Tired Middle Aged Man

I did not expect to be still be alive on my 57th birthday. At least that is how I felt back in 2019. So the fact that today is my 57^th birthday is a rather monumental milestone for me. I’d like to share more why.

There was once a person named Stephen “tWitch” Boss. He was described as a person who would light up the room he entered. He seemed always there to help and support others. According to his wife he would often say he wanted to be everyone’s Superman. He was the most likable person in the world personified. 

He was also highly accomplished and successful. He appeared in several seasons of the show “So You Think You Can Dance”. By 2014 he was part of the Ellen show and by the middle of 2020 he became the show’s executive producer. By the beginning of 2022 he had started his own reality television show.

Then in late 2022 without warning Stephen committed suicide. Everyone was shocked. There was no sign of any distress even on the very day he died. Stephen had given no hint of any distress. It’s now been nearly a year since his death and little has been done to make more sense out this. The basic question unanswered is how can happy people who uplift others suddenly commit suicide?

Those close to Stephen describe how they will miss the way he would always brighten up their lives. They decide to remember him as “pure love and light” and then they move on. I have a problem with moving on like this because it seems to encourage us to ignore the parts of us that are having a terrible time especially when we seem to show a happy outer appearance. I hardly know Stephen Boss but I can’t ignore the suicidal pain behind this pretty picture of “pure love and light”. I can’t ignore this because it has some threads similar to my life. I say this because there have been several occasion in my life I COULD HAVE DIED from suicide and most people would have have been caught without warning if I did die.

Stephen Boss was a person in tremendous emotional and mental pain and nobody cared, not even his closest loved ones. The reason nobody cared was because nobody ever knew about his pain. After nearly one year after his death still nobody knows about Stephen’s pain. We can only make guesses. The reason why nobody knows about Stephen’s pain was because he was so good at hiding this behind a bright smile. And he did this because he felt that he could not share more of where his life was so bad he found no option but to kill himself. Stephen felt that it was NOT OK to share the fact that he was NOT FEELING OK. 

Much of our society still holds a stigma against anyone who is not feeling OK mentally and emotionally. I say this because everything I have read about Stephen seems to only elevate him to the status of a role model person we should all aspire to be. If you aspire to be like Stephen Boss then you must accept the truth that along with his “pure love and light” he wanted to kill himself. Do you still aspire to be like Stephen Boss?

With that question you may say to me: “How could you think like that!? What we meant is you should aspire to be like Stephen Boss in all the good ways but not in any of the bad ways like committing suicide” 

But if you react this way you are saying we choose to to remember only the happy side and we choose to ignore the painful side. Aspiring to be like only Stephen’s best characteristics while ignoring his dark side means to aspire to be even better than Stephen Boss. That is a setup for making it unacceptable for people to to share when they are NOT OK. That is a setup for recreating future situations where seemingly happy people commit suicide unexpectedly.

I want to state DO NOT ASSUME that because a person seems happy that it means they could not be suffering a lot on the inside. I bring all of this up because I wanted to highlight some of how I was NOT OK during the many years of my life.  During those times I was not OK, I still managed to project the image of a happy, funny, kind and loving person to a lot of people in my day-to-day life. For a large part of my life I was a bit like Stephen Boss. I could show up hundreds of consecutive days of my life and be wonderful, funny, and smiley to people even though during for those same hundreds of consecutive days of smiling I felt like throwing up and I wished I was dead. 

It’s one thing to think about suicide on occasions but it’s quite different when you think about it consistently over a long period of time. I believe we all may have at one point in our lives felt so bad we thought about suicide. But I don’t think all of us have thought about suicide for hundreds of consecutive days without stop. If suicidal ideation goes on without stop like that it’s so exhausting, and things get ever more painful. When that happens it takes a toll and ever so slowly you start doing increasingly risky or unhealthy things until you step too far beyond the point of no return. Sometimes when you step beyond the point of return you die.

Many people have committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate bridge. But a rare few survived the jump and lived to share of their regret. Every person who has survived jumping off the Golden Gate bridge has described how the moment they let go of the railing and started falling they wished they could have turned around and grabbed hold of that railing again. But they had fallen too far and it was too late. They could only regret their action as they fell to their likely death.

Please understand suicide is not as simple as a desire to die. It is rather a messy desperate call for help to live. A suicidal person is someone in incessant pain finding little to no options for relief except to act with increasingly reckless and risky behavior. This increasingly reckless and risky behavior is their way to scream louder for help in the only way they know how given how they currently feel. In many cases the reckless and risky behavior does NOT result in permanent injury and when that happens it may go unnoticed. But in some cases it results in serious permanent injury or death.

I used to state that I thought about suicide but never attempted it. I now know that is not true. The truth is that in at least 3 incidents in my life I was feeling so bad I did something very reckless and risky that could have resulted in death. On my 57th birthday I want to come clean for my own sake. 

I was a survivor of 3 different overdoses in my life.  On one occasion I lied paralyzed for hours on the bed fully awake but simply unable to talk or move my body. I was trapped in the coffin of my body which was randomly twitching on it’s own. On a second occasion I remember trying to step out of bed and my heart felt like it was about to rupture so I could only fall back on the bed and wait and hope.  On a third occasion I remember fighting so hard to keep breathing. I thought that possibly this could be worthy of calling 911 but I chose to pull it together as best I could because I couldn’t bear the embarrassment of being hauled away in an ambulance for attempted suicide. In other words I felt that it was better to I die like Stephen Boss with people saying “I don’t understand he seemed so OK” rather than having to reveal I was a mess. Fortunately, despite not going to the emergency room I survived. If I had died like Stephen Boss I might have an epitaph saying 

“Here lies Wilson … He was a really good and nice person. He will be loved and missed.”

I’m sharing this to say NO. NO NO NO! F’*&#NG NO!! IT IS NOT BETTER TO KEEP YOUR RESPECT at the cost of your life! IT IS BETTER to keep your life even if it means you will LOSE YOUR COOL, LOOK STUPID, LOOK LIKE A FOOL and LOOK EMBARRASSING and even if you LOOK LIKE A COMPLETE MESSUP. Because your life is so important and precious. It is so important and precious not because of anything you have or will accomplish, BUT BECAUSE you were born, because you exist. It is YOUR EXISTENCE ONLY and nothing more that makes you innately important and precious.

Back in 2019 I had already been thinking about suicide for a long time. In 2019 I was also armed with the knowledge of how to commit suicide gained from the 3 prior suicide attempts. At the same time I had also been figuring out when I could retire from a work life that stressed me to this point of being suicidal. While part of me focused on how much I needed to save to retire part of me also knew my ability to retire is also dependent on life expectancy. Being suicidal shortens your life expectancy and lowers the amount you need to save for retirement. In 2019 I determined that if I was not feeling suicidal and well then the age of 57 would be the earliest possible time I could retire. But in 2019 I was not well and feeling so suicidal so the age of 57 seemed impossibly far away.

That was 2019 when things were so bad. Fast forward to today. It’s 2023. Things are so much better now. I’m really quite happy because I’m more at ease with my life even if there are still lots of messy things and emotions that still happen in my life.

I have to pause …. Oh My God I made it to 57! Part of me won’t fully celebrate until I get past 57 and reach 58. I’d like to be able to declare that nothing about the age of 57 is an endpoint in my life. So the “monkey won’t be fully off my back” until I turn 58. But for now let me celebrate today!

I’ve come to appreciate the gift of depression and the great pain behind all my suicidal thoughts and actions. The gift I inherited consisted of some of the following practices in my life:

1. Take time to slow down and savor the simple things in your life that you enjoy. It could be the simple relief of drinking cool water after being so thirsty, or eating food after being hungry, taking a refreshing shower after getting all sweaty or crawling into bed after being tired. Don’t simply gulp it or jump into it but rather slow down and savor every bit of taste and sensation of these things like it’s the last time you’ll ever get to in your life. Like it’s the last day of your life. Because in reality you don’t know if it will be your last day. Doing this helps you develop gratitude for life at a subconscious and cellular level.
2. Take time each day to find things you are grateful to yourself for. Doing this helps you savor life and builds self-love. Do this practice like your life depends upon it.
3. If you are feeling really bad find someone to share it with. You may not feel safe to share your darkest feelings with people closest to you. That’s OK. At least share it with a professional. If you don’t have access to a professional call someone on a crisis line. When you do this you support gratitude to self. You make it OK to NOT FEEL OK. You establish the truth that your feelings matter.
4. Take time to play like a child. Be silly more. Get a cuddly live pet or get a cuddly furry stuffed animal that you can hug. Dance more. Doing this supports being less afraid of looking stupid or foolish.
5. When you feel better challenge yourself to try something that is emotionally risky. These are not things that are a risk to your physical safety but more of a risk of you feeling stupid, foolish or like a mess-up. Because when these feelings happen they are simply labels based upon judgements and judgements are just made up opinions. So in the end labels of stupid, foolish and mess-up are untruths for actions which are actually signs of the genius, brilliant, iconic and epic. When you can do this more often you increase your vitality and resilience in life. You take yourself to the opposite of depression. Know that the opposite of depression is not happiness it is vitality.
6. But when you do take emotional risks choose smaller risks over larger ones. And when things don’t go as you’d like be kind and gentle with yourself because you are doing the best that you can. Take time to praise yourself for being courageous to have taken the emotional risk.

Today on my 57th birthday I’m grateful I have achieved the miracle of still being alive. Because the truth is everyday we wake up alive is a miracle. We never know for sure if we will live to see the next day. I don’t know if I’ll make it to 58 so I will continue to focus on the present and try to savor each day like my life depends upon it. And if I should make it to 58 I want to continue these practices even if I should make it past 100.

Lately I’ve taken to walking a lot more … sometimes for up to two hours at a time. I don’t listen to any music and I’m not talking to anyone. I’m just observing, thinking, day dreaming, breathing, and listening.

When I first started walking I’d notice the many people that would pass me by in cars, bikes, running and jogging. Many years ago I used to run and initially I’d get envious of runners and joggers easily passing me by. I’d think about the fact that they’d be covering the same distance that I’m walking in at least half the time. So initially walking long distance took up a huge amount of my time. But lately it seems to not take that long.

I mean when I walk for two hours it still takes up two hours of my time. But now the two hours just doesn’t seem as long, and in fact at times can go by rather quickly as I guess I get more distracted or rather occupied by me taking the world around me in with ever more depth, breadth and wonderment.

I also start to find the time to take myself in more. For example I remember sharing with someone how disappointed I was that I was turned down for a new job I applied for. That person reminded me how I was hesitant to apply for that new job because I was afraid of not getting accepted and felt like the new job would be good for me. I was afraid to try for what I wanted, but I had the courage to try and take there risk that I might get turned down. That person congratulated me for trying and taking a risk. And I paused and realized that it was actually amazing I tried.

And while I’m walking, it’s rather amazing that I’m able to walk for over an hour covering about 5 miles at a time, getting healthier and keeping fit in a way that’s puts less stress on my joints. I find I’m able to eat healthier and am slowly losing weight trending towards a healthier body. Doing this takes some discipline and is not a trivial act — I pause to take that in.

It takes some time and sometimes a bit of help from another to find the proper perspective so that I can take in myself. And when I can take myself in, I start to view the things that I have been able to do everyday as amazing — even things that I initially viewed as “unsuccessful”. Because what ever you did that was “unsuccessful” is amazing because it means you tried and the trying itself is a success. Take that in. Breath that in.

The practice of taking yourself in like creates your self esteem. It is the most fundamental way of self love. It creates your resiliency to live within circumstances in life that may seem unloving, uncaring and cruel.

The most important thing you can ever do for yourself is to take time to slow down and take space to take yourself in. You are amazing. Try not to take the things you are able to do everyday for granted … like it’s no big deal.

When you watch this video and listen to the words. I want you to imagine as if “higher self” part of you or the “better side” part of you is singing these words to you. That “higher self or better side” part of you embodies the gentle, caring, loving, honorable, and good parts of you.

Imagine this part of you singing these words to you. Imagine this part taking time to dance slowly with you. Giving you a breather. Appreciating you. Loving you like no other because in the end no other could ever be a better friend to you than you.

Take yourself in. You are beautiful. Your are amazing. Just as you are..

Click the link below to watch this video.

https://youtu.be/-PMmfqJu-xk

Over ten years ago I was diagnosed with clinical depression. It stayed with me for perhaps a few months and then for many years was not part of my life. In recent months it seems to have come back into my life.

Back in then over ten years ago (around year 2005 and later) I’d been through many years of personal stress, so in some ways it wasn’t a surprise with the diagnosis. BUT honestly at least for me I found the diagnosis required my participation to come into being. You see the thing about any kind of mental / emotional / psychological disorder is that the diagnosis is very much a subjective thing coming from a mental health provider. And that diagnosis comes as a result of willing participation of a client wiling to show up and talk somewhat consistently with a health provider.

I remember many years earlier people sharing going thru a divorce or tragic loss of a loved one, or loss of a job and having “a break down” or a “nervous break down” which others later describe as depression. It made it all sound like a situation of just being “over whelmed” and perhaps needing to reach out by way of some kind of clinical diagnosis. But in the end there is an aspect of depression that seems at times hokey.

Someone says “I’m feeling depressed”. Isn’t that just an emotion. I always felt that feeling depressed was just a longer seated state of feeling sad for a long time. So if you’re feeling an emotion for a long time why is that a clinical disease or illness that should be “fixed” with therapy or medication?

I also heard at times that depression was more a deep seated anger at self. Once again anger is just an emotion. So if you’re feeling anger for a long time against self why is that a clinical disease or illness that must be “fixed”?

Ultimately, there is an aspect about depression, it’s characterization, it’s sharing with others and the participation with medical health care professionals towards a diagnosis that states that depression is a self inflicted state of being. And researchers had been able to find methods of physical treatment either through psychotherapy or psychiatric medication to counter the physical reinforcement of this self inflicted state of being. Psychotherapy helps one express and ease the painful regions of emotions while medication helps counter diminished neurotransmitter activity in the brain.

I’ve now come to see that depression is a defensive mechanism to numb feeling of things that have been too painful to feel. There are powerful and passionate life forces behind depression and in depression the choice has been made that it these emotional forces can only be endured through shutting down. It can be an energetic shutdown to encourage fatigue and sleep to help protect yourself from a tyrannical critical voice that refuses to let you rest and accept the major inconveniences of turn of life events that just refuse to meet your expectations. I’ve heard of some describing depression as a literally extremely physically painful experience. It leads to not caring. It leads to lack of self care. It leads to suicidal ideation.

So I would say that depression is not itself an emotion but is certainly brought on by very strong emotions. Depression is more the state of being and intent to suppress feeling the very strong emotions. I think though that there are many who through most or even all of there living life manage to suppress feeling many emotions who never quite get classified as depressed. These would be people who manage to suppress emotions and find mechanisms in life to function avoiding these emotions. But for those who eventually can find no way to avoid without it impacting on daily functioning life of self care, these people need external intervention to become functional again. It’s the need and the act of an external intervention to help someone who is no longer able to care fo self due to a paralyzing and numbing state of being that leads to diagnosis of depression.

So back then over ten years ago some friends suggested I get some help … and at times wondered if I was just a saint for being a very giving person to others, but at times at the expense of my own self care. Even a few wondered if I was depressed and that perhaps needed the help of some medication. And then I remember reaching a state of deep “I don’t care anymore”.

For me it was a kind of state of exhaustion where even if I was scared for my life about some some imminent physical harm — perhaps a car about to crash into me if I don’t jump out of the way — in my “I don’t care” state I wouldn’t move and know that the car would likely hit and kill me. In the state of what I would call depressed for me I’d just be too physically tired to move and my sensation of terror and fear of pain would be too numbed out to motivate me jump out of harms way. For me my definition of clinical depression is when I feel this deep seated emotional and physical state of “I don’t care”

I write and talk about this because in the last few months I’ve started to feel at times a bit of the “I don’t care”. There’s still a lot of vigilance in me to keep trying and striving. But that inner vigilance is creating lots of stress and exhaustion and ultimately intertwined in the creation of “I don’t care”.

At the very least I guess this particular blog entry describing a self fulfilling problem of depression is itself becoming the cure to counter the depression. And it’s the cure not because I’m going to come up with some ten steps to coming back to normal. It’s the cure because I’m willing to remain vulnerable to stigma and shame and share it and express it.

While I have done many things that seem very “awakened” and “mature” in areas of spirituality I’m just as filled with weakness, doubts, and faults as any one else. This is my knowing that while I’ve accomplished many things intellectually like setting up and maintaining several websites for many years, blogging for over 10 years and getting ready to publish two books that I’ve worked on for over 10 years — I’m still very capable of flubbing up. Things could take a turn and I may never publishing my books. I may become too ill and have to quit all my websites. I could go spiraling into depression and isolation. I could become just another homeless person wandering the streets.

For me depression is the area where I say “I don’t care and I don’t want feel anymore.” It’s the area that says “I wish I were dying sooner” because it’s becoming too painful and exhausting to keep fighting and hiding from the so many things in life that seem more threatening than physical death.

I think with physical death we all believe that it’s an impersonal door that closes us off from what we don’t want to find or be found by others. If we make the choice to stay alive and present in life, engaging and accepting what comes (even if it’s not at all like we would dream and fantasize it will be), we allow our selves to remain vulnerable to the unknown in the living state. That exposure to a rather limitless vulnerable unknown future in the living state seems immensely more terrifying than a final definitive physical death. The perception is that physical death feels scary because …. because well … it feels like death. Remaining alive to an unfolding ever more scary life feels scary … because well … if feels like were going to die.

There is an off-the-scale level of pain, horror, agony and unbearableness that we call death. It’s just that with physical death there’s a sense of an “off” switch. With the sensation of feeling like we’re going to die in the living state there is no “off” switch and it feels like unfolding living death just never stops. So in many ways the death in the state of being alive seems worse that the death associated with physical death.

To you blog reader … I share where I have been and still often feel this area medical scientists are willing to call clinical depression. It’s part of life or at least my life. I am human. I honor myself for sharing and bow in humble gratitude to you the reader having read to this point. Namaste.

So I’ve become much more willing to be aware of more things that bother me and have been lovingly welcoming them to go ahead and bother me while I observe curiously.  So I continue to explore what makes me feel insecure, lonely, and not connected with you.  …  Yes, I’m kind of referring to you, the reader of this blog, whoever, you are.  Because even if you’re not directly there in front of me now, if you were, there would be some part of me that would feel uncomfortable being in your presence, especially if I felt like I could not hold up my part of a conversation to fill awkward silences.

Last week I blogged about loneliness but more specifically for me, I wrote about the times I might have difficulty connecting with others in any social setting.  I first challenged myself to sense my loneliness or lack of loneliness in the presence of a local social gathering.  When I  started to feel I was pushing myself to act “social” I was able to pause myself and go back home to be by myself.  And then I felt a loneliness being by myself. In both instances, I felt a loneliness or that inability to feel as connected as I would like to feel with others, whoever they are. Eventually, I spent a few hours by myself hiking thru a small forest and found a deep state of connectedness … as much as I could want for one day.

Today I woke up somewhat early and spent a couple of hours doing yard work.  I showered up.  Then I thought what I might try to do next.  I felt that loneliness or separated feeling again.  I initially felt a desire to pretend I wasn’t feeling lonely and made a “legitimate sounding” excuse to myself (particular to my inner critic) that I have a lot of work to do to catch up on unreimbursed medical expenses for the past year.  It’s kind of like the excuse I might make in a social gathering when I start to get terrified because I’m feeling awkward.  Instead of being able to settle in my body … I say “well nice talking to you … I really have to get going … I’ve got to get back to some work … or I have another engagement that I’m late for … blah blah blah — BUT the truth of it, if I could speak, would be:

Please, can you help me to believe that I’m actually very popular and someone special and as far from awkward as I fear that I am? Please notice the concrete evidence of this based on my very believable excuses I am making to you that I’ve got places to go and things to do … So anyway … I have to get going even though I really don’t have to get going 

So bye  

… even though inside maybe I miss you, I am currently overwhelmed with my inner critic that’s more concerned with me not looking awkward and unlikeable … I’m also starting to realize I’m probably ignoring and not loving myself very much, so I guess I’m missing myself …  Please forgive me if I leave so abruptly.

All of these thoughts happened within a fraction of a second, woven into a usually inexplicable bad feeling.  But today I felt a question rise.  And that question was:

Here we are on another Sunday.  Why not try again?  Why not just show up, no pressure, no demands?  

I think about the social fears I have … but rather than approach it with a willful “just face your fear … just do it!” I decided to change the language to softer questions of:

Can I dare try just experiencing a bit more of the discomfort of social awkwardness?  

Can I also not have preconceived thoughts about how overcoming social awkwardness should look like?  

Can I just show up once again at this weekly social gathering and if need be — go ahead and feel awkward again.  And if the discomfort seems too much it’s OK to just abruptly leave.

At the gathering, there was a guest speaker.  What I noticed is that as I sat in the audience listening to a guest speaker talk … I had no self-imposed demand that I act all “Mr. Social” with others.

And after maybe 40 minutes of sitting in the audience of having no demand on myself, I was very much expecting to leave once the talk was over.  But then I was surprised to feel a desire well up inside of me to just walk up to a few people and just say “hello.”  I felt the urge to shake a hand or even give a hug.  I noticed there was something about me that was much more at ease.  I had no agenda but was just following that innocent, curious urge to just walk to people and say “hello” in as friendly of energy as possible.

So I did do just that and walk up to few people and just said “Hello.”  Sometimes after the “Hello,” there was silence, but it was not so awkward.  In fact, the silence was about as awkward as being silent in the presence of a dog or cat or being silent in a forest of trees.

I held no energy of trying to pretend to be “social.”  Instead, I held the energy of:

I’m so grateful to be in your presence and I might have something to say but I might not.  And if I have nothing to say and maybe at the moment, you have nothing to say we can be silent.  

But in that silence truly we are still feeling something … and when we feel …

… surprisingly one of us starts talking once again.  I start to feel this sense of much of me doesn’t care at all very much about the material value of our conversation … it’s more I want to feel your humanness, your ordinary mundane things, your loved ones, your domestic adventures, your hopes, your dreams and even your precious awkwardness.  Your awkwardness is a precious gift of your uniqueness and I welcome it with enthusiasm like a tattered delicate book with rice paper pages that if I carefully open will reveal such exquisite rich stories of love, life, and hope.  And because I can invite your awkwardness I can invite my own awkwardness.  And because I can invite my own awkwardness it is no longer awkward.  And rather ironically the outcome is there is actually very little awkward silence … as a matter of fact there is very little silence.

In the very act of being willing to sit in awkward silence, the awkwardness went away and the silence went away.  Not because it needed to or had to.  Not because being awkward or silent in a social setting is bad or weird.  It went away because the judgment that it is awkward went away.  I shifted my perspective away from judging it as bad and trying to fix it or overcome it. I instead softened my words and used “uncomfortable” instead of “awkward” and embraced it as a natural part of my being.

And so I found myself observing myself and liking myself feeling more comfortable.  I found myself marveling at how I somehow spontaneously became more socially comfortable.

I found myself so fascinated by the story you were telling me about yourself, your life, your brother, father, sister, mother, and others.  When I say you … yes, I’m referring to you the reader of this blog.  Today you might not have been the one physically with me but if you were I would have loved to hear and feel the story come thru your words, facial expression and body language.  You are so way more interesting than any movie I’ve seen or any story I’ve ever read because you are alive, living and breathing right here and right now.  You are beautiful.

I  found myself early on a Sunday morning reading the latest issue of AARP magazine.  AARP stands for American Association of Retired Persons.  As a kid, I remembered associating AARP with “old people.”  So yeah I’m a member of AARP.  There’s still part of me that still feels a bit like I’m 23 to 27 years old only a lot more experienced and wiser.  And I’ve got a long time to go before I’m financially sound to consider retirement — sigh :(.

In the AARP magazine, they had an article that characterizes those of us that are in the 50 plus age group.  Some things it highlights are that most of us in this age group (at least in the U.S.) are happier than ever and are more spiritual but also lonelier.  The article also mentions how more than half of us in this age group don’t have a friend to reach out to in time of need.

Hmm?  I consider myself deeply spiritual … does it follow that being this way will make me lonelier?

So then I remembered my previous blog post where I shared how Mother Teresa described the U.S. as a country fraught with a “poverty of loneliness,” where many of us are sold on being independent, with our own home and family life apart from parents.  In our American society, I was raised to believe that adults that have to live with their parents for financial reasons were not successful. The belief is that as kids mature, they are expected to leave the “nest,” explore and be independent.

But then I remember reading how in many cultures in the world it’s expected that as children grow up, they continue living in the same household.  Adult children would grow up living with their parents, and grandparents.  Whether they got married or not, had kids or not, they would still live in the same household.  This setup emphasizes the importance and strength of family community over the need to look like successful independent individuals.

I was definitely sold on the need to be independent.  So I felt like I’d be crowded in by parents who would constantly tell me what I should be doing.  I started to think of the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” where the family certainly takes away a lot of individual privacy but also removes many instances of personal loneliness.  The bigger and nosier the family the less likely it would seem one could hide the bad times.  So that aspect of a larger family community seems nice.

So with that “Big Fat Greek Wedding” image in mind juxtaposed against the AARP 50-something group of happier, more spiritual and lonelier characterization a questioned popped in my head.

If you are more “spiritual” are you also more lonely?  

What if I lived in a “Big Fat Greek Wedding” kind of family and culture? Maybe if I lived in a European Co-housing Community there would seem to be less opportunity for feeling alone or isolated.  But I wonder would that mean I’d have less time or need for the kind of quiet self-introspection one tends to associate with being “spiritual” and so would be less “spiritual.” Instead of a special personal moment of glorious sunshine realized under a large tree would my days be too filled with social interaction?

I firmly believe spirituality is an important aspect of our lives we must increasingly consider regardless of whether we are socially filled or isolated.  The truth of reality is that there will be pain, illness, and death as well as pleasure, health, and vitality  — and so it is the spirituality that helps us make sense of it all.  But still, I wonder as I choose to take the time to blog by myself on the internet instead of getting out and immersing in people … I wonder.

Would I be less spiritual of a person if I had less alone time?  I mean doesn’t living a secluded life in a monastery make one more deeply spiritual?  Does living a busy social butterfly life make one less spiritual?  Even more directly I wonder if they run a bit counter to each other.  In other words, does “spirituality” help compensate for feelings of loneliness and isolation when we’re in times of need? Maybe if I’m spiritually “unawakened” but feel socially full, then my life is complete without any need for an “awakening” in spirituality.  Or maybe in the attempt to deepen my spirituality I might tend to isolate myself and foster loneliness.

Furthermore are the feelings of loneliness and isolation more to do with personal perception rather than the number of external social interactions one has per day?  Author and psychotherapist Robert A Johnson describes in his book “Balancing Heaven and Earth” of having experienced feeling very lonely when he had lived a life often filled with crowds of people, but feeling his most fulfilled and complete times in his life as a forest ranger while living in solitude.  According to Robert, loneliness is different than solitude. He is quoted as saying “the only cure for loneliness is aloneness.”

So today I first made a choice to meet some familiar faces at a local group that gathers once a week.  It was nice to see some familiar faces, yet I noticed at the same time where I could not connect with ease.  I remember many times in the past willing myself to socialize, meet, and just “network” with people.  This time I decided to back off and just sit and say hello only to those who walked by and said hello to me.  I realized as I was sitting there a bit intimidated at times (like I’m often at many social settings).

I was not fully present with myself.  I was may 10% present and the remaining 90% had disassociated.  To the extent, I was disassociating I was abandoning being with myself.  And this experience is what loneliness feels like.  And so that abandonment basically left me alone — or at least with that awkward sensation of the unfulfilled longing for connection and an inability to satisfy that longing.  The truth is that the connection I was missing was with myself.  So I was the creator of my own feelings of loneliness despite being amongst a group of people.

I then went back home and started getting ready for my first day back from work after a nice full week of vacation.  Virginia had left to meet with someone else so I was by myself and I strangely also felt alone.  But there was an inner knowing that I was having difficulty being with myself despite being alone.  And with the Sun out the temperature not too hot I started to visualize myself standing in the middle of a forest and in that vision I felt most safe to be more deeply myself.

So I drove to the nearest wooded park and within 5 minutes I was immersed deep in a forest.  I hiked another 30 minutes to a bridge only reachable by foot or bike and completely out of cell phone reception.  There were two benches both welcoming me to sit.   And so I sat and saw the rich golden-ness of the day reflecting off grand green trees while the water of a local creek trickled.  Time started to slow down and I had the feeling of being 12-year-old return to me.  I remember when I was 12 in  Summer camp riding down the Brandywine River on an inner tube wasting time away on a generously long day.  That felt so nice!

I somehow feel and hear my long deceased Mother talking thru the whisper in the trees.  I look up in the clear blue sky and I swear I see the faint image of two birds that seem way too high in the sky to be real … maybe I’m imagining.  I come to appreciate the wonder of my 1-mile journey into a forest of trees to a nearby large river and feel the awe of different birds, sounds, creatures, and sites.  Because I’m now so much in awe of a 1-mile hike near where I live, I’m now blown away by the idea of a man traveling so high in the sky (like those two birds I see) out to space. And for a moment while sitting in the chair I see how that at any level be it microscopic, in the present human scale, the grand macroscopic scale of our solar system and far beyond that at all levels there is grand wonderment infinitesimally small and infinitely large.  I see that all these levels are somehow all the same and connected.  And all during this time I feel more one with nature, earth, the trees, ground, air and universe and I just am me, only me, fully me, with myself, not trying to be more like this or less like that.  There is no loneliness. So in a course of several hours on a lazy Sunday from early morning towards the late evening, I think I have both asked and answered my own question.

Q: If you are more “spiritual” are you also more lonely?  

A: No

I am a deeply spiritual person and sometimes I’m feeling lonely and sometimes not.  Spirituality doesn’t encourage loneliness — nor does loneliness inspire spirituality.  Loneliness is more the result of when I abandon or ignore myself, usually with a harsh inner critic saying “you should be more like …” or “you should be able to do …”   I can abandon myself when I force myself to “network” in a room full of people in a cocktail party setting.  I can abandon myself also when I’m by myself at home.

And I find that for me taking a quiet soulful hike in the forest silences the inner critic that might say “come on Wilson you should be more outgoing and talking with these people”  … In the forest, there are no groups of people with which “I should” talk.  In the middle of a forest, I have a good excuse to counter the arguments my critic might throw at me.  My inner critic is mostly accepting that when one is 30 minutes away from “civilization” in the middle of a forest it’s OK to be quiet and at peace and there’s nothing to prove or hide.  And with that inner critic put at bay I can be more with myself and go into deep presence and ease with space, time and life. And with that inner critic silenced I can be more with myself and go into deep presence and ease with space and time and life.   And so deeper spirituality becomes a path to a state of being where there is no loneliness.

My wife found Muffin in 2002 at the King of Prussia Plaza in a pet store. I was kind of annoyed because she already put a non-refundable deposit down on a dog without asking me. Honestly I didn’t think it was a good idea because we were having difficult times and we did try a dog about a year earlier and we just couldn’t bond so we returned that dog to the original owner within a week. I harped over the fact that I’m probably going to end up taking care of this dog and not Virginia and I was already overwhelmed. Virginia insisted she would walk the dog. That along with the fact I have a hard time forfeiting a non-refundable deposit was enough to persuade me to bring home a female Maltese dog with an initial tag of “Honey Dew Mellon” on her neck.

We eventually gave her the name of Muffin. Before we left the pet store we picked out her first toys. In the above picture you’re looking at her favorite spot to chill and sleep in our house. You can see 3 of the first toys she loved starting at about 2 months of age. She loved Mr. Blue Octie with his wriggly legs that she would flail back and forth in mouth while making it squeak. She loved squeaking Diney as she could talk to me with squeaks. She loved Mr Hedge Hog so much that some of the stuffing started to come out of the bottom. She perpetually loved these toys all the way to the age of 13 years 10 months.

I took her to obedience class when she was about 6 months of age. The teacher who was a long seasoned trainer of champion dogs soon became impressed with Muffin. At some point she said to my class Muffin had the makings of a “10” scoring dog (10 being the perfect score). It was mainly because Muffin had personality, knew how to have a blast even in the midst of our very intimidating teacher. I remember at one point our teacher saying to other students that you want your dogs to have fun when they are rewarded.   And while she said this all the dogs were sitting straight and disciplined wondering what to do with the reward toy that was just given to them. But Muffin had a “birthday” reward toy and she was flailing it around like nobody’s business having a good all doggy time. The teacher saw this and said, “have fun like Muffin … now she knows how to have fun”

Muffin seemed to not know fear. Not because she was “brave” but because she thought differently and didn’t quite understand why someone would throw a bean bag at her while she’s running towards them. Normally in the “come – stay” dog obedience exercise, you would have the dog sit across the room from you, tell your dog to run towards you, and then tell them to “stay” while simultaneously throwing a small bean bag in front of them to get them to stop immediately half way before reaching you. It was the fear of getting hit by the bean bag that would trigger the dog to stop, and when you associated that with the “stay” command they learned how to run towards you upon command and stop at any point you desired before reaching you. When I did that same thing with Muffin and threw the bean bag at Muffin, she didn’t stop but swerved to avoid the bean bag (probably thinking now why would you throw a something at me, it only makes it inconvenient for me to reach you), then she continued to run towards me and reach me.

I remember the teacher’s meanest, toughest and prized German Shepherd was lying down with his tennis ball. That was his tennis ball and no one better try to touch it or else!! Muffin, who was maybe 5 pounds, walks up with a bounce and picks up his tennis ball and the German Shepherds jaw drops in astonishment. Muffin prances with tennis ball in mouth and everyone else is in shock. She then walks up the back of the German Shepherd on top of his head and back down with his ball in her mouth. The German Shepherd is stunned that he’s been showed up by a tiny girl maybe only slightly bigger than his head.

I could go on with a ton of stories. I have tons of magical videos of Muffin doing amazing and funny things. I have endless special memories. I could go on forever.

At the bottom of the photo with Muffin’s toys is Muffin’s collar with her name tag she wore for many years up until November 10th, 2015 at 6 AM. That was about the time I removed the collar from her neck for the last time. Muffin was exhausted from so much non-stop labored breathing. My wife and I made a decision. I sat across from Muffin in the oxygen unit a good long time before I felt Muffin and I were ready. I communicated silently with my Baby. She no longer had the terror in the eyes. She looked very tired. At some point I swear she was telling me “come on … let’s get this going … I’m getting a little impatient … come on Babby”

My baby lied in my lap panting. With the first injection she calmed down and finally was able to relax. After the final injection she quickly left her body. Muffin was the best dog. She was my one and only baby daughter. Thank you Muffin!

I want to thank many of you who I had been able to share various parts of my struggle and grief. Thank you Muffin baby. Thank you Virginia for getting Muffin. And finally thank myself for being such a loving daddy. Knowing what I know and have experienced I would have felt sorry for Muffin not having someone as loving as me. So while she saved me in some my darkest times I guess I saved her or maybe even I learned more about saving myself.

Another graduate of BBSH told me that Muffin was another reflection of me. That the emptiness that I was starting to feel with Muffin starting to fade away was the missing of the mirror so that I could no longer find myself making me feel so cold and empty. When that was shared I broke down in tears as that resonated with me. But it also made me perk up because if that’s the case then much of what I love about Muffin that I think are qualities I wish I could have, I actually might have. I pondered that that bright cheerful Muffin, that really cared about people, that I longed to be more like might actually be me. That I’m a really wonderful loving person … wow. So I can thank and love myself too.

I will miss Muffin peering up at me thru my glass top kitchen table every time I eat.

I will miss Muffin keeping me company at times in the car while I’m doing errands.

When I’m in the basement I will miss the patter of Muffins paws on the hard wood floor above my head.

I’m happy that we agonized about our decisions at the emergency room. We deliberated independently on our own time, and we were there physically, emotionally and intimately with Muffin for many final special moments until the very last second. And even for many minutes after she left, we loved her limp body. I scan every nook and cranny of any possible critical voice that could emerge of “what if” or “should I have” and there are no doubts and regrets left. A trillion self-imposed inquiries of “could you”, “what if”, “but I wish” get no-where because they have nothing to grab on to. My case against my inner prosecution is solid. I so so so so so much love myself for that. I’m in awe of myself. I love myself. I’m so happy and relieved.

So there we have it tremendous happiness simultaneously coexisting in the same spot as great loss. The only regret is the loss. But in a mind-boggling way the intensity and pain of the loss is exactly the beauty and awe of the gift. How can great pain and great happiness be one and the same? Sort of makes no sense but that’s exactly what it seems like.

In loving memory of Muffin: Jan 2002 to Nov 2015

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to attend a family reunion.  After many years I got to see several of my Aunts and Uncles; then the next generation: my cousins;  and then the next generation: my nephews and nieces.  And I was aware at the time something in me was getting stretched and dilated across time and space. Part of me was maybe a three year old listening to Aunt’s and Uncle’s projecting me back in time.  Part of me was an adult momentarily being a peer discussing day-to-day practical things.  And then when it came to interacting with my nephews and nieces it was odd that part of me was still locked in my teens almost seriously wondering if I should regress in age and play interactive video games with them on their iPads and iPhones.  Part of me was not quite ready to step up to being their Uncle when I have not had the experience yet of my own children and while I was being freshly impressed with childhood memories of being in the presence of my Aunts and Uncles.

At my workplace I have gradually experienced this time dilation sensation as I’ve watched new and young employees suddenly age and become parents and mentors to yet another generation of even younger employees.  The thing is I’m more senior in age then that first round of young employees.  Even a few coworkers who have referred to others as “newbees” are in age many years younger than I.  And so something emotionally in me feels displaced, lost, forgotten and wishing time could recycle.

Even more recently I made an impromptu visit to the house of former neighborhood friends of my parents.  Their two daughters were there.  One of the daughters came from Florida for a visit, along with her husband and two kids.  Both of them I kind of knew from my elementary thru high school days in Pennsylvania.  In fact there was a time when we were all very young kids, we all stayed over at the same “Baby Sitters” place after school and during Summers.  I used to go to the same Summer camp as them as well.

Flash back to the present and someone asks how the kids of one of the daughters is.  Someone says 8 years old.  And then in the background one of daughters, a former schoolmate of mine, jokingly says I’m 50 years old.  Initially, I almost chuckle because obviously that’s a joke, in the sense as if someone said I’m 1,000 years old; yes I’m a vampire.  And then it hits me “THAT IS NOT A JOKE”.  It was literally my perception that made it seem like it was a joke.

My God it’s reality.  She’s saying 50 years old because it’s true and that’s because I’m almost 50 years old?!  Whaaaaaattt!!?

Yes that is true.  But why does my school mate look the same. Why aren’t we still in our mid to late 20’s.  The peers of my parents are in the room with me.  They still feel the same as they did when I was a teenager.  My older school mate feels the same.

As a “responsible” and logical adult it makes sense that I’m almost 50 years of age.  But honestly the emotional and spiritual parts of me really aren’t all there … or should I call it here because I should be here in the present instead of there in the past?  Honestly the sensation really feels like I’m stretched in time like if you were to approach a black hole and parts of you get stretched and compressed into the vortex even as the other end of you is still uncompressed.  One end is moving ahead 20 plus years rapidly accelerating in the increasing immense gravitational pull while another part is largely still stuck at the age of 23, another maybe 17, then 12, then 3, and then maybe 1.  …..

WHAT THE HECK is going on!?  This is what my body, and psyche is saying. …. I want to cry … I want to go back in time … I also want to advance in time to my 80’s … and then I also want time to stop still.  Now more than ever I feel I am rapidly becoming the entire circle of life from birth, thru puberty, thru adult hood, thru twilight and to death.  I am all of these at the same time.  It is weird.  It is kind of Hard.  I’m stretched and dilated across time and space.

So I’m now surveying the past few years of my life.  I recall the times where I’ve experienced what feels like being emotionally “steamrolled” (at least that’s how it felt at the time) by people I’ve regarded as my supporters or loved ones. And I’ve experienced those same people come around to become yet again even stronger support and love.  And I accept they can change. We are afterall human.

I’ve experienced odd situations where say a large national business initially inadvertently mischarges me, admits it to it to my face, and only says that due to company policy they can’t remedy their mistake — almost taunting me to explode in anger — while another voice within me is getting ready to criticize me for getting petty enough to complain about being overcharged a few dollars here or there. And then maybe to throw a twist, a computer error happens and that same company maybe now refunds me anyway. Yet a part of me still feels inflamed wanting to complete a fight anyway. In the end it’s as if life challenges me to stand up and fight for my rights yet somehow also don’t fight too hard and take things out of perspective.

I’d rather just take one of two very distinct actions: 1) just give up and say “it’s not worth my time” or 2) say “This is war, I’m taking you to court!” I do not want to consider sort of an in-between ground, because it then it gets messy, unclear and even scary. I’m challenged to consider the in-between ground of not allowing my feelings to overtake me but also not disconnecting from my feelings. Taking this “middle ground” almost seems to be a willingness to prolong a discomfort that is probably actually more painful than I give credit for.

I think all of us at some time come to some nexus where it seems all of life is against you. It’s unfair, you’re misunderstood and misheard. And I believe to any unbiased observer they would all agree that what you are experiencing is completely unfair and unfortunate. And in these times you experience a pain. And I now come to realize how great the pain is. I am starting to come to believe that the emotional pains we experience in life are actually the most painful thing we could ever possibly experience. Greater than any physical pain. It’s just that in the emotional plane there is a remarkable ability to numb a vast amount of that emotional pain. And so in the emotional plane one can have the presence of the greatest most infinite pain we’ll ever experience yet have the ability to feel absolutely nothing due to the effectiveness of numbing — but in this state everyone can sense something is just not right and something keeps bothering you.

Lately, as I’ve been going thru the work of my personal development I’m constantly told of a commitment to feeling whatever I feel even if a significant part of that is pain. And so as I’ve matured I have grown to accept that pain is part of this world and it’s impossible to avoid all pain, despite how much I might want to. Furthermore, actions to avoid that pain, can possibly postpone the pain, but if pushed for too long will in the end create an even greater pain. So in the end there’s a realization of “I might as well face the fear”  and I might as well face the pain that I fear that I shall meet.”

And so I will do something with friends, with family, with a support group, with my schooling, and with the people at my work place, that will please some and simultaneously displease others. I will be exposed to situations where others will infuriate me, do something that is unfair, invalidate me, or completely disgregard me and I will feel hurt, maybe even very hurt.

But the key is to have the courage or rather the faith to know that what the others think or behave towards you will have little to do with you. But know that what you feel within means everything in the world. Dare you have the courage to sing your song and risk offending another’s ears or dance and find you unknowingly stepped on someone’s toes. Dare you take the risk of feeling the pain of the guilt you might feel as a result. And even more importantly dare you not pretend, blame or rationalize away your feelings of guilt, but dare you hang your head low in the face of your critiques and accusers, take it in the gut, fall down to your knees, feel low and ashamed, express your misgivings, and look foolish. Dare you with integrity and truth to yourself feel your feelings and name them as they are … and then with time … have a loving courage to hug yourself, kiss yourself, pick up the pieces and sing your song once again and dance once again.

So over the past several days there was this old radio tune playing in my head.  I couldn’t get it out of my head.  It was a song from either 70s or 80s that I can’t say I really liked but it I know it played a lot on the radio.  But these past several days it’s been playing constantly, but not clear enough for me to make out the words.  I could swear I must of heard in a recent movie soundtrack, but when I  “googled” it I didn’t find any recent movie soundtracks containing this song.  I could barely hum the song, and I really couldn’t make out the of the lyrics except possibly the word “Lady” or “Baby”.   So how many songs are out there that have the word Lady, or Baby or something that sounds vaguely similar or at least how many pop songs since the 70s have a 2 syllable word in it.   Oh boy, this is going to be hard.

After about 30 minutes of taking best guesses of the muffled lyrics playing in my head an internet search delivered to me the song “Lady” by the Little River Band.  And when I played that song I felt a sensation of going back in time, a sort of “return to the mother ship” sensation and so eventually I was drawn to purchase the entire album containing this song.  But even during my 30 minute exercise of hit-or-miss trying to figure out this song, I happened to run into lots of other 70s songs from the past on You Tube that I remember and loved or I never heard of but still loved.  And I’m not so sure why I loved hearing these songs, except that maybe they all emanated an energy of the past, of that era.  These were all pop songs that now seem like amazingly brilliant master piece classics of the heart and human expression.

A recent movie that made a big impression on me in the element of music from the past is “Guardians of the Galaxy”.  For me the lead character in that movie seemed to elevate the pop songs of the past to epic proportions.  It further awakened a tug on my heart strings and lifeline on Earth.

So I started to think again “why does this music from the past seem to be getting better with time?”  “why does this music start to feel more powerful and epic as if it’s a symbol of holding time still?” At first one might just state that any music that you grew up with in child hood would have made the most impression upon you so it makes sense that the older music seems more appealing to you.  Or maybe it’s just the number of times you’ve heard that song.  An older song has had more time to be heard than a newer song, so that also makes sense.

But somehow I feel there is something even more.  Or maybe I just need to concoct a something more explanation as to why music from the past is so powerful.  Here’s my current hair (I wish I had more hair though) brained theory.   Songs played over the radio waves will tend to be more potent than songs that aren’t ever played on the radio.  Songs left only to normal sound waves can’t travel beyond the boundaries of the Earth’s  atmosphere because the sound doesn’t travel in the vacuum of space.

Continue to hear me out (I think my scalp is growing new hair … well I wish)

Radio waves, electromagnetic waves travel into space and at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.  So that music that might have been first transmitted say in 1970 has been traveling in space for over 40 years.  Scientists would say that music has now traveled over a distance of over 40 light years, which in miles is over 235,000,000,000,000 miles away!  But there’s more.  Radio waves spread out in all directions, like how a drop in a pond will radiate outward in an ever expanding circle, but in space it’s an ever expanding sphere that’s over 470,000,000,000,000 miles wide.  In comparison our entire planet is only about 7,926 miles wide.

… So where am I going with this except starting to sound like the Discovery Channel ?  ..

That sphere of radio wave music stemming from the 70’s is now big enough to encapsulate more than 208,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of our planet.  That’s a big number!  Do you know how many cells are in our body? … way way less than that number.  How about the number of atoms in a human body? … still way less than that number!  How about the number of atoms in all the humans on Earth?  … now we start to come on equal footing.  The number of atoms in all the humans on Earth as of now would be about 235 times larger than the number of Earth sized planets that would fit inside this humongous sphere of radio wave music that started back on 1970 … that is at least as of the year 2010.  Actually it will take maybe 200 more years for the number of Earths this 70’s music will enclose to be about the same as the number of atoms in all the humans on Earth.

So my hair brained conclusion is that in 40 years that radio music that permeated my cells as I was born and continued to do so as I moved from childhood, teenage years, adult hood to present had also permeated outwards into space, leaving a universal “footprint” as significant in magnitude to form a musical statement of humanity big enough to hold a number of Earth sized spheres that is much larger than the number of atoms each of has in our body.  If we imagine this 70’s radio sphere was like a large living creature of which each Earth sized planet in it are it’s cells than this large living creature has more cells than the number of cells that each of us has.  These musical creature has more Earth sized cells than the number atoms each of us has!

But when we combine all of us together, as one unified human race we would encompass a number of atoms that would be 235 times more than that massive 70’s music radio wave living creature that continues to grow outwards ever bigger at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. But now that 70’s radio music and us are rather in the same realm of humongously large numbers, at an atomic level, and at a human level and so maybe in a “hair brained” slightly scientific view of things this is why I’m finding the music of the past starting around 1970’s resonates with ever more epic proportions, because it’s now rattling thoroughly in my cells, in every atom of every human being on this Earth based upon the testament the traveling radio waves of our music has started to impart on the rest of the universe, possibly already being heard by other life forms on other planets far far away.

Many years ago the “world wide web” was something new and explosive.  Back then it was cool simply putting up a website with the title “My First Website”.  In fact you had to be a computer nerd to get a website setup.  So for a while I felt a bit special to have my own website setup by myself.  Then over the years things got more sophisticated and computer nerds way more intelligent and nerdier than I ever was created things like lycos, google, wordpress, myspace, facebook, twitter … which brought the internet to the masses so that anyone with a few clicks can make something much more polished, useful and fancy then I could have ever done investing many many hours of my time putting up a website the “old fashioned” way I did things with my first website.

In fact I suspect most people don’t think of putting a website as much more of an issue than creating a brochure, or business card.  If you are a regular social media person using Facebook, Twitter, like to share photos on the web or whatever is in trend these days you by default already have you own website that is much more advanced than what I could have ever done with my first website.  I am now just an obsolete dinosaur in the world of computers.

I mean even this blog, while it might have a sophisticated layout look to, was created by someone else.  And all of the blogging functionality comes courtesy of an application called “Word Press” created by many other much smarter than me people many years ago.  The means of installing and configuring “Word Press” is certainly well documented.  There are probably tons on You Tube instructional videos one could follow.   But alas for my tired old brain cells I will just call my tech support person and hang and ask them to do it for me … I am now too tech intimidated and tech tired to do things myself.  My last claim to techno-hood probably ended when it was a useful skill to be able to program a VCR to record a TV. [How many of you out there remember what a VCR is?]

Recently I’ve been finding that when it comes to putting up a website, you can certainly put one up and walk away, but if you don’t bother to ever check on it say at least once a year don’t be surprised if it stops working either from the company hosting your website making a mistake or hackers vandalizing your website. My websites get attacked rather regularly by automated programs trying to guess my username and passwords. My websites also always get hit by a flood of SPAM comments trying to sell stuff on my websites or possibly to overload my websites.

Recently one of my websites seemed to be in bad enough shape that it took me several days with tech support to have them rebuild one of my websites from scratch.  I had thought hackers had successfully managed to completely corrupt one of my websites causing me to lose all my entries forever!  I breathed a bit of a sight of relief when tech support finally recovered my website from a back up file.

All this effort so that I can put up a blog, my online journal, so that I can share my thoughts with others —  I’m starting to think blogging is an impractical idea unless you’re it’s just a momentary writing fling not intended to last more than a year or two.   I’m starting to think if one really wants to journal your thoughts and want them to hang around for a long time maybe a blog on the internet is took risky. Maybe I should just stick to editing and saving my thoughts locally on my computer with a word processor.  Or even better maybe I should go back to using a notebook and pencil.

Oh, excuse me I see an image of me grabbing my cane and rising out of my rickety rocking chair.  Pardon me while I retire  my old and tired bones.  I can’t deal much with these new fangled computer techy gadgety things.  Just give me a place to lie down and soak in the Sun, listen to a breeze wafting over a meadow, feel the sand on a beach scrunched in my toes.  Just leave me here like a beached whale (yes I’ve gotten larger) on the shore, in the sunlight, to waste away in peace like the obsolete dinosaur, the tired middle aged  man that I am.