Naked Truth

Last year, around this time, I realized that there was something wrong with my relationship with Jen. The problem was me. I have no need to rehash everything, but after I was divorced, I got straight into another relationship. While Jen and I tried not to put labels on it, that's what it was and it was a wonderful time that was happy and blissful and did everything I wanted it to do except one thing -- let me do what I said I was doing: Work on me.

While I was going through my divorce, I tried to live my life with no expectations and to try and live in the moment. That was a self deception. Most people are trying to sell something, sometimes you're trying to sell it to yourself. After Jen, I drank, I caroused, I tried to find myself (again) in something outside myself.

Somewhere along the line I started doing things for other people. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't wholly selfless, nothing ever can be I suppose. People came into my life with great intensity and left with a whisper. That hurt, a lot. That's not living without expectations, that's holding on to hope that people who care about you will want to stay. What it doesn't take into consideration is that lost souls don't instantly get better when you find them and point out to them that they are lost. Look at me? I'm not a savior. I'm not a hero (or a villain for that matter). I'm just a guy who sees people hurting and I reach out and I say something. It seems to help. But sometimes people have to wander a while, sometimes they come back and sometimes they stay.

There was a moment, in my deepest, darkest despair, when I saw it all and figured it all out and then I set it aside. It's simple really:

• Be happy in this moment.
• Most people tell you to find yourself, but what they mean is find what they believe.
• You have to find your own truth.
• If your happiness is dependant on someone else you've just traded one cage for another.
• Every day is beautiful.
• Take care of yourself and your health.
• Follow your own path.
• Love everyone.
• Let go of the past.
• Don't rush the future.
• Have the strawberry ice-cream.

I have always said "Contra Mundum" was my motto. "Against the world." But that's not the fight a warrior fights -- "Contra Ego," is the real battle. "Against the Self." Are you strong enough to be happy? Can you look inside and find the self and live in honesty and honor with yourself and others, or are you just masking the pain with something you call happiness?

There are no "ordinary moments" only one series of beautiful nows.

We run from ourselves and the things we fear when we should embrace them, because the things we fear make us strong. Love the people that you love without fear or reservation, but love the self, without ego.

The Paradox of the Scorpion teaches us to love our fear, but it's only half the story. The other half is to follow your bliss, to never do anything half-way, live life to the hilt, whether you are filing briefs, writing code, sweeping floors or racking servers. And reach out to that fear and love it, because odds are that the thing you are running from is what you want most and that thing that's making you happy will taste like asshes when it's done.

But that's my truth. Find yours.

Burn with me.

Kavanagh's Wolf

"I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves."
~There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves, James Kavanagh

“It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; "

"It is defeat that men makes invincible” - Henry Ward Beecher

This has been a bad month. It's a pattern when people enter your life, find what they were looking for and cast you aside with casual cruelty. Once upon a time that wouldn't have bothered me. I would have smiled and laughed, knowing, with certainty, that it was their loss.

Today I spent 40 minutes being verbally abused by my daughter while a therapist allowed it to happen and prevented me from responding. Now I begin to see why after 6 months in lock-up that my daughter is no better.

I am a catalyst. I change people's lives for the better. I used to enjoy it and then it hurt, now it's nothing. If it's what I do, then it's like rain and sun and snow, a part of nature beyond our control. Come or go, stand or run. I was -- I am as patient as a mountain. I am inevitable, invincible and unstoppable.
Somewhere along the line I let all this wear me down and wear me out. I didn't get to be invincible by caring what people thought or by shedding tears. I got that way by taking every blow on the chin and smiling and begging for more.

Gimme your best shot.

This is how we begin

Closing time at the confessional
I close the doors
I'm headed home
One more sin
To nail upon the broken cross
This is how we begin

No one knows the confessor
No recognizes him
You leave your stories
and your worries
And head home again

I've fallen on my sword for you
A dozen times before
I wouldn't change a thing
I would do it again
To see you smile for an hour or two
This is how we begin

No one knows the confessor
No recognizes him
You leave your stories
and your worries
And head home again

Leonard Cohen will sing the hymns
And I'll listen in silence
You miss the me
That you wanted me to be
Your confessor for always
This is how we begin
This is how we begin

No one knows the confessor
No recognizes him
You leave your stories
and your worries
And head home again

No one knows the confessor
No recognizes him
You leave your stories
and your worries
And head home again

This is how we begin
This is how we begin