MORE FOCUSED STIRRINGS

More Focused…Stirrings

I understand the song with which I am humming. I like the lilt of the melody…the crescendos and nuances. I like the sound of it: my ears are liking of it. The feeling I get, in listening to it, is pure ecstasy. Ecstasy is an emotion that is described only in understandable terms of how our senses are reacting to a feeling.

Solitude is such a beautifully descriptive word. “To be totally alone.” Alone with what? Alone with one’s thoughts? To be alone in a crowd? To be alone with a loved one? To be….alone. That is what it truly means. Ways one can be alone: with the sunlight beating down, the chill of night around you, with a smile on your face, and in Holy Communion. Solitude…aloneness…should not be confused with “lonely”. Loneliness is for want of another person’s company, to stifle one’s own creative thoughts. Solitaire is a card game. Solitaire can not be played with another players; the rules change---and one is in the midst of a new game after all.

A Girl of the Limberlost [revisited]. The memory of it fails me. But, no matter. I get a strong feeling of coolness, tranquility, shaded woods. Who is this Girl? It doesn’t really matter. It’s a feeling that is created in me of the existence of her.

How do you feel? Can you answer to yourself in truthful words? I’m not interested in where you are, who you are, what you are presently doing. How do you feel? Don’t answer me. Ask…and answer yourself.

Reaching out. What is that? Many of us comprehend the words, but don’t find we easily can do this action. Leaves of plants reach out to the sun, people reach out to each other to embrace. Reaching out is a focused action. The “reacher” knows that his reaching will be returned. Groping is not reaching. Groping is reaching with doubt…and uncertainty. Hesitation.

We share. Everything. We share thoughts, meals, diseases, the use of an object, hopes, dreams, desires….sharing must involve someone or something else. One can’t share a game of Solitaire. Why don’t you ask me if I want to share with you. I think you’d be surprised at my answer. And if you don’t feel comfortable in asking me to share, be trusting. I may turn to ask you the same, when you have just about given up!

Need. We all need something. If we can’t get what we need, we quietly accept that and go to where we can. If we want – that is a selfish need. Need and want are so easily confused with each other. Some of the most destructive turmoil can come from a situation where someone is not getting what they want. If one really lends some serious thought to the matter – prisons are full of only one type of person. These people have come face-to-face with the Ten Commandments, and have chosen to break one. It’s all really just that simple. And who says that God still does not rule His Kingdom today?

I don’t break mirrors if I don’t like what I see in them…I try to change for the better, what is being reflected back to me. If I do break mirrors due to my displeasure, an unbroken one can always be furnished. The image has never really changed.

Joy. Elation. They are both feelings of… They are shown to others in the forms of smiles, hugging, “jumping for joy”, an inflating or swelling-up in pride. Again, our body lets others know when we have that feeling. Did I say “feeling” again? Feelings can be asleep. And body parts (arms, legs) can be asleep. Ever tried to “jump for joy” when your feet are asleep?

We are such grand, noble people when we are “responsible” for someone or something else. Which is good. We are chided for being selfish when we demonstrate a responsibility or duty to ourselves, before others. But we must take care of ourselves….or we are of no value to others when we offer ourselves to them.

What we perceive is reality to ourselves. To others, our reality can be their insanity. We can only work within our own spheres of our reality. Thank God for the laws of Nature: that a lot of us are working together in a common area of reality.

My focusing on you. I form an opinion of who you are. You ask, “Why do your perceive me as being such-and-such? I’m not what you think I am, really. Two realities of one person. Who is right, and who is not right? Well, I like you. I think I am right. Now, what do you think of yourself?

In your life, did you fill the world with love? Oh, I see. You id great deeds, made a lot of income, gave a lot of your time to Charity. Did you love God, as yourself? No? Then I think you fooled yourself and others with your love. But things change.

You are trapped….looking out of your prison window, again, looking at what is Out There that you do not have. Maybe, if you looked within and then upward, all the prison walls will fall down, and you’ll be looking out of a window, only. But, if all the walls are down…what is holding up and defining the boundaries of your prison window? It’s all in how you perceive your situation.

How am I leading my life now? Not so good? How do I want to lead my life? Do I detect a tone in your voice that the two statement are two worlds apart, and that you want to bring them closer in reality? Good.

Fate. Destiny. Something inevitable. We can’t change our Fate. Changing the paths we walk, though, can lead us to a different Fate. And I said “different”, not necessarily a better or worse Fate.

I will try my best to answer your questions. But, you have got to supply me with questions. I will not necessarily answer you with words, and you’ll probably think of me as being indifferent. I may answer you with actions…so you better keep your eyes open! Pay attention!

I desperately want to know YOU, not of you. Not only of what you want to make obvious to me, of you. “Of” is the key word. It is such a nothing word. To ask something “of” him, what time “of” day is it, the color “of” the flower. Did “of” tell you anything in those phrases? It told rather vaguely of “possession” of something or maybe a trait. I don’t want to know some traits of yours. I want to know you, and only you. By the way, what is the time of day? It depends on where you are when asked.

“Open you heart”…”reach out with your heart”. I made reference to these phrases earlier. Both can be vaguely or definitely translated into, “You….give of your feelings.” Beautiful words to actually mean a command---(You do this.)

Doors and windows: they both have the ability or properties to “be opened” or “be closed.” So does one’s mind; so does one’s heart.

A new behavior is new to us—therefore it is strange. In the definition of “strange”: alien, peculiar, unknown, abnormality, bizarre we sense FEAR or BAD. A lot of modern movies, books and psychological studies have been given to concepts that are linked to the above adjectives. Man’s fear of what he cannot give a logical explanation to himself. So back to a NEW, therefore STRANGE behavior. So that a new behavior does not become routine and ordinary (doing so would make us eventually blind to this behavior after a while), we must find different methods of viewing this behavior in ourselves. Maybe even give new behavior to this behavior: to keep it refreshing—something we might actively repeat through our daily lives. Whatever it takes. To not numb ourselves to the behavior that, no matter how strange it was at first…if that brought us comfort.

We trust in children. Why? We perceive that they do not know the ways of the world. They have not played the game very long—they are not practiced at the rules. So, anything we tell them, they believe. And everything they show us comes, not from their reasoning heads, but from their hearts. We should listen to our own children more often; not necessarily from the offspring we produced, but from the child that resides inside all of us.

At a different time (In my “Fragmented…Stirrings” weekend) I sat opposite a mirror, qiet unintentionally, and wrote of my many thoughts and perception, at that time. What I could not write down or even conceptualize my feelings, I’d look up into that mirror for—inspiration? Strength? Guidance? Wisdom? For thirty straight hours, (I’m only human…I did have some breaks), I looked into myself for answers to many agonies that had controlled me all of my life. And that (God?) for pop-psychology—it has always come along and provided me and a million other people with “the answers” to the reasons and questions: “Why” or “Why Not?” Another truism: as I previously cited, I had been sitting on a Gideon Bible to elevate me so that I could comfortably type. I do not think that was wrong? It gave me the support that I needed, at that particular time. With my soul before myself in a mirrored reflection, and the support under me---I finally faced something that I had been afraid of all my life, moreso in the last several years. My disappointment in myself that I had no Purpose, no Immortality; my fear of my own death with nothing to mark my living was paralyzing.

I have always prayed to God for selfish wants. I even prayed to Him to prevent arthritis from creeping into my hands and fingers. If arthritis did lodge itself in my hands, preventing freedom of movement and speed—I would not be able to type; to express myself through my writings. It was the only way to expose who I really was to this world. I have always moved through my life, operating in a vacuum, behind prison walls, without giving voice to myself, of myself. My occupation up until now had been “selling” for my “Employer”. He has given me strength and courage in my performance of my “selling”. I’ll always be forever grateful to my Employer. I can never exactly “sell” for him in the same manner, though. Selfishly—for myself… out of greed for material proof of my WORTH. But, I can still sell for him. But, it will be different.

Fear not for me. I am different, I am strange, I am new. A lot of the make-up on my face has come off…the graffiti on my walls has been scrubbed off or has vanished of its own accord: a lot of the walls do not even exists, anymore, so the graffiti does not either. I am becoming more sure of who I am. I am not afraid to show myself or others of who I really am. They are surprised. Stunned. This is Grace? Really?

I do not choose to come to you totally naked…to exist in our world this way is totally unacceptable. The nakedness I show you is a nakedness of my soul, not my body. My soul has no definite boundaries; my body does. My soul is boundless, with our universe. The universe? Even the word “universe” has limits; a “u” and an “e” contain the word. But the concept is without bounds. My soul is bound within my body, as the universe is confined in the word “universe.” The concepts of both are everywhere, beyond the limits of our own minds. In “Fragmented…Stirrings”, I spoke of many references to animals, objects, opinions. More concrete things. Black and white. Up or down. Good or Evil. Hope and despair. But the world is not concrete. It looks concrete. We remind ourselves of all the concrete that is really around us in our lives. (Why did my typewriter refuse to let me type the word “concrete”?) Another sign, a gentle sign, to continually remind that things are not really real if they are encased in concrete.

Mirrors. Mirrors. On the wall. Mirrors in my mind. I do not have a use for them any longer. I do not have a use for them any longer. My lifelong preoccupation with how I looked to the outside world was never really a vital need of mine. It was more of a selfish want. I fooled myself into thinking I needed to look, act, think, speak, love and yes, write a certain way. You cannot perceive anything when you seek your own reflection in a mirror. Have you ever read a phrase in a story “…she gazed approvingly at herself in the mirror.” Or “…she gave herself an appraising glance.” These people in the stories about Life as we see it, are merely pleased with what they see when they look at their own reflections in a mirror. Because, once again, they have fooled themselves and the world about who and how they really are. Funny. Queer. Odd. True. Yes?

Authors must prove themselves over and over to their readers as they depict beautiful images in articulate, linguistic words. To sell their readers. A selfish want.

But---? But, What?

To appeal to the “audience”, we must do something to spark out readers. We all need a jolt of---? To react, but aren’t we only satisfying some author’s want to have their ideas accepted? And purchased? For money?

I am nearsighted. In the true sense of the word. I can see perfectly at very near range. But outward of three feet fro my nose, things become blurred. I guess, it could have been my purpose to have distance sight (farsighted) or perfect sight. But, I think I now know why. I wear contac lenses. Does that mean I am a vain person? I feel that glasses introduce yet another wall between the wearer of them, and the rest of the world. Maybe I don’t need any more walls right now. The lenses serve their purpose: they give me clearer vision of faraway things; at the same time, they are invisible to others. I don’t want others to know that I need help to see! Why? I don’t want them to perceive that weakness in me!

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