I offer me.

As I recognize my life’s tank dial, move closer and seemingly faster than ever towards empty, I accept how pain and love complement themselves more than ever.  I love that I feel pain free and simultaneously respect how pain filled life has to be.  My youthful self mildly glamorized a pain filled self perception and romanticized some struggles. I romanticized my story stirring up pain, replaying thoughts of hardship. I think through the years I have learned to value the reflective strategies that help me assess my pain; translate my pain versus indulging. My Catholic faith with its many flaws, provides me with tools that help me understand when and if my pain is phantom or real. Both my romanticized manifested pain and real wounds are impactful. 

The phantom pain lead to the stirring up of anger pangs, and the real pains hurt so bad I am led to anguish reminding me they still needing healing. I also get to taste the pain, regardless of its ontology, and can better determine if the pains are necessary or in vain. The strategy I feel most essential to my encounters with pain is embracing paradox.  My capacity to scan for paradox is a tactic my Catholic faith instilled in me. It is literally a believe system of contradictions where holding a concept made of competing truths is fundamental. In  the context of pain, it is the movement to find a balance between fear and trust. I have to hold the avoidance of pain with the absolute inevitability of pain, like a person who has to breathe in while going under water, building up a panicked eagerness to breathe out.  The paradox isn’t the breathing, the paradox is the desire to be where we don’t naturally belong to get a taste the forbidden, at the risk of drowning; we find a way to have both. There are tiny opposites in every paradox creating small revolutions of meaning. At the same time there is a consequential tranquility laying down a stillness. The struggle and or the dance to seek out this idiosyncratic balance is what I call a Chicano style. Finding a personal balance between two competing intrapersonal truths and offering that awareness as a contribution to the everyday interpersonal existence, a Chicano Style. Most healthy cultures have a similar system. 

I think there is something revealing about the mestizo attitude that encourages gravitation towards pain. My pride in a Nuevomexicano (Mexican-American) heritage gives me the bedrock to let my pain filled experiences flow right into a humility that my elders prepared me for. Hard work is the place where pain goes to be planted, beads of sweat cool the tempers, releasing tears dripped from the grief, hydrating my seeds of passion. Seeds of passion that were fanatic in my childhood and adolescence. Seeds of passion that were economic and political in my early adulthood. Maybe the social justice curiosity is how I have learned to deal with my pain.  Social injustice is the way for my pain to be externalized. How I approach the externalized is how I feel I will heal the internal. If I let the greedy American infuriate me with their disregard for my heritage or perceived dignities then I cannot learn about the defenses of those material imbalances of land, water, money, laws, comforts, rights, or culture. This is where my faith guides me into paradox. The greedy American is in pain, and maybe more pain than me. Their insatiability is the strategy they’ve learned to rely on to ease their pain. I have that same insatiability in me. The paradox is seeing myself as a greedy Chicano, while also defending myself from the toxicity of the greedy American. My peace of mind has to be found through the hard fight of treating my inner insatiable and building up a harmonious internal sense of enough. Then bring this feature to existence in the form of a Chicano ofrenda to my immediate world. 

I understand that my romance with pain, gave me the emotional state to write interestingly, at least to me.  And at least it felt more interesting as I revisit it.  Now I just feel the paradox. The fire that pain once lit, is now more of an irritating burn. I have found joy in the mediocre.  I can’t write like I used to. I often feel like my thought process is analogous to a cows digestive system. I chew the same topics, swallow, digest, absorb, regurgitate, and bite a few more blades of tragedy.  It doesn’t feel as poetic and color filled as it once did, when I was closer to my pain. I think that balance is easier to choose than preference.  My emotions aren’t as contrasting, making it harder to find the momentum to write. With acceptance comes comfort. I haven’t learned to write from comfort.

I wonder if this is a type liminal space that might help with saying goodbye to this world.  Does balance fit with acceptance?  Is acceptance an illusion that is really just expressing the condition of being option-less.  I once relied so much on my grandparents.  I relied so much on mothering from, of course Mom, and fortunately my Aunts.  I felt such hurt from the lost or missed time with an attentive father. And yet I had the attention of loving people,  I found perspectives that highlighted my pain and that I nestled up to. My pain was a fuel for my movement, pain was my rhythm.

I am losing my family and friends. I think this would bring on a sadness that I think I would channel into these perceptions to propagate the same outlets.  I’m not sad in the same ways.  I am a sad that feels as if it skipped straight to acceptance.  I am curious about my comfort with solitude.  What is it about balance that allows for an apparent comfort for being alone.  My life still feels meaningful but equally it is definitely feeling less certain.  I still want to live.

Life is still teaching me.

Empire of 22nd Kind

    Sitting at a bar name Lucky Jacks, my mind is on vacation, I am in New York City, the lower eastside to be exact.  This trip is full of emotions around the evolution of my parenting.  I will no longer be parenting children and I will now be parenting adults.  This trip is loaded for me.  I brought my daughter to help her settle in for her first week of a dance program.  The big apple is where this famous dance school brings young adult dancers with bright dreams, cultivating their skills.  In my eyes, they are aspiring spirits believing that New York City is where all the greats go to learn. 

 I wonder how much value this experience will provide for my daughter.  How much it will draw her out of what she understands as home.  The process reminds me of the same hope I had while attending baseball camps.  I can remember how I'd think this camp or coach could provide me the chance I needed to make a statement. Looking back I see that it turned into another thousand dollar contribution to University of Arizona's baseball program.  I appreciate being able to see New York in a practical way.  I no longer see the way my daughter appears to see.  The dogmatic romance around this icon of gangsters of the economic kind.  I lost my aspiration and replaced it with stewardship.  I see she still has an aspiring vision for it and what it can do for her.  I have evolved to worry that New York is what it attracts, hoards of seduced adolescent hearts caching in on free market liberties, with all except a tiny slice depositing more money into their reservoir of capital.

This is New York City, so many young minds gravitating to this icon.  The infrastructure changes slowly and these legal and illegal immigrants stir its economics by contributing their admiration and possibly romance for the big city life.  The interesting part of New York is how so many people bring their newness and vibrancy to add their uniqueness in micro doses, making it not so much what they thought it was going to be, but in many ways contaminating it with what they hoped it would be.  New York isn't a destination or checkbox.  It is a complex participation in a living pinnacle.  It might be the consequence of their wonderment about finding themselves over their, instead of believing their greatness is always at hand.  I don't want to be cliché to call New York a Mecca for arts, but it is surely a vacuum for the existential need to be seen.  There is a paradigm of polarities, driving and fueling the city's economics, culture, and maturation.  There is maturation and I can recognize the tragedy behind the romance.  What makes New York newer might be the economic luster.  What makes New York an empire might be its cultural pollution.

    

Climbing out or pulled into who's bucket?

 There is fable out there that most less fortunate communities use to describe "making it out".  I am describing this story we teach each other in the streets, the story reinforcing the analogy seen with crabs in a bucket.  I get to write my own version. Who taught you that you are in a bucket?

When I look at who my grandparents were, and for a few remaining, are, I realize the analogy should reflect how who they are coming out of their 1930's-ish New Mexican and South Texas cultures is respectable. I can picture how the bucket came to us.  The industrial revolution, came radioactively.  The bucket arrived infected with Tuberculosis.  The crabs came from the American East bringing this mentality of caste.  I think the crabs that escaped their mediocrity bucket, felt a strong need replicate their bucket mentality here.  

Now we are being labeled as subversive because many of still aren't fully on board with this form of capitalistic or individualistic mindset.  They often call us communist because it is a lazy way of dismissing how important our faith requires us to be communal.  The bucket is so much more like a container we were seduced to see ourselves in.  It makes me think, one consequence of the great American expansion was to persuade our modest ways of sustenance to be undesirable, and how it ought to transition into a more ambitious competition for prosperity.  Did we get pulled into a bucket?

The atomic weapon brought America to New Mexico.  And New Mexico's high desert air seduced the Tuberculosis refugee.  The same Spanish individualism thought that this part of world now know as New Mexico was gold garden.  I am learning and seeing through a different lens that informs me of how fortunate I am to be nestled in this liminal place where we are boring enough to not be desirable, perceived to be inadequate enough to be overlooked, and yet still not subservient enough to be accepted.  As a consequence to this fable we rebel by sabotaging ourselves with delinquencies.
  

We can't be racist

 I learned in my late 20's that race was a construct and not a biological marker.  This expanded my perplexed attitude towards my perception of dominant cultures and my own identifications.  I have to admit that it created a disappointment in me that inspired many life changing principles.  A hatred for my own contributions to the systematic bigotries.  The changes were disorienting.  I had new information that highlighted how I didn't belong to a race, how I have privilege despite having embraced a victim's mentality for so long, and how I learned how tainted my origin story is.  

I was socially indoctrinated to function believing that somehow I was socially ordered into an ethnic layer tied to the color of my skin.  And I had around 3 unspoken layers beneath me, a few complex layers around me and one championship layer above me.  And this system of layers was more about human capital than it was ever about superiority. I now find it impossible to participate in life the same way knowing these layers are dysfunctional.  

Today it seems like the world is coming to these same realization or maybe resistance to seeing it change.  Seems like these layers are being stirred by the complexities of our nations shortcuts, abuses, rule breaking, rule bending, and for sure rule escaping.  The Black Lives Matter movement, the Boogaloo movement, the Federalist Society, ANTIFA, Blue Lives Matter and the QAnon folks are all adjusting to the lower layers being informed and the new voices demanding participation where their views historically could be ignored when rule making.  We may not have equality but that is not suppressing assertion. 

I am as aware as ever of the emotions I still have when thinking about where I land in the eyes of my fellow citizens.  I find it challenging and hard to know that I have this information and the systems or eco-systems I live in are still functioning on the legacy caste like mentalities.  I find the pain that creates anger in me isn't as overwhelming.  I can still feel the injustice while also celebrating the change.  I still feel discriminated and I smile when I can't recognize if it is bigotry or because of me .  

At times I think some dominant cultures conceal their bigotry far easier now that we have a more ambiguous linguistics for prejudice.  I see the opportunities where I might have written off barriers to entry as racist, where earlier in my life I would have felt it wasn't my shortcomings but theirs.  I now take more responsibility for making it harder for the systems to exclude me, sometimes by assertion, more often by trusting the process, and when I fall short I let it motivate me to find a different route.  The system is going to make space, but not until I let it know I want it to make room. 

I am not as surprised or devastated when the Anglo world sees me through fear oriented lenses.  I accept the sadness that my culture has such delinquent parts.  I still get frustrated with how it seems at times I am catching up to all the other layers of people, whether it be in knowledge, lifestyle, or effectiveness.  I am grieving the ways I am not sufficient and can't close the gaps.  I seem to be between layers.  And I am grateful for the anger and tension because it might mean I am not the only one who has to begin the process of revisiting this looming concept called Race and how it has antagonized the darkest parts of our character.

I am proud of my Chicano heritage, my Spanish origins, Mexican adaptation, and New Mexican simplicity.  I am a complicated member of a brave experiment that at times didn't want to include me, found a way to, and is now providing a way to contribute that is safer than other peoples around the world can.  I will slowly eliminate my regard for race or speak to the invalidity of Race as a human trait. I will continue to let it draw out emotions working to orient them in way that helps me be more Christ-like and a spreader of dignity

.  All of this while hoping that I might create safety that rarely creates danger for the other layers.  

Brown angst during COVID

I am struggling to sit in the discomfort around how dis-empowered I feel learning about different policies, decisions, platforms, and attitudes in the American arena.  I think what hit home the hardest was reading an article about how prepared the senate was to fill a supreme court vacancy that has the potential of being vacated because Ruth Bader-Ginsburg was admitted into the hospital.  This access to malevolently driven aggression is not something I am familiar with.  I get quickly worked up over how hypocritical these Republican government officials demonstrate convenient ideals.  Then I listen to how armed Anglo citizens forced their way into government buildings to protest their state's orders to stay home.  I wonder how different it would be if Chicano armed men or Black armed men attempted the same patriotic display.  If that isn't enough I read more about the former National Security Advisor and how his once guilty plea was somehow undone.  All this privilege, looking a lot like Anglo privilege, sinks in and festers in my psyche.  

Then I find myself gripping the anger, looking at a picture of Mitch McConnel, wanting to participate in the adolescences of mocking his interesting appearance.  I let myself ruminate over the apparent prejudice, blatant hypocrisy, and certain impediments to economic justice.  I fortunately haven't stayed in this condition long.  I remind myself that McConnel sees some American value in his seemingly bigoted, and if not bigoted, then surely ethnocentric, vision for America.  And despite not having any immediate or direct control over this person's views, I do have authority to minimize his effect on my joy.  I will likely never know how harmless Michael Flynn's encounters with Russian diplomats are.  And yet my desire to see justice found isn't as important as understanding how to ensure that my greed never masquerades as my principle.  My anger towards a man named Mitch that I've never met, can't be more important than my cultural requirement to understand that Mitch is valuable and precious in some way, and it is my duty to seek it out.  So I have learned to watch the American experiment with humble eyes, a moderated anger, and hopeful sadness.

Not bland, not seasoned, but tasty

I've taken the invitation to be bland.  Written precariously here, I am really describing how I fight back the need to be noticed. I find myself feeling boring, invisible, and yet energized by being aware of how I can never escape the cosmic and collective participation in society.  I think it might be what faith desires of me, and in contradiction for what my hormones demand of me.  The invitation I am describing is written poetically here, maybe less poetic and more ambiguous, but it pragmatically means my greeting the hurtful angst and restlessness that visits me when I feel inadequate.  For me, I find being bland is my spiteful way of embracing simplicity.  I find it hurtful, although disciplined, to be bland, maybe a more gentle description is modest.  

I find myself struggling to keep from wanting to decorate my life with style.  I want to dress up my appearance to be dazzling.  I find it punishing to withdraw from the ego driven desires of feeling respected.  I am talking about the desire to be seen.  Often happening when there isn't anyone to take notice of me, the moment when I feel indiscernible, the moment I am no longer abstractly poetic but ambiguous.  I am describing the moment I worry and begin to wonder if I'm significant. As I had a child client learn to say, rather scream,  "I want attention".

The invitation I am describing has the feeling of when:

• a child recognizes other children playing together and cannot muster up the idea of being included; 

• a child notices another child with a dazzling toy that looks eternally exciting, observing, perplexed, accepting only being able to watch; 

• a lonely adolescent catches a couple romantically sharing a stare, sneaking a stare, admiring their existence, not knowing how it feels, but bitterly frustrated, for a fear that it will never happen to them;  

• a recently grieving divorced dad observes the peace on a man's face who is walking through a park with his family, smiling, striding, and in unison, being forced to feel his failure.

• I say goodbye to a desperate family because time is up, clinging to the final moments of safety in a therapy room, knowing there is a realtor out there buying an 8th pair of overpriced shoes, celebrating some unjustifiable percentage of a sold luxurious home, somehow separating themselves from this struggling family's suffering. 

.  

This is the moment and emotional invitation I am writing about.  This is the experience I am working to understand, so that when it happens it doesn't derail my internal harmony.  I am writing about the absorption of pain.  The active recovery from the emotional hurt from pangs of perceived deficiency.  The pangs come from the moments where the darker and more violent existential invitations grab my focus and throw my hopes to the ground.  And this is where my psychology has taught me to use right and wrong.  This is where I put down my tools and go to work.

This is where I have to change my neuroplasticity, and begin to see that right and wrong are constructs that can be dismantled and rebuilt with care, tenderness, and dignity.  What is rebuilt will need to be looked upon with reciprocity, not to reuse the dismantled morality of right and wrong.  What is put together with the new mind will not be seen as bland, will not be seasoned, but will hopefully be tasty.

What Shade of Race are We - Intro

What shade of Race are you?  I think we all need to answer this dazzling yet scary question.  It is useful to approach this topic.  The seeds for my interest in this topic are the origins of Race as a category.  I use the theoretical basis that Race grew from an English Christian need to justify slavery.  What does race mean to you?  I want the world to begin to recognize our outward features as distinctive but not differentiative.  I want us to stop using race as a measurement.  I have this strong urge to reverse engineer this complex concept.  I want to address how it has deteriorated the opportunity for human harmony across regions, nations, and now, more than ever, the globe.  My motivation comes from the heated and explosive phenomenon currently ravaging American popularism.  My motivation has grown from my passion for feeling empowered after many encounters with feeling incapable, especially due to identifying with a race.  I want to unwrap the grip Race has on humanistic productivity.  I want to loosen the grip Race has on humanistic symbiosis.  The reversal begins with me.  I started this idea with answering these questions myself.  What shade of Race am I?

I am an Albuquerque citizen, located in the Central Rio Grande Valley, a city in New Mexico, a state in the United States of America, on the North American continent, and I could continue up and down a cosmic hierarchy of fractal proportions, none significant enough to die or kill for.  This is what sets the stage, prepares a workbench for my unraveling and dissecting the entangled pieces that have created my shade of Race.  I am excited by how persistent I was to address my racism.  I feel I was able to encounter my advantages, disadvantages, and the experiences between.  I feel I needed to recognize my own racism before I could detach from the entanglement I had with Race.  I have reached an understanding that Race only exists because I, along with the civilized world, give it validity through human characteristic and traits like discrimination, competition, and distinction.  I have transcended my original dependence on culture, identity, and belonging to step away from these to see how power and privilege in toxicity has shaped the invisible social thresholds that reinforce and amplifies Race.  I did not remove them though. E-race-ing racism does not eliminate how we naturally find discrepancies in peoples’ lifestyle.

Part I

Not Racist...rather an Ethnicist

It seems surprising that we still use Race as a categorical demographic despite the word having no truth, being fabricated, and its toxicity.  And this is not to suggest that Racism is equally fake.  It saddens me to accept that Racism is a diagnosis for a form of hatred.  Racism, is articulated elegantly by Rev. William J. Barber as, "a strategic hate that has an agenda" (Barber, W.J (2017). Public Speech at Poor Peoples Campaign, August 15, 2017) .  We all are capable of hate.  And racism is a schism between those needing to tighten down a decorated shroud of hateful fallacies that promoted their industrial economic agenda and a reality that we are an integration of evolved bio mechanisms that are uniquely identifiable through genetics, yet our foundation, anatomy, and physiology functions indistinguishably, all worthy of wellness.  It's unfortunate that we camouflage the ethnic hatred with this schism by validating a fictitious word, Race.

I want Racism to be identified by its real source, Ethnic Hate.  We validate the meaning of Race by perpetuating its usage. We still use the concept to describe and acknowledge the ignorance of people still stubborn enough to believe we are differentiated by the illusion of Race.  It seems ignorant to spend time on this schism rooted in the word "Race" when we have the real ethnic, cultural, bigoted, prejudice, economic, social, and ideological schisms stressing this adolescent American nation.   The use of Race as the root word for the concept of racism, shields the propagation of underlying malice, going undetected in our social systems because Race itself is undetectable.  There are not any indicators for someone who is racist because there are not any indicators for Race.  There are indicators for someone who is phobic, prejudice, or discriminant because their statements and policies make it indicative.

The real concept under attack from imperial ideologies is ethnicity and culture.  Ethnicity aligns more with the real human distinguishers. My study of race, my encounter with my "racism", and the unfolding of the intelligence on the subject has allowed me to differentiate between the fiction, ideology, rationality, economics, bigotry, xenophobia and atrocity.  I can also be sad for how it has continued to be used for 600 years (Smedley,  A., 1997).  I hope to share more perspective on the covert and micro absurdities of Race, the concept, still lurking and giving traction to our unfair and unbalanced social constructs.  Race might be cultural sect-ism, inspired by prosperity, more likely rapacity, and corroded by hate, but it is still illusionary.

It would help shift the narrative around our human nature, to call racism what it really is... Ethnicism.

eth ·nic ·ism

/eTH 'ni' sizem /
noun

1. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different ethnicity based on the belief that one's own ethnicity is superior.
2. the belief that all members of each ethinicity possess characteristics or abilities specific to that ethnicity, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another ethnicity or ethnicities.
3. a form of neurotic hatred treatable with love, cultural immersion, and humility.

References:

Smedley,  A., (1997). Origin Of The Idea Of Race. Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02-09.htm

Sometimes...Pastimes

My privileged trait is the wounded child in me, embarrassed, feeling unworthy, finally succeeding, hands raised in celebration, but not taking the time to acknowledge the helping hands, the cushioned walls, padded floors, wind at my back, first aid tents, the stepped on, the ripped up, the chipped away, or left behind that contributed to getting me here.  That child in me is consumed by the trophy, the purse, the recognition, the celebrity, and the reward.  That child in me forgets the preciousness in the journey, the lessons shared, the gratitude returned, the credit due, and the responsibility to look back and give back.

I am guilty of feeling privileged especially to pity.  I have appropriately and with enough practicality exhausted my victimization.  I have engraved deep enough my sad stories.  I have held enough shared sadness to believe in my degradation.  I have felt the sting of my disadvantage and inconvenience.  I have grieved my perceptions of unfairness.  It led me to become a contradiction.  It caused me to bite the hand that feeds me.  Most of those hands were melanin deficient, blessed, and equally struggling to be loved.



Rich folks saved my life.  The taste of class motivated me.  The feel of quality inspired me.  The innovation that comes from technology taught me.  The institutions accommodated me.  I have for the past 4 years bitten the hands that fed me.  I am embarrassed.  Most of the hands had light skin, white skin.  Where I came from would have kept me tied up had it not been for those who untied me out there.  Out there is complex, rarely absolute, and a playground for cognitive dissonance.

Delivery man bring some compassion.

I think I have learned from my entanglement with discrepancy that we all want to see ourselves as overcoming the impossible.  What has been difficult to share with people who don't come from the barrio, people who have light skin, people who are middle class, people who are the dominant culture, and people who are mainstream is the idea of advantage, a.k.a privilege.  As soon as you come across a person who argues the idea of social privilege, I come to the conclusion that their idea of success is a simple formula of hard work and dedication.  How do I argue that?  I don't!

I am learning to thank God that there are those out there that don't have to experience the barrio life, the suspicious appearance, the limited lifestyle, the inferior ideas, and the margins of acceptance.  I have learned to stop convincing, debating, and advocating for the disadvantaged.  I have learned that perception is the most powerful psychological tool a person can see with.  I have learned that we all like to see ourselves as overcoming the impossible, even the privileged.  I might even say that people like to believe that they have had a rough enough journey to qualify as an underdog.  I have come to the idea that privilege doesn't need an advocate, I am learning to accept that fairness is not measurable.

So what I can do is wonder and be curious.  After this song played, after the video settled into my psyche, I began to identify with the limited visibility we base our perceptions on. Maybe even as limited to our own memories or sad stories.  If so many folks believe that hard work and dedication are remedies to poverty, than so be it.  I start to critically remember that this video uses the metaphor of "pizza man" and a "no delivery zone", and I can expand on how that is only a thin slice of the pie.

If its too dangerous for the pizza man, then it sure is too dangerous for the mathematics tutors, college preparatory programs, after school programs, a young man to grieve, Wholefoods, a fitness center, Yoga, parks with grass, hoops with nets, Fro-Yo, sentences without cuss words, family with parents who have flexible work schedules, friends who can withstand peer pressure, employee or parent sponsored recovery programs for addicts, lawyers for misdemeanors, books on a bookshelf, walls without sprayed paint, dogs with collars on leashes wearing cardigans, selling drugs as a as a hobby because here its a career, a habit called responsible drug use, boy scouts tying knots, girls scouts selling cookies, patience, compassion, investment, or attention.

If its to dangerous for the pizza man then it sure ain't too dangerous for the payday lenders, the bondsman, the cigarette shop, the liquor store, the quick mart, planned parenthood, soup kitchen,  house flippers flipping houses, the drive by pharmacist dropping baggies, the Dollar Mart, pawn shop, train tracks, vocational high school, random traffic stops, DWI check points, and police sub stations.

But this might be because the privileged like to believe that privilege doesn't discriminate.  Often I hear, "why shouldn't I benefit from my family's successes".  The privileged don't feel obligated to question the advantage their ancestors created.  Sarcastically, it might be because some inferior peoples prefer to increase their discomfort.  Satirically, it might be the opportunity for some foolish peoples to create a chance for themselves to work even harder.  Maybe its that people add challenges to life for the chance to test their dedication. It could be like an exercise for wherewithal.

So it is possible that we all have privileges.  Again sarcastically, it might be that some of us prefer to alter our availability to it.  Maybe some of us are just not as motivated to work hard.  Maybe some of us just don't have the discipline to remain dedicated.  Or maybe having privilege makes it inconvenient to reflect back on how it was created.  Maybe we might see that our peeps, daddy, grandpa, mamma, grandma or mi patria took short cuts, cheated, payed the right people, sold out the right people, sold out the right cultures, took advantage of the right markets, or capitalized on the right insecurities.  It might be easier to believe that I deserve the privilege available to me because my peeps worked harder and had more dedication.  I can dig that, but I don't.  Its complicated, right?

Privilege is when I take a blessing and turn it into an advantage to elevate my social value at the expense of others.  Responsibility is a word that I am committing my life to.  Responsibility is when I take a blessing and enhance my life so that it enhances the life of those around me.  As long as there is disadvantage or discrepancy I will have to critically evaluate how I leverage my blessings.  There is a beautiful paradox between learning to understand privilege and knowing how to be responsible to the living, because far too much value has been depended on or inherited from the dead.

Inspiration

Inspiration is something I chase because I think its necessary for growth.  What I have recently acknowledged is that inspiration can leave a bitter aftertaste.  The aftertaste is a metaphor for my realization that I get jealous.  Seeing someone be great is sprinkled with disheartening toxins.

The variety of emotions that are created when I am inspired are mostly encouraging, but there is a shadow cast.  In the shadows I can make out the profile of jealousy.  The jealousy provides an opportunity for me to recognize my deficits because I can notice cynicism sparkling.  Paying more attention to this I can recognize the judgement.  The judgement is my ingrained competitor invoked by my ego.

My ego recalls my lost expectations and my failed intentions.  Then it asks my false self to torment my creativity with guilt and shame, holding it accountable for the dreams put aside. The stronger and more stable my false becomes I am allowed to observe the delinquency of my ego at work.  I have had the opportunity to see the manufacturing of sadness being pushed out the door into my conscious packaged as cynicism.  I am tapping into the sadness that lurks under the comparison and inadequacy that is part of the brew when feeling inspired.

I have a competitive catalyst in my constitution.  I have an idea that it lives in my ego.  It has motivated, punished, and misguided me.  It has a craving for inspiration and cannot digest the judgments that result from interpreting them.  I have not learned to take the packages of cynicism and repurpose them as something productive.  The consequence is my suffering.  I am flushing the filters that help me see sources of suffering to reduce the seepage of disappointment into my happiness.  I have found a way to collected and sprout these sadness packages.

 The awareness is helping me sprout the toxic packages into forgiveness, grief, and anxiety.  The toxicity of my disappointment is positively correlated to the synthesis or coagulation of my sadness.  Whether or not the production is useful depends on the toxicity.  Regardless it can now be better managed by my improving wellness systems that are alive and thriving.  As I am able to metabolize my suffering, I can profit joy.

Surfacing thoughts

I have dreamed of being an instrument of healing.  I have had grandiose thoughts of being the change I'd like to see in the world.  I have traveled to Guatemala first to learn and recently to serve.  I found in my first trip that poverty is a harsh perspective for me to look at.  It is difficult for me to witness.  It is a way of life for millions.  It is a lifestyle that I find painful and discouraging.  For the people of Guatemala it is home.

The second trip has allowed me to get a better understanding for the lifestyle.  There are numerous ways of living in this region.  There are economies that facilitate prosperity, religion, and poverty.  The colonial legacy that once thrived in Central America still holds an advantage.  There are entitled land owners.  There are entitled politicians who are masters of networking and ensuring the status quo.  There are those who simply wake each morning to hold a job and make a living.  There are those who are advocating for the ongoing injustices that might be black and white.  There are those who wake up to each day ignorant and foolish.  There are those who have little comfort but thrive in community.  Guatemala is stepping into the 21 century having a specialized skill set of policing, peasantry, farming, and exporting.

Poverty is alive and strong in Guatemala.  It lives in the form of greed, stubbornness, violence, and obedience.  There is a hunger in Guatemala for learning, creativity, and integrity.  For 30 years this country learned to live by the rules of the military and to unlearn this obedient and mundane culture will take freedom to dream.  There is a poverty of money and health for the peasant class, but worst of all there is a poverty of hope.  There is a beaten and obedient people who have learned to never leave the yard and do what has always been done.  There is not a freedom to dream and shake the cage of "shoulds".  There is a fear of sharing.

There is a slow leak in the concrete heart of Guatemala.  Americans, who come from the same country that empowered the machine that steam rolled their dreams of communal policies, are now saturating the crusted and calloused skin protecting the creativity that lives in the land, softening it, and seeping in confidence and encouragement.  Guatemala is not 3rd world, it is recovering, it is mangled, and it is healing.

For Passion Income Statements

How can we measure our profit margin for an investment in social innovation.  There isn't one.  What I find is that there is a passion margin.  When you get to the bottom line of an income statement for an organization like common hope, the hope should be for passion.  If we give people an opportunity to dream, we have seen them come alive and share in the unique abilities that all living things have, a passion to grow.

If resources can be shared across productive systems like a health clinic, a library, an early learning center, educational psychology, a family guidance center, clean and safe community facilities, educators, and dreams, we have seen that return on passion keeps growing.  The key market indicators are not in dollars, but graduation rates, teen sexual patience rates, drop in rates, preventative health care usage, and economic stability rates.  

When we walked around the barrios of Guatemala we were greeted almost every time.  We were acknowledged with every passing, we were treated to connection, only briefly but consistently.  The scariest folks in Guatemala were not the ragged and impoverished looking people, it was the unknown.  The fear of the consequences and desperation that can come from economic poverty.  There is a quiet and humble tranquility that flows through the streets of Guatemala. That is a natural resource that has been suppressed, disrupted, and barried in classism.

There is conflict and politics like in every system.  It is not capitalism that destroyed this region.  I doubt communism could create less suffering.  I do think the fear of equality keeps others from sharing.  It might be greed and corruption that feeds the fear of equality.  There is a term I rarely hear used in social systems, stingy.  There are cultures that are stingy in the human race.  Those who are stingy have not been loved enough to know that sharing often results in bounty.  

Sharing is not an economically sound strategy for gaining power, and sharing power is rarely admired. I could not have dreamed up this opportunity had I not been able to trust that I could share responsibility with this team.  And now, we share in the bounty.  We look at each other and realize we have extended our family.  We have drilled for love and found it.  We have mined for passion and are exporting it.  We found a compassion forrest and are harvesting its fruit.  We have finalized our sharing statements and have your return on investment, our passion margin.  Our dividends are as high as ever, in the currency of gratitude.  You are valued!

Buen Provecho,

Ron

Classism, a simple beginning

This is my second trip into Guatamela.  The first was spent entirely in a group of classmates on a guided excursion.  It was a subtle introduction into the crisis, mysticism, lifestyle, and ecology of the Antigua region.  I began to have an opinion on the history being shared.  I realized that my country was involved and possibly the reason for the unrest.  This inspired me to reflect on much more than history.  It caused to accept that I must be part of the restructuring, because the culture can never be restored to an original state, far too much has changed, or been set back.

The current conditions in Guatemala seem to be a class struggle.  Those who have the most still believe this is not their problem, but a problem.  This is only my opinion because I don't have their perspective.  Their solution seems to be to put up higher walls with, greater voltages running through the barbed wire lining the fences.  Their solution seems to include their own schools, places to shop and eat, even their own churches, and in the end conceal the problems around them.

I do this myself with emotions and with actions.  When I have dishes I put them in the sink, off the counter but out of sight.  My roof has leaks in certain areas but I simply close the door hoping it won't leak too bad.  Emotionally I do similar thing to ignore overwhelming distractions.  I like to exercise, helping me exhaust my emotions into insignificance, by feeling healthy.  I occupy myself with leisure as a reward for my a perceived hard work.  I lock my doors because others will steal my valuables if I don't.  I am ultimately too irritated by the necessary work to be done because it forces me to be responsible for things that are tedious and lack entertainment.  The work needed to be done keeps me from having my fun.  But in the end that leak turns into a hole and the hole destroys more than my roof it can set me back.

I think the complications have come from the perspective of should pay, what is valued, and how much is enough.  We all understand what it feels like to be entitled.  I think there is a difference between being entitled to money and privileged to have money.  Conquering others for resources and exploiting these booties is not fair.  Feeling entitled to currency makes me curios and ignoring the dignity in privilege can lead to prejudice.  For now I have come to guess that the highest classes might be the most fearful folks there are.

Incarceration Rates by Population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate


One nation under God, indivisible, and Justice for those who are empowered. Forgiveness for the powerful few, the elite humble, the profitable meek, and rare ignorant.

It is the home of the brave often when convinced, promised, or deceived with education and hazard pay...not to mention large no bid contracts.

Land of the Free seems to be empirically unseen for the staggering cultures, land of the discriminant and home of the prejudice appears to be a better statistical match.

All men are created equal, unless it becomes inconvenient and rebellious in the eyes of the status quo. Most should pursue happiness and the entitlements that come from capitalism until the rich elite can conspire guidelines that eliminate or discourage competition.

When one can find themselves in the flow of empowerment and able to tolerate the magnetic forces of addiction, we are as great as the greatest nations. We are capable of being talented and symbiotic. We can and have championed liberty by giving the underdog time on the court.

We are brilliant because we allow the underdog an opportunity to study the play book. We open the practice fields up for everyone. We are still in the direction of democracy. We are close to seeing all people as equal.

We are growing further from valuing them for their contributions versus looking for oppotunities to punish them.

Interesting thought about heaven

Most Christians desire that everyone be Christian so that we all share in the gift of heaven.  Universal and catholic faith in a trinity, and not the Catholic religion but the true definition of catholic.  There is also a belief that heaven will be illusive to those who are unworthy.  So is the acceptance into a place or even state reflective of the process Christians might participate in on judgment day.  Is America like heaven?  Is this metaphor even fair?
I start thinking about the beliefs needed to get to heaven.  Why exclude?  If God is capable of infinite forgiveness then why exclude anyone who wishes to live in heaven.  Will heaven have an economy?  Will heaven have a currency?  Does God discriminate? A better question is, if forgiveness is infinite but time isn't as revelations tell us.  Does this mean, forgiveness will end as well.  Will forgiveness be irrelevant in heaven?  Will discrimination be the ultimate gateway to heaven, with worthiness be the golden ticket?  Are those who segregate just practicing the ways of their Father?  We are made in the image of God, does this mean we are expressing God's ability to discriminate.

I think about the immigrant.  Then I question how the right wing Christian lobby seems to believe that heaven should be for everyone.  This isn't contradictory to how they believe their God will treat them on judgment day.  This also reflects the American self perception that this nation is under God and the moral compass for the world.

The biggest risk I find in religion is feeling righteous enough to think like God.  Isn't judging human worth a risky skill, maybe even a skill left for God.  Isn't our worth our ticket to heaven.  Isn't entrance to heaven the choice of God.  Are our borders symbolizing the act of judging worth.  One nation under God but only for those who deserve to be in heaven.  Judge and you will be judged the same.

As I seek heaven like the immigrant seeks prosperity here, I question whether I want to be in a place where discrimination still exists.  I think Gandhi might have hinted at the idea of questioning the goal of heaven if it will be full of religious elitists.  Are our borders reflective of the process God chooses for us.  I expect heaven to have souls that have discriminated but absent of discrimination.  I hope my desire to be without discrimination will be enough to not exclude me from heaven.  The paradox is fun.  I must learn to not discriminate in order to pass God's discrimination.

Dad's plans

When things don't work out as planned, I tend to think they went wrong.  When I think about what right is supposed to feel like it just as illusive as the feeling I feel when expectations aren't met.  I am a father who won't make happiness happen, but I will be a dad who will try.  I think my daughters have taught me to hold on to second chances, and to see each chance as a new and different try.  Fathers Day is a day to remember that there are men who may or may not have helped life happen as planned.  If I look at it a little differently and update my plans I get an opportunity to see how Dad is not an answer to life but a question about my lineage.  So to dads who are what you are there will always be plans and hopefully they'll include you.

A brief inspired encounter with self

I am working on getting back to spiritual currencies as the core economy for my life.  What this means in English is that I am finding my way out of consumerism, egoism, and elitism, in favor of genuine tradition, communication, and symbiosis.  I come from communities that are addicted, depressed, and violent.  I have been fortunate to recognize those traits and characteristics ongoing in my life, culture, and community, inspiring me to redirect my education, skills, and talents toward healing the wounded parts of my internal and social connections.  I am learning to go where accident alters me, coincidence leads, and hope pulls me.  I am a divorce father of 2 daughters who is functioning with a prosthetic heart.  A recovering competitor.  An aspiring counselor.  And lastly a critical thinker.

Recovery

Recovery, is something I've been experiencing over the last several months.  Regaining what has been lost, getting back to a condition of health, and patiently letting go of regret for what will never be again.  Recovery is hard.  It has been a test of my will that never really gets used.  Its the part of my will that might be described like resistance training.  The actions I take that have helped me into recovery are the patience to do nothing.  That is difficult for me.  This has led me into the realm of being helped.

I am recovering both in spirit and health.  I have grown addicted to sacrifice and justice.  I have depended on exercise to relieve stress and build self concept.  Both of these have escaped me in some form.  My shoulder has been injured due to overuse and lack of care.  My prayer life has suffered from a loss of sympathy for injustice.  My ability to admire sacrifice has suffered from the growth of my optimism.  I have felt detached, restless, and somewhat carefree with my prayers.  I have grown irritable with my fitness.  Not being able to exhaust myself has brought me to point of laziness.  I am physically discouraged.  I still run, swim, and bike but I am humbled by my perceived loss of strength and power.  My inner soldier is worried about never finding our way back to the intensity and efficiency.  I am recovering!

I have some soul recovery to talk about soon, but when in recovery, it is said to take my time and make small progressions.  Peace and improvement find me!  Passion keep your eyes on me.

Delinquent Mind

The delinquent mind has to be one of the most influential minds in existence. These are the minds that have been neglected by norms, mistreated by convenience, and ignored by efficiency. I have come appreciate the delinquent mind as much as I appreciate the savant mind. The delinquent mind is equally as creative as the savant. We have many new technologies that have been created to adapt to the delinquent mind. The delinquent mind is as efficient in finding shortcuts as the savant mind. The delinquent mind does not fall into the category of common. Often the delinquent mind is left in dismal conditions and molded by misfortune and mayhem. The processes that most people participate in as children like breakfast, school, recess, afternoon snack, leisure activities, dinner, and bedtime don't include the delinquent mind. The delinquent mind is reared in chaos, surprise, and instability. Comfort is not common to the delinquent mind. I think the delinquent mind is restless in acceptance, peace, and uniformity. The delinquent mind is misunderstood and never clear in its message, deliberately mistrusting anyone and most, weeding out those who's intentions are to sabotage the comfort found in being different. The delinquent mind holds part of the truth. The delinquent mind is the consciousness that helps each of us deal with shitty aspect of ourselves and others. The delinquent mind is the willing part of us to die and feel pain. The delinquent mind is the reckless creativity that allows us to go beyond what is seen as rational. The delinquent mind hides behind our shadow, waiting to be punished, and likely the last part of ourselves to be loved.