Day 30. Complaining

I hate complainers and I hate complaining even more. Really, the only thing worse about hearing someone complain is hearing myself complain. It makes me feel small and spiteful. Not while I'm complaining, but later after I've calmed down. I usually feel a small twinge of embarrassment. Especially when someone is complaining about your's truly. Then I feel pissed off. Then I ask myself who takes complaining seriously?

So everybody - STOP COMPLAINING! When you do it makes me want to run through a hospital with a Bic Lighter.
But seriously, complaining is a reaction of frustration and blame. And getting over such blaming and complaining takes a tremendous effort (and self-forgiveness). So for all you complainers out there, a simple message for you all: it gets better.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for having lived my life as anger through complaining. Complaining seems like you're fixing a problem while you're actually only talking. Or thinking. It feels like venting in this way relieves "pressure," but it really only compresses and crystallizes whatever you're complaining about. It's like a flame that burns and never goes out since it is constantly fuelled by emotions, feelings and desires to get even somehow with what I'm complaining about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give into complaining instead of breathing and looking at the thing I'm complaining about is really that big of a deal.

I commit myself to stop complaining and not take things that aren't to my liking in a personal way.
I commit myself to stop complaining because I believe I'm helping myself out, because I know that I am not helping myself out.  I'm just blaming and accusing which places me into a timeloop again and again. I stop. I realize finally that it doesn't do me any good.

Day 29. The Citizen

I've had an interesting time as a US  Citizen. I've seen a lot of Shenanigans, to put it ever so lightly, out of my fellow citizens. But let it be known, I was never a proper citizen to be sure. Almost all the training in citizenship is a single class on American Government in your senior year in high school, so by then it is useless to gain any appreciation of the sizeless chasm that yawns between textbook and reality. This is one reason among many why the American Government gets away with so much shit. We as citizens have abdicated our rights to create a Government that reflected the highest ideals of justice and equality. So now we have quite a job to make America worthy of its ideals instead of having to carry this sodden carcass of shame and guilt for what we as citizens have accepted and allowed this country to become; a neoliberal wet dream that faithfully follows Jesus' words,

"Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."

The purveyors of the Bible will claim that this statement only refers to those who refuse to accept the Word of Christ, but Jesus, if he did say something to this effect, must have used the plainest language he could to communicate to the people. Given this view, Jesus is bitterly laying bare the psychology of the human mind, it's insatiable greed, mendacity, and an unholy determination to make others suffer for no reason other than puffing up the little dictator in your mind. And remember, this is the schematic for the neoliberal agenda.

The neoliberal agenda consists of cutting or better, eliminating public services (why?), total deregulation of companies so they can dominate each other, privatize everything that was used for the public good, like roads, libraries, schools. This is what Mitt Romney would have liked to deliver to his country club billionaire gang. But I digress.

The main thing is that we as citizens don't really care about anything beyond our small inconsequential bubble that to us seems like the entire world. We don't care about each other because we believe we don't have the time. I live between two houses and in the two years residing here I do not know either family. We carry masks when we leave our homes and think it's an accomplishment not to have a fucked up day dealing with other people. Ironically, it is within the relationships we form with others that may hold the key, if somehow we could become self-honest with ourselves and then with each other. Be all our sins remembered, as we forgive ourselves, Citizens.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself that I have not trusted myself with others, and I forgive myself that I have not trusted others around me. It is the fear that is the human condition that drives us all back to our homes where we pray that we are safe and separate from each other.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and deny my citizenship thinking that such a move would give me "liberty."
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to becoming angry with my fellow citizens when they went ape shit celebrating the War in Iraq. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate those who drove in cars with their stupid USA flag decals. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for hating them all and wishing them harm.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that my fellow Americans are the dumbest people in the world. I can't stand that.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for being impatient and frustrated with Americans due to the fact that they are being led like sheep to the slaughter, and they don't care.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become frustrated and angry with American leaders, who are in this arena to fatten their pockets along with their friend's pockets while the rest of America (the 99%) can go get fucked.

Therefore, I commit myself to remain critical of American stupidity, but not make it personal.
I commit myself to build stronger relationships with others in my community.
I commit myself to not carry anger and frustration towards my fellow citizens, since equality and oneness starts within each of us before hitting the streets.
I commit myself to stop judgemental back-chats towards other Americans, even when they say or do stupid things.
I commit myself to be more supportive within the political systems so we can change the rest of the systems.
I commit myself to become more tolerant of people who don't share my views.

Day 28. The Metaphysician

I really wasn't much of a metaphysician after the notion hit me. In fact, by virtue of a singular mystical experience that should never have happened to one like me. The "experience" which I never was  able to discern on my own, was a puzzle I couldn't crack. So I turned to the books of the Metaphysician, ancient and modern. Instead of getting to know myself, I wasted years trying in vain to get a handle on one unfathomable experienced that lasted all of 30 seconds. If only I had spent my time gaining common sense instead of looking to others to explain my experiences.

I poured myself into the ocean of wisdom and ancient teachings that offered up a surprising phrase or two, but I didn't notice that those words did nothing to improve my life. I learned far to late that words and sentences alone to not add anything of value in this world. I just felt "a lot more smarter" than anyone else. It's so strange to me now when look back on myself in those days. I thought I had a pretty good wisdom thing going on, but it was just useless junk that floated around in my head. I was a Metaphysician. It was like a club that existed only for me. I secretly wished for some metaphysical intervention, but alas, I was duped. I bought channelling books by the truckload. Can't say that it helped me at all, except to never place my faith in things that reek of deceptions, which was hard to swallow since that shit
sounded reasonable at the time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for placing value on an experience that was mysterious and an enigma, and that such experiences are important and meaningful.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel "special" that something mysterious happened to me thus it was an experience of metaphysics.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look to others as sources that gave what I believed in validity.\
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be enchanted by New Age balderdash, because I believed they had the same inside poop that I had.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not recognize that my time as a Metaphysician was of little consequence.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I had some "special gift."
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be duped by my own bubble of knowledge and information. It only led me in circles without getting a hold of why metaphysics has to exist in the first place.

I commit myself to never again fall for the teachings of others who are as in the dark as I am when it comes to metaphysics.
I commit myself to never fall for the fluffy tones of the Metaphysician.
I am ready to find out who I really am, and to prepare myself into the living of self-honesty and common sense.

Day 27. The Rebel

"I'm like the wind. Nobody gets me, baby."

The rebel in me is the rebel you see.

I suppose everyone will rebel against something in their lives. I know I have. It's due to the absurd way that we live, stuck in some positing within a pecking order that is infinite and specific. One always has to be mindful of the authorities. And what makes authority such a potent fear-making machine, but the long arms of authority's reach - into your home, your bedroom, your finances, your job, your "spiritual nature," even?

When I check the history books, I see that the Rebel hasn't generally fared too well when all is said and done. Revolutions are the biggest bust, usually. Look at what's happened to Egypt's "Arab Spring" has wrought. The citizens managed to dislodge a dictator from office after 30-odd years, only to replace him with a dude who just announced he has just given himself dictatorial powers, by a decree - literally a page that someone typed up and gave to the press. This is what the Arab Spring has given Egypt. The latest entry in the book entitled, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Other types of rebellion follow the same pattern or become an irrelevancy. Case in point; the atheist campaign against religion. Won't do any good. We're going to have to wait for a few more generations to de-religionize this country and the world. Atheists cannot intervene - only people who are hypnotized and mind-controlled by religion can deprogram themselves. Besides, atheists won't hear this either, by they have only created a religion to combat religion. Great job.

I supposed I rebelled against some of the most important systems in this world. Marriage, family, financial... I saw myself as a being that held free will and had to fight against authority to retain it. I didn't realize that my free will wasn't operational. All my actions and "decisions" had their starting point in a reaction to fear. Fear, it turns out, is the engine that drives each and every one of us every step of every day of our lives. I guess I'm rebelling against free will now. I'm laying this down so you can pick up on it. Rebelling for the sake of rebelling isn't going to give you much of a return.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe in the power of rebellion, not realizing that all I was doing was falling into a trap of predictable failure.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that my rebellions would make me happier and a more free person. I know that after all that rebellion that I no better off than before.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for not checking my starting point for rebelling against what I perceived as authority.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that rebellion against others made me more "intelligent" than everyone else, because it proved that everyone else were sheep too stupid to realize that they were being used.

I commit myself to dismiss the importance and legitimacy of the concept of "rebellion." It is Fool's Gold." If one's starting point doesn't take everyone into consideration and for the best for all, then any rebellion will be worthless, because the result will not be what is best for all. And what happens then is one gets more of the same, if not worse.

Day 26: The Colleague at Work

 

I've worked my share of dead-end and unrewarding jobs in my life, and since I've started my own business, I've realized that working for a company or other people wasn't all that fun. Or meaningful. Or lucrative. It seems to me now life a series of prison sentences where I was stuck in one place for 8 hours a day having to deal with all kinds of people, most I tried to like, but were often annoying or hideously rude (which is what you get when you work in "customer service."

I always loved that term, "customer service," where one "services" "customers." But rude and clueless customers were only one part of the equation of why I hated so many of those kind of jobs. The other half of my tale of woe belongs to my coworkers.

Ah, my colleagues and managers. There have been some that I became quite fond of, and others that I've thankfully forgotten and others who were just jackasses that I seriously would have liked to kill them.

But you have to work with others. No escaping that. I just wish they were sitting in a cubicle on the other side of the building.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be annoyed at people I worked with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for wanting to get away from some people I worked with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge these coworkers for getting in my way and making my job harder.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge the managers who I worked for to be clueless about what went on in their own store.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have "favorites" of who I worked with and others who were not my favorites.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for thinking that other workers were lazy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for being aloof towards some coworkers I didn't want to get to know me.

I commit myself to not engage in secret mind banter about my coworkers.

I commit myself to not engage in forming secret mind groupings where I place people I like and people I don't like in separate groups.

I commit myself to be more tolerant of stranger I have to work with and not hold judgments about them in my mind.

Day 25 The Cultural Snob

The Cultural Snob as one of my personalities isn't what you may at first glance think of. I'm not of those in the upper classes who look down upon the lower classes. I'm snobbish (tending to look down upon) on people who blindly crow about how wonderful America is.

It's not that I feel American Culture is worthy of praise (it really isn't. American Exceptionalism be damned), or that its values and contributions have made the world a better place (absolutely not), or that its customs and mores are worth duplicating the world over. My kind of cultural snobbishness is my own accumulation of my likes and dislikes which I believe that if everyone shared it, our world would be a much better place.

And to this goes my political snobbishness, which is stridently finding fault with the current power structure. For example, democrats and republicans are useless placeholders of our political system. There is really not that much difference between a conservative and a liberal; they both want to keep the status quo (and the perilous state of the "middle class" at) on indefinite hold.  All the middle class does is act as the buffer between the very poor and the very wealthy. That's always been the role of the "middle class" from Day 1 of this republic.

Economical bearishness causes me to hold my nose when I hear people defend capitalism and its social contract when it is obvious that countries that adopt some kind of socialism enjoy a higher quality of life than good ole America! They bemoan socialism while cheering for social security, corporate welfare, medicare -- but giving American Citizens free health care (like they do in more civilized countries) is one step closer to Armageddon. Idiots.

Cultural snobbishness: what I like in the Arts is the best the Arts have to offer. My favorite painter also happens to be the best painter the world has ever known, in my opinion. snobbishness always comes from opinions, don't they? Plainly put, snobbishness, in its tendency to look down on others and judge them for being slow on the uptake, isn't good for me in my process.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to look down on people who don't live up to my expectations.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to look down on my fellow Americans because they are ignorant and clueless on how they are being used by the same hand that's enslaving us.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to allow this to frustrate me.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to become a snob that has no tolerance of contrary views against what I have considered.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to believe I'm right and they're wrong.

I commit myself to let go of the snobbery and judgments towards those who disagree with my opinions.
I commit myself to realize thatbeing a snob of any kind is simply not necessary.

Day 24: The Comedian

What is a comedian? Someone who tells jokes or stories in a humorous way. Someone witty and clever. I became a comedian because it kept me sane while growing up in a world that became more ludicrous and absurd the older I got. Absurd = absolute nonsense. The absurdity of life has so impressed human beings that a philosophy, existentialism, was created just to try and make sense out of it. At times my life was full of events so bizarre and preposterous that when tragedy struck again and again, all I could do was laugh about it.

I understood how jokes and comedy worked. Comedy is always based on lies or deceptions that blow back on the instigator in some way. Look at any situation comedy in the history of television and you'll see that what I am saying is valid.

Some of my favorite novels excel at extolling this trait of comedy/ Such as Catch-22. Television shows like Peep Show and Extras. To keep myself from getting beat up so much as a kid, I relied on self-deprecating humor. It worked. But I never really understood why I had to imagine life was an exercise in absurdity. Because everything we do is directed to deceive and divert attention from ourselves. And sometimes, or often, hilarity ensues.

Life is not a joke, however. I believe we can all agree on that. Life can be unimaginably cruel and painful, and there are no laughs to be had for the billions of people who are not able to enjoy themselves with a chuckle.

One time I was staying with a friend who got upset about something... I don't remember, nut may have been something I did. Anyway, I made a joke about it and she said, "Don't do that. You can't interrupt someone's pain with a joke." At first I thought she was being a little too precious, but now, I think she may have had a point. However, having a sense of humor can't be the worst thing in the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perform as a comedian without understanding why I do so,
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely on using self-deprecating humor in menacing situations instead of just standing up for myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hide behind the mask of the comedian, as I did so to keep people at arms' length, and so I was engaging in deception.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for using humor sometimes to be the center of attention.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be unaware of my actions when engaging within the personality role of the Comedian.

I commit myself to not employ comedy