Sometimes when I am looking for a file in my computer, I come across things that I had written in the past.  I am not a very dedicated journal-er but I do like to write and quite often will write articles about how I am feeling.  Today I stumbled across a poem that I had written during the darkest time of my life.  I think that it expresses fairly well what I was feeling at the time although there are other things that I wrote during this period that are so much more desperate.  I wrote a lot during this time and I believe that writing these poems was one of the things that allowed me to make the recovery that I did.

The Battle Inside

Surrounded by loneliness,

So as not, to feel alone.

A heart so fragile,

Boasting a facade of stone.

Trying to gain strength,

With tears running down my face.

Striving for a future,

In a past, time and place.

Hanging on to the memories,

Wishing I could forget.

The sanity is my security,

Kept warm by the perpetual threat.

Bright flashes of wisdom,

Evolve into thoughts of anger.

A few moments of peace,

Make me oblivious, to the danger.

Cursing at each verse,

Of an old, religious tune.

Praying to live forever,

While hoping, the end is soon.

I slowly close my eyes,

So that I can see more clearly.

I quietly scream out loud,

So no one, will hear me.

Joe McLaughlin

11/17/2001

Light of Life

The loneliness and uncertainty of the haze approaches and surrounds me.  It takes the beautiful colors from me and leaves me with only monotone hopelessness.  Occasionally there are breaks in the mass and the brilliant beautiful light shines through.  I step into the light and bask in the warm, life-giving energy, but then the light moves away and I am once again left to fend off the demons of the dark.  More rays of light are visible nearby but I do not go to them because when I step into the rays they will only abandon me, leaving me to once again submit to the emptiness and hopelessness of the dark.

Then one day I am motivated to step into the light and then to follow it as it moves along the way.  I discover that the longer I am in the light, the more wonderful things become.  As I spend longer and longer periods of time in the light, the ray of light seems to become larger and larger.  Before long my world is once again ablaze with color and excitement.  How much time had I wasted in my self-pity keeping me from choosing to follow the light that was always nearby?

We allow ourselves to stay in the dark.  It is a decision that we make.  Happiness in life is not something that just happens, it is something that is worked for.  A conscious decision is made and the happiness is sought out.  Happiness cannot be had by just setting around wondering why it always passes by and moves on to others.  It passes by because it is allowed to pass by.

I repeat a phrase that I came up with a few years ago, and I stand by its truth.

Life does not care about you, me, or anyone. However, life will allow you to do anything that you want to do with it.

If the light of life is allowed to pass by, it will move on and leave you there because it does not care.  Action must be taken to make the light of life do wonderful things in each of our lives.

Not As Instructed / Dumbed Down

There are things we are taught as school children that are important tools and bench marks for us in life.  At the time we don't give any thought to the subjects and material that are being taught, as it is all new information.  Our young minds have not yet gathered sufficient data to allow for the formation of differing or unique opinions.  As we grow older and began to ask why things are a certain way, the answer in many cases was, "that's just the way it is" or "because I said so" and no further explanation is offered.  There are several things about answers like this that are not so good for the child's inquisitive and growing mind.

• the child is not learning anything from the person that is answering their questions in this manner
• they will learn to get more satisfactory answers from somewhere else, leaving the door wide open to persons outside of their immediate family having influence in their lives.
• it is a huge missed opportunity for conversing with the child about things that are much more important than Mickey Mouse and Chuck E Cheese.

The children grow up with the wrong idea about a great multitude of things in life.  Religion, love, music, history, politics and professional careers to name a few.  Textbooks contain information that teaches the child certain information, whether accurate or not, about certain things and in their minds that information becomes the truth.  Not enough emphasize is given to children in the teachings of logical thinking and how to allow their minds to focus on a thought and then to ask questions when a teaching does not seem logical.  Maybe there is a reason why children are not taught how to focus their thoughts at an early age.

Having the ability to submerge ones self into a thought or an idea and be able to think through all of the aspects of that thought or idea, is a powerful thing.  The challenge in being able to achieve this ability comes with all the stresses and distractions of life.  Having the mind in a peaceful state and being able to keep it in that state while thinking through an idea is very important.  This can be sometimes referred to as "focus" although focus is a more concentrated or directional thinking when there are distractions all around.  What is being discussed here is deep free flowing thinking without the distractions.

The question must be asked, where would a person or a civilization be without pointless distractions?  How would human thinking evolve if there were none of the pointless distractions from things such as the Kardashians, nagging spouses and sensationalized news media?  Even our fanaticism with professional sports can cloud our focus and skew our priorities.  The Keynote speaker at the Austin Black Chamber of Commerce 2015 Awards Gala, Shawn Taylor stated, "We don't need another baseball player.  We need doctors, scientists and engineers".  Statements from president Barack Obama, regardless whether you like him or not, criticize the Kardashian's reality television show for "altering the aspirations of youth".  Terrorism, soap operas, drug abuse, superficial "airheads".  Listening to a conversation between superficial "airheads" is not only one of the most painful events to have to endure, it is also equally irritating and pointless.  These are only a few examples of distractions that keep humankind from reaching a much higher level of being.

There are articles and documentaries available that suggest an organized "force" is at work on this planet to keep most humans distracted such that they are not able to focus on a thought or an idea long enough or deep enough to allow them to advance intellectually.  Some information regarding this "force" favors intelligent forms of life that are not native to this planet while other information points to the power of corporations and specific powerful individuals or group of powerful individuals.  These forces are not interested in democracy and work against the organization of large groups of people that come together and could organize to the point of "voting" away their power.   When the human mind is clean of distractions and can focus, incredible things are possible and these prohibiting forces would indeed be surpassed.

Our children are becoming smarter and smarter.  Common sense, logical thinking and good decision making skills should be equally as important, if not more important, than the traditional Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.  Giving them accurate information, un-sensationalized media and unbiased facts in history, religion, social sciences and geography should be mandatory.  When their fresh brains have an accurate starting point, humanity will be lead to a better place.

Thoughts in the Hand-Tool Aisle

Upon entering Sears for the first time in a long time, the faded habit of navigating back to the section where all of the Craftsman goodies are, seemed to instinctively take over.  As was the case so many times in the past, I approached the area with no particular goal in mind, other than to surround myself in shiny instruments that extended the capabilities of these incredible hands that God had blessed me with and that my father had taught me how to use.  I would scan the shelves and racks inch by inch looking for that device that would give me the advantage in curing an ailing piece of machinery or structural component of a building.  There would always be something new or something that I had not needed in prior visits, but at that moment my growing capacities came to demand it.  The thrill of the purchase followed by the anticipation of what I was going to be able to accomplish with the device attached to my hand, was a priceless motivator.

Those feelings are gone.  I do see intriguing and interesting devices that I could have used in my past, but nothing in this area excites me anymore.  I am unsure why, and if this is a good or bad thing.  I didn't wake up one morning and decide to change what motivates me.  In fact this change had been so gradual that I had not even really validated it until now as I stood in the middle of the hand-tool isle of Sears contemplating why I had not been here for so long.  

I always had good grades in school and never had to study hard to make those good grades.  My mother always made sure that the homework was done and would help when there was an obstacle to be overcome.  Anything below a "B" or "80" meant a spanking at home and frankly it was well deserved as we all knew that perfect grades were easily within my range of capabilities.  A low grade was almost always due to a moment of laziness or some form of rebelliousness, neither of which was acceptable.  There were lessons learned early in life, that laziness has no place in physical or mental strengths and rebelliousness must be thought out carefully and properly directed for a positive affect.

Pulling my thoughts back out of the rebellion, I tried to pick out a specific event or decision, as gradual or discrete as it may have been, that put me on this different path.  I had good hands and work ethic.  I had a good logical brain with common sense.  Perhaps it was about 12 years ago when I begin to realize the importance of good and readily available resources.  Becoming part of the associations that I participate in had been a completely new and incredible addition to my "resume".  Even more importantly, they had been good for me by bringing out social and leadership abilities at a level that I did not even know was in me.  Amazing resources.

I wasn't arriving at any conclusions and my thoughts were beginning to drift and compare the awaking inside me due to the associations, to a similar awaking on the football field brought out by our high school football coach.  My thoughts were clearly becoming more random.

"Can I help you sir?"  An employee had seen me standing in the middle of the aisle in a daze.  I was certainly in deep thought and he had halted the drifting thoughts with his question.

"No thank you", I replied.  "I just needed a break from a massive project funding worksheet that I will be presenting tomorrow and decided to come here and walk around a bit".