Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

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"Who cares? This is just further proof that you've wasted your life by trying forever to get good grades from dead people."
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The quote above is a comment I wrote to this academic fathead who keeps using the discussion list we both subscribe to as a place to take a last ditch shot at having his extensive academic work recognized for what he thinks its worth. For him, it's like waiting for herd of wild elephants to traipse through the Mojave desert headed for the jungle down in the Baja. Ain't gwine happen.

When I write something like this, even before I click on the Send button, I read what I've written to discover what I'm projecting upon the other with what I've implied. I'm always projecting my idea of myself upon the world. I don't have any choice. I act like no one else does either, and that seems to work out best. Whether it's true or not seems beyond the kith and ken of my tawdry insight.

It's what individuality or individuation IS that appears to matter to me these days. If you're looking for approval from some mentor you ain't got there yet. The chosen processes for individuation are designed to produce what a seeker can defend when they become the person they decide they can live with. It needs to be done as early as possible, because it's only when the decision concerning one's own subjective identity is made, that the game of "storing up treasures in heaven" begins.

Not only am I one of the world's most gullible people, other people recognize it, and to my horror proceed to act like such is so. Their smug confidence becomes more than I can bear, and like it or not, I feel forced to defend a strategy I don't exactly understand, against people who seem absolutely certain they're right, and act like it. I reach for help that has more reach than my me. There is more to me than you can see. That doesn't mean I don't see the me you can't.

I am is so used to getting exasperated looks from truly dumbfounded others who malevolently don't hear me right the first time. More often than not I am is chooses to be sublimely content that its normal for all those others (who only ex-is-ts because they are not me)to go there as a matter of course for the sake of appearances. I guess I'm taking them for granted right back and they're not used to that.

For me to act like it's normal for the other to continuously and persistently find themselves perplexed when confronted with my own belief that I am is me, and that I have a right to be here. For me, it's alright to refuse their self-generated assumed right to take me for granted. My right to be here is my defense and possibly the only one I'll ever knead. Death is always unexpected.

Some Tibetan monk reputedly said so with total confidence he'd be backed up by the venerated Dalai Lama up in Lhasa in the Himalayas on the top of the world. Oops! He's not there anymore. China just opened mysterious Tibet to the public with a fast passenger train. It's been a while. It happened a couple of decades ago. Maybe the Communist took their example of how to demystify Tibet from the way Alexander the Great "demystified" the Gordian Knot. They'll probably deal with Islam the same rude way.

The fact that I'm here on the rustic sleepy coastal plains of North Carolina to watch the big show happening simultaneously all over the face of the Earth is just fine with me. What is even more wonderful is that I really haven't done that much to deserve it.

"Signs, signs, everywhere signs, signs all over the place...." AU

Inadvertently, but semi-deliberately, I've studied "signs" all my life. I sorta believe everybody does too, each to their own gestalt. Kenny Rogers had a hit song with The Gambler. Just about any topic anybody opts for to learn the signs of could have a song like The Gambler written about it. Many of them do.

Each of these teaching songs tell you straight up what you gotta do to give yourself your best chance of coming out ahead while playing yo' particular game to whatever ends. Every single teaching theme song has lyrics to the affect that "you gotta know when to hold 'em."

Nary a holy book leaves out the ancient mantra, "you gotta know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run." That's pretty seminal material that shows up in about ever master craftsman's dialogue in every language on Earth.

These sayings are the mandate for leadership. On some level, and not just for Santa Claus, everybody gnows when you've been naughty or nice. They may not know they gnow, but it's there for them anyway. "All gifts are the gifts of God." Spiritual justice is served by those who know truly in real ti-me whether you've been gnaughty or gnice. '-)
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