No one can live your life for you.  No one owns you.

You cannot own another life, for it is theirs to live.

This is an area of living that is not really addressed much.  For some, they do not appreciate people living their own lives, believing what they will, living according to their own conscience.

When a person chooses, he or she can live their own life.  Become who he or she wants to be.

Parents cannot dictate the direction of an adult child, nor should they.  Religions should not dictate to us how we should live either.  Government nor religion is the keeper of souls.  Government nor religion has the authority to dictate to us how we should live.

Within us all we have the ability to appreciate, learn, be in awe of, love, hate, be selfish or selfless.

It is up to each of us to decide how we choose to be, while alive.

We all have to accept the consequences of choices we make.  Whatever benefits or setbacks our choices spawn, that is for each of us to live with.

Remember, we only have one life.  There is no starting over, only changing course.

How to change course.
Walk in the desert for a month.
Be still inside until you hear what is not your desire.
Why must you have what you want?
Drink enough water, eat mostly fruits and vegetables, get enough sleep
and treat people how you wish to be treated.
Don’t tell anyone what you are trying to accomplish, see if they get it by observation, or example.
Don’t listen to me….bouzouki

 

It’s funny, I wildly followed my heart for most of my life. Then, somewhere in my late thirties, when I realized I was a bit of a gypsy and didn’t have the ‘laundry list’ (own a house, husband, large savings account, set routines) I started to feel very inadequate. I still dressed funky when everyone else I knew was ‘grown up’. I felt lost and started buying the clothes I thought were ‘age appropriate’ meaning NOT silly colors or funky mixings of patterns. I, for the first time, made a concerted effort to ‘fit in’. It failed miserably. WE are who and what we are!!! I’ve been on a comeback for a while now and just keep getting happier and happier. No one else on the planet knows what we need or the proper way to express ourselves….blissbait.

People are of a herd mentality, and with herds,  there is a leader.

Today our leaders are elected for the most part, some are appointed and others just take the role upon themselves.

Some people have leaders who are long dead, choosing to pattern their lives according to how they imagine the long dead person would desire them to live.

When I was a child, JFK made an impression on me, he was a person I would have followed.  After that Jesus came along, but unfortunately, in this age questions have arisen, situations develop, which there are no answers to in the recording of a dead man’s words.

Since then, realizing no one is perfect, I have lost faith in mankind in respect to leadership.

There is no one to follow.

As I age and stumble through this maze of life, I am realizing I have to depend on my own resources to point me in the “proper” direction.

Me, not being perfect either, am prone to making mistakes.  They are my mistakes.  It is my responsibility.  I temper myself with the realization I have dependents.  I have someone to answer to, them.  This responsibility keeps me from going crazy.  My sense of love and compassion forms this responsibility in my being.

I have not looked to government or anyone else to decide how I should live.  I work within the laws, mostly, as I do not desire trouble I don’t need. Other than that, my life is mine.  I am the only one who can live my life.  Religion can’t live my life for me.  An  appointed czar has no meaning for me, just a man with a job and an ego is all.

Does it worry me there is no one for me to follow?

No.

I am free.

Miss Bliss brought up Jesus in one of her posts.  She met a man someone referred to as Jesus and she ended up writing a song about her experience.

The man referred to as Jesus denied being Jesus like, but the aura and vibes he projected made a lasting impression.

I daresay, we all encountered people like that in our lives.  There was something about them, peace, joy and love radiating from their being affecting those around them, like a balm.

For the lack of anyone else to compare this experience to, we refer to the person who projects these  feelings as being Christ like, as the essence of Jesus is known throughout the world.

It is amazing when you think about it.  It has been two thousand years since he is said to have walked this earth and he is as controversial, loved, despised, idolized and famous as if he had died only yesterday.

I know of no other person, man or woman, who has made such an impression on the world, at least from my perspective.  Even Muslims honor Jesus, they just view him as a prophet.

There is speculation that Jesus did not exist, but is the merging of the personalities of Hillel the Elder, a famous Jewish Rabbi who lived near  the time Jesus lived and the Teacher of Righteousness.

The stories which comprise the four gospels in the New Testament paint some conflicting pictures of Jesus, but to my mind there is a thread of continuity that paints Jesus as an unselfish, humble teacher who prized compassion and love for people, regardless who they may be.

Jesus is an enigma,  setting an example for living that is not appreciated or understood.

He was a man of peace.  He had no love of hypocrisy according to those who described him.

I visualize a solitary figure walking alone on the shore by the Sea of Galilee and I wonder what thoughts filled his mind and what feelings saturated his heart.

Why should a topless coffee shop anger people?

The angry people don’t have to go there, do they?

Do the people who are topless, have to accept the job?  Is someone standing behind them, forcing them to reveal their breasts?  Some women like walking around impressing the men folk with their assets.

What is there to be angry about?  Personally, I don’t frequent coffee shops so it doesn’t make a difference and I am not going to waste my angry emotion on something like this.

There are more than three billion females on this planet and I daresay most have breasts.  Not only that, we are all born naked.

If God was a prude, we would have clothes on when we popped out, but it doesn’t work that way.

Every other species on this planet walks, crawls, flies, makes love in birthday suits, except for us

Damn, we are an unusual bunch aren’t we?

I checked out two blogs I frequent this morning, ksverny and ottobiography.

Kokot is an artist, writer, photographer, composer, poet, musician, actor, producer and chef, who has a sense of humor and mixes his unique talents in a melting pot of creativity.  Like the proverbial box of chocolates, you never know which one you’re going to get.

I laughed when I saw Otto’s cartoons.

These people  are geniuses when it comes to making people smile.

I am thankful they are here, otherwise life would be a drag.

many feel that life
has done them wrong
and feel down
yet you are still alive

maybe existence
could be better
in your eyes

what are you missing?

look around
smell, touch, taste, listen, see
there has to be something
someone
you are happy
is here

is that which you enjoy
not worth life?

while you concentrate on
what makes you feel good
the other slips
away

I would have a lot more respect for those who claim to love God, Allah and Jesus, for Islam regards Jesus as a prophet too, as I understand it, if they could say “no”.

Between Christianity and Islam, they claim a good majority of earths population belongs to many of their factions.  That is wonderful.

Why can’t they follow the basics?

Do you think Jesus as portrayed in scripture would have sent suicide bombers into the world?

Do you think Jesus would have dropped Little Boy and Fat Boy on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Do you think Jesus would help fund the CIA, or weapons of mass destruction?

Do you think Jesus would stone a girl for smiling at a man who was not chosen for her?

I don’t think so.  Not from what I have read.  He appears to have been a pretty cool guy.  He healed people.  Turned the other cheek.  Even put back an ear after one of his guards chopped it off the person who was trying to arrest Jesus.

Doesn’t sound like a suicide bomber or a nuke trigger man does he?

With four billion followers, you would assume if they all said “no”, we cannot have this, it is against our faith or the core of our being, we will no longer pay for this, and stop payment for these things, what would happen?

No one knows because they haven’t got the courage to try to do the right thing.  What are they going to do, throw four billion people in jail or kill them? 

I remember watching the stand off at Waco, Texas years ago until Janet Reno and Bill Clinton said, “enough is enough, let’s roll”.

The inferno engulfed the complex and the charred remains of men, women and many children were left for the world to see, although they did their best to cover it up so people wouldn’t have to live with a guilt complex.

I’m thinking to myself.

Yeah, need to have vengeance, eh Bill and Janet?  Caved in to the demands of the righteous.

With all the money and time available, they couldn’t have waited?   Or pulled back till the people under siege were forced to forage for food and collected them one by one?

Would have taken too long, eh?

No, this stand off was making the mighty war machine look ridiculous in their minds.

This mighty war machine would have gained much more respect if it had some consideration for the children, American citizens who deserved a break today, not a death sentence.

You have to wonder about the motivation for the actions people do.

This is one of the big commandments Moses claimed that God wrote on a couple of stone tables, after being on a mountain for forty days and nights.

Apparently this is one of those commandments to be taken seriously, as people have a grading system.  Lies apparently are not as devastating to God as murder is.

The problem is there seemed to be a few loopholes in this commandment the way humans see it.

It all depends on how one views it doesn’t it?

When I was a child, the commandment said, thou shalt not kill.  Now it says thou shalt not murder.  Convenient how God’s word can change, isn’t it?  Do you think God has trouble making up his or her or its mind?

There are some other aspects to this commandment that are confusing.  Not kill or murder who or what?

There seems to be no qualifier.  There was stuff written afterward by people who tried to interpret this, for they cannot understand the simplicity of literal translation, they have to make a legal game of it.  That insures the service industry of pastoral and priestly servitude keeps on raking in the dough for interpretation purposes.

What if it means what it says?

Thou shalt not kill.  That’s it.  Not kill.  Anything or anybody.

There will be a lot people in trouble with God on this world if this is true, wouldn’t there?

I know I am guilty.

All those people, Christians, Muslims, Jews and other faiths who claim that this story of Moses is the back bone of their faith have trouble with this and encourage the continued justification of kill or murder.

Pulling the trigger, or financing the weaponry for someone else to use, is no different.

Kind of makes believers who pay taxes to wage unjustified war hypocrites, doesn’t it?

We kill them for food, kill them for being a nuisance, make pets out of them or pen them up so we can stare at them.

Nice of us isn’t it?

There are a few we use to perform work for us, but now we have discovered the internal combustion engine and rubberized wheels, they are no longer of use.

Do we realize what we do by massacring what is?

Time magazine had an interesting article about the millions of tons of tuna we harvest from the ocean each year.  That is akin to tuna genocide isn’t it?  Fisherman have to go further and spend more time to catch the same quantities they used to.

Reminds me of the stories of the millions of buffalo that roamed free on the prairies and were almost brought to extinction by man.

I saw a picture of a carcass of a blue whale, apparently killed having been cut by the propellers of a ship.  The second blue whale killed this way this year.  I don’t know how long it takes a blue whale to grow to seventy or one hundred foot lengths, but do know it is a mammal and must possess some intelligence.

There are only 6.6 billion of us now, wait till the world population hits 9 billion.

Will there be any edible life forms left?

What is wrong with us?  In order for us to survive as a species we have to take a look at what we are doing, otherwise we had better thin out our own ranks for we are the most destructive species on this planet.

This morning I got up and was filling my coffee pot with water.  I felt something on my leg.  Chica was looking at me, as was her way when she needs something.  There were five dogs in the house and they had no water.  She was thirsty and let me know by touching me with her paw and looking at me.  This was not the first time she communicated with me this way.

There are many other species that have intelligence and a society, such as elephants.

We kill elephants for ivory.  I have seen deer and moose killed for antlers or tongue.

We no longer have the luxury of indiscriminately killing because we can.  It is as simple as that.

We are a bunch of bastards at times.