From Inside The Sane Asylum...up shit creek

Yep...you guessed it. No post for a spell. Going up shit creek with my paddle and take a holiday break. Enjoy your family and friends...talk to you soon.

Partially true...partially fiction..as I recall

I was reflecting on those things I still remember this morning. Didn't take me very long as my recall seems to be in remission. Good memory, but my recall is not worth a shit. I remember growing up in this little sawmill village of Fisher. The entire village, from houses to church and Commissary owned by Four L Lumber Company.  A two room school house, sidewalks made of wood, mule skinners making their way to their company owned homes after a long day of logging. I remember Mr. Dewitt as he would always crack his mule skinner whip for my amusement. And how could I forget the gossip of the Funderburk girl and Miller boy being caught swimming nude in the mill pond. I remember Mrs. Tannahill saying she saw a bright flash of light the moment her son will killed in a logging accident. The rumors of how Mr. Curtis beat his wife. The visual and feeling of Christmas as each child, black and white, received a gift from the village tree. Compliments of "The Company"...of course.

Aunt Mae as I called her, lived across the street. She was important in my life. I had this ole bicycle
that was to tall and my toes barely reached the petals. Worked fine until I had to stop. Even at that young age a metal bar between the legs HURT! This is where Aunt Mae came in. She sat on her
porch each evening chatting with her neighbors, waiting for her husband and drinking a cup of coffee. She always sat in one of those cow hide, straight back chairs as I recall.  I would mount my ole bike from my porch and ride the dirt street that circled the village. Usually made a pass around the school

house, made my way up a steep hill in front of the Company owned Commissary and back home. Would yell to Aunt Mae to "catch me" and then make another round as she made her way to my rescue. Don't know why I called her Aunt? She sure saved me the recall of a lot of pain though. I could have rode up to my porch and stopped myself, but I think we needed those daily encounters of salvation. I know I did. I often wonder about Aunt Mae and to this day see her smile and feel her embrace as I rolled to a stop.

My first and second grade school teacher was named Ms. Farsheets. :). You read me correct. I came  home one day and told my mother that Ms. Farsheets called me a scurvy elephant. Of course my mother asked her why. I think it was at Wednesday night church service or maybe at one of those revival nights where our little village would all be saved and have a revival of sorts in our hearts. Said it would come in handy when the roll is called up yonder... Anyway, when confronted, Ms. Farsheets promptly responded, " I did not call him a scurvy elephant, I said he was a disturbing element."


Funny...those things we recall when recall has to make another lap around the block to be embraced by our memory...

...pictures from my little village, some years ago...be well, make peace with yourself and get along with it all...Doc

                       May you be blessed with much peace and joy during this holiday season.

From Inside The Sane Asylum...super, supermoon rising

Jess and Ego pondering the Super SuperMoon rising...

Ego: "Jess, think of it as consciousness = (energy), works as a TV-projector and there exists infinite channels= (dimensions) at once, simultaneously...and those channels contains pictures = (realities) and when those pictures go quickly through the TV-projector it creates the illusion of motion and time.
All dimensions and realities exist simultaneously. Existence is no subject to time. Time is only a concept within the existence. So you see, the Universe is not out there. There is no out there. It's nothing more than an optical illusion. Sight, sound, taste, and smell are "illusions" from our senses. Everything exist in the same "location". You are shifting from parallel reality to parallel reality billions of time per second that have a frequency that match with your vibration.

So you see Jess, that huge moon on the horizon is not that big...it's just an illusion."

Jess: "Makes you want to put on an English riding helment and have one of those out of body experiences of the world coming to an end."

Stopped To Ponder...democracy

A democracy need not believe that the majority will always reach a wise decision. It should, however, believe in the necessity of accepting the decision of the majority, be it wise or unwise, until such a time that the majority reaches another decision.
– Bertrand Russell 

Scribblings From Inside The Sane Asylum...

Just A Thought This Morning...A little cooler perhaps, but the mornings of our lives always yields their little surprises. The sunlight breaking over the ocean casting her spell of shadows. Storms forming on the eastern horizon. The sound of high tide as the waves white with foam caress the sand. The sound of a sea bird lost in migration, or maybe just Jonathan Sea Gull spreading his greetings of another day.

"Life is more than just looking for fish heads."
Jonathan Livingston Sea Gull

So many things we can distinguish in our thoughts...
an idea or opinion produced by thinking
or occurring suddenly in the mind.

An idea, notion, impression,
a theory, and many more.
Deliberate, perhaps.
Or just musing, ruminating, or even brooding.
All the thoughts that make it so.
Try reflection, rumination and mediation,
It all leads to contemplation does it not?
Pondering and deliberation.
Introspection? I reverie that reflection.
Thinking...
Is it not language that makes all thinking so?


And who sits at your pilots wheel?
Some say fate steers us through,
But most of the time it's just you.
With your cargo of language
and yes your fate,
Press on...the morning still breaks.

For some odd reason, out of nowhere, I recite the poem Invitcus in my head, as I watch eight pelicans disappear toward the southern shore. Thank you William Earnest Henley. Great combination of words that made thoughts which one never forgets. First damn poem I every learned. Ms. Grumbly, as I called her. My eighth grade English teacher, or was it Language teacher?  So much wisdom in that lady.  I remember well her thoughts on how I was steering my ship. " Young man", she spoke, "If you don't learn how to spell and write, you will amount to No Thing." How smart she was...nope, not a good speller or skilled on the rules of verse...and now I amount to No Thing...but I lived long enough to use this damn Spell Check....

...just language, sparked in my brain, making a sea of thoughts in my mind, packed and stored away for the journey.


It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
    I am the captain of my soul.

And so it goes...Doc

Scribblings From Inside The Sane Asylum...

Know What I Mean?

I have a confession..one of those confessions that feels good to make. A confession of regret.... even though we say "we want to live a life without regrets."  That's a tough affirmation. I do have regrets. Just think of the things I could have done better. What beauty in life I have missed but just  did not notice. How many people have I trespassed against, with me not knowing? How many conversations have I had that with just one more word of encouragement could have made a difference. When was I not present and that small child tried to get my attention. What life celebrations have I missed. How many times have I turned my eye from others who cling to the torn fragments of Humanity, and just needed to be acknowledged. Did I ever laugh when I should have cried. And why at three score and ten do I regret at all?

These are not burdens you see, these are my life's lessons. I try to acknowledge as many as I can and let my mind know they were only choices I made. Some with knowledge, some not so much. Some made out of boast and confidence and some not so much. Just a collection of my life experiences.

That brings me to my deepest regret..."wish I would have made the distinction... that through all those years doing my best, I could have done better." But how would I have known?

When you finally collect enough of those experiences you can look back and kinda grade yourself on your tribal behaviors. Yep, that sucked...and still does kinda. No, not kinda, it still sucks.  Something like that. I tend to focus on the ones that suck first. But just any kind of system to make you smile about some pretty stupid choices. It was only today at lunch I wished I had not ate that large bowl of chili with beans...a regular bowl would have been fine. But right now that grande bowl really sucks. See what I mean? It can be any stupid shit we do, and hell, sometimes I do them over again, knowing full well I'm going to regret it. So don't give me that bull shit about no regrets...

Just teasing. You stay strong and determined not to have any regrets your whole entire life if you wish. Just don't eat that big bowl of chili and beans... know what I mean?

 I even regret this silly scribbling...just teasing...:)RSVP vs Regrets Only... Doc

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Therapy...intuition

"Can one really distinguish the difference between their intuition and their subconscious fear?"

Notes From The Underground...

The “primary consciousness,” the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and reliable (e.g., “everyone will die”) that the future assumes a high degree of reality — so high that the present loses its value.

But the future is still not here, and cannot become a part of experienced reality until it is present. Since what we know of the future is made up of purely abstract and logical elements — inferences, guesses, deductions — it cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard, or otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances.

Psychology offers another humbling epiphany. There is a vulnerability that you must accept once you start to unravel the biases, fallacies, and heuristics. The story you tell yourself to explain yourself is imperfect. Your personal narrative is bent and twisted and inaccurate, and that's beautiful because it's true for all of us.

I take great pleasure in accepting this because I feel a unity in the humility, in the recognition that we are a community of messy, stumbling, fumbling beings tumbling through space wrestling with a confusing gift of consciousness. For me, that has led to a sense of empathy I never knew until I saw my own flaws reflected in the species as a whole, and the flaws of the species reflected in myself.

And so it goes...Doc

Stopped To Ponder...division

There are no absolute boundaries and divisions in this world, only transition points where one set of relations yields prevalence to another. 

So in essence...we are Edgewalkers...

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Therapy...coping Practice

"Coping...it is an on going daily process. Some days better than others. Deal with it..."

Balancing the anger and hurt of your yesterdays with the fear and anxiety of your tomorrows is an awareness, a consciousness that your brain and mind are trying to weave it's way through life without dying. The brain does not know the difference. It just wants to retain its oxygen to live. Welcome those moments of adjustment each day. May as well... they will always show up like visitors to your door. Your bag full of emotions just needing a little attention which could lead to new choices... or not. Just a friendly thump on the head. We can ignore and live with tension and dis ease, or we may even think about our choices and draw some conclusions about our personal state of affairs. We may ponder those choices. Sometimes we even change our beliefs about our life and try to live with those new thoughts for a while. Like a warm sweater in that moment, but this new way of thinking takes practice to test your new perceptional bias.

These visitors show up as perturbations in your mind. Like...thoughts that go bump in the night. Interesting how the mind/brain works. No, a fascinating process. You see, you can be an observer of your thoughts and even participate in that inner dialog.

There is one dynamic that seems to hold some truth about our current state of being human. It is this..."a person will not alter behavior of thought until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change itself."

You see, your brain and mind are always active in states of "dis ease". If not acted upon we will surly suffer "disease". Sometimes we fail...we learn...try again...coping practice... as we weave our way through this beautiful process called living and dying in three quarter time...No guarantees, no time out, and no do overs...

Your success in life is not measured by the happiness you attain, but by the way you adjust to life after it hands you a bum deal...it is learned behavior...so practice...Doc

Lemme Think About It...why is it?

"Why is it...when you are driving you turn down the music so you can see the street address?"

Lemme Think About It...dreams

"What do blind people dream?"

Footnote:
 The more recollection a person has of sight, the more visuals will appear in the dream. This becomes less and less as they age, the memory of vision fades away.

People that never experienced sight, fill their dreams with the other senses they process in their daily life.

Their dreams contain sound and smell; they can even register the sense of taste and touch. An interesting fact that jumped out for the researchers, was that people who are blind from birth are four times more likely to have nightmares than people with vision.

They couldn’t come with a conclusive answer on how this is possible. They did however come up with a theory. Nightmares are a way for our brain to cope with threats surrounding us in our daily lives. Because one of their senses is missing, blind people tend to be more fragile in situations, where another person would normally relay on his sight.

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