tao1776

I"ve always tried to understand and reason with people who, through stress or bad life situations, exhibited bad manners or behavior. In my doing so, I have allowed people, or at least given them permission to continue. I finally came to a place where I began to question. Why would you say such a thing? Why did you do that? That doesn't seem right to me. Don't you think we should talk about this? Well, this didn't seem to fit the criteria of a good relationship. If I were to reveal step by step a list of things my brother did, and my response, or my sister, my neighbor, my brother in law, etc...I think you would agree, "What assholes". I share responsibility in that I allowed too much piss poor behavior for too long. And my response was sudden. I pulled the plug. We have all gone our separate ways. The night before, my sister in law left a drunken message looking for a call back. Last night, my sister left a message. A month ago my other sister in law left a ...

About a year ago I came to the conclusion that I needed an antidepressant. Duh! So, I saw my Doctor and began to take Celexa. We started low and increased the dosage. It worked pretty well...I didn't like the bizzare dreams that I was having and through some experimentation I found that I did very well at the lowest Mg. Then my company downsized and I lost my job and my insurance. So I weaned myself off very slowly and I don't like the results. I can hardly stand to be my own company. It took many years of soul searching to enable myself to come to a place where I could accept the idea of taking something for my depression. Then, I finally start and I lose it. I've been looking online to see about getting in sent in from Canada to save some $$. Even that's too expensive right now. I've totally forgotten how to have fun. I want to do something radical just so I can feel something. I'm angry enought to start a fight. Well, what can I say. We are of the nature to g...

We sat in the kitchen drinking wine. As the night was warm and the peepers were out in chorus it seemed a good time to smoke my pipe. Sitting on my porch I remembered how the busy road was once nothing more than a bumpy cart road made of oiled sand and frost heaves. The most eventful stop of 35 years ago was an old gas station called Gert and Al's. I grew up in a small town next to where I now live. It is hard to believe that in middle class white boy america of 1970 the town had to impose a curfew for those under 18 set for ten o'clock. It was a fun time as we eluded the police and ran throughout the night as our unsuspecting parents slept in their unlocked suburban homes. One night, Perry took his grandmother's car from a nearby small city to see what the local yokels were doing. He turned down to see if we were at the local campground that had an even earlier curfew set at eight o'clock. He met the police cruiser on his way out and they followed in hot pursuit. Now,...

-The power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.... The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles for theirs is the same religion as ours.... Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Black Elk - Sioux Holy Man Walking the Circle By T. W. Black A man is born gentle and weak. At his death he is hard and stiff. Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At their death they are withered and dry. Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life. Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle. A tree that is unbending is easily broken. The hard and strong will fall. The soft and weak will overcome. Tao Te Chi...

We part at the crossroads,You leave with your joys and problems, I with mine. Alone, I look down the road.Each one must walk one’s own path.People’s paths come together all too briefly when sharing friendship, but that makes those times no less valuable. We must take advantage of support and sharing in a mutually beneficial way. Whenever we take from another, we should try to give back something. This is fundamental. No one should lean on anther person, or expect another to carry them a long distance down the road. Friends should walk side by side for as long as their journey cries them, without becoming dependent on one another.There should be no obligation. If I can help someone do something, then I should do so without any hesitation or expectation of reward or debt. If there is something that I need to learn and my companion can show it to me, then I should accept it in humility. No one “owns” knowledge. It should be freely shared.Parting is inherent in all meeting. Nothing lasts ...

TBS or TNT or some such station has recently been showing the movie "ALI" with Wil Smith. It appears to be fairly well done but one line spoken by Ali's wife has stuck with me. In referring to Don King she stated, "He talks black, he lives white, and he thinks green." You can see how well he has done regardless of the success or failure of those he was said to represent. Remind you of anyone? Don King has never had to run for office because he has the science worked out perfectly. Regardless of the success or failure of the American economy, our representatives in elected office will continue to spin themselves golden parachutes and forever float through any crisis. It doesn't matter how you label it. It all stinks! It is all designed for their success regardless of the people's outcome. Compassionate conservative? Think that one through. Faith based? Put that under the microscope! And the mess in Iraq? Don't let that disturb you. It's nothing ne...

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being seperated from them. My actions are the only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequenses of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Chapter One Two quarters, a few pennies and a dime sat beneath three inches of urine in the bus station urinal. Afraid to flush and risk losing them, Nigel leaned over and stared into the grin of the broken porcelain grate and despised himself for wanting to cry. Anger seemed a more reasonable emotion. It kept you strong when feeling weak. It kept you warm when shitty nights like this threatened to freeze you to death. It gave you the ability to overpower a bad day. It’s not like reaching through urine in a public toilet for sixty three cents was a bad thing! Walking down Main Street in this city was unlike the many other cities Nigel had spent time in. You could walk from the Veteran’s Statue to the end of Main Street in eleven minutes. The city was like a pimple on an otherwise unblemished face. It just sprung up out of nowhere. There were multi storied buildings with businesses and law offices, clothing, food, and tobacco shops with a City Hall wedged in. Looked like downtown Manhat...

Based on the wisdom of the Buddha we learn that our experience of today is based upon the decisions that we made yesterday....the future is based upon the decisions that we make today.....The unexplained is always chaulked up to "karma". Makes for a nice package, doesn't it? I had four kids. I believed with all my heart that they would never feel the sense of abandonment that I felt. They would all feel secure, self assured. I don't take the blame, perhaps some responsibility, for their troubles; but, as I've posted before, the gene pool puts them at a major disadvantage. I was born anxious. A very well hidden secret. My earliest memories are filled with anxiety. I remember my best friend at age five getting hit by a car. I remember a family that would often come by to have weekly fist fights. I remember having some grunts stop us as they pee'd in my new baseball hat. All before I was six years old. But, I was anxious long before that. Later, as a macho, long...

I took a walk down the old unused railway. A river runs on the right while woods cascade up into a hillside along the left.  

I thought it interesting to find this placard fastened to a tree. My Grandfather logged throughout the Mount Grace area and they lived at it's base until a fire destroyed the farm around 1938. 

One week from today, I'll be on the road again. 

For one moment, on one day, I stopped to watch the sun's reflection. In a moment, there were colors to be seen in the X of the sun's rays. There were ripples to be seen in the water's current. It was a moment, the same as any other. The difference being, I stopped; I observed. Tempus neminem manet. Time waits for no one. We MUST stop to smell the roses or one day you'll realize that you missed it all 

Morbi perniciores pluresque animi quam corporis - the diseases of the mind are more destructive than those of the body 

When I was employed as the manager of a small company, I would often be confronted by some stressful issue that would mull itself over and over in my head. I was aware of the thoughts spinning round my head and as I was meditating regularly, I viewed them rather objectively. As I was writing or entering some information into the computer I would blurt out a string of profanity followed by laughter due to my surprise; to "Where did that come from?" This short vent somehow discharged my stress and the thoughts that were buzzing round my head like flies. That's kind of how I felt when I recently read my last post. Depressed? Hell, Yeah! but, wow! Where did that come from????? Not spending enough time on the cushion.

I am so God-damned depressed. Sure, there are some circumstances that if changed, would aid in elevating my mood. Truth is...it's genetic. So much so that my wife and I have felt some remorse over making the decision to have four kids due to the piss poor genetic background on both sides of the family tree. I have fought it for 50 years. I have used or tried to settle into the usual aides; Drugs, alcohol, religion....then I found a real handle on things through Taoism, Buddhism and meditation. However, it is there. It is bad. I know it is bad when I am inclined to withdraw from social contacts, things I used to enjoy, and a desire to cry lingering just below the surface. I tried some anti depressants for six months and I didn't like how it made me have very bizzare dreams. Now I am unemployed and have no insurance....so any meds are out of the question. I have been trying St Johns Wort for about six weeks....to no avail. But.....it's time to grow silent. I'm laying low....

In the mid-seventies, I drove for an evangelist preacher and my inner circle observations are both sad and funny. If you read the story and would like for me to continue, let me know...

Somewhere near 1935, a stubborn and somewhat fearless girl of eighteen was sent from England to live with family in Toronto, Canada. Her hair pulled back into a bun and her chin lifted high, she showed an indomitable spirit. Upon arriving in Canada, her view of the world changed little and she married a preacher twenty years her senior. She traveled about Canada with him living literally hand to mouth bringing the word of God to any that would have them. It was a very difficult life and somehow they continued on without waver. They endured cabin fever winters in Saskatchewan and the upper reaches of Canada until their travels brought them to British Columbia some twenty five years after their marriage began. By this time they had two children and it was necessary to find a suitable place to settle down. Her husband began to co-pastor a church in the area and life began to resemble that of other tradesmen only their trade dealt with the things of God and not of men and labor. In time, h...

Books! A great invention.... 

Teaching them to appreciate reading at an early age is important. I read to my kids all the time when they were this age. 

The American experiment / democracy and capitalism is a moving pendulum that will one day stop. Nothing lasts forever. Growth eventually leads to decay. It is the way of nature, the way of the world. When it will stop is anybody's guess.  I was reminded the other day of the Management Style adopted by corporate America in the 1980s that was called, "In Search of Excellence". IBM, Disney, the Boston Celtics, were held as examples of companies that did very well in making a profit and keeping their employees happy, motivated, and loyal. It was based on the idea that if you invest in your employees and remember that the greatest is no more important that the least, the return will pay high dividends with the employees themselves investing in their job and the company. Everybody wins! Now, where did this experiment fail? Not on the employees end. I'll tell you that. Companies that once were the basis for this management style no longer hold to it. Cut throat corporate g...

Oh my Ghia!!!!!! 

.....In and around the lake. Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there 

Weird shit. - Being fifty, I mean. I know, those above fifty years old will shake their heads at me and those younger will think I'm a crotchedly old man. It's good that I look younger than the stereotypical Five O....at least that's what I am often told. I have experienced many health issues over the past twenty five years. It has been a blessing in disguise as it led me towards alternative health, which led me to accupuncture and then to Taoism. It has introduced me to the Buddhist community. But sometimes, people! To think that I will never again date a girl under twenty five! (yes, I'm happily married) To think that I can't walk into a crowd of loudmouths, find the biggest one and shut him up....(the best form of crowd control!) To think that I have to watch everything I put in my mouth because I'm getting fatter by the day! To think that in another thirty years I'll probably be dead. Kinda pissess me off, ya know?