Where do I begin? There are just too many ideas in this one topic to enumerate them all here. I just got scammed again in my bank account. A fake Microsoft account tried to rob me through my debit card number, and I have no idea how they got the number. I had to close both my debit card and checking account, with direct bill payments about to go out. I have to pray that the account changes go smoothly enough to make all the payments I owe. I am suffering from how the world sees me. Scammers must see me as the easiest possible mark.
I don’t know what the doctor thinks anymore. I seem to be going to the ER every two weeks. That and a week in the hospital mean that even with Medicare, I owe a lot of money. And who knows what President Pumpkinhead will do to the world economy in the meantime? This world seems to see me as a potential homeless person in a short amount of time. No chance that any of those folks will let me define myself.
But suffering builds character. And, damn! I have a lot of character. Want some of the extra?
Life for me has always been pretty much a long march into the darkness. I try to bring power and light and goodness with me as I march, but I know there is a final end to the journey, and it will not go smoothly. It will not end well. But I don’t see things the way other men do. I continue to fight the good fight, even though I will ultimately lose the war. “Rage! Rage against the dying of the light!” says the poet Dylan Thomas. The fight is everything. And I simply can’t be troubled with thinking about what lies over the last hill in this march toward the final battle.
I think, ultimately, that the important thing isn’t winning or losing. It is about who or what we have become on the inside. I find solace in being able to laugh at life. A lot of depressing things have been happening lately. It can make the laughing harder to manage. But if life is not joy at its heart, then what is it? And what makes it worth living?
“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu
Thus it is… Lao Tzu is wise. The Tzu part of his name means “teacher”. So maybe I need to learn from him. There has to be a way forward, at least until the path ends.
Catch a Falling Star 
Dancing With Alan Watts
It seems sometimes, in a Judaeo-Christian society, that we are a constantly being scrutinized by a rather harsh all-knowing God who rewards getting the faith-words accurately correct, to the letter, and the faith-based actions perfect, without a single mistake. And He punishes missteps of word or deed with pain and suffering and the potential of an eternity in Sheol or Hell. And that is a tough God to live with. He is like a teacher who uses his or her God-like powers to reward or punish to lead his students all down an exacting, narrow path to a destination that does not have room for everyone when they arrive.
It doesn’t take long in childhood for a highly intelligent person to realize before childhood is over that this cosmology is actually a load of horse pucky. It didn’t even take long for somebody as semi-stupid as me.
What I like about listening on YouTube to Alan Watts’s wisdom is that he gives us an alternative way of seeing the universe and ourselves. This he can offer through his studies of Eastern and Buddhist philosophies. Everything appealing in John Lennon’s signature song, “Imagine,” comes from Lennon’s love of listening to Alan Watts’ lectures. He is obviously a wise guy.
Alan Watts teaches us the pathways that lead to finding yourself, who you truly are, and how you fit into the universe as a whole. When Carl Sagan says that we are all made of star-stuff, he is not only telling us what is literally true, as the elements our bodies were formed from were literally made in the nuclear forges at the centers of stars that later exploded in nova bursts to scatter the elements across the skies of everywhere. He is also telling us that what Alan Watts says is metaphorically true, that everything in the universe is part of the same thing and we are all one in this way.
There is plenty to worry about in my little life. I could easily drop dead at any time from any one of my six incurable diseases or even the return of the skin cancer I beat in 1983. I suffer from the consequences of disease daily, as I have for many years now. My sins are many. I broke my promise the other day to never show you the horrors of my naked body on this blog. I constantly eat the wrong thing and continue to do things that I know are bad for the environment and the health of my body. I am prejudiced against racists, stupidity, and the actions of dedicated Trump-lovers. In many ways I deserve God’s wrath and brutal correction. I have come to truly believe that climate change is going to end life on Earth. I am horrible.
But I have learned from Alan Watts that all of those concerns mean nothing. I don’t believe in Heaven or an afterlife. But I do not fear death. I am one with the universe. And the universe goes on even if I do not. And I will always be a part of it, even after I am no longer alive. The universe has a mind and is intelligent And I take part in that because one small part of that intelligence is me, and lives in my head.
There is comfort to be found in the words of Alan Watts. And living in pain as I do, I really need that comfort most of the time. That is why I have attempted to share a bit of that comfort with you.
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Tagged as Alan Watts, meditation, mindfulness, philosophy, spirituality