If Looks Could Kill

I have an expressive face, and I’m a pro at eye rolling. I have no trouble making it clearly known that I don’t approve of whatever. I mostly likely learned this from my father and society’s disapproval of who I am. It even worked its way back into my face after paralysis, arriving before my speech.  Get this… I had relearn to flare my nostrils, before I learned to speak, again.

My partner on the other hand rarely shows emotion besides happiness although he is not poker faced. We will argue and it will take him a long time to show any emotion. He knows intuitively that words are not really who I am and doesn’t confuse me with my ideas. Sure, he might get silent, but it is frowned upon in his culture to show anything in public, and he has been a great influence.  And yet, he is far from poker-faced and embodies Chai Yen.  He is calm and cool and not pulled by life’s vicissitudes. And he has had is full share of them, starting at birth by being abandoned by his parents.

He has me thinking that everything I don’t like, relates to things I feel internally or don’t like about myself. We often throw our opinion about life with gestures or attitudes if we don’t say it verbally. One doesn’t have to read auras to get a sense of the personal misery I am so willing to share. It makes me wonder how many people I turned off by this exhibition unknowingly over the years? Why do shoots darts of emotion into the crowds and expect anything but a mirroring of the shite you put out. The world is not out there and we forget that we are our world living in a self-created hell. If all we do and see is ugliness, even in its most benign form of laughing at others will just further our misery.

We can start with watching our feelings in every situation, to really see what prompts our every reaction. (How about no-reaction? Who really asked you, anyway?) Those looks that kill may not have anything to do with what or who we are directing it all to.  We might be hungry, anxious, disappointed, tired, in pain or just experience normal emotions that we are not in touch with. When someone says a person is grounded, actually means they know what is driving them internally at every moment. Start with your feet, you will notice they are furthest from you mind, and really you’re your body working up to the head. You’ll notice that you reside in your thoughts not allowing you to feel the real trigger. That is, before you go on a Bette Davis impersonation ....in front of strangers.

Art of Dying, verifying my Near Death

Having experienced a near death which actually was a gift, Dr. Peter Fenwick verifies it.
Briefly, a nurse saw my eyes roll back, and I was out of body and moving as an energy field to merge with the universal consciousness. She called my name while intubating me, then I slipped into coma.

Bullies Killed His Sense of I

I am disturbed by gay teens taking their life, and this teen, Kenneth Weishuhn really got me. I was this teen and luckily I had no Facebook or a cell phone to help drive in the point that I was deemed worthless by society’s “standards.” When you are a teen, you are still relying heavily on others to help form a firmer sense of your “I.” And when Kenneth came out to his friends, almost no one stood by him, leaving him vulnerable to whatever bullies would write on his “wall” or drive home in cell messages. Seeing hate in action in one thing, but reading or hearing hate when one is alone and quite exposed leaves a deep mark. That hate echos deep within his delicate being. The hate I was exposed to made me angry and that what this tapped into when I saw this news.

Surely, the It’s Get’s Better campaign helps some, but most teenagers don’t have enough personal history to get a real feeling that time passes ....so that they can look any difficulty and have clarity. I was lucky enough to be busy enough with work and my horses to let the distance be perceived as a break from the bullies who tormented me in school. I now feel very lucky not to have Facebook in my face a home and on my phone to remind me how much others hated me. Parents should really look hard at how much these social media cues help to define their children sense of worth. Obviously, when watching this video, the mother did not quite grasp the shear weight of the posts of Facebook, emails and phone messages. Sadly, parents love will never overrule them. These children are at a fragile point in their existence, trying to understand their gayness which they are usually too embarrassed to talk about, to their parents. I am sorry that as a gay elder I cannot reach out and talk to the parents and their gay children. I am deeply troubled by this and wish his parents some wisdom will have to come out of this. They must now move this tragedy to a greater purpose and may they transcend their grief to do so. These bullies, although they never drew a physical gun, will carry the physic fingerprints tying them to his death that they will never shake.

Defined by What You Don't Like?

I am beginning to notice whenever I am uncomfortable in body or mind, I lean towards defining myself by what I don’t like. This can be news that is unpleasant, or that I feel really offends my being. I know I am not allowing peace to come into my life when I find myself doing this….that is, when I wake up to the reality. I think it came from being told how to act and be in the hetero-sexual world by my peers, family, society leading up to our favorite news and advertising. To act natural in hostile world is something everybody has to works towards. When you are young, you are assumed to be immature and full of it. One learns to scream louder at that point. Midway through life, wisdom hits and you calculate your odds in every situation, and learn to take on those that you feel you can “win.” Maybe you are smart enough to stay silent, or get creative with your approach when things don’t seem to lean in your direction. Does peace come in at either point? Or only when you get your way? You tell me. There are many areas in which peace is kept at bay when things are not quite comfortable. By now we should know that being misunderstood, challenged and uncomfortable in body and mind plays a very big part of our life. So, why in my case do I continue to look for things I don’t like? For the drama and the excitement of finding the utmost, stupidest thing in the world? To get a false sense of security by knowing I am better than this? That is such a "Humpty-dumpty" view of life. I can’t keep holding myself as a fragile egg, where the slightest crack disrupts my peace. I am actually running towards suffering. Maybe I’ll put a rubber band on my wrist, and every time I catch myself doing this I’ll snap it to remind myself. Peace is always available even in the most chaotic situations...and really never takes a holiday.