What's in a Dream?

I guess to a certain extent we all dream. Some we remember and some we don't, for the most part I would imagine, most we don't. I t said that the majority of the dreams we have concern what we have already gone through that day or in the past. Very few dreams are about personal dreams or wishes. We often dream of someone in our lives, but normally when we do it is about something we are going through or have already been through with them. I guess dreams are really nothing more than a repeat episodes of our lives for the most part. The subconscious syndication of our lives so to say. Albeit the audience is limited.

Most dreams I just shrug off and forget, that is if I happen to remember them. For the most part by the time I have had my second cup of coffee in the morning I could not tell you what it was I dreamed about the previous night. Just as well, my mind is cluttered enough. But there are those dreams that seem to stick with you, ones that you cannot forget even though you wished you could. For the past few months I have had a reoccurring dream that I wished I could forget. It really does not require any special interpretation, I feel it is quite explanatory in itself. Or maybe I just think it is, it could mean something different altogether.

It starts off in darkness, I know it is strange for a dream to start this way, but this is how it starts. As I stand there trying to get an idea of where it is I am at, a very faint light penetrates this blackness I am in and I start to focus on it. It doesn't get any closer to me, but it's intensity grows. Not enough to light up where I am at, just enough to hold my attention. I start to focus on this point of light I see and it is as if I am being pulled through it. I cannot feel my legs moving as if I am walking towards it, rather being pulled towards it. It seems forever before I can start to make out a shape, but it turns out to be a face that is emitting this light. As I get close enough to distinguish who it is, I realize it is her. She looks sad and I can see a single tear rolling down her cheek. I am puzzled as to why she would be so sad, after all we are in love and I am thinking to myself she should be happy and the tear I see should be one of joy, not a reflection of the anguish her face portrays. My immediate instinct is to pull her to me, to hold her and hope that this she is feeling will leave her, but as I reach for her, she seems to pull back or float just out of my reach. As she does so I can see her face contort as if in agony and pain. I can feel it tearing at my heart, my chest constricts and the air thickens to the point I cannot breath and I feel as if I am suffocating. She holds her hands out to me on outstretched arms and I can see the pleading in her face, yet as I reach for her hands to again try and pull her to me, she is pulled away from me. I am racked with pain at this point, my body seems to constrict and spasm as I desperately try to reach and hold on to her. Her lips part as if she is going to say something, nothing but a cold breeze issues out and it chills me. I can see the frost of her breath envelope my head and I feel as if I am in a fog. Her arms still out stretched, her expression is begging me to come to her. The tear that I see rolling down her cheek has now turned to ice, frozen. Our fingertips just touch and I feel myself violently jerks back from her. This time it was not her that was pulled away, but rather me. I could feel cold hands on my shoulder pulling hard at me and I struggle to free myself from them to go to her. I can feel the struggle as I pull against what is holding me, pulling me away from her. Finally I can feel her hands in mine as he pulls at me, but yet that which is holding me tightens it's grip and doubles it's efforts to pull me back. I can feel the coldness in her touch as I hold on tightly to her hands pulling myself to her. The struggle continues as I try and free myself from that which is pulling at me. The light she is emitting seems to start to dim and I can feel her grip weakening, but yet I continue to struggle...

I have been having this dream quite frequently lately and when I wake from it I feel weak and I am shaky. I feel so alone at that point all I want is to hear her voice. The reassurance I feel in it. I look around it is dark and slowly I sink back into my pillow waiting for the dawn to break over the horizon and free me from the night.

Later...

When is a Lie a Lie?

I was about to sign off this morning after talking to someone I have yet to miss a day talking to for the past two plus years when someone I talk to occasionally logged on. This person I have always enjoyed talking to. Their wisdom far exceeds their age and I have always valued their opinion.

We did not talk about lies or "untruths" but the jist of the conversation got me to thinking afterwards, at what point is a lie considered a lie? When I think back about it, I believe the first lie I ever heard and the first I repeated was, "I don't lie." The more I thought about it the more I realized that at some point we all lie or have lied. And I also realized that we will go through life repeating that. Whether it is for ourselves or for someone else something will present itself that will put us into a position that we feel like the truth would better be left unsaid. It could be that we do not want to hurt someone's feelings, or that we are avoiding talking about something, that by telling the truth would get us deeper into some sort of trouble we would like to stay shy of, for whatever the reason a lie will be told. Some will feel guilty and remorseful about it, while others won't think twice about it.

Does it take lack of a conscious to lie and not feel bad about it? Does it take conditioning to build a callous about you so that it does not bother you? Yes, I have lied, more times than I can count, more times than I care to remember and seeing how I have always been told a lie is remembered much longer than the truth, it makes me wonder if the lies I have told out number the truths. I think I mainly lie to avoid things, like facing the truth or avoiding the inevitable circumstances that telling the truth might manifest. For some and maybe for me telling a lie is much easier than telling the truth. I do not feel comfortable about it when I do, whether it is to someone close to me or a stranger. It is not something that is rehearsed or thought about and I definitely do not like back tracking on a conversation trying to remember what I have told someone as a lie. Then there is that fear of being caught in the lie and if at that point you will confess it or cover it up with another lie.

Are there different levels of lies? We have all been told or have said, it was just a little white lie, nothing bad. But is there a distinguishable difference in the type of lie that is told? Personally I don't think there is, I believe a lie is a lie no matter how you look at it and that there is no such thing as a little lie. And is it a good thing to avoid the truth to keep from hurting someone's feelings? Would it make them feel better to know the truth had been kept from them and then finding out that what they were told was a fabricated truth? That would be very superficial of them if they did. But none the less I have found myself guilty of that on various occasions. Telling myself it was for their own good or that old, what they don't know won't hurt them. I think it compounds the situation and would make hearing the truth much harder on them, especially if it was from another source, because the first person they are going to confront is the person who told them the lie and not what we felt we were shielding them from.

Staying on this path of thought I took it a bit further. When we do not present ourselves for who we really are, does that constitute a lie? Trying to deceive another of our identity. I will use the web and the various messenger services offered as an example. What is the first thing we do? We create an ID, a pseudonym of who we are or how we want to be seen. Some create multiple ID's and then use them to gain information on another or to see if they are being talked about. Would not deceit in this manner be considered a lie? We are not being truthful as to who we are, we are secreting ourselves away and hiding behind a fictional ID. How can one say they never lie when they are not showing who they actually are? Everyone knows me by my given name, I do not care what I do, that is how they know me. I have only changed my ID once, the one I am presently using, but my given name is there, not one I have made up. Some say they do it to protect themselves and to keep people from bothering them, if they are all that honest wouldn't telling the person in the beginning curb a lot of that and set those "boundaries" as to how you expect to be treated?

When do we start lying? When or at what point in our lives do we discover that telling a lie will circumvent getting into trouble? For me it was to avoid punishment from my parents and school teachers. I mean back then they were considered authority figures, ones who wielded a lot more power than I had, until I learned the power that a lie wielded. I had yet to learn at that time the flip side of that coin, the consequences when you were confronted with the lie you told. Once I found out I could get away from certain responsibilities with a lie and especially not getting caught, I found my lies more brazen and easier offered than the truth. And it wasn't as if I was the only one who was lying. I heard the excuses everyday, some very familiar to me. I do not know how many times my dog ate my homework, even the times when I didn't even have a dog, but he still ate my homework. How many grandparents do we normally have? For most only four, but yet mine died multiple deaths. We have all skipped school, when you went back did you tell the office the reason you weren't in school was because you skipped going that day, or did you offer a note from your parents that you drafted and signed one of their names to? Or that lie we told to spark jealousy in someone else or to turn one friend against another, yes a rumor, but again isn't that just renaming what it really is? To gain the favor of another we have told lies.

We have carried that concept on into our adult lives too. Bill collector calls, you want to avoid them, "Tell them I am not here." "I put the check in the mail yesterday." "I just opened a new account and they have not transferred funds yet." You call your significant other, "I am working late tonight, don't wait up for me." You tell you significant other "I don't know how that got in there, someone at work must have put it in my pocket." "It isn't what you think." The list goes on and on.

I have never been ashamed of who I was, just a specific situation I was in and yes, I lied then too. As we all have. Whether in a relationship we were wanting out of or trying to avoid responsibility, a lie was told. I am not quick to point out the lies of another, that brings it too close to home for me and I honestly feel it is not my place to do so. But none the less I know I have been lied to. We all embellish stories to make them more interesting, especially if we are the focal point in it or to downplay ourselves in it. We have lied to pull ourselves out of the middle of something or to divert attention away from us and on to something or someone else. We have offered others up as sacrifices through lies.

Countries, dynasties, legacies, friendships and relationships have been built on lies in the past and they will continue to do so in the future. No matter how honest we like to think we are or to get others to think of us as, we will lie in some shape form or fashion. We will lie to hide something, to avoid something, to escape something or for the plain reason we cold not think of anything else to say. I am not condoning it, but I am not going to be the one judging another for it. We just have to learn to accept the good things we see in the other person and go from there.

So at what point does a lie become a lie? There is a saying, "You can fool some of the people all the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time." But it has been tried ages beyond eons. If the whole believes it and you are the only one who knows it is a lie, does that make it a lie? If it isn't a lie, but rather a dream or a wish, would that be a lie? If it is nothing more than what you believe, is it a lie? And if repeated enough to where you believe what you are saying, is it still a lie? Nothing is easier than self deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true....

I guess Sir Walter Scott said it best, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

Later...

Land of the Disillusioned

Seeing gas prices at the pump now at $3.80+ per gallon for regular unleaded and diesel at $4.00+ is a long way from the .16 cents my father used to pay at the pump when I was a child. It is getting ridiculous to say the least. With oil companies reporting profits of $12 billion usd or more for last year is sickening and telling congress that they are sinking billions into research for alternative fuels and exploration. What a joke. With alternative fuels already available and the capability of creating blended fuels I would think they would be looking into these alternatives, the technology is here. I think it is nothing more than a ruse to justify in their minds the cost they are charging the average consumer at the pump. To me is it nothing more than profiteering and price gouging. It is causing undue hardship on the average worker, bringing up the price of shipped goods and staples needed to survive. Food is being taken from the table, bills are going unpaid in order to meet this demand for higher prices and it is time our government did something about it.

With the rise in the cost of manufacturing goods and to harvest food companies are failing to meet the increase in the cost of living their employees are now being faced with. Their excuse, well production is down, fuel and energy cost have risen and at this time we cannot offer you relief. People are suffering because someone in control deems it a necessity to raise the cost of fuel to be more profitably marketable to share holders. Not only are they making a profit at the pump, they are making on it Wall Street too. This so called Land of Opportunity is quickly becoming the Land of the Disillusioned and it is the working man who suffers for this asinine decision . A rise in unemployment and in welfare disbursement are in direct correlation with the rising fuel costs, people just cannot afford to get to work based on their current pay.

They say alternatives and an adjustment to lifestyles need to be considered, relocate closer to your job, all easier said than done. And the sad thing about it is that they know this. Americans have always commuted to work, very few live within a close proximity of their work place. Take a bus or commute with others? That too is a non-viable solution to quite a few people, even if they work in an environment that offers car pooling or ride shares. Very few people who work together live close and many find themselves going out of their way to accommodate this alternative job commuting idea. To get to a bus stop for some would still require a commute and to ride share or car pool they would have to rise earlier and get home later which would affect their work and then the inevitable fact that someone would miss their turn due to sickness or other family emergency would add to this and cause last minute arrangements to get to work. Usually by using their own vehicle and commuting to work alone. Yes it all looks good when it rests between their ears or offering it as a reason to sustain a lower wage or a reason not get a cost of living adjustment. It is unacceptable to say the least that we should have to suffer for this.

It is time that the officials we have elected to represent us to listen to us and do something about it and stop listening to the companies that line their pockets with political donations. They were elected based on their promise to look out for us and we trusted them to do so and all I see them doing is being another vehicle in the long list of excuses being offered by the oil companies. They work for us, the average citizen, not for some over paid executive and it is time they woke up and realized that. All this rhetoric about seeking alternative fuels is fast becoming old to the average working class person without seeing any results. The price keeps on rising. Don't blame OPEC, Venezuela or any foreign country, place the blame where it belongs, behind the smoke screen they are trying to shield themselves with, blame it on the ones we elected and those in control of the oil companies where it belongs.

It is getting to where we can not afford to be comfortable at home any longer, we have to pass down the excuses we are given to our children to justify why we cannot even afford to leave home or take a vacation to relax. No, we have to get an extra job in order to make ends meet, in order to put food on the table, keep a roof over our heads and pay utilities that too are exorbitant. I pay more in electric than I ever did on my mortgage, that is ridiculous to say the least.

It is time someone else suffered for their decisions and not us.

In Rememberence...

Take these souls into Your arms as they are laid to rest...keep them safe and shelter them...let them know they are blessed...these we surrender unto You in Your name...peace be upon them and their families at this time...

Do not forget these lives, these children who perished. These future hopes that will no longer dream the dreams your children will dream. Never forget the suffering their family will feel each time they see a picture of them or they see another child playing. Never forget that on that day of 12 May, 2008 at 2:23pm the light in their eyes was extinguished and no longer will their smile brighten our day. These little ones so full of questions will never patiently wait again for the answers they sought. We lost a piece of our future that day and so many tomorrows turned to a memory in a few minutes.

They go to wait now...please remember them.

No Tomorrow

A mother cries her child is gone...
This flower from a seed was born...
In anguished tear she sits alone...
From her arms this babe was torn...

Was this morning she kissed goodbye...
Not knowing it would be her last...
And now she cries a lonely sigh...
Her child's life has past...

No more laughter will she hear...
Nor feet upon the floor...
No longer will she quieten the fear...
Then silently close the door...

The table is set with one less place...
The chair will be empty now...
She longs to see that smiling face...
That soothed her worried brow...

She cries aloud her soul is torn...
This child of hers lies still...
This babe she cradled when first born...
No longer her life will fill...

She reaches out in hopes to grasp...
And pull them from their sleep...
To break the lock and open hasp...
And free them from death's keep...

This flower she nurtured from a seed...
No longer will it bloom...
No more will her care it need...
Her memory will be entombed...

In memory her child will live...
The smile will never fade...
And in her heart she will give...
A place for her child she made...

And with every tear that falls...
With each sigh she does breathe...
It is her soul that calls...
For her child her pain to ease...

We have so much to be thankful for and when compared to the great loss that mothers and fathers suffered on 12 May, 2008 at 2:23pm our problems seem very petty. The loss of so many children who had so much ahead of them, so much to learn and to give in return who's lives have been stilled now will never be able to see what tomorrow will offer them, nor will we benefit from their ideas. I feel for all those who have suffered this tragic and devastating event, but it is the children that I feel for the most. They were our future, our tomorrows, our hopes for a better and more understanding world. China has suffered much with the loss of these children and even though they have been laid to rest they should not be forgotten as a victim, yet remembered as a lost soul.

We were all born of one and we are all brothers and sisters and in as much as the mothers and fathers have suffered, we too should feel that grief of loss for a loved one. If you do nothing else, please remember the children who will no longer be heard.

Enough Said....

You sit and accuse me, judge me and act as if you are the only one who has that right. What gives you the right to be the only one to do so? Say what you will, keep saying it, you are doing nothing more than proving my point. As I said, I have no problem with it what so ever. Your childish inane assault on me is doing nothing but hurting you and starting to bore me. I do not have to justify my reasons any longer to you, I have said my piece and if you cannot live with that then it is now your problem. If you can't take criticism, then you should not try and sell your work.

As I said, when you did not do as we talked about, I did not go around and say things about you or the piece you painted to try and justify my reasons, but you seem to take it a bit personal just because you took it upon yourself to do something you were not asked to, you and I talked about exactly what it was I was looking for and wanted. I am sure you feel that you fulfilled exactly what was requested and that is your right to think so and it is your opinion and it is only that, your opinion. Two sides to every coin. So either get over it and get on with your life or wallow in your self pity and seek your sympathy in the chatrooms. I am tired of this now and I am not going to bother with it any longer. Take your own advice and be an adult and stop acting like some spoiled little child who got their feelings hurt.

Okay Pumpkin...

I see you just think you're right in this. Let's talk about the painting. Let's talk about what you said you would do and didn't. I have not said anything about you or the painting but you seem to want to keep dragging it out. You did not even come close to what I asked for. I am not saying what you painted was bad, but it isn't no where near what we talked about. Size, content, media, nothing that I asked for, you did what you wanted to do, not what was asked of you and now you think you have been done wrong? Get a clue, because if you take this approach you will always be selling your paintings on some back street hoping that a tourist takes pity on you.

What you have done with you postings in my chatbox is show that you are nothing more than a vindictive spoiled little child that is upset because it did not go your way. Keep posting, it does not make me any difference because sooner or later you will do the same thing to someone else and they will feel the same about how you take it upon yourself to do as you wish and not be able to deliver the product they requested. If you have nothing better to do than to occupy your time with your childish efforts in belittling me, then it seems that you really have nothing else better to do in life. You should focus those energies on your artwork, maybe then you would make some progress and get somewhere. If it makes you feel better, then by all means keep up your asinine attack on me, you are doing nothing but dragging yourself down and showing everyone how little and narrow you actually are. Say what you will about me to whomever you like, but as I have stated, what goes around comes around and sooner or later you too will pay for your imbecilic actions. Your words are nothing but a direct reflection on you, think about that, and how you really are and you have shown nothing but to be vindictive, facetious, spoiled and vengeful. You want to dwell on how you have been treated and think about what you did was nothing within the scope of what was asked of you. Did you not get a picture of what was requested of you? Were you not asked to paint only a specific part of what was sent to you? Were you not asked that it be painted in a very specific way? Were you not asked that it be of a specific size and what the main focus was to be? How many of those points were met? None Pumpkin, none of them were even close and you say I am the one who is in the wrong on this. You took it upon yourself to do what you wanted to do and expected me to accept it. I guess if you were contracted to paint a house green and you decided to paint it pink you would be expected to be paid for your work too because you felt in your mind you were right.

And please, follow through on your threats to me, don't just say it, do it and get it over with. Keep up your little vendetta against me if it makes you feel better. Post this link in the room, do what you wish because sooner or later it will come back on your shoulders. I do not feel bad Pumpkin, not one bit for not accepting your painting and if you are trying to make me feel guilty let me clue you in on something, you aren't because just as you feel about the way things went, I feel the same, you didn't deliver what was asked of you, you did not even come close. And if you think I worry about what people think in a chatroom, again you need to think, because if you put anything into it then you are just as clueless as to what is going on around you as they are. And if you think I do not see another's personal feelings are playing into this you are wrong and you are being used by them. Sooner or later you will see that you were used by them to vent their feelings and when they are finished using you, you will be of no more use to them and they will just walk away and leave you to answer for what you have said and done. Quiet honestly I think you have nothing better to do with your life and you enjoy your pathetic attempt in trying to get to me.

As for me not going into the room, you have nothing to do with it and I am not hiding, if I were, you would not have access to my blog to leave your vicious little remarks. So my reasons are mine and I do not owe you an explanation. You made your comment that I feel better about it because of what I wrote, again Pumpkin you need to understand, I never felt bad about it to begin with because you did not do what was expected, what was asked of you to do. So when you post what you said you would and let everyone see, please do not pick and choose what you want them to see to justify your actions, post everything that was talked about and then post the pictures that were requested that you do as well as what was requested of you, don't just use it to your benefit, use it to vindicate your actions or your lack of reason for your actions. Remember I have them too and I will not hesitate to post them in full. And please do not forget to post a picture of what you have painted along side the picture that was sent to you as well as that one specific part that was asked that you do. If you can't then let the picture here remind you of what was asked of you.

Remember one thing Pumpkin, we all answer to someone and it is not you that I answer to. If you had done what you said you would do and as it was asked of you, then we would not be having this conversation, so don't make this look like I am the one entirely in the wrong here.