Death and tragedy.....perception is the difference

Today is the 10 year anniversary of one of the most observed tragedies in American history.


Every single one of you reading this knows exactly what tragedy I'm talking about.


Everyone remembers where they were, everyone knows what happened.


There are numerous memorial services being held today to remember those who died, and to honor those who are serving our country.


People say "We will never forget."


And then comes tomorrow.


Sure, we don't forget, we still remember what day the event happened, but we go back to our regularly scheduled lives and "forget" all about it.


Except for those that lost someone that day. Life is never again going to be "normal". They live that tragedy every single day of their lives, without their loved ones, their colleagues, their friends.


But then isn't that the way it is for all of us? At some point in everyone's life, we lose people. They leave our lives, they die. 


It's when they are taken from us "prematurely" that it leaves an even bigger mark on our psyche.


It's how we perceive the death or tragedy that makes all the difference.


There are many ways to leave this life, one of which is to grow old and die of "natural" causes. When someone dies this way, generally, the statement is made that they "lived a full life, it was time". 


Take someone away much earlier in their years, and it's a completely different story. And why?


We perceive different kinds of deaths in different kinds of ways.


A baby is born, and then dies unexpectedly two months later. There is uncontrollable grief. This was a child that did not get a chance at life.


A seven year old girl dies when she chases her ball into the street and gets hit by a car. Same reaction, she did not have the chance at a full life. 


What about a 30 year old that suddenly drops dead of a heart attack? The grief is different for adult "victims", but still, almost as strong as for children. 


What if that same 30 year old dies in an unforeseen tragedy such as the one we remember today? An attack, seemingly unprovoked, and one that is seen as preventable as well. Here's where our perceptions change.


How we feel about death is largely decided by how much it affects us personally. If we lose a loved one to a disease, slowly, we have time to prepare for the end. When they are snatched away from us when we least expect it, it creates a much deeper impact on our minds. Especially when we see it as a death that should not have happened. 


I'm thinking today about how I see the tragedy, my perceptions of it. I saw it on the news, just like millions of other Americans. But I was not directly involved. I could perhaps talk to someone that was, and ask them what it was like. But can I really perceive it like they did? That's like asking someone who recently broke their ankle what it feels like, when you yourself have never broken a bone. There's just no frame of reference.


Anyone who lost someone that day had a unique perception of the event. Those who did not die, and were able to escape in time, have a completely different perception, even if they also lost someone. Every single person present, whether they were filming it, working in the buildings, or were a member of the firefighting crews and rescue personnel, has their own perception of the event. 


The processing of the emotions and thoughts of a day like that sometimes take years to work through, and sometimes are never fully processed. How we perceive a particular event, especially when it involves loss of life, is unique to every person individually. We can say that when multiple lives are at stake at any given moment, that there can be many similar perceptions, but each person still has their own unique view of the situation as a whole, according to what is happening in their own life at that moment, and it changes how we see things.


How can we say we know how someone else feels when something as traumatic as that happens, if we ourselves did not see it as they did? We can't. We have our own perceptions. How can we say that the mother of that two month old baby who died did not feel the same as the wife who lost her husband on that fateful day 10 years ago? How can we even begin to imagine what the mother of the 30 year old heart attack victim felt when her son died, as opposed to a mother who lost her son in the attack on the World Trade Center? Are they any different? 


I say it's all about perception. 


I lost a friend once. I was 16 years old, and he and I transferred from one school to another in the same year, and for a time, he and I were the only ones each of us knew in that school. He committed suicide late in that school year, and I felt a tremendous sense of guilt, because I perceived it differently than did the other kids. I felt I should have seen it coming, because I felt I knew him better than they did. Did I in fact? I don't know, but from my point of view, I did. 


My point in all of this is that our perceptions have a tendency to cloud our judgement. I feel we need to be more compassionate with others, and remember that just because we may have knowledge of an event, and feel grief and pain, our perceptions are different, and we can't really know how someone else is affected by the same event.


Today is day when we look back on a tragic event, and honor those who left this life that day. There are 364 other days in a year, and on each one of those days there is someone that looks back on a day when someone close to them left this life as well. To me, those days are no less important than today. 2996 families were directly affected by the tragedy that befell the nation on that day, but all around the world, many other families lost loved ones as well. Every day, tragedies happen, every day, many people leave this life. 


I think it is important to remember that even though this was a highly publicized and televised event, and the whole world saw it happen, we were not there, and we have no idea the affect it had on those involved. Tragedy takes many forms, and you alone perceive it in your own way. So have compassion with others who are still reeling after 10 years, 20 years, or a lifetime. You can't walk in their shoes, just as they cannot walk in yours.


All I can say is, my heart goes out to you all, in your time of grief, for whoever you lost, and however it happened. May you find peace and feel the love and compassion of those around you as you remember those who are no longer with you.

Bad days......and good days

Something must have been stirred up in the rain we had in the last 3 days or so. 


Life was going along just great, nothing unusual was happening, things were pretty calm. 


And then, it happened.


First. last night, I got in the car to go to work, and while it would crank, it would not start. From what it looks like I am just overdo on a lot of maintenance, and I also found that the battery will need to be changed. Not looking forward to spending the $200 dollars it is going to take to get it going again.

Then, after my roommate gave me a ride to work, I had to work with a kid who does nothing but talk smack all night, further exacerbating my already annoyed condition. He makes fun of anyone and everyone he can, I'm assuming to stroke his own ego. Normally I let his jibes and insults roll off of me and ignore them, but last night he was especially bad and I just about lost it. 


To top it all off, I got home from work, and got on the phone with the "ex", and she tells me that social services is about to come after me for child support. So yeah, now I'm going to be bent over and screwed with no lube. She had no idea when or how it was going to happen, and at this point, I'm not sure I even care. I knew it was going to happen, but now is just the worst timing for it.


Anyway, sorry for the rant, just has not been the best of days for me. I'm doing ok otherwise. 


I did have one good thing happen recently. I was asked to become a columnist for Paganpages.org, and my first article was published in their September edition. If you'd like to see what I wrote, just click on that link there, and then when you get to their page, just check the column on the right side for the name of my column, which is, just as my blog, Perthro's Pronouncements. I'm excited about writing for them, and hope to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. 


That's about it for now, some good things, some bad things happening, but all in all life is good.


Have a great day everyone!

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.