Tim Lundmark's Blog, page 15

The Origin of Religion is Conceived in the Weak

My theory and many others on why religion was created is because the fear of death and the unknown. Ever since man developed complex emotions, and were then confronted with the realization of death and the knowledge of what a hardship is; they needed to construct something that would ease their fears and give them peace of mind in a chaotic world. These forefathers of religion created sun gods and moon gods. They worshipped these things because they had no concept of what they were; all they knew is somehow these two things had massive affects on their daily lives. I would also like to quickly point out that many civilizations did rituals and prayed for rain. They had no concept of how rain worked so they tacked it on to their religious beliefs. Not only did the earliest man need explanations for things they didn't understand; they also needed to find something to ease their fears of what happens to you when you die. This fear of the ultimate unknown is the sole reason we have religion today.

It takes a strong individual to live their lives knowing they will somehow cease to exist. I know all to well this is a heavy burden to bear. We all want something more to believe in. We all want to somehow feel special. We all want to know somehow we will live on. These are the key driving points for the construction of faith. To illustrate this point I would like to quote a comment from my post "Religion and Anxiety-Reduction Theories."

"If God and religion are all man-made constructs and there is nothing after this life, then why bother?"

I think this comment illustrates my point perfectly. I have grown to admire this reader's thoughts and opinions and in no way am I saying she is weak. She was most likely raised to believe this. I do however think this shows a small chip in the armor of her faith. I have heard this comment before, and usually follow with "Is this your driving force to believe?" I tend to stump people on this point because it forces them to re-evaluate their beliefs. If they believe simply because this is the only way to give life meaning, or the only way to quell their fears of death then their faith is flawed. In essence their belief acts as a band-aid to cover up the deeper fears they have inside. We bother because it is our moral and ethical duty to improve the lives of our fellow man. We are here to cultivate a positive way of life for other generations to come. We do not need religion to dictate us to achieve these things; we only need to look into our hearts.

Religion has evolved over time, but every religion is built upon one another. With each new version declaring they are the only version. The concept of a virgin birth was described well before Christianity was created. For example the birth of Buddha was described as a virgin birth in the "Nidanakatha"

"The Brahmans said, 'Be not anxious, O king! Your queen has conceived: and the fruit of her womb will be a man-child; it will not be a woman-child. You will have a son. And he, if he adopts a householder's life, will become a king, a Universal Monarch; but if, leaving his home, he adopt the religious life, he will become a Buddha, who will remove from the world the veils of ignorance and sin.'"

This is but one example;virgin births were also described in Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Mithra, Mithras, and the Greco-Roman Mythology. This is by no means the complete list I am sure it goes on and on. In addition to this Muslim, Hinduism, and Taoism also have stories of a miraculous births. The one I find most interesting is one that precedes Christianity and Judaism the ancient religion of Persia "Zoroastrianism." In this religion it not only describes a virgin birth, but it also has the messiah, death and resurrection, a final battle between good and evil, and the resurrection of the dead to stand judgment. This and others are perfect examples to describe the evolution of religion.

Creation stories, miraculous births, the death and resurrection of a messiah, and end times are all parts of every religion past and present. Each and every religion is just built upon one another. With each new edition religion evolves into something different than what it was before. Religion is like a fable passed on from generation to generation. In a sense it is like playing telephone, with each new generation the original concept gets changed and turned into what we have today. I feel there have been no new changes to religion because we live in a society that does not allow a change to happen. Everything is set as is, and everyone knows what is on the table. Trying to change a religious concept via word of mouth is simply just not possible. Those who try ultimately end up being defined as cults. In the end the purposes to believe in religion are all the same. We ask the exact same questions are ancestors asked, and we share their same fears. We cling onto religion because it just makes sense. We tend to look at other religions and judge them compared to our beliefs. We turn our nose to them claiming we are right, and their beliefs are silly. I am just as guilty of this as they are.

I came up with the quote "conceived in the weak" not because I am calling the religious weak. I am illustrating how our beliefs at their core are because of our fears. I think I am the perfect example of this. Right now I consider myself as being weak, because I have lost the strength to accept the reality of nothingness. Once this fear crept into my conscience I immediately sought out religion to ease my fears. I am searching for answers to questions which cannot be answered. If I were to latch on to Christianity to make myself feel better I really wouldn't be a Christian because the only reason I am a Christian is because I fear the great unknown. I would be a fake; a liar, and a coward. I desperately need to find faith, but I am hindered by my reasoning and logic. Perhaps all my new religious readers who have offered me guidance are the sign from God I have always asked for, but perhaps it is all just a coincidence. These are the questions I ask myself. I ask them because of the intense fear inside of me. Perhaps God is placing this fear inside of me, and delivered me my readers to bring me to God, but perhaps the fear is there because death is really f'ing scary.

If we did not fear death, if we did not fear the unknown, if we didn't need to see the light within chaos there would be no need for religion.

Record Week & A Religious Debate

I would like to kick this week off with a pinch of randomness, and a dash of updates. I am happy to report that last week was my best week statistically since I started this blog! I am both amazed and pleased at all the new readers stopping by. For those who have been reading for awhile, you know this is a huge measuring stick for me. The reason for this is I compensate my low self-esteem with my blog stats. If I have a good day where I have many readers I am filled with a great sense of self-worth. I know I should not care about this, nor should I allow it to carry so much weight but it does. Something Rambling told me once was I cannot call myself a writer if I am writing just for stats. My main motivation when I write is not for stats per say. I write because I enjoy it, and this is a good tool to hone my skills, and it's a good way to expose my books. For some reason though I always get a sense of accomplishment or failure based off my readership for that day. I think one of the key reasons people write is to be read, and for me this is the ultimate accomplishment.

I decided to listen to some advice I got from Joanna and finally talk to my boss about my current mental health issues. I was a bit worried since I have lost jobs by exposing my truth. I was amazed when she handled it with great compassion and understanding. She gave me some FMLA paperwork to have my doctor's fill out so I am able to get some time off of work to deal with my current episode. My sanity has been slipping away day-by-day, and it has become increasingly more difficult to consistently keep myself grounded in reality. One example of this is when I embarrassed myself last week. I always walk with my head down, and as of late I have been hearing everyone I am around laughing at me. When I would look up they would all stop. I was in the elevator and there were about four people in there and I kept hearing them laughing at me. I finally got so irritated I asked them what they were all laughing about. Needless to say they looked at me rather funny. I was really embarrassed. Normally I am able to keep myself in check, and this example only further confirms my issues are getting out of my control.

I had an emergency appointment with my therapist and she agreed I either needed to be checked into the hospital or take time off of work. I will be getting the FMLA paperwork back from her on Tuesday, so I may be taking this leave sooner rather than later. I also have an appointment with my med doctor later today to get my meds changed in hopes a new batch of meds will knock the crazy out of me. I think it was Wednesday or Thursday of last week I told my wife I think I needed to go to the hospital. She recommended I try and take some time off, and see my med doctor. All they do when you check into the psyche ward is load you up on drugs and release you back into the wild. She thought we could do the same thing from home. If I am able to get a leave at work I can then lock myself in my house away from the world and my med doctor can adjust my meds as he sees fit.    

I wrote a few posts lately which garnered much debate in the comments section. This debate is centered on the religious and the nonreligious. As I sat there reading the comments back and forth I decided it was best I stay out of it. I am so torn between these two worlds I didn't want to flip flop between the two opposing sides. The conversations got a little heated and I felt bad for each side. I am at a crossroads in my life right now and I desperately need both parities inputs to help me find whatever it is I am looking for. I enjoy Ramblings input because he always reels me back to logical reality, but I also enjoy Johanna's input because it helps quell certain fears I am having, and fills me with spiritual hope. There were many other people who contributed to the conversation, so I am sorry if I left you out. I just wanted to use my long time readers as examples. Talking about religion can always lead to heated emotional debates. I just want to say to everyone "can't we all just get along?"

I am still suffering from writers block. This has been going on for almost a month now, and is by far my longest drought I have ever had. I just continue to try my best to write it out. I figure the more I try everyday the better chance I have of breaking this evil curse which has been put upon me. I attribute this curse to the fact that I am trapped in my mind, and my inner prison cell walls are far too fortified to allow anything out. I have thought about taking a hiatus from this blog until my writers block has been lifted, but I cannot walk away from my self-perceived obligation to not only myself, but my readers as well. Since I started this blog I have religiously written posts Monday through Friday week in and week out. There may have been a few times I missed a post here and there, but for the most part I have stayed consistent. It is this consistency along with my OCD which makes me not want to take a break. My fear in continuing this is the quality of posts I am producing. Which is worse not writing or writing poor material? This blog has finally after a year started to really take off, and I want to make sure I am giving my readers something to read, but at the same time I want to make sure I keep all these new readers, and if I am writing poor material I may not be able to keep you guys around. I worry that I have already written all the things I can and now the well is all dried up. Perhaps it isn't a writer's block; perhaps my best is behind me.

Prayers and Contradiction

"I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness."

This to me is so funny, yet unfortunately so true. There are two things going on in this quote. First is the concept and power of prayers the second is the belief we can sin all we want then just ask for forgiveness. I challenge both these concepts to be false.

It is no surprise that prayers go unanswered. If each and every prayer were to be answered I think chaos would consume this world. The question is why God chooses to grant some prayers over others. I can understand God not granting this individual a material possession such as a bike, which is what I think this quote is implying. I get it; we really do not need material possessions and Jesus taught against this "When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Luke 18:22. I interpret this as Jesus trying to diminish the importance of material possessions.

If we have just established that God does not grant material items, and we can assume he does not respond to every trivial request, I wonder why God does not grant prayers of healing and cries out for peace. Now I think many believers will say that God has his reasons but I cannot just buy into this, nor can I buy into the answer that God works in mysterious ways. If prayers were not meant to be answered then why does the Bible say "Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him." Mark 11:23. This concept is also brought up in Matthew chapter seven, where it says "ask and you shall receive."

The Bible is telling us if we just believe then anything will be given to us. I do not believe this to be true. When I was young I believed and I prayed for my dad to see me, and take me away from the turmoil I was in. I prayed, I believed, and nothing happened. I also question faithful believers who have been inflicted with cancer. Why are they not healed? I would challenge anyone who says they truly believe to actually ask God to cast a mountain into the sea. We could go through every believer of this faith and each one could ask, and I guarantee you this mountain will not budge. Is this where the author of this quote believes this is not how God works?

The other part of this quote is the concept of stealing and then just going to church and asking for forgiveness, and everything will then just be alright. Things are great you got your bike and are now forgiven. One of the things which bothers me about Christianity is the concept that you can sin six days then pray for forgiveness on the seventh day and all will be good. I am no expert by any means, but I do not think God works this way. Jesus said "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 7:21 I don't know if Christians know about this, or choose to pick other verses to discount this statement. Before Jesus was Jesus he was the Word, and if you choose to follow the Bible you cannot pick and choose what you will believe and what you won't.

I had a brief conversation with one of my readers on the concept of being saved by faith and faith alone. I had to ask for clarification so I apologize if I am still not on the right path here, but I believe one of two things are happening. Either the Bible is contradicting itself or the believer is picking and choosing which parts of the Bible they choose to follow. If the Bible is the Word of God then it can possibly not contradict itself, because if it were it would prove to be fallible and the belief would then crumble under its own fallibility.

If the Bible is indeed the Word of God then man has chosen to change the Word to fit their own needs. This happens ever so gradually through the countless translation of the Word. With each new change the Word needs to be changed in order to gain new copyrights. This greed to make money off the Word is a perversion against the religion. This is a key theme I am working on in my book idea "Deceived."

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." 2 Timothy 4:3

To follow up on the Matthew chapter seven verse I used I would like to include the remainder.

22 Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23 And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

"Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness." John 3:4

I am sure there are millions of faithful followers who not only have faith, but also follow God's laws. It is those who follow both I admire the most. With that being said; when looked at through these few verses I do not believe God has any patience for those who do evil, and then one day a week ask for forgiveness. So is this a contradiction or is man bending the word to his own liking???

The Confusion Of Me

"The mere attempt to examine my own confusion would consume volumes."

James Agee

I wonder if you were to crack open my skull and dissected my mind what you would find. My mind is a cancer on my soul and rarely makes sense to me. My mind 89% of the time is on hyper drive and I am bombarded with so many thoughts and ideas. These thoughts come across as voices in my head, or over powering thoughts which continue to repeat themselves over and over again until the voices and thoughts are screaming at me. It is hard to be present with the outside world when I am trapped within my own mind. This chaos in my mind causes a cloud of confusion often time leading me to become dazed, confused, disorientate, and delusional.

I have found that writing at least eases some of the pressure on my brain. The problem is I cannot capture every thought or idea. I may come up with an idea for an entire novel in my mind. I know all the characters the plot beginning middle and end. This will swirl around bombarding my mind, and then poof just like that it is gone. No matter how hard I try to remember the details I cannot remember a thing. My mom for Christmas last year got me a recording device so I can just turn it on and talk it out, but sadly it is broken. I feel cheated because I wonder how many great ideas are lost amidst the screaming and confusion.  

I am not sure how the normal mind works, let alone my own twisted mind but solving this puzzle would be a great accomplishment. I wish there was a device I could hook up to my head which constantly grabbed every idea and thought and nicely file it so I could go back for later review. I cannot even imagine the brilliant books I could write, compose some breathtaking poetry, write interesting blog posts, and create delightful "Dylan Thomas" books. My problem is I cannot type or write how fast my brain works, so many things are lost. If this machine existed I would be very pleased. This contraption could not only pull my thoughts, but could also file my feelings nice and tidy. I would then be able to manage my emotions more effectively.

This machine would come in perfectly for my current writers block. I still have all this shit going on in my head, but it is trapped. I need to strain to grab a hold of these ideas and even then they come out jumbled and incoherent. I have been unable to produce quality work in almost three weeks now. My thoughts and ideas are unsystematic and scattered. My mind just wants to shut down, stare off into nothing, and listen to music. It has been getting harder and harder to write, and for me this is a huge deal. I suppose all I can do is keep plugging away at posts until my block is lifted. It upsets me that I am not able to capture everything going on in my head right now, because I know it would make for good reading.  

I think like this quote says the attempt to understand my confusion would create volumes upon volumes of work. Even if I had everything recorded and in its proper place I would still end up confusing myself because the daunting task of trying to put everything together would prove to be to overwhelming. My mind is so complex and multi-layered I do not think even the strongest device could extract everything and put it into order. For example while I am writing this I am bombarded with this constant thought of hiding in an igloo, the urge to draw penises on my wall, the need to somehow create a wall mounting to display all my pens, what if California falls into the ocean, who is controlling the white noise which is frying my brain, and why they came up with the name fruit bats. This was just the first six thoughts which came to my head. This is but a grain of sand in the overall workings of my mind.

I try and cope with this by trying to drown out the thoughts and voices with music. I hate silence it is my archenemy. If I am sitting in silence I am filled with a sense of panic because now all I have are my thoughts. My mind quickly spirals out of control, and I am led down the rabbit hole so to speak. This is why at work my music is always on to drown out my mind. When it is time to write I lift my hand in the air and try to catch any idea and just try to hold onto it long enough to make sense. The posts you see on this blog are all just random thoughts from a random mind.

How Atheism Has Saved My Life

The one component of my mental illness I dread the most is my crippling depression. I would rather deal with my psychotic episodes (thoughts) than my depressive episodes (feelings.) This depression can get so intense I feel as if I am lost in a forest of darkness with no glimmer of hope ahead. The longer I stay entrenched in this darkness the direr the situation can become. Like my other symptoms my depression has gotten worse as I have aged, as a result my suicidal thoughts have increased when I am walking in the fog of obscurity. One of the things which keep me from following through with this act is my atheist beliefs. I fear death on so many levels, and as a result I have never had the courage to set myself free. Perhaps this is a blessing, but I sometimes view this as a curse.       

I think my belief in nothing compounded with my fear of nothing has saved my life many times. The actual concept of death doesn't scare me and at times I welcome it. I believe once you are dead then you are dead end of story. You cease to exist, and you are either buried or burned. These beliefs bring me such comfort, yet at the same time bring me a great deal of anxiety. My primary fear is centered on the absence of thought. The reality that once I die I will no longer be able to think is mind bending and terrifying. Right now I am able to sit here and think about what I think death will be like, but once I die I will not be able to think to myself "oh this is what death is like." There has been one never faltering aspect in my life, and that is the presence of my thoughts. The reality of losing this haunts me.

I do not think us as humans can fully grasp the concept of infinity, nor can we grasp the real concept of nothingness. Can you sit there and honestly say your mind can understand that the universe never comes to an end? If your knee jerk reaction is a confident "yes" than you have not spent enough time truly challenging this concept; everything we know comes to an end eventually. The same can be said about nothingness, everything we know is something. Even the void of space still encompasses something. Now try and sit there and wonder what it would be like if you were to never have another thought or feeling again.  I am 100% okay with the concept of never feeling again, but not okay with never thinking.

This brings me to the conundrum of what it will be like if I ever find faith. I wonder where my mind will be when I hit a deep depression if I fully believe I will go somewhere better when I die. Will I have just lost my primary motivation from keeping me from following through with it?

Random Ramblings

Writers block is still here so I thought I would just pull some scattered and censored thoughts from my head.

I feel a lot better about myself when I am properly dressed, and I have a certain confidence in my stride when I am wearing a new outfit. This new outfit glow lasts about the first half-dozen times I wear it. I have little to none of a chance looking presentable if I were to walk around naked. Let's just say with my belly I need to bend a little bit just to see my penis. I know my men readers will understand how damaging this is to your self confidence. God knows people would be begging me to put some clothes on. I feel the only way I can look good is by wearing certain clothes, and the new ones are always the best. 

I submitted my manuscript "Trapped Within My Illness" to Gray Wolf Publishing. It is hard to find reputable publishing houses who accept manuscripts from non-established authors, and in-fact most publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts from anyone. Getting poetry published is damn near impossible, but there are a few smaller publications which will still accept poetry. Gray Wolf is one of them, and they happen to accept open manuscripts two times a year. I feel like this project could have been finned tuned a bit, but I missed last year's submission period and I really wanted to give this a shot. I am anticipating a rejection letter, and at that time I will just self publish. This puts a damper on my readings, because I do not have a solid book to sell so I will just hold off until I receive that letter than pound the pavement. If anyone knows of any publications that accepts poetry manuscripts please let me know. Also if anyone knows of any agents out there that represent poets please let me know this as well.

Recently this site has seen its biggest increase in readers since I started it a year ago. Like I said in my post yesterday I have somehow amassed a rather large religious readership. I have been wondering how exactly this has happened, since there are times I completely shit on this religion. I know it has been sometime since I went on a ranting against religion, and like I said yesterday I am now worried about offending people. I have only had this feeling one other time and that was with Johanna a Catholic reader. I noticed she was a regular contributor so when I did one of my religious posts I was so worried I would offend her, but she is still around. Perhaps I shouldn't worry. I also do not want to censor myself in fear of how other people will take it. Over the last year I have found myself on a spiritual quest to find faith, and perhaps this is the sign I have been looking for all these years, but then my logical side kicks in and says this frame of thinking is illogical.

I would like to stay on religion for a moment. Last year I had an idea to write a book entitled "Deceived." The premise of this book is to illustrate how Satan has deceived the church, and as a result has lead people away from God. I realized when I first started to work on it; this project would take a year or two to complete. With my other projects this one just kept getting put at the bottom of my priority pile. A recent conversation with some readers reinforced to me how important it is to get this project going once again. I was going to just write a post about it, but the sheer volume of the content is far to large for a blog post, and I am having trouble condensing it to just one post. I am just as intimidated by this project now as I was a year ago. Perhaps the best thing to do is get some sample chapters together and submit to some agents and see if I can get an advance to dedicate the proper time needed to finish this project. I feel with how passionate people are about this religion; this may prove to be some valuable information as well as being entertaining and controversial. 

I have disclosed more personal information about myself in my last few posts than I had in the past year. I am not sure what motivated me to open up my personal situation using this forum, it just kind of happened. I do know I have been suffering from some pretty severe writers block, and I figured if I just wrote than I could kill two birds with one stone. I was writing a post and getting some of my feelings out there. I still had to go back and take much of the content off the post because if I went into to much detail I would turn people off and probably gotten myself committed. When you have been through the system, and experienced commitments you learn there are just certain things you never say, unless you want to end up in the hospital. I am in a dilemma because it felt great writing about what was going on inside of me and exposing my nakedness to the world.

I need to now ask myself if I want to document everything that is currently going on inside of me without filters, or do I go back to the normal theme of my site. It seems that my inner personal turmoil is more interesting to my readers than just randomly pulling non-personal thoughts from my head. I feel my obligation as an aspiring writer is to entertain my readers, and if they are entertained by my suffering then this is what I should be writing about. The problem I have is I am sure this will get boring after awhile.

I am really stressing about work. My job performance has gone down the shitter ever since my MI has gotten worse and I am torn about whether or not I should sit my boss down and talk to her. Things have not been the same between us since I wrote that post awhile back about my work. I want so badly to say something to try and get things back to the way that they were. I used to have a great relationship with her, but that has since been damaged. I worry my decreased work performance and impending hospital stay may cause me to lose my job. I feel like they are watching my every move and conspiring to find ways to get rid of me.

So there you have it the censored version of a portion of my mind. I know it is not as interesting as my last few posts and I thank those who suffered through it.

Evil February

"Sometimes the glue that binds us together can be the same glue that rips us apart."

Tim Lundmark

This thought came to my head this morning while I was in a deep reflection on my current mental status. February begins tomorrow and this just happens to be the most evil month. This has never been a very good month for me in the past and is usually when my winter cycle comes to a damaging head. I am not sure why this is the case. My "cycles" can be rather predictable. I tend to cycle with every changing of the seasons like clock work. Spring and summer bring mania psychosis, while fall and winter deliver depressive psychosis. This usually doesn't just hit right away it is a gradual fall from grace, usually two to three months in the making. When I think about this it makes me sad because this means I am only "normal" one maybe two months a year if I am lucky.

The way my mind works is there are times when it is clear and I am high functioning (the one or two months.) When I hit this point I am at my greatest. I am present in the moment and I am receptive and give out understanding and love. It is during this period I am unable to write poetry, but I am able to write my "Dylan Thomas" books. In time my mind slowly starts to worsen, and as time progresses I start to fall apart. When a piece of my sanity falls off I quickly grab it; throw some glue on and stick it back into place. This is fine and I am sure perfectly normal, but it seems as time passes more and more pieces fall off each day, to where I spend all my psychological energy just picking up the pieces and trying to put it all back together. The end result is I run out of glue giving me no means to put the pieces back together.

It has been a really tough go as of late, but I feel lucky I was able to have a relaxing weekend. I had to take Friday off because my son didn't have daycare, so I ended up having a three day weekend. Although this weekend was relaxing I still wish I had more time off, because I don't feel ready to jump back into the daily grind. I am not prepared for this; I am having trouble gluing myself back together. I worry I will not be able to do this. I have thought about talking to my boss about what is going on. I need the comfort of knowing that if I end up in the hospital I will not lose my job.

It felt good this weekend because I relieved much of the pressure inside of me by just going with things. I just went with it, and this may have been a mistake. When I talked with my mother and sister they thought I was on drugs. I think this is just further evidence I shouldn't really share the truth with what is really going on. My symptoms are still pretty intense and I feel myself sliding further away from sanity. I wish I could log on here and just go off about all the things I am feeling and thinking, but my family does not think this is the appropriate forum for such things, yet It felt good posting my last two pieces. I have received many responses from people who have felt or who are going through something similar to what I am dealing with. There encouraging words and their ability to relate to my plight made me feel a bit better about things. It felt good knowing I could put my words out there like that and have an emotional impact on another person. This simple thing is what motivated me to become a writer in the first place, so this is awesome.     

I am so embarrassed with what is really going on in my head I do not feel I would be met well if I went into everything that was going on inside of me. I feel if I were to just jump on here and free write it may end up making me feel a little bit better, but then everything that I am will be exposed. It is this exposure I am afraid of. It is the rejection I am afraid of. No one is ready for what is going on. I feel if I were to just grab somebody on the streets and put my mind inside of theirs they would kill themselves in less than a week. They wouldn't be able to deal with it. I suppose like anything else you just get used to it, but I am sick of being used to it. I am so tired of the pretending. What was great about this weekend was I let go and stopped pretending.

I realized after looking over some of my comments I received that I have picked up many Christian readers. I am so appreciative of their readership. I enjoyed reading their comments and wondered if my exposure as of late means something or not. I am afraid once I do a piece which is anti-religious I will piss them all off, and lose their readership. I feel I am at a crucial point in my spiritual journey, and I do not want to hold back my feelings on this topic. If the God of the Bible exists I need to work through my anger towards him, but at the same time I have found that Taoism is giving me a level of spiritual peace. Needless to say I am concerned about this.

I only have thirteen hours left to finish my book "Trapped Within My Illness." I have to have the manuscript submitted by the end of today to meet their open submission period. I am so excited about this project and I really want to get it out there, but their response time is six months and I am unsure if I want to wait that long just to get the rejection letter. I want to put it out there, but wonder what the point is in that. I am embarrassed to say I have sold zero copies of "Yin" and "Yang." I really think this one is better than the last three that I wrote. I blame my lack of sales on the fact I haven't done any readings, if I submit it to this publisher I can't do any readings until after I get the rejection letter because then I can just self publish.  

To sum the whole thing up I am just not ready for today. I am not ready for tomorrow and the start of February. I am working hard to glue my mind back together. My symptoms are getting worse, and although it was liberating to just let loose I still have other things going on which I am embarrassed to talk about. I just hope I make it through this month. I really just need this to stop because it is getting to the point where I just can't fight it anymore.

Inside My Wall

Inside My Wall

Brick by brick

This wall I built

In empty space

Alone I am placed

Look into my hazel eyes

A lonely man afraid to cry

Joy escapes me

An illusion

A lie

Straight faced

I live the daily grind

No one sees me

No one cares

Unlock my office door

And alone I sit

Holding back tears

Living in my fear

This man of rhyme

Just doing' my time

At home I smile

Just so they don't see

That pain and suffering

That engulfs me

Silently they sleep

Alone I weep

Afraid to say

How I truly feel

I don't want locked doors

Hospital meals

I want to be able to choose

How and when I will lose

No fake love can save me

The choice is made

Dig my grave

By: Tim Lundmark

The Last Thread of Sanity Severed

It is amazing to me how the smallest thing can finally sever the last thread of sanity which is holding me together. For the last few months I have been struggling with some moderate to sever MI (mental illness) issues, which seem to be getting progressively worse. It has been difficult keeping everything looking nice and wrapped in a tidy little bow. How does one hide such intense turmoil without it spilling out unto the world?

Until about a few weeks ago I have done a great job hiding my issues, but then the irritation kicked in. I get so exhausted holding it together and as a result I get irritable. I get irritable because I cannot deal with the pressure anymore. I know at this point I can't completely shut down to the world so I get irritable. This irritability only makes the situation worse. It is like I am on the outside looking in. My irritability is usually followed by a complete mental collapse. This collapse is almost entirely done internally, which writing is my only outlet.

I haven't been able to write a quality post in some time, and my outlet has always been poetry yet my psyche is not allowing the words to come. I am being denied the one channel which keeps me sane. I think this has been the longest writer's block I have been through. I am still writing but it just comes out as shit. I am stuck inside my head and I am lost within it. I cannot get out and it is getting crazy as fuck in here. I just want to get out. I am a prisoner in my own head.

I was doing my best to hold this fucked up mess together, but a situation which happened yesterday just caused me to crack. I feel completely unable to keep it together. I need to quickly put this broken doll back together before it's too late. I cannot see my therapist until February so I have to just keep all this shit inside. The most fucked up thing is I cannot even articulate what is exactly wrong with me. I just know the deep depression and psychosis is here, and I need to battle it. It just gets so tiring fighting this bullshit all the time. I hate being good and then slowly transforming into mental breakdown. This has been the cycle my whole life and I need to ask myself how long I can continue this predictable scenario.

What sucks the most is my family gets dragged into this mess. This is by far the most painful thing about this. I can deal with my inner turmoil because Lord knows I have been doing it my entire life. I feel as if they would be better off without my bullshit fucking up their lives. These are innocent bystanders who get dragged in the mud because of my issues. I infect them with my disease and I wish they knew how sorry I am because of this. I can't very well sit them down and explain daddy has issues and he is so sorry he can't be a good father or husband. I just feel so ashamed. I feel so alone.

America: Validating Our Ticket To Destruction

"We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction."

Aesop

When I hear this quote I think of our involvement in the Middle East and in South Korea; just to name a few. Our involvement in these regions affairs causes tension throughout the globe. This involvement paints America into the self-righteous parenting role, those whose side we approve of calls us heroes; those we disapprove of call us villains. We sit atop our throne of democracy and condemn every single other nation for doing things in ways that we do not "approve" of. This type of pompous positioning is why we are not favored throughout the world. If we deem something to be a problem we stick our noses in where it doesn't belong. It is this meddling that actually creates more enemies for our nation.

They see us as their enemies because of our involvement in various disputes throughout the world. The radical groups are able to recruit new members based off the propaganda spread by their organizations. They sell America as the evil step-father who is out there oppressing them while in America we live so great. Because we are aligned with their enemies, we then become the enemy. My thing is if we were never involved then there would be no radical groups spreading hatred because we would just be chillin' at home eating pizza and watching some television.

The North hates America because we are backing the South. If we had zero troops in the South, and just allowed the two to work it out themselves then we would not be breeding a nation of people raised and programmed to hate everything America stands for and every American within it. If we had no involvement in this war then what ammunition would the North have to hate us? The fact is if we were not involved they wouldn't hate us as much. Not only are we aligned with the South; their greatest enemies we are directly involved in sanctions levied against the North. I understand the leadership in the North is filled with insanity, but that should be all the more reason to stay as far away from this situation as possible. What are we gaining from being involved with this civil war? What is the worst that could happen if you just let the two work it out for themselves? There may be a war and many would die, but should this really be our concern? I say no.

Now let's take a look at the Middle East. I think the main reason the Muslim nations hate us is because we back Israel their most hated enemy. This is the vocal point for anti-American sentiments, and is a great recruiting tool for new members. There is a deep hatred over there in the Middle East towards Israel, and Israel is one of our greatest allies. This allegiance we formed with Israel is why the Middle East hates us so much. If we would have just stuck to our own borders perhaps 9/11 would have never happened. We are adding fuel to the fire everyday we stand tall with Israel.

I think it is time we step up to the podium and say "all right look you guys we are pulling out and will let you figure this whole thing out yourselves." I can guarantee you if we were able to do that we would stop giving the extremists reasons to hate us, because we would just become another country in a far off place. The Muslim extremists don't seem to hate Russia or China. The reason for this is simple they are not meddling in their affairs. I would be willing to gamble that all planned and executed terrorist attacks have probably been against those countries who are involved in the Middle Eastern countries affairs. I think the only time we should consider sending troops out is if there is a full blown world war.

We need to live by example, and the example should be that of peace and harmony within our own borders. We need to become a nation which is admired throughout the world, not for our military might, but for our peaceful society. We should pull everyone of our troops off foreign soul, and bring them home. I am in no way saying abandon our armed forces. We should continue to build our military to become the mightiest army in the world, not because we plan on using it, but because protecting our boarders should always be a priority.  

We need to rid our government of crooked politicians, and become a nation for the people by the people. If we become admired and respected then perhaps when we speak out against something it may carry more weight throughout the world. If we were to funnel all the money we currently use for war, and occupation we would have enough funds to create programs in this country aimed at bettering our society. We can still be the parents of the world except this time we can lead by example instead of waving our fingers in disapproval.    

Aesop or Esop (620-564 BC), known for the genre of fables ascribed to him, was by tradition born a slave and was a contemporary of Croesus and Solon in the mid-sixth century BC in ancient Greece. Aesop's existence remains uncertain, and no writings by Aesop survive, but numerous fables attributed to him were gathered and set down in writing across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day; various collections under the rubric Aesop's Fables are currently available. In these stories animals speak and have human characteristics; see for example the Tortoise and the Hare or the Ant and the Grasshopper.

*****I have a question and need feedback from my readers. "The Philosophy of Quotes" is an ongoing series of posts. I have like in this post added a short bio of the author of the quote, and times I have not. Do you enjoy reading a short bio or should I just leave it out?*****