Isn't it ironic?

The year 2001 attacks on air travel have merely accelerated progress towards being watched at all times.

I bet it's hardly what the blame-seeking morons behind the September 11 attacks imagined. Neither did I, at the time. Nevertheless, it's what happened.

If it sounds surprising, it's because being watched is not usually featured among our basic human needs. Yet, like breathing, flying and working, it is. It explains the fervor by which we're pursuing it.

Flying is a need and ability we share with animals and plants. By contrast, being watched is an exclusively human need. It explains why we have mirrors and they don't. Animals and plants, knowing who they are, have no need for checking on themselves day and night. Humans - because we have been given choice - often don't know who they are, or who they are supposed to be, hence the need to permanently check whether the choices we make are sound.

For centuries we trusted great powers to do the watching for us - God, the Devil, Father Christmas, Santa Claus, to name a few. (In other parts of the world they use different names, but the principle still applies). 9/11 changed all that. It propelled humanity into The Age Of Control.

We are now watching our every move and thought by our own means - satellites, microphones, drones, cookies, cell phones, credit cards, internet, computers and an ever-larger number of secret people employing secret tools in secret services. Great secrecy continues to be required, of course. We're still under attack. "During times of war truth must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies." ~ Sir Winston Churchill.

Even so, I predict it is but a first step. We will continue to develop evermore sophisticated tools and methods. Because watching ourselves is merely a means to an end, the true objective being control.

I doubt watching ourselves by our own means will have the same freeing effect as flying had.

And I hope and trust that as a collective we will remember in time that freedom, too, is a basic human need.

Until such time, only because some of us are paranoiacs doesn't mean The Age Of Control is an illusion.

"It's always been this way." (Some things just never change).
"It's never been this way." (The world keeps changing before your very eyes).

Paradoxical? Absolutely!

No wonder some worry. About it being paradoxical. About the next change. To the worriers, it's confusing. It might be bad. What if it doesn't stop to change? What if tomorrow's change causes even more stress? Am I not stressed, worried, sleepless and depressed enough as it is?

Yet other people are worry-free. Because they understand paradox. They understand constancy and change are twins, two sides of the same coin. Better yet, they are dancing together, in lover's embrace, in front of our very eyes.

The river is the same, the water in it isn't.
The seasons are the same, the bees and the sunflowers aren't.
The way it's meant to be.

The world keeps changing before our very eyes: Empires rising then falling. Cities, states, continents and the world itself exploding and imploding. Walls erected and crumbling. The extension of man happening at future shock warp speed. Our children knowing more than we ever will.

The world's way of saying that we are not a result of the big bang and of creation, but that we are part of it.

Some things never change - never have, never will: In the beginning was the word. Of love, faith and hope, love is greatest. Peace lost, wars won. It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy. Worry and complaining are two of the steps on the 12-step program to losing. In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

The world's way of saying that we're not in uncharted territory, that creation is dependable and natural law universal.

Be at peace with the fact that the future is unknown.
See that worry over change is not only completely wasted, but a most destructive habit.

There he sharpened his pen, took out a sheet of this whitest paper, raised the lid on his ink well, and began to write.

After a few quiet days, and days of turbulence, turbulent times, welcoming myself back to the blogosphere. The above graph prob'bly sums up my present better than words could. (The atmospheric view out of the window I borrowed from Matisse).

I will tell you this much: there are few wellsprings of strength more consistently reliable than those found in the eye of the storm.

Past attraction to letting the Self get caught up in the current, chalk it up to inexperience. And to lack of faith.

Getting it right, with its constantly shifting frames of reference ... those of us (fully) engaged in life know that reality can be highly situational. Who am I to resist the lure of Circum's Dance? What one person knows to be a "lie" may well describe another's deepest conviction, at least in the moment the "lie" is uttered. Fantasy and delusional trance are so accessible, and marketed with such force and frequency, it looks like a game of manipulation, when the truth is, more frightening: they don't even exist.

Fact: our creator did not short change us. To the contrary, we humans have been especially blessed in this regard. Of all creation we are the only ones who are more than mere creatures. We in turn are also creators. We are both the workers and the work - and have been given choice about the company we keep.

This exclusivity causes some of us to experience it as an onslaught of responsibility. In lieu of bucking down and develop the ability to respond, some seek serendipity in the company of fantasy and rational lies. An unfortunate few go on to make choices that later lead to pills of trademarked colors, 12-step programs and rehab clinics. The rest of us, more sensibly, blog, read each others blog and ...

You're born. You grow, up. You grow older. You grow wiser.

"The purpose of life?", you keep asking.

You keep finding answers, yet it keeps changing.

Relationships. Spouse. Grandchildren. Work. Politics. Religion. Occupy. Tea. Wall. Street. Economy. Borders. History. Trade. Oil. Water. Gas. In the flow. The current. Mineral Rights. Rights. Human Rights. Animal Rights. Global warming. Global pandemics. Global threats. Globalization. GDP. Kyoto. Elections. Sanctions. Proliferation. Severe weather. Action News. Breaking news. News flashes. He said, she said. My land. Your land. No-man's land. Stock market. Black market. Orange alerts. Dream homes. Hope. Change. Fear. Loathing. Communism. Socialism. Capitalism. War. Peace. Love. Hate.

Finally, you think, you've got it figured out.

Just then it comes knocking on your door.

"The purpose of life is to surprise you."

One of my blog posts deals with how to deal with the "Head Full" syndrome - what to do when you're no longer able to learn anything new because your head is full. In it, I recommend to eliminate from your head hearsay, to retain only what you know from personal experience, and in this way to make room for new.

It's sane advice. But what about knowledge dispensed by your friends? Is it not the very point of having friends - to listen to them?

Living in the part of America that is referred to as the Bible Belt, it follows that some of my friends are, well, bible belted.

They insist what they do is not their work but God’s. Reminiscent of the Zen view that holds we're but flutes on the lips of infinite breath. They see God everywhere. Don't know how they do it. I see God in everything. I don't see Him, or Her. Mostly because I don't believe God that small.

Made my mind up to comprehend God based on what I know, hear, feel and see.

The oceans, mountains, forests and deserts. The wind, fire, clouds and rain. The December sky. This building, the room, the seat I'm in, the coffee cup and the spoon. The flowers, butterflies, books, and music. Languages, translations, the pursuit of right and freedom - my own and that of others. Truth, and the elusiveness of truth. Teachers teaching me to read, write, lace my shoes and find my way. Dentists, 12 step programs, schools and churches, shelters, money, roofs and tables. Light in the dark. Good people, and bad.

I know Him in everything, hear Him all around, feel Him inside and out - but I don't see Him.

Those who say they see God - could it be they're just pretending?

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Back in the days when radio reigned supreme, before TV, I was a child, as children are, rich in curiosity and imagination.

I listened to the music, wondering where it came from.

It seemed to be made by the radio. I concluded the musicians had to be in there, somewhere. Went looking for them - without success.

I expanded the search by using my mum’s knitting needles. When at the end of the needle I heard a sound - “Ouch!” - I figured it was them reacting to the knitting needle, as I would in their place.

My parents never knew about it.

Now is today.

I listen to people expressing thoughts, wondering where they come from. It seems the thoughts are made by the people themselves. I conclude the making of thoughts happens "in there" somewhere, mostly in peoples' heads.

I'm told no-one has ever seen a thought in anyone's head, dead or alive, much less captured one. Large, powerful teams of people keep looking, using technology way more advanced than my mother's knitting needles. They find traces of thoughts, and additional evidence. The actual thoughts themselves - unfathomable, Loch Ness Monster-like, rumored to exists, but ...

We keep looking. Rather like the cat chasing the red dot at the end of the laser beam made by the toy specially made for cats.

What if our "mind sets" are to thoughts what "radio sets" are to music?
What if our thoughts aren't ours? What if they are in reality out there?
With the spirits and angels, with love and fear?
What if they come through us, but not of us?

What if mind sets, just like radio sets, come with buttons and dials, to tune in and tune out, to up the volume and reduce it, to switch on and switch off?

Wouldn't that be something?!
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The ponies run
The girls are young
The odds are there to beat
You win a while
And then it’s done
Your little winning streak. .............(Leonard Cohen)

I didn't know what had hit me.
My very own little winning streak - had come to an end.
It felt like crashing down a ravine in a speeding car.
Down.
Down.
Down.

When it stops there's nothing left but me and a place of stark darkness.
A locked see-through gate, me on one side, the place of stark darkness on the other.
A pair of red eyes are looking straight at me.
It has got to be me they're looking at.
No-one else around.
What does he want? Of me?

Think I'm kiddin'? I'm not.

I do a u-turn, a never to re-turn.
Run.
Run.
Run.

I arrive in a vision of myself walking a war ravaged town.
I walk into a burned out building, down a blackened corridor.
At the end of the corridor, into a burned out room.
There's a boy standing there, not moving, his back to me.
A suitcase next to him, posed on the floor.
He's looking out the windowless window.

I walk up to him, take his hand in mine.
He looks at me, with big dark wishful eyes.

His eyes are mine.
I had forgotten.

I re-member.
We leave the building hand in hand and walk away.
Away.
Away.
Away.

We see colors, trees, rainbows, birds, blooms, skies, the faces of people passing by, friends shaking hands.

Here I am.
Writing lines. Like these, like this.
Grateful.
Grateful.
Grateful.
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Way back - I was in 8th grade - I sat in class, among friends, listening to grown-ups talk of things I didn't comprehend. Suddenly, as if caught red-handed committing a crime, I was pulled out of that classroom. Turns out I was a Protestant child in a Catholics class. How'd they know? Confused the bejeezus out of me. How many Gods are there?

A few years later, same school. I'm now a 12th grader. My class has made it all the way to pre-renaissance 16th century - you with me? On the menu, Galileo. The way I understand it, the man came up with the idea that the observable universe provides a fairer picture - of the universe - than a description of said universe in a book. The church insisted the book was it. Tried as hard as they could, they really did - "If you weren't so stupid, we could explain to you how stupid you are".

For good measure they took him to court. 'T was twitchy bum time for Galileo. The putting to death of people for religious reasons was the sport of the day, back then. In the end he got away with just "vehemently suspect of heresy" – technical speak for "short of the death sentence".

It's yet another few years later. Out of school now. Made it all the way to the then-present, 1969, the middle ages a mere memory.

As if at every turn Christians are saying, given the power, we are just as likely to commit crimes against humanity as any godless dictator.

From merely confused I graduated to offended, insulted and angry. Smart.
And threw God out together with the rest of it. Dumb.

But that's an altogether different story. Possibly material for upcoming posts.

Many years later, the closer I get to God, the farther I find myself from religion.

You?

Have you ever been asked why you're not enjoying the abundant life?

Has the question ever been put to you? Maybe one day it will. It has only just recently been put to me for the first time. I'm no spring chicken.

Fell right into the trap, too, like a spring chicken would, actually. The trap of letting the thought in - the thought that life isn't abundant, that there's something missing, that the universe is made of lack.

There is no such thing as an unabundant life. Life, by definition, is abundant.

But thoughts don't know that, nor do they care. So once inside, the unabundant thought dutifully did its job, locating plenty of reasons, explanations and excuses, even facts. Hard to believe all the stuff that comes up once no stone is left unturned. The stand-out rationale it came up with: the abundant life was never meant for you.

By the time I caught myself and became aware, I was fully prepared to answer the question.

Instead I showed the thought back out. Spent a little time counting my blessings instead. Felt better. Thankful that someone should have asked me the question, after all this time.

Realized that the one who had asked, only did so knowing beforehand that I would stumble upon the only answer sooner or later. It took me a little while, which is alright.

The episode reminds me of when, on Easter Sunday, I would hide painted eggs for my son only in places I knew he'd find.

North Georgia mountains.

October.

7 am.

Left the cabin. Made it down to the lake in darkness. The night before we had lit a bonfire here, and shared stories.

But this is day break. I'm by myself. Better.

The sky is dark to one side, bright to the other. Sun rise magic.

Clouds of magic rising from the lake. Mist, dense as fog, mingling with the air, dancing, swirling, kissing the autumn leaves attached to branches, attached to the tree, attached to the ground I'm standing on. The lake responding to the air pressing against it with playful gravity. Love making of the spheres. Trees awakening ... the colors they have on their minds, the sun king is showing it to them, and is making them shine. Dylan woven into the fabric. As real as Mt. Fuji and the Kalahari Desert. Birds taking to the air, amplifying and adding to the energy. The world in a state of water just about to boil. The night in a state of cocoon just about to free the butterfly. Goodbye, Hello.

What looked separate - the trees, path, lake, water, air, sky, grass and I - are whispering in unison: we're all separate and one at the same time, and so are you ... it's safe to let go, if you so desire ... the ocean refuses no river.

I hear it and believe it. Then I return to the camp, to the breakfast hall, to fresh coffee and omelettes, and the friendly voices of people.

To the North Georgia Mountains.