Step Forward

(Watchman tell us of the night.)
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It is hardly possible to build anything if frustration, bitterness and a mood of helpless prevail.

Lech Walesa
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Hello Arlene
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The operative nasty word here is "entitlement" which could be a good word under the right circumstances, but if applied to negative thinking it vibrates with the loud bongs of a funeral march.

The things I try to do don't work out and I can't figure out why they don't. Of course I'm frustrated. Who wouldn't be?

My life is a bucket of tears and pain. I have a divine right to be bitter.

Look at the mess the world is in. There's no hope for any of us, we're all doomed. There's nothing I can do about it. It's a helpless situation.

We buy these negative suggestions because we think we have the right to them, we are empowered by our life's circumstances to be pessimistic. Nihilism reigns supreme in the mind of the negative thinker. "Take off the rose colored glasses and face reality. Life is a bitch and the earth is a junk yard."

Well Walesa didn't think so and hence created Solidarity and changed the history of Poland and, as a result, of the whole Soviet Union.

Another belligerent word in the realm of negativity is "possession." We believe, somehow, that we own those destructive thoughts, they are ours and we have the obligation to take possession of them. That errant mental activity leads nowhere but into darkness.

The first step out of the darkness is to turn around.

The next step is to decide to become a watchman. To begin to sniff out, spy out, and recognize the dooms day, doom saying thoughts and ideas that approach our unsuspecting minds like hungry mosquitoes or sudden thunder storms.

The third step is to deny the validity of such depressing ideas. To see them as egg shells, or banana peels or filters from used up cigarettes, to be scooped up and donated to the trash.

Step number four is to affirm the opposite ideas. "Keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole." as the old saying goes. While Shakespeare wrote "Impossible be strange attempts to those who weight their pains in sense." To affirm is to bring into reality what maybe you can't see or experience yet. But it will not happen unless it exists in thought first, visualized and, not just believed in but, cherished.

Step number five - start building.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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SUMMER QUESTION

I recently received a peck on the cheek from two members of the female persuasion. Besides those I haven't experienced a real kiss in many, many years. I have no flowers. There is nothing growing outside, no trees, no bushes, no flowers, just a few pathetic weeds here and there. That, thankfully, does a lot to discourage the mosquito population, but it doesn't give me much in the way of flora. So I pose this question for those of you who have more experience in these matters.
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Which is more important, a flower or a kiss? Why?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.

Your Majesty

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

Thomas Carlyle
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Hello Bruce
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This is the one thousand, seven hundred and twenty third (1,723) edition of Vagabond Journeys. Some of them were lost in the great computer crash of 2006 but most of those were recovered. Others have been recycled, retooled and reedited. What have you been doing lately Vagabond?

I write everyday because I wrote yesterday and I usually have something to say of varying degrees of importance and of arguably suspicious literary skill. But what do I do the rest of the time, you ask?

Okay, you didn't ask. But I'll tell you. I paint, I fret, I read, I worry, I answer emails, I do something to try to organize my still chaotic apartment, I listen to music, I fanaticize, I feed myself, I IM with Sue or Krissy, I go for long painful walks to the market, I dream, I plan. It's a life. It's not that unlike many other people's lives. But it's my life.

If you had to give up your possessions what would you miss the most? Your clothes, your books, you pictures? What about your freedom? That is probably the most valuable possession you have. The freedom to work and earn money, to pursue happiness, to live the way you want to, to raise a family, to be involved in causes you believe in, to worship, to hold opinions and express them, those gold and silver coins of your realm are some of the sacred freedoms civilization owes to civilized people who don't try to destroy it.

Freedom of expression is of particular importance to me. It is quite likely the greatest possession I have. It is not only vital to my being it is what I do, and have done 1,723 times so far. I can't imagine what my life would be like if some potency emerged to prevent me from writing, from painting, from expressing my thoughts and feelings, from doing what I do, from reigning safely and supremely in my kingdom

I say take stock of your possessions, of the innumerable things you do, the things you do today because you did them yesterday, the things that for you are the most important to be done and let those things be the measure of your royalty.

Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Unnecessary Urgings 6/17/09

Those who are possessed by nothing, possess everything.

Morihei Ueshiba
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Take a number and get in line.
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This morning I astonished myself by realizing how much time I spend on the computer. Of course I really don't have much else to do, but considering that a scant 8 years ago I didn't even own a computer it's amazing how my life has changed. Now I act as if I couldn't live without it.

I actually never thought I would have one, because whenever I came near any one else's the thing would stop working. If I walked into a room where a computer was turned on, it would take one look at me and hide, or else it would start doing crazy things. So I genuinely believed that computers and I had an unsolvable adversarial relationship. I'll would stay away from them, if they would stay away from me.

Now, everything is different. I spend hours typing and reading. This computer is supposed to be a servant. HA! Which one of us is in charge? That's what I'd like to know. Certain things like sleeping, eating, cleaning, going to the market are highly resented intrusions upon the more important computer time. And I hardly ever play games on it. (No, I know what you're thinking. But it's true. I don't.)

In short, I'm possessed by the damn thing. "Please, release me, let me go" as the old country song says. But then I stop and think that if it weren't for my journal I wouldn't know a lot of fine people I've met through this same task master. There is a lot of information I wouldn't have at my busy fingertips. And, face it, what else would I do?

I don't own a TV or a motorcycle, I don't go fishing or play golf, I have no dog to walk or grandchildren to play with, my sky diving and bungee jumping days are over, I'm not in training for the marathon, they'd never take me on as an astronaut or a presidential candidate, Broadway isn't calling and neither is Hollywood, I'm too old for the Green Berets, to tall to be a jockey and to slow for the Everest Expedition, I'm too smart to join a street gang and too ignorant to be a nuclear physicist, I'm too sedentary to explore the Brazilian jungle and too tender footed to try ballroom dancing. I could go wrestle alligators, but I'd rather not.

No, I think I'll just sit here and be possessed. I've got almost everything in my possession that I want anyway.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
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Have a sweet day.
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