From outside the box

Twilight was setting in as I came to halt, almost at the end of my run around Bidwell park. I had been jogging on the park road that runs along Woodland Ave. Thru the trees I could see the light glowing in the bay window across the street. The scene was familiar, one that I had grown up with. But watching it this time was different because I knew that everything was about to change, this scene would soon be a distant memory.

The year was 1989. The house on Woodland Ave. that I was starring into was the house my parents lived in. Inside the large bay window my Dad sat reading the newspaper and across the room Mom was sewing. My Dad was in his eighties and had recently been diagnosed with bone cancer. He had a few months left, at best. For several minutes I just stood there and took in the scene. "Someday, years from now I will be walking along this road, at this very spot, and I will glance over at the same house, and I will remember this moment", I thought to myself as I stood there in the dim twilight drinking in every detail. I thought of the Carly Simon song that says, "These are the good old days", and they were. I sent the scene into the future, like a postcard being sent to myself via time travel. Later that year my Dad passed away. A few years later, in 1993, cancer would take my mother as well.

Today I was walking my dogs in the park and came upon the same spot I stood at almost 19 years ago. I remembered the postcard I sent myself all those years ago, and decided to retrieve it. As I stood there in the park this afternoon, starring across the street into the same bay window, I swear that I could almost see two old folks sitting in the living room, reading and sewing.

If there is one thing that older people understand better than younger people, it is that time passes so quickly. The older you get, the faster time seems to go by. As I stood there today, gazing across the street, it seemed like it was only last night I was watching my parents thru the same window. I was thankful to myself for taking a few minutes to take that mental picture back in 1989.

Actually, I take these kinds of snap shots all the time. I'm always sending myself postcards into the future. Some get lost along the way, but many of them get retrieved. I retrieved another one just the other day as I was driving out to Oroville. Several years ago I was driving by the swamps out there where they are now working on the new overpasses by highway 70. There was a bull standing out in the middle of the swamp in water up his thighs. There wasn't any other bulls or cows around. He was silhouetted against the setting sun, a true Kodak moment. Since I didn't have a real camera with me, I took a mental picture and sent it off into the future as a time traveling post card.

Life is full of these special moments. If you keep your eyes open, you will know them when you see them. Norman Rockwell used to paint pictures of them. Next time you see one, take a mental picture and send yourself a postcard. The postage is free and you never know when you will get mail from yourself. It's always a pleasant surprise.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The right wing spin machine is at it again. I don't know why they hate Moveon.org so much when all they have ever done is try to keep politicians honest. Well duh...that must be why. How dare anybody in this country call a liar a liar! Moveon.org ran that add in the New York Times because General Petraeus's report to congress stinks of politics. Why are we not to believe the president is cherry picking his information when he choose to ignore the recommendations of the 911 commission report? Every news report has said that the last three months in Iraq have been the bloodiest of any summer months since the war began. According to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre way of keeping tabs on violence. They no longer count car bombings and assassinations don't count if your shot in the front of the head, only the back. What's going on?

Every independent report has shown that the surge strategy has not worked. The proponets of the surge will talk about an area coming under our control because of the surge but ignore the fact that we lost another or violence surged in another area because we moved the troops around. Everything about this war has been cherry picked from the reasons that were used to go to war, to the information that is used to report how the war is going, and now, even the way we sum up the violence. So why should we believe the good general? Are we really supposed to follow our leaders like blind sheep and believe every word even when they are caught time and time again lying and manipulating the truth? We didn't let Clinton get away with it and we should not let this administration get away with it. Why are we so easily caught up in patriotic fervor just because they keep throwing manipulative words and phrases at us? Support the troops, terrorists, 911.... my God, are we really that easy to control?

I hope that liberals are wrong about this war. I hope this war really is necessary because I'd hate to think these thousands of kids died and billions were spent for no good reason other than corporate profits. But when you have a party in control that listens to religious dogma over science, and puts corporate welfare ahead of the people they were elected to serve, then why should we believe anything they say? And when anybody dares to question them, they are labeled as unpatriotic or not supporting the troops. Moveon.org is more American and patriotic then any conservative that has been blindly going along with the lies and manipulations of this administration and it's spin machine. I am a patriot and yet I say George Bush is a liar. I support the troops and yet I say they are fighting for corporate greed....and I sincerely hope that history proves me completely wrong.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following is a response to my last blog entitled "Republicans have no right to complain." I interjected my own comments thruout....Joe

Dane....While I understand your frustration and commend your speaking out, I have to disagree with you on a lot this.
I'll start by saying that you're right about the Republican Congress. We elected them to turn around the wastefull spending and corruption of the democrats, but they got into office and did the same thing.

Joe....True, but the democratic congress you speak of existed under Reagan and Bush senior, and those presidents had to sign those spending bills. Clinton vetoed excessive spending bills when he had a republican congress which is partly why he balanced the budget and shrinked the deficit.

Dane....You're wrong to claim that democrats have done things differently, or to give a "what if" argument about Al Gore. The invasion of afghanistan after 9/11 was a no-brainer, and I was proud then that Congress supported that war in a bi-partisan manner, even if some peace freaks protested it. Gore would not have opposed the country on that one. You could make the argument that Gore would not have invaded Iraq. Fighting to give democracy a toehold in the middle east took a lot of guts and Gore didn't have that.

Joe....So now we went there to give the middle east democracy? It started out as WMD's, 911, and Sadams support of Osama....the democracy excuse surfaced about 2004 or 05 when the other excuses proved unwarranted.

Dane....The outcome of that action (while still being determined) may fail, but it took guts to try.

Joe....Having guts means nothing. Hitler had guts when he invaded Europe. Nixon had guts when he ok'd watergate. Ken Lay had guts when he defrauded people out of their pensions. Greedy men, mad men, and psychos, all have guts, and guts in itself is not a quality.

Dane....Within our own borders Gore would have followed much of the same lines that Bill Clinton did, and Bill Clinton was no saint for individual liberty in this country either. Whenever I think of Bill Clinton's legacy I remember the image of a SWAT agent pointing an automatic rifle at a scared cuban boy in Florida. I don't believe Al Gore would have gone against the Patriot Act and I don't think he would have done any better.
Republican distaste for Bill Clinton was never only about sex. The media, and many of you on the left, have posed the argument that way to discredit our other arguments about Clinton. The Clinton government intruded on invdividuals, and murderously so, as seen in the incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Joe....What swat did and what happened at Ruby Ridge (wasn't this before Clinton?) as well as Waco was not done by Clinton directly, but people he put in power unlike the Iraq war and refusal to veto spending bills which was a direct decision by Bush. Personally, I never liked Janet Reno and I do blame Clinton for having her on board.

Dane....The Clinton administration displayed corruption in taking money from chinese donors and in renting out the Lincoln bedroom.

Joe....Compared to what Bush has done (see my last blog), people spending the night in the Lincoln bedroom and Clinton doing Monica is NOTHING! You republicans don't realize how you are hurting your own credibility by constantly bringing up these kinds of comparisons. It's like comparing apples to herds of elephants.

Dane....If you want to forgive Clinton for the sex scandals, I suppose that's fine with me, the Lewinsky stuff was nationally embarrassing but hardly the end of the world.

Joe....I don't forgive Clinton for the Monica debacle. He looked us in the face and lied and that was cheap and disgusting. Plus, because of Monica he, in part, cost Gore the white house.

Dane....It's typical male-chauvanist behavior so he's no different there. But when Juanita Brodderick accused this man of having raped her, and was then called a tramp and shunned by the press, that kind of bothers me. I am bothered by the idea of a rapist in the white house, regardless of their political party. I am bothered that democrats, and especially feminists, would ignore all of this because "he's their man."

Joe....We will never know for sure about the rape. But calling Clinton a rapist is on par with calling George Bush a coke head. When it comes to Bushes military record, drug and alchohol abuse, failed businesses, relationship with the Saudi royal family, DUI's, all these things that happened before he was president, we are supposed to give him the benefit of the doubt because we don't know for sure, no proof. But it's ok to call Clinton a rapist? Based on what proof? We have more proof about Georges drug and alchohol abuse than we do about Clintons sexual shenanigans.

Dane....You have a right to your opinion, and to blame republicans for all that goes wrong in government, but you'll never get true reform if you turn a blind eye to the corruption of your own preferred party. Democrats in Congress promised many reforms in campaign finance laws, and have given us nothing since they took office nearly a year ago. I predict only more of the same. Perhaps you should simply label them all "republicrats" and voice an argument for something new altogether?

Joe....Democrats don't have enough majority do get much done without some republican cooperation and in election times the republicans are and have been stopping everything the democrats have tried to do. I think there is plenty of blame to go around to both parties. If I thought a 3rd party had a chance in hell, Id be on board. Since Ralph Nader made the difference in Florida which helped Bush get elected, Im a bit hesitant to join any 3rd party. To me, the democrats are just the lesser of 2 evils, and for now that is what a lot of disenchanted liberals are stuck with. It's a shame that politics in America has come down to this....I have said before that I believe in much of what the old school republicans stood for. But they have abandoned those principals and therefore I don't think they have the right to keep preaching them. Thanks for your comments.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote a letter to the editor a couple of years ago in which I tried to make the point that George Bush was just to liberal for me. The subtle humor and the point that I was trying to make did not come across well in that letter. What I was trying to say was that the republican party, under George Bush and the republican congress, had become everything that they had always blamed democrats for being. Bush had a deal worked out with congress that if they gave him free reign on the war in Iraq, in return, he would not veto any of their spending bills. So for 6 years government grew, government became more intrusive into our personal lives, spending went thru the roof, and the national debt doubled. These are all things that the republicans have for years criticized the democrats for doing, when in reality, they are the ones that have always done these things.

The republicans went thru the roof when Clinton lied about having sex. Can you imagine if Al Gore had been elected along with a democratic congress and went into Iraq and escalated the national debt as Bush and the republican congress have done since Clinton left office, how the right wing would have reacted? They would have been outraged to say the least. And don't use 911 as an excuse because Al Gore would not have invaded Iraq over 911. He would have vetoed a lot of the bills that came before him because of the excessive pork, he would not have given homeland security the invasive rights they now have, he would not have allowed the national debt to be where it is at today, and he would have kept government at the manageable levels that Clinton bought it down to after 12 years of Bush senior and Ronald Reagan.

It is said that we best teach that which we most need to learn. I don't believe that. We best teach that which we know the best. But I do believe that we best "preach" that which we most need to learn. And that is so obvious with the republican party right now. They have been preaching values they no longer have the right to preach. Since Eisenhower, can somebody please tell me one republican president who has shrunk government, lowered spending, bought down the national debt, or did anything to make government less intrusive in our lives? Being against gay marriage, medical marijuana (even hemp), womens rights, euphanasia, the right to buy cheaper prescription drugs from other countries, and every other personal practice that does not hurt other people is not getting out of our lives. Gun control and corporate regulations, thats where they believe in staying out of our personal lives. And now the right wing spin machine is hard at it trying to turn "Hillary" into a bad word. After all the damage the republicans have inflicted upon this country over the last 6 years, the trillions in debt they have racked up, the bloated government they have created, the personal rights they have eroded, and the failed mismanaged war in Iraq, they should just shut up and let somebody else have a chance to try to fix their messes.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Arizona desert was bathed in moonlight that cool November night in 1985 as I descended upon Sedona.The long drive down the steep mountain road from Flagstaff reminded me of the winding road from Willits to Fort Bragg.
I had been traveling for three days, just kind of meandering around Utah and Arizona by myself, checking out places I had never seen before. I had read about the vortex of spiritual energies that supposedly existed at Sedona, especially the area of Red Rock. I had read stories of UFO sightings as well as people having spiritual experiences just from being there. Red Rock was a special place to the Indians who had lived in the area as well. It was a must see on this trip.

I didn't get checked into a room until 10 PM. My plan was to drive out to Red Rock the next day and see for myself what all the who-ha was. By 11:30, I knew I wasn't going to sleep until I experienced Red Rock. So at midnight I was out driving around looking for the beautiful rock formation. I didn't know where it was but I knew it would reveal itself to me in the light of the full moon once I got to the right area.

A few miles south of town I came upon the unmistakable rock formations. I had seen them on Calendars, maps, and in magazines all of my life. And now they stood before me in the bright Autumn night, like a giant alter in a church. And like an empty church, it was quiet, except for the sounds of the soft desert breeze that rustled the cotton woods along Oak Creek.

I walked a little ways up the creek. Even though it was the middle of the night, there was enough moonlight to see where I was stepping. Soon I found a large rock and decided to relax and meditate for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes, the night air seemed especially energized, everything was glowing. I hadn't noticed this before but on top of Red Rock there was a small blue cloud, just hanging there. I had never seen a blue cloud before, but I figured it was an effect of the light of the full moon. However, what I witnessed next, I had no explanation for.

About a quarter mile up the creek I saw a white light. It was very dim at first but as it came closer it got brighter. At first I thought it was a coyote or maybe a wild white horse running along the creek. Soon I could see that it wasn't running, it was floating, and right over the top of the creek. My heart raced as I watched for a few moments, hoping it would veer off course and disappear into the desert. But it didn't, it kept coming closer, straight down the creek towards me. And the closer it got, the brighter it got and the brighter it got, the more I could see that it was floating, not running.

I wish I could say that I was more curious than afraid. I wish I could say that I had a personal encounter that night with a ghost, or an alien, or the spirit of a holy Indian. But I can't say that because survival instinct took over and I ran....straight to my car. As I got in, I could see the light was still approaching, so off I drove into the night. About halfway back to town, curiosity did get the best of me so I drove back to the same spot. Staying close to the car, I got out and looked around, but there was nothing there, no white light anywhere. The blue cloud however, was still hanging over Red Rock.

The next day as I drove away from Sedona, into the southern desert of Arizona, I was listening to the local news on the radio. They mentioned that several people had witnessed some type of UFO in the area of Red Rock the night before. My heart raced as I pondered the possibilities. What if I didn't run? What would I have experienced in the desert that night? I will probably be wondering that for the rest of my life. And I also have to ask myself, what would I do now, 22 years later if I could have the same opportunity. Would I run? I like to think that I wouldn't, but then again, you never know what you will do in a unique situation like that until you experience it. Someday I am going to go back to Sedona and I will venture out to the same spot I was at 22 years ago. If a white light comes floating down the creek towards me, I'll probaly split, but maybe not....but probably.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I hate to shop, especially with other people. I don't like to shop with other people because I have a shopping system and it only works when I shop alone. I developed my system because, well, I hate to shop. My shopping system is simple. It is based on the "I know what I like (or need) and I know what I don't like (or don't need)" principal. Here's how it works. I walk thru a store and if a piece of clothing catches my eye, I look to see if they have it in my size. If they do, I buy it. Lets say Im looking for something for the house. I go into the section of the store that sells the thing I am looking for, I pick it up, and I buy it. I can go thru a whole mall in 30 minutes and walk out with enough clothes to get me thru the next year. Ten minutes in Target and I've got all the household items I need. You won't even see me in a grocery store. I go there, I'm just too fast to be seen.

There is one store I try to avoid altogether, the electronic store. That's right, the ones that do that rebate thing. You think your paying $199 for something and when they ring it up, it comes to over $300. You go "duh...wud I miss?" They go...."There's a hundred dollar rebate, you just save the receipt, cut the bar code off the box, fill out this three page form, send it in to an address you will find somewhere in this pile of paper work, and in six months to a year, you may or may not get your money back, no problem." Rebates are evil. Whoever came up with this idea should be disemboweled. And their always trying to sell you extended warranties at these stores. The products never fail when you buy the warranty. They only fail when you don't buy the warranty. How do they know how to do this? I always feel like I need to take an attorney with me when I shop at electronic stores! And why do cell phones always break right before your two year contract is up? To get a new phone, you have to re up your contract for two more years. Are the Japanese behind this? Who comes up with this kind of technology?

Buying a new car is the worst experience in all of shopping. Here we are dealing not only with rebates and warranties, but interest rates and meaningless sticker prices as well. If a car is worth $20,000, the sticker price will say $40,000. So you make a dumb ass offer of $30,000 and the salesman acts insulted, like you are wasting his time when in reality he would piss his pants to get $25,000. So now the game begins, the only problem is, men do not know how to bargain. If you are married, let your wife do the bargaining. Chances are she has developed some bargaining skills from years of hard core yard sailing. Still, the game is not fair, she is up against a professional who does this everyday. But with her help, you might get the car for $25,000. Not me, I'm a single guy. I will probably pay full sticker price plus 10%. But that's ok, because the married guy is going to pay big in the end. Sooner or later he is going to have to go shopping at the mall with his wife.

So how bad do I really hate shopping? I hate it bad enough that I will never be in another serious relationship for the rest of my life just because of the chance she would want me to shop with her. I shop in my running shoes so I can move faster. I pay only with cash because it's quicker. I park illegally in handicap parking because it's closer. Yes, you may see me in a grocery store or a department store from time to time, but I can promise you that I will be moving swiftly, you will never see me moseying. You will never see me mulling over something. You will never see me comparing prices. I will not look at something dreamily and wonder how it would look on my best friend. I will not try anything on. I will not gander or gawk. I will not be on an isle I am not buying something from. And I will never, I mean NEVER shop with somebody else.


So remember this mister married guy.... that breeze you feel when your moseying with your wife at the mall....that's me flying by after my 30 minute bi-annual shopping spree, on my way to the car. Yes, it's the car I paid sticker price plus 10% for, but it's the car that is carrying me AWAY from the mall...the mall that you are stuck in for the next four hours!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I believe that we come into this world by choice. That implies that we were conscious beings before we were born. I believe that too. I also believe that we choose the conditions we will be born into. There could be thousands of different reasons why we would be born to the family we were born to as well as when and where. Now if what I just said is true, there is an implication that we are not victims, our place in life does not happen by a role of the cosmic dice, we are right where we have chosen to be. Sometimes we choose to be in a situation where we will be victims, allowing ourselves to be at the mercy of events that are completely out of our control. Some souls come here thru no need of their own, but out of love for others, to help others with their own evolution. They may stay for a short time, or spend a long life, depending on the need. I believe these are older more evolved souls. Often they are children who die young, or people who have a severe mental or physical handicap. They are truely angels incarnated.

But for most of us that are not angels incarnated, why would we, as a conscious soul, an entity wanting to have an earth experience, choose pain over comfort, destitution over wealth, or depression over happiness? If we can choose, why not take situations that offer the best of everything?

I could attempt to answer this question by quoting philosophers, authors, or delving into intellectual theories that may make some kind of sense out of my beliefs, but they would be hallow to me. I would only be demonstrating that I have bought into somebody else's explanation of something because they wrote or talked about it in such a way that I took it on as my truth. We do this too much with religion. All we know for sure in life is what we have personally experienced. The only thing that I can speak of with any degree of knowledge is my own life's experiences. So let me attempt....

Every experience we have had in our life has led us to the place we are at right now. That is to say that we are always a sum total of our life's experiences, as well as our choices. If we are happy with who we are, then these experiences have served us well. When I look back over my life, I see that the most painful experiences were often the most important experiences. Often, at the time, I cursed God for putting me into a certain situation. Years later I could look back at that situation, and if I learned anything from it at all, then I could see why it was necessary. In my youth, I was often the victim of bullies. Years later, this would be my motivation for studying martial arts which in turn, led to empowerment. As a young man, I had some of the worst jobs you can imagine, which led me to start my own business. Angry people have taught me to practice more patience as well as empathy because sometimes their anger was a result of their own personal pain. They taught me to see the unresolved pain in my own anger. Sometimes my lesson was simply to learn how to stand up for myself. I have suffered from depression to the point that I considered suicide, and often. Eventually this put me at a crossroads where I had to decide to die, live a life of misery, or take control of what I was feeling and change it. I chose to take control. What I am saying is that my life's worst experiences have been a catalyst or a motivator for me to reach for something better or to change myself or my outlook. I think this is true for all of us and how we get to where we are at in life.


The hardest lessons in life, the ones that challenge us the most, are the ones that appear to be a catch 22. Sometimes we don't see a way out. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. And the thing is, sometimes there isn't a way out, sometimes we just have to plow thru every inch of a bad experience, and for a long time. Sometimes the only thing you can change is your viewpoint. Sometimes, even that is impossible. These are the times in life when you just have to let go. Give it over to a higher power and have faith that there is a reason for it and that in the end, it's all going to be ok. Sometimes, these issues are so painful, so emotional and demanding of your attention that you have to give it over to that higher power several times a day.

When you give a problem to a higher power, you also need to give that higher power everything you have attached to that problem, I.E., all of your pain, your feelings, your issues, your answers, your questions, your struggles, even your attachment to whatever you think the outcome should be. Here's what I do...I picture how big the problem is and I see myself carrying it on my back, like Atlas holding up the world. The problem may be the size of a beach ball, the size of a Volkswagen, or even as big as a house. I see myself standing on a ledge over a river of light and I toss the problem into the river. And then I watch it dissolve as it moves along downstream. For me, this exercise has always worked, I always see results immediately although the problem may not be resolved for some time.

So getting back to why we choose certain situations in life. We are spiritual entities who come to this world for experience so that we can grow and evolve. There are things we cannot experience in a spiritual state. We come here for the adversity, to be able to challenge ourselves. Sometimes we grow and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we get overwhelmed and opt out via suicide or addiction, and that's ok because there are always other opportunities. Sooner or later, in the big picture, we work it all out. Sometimes we come here to experience the pain we have caused others in another life so that we can learn empathy and compassion (I do not believe that pain is ever a punishment). Sometimes we come here just to enjoy, sometimes we don't want too much adversity. The important thing is, that we do what we came here to do, and that is different for every one of us. If we can learn some basic survival skills early on in life, like some of the things I have mentioned, we can get thru this earthly sojourn and maybe even experience a little happiness along the way. Maybe even a lot of happiness. And that's ok, that's part of why we came here too!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been racking my brain, searching the deepest part of my soul, and going back over every experience I can remember from my own youth. I have been searching for the right words. I have been searching for magical words, words that will inspire, and ideas that will connect. I want to go beyond poetry, beyond reason and logic. I want to go straight to the heart. I want to change a young mans life. The problem is, I keep drawing blanks.

Let me back up and explain what I'm talking about. There is a young man I know, an ex step son, although technically his mother and I were never married. That's all beside the point. The point is, this young man has been into drugs since his early teen years. And now he is in jail. He's not a bad kid, he's not a violent kid, in fact, he's a very intelligent guy. But the intelligence has taken a back seat to drug abuse. This is his first arrest, but it has been a long time coming. He has been warned, everybody who knows him has given him their best shot at having "the talk" which of course has never done any good. Now he is in serious trouble and I want to write him a letter....but what do I say? What do I say that hasn't been said a thousand times before? Are there any words that can go beyond "the talk"?

I come from a very large family. There are about 100 descendents from my two parents alone. And as with any large family, we have our share of just about every personality type you can imagine. We have everything from idiots to geniuses. We have those with masters degrees, we have musical talent, we have alcoholics, we have Christians, we have high school drop outs, we have ex military, we have grand parents raising their grand children, we have loud people and quiet people, we have mental disorders, we have achievers, and yes, we have drug addicts. So this is definitely nothing new in my life. I had my own go around with drugs when I was younger, I was a part of the sixties culture. And over the years I have tried to have "the talk" with many a nephew (there have been nieces as well) who got caught up in drugs. Some got clean and some ruined their lives. The ones that ruined their own lives have been a terrible burden to their parents as well. I know what drugs can do, I have been on that battle field. I also know that there are no magical words to change a druggies life. After a while it seems like everything you say is just another cliche. They've heard all the cliches too many times. Ultimately, they are the ones that have to save themselves, nobody else has that power.

When I was a freshman in high school, I was going thru some pretty tough times and I felt like nobody understood. I was hanging with a bad crowd and getting into a lot of trouble. One day a teacher, Mr. McCoy, took me aside and said, "Joe, you are better than these guys, I see things in you." It would be years before I straightened out, but Mr. McCoy's words always stuck with me. He planted a seed and I will never forget him for that.

But still, there is a young man that I care deeply about sitting in the Butte county jail. I have attempted the letter a few times but I'm not coming up with anything new. I want to tell him that he has the power to change his life. I want him to know that the drugs have latched onto his soul like a cancer, but beneath that cancer there is a good heart, there is a guy with potential, there is a dreamer who has never gotten far enough away from the drugs to realize, to even dare, to dream! I want him to know that the drugs don't own him, they just make him think that they do. I want to inspire him to reach deep enough inside to find that sleeping warrior, that warrior that once awakened has unlimited powers. I want him to know that he has a place in this world, that he is not living the life he came here to live, but he could. I want to shake him and wake him up from his slumber. I want him to get pissed off and mad, mad at what the drugs have taken away from him. I want him to know that he is fighting for his life and that he can win this fight. I want him to know that the drugs are telling him he is not worth the fight, that he is not worth anything, but in his soul he knows he is. I want to reconnect him to his soul. I want him to see that he is not a victim, that he made conscious choices to use drugs which in return led to unconscious choices which got him into jail.... he made a choice to play the role of a victim, he made a conscious choice to be unconscious. I want to teach him how to change his thinking patterns, how to take back the power to make better decisions. I want him to forgive everybody that may have hurt him in anyway, and especially to forgive himself for allowing the drugs to have control over his life. I want him to see that getting clean and sober is a process of rebirth. I want him to know that once reborn, life is waiting for him with open arms.

And yet, as I try to write these thoughts in a letter to him, I can see his eyes rolling....too many cliches, too many lines he's heard a thousand times before. Will he fight for his right to remain a victim? Will he say, "this all sounds good, but nobody understands what I have to deal with"? Will he wad up the letter and say, "How much of this bullshit do I have to listen too?" He probably will. So maybe the letter thing is just for me, just for my own piece of mind so that whatever happens in the future, I can at least say I tried. But then again, maybe a crack of light will squeak thru the darkness. Maybe he will know that I see things in him, just like a high school teacher once saw in me. I want him to know that I think he is worth it, even if he doesn't. Maybe a seed will be planted.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)