The fairness of life.

Once again I feel myself kicking at the mental walls of life.
I seem to have had a run in with a few people this last week of different back grounds, that are so very conflicting. And when I sit back and try to look at it from a different perpsective, it just brings my own life into such stark relief.
I am not a rich man, I do want to be sometimes. Like the rich man I work for, who not only owns two houses in the city where we live and work, but also owns one in another country.
He also owns one half of a world renowned company. But it seems that he cares for very little in life. He shows no real interest in the running of his company, and he shows an almost over interest in his house abroad. This leads to neglect where it matters most, being able to
put bread on the table, so to speak. His seems to care for nothing except his next trip abroad. He is so self absorbed in this that the business is suffering.
And then there is another man, who has nothing, quite literally. He lived in a run down caravan parked on the street in the light industrial area outside the company I work for. He was dirty and smelly and was not highly regarded at all by the people working in that street, me included.
One day, out of the blue, he confronts me on my way home. Yelling and screaming like I had done something terrible to him, yet I had not given him any of my attention in any way.
It later turns out that someone else had kicked him during a confrontation just minutes before, and he now thought that I was on my way to do the same to him.
I left it at shouting back that I was simply on my way home and that he better feel sorry for his yelling at me like that.

Later it strikes me that the rich boss I have and the poor bloke outside on the pavement are both incredibly self absorbed. The one cares for nothing and as a result other people are working to breaking point to clean up his messes and keep his company in business.
And the other, in a very similar way, cares nothing as well. As he flaunts the law in living where he does and how he does, and he sees simple passers by as enemy out to harm him. But he is ever so quick to beg money and claim he has no income to support himself and therefore needs others to support him. Both are capable men and can live their own lives, but somehow get away with the fact that other people are looking after them while they get to do as they like.

My life appears so different in contrast. I wish I had no responsibilities like the poor man, but with the resources of the rich man. Nearly every man on earth wishes that, but life cannot be like that. What I do live for and strive for is to simply be financially independant, to have my own house in which I can raise my own family. To care for and nurture my wife and future children, make memories and live through life together. But so many times people like the two above examples have taken that away from me, in different ways.
All I can say for myself is that I do not want to be like the men with nothing and everything, I want to work for what I have and keep it and look after it.

To New Beginnings...

To new beginnings I begin to walk,
they seem so far and distant yet,
I know that step for step I can make it there.
Danger, fear and difficulties threaten me,
but dreams and hope determine me.
History shows that some turn back,
others leave and don't come back.
Yet others go and walk every track.
I set for me just a single road.
Not big and grand, or long and straight.
I simply want what life can bring,
to a man and his wife, bound by their wedding rings.
Just life and love, a home with kids.
Camping trips and happy memories.
To holidays, first school days and rainy days.
It is to this I turn my face,
some like it hot, but I do not.
Life to me should simply be,
just me and my happy family.
So from today in this place,
which carries a dull grey face,
I turn to walk to a new beginning...

Now What??

It has been a long radio silence here in my world.
I have been sick. My wife has been sick. My herbs have been sick.
It has also started raining again. Which means my body does it's little falling apart thing again because it thinks the sun has died.
Oh well, I reckon I can't have it all good in one great big gulp.
Life has it's ups and downs and somewhere along the road you realise, or at least need to realise, that you are alive. The sun shines on you one day and the next the rains soaks you through so that you look like a soggy kitten. All sad and lonely.
All it really takes is a warm hug, kiss and cuddle, and sometimes a good nights rest as well and the world takes it's ugly mask off and looks like it can be your friend again.
It all boils down to perspective. Frame of mind or paradigm as some people call it...

Life is at the brink of changing in a huge way it the near future. Or it might not. But the possibility of change, for the better, is like warm sunshine in these soggy grey days.
There are a few great fears, and dangers with the decisions that need to be made. But like every great hunter that has gone before me, fear either kills or drives forward.
And that fear is the thing that needs to get sat down on a chair in a bright light and looked at from every corner until it becomes so well known that it loses it's power to intimidate. That happens because once every crevass and dark cranny are known and mapped, a journey can be taken in confidence. Quite simply because if you wander off the path you can simply change direction and still reach your destination, along a more scenic route if you wish.
So to make a life changing decision with all it's pitfalls and hopes, is something that gets done ever so carefully so that every potential possibility gets evaluated and measured.
That way I can decide and know that whatever may happen after the decision I am at least mentally prepared for the consequences and challenges afterwards.
Sick or well.
Warm or wet.
It all looks the same in the end.
Take a look at my options, weigh up the pro's and con's, and either walk away or take the challenge.
That's what life is about in the end isn't it. It's how you get to know you're alive.

Admirably Ignorant Hope

My heart is hurt again.
Not by the carelessness of another,
but by the dashed hope of a longed for desire.
The sheer emptiness of the longing
overcomes everything in its movement towards it's fulfillment.
At first it was the undue length of its colourless duration
that pierced the freshness of every new morning.
Now as the sun sets,
so it turns melancholy.
Moaning out into it's formless void
made evenmore despairing by the false appearance of fleeting substance.
Like a sliver of moonlight held down by a spiderthread was it's presence.
And now it lingers only like a pale elephantine shadow,
yet to be fulfilled.
An empty promise that always was,
yet never quite is.
A quiver of the heart of insignificant size,
yet unbearable presence.
This my heart feels.
This my heart still wants.
Such a tiny thing that sits so still,
but moves so much!
Why must I bear a burden that is so impossibly unbearable?
Why do I still passionately pray for its fulfillment?
Dumb fingers,
Dumb thoughts
and Dumb actions
compound the difficulty of mustering this battle with chivalrous charm.
Impossibility becoming improbability.
Improbability becoming an all too familiar bedfellow.
An all too despised acquaintance.
An open disposition becomes clouded.
Clouded by confusion and dull pains of a pang
echoing violently off empty walls,
in an empty space.
A space where admirably ignorant hope
still believes someone will stand.

(I wrote this poem before I met my wife. I had had my heart broken and thought the end of the world had come. Little did I know that my heart had to be broken to allow someone new into my life, someone that stayed forever!)

Dreams or reality. I guess it's up to me in the end.

So today is a holiday, and so is Monday next week, which means we have a four day weekend, or a paid holiday/vacation for those who think of it as such. It is also a time where I hope to catch up on all those things I have neglected in the last few weeks. I might also add that my wife now wishes to move to Greece. Which is fine by me if I can get a well paying job. But I somehow think it will never happen. Even though it would be a dream come true for me too.
I find that like most people on earth I dream dreams which are great and majestic, and in reality are not really such huge pipe dream impossibilities. It is just that I become overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the prospect of achiving my dreams. I have realised that after losing my livelihood and having to rebuild a life and living from scratch in a strange country with different customs, that the world is really out there for the taking.
I wish my Dad had taught me this lesson. I feel that I would have been much more of a success if I had known this fact rather than have to learn it the hard way. I now know that after my studies are complete and I have a year or two's practical experience, I can go work in virtually any country in the world that will grant me a work permit. Which means that the possibility of wishful thinking becoming true exists. I can experience an alligator in my swimming pool in Florida, or go scuba diving in Belize after work, or go walking through cities with centuries of history in europe.
If I look back, experience might be pointing me in this way of thinking, but the penny is just not quite dropping yet.
Which now has me thinking; both my wife and myself miss the sunny and warm climate we were made to abandon for a less balmy one. And we do wish to return to one, any one anywhere. But small thinking is hampering us. The type of small thinking that makes people see or experience something they have never seen or experienced before, like a better way of life, or an easier way of accomplishing something, and then after hours of thinking about it just abandoning it because of percieved obstacles.
I have only just realised that pretty damn near all of my obstacles are percieved ones.
Which means that I need to focus my thoughts and actions on how to see through these invisible walls. Because once I do, I can find the little stepping stones that will lead to my dreams.
So now my thoughts are not on what it must be like to wake up in Greece and live in such a beautiful place, but on how long my studies will still take, which will lead to my qualification, which could lead to a work permit, which could lead to a move to Greece for my wife and I, which would mean that we get to walk down those beaches in the postcards.
Simple this thing of changing my point of view.
It probably makes all the difference in the world.

So now its back to me and my four days of studying!!!!

The Lady Pride.

Be not proud,

for it is the proud that are blind to a fall.

Be not proud,for it is a deadly thing to be.

Pride is a witch,who will lead you to believe,

that she is your fairy-god mother.

She will show you ways of making things;

"oh so right",

Methods of perfection few can aspire.

How she taunts.

How she beguiles.

How she deceptively misleads you,

down a road of dispair.

She winks.

She smiles.

And all attempts to remain in control are shattered.

Once you have fallen prey to her,

You have fallen, pray to her.

For she has become your god and she will own you.

She is a viper.

Lying in wait till you unwaryingly step onto her path.

Swiftly she flies,

and gently she descends.

Pasionately she kills.

In swift precise strokes she cleaves through the most noble hearts......

making definite the sorrow of good things forgotten.

In misery she revels,

in heartsorrow she dwells.

Till even the pure are left with nothing to grasp.

How easy to fall,

how easy to stumble,

how easy to believe you are safe from a fall.

For once you have security and shurity,

you have nothing at all.

Your rock solid security is porous,

your dreadnaught conviction fallow.

And all along,

the lady pride she dances

She dances,

she twirls,

she twists,

she curls.

And slowly you die

till nothing remains.

Nothing remains

because nothing is.

All that is,

is the lady pride.

And all she is......

is you...

(To the driver of a white mercedes that skipped a red traffic light and knocked me off my motorcycle and did not stop to check if I was okay. I have no compassion for you.)

Just before Midnight thoughts when I am too tired to sleep.

I find myself sitting somewhere in-between Wednesday and Thursday, my laptop has just crashed again, my desktop has a new anti-virus program installed and I have achieved my highest marks so far in a mock test for my next exam. My wife is soundly asleep and as beautiful as ever but my herb garden is still not growing like it should, while the 'living salad' appears to not want to live. Why is it that I can look after a garden in the ground but not after plants in pots? I am supposed to have grown up on a farm, I should be able to do this stuff. Droopy chives seem to reflect some of the feelings inside me. I know I should be standing up straight and tall with a strong flavour that can be used to make things better, but sometimes I feel too thin and tired, and like I just cannot cope. But this is my new online journal that will help me to show myself and the cynical world out there that anything can be conquored.
"Do not lose hope, for once hope is lost, all is lost." I do not know who said that first, but it is a good motto that I believe in.
I am not small, even though I sometimes feel small.