Separating or Joining

We can always look for where others are wrong, and focus upon that. We can point it out to them, or just notice it quietly, again, and again. Or... we can look for where they’re right, and join with them. I notice that I like the experience of joining. The ego is the undisputed master of being right. We think so highly of being right that we have created professions of it. One of them is called attorney. Anyway, when I insist on being right, am I not throwing in with my ego and effectively saying, “lead on brother.” On the contrary, I could embrace being wrong, if for no other reason than, being right feeds my ego, and I have seen that my ego is not my friend. Actually, he is my torturer. I find what the USA did in my name in Guantanamo distasteful. In light of that, let me end my own internal torture, or at least cut off funding.

It occurred to me today to ask, what if we have the power to declare who someone is in our world? Then, reality has no choice but to say, as you wish. Then that person becomes for us, who we declare them to be? I think that’s actually the way of it.

When we make these declarations, I consider that perhaps we don’t have any choice in the matter. If that’s true, then there is no guilt. It’s just machinery running. If someone were to argue with gravity, we would call them insane. I say that to argue with any other aspect of reality is equally insane. Reality just is, what reality is, and the fact that it is that way doesn't mean anything.

So, "others should not misinterpret my intentions." Is that true? Apparently not. Not if we use reality as a measure of the truth, and could there be any better measure? I think not. Reality is the closest to the truth we can get, on the level of the physical.

As I’m fond of saying, if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, where is offensive?

At my stage in life, I have come to the point of examining the payoff from investments made. The lack of forgiveness, or we could say guilt, is just way too expensive. It’s a loser, and it takes a fool to add it to one’s portfolio in the first place, and a bigger fool to keep it, in hopes that it will become a winner.

Whenever I’m tempted to write someone off, I sometimes remember that I will not be able to walk through the gates of heaven without having space in my heart for them.

I surrender. Ollie, Ollie, oxen free. Come out, come out, where ever you are. All is forgiven. Especially the one who most needs forgiveness. That would be me.

Would I rather be right, or happy? I’ll take happy, thank you very much. True forgiveness is to realize that what I thought happened, didn’t. I thought someone offended me. Oops, my bad. And, we begin now.

~ c a r s o n