Contemplations of the Ghostlike

Caliginous Moments

Appearances are deceiving. Prison is not without, it's within. The open door is a hurdle; Freedom a sadistic joke. There are no knights; Just people living their own lives. There are no saints; Only those who wear costumes. There are no sinners; Just people struggling to survive. There is no safe place; You can always be found. There is no refuge; Existence is pain. Sanctuary is a mirage; Encouraged by hunters to calm their prey. Love is an illusion; Fanned to life by poets and romantics. Devotion is the thing of myth; The facade that is easiest to abandon. Loyalty is the fabric of story; The fabled stuff of heroe's and glory. Bravery is not the thing of soldiers and war; Courage rests with the helpless. Those trapped and unknown; Refusing to accept that merely breathing is failure.

As long as you are not hurting anyone (including pets), I don't care what your doing.

Frankly due to things that happened to me when I was younger, I have spent a good portion of my life alone, secluded, and not around “people”...I never much cared what anyone did, as long as no one (including pets as I said) got/gets hurt.

Now I live in a place where no one has much more to do than gossip.

The neighbor watches when the car leaves, comes back, when you mow the lawn, get visitors, dog barks...you name it the folks around you...someone is paying too much attention.

Sometimes I want to scream “get a life”...but they choose to observe yours rather than live theirs.

I go to visit an older couple, who will openly watch the neighbors, tell you what they do when, and ponder (while your there) how those kids that arrived 3 weeks after the initial couple got there, belong there, but they always seem to be there.

One neighbor is a lay-about, who deserved to have his wife leave him, and the others finally bought a hot tub, instead of renting one.

I do not delude myself into thinking that these folks are “special” or different than many of the other neighbors we have, it just brings me to the point of wanting to put up walls around my yard so that I have some privacy.

Anyone suffering from anxiety in its many forms, will agree that this is now conducive to “relaxing”...when they are mowing the boulevard I have this feeling of invasion/pressure, that encourages my dog and I to find a place to cocoon ourselves...someone I don't know “inside” the house? We are locked in the bedroom for the duration...this is my space...the only space we can relax.

I can't ride a bike...vertigo notwithstanding...the lack of “cover”, being out in the open, makes the whole attempt fail from the word go.

Summer is the time of the local “peepers” to get their gossip on.

The sad thing is, as they talk about others to me, I wonder what they are saying to others about me?

And I am reticent to return for another visit...go outside to do yard-work...interact with small minds/big mouths about me.

I hate being sick...see the Dr. then she gives you antibiotics, sends you for blood work and xrays...by the time you get home your wiped out but can't sleep.

My dog...she is a very smart, devoted, loyal, loving dog...not that she does not have foibles, or imperfections. Frankly, I wish I had as few imperfections as she does...and I realize that her imperfections stem from my anxieties.

As we settle in to watch some t.v. I listen to her breathing, much like a snore...but she is awake...which worries me.

I wake up to listen and make sure I hear her breathing.

Love my baby.

Feelings...are subjective...they are not proof... ...because we FEEL something is a certain way does not make it a fact.

We all live in our own bubbles of reality, sometimes our bubbles touch others but they keep us isolated...separate...safe...alone...depressed...alive...pick a description that fits.

I can not understand what someone in some other country is feeling, surviving, enjoying, thinking...we can empathize...but we are not them...you are not me.

I think that is what enables stigma, judgements on others...censure...abuse.

No one can claim to know my life, I can not claim to know theirs.

Surveillance cameras and dogs

Saying my dog means the world to me is like saying we need air to live, she is the nucleus of my world.

She has health issues, and I worry (no really? someone with social/general anxiety and ptsd worries?), so I got web cams to keep an eye on her while I am at work.

One day, I peaked in at her from work and found her sitting on the bed, staring right at the webcam. Fixed. Long.

Now, nothing has changed, except she spends all day in the 2 places none of the web cams can view.

She hates having her picture taken... ...and now apparently she is avoiding surveillance.

I am wearing a dog... ...if we get any closer she is going to be typing for me.

This is an indication of thunder somewhere in the storm overhead, she hears it way before me...so I get to spend time cuddling the usually semi aloof Rhodesian Ridgeback that I adore to pieces, and who keeps me sane.

She is a beauty.

Water toxicity... ...why it irritates me when people go on about drinking a gallon of water a day on a challenge... ...when they really mean ½ that, and do not go into the facts about water toxicity.

I am all for positive changes to help improve health, but this also comes with awareness of others when you start to promote it.

In 2002, a Boston Marathon runner died of hyponatremia, “a condition often resulting from over hydration, which depletes essential minerals from the body, causing disorientation, illness and in rare cases, death.”

You would think that this would be something we knew about but even spell check wants to tell me that hyponatremia, is wrong and change it to hypothermia.

To prove how little people noticed the initial incident, even those doing marathons, in 2018 a runner in the London Marathon collapsed due to the same thing, however she survived.

I don't know where the saying comes from, but “too much of a good thing CAN kill you”, that includes that which most of us take for granted: Water.

You see those warnings on almost everything we buy, don't do such n such, and laugh...but those warnings exist because someone probably did it, or something much like it. Most of the laws that exist are not for the people who do things right, they are for the individuals that are challenged in the common sense department.

When we discuss how good a thing can be, like drinking water, we should include a note about not going overboard...because some people do think if a little bit is good, a whole lot must be better.

The conversation about the great benefits of water, need to include the negatives, because even after a death at the Boston Marathon, someone in the London Marathon nearly did the same thing.

Just a thought.

Truth

No one owns truth, there is no your truth, my truth or their truth...truth is.

Versions of events, are not our truths, because truth is not subjective, it is what it is..much as I hate that phrase.

My version of events, is not my truth, it is what I know about what happened.

If you ask someone a question about something they say happened, some will say “it's my truth”...no it is what you remember or perceived of what happened.

Eye witness testimony has been known to be “false” because it is from a subjective personal viewpoint, shaded by perception of anything that may influence recall, or viewpoint.

Everything has more than 1 subjective view if there is more than a video camera involved.

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If a mind can buffer like a streaming movie I think mine is the words twist fade and start over