Stop hating on yourself! Ugh. So much of my life was about being beautiful, being attractive, being pretty. It is hard to believe that I am not now that…
I was never able to explain to my husband that it was okay to not be “hot”, because God knows I was tired of being hot.
Being Attractive can be it’s Own Hell
I was constantly harassed, called, followed, received lewd comments and always the proposition. Are you kidding me? It was always an issue. I’ve even had my share of stalkers, yes.
I wanted it all out of my life. Do I really have to listen to people drone on and on about how they are hung up on me?
No.
I don’t. Really I don’t.
So here I am hating myself because I have gained 30 pounds which makes me less than attractive. It’s what I wanted. I wanted people to stop hitting on me and pushing me to have sex with “them”.
“Long Ago Woman” JB Collection
I’ve gotten old, of course, now 64. That (and being married) helps to stop people pressing me for “more” out of the relationship. The most effective “stop” sign is my weight. Adding 30 pounds has turned off any chance of having admirers. Even hubby isn’t sure (of course, he loves me).
I caught myself hating myself. I was looking at my thighs and I was hating on my own body. What is that about? I’ve actually relaxed and I am enjoying life. Why am I hating on my own body? That is ridiculous. I love myself and should be loving my body!
There is this complicated relationship between my body and I. I’m hating on the fat that I have; at the same time that I am saying that the “skinny body” sexiness is bull and is an awful misrepresentation of women. Real women don’t look like models, although lots of them try very hard to mimic the look.
I need to find a way to be okay with my body. I need to find a way to embrace the me that is and let go of that long ago woman who could conquer a room by walking into it.
I’m not sure what to do with the emotional energy that comes about as the result of a betrayal perpetrated on me.
Angry at You (Dollar Gill at Unsplash)
There are the hurt feelings, the wish for revenge, and the desire to scream out how ridiculous this situation is. I want a confrontation; I want the chance to tell others how I feel about this awful situation.
I can’t do it. It would cause a rift in this family, the likes of which could damage us. This is about people that I love unconditionally. They are doing what they learned to do in their childhood. I saw this behavior in my husband, but he quickly obliterated it from his repertoire.
There is this human thing about wanting to be better than others. It is a reason why racism is still rampant in this country: there must be someone that is less than us, there must be someone that we can disparage. As humans, we just want that chance to be on top.
There is this other filthy habit, called gossiping. When it is combined with our need to be better than others, it can be deadly. People who have been taught to gossip can and will unashamedly talk in nasty ways about someone they know. This is something they must do in the dark, they cannot and do not dare to say ugly things to the person’s face.
Therein lies the sadness and betrayal. This activity that the perp engages in must be done in secret, in the dark. This way, the untruth of the gossip and the necessary superiority gets to grow like a bacterial infection.
The more it is expressed, the more real it becomes, but only to the perps, not to anyone else.
Tolle on Letting Go
This is the basis of separation between you and I. When you express your dislike for me and your disregard for others, you are separating yourself from me and mine.
Perhaps that is the goal of such communication. You stand there in your (holier than thou) enclave, gated in your community, doing for yourself and no other.
It struck me the other day, as I was scrolling through Facebook, that my friends who have dared not to move past their family of origin culture are the ones who are enamored with Trump. It’s a well known fact that the “less-educated” are statistically more apt to be Trumpers. But I never connected the dots in real time.
And then it struck me as I was scrolling. My girlfriend Debbie from 6th grade, back in Fruitville, shared some trump propaganda on my feed. Debbie has never left the life we led back in Fruitville. I don’t mean that she didn’t move, I mean that she stayed in the backwoods persona of the Florida girl. She never left the old neighborhood and the old culture.
Now it is true that the not-educated white people have a reason to be disenchanted with politics as usual. America is in the worst place it has been in a hundred years, both politically and economically. I am with them on the idea of getting rid of the same old rhetoric that has controlled our congress for a hundred years.
Trump is not the answer and to think he is the answer is to be an anti-intellectual. Debbie is the kind of person to vote for Trump because no one has ever crossed her path in any way that challenged her way of life. Whatever beliefs her mom and dad passed down are still stuck there in her and her family’s head. They are resisting computers, they are still fishing in the Everglades and they are all still beer drinkers or pot smokers. They don’t like reading, except maybe the newspaper, and never made it past high school in any meaningful way. She lives in the Fruitville culture cozy. There are a lot of people who are satisfied with life as it is. There is nothing wrong with this culture, it is simply stagnant. Thinking doesn’t happen, it’s a culture of thoughting. Everything I think of today, I also thought of yesterday.
I began thinking about some of my other friends who publish Trump propaganda and realized there was this common thread. They are culture complacent and culture cozy. And as is true to form, not college graduates either. They stayed in the same place, no matter how many years past high school they are. Some are literally, in the same place, they were forty five years ago.
To a great extent, these friends never realized that they were having life NOW, many of them planned for later and in their complacency, later never came. They are solid Trump supporters because for some reason, they believe that the man will help their situation. I’m not sure how or why that was supposed to happen, but I hope that they realize that it did not happen. Trump did NOTHING for the little guy. Trump never helped human rights, he never decreased taxes for the poor or middle class. He literally did very little for anyone other than himself and the wealthy during his presidency.
Because the uneducated can be *practiced* in denial, they are often caught arguing for Trump, when there is nothing to argue for. Trump’s policies did not, in any way benefit the poor in Florida, or in any other state. Unless you believe that the ability to carry an AR-15 is somehow important to your liberty, Trump did not help you.
I am disgusted by anything Trump. However, this country cannot continue to get away with raping the poor to the benefit of the rich.
TAX THE RICH — AOC by Nina Westervelt with New York Times
It just cannot continue. The middle class and the poor must have some breathing room. We need a raise of the minimum wage. We need free college education, free pre-k and free health care. We need to give Americans some of the same benefits that most western countries enjoy. Our country is poised for violence and hate, and it is armed to the hilt. As ignorant as Trumpers are, they are part and parcel of a group of people that are tired of being used by the big corporations and the billionaires.
The next uprising may be more violent, and believe me, if it happens, we will think that Trumpism was a walk in Central Park.
I’m not sure why, but the source of an injury can dictate mood and feelings afterwards.
So yesterday, at my usual Renal Pharm scan, I got into a conversation with the technician. She had a lot to say about a patient that she has who is extremely angry and bitter.
This lady had a hysterectomy years ago. When the surgeon was repairing an issue with her surgery, he nicked her ureter. For those of you who, like me, don’t know a thing about urination, it’s actually easy. First the liquids go to the kidney which is below the liver and the lungs. We have one kidney on the left side and one on the right side. The kidneys have a little straw shaped object called the ureter that carries the liquid to the bladder. The bladder then “squeezes” the urine out of the body.
National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Because of the repairs to her ureter, and that it doesn’t quite fit correctly, the lady must go in for the Renal Pharm scan yearly. She complains bitterly that her surgeon caused her life to change, and she hates the scan. She is harsh and nasty about this situation. She deeply resents the need for the annual Renal Pharm scan.
Conversely, my issue is a congenital deformity. I have too much of things. My right kidney has two ureters. I also have bilateral cervical ribs. I have extra body parts inside. I tease my twin sisters that I must have been a twin in utero and somehow lost my twin in the womb, so I was first, LOL.
In any case my second ureter danced around inside my body and became twisted up. That caused lots of UTIs (urinary tract infections) that made me so sick that I couldn’t get out of bed. The first time my doctor could not figure out what was making me sick. I did not have the usual pain, instead I was nauseated, exhausted and the best clue is that I became incontinent. They sent me to a urologist where we located the problem. I had great surgery! My surgeon was amazing and using robots, they took the skin from my mouth and used it to build a better ureter. Again, amazing. My surgeon continues to follow me and yes, I am required to repeat my Renal Pharm scan periodically, much more often than annually.
From the beginning, the techs have commented on how calm I am. The scan is uncomfortable, and you must lay on a table for a good bit of time. You also must have an IV. It’s definitely not a walk in the park. I take it easily because I am constantly tired. I will lay on the table because of this and I feel no frustration.
At no point am I angry, nor bitter. I’m thinking that the reason I am comfortable with my scans is that I have no one to blame for my congenital deformity. I can’t even blame the nonexistent twin.
I’m guessing that if I had someone to blame, if I thought my deformity was a result of someone’s sloppiness, I might feel differently. I don’t think so. I can’t make myself suffer for someone else’s mistake, even if that mistake was committed against me.
NRA owns our Republican senators. What a shame. Because of that, we aren’t making one iota of progress with gun control. We are going to get better school security, we are even going to make some progress with mental health interventions, but we are NOT going to get gun control.
Mitch McConnell and the Republican congress have been successful at blocking meaningful legislation since 2008 (how old was he seriously?) The entire focus at that time was making sure that Barack Obama was unable to fulfill campaign promises as the Republican legislative bodies were blocking all democratic efforts.
This has been the thrill of the Republican party: block anything that is Democratic. The republicans can’t make it with “good works” and “power for the people” which is alright with them. They make their success a financial success. And wow, the republicans have made so much money, you wonder why they don’t retire?
This retirement question is huge for me. Mitch McConnell is 80! I’m 63 and I’m exhausted. It’s true that I haven’t lived rich white man privilege, but still, I’m exhausted. How does anyone who is 80 years old work full time? Am I ageist for saying this? Do I feel that way about Nancy Pelosi? Why yes, yes I do! Term Limits would be great, or even (sigh), mandatory retirement.
To the Madness…
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has given me “young people hope”. Bernie Sanders knows lots and lots of young people who can do these jobs well and who will not take money to (do their jobs) legislate.
Why does our country continue this madness? Gun manufacturers, use the NRA to protect their ability to sell the AR-15. Why is this even a thing? Before the assault weapons ban went into effect in ’94, there were about 400,000 AR-15-style rifles in America. Today, there are 20 million. They began to be used more in mass shootings.
Problem Definition
Essentially ~
We know that guns are a problem for our society. We know that guns are often used to slaughter human beings.
We know that: Automatic weapons or semiautomatic weapons are inefficient for use in hunting. These rifles are still used in hunting, but not usually for hunting an animal that can be eaten. In other words, they are used for hunting nuisance animals.
In no case is the semiautomatic weapon necessary to the American way of life.
Yet the AR15 is ubiquitous and cheap, as easy to get as a hunting license. How is that possible? Are there really 20 million people using an AR15? That is how many AR15s there are in America.
We wonder, is there a way that Americans can change this? Our legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate are not willing to engage in any form of gun control. Our current representatives refuse to do what must be done.
I regret that I must say “Unknown Source” and from our last school shooting.
Republicans continue to block Democrats and since the NRA is a Republican supporter, gun control, which is supported by Democrats, does not even go to a vote. Instead, we talk about the security of our schools, the lack of mental health care, we talk about everything except the guns. It’s as if guns are not relevant to the discussion.
Yet guns are at the center of the discussion.
How is it possible that people do not see how guns are ruining the lives of our youth? The number of guns in America is well above any other country in the world; and we have the highest rate of deaths from guns. Among developed economies, no others have nearly as many violent firearm deaths as the US.
When people say, people kill people, guns don’t kill people, I want to scream! I’d also like to point out that in America, Guns = Death. The statistics don’t lie about that. We are the country that is doing a wrong thing. That’s not something that America wants to be: we don’t like being wrong.
When our loved ones pass away: We need to think that our loved one is close by. We want to think that our loved one is still present. We’ve made up a place for our loved one to go to wait for us: Heaven. We’ll talk with our loved ones just to show, just to demonstrate that our loved one is still present, here on this Earth.
It’s what we need because of our broken hearts. It’s an understatement to say that we have a broken heart when we lose loved ones through death. It’s a kind of heartbreak that only those who have experienced will know.
by Marian Naworski
That heartbreak transforms into desire. The desire is a need. The need then transforms to lying to self. These lies transfer, they become part of thinking and even actions. We have all of the rituals around death that truly help us through the journey. When we take that next step, when we make believe that our truly beloved is still somewhere (like heaven), we lie to ourselves and to the world.
We go to the cemetery, or we talk to our funeral urn as if it is a living thing. We miss those we love so much that we pretend they are near. They are not nearby. Not only are they not near, but they do not exist anymore in any way.
Christian religion gives to all *this pretend life* that assuages the heart. As noted before, one reason the religions have been so successful is that they offer such comforts to us. We have socialization, we have a north star that we are reminded of weekly. We have comfort in times of grief, and we have a source that gives us a basis for our own belief systems. All these things can be ours if we will but choose a religion and practice it.
God is a very complicated thing and how humans relate to God is even more complicated.
As an agnostic, I don’t deny the presence of God, I simply define God in a different way than others do.
God is infinitely unknowable and a powerful presence that manifests in billions of ways. Humans have not the ability nor the insight to comprehend this presence in full.
Anyone who claims to know the secret of God is either lying or woefully ill informed.
We don’t know and that’s the point. So, what has happened is that for thousands of years (maybe longer) we have made up stories. Those stories were turned into the Bible, both the old (Judaism) and new testaments (Christianity), the Veda (Hinduism), the Tripitaka (Buddhism), The Four Books (Confucianism), Tao Te Ching (Taoism) and the Qur’an (Islam). These books were turned into religions and those religions have been managed by men.
No, white men aren’t the only ones who wanted to “lord” it over others, all men enjoy that activity. The books had to be interpreted and they were exclusively interpreted by holy men. Most of the time (not always) these men used their community standing as a benefit to self and built huge palaces for worshipping and prayer and of course, the most important of all, tithing. Giving the church as much of our money as possible has been thought to give glory to God. It does not.
Joao Amadi from Unsplash The Riches of the Church
This is not to be derogatory towards men. It is simply that men have used their power to write and then promulgate the writing into religions that are exclusive and that glorify holy men. This is how we know beyond a *shadow of a doubt* that religions is not *real*.
If this narrative sounds derisive and ironic it is because the truth of religions has not usually been discussed in any way that approaches the realistic truth. The emphasis here will be on a realistic truth.
There are many versions of “the truth” and even of “a truth”. There are as many truths as there are humans on planet earth. I will attempt to provide insight and information about the state of religion today and how we as humans can understand our relationship with life. These are two very different concepts.
According to Britannica.com, Carl Jung introduced the concept of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS as a “form of the unconscious (that part of the mind containing memories and impulses of which the individual is not aware) common to {hu}mankind as a whole and originating in the inherited structure of the brain.”
According to Jung, the collective unconscious is made up of knowledge and imagery that every person is born with and is shared by all human beings due to ancestral experience. Google May 15, 2020
A Universal Collective Unconscious
There is a collective unconscious that is a psychology concept and there is “the” collective unconscious (COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS) which is much broader and wider than a psychological concept. It is the basis from which I write. That is to say that the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS includes all humans that are alive. Yes, that includes ALL humans that are alive, as well as all of those who have left us and passed away.
When we pass away, we pass into the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS and join all of those that have gone before us. We are not of any form when this occurs, we are simply all of the invisible parts that make us up, including energy. For some, such as Mother Teresa, much love and giving was returned into the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS to be circulated and distributed once more.
We also carry the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS within us as a part of us that includes all of who we are, our historical memories all the way back through time and the part of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS that collects all of the energies of those who pass. Currently, very few humans can access, in a conscious way, the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS, it is just not available to us. Many have touched it, lived it and can access it now. Many are blind to it and cannot access it in a conscious way.
What are we but stardust? Deepak Chopra
This life energy is a part of each and every human that is alive today. We bring with us all of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS.
Here is the truth of the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS: it does not require tithing, it does not require that we build churches, statues and paintings to honor it. The COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS is simply what is. You will not find that in 2000 years the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS is the greatest landowner on the planet (such as the Catholic Church has been). You will not find a preacher or an interpreter. It will continue to simply exist as it always has. It exists without the acknowledgment of humans and will continue to do so. Though in time, the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS becomes more well known by people.
We dissipate into the COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS with all of our deepest human traits intact, if our love is deep and strong, it comes with us. Our traits then fulfill other constructs as needed. When we pass, we are no longer a form, we are not separate or individual, we are part of the universal COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS.
There is no jealous God, there is no angry God and there is no vengeful God. Those emotions are all about humans. There is no such thing as the western rendition of karma. Karma is an Eastern concept, and it is neutral, it doesn’t take revenge on people who have wronged you.
We project all of that out there because it is easier than acknowledging and feeling our emotions around pain and grief and anger.
Where is God? JB Collection
What Humans Do ~
We (humans) constructed justice and its systems in order to manage the affairs of humanity in the fairest way that we could think of. In America, we are failing miserably and that’s because we have fallen far into the abyss of idolatry of wealth. Here in the United States, people care about money. Hard stop.
There is no objective universe that will “even out” our very real suffering at the hands of others. Life is not fair, karma does not exist as a vehicle for revenge, God does not exist. If the meek inherit the Earth it will be after it has been robbed of all treasure by billionaires.
So here we are, in our beleaguered lives, wondering what went wrong.
And Here is What Went Wrong ~
Americans weren’t paying attention the first time the minimum wage was suppressed. We bought into the idea that generating business was good for everyone. “Keeping wages low encourages businesses to invest.”
These two concepts came together making an unreasonable space in America for the middle class and completely compromising the poor. Legislators with heavy contributions from big businesses have kept minimum wage very low; taxes on the wealthy low, and their own pockets full. Living in America has become a nightmare.
Health care expenses are very high because insurance companies are making money on our illnesses, full stop. If healthcare wasn’t profitable, America would have nationalized healthcare thirty years ago.
Next time you hesitate to see a doctor, thank a congressperson for making your illness more expensive than anyone can afford. Big business and Pharma have paid your friendly local congresspersonenough money to keep the healthcare status quo, status quo. How do you like that American Patriot?
With billionaires in charge of our lives, as Americans, we only function to meet the billionaire’s needs. We are consumers, always contributing to the “bottom line” of the wealthy.
Lucy Parsons on Wealth
How do you create equity and equality, in other words, Justice, out of this?
