Day 71 - Moment of Choice

Here I am expanding on the point I discussed in my previous recording:
Day 70 - Lift the weight from your shoulders

Day 48 - The Difference Between Life and Death

A few days ago Maite found a chick that had been abandoned while it was hatching and when she found it, it was stuck almost three quarters in the egg. She thought it was dead until he saw it move and heard the squeak. She brought it up to me in the house and we carefully took the little goo covered chick out of the shell.

Now, when the chicks are hatching – which is in the last 3 days of the 21 day brooding cycle – they need to be kept warm and the mother helps to clean the shell goo off, if the baby doesn’t eat it. We took the little baby and wrapped it up in a blanket and kept it in constant contact with our bodies, like a hen, to generate body heat. We also had to stay awake with it for the first two nights to help keep it warm and to keep it company.

When this happens – it has happened before that we find day old chicks that have been abandoned and that we have to take it in – we have a few points that we have to keep an eye out for as “milestones” so to speak, which give us some insight into how the chick is doing and they are: that the chick is eating on their second day of life, that the chick is drinking on its first day of life, that the chick poops on their second day of life and – most importantly that they Choose to live.

With chickens we can easily see what happens when they give up and when they are not willing to give up. If they give up, they get sick and they die or they just stop eating and die or even just go lie down somewhere for days until they die if there is no intervention. If they do not give up then they can get sick and just keep on going until we notice it and give them medicine to help with the sickness or they get hurt, which can be pretty brutal and they just don’t stop fighting to live, meaning that they continue eating drinking and everything while we try to help them. The simple point is that if they give up they will die no matter what we do, but if they do not give up and their wounds are not too severe they will live with our help.

This is interesting as the same principle applies to everyone. I’m sure everyone can relate to situations of feeling ‘hopeless’ – like nothing can be done or ‘we’re too far gone’ – where, it’s not that we’re physically incapacitated or physically incapable of moving, of supporting ourselves, of standing, but it seems like such an arduous task. In those moments – the defining factor is whether we choose to stand. When you look at the baby chick and what it went through – when we found her, she was in the direst of conditions – totally helpless, no support whatsoever, hanging on by a thread – but she hadn’t given up. She chose to live and today she is as strong and as healthy as any chick. If she had given up by default – then there would really be no hope, then her fate would have been sealed, regardless of any attempts of intervention.

Support given to us can only take us so far – what cannot be given to us is the decision to live, the decision to stand, the decision to change. Choice is truly the difference between life and death, between festering and recovering, between stagnation and change. Consider then, what do I choose to do with my life? Who do I choose to be?

Day 47 - I Choose to Live

It is fascinating what a difference it makes when you decide to do something. If you decide that you do not want to do something then you have to first clear that decision before you are able to actually start doing it. It also has an effect when it is something that you do not want to do, if you have to do something that you really do not want to do you cause that project to be one that you can only do when you force yourself to do it and if you force yourself to do something you will be angry while doing it and you will take out your anger on the people around you.

I have also seen how you can tire yourself out and make things worse than they actually are just by deciding that you are unwilling to do it, then you will be dreading the task and thinking about how difficult it is going to be and by doing these things you will actually make it more difficult and make yourself angry and irritated.

This is a quote from Osho:

'To be ordinary is the only extraordinary thing. Very rarely somebody relaxes and becomes ordinary. If you ask Zen masters, 'What do you do?' they will say, 'We fetch wood from the forest, we carry water from the well. We eat when we feel hungry, we drink when we feel thirsty, we go to sleep when we feel tired. This is all.'

It does not look very appealing -- fetching wood, carrying water, sitting, eating. You will say, 'These are ordinary things. Everybody is doing them.'

These are not ordinary things, and nobody is doing them. When you are fetching wood, you are condemning it -- you would like to be the president of some country. You don't want to be a woodcutter. You keep condemning the present for some imaginary future.

Carrying water from the well, you feel you are wasting your life. You are angry. You were not made for such ordinary things. You had come with a great destiny -- to lead the whole world towards a paradise, some utopia.

These are all ego-trips. These are all in states of consciousness.

Just to be ordinary... and then suddenly what you call trivia is no more trivia, what you call profane is no more profane. Everything becomes sacred. Carrying wood becomes sacred. Fetching water from the well becomes sacred.'

It is fascinating that this is what we do within ourselves whenever there we are doing something, it is never the simplicity and acceptance of “doing the ordinary and menial task”, it has become the total ego trip of ourselves to condemn and think we are better than these things. I need to go fix a fence and all the while I am thinking that I could be doing some grand and important thing trying to make myself feel better about doing this simple, practical common sense task and within trying to make myself fell important I actually make myself angry at the fact that I am not important or special.
None of us are special or important, this is the point we all have to realise.

We are all the same, we all have to eat, sleep, drink and defecate. This one simple point of accepting the fact that we are the same and all have the same problems would make the world a better place for all of us to live in. For if you saw your neighbour as the same as you and treated them as you would want to be treated wouldn’t the world be calmer, safer and give us all a chance to really work to change ourselves and our world into a world and life that we would all enjoy?

I am willing and able to do this and I have chosen to do this, I want my future children to grow up without worrying about being killed when they are sleeping and to be able to enjoy themselves without having to block out the suffering of the people around us as we all had to.

Day 38 - I can vote?????

This article explains how the two main political parties in South Africa are effectively bickering like an old married couple.

What I saw in this article is how the two apparent ruling parties are wasting time and money to win favour from the people and to gather more power for their respective parties instead of working together to do what they were created for.

What I mean is that: Are not all political parties basely designed as “working for what is best for the people of their country”? By that logic would not all political parties be working for the same thing? Would it not be better for the current ruling parties to use their resources for the betterment of the people of this country?

If you look at the point you would realise that the point of opposition parties are unnecessary for any true democracy as the people are the ones that should be in control of the country, not the political parties – as the people that live in the country are the ones that should decide what is best for them, as - is it not their choice to make?

You would not want another to decide how your life is supposed to be would you? The answer is no. Everyone should have the right to vote on every single policy decision – no matter how small – to ensure that the policies that are chosen and implemented are based on how the policy can improve life for all instead of, what is best for the government and their bank accounts.

If you agree with this, join us for discussion here:

http://basicincome.me/

Source Article: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Ex-mayor-refuses-to-vacate-office-DA-20130705

Day 23 - My Mother BETRAYED Me

This is a continuation to Day 21 - I lost my Friend, My Brother

I lost someone who is was and always will be more than family, brother, father and friend. He died in October 2011. As far as I know he killed himself. His name was Anthony. The first memory I have of him is from when I was around 10-11 years old. My mother had recently married another man and he was an aggressive, self-absorbed type of man. He had physically hurt me a few times – not as extensively as some who was actually beaten but enough to make me fear and hate men older than me. The memory of Anthony I have is from when he was dating my sister and they had sat me down to talk to me about why I was so scared and aggressive towards him. I told them that I was scared that he was going to hurt me like my step-father did and started crying, so Anthony hugged me and told me that he would never hurt me. Some of the details may be off but this is one of the strongest memories I have of him. I cannot remember how long I had known Anthony before this.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge my step-father as an aggressive, self-absorbed, stubborn, asshole
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my step-father since he was extremely aggressive towards me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear men that are bigger and more athletic than I am, as I believe them to be stronger than me and as such, able to hurt me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that people bigger than me are going to and are able to hurt me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I need to be bigger than everyone so that they cannot hurt me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go into fear and ego when I am around my step-father, as I see myself as less than him because he is an extremely athletic person
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as less than my step-father
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as weak and lazy as I always tried to “weasel” my way out of doing anything athletic when I was younger
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project the belief and presence of being better than athletics and athletic people, since I actually see and believe myself to be less than athletics and athletic people
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear people seeing that I see myself as too weak to participate in athletics
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe and judge that I am too weak to participate in athletics
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to actually create and manifest the physical weakness that I perceived, believed and judged myself to consist of
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my step-father for ruining the relationship I had with my mother as I saw who she actually was when she started giving over all of her power to him because she felt safe with such a strong man around
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame my step-father for my mother giving her power away and through that, blame him for ruining my relationship with my mother
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to believe that my mother would give herself and her power over to someone else willingly
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see it as a betrayal that my mother gave up and left me for my step-father
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that my mother betrayed me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for betraying me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for leaving me
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for revealing to me that she believes herself to be weak and incapable to live on her own, which in turn causes me to see myself as weak and incapable of living on my own
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see my mother as weak and powerless for giving herself over to a man that she married for no other reason than protection and security in life
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that since my mother is weak, incapable of living on her own and looking for a partner that can provide for her, that in turn means that I must do all these things, as I have to follow in my mother’s footsteps, as she is supposed to be a “life model” that I have to follow
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be angry at my mother for damaging my life as I see her as the cause of me following all these ridiculous paths in life
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that my mother damaged my life
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that I chose to follow in her footsteps, that I chose my own life paths, that I damaged my life and that I am the one responsible for my choices in life and in who I choose to be

To Be Continued...

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• Day 223 - Resistance to Learn from others.
• Day 209 - I always have a frown Part 4.
• Day 172 - giving Courage to myself.
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Day 4- The Game of Taxes

If you have any experience in playing computer games, where you have to construct and maintain a civilisation with taxes and food and so on, then you will easily be able to see what I am talking about, otherwise I will try to explain this as best as I can.

In the game I am currently playing (when I have free time) I have to build a small city with people and fulfil their needs and desire to keep them happy otherwise they go on riots and I lose the mission. For each level of civilisation I have to fulfil different needs, for example – the first level of civilisation requires food and community, the second level requires the same as the previous level plus cloth and a chapel, the third level requires the same as the previous level plus alcohol, tobacco and education, and so on – you get the idea.

Apart from keeping the people happy through fulfilling their needs and desires (which takes money), these are the responsibilities you have as the ‘ruler’ of the game:

• Building houses for the people (which takes money)
• Build ships (which takes money)
• Build harbours, shipyards (which takes money)
• Build roads (which takes money)
• Build lumberjack facilities (which takes money)
• Build warehouses (which takes money)
• Set up food supply infrastructure (which takes money)
• Set up mining facilities to supply you with resource (which takes money)
• Maintain infrastructure, ships and soldiers (which takes money)

The best way to get money is through raising taxes that people have to pay. The trick is to keep the tax rate high enough so that you have sufficient money to cover all your costs yet keeping it low enough to not anger the people and prevent a revolt. So – to get more money, get more people – but more people means higher costs. As the ‘ruler’ of the game you’re thus constantly having to find a balance in making sure everyone is happy and you have enough money to fulfil your responsibilities and complete your mission. 

The thing that is so interesting about this game and games like this (and there are many) is the fact that the people revolt if their needs are not met and the tax rate goes too high. If, as I assume, the game designers are trying to imitate the world as it is now, they failed, badly. If you look at the world today all the government does is raise taxes and ignore about 90% of the people in this world’s needs, meaning that most of the world is suffering from either starvation or just really disgusting living conditions where they are forced to work shit jobs for almost no money and the price of basic living goes ever higher while the wages stay low, or in some cases get lower or become non-existent. 

In a game the people would have revolted and slaughtered everyone that stands in a position of power that allowed this world to turn into the shithole that it currently exists as, but in the real world do people actually do anything at all? The answer for the most part is no, people talk about changing the world but almost nothing ever happens. The reasons why people don’t stand up and say no are out of fear, for example – the fear of failure, the fear of not getting paid or losing their job and therefore not being able to survive, the fear of losing whatever wealth they had accumulated in their lives, the fear of insubordination and so-on. Then you also have the idea of not being able to change anything anyway, the idea of being too insignificant and weak to change anything – and if people do overcome their fears and ideas and gather on the streets, the police/military would be waiting for them with guns and water-cannons.

If you really look at it – who turned the world into this? Who allowed the rich and the powerful to do whatever they want so as to maintain their power and wealth? Guess. Ask yourself how it is that the rich and the powerful consist of about 1% of the population and the ones who give them their power is us, the ones who suffer in the trenches or in the office cubicle or in the desert or in the barren fields that have been stripped clean. We give them the ability to do all this because we are scared of saying no.

Ask yourself if this is the world you would like to leave to your children.

Ask yourself if this is the world you want to live in.

If the answer is no then support the people pushing for an equal money system as that is the last and only true answer available to correct what we have allowed to be created around us.

There are billions of people in this world and when enough of them stand together and say no the world will change. There is nothing the minuscule 1% can do if the 99% stand together.

Standing together doesn’t mean that you have to gather on the streets and start a revolt by force, real change comes through re-education and a joint understanding. What we propose will take time but what you have to decide is whether or not you are willing to stand together and turn this world into a place we actually want to live in and are proud to leave to our children.

Make your choice.

Here are the links of the websites dedicated to an equal money system and where the people who have made a choice are busy working on how to implement it no matter how long it takes.

http://equalmoney.org/