Whitney Houston Too Rich To Suffer

In response to comments regarding the death of Whitney Houston:

I feel nothing but compassion for her. 

I think people too readily condemn her or are harsh because they think that money and and fame are a cure all. 

I also think they let jealousy get in the way. 
Addiction is a terrible affliction. If she had died of cancer or diabetes I don't believe would be mean spirited about her death. the woman died because of an illness, one that causes terrible suffering to all 
concerned.
 
Many people are obese and whilst people are mean about fat people, I don't recall anyone slamming <Mama Cass for her death, or come to think ofit  Karen Carpenter who died as a direct result of her addiction. Elvis? He is practically worshipped.
 
Then there are other addictions-OCD-like constant washing, tidy freaks, etc. Why do we pick out booze and drugs as far worse and also a totally self inflicted problem, when we tend to have compassion for anorexics, bulimics, neat freaks, clean freaks, and a host of other addictions. And yes they DO all have victims. 


We ALL pay the cost of food addiction in tax and healthcare costs for example, children losing their parents too young because they were overweight. 
I think what makes people angry is the that Whitney Houston, thru her life and death, has shown that what we think of as the cure, wealth and fame, is no such thing and that scares us stupid because we all think if we were that rich, our problems would disappear. No they would not.

Rich or poor, we are still who we are. I am sure Ms Houston lived under the same illusion and this would have increased her suffering not lessened it. Then of course there is death itself: our biggest fear and now we are in the business of dealing with the fear of our own death by blaming everyone else for theirs! If we eat right, exercise right, do this right, or that right, think this way or that way, follow the true path et etc etc we will not die.

Bollocks but a very powerful incentive nonetheless for us to continue to find reasons why it is THEIR fault for dyeing. Weak people LOSE their BATTLE with cancer! Or they SUCCUMB to MS. Or, most commonly, they did something wrong and brought it upon themselves. Thus we, who are good, will not suffer so. Bad things do not happen to good people do they?

LIFE

These are flowers in my garden. I am impressed with the lens on my Sony Alpha. It's a SAM 30mm f2.8.

Today has been a good day. Sunny and warm all day. I have felt much better than I have of late. Thursday last I was on the brink of tears because of almost two weeks of severe fatigue and pain. Yet today one could almost believe I was well. I always think that, completely ignoring the fact I have taken 16 pills so far! ;-)

I watch Terry Pratchett's documentary about Assisted Dying. I was of course very moved by it. And frightened.

I am NOT frightened of assisted Dying. I am not frightened of death. I am frightened of those people who are determined to prevent this from being legal. Who are determined that I and others like me are condemned to a painful terrible death because THEY are frightened of death. Their excuse is that the vulnerable have to be protected. They say that if Assisted Dying were legal, we'd all start killing off the old and the disabled. Bollocks. Hasn't happened in Switzerland,Belgium, Oregon, Washington or the Netherlands. All of which allow assisted dying and euthanasia. One of the anti's was an atheist. No problem with that. I am not BUT i object very very strongly to the religious making these decisions based upon their particular fantasy. It holds no more validity than me basing my decisions upon what is written in Harry Potter novels, or any of the books of Enid frigging Blyton. It seems to me that the pro assisted dying/ euthanasia are ruled by compassion for human beings and the others by fear.

My doctor is a palliative care, pain, expert. She is also honest. About 30% of terminally people do NOT have their pain relieved. So the argument that no one need die in pain if taken care of is false.

I also found it very disturbing that one of the men who chose to die in this film had tried to take his own life. He swallowed 3 mths worth of morphine. He was unconscious for 5days but lived. Terrifying.

I am started to use my Facebook page to make daily videos. I did a Good Morning one just for a laugh but it seems people like them so I am doing more. I am Colin 'Knitman' Andersson on FB.

xoxo

MEANT TO BE?

It has been an interesting week. I lost the plot a little bit over the finding of a home for Waldo. I allowed my fear that he would not find a suitable home to override my sensibilities. I know that my puppies will always find the right home. They always have so I see no reason why they will not continue to do so.

I find it very difficult to believe that things are “meant to be”. The reason for this is that if we do believe that things are meant to be then we must also apply that to the horrendous things that happen to people. Thus I cannot accept this “meant to be” proposition.

However, all attempts to part with Waldo came to nothing. Unbeknownst to me there was a mother and father with a severely disabled daughter who had just decided it was time for them to replace their Lhasa Apso that had died some time ago. They called me and they knew and I knew that Waldo was just the right dog for them. When they arrived Waldo would not leave them alone particularly the man whom he sat in front of for the whole visit. He very happily went home with them.

I had not intended to part with Winston but I made up my mind to do so when I bathed him last Wednesday as he physically was not going to be satisfactory for future breeding and showing. On Saturday I had a telephone call from a man who had clearly done a lot of research into getting a dog and deciding upon a Lhasa Apso. He asked me all the right questions and he was not after a puppy straightaway because he wanted to make sure that he got one from the right person and got the right dog.

They came to visit me and spent almost 3 hours with me and it became clear during that time that Winston was absolutely ideal for this family which was a mother and father and an autistic son. Winston was very drawn to the son. As a matter of fact so was Whitney who jumped up and sat by him and did not move she seemed very aware that this was a child and a special child.

Winston will be going to live with this family on Tuesday evening.

It does seem very strange to me that both of my puppies have gone to live with people that have special needs and who also were much better off having older puppies than eight week old ones. Winston and Waldo fitted the bill exactly.

Yes, I can clearly see that many coincidences over the last few months have led to this situation. And yes of course it does make one wonder just how coincidental it all was or was it part of some spiritual engineering?

The story of Winston and Waldo is certainly not unique to me. I can tell many stories where coincidences have led to very happy conclusions. In fact one of my so-called coincidences completely altered my life and that particular incident even today seems like it was engineered to happen exactly the way it did which triggered something in me which needed to be expressed and understood. As a result of this I was able to shed the shit I had been carrying with me but had been unaware that I was.

We all hear stories of people who were booked on an aeroplane that crashed and for some reason or other they did not get on the aeroplane. Happy coincidence. Yet there are also people who were on that very plane also by coincidence.

I think there are still so many questions in life. As mad as I appear to be I think many of these questions will not be answered until we have left our bodies. Until we have died, if you prefer.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am not at all religious. I do however strongly believe that our consciousness survives death. I see this as a matter of fact. I see it as part of our make up. As much a part of us as our hands and feet our brains are digestive system. What I am trying to convey is that I think that it is a natural occurrence and not a miracle. The fact that our consciousnesses survived death does not mean that there is a God who orchestrates everything. Do not misunderstand me I am not saying that there is no God all I am saying is that I have no evidence of one. I do however have much evidence of the survival of consciousness after physical death. Rather than seeing this as some sort of airy fairy spiritual thing I guess I view it in a more scientific way and just see it as something that is completely natural and part of humankind and I think one day science will come to view it this way also instead of the ridicule it heaps upon the idea today.

Going back to Winston and Waldo; it does indeed seem to me that the fact that they were available at just the right time and are just the right age to go off and be the pet’s of people with special needs, was somehow orchestrated. Especially when one considers how close Waldo came several times to being sold. And the fact that within three days of me deciding that I would not be keeping Winston the other special needs home arrived.

Okay I think I am probably waffling now and I think you get the point of what I’m trying to say. I am not saying anything sure. My mind is open enough that I might well believe that this was “meant to be”.I just don’t know. My gut instinct goes with the “meant to be” explanation. I just do not understand it and the implications of it could be very disturbing.

I know that I am the person I am today because of my past. Today I am happy and content and glad to be alive and glad to be who I am. I got here because of my past. How I interpreted my experiences and how I came to reinterpret those experiences so that I could break free of the chains of the past that held me firmly to it. So whilst I am extremely grateful for who I am today and what I have and can see that there appears to have been a guide all the way through the process I balk at the idea that I was meant to be abused. That does not make sense because if we believe that then we must believe that the users of children or adults are also just following some divine plan.This cannot be so.

I do not reject the idea out of hand that opportunities are somehow given to us, that we are guided by an intelligence that we are unaware of. However it is not something I can understand because I cannot see how if things are “meant to be” then it includes the horrendous stuff too. Therefore I must just leave this open because I cannot think of another way to satisfactorily explain what I experience and what others experience. Perhaps one day the understanding will come whilst I am still in the body!

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

It irks me that because I am clearly anti Fundamentalism, that people assume I am an atheist. Surely if people can be bothered to come here and read, they would choose to read what I write and not what they decide I have written.

Let me make this clear: I am anti religion.  Xtian, Jew, Muslim, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of them. At best it’s all completely bonkers, at worst it is the cause of extreme grief and suffering to billions of people now and in the past.

I have no truck with atheists either. I have much sympathy with their anti religious thinking but not with their equally strident and fundamentalist beliefs.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH. Did you see that? NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH. Or put another way, NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH. In any language one can think of: NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

Oohh, isn’t that scary? How can we live without certainty? We have to be certain, and kill many with our certainty, because without certainty we cannot live ourselves. The fact that our certainty ensures that others either die or live miserably…well…that can’t be helped can it? We are CERTAIN it isn’t our fault.

It is very tempting to suggest that if one believes that the World was made in 6 days, that we all descend from ONE woman and her TWO SONS (one dead one) and Co Habitee, that you are a MORON. I wouldn’t suggest such a think. I would suggest that your ability to to think has been damaged by fear and training.

Now the Big Bangers love to point out that to suggest there is a God only presents us with another problem: how did God get there? They say it is childish and stupid to suggest an outside source. Okay. I can see the logic in that.

There is one teeny tiny, almost too small to mention, problem with THEIR theory though: if there was nothing, and then there was the BIG BANG, what the f*ck was it that banged? What CAUSED nothing to bang? never mind the question of how nothing can bang in the first place. How exactly does nothing bang? If there wasn’t nothing, but something, than how did that something come to be there? And if that something was there, then who the f*ck put it there? Or what? HOW?

It seems to me that both ideas present the same problem.In fact, I just don’t see the difference. Apart form the obvious one: one is not threatened with being banged by the Big Bangers for not believing them.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

I wish I did. Wanting the answers to life, the universe and everything is a royal pain. Oh I long to be thick as a door knocking w*anker and just have something to hang on to and walk around with a stoned smile on my face. Only in my weakest moments do I wish for this. Mostly, I thank who the f*ck are you? for the fact I don’t.

If it were not for the fact I know we do not die when we die, only appear to, I would have given up long ago to think about this. I have discovered that people think that just because one believes life continues after death, one must believe there is a God? WHY? Why must that be so? Cannot no one envisage that the survival of consciousness after death is just a part of LIFE, this amazingly weird thing we are experiencing?

Now knowing that we do, to the very best of my experience and trying to think otherwise, colours everything. It follows that what I know of science is that it is based upon the impossibility of the survival of consciousness after death. Scientists say this is impossible. You know that leaves me with a problem don’t you? Yes, that's right, for me Science is deeply flawed and the acceptance of the fact that we survive death, will turn their world upside down. Thus they don’t accept and ridicule instead.

The religious think only their kind survive death. WRONG.

So here I am. Now what? Carry on searching of course but not in fear now I have shed the yoke of religion and the wicked ideas.

Now you know,I am as weird as you expected. And you Fundies (religious and atheist) can take comfort in that because it gives you a really cool and simple reason to dismiss my rantings. Just bear this in mind:

I AM HAPPY TODAY. (Before when trapped in your ideas, I was worse than miserable.)

I can live very well with not knowing.

CAN YOU?

As We Believe

Pool

I didn't go again this morning. I thought maybe I needed more than 1 day of rest. I had thought I might go later today but the only available slot is 50 Plus and I went to that before and it is full of mature ladies who the SS considered too mean.

Knitting

Although I cast on more socks, I am going to try and finish a cashmere sweater on the machine today. I also want to do some swatching for the machine. I have loads of really nice 4ply pure wool and I want to make something with it on the standard gauge machine. I am already knitting an Aran by hand with it, using the yarn two fold.

Death And Dying

My comments on this subject were not related to the fact I was having a crap day. I wasn't thinking that if this pain gets worse I shall top myself. Obviously I have thought about what may happen in the future but mostly I live in the day I have.

I have known several people die of pancreatic cancer. One of the worst. There was also a case recently of a young man, paralysed form the neck down, who went to Dignitas in Switzerland where he chose to end his life. His family could have been prosecuted for taking him as they 'assisted' his suicide which is illegal.

The fact that it is illegal makes me very angry. When I hear the people who object to suicide speaking I want to give them a good slap. How dare they bring their personal religious beliefs to bear on the subject? Who do they think they are? How dare they demand that another human being suffer just so they can be more at ease with their God? Because that is what it boils down to. They do not give a toss about the suffering person, only about their own salvation which their ridiculous belief teaches them is dependent upon them always showing how much they are on God's side, no matter the pain and suffering it causes others.

What we believe matters immensely. It dictates not just our lives but the lives of others. And I don't just mean what we believe as regards God and the Universe etc. No. I also mean what we believe about ourselves and about others.

If we believe children are born bad, 'in sin', then we are going to treat them differently to the way we would treat them if we believed they are born good. If we believe that we are different to others and have more control and talent, we can happily use a mobile phone whilst driving a huge lorry without fear of killing anyone. If we believe that people of a different race are not as worthy as us, we can stand by and watch the slaughter and do nothing. If we believe that people of a different sexuality to us are deviant, we can treat them as sub human, as lacking the same feelings of love and tenderness that we have. If we believe we are bad, we spend a lifetime wasting energy on the never ending effort to be good, all the while never feeling good enough. And if we feel like this, we are likely to form a religious conviction based upon this self hate and try to force this belief on others because we cannot tolerate others who think differently to us because it threatens our very being.

If we believe that by killing the children of those who hate us, we will end hatred, we will live and die with the consequences of that belief.

If we believe we are special, or chosen, and others are less than, we will reap the consequences.

If we believe that those who think differently from us are less worthy of life, are evil, then we live and die with the consequences of such a belief.

If we believe we are good in essence, if we have love and compassion and understanding for ourselves, we will have the same for others. We would not treat others the way we do. We would not be afraid of otherness. We would not create a God in our image and give him human attributes and be afraid of him. We would recognize that if we are children of a God then we are in the image of God. We are like God. We are the made of the same stuff as God. In the same way that a horse gives birth to horses, so we are made of the same stuff as God. Spirit. As such we cannot be bad. We cannot be separate, we cannot be other, we cannot be apart, or abandoned or destroyed. Spirit is eternal, indestructible. It is God. And we come from Spirit. God can no more cut us off than we can cut ourselves off.

We are responsible. The world we live in is our responsibility. Look around. WE created this world. Each of us. Each of us inhabits our own world. No two people inhabit the same world. We create it, each of us, our own version of the world. So we can change the world. We change it by changing ourselves, by changing our beliefs. It is our beliefs about the world, the meanings we have created around ourselves, our experience and what we see, that creates the world.

We do not see the world as it is, but as we are. This is not fanciful pseudo spirituality but scientific fact. We see the world as our brain interprets it, not as it is. We cannot see the world objectively. Ever. Everything, absolutely everything, is subjective. Objectivity is impossible.

It really is true that if we want to change the world we have to change ourselves.

This is not yet another reason to beat oneself up for not being good enough! Change is slow and can be painful. It is necessary though. For me . For you. For us all.