You hear a lot of things throughout your life.
I know this.
I know what I heard when I was young, like, say, “look both ways when you cross the street.”
This is good advice, by the way.
I agree with one of my greatest literary heroes, Robert Fulghum, and I agree with him most of all when he talked about all he needed to know, he already learned in kindergarten.
I agree that words have meaning.
I agree that it’s a good idea to always have a buddy, share, play nice, and hold hands when you are crossing the street.
These things are great things to hear and more, these things are great ideas to practice.
There is always the other side of the equation. There is the yin to the yang or the darkness which is in contrast to the lighter things we see in life.
I know that I was told to be careful
Never talk to strangers.
Watch yourself.
I was often told, “D.T.A” which stands for Don’t Trust Anyone!
I know that I was told that nice guys finish last.
And this is because nice guys do not live by wins are losses.
And yes, I was told “it doesn’t matter of you win or lose. It’s how you played the game.”
But losing seems to become habitual and so, I grew tired of my loss column.
So yes.
I cheated to but a few wins on paper.
Then again, I was told cheaters never win.
I wonder how many wins I have
I remember back when I was trying to find my way out of a substance abuse problem. I was told to be careful who I share things with. I was told to be advised that anonymity is not always held so tightly and that confidentiality is not always so confidential.
Anonymity is not always anonymous. And I get that because the truth is if you never want someone to know about your secrets, then keep your mouth shut.
Keep this close to the vest like a card player sitting for a hand at poker. Never complain. Never explain. Never let anyone see you sweat or struggle because there is truth to the fact that the world is often filled with opportunists, and, so, there are sneak-thieves and scammers, con-artists, and worse; there are predators and snakes in the grass and enemies who hide like invisible demons, lurking in plain sight and undetectable by the human eye.
a good friend of mine once told me, “I get it.”
And he knew I was dying inside.
Another friend, a priest whom I met and never forgot told me, “Whatever you did before is not something that you are doing now.”
He allowed me a confession and I could see the tears in his eyes because he could feel the pain in my voice.
“Son, you don’t have to tell everybody everything. But you have to tell someone something,” and he meant this because The Good Father knew, I was dying inside and worse, my secrest were lkilling me,
I was told about there are those who use information for their own selfish-self-centeredness.
I was told all about these people. I was told about the fact that there will always be someone who looks to take advantage.
There is evil in this world and like the pedophiles and the narcissists, they will lurk and they will prey and they will assign blame and shift their guilt to someone else.
There are evil people who lie and speak from both sides of their mouth in order to keep their game alive and keep their deeds from being exposed by the light.
Don’t believe what you hear is what I was told.
I was told, don’t believe what you read or what you hear and only half of what you see.
I was told to be careful with what I hear because lies can become true.
I was told to be careful with who I listen to and who I confide in.
I was told that I should never believe in people because all people are flawed, including the best of them
Don’t believe anything but the truth. And I agree with this.
But what is the truth?
What does this word mean?
True.
Am I true?
Are you?
Is everyone full of shit or just full of themselves?
I wonder about this.
Have I lied enough to learn that the truth comes out in the end? I ask this because at the moment and before my day of judgement and prior to the hour of my death; am I going to succumb to the lies or the truths which I ran from?
I tried to outrun myself but no matter where I’d go or hide, I was always there.
I ask this because when I complete this journey, I am afraid that I will have learned too late and thus; my hell will be an imaginary placement of my worst fears, combined with the last moment of consciousness to linger with me for the rest of eternity.
I do not want that for myself
Is there a difference between opinion and the ultimate truth?
Of course, there is.
Or is there a difference between my truth and your truth and that in the end, differences between us are just minor concepts of thought, which we make into these big huge catastrophes which lead us to our subconscious tragedies.
We are self-leading too
and we lead ourselves into hell and the dungeons far too often.
This has to stop
I wonder . . .
Is our perception so easily deceived that all we believe in are assumptions and so, we swallow the lessons we assumed were ahead of us without facts and thus; is this why we fall and believe in opinions without substance?
What is the truth?
Or what does it mean to be true?
I don’t know . . .
I think I do>
But I want to be more truthful here than ever before.
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”
I heard him respond, “What are you here to confess, my son?”
Everything . . .
Nothing
all things and some things.
I am the hand of man who created a worse destruction that the Devil when cast from Heaven.
I am the evil and the ugliness beneath the rotted feet of good and credible men.
I am the murderer of life.
I am the executioner of character and the statistic that kills souls, one by one.
I am this, Father.
I am him the Devil
the demon
the dead and the damned.
Have you come here to seek forgiveness?
or have you come to be absolved, just to feel better before the next time you try to hurt someone or look to kill again.
“Bless me,” I said.
“I am a sinner.”
And so; thus with my mouth and my heart and my soul –
I gave in and sunk to my knees, soulless and lifeless and angry and hateful.
“Jesus loves you, my son.”
No Father . . .
Not me.
I saw The Good Father pull backwards from me.
Sometimes, I fail to see the gray in an otherwise black and white world. I see patches of blackness in a world which is far more colorful than I allowed myself to believe.
But I am often blinded by hysterics and emotion.
And also, the truth hurts.
Isn’t that right?
Demons cannot be absolved.
And therefore, I am who I thought, which is the underbelly of the beast and simple enough, I was driven by so much hate that it would be impossible to see the light or find the hope
I fell . . .
But we all fall.
No?
We fall for the pretty lies because in all fairness; they disguise the ugly truths, which is why the lies are always more appealing.
I used to lie all the time.
I exaggerated stores and yes, the fish was always “this big,” with an increasing measure that was brought on with the need to outdo, outsize, and outnumber a society which always seemed to have an advantage on me.
I used to make up an alternative reality because the lies were more appealing than the truest version of me, which was plain. Or so I believed.
I made myself hateful because otherwise, I would be preyed upon and eaten alive or beaten within an inch of my life.
I could not take this anymore
I had to flower myself or make me beautiful.
I was always too unattractive or too bland in my opinion. Or maybe I feared that I would always be less-desired, like a life that was otherwise raw or just unappealing.
My fear is that I am always going to be ugly and that no matter how I tried; I will never be beautiful.
And so, anyone who would see me as beautiful (in my eyes) were people who otherwise had less than me or if they were undesirable too, and then perhaps this is why they saw me as attractive.
But no
I am ugly.
I am hateful.
I am evil like the devil, reconstituted from the powder and ashes of my sins and reconfigured into human form.
I am rageful and fearful and in hindsight, I am a scared little child who was hurt and traumatized. I was used and thrown away, like some kind of deviant reject that was stained and forever destined to remain unlovable and unliked.
I was trash so, I would always decay like trash and rot with the rest of the world until the world went away
And yes, I am vengeance.
I am revenge, humanized and mirrored and materialized, clearly, and here I am; the devil’s aggression, and acting like a hand of fate and assigned by my demons to deliver the despair of all that is failed and loveless.
I saw this in my reflection for years.
Then again mirrors have a few tricks of their own.
I suppose I have to be careful with the reflection I see
Or . . .
Perhaps my reflection has been confused by the deception of my perception.
I saw this in myself for decades, including the belief that I deserved abuse or that I deserved to be hated or that I deserved to be used by a grown man. And thus, and therefore, in my best estimation; I swore that I deserved to be evil and murderous and hateful, even when peace was proposed.
I never wanted to be ugly. I never wanted to be plain or simple or flat-lined, like a life without liveliness.
I never wanted to hurt anyone . . .
Never.
This is a new journal. Or maybe this is a new form of confession and so, forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
It has been decades since my last confession and worse, it has been longer than decades since I felt true sorrow for my sins.
I am not who I think I am and nor am I who the devil tells me I am (anymore) . . .
I suppose I need to follow some simple advice.
Hold hands
Play nice
Share
Take turns.
I like these ideas.
I like when The Son of Man said Behold, I send you our as sheep amongst wolves.
There is a little woman with special needs who approached me and took me by the hand during a moment of aggression in the gym. She walked me away, a woman who would be seen as ‘retarded,’ which is a bad and misused word.
She collected me so kindly and peacefully.
She asked me . . .
me . . ..
She asked me to help her.
There were other people around us.
They are certainly kinder and prettier than me.
but no
she chose to seek me and walk me away from my hate and ask her to help her exercise.
I am nowhere near that beautiful or deserving
I am done with being a sheep in wolves clothing or a wolf being dressed as a sheep.
At this point, I just want to be me.
I want to be like the little woman with a child’s mine and special needs because I am nothing in comparison
So . . .
Ugly or not
Here I come.
Good morning, Sunday.
I am told you came with some news for me.
Yes . . .
“Are you ready to be the one I send?”
I am
“Good, then you are the one we’ve been looking for!’
I’m glad to hear this because Purgatory could use some sprucing up around here.
“We shall see.”
Yes. I guess we shall.
