"Talking Like a Tree"

...Before I tell you your story, Prophecy, know that I talk, as I like to put it, "like a tree." Now I tempted to choose a more tangled metaphor, but the instinctive words are the truest... and I mean, a tree.

That is, I make branched conversations. You will need to go back to the trunk, and then to the root again and again in search of coherence.

Bear with this.

Oh - and I just thought of what I wanted to think of - a better metaphor: Talking Like a Map.

17 Years of Memoirs

Last night, I pulled out some papers - some very, very old papers that I never had the courage to throw away - or look into again. I've lived in this house for 17 years. Now it's got refurbished long, long years. And it is time to start the life afresh, to take the what-they-call-it-clutter out.

And this means that time has come for me to make some significant changes - but first, I must face come significant truths.

I saw my true essence in the papers - the creativity, the perceptiveness, the philosophy, the relentless hard work, the influenced madness, the random thoughts connecting them all.... I also found traces of fears and unhappiness - crossed over with an irrational exuberance.

I knew, from a pile of papers that I am still unhappy to touch, that it belonged to the most colorless time of my life, when I had suppressed creativity and thought in the name of systemic education.

It's the pile that I have almost wholly thrown into junk - though there was still a feeling that I could somehow hold onto it, reclaim from it the four years of my life that went into it in the futile hope that things would get better.

What a laugh! How can something that makes our hearts ache so bad ever be better? We know in our hearts when even pain would be better - but not this darkness that falls upon a heart - extinguishing its most powerful quality: FAITH. The will to live, based on the primal belief that tomorrow would indeed be better than today.

Never, Prophecy, never! Never sell your soul to the Devil!

I saw what happened to my life, what course it took. I could see how my decisions influenced the outcomes of my life. And I could see what influenced my decisions.

Well, I better stop speaking in riddles, Prophecy. Time has come that I tell you your story.

My Responsibility

Ultimately, Prophecy, a person's responsibility lies with themselves. That's why our design is such that each of us has their own mind, their stomach, their heart, their limbs.... and that is the accepted norm.

You, Prophecy, are my responsibility in this life. I know that none can give you hope nor take it, nor can create your path nor obstruct it, and none can see your dreams nor destroy them - but only if I work with the Universe to make things happen or to let them go.

That's Not MY Problem!

Dear Prophecy!

I have learned an amazing new philosophy! Practicing it this last one month has led to significant transformation in my life. Here it is:

"That's your problem, not mine!"

Well it's actually a paraphrasing of a line I read in the book, Intent. The book has a story about Sufi master Shaykh Fadhlalla Heari - who was on a pilgrimage to Makkah. He decided to buy some eatable from a roadside peddler. But he didn't have money in change, so he gave the seller a big fat currency note. The woman got upset, though. She threw the money back in the Shaykh's hand, and imparted to him a wisdom that he transmitted to others by telling his story. She yelled: "Don't make your problem, my problem!"


I've thought and thought Prophecy, and now I've started liberally repeating this like a mantra in my head - and at other times, politely communicating to others through my words and actions that their problems are not mine, and conversely, my problems are not theirs.

Don't think it's cruel, Prophecy! The idea here is that it's never fair for one person to give their problems to another - which just expands the scope of the problem. What the person with problem must do is to either seek a solution with themselves - which would often solve the problem immediately - or to take responsibility (e.g. I don't have small change, so I better not try to buy food on a whimsy) - or to seek the solution from another.

I can tell you how making others' self-created problems, my problems disturbed my life badly in the past few years. If only I could tell them! Anyhow, that's not a problem any longer! SO my Past Self shouldn't bring its problem forward to my Present Self - no way, Jose!

Mostly, though, the transmitting of problems has become an art - blah blah blah it goes.

Well, anyhow, that's not my problem. I've found my solution.

Cosmologies Within

My understanding of the Human/Multiverse micro/macrocosmic relationship is continuing to expand - no pun intended. From what I know, not only literary and folklore metaphors can be drawn upon the relationship of the two - but eerily, the humans have a cosmic print inside us.

Metaphysical/ spiritual studies suggest that the Universe is within us. This, however, could be one of those cryptic methods of ancient speaking that have for eons fooled simple minds which took the words literally.

Nevertheless I'll be bold enough to say that the Human Self somehow projects onto the Cosmic Existence. Patterns of humanity can be found elsewhere in the Uni/Multiverse. The human specie is the only ecology that independently has the characteristics of whatever else we discover in Existence - from the composition of our bodies (in surprisingly exact proportions to the composition of Earth) to the composition of our psyche - which is why we have people as bold as the Lion, as valiant as the Horse, and as scared as a Mouse.

How does this model work? I have now a clearer idea. Suffice it to say that we can understand it in everyday terms: All perception depends on senses - which could allow us to say things such as, I am the Crow. In short, if my relevant senses and brain cells don't work, I will not know what a crow is. So I contribute to the being of a crow as far as I am concerned.

[I am sure that ancient cultures must have already dealt with this subject in thorough detail... yet I will wait to be humbled by the discovery of relevant knowledge. Not now!]