Hello and Hi!!

[manuel_moe_g]

Well, several times a day, I close my eyes, control my breathing, hold my arms slightly out, palms up, and insert a pause of peace and quiet before my next action.

It helps.

I need to exercise - talking to myself.

Hope all continues to go well and continues to improve for you, Algernon!

[algernon]

Hello.......

By this time I must express great thanks to the forum member who posted a recommendation to read Jon Kabat-Zinn's, "Wherever You Go There You Are." The book is in my possession from the local library for the third or forth time. As may be expected, lots of other material by Zinn I've explored and it's just priceless for me.

Thank you whoever posted the suggestion. Thank you sincerely. The forum is getting pretty big and I'd be in a long search to find the member who made the book recommendation.

Thank you! I'm reading it before sleep yet again!

[algernon]

YOWZA!!!

Long time......so much has happened.......I got significantly fucked by Hurricane Sandy and Ma died less than four months before that.....so 2012 was a pretty big year for loss.....and now the phrase, "before the flood" has a surrealistic reality for me now.....everything is like BC and AD now in my life....

I am NOT alone.....long out of work last year with the oppressive actions in my face.....wowza was it nice to get back to trucking, ironically the job I was calculating up to quit......maybe still in time I shall......

I wont harp on the flood particulars......floods are ancient happenings and I think I did really well......lot's of confusion when a flood comes to you and more afterwards.....and it continues......I'm living in a flood hit house, my home of 25 years with more options than most people who had the Atlantic flow through their living room and all the authorities/agencies at times at least seem like, "The Lord of the Flies".....

Loss has a lesson to impart you must know....(or you should).....It's almost like a freedom when you get this lesson.....I wont explain.

OH HOW I ENJOY Paul's podcasts......first podcast I ever heard was MIHH, an estimated choice it was when I got my iPod.....and I hit the sweet meat.

Wow how some people have stories to tell. My shit including the flood and such isn't really much compared to so many others. I think Paul's community here that I am part of has been vital to my growth. I mean that.

Why did it take so long to feel like I'm doing my life with little doubt finally now? Ahh, some questions just need to be put aside with no demands for answers.......

I continue to meditate and now I'm reading about "secular" Buddhism......refer to Stephen Batchelor.......I've discovered Susan Piver and Brene' Brown and a few other people that I respect with regard to my spiritual and social instructional needs.....

I so much love the podcasts......

I'm still new with meditation and mindfulness......but the habit is growing.......I trust it.....I enjoy the explanations of those that teach these things, explanations that help me understand how extending forgiveness to some jerkoff may not work and if it doesn't, how trying to do so provides a benefit for my work in such a thing......man, did that one example clear up my mind......

HEY PAUL!! The love offs.....the fear offs....the evolution of your creation is really a joy to experience.....you, your guests and so many of the community members of this forum have given me possibly the best (integrity) feeling I've ever had as a member of a social species, the human beings.

I am grateful.....thank you thank you.

I'm gonna be 59 real soon.....and if you can grasp my meaning when I say.....I'm dead already........gone......yet I'm not.....not as of this moment....but I'm gone dead already because before you know it.....that will be exactly so.....dead gone and forgotten.....yet I'm not sad about it at all.....but rather at ease with the reality of it....the pure flawless inevitability of my end.....I don't feel frenzied to climb mountains or sail oceans.....I'm going to finish my coffee and go to bed....tomorrow I have off because a crane broke and my trucking load scheduled was held up because of it.....I'm going to work on my taxes and
my insurance claim issues relative to the flood....not exactly a festive day ahead, but I feel fine with the prospects of my plan.....

May you who reads this find a moment more than once today......to hold yourself with compassion and calm......and choose to do one little thing that will make your life a bit better.....choose to nail a little triumph for yourself and while doing so, don't think about anything else until it's done!

See you in the sky!

[algernon]

Good New Jersey morning to you,

I love to sleep in....as a trucker I sleep all the time and also I don't sleep when I should and so I claim this sleep license to sleep as I please, as I can.....as long as my obligations professionally and financially are covered. I slept in today and now I wait until the coffee brews. I like the chunking water sound as it steams and gurgles into the basket and piddles into the pot....the fucker is at least twenty years old and the plastic is worn in places....nice and healthy! It goes well with my flood house with all the dust and mold and torn out walls.....don't worry....I'm half moved up stairs where things are finished normal still....but toxins of modern life between my job and my flood house and my junkyard dog curiosities and the cheap food I'll commonly eat seem to keep me nice and homeopathic! (we can rationalize ANYTHING, eh?!)

Last night I typed in the wrong password for the forum.....shows you how long it's been.....

Passwords up the ass for us....oh how I labored on that....I love index cards (3x5) and I decided to use one card for each online registration with all relative ID info....I divided the collection into two decks, one for vital shit and one for happy shit.....those two decks are hidden....write and ask where I've hidden them and I'll tell you.....

In the time since I woke I've had a zig-zag of moods.....not huge swings in just an hour or less, but rather a soft "S" path of mood....with a gentle enthusiasm and a sullen unease on the opposing bumps....washing and teeth brushing and a big glass of water to begin the day marks my self care to begin things....I feel the solids of the bowels soon to part away....that will really make me feel good....

I must be well above average in age in this forum. I feel, in many ways, just as I did 40 years ago both in terms of mentality and physical ability. I can still climb a tree with a chain saw and go to work on branch cutting.....I can still go into hysterical laughter like a kid who just broke a window with a ball that bounced off someone's head.....but I have governors that only come with age well in place, wisdom they call it.....I don't think they came particularly early at all but if we keep living and trying to understand the world and ourselves.....it comes.

Let me say here that I was joking about telling you where I keep my password cards......I thought that would raise an odd curiosity to write that. As a grandfather, I shouldn't let the gag go long in this posting without revealing it. Sorry if it seemed cruel!

......Tomorrow is Spring I hear.......my flooded out furnace and hot water heater, I repaired and they lasted the winter's passing.....the daffodils are up (but not yet popped).....I got the snow crocus blooms earlier....lost a few plants, lavender and boxwoods shot.....you should have SEEN the toxins floating in the floodwaters......oils and gasolines from countless garages and cars....chemicals galore all mixed together in the floodwater.....sorry, that's old new now, but the Spring about to arrive draws me to those memories.....glorious Spring......it's like a MAJOR graduation this year.

Loss and anguish belong to everyone of us in turn, sometimes more than seems possibly fair......but it's not all there is, is it?

I like the reference from a woman I read........gee, I forgot her name presently......when shit hits, and her plans crumble, she says for her own reasoning and self compassion, calmly......"something will happen."

Hope I can keep posting soon.....just keep trying.....trust me.

[manuel_moe_g]

Man, what a good feeling to read a post from Algernon again! Missed ya, buddy!

Sorry to hear about your year of loss. Will try to send good vibes your way.

Excited to explore the authors you spoke about and "secular" Buddhism. I am trying to get more spiritual. I have realized that my ego is standing in the way of my progress, because my egoistic self is not up to the task of dealing with my constant anxiety and depression without self-harmful distractions and time-wasting. I am humbly praying for strength from the only gods I know: the "Lefty" "Good-Shepard" "Humble" Jesus of my youthful imagination, and whatever in the universe that makes the human experience seem like 49% evil and 51% good with that 2% difference and a lot of hard work making the whole thing worthwhile.

Take care, all the best! Great to read your posts again!

[algernon]

YO MANNY!!!

YOCK SHEMOSH!!

Thank you for the wonderful "reunion" hello.......

With all the loss from Hurricane Sandy (and an array of other significant losses), I got a new life that assures me in time EVERYTHING will be lost.....and that stark reality I've embraced in the deepest acceptance....it's almost like a freedom.

Thank you also Manny, for working to keep the forum clean and enduring.......I love to hear Paul credit you in the P'casts.....and too, your associates........

I trust your statements about your mental difficulties Manny, but your tone is always "UP" as I feel it......I hope I'm right.

The podcast collection has been more satisfying than ever......the work and experience Paul has now completed delivers a thoughtful, compassionate. modern human endeavor that really must be priceless to more people than just me.....

Yeah yeah, sooner or later trouble is on it's way......but for now.....I'm going to bed and tomorrow is a new day!

[algernon]

......I just read this one......HELLO everyone, btw!

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=811792

[Fargin]

Hi,

Just wanted to say I haven't read Flowers for Algernon, since English lessons in school. I can't fully recall the story, but I remember loving it and now I feel I must read it again.

[algernon]

Hello Fargin!

It just occurs to me that "Flowers for Algernon" models the salient reality that all things are impermanent.

I can't believe I'm still alive! Age 59 and STILL here clogging up traffic (with courtesy, please!)......

Long ago when walking through the public library's biography section and all those famous names on the book bindings....this one, dead......that one dead.....oh LOOK, this one just died....this one dead 20 years now....that one dead.......half the Beatles, dead.....Elizabeth Taylor....Johnny Unitas.....this one, that one.....my Mom......my sister......dead dead dead......and here I am still here.....

......but my time remaining is flying and soon I'll be dead too......even if I live 30 more years......it's soon I'll be dead too.......I'm dead already!

And how many of you think this assessment is depressing? I usually get that response......

But is it anything less than reality? Is there anything WRONG with this blunt admission of my long held conclusion? Is joy and peace and sharing and abundance, all the wholesomely good things that humans commonly love precluded from this that I hold as naked reality?

May you return to "Flowers for Algernon" Fargin!

[Fargin]

I'm turning 40 shortly, but it doesn't have to be depressing. I'd definitely like to get in another 30-40 years if I can, but I've kissed the thought of flying cars goodbye. I only wish I hadn't wasted so much time in the 90s watching late night infomercials about kitchen knives, flying lures and abdominal crunch machines.

By the way, we actually only read a few chapters of Flowers for Algerno in English, but I this time I got it all and loved it.