DeeEl's Mo Chroí Scríofa

The Greatest Frontier

The Greatest Frontier

Throughout history man has looked for frontiers to conquer.  Stepping into the unknown is both fearful and exciting.  It is near impossible to predict what treasures you will find or even what dangers you will face.  The best we can do is rely on our past experiences to help guide in these endeavors.

Gene Roddenberry, in his television program Star Trek, called space the final frontier.  He dubbed this the last unexplored area for men to conquer.  Perhaps this is true to a point.

For centuries philosophers and psychologists have explored the human mind.  However, there is still so much to explore and learn with such a complexly simple mechanism.

Upon meeting someone for the first time, they might inquire, “Who are you?”  While they know your name from introduction, you, out of habit, repeat your name.  Another question that may be posed upon first meeting is, “Can you tell me about yourself?”  With this we may proceed to declare what job we do for a living, our marital status, offspring, etc.  These are things that identify us just as much as our hair color, eye color and the way we dress.

But, who are you?

We hear tell of those (usually kids in an attempt to keep from going to college or to work) who use their money to “go and find themselves”.  This may seem frivolous to many.  I find it so in the regard that usually all they are doing it romping about exploring life.  How often do they actually “find” themselves?

Many people look to religion as the source of identifying who they are, others their families, education or even hobbies.  These are things that can, once again, identify us, but do they tell us who we really are?

I had always heard that praying is the act of “speaking to god” while meditation is the act of “listening to god”.  I hear so much of people talking about praying, but rarely about meditating.  After getting sick and being mostly confined to my apartment I started searching.  One of the worst things you can do is leave a writer alone with her/his thoughts.  We can get into all sorts of turmoil this way.

I cannot go back to the me I used to be before the illness entered my life.  Believe me, I have tried and I have sought to “find” the me I used to be.  Only now am I realizing this is never to happen.  When I am in a bout of vertigo (which lasts two days) my head conjures up all kinds of things.  Some is good, some not so much and others just plain out in left field.  One thing, however, that is prevalent, is trying to find me.

The first time I went to have a check-up with my current primary physician he stepped back and asked me if I were a singer.  I affirmed this and he went on to state that it was his experience that singers know themselves well, some better than even professional athletes.  True he was speaking of knowing myself physically.  But this is something I have been pondering of late. 

My mind also travels back to  time when my best friend, Sissy, her husband, two other friends of ours and I all went to Kings Dominion for an outing.  Anyone who knows me well enough, knows how much I really hate roller coasters.  Sissy, her husband and our friend Loretta convinced me to get on this new coaster called the Shock Wave.  It is a roller coaster you ride standing up.  Loretta and I were in the car behind Sissy and Al.  I pulled the straps and bar over me and leaned my head back and closed my eyes.  As the ride was ending, Sissy and Loretta were unstrapping themselves even before the ride stopped and shaking me.  They said they thought I was dead as I had turned as white as the tank-top I was wearing.  All I know is I put a death-grip on the bar holding me in and went deep inside myself.

Do I know myself?  Hardly.  I know my name.  I know I am single, never married, no children and I am a fair writer.  I know I have a hideous disease.  I know these things about me that identify me to the outside world, but I don’t know me – yet.  I read things that force me to look inside myself.  When I meditate, I look inside myself and explore those areas that I am afraid to look at or didn’t know exist.

There are times I write things, especially here in my blogberg, that many have told me they cannot comment here or even in Facebook or Twitter because they don’t know what to say.  They explain that I write in a manner that makes them think and causes them to look deeper then they ordinarily would.  These are things that help me explore my greatest frontier.

Space may be quite unexplored by humankind, but the greatest and most final frontier is in exploring ourselves, our own minds.  The Buddhists have a way of spending time with themselves and looking deep and when they come out on the other side, they are more peaceful more at home with who they are.  Their way isn’t the answer for everyone.  We must find who we are on our own and in our own way detached from all other influences.  Get to the heart, the soul, the very core of you.

Francis Bacon once wrote, “It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else and still unknown to himself.”

Take time to explore your greatest frontier.

Love Is The Word

In this day and age, the world over people do not consider the words they speak.  As a writer I consider words all the time.  One thing I have come to realize was that people use various words even if they do not truly mean them.  A few words that I rarely use are family, friend and love.  More than a year ago, on writing.com, I created a poll called “What Is Love?”  I have received some very interesting reviews and comments regarding this poll.  I had not planned on writing using any of the material until I was satisfied with the number of votes cast and could allow the information to direct other polls to create in gathering my information and then dive into the place it took me.  A lot of comments were about the limited options (WDC only allows for nine options) and my coupling certain options.  Recently I reworked the poll and placed it here on my blogs sidebar.  I have added more options, including “Other” and unpaired some of the others.  I invite everyone to participate and pass the link on to others to allow optimal participation.

My poll on WDC was only open to members and I desired a more global allowance of participants.  It seems that writer’s have interesting thoughts concerning love.  The way I pose my question and the selection of options caused many to pause before replying.  On the surface the question seems quite simple.  Then you view the options and begin to question what you really think.  I can not recall exactly why I designed this poll, except that I wanted to write an article.  What my prompt was I do not know.  As I ponder this I am sure that I was brought to this poll due to my own thoughts about love.  I actually put my response in the options – “A word in the dictionary”.

The first nine years of my life all I knew of love was that it had to hurt.  If someone said “I love you” then they wanted to hurt you, physically and/or emotionally.  Then I found religion and thought I was heading in the right direction when it came to love.  Yes, there were still those in my life that would continue to hurt me, but I thought I had found a different kind of love.  Then I got sick with a chronic illness that has no known cause/no known cure and all of that seemed to vanish.

I love teddy bears.  I love to write.  I love to read.  I love, love, love mangoes.  I love music.  It has been more years than I can count since I have said “I love you” to anyone.  In Second Life, I do occasionally say “I love my SLamily”, but it is usually said a bit facetiously when the crew are acting all silly and goofy.  I have noticed that most folks use that line very rapidly.  In the beginning of romantic relationships it can be a bit explosive.  But those who know each other a long time or are related in any manner say it all the time.  They end telephone and IM conversations with it and even sign cards, letters and e-mails with it.  Sometimes I think it is out of habit or expectation.  It isn’t that I have no feelings for the person I am speaking with.  I just don’t like using such powerful words on a whim for one.  I also have such negative memories for those who have used those words with me and I do not want to use something for someone I care about with ugliness attached to it.

So, take the poll and give it some real consideration when you answer, “What is love?”  Then look at how it applies to you and your life in respect to those you care about.

Peace

To start, let me specify that I am not using this post to bash religions nor religion in general.  Neither am I trying to sway anyone to believe a certain way, nor open up to a challenge/debate on religion.  However, of the five major world religions, Buddhism, Catholicism,  Christianity, Judaism; only two are not laden with controversy.  I have written blog posts, essays and poems regarding world peace and it never fails that I receive at least two comments telling me that “only G-d can bring peace” or “there will be no true peace till Jesus comes again”.  I sit and ponder which g-d they are speaking of and what religion has to do with what I have written about peace.

In the core of each of the aforementioned religions is the stress for peace.  But with all the controversy and turmoil surrounding three of the five, I find it difficult to see their message of peace.  I am not judging and I do not aver that the actions of some make it the way of the whole.  However, when those actions are so negative, they tent to put a cloud over any good that could be done.

In the United States, especially here in the ‘Bible Belt’, it is supposed to be a good thing to say you attend church or are a christian.  I wrote an essay a while back addressing two christian groups.  One in the US and the other in the UK.  These groups protest poets and writers just because they don’t like what is written, especially when the writer writes against war.  They also go to airports and protest soldiers coming home from the war as well as protesting the funerals of five young girls killed in a car accident on a rainy night driving home from a football game.

I have personally seen church people and Christians judgmentally taunt people for their beliefs and lifestyles because they differ from their own and what they teach.I have often heard the statement made in churches that they “love the sinner, hate the sin”.  Yet they treat those they call sinners in an ill manner when they don’t conform and give up said sins.

I am trying to see the peace through the cloud.

For decades, Catholicism has dealt with its own issues.  One of the biggest issues is the allegations of sexual abuse of children by the priests.  Most recently it is alleged that the pope has known about specific allegations and buried the information.  Priests take vows of celibacy and break those vows to have sex with boys and women.  I was always taught that when you make a promise, you keep it.  Especially if you make the promise to G-d.

If the leaders are discontent, how can I see the peace?

You don’t have to go far these days or do much research to find anything negative regarding Islam.  members of Islam are ever being suspected and blamed for terrorism around the world.  All a person has to do is look the part or be seen attending a mosque and they are suspect.  Not long ago a man in the United States Army went on a shooting spree at a military base.  As soon as it was said he is a practicing Muslim the media went wild that it was an act of terrorism.  I wrote about this and had stated it appeared to be PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  As soon as the authorities came to the same conclusion I did, the media dropped it.

The other day I watched a piece on 60 Minutes.  They profiled a woman who had been a CIA agent.  The woman, originally from Lebanon, came to the United States as a teenager.  She made no secret of her past and had to undergo many stringent background checks to be employed by the FBI and the CIA.  After many years of service she was scrutinized for her place of birth and her (dis)connection to her sister’s husband.  It was later determined that she was NOT a terrorist.  She still lost her job and all she had worked for and was even dubbed in the media as “Jihad Jane”.  I foresee a return to the McCarthy Trials.

With suspicion and a select group terrorizing the world in the name of G-d, I can’t see the peace.

Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, I have friends of different religious views including those who are Atheist.  Many years ago I was asking friends what they truly believe and why.  One person accused me of only asking like-minded people.  I had only begun seeking, but after this gentleman made his harsh comments, I quit asking.  I just wanted to know what other peoples views were.  I wish I had kept going.  I have one friend now who kind of jokes that he has taken parts of various religions to get to what he likes.  He does always seem to be at peace.  Well, except when his computer eats his music.

I once heard (or read) where someone said, “Prayer is you talking to G-d.  Meditation is G-d talking to you”.  Most religions are about praying.  To me that translates to us making petitions and doing the talking.  When do we listen?  Before I got sick, I loved hiking and spending time in nature.  I felt closer to my creator at these times and did some good writing during and after these hikes (sometimes during long drives in the mountains, too, just listening and feeling).  These days I feel most at peace during meditation.

The veil of controversy is thick with regard to many religions and therefore I find difficulty finding the peace they claim to have and disperse.  For me, I seek and research to draw my own conclusions.  I don’t debate them, but will answer any legitimate questions asked of me.  As for world peace, I still believe it will only come by  understanding and accepting each person without bias or prejudice.