Out of 2011

I wrote this a few weeks ago, but in reading it now, it seems pretty accurate. This is a bit of a 'goodbye to 2011' before I contemplate 2012. Oh, lovely, not much humor in it, but possibly some mature wisdom? Experience is often the best teacher, if we pay attention!

Life just is. It's weirder than ever, and you may have noticed. Things are moving faster, kind of like an avalanche building up speed rolling downhill. I rather think I've heard less from others lately simply because they, too, are caught up in the movement. A rundown of topics pertaining to 2011, since we're into December:

Weather. It's wacky. We (Minnesotans) can't complain right now, but if we start freezing hard and don't get any snow cover, folks will be hurting. We also just had the driest autumn on record. However, winds blew through the west, drought and fires in the south, tornadoes rampant in the east, flooding in south central and northeast, and a major storm hit the Alaskan coast - I didn't forget the northern relatives. This was after the blizzards and ice storms of the first three months of 2011. The rest of the world had its own share of rocking and wild weather; it wasn't isolated to the U.S. of A.

Politics. It's not getting any better. More posturing going on with world leaders, sometimes I think they want a war. Of course, war is profitable and it is one way to reduce the population of now 7 billion while keeping folks distracted on what the global shadow powers are doing. The Occupiers are taking a stand, but they haven't figured out what the problem is or how to correct it. The irony is that it all stems from one fatal flaw and nothing can be fixed until this is: the debt-based system of borrowing money from the Federal Reserve banks. Think of it like a computer code where there's an error early on, and everything down the line will be screwed up. No matter how you try to correct the output end of things, until this 'original error' is resolved, the results will be scrambled. Trying to correct the end products by shuffling them around won't work. Borrowing our way out of debt is guaranteed to fail on the same principle.

Jobs. More flawed thinking, in that we don't need to 'create jobs'. Jobs should develop from the needs of society and be beneficial to it, not created to keep folks busy most of their lives. There is plenty of work to be done, but we don't need to create anything - we just have to realize what we're doing and the way we're divvying up the labor. If I had a say in it, we'd get rid of most of the paper-pushing jobs - insurance claims, medical billing, stock brokers, and so on that stem from the above monetary dynamic. These folks could join the other workers getting something sustainable done, and there is a lot of work we need doing. If we can run society smoothly with everyone working 20 hour weeks, then it'd be wiser to do so rather than 'creating jobs' for no good reason but to keep folks busy.

I will expand on that. If we're not ready for my extreme thinking on 'jobs', then I feel it'd be best to create jobs that do the least harm. Creating a manufacturing plant that takes more fuel and natural resources to produce more stuff no one needs or building in planned obsolescence to keep expanding is foolish. It's harming the planet and future generations just to give people paychecks. We should be honest about what we're doing and generate the least amount of harm in pursuit of job creation. Ergo, if we must 'create jobs' then I feel it'd be less harmful to have some folks dig holes and others fill them in. It's a self-sustaining system that will always keep them busy the required 40 hours, and someone can be in charge of counting shovels. My idea is no more bizarre than 'creating' a factory for one-time use CD's that are then disposed of in landfills; my suggestion is greener in every area and better for society overall.

Weather, politics, jobs, Occupiers. I won't start on pharmaceutical companies; profit, greed and corruption rule the world at this time, it's no surprise. That we don't even recognize it for what it is... First commercial, 'Pill X' for everything was followed by a second commercial on a class action lawsuit on 'Bad Pill'. Back-to-back within minutes, a display of what's running the country is presented and we're so desensitized to it, we don't even see it: "There's Money to be Made." Deja vu, we're at the original irony that our money is made by 'borrowing it into existence' - trying to keep up with the interest payments drives the economy and is killing us as long as we collectively buy into the system.

Personal lives. Life is nothing but change from the day we're born. Stability is in Spirit, the Higher Power within each of us. It's the only thing that'll get us through the muck of life and the consequences of living. I'm not saying there won't be hollering and tears and grief and pain - actually, I'm saying there will be. I'm saying the only thing that will see us through to the other side of it is gifted within each of us at birth. We just gotta find it. It's that bit that always loves and wants you, no matter how badly you screwed up or others screwed it up for you. It's being right between you and your god, however you define it. Definitions don't change things, just our perception of them; it's the same sky, whether we call it blue or azul or maple. Spirit's like that, and though I am quite nonreligious, I figured this out with Nature as one of my main teachers.

It's the only thing that will get us honestly through the muck, be with us every step of the way if we wish to acknowledge it or not, hang onto us because we're worthy, and never judges. Spirit doesn't need to judge us; we'll do that quite well ourselves and we know when we're out of line. I really have no use for a hell-condemning god; facing ourselves will be a tough enough challenge. (Been there, done that, repeat.) Thing is, we don't figure this out easily either; usually it has to be hammered into our thick skulls. Spirit goes with Power.

Claim your own Power. I'm thinking this is a good idea. Don't give anyone power over you; they can't take it unless you allow it. Okay, yes, I am talking relationships here, but it applies to anything - jobs, houses, pills, alcohol, etcetera. Relationships and our social concept have to be the work of the devil, because we hitch our lives on it even as the fail rate is extreme. Few couples are happily married long-term, and the best to those who have chosen this path together! But the statistics are in favor of failing: dating, broken relationships, divorce. If our cell phone service worked this well, we'd be p.o.'d. Yet we'll suffer another round of the Relationship Game.

Spin back to the first sentence on that paragraph: claim your own power. I don't want power over anyone, nor do I want anyone to have power over me. I'd rather have a lifelong friend than a commitment that has a good chance of failing and ties and insecurities under the guise of 'love'. Yep, I refused such advances recently, and someone may be blaming me for not playing the game right and breaking hearts and giving him reason to drink. Sigh, I'm too emotionally worn out to invest my time and energy on 'making someone happy'. I don't want this power over him and never did, nor will I be held responsible for his current misery. I gotta get along with me, and I won't do the 'all or nothing' with another. I said 'friend' from the beginning, but you know the old song, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." I finally had to hit him straight between the eyes to get him to hear me.

Take Two, Scene Two... Dennis is home, girlfriend told him to leave out of the blue end of October. He's emotionally invested in her, they planned on marrying - heard this story before, haven't you? He hasn't found his own power, and he's letting this jerk him around. Classic pattern, it's too much to deal with so you drink a little or smoke a little, self-medicated emotional avoidance. He's not drinking, which is good. But when you run out of ways to avoid yourself - bam, there you are, waiting to get through the pain. Some folks drink, some throw themselves into work, some pop pills or focus on dieting. It's all fine for the initial shock, but sooner or later you have to go through the muck if you want to come out the other side of it.

It's still going to be there, a sense of loss. Because it is a loss. The changes might be for the best, but there's still memories of shared times and we shouldn't lose these to bitterness. We just can't go back and have another day, we can't capture it and stay in it. We're not supposed to - we're supposed to grow through it. That's when we find what Spirit is and the gift of Higher Power within ourselves. Or we can try to avoid it with drugs and such; it doesn't go away, and it'll be waiting for you to deal with it sooner or later. This is actually what killed my sister, not alcoholism; the drinking started to avoid the amount of pain she perceived in her life, which grew more pain and created a deepening rut of self-misery she couldn't get out of. Oh, and that's why Spirit created others to help us up when we need it, when we're flat in the muck and need a hand. But then we're supposed to dust ourselves off and lend a hand to others as we get on down the road of Life.

Seems to me, that's the way Life Is. Mostly screwed up, and the human potential for this has not yet been realized; eventually it'll be Royally Messed Up and we'll have to collectively admit we're idiots. (Read this post again - we're not the brightest stars in the sky, hey?) That's okay, because despite being idiots, we're still loved and wanted and worthy. Just slow learners.


That's my take on 2011. It's been the Year of the Cars for me, and I do have two out of two with problems right now. I made the mistake of telling my friend 'he was a friend' before the car was repaired, which proves I have lousy timing but great integrity. Yay. And how far does integrity get anyone...? Hmm, JFK and Jesus came rapidly to mind, and we saw how that turned out! Total irony, in that they both messed with the money system. Still, integrity is honoring your own inner power and acting accordingly as you grow through life. The angels delight when we get it right, and know being human is no easy task. Now if they'd just lend a mechanical hand...

Going into 2012, and my best advice is 'Claim your own Power'. If you let anyone or anything knock you down, it's your own choice - but you don't have to. A friend going through diabetes has the choice to let it rule his life or disempower it, a bad relationship can rock your life if you allow it. We're all going to struggle through critical events in our lives, some are brutal. Some take a longer time to sort out and send us reeling. Hang on then to your own Power and accept the help the Universe provides. It could be in the form of a person or a dog or a sunset, just that boost to carry on another day. Sometimes it seems we're alone with it, but Spirit's with us and little gifts are offered. Sometimes we have to holler and wail and cuss to get the hurting out, and that's okay, too. Hollering 'dumps the junk' so we can rediscover who we really are, inside.

When it's all said and done, what do we really have left but ourselves? It's the only person you have to sleep with every night, everything else is temporary and prone to change. Headaches and heartaches, it's part of being Human. We learn the most through the hard lessons, and that's when we find ourselves. I was pondering the "moms of yesterday" where we were taught if we made the husband happy and the kids happy, then the house would be happy and we would be happy. Except, of course, no one can make another happy, and they will be as miserable or irritable or crabby or dissatisfied as they choose to be, no matter what you do, and losing yourself in this attempt to jolly them all up is damn near fatal. (Been there, done that.) The drug equivalent we were striving for would be to put them all on valium, live in a valium world of rosy pleasantries.

But I have to be completely honest with myself, and I realize I wouldn't gift this to others even if I could. If I wished everything to be pleasant and smooth and easy for everyone all the time, I'd be denying them the opportunities for personal growth. We've all gone through situations where we say, "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy" yet realize we learned something valuable from the experience that we wouldn't undo. Am I right?

2012 may be like this. A wonderful old tree falls, but within a few years a small shelter of wild roses and hummingbirds exists from the tree's fate. Then should we wish the tree to never fall? Or should we wish for strength and wisdom and the ability to adapt to Change, because Life never stands still for long?

Then may you find 2012 interesting and enlightening, may the rope you're swinging on be long enough to reach the next tree. Yee-ha, it is the time of your life, and the time is Now. Always.