Do we realise how precious LIFE is?

Life is precious, right?

How would our world look like if we really knew how precious LIFE is?

We are so much used to take life for granted, only

a seedling
Life is manifesting itself

when a baby is born we get excited about the miracle which coming into life represents; or, maybe, we get excited when we observe seeds sprouting and growing into huge plants. The enormous potential which enfolds in front of our eyes; yes, we might still have a sense of awe and wonder.

 

dry leaves on green gras
Autumn – the metaphor for death and rebirth

Then there is the other side, the end of life, and we don’t want to go there too often. We try to avoid thinking about death and dying and only when we are directly confronted with it do we give it some attention, the minimum possible. For fear of being “pulled down” we neglect our human duties towards people at the end of their lives. We don’t go to visit them, we deny them the comfort of not being alone in this difficult transition time because we do not want to be reminded of our own inevitable end. By not thinking about it we imagine that the “problem” will disappear magically, that somehow we won’t die, anyway…

How we pass our life time

As a consequence we have little chance to become aware to what extent our life is precious. We live it, daily, dealing with all sorts of distractions, often disguised as “important”, we are wondering how the next day will unfold: will it be as hot as today? Will it finally rain and end the severe drought? Will the President finally become a reasonable person? Will the terrorists attack again? Will I be safe? – Never ending questions which keep our thoughts and emotions occupied. We put our attention mainly on what doesn’t work, what should be better – and often we have a naive and sometimes also a can-do idea of how we can create a better world for ourselves.

 

So most of our time we are occupied – and preoccupied. And most of our time we don’t really LIVE our lives in the sense of being fully present to ourselves and our experience. We try to get out of the “experience” as soon as possible, especially when it is a bad one, and then we have something to tell to others.

By telling our stories we, again, most of the time are not present to ourselves and our precious lives. We bridge the waiting for the horrible hours, days, months or years to end – by finding something which replaces the direct confrontation with LIVING.

 

two people on two nearby benches
Waiting Alone Together

I wrote about the many ways of WAITING which seems to be the main occupation of living creatures as soon as they have some sense of time. (Read it here). Then there are some moments when the stream of waiting is interrupted: a sudden smell of roses,

a rose fence
Passing by a rose fence re-evokes pleasant past times

a flashing image of a happy moment in the past, a short and meaningful eye contact with somebody,  a musical line filling you with joy, the awkward attempts of a baby or young animal to walk: many snapshots which can wake us up from the dull routine of the passing hours until tonight, tomorrow, next year, some distant day from which we expect salvation.

Becoming more present – but not too much, please!

Yes, we can learn to be more present to ourselves and what our experience is, but it actually is a necessity that for the most part of our days we are acting on autopilot. We couldn’t live otherwise.

a desihn of a person walking, falling, getting up again
Walking, falling, getting up again

Imagine if you needed to pay attention to every movement of your body, to every step while you walk. When you try to do that, just for fun, with intense attention, you end up stumbling over your own feet. It makes a lot of sense that we automate much of our behaviors, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to be attentive to what is going on around us. And even there: we are continuously making choices regarding what we notice and what not, what is important enough to pass through our perceptual filters and what we can ignore – which actually is most of what surrounds us. Not being able to ignore irrelevant things, like not being able to forget, is a curse to humans which makes their lives miserable by the overload of endless input into their sensorial system.

 

So let’s be grateful that we are not always aware of everything.

 

This doesn’t mean, though, to push away those things which are important to be included in our awareness. And maybe the biggest one is the recognition of the preciousness of life and the gratitude we need to nurture for being alive, still alive and able to enjoy and to suffer, to give and to receive, to be a full human being.

That’s what inspired me to write this post:

A badger lying on the road
The badger on the road

The reason for this post was a brief experience of the past few days. Last Sunday we went on a bike ride. There was a badger lying on the road. I hate when cars run over animals when lying dead on the road. This one was at the side but we wanted to put it into the nearby field and give it the due respect by this mini-ritual of a burial. Coming nearer we realized that it was not dead. It’s breath moved his chest, up and down, it seemed to sleep peacefully. But it was hurt, obviously, and destined to die.

What is the RIGHT thing to do here?

What to do? From an ethical point of view, but also from a practical one? The mind says: the best thing is to end its suffering. But how? Would you be able to roll over it with your car? Yes, I know, at the moment it is fashion among the terrorist to run over people with their trucks. How can they do THAT? And could you do it, even if it is “only” an animal? Well, we didn’t have that choice while traveling on bike. What else? Hitting it with a stick? I once tried to kill a badly injured duck, and I did it so unskilfully that it haunted me for months because of the extra suffering I had created for the animal, despite my intention to help.

 

An opossum showing its teeth
Better not get bitten by teeth like that!

We didn’t even dare to lift the badger up to carry it away, to a shady place, to die without being burnt by the hot summer sun. We feared that it could come to life again and we would become the target of its defense. Would you risk the bite of a strong wild animal? Obviously, we decided to let it be there, breathing quietly lying on the shoulder of the road in the hot sun – and I felt a wave of compassion for this creature and the impossibility of helping.

 

person in armchair, depressed
Sometimes we need to let go

It is not easy, at least for me, to have to tolerate the idea that there is nothing I can do and that I need to let other creatures, whether animals or humans, go through their destiny path, no matter if self-created or not. It is not easy to watch people run into their misfortune which you, from the outside, can see as not inevitable. But how can you tell them, or help them, to change, to come out of it, to embrace life again by transforming their habits and belief systems? I tried it once, desperately, with an ex-husband, until I finally understood that there was nothing I could do to change his life. The only thing I could do was to change my own life which had become quite miserable while I lived within that relationship. I had to let go of the sense of duty, the idea that I am responsible for the other person (a trait which many women cultivate) and that the best thing for both of us was a total separation with no regrets.

 

Butterfly on pink flower
A butterfly – the symbol of transformation into something alive and beautiful

Easily said, not so easily done. But fortunately I had many experiences with animals here on my farm,  similar to that one with the badger, and so I knew I could do it. I have chosen LIFE over a covert death while still alive. And I have also understood how the fear of our physical death brings us into situations where we do not live our lives, where we are caught in tragedy and distraction which keeps us away from the really important things in life: compassion, love and presence to our experience.

 

Survived, yes? – And now?

Facing a disaster – what can you do?

What can you do when your house has crumbled down and your work and income were bound to the place where you live? I guess it hasn’t happened to you, but there are folks which are truly left alone with that problem.

 

Today we decided to drive into the area where many villages and towns were heavily compromised by strong earthquakes from August 2016 on. We live about 50km as the crow flies from the epicenters of these earthquakes. I felt them strongly, nothing happened here to my house, but o boy, it did destroy more than I had feared.

Driving to the earthquake area – a real shock!

It is only for 2 weeks (after 10 months of inaccessibility), that one road has been opened into the area, from Norcia to Castelluccio on the high plateau of the Sibillini mountains. Some parts of the road were completely renewed, others limited to one track and you see the outer part of the road hanging down, and heaps of rocks, as you would expect. Then the view opened up to the plateau – and WOW. A huge crack runs over the mountain chain now, the rock has broken open over many kilometers. I remained in awe considering how much power had been released to split the mountain.

The high plateau of Castelluccio with the huge crack in the mountain chain
The high plateau of Castelluccio with the huge crack in the mountain chain

 

Finally in Castelluccio, the village of the famous lentils: I had been there many, many times. Only a few years ago the last of the previously abandoned houses had been rebuilt and tourists came to visit the village or even buy a tiny house, especially people passionate about Hang Gliding, as a school had been founded in this place.  

Castelluccio destroyed by the earthquake
Castelluccio destroyed by the earthquake

See here what is left of the village. I took this photo from the spot where during my last visit two years ago I had sat on the porch of a bar and specialty shop, enjoying the delicious local food.

Ex-bar in Castelluccio
Ex-bar in Castelluccio
Bar and shop in the trailer in Castelluccio
Bar and shop in the trailer in Castelluccio

The building of the bar has collapsed, the shop and bar-service are now offered from a trailer – and it is only for these last few weeks that a handful of people show up again and buy their stuff. And the 10 months in between?

 

What the people tell us

Talking with the owner I mentioned that they are very unfortunate because they are left alone in their misfortune. WE ARE LUCKY BECAUSE WE ARE STILL ALIVE – was his answer. Wow again!

He told me a little about the event and what happened later. From last August on, when the first earthquake hit about 25km to the south – when 300 people were killed – everybody living in that area was on high alert. And when 2 strong earthquakes hit 4 days before the big one, everybody went to sleep in campers or tents – and that’s why they survived. A witness reported that during the strokes he wanted to leave his camper but the surface of the street came up, right into his face, the waves were incredibly high. He still lives – or lives again – in his camper near the mobile bar and right next to the container-station of the military – who don’t seem to be active or even interested in fixing anything, just wandering around, in 5 or 6, while the village is doomed in its state of total destruction.

 

People who once lived there are not allowed to enter their houses, and the bar keeper himself had to fight to be allowed to come back and open his little activity in front of his destroyed property. “Maybe in 30 years”, he said, “our shop will be in our house again”, With that, he expressed clearly the little hope for help which the people have in Italy to come back into a normal life. This is the common experience here. The historic city Nocera Umbra to the north of Assisi was totally destroyed in 1997. Now, in 2017, it is finally rebuilt, but with almost nobody living in the historic center anymore. After 20 years everybody has found some other place to live and to earn their money, not by choice, but by necessity.

How long would you wait to come back home?

How long would you be able to wait for coming back into your property? Two years? Three, maybe five? But 20 years is a long time.

Our bar keeper is “fortunate” compared to those people from Nocera Umbra because he will be able to make a living, sooner or later, again, from a camper, a tent or a house, as he can offer what people need who come and visit this place: drinks and food. And we started to help him by buying some of his marvelous salami and by having a morning snack

The 2nd "shop" in Castelluccio
The 2nd “shop” in Castelluccio

in his place. We also bought salami and cheese from his competitor on the other side of the Piazza who has opened a tent-shop in front of the open space which once was his house and shop…

 

The official lies about reality

You cannot imagine what an earthquake of this magnitude can do. Officially – for many unscientific reasons (see my previous blog posts here and here)-  it ended up with a magnitude of 6.6 in the records. Cutting a mountain in half needs a little more. The bar keeper said it was 8.0 and this comes nearer to the truth. It could have been 7.6 to 7.9, but certainly not only 6.6. The quake has moved the whole mountain. A hang glider told me that he could see from above that, in addition to the crack we can see from the plateau, there is another one right behind the mountain top which literally has cut it into two parts.

Another unpredictable result of the event: the fountains in the whole area have dried out, the water veins have been blocked and the water has found a different way. It is now pouring out of the mountain near Norcia, in thousands of liters per second. This will change everything and, hopefully, the farmers find a way to continue to plant their famous lentils despite the lack of water.

“I Love  Italy” – and how it is abandoned

Hold on, I still need to tell you about Norcia, the city which was so proud to have resisted the first earthquake in August last year. Norcia is now an incredible mix of “life as usual” and huge amounts of debris.

Piazza Vittorio Veneto, Norcia
Piazza Vittorio Veneto, Norcia

The inviting restaurant on the square in front of the theatre – the colorful life as usual.

"Our" Bar with view on scrambled church
“Our” Bar with view on scrambled church

And 50 m from there in a side street: we have an ice cream in a bar – and a clear view on one of the two crumbled churches in the small Piazza

Crumbled church and some lonely workers far back, the only ones we saw in the city
Immediate reconstruction à la Italiana – some lonely workers far back, the only ones we saw in the city

and two or three workers slowly beginning to erect some scaffolding: not to fix anything, no, but to just keep in place what has not yet fallen down.

The bank-building in perfect shape
The bank-building in perfect shape

A bank in the main street neatly restored and the shop in the same building open, while right next to it abandoned shops and small announcements that they are still working, somewhere, outside the city.

Photos of the destroyed shop behind the "curtain" and indication of where to contact the owner
Photos of the destroyed shop behind the “curtain” and indication of where to contact the owner
Where you can find the coffee shop...
Where you can find the coffee shop…

Whoever goes there and buys their goods? The tourists come and see the historic center and buy something there; they don’t drive to the industrial area to buy something which they couldn’t even desire without seeing it exposed while strolling by.

So how do they make their living if they are not among the fortunate ones who are allowed to open their shops again in the center?

A working shop in Norcia
A working shop in Norcia

( I guess about 80% of the commercial activities are closed).

Commercial activities in Norcia - closed
Commercial activities in Norcia – closed

And even those who are open again do not really have many clients. I have never seen so few people in Norcia in the past 30 years and my 20+ visits there. 

The empty streets of Norcia
The empty streets of Norcia

The main attractions are either completely destroyed, like the 4 main churches,

Santa Maria Argentea in Norcia - what is left...
Santa Maria Argentea in Norcia – what is left…

or are inaccessible like the town hall which seems as if still contemplating if it is better to tumble down, too, for giving a consistent appearance to the main piazza, where only the medieval castle sits perfectly in place like a flat rock.

The town hall and the front facade of the Basilica di San Benedetto - the rest of it ist crumbled down.
The town hall and the front facade of the Basilica di San Benedetto – the rest of it has crumbled down.

How interesting is a disaster in the long run?

Yes, some people are interested to come and visit these places, the “earthquake tourists”. But most people come to visit Italy and the Italian cities for admiring something beautiful and not for getting sad and thoughtful about the uncertainty of life which is expressed so clearly in the natural destruction of what has been created with so much effort.

The following thought is almost unavoidable: Imagine how places look like after a war, after intentional destruction. That’s where we don’t really like to go, and alas, who knows how many steps we are away from such a scenario?

As if a bomb has hit... A scene in Norcia
As if a bomb has hit… A scene in Norcia

 

What can WE do? – What can I do in the face of disaster?

I am an optimist and I believe that we are all called to engage in activities and with people who passionately work for a better world. I am speaking of people like Jordan Peterson who has opened my eyes and helped me to recognize my “new-age” illusions about the “goodness of everything”, to see my naïveté regarding my irrational hopes and folly acts of trust in people who don’t merit it. I came to understand that there is true malevolence in this world and that we need to learn to recognize it and to stand up against it – as does Steven Greer by disclosing the secrecy with which we mercilessly are misguided.  View previous posts on this blog here and here and here)

 

And here is a big “Thank You” to Ken Wilber who taught me to see the bigger picture and to appreciate the efforts which people do in one or more quadrants of reality. My attempt is now to bring together all these seemingly disconnected aspects and to realize their value and transmit what they bring to the table in service of a truly better world – and to help to diminish, or even end, the influence of the malevolent forces in power.

 

Will you join me? And in case your house crumbles with the next earthquake, be sure to knock on my door!

 

“Unacknowledged, Unaccountable, Unconstitutional, Unspeakable and International”

 

Unacknowledged, Unaccountable, Unconstitutional, Unspeakable and International

And also sparsely “Undocumented” by me as it might interfere with the flow of this rant!

The events of this summer, as Heidi and I became aware of them, have stuffed down our throats some most – to continue the parallelisms – “Unpalatable” mouthfuls.

Topping them all off has been the understanding that evil exists in all the horribly banal forms in which it has always been found.  In this case we’ve been exposed to the vomitably sickening account of the “real” story supporting the case to be made in favor of Russian interference in our last presidential election.  

Please don’t misunderstand…

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren

Please don’t misunderstand, I voted for Hillary simply because she was not Donald.  Bernie, running with Elizabeth Warren as his VP, would have been a combo I could have enthusiastically supported, even if not my “ideal” team.  Excuse the digression which is only to clarify context.

 

Apropos, I considered a couple days ago reading a recent article in The Atlantic, linked to a post on Facebook by someone whose name I’ve forgotten.  The author. Rosie Gray, titled her article:

 

Bill Browder’s Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee

Bill Browder
Bill Browder

(with this subtitle, still quoting Browder): “I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests.”
It was a bone chilling account of ruthless oligarchical mafiosi of the worst Russian sort and their battle with the equally “competent” Vladimir Putin.  The utter cruelty of all parties in their struggle to loot the rest of the world, now that the homeland itself has been cleaned out, recalls the extremes of Stalin and Hitler and Mao and all those Kim Il Somebodies in North Korea and elsewhere. Undercover of some ism or other, they stop at nothing to attain immense wealth and power.  Such (inset your favorite evil here) -opathy requires endless struggle against real or imagined enemies for which we all pay.

stunned with incomprehension

Sergei Magnitsky
Sergei Magnitsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky

I confess that I intuited what the article would recount and passed it unread on to Heidi, who was stunned with incomprehension at what Browder recounted in Gray’s article. With the (perhaps) unknowing enabling of American law firms and publicists, a great campaign was launched by Putin to repeal – or at least “defang” – the Magnitsky Act which had been passed by Congress in 2012 in response to brutal and fatal human rights violations of a lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who had been uncovering illegal pilfering of, among other activities, the Russian treasury by Putin himself – along with his cohorts. What he eventually uncovered was a veritable hoovering machine which provided Putin personally with percentages of the take of the cream of the oligarchs who didn’t want to end up like the wealthiest of them all, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, publicly humiliated in a cage for a trial that put him in prison for 10 years followed by exile in Switzerland.  In the course of the cover up exposed by Magnitsky, others were murdered, not always within Russia itself.

 

The Magnitsky Act enabled billions of Russian funds held in banks elsewhere, especially in the United States, to be sequestered.  This included Putin’s own money and that of his henchmen who no longer trusted that their money would be safe within Russia.  The Panama Papers added much detail to these operations.  

The Magnitsky Act enabled billions of Russian funds to be sequestered.

Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin

As horrible as these ongoing crimes have been, they are internationally recognised as illegal and subject to legislative control. Now I want to pass onto another huge area of concern, but in this case the events are not seen as illegal…because they are neither known nor acknowledged!

As such there is no law against these activities and no legal entity is responsible, right here in the good ol’ USA! The unmistakable ongoing presence of living entities from beyond this earth.

…they have…mastered faster than light limitations on speed

Dr. Steven Greer
Dr. Steven Greer

In the past few months, and especially since May, we have become aware, largely due to the tireless and decades long persevering research of Dr. Steven Greer, of evidence that Heidi and I consider convincing regarding:

  • The unmistakable ongoing presence of living entities from beyond this earth.
  • Their presence has been known by intelligence and military authorities since at least World War II.
  • Captured ET “personnel” and craft have been mined for information and technology which no civilian authorities, even presidents, have knowledge of, let alone control of.
  • These extraterrestrial beings have “travelled” so far from other star systems that they have, ipso facto, mastered faster than light limitations on speed (and mass!).
  • Since the 1950’s humans have been able to mimic some of their technologies, including “anti gravity” techniques.  Some are genuine and some are, shockingly,  choreographed to fool, intimidate, mislead, create war hysteria, sometimes even assassinate, others who have dared to speak frankly of these phenomena.
    President Eisenhower
    President Eisenhower



    The motives are simple enough: to retain control over existing forms of energy (fossil fuels, etc.) and the stranglehold of scarcity which generates unspeakable wealth among the very few who are privy to these programs which are unauthorised, and therefore unsupervised, by any constitutional authority (and hence Illegal) – or any authority outside than their own siloed compartmentalized realms.  No single conspiracy or cabal knows all the activities, being restricted to their own “need to know” areas.  Of course, the military uses private contractors for research, development and production, but the costs are unknown and no one “keeps books” on them.  Banks are involved, but they don’t know details of operations. Science and technologies are employed as needed, including great universities, media is controlled and corrupted, politicians may be included if they can be “trusted” or bought off.


  • …presidents are denied information as they have “no need to know”.
  • Briefly, presidents are denied information as they have “no need to know”. Military as high as the intelligence head of the joints chiefs of staff are denied even knowledge that these “Unacknowledged Special Projects” (USAPs) exist, let alone their contents.  
    UFO? OURS? THEIRS? If so, who are we, who are they?

    Dr. Steven Greer has painstakingly documented a huge dossier of information from highly credible sources – as well as his own observations which he has revealed in endless interviews, videos, and films since the early 90’s when he was asked by others who were too exposed or too fearful (or in some prominent cases, just too chicken shit) to risk their own political, corporate or academic careers.

To be sure, he too is protected by high and powerful agents, many ex-military, who enable him to continue his research and ongoing exposés. Heidi and I trust that anyone reasonably intelligent and open minded will also find him credible after some exposure to him.  An excellent place to start would be his just released crowdfunded video documentary “Unacknowledged” available for rental or purchase ($15) through Amazon. His earlier film from 2013, “SIRIUS” is now free on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA

Further media and references can be found on his Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Dr-Steven-M-Greer-194568653910069/posts/?ref=page_internal

Do not worry any longer about the ridicule of anyone.  It’s too late for that!

Mark Davenport

What are you waiting for?

Today the answer is easy and quick: I am truly waiting for the super heat wave to finally pass. And then?

Waiting seems to be a fundamental human “activity” although it can appear in quite different clothes. Why are we waiting and what are we waiting for?

Being busy and waiting at the same time?

You might say: I don’t wait a lot, I have so much to do, and I have no time for waiting. You might exactly FEEL like that, but aren’t you waiting, anyway? Waiting for the work to be finally accomplished, for the boss to finally recognize your bravery, for the next pay check, for the next weekend, for the lunch break, for a coffee or a cigarette? You might not be actively waiting by sitting in the corner and thinking exclusively about what you are waiting for. You might be engaged in all sorts of different activities and the waiting component runs alongside, undercover, in your mind and in your organism.

Life is waiting

Pregnant belly
Waiting for new life

I was struck lately by the insight that all human (and animal) life consists of a permanent time stream characterized by waiting. A pregnant woman is “expecting”. Doesn’t that mean that she is “waiting” for the fetus to grow in her belly and then be born? Sometimes women are waiting far over time to give birth to their child, this is recognized as “waiting”, for sure. But before birth it was waiting, too; waiting for the unknown to arrive, waiting for what could happen the next moment – the movement felt in the belly or the lack of it -, waiting for the next week, the next month, the next year. We don’t know what will happen and we are waiting for the future to unfold in our lives.

Active & passive waiting

dog waiting at the window
A dog’s active waiting

There is a difference between “active” waiting and “passive” waiting, or conscious waiting and waiting without being conscious that we are waiting. The fetus is waiting to grow and has no idea that he or she does so. Children become conscious about their waiting in increasing degrees. When hungry, the baby cries and waits for the food to arrive. Later children are told that they need to wait for all sorts of things. It is part of the training for life that children learn to postpone gratification, which means nothing other than waiting consciously for a goodie instead of devouring it immediately. Studies show that children who have learned this have a hugely higher probability of being successful in life. So waiting purposefully for something better in the future is a very useful thing, not bad at all.

 Conditioned for waiting

child looking through a fence
Too young for…

But when can “waiting” become a “bad” thing? Actually, the “bad waiting” demand creeps into our lives without us really noticing it. A 4-year-old is told that he or she has to wait until 6 to be able to do or get certain things; all children wait to become older, teenagers or “adults”, because they think that “real life” will start then whereas their child-life is somehow insufficient, not valuable and therefore to be gotten over as soon as possible. The joyful life of a child’s mind is erased by the desire of a promised future which needs to be waited for. Waiting for getting older overshadows the present and devalues it as “not ok”.

 

Later, when we get the scooter license we are waiting for the car driving license; we wait until we finally can leave school – which was my case, for sure – and then we can go to University, when “real life” promises to begin. Some time into University I was waiting for finally passing my exams and becoming an MA. Other people are waiting for their completion of the professional training because the “true life” will start with finding a good job. Maybe we have found a husband, wife or life partner in the meantime for whom we have waited since adolescence and whom we have expected to guide us into the promised land of a fulfilled life. Maybe we are lucky and it works out for some time, but aren’t we all waiting for the relationship problems to arrive which we have witnessed as “normal” among others. Or better, aren’t we waiting for them NOT to arrive? We are waiting, though, in one way or the other.

 

white figure Stepping up the ladder until...
Stepping up the ladder until…

In our professional career, we start waiting from day #1. Normally we begin at the bottom of the power hierarchy and we are told that we have to march up the ladder to success, as an employee as well as a solopreneur. We invest a lot of energy, of work and of learning and we are constantly waiting for the moment when all that will “pay off”. Some people seem to have reached what we want to reach and they promise to teach us how to do it ourselves – by feeding them money from our desire to abbreviate the waiting time for the fulfillment of our dreams.

Does waiting ever end?

Maybe your waiting ends in one particular field, but there is still enough waiting material in your life where you can continue to engage whole heartedly: your first, second or fifth child to be born, to go to school, to grow up, to become successful and what not; everything you were waiting for for yourself can become a waiting subject for you by transferring it to your children, or your siblings, your group, your society.

What are we waiting for and why?

So what are we REALLY waiting for? For a better future? For something miraculous to happen in our lives? For the world to change? For freedom, wealth, health, success, whatever? For being free from the burden of responsibility? The burden of living? The promised land after all the suffering which human life implies?

Active-passive, conscious-unconscious

You might insist that you are not waiting, you have a goal to achieve and you are busy the whole day to finally arrive there. This is a form of non-conscious waiting, non-active waiting, as your activity is bound and focused on that goal and you are not sitting around noticing the awkward burden of “just waiting” like you might know it from the doctor’s waiting room or before the results of an election are announced. Those moments I would call ACTIVE WAITING and we all are good in trying to get over that as soon as possible by distracting our attention from the burden of conscious active waiting. But it is still waiting when we watch a film, go out for dinner or dive into our work during these times of focused expectations.

 

I believe that, ultimately, we are waiting for the end of our life on earth, curious what might happen afterwards. This long waiting time is structured by the many worldly things we are waiting for. If it is the financial success, career fulfillment, becoming grandparents or reaching enlightenment, there is no real difference regarding our propensity for waiting. The object of the waiting process changes according to our age and stage of consciousness, to our inclinations and personality traits, but the waiting persists from birth to death.

 

Who are you in the face of – waiting?

So the question arises: What is it what you personally are waiting for? What did you wait for when you were a child, a young adult, in midlife and in your older years? Did the objects of your waiting change? And did you reach what you were waiting for and how did that feel for you? Did it give you the satisfaction and nourishment which you had expected? And in case you didn’t reach it: what was the consequence of it? Did you become disappointed and bitter, or did you succeed to get a kick into the future because of the failure? Only you can find that out, it will be different for everybody, at least on the surface, but probably not in the deeper layers of life. Here the question is: Did you learn and are you still learning from the outcome of the various waiting processes you were engaged in? Does it lead to your growing up into a differentiated and responsible adult? Or did you stay a helpless child in a grown up body?

Still waiting to grow up?

Mal person holding a Teddy Bear, both in red
Playing with the world like with a Teddybear

Looking at the present situation of our world it is easy to deduce that most people are stuck with the last option. A president who behaves like a 4-year-old. Military chiefs in need of new playgrounds for their insane games, scientists who try to bend reality to their theories, ruthless mafia gangs pursuing money and power: none of these display maturity as a human being but being stuck in egocentrism and omnipotent fantasies – a rather low level of possible development which is available to us humans today.

 

So where are you? Where am I and where are those around us?

If you have read so far I assume that you have traveled more of “the road less traveled” (Scott Peck). You are able to face your reality and that of the world and you are willing to explore what can be done to facilitate change for the benefit of the whole world, humanity, our planet and the whole cosmos. I am really glad to meet you here!

And now?

Now the question: what can we do, both together, and each of us by ourselves?

I suggest that we begin with noticing when we are waiting, again, and check what we are waiting for and what we try to avoid with this specific act of waiting. I am talking about our waiting for others to do what we desire and want to happen. Waiting for the state, society or whoever to resolve the problems we are facing. Waiting for the courageous people to step up and take the blame while we are hiding out behind the curtain of our cowardice. Or just waiting that the nightmare will stop, that we recognize reality as a dream where we can easily wake up and everything is fine – a dear and well-practiced illusion which we are far too eager to embrace by giving it the name HOPE.

Hope, motivation, inspiration, and engagement is needed.

We need the power of hope, but hope alone and waiting for things to change is not something to rely on. Sure, change will happen anyway, but without our participation, it most likely will go into a direction which we didn’t foresee and probably didn’t want. There are too many malevolent forces in this world who will take advantage to direct change towards their own interests as soon as there is “laissez faire”, a vacuum, which our lethargy, our fears, and inertia give to them. They, for sure, are highly motivated to direct the world where they want it to go.

We need at least the same degree of motivation and dedication  to counterbalance them. That means we need to get out of victimism and helplessness and begin to step up and DO. Do what? Well, begin and find out what the right thing is for you, for me, for the many others who want a positive change but are still holding back by indecisiveness.

 

What I am doing:

Paradiso Integrale in Italy - the home of the Wisdom Factory
Paradiso Integrale in Italy – the home of the Wisdom Factory

As for myself, I begin with writing down my thoughts and hold public conversations at the Wisdom Factory and I am trying to inspire others to do the same and distribute their insights to as many others as possible. I talk with people about edgy topics and do my best to help them see new perspectives on “old” things. I try to connect people and to create initiatives for collaboration and co-creation – which often can mean simply: listen to each other and engage in creative dialog to find ideas and solutions together which neither of us alone could have conceived.

 

Will you join the tribe who decides to abandon active waiting and step into active creating? You are so welcome!