Wired Pig's Lifestream

Two years ago, Christmas day, I was almost killed. Since that time I’ve been searching for my purpose in life. I’ve made a recent discovery, one that’s been there all along, as to what my purpose is. I’m not going to come out and say it, not right this moment, but I will get to it. Let me tell a story. Earlier this year Twitter was ablaze with the Iranian Election Protests. Twitter avatars all over were turning green as fast as the eye could look and scroll the page. It was amazing. Part of the issue faced by supporters was the question of why. Why are you supporting them? Why should we care? A few weeks ago a friend of mine, also on Twitter, was booted off of another social networking site. Again I supported the user. My stand was simple, she was booted for no good reason. Again, I was asked, why are you supporting her? Why do you care? Why are you pushing to get an apology from the site, they wont do it. I have spent my life in service to others. From the time I graduated high school to present. I have been a stocker at the base commissary keeping the shelves full of Pillsbury and Kraft products. I was an avionics technician working on the radar systems housed in the F-4S Phantom II. I was a police officer in Texas for a municipality and a school district agency. I was a deputy sheriff for a populated and urban county in Colorado. I have also worked security, as I do now, at various points along the way. All of those jobs were in service to others, meaning I worked for them. I fulfilled an obligation or served a need. I didn’t run any company. Each job was based on the fact that: Something needed watching, or a freezer or chiller case needed more product in it, or bad guys needed to be caught, jailed, taken to court, or a radar set needed fixed so the mission could continue. Do you see where this is headed? I’ll sum it up in a short, concise slogan. A tag line of my Life Theme if you will. If not me then who? If I don’t take a stand, who will? If I don’t stand up for the rights of others, who will? Who will stand up for me when the time comes? Will you take the stand, fight the just fight? There in lays the problem. Collectively we look to each other to take the stand. We don’t want to be the one out there looking like a fool. What happens if we’re wrong? Why take a stand at all? Surely others have our best welfare at heart. Right? Its always in a companies or nations best interest to look after the lowest common denominator… its people. Surely that’s true. Well, its not. People like power. People, out of fear or ego, often refuse to admit mistakes. Companies, out of a lust for cash, make decisions that are not in the best interests of their product’s users. A company will refuse to admit mistakes out of the same fears a person would, fear and ego. Take the Iranian elections. I supported the student protesters because, as I see it, they needed to know that their story was getting out. They needed to know that people around the world supported their cause. Simple. Solidarity. In the case of Brightkite and my friend who was booted, I supported the user. It was unequivocal based on what I knew of her and the situation. By keeping up pressure her account was restored and she recieved an ‘off the record’ phone call to explain what had gone wrong. Again, solidarity. If we don’t take the little stands then we will surely not take the larger ones. In each case I could have said, ’screw that’ and ‘whats in it for me?’ The Iranian protest would have gone on without me. My friend may or may not have had her account restored. It, at the time, had no effect on me personally. Then I looked at everything my life has done. The jobs I’ve held and the underlying nature of the jobs. All are service. All are, in the end, helping someone else. We are not islands. We are global. What happens in other nations has a direct and immediate impact on our lives. What happens to others, just or unjust, can and will – as history has shown – happen to us. So, the question I had, answered itself. If not me, then who? If not here, where?

In my Life Theme I have been lacking something. Over the past few years I have become more angry, more depressed, more bitter. And in that time I have been shown, again and again, what I’m missing. Or, at the least, what I’ve been doing wrong. I have been living to long in the past. Living to long worrying over what I did and what I should have done. I have not been living in the ‘now’. I have not been giving myself to the moment and savoring it. Rather than living like there is no tomorrow, I’ve been living s if yesterday were going to attack me. I have not been living up to my potential. I have not been ‘going the extra mile’ to help my fellow man, to say less of helping my family. We are, at our very core, spiritual beings who are, at present, in a physical form. If we do not grow and learn while here, then our time was wasted. Its not about buying toys or building massive buildings and bridges. That is not our legacy. Our legacy is to be better than we think we can be. To use our abilities to help each other. Its not about who makes the most money or who has the biggest home or the most cars or goes on vacations to Europe. Those are ego driven plans. Ego is not a help, its a hindrance. I am tired of being my own enemy. I am tired of living in a hell that I created when I am capable of making my own paradise. By living in the now I can enjoy my children, my wife and our family. By living in the future I am not present any more than I am worrying about the past. I can no more control what happens to me tomorrow than I can make the sun rise in the West or make Portland the worlds financial center. I cant drive a trip in my car if I’m always looking at the destination(1) . I have to be conscious of where I am at the moment. We each, as individuals and collectively, have the power to shape the world. We are energy. We are all interconnected. At our core, we are eternal(2) . This eternal nature makes us all special. Few of us realize our potential to have a meaningful impact on others lives, others outside our family that is. We fall into the place I am. The living in the past and worrying about the future. We fail to see the people we cross paths with daily who we can help. We do the least we can to get through the day. I am just as guilty of this as anyone. But, by living this way we are not living in the Now. I don’t know about you, but I cannot afford to not live here, now. My plan from here on out is simple. In the words of my Friend, Ann - “If you don’t add to my life, I’m subtracting you.(3) “. I cannot afford to be bombarded by negativity, infighting, gossip, political partisanship, bigotry, or hatred. If you are not proposing a constructive, proactive change, I don’t need you. I cannot afford to spend my energy giving value to the negativity. I am here to make a difference in peoples lives for the good. I hope you are too.

All footnotes are for reference only. These have no bearing on the information presented above and may include: side thoughts, more links or just more scattered information. Read at your own risk.

Thanks to James A Ray for this analogy, its so true. By that I mean that which makes us, comprises our physical bodies, is eternal. We are matter. Matter is energy. Even light is energy. And, at this level, we are over 99% space. The space in and between atoms. Atoms are not born and do not die. They can only change from one form to another. Like burning a log you do not destroy the atoms in the wood, only transform it into light. Into photons. From @AnnOhio’s Twitter profile.

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I have had my ‘Life Theme’ shown over and over(1) and I’m still at a loss. I guess I’m a lot like the rest of the world, I can see what I need to be doing, or what road I need to go down, but I’m uncomfortably comfortable where I am. I’m still waiting for that event that pushes me to act. I see that, at least for me, to be a sad insight - ‘waiting for that event’ to come along and make me change. If I were a ‘Law Of Attraction’(2) believer(3) I would be working harder to send out the ‘positive energy’ to get it in return. Instead I seem to be sending out the ‘crap in a brown paper bag’(4) energy and getting the same energy back. I’m stuck and am not sure how to change it. My uncomfortable comfort comes from knowing where I am and what I’m doing. I’ve become accustomed to rising at a certain time(5) , eating at a certain time, leaving for work and arriving home at certain times. This is my world. Ordered. Not necessarily the best order, but ordered and warm fitting none the less. When something happens, no matter how small, to alter my world (up late, up early, off to work late, etc.) my mind races that I have been sabotaged and that, as a result, my world will now cease to be. I act like I’ve been set upon and I react out of fear and annoyance that my precious schedule(6) has been irreparably shattered even though I know its not. Its not a righteous anger to be very sure. Were I be a believer in the Law of Attraction, or The Holographic Universe(7) theory or the ideas that James Arthur Ray(8) teaches, I would be taking all of these challenges, turning them on their ear, and using them to my advantage. But, alas, I sit here doing what I’ve always done: lamenting my fate and doing nothing to change my future. The options, as stated above, are to A) do nothing, stay comfortable, and hope something happens to alter my course or B) become proactive and move, on my own, out of my comfort zone, and become a changer. This is where I’m stuck. Yeah, I know, “get moving!”, “do what you know you need to do”, “no one is going to change you except you”…. blah. I know all of that. I also know I’m destined for more that what I’m doing now. Knowing, at the least to me, is totally different than acting. Belief is great. I agree with you there. But, if I can interject with myself here, how can I move forward when I don’t know where I’m supposed to be going? My friend Sprite pointed out, here, - When you open yourself to accepting yourself as a better person, a person who’s heart & soul reaches out beyond himself, in faith, in kindness, in understanding and adapt that desire, an entire new world opens for you with unlimited potential. And I see that as my issue. While I can accept me as a better person, I see me as what I am. I’m not reaching to be better. I can see that. I see me as complaining that I’m not better. I have become a true complainer (9) . How do I go about accepting me as a better person? I’m not giving up, I just have some ‘issues’ to work out. And with my vast readership(10) I’m sure I’ll find my way eventually. With that last part said I need to end this by saying a couple of things. The first is that I am not a patient person. Not being patient is actually an understatement. And secondly, this may come as a complete surprise to everyone(11) I am not into self-help books and the like. Yes, there are reasons for that, some of which I may go into at some as yet undetermined point. So, there you have it. My options as it were. Stay the course because I like my ordered universe and because I’m not exactly sure where my ‘Life Theme’ needs to take me OR say screw it and go off somewhere that may not be right(12) . Were providing for my family not so much of an issue for me, would I be more apt to change my direction? Hmm… Now that I have rambled on, I think I’ve lost track of where I was headed. Ah yes, I remember now. I need to either move or stay still. Find my place in life or do nothing. This entry was much better formed, and a lot more coherent, in my mind. Sorry you had to muddle through my attempt at placing it into words. I would promise to be more direct in future posts, but you and I both know that they will end up the same way. I’m good with that. All footnotes are for reference only. These have no bearing on the information presented above and may include: side thoughts, more links or just more scattered information. Read at your own risk.

I’ve blogged about it here, here, and here. And now in this post. See Wikipedia entry here. And I’m not overly sure I’m not. But then I fall into the self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. This self made quote, sadly, makes me giggle. I think this to be, up to this point in time, one of my best lines. Ever. Period. 10am is a great time to get up. Honestly. Its my life and my schedule - the one by which my world operates - and I like things orderly. Go figure. A good book that my wife bought and that I have not read enough of. My wife went to one of his seminars in Vegas in late 2008 and I’ve watched a bit of his DVD’s. You can view his website here. I wonder if that will raise more issues? I mean, I hate complainers and I have become one. It can be measured in almost a few dozen. Yeah, I have that kind of ‘reach’ with my blog. I’m not dissing you my friends, just stating that if I were doing this blog for money, I’d have starved years ago. If it does come as a surprise to you, please seek help. Keep in mind that I still need to pay bills, child support, support my family, etc.

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Last night I had an epiphany. All of those little things in life that are repeated, or seemingly repeated, finally clicked home. I have been followed, poked and prodded lately by one theme. Looking back at my own writings on here(1) I can clearly see that theme present then as well. I’m not sure when this Life Theme ( Yes, I’ll get to the theme in a bit. ) first appeared to me. Most likely I will never know as I didn’t pay attention to it. Like many I am self absorbed and, to a degree, base. I live from day to day wondering why I’m here, if my family will survive, and how I’ll pay my bills. This takes its toll and weeks fly by me. Unlike being a child when time crept by, time now flys like a rocket and I look about seeing I’ve missed so much. Then, realizing what I’ve been missing, I end up brooding over how I let the time get away. And the circle repeats. Being in a car for the eight hours of my work schedule I’ve stocked up on Podiobooks to listen to. In them, all of them, has been this theme. The theme of ‘being more’, ‘better’, leaving life and those you touch better off for their brief contact with you. Not once have I listened to and enjoyed a book where the bad guy wins, the down and out stays that way or the chance to save the world is passed by. Take a peek at Nathan Lowell’s The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series and you see the Life Theme in action with the character of Ishmael Wang ( Pronounced WONG ). The same goes for movies. I watched, and I have no idea why, Burn After Reading. All I can ask after watching most of it is, why? I also rented Ghost Town(2) which has become one of my favorite movies. I have to say, for movies with this theme, it ranks up there with how much I love Mr. Destiny. From books, movies and blog posts to my life its been there and I have not seen it, or haven’t wanted to see it. Not that there is much of a difference. In December of 2007 I was almost killed. In the time since I have been trying to figure out WHY I was allowed to live. Then six months later I almost lost the most important person in my life. And still I did not see what was there. I was missing the signs. No, I’m not the most observant person when it comes to seeing whats happening to his life. Again, I missed it and I even blogged about it. What a schlemp. Then after listening to most of Nathan Lowell’s series and watching Ghost Town last night, it hit me. I have been lost. Like Myke Bartlett’s character in Electricity I have been floating along with life lately. I have not directed my own course. In Ghost Town the main character ( Bertram Pincus ) is an ass and is told so by his partner. He lives to suite himself. He is walled off from everyone for reasons of his own. In the scene that opened my eyes, Bertram is sat down by his coworker, Dr. Prashar, and made to look at a poster that quoted Albert Einstein. That quote is below. “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” Albert Einstein — quote to The New York Times, June 20, 1932(3) . I do not consider myself an ass. That was added only to let you know about that character. Anyway, that is when it hit me that I know what my purpose is. Funny thing is that I’ve been doing it to a degree for as long as I can remember. I have been serving others. But its obvious that I am not living up the the expectation of it that has been set for me. Be it having been set by fate, God or whomever, I need to reach that potential. I’m not saying that now I know the answers. Far from it. I’m saying that I have finally opened my eyes and see the theme that has been running throughout my life and I have this one shot to live up to it. How do I do it? And that is the hard part. Welcome to my life. I hope I leave you better off than you were before we passed. If I can help you, please let me know. We only get one shot at life, two if we are lucky, and we need to ensure that we do all we can to support each other. My sincere thanks to Nathan Lowell for showing me, rather telling me, how one person can positively effect those around him by the simple things. I’m sure Nathan didn’t plan on that when he wrote his series. My belated thanks to Peter Froning. I really wish I had met you. Peter touched all those he met.

To all of my friends, I do cherish you. And yes, I suck at keeping in touch, even with my family.

All footnotes are for reference only. These have no bearing on the information presented above and may include: side thoughts, more links or just more scattered information. Read at your own risk.

See these previous posts - Meaning of Life, Father and Daughters, I Worry, I Almost Died, I Don’t Believe It If you have not rented Ghost Town please do. Its a love story / comedy with wry British humor. You’ll enjoy it. Quote information swiped from here.

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