Masochistic Perceptions, Trials and Truths

These are my cyberfied cerebral synapses ricocheting off reality as I perceive it: thoughts, opinions, passions, rants, art and poetry...

Thursday, March 20, 2008


Connecting the Path


2008 has been an amazing year in terms of re-connecting with friends from my youth. I must thank one of my colleagues in this as it was she who badgered me into seeing what Facebook was all about. Once I got hooked up on there and started searching for names once familiar, it was like the bursting of a damn.

There are many observations to be found in these re-established connections. Some of those with who I am again in communication were very dear friends in my formative years, leaving me wondering how the connection was ever lost. I suppose we could compare this to lost secrets and traditions whether referring to ancient civilizations such as the Mayans, or the secrets and origins alluded to in Freemasonry, on a much smaller scale of course! It is so easy to lose touch or, quite simply, for traditions and ways to be lost.

When I look back on my life, it seems on one hand that I am the same angst filled idealistic punk rocker with a sense of wanting something greater for the world other than corporate culture and rule by fear. On the other hand, the life lived in my teens and twenties seem more like a book that I have read as opposed to a reality that I actually lived. For example, this summer I am visiting Slovakia where I taught in 1992-93. At the same time, I hooked up on Facebook last week with another friend of mine who was a Canadian teaching in a nearby town while I lived in Slovakia. We became good friends, traveled about Europe together, etc. Upon leaving Slovakia, she went to school in Montreal and I was studying French in Quebec City. I hung out with her lots that year during the weekends. Then, I moved to England to play Rugby and that was that – lost touch. I have so many rich memories of this time. Then, like a fire that has consumed all of it's fuel, it was gone and life continued. But isn't reality merely smoke and mirrors at best anyway, tied to perception?

There have been many Facebook related strolls down memory lane. Friends who followed my old band, Ick On Fish, people I grew up with, traveled with, etc. Again, so much of this feels like a detachment from where I find myself in life today. I am very much nostalgic for these times, but more as a way of curiosity and observing how things might have changed should I elected to pursue different directions, etc.

Though a melancholic soul at heart, I do not really lament anything from these days, save my youth. They were wonderful times, no doubt about it, full of dreams and few obligations. The present is also a wonderful time. I have a wonderful family, a home, a career and, save for my on-going saga with insomnia and PTSD, life is awesome. I have some very dear friends and am able to bring many of those from my past into the present, making them more than memories. My thoughts of the past are mere curiosity and affectionate memories.

A friend of mine recently loaned me a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran which illustrates how, at our source, even though it may seem that I have lost and then found these friends from my past, that we are all connected. The years have served as a time of transformation for all and, as a result, we have all had an affect on each other – memories attest to this. It makes me happy to know that those who started me on the path that I find myself on now are again showing themselves and their transformations. We are all an influence toward one another. Many do not seek the consciousness of this reality, but it is there if you look for it. This transcends just friends. It includes those who we perceived as enemies and mere acquaintances. Easwaran has many interesting commentaries about "enemies" in the spirit of the Gita, Ghandi, the Buddha, etc., but I'll not get into that now.

In closing, I am thankful for the present – aptly named as this moment is truly a gift, just like those that live in memory. Here we are, the first day of Spring, in the moment, making many more memories as we progress along the way. Life is not always easy, but, like a long hike through the mountains. At the end of the trip you remember the beauty all around you more than you remember the fatigue or blisters on your feet. Life is satisfaction becoming…

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