choose peace

Choose peace. I had dinner with a new neighbor and as I got to know her over the 2 hour conversation I was taken aback at the level of fear she exists in. It seems to cripple her. Not an alcoholic nor drug addict, her fear levels exceed even the level I use to exist in. Here is the thing that confused me. She mentioned her faith 2 dozen times and even spoke of specific passages in the Christian bible. She falls into the same catagory that several of my relatives fall in, those who have faith and don't use to to live a fearless life.

What good is faith, why have it if you don't USE IT? My life transformed when I realized that no matter what happened, I would find a way to be OK. I don't have the paralyzing creepy dread that a catastrophe was going to occur it it was going to consume me. Because of this psychic / spiritual change, I don't fear making mistakes or failing at something I've tried anymore. I have proper concerns about general safety, I still lock doors at night.

Fear is a monster. One baffling aspect of fear is it makes it's victims mistakenly crave more things to fear. The most fearful people i know, even those who are faithful in religion, sit around and watch endless cable news broadcast. As if they don't have enough powerlessness in their lives, they consume stories of terror and of viruses without cures like a kid would consume cotton candy.

My good fortune is that I had an issue with substance abuse that led me to a program thought taught me a way of living which eliminates 90 percent of my fears on a moment to moment basis. I have been known to say out loud when my head/fear tries a hostile take over, "This is not real". Fear lies and it lays in wait.

I was taught worry by the master growing up and she has and still does dedicate her life to worrying about things that a) she has no power over and b) that never happened. I'd rather die than to slip back into a world that is filled with blind fear and abject terror. Running from monsters that only exist in my head and in my sleep and daytime nightmares.

Fear is a product of thought. One fearful thought triggers a chemical response that feeds the next fearful though. It is the anatomy of panic attacks. Panic attacks were what led me to anxiety meds which I quickly learned were great fun to take handfuls at a time.

My hope for my neighbor and all those I know who are trapped in the darkness of fear, or terror is they find away to shine some light into their spirits filled with monsters. My advice is first off, turn off the damn news channel, don't read the paper and stop watching hours and hours of crime shows weekly. Some folks can handle it and some like me just can't just like some people can drink and it not consume them alcoholicly. I haven't watched the news in five years and I don't have news channels anymore. I haven't missed a thing and haven't been caught "not knowing" any vital information that could harm me.

There is a little syndicated show that prides itself on stories "you need to know". "AMERICA NOW- They have stories like, "What is living on your hairbrush that can kill you", "Your baby can die if you don't know these tips". All they do is package little fear bites and tease the fear based people into tuning. They run 2 episodes a day in my area.

America may like to call itself "faith based' but its fear based. Politicians and religious leaders take that fear and use it to herd huge groups of people into "swallowing whatever Koolaide" they are peddling. Five years ago i asked nearly everyone I knew, "If you were going to be hit by a train would you want to see it coming?". My truth was I had spent decades trainspotting and it got me know where. My answer to the question now is, "NOPE", I don't want to see it coming, if something is going to happen, I do want to waste the only moment of life I have waiting for devastation. I choose to live without blind fear and I'll deal with the train when it gets here.

The most destructive habit I've ever had is the habit of "Thinking". For decades I tried to "think" myself to sleep at night and the result was disastrous. I grew up thinking that if I were clever enough, if I thought hard and fast enough that I could escape whatever it was that I wanted to get away from. I mistaking thought I could think my way out of whatever I found displeasing. I found out in my forties that "thinking" is it's own kind of prison. To have thoughts you can't turn off is quite frankly torture. The things that are unpleasant or disruptive on the outside of me are far less frustrating that what goes on inside my head and in my thoughts.

The the key to freedom from my thoughts is to find a way to live in the present moment. When I am in this moment I have everything I need and I have no need to be "Clever". The past no longer exist and the future takes care of itself when I exist in my own breath of being. Anxiety only exist when I am trying to exist in the future. There is no anxiety when I am in the moment, just a mindful state of being. Stress lets me know I am not in the moment.

The the biology of stress is an interesting issue, anxiety causes inflammation. Inflammation causes disease. That is how we make ourselves sick with worry and stress. Worry's cumulative effect over time is disease causing.

The kicker about giving away our moment to worry is, no matter how hard or how good we worry, we can't change the outcome or consequences of events we stress over. We have given away all the possibility of peace because we choose to future trip rather than LIVE the moment we are breathing in.

I mention often, to anyone that listens to me about my realization of just because I was born human didn't mean I knew how to be a human. We have to be shown what forgiveness looks like, we have to be shown how you treat and how you speak to those you love, we have to be shown what to do with anger. We don't simply know how to do these things just because we were born human.

I guess I'm lucky because I have the natural desire to research stuff. I have a curiosity about why I act and react the way I do and why others act and react the way they do. I'm naturally drawn to they "why" behind the "thing". The more I look and the more I find the deeper I understand the whole "being a human" thing. My life is enriched exponentially when I take the experience of being human that others have had and apply it to my own.

When I got off from work last night I watched a documentary called "Hitler's GI Death Camp". I had no idea whether they taught it in school and I wasn't paying attention or if they just didn't teach it at all, but I had no idea that a couple hundred American GI's where in the Nazi death camps as POW's. Endless footage was shown from inside the camps of Jews from every where and our GI"s. You know that feeling, that brief split second when you are about to burst into uncontrollable sobs? I was hung right at that spot for nearly an hour. To say it was uncomfortable would be an understatement of a lifetime.

They had interviewed of 3 or 4 American Service men recalling their harrowing two months in the death camp and my soul hurt so bad from their stories that I wanted to turn the thing off. An American mind, under the age of 60 cannot fathom what hell the people in the camps endured. If there had not been video footage and photos, even I with the most imagination of anyone I know couldn't dream up the Godless terror the people withstood. To be so hungry you ate the lice on your body and leaves from frozen trees is not a thing I would have ever been able to dream up. After the show ended I was completely utterly gutted.

This morning, I realized that because i took the time to watch this show, about the human experience these people had, to expose myself to the story of another, I understand my humanity better. Would I have died or would I be one of the GI's that had such a desire to live they ate lice? How did they find a way to get past all of it when the few servicemen left living got home? How did they not just shut down permanently. how did they not be consumed with anger and hate?

. The more I expose myself to the experience and stories of others, the more I understand about myself. I'm not really sure I ever dreamed I could watch a film or TV show and have and the more possibility I create. You know, it touched the place inside me that I always held behind locked gates but it happens now on a regular basis. When I remove fear and ego and am in a place of connected-ness and centered-ness I can allow your experience at being human to greatly enhance my experience at being human. I can use your experience to deepen and enhance my own. We get to do that for each other when we aren't crippled by self centered fear and hurt.

I looked into the eyes of the living servicemen interviewed in fancy High Definition and you could see the look of a men who will never be able to unsee, unfeel what they saw and felt, yet they moved on and found lives for themselves. As a human, I need to see what is capable, what I am capable of and a great deal of that comes from me finding out the story of others. We have to learn how to be human, we don't automatically know how to do that. Just because i was born with ten pink toes and ten pink fingers doesn't mean I know how to live as a human.

The name of the film on Netflix is "Hilter's G.I. Death Camp" and I defy anyone with any sense of God about them to watch the hour and not be deeply affected by it. It's hard to believe that one human would have the power to do order up such evil. It's just as hard though for me to imagine going through that horror and finding a way to live a life afterward that has any love and light to eat, but it appears they found a way. THAT my friends is TRIUMPH OF HUMAN SPIRIT and that is exactly what I need to see often, regularly and in technicolor. I don't want to waste my limited run in the human experience box office of life.

I really adored Mr. Cogar's thoughts on empathy. It certainly has not been something I set out for in my life as a special interest to cultivate, but the more spiritually evolved I become the more empathetic I become. Empathy requires that we reserve judgment. It was a huge moment for me when I realized I could be very disappointed for a person without being disappointed in a person.

When we recognize the part of us that is spirit/high power/God, it makes it impossible not to see the spirit part in others regardless of how at odds it is with the human part at the time. Humans are so messy. Driven by countless fears and an egoic mind set that insist we be right at all times, we are all, ALL of us very hard to love at times. I guess my own definition for empathy is to be willing to see the spirit trying in someone regardless of their circumstance.

There are different types of empathy and they boil down sometimes to the difference in being "store bought" or "homemade". The "Store bought" variety can be categorized when you acknowledge struggle of another from a brain/cognitive point of view. The "Homemade" variety is when you live in a state of connection to spirit and gratitude that your spirit is producing it's own source of Empathy, the emotional, spiritual connection with others.

Both a valid and both are good, but those who find their way to an empathetic state of being by thinking themselves there, will never experience the power of connection with the story of others through the spirit- empathetic awareness. There has long been detailed the people who take musical lessons and learn the fingering and the counting of the notes but never ever are able to convey the emotions of the pieces they play. There is a component to spirit that is lacking in them. Their dedication and study still is hard work that must have acknowledgment but they cannot interpret the passion of the piece the way that others do without trying. 

Not everyone has the capacity to feel the plight or passion of others. Being empathetic and compassion is very difficult in the aspect that if you don't learn how to manage what I believe to be spiritual gifts, they can easily overwhelm you. 

Every year I get a little angry at all the people trying to bust the door down of the Mission on 80 trying to serve "Thanksgiving and Christmas" to the unfortunate. If I worked there I would ask them, "would you consider June 3 or August 6th, we have all the compassionate folks we need for Christmas and Thanksgiving". "Can u still find it important to serve some Parker House Dinner Rolls when it isn't an act designed by you to make you feel better about yourself while doing the least amount possible".

That is an example of "Store Bought" empathy. It's too planned and calculated. Real empathy is only possible for those of us who know that, "What we have is enough", "Giving you a break" won't leave me without one, "Recognizing your struggle", won't sweep me into it and all of us have monsters two inches from our tails and most of us just no how to disguise the panic better than others.

It's long been said that we are spiritual beings having a human experience and I know personally speaking when I operate from spirit, I have no trouble at all honoring and acknowledging the struggle and pain of others. It is only when my ego and "human" concerns overshadow my gratitude that I forget that judgment is not necessary. I lose nothing, NOTHING by acknowledging your struggle and I gain a connection to spirit that cannot be found any other way.

People want to go immediately to the sick or homeless when they picture struggle. I've been aware and lucky enough to have learned to look wherever I am. I know a single mother starting to work full time for the first time in years. She's frightened and she's doing it. I know a mother who's two children are at an age where they clearly see their father can't stop drinking. I know a teenager who has to go live with relatives he didn't even know he had in order to stay out of foster care. I know old people who can't afford their medicine. I know a young girl who just realized she is obese when the kids at school pointed it out. I know several people who work as hard as long as they can and they can't pay their bills. The stories of the human condition fill the pages and the hours of the history of the world. I haven't forfeited a thing by having concern for them.

I lose nothing by seeing and validating your struggle. The Ego says I need to fix the struggle but the spirit only asks me to acknowledge 

Complex and alternately beautiful laws of God come in to play when I try to explain this inexpiable truth, we are all connected. When I honor your struggle with acknowledgement I honor my own, loving you when you make it very difficult to even like you, I gain my own self acceptance. When I honor the part of God in you, the part of God in me expands exponentially. 

Gratitude, empathy and compassion are the three ingredients that give me a good life today. They keep my spirit growing, my human side (ego) in check and they make me feel almost on a daily basis, it's all worth showing up for.

I'll end with this. When I was young I had a Beagle. It' was a sweet sweet dog without a vicious bone in it's body. One day it got hit by a car and my dad rushed out to help it and it tried to bite my dad's hand off. When we are led by pain and fear, real or imagined, all of us, are very hard to love. Empathy AND Compassion help me look beyond the ugliness of pain and see a spirit in crisis.

That helps me get through my day.

Clinton Gandy

Gladewater, Texas

I spent the whole day doing whatever I wanted to do. Ate some good food, stopped by and fixed my mom's computer and even played some keno for a couple of hours. I had a sobering thought when I sat down at home finally that came from left field, There are mother's, fathers, sisters and brothers who spent their whole day trying to get enough food to survive one more day. I'm very thankful my primary goal for the day didn't have to be find enough food for my kids to not starve to death today. I'm not sure I am built for that kind of survival mode. So what I do or don't watch on Netflix and what temperature I set the air on for bed for the night is just about as high as high class problems as they come. Color me GRATEFUL as I know how to be.

My phone's gps kind of screws me now and then, but I learned something about living more fully and peacefully from it yesterday. For reasons unknown to me, sometimes my gps decides to change languages without warning. I was trying to find a thrift store in Tyler and I was in a part of the city I had never been through. GPS went Japanese on me and I missed the turn I wanted. I fought back the urge to yell at the cheerful Asian voice coming from my phone. I looked down and the gps said, "Re-calibrating".

It was so simple. I missed the turn, I'd have to rely on another way to get to where I was going. It would be fantastic to be a human with the ability to give ourselves freely the permission to "Recalibrate" when it looks like we have missed a turn in our lives. The fact is there is probably millions of ways to get to where i want to go, but I sure can beat the hell out of myself when I miss a turn.

Re-calibrating and re-configuring are super powers we humans when we have the PRESENCE of mind to stop and adjust our little plans. One of my favorite things to tell myself when something doesn't go the way I want it to is "This story is not going to end as you want it to, move on". When I come to acceptance, that place where the fact that things are or not the way I want then ceases to be an issue. It is what it is and I have the choice of growing roots where I am or recalibrating.

Just for today, I give myself permission to re-calibrate whenever necessary and without personal judgement. "This road isn't going to take you where you want to go". Recognize that and look for the alternate route.

In the end, there will be a piece of land. A small strip of land where our lives played out on, the highs the lows, the laughs the tears. Our stories while deathly important to us in the now, in the "then" won't even be a foot note in history. The place where medals were awarded for dreams and work of a life time will rightfully be relegated to being a decaying concrete platform in the middle of an empty field like this medals podium from a former Olympics. How many things in my life that seemed like the most important thing in the world have been laughingly right sized by time and perspective. Life has a way of right-sizing all of us. Take away the TV cameras and the pageantry and human emotion and all you have left is a piece of land where a story played out on. The earth came first and it will truly tell the final tale. One strip of land where the story of Clinton Gandy unfolded, where he clomped and stomped and occasionally chewed the scenery in an epic grand opera revolving his search for significance. I don't know why I find it such an appealing idea of the future stories of strangers that will be told right where my feet are standing now. It does appeal to me though. There is peace is the idea that my story is just another human story that plays out on the planet which is the third rock from the sun. It's my story, I'm happy to have it and I"m interested in seeing how it wraps up but just to know it's no more important than yours or less important allows me to enjoy the moment of being here. I"m thankful to have cast a shadow on the earth long enough to find and accept my place on it. I'm so thankful just to have the time to tell the story, to live the story these days. I guess we all have "decaying medal platforms" where ego and pageantry prevailed. I think of painstakingly carved graffiti in wooden tables. The simple epitaph of "Clinton Was Here" scratched into the surface will be sufficient. The simple fact I got to be here is enough. The idea that billions of people saw gold and silver medals awarded on this platform and it to be now in an unkempt parcel of land really speaks volumes about humanity. I'm good with words but I can't seem to verbalize the significance of this photo to my spirit. I've looked at it a dozen times. It's haunting. I love knowing that someone elses story will play out in the apartment I live in right this minute, someone else will have the job I have this minute, I love knowing that life and land go on when I no longer am cells filled with water casting a shadow. It makes my life on a daily basis much easier to know I am not the end all be all of anything. I am properly, right sized and grateful to be , as my buddy Frank T. used say, "fully clothed and in my right mind".

Depression is very much the same phenomenon as childbirth. Unless you have actually been through the human occurrence you will never be able to have a breathing comprehension of either of them. All the most talented writers in the world can not accurately depict pain like that with words so average Joe can comprehend. 

If you don't know how someone with money and fame could kill themselves, you should count yourself one of the luckiest people on the planet. I understand completely when people take their own lives. I've been a double winner because I have both clinical depression and an addiction that allows me to use most anything chemical to the point of destruction.

The first time I knew that something was wrong with me was in fourth grade. I woke up and my soul hurt so much I couldn't get out of bed. I had no idea what caused that complete collapse of feelings and hope but it was real and it was profound.

In my teenage years I began to self medicate with food then alcohol. The worst thing in the world a person with depression can do is use a depressant like alcohol. Beyond the temporary euphoric sensations, the use of alcohol sets up deeper darker depression.

In the 90's with the birth of Prozac, I pinned my hopes on the little pill with the big buzz in the recovery world. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when it did nothing for me. From the year of 1992 to about 2010, I was tried out on 33 different medications to alleviate the darkness and pain I carried with me.

In 2010 my psychiatrist of a decade or more looked me dead in the eyes and "Clinton, there is no pill on the market that is going to fix what is wrong with you. The best I can help you do is use medication to get you on stable enough ground that if you want to feel better, it's up to you to do the work to make it happen". H may have said it before or this could have been the first time, but I HEARD it this day.

I realized at that moment, I had been looking for a pill to fix me.  I thought, there was a pill on the planet that would fill in all my cracks, to magically give me coping skills or to make me whole in a way I never was. I heard what he told me and did just that. I got sober, took the meds he prescribed and started crawling out of my isolation. I learned coping skills by going into weekly therapy and joining a 12 step group.

There is a darkness that once it settles inside a human susceptible to despair, that light cannot reach. One aspect of my depression is my mind never shut off. It constantly was trying to produce an idea that would get me out of the misery. I didn't sleep because I tried to think myself to sleep at night. There is a point when no matter what the cost, you are compelled to quiet the mind.

I lost a friend last year to a violent bloody suicide. Some people were shocked. I undersood. I have a weird reaction to suicide. I always feel like nodding my head and saying I understand. I understand not being able to find a way out of the thought storms inside your head. There are millions and millions of people who have no idea the torture of thoughts that won't turn off, a mind that will not settle. For some of us, hope has been a suckers bet. I ache for all those lost in plain sight, a thick glass wall separates some of us unlucky bastards that keeps us from touching all the good stuff.We watch the lives of others like looking at newborns in the hospital. Just out of reach and our nose pressed against the thick last window.

 I say this about Robin Williams as I have said about my friend Rusty's successful suicide last year, I hope that he finds the peace in death that eluded him in life. I believe that whatever put the universe together is merciful.  I know a lot of "early exits" and I nod in understanding to each one. I respect others pain today and I understand despair from the inside out. Just because I have strung some very good days together doesn't mean one day I might be looking for my own early exit. I'm sure Robin didn't dream it would end this way either. The world can be shocked and horrified but I, completely understand.

Just for today, I have a reprieve. I am not cured and the specter of doom and despair always waits for me should I quit doing the things I have to do in order to function like a whole person.

I have a warning to all those people that judge Robin Williams and the "Robins" of the world, until you have been wrapped in another's despair or trapped in a mind that won't turn off, you are not qualified to judge. Pain that doesn't end will drive humans to desperate measures.

The famous line about suicide is that it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and I think the person that said it never fought with the monster of Depression. It is hideous, heinous and it robs all of us,those who suffer with it and those who love the sufferer.

Think for yourself, draw your own conclusions.

I've never been a good follower. It seems to me that one draw of gang mentality young people have is that there is seemingly stability and safety joining other lost angry souls banded together to claim spaces and properties. They use hand codes and colors to signal to the world this is who I am. I am gang member X. In theory, there is stability of sorts and safety when we join giant herds of folks. In reality they are telling us what to think and what to wear and who to love and which to vote for.

There are times I have so desperately wished that i could just "drink the Koolaide" and follow the cows in the mindless herd. I wished I WERE Democrat or Republican or a Rotarian or even a Shriner just to name a few ready-made herds to fall into. It is easier to follow than to think original thoughts. It's easy to go with what is popular and ignore all signs my spirit is hurling at me that this doesn't fit me, this isn't for me, this is someone else's idea of safety, someone else's idea of "right" , someone else's idea of what is right.

I wasn't raised to think independently. It's not something I learned how to do in the home or in the school. I sort of came to earth with an immunity to herd mentality. I never fell into a group that wanted to think for me that felt "right". Even in Narcotics Anonymous which I credit solely for making a human out of me, the main goal for members is to quit using and have our own unique, one of a kind experience as a sober human,so that we can share our EXPERIENCE with others.

It suffocates me when I see smart, thoughtful people manipulated by news channels, talking heads, media outlets ran people people who need them to be so frightened and concerned about losing what is already theirs, or not getting what they someday want, they happilly turn over pocket books and votes to the man with the loudest microphone. Fearful people, panicked people can be taught to dance like puppets because they no longer listen to their own production of thoughts and feelings about what is right or wrong.

I don't see how that could be a very spiritually or emotionally fulfilling way to live.Giant religious organizations depend on people not asking questions, our government would rather us not delve into all of the comings and going and financials of them. People have to be held accountable in some form or another and that requires someone to question things.

At the birth of our Nation, someone started the thought process that England taxing the crap out of the Settlers was intolerable. Average people started the underground railroad to get slaves out of hell in the south. My head and spirit cannot wrap themselves around the idea that no one close to Hitler didn't object to his crazy plan and his murderous. heinous acts and kill him when his back was turned.

Edmond Burke wrote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".

That happens when no one is thinking original thoughts, no one is coming up with their own ideas about what is right or wrong in their own eyes. I have no desire , to live disconnected from my own experience. If I dress like you, wear my hair like you, talk like you, or vote like you, I would be having YOUR experience and not my own. I am clear about many things, one central one is I am a spirit having a human experience. That experience needs to be my own. No, it has to be. I need medication when I'm not living my own truth. I need medication in order to try and kill off the part of me that says "This isn't right", the part of me that knows the good part of me is comatosed.

The very human side of me knows it would be easier to fall into a ready made identity as a human. It would be too easy for my human part to embrace the identity of being an Aggie or a Longhorn, a Tea Partier, a Christian, a Buddhist and stop there. Like manufactured homes that come with furniture, homes that all you have to do is hang your clothes in the closet and BAM! You are done. Do we Embrace any of the prefab identities and just be done with the hard questions of "Who the hell am i" and "What do I believe"?

If it weren't for the part of me connected to something BIGGER than me, it would be easy to submit to a ready made me. The truth for me is, it isn't fulfilling to be a Lemming. I was born rejecting the categories that humans are suppose to fall into. My instinct wants to say I tried very hard to fit in the shadow boxes that the world created that let others know who we are and what we are about, but I think maybe I never really did try that hard. I understood from the get-go on some level beneath my thought that "this cutout" wasn't me. The real pain came for shoving my big foot into someone else's tiny shoe.

I've learned to love the fact that I have my own perspective. I see things differently that anyone I know. It's great to bump into someone that shares some common views with me but, it isn't my end game strategy. I'm here for MY own strange, trippy, trip. This is my spiritual journey in human form and it would be the biggest waste in the history of man for me to let someone else be in charge of my journey. I'm responsible. I'm responsible for what I know, and one thing I know is no one can think for me, love for me, live for me or learn for me. I am responsible for my journey, I am responsible for myself. Today, just for today, I am responsible.

In the end, and I do mean the very end, it will not matter what title is in front of my name or the letters and designations that do/do not follow it. It will not matter what a big fine house I lived in or it will not matter what a big fine car I drove. At that end, what I did strictly for me , dies with me.  All that will remain is the ripple effect of the things I  touched with kindness, love and forgiveness.. I hope my ripple effect reflects the touch of peace. the touch of creativity. the touch of compassion, the touch of grace and the joy of laughter. When I lay down in that fateful field of strangers or my ashes take flight into the four winds, I hope I’ve left a ripple, that then became a wave.