Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II 

The Enchiridion by Epictetus

The Enchiridion by Epictetus, a classic text of Stoicism, starts with this fundamental idea:

“Some things are under our control, while others are not under our control. Under our control are conception, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything that is our own doing; not under our control are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, everything that is not our own doing. Furthermore, the things under our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unimpeded; while the things not under our control are weak, servile, subject to hindrance, and not our own."

Untethered Soul - Letting Go of False Solidity Pg 139 and comments

 "If you take the journey, you will get to the state in which you see exactly how the unfolding moments bring up a sense of fear. From this place of clarity, you will be able to experience the powerful tendency to protet yourself. This tendency exists because you truly have no control, and that is not comfortable to you. But if you really want to break through, you have to be willing to just watch the fear without protecting yourself from it. You must be willing to see that this need to protect yourself is where the entire personality comes from. It was created by building a mental and emotional structure to get away from the sense of fear. You are now standing face-to-face with the root of the psyche...."

After being abroad many times over the years. Seeing rich and poor nations and people, Americans are definitely living in a state of fear. I think the fear comes up from the thought of building a life, getting to that long term vision, then being part of the build (fortress) and then you've built up so much around you, you don't really experience anything cause you've protected yourself for so long. You've become weak cause you control everything in your world. You've become vulnerable to change and you can't adapt. You are in essence controlling what may actually make you grow as a person. Life happens and hurt happens. Americans (and I am one) surround themselves with way artificial ways to make them feel better. Drugs, booze, cars, houses, vacations, clothes, health kicks, drugs to change appearance....etc etc. The thing we aren't usually changing with all that stuff is our inner self. We are doing all these outside things for the here and the now, but our inside is still made of glass and fragile. I realize that more now at 47 than I did 27. Having gone through some serious pain and loss. Unfortunately, I don't think you really know how human and mortal you are until you have suffered in some great way. It might sound dark, but you only know how deep your love is when the thing you love is gone forever. This could be a myriad of things.

There are days when I realize the amount of loss I have gone through can both make me feel invincible and vulnerable; depending on the moment or what is going on in my body. I think both are fine. 

I guess it comes down to, how strong do you really believe you are? Are you totally insulated out of control? Out of your need to not experience hurt? Are you just in your own little world? Or are you using something as a prop or an excuse? Like you are some homesteader who is living on his own land and the weird idea "it's just me and my family"....while a Starbucks light keeps you up at night?

It may take a lifetime to figure you out. 

A question. An answer I didn’t want to hear.

The older I get the more I believe something is behind all of us in all of this. I’m not specifically speaking about God or Allah or what have you. Just something behind this life, our ability to conjure thoughts any time we’d like. I’ve been put through an emotional meat grinder the last few weeks. Summer, where usually everything is great and free and flowing. I can’t go into it all now cause it’s 7:13am EST. You don’t come up in my daily thought process. Why would you? It’s been forever since I last saw you. It’s been a minute since we spoke. There is no reason to. Regardless of the good; there are boundaries and respect. 

I am waking up from a slumber of really not a lot of dreaming but it all became so vivid towards the end. Scary vivid. I can’t remember ever speaking in a dream. I really cannot and I’ve had some bangers. I haven’t seen you in forever but it was the you I last saw that I was looking at. Face to face. I asked you a question that, well, is always relevant regardless of time. A question where the answer can be both good and bad given the circumstances. The funnier thing is we were in some city. A city we never visited. I can see the room and I can see big windows looking out to some architecture only a city would hold. I laughed cause I just thought, that would be the last place I would want to be. Then again, there are places that you would go with that special person where it was never about the place, but all about the person you were with. That much I know. 

I used to travel a lot. I don’t miss those days. I don’t miss being away. Now I am not away, but yet, I have been “gone”. Checked out of life on this other path. People back home never realized while they were putting in 40, I was usually doing 60 or sometimes 80 with all my travel time. The investment of my time was the worst thing I could’ve chosen. It’s the only investment you usually can’t get back. While I have been “gone” to torment and the chaos around me, I have learned what I did wrong and part of me regrets that deeply. I thought, this is what I invested in? This is the trash I kept? Blah. Granted I survived but man I paid that ultimate price. You. Of course, do I think it would’ve worked out regardless? Who knows? A guy can dream. 

What did I ask you in the dream? I asked you if you still loved me. You started to cry, nodded yes and put your head down. I shook my head and nodded and put my head down. 

The dream ended. I woke up smiling. 

I usually always woke up smiling next to you. 

God. Listen.

God, please. I beg you. Do not take any more away from me. I cannot take it. I beg you. You took my mom in 2018. Her sister 2 years later. Now my last aunt on her side. God, you knew better. You did. She deserved a second chance and you know it. You may never forgive me. I will never forgive you. God. Why are you punishing us? This is too much. They all have been taken under 62. God, you never gave them second chances!!! Where is your mercy????? Where is your grace???? I beg of thee. I cannot do this again. Why God? You never gave us any notice. You never gave them any notice. You never gave her kids any notice. I will never forgive you. I don't care if you never forgive me. No one deserved this. I hate you right now. 

Bob

Will you teach me how to ride a bike

Most who read this blog have never met me, have no idea who I am or where I come from. I guess growing up, I didn't really think much about it until maybe after high school. In high school, most of the families were lower middle class, wearing the same clothes, sneakers worn out, maybe something nice once in a while. Public schools, state funded lunches, punch cards, bad facilities, good, but tired teachers, many of the families in my town were at or around the state poverty line. Five to ten miles radius, people were living in half a million dollar homes,, going to private and catholic schools...unaware of what happened on the other side of the tracks. I took my lumps....countless times being harassed, a 45-lb plate dropped on my chest in sophomore year of football, threatened to be shot junior year by my fellow secondary teammate, loading guns and driving around.....I guess it would still be referred to as "the hood" back then....and I can definitely say it was. Row homes for days, broken down cars, SEPTA buses coming through like jet engines, dumpster diving for expired Tastykakes, Mom always scrounging....even a few quarters so I could run up to 7-11 for a Snickers bar. One great thing was the ties we did form as friends there. Many lived and died for their friends. Some still do. We had a big community pool. Looking back, the best days of my mom and my sister's lives probably. Their "piece of the world"...I cherish it to this day. 

With that being said, we are coming to that time when we're having to clean my old house out. 988 Grant Rd. Folcroft, PA 19032. You can Google it. It wasn't much, but it was home until I first moved out. We are starting to remove any memory that my family lived there as no one really does any more. We are starting to erase a lifetime of what happened between those walls. We are starting to close the door on the past; some good, some bad, some all over the map. I guess that is also part of the hood a lot of people just don't talk about. Parents becoming parents too young, unsure, broke, addicted, hard-headed, stubborn, wanting to still be young, but wanting to try the parent thing. I closed the door on even discussing a lot of it for decades. I don't feel the need to tie it in here cause this is supposed to be a positive story. 

So as I am packing stuff up and going back and forth to my truck, I notice a bunch of young kids playing. Football in the alley. Soccer in the alley. Taking a leak in my yard (you will see). Jabbing at your buddies. These 6-7 kids all see me. So I was cleaning out cabinets and there was a box of our favorite crackers growing up, Lance Toastachee. A true hood treat. ha. I gave them all a pack. Some didn't like them, but the ones that did really enjoyed them and said thank you. So most of the group goes up half to the alley. Then one kid, a larger kid of the group, he is sitting on a bike and he's not going far, if at all. If you look at this kid and me, we couldn't be more different. Me, 47 yr old white guy, fairly chill, tees and shorts, backwards trucker cap, broad, unfiltered. Him, about 5ft, 130lbs, head to toe in gray sweats, medium fro, very dark skinned black boy. He quietly approaches me and looks me in the eye and says, "Hey, do you think you could teach me to ride a bike?" I still get chills typing it. This child, of all the people he could've asked, well, he asked me. My heart both broke with pain for him and it also felt good that he had the comfort to ask. I say comfort, not confidence. I also think of, "not one man in this boy's life til now could've stopped and taught him??" And then I got angry. Angry that he had a man help him even do this in life. So I said to him, "I have 5 mins until I have to leave.....let's do it." I grabbed the back of his sweatshirt, echoed many times to pedal, pedal, pedal...he kept saying I'm gonna fall. I said you're not, I got you. This 40 something white goofball and this 10 or so black kid.....bonding over learning how to ride a bike. In the alleys....where I rode my bike 40 years ago...where I hung with my friends...where my dad or mom helped me....We went up and down the alley several times before his other friends started to ask. I said I would be back some time, but that is just a maybe. 

I drove up the alley way, saying bye, thankful for a moment that helped me get through the pain of what I am going through and what is happening to our past life at 988...he was about halfway up on my ride up the alley. So I stopped. I said, "you did great, you just keep pedaling and gravity will take hold...you're really getting it..." Instead of a "thanks" or short quick comment. He looked at me and said, "Thank you very much..." held out a fist for a "fist pump" as we call it in the states and we parted ways. 

I always say, there are good people all over. There are people who want to have someone to look to. It is as much present in adults as it is in heaven. My one good buddy said, "you need to stop being so nice....and just keep going on your way". I think the day I would ever stop to help a child who asks for help, I am letting myself down as much as them. Granted, my buddy isn't wrong. Given the wrong view of the "white guy" holding on to the "black boy" from eyes who didn't have context; something easily could've happened that day. I take that into consideration.....but most days, at my mid 40's, all I want to do is just pedal my bike.....and let the wind take me to better places. 

"Teach the children, so it will not be necessary to teach the adults." Abraham Lincoln

A picture of my "new 988 crew". Folcroft4Life. 

The Untethered Soul - Letting Go of False Solidity Pg 132-133

     Why do we let this happen to us? Why dp we care so much whether other people accept the facade we put out there? It all comes down to understanding why we are clinging to our self-concept. If you stop clinging, you will see why the tendency to cling was there. If you let go of your facade, and don't try to trade it in for a new one, your thoughts and emotions will become unanchored and beging passing through you. It will be a very scary experience. You will feel panic deep inside, and you will be unable to get your bearings. This is what people feel when something very important outside does not fit their inner model. The facade ceases to work and begins to crumble. When it can no longer protect you, you experience great fear and panic. However, you'll find that if you're willing to face the sense of panic, there is a way to go past it. You can go further back into the consciousness that is experiencing it, and the panic will stop. Then there will be a great peace, like nothing you've ever felt. 

    That the part very few people come to know: it can stop. The noise, the fear, the confusion, the constant changing of these inner energies--it can all stop. You thought you had to protect yourself, so you grabbed onto things that were coming at you and used them to hide. You took what you could get your hands on, and you started to cling in order to build solidity. But you can let go what you're clinging to and not play this game. You just have to let the risk of letting it all go and daring to face and fear that was driving you. Then you can pass through the part of you, and it will all be over. It will stop--no more struggling, just peace 

    This journey is one of passing through exactly where you have been struggling not to go. As you pass through that state of turmoil, the consciousness itself is your only repose. You will just be aware that tremedous changes are taking place. You will be aware that there is no solidity and you will become comfortable with that. You will be aware that each moment of each day is unfolding and you neither have control, nor crave it. You have no concepts, no hopes, no dreams, no beliefs, and no security. You are no longer building mental models of what's going on, but life is going on anyway. You are perfectly comforable just being aware of it. Here comes this moment, then the next moment, and then the next. But that's really what has always happened. Moment after moment has been passing before your consciousness. The difference is that now you see it happening. You see that your emotions and your mind are reacting to these moments that are coming through, and you're doing nothing to stop it. You're doing nothing to control it. Just just letting life unfold, both outside and inside of you. 

    If you take this journey, you will get to the state in which you see exactly how the unfolding moments bring up a sense of fear. From this place of clarity, you will be able to experience the powerful tendency to protect yourself. This tendency exists because you truly have no control, and that is not comfortable to you. But if you really want to break through, you have to be willing to just watch the fear without protecting yourself. You must be willing to see that this need to protect yourself is where th entire personality comes from. It was created by building a mental and emotional structure to get way from the sense of fear. You are now standing face-to-face with the root of the psyche.