I must be dreaming.....

I'm dreaming. I must be. 


I am in a world where everything I have worked for, everything I have wanted, is about to manifest itself.


Only in dreams do things like this happen. Not in real life, right?


I must be dreaming.


There's no way to describe the excitement.


I never thought this would happen, and definitely not so soon.


And yet, it has been a long time coming. So, so long.


Time has no meaning in a dream, a year might as well be an hour.


That's what this feels like.


It's a dream within a dream, things around me changing, but the people in it staying with me, all the time.


Every single night, I have this dream. It's so vivid, it seems so real. IS it real?


Dreams have a way of making you feel like you can do anything, you can fly, you can be anywhere at any time.


Or everywhere, at every time.


That's what this dream is like. I am here, and then I am there, I am everywhere.


If there was one day, out of my whole life, that was a reflection of my WHOLE life, this would be it.


Why I'm here, what I'm meant to be, what I'm supposed to be doing.


Every single thing has led up to this point, every situation has brought me to this manifestation.


No worry, no sadness, no loneliness, only happiness and joy.


I must be dreaming........

So this is the plan.....I think.....

You might have read some of my earlier posts, and gotten a pretty good idea of my spiritual beliefs. A thought came to me today, an idea, and I wanted to write about it and get some of your ideas about how much sense this idea of mine makes.


I believe that none of us is here for the first time, well, maybe some of us are, I really don't know. Suffice it to say that I feel that MOST of us are here on a return trip. I also USED to think there was a plan to my life, a reason I'm here. There is a prevailing idea that in between "incarnations", we have a sort of "pow wow" with our guides, to plan out the life we will lead in our next incarnation. 


We decide on "The Plan".


This is the core of the idea that came to me today. How does one plan an entire lifetime?


To make this "plan", I have to assume that every situation we'll encounter is drawn up, up to and including which people that we will have interactions with, keeping in mind of course that those people ALSO are making a plan for their OWN lives, and then subsequently the people that THEY interact with...I mean this can get really complicated in a hurry. Oh and don't forget, there's free will thrown in, so the plan must be able to change "on the fly".


I'll give you an example of how I see this working out. Say you and another soul, who was your friend in your previous lifetime, agree that you will meet and fall in love and marry in your coming lifetime together. There are many many variables to consider. First of all, the meeting itself is rife with complications. Suppose you, using your free will, early in that lifetime, decide to make a career change that takes you to another location than was planned for your meeting? What happens then? How do you plan for an eventuality that MAY happen, and "correct" as you go along? Do you put someone else in the picture to persuade your friend turned lover to move to where you are now? And how then does that interaction affect the life of that third person? Was that in HIS plan?


I have heard that while we have spirit guides, they are unable to significantly affect our lives in any way, they only "guide", so if the plan goes off on an unexpected tangent, what happens then? If the plan is drawn up before this lifetime starts, and is done so for everyone, then how can we get it back "on course"? Can the guides nudge us enough in the right direction to make things "right"? The thought that came to me this morning seemed to make a lot of sense, but in a way it was a little alarming.

I know of only one way any such plans would or COULD feasibly be worked out. Well, it's a theory anyway. The Plan, while we might see it as unique to our own lives, for the lessons we wish to learn, and our experiences we wish to have, this may not in fact be the case. What if there may be a much more elaborate plan in place, one that dictates the course of EVERYONE'S lives, all at once? Sounds crazy? Hear me out, I'll make sense of it in a minute.

Consider for a moment the two original individuals in the planning scenario. Every one of the people each one interacts with also have a plan for their own lives, to enable the interaction, and therefore, the plan for those lives would have to be altered as well. The plan for the people's lives that THOSE people interact with would be affected, and THEIR plan would need to be altered as well, and so on and so forth, cascading the alterations made to the two original person's plans into a much broader and far reaching domino effect, affecting eventually EVERY person that is to be alive on the planet during those lifetimes. Further, since people are "coming" and "going" all the time, with no breaks in the cycle, this means that the plan for even a single individual must therefore be integrated into the plans of every OTHER person, even into what we perceive as the past, and also the future. What a staggering thought!!



I see no other plausible way to approach this. Every single person living on this earth at this moment would had to have had their life planned ahead of time, taking into account the lives of the people already here, and those who would come here during their lifetime, and those who would leave during the course of it as well. Every interaction, both past, present, and future, all planned ahead of time......but wait......doesn't that mean that "time" had to start somewhere? When did the "big picture" plan start, and does it have an end?


I can only come to one conclusion in thinking about this in such a grand scale, I mean, if I can even conceive of it. Our human minds simply cannot process such a thought. Everyone, past, present, AND future, all of our lives, every single one of our "incarnations", planned ahead, before the first human ever drew breath? How is that possible?


Now the skeptic in me says that there's no way this is possible, I mean every person living on the planet over the millenia, the plan for their lives affecting the plans for ALL the others, throughout the centuries? Nah, there's no way that someone living 2000 years ago had any bearing on what I am doing today, or anyone else living TODAY for that matter, none of us were there 2000 years ago. Hell, how can MY life plan affect people living in China, today, I may never interact with any of them. But then I think, well, SOMEONE does, and some of those people may interact with people that interact with other people that interact with me somewhere on down the line. See where I'm going with this?


There are so many directions to go with this, starting with just that one thought. It almost seems to take the entire "free will" idea out of the picture. I mean, imagine it. If you draw up a plan for everyone's life at one time, the entire length of time the human race is to exist, and you ALSO give each one the ability to make decisions for themselves, how in the world could you EVER keep up with the multitude of "adjustments" that would have to be made for the plan to work, for each and every life that is lived? 


The first thought that comes to mind is to eliminate the idea of giving ANYONE a choice. That would make it easy, well, in cosmic terms anyway. You just lay out a plan for everyone, and dictate exactly how each life is to be carried out, without the "wild card" of free will to mess things up. But no, that can't be true, because we DO make our own choices. Don't we? Or ARE our own thoughts part of the plan, carefully inserted at just the right moment to "make" us make the decisions that go along with the plan? No way, that would mean we are simple automatons, and to a human, that thought is impossible to believe.


Now, THIS thought is a little easier to swallow, and would still make the plan work, and still give us the "free will" option. You're the plan designer, at the beginning, and are aware of every single thought, action, and decision of everyone that will ever live. Then, you create a "dynamic" plan, one that accounts for each one of those eventualities, you plan for every single possibility, down to the smallest detail. Every scenario is planned for, because you know about every single one of them. Oh, the mind that would have to dream THAT up! Leave the free will, it's not a problem, since you know literally everything. Sounds a lot like what many people believe to be a "god", doesn't it?


How about this? What if the plan is only made up for certain people, while others have no plan at all? There could be many "gods", each with their own "people", and they choose to allow them to live their lives either with a carefully laid plan, or without. That could work, right? Sure, I suppose so. Makes sense, I mean not everyone seems to have a cut and dry "direction" for their lives, and we look at some people and wonder why they even exist at all, don't we?


Here's yet another possibility. What if there's no "plan" at all? Yeah, now that makes it easy for the primitive human brain to comprehend. We all just mosey through our lives, with no plan at all, reacting to whatever stimuli we happen upon. Nothing is determined for us, either in the past, or in the future, our lives are what we make them to be. That's a nice thought, it fits in a neat little box in our minds, and empowers us to make whatever decisions we choose. But there's a problem. We see too much "evidence" to the contrary, and decide that there MUST be someone in control of it all, or that someone made a plan for it to happen. What about that money that you find on the ground, JUST when you need that EXACT amount to put gas in your car for the week? It's just a coincidence, right? Ok, so what about deja vu? That feeling that you've been somewhere, or done something before? Just your mind playing tricks on you? I just don't know. What about karma? Or irony? We see people all the time, either doing good things or more often "bad" things, and what happens to them later on? Right, it comes right back to them. Someone had to have "planned" that, right?


There is just no easy answer to such a monumental question. In my humble opinion, it is a question we need not ask, as we seem to be incapable of comprehending the answer. It has been said, and I believe this wholeheartedly, that everything and everyone in the universe is made of energy, and we as humans have been granted the gift of the ability to manipulate that energy. We can transform it, mold it, use it to create, and also to destroy, but in the end, it's still about the manipulation of energy. Whether we see it that way or not, that steel skyscraper we work in was at one time nothing more than a tiny piece of energy, a thought in someone's mind. Yes, even our thoughts are constructs of energy. We take that thought, the image of a skyscraper, and build it, first in our minds, and then later onto blueprints, and finally into the metal and glass and wood that the building is made of. The universe is full of energy, in so many forms, so even a thought that you send out can and often does get manifested into physical reality. So that money you found on the road? Coincidence? I don't think so. You thought about needing it, maybe a week before, and that thought sent energy out into the universe, and that energy grew into the scenario that would bring you to the exact amount you desired. Impossible? I think not. How many times in your own life have you been in a scenario that exactly what you were thinking about "suddenly" appeared days later? Sometimes it may take weeks, months, or even years, depending on the scale of what you were thinking about. You might think of it as coincidence because it might come "out of the blue", and sometimes it's not in the form you expected, but did it not happen at least ONCE? That's the power of manipulating energy.


Further, the same energy that comprises our thoughts has far reaching effects on our fellow man. You wake up one day "on the wrong side of the bed", and snap at your spouse. That puts them in a sour mood, as the negative energy you blasted at them takes effect. They go to work, and spread that energy amongst their coworkers, who spread it to everyone they come in contact that day. Each person, while mostly unaware, adds their own "brand" of energy to the mix, though some may choose to transform the negative into a positive, and brightens someones day, while the next person may transform it back into negative, and send the energy cascading forth till the whole city has felt it. Pretty soon that energy permeates to every corner of the globe, spread from person to person, until eventually, it comes right back to where it started, you. What each of us must realize is that we are indeed connected, on a universal scale. The energy we choose to send out to others has far reaching effects, though because of our limited perceptions we most often never see how devastating or how positive our lives have affected others.


IS there a "Plan"? I don't know, but what I do believe, what I hold to be the stark reality of our existence, is that somehow, some way, we ARE all connected. You might be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or you might be a garbage hauler, but each and every one of us manipulates the same energy, the energy that is all around us, and in us, it IS us. We might not be able to see the effects, but that is no excuse to blindly go through life thinking that we are the only ones affected by our thoughts and actions. There is just too much evidence to support the idea that we DO affect others with the energy we send out, and we can affect the world around us just the same. We see ourselves as so small, what can one person possibly do to affect the whole world? I'll tell you, quite a bit. It's similar to the "ripples in a pond" scenario, all it takes is one pebble, one drop of water, and the entire surface of the water is affected.


One day we may know the true nature of our existence. I'd like to think we are learning about it more and more each day, as we continue to gather information, and revise our theories as to what our place is in this vast universe. But know this. For me, it's not about that at all. I don't wonder what the meaning of life is, and I really don't want to know whether or not there's a plan. I live my life every day aware that what I think and what I do sends out energy to others, and I'd like for that energy to be a positive influence. I may just be one man, but I am a part of the whole, the whole universe, and the last time I checked, it's a pretty big place.

Always Here

 On occasion I dabble in lyric writing, and today this came to me, I call it "Always Here".


 Some days things are happening


Things are happening fast


Some days things seem like way too much


You feel like you won't last


You want to run away and hide


But there's nowhere left to go


Baby if you look and see, what you'll see will be me


I'm the one to go to, the one who is always here...


There is nothing to fear
For I am always here
Whenever you are having doubts
I'll always be the one around
Give me all your pain and grief
I'll keep you up and on your feet
I'll be your shelter from the storm
Cause I am always here
Always here


I'll pick you up when you fall down


I'll shelter you from the wind and rain


I'm the one who will be around


When things look bad, and things look bleak


I'm always strong, and I will not break


There is nothing I won't do, no babe, nothing


To be always right next to you


I'll even see you in your dreams


Because a love like this does not ever sleep

There is nothing to fear
For I am always here
Whenever you are having doubts
I'll always be the one around
Give me all your pain and grief
I'll keep you up and on your feet
I'll be your shelter from the storm
Cause I am always here
Always here


Well, there it is. What do you think?

I am lost.....can someone, anyone....find me?

I cannot speak, I cannot write. I don't know what's wrong. 


I am not sad, nor depressed. The words just won't come.


I had a revelation, a few weeks ago, that changed my sense of self worth.


I am changed, fundamentally, and yet, I can not write about it.


The words simply won't come.


I often write about my feelings, and yet these feelings have no words.


My perceptions are different, yet I can not find the words to describe it.


What is this then, this lack of verbal expression?


Nothing is wrong, yet everything seems odd.


I am at a standstill, yet moving fast.


There is chaos, deep, yet it has order.


I am at peace, yet a great battle rages.


This sensation is calm, yet overwhelming.


I know myself, but I am so far away.


I feel like a hero, but I am searching, longing, for a hero myself.


I wait, patiently, yet my patience is gone.


My focus is clear, yet the window is foggy.


I am more than I ever was before, yet there is a great emptiness.


I see two worlds, but I am not present in either.


Someone, somewhere, can see me, can feel me, I know they are there.


Where am I? Where is my soul?


I want to return, I want to live, to feel, to have my voice heard.


Where am I? 

Someone.......please......find me......bring me home.........

Changes to my blog

I'm in the process of making a few changes to my blog. I've added the blog button roller I have over on "Journey of the Stag Warrior". If you have a button and you don't see it on my roller, let me know and I will see about adding it. I also added a link to my email address, so feel free to shoot me an email on anything you read or would rather discuss with me away from public comments. I also made changes to my "About me" description, and am planning on adding a blog button of my own. Feel free to leave me a comment or email me about any other changes you'd like to see, or something you think I should add, I am always open to suggestions.

Sharing......continued

I've still been doing a lot of thinking about sharing. Thinking about what I share, and about what others are willing to share with me. I've come up with an idea.


Sharing personal thoughts and problems has a lot to do with trust. If you don't trust the person you are sharing with, then you will not share personal things with them. You may not even speak to them at all. Or, if you do, you will only tell them about things that might be considered "small talk", or just share things that are obvious "here's what's happening with my day" type things. You might only give them information on what music you are listening to, what you're having for dinner, or how your kid or spouse is being annoying and a royal pain in the butt. But you won't share anything with any "meaning" to it. The things that are really on your mind. Big things. You know, problems you are having, personal feelings about something, or even a major issue going on in your life.


What I've noticed is that the reason people will not share things with someone they supposedly call a friend is that they feel they will not like the reaction they will receive. In other words, if they share a particular problem, and they know the person they are talking to will respond with a long, drawn out, emotionally charged response, they are not likely to share anything at all. Or it may be that the reaction they expect they will receive will be a negative one, one of those "get over it, stop whining, put on your grown up underwear and get on with your life" type responses. But, on the same token, they will still remain friends with that person because that person may be the type to share their most personal, deepest, darkest secrets all the time. Who doesn't like to know someone's deepest secrets, and to feel they are the ONLY one that knows them?


This is why I am convinced that I share way too much information. I have friends that would rather go tell a complete stranger about a problem they're having than come to me with it. I do all the sharing, I tell them everything, but most of the time, I get nothing shared with me. Nothing important anyway. I am beginning to get the feeling that most of my friends are only friends with me because they like to hear about my "dirt".  I think others are worried that I am so "fragile" or depressed that they only feel sorry for me, and fear that if they don't remain my friend, that I will go off the deep end and kill myself or something. That could not be further from the truth, but that DOES seem to be the way some of them feel. And all because I share WAY too much.


Another indication of trust and true friendship is communication. If you truly want to talk to someone, what do you do? You email them, you are available to chat, you may even text them or call them on the phone. When you care about someone, and what they are doing, you communicate with them, often. I find this is not the case in my own life. No one emails, no one texts, or calls, and very few are available to chat on the internet. I have come to the conclusion then that there is a fundamental problem, and the problem is ME. No one WANTS to email me, and they could not care less about texting me or calling, they don't WANT to talk to me. They don't WANT to share things with me, because they don't truly trust me. 


I could even take this a step further, and say that here, on my blog, no one wants to speak to me either. I write, people read, but no one says a word. I even ASK for comments, and get nothing. I'm not saying I'm the only one with this problem though, lots of bloggers have the same issue, and it's for the same reason. People want to hear and read about the "dirt", they want to know about all the really "secret" stuff. But it seems you can't expect them to share THEIR "dirt" with you the same way you share YOURS.


When you share, you are judged, plain and simple. People get an idea in their minds as to the kind of person they think you are, and for those like me who share a lot, that idea is not always a good one. In other words, if you are a "sharer", then the idea people get in their heads is that you will ALWAYS share what's in your head, and share it with anyone you come in contact with. What this means is that in their minds, regardless of whether or not it's true, you cannot keep a secret. So, they will therefore not tell you anything that they consider to be private, for fear that other people will find out. They won't tell you that to your face, but that's the reality of it. They simply don't trust you. The really sad part about that however, at least in MY case, is that while I share my personal feelings and problems with many people, I NEVER share anyone else's problems and feelings that are shared with me. When someone shares information with me of a personal nature, that information stays with ME, and is not shared with anyone else. Anyone surprised?


Don't judge a person by how much they share. Just because they are willing to air their own dirty laundry does not mean they will air YOURS. Be a true friend, communicate, tell the "sharers" what is really going on in your life. Don't let the communication be a one way street. Those of us that share a lot would like nothing more than to feel like we can be shared with too. We are not untrustworthy. Don't just be a "friend" to me or another sharer just because you like to hear about the "dirt".

Thinking.....and sharing.....too much?

As many of you know, I am separated from my wife, and rooming with friends, so for all intents and purposes, I live alone. My roommates and I have vastly different schedules, so we do not interact much, and I spend the majority of my time off work alone in my room. I don't have a lot of the daily distractions of family and the hustle and bustle that many of you do, so I have a lot of time to think.


That's not to say I'm "alone" however, as I do spend a lot of time chatting with friends online. I have 3 very special people in my life that I chat with regularly. Each one of those people have a very different personality, and also very different methods of communication, when compared to one another. However, as this "weekend" of mine progressed, each one of them gave me, in their own unique way, something to think about. My emotions have gone from some of the highest highs to some of the lowest lows I have experienced in quite some time.


While I would rather not share the details of the conversations, I do want to say that I learned a lot. About myself, about people in general, and about life. It's funny sometimes, how just a few words written on a computer screen can make you feel so happy, or so sad. In this case, I saw how differently people interact with one another, and how they share their feelings. It got me to considering how I share mine. 


Here on my blog, I share a lot, and in a chat, even more so, especially to those I feel are close to me. After this weekend however, I wonder if I share too much. How much of my life, or my feelings, is too much to share? Some people are fine with hearing everything, or a lot, and others would rather not hear much at all. Further, how much should I be comfortable sharing? These are questions I hadn't really considered before.


I have never been known for my brevity. No matter what it is I'm talking about, whether it be my knowledge of cars, or computers, or anything else, I like to try to convey as many details as possible. The same goes for my own opinions and emotions too. I like to tell someone EXACTLY what is on my mind, and often, it takes many words to do so. But is that really necessary? Probably not.


Different people process information in different ways. Regardless of the subject matter, the way a person internally processes information in many ways also determines the way they communicate, or externally verbalize their thoughts. One person may have thoughts that travel in a sort of line, one after the other, in a logical sequence, while another may have a jumble of thoughts in a "pile", that they process in a "hit or miss" sort of fashion, until a particular problem is worked out. In my case, my brain uses a sort of "compartmentalized" fashion, putting things in "boxes", which means that each subject has its own "region" of my thoughts. When I think about something, for instance, car repair, I can then access that "box" in my mind, which, after 10 years of working in that field, makes for a veritable database of information for me to retrieve. If I'm about to do an engine replacement on a particular car, I access the information I need to do that job, but the thoughts don't come "step by step", more often, I "see" the entire job, the engine literally coming apart, in my mind, all at one time. This method of storage and retrieval works well in that line of work, because once I had seen and performed a specific repair several times, I remembered it, as it happened, and then the next time I had to do it, I could "see" it happen before I placed the first wrench on it, or the next time I had to diagnose a problem, I could literally "see" what the solution should be.


The same method works well for just about any industry or subject that can be compartmentalized, or rather, when all the information can be accessed all at once. Computers? Easy. Easier than cars in fact. Fewer moving parts. Their construction is so simple it's comical. Even laptops, while the technology is smaller, are built very similarly, so to me, they are just as easy to work on. Washers? Dryers? Dishwashers? TV's? Game consoles? Child's play. You name it, if it's a mechanical or electronic device that can be disassembled and repaired and reassembled, I find it easy to learn and remember what steps are required to accomplish those tasks. I have also found in learning about mechanical and electronic equipment that many correlations can be made between one type of device and another, mainly in how they are constructed and in how they operate. To me, gears are gears, and circuit boards are circuit boards, no matter what device they may be in, they all basically work the same way. Having a vast database of knowledge on many different types of equipment means I can often take something I have never seen or worked on before, and can make a diagnosis as to what's wrong with it, and can determine how to disassemble and reassemble it without having any previous experience with that particular device.


As you can plainly see however, as the above 2 paragraphs demonstrated, this method of thinking also means that I attempt to communicate in the same "compartmentalized" manner. All of the thoughts come at one time, in one big "box", and therefore, I try to share all of that information at once. It's impossible to communicate many thoughts simultaneously however, so then, what comes out of my mouth, or what is typed into a computer, is a tediously long string of pieces of information, one after the other. However, many of those pieces could probably be left out without diminishing the main thought I am attempting to communicate.


That's what I'm talking about when it comes to how much I should share.


Most people don't want to hear so much information in such a short time, they just aren't THAT interested. Sure, sometimes, when it pertains to something they are passionate about, they ARE interested, and would probably listen or read for hours on the subject. But many other times, the opposite is true. People want the "Reader's Digest" version, give them the main facts, and a little explanation, and that's good enough. They then form their own opinion or thoughts on the matter, and they're done with it. Again, the subject matter is not important. Whatever it is, don't draw it out, and don't share too much, it's just plain boring, and in some cases, gets a little creepy.


So I wonder, DO I share too much? I believe the answer is an unequivocal YES!


Fortunately a "problem" like this is easy to fix. I'll just keep my thoughts to myself. Simple. I'll keep my mouth shut. Give them the basics, and let them run with it, let them make their own assumptions and opinions about it.


No, I'm not going to stop sharing all together. I'm just going to share LESS. You'll still hear my thoughts, my ideas, my feelings, but you won't hear everything. It's not necessary, and not important.


Now, I want YOU to share. Give me YOUR thoughts. How do you share, and how much? If you actually made it this far down in this post without your eyes glazing over, did you think I shared too much? What is YOUR opinion on what is "too much" sharing? I am interested in hearing some other points of view. 


Thanks for your time, see you all again soon.