Why I write.

I'm still adjusting, and my roommate is being very patient with me. I have lived alone for the last five years, and for the last four months, I've slept outdoors. So when I come home from work and there are people in "my" space, and animals, and noise, and I can't seem to find anywhere quiet, and I can't leave because I need to lend emotional support, it just all gets to be a little much.

So what do I do? I wait. I can't get the peace to collect my thoughts to write, so I don't write. Finally, it is quiet. I have talked with her and told her what I experienced tonight, and even though she's ready to go to sleep, she says "write your blog, go find your peace, do what you need". That's why I love her. She calls me a child even though I'm seven years older. But she has kids...

Anyway...

Over and over I notice that I learn things when I don't assume that I'm right. That may sound like a no-brainer, but it is so in-grained in human nature to believe that you are right, I don't think most people give it two thoughts. Most of the time anyway.

Me, I keep it in my head that I might be wrong. I started this habit out of a desire to avoid embarrasment. After I would get upset with serious conviction, later, after I calmed down and thought about it, and opened my mind to the other person's viewpoint, and realized that even though I was right within my own view of reality, the other person saw things differently, and they were actually equally right within their own view of reality, and who is to say, really, who's reality is more right? So I would have to appologize, because I recognized that I didn't understand the basis of their position. And really, aren't you better off understanding not only yourself, but someone else too? And isn't it better to create peace by humbling yourself with a better understanding of them so that they can try to understand you without threat of embarassment to themselves? Aren't you a better person if you can tolerate humbling yourself so love can happen than if you can't?

I have found that I have to appologize less if I keep this in mind. In fact, now when I get upset and want to rip into someone, I don't because I figure I just stumbled on to some of my own baggage.

Then the next thing is that my god never stops trying to bring me to him. If there is something seperating us, he keeps throwing it in my face until I deal with it and let it go. Atleast that is what I believe is happening. Why else would I keep running into the same problems with different people?

And the cool thing is that my god creates the situations in my life to help me figure this stuff out as I go. I met my roommate at exactly the right time in exactly the right way. I remember freaking out because I thought she got fired, then she came back and I said we have to exchange phone numbers so we don't lose each other. And she got fired again, and we stayed in touch, and here we are. We are together because we both have really good things to learn from each other. That's how it works. All the time. You just have to be patient and watch the coincidences in your life, pay attention to your heart, and do what it tells you, without second guessing. God loves us all the same. I don't care how you conceptuallize god. I don't care what you call him, whether you talk to him or not. IT is bigger than me, and bigger than you. IT IS, and will always be. Actually, time, the concept of "always", is probably one more of our misunderstandings.

Whatever is the truth, the truth wants us all to know it. Start by considering that there is something bigger than "I", and pretend that by letting go of I, you will become bigger.

So dude, I am so upset that I missed the 400 year coincidence of the winter solstice and an eclipse of the moon. I can't tell you how happy I am that we've passed another winter solstice. I am living in a place now where it doesn't really get that cold, but still I don't like the short days. I didn't want to get up at 3 am anyway, I had to work, and really, who cares? If I had grandchildren, would they care that I witnesses it? No, I think they would be more impressed by me telling them what it was like when we thought people were less because of their skin color or sexual preference or by what name they called god.

So what does all of this have to do with my boat or being homeless? Absolutely nothing. Life is a one-time ride. You live and learn the most that you can every day because you don't get to do it again. I write because I'm pretty sure that if I come back, I won't immediately know what I know now. And as you get older, the words, "If I'd known then what I know now" become more and more poignant.

I like being alone. My thoughts become clearer when I am alone. I like being with others. I understand life better when I understand others, and myself through them. I hope my life has had some value, and I hope that by writing what I have come to understand I will help someone else learn a little more than I have been able to learn.

I think that's what children are for... to pass on and help them do better. I didn't get to have children, and man, I don't want them now, so I write.