Reflective Web

How To Find True Love

2011-04-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

"Even a blind man can see love.
Even a paralyzed man can feel love.
Even a deaf man can hear his heartbeat.
Even a mute man can express love, so
why is love denied by the one who ignited it?"
Excerpt from the Book of Curthom

In life we experience what we believe to be love and we give it everything that we have until one day we realize that the person that we are in love with does not reciprocate that love, leaving us shattered by the love we feel. At the risk of losing ourselves in love, we thread lightly into the future, both fearing the consequences of love and seeking its comfort. For some, love comes honestly and with genuine intentions and for others, love is a one-way street that leads to yet another dead end.

How To Be Successful

2011-01-25T11:13:00.000-08:00

Success is easy, if you can define what it means and live with your definition of that success. For some people its the trophy wife, trophy motorcars, massive bank accounts and two beautiful children. In life, you come to accept early on that if you're lucky you have 100 years of living to do. That could be a mixed blessing depending on the quality of your health. What you do in those years between birth and death, we equate with our lives. How you live it, is totally up to you, so long as you don't infringe on the freedoms of others. There are no guarantees in life, except that you will leave this Earth, one day. Why not learn what it takes to be successful, according to your definition of success?

I want to state for the record first and foremost, that I can't guarantee that you will be as successful as I am. I state this, because success, means different things to different people. For me, success, is having enough time to do what I want to do, whatever that something is. Success for me is having enough time to go where I want, when I want and return safely. Success for me is having the ability to buy whatever I need-notice, I said buy whatever I need.

What I want to share with others, is that how you define success, is a very personal experience that will require reflection, time and yes, effort on your part and the effort of others. All of these aforementioned items allow you to assert your definition of success. The quality of your health, lifestyle, cash flow or lack of cash flow, contribute to your willingness to accept your definition of success.

My success has been defined and I am comfortable with its definition. I accept "My" interpretation of success, which in my intimate relationship with it, I am able to enjoy life immensely. The question I have for my readers is, are you comfortable with your definition of success? You don't have to answer that right now, that would be careless to do so without some reflection. You can enlist your family, friends and associates to help you define your success, but only you can live it. I am here to help you find it within yourself, if you will allow me.

You see, my success is fabulous, according to me and for those that know me, they may or may not accept my definition of success, but it is still, success. I obtained success late in life, but by doing so, I now savor the early retirement and freedom that it has given me. Some of my friends resent me, for having so much time to do whatever I want and the financial means to do whatever I need to do. For those friends who resent the freedom I enjoy and the financial health that I have, they are free to engage me in meaningful conversation, so that they may better understand that I don't have a monopoly on success and it is their birthright to be successful too! What I would like to share with those friends who are striving to accomplish their definition of success, is that if you desire it, you should have it, but not at the expense of mistreating others.

"Resentment has no place on the path to success and those who engage in it, drain their ability to see the obstacles ahead." Curthom

Filipinas In America

2010-12-10T11:33:00.000-08:00

There are many Filipinas in America. Most Filipinas in America are not what most Traditional American Men are looking for. Many Filipinas in America were either born in America or came to America by way of a State Department of The United States Visa Category, such as Fiance, Spousal or Labor Certification-based Work Visa, such as Nursing. There are some Filipinas who came to America on a Visitor Visa and never returned to Philippines, but that is not the subject of this article.

It has been my personal experience of over many decades living in the Philippines and Abroad and from what I have observed, that there are more than a minority of Filipinas who get married with no intention of staying with their husbands. Most of these particular Filipinas are just looking for a way to better themselves and the question that I get asked often is, “Can you blame them?” I will leave that answer up to those who are in a relationship with a Filipina or contemplating a relationship with a Filipina.

This brief article will deal with some of the consequences from my own personal experiences and from that of which I have observed with friends and family members who are in a relationship with a Filipina. My observations have shown me that there is a minority of Filipinas who stay with their husbands once they reach their home countries over a decade after marrying a Filipina and it doesn’t mater whether they were married in the Philippines or in their home country.

The Filipinas who stayed together with their husbands even after a decade of marriage are rare and from my experience not the norm from what I have observed. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong places or in the wrong directions, but the fact remains, more than a few Filipinas just start by being unfaithful, ungrateful and unappreciative of their husbands about two years prior to actually walking out one day without even saying goodbye or giving a reason for such a dramatic withdrawal.

The truth is hard pill to swallow and I experience this myself after repeated and exhaustive attempts to work things out over a three year period, but my other half, just got bolder and bolder with her blatant displays of infidelity that I could no longer deny the truth. I have observed this behavior from the Filipina wives of friends and family and the result was always the same, their Filipina wife, just left without so much as giving a reason.

Do I still want to be in a relationship with a Filipina, some of you may ask? I would like to be in a relationship with any woman who knows and understand what loyalty is and is willing to build a relationship that is enduringly a lifetime commitment. So, yes, I would like to think that I can find a Filipina who is not predetermined to leave me, even before she commits, because English is easy to say, but it doesn’t have any meaning unless it is backed up with action.

Some Filipinas who are in will be influenced by their American friends, both male and female and other Filipinas who have been influenced by America propaganda and Hollywood. What passes for morality and ethics on television and Hollywood, often times passes for education of what being an American is all about for more than a few Filipinas and that is just the beginning of the friction between them.

I guess the answer some of you may come to an conclusion with is to not get married to a Filipina, but that wouldn’t be my answer. Clearly, this could happen to any man, irrespective to what nationality his wife is from, but since we are concerning ourselves with Filipinas, we just give our opinion about some Filipinas. There are lovely ladies from the Filipinas who would be perfect for any man, but the challenge is to find that one Filipina who is, what she said she is and her actions prove her out.

A decade or so before I got married to a Filipina, my well-meaning friends advised me against marrying the Filipina that I was in love with. I followed my heart and 16 years later and a fortune later, they were right. She took every dime I had and left me penniless and in poor health and then just up and walked out on me one day after a two year affair with a personal injury lawyer who handled her divorce against me.

I watched her swear to God on a Bible to tell the truth in divorce court and her answer to the Judge, started with a lie and ended with a lie, and she professed to be a Christian. So, what I’m saying is that I’m not mad at her because when I met her and her family, they had nothing and I mean nothing! No running water, no electricity, no house, no toilet, nothing!

Being the Christian that I am, I provided for her and her family, her sisters and brothers and a few properties, a house with fine furniture and appliances later, paid for the Nursing School of her sister and brother and set her mother up in business and brought a farm for her father. I gave her everything she asked for and things she didn’t ask for and one day, when she couldn’t get anything more from me financially, she just walked out and sued me for support in divorce court.

As I stated earlier, I’m not mad at her, she was doing what her parents taught her to do and it was the unconditional love that I had for her that allowed her to receive so much from me and my family. Now, she has gone on to drain some other schmuck of his fortune and his dreams and all I can say to her is, “more power to you.”

There is someone for everyone and it took me sometime to figure that she wasn’t the one for me, but my heart wouldn’t let me rationalize on what was going on, because I loved her more than I loved myself and after while, I didn’t even remember who I was. I had given her so much time, attention and affection that I smoldered the love. When she left, I was devastated, but that devastation was the first step to being reborn.

Some Filipinas will take you for a ride and some Filipinas will ride with you on this journey called Life and that is the Filipina that you want to get with. You want someone who is deserving of your time, your attention and your heart and our Heavenly Father, would have no less. So, take your time and go slow and when the right Filipina or woman comes along, you’ll be ready.

The Meaning Of Self

2010-11-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

"Standing within a world where happiness is and isn't. I know of no other place than Hell and Earth, yet, love comes only once. Have I traveled so far that I have left all memory of myself behind? When will I know the depth of my loneliness? How soon will my thirst for another be quenched? Why must today, become another tomorrow?

Why must my tomorrows lead to yesterday? Why must today reaffirm my presence? So much life, so much living yet I don't feel alive. Numb to my very own heartbeat, I can no longer feel for another. Must I become what I am?" Excerpt from The Book of Curthom

Truth and Consequences of The Third Party In A Relationship

2010-11-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

One plus One equals three, when you allow a third party into your relationship. Few relationships can survive the static and drama that a third person brings to your relationships. You won’t see it coming and when you finally realize it, often it is too late, because the betrayal is almost always fatal to any relationship.

No amount of apologizing will console a shattered heart, that is bleeding with trust issues as hemorrhagic as any wound. The intrigues of another sets in when the third party becomes a part of your relationship, whether willingly or unwillingly, some emotional baggage is being handled, every time your partner divulges the intimacy of your relationship with the opposite sex.

Affairs often ensue with the third person who you were privy with the most secretive of details that were once reserved for your partner. Once a third party knows your most intimate desires and weakness, they often use that to their advantage to destroy the bond between a couple and infidelity becomes as second nature as lying to your partner.

The excuses and sudden changes in behavior become detectable not only to your partner, but your friends as well. Each trying to disguise what is morally wrong, while at the same time, basking in its lust. The emotional attachment to the third person becomes an obstacle to the couple’s relationship, but the partner vested in affair, relishes the excitement of doing what they want when they want, while falsely trying to hang on to their partner’s concern.

Soon the third person occupies not only the mind of your partner, but their heart also and their body, is just one of the benefits. It doesn’t matter to the person involved with the third person, whether the relationship is emotional or sexual, but it does matter deeply to the partner who is being cheated of the empathy and intimacy their missing.

It may be the willing ear to listen, the mystery of sex with someone else who does things , your partner would consider deviant or the mystery of trying to hide it all from your partner, that drives some partners to cheat, but ultimately, infidelity almost always destroys trust and the absence of trust, fatally destroys relationships.

Even in the most heated and passionate relationships come to a lull where each person feels less than appealing to their partners and if both partners don’t find a way to reignite the interest that they once had with one another, enter the third person. What does it take to keep your partner interested in you? The same things you did to capture their attention and their heart, but deliver those things in a mysterious and unpredictable manner, so there is excitement when it happens.

In today’s fast moving society, men and women interact frequently in the work place and other arenas, so there is amble opportunity to encounter the third person. Be careful who you share your relationship secrets with, because the willing listener often becomes your lover. You can blame on the alcohol or your desire or your loneliness, but it is still betrayal if you are in a relationship with someone else.

Who you chose and how you decide when you allow yourself to be seduced by the third person, may very well determine the outcome of your relationship and your life. Do you want to be the third person in someone else’s relationship? If, you’re not careful with your relationship, you could very well find yourself in just such a situation.

Your partner could express their refusal to tolerate your behavior and leave you. You just may find that your partner is not afraid to get up and leave and make a life for themselves without you. Is that what you want?

Here is what it takes to keep the third person out of your relationship.

The very reason you are in a relationship with your partner is because there was something about them that made you want to be with them. Rediscover what that was, but don’t be afraid to be yourself. That is don’t be afraid to be you, whatever that means and however you expressed yourself and your passion before meeting your partner. Revisit that person and be that person. Do you and be you, but it with your partner and help them to find it within themselves to be themselves.

Couples like when their partner is somewhat mysterious and unpredictable with them. Surprise your mate and let them know that you appreciate them now and forever by doing something that they like unexpectedly and be genuine in your approach. Do it because you care enough to see them happy enjoying the pleasure that you bring to the relationship.

Don’t get bogged down in the drudgery of getting too use to one another. Voice your opinion, but do it with a sense of wanting to be understood and appreciated and not from a viewpoint of confrontation or being right. Let your partner know how you feel about the things that they do, for better or worse and that you are concerned about the outcome of their actions. Make every day, one that paints positive and pleasant memories of your life together and the third person becomes someone you only read about. There is no greater intimacy than the essence that two people share when the love they share is expressed in a way, that makes every waking moment, a thought of each other.

The Challenges of Memory & Chinese

2010-10-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

I think for most foreigners trying to learn a language that is different than their own, we struggle with trying to speak like a native in the beginning only to imitate someone who may be trying too hard. I remember decades ago when I first started learning Chinese, my instructor was a woman and in my Western way of thinking, I was afraid that if I studied too long with her, that I might speak Chinese like a woman instead of like a Chinese man. How silly I was for thinking like that, looking back in hindsight.

Something as simple as getting the word order correct in Chinese proved to be something that many of us get wrong, without really thinking about it. When you’re thinking in your native language, its very easy to embed your native language's grammar upon the language you’re trying to learn, rather than just accepting what seems unconventional as conventional.

For example, In Chinese Culture, the family name or last name comes first, showing reverence and respect for the family. Even when you address someone with a title or honorific in Chinese, the tendency is to put the title or honorific before the person’s name, rather than the proper way in Chinese and that is after the person’s name, such as Lee Jin Professor or Lee Jin Laoshi. Another example is Ms. Wei Jian or Wei Jian Xiao Jie.

When I’m living in East Asia and South East Asia, I am always amazed at how much I’m understood and misunderstood when I spoke Chinese. When I’m in Beijing or Shanghai, I’m mostly understood, but when I’m in Kuming or Hong Kong in the South, I’m mostly misunderstood.

Most of the Chinese that I’m in the company of here when I visit the United States predominately come from Southern China, so I’m often misunderstood, except of course when I encounter someone from Fujian Province. I noticed that a fair number of folks that run the Chinese Buffets here in America are from Fujian Province.

I studied Chinese (Mandarin) for more than six years in Boston and got to practice it in the local Chinatown where the majority of people spoke Cantonese. You can imagine how that went over. My Chinese was enough to get a decent meal, but because Mandarin and Cantonese when spoken is so very different, the meals I got were unusual and exciting if not expensive sometimes. Most of the time, I didn’t know what I was eating, so long as it was warm and not moving on the plate or in the bowl.

That experience in the local Chinatowns of Boston and New York, taught me to pay more attention in class and listen more intently when my Taiwanese girlfriend at the time instructed me to the point of frustration to pay more attention. I think if China hadn’t fired those missiles from their mainland over Quemoy, off the Taiwan Straits in the Spring of 1996, she and I would still be together. She went home rather abruptly to Taiwan, fearing for her family there during this missile crisis and the presidential elections run-up, effectively ending my one-on-one mentoring in Chinese.

I moved to Hong Kong for awhile, I don’t know why exactly, but maybe it was to be close to my girlfriend, after all, she never told me that we were breaking up, only that she had to go back to Taiwan in a hurry, because of the things China was doing. I lived in the Wan Chai and Central area of Hong Kong and later I moved to Kowloon and the Mid-Level area near University of Hong Kong Library Annex, whittling my time away reading Chinese Philosophy and looking for the next business venture.

The days languished into weeks and the weeks into months and I found myself learning less and less Mandarin Chinese and more and more British English and Cantonese. I finally grew to accept the fact that my girlfriend was no longer my girlfriend and that I had to move on with my life. Weeks later I moved to the Philippines to settle in the Makati City area near Pasig River.

My Chinese language lessons stopped for a while when I lost my Taiwanese girlfriend, so I begun concentrating on the languages around me in the Manila area and they were Tagalog and Iloconos. I approached my Tagalog lessons half-halfheartedly, but eventually learned enough to get around and enjoy my stay in the Philippines until one day, I heard that my father wasn’t well and that I should come at once to the States.

Back in the Southern United States, life seemed amazingly boring compared to the life in Asia. I missed the daily haggling over prices in an attempt to get a bargain and here in the States, pretty much everything was fixed priced and bargaining was discouraged or non-existence in most places. Also, I missed the people of Asia, where there wasn't even a hint of privacy because you’re always surrounded by so many people eeking out a living for themselves. I spent my time wrestling with my father’s condition, Alzheimer and while in the States, flunked my flight physical. The horrors of my service in the Army had finally caught up with me. I had Agent Orange Related-cancers, compliments of my time in the military during the Vietnam Conflict Era. Remember, Congress never declared the whole Vietnam debacle a war, so benefits were limited if any, when it was all over. It’s amazing how dealing with the Veteran’s Affairs Office is more combative than any war I could have fought.

On a good day, when the 48 pills and 5 syringe injections that I take each day, permit me to make sense of what’s going on around me, I wrestle with my memory trying not to lose myself. My Chinese sounds really strange now that I’m back in the States for a few months. Most of the people that I meet that speak Chinese, speak Fujian, which is in Southern China, but close to the language of Taiwan. Taiwan has lots of Fujian people and ancestors, so it’s no surprise it’s easy for me to understand, remember my first tutor and ex-girlfriend was from Taiwan?

After so many decades, I’m fluent in eight local Chinese languages and of course the “People’s Language,” Mandarin. For those of you learning Chinese for the first time, get yourself a Chinese girlfriend or if that isn’t possible, a good text book such as “Gwoyeu Romatzyh,” which will put the Chinese characters into a Romanticized character that most English speakers are accustomed to. “Gwoyeu Romatzyh” is the English-character equivalent to Pinyin in the West.

For multimedia aids, I recommend the Paul Pimsleur Audio lessons in Chinese and the Rosetta Stone Series in Chinese. The Pimsleur Audio Lessons are affordable for most, but many will find the Rosetta Stone Video Chinese Series, very expensive. Both are worth the price if you’re serious about learning Chinese, but can’t hire a Chinese teacher or visit a Chinese speaking country right away, but still want to learn Chinese. My advice for beginners of Chinese is don’t get so hung up on the tones when you start out, it will only frustrate you and discourage you from learning Chinese. In time, you’ll get used to the correct way of pronouncing familiar gestures and before you know it, you’ll be speaking very good Chinese. Practice makes it easier of course, especially if you can practice several times a week and as always, I believe that boots on the ground, arriving in China, Taiwan, Singapore or a large Chinatown, is the best way to learn to speak Chinese. Best wishes and enjoy the Chinese culture.

Marriage

2010-10-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

"I got married, but a wife didn't come with it. She verbally consented to marry me, but her heart was with someone else. Her heart didn't permit her to bond with me and so, in time, she never did. As the months became years and the years past, a decade later, she reinforced what I already knew, I got married, but a wife didn't come with it." Excerpt from the Book of Curthom

Disability Is Not For The Faint Of Heart

2010-09-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

When you have a permanent disability, your presence among those who knew you before you became disabled, changes dramatically. I think that mostly, it has something to do with your presence. A presence that reminds most people of their fragility of being human and most don't want to be reminded of that by having you around.

Disability is always with you and even on those few days when you feel good, the number of pills that you have to take and/or the injections by syringe that you administer, reminds you that all is not well. You one day, finally come to terms with your disability, for sanity's sake but you never feel whole again. The relationships that you had before your disability, become a thing of the past and the memories, sometimes as corrosive as any acid.

The one's who once expressed love for you, well, many become distant strangers and those few who you do see sometimes, reluctantly remind you that you can't do this or that you can't do that, so you keep your distance from them too. You find yourself enveloped in a cocoon of deceit, by so many people around you, who offer a superficial smile, while trying to hold back their disgust of your situation.

You reserve yourself to your time by yourself, hoping that when you feel good that day, that you can commit to something briefly with the hopes of finishing, just one small task, but the challenges of remembering what that task was, when you pause, leaves it unfinished and you clueless. So, nothing meaningful gets done and everything meaningful, is forgotten. The ones you once loved deeply, are just an allusion of all that love once represented.

So, you persevere hoping that you'll live long enough one day to take advantage of any medical discoveries or medical advances, that may be relevant to your condition. Meanwhile, the absentmindedness, pain and the suffering continues and so too does the reality of it all.

Allow Me To Introduce MySelf

2010-09-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

Hello! You don’t know me, but maybe you would like to know me?
I don’t know, but maybe you can find out by reading this short letter about me. I find myself putting myself on this site in hopes of finding someone like-minded like myself.

I know that there are many perceptions about the people who do this sort of thing, putting their information online in hopes of meeting someone who is as serious as they are about meeting someone who is genuine, but you will never truly know unless you do.

I realize that there are some people who leave negative comments about the people who post their intentions online and that there are some foreigners who think bad about some women who post here also. I’m not here to dwell on those negative people, but try and connect with someone who is positive and as honest as I am.

I don’t want to lose faith in the human race, no mater where we find ourselves in this world. Much of who we are and what we are, we can attribute to our parents and our birthplace and I believe most people in this world want the same things I do and that is someone to love, who loves them back, no matter where they are from and the chance to express that love in a way that is not only reciprocated but reinforced every day they’re together.

I don’t say these things to make flowery conversation, but to express lightly the depth of my feelings about love. I believe that each of us has someone, somewhere in the world that is right for us and that we are right for them. Some of us are lucky enough to find that person in our own backyard and some of us are lucky enough to find that person somewhere in this world.

I believe that our Heavenly Father gives us the wisdom to understand this and the vision to see that someone, when the time is right for us to be together.

I know that not everyone who puts their personal posting here have true intentions, but have a hidden agenda and to those people, I ask, please go elsewhere, because my intentions are honorable and I don’t my heart played with and I wouldn’t want that for anyone else’s heart.

If, you are still reading my personal posting, I hope that you understand me. I don’t mean to offend, but merely tell you honestly what my intentions are and that is to find that one person who completes me.

I’m not here to waste your time and I wouldn’t want you to waste my time. I’m mature enough to know about love and what it means to be in love and reinforce that love every day. I have a fertile heart, but I am seeking just one seed to make my heart blossom again. If, you understand me and feel the same way too, then I would welcome a reply from you.

I am looking to unite with someone who wants to be with me, for all the days of my life and your life and hope that Our Heavenly Father, will give us a long union together.

I don’t have riches or fame, but I do have the wealth of loyalty and presence and I know that is not enough for some women, but then again, I’m not looking for women, I’m looking for one woman. One woman who knows herself enough to know what loyalty is and what love is and what it takes to keep love alive between two people.

I’m not a doctor or a lawyer, but I’ve studied both medicine and law and have worked in both and now I’ve retired to finding my other half. My life is simple and my search for a woman who wants to be in a relationship with someone who will love her back, is my occupation. It pays enough to sustain us both, but the benefits is what I seek. I want to share my life with you and only you. You know who you are and I know who I am and the only thing that we don’t know, is when we’ll be together?

Soon I hope, if your hopes are like my own. We can make your hopes come true and my hopes as real as you are. I’m waiting and I know this is what you’re waiting for too!

Love Revealed, Love Abandoned

2010-08-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

You know my parents didn't love each other. Both of them used to love someone else. And because of that, I was left with a sense of emptiness all of my life.

They stayed together for a little while, until they decided to get divorced and go their separate ways. I used to always say, I'll never get married, because I didn't want to fill the depth of a greater emptiness, if my wife ever left me.

I followed my heart one day and got married. And then one day I found out that my wife loved another. The depths of emptiness drowned me in darkness. A void that took my heart away.

I followed my heart and it lead me to the slaughterhouse of deceit. My heart fooled me and my emotions ran empty, leaving me a shell of a man. So, here I stand alone in a world of strangers, a skeleton of a person whose life once loved.

Corruption Is A Cancer

2010-07-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

Corruption is a cancer and here is why I think that. I've just returned from abroad and something that struck me as particularly unusual with my return is the government agent who spoke with an accent making a rather aggressive insinuation that things would go smoothly if I pass him something. I don't know if I was shocked or just taken aback some 35 plus years when I first set foot in South East Asia as a young civilian.

Back when I was a young adult and I was traveling throughout the South East Asia region, the first time that I encountered corruption I didn't know how to react, so I did what everyone else around me did, and put some money in my hand and passed it off discreetly to the government official to smooth things along. It gave me flash backs to an earlier time when I experienced "greasing the palm" with a U.S. Port of Entry official. I didn't know how to react because it had taken me completely off guard. Are we so hard up now in America, that some of our government officials have to stoop to soliciting bribes from unsuspecting passengers returning home? I leave you with an excerpt from the Book of Curthom regarding his views on corruption.

"Corruption challenges the moral fiber of what's right and just. If, you allow it, tolerate it or simply do nothing, like cancer, corruption ravages the moral compass of the individual, groups, organizations, business and government, collectively, so what becomes of one's society, one's country and one's self?" Curthom

Cancer & Alternative Cancer Treatment

2010-07-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from Thailand and I must say, if I weren't so sick from the long flight on Cathay Pacific coming home, I would rejoice that I am making progress against Thyroid Cancer and Adrenal Cancer. Two days after I got home, I learned that another member in my squad during the period of the Vietnam War has passed away after a long and painful struggle with Agent Orange-related cancers.

When you have no other choice but to persist and hope to live long enough to take advantages of any medical advances, time seems to linger when you're going through chemotherapy and radiation medicine. Seeking out Alternative Cancer Treatment was an expensive option for me, since getting medical insurance is a pipe dream once you've been diagnosed with cancer.

I finished reading The Book of Curthom, which gave me encouragement and insights into my own mortality and I leave you before the holiday tomorrow with an excerpt to ponder:

"Cancer is the greatest battle humankind has ever faced. It comes. It stays. It ravages the innocent and convicts the guilty. Cancer is the God of all diseases and time is its judge. " Curthom

Thyroid Cancer & The Reality

2010-06-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

Thyroid Cancer sneak up on me one day, to be be exact, follicular thyroid cancer. Even as I go through the maze of thyroid cancer treatment, the only thing on my mind is a vain attempt to write down the numerous poems that were born of struggle, suffering, pain and of living a life well-deserved. Once upon a time I had a bucket list and I have since emptied it with the task of completing everyting on its list and now a new bucket list is in order.

No one can tell me definitively the outcome of the thyroid cancer treatment that I am currently laboring through and even thought at times it is an excruciating experience, the reality of not knowing the outcome gives me pause and I find that when I put pen to paper, my life unfolds in the form of words. Let me share with you these words inspired by the chemical highs and lows of consciousness and unconsciousness.

"Our days on this Earth are numbered. The days you walk on this planet have a definite time and place and measured with the satisfaction only you can define. Walk, knowing that you can run, but take each step with someone you love dearly.

Cancer, no matter what type, flavor or form, is the greatest battle humankind has ever faced. It comes. It stays. It ravages the innocent and inhabits the guilty. Cancer is the god of all diseases, even when there is no belief and time is its judge." Excerpts from the Book of Curthom.

I leave you with pause until the next time when the fingers glance the keyboard yet again, Shalom.

Love's Reciprocity

2010-05-07T12:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever loved someone so deeply that you drowned in your own fascination with the person who possessed your heart? Looking back in hindsight, it's amazing how the person you feel so much for, cares very little for you. Are you just another person's option, when you want to be more than just that? Putting the person you feel so much for up on a pedestal is the threshold to putting distance between you and that person. In time, your praise and adoration will leave you stranded, trying to touch the person you've elevated to such a status, that even to you, they have become untouchable.

In time, you will have to quench your thirst for this person you feel so much for, because they will leave you dehydrated of love. Love is not love, unless it is reciprocal. Without reciprocity, love is just an obsession that becomes overwhelmingly hurtful to the person who is starving for it. You can lose yourself and everything you believe in for the sake of another and what good are you to anyone, once you're lost in place? Love that is not fostered, is a bleeding love, that can you leave you a shell of a person. If, love is to exist and persist in a relationship, it has to be reciprocal, otherwise, whose fooling who? I leave you a short quote about love, that is born out of loving someone more than I once loved myself...

"To Quench the illusions of a love once had, cottonmouth becomes the drink of choice." Excerpt from The Book of Curthom.

How You Blink, Determines Your View of A Situation

2010-05-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

How you blink determines your view of a situation. While at first this just seems like an unreasonable assumption that blinking would have anything at all to do with a situation, but when you pause for a moment and think about it, blinking determines exactly how you are most likely to grasp a situation, no matter what the situation.

Most of us associate blinking with our eyes ability to keep dust and any other wind-swept debris coming towards our eyes, but blinking is also necessary for keeping our ability to see things more clearly. If, we take it for granted like most of us do, we generally completely miss the importance of blinking, just as we do breathing. It occurs without effort, so we don't place a lot of thought on it, until something hampers its efficiency.

The ability and willingness for each of us to consider for a moment during our quiet moments, just exactly what it is we are try to see clearly, goes a long ways towards our understanding of a situation. So, take some time out of each period of your day to reflect and give pause to beauty that comes when you actually understand what you see and feel. Here is a quote from the noted Internationalist and Philosophical Poet, Curthom. Enjoy and until, the fingers meet the keyboard once again, best wishes.

"Each time you blink, your eyes come yet closer to another opportunity to choose how others will see you. Blink too slow and your life stands still. Blink too fast and your life passes you by right before your eyes. Open your eyes and stare at the possibilities." Excerpt from the Book of Curthom.

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In Loving Memory

2009-08-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

"Just like a fire needs fuel to burn, so too does a memory need a past to exist. The burning within my heart will only diminish when my memory of her is occupied by the loving presence of another.

Just like you have to inhabit a reality often found in the dreams that wake you from your sleep. A dream where the vision is as narrowly understood as the stupor of sudden awakeness.

Within this blur of confusion, clarity is as instant as the epiphany that haunts the memory of a dream."

Excerpt from The Book of Curthom

This is one of many entries from The Book of Curthom, which tells the story of waiting for love for over three decades and then once finding it, the consequences of loving with all of your heart and soul. The Book of Curthom contains love quotes, love letters to the one true love, and speaks of a shy love that was forbidden by society, yet went on to consumate a collection of timeless short love poems that have endeared the loving memory of a time that may never return.

The Economic Bandage Called Hyundai

2009-06-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hyundai, the forward thinking South Korean Automotive Conglomerate knows what ails the American Economy and that is a need to inspire the American Consumer into consuming again. Hyundai, is offering American Consumers an opportunity to return their new Hyundai's in the event they lose their jobs without any eventual consequences to their credit.

Hyundai's Assurance Program applies to any New Hyundai purchase and is available to anyone, regardless of age, your health or employment history. Even if you are upside down on your New Hyundai when you give it back due to you losing your job. The Hyundai Assurance Program covers up to $7,500 of negative equity. It also covers if you become physically disabled, or lose your driver's license due to some physical impairment. It covers if you are transferred by your employer outside of the United States and it also covers you if you are self-employed and have to file for bankruptcy and it even covers. Lord Forbid, in the event of accidental death! You can get more information about Hyundai's Assurance Program here.

If, you aren't already impressed by Hyundai's Marketing Strategy, you may be pleased to know that Hyundai was the first automobile manufacturer to offer American Consumers a 10-Year, 100,000 mile warranty. Hyundai's 10-Year, 100,000 mile warranty help sway the American car buyer to see the South Korean Automaker as a viable alternative to purchasing an American car. Hyundai has steadily increased its market share in America since investing $1 Billion building an automotive plant in Montgomery, Alabama in 2002. Hyundai's commitment to the America automotive market and its host of groundbreaking practices such as "America's Best Warranty," its 10-Year, 100,000 mile Warranty Program, The Hyundai Assurance Program, was enough to change the thinking of more than one American Auto Manufacturer. You can get more information here about Hyundai's Warranty Program. Hyundai appears to be on a roll, in that it has also won many awards regarding the quality of their automotive construction in "Initial Quality Tests Study" by J.D. Power & Associates. Indeed Hyundai has come a very long way from its initial build quality that most Americans associate with the South Korea Automobile Maker. To read more about Hyundai's J.D. Power & Associate Report on "initial Quality Tests," go here.

How would you like to lock in the price of gasoline for an entire year? Well, if you buy a New Hyundai, you will lock in the price of gasoline at the price of $1.49 for the year. It's Hyundai's Assurance Gas Lock Program. The Assurance Gas Lock Program even includes leased Hyundai vehicles. The Hyundai Assurance Gas Lock Program runs from July 1, 2009 until August 31, 2009, so if you're interested in some of the best guarantees in the Automotive Industry, now is the time to go and make your purchase.

When you purchase a New Hyundai automobile you will get a special card that will give you the ability to purchase gas at $1.49 a gallon. The Hyundai Assurance Gas Lock Program Card will enable to get about 600 gallons of fuel, equivalent to driving about 12, 000 miles according to the Redwood City, California, the technology and risk management company PriceLock. New Hyundai Car Purchasers will be able to use the Hyundai PriceLock Assurance Gas Lock Card anywhere credit cards are accepted in the United States.

No matter what the gas price is when you use your Hyundai PriceLock Assurance Gas Lock Card, PriceLock pays whatever the gas price is and PriceLock collects the difference from Hyundai and you are only charged $1.49 per gallon for the gas. PriceLock is able to do this using its expertise in the financial and technology markets. PriceLock uses a hedge to lock in the price of gasoline. PriceLock purchases a "call" for gasoline at what it thinks to be a competitive price and locks it in with an options contract that allows it to purchase gasoline at a set price. If, Hyundai has the success that the Chrysler PriceLock Gas Card had for the American automaker back in the summer of 2008, Hyundai could increase sales traffic in their dealerships substantially. You can read more about Hyundai's Assurance Gas Lock Program here.

Veterans Administration Medical Centers & Non-Compliance

2009-06-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

"Silence does not halt the truth, no more than the stillness of quiet." Curthom

Today I had an appointment to see my Nephrologist (kidney doctor) and he had just gotten the results from my 5-day stay in a private hospital. I sat down in his office eagered that there would be good news regarding the series of tests that were done at the non-Veterans Administration facility only to have my kidney doctor chastise me for non-compliance.

My kidney doctor told me that he thought that I may have been non-compliant regarding my healthcare and that he sent me to the emergency room of a local hospital to find out for sure. Five days later, after a number of studies and 3 times as much medications and increased dosages of the usual medications, I'm discharged sicker than when I was admitted to the hospital.

The new medications to include a pill for diabetes and syringe-induced insulin five times per day, did nothing to help with my spirits, yet the doctors say that I'm getting better. I don't quite understand the doctors interpretation of my getting better, when my medications weigh in about 3 lbs for a 30-day supply and I'm taking more than 23 pills per day, excluding the insulin routine that I take before each meal, at 9p.m. and 2 a.m. in the morning.

I sat in the kidney doctor's office this morning to hear him tell me that the private hospital Nephrologist concurs with him that my problem was non-compliance. When I ask what he and the other kidney doctor meant by a diagnosis of non-compliance, he could explain or even define what he meant, yet he was certain that I was non-compliant. I asked him once again how could he state that I was non-compliant when he couldn't even explain it to me. He told me quickly with a smirk on his face that he was just the messenger. I thought to myself how could he be just the messenger when he told me earlier that he concurred with the private hospital diagnosis.

I was admitted to a private hospital for a problem that the Veterans Administration Medical Clinic states they were unable to control because they said I was non-compliant, a loosely-defined way of implying that you're not following their instructions or taking the medications that their prescribing to you. The reality is that they increased the dosage and frequency of three of my medications and they put me on four new medications while in the private hospital and discharge me feeling sicker than when I went in the hospital.

If, taking 3 times my usual dosage more times a day means that I'm non-compliant, I guess I meet their operational definition of being non-compliant. If, taking four new medications religiously, because my life depends on it means that I'm non-compliant, I guess I meet that operational definition for non-compliance too!
If, asking for medication refills weeks before they run out, I guess I'm non-compliant. The automated prescription refill doesn't allow you to request a refill that early, even though you won't see your Primary Care Doctor for anther 6 to 8 weeks.

If, requesting a medication refill, even though your medication bottle states that you have no more refills available and you discuss it with your doctor a month or so before you run out, and your doctor tells you that they're not sure if they are going to keep you on that medication or that dosage and they'll decide after they see how you're doing on it means I'm non-compliant, I guess I hit the jackpot. When I finally have one weeks of medication left with a prescription with no more refills and the automated prescription refill system that the Veterans Administration has set up doesn't allow me to reorder, but sends me to another automated system for making a doctor's appointment.

When I finally get through the automated appointment line and are routed to an actual human being to make a doctor's appointment to get a prescription refilled I asked for weeks ago, but the system told me it can't renew the prescription because it was too early or that there were no more active refills, the human being on the appointment line chastises me for waiting till the last minute to refill my prescription and tells me that I should take my medication as prescribed and calls me back a few hours later telling me that the doctor wants to see me before they fill my prescription.

When I walk into the Veterans Administration Medical Clinic without an appointment in order to go through their Triage System to be sorted out, the Unit Clerk tells me that I should have made an appointment and that he doesn't know if the doctor will be able to see me today, since I don't have an appointment. When I called the automated appointment line and got a human being, I was told that they wouldn't be able to schedule an appointment for me for four to six weeks, but the doctor wants to see me today, so I should walk in.

Time lingers like the smoke of popcorn left too long in a microwave as I wait and wait and wait, my bladder bursting for relief, as I dare not go to the bathroom, lest someone call my name and I miss my chance at seeing the doctor that day. I wait so long in fact that when my name is finally called, it comes as a surprise that somebody actually knows my name.

The tone of the nurse doesn't sound too encouraging when she mutters out, "So, you're out of medicine again" matter of factly, she asks? I tell her that I have a few pills left, only to read her expression and gather that she is not pleased that I'm increasing her workload at that hour. She takes my blood pressure and tells me that my blood pressure is always high and that I must not be taking the medications the doctor is giving me and notes something on her piece of paper and walks out the room.

The doctor comes in the room sometime later and tells me that my blood pressure is high and spends the next 10 to 12 minutes typing into a desktop computer and takes a look at me before telling me to go over to Pharmacy and pick my medications up and next time, don't let them run out. She orders for a Nursing Intervention in about two weeks for me to return and have my blood pressure checked again. I get up and check out at the front desk where the Unit Clerk is busing doing paperwork. He looks up to glance at me and tells me that I'm all set and I walk over to Pharmacy where the wait time is about one and a half hour, which is a small price to pay, when you are one of the 49 million Americans without health insurance and your pre-existing military-induced, medical condition makes you uninsurable! This is the struggle that every man and woman in America faces at some point in their continuum for health care and for those who served our country honorable, the battles you may have faced in the military without getting yourself killed, is nothing compared to the battle you'll face with the Veterans Administration when it comes to your healthcare. Some of their staff are quick to put a label on you that sticks because they write it down and your only defense is that your life depends on your compliance, even when it makes you sicker!

P.S. I leave you with a short saying from Curthom, my name consolidated. It's amazing how much time you have to reflect about your life, when you're in a hospital, suspended between overmedication and medicated.

"There are things spoken and there are things left unspoken and between speaking and having spoke, is the truth." Curthom

Emergency Room and Admittance To Hospital

2009-05-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

I went to my appointment with the Nephrologist, a doctor who specializes in kidney function issues at the Veterans Administration Medical Clinic and before the hour passed I saw the Nephrologist. He looked into my eyes with one of those eye scopes and jumped back quickly. I turned quickly to look over my shoulder to see what had frighten him. To my surprise there was no one behind me. What happened next was a bit surreal when the doctor told me that I may lose my vision, because when he stated that my optic nerve which is at the base of the back of your eye is swollen.

I asked him what would cause such a condition and he told me that it is generally caused by too much pressure within the skull. A case oftentimes of too much pressure on the brain and no where for that pressure to go. Medically it is called, Papillary Edema. The doctor had the nurse called for ambulance while he finished charting notes to send to the emergency room with me. Meanwhile, I sat quietly reeling in the shock of it all and how the outcome if any, would unfold. Sometime later the ambulance arrived and transported me to the emergency room and that was just the threshold of what was to follow. The minutes became hours and the hours gave way to days, while I went into and out of consciousness of the environment around me. During those brief periods of consciousness, here what I remember.

The color of my sputum, like a barometer told me in advance how my week would turn out if I didn't intervene. The texture of my bowel movements of lack of movements told me how my day was going to unfold, if I ignored it. From the bouts of nausea, the constant poking and prodding of one medication after another, procedure after procedure, I came into the consciousness of understanding that life is as fragile as illness is scarring, both physically and mentally.

As permanent as death is, there should be an alternative to suffering as ther is a temporary solution for pain. Everything returns, illness, scarring, suffering and pain. Even death returns to haunt the memory of those still living. You chose the neagative or the positive memories that haunt the living, by your actions or lack of actions, your attitude and your kindness while you endure the finalitiy of it all.

Resurrection

2009-04-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

"Every night I die. Every day I'm resurrected. Between night and day, my days are filled with drama and my evenings are flashbacks of the day!" Excerpt from "The Book of Curthom."

I'll interpret the excerpt from "The Book of Curthom." "Every night I die." Curthom has cancer and he doesn't want to own up to it, so he is in the denial phase. He was diagnosed with adrenal cancer 7 years ago. The adrenal glands are above the kidneys and help to control your blood pressure and heart rate. Uncontrolled, the adrenal glands can cause you to blow out your left ventricle, which is the pump part of your heart.

"Every night I die." Curthom knows that his days on this earth are numbered with each beat of his heart, he knows that it subtracts from his lifespan. He is afraid to lay down and go to sleep because he knows he may not wake up the next morning. The inability to sleep when he finally does pass out from being awake so many hours, leads to periods of sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is the disorder that when you sleep you snore and while snoring, you stopped breathing, which dangerously raises your blood pressure to the point of almost having or having a stroke.
So, every night Curthom feels as if, he is dying, because he is uncertain if he will wake up or not the following morning.

"Every day I'm resurrected." "First, I see the stars and seconds later, I see the light and moments later, I can see my surroundings." Waking up, Curthom realizes that he has been giving another day of life. "With a heavy head, I squint my eyes from the pain of the light around me and the migraines that rule my day." He wakes up with a debilitating headache and burning eyes. He is grateful for another day of living, but knows that in order to get through the day, "each step is like the Grand Canyon, so I walk like seagull on hot sand." For the first few hours of his day, he is bothered by the migraines, probably caused by the sleep apnea, high blood pressure and lack of sleep, and finds it challenging standing and walking.

From my first reading of "The Book of Curthom," I have always tried to understand the underlying meanings and the era in which the excerpt was written. I have spent considerable time applying the teachings from "The Book of Curthom," which is not really a book in general circulation, to my life and have benefited greatly in my understanding of life in general.

I don't think that "The Book of Curthom" was written for any specific audience, but rather as a diary of sort of the human condition and how we as humans react to those conditions. Like many writings of the "Ancients," nothing was really written down until someone with the fortitude and passion for sharing what they had learned, committed their understanding to papyrus, wood, stone or paper.

From my own personal experience, much of "The Book of Curthom," exists within the personal narratives of living out in the country of swampy Carolinas, the plains of Wyoming and Idaho, the coast of Portugal, urban London, the flagrant harbor off China and the jungles of Southeast Asia. There is probably nothing new in the book, but the way the book goes on to express incidents in time, is worth reading.

Perhaps one fine day, I shall capture the place and time of "The Book of Curthom" and commit it to digital, so that the whole world can read it online. It is an ambition that I am going to do one post at a time. That is the beauty of life you know. You can have time or you can have something else in your life that occupies your time to the point where you don't have any time.
However we interact with time, keep in mind that we can never replace it. We can use time to do many things, but we can never go back in time and do something, so make sure however you spend your time, make sure that it leads to positive memories.

"Between night and day, my days are filled with drama and my evenings are flashbacks of the day." Curthom goes through each day negotiating between what he is experiencing and the stresses associated with that experience. The medical appointments, the tests, the treatments, the procedures, the surgeries, and the prognosis. A never ending saga of good news, bad news, lies, betrayals and the memories of each event conveniently played back enough times to exhaust any waking thought.

"The Book of Curthom" is a book of resurrection. It is a book of faith. It is a book of hope. It is a book of redemption at the expense of political correctness and exposes the hypocrisy that we have accepted as the "norm." If, you believe that life is as real as dirt and that we all get dirty sometimes, then you will find a lot of life in "The Book of Curthom," an enlightening read. So, until next time, look for excerpts from "The Book of Curthom," in upcoming posts.

Stem Cell Research

2009-03-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Today, the President Obama reversed an earlier decision by former President Bush, to federally fund research for Stem Cells. President Obama's decision to federally fund Stem Cell Research is controversial and puts the ethics of Stem Cell Research, front and center in the debate about the pros and cons of Stem Cell Research. What are Stem Cells, what are the advantages to Stem Cells and why should we care? Stems Cells are cells that come from humans or animals that have the amazing ability to be themselves, Stem Cells, or take on the characteristics of another cell, say a muscle cell, blood cell or even a brain cell. There are basically two types of Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, the one type we hear so much about in the media, and Adult Stem Cells. The essential difference between the two is that the Embryonic Stem Cells are taken from mice for research, but can also be harvested from a baby's umbilical cord or bone marrow. Adult Stem cells are generally taken from a persons tissue and organs.

What does federal funding of Stem Cell Research mean to the average American and the country as a whole? For many of us who are in declining health, it's kind of like the "Holy Grail and the Fountain of Youth," all wrapped into one, if the research is as promising as it has been reported. Stem Cells that could rejuvenate the dying cells and organs in our bodies. Think of the limitless opportunities to dream a dream without boundaries. I certainly could use a few more brain cells, as so many brain cells have died since I was in college. My father who has Alzheimer Disease and no longer recognizes me when I go to visit him at the Assisted Living Center, could possibly benefit too, from renewable brain cells.

No matter what your chronic disease, illness or affliction, if we all hang in there, we may see some mental, physiological and physical relief within our lifetime. There would be no stopping us from alleviating sickness as we know it and giving everyone on the Planet, a chance at bettering their circumstances. If, only those who oppose us could dream a hopeful future too! There are as many arguments against Stem Cell Research as there are arguments for Stem Cell Research. I guess it really comes down to how healthy you are now, and in some way, that will shape your views on whether you view Stem Cell Research as being good or bad. If, you are in excellent health, you probably don't give a "royal flush" about Stem Cell Research, but if you are afflicted with something that affects your health, then you might want to see some Stem Cell Research, even if most people you know disagree with you. I think what we will find are public views about Stem Cell Research and private views about how we feel about Stem Cell Research and only our heart and "Our Creator" knows for sure.

There are Religious Special Interest Groups, who say "we are trying to play God." There are the "shareholder elites," who would dread the loss of demand for their pharmaceuticals and their falling share prices and profits. There are those who are too sick, too far along according to their health care workers to benefit from such promising research and treatment. There are the long line of skeptics who would trip up the ambitions of those ailing for a cure to what troubles them now. There are so many entrenched interests for Stem Cell Research and so many feverish groups who are against Stem Cell Research, that quite possibly, nothing gets done and no new discovery's are made. No matter how the American Public debates the merits or lack of merits of Stem Cell Research, like many of us, I hope it brings down the prices of some of my prescription medications, if no new treatments are not to be had.

Staying On The Path

2008-12-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

One day I lost my way and I found my compass for life in the philosophies of Ancient Societies. The Philosophies of The Ancient Societies were my map for the present and for the future. My direction was initially one of darkness. I could not find my path, so I wondered for half a century, like so many on this Planet.

In the darkness, the absence of hope, choked whatever ambition I thought I had. I was blinded by my quest for someone to share my life with. I traveled North, South, East and West. It was in the South, that I entered this World. It was in the North that I felt the unforgiving cold of nature and the warmth of fellowship. It was in the East, where I came to understand the West. So, I returned to the East to understand myself. It was in the East where my heart ached each time I found myself back in the West. A burning that engulfed my every thought, like fire. An intensity that consumed me and the sparks affected everyone around me.

Just like a fire needs fuel to burn, so too does a memory need a past to exist. The burning within my heart will only diminish when my memory of her is occupied by the loving presence of another. Until then, the pain that I feel is like no other and the longing like that of something once held close, but as distant as the numbness that engulfs me.

International Medical Insurance

2008-10-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

It was 1:00 a.m. Tuesday morning when the right-side of my chest throbbed with each heartbeat, awakening me suddenly from my sleep. I tried to sit up but my right arm was numb and uncooperative. I rolled out of bed only to fall to the floor, realizing that my shirt was drenched with sweat. I tried once again to sit up, but I was too dizzy to make sense of what was going on. My eyes blurred from the salt stinging sweat and the darkness all around me, I struggled to try to find the phone. I rolled left and I rolled to the right, only to find myself stuck there on my right side, barely the strength to upright myself.

I concentrated on all that I had done with my life in the darkness and uncertainty that followed and wondered what have I done to deserve such a fate. Am I do die here all alone with no one to see me crossover and no one to morn my immediate departure? Hours must have passed before I came to and found myself in the emergency room with plastic tubing going into my nostrils, metal needles in my arm, patches on my chest with wires going here and there all the way down to my legs. When I looked up the glaring examination lamps with their shiny aluminum covers blinded me on wakening and the bags of fluids hanging over my head did nothing to ensure that I was going to be alright.

The first words I heard from anyone since my sudden awakening with chest pain was the woman from the admissions office of the hospital asking me for my medical insurance information. Thank goodness I was able to speak and more importantly recognize that she wasn't my doctor. I gave her my medical insurance information and she didn't seem to pleased and walked away without saying goodbye or "I hope you feel better." To her, I was just another person in the grand scheme of her workload that early morning. Throughout the ensuing four days, I had medications for pain, Nitroglycerin and Morphine. I had an EKG, a chest X-ray, a CT Scan of my neck, chest and groin and if, that wasn't enough, I had an MRI of my head, neck and chest to include an echocardiogram of my heart and a sonogram of my legs. I was poked, prodded and had more than one orifice explored, only to be told that I had a passing blood clot in my right lung and that I didn't have a heart attack.

Over those four days in the emergency room and upstairs in the Cardiac Unit of the hospital, I had seen a transporter, an admission clerk, a patient care technician, an licensed practical nurse, a dietary aide, a nutritionist, a registered nurse, a nurse practitioner, a pulmonologist, a cardiologist, an Internal Medicine Specialist and a host of Allied Health Practitioners, ranging from Nursing Assistants to Phlebotomist-folks who draw your blood. Most of these folks make a decent living and have an array of benefits associated with working at such a fine hospital, so as I am laying there in bed, I began to ponder just how much all of this is going to cost me and more importantly, how much of the total hospital bill would the medical insurance cover?

When I saw the admitting physician on my fourth day in the hospital, I sure was eager to go home. It sure is difficult to get any sleep in the hospital because there is always someone coming in about once a hour in the cardiac unit to take your blood pressure, your temperature, your blood, your urine (to measure your input and output)or listen to your lung sounds for fluid buildup. This was my first hospitalization in all my years on this planet and I must admit, you haven't lived until you've been hospitalized. I say this because, it is the ultimate in humility. You are no longer the master of your life, because when you are in the hospital, you are at the mercy of people you don't know, who may or may not have your best interest at heart and worse still, who may be competent at what they're doing or Lord forbid, just doing what they're doing to make ends meet and not really have passion for their work or empathy for the patient.

I'm blessed to have survived my hospitalization and I am equally blessed to have gone through the experience and lived to tell it. Going to the hospital is one thing and getting out alive and unharmed or infected is another. There are many medical insurance plans available and it's hard to know which medical insurance plan is right for you. For me, I found that the Blue Cross Blue Shield Plan that I had was utterly of no use abroad and was grateful for the International Medical Insurance and Pacific Prime Health Insurance that I carried. Between the two of them, the financial burden of my short hospitalization was for the most part taken care of and I am free to roam the Earth once again.

Autopsy of A Divorce

2008-10-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

How is it that I have given my heart to someone who cares not to receive it? I have fallen so deeply in love with a woman whom I married, but a wife didn't come with the wedding. It took me some time before I could no longer deny the truth, and as real as the truth is, I sought to avoid it, in hopes that she would come around to reason. How is it that one can fall so deeply in love with someone that they lose all sense of themselves?

I gave my everything to my wife, so much that I had no memory of who I was. How is it that a heart is overwhelmed with pain? Pain, so great that its blood that flows thorough the heart, swell its capacity to contain the warmth it once had. I surrender my emotions to the one woman I ever loved, trusting that she would keep the dream we shared alive. Somewhere within our years together, she dropped out emotionally from our relationship and her actions towards me, were as cold as ice.

Some say I have gone mad. They ask me if I want to take my wife home to her lover? So, what if people make fun of me. The hardest reality for me, is to admit to myself that the woman I still love, loves someone else. Her heart no longer beats for me. Of course, being a man, means living with the truth, and the truth is, if we stay together, it would be a lifetime of sorrow and regret. Life is precious, because time is not our own, when two people disagree. No matter how much time you want to spend with the one you love, if they are loving another, their absence from you is felt deeply in a place that is as intimate as the love you once shared.

My male friends tell me that I can't control my woman, and that is my problem. My heart tells me that there is no such thing as controlling your woman, only loving your woman. My male colleagues ask me aren't you a man? In which I tell them, if being a man means robbing a woman of her happiness, then in their eyes, I am not a man according to their definition. The truth is, being a man is facing the truth! If, being a man is living with a woman whose body belongs to you, but her heart and affection belongs to another, then what is life without reciprocity?

Being a man means being selfless, because love is not selfish. My happiness lies not within my heart, because it is painful to admit the truth of loving someone so much, that you are devoid of your very soul. Her actions shattered all the dreams we had for one another and the thoughts we once shared with generosity, became mute, as she made every effort to avoid me. Like a caged bird, I watched as she left me for another, although emotionally she had left me more than three years ago. As she physically walked away for the last time, I was hoping for a cursory glance, but she walked away as if the wind were at her back, never to see me again.

In my loneliness, I've come to know, that wishing for something and actually getting it are two different things. Love is not receiving it, but giving it. Love is sacrifice and without ever having known love, one can never understand sacrifice. The two complement one another, much like a paradox. You can not appreciate the love you have until you have sacrificed something to get love and sacrificed even more to keep love. Without sacrifice, love is meaningless and without appreciation. It is then that you begin to lose love, when you stop sacrificing the things you once did to maintain it. Divorce is nothing more than a public admission of failure of a marriage. I got married, but a wife didn't come with it, so why am I surprised at its outcome?

How Do You Know That Your Love Is True?

2008-08-19T14:27:00.001-07:00

"You know you have found true love, when that one person occupies your every thought and when you are with them, nothing else around you exists but them. There is no room in your mind for someone else to interrupt who you are thinking about and there is no room in your heart for anyone else but that person.

True love is true, because it possesses all of you. Your heart, your mind and everything that you do. Your actions certify that what you have is real and those who know you, will speak of a glow that illuminates from you.

True love results from sacrifice without hesitation. You don't think twice about doing something for the one who has captured your heart, because to refuse, brings pain to you. True love is pain, but its pain is all suffocating and the depth of the pain is everlasting.

True love is a love within yourself that you lose yourself for when you share it with someone else. You no longer exist as a person. You become one with the person who inhabits your every thought. There is a longing that you can't explain when the one you feel so much for is absent, it is a void that is worse than death.

True love is true, because the truth doesn't need an explanation, its feelings run deeper than any sensation you've ever had and its actions remind you to be sure the other person feels the same way too. We all experience it at least once in our lives and even though we may not realize it, we sometimes walk away from it, not knowing it and spend the rest of our lifetimes seeking it"

From the readings of Curthom

Love In A Time Of Innocence

2008-08-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

This is probably something that many of us in similar situations will probably never admit, but I will for the sake of disclosure, so that my readers will better understand me. My parents really didn't love each other, both of them used to love someone else. I believe that to be the reason that I was left with a sense of emptiness all my life. They stayed together some 12 years until they decided to get a divorce and go their separate ways. My sisters and brothers, we all became "collateral damage" as a result of the divorce. Left with this aunt and that uncle, this grandmother and that grandmother, until everyone tried of having us around.

I use to tell myself, I would never get married because I didn't want to feel the depth of a greater emptiness still, if my wife ever left me. There is something very cynical and evil about rejection. I can't explain it, but there is no medicine that can cure it when you have it, so you learn to live with it. I followed my heart one day, grew to love someone and got married to what I thought was a beautiful woman and person. Mind you, she was beautiful, but as a person, her selfishness was simply astounding, beyond anything I could have ever imagined or predicted. She didn't reciprocate her love or things. She didn't share herself with me, and I was her husband. It's like I got married, but a wife didn't come with the marriage! The beauty was physical, but the attitude was real and superficial. Nothing genuine about her, not even pretending to like me, just what I could give her. Just take, take, take, no give me some of your time, your love, your humanity. I could only attribute in hindsight, that her childhood must have been one of many challenges and hardships, because she was a shell of a woman and a wife without emotions. Could I have been that drunk with love, to not notice the single mindedness of our relationship? Gosh only knows, but soon enough I found out after I got married that my wife was in love with someone else and I had financed his university education and his living expenses over our four year courtship. Can you imagine what's it like being married to someone and yet there is no empathy, compassion, affection or consideration for you from your wife? It's like being with a roommate who doesn't even acknowledge that you are in the same room with them. What a shallow feeling and existence.

As expected, the depths of emptiness, drowned me in darkness. A darkness in which my eyes were wide open, but I still couldn't see. I should have seen all the red flags and warnings before we got married, but I was so in love with her, that I hadn't even notice that I, as a person had changed. I had become the pawn that she was looking for and gave her most of the things she asked for and what I didn't give to her, I put on "layaway," that is, I promised that we would get those things, whatever they were later, because for now, I felt we needed to spend more time bonding with each other and less time working so hard to pay for the things we already had. Little did I realize that she was building her life with someone else on the side and me, boy oh boy, how blind you are when you are in love with someone-you're lucky if you can see the world around you sometimes, because all your energy and attention is on the one you love. So, a lot of things got by me and I missed out on most of the signals your family and friends tell you about, thinking, oh no, that doesn't apply to "my wife," because "she's special, she's my wife!"

Then, one day the pain that you harbour, mimics a heart attack and you finally admit to yourself that you have no desire to leave the relationship because of the shame associated with failure and rejection and besides, where else are you going to find someone who makes you feel the way she does, or the way, you imagined she would before you married. So, I persisted for years until the blatant disrespect for marriage took its toil and she filed for divorce. When the divorce papers arrived, it was like tearing the skin from a fresh wound. Up until then I suffered alone and keep my pain personal and to myself, but the divorce papers, woke me up to the depth of my pain. The depth was deeper than any ocean or any sky. The pain of rejection, failure and outright disrespect for the sacredness of marriage, left a void within me that numbed my heart and I could no longer feel its beats. Like most of us, I continued to follow my heart and it lead me to the "slaughterhouse of deceit." My heart fooled me, and my emotions ran empty, leaving me a shell of a man. So, here I stand alone in a world of strangers once again. A skeleton of the man I use to be and absent of the person, I am to become.

I guess everything happens for a reason, or at least that is what we are supposed to tell ourselves, huh? So, what have I learned from this experience? What was the reason of it all? Hmmm, let's see...Well, I've learned that people oftentimes make excuses for being together. We're together because of this or that, the income, the kids, the things they own, etc., and one day when one or the other tires of the excuses, one of them, the other, or both of them, make up their minds and say to the other, no more excuses and part ways. Through it all, I've come to realize that it's not in the departure that paralyzes you, but the thoughts of the relationship ending and having to start over with or without someone else in your life.

"What is love, but the acceptance of what we feel to be emotional, even in the absence of reciprocity. Love is nothing more than trust unveiled" Curthom

Dreams versus Realities

2008-08-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

For a week or so, I have been so busy organizing

and reorganizing a business structure, that it

seems that my days and nights are blended together and if it wasn't for the sun rising, and the sun setting, I wouldn't even know what time of day it is or what day of the week or month it is.

I guess that the nature of an Internet business, your days and nights can sometimes become blended.

If, you spend a fair amount of time online, editing, designing, tweaking and other stuff to your website that after a while it can be all consuming. You step outside from your work area and you realize that you can't remember the last time you went outside to get some fresh air. That's the nature of projects, where you are so focused that you even forget to return your mother's voicemail because you were busy troubleshooting some source code on a website and didn't want to lose your place in the line of code, so you promised yourself that you would call her back in a little while and then that little while becomes an hour and then a few hours and before you know it, a couple of days have gone by and you're still working on that website.

I stepped away from the project that I was working on to take a walk to the post office and pick up the mail, wow, I guess I should go to the post office more often, because the little mailbox was bulging with mail. I could barely pull it out of its small box and I'm sure some of the mail, fell back on the inside floor of the mail room, so I'll have to get that mail, when the post office reopens. The walk home from the post office was equally as interesting, because I forgot how many dogs are not on a lease in the neighborhood, so walking faster than usual felt good too!

It was too much mail to sort through, mostly magazines and colored brochures to attend this or that conference, and I had enough with being on the computer so much working on projects, so I decided to take a trip up North, and you know what? The most I remember about that trip up North, is dozing off to sleep as soon as the airplane reached its cruising altitude and this poem from Curthom. Enjoy until next time.

"You have to inhabit a reality, often found in the dreams that wake you from your sleep.

A dream where the vision is as narrowly understood as the stupor of sudden awakeness.

Within this blur of confusion, clarity is as instant as the epiphany that haunts the memory of the dream." by Curthom

Life As An Endless Dream

2008-07-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

I found myself walking through Manila Chinatown searching for a tofu maker to purchase a kilo of tofu. I felt like having some tofu that evening with some batchoy, a Chinese vegetable that goes very well over steamed rice. It's been a long time since I had that dish, tofu and batchoy over steam rice, so I didn't mind walking all over Chinatown to find the tofu maker.

My walk reminded me of a dream I had once in which I didn't want to wake up from, because the dream seemed so real and something good was about to happen to me and suddenly the alarm clock went off and I struggled within the dream to ignore the alarm to no avail, I awakened.

Since "dreams are a reflection of the active mind when awake," according to The Book of Curthom, "it's not so important that we don't remember all the details of the dream, the importance is that we dream. Dreams are the pleasures of our desires that we inhibit during our waking hours, so when we dream, we should rejoice. Even the mind needs time to play and to explore and this happens when we dream." Walking all about Chinatown, was like a surreal experience of sorts with so many fascinating things to draw your attention to. Yep, I eventually found the tofu maker in an alleyway with a host of tofu makers. It was a tough choice to pick from the many tofu makers, but I'm grateful I can read the prices in Chinese, because my Tagalog needs nurturing. I'll conclude with a short poem from Curthom.

"Life is an endless dream between waking and being awake. Love brings forth life and life extends to man and woman. Love is a journey that wears with time, but true love is a trip that never ends and the scenery along the way is nothing but the blessed ambiance, that sustains the reasons two people commit to one another. With this commitment to stay together, the night becomes the day and the day becomes the night and each eagerly anticipate its arrival with pleasure." Excerpt from The Book of Curthom.

The Meaning Of It All

2008-06-29T00:45:00.000-07:00

"Life has meaning, only when we share it with someone, otherwise life is just one seamless journey from birth to death."

Curthom

The Warmth Of Life

2008-06-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

"When I was a boy, I use to stare at the sun. I use to stare at the sun to see if I could see its origins. I would stare at the sun for so long and so often, that its warmth scorched my eyes. I stared at the sun so frequently, that its brightness, stole my sight and left me in darkness.
Now I live in darkness, stumbling over my ignorance of why I did what I did. Though my world is one of sustained darkness, I still feel the warmth of the sun. I'm not angry at the sun for taking my sight away, nor am I angry at myself for being too curious of where the sun comes from. Some say, I was stupid for staring at the sun and that's why I lost my sight. That's all in the past now, although I am reminded each day of the mistake that I made in staring at the sun. There are those who can see everything, yet understand very little of what they saw. There are some who stare at the unfortunate circumstances of others and comment negative things, even though they have little knowledge of that person's plight. I forgive myself for being foolish in staring at the sun, but I could never forgive myself for my curiosity of the sun's origin. I smile each day that I'm given no matter how terrible others tell me it is, because I'm still grateful for the warmth of the sun."
An excerpt from Curthom.

No matter how difficult our circumstances seem to be to us, there is always someone, somewhere who has it worse. We shouldn't celebrate the fact that there is someone worse off then ourself, but rejoice in the reality that we have much to be grateful for and quite often it is a humbling experience. Just the other day I was murmuring about the fact that I didn't have enough petrol to get to class and had to walk. Well it rained quite heavily that morning and even though I had set out early to class, I was soaking wet and quite cold. The air conditioned classroom made it unbearable for me at first, so I went to the restroom and took off all of my clothing in the handicap stall and rung out all of my clothing and put them back on.

When I arrived back to class, I saw that many of the students had not shown up yet and the teacher announced that one of the students had an accident and wouldn't be attending the class for a while. I didn't think much about it during the class until the walk half-way home. The sun shined all afternoon and was the complete opposite of the weather on my walk to class. I kept wondering what caused the student to have the accident? Was it the weather? Were they rushing because they were late to class? Did a driver run the traffic signal? I didn't know, but I was hoping that they were going to be okay.

Arriving home after the walk to and from class, I was grateful that I was healthy enough to go the distance to and from class without stopping to rest or collapsing along the way. It was only six miles or so, but it had been a long time since I've walked six miles and it seemed more like 12 miles each way due to my aching legs and feet. The first mile seem to go on forever and the more I concentrated on the negative, my having to walk, the more grueling the walk became. After about the second mile I was famished and would have paid anything for an ice cold soda pop and then the rain came. First as little drops, you know the kind of drops that makes you think that a bird just took a leak from above and about ten minutes later, came the rain with a vengeance. I got so wet, so quickly, that my shoes were making sucking sounds before I could find cover to stand under. I couldn't really wait out the rain so I continued my journey to class arriving early enough to try to dry out some. I was so happy that I made it to class and I didn't burn any gasoline getting there and back that I treated myself to a baseball cap from the one of the many thrift stores on the way home. The baseball cap cost less than a gallon of gas, in fact the cap cost about a fourth of the price of a gallon of gas. All and all, I've learned not to fret over things that I can not change and look for the good in everything, including the circumstances we find ourselves in sometimes, because the world is a big place and there is always someone who is worse off then ourself. My experiences living here and abroad have taught me to celebrate the good in all of us, even though it may take some effort and action to achieve it. So in summary, what did I learned in class that day? Well, it was an Economics Class and this is what I gathered from it, that there are things in business that happen that we can not predict or forecast and it costs the parties involved time, money or opportunity and when it happens, Economics refers to it as an "externality," but in most of our worlds, we simply call it, "Life."

I

An Impressionable Journey

2008-06-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

After a much needed vacation, I found myself returning from an extended stay deep within the jungles of South East Asia. I lived a rather indigenous life during this time not so much out of want, but out of necessity. I was so far from any conveniences that after several days, I started to adopt the ways of the natives around me.

It was Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote about his opinions on life, and I paraphrase that "Everything said, has already been spoken." So, I'll be brief in telling about my little adventure in South East Asia. I left America for a brief spell, because like so many Americans, I had become complacent with things going on around me and needed a "wake up call," however you may define it. For me, a "wake up call," was an effort to get away from being around so much "stuff" and getting back to what really mattered in life, and for me that meant breathing with ease and sweating without fainting.

I spent more time than I probably needed looking for clean drinking water and then fetching it and bringing it back to cook. The coconuts shells had to be dried out in advance and if, it didn't rain, there was plenty of dried cobra (dried coconut shells) to use as charcoal to start and sustain a fire. Cold water showers were the norm and the chicken that had awaken me earlier, became my breakfast hours later.

Eating, had become such a big deal now that I was so far away from a supermarket, store or "mom and pop" concern that sells basic items like rice, cooking oil, some spices, tobacco and , soaps. These "mom and pop" stores, called sari-saris, are a mainstay all through out South East Asia, and if, you don't have one close by, then you really are far out from everything.

Plenty of time to think and those questions that many of us, have little time to answer, like, what's really important in my life? Why am I here? What's my purpose in this life? What am I doing here? Why did this or that happen to me? You get the picture--maybe I should include a picture, huh? Perhaps next time....

So, in keeping it brief, here is what a trip to the jungle taught me, yep, I'm still learning, even as I breathe. Mosquito repellent purchased in America, is an appetizer for the mosquitoes of South East Asia. Boxer underwear aren't very comfortable after a 6 mile walk through thick brush. Flip flop shoes have that one strap that goes between your big toe and the next toe, and it's never really durable enough to stay in place. Suntan lotions are nothing more than cooking oil.

Oh yeah, you don't have to worry about what to do because the overwhelming majority of your time is spent getting clean water to drink and cook, finding something to eat, cooking it, washing up, doing laundry and walking up and down one mountain after another to get to where you're going, if indeed you're going the right way and in between all of these activities, napping.

From it all, I paraphrase what I've learned, those who had lots of creature comfort stuff like, a tent, blankets, fancy propane stove, pots, pans, utensils, weeks worth of clothing, suffered the most, getting to the clearings where we camped, but once we got there, they seem to relish in the things they brought, but what if, they lost their things, could they still survive in the jungle? So, it brings to mind, something someone told me while living in China:

"To claim no possessions, so that no possessions may claim you."
A Chinese Proverb

In my youth I had 11 fine European automobiles and if, you ask me now, why? I couldn't really tell you, except I didn't drink or smoke and basically the only vice I had back then was my love of well-constructed motor cars. Looking back in hindsight, I see how those 11 European automobiles enslaved me. Enslaved me in the sense that I couldn't go away for too long of a period of time, for fear something would come of those cars. Something like someone stealing one or a few of them in my absence or worry about someone breaking into them and taking parts off of them, after all, some of the cars were unique and rare indeed!

In due part because of those cars, I had to give up extended vacations of months at a time in far flung places like Southern China and the lesser Antilles in the Caribbean and such. Needless to say I was single then as I am now, and answered only to The Most High, and whatever desire that moved me at the time. That I guess is the luxury of youth. You're young, you have little responsibilities and your time is spent doing the things you love and cherish. Fast Forward several decades later, and you look upon the past and ask yourself, what the heck was I thinking?

I was so caught up working hard and climbing the career ladder until one day I realized there weren't enough rungs on that career ladder to climb, because there were too many of us climbing the same ladder and no "man made" ladder could endure such weight or ambitions. Unfortunately for many and perhaps fortunate for some, we got the promotions, the big house in a gated community, the trophy wife, the luxury car, the fancy sports car, the two children onto the wait list at the local private school even before they were born and now some of us are wondering, now what?

Most of the folks I know or use to know, are so caught up with keeping the things that they've worked so hard for that they rarely have time to visit friends anymore. They are too busy trying to maintain, service or repair their possessions on their days off. Many, if not most, have so many things, if you asked them to list the things they have, some would have difficulty penning everything down on paper. However, much of what my friends possess, just collects dust and the other things they have, just gets abused, because there is little time to learn how to operate some of their toys properly.

When I ask my friends, when is your next vacation or holiday, the general response I get is, "Well, we thought about driving or flying down to this place or that place for a few days and try to relax when we get there, but they're always taking their cellphones, laptops, or other tech devices that keeps them connected to the rest of the world. So, even on their short two or three day outings, there is little time to unwind.

I think the more we become interconnected as a planet, the tendency to want to stay in touch with others will only increase. I know that my 11 cars that I owned at one time in my youth, surely seemed like children after some time and I really couldn't venture off too far. I see that same behavior in many of my friends today, with not having the time to get away for months at a time, to explore another culture, lifestyle, language, etc.. It is far too easy today to allow our possessions to possess us. The more we have, the greater the tendency to think about what we have, and base many of our decisions on doing what we have to do, on keeping what we have. I know now in this point in my life, that which I place greatest claim to, aren't things or possessions. Rather, I lay claim to good health, long life and the curiosity to go beyond the borders of my birthplace and see with my own eyes, how others inhabit this Earth, that is my claim.

Born Into Death

2008-02-26T05:54:00.000-08:00

We are all born into death and what we do between birth and death, we call our lives. Is it no wonder that some of us when we pass away are afforded the opportunity for someone to say some parting remarks about our lives?

From the moment we take our first breath, until the time we take our last breath, death awaits us whether we acknowledge it or not. Very much in the same way, that we breath without thought of it, death inhabits us, just as life inhabits us.

We neither know the time or the moment of when this cohabitation with death will take us to the other side, no more than we know when this cohabitation with life, will cease to be. We take our first breath at birth and the next breath that comes thereafter, is a luxury still.

So, we go through life trying to forget that we were born into death and forgetting for the most part that death is with us, just like our breath is with us. Some of us try to do all that we can do in the time that we have, while others of us, do what we may and are clueless to our own finiteness.

We don't dwell on death no more than we dwell on breathing, yet for many of us, we mark our time on this Earth by celebrating our lives, by acknowledging the day we were born with a birthday party. Our birthdays can be a measure of how far we've come and perhaps how far we may have to go, based on our individual definitions of what we deem important in our lives. For some of us, that may mean a relationship with the cosmos, religion, education, an individual or our finances. We each start out in life seeking to define our lives based on what we know about life, all the while, acknowledging our birthdays and the passage of time. So, why is time so important for many of us?

Time is important for many of us, and for the clueless, time really doesn't matter. Time rules everything in our existence, from the time of one's birth, to the time of one's death. How is that time is elevated to an importance that equals breathing? Time is here before our births and time is here even as you read this text, and time will be here long after we all take our last breath. Time is the greatest judge we will all come to know! It is because of time that most of us go about our lives the way we do. Some of us are moving at warp speed through life, but light years away from inhabiting the moment. We are essentially taking a Ferrari to our own funeral and the sad part is, we're actually arriving too early.

If, it were up to me, I'd take a Yugoslavian Yugo to my funeral and hope that it breaks down along the way more than a few times. I'm in no hurry to die young or at all for that matter, but because we were all born into death and I am part of that "all," I have come to accept that death is inevitable, but I try not to dwell on it, like I'm doing here.

After all, when you die, who is going to be at your funeral? I haven't a clue, but I know one thing for sure-I'll be there. Whether or not anyone else shows up, I will never know, but one thing I do know is, time waits for no one and time can not be contained or controlled. If it could, we would all harness time and use it, like the "Fountain of Youth," and buy ourselves more of it.
So, if we are good, we will go to Heaven or crossover to the other side with a more prosperous life than the one we lived, and if, we were bad, well, that's when we are reunited with our friends who were also bad, in that place where we are told there is no air conditioning. Heck, who needs air conditioning when you've got a sauna.

I believe that everyone deep down inside is a good person, although it may not be so readily apparent on the surface. So, I go through life treating everyone like I wish to be treated and my actions, as best as others have observed, prove that I'm a swell guy, whatever that means?
The problem is not with me being a good or swell guy, but the belief that if, you do good, you go to Heaven. Well, I try my best to do good, so I want to go to Heaven, but I don't want to die in order to get there!

So, like many of you, I wish I could say to heck with death and the heck with time, but time is the reason why all of us get up in the morning or whenever you get up. Time is the reason we do whatever it is that we do, so that we can say, we did it or say, it's done. It's sad really, but true, if, it wasn't for death, time would not have any relevance whatsoever in our lives, because we would have time to do anything and all that we wish to do. It is because of death, that we are conscious of time, even when we try not to be, because death, validates time! It is because of death, that time is elevated to the essence of our being. We are nothing and no one until time has acknowledge us all in birth and we spend our days and nights on this Earth trying to capture, control, contain and elude time.

Time is like the air we breath, it is plentiful and precious until we take it for granted. It's only when we don't have enough of it or any of it, that we distress
ourselves with it. Enjoy every breath you breathe as if, it were your last and relish in the minutes that make up the hours that pass you by in the company of family and well-meaning friends, so that your days that are numbered become countless blessings of a life worth living.

Ideas In Motion Enhancing Upward Mobility

2006-06-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the blog home of Reflective Web. Your place on the Internet to get answers regarding your life, your relationship, your concerns, be it money or what keeps you up at night.
No need to wonder or worry about things that distract you from being you. Share your interests, questions and wonderment with an experienced Lifestyle Counselor and get the answers you deserve and the peace of mind that comes with the understanding of knowing that you are not alone in the world.
Let us show you how you can be at peace with yourself and in balance with those whom you feel closer than most with. Let us resurrect you from the stagnant sense of emptiness and help you to find it within yourself. Can I tell you that fulfilling the void that sometimes haunt you, is not the shadow that you should walk with. Let us help you, help yourself. You can confide in us. No need to lie awake at night crying inside, drowning in doubt, wondering if tomorrow will be different than the day before. You have our confidence that your exchanges with us, stays with us. Tell us what you want us to know and we will deliver you from uncertainty and frustration and return you and your life, back to innocence.