Guns keep killing people. I’m just putting that out there. I am just stating the obvious. It is simply a fact. It’s a fact that will continue to prove itself correct each time there is a shooting. Guns kill people, and they keep killing people. It is a fact. It is. It is common knowledge. A common occurrence; too common an occurrence if you ask me, but you needn’t ask because the facts speak for themselves. Guns. Kill. People. They did yesterday, and the day before, and last weekend multiple times in my city (more than most weekends, more than many cities, and a lot more times this year). My city is really not that different from any other place where there are guns and people. Guns are everywhere. People are everywhere. Guns kill people. They did yesterday in a very noticeable way. We will grieve the event and question why. We will ask questions of ourselves and questions of our politicians and each other. Fact. And we will hope, and we will pray, but guns keep killing people anyway. It is a fact. It is far too obvious. How can we change the fact without allowing emotions to become involved. Just the facts. How do we deal with a fact, and how can we alter the fact that guns kill people? I’m just putting that out there. Just the fact.
Is it the sunset you enjoy, or the shadows it casts? Have you stopped for a moment to figure it out? In reality, it is how you choose to see it. Perception changes, and you with it. It is not the reverse. To shift your perspective requires an influence, but despite what you hear, read or see, the viewpoint of the world surrounding you will come from within. Yes, we listen to others: educators, politicians, salesmen or solicitors, and whether we are told that the world is flat, which automobile is the safest, or how a policy will dramatically reduce carbon emissions over the next decade, it is the personal processing of this information that will determine your ultimate answer. We, all too often, rely on the words of others when trying to understand anything around us. Explanation involves thinking outside of yourself and considering the consequences, values and benefits. In trying to listen to the flood of information coming at you, it is assumed knowledge that will form your opinion. What if I told you that when watching a sunset, you are actually paying more attention to the clouds, than you are to the actual Sun? Would you stop for a moment and wonder what you’ve always taken in? The Sun never changes (well, not in immediate terms); it burns, full power, 24 hours a day. We see it more or less, depending on where we are located in relation to the time of the year. It is us that moves and not the sun The Sun, quite boring really, is always there. Always in the same place. It’s always round, always bright, and generates radiation that is constant, and powerful enough to light up this world and any other star, planet and galaxy in the universe. As it appears to dip below the horizon at the end of each day, the Sun setting is not your focus. All those colours and the glorious view you scramble to capture on your camera or mobile device is more the result of the Sun’s light reflecting and refracting through the atmosphere, precipitation or condensation, or the puffy polluted haze of our ever-expanding cities. The view is altered, mostly by your perception. It is still the same Sun it was hours earlier, it is still doing the same bloody thing, but somehow it is more beautiful. Perception. The Sun glows, alters the shade of buildings, the shadows of trees, and even makes common weeds, like dandelions, appear magical. Perspective. It is how we see things. More importantly how we see ourselves, and how we connect with the context. Our greatest strength should be admitting we don’t know everything and being open to learning what we need to know. Change comes with knowledge, and challenging yourself comes with connecting to your soul, investigating your id and ego and, through the process, discovering your own mythos. Seek answers, or self-explanation for who you are, and why you do what you do. Discover solutions, or check your hypothesis for why something didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to, or why success is likely, in whatever area you chose. Context. You can make things happen, but you need to unearth what is happening and why. Those are answers you won’t get from teachers, lawyers or policy wonks. You may not even find the answers within, but you will be stronger for looking. The inner voice is an inner choice.
It is within you. Surpassing will, well beyond ego, is a power that cannot be explained or exemplified, though it is always there. Deep inside, beneath the skin, bone, and muscle, is a greater force than you may ever know; yet you will have difficulty determining where it comes from. It is there. We can aspire to create our dreams, but to do so we need to access a deeper strength. Set your intention. See where you go.
Coordinates unclear, the first wonder of a new day. Open your eyes, light diffused, a little confused, gradually you wake. Go slow. Morning coffee: is there a better type to wash away remnants of the darkness that exists? A cloudy day any way, no need to rush. You sit and settle into this reality, every cell of your being readjusting. Recalibrate your emotions. Don’t rush it. No need today. Yesterday no longer matters.
Frequently designated a dreamer, in perpetuum, among many other things, he does, he admits, allow little space to plan. Rightly or wrongly, this is the path he has ended up on. Difficult, perhaps, at times when cracks in the concrete led him astray. Only recently discovered, by accident more than fault, is balance maintained in a world cluttered with discrepancies and dogma forced upon him by conspiracy theorists, self-serving henchmen, Jesus freaks and hangers on, black hole believers and Masters of the Universe who continue, ad nauseam, to propagate fear.
Erstwhile encounters not forgotten, not soon enough, minutes bypass memory, he has clung to details accounted for nostalgically and passionately, each plank of a moral platform galvanized and scandalized. He continues, white-knuckle grip, adhering to a belief system founded over time; tested, altered, as deemed fit or favourable. Fully aware and seemingly appreciative, he has crossed the line from seeing himself merely as a character in this long drawn-out drama to bearing witness to what happens, as it happens. He, alone, will not wait to understand, but, carpe diem, record the state of a disingenuous planet.
Each event, as it unfolds, to be accepted as what will. No longer a second-hand story in third-person narrative, this first-person view could offer confusion at worst, discomfort at least, though instant, authentic, and liberating in ways only he will determine. Tenet nosce. Each element of freedom comes at a cost. He will taste the summer ahead, open mouthed, open-minded, without concern of those in the past, but with a belief not to get too far ahead of himself in the dreams he conjures. Self and the spirit pacified today with the joy offered, instead of looking for what is no longer there. It is easier that way.
