No Other People

Neil,

Sorry for copying but what you wrote touched me...

I haven't posted about the Virginia Tech shooting, and wasn't going to. But...

I'm in the UK right now, and it's a long way away, and I'm reading about what happened in newspapers... still managing to think of this as something that happened, tragically, to Other People. And then I see this, and my heart sinks, because this is the Michael Bishop who I met in 1999 when we were Guests of Honour at World Horror, whose son was a Sandman fan and oh god, and then I click on this, and I get my nose rubbed hard and painfully in the fact that there are no Other People. It's just us.

Did you hear that guys (and did you Mr. Bush? and did you dear politicians?)... There are no Other People, it's just us...

Bringing it down...

I am currently in a life situation when I am preparing to leave in order to serve the Greek army... What I observed is that I have started bringing down everything my current life consists of in order to be able to leave. I feel as though I am doing others wrong but cannot find an answer to my problem.

Have you felt that in order to leave a place or a life phase you had to devalue everything in your life? How did you handle that?

Parasitic Tactics

I was just reading my horoscope (I am an Aquarius if you want to know...) and it was strange how close this was to what I was thinking in the morning!!! Since the horoscope will be there just for today, I have copied it here:

Popularity is incredibly overrated, so don't base any decisions solely on achieving it! Pleasing the masses is no great feat -- after all, appealing to the lowest common denominator just means that you're expecting the least out of other people, and that's not your philosophy... You will be better off in a small group of like-minded folks than in a huge crowd of sheep.

What I was thinking in the morning had to do with how I caught myself thinking again! I was trying to hide my impulses and my desires in order to be loved (in my day-dream fantasies)... Not again!

It occurs to me that I sell out my desires in order to be loved. By doing that I project a false image - a lie - for others to love. But this lie is not me, so ultimately, what others love (best-case scenario) is not me! (Oh you Prince of Lies, you have made it easy for us to fall into your traps...) Now that I know I have to guard myself against that...

I believe that what most people do (including myself) is trying to please Mommy and Daddy even in their 60s or 80s... You know that doesn't change much as time passes - especially if you don't do something conscious about it. I have to kill this version of Mommy and Daddy that exists within me if I want to be free and ultimately accept me for who I am. I want to let people love me for who I am - Love the true me - a being in constant flux - not the Prince of Lies I project...

Great band, great songs...

I recently discovered this band... Great band, great songs... Just as an introduction, something from Youtube. It is very touching... Actually all of Sigur Ros' music is...

Suck you dry...

A funny picture that uses caustic humor for that which sucks us up and leaves us without energy... Have a look at the picture!!!

VirtualDNA

An interesting site for creating a personal profile and sharing it in your personal blog...

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Couldn't agree more...

A little quote by Albert Einstein which I couldn't agree more with...

"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle."

Harsh!!!... but true!

Neil and his magnificent oracular journal!

Cool!

Try this out: Neil and his magnificent oracular journal

It is bound to answer your life's most serious questions...

I tried a profound question especially for this post... Here it goes:

Q: What is my soul's 'mission' on planet Earth?
A: This is the orchestra that usually lives in a small red box in the Prime Minister's hat, playing a brief fanfare in the bedroom of the sleeping White Queen.

Wow! This does require several months of meditation... Enlightment might be just around the corner after that!

The Power of Now...

I have begun reading a book by Eckhart Tolle - "The Power of Now". It is an extremely well-written book and easy to follow while at the same time containing profound "truths"... It starts very dynamically with the following paragraph:

A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. "Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cup. "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. Then he asked: "What's that you are sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar. "Just an old box. I have been sitting on it as long as I can remember." "Ever looked inside?" asked the stranger. "No," said the beggar. "What's the point? There is nothing in there." "Have a look inside," insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

I am the stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside the box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.

From The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle

Monsters, Dirt and Pulling Things out of the Closet

I had a little more time today and decided to search the Internet... I came up to another one of those Tori excerpts which I find really interesting and useful so I have copied it here! Monsters, dirt and pulling things out of the closet.

I made a decision to stop being unconscious. And how you do that is you give yourself the keys to the unconscious room and you walk in and you go, 'What's up?' and all the little monsters come out with their party hats. [Sacramento Bee - May 8, 1992]

I think there’s so much emphasis on pushing things away, instead of pulling them out of the closet. A lot of times I just notice that people try to hide their dirt for as long as possible. Monsters, dirt, whatever you want to call it, the stuff that you censor and that you don’t really want to share with people. I think you can only do that for so long before you start losing your mind. I’m finding a lot of freedom right now in just looking at things that I really feel. We’re not encouraged to do that, and I think that that’s what makes people sick inside of themselves. You kind of want everybody else to think that you’re okay. Well, you’re okay if you have monsters! That’s what people don’t understand—everybody has many many voices going on inside of themselves. Now there is one voice, though, that is more of the ringleader, more of the innermost voice that isn’t trying to beat you up, or trying to make you feel like you can go slaughter 67 people and it’s okay. You know, the voice in there that goes, “hang on a minute, Tori, we’re really feeling lonely right now.” That inner inner voice is, to me, the most important because it can start being a bridge between all these other voices in your head. Everybody has them.

My first trip over the Atlantic Ocean...

I was in a dramatherapy workshop in November... It was so strange the fact that during the dramatisation of a scene I was put by someone else to play the role of a bird. This bird, did a great trip over the Atlantic. 2 months after, I actually did that...
A second coincidence has to do with a dream... I keep a dream journal and this helped remember a dream that I dreamt one month before going to Hawaii. I saw a building from my homeland there. I didn't like the place because it was a multi-cultural mix (with bad taste). Kitsch... That was in fact my overall impression after staying (in "reality") for 7 days there...

Incompetence vs. Maliciousness

I was in a conference the other day and while being audience to a presentation in the eGovernment track the following was stated:

"People tend to interpret misuse of their personal data as incompetence of their governments and not as maliciousness"...

Going that a step further (applying it not just to the misuse of personal data), I was wondering about the Bush icon. Could it be that by projecting an incompetence icon, maliciousness from the government's side will be overlooked? - Something to ponder on there...

The Parable of the Two Wolves

The grandfather told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people...

"The battle that goes on inside our chest is between two wolves," he said. "One is evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego".

"The other is good. It is peace, Love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, joy, benevolence, empathy, generousity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about this for a minute and asked, "Grandfather which wolf wins?"

The grandfather replied "The one you feed."

---

A small comment from me is that we have to acknowledge the existence of both of them but make a conscious choice to serve the one that can lead us to our Soul's path!

The Four Archetypes of Survival

I was at a friend's house playing with the Archetype Cards by Caroline Myss. It was quite interesting that I picked the Divine Child Card, something that has been a realisation of mine for quite some time now (that I am for one reason or another closely related to this archetype).
The most interesting part is that according to her, there are four archetypes we all are especially related to as they are the ways we have learned to survive... These are:

• The Child


• The Victim


• The Prostitute


• The Saboteur

I am at a place in my life where I am considering the fourth one and how it affects me and my relationships... You can find more on the four archetypes here...

The Incal

I was trying to find a comic book that would be as "provocative", as "imaginative" or even as "true" as the 'Sandman'... I asked the woman behind the counter... She came up with two titles one of which was the 'Incal' by Moebius and Jodorowsky. Having known Jodorowsky from his movie "Santa Sangre", I decided to go for it! I must say I was left highly satisfied! The internal and eternal battle of light and darkness, what can be more "true" than that?

As a friend and teacher once told me - "Man is the battlefield of powers that surpass him/her"...

Searching the internet, I was later surprised to find the connection between Moebius, Jodorowsky and my favorite - Carlos Castaneda!

Darkest night...

A strange dream today...

The mood in the film was something like the famous series by David Lynch - "Twin Peaks". I was investigating a peculiar murder. 
It was a dark night and suddenly out of nowhere, a dark horse 
rider comes and tries to take my head. I avoid him...

Not my cup of tea...

And some strange facts about the 21st of December...

Did you know that 21st December is the biggest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere? This is called the winter solstice. The  exact time for the winter solstice is 00.22 GMT on the 22nd of December for 2006.

A very interesting fact is that the ancient Greeks' celebration was a man being torn apart by women (the Maenads), representing the end of the harvest god Dionysos, with the promise of rebirth through the offspring of one of the women.

Redesign of the blog

I have used another template for my blog... 
Blogger has done a great job with their revamping of the site!
Good job guys and thanx!
Internet functionalities are becoming GREAT - easiness, friendliness etc. etc. I am totally amazed. It's incredible what people can do these days!!!

If you have no blog consider using one. It's a great way to learn and to be creative in an easy way!

The true terror

From the CNN US site!

Travelers get terror scores

Without notifying the public, federal agents have assigned millions of international travelers, including Americans, computer-generated scores rating the risk they pose of being terrorists or criminals. The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments. The government intends to keep the scores on file for 40 years.



Go to the full story


My question has to do with the legitimacy of such actions. In my country, a citizen is innocent till proven guilty. This story seems to me like everyone is guilty, until proven innocent. All this fear is trying to be imposed to the hearts of so many men and women... I feel this is the true terror. The importance of "safety" is totally ironic when coming from a government that allows guns to be almost freely distributed to anyone who has the money to buy one.


I think the worst thing that can happen to us is not to be able to be shocked about the terrible things that happen to the world around us and to other people. By all this fear that is trying to be imposed to people, I think that people stop feeling connected to one another... I could write many more words but I better stop here!

Flying Dutchman

Do you know the legend of the flying Dutchman? It is what I set out to learn today since I met a Dutchman in my last trip among my many delays... Another twist in the twilight zone! Hear to this...

The Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship that can never go home, but must sail the seven seas forever. The Flying Dutchman is usually spotted from afar, sometimes glowing with ghostly light. If she is hailed by another ship, her crew will often try to send messages to land, to people long since dead.

...The captain swore that he would not retreat in the face of a storm, but would continue his attempt to round the Cape of Good Hope even if it took until Judgment Day. According to other versions, some horrible crime took place on board, or the crew was infected with the plague and not allowed to sail into any port for this reason. Since then, the ship and its crew were doomed to sail forever, never putting in to shore.

And something... why from her of course... hi hi

Take a trip on a rocket ship, baby, where the sea is the sky.
I know the guy who runs the place and he's out of sight.
Flying Dutchman are you out there?
Flying Dutchman are you out there, Flying Dutchman?
Tori Amos, Flying Dutchman

Into my personal twilight zone

I have entered into what can be relatively accurately be called "personal twilight zone"...

I have submitted my papers to start a PhD at the end of April. I have not received an answer yet.(6 months!) Well the answer is I will start a PhD it's just not official...

I have been working in my present job for about a year and I am 3 months behind in my payments. I cannot pay my bills anymore since I have used my bank account (I have about 100 euros left in four bank accounts!!!)

I was waiting 2 and a half hours yesterday to pay for my social security.

Everything around me is going so slowly... I try to find a reasonable explanation saying it is probably the Saturn return on my astrological map, I should learn how to be patient and so on. However, I am seriously pissed off and don't know what to do... I skipped work yesterday and today to let them know I am not happy with the present situation... This seems to have worked at least for now taking a confirmation that I will be paid. This is however a situation that involves 10 people. I don't think the group is very happy with this...

A question that emerged

I was wondering... Is it irrational that my personal needs (which are not unreasonable) are above the needs of the group? Isn't this the way it is supposed to be? Could I care for the group if I don't make a pause and care about me and my personal welfare? Could there not be significant change if people where being truly 'egotistical' but not irrational? What do you think?

From my personal experience, my brief encounter with the forces that are beyond my control, might have helped others (I mean those at work who are also not getting paid)...