Expect The Excepted

Ghandi once wrote about every man loving his neighbour, and that the result would be that no man would be without love. Muhammed wrote about loving ones enemies, so that you may receive love unconditionally in return from Allah. Christ wrote about loving your neighbour as you love yourself, as he loved the the church. But one way or the other, it all begins with YOU.

If we, ourselves do not know the meaning of Love, then how can we be expected to show it to another? And Love they say, begins with knowing who we are, and if we do not know that, then how can we know of Love? But in order to know ourselves, we have to bode questions, and it is this that people fear...Questioning oneself. You see, the thing we fear is not what we'll find once we start asking questions about who we are, it's about what we won't find that scares us. We fear that we'll discover that all the things that we thought make up who we are, is in fact not there, and that this whole time we've been living the illusions of who we want to be, who we thought we were, and in essence...living in the contrary.

Yes, Love requires Introspection, and is mandatory in a relationship, and cannot be excluded or excepted in the discovery of Life. When Introspection becomes an exception, then the only choice left from a small selection of Life choices, is to choose not to Love. And the only thing then left to question is this...Is Life and Living really worth not loving in?

The Green Grass

Now there's a tale about a place that too many long to be. Its the place we've all imagined ourselves in, hoped to reach, envy those we thought were there, and desperately strive to grab onto the things we think will get us closer there. We've convinced ourselves into believing that all of life, all our efforts and endeavours, all our successes and achievements must all grow towards the ideals and ideas of that particular place, and even if we couldn't get there, we would make whichever sacrifices were needed in order to get as close to it as we could and simply call the race the pursuit of happiness.

Yes we've all heard of the magnificence and the lush of the green grass in that place we call The Other Side, beyond our reaches, across the mysterious fence. Indeed, heard of it, but has anyone ever really been there? I can't understand what on earth the big fuss is about climbing a fence just to get to a place so that you could enjoy the 'splendours' of smelling the lawn and lying on turf! And then there are those who know they can't reach it, so they copy the Jones' and attempt to grow some green grass of their own, only because that's the idealised image of a rumoured success.

Yes, as the song goes...Someone once told me the grass was much greener on The Other Side, but I paid a visit, and it's possible I missed it, it's not different, it's exactly...the same.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

Weeds

In the lush of the Amazon, or the barren Sahara, from the frosty Everest, even to the scorching Equator, no set of conditions in nature has stopped the spread and devastation of weeds. They sprout out from the soil of the earth, grasping and clinging tightly to the ground, firmly holding their position and ensuring once they're there, they'll stay.

And like the common garden weeds, we sometimes find in Life and living, that the most dangerous ones, are those you can't detect at all. The grow in and onto your life, like parasites, stealing the goodness from the blossoming flora that you've nurtured in your life, tirelessly, endlessly, relentlessly and positively. Some of them impersonating the roles of good plants, and others just tangling their roots around yours, claiming to offer you a better Life with them, than that without.

But as any gardener will tell you, and any florist knows, it takes a good amount of pruning and weeding to grow. That only through experience you learn to tell the weeds from the willows, and you'll learn which flowers are there to benefit your Life, and which ones must go.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

Obstacle Course

Life, like an unending road, stretches on over hills, through valleys, over mountains, past rivers and along many seas. And as it winds around its curves and passes through its caverns, it too faces the harsh weathers that blow through life, unleashing many storms, scorching heat, cracks along its path and potholes in its paves.

But every now and then, we have to face the unnatural obstacles along the road of Life, the hurdles placed there by the people we encounter in our lives. And stretching over these countless hurdles can become immensely exhausting, but strengthens our muscles to better our performance as we journey along Life. So what benefit then do the other obstacles on that road bring us? Like the boulders we hit time and time again. And like the mountains we have in the world today, which have grown so enormous that we had to assign names, so do we too assign names to our obstacles.

I haven't many obstacles, but by now a fair few. Like "Failure", "Ugly", "Stupid", "Naïve", "Desperate", "Privileged", "Ulterior Motives", "Live Your Life"...But today I found that my most challenging one, caught me totally off guard..."Abusive". Hurdles can build us, and teach us to jump higher in Life...But what do we do with the weight of an unshakeable, unbreakable, heart-hitting boulder?
Sent from my BlackBerry®

Forget To Remember

Sometimes in life we reach a place where we realise that the only thing we're really doing, isn't living, but rather learning...and furthermore...learning how to shield ourselves, protect our hearts, avoid and run away from painful and traumatic experiences. And really, it's not the initial shock of the experience or the sting of a cold dagger puncturing our hearts, but rather the festering wound that we later have to live with. And every time you find yourself going through the motions of a similar experience, or find yourself treading on familiar territory, your mind wakes up and goes back to the place you once were before, and the icy discomfort of an anxious heart sends pins and needles surging through your body, and the only physical action you can possibly muster up, is the only thing you haven't forgotten how to do after your body freezes up and mind goes blank, is to empty your tear ducts...and cry...

Yes, sometimes your body, your heart and your mind, learns to develop a series of systems that are designed to safeguard your life from going through further traumatic experiences, by using your worst fears and your darkest memories like an alarm system to warn you when danger is near, and to keep the things that could potentially hurt you at bay. But how can we hold on to any new experiences, good memories and sweet, stolen moments, when our hearts are to full to accommodate anything other than the bad memories therein, like unwelcome tenants that are simply stuck in our lives...We cannot possibly catch a little bit of hope with hands grasping so tightly onto despair.

So I guess you could say that the only solution is to learn to move forward, to let live and let go. And yes, it never hurts to be cautious and careful, and to be wise in everything we say and do, it's just part of protecting ourselves against a very real and scary world. But we should never fool ourselves into caging our hearts into clear cut, glass boxes that we never use. Sometimes it's good to remember to forgive, to remember to forget, and even wiser to forget to remember...

Sent from my BlackBerry®

Test Pattern

As an absolute fan of all the latest and greatest in technological enhancements we find in the world today. Whether it be communication, accessibility, finance, medical, entertainment, art, commercial or residential...Everything has been turned into a three-ringed technological circus! As if humanity took one big bite out of a science-fiction novel, and regurgitated all the fancy stuff we see today...Now I have found that my life has become quite dependant on all this technology, and even my emotional stability and relationships have become reliant upon the international super highway...otherwise known as...the Internet.

You see, with everything becoming so convenient, so extravagant and so fast-paced, somehow we've all forgotten exactly how to communicate on human levels...Nobody talks anymore, we 'chat'...Nobody listens anymore, we 'download'...Nobody sees anymore, we google...Nobody is present anymore, we're simply 'Available'...Yes, everyone's kept their 'Busy' icons on for far too long in life, and now we've found that our 'Contacts' have all been reduced to a global social network, and that somehow the planet has shrunk...Everyone knows everyone, from some place nobody knows about...

But today I stand 'Blocked' from the world, left without that 'Wi-Fi' connection from the people and places I deeply care about...Or at least, not people but the one person I need...Left with only one thought "Subscriber Unavailable"...No, you cannot 'Unfriend' Life, and you cannot 'Block' Circumstance, and you'll never be able to 'Deactivate' yourself from the journey that you're meant to walk along...Try as you might, you have to be strong, and if you lose your signal, your beacon of hope...its easy to find, it'll always be the...Just turn the switch and look for the Test Pattern.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

Spare Parts

I've always been the type of person who enjoys being part of a project. Whether it be the one initiating everything, coordinating anything, facilitating something or forming part of a group of things, but one way or another, simply being involved...Just the idea and the feelings of knowing that you play a role in the happening of something that matters to someone...anyone...or maybe even everyone...Either way, I have always enjoyed being involved. I suppose you could call it a lack of attention, or a want to be wanted, but whatever it is, I have it.

And of course things couldn't be better for a person who needs to be needed, especially in a world filled with dissatisfied needs, and even more so, someone who enjoys building and bonding in relationships, since those are the types of projects that usually last the longest, require the most maintenance, and will always have capacity for another need...But unfortunately, like every other avid contractor, project manager and all-rounder team player, who all dread a single acronym in the world of construction and projects...D-I-Y...And the phrase "I can do it myself"...

No there is no " I " in "TEAM", and certainly not an "M" or "E" in "Unity"...So why then is it, that when emotions become unstable, and when a partner loses the drive, the ego boost, the utility belt in the 'Project', do the letters in "Relationship", curiously change to "D-I-Y"? And now suddenly I find myself feeling excluded, feeling un-involved, feeling like the last thing you find in a building project...Yes, all of a sudden I find myself simply feeling like "spare parts".
Sent from my BlackBerry®