Severe trauma hits when least expected. The "punch in the gut" trauma can be handed to us by society, the economy, close family, long marriage partners and the like, and will frequently land on us just when we had no idea it was a pending event. This is why they called this quality trauma severe. It is currently referred to as "how life rolls," a very impersonal phrase invented by one who demonstrates no pain regularly, or would pretend he could not feel it.
Although I have been through a few traumatic events myself, I never considered the resultant pain of the common anticipated trauma to be as debilitating as a trauma for which I was not prepared. The traumas that hurt the most are the ones that keep us in the net of illusion lacking the truthful reveal that could have protected us. It makes us feel stupid or provides a megashock as we were thinking that an improvement was coming which never comes, anticipated preparedness only to find out we prepared incorrectly, experiences in "loving errors" with unanticipated upheavals of response (separation and divorce, or a revelation) a responsibility gone wrong, and that which I fear to be the worst, the unfortunate death or disappearance of a fiercely loved child. What then? Time heals all wounds? Give it time and you will make friends with it? What kind of solace comes from those phrases anyway? These and a token will still buy a ride on a subway train. Equally as important as the effect of the trauma is how we deal with it.
Try baby steps at first, (an overused cliché.) How about starting with a new kind of music in your life, preferably that without words? Classical is adequate as long as it is not somber or depressing. It gives you a background distraction and/or accompaniment for the newly acquired rattling pieces of your brain. A new temporary love source, wherever you choose to find that, might also help but this can be exceedingly tricky. It is best to seek a confirmed loner, or a confirmed lover, who seems to recognize and understand your situation better than you expected. Good luck with that, especially should you choose incorrectly and innocently wind up doing to them what life has done to you when the affair is over. In the case of an affair and temporary love, remember that everyone has feelings, even the perfect bastard who uses people. As soon as you speak of leaving, you might suddenly become the most desirable pair of legs they ever knew. Then you will have guilt and trauma. "Are we having fun yet?" will become your daily anthem and homemade weekly lasagna dinners to whom you used may become your penance. Still, if the choice is made carefully you might yield some temporary and hopefully dependable stress relief for the duration of your needs. Try never to hire someone for this; it only leads to blackmail later.
You could also write your horrible story down and then burn it with a match in the kitchen sink, or go through the effort of hiding it in the attic. You could start your writing with, "why did this happen to me," or "why did you do this to me when I trusted you," or "why did you lie to me when you hired me." It will not cure your symptoms, but again there is remarkable wisdom to learn from writing things down; once you see it on paper, you begin to "feel the story" from an outsiders perspective, rather than how it traditionally translates in your own head. If there is some respite from this exercise for you, then that is good too. It may feel good to write, "Give me a break!" among your words of rage to universally demonstrate how stupid the offender was or how good you were to put up with the problem for so long. People do this because it indeed gives them a break. Who deserves a break more right now that you with your stress. However, if you do avoid this phrase in your journal of the memory, you may secure your more honest recollection of your event, as you are capable, closer to how an outsider would view this report than how you or your friend might view it, which might help you to recover quicker if you are more committed to the truth of the matter than recovering from your own pain. It just depends on how you are coming to this exercise. You might actually say after reading what you wrote, "Oh my God, I seem to have made a mistake here" and it might be justified which is not to be confused with the guilt response of "Oh, its all my fault. If I had done this better, earlier, longer, more convincingly, the whole thing might have turned out differently. (This is covered below in greater detail so just hang on.) Getting the hurt out of your heart and onto a piece of paper, and then hiding it in the attic has been compared to a very long wake. The "body" of your complaint has completed a death of sorts by being released from your heart and onto this scrap of an envelope you might have written on with your eyebrow pencil. See, it's all on a piece of paper now, not just inside of your heart! Burning or burying this note of revelation in the back yard has been compared to an actual funeral with the intention of bringing some closure to the trauma you sustained. If you decide to keep this graphically documented recount accessible to yourself for later life lessons and reflection, then it's up to you what you do with this next, which could be dangerous and not in your best interest at all. There is always the possibility of sending it to the newspaper, which is not encouraged, for your sake as well as the sake of the offender, who may find a loophole in your work agreement to sue you soon for what he calls slander.
Another option to you is counseling. You get to scream, yell and cry at a professional stranger who will study your patterns and tell you all the recurring themes they witness in you. With luck and prayer, they will instruct you about the current ways people are dealing with this quality pain. To generate a positive response in you, the methods of stress relief they try to teach you must be different than the way you dealt with trauma before. If it sounds different to you, try it! After you have explored these paths with them, they might introduce you to a group who hurts just like you do, and then you can compete with each other about who has the worst story. If that works for you, do it! If it does not work then you still have other options: yoga, drugs, meditation, volunteering, and ministry of community needs, defiant niceness, or a truly exhausting task of revamping your present career aspirations and trying to make money a different way altogether (which you may not be up to yet.) I once knew someone who became a sea biologist after a divorce from a long time marriage. Before the divorce, she was a bookkeeper. This worked for her.
The best advice I ever heard for stress-management was about learning to love yourself, which of course I did not understand at all the first time I heard it. Whitney Houston had just made a record about the hero lying inside of you; I did not understand that either. What does learning to love yourself mean, especially if you are a long-time addict at spending all your time loving everything else in life but yourself (working mothers of children who have pets and tons of friends are among those who would qualify in this category, but there are also other qualifying subjects.) When I first heard this advice, I hoped it meant buying Evan Piccone shoes at Bloomingdales. Then I got the bill. This option might be part of your solution if you are financially independent. In my case, the way I finally translated this into words I could understand, was "taking care of yourself in the way it pleased you to look and feel before the trauma of losing what you lost - the child, the job, the creep, the business, all of the above." Blocking your own memories in stressful times is often a self-generated stumbling block, and frankly it is harder than finding Sangria in Zimbabwe to get around this blockage. The tricky part of identifying your good feelings from before trauma is that when you are raw from the "fresh cut," you don't really wish to return to that space for any reason in your mind. You are gunshy. Those memories belong to the hurting part of the pain package you are protecting yourself from. As you tend to guard yourself from further injury you can't remember what made you feel good back then. Learning to love oneself again becomes harder to do because you have to wait for this important component piece to show up without pain. Have faith and trust, and encourage yourself ("I can do this!".) You will remember when you do not feel threatened by reaching back anymore. It will show up in a semi-dream state when you awake one morning, or while driving home alone in a silent car. This is an important part of your recovery. You basically want to remember, you're just having a little trouble entering back into that world.
If you do achieve locating the file of "Feeling Good" in your cabinet labeled "Before This Happened," you might just begin to try imitating yourself from that previous time as you remember it. If you can recall these feelings then it indicates advancement on your part toward overcoming the pain. Look! You anticipated pain from the package but you overcame it and plucked out the memory before the yet smoldering coals burned your fingers. Good for you! If you can subsequently imitate the "feel good state" successfully, you may then find yourself "pleasing enough" to test the waters with another family member, another child, another spouse, another boss, another lover here and there, and/or even another creep just to prove to yourself that you can feel good if you want to, and that the offender has diminishing control over that part of your psyche. It is however, by no means, to be confused with a total rehabilitation and the end of the self-healing process. Do not be cavalier in this effort as when you fail in your initial attempts, it will be easy to give up; small increments of time investment over a longer span of time than we would give to less of a stressor, are suitable to be successful here.
Next, it is helpful to experiment with a genuine-appearing smile in front of a mirror, and the assertion of asking people "how are you today?" The mirror helps you to identify what this question looks like coming from your currently dehydrated positive presentation. You want to be convincing when you try it outside, so practice and use your mirror for this often. You may even be ready for a little small talk, and again remembering the small increment of time suggestion, keep the small talk very small for now. Avoid people who use lots of words to say simple things like "Oh look, the first spring flower!" As soon as they begin telling you about their Aunt Betty's garden and how it differs from their mother's planting, pretend you are having a fainting spell and get out of there.
Grief on your face at the new job or in the grocery store is more likely to be controlled with simple smiling verbal offerings to familiar faces. You should also consider that in your new training course as Commander of your Own Recuperation, no negative utterance while performing this task is permitted even if you can only manifest a weak smile for the recipient. If you can stick to this protocol then a giant step should be celebrated privately. As time goes by you may increase the duration of these incremental offerings to an hour or portions of an hour. In exhibiting "stress free" hours (keeping in mind that actual feeling "less stressed" is different from the "practiced-mimicking" state) you will begin to relate more positivity to the world around you. Somehow this promotes a belief in yourself, although I have never wrestled down a verbally suitable explanation connecting the two concepts. People begin to innocently prompt you with a response mechanism when you are positive. You say something positive and they say something positive and the process goes back and forth. Keep it brief for now. Sooner than you think, you will begin to realize that you can handle longer and longer positive interchange. This has been tested and it just works (no explanation.) As a side-note, be aware that this is physically exhausting in the beginning and that you might even require more sleep to continue to pull this off on a daily basis. At least remember to raise your legs when you get home. Restricting every muscle in your body temporarily to achieve this task needs to be offset by a reward of some sort. You may need to offset this with a whirlpool now and then at a nearby health club, and extra half hour in the sac to sleep each night, or the sex you contracted for with the understanding bastard described in a few paragraphs above. Your curriculum manual indicates that you are not allowed to gaze out a window into the quiet countryside at any point during these hours of positivity, because that can only lead to a numbing revisiting of the stressful event you are trying to overcome. In addition, your cover will be blown and then you will have to find another new job or a different grocery store. This is a wonderful building tool for regenerating self-reliance and perhaps causing some repair of your self-esteem in the process. It is undeniably another step toward your independence from the original hurt and your sensitivity to its pain.
Public opinion of your dilemma and the verbalization of it around you can be the hardest load to carry under these conditions, whether it is well-meaning and to your face, or continuous gossip behind your back. No one really wants that pity once they begin to heal themselves anyway. You, the victim is trying to overcome the experience and the gossip continues to remind you of it, thus keeping progress and the achievement of it just out of your reach. Being the subject of the water cooler conversation du jour is embarrassing in itself. It might not hit you as evil if the whole office is talking about your divorce in a loving way and sympathizing with your plight ("How sad she is going through a divorce at this time,") but wait until they begin confabulating details of how he left you for a desperately ugly woman, or how she left you for an abusive man indicating it was better to tolerate abuse than to tolerate you! This easily gets further out of control and begins to roll like a snowball until the real reason for the divorce becomes that you personally needed to partner up with Big Foot or Zena the Warrior Princess to keep yourself satisfied in a healthy marriage or balanced relationship (gender preference selection required here,) and so then it was really all your fault that you got that divorce that everyone thought was such a crime committed against you in the beginning. Why not implode these nonsense scenarios altogether and send it out to a quick death in the circular file? Even though you might be looking for support from friends, the support you get from the workforce has a very poor percentage in "feel good" ratings on the chart. It is always the biggest office gossiper who has the courage to come to you afterward and talk about your plight to your face. The words you provide will then be contributed to the fund of shared office knowledge when next they all need a cup of water at the same time. Meeting gossip about yourself head on in any form with a display of positive strength will effectively challenge the actual validity of the gossip. This is the best self-protection method on the market today as I see it. It also builds your selling skills in case you need a job at a convenience store in the future, which frankly may be all that is available soon in this economy. A current analogy in today's world would be antivirus software for your computer. It shoots the virus down quickly by not allowing it to eat away your program. Another small step achieved - good for you!
When you need a hug try giving one to yourself using your mind. We all know that imagination is powerful, but after childhood and when the adult reality of life sets in, the thought of a self hug conjures up silly visions of extra long arms embracing oneself on very small chairs in a kindergarten setting. This phenomenon actually is alive and well on an adult level, but although we hear the words, we remain inept. If your heart really hurts, buy a late' (to stimulate your awareness, or some juice to give you electrolytes.) Take a long time to drink it, labeling this as your "break from reality time." Remember that stress is your reality right now, and the new program of positivity, whatever dosage you are employing to conquer it, is your therapy. Again, use your new positivity to think deeply about something absolutely new and refreshing in your mind even if it is a little far out (as long as it does not hurt you,) like taking a fling with yellow begonias along your sidewalk this year, the value of buying a farm within city limits, or perhaps the worthiness of a first time visit to Tibet. Learn how these one minute forced self-distractions are effective by practicing them on the way home in the bus, soaking in the bathtub, waiting in the dentist's office where any distraction is a gift from God, and continue to try to give yourself that hug in your mind. This exercise is performed so that you can produce the "self-caring but still alert and aware" scenario you will need on a schedule devised by you. This is good quality self-help at night when you are alone in bed staring at the alarm clock, or at a boring business meeting where your wandering brain could turn your face into the vengeful expression of the Wicked Witch of the West for all to see. It is natural for you to then develop a panic attack when you are met with the response of "fear" by all those sitting around you who are waiting for you to produce a burning broom. Now it will be time for you to reverse gear quickly, which might lead you to say something inappropriate like "steamboat" when this month's budget totals are innocently requested by the Chairman of the Board who was not in touch with anyone's facial expressions around the table as he was recording his own notes (or doing a crossword puzzle in his lap beneath the table.) Can you follow my urgency to have you understand this? If you do not complete this exercise appropriately, keep practicing until you get it down.
Well, at this point, I think you have done all the hard work now for to secure your own protection and reduce your sensitivities to this stressor by about even odds (50%.) It seems you have achieved all the outwardly appreciated tricks to get you a chance to blend in with the world again. The inside repair work, being a very personal thing, is not so easy is it? Funny as this sounds, the methods for repair of your inner psyche are likely to come from a silence within yourself. I find I am never able to do that work inside until the outside affect is secured under any traumatic event - severe or otherwise. But, once protection is secured I pass into a state of "self-inspection." Others will call it prayer which does not require the saying of recited prayers, but is more of a prayerful state of silence. A third group will label this self-healing method as meditation and will assume a yoga position. A fourth group will just go to the Bahamas.
Given the time and the practice required, the above tools reviewed and considered deeply over the period of about at least a month could indeed help you to make friends with the cause of stress that threw you into the original ditch. If you cannot make the full recovery on your own, you will at least have a good idea of the direction you need to go in to achieve some or all of the recuperation with help. The little solace gained when you first heard this phrase might increase magically from a thimble full until it becomes an embracing whirlpool of enchanting relief. You will know that you are on the road to unconscious dismissal of this evil power when you are capable of not thinking about it for at least 12 hours at a time. Twelve hours is a long time for you to be able to meet the requirements of the world after experiencing a truly traumatic event without any retrograde thinking. For those of you who do not meet this milestone, you must begin the exercise all over again from the beginning. If you are still failing at achieving meaningful results after 8 seasons, it is very worthy to consider joining a convent of nuns who are nonverbal. If you do succeed in the above exercises you will also generate some lasting insulation. All these tools are available to you again to practice or reflect upon when and if you need them. Overcoming your stressor took hard work; these protocols were difficult because they were directed at self-improvement and survival. You may also have inherited the gift of a sixth sense about trauma. This may enable you to be more careful about your paths in life, but surprising not all people get this gift in the process of self-rehabilitation, so I never describe it as an automatic given. You will have to check whether you have attained this skill over the next year or so - you will probably know by then, even if only in a vague way.
Remember the pain you felt was brought on by a wrong turn in a path you previously felt happy to walk along. Is it not really necessary to detour around every potholed path just because we stepped into one and sprained an ankle. Like every other injury, after the splinting is removed or the surgical wound heals, we marvel at how we can get back to living with the use of this limb. We may begin to recognize a pothole more effectively when we see one and reflect on the damage it could cause us (the sixth sense I referred to above.) Of course, a rainy day may bring about an arthritic remembrance of the specific traumatic event, but basically you will find yourself more capable to handle it and by now have some expertise in how to flush these things from your brain when you need to. You have experienced a megavolt shock; perhaps the result was more of a broken ankle than a sprain. Granted, you are not a light switch, turning on and off at someone's will, but essentially you function well and probably better than the guy sitting next to you on that bus or subway train. Not everybody is strong enough to rebuild their life in a healthy way; some will be bitter and broken by such an experience. But you have been healed by your powerful mind and the world will celebrate this in many ways with sunshine and happy vibes. You can feel these vibes now! Let your growth be accompanied by prayers for guidance and for preservation, and of course remember to give great thanks and praise when closure finally comes.
Wishing you many happy vibes and satisfaction in your life -
Alice Elizabeth Cagle July 25, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
A Most Magical Place
When you can't take any more of life as it presents itself to you, try going to a "most magical place." Children do it all the time. Why is it so much easier to roll around in the mud emotionally than to find a special aura that takes care of you with the style and grace you crave? Think of a place where the food is divine and the drinks are free, a place that's inhabited by gentleness and good feelings. It's not hard to see it clearly, because it lives in the well dusted archives of your own imagination. When you enter you won't have to remove your shoes or hat - you may not even have to wear any, especially if you don’t like shoes and hats. You won't have to bring a piece of cake from the bakery. Nothing at all has to be done in order for you to fit in, or to "blend" with the company.
The conversation there is interesting tonight; people want to talk about the things that make you feel good and things that are not beyond your reach for cash or mobility. They want to know what you think about improving something, nurturing or changing it for the better. They want to try something intellectually different or maybe even obtain something tangible that you know all about. The interaction might be a challenge at first, but it will also a blessing because at the end you will feel a sense of accomplishment superior to your current situation, which may just be the greatest gift of all.
Soon you will feel like yourself again and that you like the people and things around you as you navigate this experience. You'll like yourself increasingly more as you finish the project you addressed, and people will be grateful that you got involved because of your vast wisdom and experience on the subject. When the task is over, there will be a party and fireworks. Perhaps a rare appearance of the northern lights will shine tonight, and everyone present will be looking up instead of looking down in the way you spent your day before you arrived here.
At the end of the day when you leave your "most magical place," only good memories will come from today's exploration. When its time to put this refreshing experience back into your archives, you may find that as you look closely, you're current surroundings resemble the place you just came from with people who actually love you and are happy to be there sharing your thoughts and ideas. The food is divine and the drinks are free, and a celebration is beginning. How lucky that you arrived in time. Enjoy!
Alice Elizabeth Cagle July 22, 2010
The conversation there is interesting tonight; people want to talk about the things that make you feel good and things that are not beyond your reach for cash or mobility. They want to know what you think about improving something, nurturing or changing it for the better. They want to try something intellectually different or maybe even obtain something tangible that you know all about. The interaction might be a challenge at first, but it will also a blessing because at the end you will feel a sense of accomplishment superior to your current situation, which may just be the greatest gift of all.
Soon you will feel like yourself again and that you like the people and things around you as you navigate this experience. You'll like yourself increasingly more as you finish the project you addressed, and people will be grateful that you got involved because of your vast wisdom and experience on the subject. When the task is over, there will be a party and fireworks. Perhaps a rare appearance of the northern lights will shine tonight, and everyone present will be looking up instead of looking down in the way you spent your day before you arrived here.
At the end of the day when you leave your "most magical place," only good memories will come from today's exploration. When its time to put this refreshing experience back into your archives, you may find that as you look closely, you're current surroundings resemble the place you just came from with people who actually love you and are happy to be there sharing your thoughts and ideas. The food is divine and the drinks are free, and a celebration is beginning. How lucky that you arrived in time. Enjoy!
Alice Elizabeth Cagle July 22, 2010
Curiously Strong Mints
Those "curiously strong mints" were lined up along the cabinet top, all in a very straight row. It happened again. Michael had gotten into his mother's pocketbook and took out the last box of mints she had. He never ate them because they were grown-up peppermint, to strong for his little palate. He liked to play the game of lining up those mints because it reminded him of soldiers in the pictures he had seen. Just at the right moment he would imaging the captain of the company calling, "ready, aim, fire," and no doubt the enemy was also firing because within a few seconds, Michael would push all the mints to the floor from the cabinet edge. Some of them rolled and some of them cracked into pieces. There was no doubt that this child just ate, drank and slept the anticipation and adventure of the war time soldier. What else was there to become when you grew up? He felt the rush of wearing a uniform in his mind and grasping the weapon; the mind of a 5-year-old so infatuated with the exhilaration of battle.
The gangs in the streets of his neighborhood were not for him. He knew the damage they created. He knew his little friend Randy was killed by a gang while sleeping in his bed near a window. It made him cry when his mommy told him Randy had gone to heaven. He used to listen to Randy's tales about big boy school, how you had to listen to the teacher and one day do homework after coming home from school, but no more now because the street gang sent Randy to heaven. Mostly Michael stayed by himself now, playing with the toys he loved. He had several GI Joes, a few tanks and camouflage trucks. He had lots of war toys. Yes, when he grew up he would be the soldier who killed the enemy in battle, not some bad kid from the neighborhood who killed little kids in bed.
All that killing…. only a few blocks away Mrs. Harper's grandson was killed walking home from school. Everyone said it was such a sadness. Mrs. Harper's grandson was going to be the v-a-l-i-d-i-c-t-ator or something like that at the high school graduation this year. One of those street gang boys shot him in the chest, right through his sweater with the long sleeves and the big "V" on it, as he was coming home from school. No, no, no … he would play with his trucks and tanks and GI Joes, his lined up little mints, his lined up anything that could create a battle line or a trench where the real soldiers hung out. He would kill the enemy. He knew the difference between the street gang boy and the soldier. The soldier got paid for one thing. The soldier got to wear those uniforms and ride in those cool trucks and tanks. He would be one of them. This way when he killed, he would be a military guy. He would be doing the right thing to kill, he would get a check like Daddy to kill, and he would make sure the enemy was really dead when he killed him because he was going to be a good soldier. He knew what being a soldier was.. just like on the video games. No he would not kill as a gang member, he would kill as a solider. That was better.
Alice Elizabeth Cagle July 22, 2010
The gangs in the streets of his neighborhood were not for him. He knew the damage they created. He knew his little friend Randy was killed by a gang while sleeping in his bed near a window. It made him cry when his mommy told him Randy had gone to heaven. He used to listen to Randy's tales about big boy school, how you had to listen to the teacher and one day do homework after coming home from school, but no more now because the street gang sent Randy to heaven. Mostly Michael stayed by himself now, playing with the toys he loved. He had several GI Joes, a few tanks and camouflage trucks. He had lots of war toys. Yes, when he grew up he would be the soldier who killed the enemy in battle, not some bad kid from the neighborhood who killed little kids in bed.
All that killing…. only a few blocks away Mrs. Harper's grandson was killed walking home from school. Everyone said it was such a sadness. Mrs. Harper's grandson was going to be the v-a-l-i-d-i-c-t-ator or something like that at the high school graduation this year. One of those street gang boys shot him in the chest, right through his sweater with the long sleeves and the big "V" on it, as he was coming home from school. No, no, no … he would play with his trucks and tanks and GI Joes, his lined up little mints, his lined up anything that could create a battle line or a trench where the real soldiers hung out. He would kill the enemy. He knew the difference between the street gang boy and the soldier. The soldier got paid for one thing. The soldier got to wear those uniforms and ride in those cool trucks and tanks. He would be one of them. This way when he killed, he would be a military guy. He would be doing the right thing to kill, he would get a check like Daddy to kill, and he would make sure the enemy was really dead when he killed him because he was going to be a good soldier. He knew what being a soldier was.. just like on the video games. No he would not kill as a gang member, he would kill as a solider. That was better.
Alice Elizabeth Cagle July 22, 2010
The Circle of Life
"There's far too much to take in here, more to find than can ever be found. But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky, keeps great and small on the endless round in the circle of life, It's the wheel of fortune, it's a leap of faith, it's the band of hope.Till we find our place on the path unwinding in the circle, the Circle of Life" ….Lyrics by Tim Rice/ Melody by Elton John.
The circle of life refers to birth, life, reproduction and death. As all animal and vegetable life follow this pattern already established, it falls to the intelligent few and the powerful to secure and improve the process in a dependable way, if they can. Truer words have never been spoken in that "there is too much to take in here, more to find than can ever be found," and while we are on this subject, are we even aware that the taking and the finding are issues in themselves, separate and apart from the theme of the Lion King?
We live a life sired by the typical biologic methods and continue on in the charge of family and society to field our paths of development. Our growth is carefully guided and constantly admired with a plethora of smiles and praise while we take our turn through the beginning times. In most cases the enriching elements discovered and available, combined with the tested ways of the ages result in a healthy and happy plant or animal. How is it possible then, with the help of so much support, technology and time tested nurturing, that so many of us in the animal category go astray to dismal unhappiness and poor health before the natural order of things, and before "finding our place on the path unwinding in the circle?" Is that circle really just a wheel of fortune, a leap of faith or a band of hope? Before we condemn Tim Rice's lyrics to the circular file beneath our desk, it is worthy to distinguish unhappiness and poor health self-imposed rather than societally ordained. A child born with a degenerative disease will not, save for any number of potential medical discoveries, secure good health as we would promote given the opportunity. An adult traumatized by an accident may lead him to a life of seizures, neurologic devastation and the like. But these examples are, as yet, still not completely controllable by humans, and so the family and society steps in to provide the continued aid required to lighten the load and life goes on. In reference to the above lyrics, this would refer to what I am assuming would be the "wheel of fortune," and we then would not to be blamed that medical science has not achieved the results to reverse the misfortunes in this category.
What about the child left to fend for himself without guidance and caring, who grows to be an angry adult - lonely, malnourished and under-educated, unable to make his way through life with a job, self-respect and any dignity from his peers in the more preferred venues. Does he join a gang, or just file for disability at 21 with a life-controlling depressive disorder. How about the youngster who is raised by a very busy pair of well-educated parents, taught the 5 basic food groups in school, but continues to eat junk unsupervised at the fast food drive-through, and develops hypertension and a heart condition in his 30s. Let's not leave out the youths among us who grew perfectly strong, intellectually savvy, mentally healthy and then went off to a "most important war" only to return to their new home in a cemetery. What is this all about? Why are these very cherished children left dead or maimed by the side of the road in a "leep of faith," while the rest of us carry on in the circle of life? Why is anyone spared and anyone saved and where does the imbecilic appetite come from to promote the pitfalls that would persist in embracing these subsets in continuum.
In a recent conversation, I listened to someone rip apart capitalism, as he felt the profiteers in our culture were responsible for so many losses in every category listed above, being left behind or pushed ahead to an early demise. However, there is also a reasonable argument regarding the citizens of North Korea, a noncapitalistic society, who can barely grasp the concepts of capitalism except that it is "bad" per their Dear Leader, as they too are dying of malnutrition, are poorly provided for and live a war-caliber existence, picking and scrounging simply to survive.
Does it really come down to the contest between good and evil that our circle of life continues to swell and retract with dependable regularity and sometimes strangles the frail or even the healthy who would roll over a previously unidentified land mine at the wrong time? How it baffles the educated mind to solve the puzzle of why the great civilizations that walked the earth became "no more," abandoning it all with nothing to show but some ruins, a few Roman coins here and there and a helmet or two stuck in the sand for an archeologist retrieval. Ancient Greece just disappeared; the Mayan civilization just disappeared. Temples and terraces remain but the elite civilizations we admired are gone. In the interest of respecting the phrase, "history repeats itself," has anyone considered that at some point, in spite of our greatness and advanced technology, we too might just disappear like a Mayan, specifically because of our own ineptness to grapple with the same weapons that have hindered humanity through the centuries - lack of suitable nutrition, security of one's space and self-abuse?
Why is it just outside the reach of humanity to consider its options now when so much is again at stake in the history of human development? Why do not enough people consider the abuse their bodies absorb by the self-imposed, self-destructive choices and behaviors we perform with generous regularity, (drugs, alcohol, artery clogging nutrition, lack of protection against disease?) Why is it that the concept of war and killing by street gangs and national armies alike is not the furthest thing from an educated consciousness as we contemplate our own security by keeping a gun in the house for protection, and watching CNN to see how Iran and Israel are doing tonight? With no disrespect intended to our fallen youth who are trying beyond hope with poor equipment in the line of battle, what good was served in the peace that came from the killing of the the "young men and women in uniform who gave their lives for freedom?" Those people died because they felt they were doing the right thing in protecting our nation against invasion and attack, but what I want to know is why either side of a conflict still thinks in terms of killing to delete invasion and attack and to secure a sovereign peace or a world peace? Is this the best we have been able to achieve as inhabitants of Earth, if we are still thinking in terms of behaving like Roman warriors from 2000 years ago, but now with planes? The circle of life .. give me a break!
What chance is there that the current circle of life will survive at all past the ongoing threat of atomic weapons in the hands of self-absorbed rogue nations, and past the intense nightly gang wars where little children are killed sleeping in their beds from a stray bullet, and high school scholars are shot dead in the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. while walking home from school? Unequal to all this, but still worthy of mention, are the triple cheese burgers in the mouths of our adolescents on their way to triple bypass in adulthood and other debilitating vascular dilemmas? Now, there is a combination of curiosity, and yet representing all things that we should be able to adjust because of our exposure to a fine education (another problem not to be covered here.) Why are these phenomena still running ramped in a civilization of high intellect? Why do we put all the straightening-out responsibilities on the heads of the spiritual world we pray to for resolution? It occurs to me that when the metal meets the concrete, we really are not capable of more than scientific discovery in a lab and the ability to dig up fossils is a meadow; being able to do anything to resolve our plight based on discoveries made, falls far below our ability to identify and control the risks these discoveries could have eradicated.
Maybe as soccer came up the generations from the time of the 70s until today, now taking it's place among our other national pastimes in this country, our best hope might be to continue to push the concepts of "circle of life" in animated movies for kids. A few generations from now today's youth may become so engrained in respecting life, manifested by these mere suggestions, that the answers to these serious questions will be easily recognized. How amusing is our concern about handing along an unfair national debt tomorrow, when our blatant disregard of the obvious and the injurious has yet to be addressed. I wonder what order the unwinding path will take in the circle of life, assuming that the circle persists against the challenge of overcoming our inability to merge knowledge with action.
Alice Elizabeth Cagle July 22, 2010
The circle of life refers to birth, life, reproduction and death. As all animal and vegetable life follow this pattern already established, it falls to the intelligent few and the powerful to secure and improve the process in a dependable way, if they can. Truer words have never been spoken in that "there is too much to take in here, more to find than can ever be found," and while we are on this subject, are we even aware that the taking and the finding are issues in themselves, separate and apart from the theme of the Lion King?
We live a life sired by the typical biologic methods and continue on in the charge of family and society to field our paths of development. Our growth is carefully guided and constantly admired with a plethora of smiles and praise while we take our turn through the beginning times. In most cases the enriching elements discovered and available, combined with the tested ways of the ages result in a healthy and happy plant or animal. How is it possible then, with the help of so much support, technology and time tested nurturing, that so many of us in the animal category go astray to dismal unhappiness and poor health before the natural order of things, and before "finding our place on the path unwinding in the circle?" Is that circle really just a wheel of fortune, a leap of faith or a band of hope? Before we condemn Tim Rice's lyrics to the circular file beneath our desk, it is worthy to distinguish unhappiness and poor health self-imposed rather than societally ordained. A child born with a degenerative disease will not, save for any number of potential medical discoveries, secure good health as we would promote given the opportunity. An adult traumatized by an accident may lead him to a life of seizures, neurologic devastation and the like. But these examples are, as yet, still not completely controllable by humans, and so the family and society steps in to provide the continued aid required to lighten the load and life goes on. In reference to the above lyrics, this would refer to what I am assuming would be the "wheel of fortune," and we then would not to be blamed that medical science has not achieved the results to reverse the misfortunes in this category.
What about the child left to fend for himself without guidance and caring, who grows to be an angry adult - lonely, malnourished and under-educated, unable to make his way through life with a job, self-respect and any dignity from his peers in the more preferred venues. Does he join a gang, or just file for disability at 21 with a life-controlling depressive disorder. How about the youngster who is raised by a very busy pair of well-educated parents, taught the 5 basic food groups in school, but continues to eat junk unsupervised at the fast food drive-through, and develops hypertension and a heart condition in his 30s. Let's not leave out the youths among us who grew perfectly strong, intellectually savvy, mentally healthy and then went off to a "most important war" only to return to their new home in a cemetery. What is this all about? Why are these very cherished children left dead or maimed by the side of the road in a "leep of faith," while the rest of us carry on in the circle of life? Why is anyone spared and anyone saved and where does the imbecilic appetite come from to promote the pitfalls that would persist in embracing these subsets in continuum.
In a recent conversation, I listened to someone rip apart capitalism, as he felt the profiteers in our culture were responsible for so many losses in every category listed above, being left behind or pushed ahead to an early demise. However, there is also a reasonable argument regarding the citizens of North Korea, a noncapitalistic society, who can barely grasp the concepts of capitalism except that it is "bad" per their Dear Leader, as they too are dying of malnutrition, are poorly provided for and live a war-caliber existence, picking and scrounging simply to survive.
Does it really come down to the contest between good and evil that our circle of life continues to swell and retract with dependable regularity and sometimes strangles the frail or even the healthy who would roll over a previously unidentified land mine at the wrong time? How it baffles the educated mind to solve the puzzle of why the great civilizations that walked the earth became "no more," abandoning it all with nothing to show but some ruins, a few Roman coins here and there and a helmet or two stuck in the sand for an archeologist retrieval. Ancient Greece just disappeared; the Mayan civilization just disappeared. Temples and terraces remain but the elite civilizations we admired are gone. In the interest of respecting the phrase, "history repeats itself," has anyone considered that at some point, in spite of our greatness and advanced technology, we too might just disappear like a Mayan, specifically because of our own ineptness to grapple with the same weapons that have hindered humanity through the centuries - lack of suitable nutrition, security of one's space and self-abuse?
Why is it just outside the reach of humanity to consider its options now when so much is again at stake in the history of human development? Why do not enough people consider the abuse their bodies absorb by the self-imposed, self-destructive choices and behaviors we perform with generous regularity, (drugs, alcohol, artery clogging nutrition, lack of protection against disease?) Why is it that the concept of war and killing by street gangs and national armies alike is not the furthest thing from an educated consciousness as we contemplate our own security by keeping a gun in the house for protection, and watching CNN to see how Iran and Israel are doing tonight? With no disrespect intended to our fallen youth who are trying beyond hope with poor equipment in the line of battle, what good was served in the peace that came from the killing of the the "young men and women in uniform who gave their lives for freedom?" Those people died because they felt they were doing the right thing in protecting our nation against invasion and attack, but what I want to know is why either side of a conflict still thinks in terms of killing to delete invasion and attack and to secure a sovereign peace or a world peace? Is this the best we have been able to achieve as inhabitants of Earth, if we are still thinking in terms of behaving like Roman warriors from 2000 years ago, but now with planes? The circle of life .. give me a break!
What chance is there that the current circle of life will survive at all past the ongoing threat of atomic weapons in the hands of self-absorbed rogue nations, and past the intense nightly gang wars where little children are killed sleeping in their beds from a stray bullet, and high school scholars are shot dead in the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. while walking home from school? Unequal to all this, but still worthy of mention, are the triple cheese burgers in the mouths of our adolescents on their way to triple bypass in adulthood and other debilitating vascular dilemmas? Now, there is a combination of curiosity, and yet representing all things that we should be able to adjust because of our exposure to a fine education (another problem not to be covered here.) Why are these phenomena still running ramped in a civilization of high intellect? Why do we put all the straightening-out responsibilities on the heads of the spiritual world we pray to for resolution? It occurs to me that when the metal meets the concrete, we really are not capable of more than scientific discovery in a lab and the ability to dig up fossils is a meadow; being able to do anything to resolve our plight based on discoveries made, falls far below our ability to identify and control the risks these discoveries could have eradicated.
Maybe as soccer came up the generations from the time of the 70s until today, now taking it's place among our other national pastimes in this country, our best hope might be to continue to push the concepts of "circle of life" in animated movies for kids. A few generations from now today's youth may become so engrained in respecting life, manifested by these mere suggestions, that the answers to these serious questions will be easily recognized. How amusing is our concern about handing along an unfair national debt tomorrow, when our blatant disregard of the obvious and the injurious has yet to be addressed. I wonder what order the unwinding path will take in the circle of life, assuming that the circle persists against the challenge of overcoming our inability to merge knowledge with action.
Alice Elizabeth Cagle July 22, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
An Incredible Man
When someone seems truly incredible to us, they tend to live in our memory as someone unlike anyone else we have known in that category; an incredible teacher, an incredible ballplayer, an incredible artist. We all hope to grow up like someone we feel is truly incredible at how he performs his roll. Sometimes we find out who he is outside of the career costume, if we have the privilege to peek. Most times we have no opportunity to see the private side of a sports hero, a great artist, a great ballplayer. Sometimes we do not want to know the hero's private side as it may tarnish the special gift of adoration given in the example of his glory.
Husbands and fathers however are the greatest heroes of all. They give us the experience of observing how to love people at large, and how to love a family. In watching them from within the intimacy of our relationship, we learn how to make judgements through a perspective that is uniquely their own. They share the wisdom of managing in the good times and the hard times, both settings being equally valuable. They share who they are as a life hero in their glory roles, but often they teach the same righteous lessons on the back porch or in the work shed. We come to learn lessons that are not taught in lectures, but come across clearly by our observations as we watch them live day by day, and we develop our own protocols modeled on their example. They make decisions for themselves and for us that evolve out of intricate analyses, and sometimes unexplained logic plucked from their own life experience. They have also been praised to know the value of a hunch, which is a harder lesson to teach, and sometimes not as insightful until we reach the point of raising our own family or taking a spouse.
After the bride goes on about the business of being a wife and little babies reach their individual adulthood, the grounding provided by this life hero continues to be the strength relied upon for all time, the ever strong instinct, the way it was since the day you married him, or when you were little and he carried you. A collection of individual memories is his gift to us forever, priceless recollections of resilience, spontaneity of spirit, struggles and victories, the gentle smile, his special kiss, the promises he made to us and those around him. When his unique life and our relationships with him are celebrated, how well we realize the enrichment acquired because we spent time in knowing such an incredible man.
Husbands and fathers however are the greatest heroes of all. They give us the experience of observing how to love people at large, and how to love a family. In watching them from within the intimacy of our relationship, we learn how to make judgements through a perspective that is uniquely their own. They share the wisdom of managing in the good times and the hard times, both settings being equally valuable. They share who they are as a life hero in their glory roles, but often they teach the same righteous lessons on the back porch or in the work shed. We come to learn lessons that are not taught in lectures, but come across clearly by our observations as we watch them live day by day, and we develop our own protocols modeled on their example. They make decisions for themselves and for us that evolve out of intricate analyses, and sometimes unexplained logic plucked from their own life experience. They have also been praised to know the value of a hunch, which is a harder lesson to teach, and sometimes not as insightful until we reach the point of raising our own family or taking a spouse.
After the bride goes on about the business of being a wife and little babies reach their individual adulthood, the grounding provided by this life hero continues to be the strength relied upon for all time, the ever strong instinct, the way it was since the day you married him, or when you were little and he carried you. A collection of individual memories is his gift to us forever, priceless recollections of resilience, spontaneity of spirit, struggles and victories, the gentle smile, his special kiss, the promises he made to us and those around him. When his unique life and our relationships with him are celebrated, how well we realize the enrichment acquired because we spent time in knowing such an incredible man.
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