The good we have to give

In this first part, I need to apologize. If only for my self and because I feel remorse over it, I am here to say in the most childish, and non-snarky way I can: i’m sorry. No really~ Over the most recent span of time and my passage on this human journey, i’ve been reminded that my journey is not just my own, and that no one really walks this road alone. Everyone influences and is influenced by a great number of other people along the way, and that influence also has serious impact. And that impact deserves to be respected. I say I was reminded. It really is a passive sort of thing because I didn’t pull this thought out of the ground or a river, but it came to me. It was given. Washed up on the shores of my 脑海 （nao3 brain - hai3 ocean {aka ~ stream of consciousness}）as I sat stewing in my own juices. And for that reminder I am also grateful and consider myself blessed for receiving. But enough of this Grammy awards-type thankfulness that just keeps going on. The thing that I am remorseful for came to me after sitting on a plane going to the Philippines. Marvelous (though hot...) country. It has changed me in so many ways, including the way I will now respect the term “third-world country” and not consider it a slur against any nation. I was in my ticketed seat when we hit some turbulence, which at the time seemed serious. It wasn’t really, but it seemed it. I’ve flown hundreds, possibly even thousands of times. Why did it bother me this time. I’m not afraid of my own mortality. It comes to everyone, and i’m not particularly concerned with eternity at this point in my journey. But before death there was something else that worried me. Not pain, i’m not a child. Not a need for life, I’ll take death when it is indeed my turn. No - i had a Casper-like sort of unfinished business. I love Casper (the friendly ghost). Its one of the movies that has moved me most since my child-hood and continues to move and teach me to this day. Hits me on so many levels. However - the level in question right now is why Casper was a ghost. Ghosts stick around because they have “unfinished business.” Thats why they don’t cross over. And when Casper is there in the attic with Kat (Christina Ricci) remembering on his sled he says, “I didn’t go where I was supposed to. I just, stayed behind.” And there is something more that I can’t really quote verbatim at this hot second. Generally he was talking about how he couldn’t leave his dad alone though. And I don’t have a word for that feeling, maybe someone can provide one for me, but the closest thing I can say to explain what I felt in that jolted seat going over the ocean towards a place i had no knowledge of was a potential-pre-regret. The punishment that fueled my fear in that moment was the possibility of regretting/having unfinished business because I felt like I hadn’t loved “my people” enough. I felt like I had and have more to give, and I don’t mean that in a (think of what I could do if only I had the time) kind of way. What I mean is that I have been holding back, and I have seen it. I didn’t quite know how, but that does not make me innocent, because I knew the source within myself that “held back.” On a certain level it was a choice that I made to hold back. I dont want to talk now about the conflict that led to me to “withdrawal”, but regardless, the thing to know is that it lead me to a place where I believed it was better to hold-back to avoid vulnerability. Avoiding vulnerability is also a sort of strength, so 难怪 (nan2 difficult guai4 blame {})that was the choice I made at the time. But if we (I) are (am) always looking for the point of strength, and choosing it over the place where we can be most full, we are effectively taking the colour out of the world. Utopia is at least worth thinking about damnit! And if we never strive for it, how can we ever achieve it? Shucks, it may be impossible, but it could be MADE possible if the rules were changed, and why shouldn’t we contribute in whatever way we have in us to contribute. Otherwise we dishonor ourselves and make ourselves out to be much less than we could possibly be. We shrink ourselves down to a compact, yet defensible ball, and wait for the tide of reality to eventually wear us down into nothing. And I will not be that ball. I will be much, much more, and if it cost me everything but the meaning that I ca bring along with me, I will take that price and know that I have been as full as my container allowed. And in that I will find my contentment. Anything else will be vile to me and I will cut and burn it off as I have to, because I find it rude, malicious and utterly against me in everything I could hope to be. --------- interlude --------- It took me a while, but I came to the conclusion (temporary?) that the thing I wasn’t giving or the good I wasn’t doing was sharing my journey with “mine.” There were a few prominent figures that came to my mind on that flight, but I don’t feel it prudent to mention them here. (When I say “mine”, I mean “my people”) I need to do what I was made to do, whatever that means, but the absentee-cruelty that I do to Mine, is when I leave them out of what I am doing. So many sights, tastes, smells, people, adventures, lessons, and sources of meaning that I have come into contact with, and I have the capacity to express it. But it has taken me this long to realize that I needed to. Like sunlight and vitamins I, within myself, have needed to show my experience to Mine if only to honour the place that they have in my life and the value that I lay upon them. I haven’t posted a blog in ages~ any of you who care will have noticed that. If you don’t then whatever, I don’t crave attention (THAT much...) I have written some, but have found them far too personal to be able to put “up there” for everyone to see. And i’ve found loads of sound reasons not to. But The fact that I have found those reasons unbreakably sound is part of the problem i’ve described above. For a time, I was being that defensive, conservative ball that was unwilling to share. But it is time to move on. And I hope/ intend to express my journey to you now using whatever ability I have.