a conversation with a couple of mixed culture. During our pleasant chat I noticed how a tension came up between the couple and when I asked if there was something the matter they explained to me that they had a different view about what people need to do to be happy and then they laid out their ideas. Her idea was not his and when I asked why love was not sufficient to be happy and why it was important for one to go along with the others point of view when all that really mattered was the love they shared, both defended their ideas with teeth and claws.
This couple was very indicative for how the world got to the point of self-destruction over ideas. Love and peace are sacrificed for ideas. Love is a feeling and an attitude of acceptance and so is peace. It has nothing to do with ideologies. Even an atheist knows love and peace but we mix-up ideas with feelings and then ideologies and dogmas create an attitude of who is right and all is lost. Love is not an idea neither is peace. We fight over who is right when it is about what is right.
And so it is also when we are on the same playing field. We’ve all had experiences how we seem to go along just great, we feel one with each other, in fact so much that we know what the other thinks or is going to say, and then we feel that the other is taking over and takes all the stage and we diminish to virtually nothing. So in order to be noticed we stir up some controversy. Then when our idea is being opposed, we start to defend it because after all it is our “product” and so the war is on.
Let ideas be ideas without the need to agree or disagree, see if it works for you, if not, see it as what it is, another view and if it is working, TA-DAA, you’ve just learned something new.
There is a view in the world that we need to agree on things to accomplish things and I can see the value in that when we set out for a task to do like building a bridge, a house or have a common goal, when ideas need to be coordinated to have the desired result but it needs to be restricted to the result to accomplish the task and not to satisfy feelings.
If we need to have others to make us feel good, to have them to be in agreement with us, then that’s a sure sign of fear and of our own incompetence and it would be wise to look for different ideas to learn from and those ideas are not going to be the kind we already know. Our ideas got us into the situations of incompetence and fear in the first place and will not help to get out of them but will get us deeper into it. So the question is: What are we going to do other than what we did so far?
Someone said: Doing the same things you’ve always done will get you the same things you’ve always got, therefore we could define ultimate stupidity by doing the same things we’ve always done but expecting different results.
I’d like to point out that pushing takes us sometimes to places except through doors marked “PULL”.
By insisting on doing things the way I believed to be the only right way to do it, I got into some real hairy situations.
In my youth I did get into fights like most boys and I learned a few tricks to walk away from a confrontation victoriously. But in one instance I run into a guy who previously was beaten by me and knew my trick to grab his wrist and diving under his arm and thus ending up behind him with his arm twisted up on his back.
This time he knew what to do and when I grabbed his wrist and dove, he simply turned with me and I ended up looking into his face with my both hands on his wrist while his other hand in form of a fist reshaped my nose. I needed a new technique along with a new nose and realized that there are many ways to skin a cat, not the same cat though.
A suggestion to have more peace in the world is that when we let go of our ideas as an important fact of life and strife for harmony and tolerance instead, the frictions in the world will be lessened and we could begin to promote a better understanding of each other.
Agreeing or disagreeing only creates friction that will lead to conflict and argumentations and if we look at the world today, that is what we have now and it is not advancing peace. So let’s focus on Love and Peace like the idea was in the 60ties but never got carried through.
When we put our intentions toward harmony and peace in all our dealings with others and looking for a way where no-one walks away feeling like a looser but all feel they won, then we are on the right track. It is not an easy task but it’s doable. What we need is to put more effort into it and examine why we need to be right. Set up a dialogue and listen to each other.
Just think: Even a terrorist fights to create peace. We may not approve of the method but behind it is the desire to have peace. So what the hell is the problem? That’s what we’re fighting for too but fighting can never create peace. It’s like fornicating for virginity.
Only peace can create peace. Wars ended only because they run out of resources and people and were too weak to continue but not because the lack of ideas. And the wars have always been about ideas. One group did not agree with another. Look into any family conflict, what are the reasons for arguing? Ideas that one person has and the other does not.
When they put their efforts into solving a situation, all of sudden things go smoothly.
That is called agreement for a common goal and not common feelings. I once had to tell an employer to tell me what to do not how to do it. What mattered was the end result, not the method but this fool was insisting that I should do it the way he did the job even though my job was better and easier than his way.
He told me that he did it his way for more than twenty years and if it were good for him, it would be good for me too. I replied that his forefathers dragged their knuckles in the dust and I wanted to know if he was doing that also.
It seems to me that people feel security only when others following their lead and maybe feel their leadership is threatened when others find other ways. Perhaps they think when their clique see different approaches they will secede and leave them behind and instead of adapting new ways they try to force their methods on the group. They want us to agree with their ways so they can feel secure.
That’s how traditions are created and it is one of the most retarded ways to keep people in line and isn’t it funny how well it works? When someone mentions traditions almost everybody pays reverence and nobody dares to question its validity. We abandon common sense and good judgments in favor for tradition. We agree to stupidities because it is a tradition.
It is time to wake up from “Zombie-ism” and question tradition, established procedures and customs. Let’s start fresh and ask why it is important to follow someone’s lead and ideas.
There are possible necessities to come together under one leader for a given task but once the task is finished be an individual again and stay away from habits, they only create a rut and it takes a lot of effort to get out of them. Have the guts to be you because it is impossible to be somebody else.
I heard a story about a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and all the contestants have gotten onto the stage, did their little gig, including Charlie Chaplin, and then someone else was declared the original. That other was more real than the real Charlie Chaplin.
This is how people are more attached to ideas how things should be instead of how they really are. But do remember: Life is not a “should be” affair. It is what it is and no agreements are necessary to the authentic individual. That is what it means to follow your own heart and as long as no one is harmed physically or repressed in the enfoldment of their individuality, we are on the right track.
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