Phiel-Awe-So-Flee
by
Douglas L. Simmons
All Rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published Internationally in electronic format by Global Publishing Bureau Limited, Scotland.
First Global Publishing Bureau Electronic Edition: June 1, 2001
Parts of this work are copyright © 1997 by Douglas L. Simmons
Library of Congress Number: TXu 831-019
All of the work is copyright © 2000 by Douglas L. Simmons.
D.E.L. (Doug Exposure Limit)
The Doug Exposure Limit is an arbitrary maximum, set by each individual reader, and should never be exceeded. Over exposure could result in drastic mental, emotional and spiritual change.
Come on in. Teach and learn...as you wish....
A note concerning: "D.E.L.'s".
This page will soon become toxic. The "r" count is rising and may well exceed the permissible levels of exposure measured on a time weighted average of "62" parts per million over any calculated eight hour period. (Whatever that means; better ask the Loo Loo's in Washington, D.C. who spend your money sitting around making up acronyms of words and meaningless descriptions of events so that you can not understand what the heck it is they are saying.)
The "r" and the number "62" in my web-name have meaning.
They are a constant reminder to myself of a very important rule for living.
There was once a group of people... (It really doesn't matter which group they were, if you have read enough of my web pages, or perhaps even read one of my novels, it is likely that you have figured out on your own of which group I am speaking. Needless to say, they prefer to remain anonymous.) ...there was a group of people who, like most groups, devised a set of rules by which to allow membership within their body.
While at one of their regular meetings, a member called for a review of the rules. Upon reading, it was discovered that the group had a total of 61 rules. All concerning who was qualified for membership in the group.
After reading through the rules, the members found that by the letter of their own bylaw's they had excluded just about every person in society, even themselves, from joining the group.
The group had originally been formed under a charter of openness and: "Welcome to all!" Then (basking in their own personal success and all too soon forgetting the very circumstances which had led them to form the group in the first place) they had, allowed their own pride, arrogance, and self importance to erect barriers against those whom they later decided were unworthy of membership. People much like they themselves had been before joining the group.
Appalled at this turn of events, the group immediately drafted their 62nd and final rule.
Rule 62: "Don't take yourself so damn seriously!"
Begin the journey.
This is the place where you will find all of my lessons learned. Some by observation, some by trips and falls....
The single worst crime one human being can commit against another is: To knowingly leave them wallowing in ignorance. Everything we know in this, the 21st Century is a result of those in the centuries preceding having written down what they knew.
Read: so that you may know.
Write: so that you may tell what you know; that others to come may also know.
The written word is the light that leads us all through the darkness that is ignorance.
-
CLICKABLE INDEX
Heads Shrunk And Mounted
Going Down Smooth
My Shadow
Stuck In Stupid
Imagination
Reality
Jonah
The Beast
Stepping Off
New Patches On Old Karma's
- In The Dark
Through the windows of my eyes,
from the chambers of my heart,
I can sometimes visualize
tiny truths out in the dark.
- Doug L.
May 1, 1994 1:54 P.M.
East Chicago, Indiana
Thoughts, dreams, hopes and fears. Love and hate, joy and gladness.
What is on the page is the writer. In all of its various aspects, he brings his soul to life upon the page.
On my pages are the words.
White Words. Black Words. Blue Words.
White Words.
What is not there.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
There is nothing written on the white part of the page. Printing the white part of the page does not use up ink. Therefore, no information has been imparted to the spaces between the lines.
"Reading between the lines" will accomplish nothing more than to cause what you are reading to say what you want to hear.
The bible, the constitution, history, diplomatic agreements and even what people say to others have all been misinterpreted by those who attempted to "read between the lines".
Look at the page (just as life) and see what is really there; not what you wish was there. "What a fool believes; he sees."
Do not enter this white out. Do not see what you believe; believe what you see.
Black Words.
What is written. What is on the page. What is there.
Nothing comes without cost and effort.
The writer must first live and learn, think and know, compose and write, in order to tell the tale.
The reader must first, attend and read, listen and know, in order to learn and live.
Follow the words.
Read what is on the page.
Blue Words
The blue words tell you where to go.
They speak of love and of sadness. From knowing the sadness, you may come to an awareness of love. From learning to love, you may grow into taking away the sadness.
Read the pages.
At first you may not see the blue words. If you do not see the blue words, consider that the black words speak to you of self pity and of despair. Self pity can only bring you to despair. Despair will eventually lead you into darkness.
Read what is on the page. Look inside yourself. Find the questions inside.
Look outside of your own arrogance, false pride, loneliness and self pity. Find the answers. Learn to love.
Follow the words.
Teach and learn....
....as you wish.
-
--Doug L.
- Bull Frog History
that you are wrung,
like a Bull Frog sprung in flight,
caught up in the fight?
And Bull Frogs can not flee,
can not survive out in the sea,
amid the mystery of those who wait
to swallow up all of Bull Frog History?
- Doug L.
February 27 1974
My Card:
I have (over the years) presented my card to a variety of people. Some simply kept the card and I never heard from them again.
Some returned the card in a hurry, as if it had burned their fingers.
A few chose to call.
All responded as I had hoped they would when I penned the card; they smiled, and questioned....
What follows is taken from the journey I have shared with those people. Perhaps, a smile, some answers to the questions, a blue word or two. Perhaps, more questions....
All of it is an act of words, some long written, some only just now unfolding. Some still folded. Others...crumpled up in a ball and tossed in a corner somewhere for a few years....
So: If anything looks a bit wrinkled, please keep in mind that much of what you see is "New Patches On Old Karma's."
....time for all who have shared,
or might yet share, the journey....
There are few distractions.
I am in a room which contains a fax machine, a television, and a radio (there was a CD player but I gave it to my son). There is a computer, and hundreds of books. The books sit unopened on the shelves which line four walls of the room. One wall is broken by the door which lets me out (on those rare occasions when my wife can persuade me to exit). The television, computer, and radio are unplugged. The fax, sitting atop the four-drawer file cabinet, containing my completed (and in-progress) manuscripts waits patiently for a message from an agent or a publisher.
Perhaps an agent with the good news that she has found a publisher. Perhaps a publisher with the sad news that he does not want to publish, but knows an agent who might have connections with a party who will. Someone who will take the time to send acknowledgment that another has heard rumor of my existence. All any writer really wants.
The room is without windows. I have been in the world. Windows would distract me now. The living calls to me always. I spent the entire past summer riding with my wife upon the motorcycle that is one of the small freedoms our time has granted my soul. Too many years were spent stumbling in the darkness, with drunken and blighted companions for my only solace. I am content (for now) to remain in my isolation and write about that world. To speak a word into that dismal sphere and let there be (if not light) at least a sound.
Were I in it still; I would not be writing.
When I am able to continue the telling, I use a notebook word processor, which is connected to an ink jet printer that (really) can spit out pages of typewritten text about a million times faster than I can put them into the word processor. This word processor is the perfect piece of equipment for a writer to own. Unlike the computer--but very much like my room--it has no windows.
Windows distract me.
It has a lighted liquid crystal display that illuminates the text in a delightful soft purple color; similar to the ink once used in those old mimeograph machines we had before Xerox came along and made it all so easy. When there are no words on the screen, it has an amazing resemblance to that pristine medium writers love so well; or despise as the most vile of all evils--depending upon the balance at the moment between the joy of witnessing new visions appearing in the form of words before their very amazed eyes, and the horrible bondage of one who's brain is wrapped tightly within the cage comprised of his own thoughts which, no matter the degree of desire, will not form themselves into coherent lines of meaning that will eventually lead in a defined direction and tell another tale--a sheet of blank white paper....
For most of my life I wanted to write science fiction; I sat at my old electric Underwood and filled page after page of 24lb. erasable bond with meaningless, uncompleted tales about characters who were, at best, poor imitations of the ones who filled the pages of the books I admired so much. Books which had been written by real writers. At joyous last I know. I can only write what I am. There is no more. That telling is for another.
Having been over the years--along with lesser pursuits--employed as soldier, postal worker, carpenter, caterer, photographer, professional musician, and last into the present day, a millwright, without fail, no matter the diverse undertakings of my life, I have been a writer.
It is incredibly easy to get someone's attention with a baseball bat: Pick it up and swing.
Were it only so simple to instill such power within the syllables of a word.
Like many others (I suppose) I have struggled. Struggled and written. Hundreds of thousands of words. Which, added all together and taken as a whole, said nothing or, at best, little of nothing. Until the wondrous day arrived when the words began doing what I knew they must somehow do but (alas) had never done. Springing from my mind and appearing upon the page! Line after line of words! Every one filled with meaning, and content, and power! The magic flowing from my heart and my soul! Pouring forth! Splashing to life upon the screen of my lap top.
Certain that at last my time had arrived, I began submitting these world shaking manuscripts to all the best publishing houses. As I waited for them to return my correspondence with bids for these soon to be classics, I rushed ahead and began writing what was to become my epic work. A great fantasy novel, filled with warriors and kings, magicians and evil wizards.....
Then the rejection slips began to arrive....
This was only one of many occasions when I needed my head shrunk and mounted. When, having fallen once again into a lethargy of depression at not immediately realizing my desires, rated low on my own scale of esteem, I had to inquire inside and find the answer. I had to apply Rule 62. Which is: "Don't take yourself so...seriously."
I spent fifteen years occupied as a professional musician, living with alcohol and drugs as my constant companions. My thoughts were jumbled into a mush of confusion, with only the occasional flash of creativity somehow still managing to escape the darkness of that place despite my own best efforts to deny that within my being resides a view of the world which is at times seen from another perspective than we are wont to place upon our lives, and when these visions are put into words, let to reside on paper for all to see, they sometimes have the power to transfer that sight into the mind of the reader.
Through the years, I have persisted in the vision that somewhere within myself is the ability to touch another human being with a simple act of words. Touch them in such a way they might become (at least for just that little magic time spent within the pages) a part of the journey they shared. Realize the world in another way. Connect with another heart across the darkness, and know they were not alone. Turn the final page believing at least one other has shared their dreams.
This is my desire....
During the 1960's, I was just another little boy. One of the many who grew up with the threat of World Wars and Nuclear destruction hanging above our heads. We clung in desperation to the promise of brighter days to come.
A promise that grew out of the marvels many living at that time had already witnessed unfold upon the world during their own lifetimes. Wonders that the scientists and politicians assured them were only the beginning.
When many of those people had been born, there were no jet planes crossing the skies of their land. No color televisions filled their homes with entertainment twenty four hours a day. The expressways that link the American shores were yet to be built (As a child I witnessed the construction of these marvels myself) Cell phones were just an idea postulated in comic books; as "Dick Tracy" kept in touch with his superiors via his "Wrist Radio". In many places, you still had to call the operator and give her the number in order to make a call.
Many today do not realize that much of what we now take for granted as an every day part of our living existed, just a few short decades ago, only in the dreams of Science Fiction Writers, and the little boys and girls who read those books of wonder.
Those same boys and girls who later grew up and made those dreams come true....
-
Richard
All of your fortresses
are fading away fast,
truly, how long did
you expect them to last?
What will you do when
the walls are all down,
and you face your demons
alone on the ground?
This is not to grieve you,
or try to deceive you,
or sell away all of
your thoughts to my sadness,
but only to warn you.
I dare not do less.
I have spoken to the wizard
who rides the grey lizard,
these are the futures
in his crystal ball.
Though they haven't yet been,
and you have not seen,
take heed and believe them
for you can not leave them
I know they are true.
Numberless dead men,
and the one who has led them
sits alone crying,
left on his own trying
so hard not to fall.
And you who have given
this legacy of dying
to those who were living,
sit in all of your power,
in your darkest hour
alone on your wall.
Did you make these visions,
or did they just come?
And if you can face them
how will you replace them
now that they are done?
-
Doug L.
25 October 1973
Mainz, Germany
When we were not guarding the shores of foreign lands (lands that, for the most part, did not want to be guarded) defending the innocents of other nations (who did not want to be defended) and facing off against an enemy (who did not want to fight any more than we did), the young men who comprised the 2nd Battalion of the 509th "Air Born" Infantry spent our free time listening to rock and roll music, drinking beer, smoking hash, and living on speed. Plotting in which direction we would steer the world, when we finally got our hands on the wheel.
Those were the wonderful times of youth. I don't mean the alcohol and drugs; those things were simply a part of the times we lived in. They were there and with no one, other than ourselves, to guide us through those days, we succumbed to the temptation.
We thought these things opened our minds and let us see a better world than our predecessors had been able to envision.
Most of us survived those times. Some did not....
-
For Freedom
My brother is in the Army.
He flew off across the sea.
My mother says he's fighting
to keep our country free.
I know better
but I won't tell her;
she could never understand
the needle in his hand.
And he's fighting hard for freedom.
His friends die all around him.
And he's fighting hard to make it home,
but it's looking kind of slim.
-
Doug L.
July 6, 1973
Mainz, Germany
In secluded rooms and dim lit clubs, we dreamed a better dream. Imagined a better world. And promised ourselves to make it all come true....
-
Going Down Smooth
Well friend we were together.
Every now and then
I remember when
we thought how that could never end.
Now I wonder whether
you have drifted too far.
Now I wonder if you are....
I hate to think of you
going down smooth.
We watched the peoples
voices fall,
and be swept unheeded
up against the wall.
And standing there
too straight, or tall, or something,
Yea we were
just about all lost, or young then.
Now I wonder where you've gone.
Oh I thought you were the one.
Well I hate to see it done.
But I guess that you are gone,
or going down smooth.
-
Doug L.
April 14, 1974
Mainz, Germany
....time to cast a shadow...
...time to stand out in the sun....
It seems as if it all begins here, at this moment, and in this place. And. Indeed, the rest of my life surely does commence there, and flow from this beginning to whatever time is yet to come. Yet, actually, the true beginning was much different.
It was May the fourteenth, nineteen-ninety-three. I finally came in fear and confusion to the beach, sitting under a tree with the wind blowing on my back, listening to the sound of the steel mills running in the distance. I sought a peace that would not come. Wanting to start my life over, knowing that I couldn't. I could only start it from that point and place in time and space. I found myself feeling much the same as I had many years ago when at the age of seventeen I set off to discover the world. I did not know then that I was alone and frightened, I only knew that the adventure waited.
How terribly disappointed I became years later when I realized I had let it all slip away from me, and then fled into drunkenness to escape that awful reality.
Now I am torn between desires, and time seems to rush at me like an oncoming train, wanting to run me down. There are again two lives laid our before me, two roads to travel, and I do not know which to take. One is putting the old life behind and seeking a new, and the other is trying to live on in the old, while not being sure it is what I really wanted or what just happened to me in the confusion as I trudged through the daily routine of living; which seems to consume the lives of us all as we become adults and forget the joy of touching the beauty around us. Or, even more importantly, being willing to let that beauty reach out and touch the ugly creature we have become.
Letting it touch us; without fear it may make us seem to be less than we are, or might just compel us to become more than we have been. That we might, by accepting the presence of such beauty, be made beautiful ourselves. That, by proximity, that beauty might enter our thoughts, our feelings, and our words. That we might be commanded by beauty to act in kind.
Thinking we don't deserve such beauty in our lives , we settle for less and so become less than the dreams we had so long ago. The dreams which should have become the reality but were pushed aside in favor of security, and safety, and comfort.
Living in a world of broken dreams and promises. Dwelling amid the ruin of unfulfilled expectations. Surrounded by the lie we convince ourselves we are, we cut our souls on the thorns of reality while trying to clutch the illusion of the flower; which is only a word.
A description of the truth.
A telling of the growth which came before.
I continue this journey, aware now that I am on the journey. This one simple change in my condition has improved my outlook, and behavior, my expectations and desires.
My motive, and my hope.
Having lived much of my life with despair for a companion, fear as a motivation, and not much anticipation of change, I spent some terribly depressing times, and out of these times came some dreadful imaginings. They are included here. Nonetheless, they are not a part of this time now; they were a part of me then.
There is always a separation between the man and the reality. There was a time when I was my own separation from the truth. As do so many, I only saw what I believed and never believed much of what was truly there for me to see. When I did at last come to believe, I thought I was too old to act, or so old all that was left for me was acting. Nothing true to give.
Perhaps I was mistaken.
There is nothing selfish about loving yourself. Someone who says: "This is about me and I have to take care of me first," is not truly loving themselves. You have to be able to give of yourself to have value. Something hoarded to oneself is of no value. Value is demonstrated when something changes hands. If gold or gems were all owned by one individual, and never shared with the world, they would have no value whatsoever. To all intent and purpose they would not exist in the world at large, but only in the private confines of the vault of that owner. The same applies to an individual: If you do not share yourself with others you have no value to the world and can not have any true value to yourself. For, assuredly, no man is an island and you can not live in and of yourself forever. You need interaction with others to be alive, to truly function as a productive human being in society.
While not sharing myself outwardly much of the time, I did write, and write, and write; about myself, of course, and what was said was, for the most part, worthless to others. Occasionally, however, I could write about their effect on me, or my influence upon them. Then I felt a success in my striving. To touch another with an act of words....
I hope to write now about loves, desires, and dreams. Lost ones and found ones too. Not to say too much about the exact circumstances that led to the writing of this text, rather, more to present the thoughts, emotions, and interpretations of those circumstances I myself had at that time which, upon further reflection, have allowed me to write these words today.
A song, a poem, indeed, an entire book, should stand of, and speak for itself; as should a life, without any explanation whatsoever from the author. I seek only to explain the author here. Not the work.
I have had good intentions all of my life. No. I can't claim that; for in truth, there have been times when my intentions weren't so very good at all, and I have authored damaging effect on the lives of others. For which, I will atone I suppose or, at the least, seek forgiveness. But, for the most part, I did have good intentions. The world and the people around me, however, did not judge me by my intentions. They judged me by my actions, which were often far removed from the original intent.
I don't know what you remember of early childhood, only you know this, and the events as you recollect them may be very dissimilar from the ones others recall. Memory is like that and, in addition, often becomes colored and overlaid by recollections of later happenings. The two become confused and might then be recalled as the same event, or people from one occurrence may be remembered as having been the participants of another.
I don't rely over much on the truth of my memories of those days to guide my actions. I know today that, possibly, much of what I recall of these events has been adulterated by others versions of what happened, and by the impact these disclosures might have had on a young child. I do try to recognize the effects these times had on my growth and on my behavior then, and even now. I would like you to know, I was a terribly lonely, confused and frightened child. I carried these feelings well into adulthood with me and they directed much of my behavior, without any true awareness on my part, for many years. I felt guilt for things I had not done, and could not possibly bear responsibility for. I felt remorse for actions taken by others which had devastated the lives of an entire family. I felt anger and rage that I had been denied the life I seemingly saw others all around me living. I was afraid and confused.
And that was a secret I had to learn.
Anger and Rage. Are irrational expressions of Fear and Confusion. In my life, this is a truth.
Picture a place, thousands of years ago perhaps, in some jungle we don't even know, or which no longer exists in our world today, where this irrational behavior did have purpose.
Imagine:
A hunter walks the jungle stalking game with which to feed his family. Suddenly he is accosted by a lion. With only his small spear for a weapon, he can't possibly defend himself against such a beast. So he runs (fear). He dodges through the trees, jumps over fallen logs, skirts hidden mud holes, hopeful that, if he can just last long enough, the lion will tire and go in search of an easier quarry. But, as he flees, he becomes lost and runs in the wrong direction. He suddenly darts out of the timber and into a clearing, only to be faced with a sheer wall of impassable cliff, and is at the end of his resources. He doesn't know what to do (confusion).
Overwhelmed by this colossal load of fear and confusion, aware that not only he but his family as well will die, for they can not survive without him, faced with the impossible, driven by this tremendous responsibility to life, he becomes irrational. The fear and confusion transform into emotions that under all normal conditions are not conducive to survival. Anger, and then: Rage. In this irrational state he seizes a rock fallen from the cliff side, leaps upon the lion and with one mighty blow to the head kills the beast instantly.
Thus from this event, or one much like it, emotions and behaviors which are, in any conceivably accustomed circumstances, contra survival become instilled in our makeup as useful tools in a primitive world.
These things are still with us today. I contend this is so because: now, just as then, once in a great while, they are survival traits, ones which under everyday conditions would not be called upon, and in the society we live in (our everyday conditions) seldom truly are.
The primitive within, however, does not know this.
That same primitive, virtually unchanged from the world he was designed to inhabit, resides today amidst sky scrapers, jet planes, rockets to the moon, the world wide web, wars he can't comprehend the causes of, bills he doesn't earn enough to pay, things he's pressured to buy which he doesn't have a use for, but buys anyway because everyone else has them; children he doesn't understand and can't control....
He becomes, and much of the time remains, afraid and confused.
Any animal--including humans--can endure fear and confusion for only so long. After a time, when nothing he does seems to be providing a solution to the pressures of life, he's exhausted all of his resources, or conclusively believes this to be so, when these conditions manifest themselves, no matter how gentle his nature, he becomes angry and begins to act out of rage.
This in circumstances where that is absolutely not going to be accepted as rational behavior, and the "catch-22" is that the less this behavior is accepted the worse it will eventually become, unless he finds within--or without--himself an understanding of the true underlying cause of his unrest. Left unaltered, this state will eventually end in self destruction of one form or another.
A good friend of mine, named Jack, told me: "Doug. The only thing you have to share with anyone is your experience. Anything else you tried to give would be a lie."
He said, "You don't have any wisdom and you don't have any knowledge. You don't have any special talents that weren't given to you by God."
I try to keep that in mind. I ask each day that I can be useful to God and the people around me. Many days which came before, I did a lot of not being useful at all....
From events early in my life developed a youth who was, in essence, totally unprepared, and essentially unable to cope with living in today's world. Nonetheless, as do many today, he set about making a way through that world with the tools he had, unaware of the inadequacy of those tools.
No, or incomplete, social skills.
Scant training in the management of money or resources.
No awareness of the sometimes inherent cruelty and indifference of many.
Little comprehension of the behavior of others when all about him seemed to fit in and belong, while much of what he did was laughed at, or made fun of, and derided as an unsuitable way to be.
Assailed by unfounded and ungrounded fears, possibly instilled by these experiences, and the proceedings of earlier childhood (although this is not true: there were carefree days when I was young, it seems now that I was born with these terrors). This youth had no choice but to be overwhelmed by these fears; or deny them. Denial is a wrong road to travel no matter whom the individual or group, and no matter the nature of the journey.
I had another friend, who told me one day: "Doug. 'De-Nial' is not a river in Egypt."
Another time I caught up to him in the basement of a church, where some of us would meet for coffee on Tuesday nights. Having pondered what he had said to me, I had a ready reply. Beaming a smile of satisfaction at the thought of my own cleverness, I said, "Stan. If you want to find the source of 'De-Nial' you can't look in the desert. You must journey into the heart of the jungle."
We spent much of our combined energy during those times finding and inventing these little quips to toss at each other, and had great fun at it, I might add. However, there was at the crux of this little game between us a fatal earnestness, a seeking not only for a method of survival but, in truth, a reason. This man and I have drifted apart of late and at times I miss his presence in my life. He is--in truth--a seeker of reason, and helped me through a time of stepping off by explaining the wrong man to me. I will likely talk of these events with you as I continue this journey....
Please come again. This site is under construction, and like the shadow of the truth we sometimes are, shifts about, definition dependent upon the angle of the sun....
....time to wallow in the mire...
....time to live or to expire....
Many of the things I hear people say stick with me. I believe, to most people, the quick little phrases they often toss about are just simple word games, which are taken for a laugh and then quickly forgotten. Not so with me; they stick with me.
I was watching a television show a while back and one of the actors commented that this other fellow was stuck on stupid. That was me at one time, things stick to me, and once I got stupid I became stuck in it.
A person, or a society can get stuck in stupid very easily.
Stupidity and ignorance are very dissimilar conditions. If you are aware of your own ignorance, and are willing to learn, one can be educated out of that ignorance. However, if you are stupid, you are stuck that way. You can not educate yourself out of stupidity, the very nature of the condition disallows an awareness of itself. Only a force outside yourself and the realm of your own experience and resources, accompanied by a willingness on your part to be helped, even when, or especially when all hope is gone and every action only seems to bring on more, and more tragedy and despair, can bring change to this state.
There are numerous examples of this which could be shown as evidence of the validity of such a postulate: For some years of my life I was like the person with a favorite CD, which had a skip in it. He would begin to play the recording and the song would capture him and take him from the cares and troubles of this world and he would imagine it could continue this way forever. Auditory bliss would set in, and then the laser would find the skip and the song would be stuck there. He would dutifully start the track over at the beginning of the song, only to repeat the experience over and over. He became stuck in this routine, unable to get beyond the fateful skip and enjoy the rest of the song.
He might well continue on in this fashion for the rest of his life, completely enraptured by this song he enjoyed so much and absolutely frustrated by the horrible defect on the recording, which destroyed whatever beauty the song originally possessed, if someone did not point out to him that the song he was attempting to listen to was hopelessly beyond salvation, perhaps he should note that the rest of the album had never been played and if he would just go on to the next track and listen from there he would find a dozen more songs he had never heard. Probably just as enjoyable as the first; if not more so....
I came into society with, in addition to whatever skills I was able to decipher of my own intellect, only the tools of survival and function which had been given me by my parents and others who helped to raise me.
Our society is constructed to take care of the individual and allow minimum effort and initiative to be exerted in order for that individual to function within itself. For the most part our personal skills are sufficient to the task of coexisting among others of our kind. When we encounter persons or environments which we are not competent to deal with, we avoid them. We tell ourselves we didn't like those people anyway, or we didn't like the place we found ourselves in. But when these are people, or places, which are popular with the mass of our community structure, or when we are pressured to be there, or around these persons, such as at school or on our job, or even when these circumstances are the result of being part of the circle of activities of people we do know and get along with, we find ourselves repeatedly forced to grapple with situations we are inadequately outfitted to handle.
Once again we are confronted with fear: Of not being accepted, of not conforming, of looking foolish, of feeling foolish. Fear of actually being all of these things.
So, in the midst of this caldron of self esteem destroying emotions, we try our best to behave as if we did fit in, knew what to do and how to behave. For most people this kind of occurrence is something to be laughed about and forgotten; because they instinctively know they have limits to their abilities, but also remain aware of their assets and value to themselves and their associates. Not so the poor primitive: To him the fear is the primary directing force of the moment. It signals a threat to his survival, even though it is a threat perceived where no threat exists, to him it is pervasively real because he knows only one emotion at a time, perceiving no future and comprehending only vaguely the past (for he lives entirely in his imagination) there is now, and now is fear, followed by confusion. The confusion comes from the direct conflict between his senses and his imaginings, for his senses of the external tell him clearly, there is no threat. All the while his imaginings cry out to him that he must fight or escape. Clearly there is no escape, for we are compelled to these situations. So, directed by the emotions of the primitive we harbor within ourselves, under such circumstances, we become angry and unconsciously attempt to drive others from us.
Humans have an imagination such as animals do not, at least not imaginings which go beyond what their senses are able to tell them.
We can imagine fears....
For an animal in the wild (as example) life is greatly governed by instinct and controlled by reaction to events. Very little is directed by conscious desire. Instincts tell them what to do, situations tell them when to do it. Intellect and imagination are only there to enhance the effectiveness of instinctual behavior. An animal can not imagine fear, he can be afraid, he can know fear, but only when his senses and instincts tell him to be afraid. It is probable he can remember fear, or associate with being afraid when confronted by an object or creature which caused fear at some time in the past, even when this cause for fear is not directly or immediately threatening him. This is a response of intellect: to avoid objects which might be dangerous. Still there is no fear response, instinct and emotion do not come into play.
A deer can not imagine a wolf stalking him through the woods and react in fear to something which is not there. He can not ponder danger, only react to it when it is present. We (humans) on the other hand, spend much of our unoccupied time imagining threats and dangers which might assail us.
We imagine danger.
We imagine....
This might not seem like a major difference. It is.
Consider the primitive I mentioned earlier. After his encounter with the lion, not only did he go home alive, he returned with vastly more food than he or his family expected upon his departure. In addition, he was celebrated as a hero and acquired much esteem among his peers.
The danger had passed, this terrible beast had proven no match for an enraged man. Still, long after the banishment of all possible threat, he was able to imagine what might have happened if he had failed in that battle. Even though, he now knew that armed with the proper tools, and sure enough of execution, he could again defeat that same lion, he imagined what might have been, and became afraid:
"What if I had missed?"
"What if I had dropped the rock?"
"What if I had fallen?"
"What if there had been another lion?" On and on he could conjecture "What Ifs" and become afraid. Of wild imaginings....
Today I know that, armed with the proper tools, and sure of execution, I will be able to cope with life and all challenge it may bring my way. I still imagine. Fears. Unfounded and ungrounded fears.
I remember I once thought of many things I do not think of today. Not to say I can't remember them or have them in my mind, I can't think of them. Then again, I don't know if can't or won't is the operative word I need to use. I used to conceptualize in minutiae and detail which are unavailable to me now. Did the alcohol have to do with this; or is it just a mental weariness that seems to come to us all as our dreams fade in the glaring truth of an at last acknowledged reality?
I don't know. I do know that I can look back and say, "I'm too old now. I'm too weary now. No one cares anyway, so what's the difference. Why bother?"
I can deny the desire of today to share a vision which has been with me much of my life, has faded at times, but has always returned as strong and vital as it had ever been.
When I look and see precepts today which come to me as revelations that fill me with wonder pondering how I could have missed something so manifestly obvious all this time, only to find, as I peruse my notes, that I had written the same thing many years ago at the wise old age of sixteen or seventeen, and then forgotten it, or denied it's validity.
I used to think of many things I don't think of any more. I once again pause to think of many things which I had stopped thinking of for many years. In January of 1974, I was approaching the end of my term with the United States Army in Europe, and had just, six months before that time, managed to successfully withdraw from the daily use of a meth-amphetamine, know on the streets as crystal. I was feeling terribly old, and while many of my dreams were very soundly sleeping. I thought they were dead....
This page is presently trapped within the bog of its own self-importance, please continue to the next page....
...time for what is not...
...a lot of what I've got...
Much of the time we exist in our imaginations. Although the world in all of it's ultimate reality encompasses us, we imagine it to be a vastly different place than it truly is, and this is the place we live in.
Each of us has our own imagination.
My friend Stan once said: "There are three sides to every story Doug. Yours, mine, and the truth."
As we journey here together it should follow that there are three versions of reality between myself (the writer) and you (the reader): Your interpretation of what is read, my meaning as I write, and what is really written down upon the page; which, likely, neither of us actually comprehends.
Perhaps the ultimate destination of this composition is in fact two separate journeys. One in which we imagine living, and one in which we live without imagining. Neither has, in my experience, proven to be a very satisfactory existence.
Perhaps we should seek the truth....
Many persons mistake anger for strength. Many mistake kindness for weakness. Some mistake duty for love. Some mistake opinion for truth. As much as I seek truth, this much I may have love. As much as I seek love, this much I may have truth. This is not an exhibition of strength; or an example of weakness. I am not angry. I am not afraid. This is a duty: To the truth.
There is a part of me which wants to drink. Which wants to drink all the time. Although years have passed since I last used alcohol to flee, that part of me wants to escape. Clings, screaming, to the bars of reality.
Seeking release.
I used to think that however I was feeling, right at whatever moment I happened to be having a thought, that I would feel that way forever. If I was sad, I felt I would remain sad indefinitely. If the mood were happy, in the same token, I simply assumed that I would go right on being happy until the end of time.
My behavior reflected this attitude. I behaved as if I could do just as I pleased and not be held responsible. So, when that behavior caused havoc in my life, and in the lives of the people around me, I could not comprehend a reason why and though, at times, I felt great remorse I could not get past that primitive state of living now.
I did not see tomorrow.
Today I know that there will be change....
I think of Mom...I remember.
During the 1960's, in a strange new world, we were a family pulled from the familiar comforts of country life. All of us young and innocent to the ways in which the world actually functioned. We had been isolated and lived in ignorance, thinking the small part of the world we had seen was all there was.
Then we were thrust into city life by circumstances none of us could understand the cause of, possibly, my mother more so than us children. We knew absolutely nothing other than the tiny lives we had lived up to then but she, as an adult, likely believed she should have had an understanding of how to live when, in fact, none of us did.
We could not comprehend the reasons behind the horrors we had known. We could not know that another man lived inside the monster from the bottle. That indeed he was a good man, and all who knew him before the drunkenness respected and loved him.
We just did not know that man. The man we knew drove us, in fear and desperation, from himself. We could not conceive a reason why.
These were times when we were all so afraid and alone, the only comfort we could find in the world was each other. Just one struggling mother and her five young children. Yet through it all there was a contentment and joy in the root of our lives together, and none of the misfortunes and abuses society heaped upon us took away, for more than a few moments, the gladness of living.
I sit here, as I write, in my office/study which is but a small room off to one side of my garage. There are no windows. I used to think I needed windows to write, now I find them a distraction, they overpower the windows of my mind, as I live much more in the world these days than I did in times past.
Here in my little house on the corner, all that shields me from the world are some sidewalks and the evergreen trees along the side of the house, yet I am as content as I would be on forty acres in the wilderness. I have found contentment in my soul after all these years of looking in the world and not finding it there. It was with me all the time.
Today I am a man who has found peace, without surrender. I simply left the battles.
Until now, there was only the perspective of the small child from which to view the life of a lonely mother. Today I can become in my mind more and other than I am and walk a mile or two in shoes not my own.
I have sought comforts in places where only desperation leads one to seek. I have accepted any comfort I could find when the world weighed heavily on my soul and I felt I alone bore such a burden of despair, and no end in sight.
Alone is a hard place to be.
I do not have the time alone these days which I would choose to have and value the times such as this moment right now when there is nothing on the outside of me trying to get in and occupy space which I need to fill with thoughts, ideas and remembrances, and plans of tomorrow's. If they come.
But that is a liberty I enjoy because constantly with me is the knowing that I am not alone, that in another room are my family and the comforts of their companionship, which takes away the loneliness.
With all the business and giving time that come with having a family and friends, and truly participating in their lives, there is little time left in which to be alone with yourself. Still, I accomplish more now with the time I am allowed than I ever did in the past when I had virtually all the time in the world to be alone.
I spent that time being lonely.
I journeyed several years ago, to a beautiful hillside overlooking a peaceful valley in Tennessee, to lay to rest the old man who was my father. I was glad to learn he had not spent the last days of his life alone, that his sisters had taken their time to be with him. I was comforted to see that he would abide amidst more beauty while awaiting judgment than he did while awaiting death. I don't know the entire story of his life, only he knew this, but I do not imagine that after be became a drunk he did much to earn the company of others.
There were years of my life spent following his path.
There, but for the Grace of God, to this day, would go I....
I understand.
I have compassion.
I have learned the two are complementary and can not successfully exist, one without the other.
Hitler had great understanding.
He understood the people of his country, and of his time. He knew their fears and desires. He knew their strength and their weakness. He understood how to use these aspects of those people to motivate them and move a nation to conquest.
He had no compassion, not only for the people of the world but for his own as well. Because of this he destroyed a nation, and sorely damaged much of the rest of the world.
Without compassion to guide his understanding, in the end, he destroyed himself.
Joan of Arc had vast compassion.
She felt the hearts and minds, the hurts and needs, of the people of her time. Her compassion for these people reached beyond her own being and touched a flame in the souls of the thousands and led them to follow her in an uprising against the tyranny she perceived about her.
She had no understanding with which to quell the inferno of passion ignited by her fervor. She could not temper the wrath of those marred by that society once it was turned loose in the land, and in the end her own compassion destroyed her.
We need to be compassionate and we need to find understanding, but seek a balance of the two.
I have no special knowledge. I have no special skills. I posses no extraordinary ability to have compassion or reach understanding.
I could tell the truth of things I know with absolute certainty. I could speak of that which I believe on simple faith alone. I could lie. These statements would have no value to another, they would have no meaning, and would doubtless, of themselves, not even contain worth as entertainment.
If I can share my experience with another. If they can walk a while in those shoes, and empathize with that man, it's possible someone might know. For, in truth, what I say has little meaning, and what I think, even less. For both are subject to abrupt reversal or contradiction.
The measure of a man is what he does.
I penned this letter to a friend a short while ago with the hope my words might assist him through a time of sorrow:
Tom:
I am writing to say I hope you are doing well, and letting God assist you with the burdens you are asked to carry in this life. Heroes are the people who accept the facts, then do the best they can.
What can you say to a friend who has left you? You can say the rest of your life. You can live as best you can. A true friend would ask no less of you. You did the best you could possibly do in circumstances that came before. You must do the best you can possibly do in all which follows.
There have been many times before now when I spent my life with drunkenness and despair for companions, with cruelty and thoughtlessness to others as a way of life. Through much of these times I would question: "My God, why am I even alive? What good am I to anyone?"
I did not know then the wonders that would come in my life. The chances which still waited to be of assistance to others, to be there when I was truly needed. God is the one who put me here, it is his choice when I go. What I do while I am here is the responsibility I bear. What I can do is the joy and gladness of my life, not what others can do for me or what is given to me, what is mine. What is mine to give, this is the reward for all those years of desperate seeking.
Life is not a resting place. It's a road. Once we truly realize we share this road with others our destination becomes the journey.
Another day on the journey and I once more encounter a gift which asks to be passed on to another on the road:
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"....Look round our world; behold the chain of love.
Confirming all below and all above.
See plastic nature working to his end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbor to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endu'd
Press to one center still, the gen'ral good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again;
All forms that perish other forms supply
(By turns we catch the vital breath and die)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter born,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole;
One all-extending all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made beast in aid of man and man of beast;
All serv'd, all serving! Nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown...."
- --Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man.
After reading this poem, I was affected by my own thoughts of love. I hope the meaning translates as you read this. At times, words can not suffice. Only actions move me:
-
"....To think these thoughts;
To say these words;
To feel the emotions inherent in these phrases;
This is not love.
Love is the act of giving this realization to another.
My receiving this is not an act of love, rather, one of survival;
Of growth, and of acceptance.
Love is the act of giving.
So. Even the beast may love;
By the lessons he teaches.
He may think or believe he has taught me pain, or fear, or respect.
In truth, he teaches me to love you more who are not the beast.
And in the end, to love the beast as well.
For every breath is an act of love...."
- --Douglas L. Simmons, An Essay on The Beast.
"Imagine the world...without you in it...you, who cause me to take heart...and hope for a better day..."
- Your friend;
--Doug L.
This site is an imaginary entity...electrons impinging upon a phosphor screen...magnetic fields patterned on a rotating disc...nothing more than wishful thinking...
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...check the next page...
Thanks again for keeping my thoughts alive...
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--Doug L.
...what is, is what...
...not, what is not...
During much of my adult life, I drank continuously. Then I had to quit, because it became unbearable. I still wanted to drink, so I became unbearable. Then I drank some more. Then I changed what I wanted to do.
We all try from birth to fill our lives with the things we perceive to be good. The tiny baby wants to fill himself with his mothers milk. As he grows older, he wants to fill his time with her attention. And older still, he seeks to get from his parents the things he desires and thinks are good to him. Books and toys, video games, and CD recordings of the music he likes to hear. He seeks to take from life those objects, and events, which fill him up with desire.
To be filled with desire is a natural thing. To learn that the objects of that desire can never fill an empty heart; not so easy. The mind can become filled with knowledge and wisdom to the point that all we know packs our heads to such fullness that, as we put more in, what is already there leaks out and we forget what has already been learned to learn new things, or even to learn again that which we once already knew. The emotions can be sated by taking pleasure; to the point that all pleasures only leave us more empty than when we began. Our life looses purpose (if it ever had one) and we flounder in an endless orgy of gluttony, seeking to quench the thirst for consuming that rages within the soul which has withered so much that we can not grow enough to ever see that we are here to put into life some spark of ourselves which might, in turn, help another grow; rather than to stuff ourselves with the world, as we rape our way to oblivion.
The only way to truly fill yourself up is to learn that love is the only truth. There is no other.
To learn that, while it can surely be received, love is the only item of desire which can not be taken. It can only be given.
As empty as your heart might become, it has an endless capacity for love, and the only way to fill that heart with love is to give love to others. The more love you freely give away, the more love you will have. The more you desire to love, the greater will become your ability to do so.
There is no condition: Simply love....
A while back, I was reading a book about healing of the damaged soul. In one chapter it talked about coming to a point of despair, desperation, and hopelessness that few people ever know. Of just not knowing how to live without attempting to escape from the reality of being. Of being unable to face the prospect of continuing on in this fashion anymore while, at the same time, being without resources to implement the effort needed within yourself that might allow you to cope with the challenge of undergoing change.
I realized that I had reached that point.
It doesn't take anything in our head, or in your life, or in your pocketbook, to find this realization. It takes something in your heart. A burden that your soul can no longer bear up under.
You can't stand it anymore.
You can't stand the pain.
You can't stand the fear.
You can't stand the uncertainty.
You just can't stand yourself anymore.
You want to die.
You can die; or you can reach out your hand and accept a strength that is not your own.
Alone and confused, hopeless and afraid, I sat down and said: "God. I don't want to live like this anymore. I would rather die. If this is how I have to go on living, just let me die."
Having at last looked outside of my self, seeking purpose, I began to learn to love.
Reality is a four letter word....
...love to love...
...not; love of love...
We have all been command to love.
Philosophers, priests, poets, politicians, doctors, even people with no license (such as myself perhaps) other than a computer and a desire, have all suggested that we love.
God has commanded:
Love.
I do not believe that any tragedy which has befallen me in my life came upon me as a punishment, or was necessarily a result of evil. Possibly a simple lack of love within myself, or a failure to exhibit love as an integral aspect of my outward behavior and actions toward others was enough to generate a response in kind from those about me.
Still. You may have no love to give, and yet be loved by others. It happens all the time.
I have for the most part been given, or was able to procure for myself, every material thing, every goal, and every achievement I desired. For many years I did not recognize the value of these gifts. Often the possession itself was a painful thing. This may have been the most valuable part of the gift.
In my immaturity, I could not discern the difference between what I needed in my life and what was only an obsession, a compulsion, or a cloak of protection against fear. I did not know the object of my fear. I did not know the fear itself.
I did not understand that, while many times when with only my own resources to rely on I would have failed at the task of living, the love of those people in my life who knew more than their own petty desires defended me and nurtured me toward this time that I live in as I write these words.
I seek that same gift today.
Jonah was a Profit. A Priest.
The command to love was even more implicit in his life than in those of the people around him. For he had accepted the duties, as well as the rewards, of his commission to the priesthood.
Doubtless, he received money from his followers for the performance of his duties in his chosen avocation. Housing, and food, were likely included as another benefit. He was accorded the respect and honor due one in his position. Above all, he was allowed a spiritual contact with his Creator closer and more intimate than he perceived in others around him.
God commanded Jonah to love.
When Jonah applied this command to his own people, there was little problem living the life of a profit. Jonah believed his people were special and chosen of God to be His favored above all the peoples of the world.
However, when God commanded Jonah to go and demonstrate this love to a nation of strangers, he balked.
He complained that they did not deserve to be loved.
He protested that they would be ungrateful, and would not accept such love.
Jonah was commanded to love. He chose to love only his own. Jonah was readily able and willing to love a God greater than himself, and a nation of his own people greater than his lone existence. Such love could only magnify the image of Jonah.
Jonah arrogantly protested that this nation of strangers were something less than himself, that they were not as good as him. He was secretly afraid that, by reaching out in love to something less than himself, he would somehow become diminished. Or that these creatures would be elevated to a position rivaling his own; thus depriving him of status.
Jonah refused his commission and fled from the imagined wrath of his God. In his flight, Jonah punished himself and, because of this selfish behavior, caused those around him to inflict their own punishment upon him as well.
God protected Jonah during this time of rebellion and, in the end, washed him up on the very shore of the land where his original mission lay.
Reluctantly, he went to those people and acted and spoke the love he was commanded to give. But in his thoughts, and with his emotions, he held no love for them.
His actions were beneficial to others--they benefited me two-thousand years later--but the lesson of love demonstrated by his own actions were lost on the man. In the end he protested that he had been wronged. He thought it was all about him, could not escape the imagination of his own existence, and see the truth....
....all...
....His children....
* * *
...time....
....time....
He is such a magnificent creature.
In all of his wildness, he flows across the landscape, like a raging river. A torrent, which devours everything in its path. Covers the land with a flood of madness. Clutches all it has subdued, and takes it helplessly along on its violent quest to find, and become one with, the sea.
That same river, when not in flood, is a calm and soothing rhythm of nature.
Hidden beneath that sublime tranquility, the river carries the burden of its rages.
Do not forget: Beauty is a beast....
....sometimes, in a rage of flood, the river swallows more than can be carried in times of more peaceful flow. Along the shore, you can see the wreckage the glutton has vomited up, as the waters of an earlier lust subside....
On occasion, the river undermines the land which supports a burden the river can not shoulder and carry, no matter how great the outpouring wash of its rampage. The river might then be damned up and forced to pour itself into a lake and thus subside into peace. For a time. Until the lake is filled, allowing the rivers flow to continue. The very course of the river might be changed, and the waters of its existence then be coerced to feed their flow into smoother channels.
The beast might find itself tamed. Bringing new life to arid lands it hasn't known before, instead of sowing destruction on fertile lands it has known and left behind....
....sometimes....
To learn love: The beast must bear its burden.
To learn forgiveness: Beauty must love the beast.
....always....
No matter the course, the river grows until it is enough to give itself to the sea....
...time to crash and burn...
...or...
...time to fly....
I danced on the edge of reality, in the imagination of my own existence, thinking (and in the end not caring) I would never fall. I built walls around myself until they became towering cliffs which loomed above me daily, and mounted so high that in the end I could not possibly scale them and return to the past life I had left behind. Before me remained only the precipice. The edge of existence.
I cried out to God: "If I have to live this way any longer, let me die. For I do not wish to live as I am, and I can not change."
Overwhelmed by fear and confusion, I stepped off.
I became like the man falling from the roof of a huge sky scraper. As he rushes past the windows on his way down, he can see the faces of all the people of his life; who are powerless to save him, any more than he can save himself.
Some of the faces are sad at his plight. Others are angry at this fool who, despite all their warnings and attempted help, has danced on the edge for so long that he has finally found disaster. Some are even glad, for many years they have only wished he would just die and leave them alone, for they could not stand to be hurt by him any longer.
And then, in desperation, he cries out for help, in a place and time where there is no possible help to be had and finds himself standing on the sidewalk looking up at the towering massif which only moments ago had been about to become his headstone.
Now he can skip off down the street seeking another cliff-side to play on. Or, in gratitude, ask, "To this point in time I have done nothing with my life to deserve this gift. What is it now you would have me do?" And seek reward from the doing; rather than from the deed.
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New Beginnings
Life makes people crazy in the head.
Love makes people crazy from the heart.
When life has left our dreams asleep or dead,
love always lets some new beginnings start.
From the ashes, a phoenix rises.
From the cocoon, a butterfly will form.
Within the ugly duckling lives a swan.
From today; tomorrow is born.
I have spoken of the growing, for a time, of myself and some others I have known and imagined I have known.
None of these telling's are exactly the truth. A description of the man They are, rather, a depiction of that which he would desire to become.
A motive; if you will.
I live today with a beautiful wife and son. Who grow up with me. Who endure the struggles and share in the joys of day to day living.
Who join me in striving with compassion to understand that you could not have been yesterday what you have become today.
Stan; I heard what you said: "You just don't know...until you know...."
"....you'll never spread your wings, until you leap up at the sky...jumping off and falling down is not the way you learn to fly...."
Bud Kline (who has crossed on over the bridge) was a good friend of mine for some years. He used to play rhythm guitar and sing for a Country Western band named, "New Patches".
I first met Bud some time during the early 1980's. I had, for the previous several years played drums for another band named "Rough Country" but, after several disputes between the members, decided to strike out on my own and, on the night I met Bud, was without a job. One Friday night I was making the rounds of the clubs in Calumet City, Illinois....
(Professing myself to be somewhat of a poet, I am going to make a lyrical connection between the separate names of those two bands.)
....were without a drummer, the band was playing when I came in and sat down at the bar to order a beer.
When they stopped for a fifteen minute break, I motioned for the singer (Bud, whom I had yet to meet) to come over to the bar. After buying him a drink, I inquired about their missing drummer, and was told that he had taken drunk somewhere. No one had heard from him since the week before. I ask Bud if the band would like me to sit in on the drums for the evening. They accepted my offer and I ended up playing there in that little club for six months.
During that time, I became friends with all the fellows in the band, but Bud is the one who's memory stays with me these many years later. He seemed a happy fellow, always laughing and joking with the patrons of the club. Doing quite a professional job of entertaining whoever came in to sit and listen to the music or get on the floor and dance for a while.
Unless you actually listened to the words of his songs, you would never have known....
Like myself, Bud had traveled through some rough country in his time and (being somewhat of a poet himself) had written several songs dealing with the lives and times of Country Western singers who--although most of them are not and never have been--style themselves as Cowboys. Usually, the most Cowboy like aspect of such as I was at the time is their behavior. Which quite often (depending on the amount of liquor consumed on any particular evening) borders on lunacy.
Needless to say, this lifestyle often leads to a compilation of bad Karma's. The body of which seemingly grows until, piling up on ones shoulders, it looms above like a towering weight waiting to crumble from its own shear mass and crush one in guilt inspired, self-inflicted, retribution. Payment for a life misled.
Bud had accumulated quite a burden through the years, reached the conclusion that you cannot put new patches on old Karma's, and had settled for telling the tale in song instead of trying. He sang many songs detailing that belief. One which sticks in memory and, to this day, recalls to me the hidden sadness of those times was called "New Patches"....
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"Too much water under the bridge
has washed the bridge away
and I don't want no one else on my mind.
You just can't put new patches on old Karma's
and I'll be loving you for a long, long time."
I don't know if you can put new patches on old Karma's. I do know that, if you just keep on walking long enough, you can travel through all of the rough country and find a peaceful valley on the other side. And, if you can't rebuild a bridge you've burned, maybe you can build a new one....
If you have journeyed this far and find yourself still turning the page in search of company, perhaps you did not see all of the blue words.
Return to the beginning and travel with me a while longer or, read one of my novels until you are ready to continue the journey alone or, better still, share the road with another....
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Other books by Douglas L. Simmons
Child And Freedom
Becoming The Rose
Man And Chain
The Craft Of Writing
Vortex!
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- Thank you for keeping my thoughts alive.
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- Thank you for keeping my thoughts alive.
An astute writer once advised all readers: "If you are reading and come upon a word which you do not know the meaning of, immediately, go to the dictionary and find out. Else you might well miss the single most important message in the book!"
I believe this advice could indeed apply to every aspect of our lives.
Dictionary.com...don't leave your homepage without it!
