C.G.Ayling

Category: Heavy Stuff

This is where you’ll find my musing’s about matters, of substance.

  • Lest We Forget, ICU.

    This post covers the surgery to debulk the tumor infringing on my Pituitary gland and the first week thereafter, which I spent in the Intensive Care Unit at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.  If you haven’t read the first installment of this post I recommend you do so before proceeding.

    Tuesday, February the 7th, the day of my surgery arrived.  My wife, Suzanne, and I woke up early and set off for the hospital.  During the drive she asked if I was worried about any aspect of the surgery.  After a moment’s stoic, manly silence I gathered my courage and admitted that the prospect of memory loss concerned me.  {Why are we men so stupid and stubborn we think it is better to hide our fears from our loved ones?}  She reassured me it was unlikely and carried on driving.

    I sat silently and tried to relax while my mind played havoc with my emotions.  Yes, I am one of the stupid, stubborn men I just mentioned.  The reality is that a fear of memory loss more than concerned me, it terrified me.  Why?  Because over thirty years previously I suffered a Cavernous Sinus Thrombosis that saw me hospitalized for three months.  I recovered remarkably well and returned to normal… except for one thing.  It took me a long time to realize, but virtually all my childhood memories were simply no longer there.  It was like I jumped straight from age five to age sixteen.  Occasionally a memory would surface, but most of my childhood memories were lost.  Extrapolating that time to the present left me fearful of what I might lose this time around.  What if I didn’t recognize my children, or my wife, or my friends, or what I’d done and who I was?  Instead of conveying these fears to Suzanne I kept silent and pretended I was fine.  Yes, I am a stupid, stubborn man.

    We arrived at the hospital around 5:30am.  Suzanne dropped me at the main entrance, allegedly to save me the walk from the parking garage but I’m sure it was so she could have a cigarette to help calm her own nerves.  Major surgery tends to make people nervous, with good reason.  I walked in, identified myself at the desk I’d been told to, and was escorted upstairs into the secured surgical area, where I was instructed to change into that unflattering hospital garb we know and love.  After doing so I sent a text message to Suzanne explaining where I was and how to get to me.

    And that is where everything went blank.  Lest we forget… more days of my life, forgotten.

    Please note that most of the remainder of this post are not my recollections, they are pieced together from what my wife and children have told me about those days, how they felt, and what they did during them.  In the eloquent words of my favorite youngest daughter, Julia, “I was so worried I bombed out in a psych exam.”

    Bear with me as I relate a particularly difficult week of my life, mostly from how my family told me it went.

    Dannielle, my favorite middle daughter, joined my wife to sit and wait for surgery to complete.  They comforted each other as the estimated two-hour surgery dragged on to three hours.  They watched as names on the In-Surgery roster went up, then came down as their surgeries were completed.  My name didn’t move.  Four hours passed with no word, then five.  I imagine my wife comforted Dannielle, who is quite sensitive, however this is just what I imagine… the truth is likely to be that they comforted each other equally.

    Over five hours after I went into surgery, it was finally over.  Dr. Brett came out and explained complications had unavoidably extended the procedure.  The tumor was pressing on the frontal lobes of my brain, my hypothalamus, my pituitary gland, and my optic nerves.  Apart from the direct impact of the tumor itself, the surgeons had been unable to place a lumbar drain – this resulted in spinal fluid escaping through the wound into my nasal cavity by which the endoscope had been inserted and operated.  Post-surgery they sent me to the Intensive Care Unit, where staff would keep a close watch on my condition.  Hope was expressed that the wound would heal and seal itself.  At time hope pays dividends, at others it does not.

    Wednesday, the day after surgery I was exhibiting signs of Diabetes Insipidus and dumped alarming amounts of fluid via a catheter.  {I suspect urinary catheters are normal practice after this type of surgery as they allow the patient to rest and hospital staff to measure and watch for DI.}  Suzanne and Dannielle came to visit me and stayed most of the day.  They were given a huge, clear plastic one liter capacity hospital mug, which I still have, and were told to encourage me to drink, which I refused to do.  In the words of my wife “The day was an emotional roller-coaster as we saw bits of you, then saw you crash.”  I was acting like a child, clamping my mouth shut and refusing food and drink.

    To get me to drink at least some fluids Dannielle took to sucking up a straw full of water, which she’d leak into the corner of my mouth and I’d then swallow.  My wife told me this after I left hospital, Dannielle confirmed it when I asked her.  Dannielle said she’d managed to get me to drink about half the mug of water.

    At the end of the day Suzanne and Dannielle left to attend to the duties of life that wait for nobody, the ill included.  The nursing staff thought my copious urine production was a result of my drinking too much.  Dannielle had managed to feed me about 500ml of water, but they thought I’d drunk several liters so they cut off my Intravenous fluids.  The lack of hydration caused my sodium levels to drop and brought on Sinus Tachycardia.  As if this wasn’t enough for the ICU staff to worry about, the spinal fluid that had continued to leak into my sinus cavities started pouring from my nose.

    Thursday, Suzanne and Dannielle arrived early to visit again.  Suzanne, who had been my nurse when I was in hospital for the Cavernous Sinus Thrombosis {every cloud does have a silver lining}, discussed overnight events with the staff.  They immediately placed back me on IV Fluids once they realized I wasn’t actually drinking.

    To address to the continued leaking of spinal fluid they sent me to Interventional Radiology to have a spinal drain installed.  Thursday passed with me out cold.

    Friday arrived, so did Suzanne and Dannielle.  They sat bedside as a reasonably normal day unfolded.  From their perspective I seemed to be myself again.  Throughout the day a constant stream of nurses and doctors visited to discuss and examine my spinal drain, which is apparently seldom used or seen nowadays. {Please note this as it will be revisited in the next post.}

    Saturday came.  Per Suzanne, things were going reasonably well, however she had a premonition something was not right but shrugged it off and left for the night.   Strange how often those feelings we’re so eager to shrug off prove accurate…

    Saturday night I completely lost my memory, didn’t know who or where I was, became hostile, and proceeded to rip out my IV, my catheter, and my spinal drain.  A psychology consult was requested, the doctor on duty diagnosed me with ICU Psychosis and administered Haldol.  Hospital security staff forcibly subdued me, after which I was sent down to Radiology to have a CAT scan for a suspected brain bleed.  Multiple CAT scans were performed, apparently the Radiologist thought he had found a bleed.  My Neurosurgeon did not agree.

    On Sunday I was still subdued and suffering from total memory loss.  Blood tests showed my Cortisol levels were dangerously low, so I was given a massive dose of Cortisol.

    An Instagram post by my daughter, Dannielle

    By Monday I was returning to myself and starting to recognize my wife and daughter.  Or so I’ve been told, in my own memory that particular Monday simply doesn’t exist.

    Tuesday, from the perspective of Suzanne and Dannielle, was a reasonably normal day in the ICU.

    By the end of Wednesday I was actually aware once more and had been approved for transfer to a step-down ward, where I’d spend another week struggling to recover.

    Memory Loss…

    For those of you who’ve seen memory loss depicted on television serials, it isn’t like that at all.  You see, memory loss isn’t as precise as a surgeon’s scalpel – it doesn’t neatly excise specific bits.  Memory loss is administered with a heavy, blunt instrument that does collateral damage to adjoining events and time to the where and when it strikes.  Memory loss doesn’t just conk you on the head, then let you sit up in bed, bemused, but regal as ever while you talk politely to your admirers, and magically regain the memory you’ve lost through a series of black and white flashbacks.

    Memory loss doesn’t work like that at all, at least it did not for me.

    From the account above you’ll note that Saturday night, four days after my surgery, was the night I suffered from a total memory loss.  It socked me a real sucker-punch that stole everything from before I went into surgery until about a week afterward.  Those days aren’t gradually returning.  It is now three months later and they remain a blank, no matter how long and hard I struggle to recall them.  Apart from a couple of strange dream-like fragments totaling a few minutes of real time, those days are gone.  I don’t know why those fragments were spared, but I’m glad they were, you see they restore some faith in my own sanity.

    Memory-wise, it is as if those missing days didn’t even happen.  Only they did.

    And the worst was yet to come…

    {P.S. I am particularly grateful to my wife Suzanne, and my daughters Tamryn and Dannielle for putting their normal lives on the back-burner to tend me, even though I didn’t know who they were or why they were there.  To my son Gareth, and my youngest daughter Julia, whom I believe my wife protected by keeping from my bedside – I lost you for days, but I am so glad to have you back.}

  • on Uncertainty

    Are you aware that men almost never make eye contact with each other, unless they are in a social setting?

    Why not?

    Well, to us men it is simply way too overt an aggressive act as direct eye contact between men is an outright challenge.

    This is one of my longer and more penetrating posts, however if you have the time please struggle on through.

    Are the above statements my opinion, or are they verifiable facts?  They are neither, they’re assertions of something I believe is self-evident.  That is what my blog, my tweets, and my book[s] are about.  They are about Truths as I see them.  Contrary truths, truths others might not see, yet they are all truths to me –  like the tag line of my website says, what I offer is “Another View, of True ©“.  Although it seems to contradict my previous sentence, something interesting about truth is how for something to be true it must be true for everyone, everywhere, all the time.  Doesn’t that mean Truth can’t be contradictory?  No, it doesn’t mean that at all.  It means that truth is modified by perception.  Something else about truth is that it must still be perceived to be true when investigated with an open heart and mind.  I’m going to try and do that, but first let me set context by using an excerpt from the second book in my work, “Malmaxa“. What is Malmaxa? Its an obscure tome in a genre that doesn’t exist, a genre I have labeled Philosophy, couched as Fantasy.

    Ryntam immediately countered, “Many listen, few hear, and even less understand.  The truth in this matter… discern it.”
    Jalgar noted the imperative in his child’s voice and smiled.  A heartbeat and a pace before he spoke, “You ask that I discern the truth in the matter of the Chundrah.  I shall attempt it.”
    Ryntam knew full well she had demanded, not asked.  She glanced at her father.  The levity of his tone fortified his words, which clearly showed he would not bow to her simply because of her blue Chukrah.
    Jalgar spoke unhurriedly, “To the Elder, the Chundrah is heavy.  To you, it is light.”  He deliberately rephrased her words, ensuring she knew he grasped their meaning.  After a pause for emphasis he continued, “These truths expose a quandary.  How can two things seemingly opposite, both be truth?  Is truth not absolute?”
    Thoroughly enjoying her father’s reasoning, Ryntam pursed her lips as she nodded slowly.  In consideration, not in agreement…
    Jalgar continued in the same measured tone, “Can there be only a single truth in this matter?  If so… is one perception a lie?”
    Ryntam chuckled in delight before nodding to acknowledge he had fulfilled her request.  After a few paces, she murmured, “Perception, indeed.  Perception modifies truth.”  Another quiet chuckle, “Yet there is another matter which troubles me, Father.  We agree that to the Elder, the Chundrah is heavy.”
    Jalgar agreed, “Yes, that is the Elder’s truth.”

    Now, back to the investigation of my opening assertion.

    We should never take anything at face value, and we should never take anything for granted.  This is especially true of the things we are not permitted to question.  After all, if something cannot withstand even rudimentary questioning then it simply cannot be true.

    I asserted that men almost never make eye contact with each other, unless they are in a social setting.  If you question this, which you should, then verify it by watching the behavior of men outside a social setting.  How often do you see two men who don’t know each other look directly at each other?

    Women will find this exercise easy.  Men won’t.  If you’re a man, I think you’ll find it quite difficult since it entails you being covertly aggressive toward men you don’t know – men who will be aggressive toward you if they notice you’re watching them.  Of course the ultimate, though extremely foolhardy test of voracity for men would be to actually do it yourself.  How?  Walk down a street in which you don’t know anyone and stare at every man you see.  Actually… don’t do it.  Why?  Because whether verbally, physically, or by a third party, you will be assaulted – but you men already knew that didn’t you?

    Like so many truths we investigate, this brings us to another interesting question to ponder.  Why do men feel challenged when other men look at them?

    Could it be a left over genetic prerogative from caveman days?  At first glance that seems like a reasonable assumption.  However cavemen wandered around in social groups, so the assertion doesn’t apply.  Did they attack and kill any other groups whose menfolk looked at them?  Though that is a romantic notion all too often promulgated by fantasy, I seriously doubt it.  Why?  Because if they had we wouldn’t exist today, we’d have died out from lack of genetic diversity. {Another assertion to question, but I’m afraid you’ll have to investigate it on your own :)}  However, I don’t doubt bloodshed ensued when a group of cavemen encountered another humanoid group they perceived as different from themselves.

    And there it is…  Wait…?  What…?

    Uncertainty of course!  We have a very powerful distrust of people we perceive to be different than ourselves.  Men, the defenders of their womenfolk from the attentions of other men, are much more prone to this uncertain distrust.  I’m very confident we’re hardwired to react aggressively to any perceived threat – like many other animals I think our instincts insist it is better to be safe than it is to be dead.  So we immediately prepare something I’d like to think of as heightened preemptive awareness.  Unfortunately this state is also pretty aggressive and pretty irrational, of which neither emotion is pretty at all.

    Irrational people are easily manipulated.  {File that thought for later consideration.}

    People who are distinguishably different make us uncertain.  When we are uncertain we feel unsure.  When we’re unsure we don’t feel safe.  When we don’t feel safe we feel afraid.  When we feel afraid we act irrationally.  When we act irrationally people get hurt.  We can’t help ourselves.   Please don’t accept any of this, question it all.  You deserve to discover your truths for yourself, and I believe the only way anyone ever manages that feat is by investigating and questioning everything – including and especially themselves.

    We can’t help ourselves…  Did I say that?  Did you believe it?  I really hope you didn’t.  You see, the truth is that we can help ourselves.  Yes, we are genetically encoded to feel certain things in certain circumstances.  That is an inescapable fact sometimes referred to as a biological, or genetic imperative.  I believe one of those feelings causes uncertainty when we encounter something we don’t recognize, something like people who seem completely different to us.  But what I believe doesn’t matter.  What you believe matters.   But how do you know what to believe?  Easy.  By questioning until you’re completely satisfied you grasp the truth.

    And the truth to me, is that we can help ourselves.  We can overcome our ingrained prejudices, regardless of whether their source is genetic, social, religious, cultural, national, or whatever.  We can overcome our uncertainty, along with everything that negative feeling leads to when left unfettered and uncontrolled.  However we can only do so if we’re willing to ask ourselves the hardest questions, and then keep on asking until we answer with our own personal and inescapable truth.  Until we answer, not until someone else gives us an answer.

    What is the inescapable truth?  There isn’t one – there are many.   However the path to enlightenment begins with the first question to which we find our own personal and inescapable truth.

    One of my inescapable truths is that although every human is unique, fundamentally we’re all the same.  We are all genetically compatible.  Any fertile, gender diverse pair of humans from anywhere across the entire Earth can mate and engender a child.  Try as hard as you like, for as long as you like – you will be unable to disprove this.  It is an inescapable truth.  We. Are. All. The. Same.  Surely there is more to humanity than mere genetics?  Of course there is, feelings and emotions are at the root of how how we define ourselves as “human”.  But that doesn’t matter – we’re still the same!  We all love, hope, hurt, and fear.  There isn’t one of us anywhere, any time, who doesn’t.

    Unfortunately there are powerful people who profit from uncertainty, and it is precisely those people who control the media, the governments, and the corporations that treat people like commodities to be bought, used, exploited, sold, and discarded.  But for people to be controlled it is necessary to fill them with uncertainty, along with all the negative emotions uncertainty brings along as baggage.  I believe this is why those powerful people cast seeds of uncertainty through the constant assertion they are different from us!  Those power mongers lie.  There is no us versus them, there is only humanity and we are all the same.  Dig deep in your heart and you’ll find this is inescapably true – fundamentally, we’re all human.

    The power mongers tell us we’re different to make us feel uncertain of who we truly are.

    Oh, to be wise enough to know which parts of us are us, right down to our core, and which parts of us are built on patterns other draw…

    Take away all the lies, misdirection, and hysteria and deep inside yourself you’ll find you’re human, just like all the rest of us.

    When next you feel uncertain ask yourself if that is really you who feels afraid, or if fear is a feeling you’ve been taught to hold.  That man whose eyes you won’t meet, for fear he is different to you?  Look deep enough into our shared collective past and you’ll find your truths, and your truths will set you free.  One of my truths is that the man who I’m afraid to really look at is a brother from a long distant past, all I need do is care enough to recognize him.

    Now let me leave you with these thoughts, and hopefully a lot of other questions to explore…

    Enlightened people constantly struggle with ingrained distrust, while the unenlightened spare distrust not even a single thought.  I wonder into which category of person you think you fall?

  • on Just War

    on Just War.

    I do not enjoy talking about my Active Duty Army days. In this I’m similar to an overwhelmingly vast majority of former military combatants. Indeed, I feel so strongly about this matter that it is one of the few subjects I refuse to talk about with even my own children. However I believe this topic needs to be brought into view where it can be examined by everyone with a conscience, so I’m making this exception.

    Why am I so reluctant to speak about my military past? For reasons I’ll attempt to articulate here. For reasons I suspect are the same virtually every other ex-combatant doesn’t like talking of their past.

    We all want to believe we are fundamentally decent people. Sadly when we’re on active duty in a combat role we encounter an enormous problem with being “decent people”. “On active duty in a combat role” doesn’t mean you’re sitting in a base-camp is some foreign country listening to distant gunfire and the occasional explosion. “On active duty in a combat role” means you are physically out in the field of war, you are going to have contact with the enemy, somebody is going to die, and you fervently hope that somebody isn’t you.

    And that is the fundamental problem right there. You fervently hope that somebody isn’t you…

    There is no such thing as a just war.

    It doesn’t matter that you are on the side of right and the enemy are on the side of wrong, because to them it is you who is on the side of wrong and they who are on the side of right. Wars are not fought by enemies, they are fought by people. And what decent person can ever justify killing another person they do not know, and about whom they know nothing? The enemy are not nameless, faceless, inhuman entities. They are individuals like you and me. That person you hope will die that you might live is someone’s child and is quite possibly somebody’s parent as well. Yet as an active duty combatant you find yourself in a situation in which your most ardent desire is to kill that someone.

    Time passes, you look back on those days from the vantage granted by time, experience, and reason and realize it was all for nothing.

    It was all for nothing.

    I fought in a war to keep my country free, but my country was lost anyway. Zimbabwe is the ruins of Rhodesia. Rhodesia, a country once described as the “breadbasket of Southern Africa” has turned into a place of widespread starvation in which people routinely tolerate grotesque injustice every day. So what did my fighting in the so-called “liberation war” accomplish? Isn’t it peculiar how history is written from the victors perspective?

    I ask again, what did my fighting in that war accomplish?

    It accomplished nothing. Nothing. Nothing, except the deaths of a whole lot of sons, and I am ashamed to say, the deaths of some daughters too. Tragically, those deaths are not nothing. Those deaths are the unwritten somethings of the forgotten heroes of a rewritten war.

    A terrible mistake is for people to imagine they know what it is like to be on active duty in a combat role. Until you have personally been there you don’t have a clue. Not a single clue. People extrapolate war into cute little sound bites like, “It is for the greater good.” Utter nonsense. The only people war serves are those immoral enough to profit from said war.

    Who profits from war? Those who sell weapons. Those who hold onto power by whatever means possible. Those who attempt to wrest power from whoever currently holds it, also by whatever means possible.

    There is no such thing as a just war…

    How can any situation in which it is tolerable and acceptable to kill other people simply because they are on the other side ever be just? It cannot. How can it be just to suspend all universal laws of moral decency and encourage the willful, intentional murder of people you don’t even know? It cannot. That one side in a war is unjust does not grant the other side the right to suspend morality. Suspending morality does not make one side just – it makes both sides unjust.

    Never forget wars are not fought by lifeless machines. Wars are fought by human beings. That nameless, faceless, inhuman entity you are encouraged to murder without conscience is not nameless, faceless, or inhuman. They are a person, they have a name, they have a face their parents and children love, and they are no less human than you. They deserve better than to be murdered simply for being on the other side of an unjust war.

    Perhaps this is why the war is off limits to conversation with my children. I want my children to think I am a good person. How do good people get involved in such terrible affairs as war? How can a decent person do things that are fundamentally unconscionable? How can a decent person ever forget their indecent deeds?

    I grow weary of people assuming war is a glorious affair.

    I volunteered for military service about a year before I would have been conscripted. I did so because I wanted to serve my country. And I did serve my country. But for what? Ultimately for nothing except the death of a whole bunch of people I never knew, but all of whom had mothers and fathers, and many of whom probably had children too. Such memories do not make me feel good about myself. That I was young and gullible should not be an excuse. It really should not. It is not an excuse sufficient to ease my troubled conscience. Not even a little.

    Perhaps these are the reasons former combatants are so reluctant to speak of their roles. Perhaps they are just people like me who look back on their deeds and know they are not just. Perhaps society demands our silence, but our conscience does not.

    There is no such thing as a just war…

    Credits: This post first appeared in a wonderful online publication called Hellbent Magazine. Visit their website and browse around, you’ll find the original post at this link.

  • Wisdom’s Path

    Difficulties, are these the names of the stones the pave the path to understanding?

    Difficulty, these are the large stones with smooth surfaces over which our feet flow, or upon which we stub our toe.

    Pain, these are the jagged little stones we never notice, until they cut our feet.

    Anguish, these are the invisible stones over which we trip, and never think we’ll find the strength to rise.

    Misery, these are the stones of salt with which the wounds of pain, we bathe.

    It should be no surprise that Understanding is a destination very few attain. Yet it is only beyond Understanding that we will find Tolerance, and only far past Tolerance that we might hope to eventually find Wisdom.

    Shoes? I think they cannot be worn on any of these paths, all of which are ultimately one.

    Where do the feet of your spirit guide you?  To smooth paths on which you will experience few of life’s discomforts, yet upon which you will find little sustenance for your soul?  Or to the path of difficulty, where you might?

    I would like to think mine guide me toward Understanding, but I know my feet are soft.

  • Wealth’s Poverty

    ~ Wealth’s Poverty ~
    ~
    We lie atop the sacrificial slab,
    and with our quill,
    our heart we stab,
    blood words upon our skin we scribe.
    Our hope?
    That others those blood wrought words
    will read,
    and from spiritual poverty
    be freed.
    ~
    The goal of every word
    we write?
    To free another from
    our plight.
    Our truths we see, we say,
    and for our truths
    we’ll fight,
    and from darkness,
    the willing
    we will
    drag
    to light.
    ~
    In the shadows do the wicked dwell,
    from whence the poor,
    with false hopes cast as arrows,
    they fell.
    With mistruth they bind the masses,
    spreading hopes of salvation,
    which they buy,
    then tell.
    Lottery promises of escape from poverty,
    they sell.
    Hopes, of freedom from this
    mortal hell.
    ~
    A piece of soul-scribed skin,
    from our flesh they flay,
    a map they intend to use,
    to help them find their forgotten way.
    ~
    We won’t beg, or plead for the wealthy
    to stay.
    You see,
    our stolen words do the rich mislead,
    for though salvation’s map is true,
    the needle-eyed gate is one
    which rich thieves will never
    pass through.
    ~
    Peaks of luxury do the wealthy climb,
    while down below their workers wade in slime.
    With no excess sufficient to their unsated greed,
    they’ve let this world slide and slip to seed.
    Loud do they their lying anthem proclaim,
    “There will always be the needy!
    So let them toil and bleed
    while upon their labors,
    we,
    the wealthy,
    feed.”
    ~
    And yet unshuttered eyes easily do see,
    the rich have finally gone insane…
    Their mad intent?
    To keep this broken world,
    the same.
    ~
    For their obscene wealth,
    the rich feel no shame,
    and on the burdened shoulders of the poor,
    heap they all blame.
    ~
    Unwanted garments from their shoulders slough,
    gourmet delights uneaten,
    left to rot,
    till from their banquet tables,
    once good food falls with a putrid
    plop,
    sustenance they’ve let turn into
    slop,
    while from hunger
    they let the poverty stricken
    drop.
    ~
    When will we,
    the victims of wealth’s poverty,
    from our indentured slavery
    turn, not flee?
    ~
    I fear
    not soon
    enough…
    ~

  • On dé·jà vu

    dé·jà vu
    pronunciation: dāZHä ˈvo͞o
    noun: déjà vu
    a feeling of having previously experienced the present situation.

    dé·jà vu, also known as “Further thoughts on Fate.”

    I wonder if those who have never experienced Fate are simply too blind to notice it, too insensitive to feel its feather-light touch, or too scared to think again when dé·jà vu fills their mind with memories they at first think are not their own?

    Am I making too much of nothing in an attempt to prove Fate exists?  Nope.  I don’t need to prove Fate exists.  Why?  Because I know there are billions who don’t believe fate exists and that nothing I say or do will sway their minds.  And then there are other souls who already know Fate does exist.  Likewise there is no need for me to prove anything to them.

    There is no need for me to prove anything.  Yet I do have a need…

    My blog has never been about proofs, it has always been about feelings.  Which is what my need is.  The need to share my feelings in hope they stir feeling within others.  In this post the feelings I’m sharing are related to my thoughts on Fate, which I’ve blogged about at various times.  If you’re interested, here is a breadcrumb that might lead you to the trail that led me here.

    Fate.

    The topic of fate is so complicated it is very difficult to understand.  Please don’t mistake anything I’ve previously said to mean “Everything is set in stone, nothing can change anything, so just give up already!”  Not only have I never said or felt that, but I’m not saying it at all.  However I am having difficulty finding words to explain what my heart reveals.  Enormous difficulty.

    If Fate is absolute, then nothing matters.  Right?  No, that is completely wrong.  It is precisely because fate is absolute, that everything matters.

    If a good person sees an ill deed done, yet does nothing, then they aren’t good at all.  It is not fate that determines whether people are of good or bad nature, it is how people react to the circumstances of their fate that determines their nature.

    If we don’t try, then we are the ones who lack, and we are the ones at fault.

    Whether or not our attempts are fated to fail or to succeed does not matter one whit.  What matters is that we make the attempt to change destiny.  It is our struggle which most clearly defines us as worthy.

    Worthy or unworthy of what?  Well, perhaps worthy of an escape from the inescapable clutches of the Fates.  Perhaps through access to heaven where we are no longer bound by the Fates, but also from where we can no longer interfere in the fates of those who remain bound.

    Lots more thoughts to condense into words.  Lots.  So if you’re of the patient, thinking sort then come back and visit sometime and you may well find further semi-coherent thoughts on the nature of chaos.  I won’t promise when, since when is outside my hands.  But the attempt?  That is not.

  • On Pre-Destiny

    change
    it does a soul good…

    Bless is a word I am extremely reluctant to use.

    If we look on good fortune as blessings, we must also look on ill fortune as curses. Either of those is an implicit acceptance of pre-destiny. Either of those is also an implicit acceptance of benign and malign superior entities which are capable of manipulating our fate.

    There are no words I know which are capable of encapsulating my thoughts on this topic.  But even knowing I will surely fail, I’ll try anyway.

    Good fortune indicates luck.  What is luck, save favorable fate?  What is fate but an acceptance of strictures beyond our control?  If we can neither control nor influence our own destiny, what then?

    Is all that remains to quietly accept the vagaries of fate?

    How can we timidly accept that something outside our understanding has predetermined our every thought and deed?

    If there is predetermination then it must be absolute.  It cannot be partial, for if predetermination is only partial then predetermination does not exist at all.

    If we accept absolute predetermination, then since all actions are predetermined we must also accept that absolutely nothing we do matters.

    If we accept nothing we do matters, then we must ultimately accept that we are nothing.

    Nothing… means we must accept that we are not even stardust.

    Formed from the dust of dead stars, we are.

    I can’t accept that.

    I am merely human, and therefore incapable of understanding that which is outside human understanding.

    Now that, I can accept.

    {P.S.  Two blog posts in a single day!!!???  This happens extremely rarely, so don’t let it dissuade you from subscribing to my blog. The subscribe button it in the top right column…}

  • Should family come first?

    Today is Thanksgiving day.  Thanksgiving is a time of family, both for enjoying the company of your family, and for reflecting on its importance in your life.  It makes me ponder the apparently obvious question of whether family should come first?

    For me family always has. My children hold an importance in my life I think they will only begin to comprehend when they have children of their own in their lives.

    So, yes. Family comes first.

    However that is only a partial bit of a greater truth. Another partial bit of truth is how we place the ones we love ahead of ourselves. And yet another bit of strictly personal truth {When is truth ever not personal?} is how I am biased against “first”, which is what this post is really about. Now be warned  I’m going to explore this matter at some length, so feel free to stop reading as soon as you get bored.

    The initial thoughts that pop into my mind are that first requires there be a last. First turns things into a competition, and love should never be a competition. Not for children, who should never need to compete for their parents love. Not for parents, who should never love one child more than another. And not for people in love, who should never think their love is greater than that of those who love them.

    Sadly, we often fail in all these instances.

    Time for an admission – I really don’t like competition. Sure, when I was growing up competition was everywhere. I competed to gain an entry place into the High School I attended. I competed with every other student in my grade level for placement in the top class. I competed in sports, both team, and individual. The day scholars competed against the boarders. My school competed against others, both academically and in sports. I constantly competed against my own siblings, then we’d team together and compete against the neighbors. When I entered military service, I competed against other conscripts for officer selection training. In the School of Infantry we were split into teams that competed against each other. We also competed against the members of our own team, in order to remain in officer training. After our basic training we competed for the military units we wanted to serve in. Some competed for secure headquarters postings, and some competed to gain an active duty posting in the field of combat. I fell into the latter category.

    And then shit hit the fan.

    We started competing for our lives.

    I am still alive.

    So why do I not feel like a winner for surviving?  During the war I felt like I was, and yet my side lost.  To my first-hand knowledge, the Rhodesian Military never lost a battle, yet the insurgents won the war.  The victors write history, and the losers are soon forgotten. Years later might have been when I finally realized that in war the soldiers who do the fighting are never winners, regardless of the side on which they fight. The aftermath of war is not victorious soldiers and vanquished, faceless foes, it is victims, some of whom were once soldiers, who were once people.

    Are there no winners in war?

    Yes, there are winners in war.  They are the unscrupulous politicians.  They are the financiers who profit from other peoples’ deaths.  They are the manipulators calling the shots, while cowering behind the scenes. They are those who never lift a weapon in combat, yet speak loudest of Defense, Justice, and Liberty.  The winners in war are the liars and the thieves.

    Mortal combat is the final competition.  Don’t mistakenly believe that combat is the ultimate competition, for ultimate has connotations of good, and there has never been, nor ever will there ever be, a good war.  Not ever, and nor ever.  Strong words?  Yes, but obviously not strong enough, since wars still ravage a humanity foolish enough to be easily manipulated by those who profit from death and misery.

    Perhaps this post gives clues as to why I am so biased against “first”, even in the case of family.  You see, for me,  first connotates competition.

    Competition…

    Competition should for be for the joy of competing, not for mere survival.

  • Negative, turned about, is positive.

    How did it come about that society has so indoctrinated us into believing that questioning how things are is “being negative”, while accepting our miserable lot in life is “being positive”? I look at our world, for that is what it is, our world – least for the short time we dwell upon it, and I wonder how it came about that so very very few ride upon the hog’s back, and that we are the hogs upon which they ride.

    The few and precious memories of my childhood seemed so carefree, and so different to the moments of my children’s. Were things that different only fifty years ago? I know they were, for then a universal trait of people was that they put other people before themselves. That trait has largely died, extinguished by another now held in much higher esteem than selflessness, and that trait is selfishness. We are taught to “do whatever it takes”. Before we succumb to such an insidious demand we should realize that for us to take, others must give. Do we ask ourselves if they give willingly? For if they do not, then we have become the instruments of the single source of evil in our world. What is that, do I hear you ask? It is something current society holds in highest esteem.

    The source of all evil in our world is not some unseen, malevolent force. It is human greed.

    Modern society teaches us that…

    • We should work harder so we can have more.
    • We should compete with one another with intent to win.
    • We should be content with our lot in life.
    • We should obey the government.
    • We should abase ourselves before whatever deity the religion foisted on us holds high.

    The truth is none of the things society, under the direction of unscrupulous, greedy people, teaches us. The best lies are those that seem as though they might be truths. Society’s teaching are some of the best lies.

    We should work harder so we can have more.

    We should work as hard as required to sustain ourselves and grant sufficient excess to be generous to those more needy than ourselves.

    We should compete with one another with intent to win.

    Rather than compete, we should cooperate.  When we compete, we should compete for fun.

    We should be content with our lot in life.

    Regardless of our position on society’s pyramid, we should never be content with our lot in life. Never.

    Those who are monetarily rich are spiritually poor. How can they be content when they know they have more than their share? Only a spiritually impoverished person is incapable of recognizing their own greed. Should they be content? No, they should strive to balance the scales of eternity by using their largess to better the lives of the multitudes.

    There are varying degrees of  financial insecurity, ranging from the impoverished through to the apparently well off and so-called middle class. Regardless of where on that scale people dwell, those who are financially insecure are nothing more than modern day slaves. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again.


    The best slaves are those who think they are free… You own your own home, you’re making a decent wage, you have investments, you have medical insurance.

    You think you’re free.  You’re not.

    Do you have a mortgage? Then you don’t own your own home, the bank does. And who owns the bank?  And how is it that after hundreds of generations people are still struggling to own a home of their own?  Did their parents not succeed in that goal?  Who owns the home their parents eventually owned?  How is such a rudimentary debt never repaid?

    You’re making a decent wage.  What if you lose your job?  How will you survive then?  What else will the loss of your job cause? Your home, your health, your family?

    Investments are subject to market crashes. Where is the security in worrying your future can be destroyed at any time?  What happened to pensions that guaranteed we’d have an income once we retired?  How did it come to pass that we became responsible for the savings that our employers once looked after for us?  Now we must not only do our job, we must also become an investment expert as well.  We must assume a responsibility that once belonged to another. Where is the security in that?

    What happens to your medical insurance when you can’t pay the premium?  Are you still feeling secure?

    Now for the base truth.  If you owe anyone anything, then they own you. That is what owe and owner mean. If you are owned, another word for you is slave. Should slaves be content? Not until they throw off the shackles of their unseen and unknown masters.

    There are no classes of people. There are only people. Yet the powers that be have somehow segregated society into two very distinct classes. Those who have far far more than they could ever consume or need, and those who are indebted. If you are not one, then you are the other.  Neither segment of our segregated society should be content.

    We should obey the government.

    Government has only one purpose, only one. To serve its citizens. Precisely how this twisted through one hundred and eighty degrees to become citizens should serve the government, I don’t know. Do you see how close this particular lie is to the truth? When two lines lie in parallel how does one determine which line is the lie?

    We should abase ourselves before whatever deity the religion foisted on us holds high.

    Let me be absolutely clear. I do not believe in your god. It does not matter what name your god bears, they are not mine.

    Does this mean I don’t believe in the divine? No, it does not.

    Every successful organized religion shares certain common traits. They all align neatly with societal lies. They all instruct the masses to obey those in power, the only difference is that those in power are the clergy of whatever religion you subscribe to. They all make promises they cannot fulfill by offering rewards that only come after life ends. No organized religion provides any evidence the rewards they dangle before the hypnotized eyes of their lay exist, none of them, not a single one. What every organized religion offers, is eternal salvation in exchange for cold hard cash.

    Don’t be fooled. You cannot buy passage into eternity. No ticket any human sells will ever cover the cost of your soul.

    In every organized religion there are two classes of people. If this sounds familiar, it should. There are the ordained, and there are the lay. And once again, every organized religion shares the same fundamental problem. The ordained, are ordained by humans, not by the divine.

    Every organized religion has strange, often ancient, writings they hold as sacrosanct. These writings, sometimes called scriptures, are allegedly the words of divinity. Once again these writing all share something. They are written in human language. Now ask yourself this, what need have the divine of language created by humankind? Were a divine entity to talk to us would we not understand them? We must. Yet if a divine entity were to speak in a human language we don’t speak then we could not possibly understand them. The language of the divine is universal, yet it is not a language created by humankind. It is the language our soul speaks, and it is the language every single human ever born can comprehend if they choose to listen. It whispers in our inner ear, it tells us when we do wrong, and it tells us how to do right. Do we listen, or have we long single forgotten conscience call?

    The base measure of societal success is money. An early and elementary lesson, repeated ad nauseam, holds that the more we have the better. How foolish are we to believe that more than we need is not greed, but good?

    Foolish indeed…

    If you’ve got this far you might be asking yourself why I titled this post as I did. I did so because I am gradually realizing I really am a positive person, not the negative one society has taught me to believe I am. I want to see better things for all humanity, and to try to achieve that goal I am willing to strip away the superficial truths society uses to cover its deepest lies. I am struggling to show that the world is capable of sustaining all its life, and humanity is merely a subset of that life. We can sustain each other, but first we must throw of the shackles of lies with which we bind ourselves. Is that not a positive aspiration?

    {PS. If you are interested in another view of true, then please subscribe to my blog. It always holds my truths. I’ll promise you one thing only, that my truths are not the same as yours. You might also be interested in my philosophy, which though simple is couched in complex fantasy with a lyrical lilt. If you are, then start reading a substantial sample of Beltamar’s War right here in your browser, for free. I hope it encourages you to spend a few of your hard-earned dollars and buy a copy.}

  • Gaza

    Why am I writing about the current conflict between Israel and Gaza? Because my principles demand I do. Regardless of who you are you aren’t going to enjoy this post, however I assure you it is the truth as I see it. It certainly isn’t going to win me any friends, it isn’t going to help me sell my books, and it has already resulted in a number of unpleasant encounters on Twitter by people why strictly adhere to the mainstream American media’s view of this conflict.

    If we hear about it in the mass-media it must be right.  Right?

    Wrong.

    Read on and learn about a truth that is never told in the USA. Let me correct myself. Read on and learn about a truth that has never been told by the mainstream media in the USA. Thanks to the emergence of Social Media like Twitter, that is beginning to change,

    Changing views of perpetual conflicts.

    I was born and raised in Rhodesia. In the late 1970s, I served as an active-duty combatant in the war that embroiled that beautiful country. Back then, I held Israel in high esteem. Everything I knew told me Israel was the underdog, and I usually root for the underdog. I saw many parallels between Israel’s military and the Rhodesian military. From a military point of view history has shown the effectiveness of both. I felt sympathetic to Israel.

    I moved to Johannesburg, South Africa in the early 1980s. It had a significant and highly influential Jewish population. The view of Israel presented in the South African media was extremely positive.  Indeed, the South African public’s perception of Israel was much like that consistently presented by the US Media, where I’ve lived since the mid-1990s. I remained sympathetic to Israel.

    I only learnt how biased those perceptions were when the internet emerged. The internet has made internationally unbiased information widely available to anyone with the desire to learn more than a single side of truth. I stopped being sympathetic to Israel.

    My reasons for my change of view appear below.

    I’m not sharing my sources with you. Search the internet for the facts for yourself. The evidence is overwhelming. Everything I mention below is widely available on a staggering number of reliable, unbiased, and non-commercial websites. However, you have to do the research for yourself. Why?  Because the deeper you dig, the more you’ll realize how badly you have been misled.

    To start your research Google this search string, “number of Palestinians killed by Israel”. Now start reading, making notes, noting sources, checking validity, ascertaining impartiality, and falling into despair as you realize just how brutal one people’s treatment of another has been, and continues to be.

    It is shocking to realize something you’ve accepted as unquestionable is a biased lie. It is shocking to realize the nation you long assumed is the underdog is a brutal bully. It is shocking to realize Israel is a nation far more deserving of the title “Rogue” than even North Korea.

    Under what circumstances is it permissible to kill civilians using military might? Yes, both sides of the Palestinian / Israeli conflict are guilty of this. However, speaking strictly numerically, Israel is far, far more guilty than the Palestinians.

    Under what circumstances is it permissible to use civilians as human shields for military operations? Impartial evidence gathered by highly reputable, unbiased organizations proves that Israel has done this multiple times, it also proves that the Palestinians have never done it.

    Under what circumstances is it permissible to assassinate opposition leaders? Evidence proves that Israel has consistently used this “tactic” hundreds and hundreds of times, both inside and outside of active conflict. And the Palestinians? They have only used it once, but even once is one time too many.

    Under what circumstances is it permissible to shell impartial observers?  Israel has, multiple times.

    Under what circumstances is it permissible to steal land simply by occupying it?  Israel has, multiple times.

    Under what circumstances is it permissible to demolish entire civilian neighborhoods as punishment for the acts of the insane unknown?  Israel has, multiple times.

    Under what circumstances is it permissible to kill ten for every one of your own slain? Biblical text in Matthew 3:38 states, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’” Apparently Israel has misinterpreted this to mean an entire jaw for a single tooth. By the way, if you decide to read that text please read the entire passage. It is quite enlightened in its encouragement of tolerance and forgiveness. Sadly tolerance and forgiveness are two admirable traits both sides of the Palestinian / Israeli conflict lack.

    Under no circumstances should it ever be permissible to kill children. I am not going to tell you the numbers of children killed by either side. You must find that out for yourself or the truly appalling level of this ongoing brutality will just become a number, and murdered children deserve to be considered as more than a mere number. However I will say that the ratio of these murders exceeds ten to one, and the worst offender is not Palestine.

    Yesterday I tweeted this:-

    How is it that a nation which survived Nazi atrocity, has become so accomplished at committing it?

    I have great difficulty understanding how a nation whose people have been subjected to brutality can adopt practices that can only be described as excessively brutal. I have great difficulty understanding why a nation that actively practices racism by subjugating and denying basic human rights to an entire ethnic culture is tolerated in today’s world.

    The USA’s mass-media coverage, and the US government’s ready adoption of rhetoric biased toward the Israeli side of this conflict does not serve the best interests of the American people.  That is my opinion, which I am not only entitled to as an American Citizen, but which I believe I am justifying throughout this post.

    I am disgusted how the facts and real scale of the Palestinian / Israeli conflict are actively disguised with immoral euphemisms. Fancy words are well suited to disguise abhorrent behaviors.  The mass-media and the US Government uses them for just that purpose with alarming regularity. I’m talking about the little sound-bites that continually crop up, and are invariably pro-Israel. Disingenuous, immoral sound-bites such as:-

    • Proportionate Response. Proportionate means balanced. Ten Palestinians does balance the scale of a single Israeli.
    • Retaliation. There is no such thing as pre-emptive retaliation, yet measured over the duration of the state of Israel’s existence, Israel initiates the majority of conflicts.  Brutally attacking a civilian population based on unsubstantiated data is not retaliation, it is punitive aggression.
    • Surgical strikes. Couch a murder in the cleverest words you like, it is still a murder.
    • Containment. Locking people away behind thirty foot high concrete barriers is not containment, it is imprisonment.

    Over the last thirty years my view of Israel has gone through a 180 degree turn. I continue to believe that the Jewish inhabitants of Israel have a right to exist, but not if they extract that right with the deaths of other people.

    I strongly believe the American people have been misled by their government and by the mass-media. I strongly believe we need to change our perception of this conflict based on the truths we research for ourselves, versus the ones we are spoon-fed by the biased.  I strongly believe that when America befriends a state like Israel, it should understand why it has so many enemies.  I strongly believe we must start doing what we know in our hearts is right.

    The time for political expediency is over. Conflict is never right.

    This is the age of Social Media.  The age of people blindly believing whatever political rhetoric their governments and the mass-media spew at them is rapidly drawing to an end. Use your new-found ability, the internet, to find and verify independent, non-partisan, unbiased truth. Then use your Social Media voice to raise awareness of whatever situation fills you with passion.  If enough people speak, change will come.

    Please remember what some wise person once said… “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.“[*1]

    Staying silent, is doing nothing. Even though it costs me, I refuse to stay silent.

    If you’ve got this far you might be interested in another example of my refusal to stay silent.

    [*1] – Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence attributing that quote to Edmund Burke.  Don’t be so ready to believe whatever you are told…