Don't seek the light - BE the light

I don't want to claim originality just because I am quoting my own line from my own song - as I am not the first to say it and I bet someone else already said it. Like my cheese song says - everything's been done before to be done again and again. Maybe I say it with one punctuation mark different. I claim nothing as my own as I am a product of the world around me, all 6 billion, including all who have come before and all who will pass. My wife may not like me after I read this to her, but as she has seen it as her job to tear me a new ass opening at times, obviously I am inclined to pay her back - even if it will completely sabotage any chance at sex - as I am doing this in a loving way and my intentions are good. Maybe she won't hit me as hard after I am done knowing that. Yeah - probably won't make a difference. I love you honey - you know it (I see her gritting her teeth).

I had a Shamanic experience yesterday. If that was it's all about, I am not sure how many more I want to have. But it is the best way of explaining it. A little background first - my sister Edie came to visit us - it was 3 days of sightseeing and pretty draining, but overall went about as well as a visit like this could go. My daughter got very attached, and when Edie left she was wailing, howling, crying, screaming - and this went on off and on for over a day. She was yelling at us in the car - it's only you two, nobody else - only you two and I am sick of it. My wife is always telling me how isolated we are. Of course hearing this she will tell me, that is the way it IS. Technicallhy speaking, it is hard to argue against. She started into it - once again - on our love seat in the living room in the afternoon. I did not resist, I did not argue - I just took in the world view being presented it to me. It came at me in a wave of desperation, depression and sadness. We are out here - we have no family - we have no connections. Our only friends are the Bergers and take a look at them - they are cold. I should have never left Chicago - I hate it out here - what a bunch of fucking rednecks - they are so closed off - they won't accept you if you aren't one of them - there are no services - what are we doing to our daughter - we are destroying her - this is not good for her. I took it all in and I couldn't say a thing. I just felt myself getting more and more depressed, sinking deeper and deeper. And she was right - all of these things were true - we are isolated and miserable, we are depressed - we are screwing up our daughter and it all seemed so hopeless. I started sinking into the mindset of the days when I thought suicide seemed like the best option and I was thinking why bother. Those families of mass murder suicide seemed to make sense in their own way and I almost found myself thinking - why live - what's the point. I sank and I sank. I finally had to walk away - I told her I can't hear this any more but the damage was done. I was stumbling around in a state of depressed delirium. I felt drugged. I had to summon all of my energy just to get in the car and go into the store. I was nodding off in a dream state in the car. It was all so hopeless - doomed - a no way out situation. At some point along the line I stepped back and said to myself "this is the voice of the parasite" - the one Don Miguel Ruiz describes in all of his books. I didn't condemn it - I just identified it. Yep - there it is - clear as day - it is telling me once again to end my life, no point in living - what a fuck up I am. And then somewhere else from far away I heard something else - a quiet voice behind the screaming voice of the parasite - very quietly and firmly say - no - don't believe it. And then - boom - it was gone. I came to - almost like a feeling of waking up - and then it was like snapping out of a spell.

I played some life affirming songs in the backyard later, went to bed early and now it is all clear to me. It's all true and it's all a lie at the same time. But what it comes down to is very simple. Like Ruiz says, it all comes down to darkness and light. We all need the light to survive. And if you look for the light in any place outside of yourself, you won't find it. My light was very dim when all this was happening, but I held on and now I have it back. My wife points out every time I read this that I am a fucking hypocrite - I am not the spiritual person I claim to be - I am not generous - I am cold, I am not out giving to the poor. True - true - true - Hell - I am just trying to keep us all afloat - the three of us, the two dogs, and now two cats that we have here. Am I a Hindu Guru or the Dalai Lama? Hell no - I am not. I claim to be nothing. I am everything you want to call me. Am I depressed? Yes. Am I neurotic - hell yes. Am I cold - yes - at times I am. Am I anxious - sometimes I am. Am I fearful - yes. Do I hoard out of fear of losing what I have? Yes - I am afraid of losing my house - I watch it - I don't have the money to donate. Could I be doing more than I am - yes. You want to call me a fraud? Go ahead. The only thing is - I don't claim to be anything other than a human being. I have faults - like just about everyone. The only thing is now I am not ashamed any more of what I am. I accept myself - everything - good and bad and I am what I am. But one thing I've learned that I didn't know 23 years ago when I was suicidal is that I can find it all in my heart and soul. It's all there to be claimed. I know how to claim it now - at times - and that is what gets me through all this. It is what gets me through the times at work when people see me as the evil insurance guy, the times I fight it out with the home repair contractors, the days I get up without any seeming trace of energy and have to drive all over the place and work up to 12 hours at times, it is what gets me through the marital difficulties, the problems with raising a demanding and difficult child - that light is what gets me through all of it - and to know and believe that in the face of how seemingly hopeless it all seems to be - EVERY LITTLE THING'S GONNA TO BE ALL RIGHT - anyway, just like Bob Marley says it will.

My beloved wife left Chicago - and her Queen Anne furniture - to be in a relationship with screaming red flags blaring at her. Everyone warned her not to go. She didn't listen. She decided that. Why I ask her? Because she wanted to be a part of something. Because as great as everything was there, it wasn't enough. She had a chance to say no. Didn't happen. When it fell apart she had a chance to return, but mother wasn't encouraging it and out of pride she could not go back. There were many chances to go back. When she was with me and it was getting ugly at times, but she has chosen to stay here. Even now she could go back if she wants to. But the first thing you have to accept is that you have some choice in your life for your destiny. She can blame Stuart, her mother, me - but the reality is some kind of karma brought her here for a reason. That is the first part of accepting responsibility. Stop the blaming. What good does it do? If this place is the living epitome of barren isolation, then you are a part of this karma and you are making it happen. Out here she is a part of a loving family, has Mexican students who see her as a providing mother, she has more out here than she has ever had in Chicago. But I know - it is not enough - and why?

Because nobody can do it for her. Nobody can do it for anybody. I am screaming at her practically to wake up and see the love and beauty around her. But she won't see it. All she sees are karmic mirror images of herself that she condemns. Our best friends out here - through lack of any competition really - she describes as miserable, cold people in denial - the man looks like a beggar. And yet she is also in a state of misery, and when it comes to other people she is a beggar - she is begging them for company, to take her away from herself, for a deep connection - for a bond - but as she begs she pushes away and finds fault with everybody who crosses her path. Guess what - WE ALL HAVE THEM - WE ARE ALL FUCKED UP! You want the perfect person to cross your path - well tell me - why would they want an emotional beggar in return? We met some people at a Meet UP who seemed really nice - I think she scared them half to death - told them that they were like family that we should do stuff together. They avoided us like the plague and then she seemed very disappointed. Well hell - if you see an emotional beggar who wants to take your emotional energy to make up for your own depleted energy, what are you going to do? You - like most people are going to RUN FOR THE HILLS.

But it is all perspective. See the way I see it nobody has anything to offer me. My wife - hopefully at times - will offer me physical comfort, but it is something I can also provide for myself. I have a very willing and experienced hand! Yes I am sorry - nature takes over - sometimes I want the real thing - and somehow or another maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't - but for the most part I see myself as the center of my own light. I cultivate my own light - like a farmer cultivating a garden - and then it is my light to share with you. We both have two different ways of experiencing our Berger friends. She says they are miserable, they are condescending, they talk down to her - and hell yes they are all those things. You want to buy into it - you want to believe you are a servant, they will treat you like one and you will be upset and offended. They have offended me before. They didn't let us use their house for a b-day party - I didn't like that. But hey - when I go over there I don't buy into any of it. I am the shining light and I own the place and they are lucky to have my energy. I shine in a place of darkness, but I don't let the darkness take me in. I feel at times people gravitate toward me when I am in this state. No they are not flocking to my house for dinner - it is more subtle - but I do sense it.

The other people we know - the Schrantz family - are users - they are trying to take from others - well isn't the light going on? When you are looking for others to fulfill your own desperate void, aren't you doing just that? Is it really a coincidence that all these people are the ones we know here? What are they trying to tell us? Do we condemn them for being who they are, or do we look into ourselves and see the side of our own selves that they bring about and look in rather than looking outside?

I see everything happens for a reason. Everything. Period. Where you are - where you go - the people who come into your life - they are all trying to tell you something. You can accept it or you can resist. Resisting is much harder. Everything becomes the enemy. Everything from the place you live to every person who comes into your life who you end up fighting with because they aren't getting it, they aren't seeing it the way you do, they don't agree with you politically, morally, they are wrong and Damn it - what is wrong with THEM! Everybody is bad - they are stupid, close-minded, selfish for not GETTING WITH THE PROGRAM! The world becomes your enemy and then it is me vs. the world. If only - if only they understood me - if only they were warmer - if only this was Chicago - if only my family understood me and did not see me as an outcast. And if you are looking for a good way to beat yourself up - try reversing the past - I should have gone back when I had the chance - that is always a win win - trying to change something that has already been done.

Call me crazy - I know you have - and I know you think I am - but I don't see myself as isolated. I feel connected to people. I have stopped expecting anything from my family. With my sister I wrote her a letter a few years ago - you betrayed me - you weren't there for me - I reached for you and you rejected me. But that is out of my system - as much as it can be now. I have no expectations any more. No coincidence that with that in mind she has finally come out to see us. I expect nothing because what can she give me anyways? I mine for the light - and it is within my heart - my own attachment to God through my own heart and soul. My family is with me in spirit - I don't feel like Edie ever left - her spirit is walking besides me, I think about Dan and Phil all the time, even my parents as evil as they can be - I think about them too. But they live in my heart - I don't need to see them, hear from them - have them here. I am in touch with humans in my heart, and I can never be alone. Ram Dass said it in one of his books - once you feel that, what are you going to do - hide in a bathroom? Where can you hide? Yet conversely - when you tell yourself over and over how isolated you are, how can you be anything other than that and then coincidentally - end up in a physical and mental spot that is the caricature representation of isolation? Well there is the Law of Attraction for you - I am soooo isolated - then wham - that is your life - nothing but isolation. You start to feel connected - and then you can be living in a one horse town in the middle of nowhere, and you won't feel the slightest feeling of it. Because it is all perspective. What you believe happens, and what happens is what you believe.

Do I have the answer for you - my beloved wife? No - I pray and hope all the time that the light - no pun intended - will turn on. But until then - all I can do is what I am doing - and put out all the positive energy I can. I am not a perfect Dad, but I love my daughter. I am not a perfect husband, but I love my wife. I am who I am. I am not who you want me to be. I have my needs and desires and I need the light to keep shining. I will do the best I can. And I will be the light. If I keep on focusing - I will be the light.