Born Of Fire

You know, it's odd. Whenever I try to write I got nothing to say. Whenever I don't try then you can't shut me up. It's quite odd indeed. I guess the best writers are really the one's who don't try to write. Yet they must try to write until they don't have to try. Then maybe they can begin to write.

Go figure

That seems to be the way it is in this crazy, screwed up, mixed up, topsy turvy world of ours. Up is down, down is up, black is white, white is black the strong are weak the weak are strong, the fast are slow and the slow are fast and those who pity are the pitiful.

Go figure

Well, anyway this is what I wish to say only because I'm not trying to say it. Sometimes I seem to get depressed. I'll speak more of this depression at perhaps a later time but it seems to relate to those who I pity. So I guess you can say that my depression is my self pity that is engendered from those who I pity.

Pity those who pity.

Please pity me since I expect to change those who do not ask to be changed. Pity me because I expect to enlighten those who do not ask to be enlightened. Pity me because I expect to teach those who do not ask to be taught. Then you will find that you cannot pity me, only because its all about my own choice and how can you pity me and my choices when it is my freedom to choose that makes me equal to you? So to pity my freedom to choose is to pity your own freedom and to pity me is to really pity yourself.

Go figure

But maybe I'll speak more of my self pity later (if I choose to). I wanna speak right now of my anger. I'm not sure why I get angry. Maybe it's because sometimes I feel trapped, like I'm in chains, like I'm in a prison of my own mind, and sometimes, somewhere, I get the feeling that "something," somewhere, is laughing and sneering at my most pitiful efforts to escape, something that enjoys seeing me slowly twist and squirm, something that enjoys to see me scream and shout, something that is entertained by my performance, kinda like watching Elvis perform his "jailhouse rock" on the tele. Or maybe I'm just nuts and they like the taste of fruitcakes. I don't really know.

But it seems to me that I'm not the only one that is angry. I look at the people around me. They look angry too but they don't know why. Even the sky looks angry. Have you looked up? I can even see the prison bars in the clouds above. I can never see the sun, but then again when your in jail you can't see the sun either, except when the warden "generously" lets you free to play in the yard...

Maybe I don't know exactly why I'm angry but at least I know that I'm angry while the people around me don't seem to have a clue. So maybe I'm not as nuts as you might think I am. Or maybe I am? I don't really know.

Years ago, when I first moved to Newport Beach California, I got a stupid traffic ticket while driving my bicycle to work on the wrong side of the street. (For some reason bicycles have always been a bad omen for me. Maybe its that wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz whose riding that bicycle and it's that wicked witch in her flying broom that circles my prison when she gets off that cycle of hers?...maybe).

Well, to continue, the cops won't cut you a break in California. They give stupid tickets when they are not busy. I never paid that silly ticket and I soon moved to another city in Ca, called Santa Ana. Soon after I replaced my bike with a car and one day as I was driving home from my Chinese Boxing class I made an illegal left turn onto a main Blvd. and I was stopped by a cop. Well, it appears that the bicycle ticket that I forgot to pay went into warrant and I was taken to the local jail. Since it was on a Friday I had to stay in the jail for the entire weekend until I could see the judge on Monday. The first moment I walked into the large jail cell a viscous bloody fight broke out between two inmates. It was quite an experience. I didn't like the feeling of being in jail at all. I'll never forget the feeling of freedom I felt when I left the jailhouse that following Monday (the judge laughed and dismissed the charges from such a silly ticket). But alas, the feeling of freedom was just a feeling and nothing more since I was, and still am, in the prison of my own mind. So I am still not really free. The feeling of freedom is not the reality and the reality is not the feeling. But, it appears, we equate them and see the feeling and the reality as the same thing and this is why we never try to wish to escape.

Go ask Alice

"Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.
`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.

`Exactly so,' said Alice.

`Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'

`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

`You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

`It is the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute..."

Sometimes I get so angry at the mindlessness of those around me. I get angry at how blind they are. I get angry at myself for being just like them. I get angry a lot. I recently left a meditation group not to long ago. I remember we were all talking and one of the people there said that they never got angry. I fact it seems everyone there never got angry. Heck, I'm always angry. I was even getting angry from listening to everyone's accounts about how not angry they were. If you are in prison then how can you be not be angry about being imprisoned? Maybe this meditation group was fearful of angering the warden so they made believe that they were free and dreamed that there was no prison at all instead of trying to escape? Maybe this belief gave them "peace" and they dreamed of their freedom. Or maybe I'm just nuts. Maybe you can ask Alice and she'll tell you whether I'm nuts or not.

`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

Sometimes my anger makes me want to give someone a big ole' windup punch in the nose, kinda like that Hawaiian punch guy. But the problem is everyone is just like me so its really myself I want to punch in the nose. Everyone is under the spell of that wicked witch and she hides behind her curtain of our own unconscious and no one is singularly at fault because we all allow ourselves to be deceived together by what is behind the curtain. So what makes me really mad is what's hiding behind that curtain. But I can't see it so how can I punch something I can't see? Maybe if that curtain lifts I might see a big giant nose that I can give a big ole' Hawaiian wind up punch to? But then again what I am punching might very well be myself since what hides behind that curtain also hides within me...

Quite a conundrum I'd say. Maybe I'll ask Alice...