a haunting

I can't help but notice that someone I love is being haunted by death.
and it's not someone u might expect. it is someone very young and thoughtful and funny and bright and talented and beautiful. but death seems to follow him like a shadow.

I don't know if he has noticed it, or what he makes of it in his impressionable young mind. I won't use his name or make any direct reference. it is someone I see only infrequently, maybe a few times a year & even during those times i've noticed on each occasion, if the attention is too focused between us, odd things start to happen. he rides in my car and suddenly the automatic windows stop working and the door jams shut. on a second occasion the driver's side front tire blew and flew off completely! these things happen separated in time & only when he visits.. I don't believe in coincidences so the occurrences struck me as odd, but then I realized how frequently people around him & especially close to him have dropped dead from sudden heart-attacks or brain hemorrhages, or other peculiar sudden natural circumstances.

I do not feel he is in any way to blame, don't get me wrong.. quite the contrary. he often suffers most directly from the losses. it is as if death uses his bright shining hopefulness as bait for life's weary travelers whose time has come. it is tragic & extreme almost to the point of comedy.. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this except me. no one who knows me that well reads this blog, and I dare not share this little insight.

I am sometimes given to.. I don't know what to call it.. I will use the word premonition for lack of a better word.. but I think in this case the better word is insight, and I know what I see goes beyond what people call coincidence without giving away too much detail..

*sigh* what does one do when someone you love dearly is being haunted by death? ha! the answer is nothing.. but continue to love him. it is not as if the boy's dark spectre of a friend can be shaken off by any of us.. but I am not too keen on riding him around in my car any more than necessary. :)

The War on Drugs

Normally, I don't condone fighting a war that can't be won. The war on drugs is no exception. the only war on drugs that can be fought successfully is between an individual and his or her own demons.

Recently, I've been called to question my won philosophical stance on this subject when confronted with the potential horrors of the human condition.  As daunting a prospect as it may be, with freedom comes awesome responsibility, and human beings are free to choose what we will accept in our lives. We are also free to choose to die a miserable death.

When I first viewed these dismal images, I wondered how someone could allow him or herself to be overcome by such an evil, and consumed by such helplessness.

I supposed it is a learned response like an elephant held by an empty 
chain.

The story goes that when an elephant is young, and small he can be chained to a heavy weight, and he quickly learns that he cannot escape the burden of that weight.  He learns that he is not free. As the elephant grows into massive adulthood, he no longer needs the weight, simply the empty, hanging chain is enough to hold him in place.  For he has already learned that he is not free, so there is no reason even to try to escape.  Consequently, there he remains stationary, chained only to the memory of bondage.

If we believe we are helpless, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This represents our biggest fear, that if we are left to our own devices we will consistently make stupid choices. I've come to understand that frequently we don't trust ourselves, and we don't trust the Universe to support us. This is a loss of faith. It's a mindset of fear, scarcity and limitation.

If we choose instead to believe that our natural state is a state of abundant, well-being, and if we choose to recognize even the smallest discomfort as feedback for guidance toward our true nature, then through deliberate intent we will eventually move inch-by-inch toward a joyful Truth.

Naturally, some will choose only to see what is wrong, and will thereby attract more of it. That too is their right. I am not diminished by anyone else's choices, except to the extent I believe their differences diminish me.