Ten reasons why I Google Blog

a day in the life

Unemployed due to company downsizing, writing a book, planning to get back into shape starting tomorrow. I have been drinking too much since the permanant lay off on January 7th, and the morning meditation has become almost non existant.
A web associate stated that this time has been selected as the "reinvention of Tao". I hope to use this space to vent, speak of my sucess, hear from some of you comments and perspectives that will allow a deeper personal insight into what it means to be a human being.

This was my first post to Google Blogger - February 14, 2005. Much has happened since then. My book, a labor of love and solace, as well as being the source of my "going Hemingway" for a season, was lost due to my faulty backing up practices. A lengthy novel lost forever and no strength to repeat the story. What tale to be told is next? 
 My marriage has come to an end. Enough said.
 I'm working now, but at 60% less the pay of what I earned when in my previous position - and I don't feel special. I see the readjustment of the American workforce coming into the store all the time. Working retail, I hear my story being told over and over again. I soon realized that this is no longer my story, but our story. My story retold about being down-sized, laid off, fired, outsourced or excused and finding only menial service and/or retail positions readily available for a fraction of an earlier wage. It's discouraging.
And the Blogger community that I once traveled with has all but disappeared.  Ghost 91, Desultory Butterfly, Alix, capegirl, transience, Rowan, De.vile, Loralee Choate, hear no evil, buddhamonkeydevil, James, Mystic Wing....and many, many more. Yet I continue to write.  
In the spirit of yearly traditions - of top tens and countdowns, I decided to list the top ten reasons for my continued blogging - 


10) Like a smoldering coal buried deep within the ashes of a forgotten fire, I have a hidden  punch you in the face, snap like a mouse trap reaction buried deep inside my being. Since one cannot possibly go around punching people in the face I use Google Blogger to help vent my frustrations and to let off a little steam. It works!


9) I enjoy writing. Google Blogger is like a good stretching routine. I have no need to be at my writer's polished best and it keeps me flexible while I prepare for my next book adventure where possibly I will have a editor at my disposal.


8) "Clearly it's a process".  Google Blogger allows me a venue wherein I can try and unwind the mysteries of life. Like a therapist at my finger tips, blogging helps me reflect and untangle the knots that would tie me up and seek to steal my bliss. Like the "little foxes that spoil the vine" journaling assists in employing a little bit of a one man psychology aimed at creating self understanding and empathy. 


7) Blogging can help to find friends and associates of like mind, interest and passion. A great big world may be found on Google Blogger.. 


6) I like Sharing a wee bit of what I have learned from my travels through Christian World, from my traversing the hidden hills of the Tao, and from listening to the teachers of Buddhism. As my bio states, I have known monks and musicians, preachers and physician, the religious, agnostic and atheist; they have all come as teachers and to all of them, I bow in gratitude.


5) To introduce to those who have not yet read his works, I like to quote and reference time and time again Alan Watts. Every field has had its blazing pioneers and its masters. Alan Watts has thoroughly guided the Way of Zen and Taoism and Buddhism into the west with the same degree that Bruce Lee brought martial arts to the west.. Their contributions were extraordinary and are often forgotten.


4)  Google Blogger is used by people the world over. I have and continue to have communication with persons I would have never encountered without having this blog.. In South Africa, Copenhagen, Hawaii, India, and across the U.S. It's amazing.


3) Google Blogger is better than Wordpress. At least in my experience. I have created a few Wordpress blogs and they may possibly still be in existence (?). I will admit that I have encountered some fanciful Wordpress layouts, but as the driver of a Karmann Ghia and the owner of three pairs of jeans, K.I.S.S.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle is my kind of acronym.


2) I blog to remind myself and others that the meaning of life is just to live. It is so plain and so simple and so obvious.

1) And the No.1 reason why I continue to blog? I thought that it may have something to do with Legacy. In fact, I wrote several paragraphs on the subject. But then I realized that that's all fiction. The past or what we may leave behind through stories about ourselves may have purpose. However, it should never serve as my legacy. 


As Anais Nin once said, "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect".    

A hint of contradiction?


Guilty as charged.

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