As a Marine veteran meeting another Marine, or seeing a friend from childhood after years of non communication, there is a certain closeness we feel to that person.  It can even be someone from my home city of Buffalo, but not always in the same effect.

Just being from Buffalo doesn’t make me feel any closer to you when we are both within Buffalo city limits.  However, if you came from my neighborhood, or we were friends at the same school, played on the same tournament baseball team, that will matter more.  These are all what I refer to as “circles of commonality”.

It starts to get confusing when context comes into play.  Say being in Buffalo and someone telling you they are from Buffalo, it’s like a “no fuckin shit” feeling.  But to be in NYC – in the same state, meeting someone from Buffalo makes you a little more interesting.

It’s the same commonality, but in one context it has meaning, and another it is meaningless.

Sometimes, just finding out someone is from the same country as you, makes you best friends – a combat zone, for example.

An experience can also create a circle of commonality as well, like getting bombed together… friends for life.

The further you are away from a given circle, and finding out someone else shares that same circle, that person can get successively interesting.

To my initial point, circles are one of the ways we manage the world around us.  Some people have the magnitude for larger circles, and some have smaller ones.  That has nothing to do with better or worse.  The smaller ones may see finer details within their circles because they don’t have as much to tend to, if you will.

If we all had an Earth-wide circle, taking on the burden of all of those suffering far away can be way too chaotic and overwhelming and can discourage any chance at happiness let alone empowerment.  A certain magnitude of wisdom needs to be present in larger circles, or that person will probably end up unstable in some way.

So it has become socially acceptable for those with large circles to ignore and artificially keep their circles small.  It’s a bad habit and it’s making people feel like they can’t do anything about it anyway.

I think that’s bull shit.

Worldly issues are hard to deal with and it hurts to think that some of these things are actually happening.  Like real life shit not a movie.  Hunger, pain, human trafficking, incredible rates of oppression and murder, and too many more to list here.

We wreak havoc on American soil because we think we have serious issues here, and we do, but the vast world of suffering dwarfs what we see and experience here in America.

Again, it’s hard to believe when you do not see it, but that does not mean it isn’t real.

The Santa Claus effect.  It takes a bit of faith to believe what you cannot see.  In this case, “Santa” is real and represents the kind of pain of suffering that slows time and makes every breath unbearable for those in the thick of it.

For those not, a bad day could be as easy as spilling coffee on their shirt or stepping in dog shit.

After all, everything is relative.

How good does your life have to be before stepping in dog shit is all that is needed to ruin your day.

Next Piece:  [1.3] The 6th Sense

Previous Piece:  [1.1] Crazy or Rare

I beg the question that the feeling we get, that closeness we feel, that feeling when you hug a person you love versus a tree, it is a sixth sense –

how our body’s sense the passage of time on a biological level that we can feel in our souls.

It’s also what gives material items sentimental value and meaning.  How can an object mean so much to one person, and be nothing to another.

It’s a theory.  But go hug somebody, then go hug a pillow or anything else not living.

That difference, is the sense I’m talking about.  And that goes for anything that has been given conscious life.

The power of this sense is why solitary confinement is the worst punishment before death.  To separate the soul from other life is the complete removal of meaning to the life being confined.

We are all sharing that together, and I believe that’s why people can get fulfilled by a family pet. The acceptance of you to get in anothers “personal space”, grasp them as they grasp you, a dog allowing you to pet it, that is the source of what our souls sense. 

Because it can’t be seen, heard, tasted or touched, hasn’t been measured or recognized in any way, people do not believe in this sense.

I believe that it is this sense that is why religion is so goddam popular.

People are searching to fulfill this sense with other’s suffering with them during the same time of their existence, out of thousands of generations, before we evolve into something unrecognizable to how we look today (monkeys).  And find this fulfillment in church singing together with fellow people who have built a commonality called religion to share.

Not to anyone’s fault, even though it sounds like I’m talking shit about religion.

I believe large numbers of people in the same circle of commonality can magnify that “source” of that sense.  Puts out vibes I guess we can say.

That works.

Vibes for the soul.  Larger numbers, stronger vibes.

The living world of our time is not ready to grasp each other in appreciation and acceptance.

Not in our lifetimes.  Perhaps one day.

That day will be the ultimate transcendence of all that is life as we know it.

And that, to me, is a pursuit worth dying for.

Next Piece:  [1.4] Acting alone when not alone

Previous Piece:  [1.2] Circles of Commonality

When I am alone, I feel free.

Because I am.  I am free from all forms of judgments from others.  I can truly be what I consider to be Me.  Live writing reflects my true self. It feels quite vulnerable to express my inner thoughts without a filter directly to the public eye…  But I think I’m going to do me from now on.

I’m going to make how I act when I am alone one with how I act around others.  

Time is too precious and limited to live any other way.  I trust my values, thoughts, and decisions.  

I fuck up, say the wrong thing, make bad decisions, but there’s nothing I can do about it except try to learn from it.  And to focus so hard on changing myself to never make a mistake again is not the way to live day to day. 

I’ll never make zero mistakes. 

So I need to accept mistakes as they come and not get so fucked up about it every time.

Being as I am alone (and free) throughout my days will put out the vibes true to my soul and will act as a natural filter to the world that surrounds me.  People who don’t like it will stray away, and people who can provide fulfillment/get fulfillment from you, will gravitate towards you.

Ass holes suck.  But even ass holes have friends, so let them and then go have your own. 

No one, speaking for America at least, needs to take shit from ass holes (no pun intended), they can just walk away, find a new job, or whatever.

The craving to be accepted and to fulfill our souls is so high it is blinding and results in misguided searching.  Especially because the souls power is so hard to measure, every one seems to deny its reality and immense importance to the meaning of each of our lives.

Self reflection will help guide your soul.

Next Piece:  [1.5] Time is the Ultimate Commonality

Previous Piece:  [1.3] The 6th Sense

Time. 

It is the universal connection we all have with one another; and all of life.

We are all spending the ever precious and limited resource of time we have together, no matter where you are from, what you look like, or however extreme your cultural views. 

We are suffering all the same because it is happening during our little piece of time we’ve all been blessed with.

There is a way to accept each other, every living human and animal and any other living thing alike. I’m not saying go vegan, just that we need to respect life a little bit more than we do now. 

We need to stop acting ignorant when we know horrible things are happening.  We don’t all have to be leaders of revolutionary movements, but don’t stop caring.  Don’t stop suffering with your fellow life.

Again, we are all sharing our little piece of time together. 

Time is the ultimate circle of commonality of all life. 

So stop being a dick to people.  They are essentially your people.  Stop cutting each other off in traffic, because we all want to get where we’re going quickly and safely, not just you.  If someone cuts you off, let it go, cuz chances are you’ve cut someone off at one point in your life, and that’s the definition of hypocrisy.

You will never know what’s really going on in someone’s life at the time you feel they wronged you. 

And just because you’ve learned your lesson about screwing people over, doesn’t mean everybody learned the same lesson with you; perhaps they just haven’t matured at the same pace you have. 

On the latter, perhaps there’s something you have yet to learn.

Mind these facts of life next time you feel angry or impatient towards your fellow person.

People are only strangers when they are beyond the context of a circle of commonality.  Time is the ultimate and universal circle of commonality.  For more people to realize this and practice would mean a dramatic shift in how we treat one another.

Final Piece:  [1.6] The Meaning of Life

Previous:  [1.4] Acting alone when not alone