To Write Again

I have been asked to write again.

Why is that such a hard thing?  I do not know what to write about.

Actually, the issue is that there are so many thoughts in my head, they all try to force themselves out all at once if I ever try to sit and let them out.  Like a steaming tea kettle they burst through a small opening and threaten tearing apart the entire pot.

I guess it is fear then that sometimes prevents me from writing.

Maybe I should call it typing.  I am after all typing at a keyboard.  No ink No quill No ball poin pen.  Just a keyboard and my mind.  A keyboard IN my mind.  Click Click Click.  Many things to say and a physical keyboard to force them through.  Sometimes I forget the sentence half way through because I have to translate my thought into physical action.... typing.  Left brain to Right brain. Synapse to synapse.  Lost in translation, perhaps perhaps.

I never really understood that movie "Lost in Translation".  It was very lonely.  I don't want to be lonely.  I don't want to think about it in my active mind.  But I know it is there under the surface.  Always in motion but just out of reach.

What would I do if I caught it?  Am I angry for being lonely?  Angry with myself?  Angry with the world out there somewhere.  Looking for someone else to blame instead of taking responsibility for my own domain?

I believe we are all each independently alone. I think we did this on purpose.  I do not know why but I suppose that is the point.  My belief in a god is that god walks among us.  In fact I believe that God is us; divided into pieces and spread upon the Earth.  Why?  Oh I do not know.  I am not God but a piece of something greater than I can't possibly understand.

It's the holiday's again and a recession to boot.  I almost lost my job again and I have been shocked back to the reality of life.  What if I had lost my job?  Suddenly I am reconnecting to my neighborhood and the plight of the poorer.  Of course today's poor is yesterday's wealthy.  And today's wealthy is tomorrow's poor.

Take yourself back 20 years with all of the material things you currently own in your life; cell phones, computers, hybrid cars.  You would be seen as wealthy (maybe even an alien form another planet).  So what is poor and what is rich?  Place a poor man in the past and you will create a rich speculator.  Place a rich man into the future and you will get a poor immigrant. 

So what should we do?

Change is Constant

I feel as though my life has not slowed down or taken a break in a few years.  It always seems like it is just on the brink on another change.  Today my worksite announced more changes.  I will have my third new boss and a new area since November (only 2 months ago).  Constant Change.  Changing Constantly.  When does it stop?

Maybe that's the trick.  To understand that motion isn't really movement at all.  Its just the background noise for lack of a better term.  Accept the fact that everything will be different tomorrow.  Constant change.  It will always be different.  You can count on it being different everday.  It is realiable and unfailing.  So what do we do about it?

I would love to break away from my current job.  I start my first Masters' class at UMass Boston on Tuesday.  It's part of the school of Dispute Resolution.  The class is titled Negotiation.  I eagerly await the subject matter.  The last class I took was a digital photography class.  That class opened a new horizon for me.

Maybe embracing change is about discovering something new in life.  Since it is always new, there is always something to discover.  Life doesn't end, it just keeps going.

One of my family members recently passed away.  I found comfort in this piece of writing:

Life is Eternal

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of cloud just where the sea and sky mingle together.  Then someone at my side says: "There!  She's gone."  Gone where?  Gone from my sight... That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load to her port of destination.  Her diminished size is in me, not in her; and just at that moment when someone at my side says, "There!  She's gone," there are other eyes watching her arrival and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:  "Here she comes!"

INFP

I have recently come to the conclusion and decision that I am an INFP.  This may be a simple and debateable piece of information.  I have spent years pouring over data and analysis before concluding this momentous decision.  An easy decision for some maybe but a long hard journey for me.  What I am going to do with this new found knowledge is unknown.  It is most important that it is a decision I have made on my own.  I asked the opinions and advice of many but ultimately it is I who decides who I am.

The relief I feel is overwhelming.  It has been such a hard and painful journey to get here.  But I am glad I am here.  Which is a suprising fact since my personility type does not like to make decisions and likes to keep them open as long as possible.  So for the record I will say that I have chosen my personality type but I reserve the right to change it at any time.  This then thus illusistrates that I truely am an INFP delaying any "final answer" on any decision.  But let me go with this for now.  INFP.

Where have you been?

I'm not sure what I am going to write in this journal entry.  A friend recently asked me "Where have you been?"  It's an interesting question because it implies that I am not here.  But I've always been here.  Where have I been.  Like I've been missing for some time and now I have been found.  But, maybe the person that has been missing is not me.  If I choose to live a simple life and sometimes fade into the suroundings, am I really gone?  If I am not breaking barriers to freedom and oppression, am I lost?  Maybe.

It's easy to get lost in this world that we perceive around us.  It seems like there are miliions and billions of people in a vast world.  That's what people tell us anyway.  But can you prove it?  Have you seen them all?  How many people have you really met in your life?  I think maybe we are living in a very close knit world of only a few very special people.  I have lots of memories of people I think I know but my world is really made up of those that I communicate and interact with on a regular basis.  Where have I been?  Why, I'm right here.

Friends come and go like ocean tides.  One day at your door step and the next out to sea.  But the tide returns and the waves continue to roll.  Where have I been?  I've never left.  It is you who has been away.  Welcome back, my old friend.

Time Machines

Telephones are time machines.  I saw it on a TV show once.  I think it was the modern version of Dr. Who.  But I cannot recall exactly.

I had a similar thought years ago when calling an old friend out of the blue.  I really did not know if they were alive or not.  And I really cannot prove otherwise.  Since you cannot see or touch the person.  You really cannot prove that either one of you are sharing the same time period. 

An easy way of thinhking of this is by thinking of time zones.  One of you is further along in the day then the other.  A common occurance might be to call a friend and let them know the weather coming their way.  "It's a big storm passing through.  You'd better get ready!"  Sometimes we heed the warnings and advice.  Sometimes we do not.

What would you say to someone who had long since passed away if you were able to make such a telephone call right now.  Would you talk about simple things like the weather.  Would you get into a deep conversation about the world today.  Or would you...

Hold on...  Jim is on the telephone... I gotta take this call.