Saturday, December 1, 2001 - Self Discovery Through the Eyes of Others.

Look at the people in your life and try to see yourself through their eyes. Are you surrounded by nice people? Mean people? Detached people?
The people that we surround ourselves with tend to fall into one of two categories: People we like or people we need. The people that we like are easy to spot. We hang out with them, go bowling with them, they do the same kind of work we do, or go to the same places that we like to go. They share common ground with us. They tend not to be the boat-rockers in our lives, and we are generally grateful for their presence.
The second category requires a bit more understanding and paitence than most have time to invest. The people that we need where many guises...we can love them, hate them, cringe when they come into the room, hide from them when we see them walking down the hall. We can be obsessed with them, repulsed by them, whatever. The only common ground we tend to share with these people is that the evoke some sort of strong emotional reaction. They stand out from the people that we like as distinctly as if they were bright pink.
Strangely enough, it is the people that we need that are capable of teaching us more about ourselves than the people that we like. We do not know what limitations, or strengths that we as humans have until our boats are rocked. Smooth sailing, although generally much more agreeable, tends to be of little use if we have any care to find out who we truly are.
How does this happen? Simple. Take a good like at someone that you, for no really GOOD reason absolutely despise. What is it about them that upsets you? How do they react to you? What does their body language say? Do you not like them because they seem to carry themselves terribly defensively around you? Do they seem threatened by you? Listen to how they talk to you. Does their manner of speech make you agitated? Pay attention. You will learn alot.
Keep in mind, the reason why most of these boat-rockers elicit such strong reactions from us is because we see something abut them that we don't like, (or want to be), in our own selves. Someone whom you see as cocky or arrogant might simply possess the kind of self-assurance or self-confidence that you wish YOU had. Granted, they MAY have it in excess, but it might also be that their possession of it might amplify your lack of it. People who are secure in the knowledge of who they are, or have come to terms with the things that they aren't and are striving to be tend not to be easily upset by other people. Conversely, insecure people tend to measure themselves against others and find themselves wanting.
Self discovery through the eyes of others is sometimes the only way that we can identify our own insecurities and deal with them. Too often we tend to want to ignore our own percieved inadequecies, thinking that they will go away. More often than not we build on these insecurites, building our individual identities on an unstable foundation. One day you are going to come across someone who is very good at seeing the things that we try to hide from ourselves and exploit them. It's not magic tricks and mindreading..it's simply that what you can't see is obvious to them. They use that insecurity to take control of you, usually because they have their own insecurites and being able to rule other people makes them feel better about themselves. Like I said, we tend to identify with or dislike those things in others that we see in ourselves.
Rather than ramble on about this, I am going to leave it there. You're smart, you get the point. Besides, I think that you can probably see where this is going. I have faith that if you have read this far and if you understood what you have been reading, then you don't really need me to any further.

Tuesday, December 4th - The Divinty of Man

I overheard a co-worker tell another that her grandmother had fallen ill and was expecting to go into surgery...a rather serious affair as her grandmother is a nonegenarian. The individual with the ill relation asked that the other pray for her. I assume that in this politically correct society that the first co-worker must have been familliar with the religious persuasion of the second, as she agreed to honor the request.
In the elevator, I offered my sympathies in regards to her grandmother's illness, and she asked me if I believed in prayer. I was not able to respond in the affirmative..or the negative...but I did say that I would keep her in my thoughts.
Well, I have kept my end of the bargain, as I have thought about it enough to write about it. Probably not in the way she was asking me too, but, then I thought, is that not the nature of prayer? When you pray, or ask the gods to work your will, if the prayer is indeed answered is it not often found that you do not get exactly what you asked for in the manner that you were expecting it?
Along with that..what was I being asked to pray for? That the surgery was successful? If it is, what is the quality of life for this woman going to be for the rest of it? (At 94, that is always a concern.) Should I pray that she passes without suffering?
And, to whom should? I am not a Christian, but I do respect in the existance of a power greater than mankind, and I respect the that the Christian representation of this power is "God" and Jesus Christ..but I also respect the Muslim belief in Allah, etc. Do I pray to her perception of a divine entity or my own? My personal doctrine is rooted in, but does not exactly follow all of the traditions of, Wicca, which entails a belief in the male and female aspect of this power, (the Horned God and the Mother Goddess)...but I don't actively "pray" to them, either. It's not that I don't believe in them..I just don't feel that there is much that I need to ask them for, and I do as they require willingly.
Do as they require? Yes. I feel that we are all agents of our individual perception of a higher power. I believe that we are in SERVICE to it, but not enslaved to it. As we do often ask service of them, through prayer, they ask us to do service in this world. It's a complicated philosophy, and I might write more about it at some point. How does the conflict of "prayer" arise from this? Simple. Part of the complicated philosophy that I mentioned encompasses a belief that there is very little in this world that we are incapable of achieving on our own, through investment of energy, imagination and simple focus of will. I believe that prayer is sort of a roundabout way to achieve the same goals...you put your imagination, and your will into prayer...but you focus your energy into this having the'higher power' bring about the desired goal rather into the goal itself. I simply choose to believe that there is very little that we can call on the gods/goddesses to do that we cannot do ourselves. Man has his own divinity...not unlike the gods, but not completely like it, however.
This speaks to the "what to pray for" dilemma. In believing that you have the power to effect change, you must also accept the responsibility of the changes that you seek to bring about, should they come to pass. To pray for this woman's surgery to be successful might allow her to live long enough to have a horrible stroke and remain in a vegetative state for the next 5 years, effectively dead, if even if not medically.
So what to do? This is where the line between the divinty of man and the divinty of the gods must be drawn. Because, sometimes the best thing is to do nothing. Invest no energy, focus no will and let the natural processes of life...the sphere of influence of the gods/goddesses, take its course. Man does not fully understand the value of life, as evident in the casual way that we regard the taking of it, nor do we fully appreicate individual nature and the needs of that individual, as evident in the fact that there are people that go to court to keep their clinically dead loved ones hooked up to machines until the end of time in the vague hope that there may yet be a cure for severe brain damage. Man may be divine, but he is not yet wise enough to carry the burdens of the gods/goddesses.
So, here I sit at my computer, wondering. Not what to do..because I feel in my heart that nothing is the best thing to do...right or wrong, it's how I feel. What I am wondering is...when man does finally achieve the wisdom of the gods...what becomes of the gods then? Were the gods/goddess just men and women who achieved the wisdom of their forbares..and, if so..what happened to the gods that they prayed to?
Something worth thinking on...

Sunday, December 16, 2001 - Keys to the Kingdom

No one has ever told me anything about myself that I didn't already know. If it was something that I didn't like or that I disagreed with, of course I would deny it, but that does not mean that they were not correct. Indeed, the usual result was that my anger at being reminded of something that I did not wish to remember, or at having something that I did not wish to see or have seen brought into full view, was turned on the person who made the observation, and I would in turn make some scathing remark or observation about them. Its the verbal equivalent of shooting the messenger, as it were.
There is nothing that people perceive of us that we do not show them. It is really all a matter of how observant the person doing the perceiving is and how their own personal experiences color their perception.
So, how, and more importantly, why do we show people parts of ourselves that we do not wish others to see? Very simple: We consent to exist as we are. Who we are as people, truly deep down inside is nothing that can ever be truly hidden or buried, no matter how many masks we wear or lies we tell. Someone, somewhere at sometime will catch on. It's inevitable. We would do better to invest our energy into something more productive. (Like, perhaps, changing those things about ourselves thatothers to see that we do not like , or at the very least changing our attitude about those things.) We are who we allow ourselves to become. The difficulty comes in accepting responsibility for that person. It is easy to dissmiss ourselves as a product of our enviornmet or our upbringing. But the truth is that we selectively employ these influences, and as such, are just as much in control of what we choose as what we choose to disregard. Many people allow the perception of others define them. While what people see of us are in actuality a part of who we are, it is just that: A part. Those who feel the need to tell you how they see you as being, tell you the person that you are, will never see you in your totality. They are too attached to their own perception of you to entertain the idea that it is your perception of who you are, and not theirs, that defines you.
We are entitled to our opinions and observations, keeping in mind that they are as unique to us as our fingerprints. We also need to be aware that our perception can have a profoound effect on others and we should use it wisely. When you share observations of others with others you are giving them the opportunity to incorporate your perception into their own. Even if you tell someone something that is incorrect, that still becomes a part of their perception, as they have something to establish comparison. When you invite the opinion of others, then that generally indicates that you are ready to accept that someone sees something that you are now ready to have seen. Conversely, to be told something of yourself that you are not ready to understand and accept is often the basis for, what seems to others to be, mindless hostility. This is rarely the case. Unwanted observation tantamount to an invasion: We feel threatened and vulnerable and we react accordingly.
There is nothing and no one on this earth that needs us to tell them who and what they are. We are in no position to speak of the nature of others, especially when we are ignorant of our own. Nor can we judge a person for acting in accordance to their nature, as it is theirs to do with as they will.

December 21, 2001 - On Dragonflies

I wrote this as an email to the...friend...who referred to me (accidentally or on purpose, he won't say) as "Dragonfly" (see page "I am Dragonfly") but I think that there is alot in it that speaks of being needed to find a home here...

Until 5 years ago I never left Ohio. I lived my whole life in Cleveland and the better part of it in Shaker Heights, a suburb of it. From the 4th grade up through High School I went to school with the same people. I have to say that it was maddening to hear the same slings and arrows hurled at me consitently from ages 7 through 17, and by most of the same people. I mean..there is a VAST difference between 7 and 17...couldn't these people see that I had changed? It was like they were never going to let me get past being that awkward little kid. They were going to always see me that way. I think somewhere along the way I must have realized that there was nothing that I was going to be able to do to change that and I stopped giving a shit how they saw me. No, that's not true..I started to stop giving a shit what people saw me as..and realized that just because I changed doesn't mean that anyone else was going to. Alot of people simply don't feel the need to. But, very soon after I started to discover that there were some people who did..and then I started to find myself surrounded by them. When I stop and reflect on everyone who has ever ment anything to me in my life, us coming together in any capacity..friends, lovers, even enemies...found me because there was something about them that they need or wanted to change. I had written more than once in my journal that I was a "catalyst" to certain events..I mean, as early as...12 or 13 maybe, whenever I learned what the word ment...I had this vision that whenever my path crossed with another's they would some how be left..different for it.

I am the kind of person that puts myself into everything that I do. In my interactions with people..it's almost like I could feel myself metamorphisize into what they most need...It's nothing that I understood at the time , I think. It was something that I can speak to looking back. I would become this instrument of change and they would in turn become what they were supposed to become. After all was said and done, tho...they never stayed. They got what they needed and..it wasn't me. Some tried to stay...wanted to be my friend..but the distance that was left in the wake of the "transformation" was...inconqureable. There would be token outings, phone calls...but it never was the same as it had been before everything had changed, and I think that the termination of contact was a mutual acknowledgement of that.

The other side of this of course is that once or twice you run across the person that understood what I was and what had happened and they want to stay as close to the source of the "miracle" as they can...which was generally contrary to my solitary and aloof nature. Of course, the development of a solitary and aloof nature might have simply been an evolution into a necessary defense, but I never really explored it that far. Sounds pretty likely, though, doesn't it?

The irony of all this is that I allow it to happen. I allow myself to form attachments to people, to call people friend in hopes that sometime it might be different, but it never really is. My friend Aggy says that I am her best friend. She's mine, too...but I don't think that I should tell her that it is by default. Is there anything sadder than a person with no friends? Well..yes, actually..a person who chooses to have no friends. I mean..I know people and am getting to know people..but those that I call "friend"..it's not like finding someone new..it's like meeting someone that you haven't seen in years and picking up right where you left off. Aggy is the only person that I know so far that falls into that category. Of course, she says that she has changed alot since she met me, too...

Although the Dragonfly has many startling qualities that I have always envisioned myself possessing...it's "medicine" is change. The catalyst or the harbinger of it, the realm of change is it's domain. I found it interesting that there is an assoiciation with the destruction of illusion as well..but, I don't think that the two ideas are dissimilar. I mean, when you get down to it, all change is is the alteration or destruction of an existing illusion, isn't it?

You asked me to tell you why I thought that Dragonfly was significant to me? Well...there it is. I have always, my whole life, even when I was very small, known what I was..an agent of change. It's just that until you said the word, I never knew it had a name other than mine.