The Thing about Self-Reliance


innocence is taken

A worldview now changed

Conflict we create

Conflict we sustain

There are no shadows in the darkness

They only appear in the spotlight

Memories go undisturbed

If they remain out of our sight

We blindfold ourselves

The hard truths that we have forgotten

This doesn’t take the sting away

Out of the misbegotten

I need your support

I can’t see the light anymore

I’m surrounded by this darkness

Can’t find my way to the door

The thing about self-reliance

We sometimes lose our way

The solace we seek is hidden

Beneath the pain in our decay

We hide this from those around us

Family, friends, and our workmates

Only to endure this suffering

A dark force within that resonates

The awakening to tip the scale

Can always be found in this daze

Allow yourself to be in the present

The past is but a fog and a haze

The choice becomes right before us

With every breath and every step we take

Walk in the light of our knowing

That this path is ours to make


DCG

The Skeptic in me

In past days I remember conversations I’ve held with friends about topics that held my attention.  I once was instructed by a friend that there is no meaning when we ask the “why” questions about academic psychological inquiries.  I understood the implications of this analysis, but the philosopher in me continues to ask the “why” questions even to this day.  Mind you, this was back in the early nineteen-eighties when I was a psychology student and I seemed to question everything.  I was thirsty for knowledge, and my studies directed me in paradigms that for me demanded further clarification.  My friend whom had asserted his position was far more advanced in this field than I was, yet I seemed to be driven by a beat to a different drummer.

No matter what paradigmatic psychological school of thought you tend to follow, the basic questions I asked went beyond the psychological realm.  Thus I entered into the realm of philosophy when I started to ask these types of questions.  Even when I was a psychology student, the philosopher in me still thrived years before I decided to double my major in both disciplines.

I can’t really remember the exact topics at the time of this conversation, but I still remember the response of my friend to my questioning these matters that were of interest to me.  Maybe this is the reason I decided to also major in Philosophy.  Maybe this is also the beginning of the Skeptic in me.

Ironically I consider myself gravitating to the pragmatic philosophies of the world, yet I am still intrigued by many other differing types of philosophical thought.  What stirs up a person to question their reality?  Why do people become skeptical?  Perhaps it is because they find conflicting information in what they see, read, and are told to believe as conditions they should except?  Is it that there are fundamental issues with these assertions that contradict their notions of reliability?

However the rubber meets the road, we are still vaulted forward into discovery by our very nature of asking questions, and this is how many approach to learn about their world; by asking questions.  I do not know all of the reasons that led me to become inquisitive.  I only know that I am that way.  I am not always inclined to act in this way, yet much of my being has an affinity with acting in this way.

There are many ancient skeptical schools of philosophy.  Foundations of these schools come from India, Zen Buddhist, Chinese, and Greek schools, as well as the foundations from later Western schools of thought expressed by David Hume, René Descartes, and Immanuel Kant.  I do not draw on these schools directly into their epistemological constructions as my form of skepticism is tied closer to matters associated with social pragmatic implications.

Doubt can be a useful tool.  It is the basis for discovery into any assertion made.  When we are told what to believe with little evidence, we can either accept it, challenge it, or dismiss it.  I speak more of a way to diffuse opinion than to uncover the metaphysical and epistemological domains of human knowledge.  You may think it is preposterous to live by such examinations, but sometimes it can help us achieve a better understanding of our place in this world.

I must say that before I knew anything about Skepticism, it was in my nature to ask these questions despite my intellectual foundations.  Why did I ask them?  Because I received information that somehow needed further explanation to understand it than to simply accept it as it was received.  I was predisposed to question these types of questions.  If we look further into my history, and we have demonstrated that it was not an intellectual awakening that summoned this spawn of thought, than where will we find the genesis of my disposition?  Maybe the environment in which I was raised?

I was born into a family that did not quite understand the meaning of “intimacy.”  The struggle to impart any kind of a healthy world view and skill of becoming a successful person in relationships, were not the best of what my parents could offer.  My family had a difficult time just relating to one another my entire life, as with many families who face some of these intimacy issues.  As I matured, I withdrew into my own perceptions and observations about the world as it unfolded.  I was both the master and / or the slave upon which my beliefs conducted me into this brave new world.  I sense that that my family’s interactive behavior had ultimately led me on a lifelong quest to find some answers to the questions that has perplexed so many of us from time to time.  Due to the insatiable need that grew within me, questions began to emerge from a skepticism that was derived from the foundation of my family’s interactions and was conveyed through my own family experience.  I have always loved my family and wanted closer connections, but my skills to achieve this were not yet formed.

I think this was the impetus of my approach to the world as I became the person known as me.  The fundamental skeptical foundation that led me to question what I was told to see the world as it was by proxy of my family’s influence.  Moreover, I did on my own accord because the information I was receiving was not satisfying my sense of the world.  I had independent confirmation and differences of interpretation to how I encountered the world that was in direct conflict with what I was told.  Thus the philosopher in me expressed itself into the world.

Today I am still questioning, I am still drawn to asking questions we are told about the world we live in, but not from my family’s input, rather it is from the world at large: the powers that be!

Clearly there has never been such a push for a dystopian era in past decades then our current situation worldwide.  History has shown many such examples, yet we have not learned much from these as our push for a multicultural civilization is thrust upon us.  Today I question multiculturalism which I argue is what globalist’s want to achieve as opposed to a multi-ethnic community that has indisputably existed around the world without massive inharmonious complications given one factor: that the multi-ethnic communities adopt the ethical foundations of the land such as the American experiment of governance among other Western Democracies.

What say you?

 

 

In a World Full of Sorrow

In a world full of sorrow

Think of these things

when someone thought of you first

Sharing laughter

The kindness that it can bring

In a world full of sorrow

Raise yourself up to see

Recognize the potential for goodness

In all of us to be

In the law of attraction

A conversion of energy

Positive frequency aligns the soul

Aligns with positive identity

Blind Master Po points to the grasshopper at Cain’s feet

Cain says master how is it that you can see?

Master po says how is it that you cannot?

Where is your sensibility?

In a world full of sorrow

The burdens are too easily seen

We must change our orientation

Cleanse the spirit keep it clean

Cling not to heartache

It will give you pain

And with reflection

You will relive it again and again

In a world full of sorrow

Understanding is key

Embrace only the positive

And not calamity

Emotional pain can be a teacher

We can learn humility

Attach and become sorrowful

Or learn empathy


DCG

Children of the Unforsaken


Born into chaos

A mind will gravitate

The faulty learning examples

Often leads to one’s checkmate

Things we find about ourselves

We also find in others

The case can be made

If you look at your sisters and look to your brothers

The captive soul

Can be impoverished by degrees

It’s up to the owner

To make it better – if you please

A wandering spirit

With no direction

Is victim to what’s going down

Cannot seem to make the changes

Cannot seem to turn itself around

The journey is hard enough

The children

The unforsaken

The tragedy of an ancestry

Lamenting on the road most taken

Futile is the ethic

The thinking mans yearn

Sometimes in this world

Some only want to just watch it burn


DCG

The Distributive Law of Generosity


What is it about ourselves that we often don’t see?

hidden agendas, what motivates us?

Silently acting out?

What relegates us?

Humble is the soul

Looking deep into their reflection

Courageous is the soul

That discards their faulty perception

Intention is the mechanism

It defines the purity of the goal

Without accountability

A victim of circumstance exacts a toll

The faux pas’  of social interaction

Go undetected yet we conscript values as wares

At times we know what we are doing

At times we often do not care

The distributive law of generosity

The kindness shown in our hearts

Translates into action

That mends us together or tears us apart

What is it about ourselves that we often do not see?

A human realm of indecision

The moral questions of our humanity

We muddy the waters with no intellectual oversight

This duty to ensure our success

Lies not in the hands of another

But in our minds and this I do not contest

Harmony requires cooperation

Empathy a teacher of equal means

Reciprocity is seldom employed

A deliverance of suffering foreseen


DCG

The Camouflage of Ego


The stories in my life

We reminisce driving down memory lane

The house we grew up in

Sometimes causes me bane

King of the neighborhood

I command all that I survey

Once smoked pot at that guys house

Once had a girl in that one and got laid

We measure looking backwards on how we might have been

Nostalgia distorts reality

Think you have a perfect memory

Bet some friends will disagree

Funny how we paint

With broad strokes on our canvass

Memories that are more forgiving

Selecting ones that take fewer chances

So we continue to repeat

This remembrance now faded

Pointing to the parts

That we’ve embellished and paraded

This process we use

On how we express

Accurate or not

It’s not really what we’ve done, but rather how we confess

Master and commander

Our pride on sentry

Telling our tales

In line with our gentry

Talk it up kids

Tell us of those deeds

The camouflage of ego

Will rarely ever concede

DCG

A Foundation for the Subdued: An Ethics Fable

Honesty

A hard notion to share

When you look at yourself

Even harder to square

When we have skill to discern others

We become adept when we look about

The trouble with this activity

When we peer within ourselves we tend to hideout

The fear of rejection

The worry of disquietude

The dismay of our failures

A foundation for the subdued

Clever is the Captain

Take the helm and lead

Using the Sextant to navigate

Never inclined to secede

The problems of holding back

We impede a possible instruction

Without others as an audience

We avoid finding any obstruction

The temerity of our influence

Upon the golden mean we impose

Whereupon lies the answer

In the delivery of what we chose

Break not away from truthfulness

Cast not your pearls before swine

But to this I will implore you

Be honest and draw a straight line

 


DCG

 

Chasing a Ghost


Chasing a ghost

Illusive to trap

Illusive to find

Too much clutter

In a shackled mind

The word soup of a poet

The word games the philosophers create

The scribes of the prophet

All trying to relate

Strip away all the distraction

All the misdirection to the root

Finding the truth about anything

Is a task with no absolute

A brilliant creature

Of all pedigree

Finds no liberation

From the puzzles of the psyche

Apparition of thought

In the light of the day

Paradox in motion

Watch the humans play

Misunderstood

Neglecting humanity’s calling

Too few have distilled the graces

The factor that prevents most of our falling

Chasing a ghost

The cause for a false positive

Another notch etched in the wood

Guess it’s just another prerogative


DCG

Am I a Patriot or Am I a Fool?

Am I a patriot or am I a fool?

For those of you

Who bleed the red, white, and blue

History will show

The heart of a country has gone askew

Right and left

Pointing the finger across the aisle

The silent masters watch with their Cheshire Cat smile

Simply look to the historians

You’ll find the commonality

We once said In God we trust

Now we argue over gender identity

In the cult of persuasion

A party will make decrees

Are they ones that are vigilant?

Or ones that deceive?

We the people

Trained to expect less

Conditioning our serfdom

The real human game of chess

Orwell and Huxley

Visions of gloom

The war on humanity

Continues and resumes

Our liberty and freedoms

Are now shadows of the bicentennial past

Erosion of the social contract

Poverty for the middle class

Failures of education

America’s economy under attack

The rise of the ignorant

Now becoming amnesiac’s

Don’t be seduced

As the government gives away

Other people’s money

Social engineering

The construct of our decay

There is no incentive

For a community that wants free things

Communism or Socialism

Feed off a body politic pulling all the strings

Rewarding the nonproducer

The lazy man’s dream

The lowest common denominator of our society

It may seem

If you are caught in this dilemma

And this is unforeseen

A market system controlled by the state

Are you on the right side of history?

Or do you fall somewhere in between?

It’s not a loaded question

For those of you in doubt

Just look to the central banks

The evidence for our sellout


DCG

This Lullaby Now Our Muse

The dreams that make us look within

Make us review an alternate life inside

How the could have been… can be?

Or how the what was… really is?

Perhaps a way to uncover the dissonance?

recalculate the outcome?

re-experience the burden?

The perplexity onion

A sleeping mind continues to exert

A dozing psyche still sings

Sometimes we remember

Sometimes we forget

If awakened by the chorus

If aroused by canticle

Tis then can the awakened mind act

And only then can we bestir an entrusted intention

In slumber we retire the body

Cognition doth not always fade

In nightmare we struggle and worry

In vision we discern

Up to us how we choose

This lullaby now our muse


DCG