Category: Society

Observations on US societal constructs

A Call to Trolls

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, SocietyLeave a comment

What the &*(&)%!@#$! are you doing?

I can hear the response now…lol.

Trolls attack. They get in your face and make you examine every possible thought or motive that made you make a statement online. They are brutal and the more you respond with any type of emotion the more they nit-pick through your innards.

There are immersives that have become introverts, dropped off the web, and even committed suicide because of the viciousness of attacks. I am not condoning this type of behavior, but I can also see a tenaciousness that we need and can be directed toward reworking governments.

We have been diluted of that aggressiveness for the most part. Taught to be good little boys and girls, while the governments take our rights away and respin reality to make it appear that they are doing it for our own good?

Anonymous has been a force for some good, trying to keep life online clear of government interference. (I wonder now how many have been bought by the very entities they attacked and are working for the other side?)

What if all trolls were set toward getting the revolution started, attacking those commercial entities that are making government officials “puppets”, exploiting our land, making money off of laws created by those puppets. What if they simply created havoc for the real bad guys. Turn the bad internet trolls into a awesome force for good? Sic ’em guys!

Trolls are among the engagement levels I refer to online as disassociatives. They don’t feel the pain they cause because they don’t believe it is them, they simply enjoy seeing reactions. 

What if the trolls actually got immersive in their feelings toward change and took that anger out on valid targets instead of pony people? They could become the power that sets the tone for the revolution. The new Paul Reveres of a huge movement? The Troll Occupy movement could be IN YOUR FACE scussballs on every commercial CEO that has bought-out a politician and forced through laws snuck into a good-sounding bills. 

As a philosopher I can see that the universe is maintained by shifting of positive and negative. If that pendulum ever became stable the universe would stop, so I understand that all things sweet and smiley would not be heaven. I see the need for addition and subtraction.

Sometimes subtraction is a good thing. Sometimes aggression is the right thing. Let’s see how this could work FOR the cause. Random violence against the weak is not a success, it is cowardness. 

Is it possible for our troll groups to outgun the government bad guys? The question is out there. I have thrown down the gauntlet. 

What will the journey look like? However it pans out… enjoy the journey. Hugs, Pam

Weighing Your Stress

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, SocietyLeave a comment

Who is the Scale?

I have watched a difficult situation be evaluated by a team at my new project location.

New ownership, meant new management, meant new software to run, new accounting methods, new business licenses and all the government hoops. Some people leave because it is too stressful, some are asked to leave. No doubt this is indeed a stressful situation causing interrupts to function, but how much are you going to allow it to affect you?

Little things like, “Where are the garbage cans?” can tip the scale, pushing people to their limits. Some can’t sleep, some are getting ill, some can’t function because of their stress and quit. Yet everyone views things differently and handles the hiccups of transition in a variety of ways.

In an earlier blog I talked about my first experience in driver’s training. How it seemed I couldn’t keep straight on the road because I kept looking at those little white lines coming at me so fast and changing with each turn or lane…that was stressful for me. How can anyone drive when the white lines are coming at you so fast?

The solution was easily resolved when my instructor said, “Look up and farther ahead.” That did it! That didn’t stop the white lines coming at me just as fast, but they were no longer my focus. I now looked ahead and at the bigger picture.

This is point one in handling difficult situations. 1. Change your focus and widen your view. Some guess that is how God looks at things? That could explain a lot, since such an entity would indeed have a much larger viewpoint.

Point two: 2. Long term goal looks positive? If the change is striving (not necessarily functioning, at the moment) at a positive target, get on board. Management has given you a vision of possibilities. That vision should be your new focus.

Point three: 3. Endurance- Everything takes longer than first anticipated and a moment in pain is far longer than a moment on vacation, but that is the journey. I hear, “But this is hard. Nothing is going right.” and I think of childbirth (something most men can’t totally comprehend).

You plan and visualize what it will be like having your new little one and then the first pains come and you remember what it was like with your first one and instantly scream in your mind. “Wait this is far too tough to go through again!” but you have no choice. This is part of the journey. You can’t get from point A to point B without it.

Lastly, 4. Forgive in advance. There are going to be mistakes. This may not work. Figure out a couple of alternatives if it fails and then relax and throw your energy behind the project.

Nothing is assured, and that is the fun of life, the journey that gives you a wonderful story to tell. Think how horrible life would be if at the end you said, ” I worked 40 years putting A into B hole and everything was fine…and now I am going to die without a single hiccup or story of struggle?” No one would watch your movie. 🙂

Life is about hiccups. You decide how to Weigh your stress. Choose a level that is entertaining and will give your story a plot. If you have no stress you will have no story, so enjoy the journey.

Hugs, Pam

The Power of Acceptance

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, SocietyLeave a comment

The feeling of belonging…

Crowd think. It is natural for our species to wish to belong. There is great power that can be wielded for good and evil because of that need.

Peer pressure would be an example of bad. Also patriotism and religion have been known to use this basic human need to manipulate individuals into doing things contrary to positive actions for self.

We need to feel accepted and valued. 

Yesterday’s Roadside Philosopher’s topic was, “What is your ultimate question?” We had many wonderful contributions but one question hit me as unique. “Can you hear me?”

“Can you hear me?” Lent itself to so many philosophical points. Am I a contributing part of a greater whole? Do I count? Am I valued? Have I communicated what I truly mean?

I watched (against my normal knee-jerk reaction to reality TV) the first part of Utopia. It was amazing how the first day everyone wanted to be heard, sometimes forcefully. One gal voiced disgust and repulsion voting negatively on the question of kicking out a rather vile, dominant male. But after agreeing to give him a second chance, he made the effort to actually listen to her and validate her thoughts and all of a sudden there was a connection. She was now accepting him.

Acceptance is very powerful. 

One of my more powerful acceptance memories was not with humans. I was the owner of a small group of goats. Where I went they went. No need for force, leashes or corrals really. It did not even cross their minds to leave me. I was part of the herd. If we went for a walk and I stopped to rest, they stopped and rested. No communication needed. I still cry my eyes out at times when I reflect on leaving my herd to be sold when I returned to the city. Never have I been so totally trusted and accepted.

The Roadside Philosophers have my heart as well. We are the most eclectic group you will ever find, from all around the world, sharing our thoughts without attack. 

There are those among us that are truly obnoxious with their beliefs. Many times we grind our teeth, while we again have to listen to the current topic be spun back into the individual’s unique pet peeve. But we have learned to accept the people and sometimes marvel how they manipulate things back to their focus. 

We have acceptance in the group. All thoughts are valued, questioned and brought back into our own minds at the level we wish. No one is forced to accept the thoughts, just the people who honestly express them.

That acceptance is what the Family Group use to offer us. Family has lost its cohesiveness in these modern days. People in the family are soon discarded and belittled if not of the same mindset. Divorce and mixed parental responsibilities bring contention. 

We also no longer have the feeling of belonging to a “Village”. The village was ‘Where’ you belonged. Now we move all over the place and even the government is seen as an interrupter of life vs the protector. So no wonder the need for acceptance has become so dominate.

We cloister ourselves with race, colour, sexual orientation, political parties, alumni, religion, seeking that feeling of belonging.

It is a need, but what if we opened it up to a wider construct? We are all humans. That probably won’t happen until an alien race comes and tries to dominate. Only then will we bond together as family. Too bad we need such a contention to unite.

Try this week to express acceptance to someone of contrary opinions. Watch the change. It is an amazing transformation. You will be both astonished and uplifted.

Broadening your horizons will expand possibilities for your journey. Enjoy that journey.

Hugs, Pam

But What if I Fail?

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, SocietyLeave a comment

…sup, sup…

Fear of failure seems to be a major motivating factor that STOPS everything.

“I can’t talk to her. What if she doesn’t like me?” 

We are afraid of rejection, so much so that games are incorporating that fear to get you to buy stuff. Wow, we can’t even stand to see the word FAIL on a Candy Crush level so we will buy a cheat component to pass level 147.

“But what if I fail?” Is hardwired into us. Fail means you’re not good enough…but in whose eyes? By what game? …and who says you have to follow their rules? Is that game even valid to you, really?

I have been watching a lot of Disney movies lately and there seems to be a common thread for each hero’s journey… The hero breaks the rules! Mulan was a female who went into the army; Aladdin was a street rat who stole; Hercules wasn’t a hero until he truly sacrificed what others thought valuable to safe another… In other words, until you step outside of the box of OTHERS expectations to be true to the voice within you, you can’t truly succeed.

That’s true in real life as well. “You can’t fly.” was said to Wilbur & Orville. You can’t… YOU can’t… YOU CAN’T… is what everyone else will say who doesn’t hear the beat of your drum.

So are you going to listen?

I had a smart aleck guy tell me he was so smart that he knew how this game would end and he would always win. He then went and told me the rules to his game. I looked at the board, determined that if he knew things would end his way if I followed his rules, then I wouldn’t follow his rules. I am mischievous that way. *wink* I created my OWN game, which was; I was not going to let it end the way he anticipated. That was the game I was playing.

We create our own game with rules that we determine. If you play someone elses game, with THEIR rules, they will win.

Same thing goes with our current life. The rules say the points are $. If you don’t have enough dollars you have FAILED. If you buy into that game you will indeed fail…because guess what? No matter how much money you get, you will die. 

We will all die, but if you spent your whole life chasing those $ points and have foregone all the things that YOU wanted out of your time here on the blue planet, then you have failed you. 

Nobody at the end of your life is going to give you a blue ribbon and say you won, because you got the most $ points. It will be just “you, yourself, and I” that reviews your life.

What game are you going to play? By what rules are you going to live? Do not even flinch if someone says, YOU Failed! in their game. You’re not living their game. You’re living yours.

So if that girl says, “Go away, Creep.” Don’t consider it a failure, consider it a new challenge. Make up your own game. How many different ways will she say “Get Lost” before you whittle her down to, “Ok, I will have a cup of coffee with you.”

Yeah! Your game rules. You determine when you have won. Awesome isn’t it. Only you get to say when you fail, but fail only means you have quit. You can easily redraw the rules to your game and come at it in another way.

The only way you fail, is if you follow other’s rules to their game.

Enjoy the journey…just make it your own.

Huga, Pamala

The Freedom of Letting Others be Free!

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, SocietyLeave a comment

Whee…

It is amazing how much we wish freedom for ourselves but want to curtail others.

It is also a knee-jerk reaction for women to want to tie down a man for their security, and men’s desire NOT to be burdened. So we have a gender issue here.

We have those who think their religion should dominate the planet and they will do whatever they have to do to make others See the Light! 

There are those that say they are scientifically minded and believe everyone elses experiences irrelevant, seeking to step on and smear anything that can’t be proved with numbers (as if numbers were not a fictitious construct created by man in the first place). 

Everyone is trying and working toward convincing someone else to do something. Advertising, politics, legal, education all societal constructs are meant to corral a person into thinking like someone else wants.

It is sad really that your validation as a human is in the hands of all those “others”.

But what if we REALLY let others be free. (to the extent they do no harm) What would happen? What if we were allowed to talk about the things that made us different without worry?

I have seen for myself the freedom of being non-judgemental grow. In fact, when you take the judgemental out of your perception the only thing left is sincere questioning and listening. “Uh? You like to lick rocks?”

Ok the first thing a judgemental person would do when confronted with such an observation is to pass a judgement that the person is an idiot and try to talk to them about how unsanitary and disgusting that is… BUT if you stopped being judgemental you may just inquire, “Why do you lick rocks?”  

This opens the gate to freedom. Now the person is being respected and not judged and an avenue of communication has opened. Then you are opened to be enlightened by this unusual activity, and may find out the geologist you’re talking to is extremely brilliant. You would have missed out on all that if you had stamped out your judgement.

So not judging others is freeing for you, freeing for them and is the beginning of what we all wish from this life: To be recognized as individuals with different talents and needs.

Imagine for a minute what it would be like if people were not afraid to say I’m Jewish, homosexual, drum player, artist, philosopher and met with a question like, “Tell me what that is like and why it is of value to you?”

This insight of life was beaten into my head with the seven years of the Roadside Philosophers. So many bizarre personalities that with time and understanding have grown to flower into the unique beauty of their true selves. 

Wow, the world is inundated with unique perspectives all stuffed on this little globe of a planet, as soon as you set yourself free you will find never ending explorations and understanding await.

Enjoy the journey!

Hugs, Pam

Whose Dogma is Reality?

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, Philosopher comments on Reality, SocietyLeave a comment

Oh Yeah?

Reality is a variable which depends on who is spinning the tale.

It saddens me to hear people get on their high- horses and use invalid trump cards without ever really thinking things through from the beginning.

There are the religious people who throw the trump card, “The Bible, Koran, Confucius, Torah, Budda…Says…” and that is supposed to end any further discussion.

There are the materialists that keep throwing Science up as their trump card without ever examining their thought processes either. That is even more distressing. They claim the scientific method trumps just Faith. Yet they have faith in things which are just as much of a story as Venus rising from the waves. 

We have dogma. According to Wikipedia, “Dogma is a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. It serves as part of the primary basis of an ideology, nationalism or belief system, and it cannot be changed or discarded without affecting the very system’s paradigm, or the ideology itself.” 

The fight between the dogmas is just like the dogs above with the stick. “Its mine…no its mine.” The basis behind almost every war.

The materialists say things like…”I can’t see God, so it doesn’t exist.” (Well, that seems silly…since we have microwaves, music and all sorts of smells that can’t be seen either.) That does not mean it doesn’t exist. It only means we are infants in this universe and do not have enough ways of discerning something. You can never prove something does NOT exist.

…But I love this! This is where I bring in Gravity! Still materialists will say, I can SEE gravity work so that is real. 

What is Gravity? I will let you Google that, because the closest thing that science can say is it pulls matter together. Gravity is undefinable, just observable.  

Notice that the religious people use the exact same method of validation in their definition for God: “See the universe and all it’s amazing intricate complexities? This is an observable mathematical wonder that proves he/she/it exists. A painting can only exist if there is a painter.

So what materialists have done is given the word gravity to an observable unknowing interaction. That is when I say, lets switch words. Lets give gravity a new name…lets call it God. 

Now we have a construct, both unknowable, both do things that are observable but not definable, why is either name wrong? They are both just words for something we know little about. Calling it gravity, instead of calling it God does not clarify a thing! It is a dogma that we fall down on when we don’t know what we are talking about. One unknown, undefinable or the other still gets us no where. Everything is an infants story of how the universe works. 

Yes, science can take the few tinker toys we have and build a toy house, but never seem to be able to give the construct a complete enough infrastructure to make it work!

The cover of Scientific America May 2014 throws out an often repeated story to the gurus of the religion called science. It says: “A Crisis in Physics?” The article talks about the belief that was going to pull everything together appears to have died. In other words, just like the dozen or so other times that brilliant minds have come up short, they are almost faced with the confession that what they declared as fact is indeed fiction. 

That is the good part of science, at least at some point they may admit they are wrong, but it takes hell-in-a-hand-basket to get that.

As a philosopher that constantly examines reality, I see no point in arguing what is true, only what is perceived. Since every perception is relative any expressed perception or experience honestly conveyed has validity.

We don’t need more wars. We don’t need more dogma. We need to listen. We need the freedom to explore. We need to share without trump cards. 

Wouldn’t that be a wonderful journey to enjoy?

Hugs, Pam

Dealing with NEVER…the word that ends something.

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, Philosopher comments on Reality, SocietyLeave a comment

NOT That…

One thing is for sure, everyone reading this (outside of bots) are inhabiting a biological unit.

That deteriorating biological unit comes with an expiration date.

Nobody likes that, so we pretend it does not exist. It is the fault of everyone else or things, or insurance etc. 

I sometimes have a hard time with people when they start ranting about their 95 year old parent getting an infection and dying in the hospital. They act like death could have been avoided? 

There IS an EXPIRATION date in everyone’s folder, but that is not what I wish to talk about today. 

The term NEVER has horrible connotations. We use it when dreams and expectations come to a final conclusion. “You will never walk again.”; “You can never have kids.” “He/She will never love you again.” These are definitely impactful statements that require rearrangement in thoughts, mind, and heart.

How do you deal with the envisionment of your life story terminating. Well I can pretty much guarantee there will be a time of bewilderment. You should properly mourn your loss with grieving rituals, but set a time limit.

When we envision our future we create a narrative and a dialog of what we think it will be…but it is just a story. There are sooo many stories and “Happily Ever After” is rarely one. We KNOW that we should do this… and run full steam in that direction anticipating that it will go straight to the simple conclusion, but that is not so.

Our story is more like a map, but we are too blind to see it that way. Our journey of life gets insights to turn left here; join a group, go to college, marry this person, take this job, move to this location etc. And we somehow always take the stand that this is the ONE direction into infinity. 

There are many twists and turns that will happen but as linear-time-line entities we never want to anticipate doing anything but going straight through the direction the left turn took us forever.

Try looking at life as a GPS device. “For NOW, I will do this…”; “I went in that direction until I came to a new cross road and was told to turn right.” Can right at this intersection of the journey of life be right at this location but wasn’t right for the last decision. Yes! Timing is everything. You can’t easily get to work if you take the exit before the one that takes you to your work location.

Never just means you have to make another selection, it is not a termination of your travels unless it is a termination. If we look on Never as a detour sign, or a reroute it is simply the opportunity to create a new story, than we can deal with Never. Your story gets a refresh, much more creative and entertaining opportunities await.

You might never walk again, but that single person hover craft you will invent works so much better! You make new goals and challenges and as soon as you decide on the new direction and let go of the past fantasies you can again enjoy life.

Life is a convoluted map and all we need to do is keep going forward with a story. Pick a story that energizes you and that you have some control over. (“…When I win the lottery”…puts you in a forever holding pattern. There is no travel there.) 

The saddest most depressed people are not the poor ones, the broken ones, the lonely ones…it is a person without a direction and a story. 

And guess what? You are totally in charge of your story and can change it with just a thought. Striving is fun…succeeding is not necessary, but a direction is.

The power of your story is everything. I hand over to you the key to the universe. Create the amazing entity that will be you…not once but at every intersection of life, and enjoy that journey.

Hugs, Pam

When Choosing a Partner, Look for the Negative

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, SocietyLeave a comment

Wrong music

Making a decision about a mate is most often made by looking at what is desired. He must be tall; she must be thin. Must be a beautiful person, make lots of money etc etc.

We shop like it is a grocery list. “Sorry you do not meet my criteria. You’re dismissed.” This is totally the wrong way to look for a frail human companion.

The most important thing is to look at their faults. That’s right…their faults. These are the things that will cause you to tear your hair out down the road. 

A relationship is not a trophy on your arm for the evening this is a lifetime dance, or at least a decent length commitment.

If their worse fault is something you can tolerate and accept, you might have a match. It is the worse side of your partner that has to be examined yet we only look at the cover of the box.

I usually tell the men I date..(not that I am doing that very much at my age) that I do not call it a relationship until we have had a fight and get past it. 

The main reason is that you see people’s true colors when they are mad. Also if you can figure out a mutual conflict-resolution methodology that both of you can tolerate…you might have a winner. Until then it is just a getting to know you waltz.

Most things GOOD will change. He could lose his job. She could get pregnant and fat. None of those components will stay stable, but a mutual commitment toward conflict resolution will give you a firm grounding for a REAL relationship.

Life will NEVER be perfect. The Cinderella Story is just that, a story. What makes things work is examination, communication and integrity of effort. 

The role we play for our significant other gets old after a while and we can only pretend to be a perfect person for so long. None of us are perfect. *gasp*

Men and women are different. Our needs are different. If one member of the group is unhappy and we haven’t the energy or the commitment to figure out where things have gone astray…the relationship will enter the ending phase.

You may find out that the people that have the character traits for an enduring relationship are just the opposite of your original shopping list. He might not make much money, because he puts his efforts toward his relationships. She might not be as thin, because she spends more time on others than on herself and vanity.

So if what you really want is a relationship that will last? Try looking on both sides of the shopping list… the good and the bad. If they are short on the good but you can tolerate their worse. You might still have a great deal.

Enjoy the journey. Hugs, Pam

Information Credibility vs State of Being

On By Pamala CliftIn Education, Philosopher comments on Reality, Society, UncategorizedLeave a comment

What is true?

Since I am constantly examining “What is Real?” in the digital environment I have to explore tons of websites that claim credibility.

By what credentials does a website become valid? If I was Google I most likely would go by the USA standard culture of what is right and wrong. That would mean science and data from academia, government sites and traditional medicine would be higher rated…BUT.

I have worked in government and academia and they truly don’t know any more than the man on the street often times. Someone, somewhere collects data from imperfect sources (usually a survey from some regular people) and instantly THAT becomes the final word. Rarely is that data traced back to its source or method. That means that a question asking you to select A or B, or rate something will likely not fit exactly your experience, but that doesn’t matter. Once you have made a selection “Numbers are GOD”. 

Nobody has real access to everyone, even Google. They can access what you choose to say, view and engage with online, but not everyone puts their true thoughts online, many have a facade.

The “State of Being” lecture, which is the volume control of engagement shows that not always do we interact at the same volume. Sometimes we engage disassociatively just for entertainment, sometimes we are grasping at what validates our perspective immersively, and finally we are using our judgement mode to augmentatively add selectively to our frame of reference. All of these modes will vary with the moon, hormones or life experiences.

I worked at a research facility one time on air quality and was accumulating data by a strict criteria to ascertain if the particulates in the electron microscope image were fly ash, sulfates, pollen, or unknown particulates. I worked very diligently to follow the guidelines and report accurately, but at one point I recorded my findings on the back of the picture and came back to it and recounted them later. It was dismally disappointing. My perception of the data was significantly different. The results also at times didn’t match expectations with the professor and so modifications were made to the formula by removing the parenthesis in the algebra? This is what we use as absolute governmental and scientific TRUTH?

At the Roadside Philosophers we have a first person group, which means we share perspectives and experiences one-on-one. The person is right there to question and we encourage cross examination and the “Whys”. It doesn’t take long to ascertain what volume they are engage in by the words they use in their first person account. This is invaluable in deciding their engagement level. Those little adjectives and sentence formation gives us their State of Being. However scientific papers are stripped of such clues. It is not considered scientific so all you see are numbers and graphs and bland documents. Lack of that context information is supposed to make reports MORE truthful?

I witness more and more scientific articles that say things like, “Taking Vitamin C MAY help ward off colds.” The words May or Can or Might is more truth… because they really don’t know. Just like Betty down the street tells you that gargling with salt has helped her sore throat. If you have someone right in front of you, you can bounce your questions off them directly. Experiential first person accounts can be falsified just as easily as modifying a calculation. So what do I consider valid? The right to interrogate. If the website has an email to contact and the person responds with something other than a

form letter, I will seriously consider it to be… An immersive perspective to consider.

We can examine validity all day, but the bottom line is that you need to understand that all perspectives are fluid and none can actually reflect 100% accurately the perspective from where YOU stand. 

So this is my point. You can never take a vacation from thinking or reflecting. Only you can draw the line from what is presented to where you stand in your journey of life. Do not give over your truth just because something claims validity over your experiences, unless you have the right of interrogation.

Enjoy your journey and claim your right to validate.  (Trust, but validate!)

Hugs, Pamala

Are you of Less value if your alone?

On By Pamala CliftIn Interpersonal Relationships, Society, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A Light undiscovered?

It is interesting this holiday season how many sad comments I am getting about the fact that I am no longer partnered. That means I am physically in my abode by myself. “OMG how horrid for you during the holidays?”

Trying to explain my feelings seem to be irrelevant.

Being alone is the natural state of being. We are all alone in our mind. No one invades or truly knows who we are but us.

Whether you interact in a group or not you are still inside your mind seperate. Even in a crowd you are alone. How many suffer going through the motions of doing what everyone else expects as normal interactions because it is perceived as the only option? Is that you? Or is that the ritual you go through to block out your own thoughts?

I often think of crowds of family and friends as “television,” just background noise to our existence.  Sometimes interactions are the pinochle of life’s existence as you are enlightened and share something internally important. Those times are rare and wonderful, soul to soul communication, and certainly do not always coincide with large groups of people or holidays.

Face to face communication is perceived as the ONLY real interaction, Really? I drove an hour in traffic to get to a face to face meeting of a new Meetup group in downtown Orlando labeled as technology and education, which as you know is my particular interest. The meet up was 5 guys at a bar. I stayed an hour and found a few things in common but left shortly and drove the hour back. Then I logged online with a Google Hangout and had an absolutely stimulating engagement with several different minds across the world that made my slide into sleep quite fulfilled with new perspectives.

Saying that nothing is of value without physical face to face means you have never been enlighten by a particularly moving piece of music? a book? an email? a phone call? or an online communication?

I watch in the middle of December the sprouting of my newly planted seeds of spinach and lettuce with great delight. Nature is still responding with more than I am giving it. I am blessed! 

I have a vision that I am working toward, a goal… a purpose in life that I think adds value not only to myself with the journey, but for others as well. Whether it comes to fruition or not is irrelevant. I have a story and a plot in my life.

At the time of my parting this biological avatar I will be alone. No one can take that last journey with you. It is only my thoughts I will be examining upon exit. If I have never been alone with them before because I spent my time covering them with loud background noises of others, I expect it would be quite a shock and empty. Will you have fulfilled your purpose in life? Have you identified who YOU are?

When I talk to people I listen carefully for where their values lay and the breakdown is pretty much like Eleanor Roosevelt broke it down in her quote. “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

Those who gossip and find their energy bringing down others are only interested on climbing over bodies and contribute nothing. Those who spend their time observing the world events to make comments that entail no action can be replaced with a good news program. So the only ones that feed society are those that deal with new spins on thoughts and take action to help move them forward. Who are these people? They are the ones that have spent time examining their thoughts and others, so they have had to have turned down the background noise and been alone!

Being Alone is absolutely necessary to bring a person to fruition. It is not only of value, it is essential. If you find yourself alone and morning that no one is there to share with, keep that time short, then turn around and get to know that person that never leaves…YOU!

Amazing how wonderful life is when you live in your own skin and think your own thoughts. Life is good if you have that freedom and have spent the time to like yourself. 

However you envision the Divine, it is your responsibility to get to know how you can interact with it. Whether you think of it as your totem animal, the universe, God or a golden monkey there is that spark that says there is more to know and you have to find a path toward that.

Be not Afraid!

We all travel this journey alone, Together!

Hugs, Pam (The Roadside Philosopher)