The Journey - Making it Real

This: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051230/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_american_teen, is one of the more fantastic things I have read in quite some time.
Just because these things tend to go down, I'm going to copy the article here, its alittle long but bear with me, por favor comrades.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A 16-year-old from Florida who traveled to one of the world's most dangerous places without telling his parents left Baghdad on Friday to begin his journey home, the U.S. Embassy said, drawing to a close an adventure that could have cost him his life.

The mother of Farris Hassan, the prep school junior whom U.S. officials took custody of in Baghdad this week, said she was "grateful" he was headed back. Shatha Atiya said she already knew what her first words would be to her son.

"'Thank God you're alive,' then I'll collapse for a few hours and then sit down and have a long discussion about his consequences," she said in Fort Lauderdale.

Consul General Richard B. Hermann said Friday that Hassan "safely departed Baghdad." He reiterated warnings by the State Department and embassy against traveling to Iraq. Forty American citizens have been kidnapped since the war started in March 2003, of whom 10 have been killed, a U.S. official said. About 15 remain missing.

"This young American is now on his way back home to his family in the United States," Hermann said.

Hassan spoke to The Associated Press early Friday, several hours before the embassy announcement, and he was still under the impression that he would be following his personal travel itinerary, which had him leaving the country by himself on Sunday.

He hadn't even been aware that the story of his perilous travels was published around the world — or that his mother was being interviewed on television.

"I don't have any Internet access here in the Green Zone, so I have no idea what's going on," he said.

A military officer accompanying him, who did not identify himself, said it was his task to get Hassan "safe and sound to the United States."

The embassy refused to release any further details about his travel, and it wasn't known when he would arrive home in Florida.

Hassan has three older siblings who are all enrolled at universities. A brother, 23-year-old Hayder Hassan, called the trip "absolutely mind-boggling."

"I just want him back," he said.

Farris Hassan, who attends Pine Crest School, an academy of about 700 students in Fort Lauderdale, left the United States on Dec. 11 and traveled to Kuwait, where he thought he could take a taxi into Baghdad and witness the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

A strong history student, Hassan had recently studied immersion journalism — a writer who lives the life of his subject — and wanted to understand better what Iraqis are living through.

"I thought I'd go the extra mile for that, or rather, a few thousand miles," he told AP in an interview earlier this week.

The teenager was able to secure an entry visa because both of his parents were born in Iraq, though they've been in the United States for more than three decades.

Skipping a week of school, he only told two of his school friends he planned to leave the country. He didn't tell his parents until he arrived in Kuwait.

"He is very idealistic. He has many convictions. He is very pro-democracy, very compassionate, always helping out others, he's very driven," she said. "Those are more characteristics of Farris than adventurous. This is the first adventure he's been on."

He took his U.S. passport along with $1,800 in cash. He said the money came from a sum of $10,000 his mother had given him after he gave her some stock tips that earned a 25 percent return.

From Kuwait, a taxi dropped him in the desert at the Iraq border, but he could not cross there because of tightened security ahead of the elections. He went to Beirut, Lebanon, to stay with family friends, and flew from there to Baghdad on Christmas Day.

After his second night in Baghdad, he contacted the AP and said he had come to do research and humanitarian work. The AP called the U.S. Embassy, which sent U.S. soldiers to pick him up.

State Department officials then notified his parents.

The mother, Atiya, said she has a 60-year-old brother in Iraq but that she had refused when her son recently pestered her for his number. She said she offered to take her son to Iraq later, when tensions eased.

"I thought that would be sufficient for him, but he took it upon himself to do this adventure. He has a lot of confidence, but I never thought he would be able to pull this together," she said.

Hassan does not speak Arabic and has no experience in war zones, but he wanted to find out what life was like there.

Atiya said her son is studious, works on the school newspaper and is on the debate team. He is a member of a Republican Party club at school and spends his time reading rather than socializing, his mother said.

When school officials learned of Hassan's trip, they threatened to expel him, but Atiya and Hassan's father, Redha Hassan, a physician, persuaded officials to allow him to remain, she said. It was not immediately clear why they wanted to expel him.

Julie Schiedegger, who teaches English at Pine Crest, said Friday that she learned Hassan was headed to Iraq about two weeks ago when she overheard some students talking about it.

"He is very bright, friendly, respectful, just a good kid," she said.

Michael Buckwald, a 17-year-old classmate, said Hassan immerses himself in subjects that he likes and was opinionated in class.

"He always struck me as a very intellectual person. He's very outspoken at the same time," Buckwald said.

This kid has stones.
Was it stupid? Absolutely.
Was it wrong? No.
Sometimes we have to step out... sometimes just out into the daylight, sometimes into a new place where the light shines in different color and the earth beneath our feet is strange and alien. It may be scary, it may be hard to explain, to justify to anyone else, and it may seem, from a "common" sense/logical perspective to be the wrong thing - but the voice inside wont let go.

As a wanna-be writer, I think this kid deserves high marks. If he continues on his journey, as a journalist (think about those words), his drive will take him a long way. He obvious doesnt have any problem going to dangerous places if he wants to see something. All I can say to him is keep after it, kid.

Bliss

"Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before."
Joseph Campbell

This is truth.
For every door that might close when you follow your bliss - More will open, and they will lead to your goals. The ones that closed, never would have.

The voice in your heart is the touch of the infinite.

The Gift of Misanthropy (It Aint Christmas Until You've Had Fisting...)

So, this morning, I received my second piece of Christmas Themed Fisting spam of the week. It truly is not Christmas until you've seen one chick in a santa bikini pounding her fist into the nethers of another chick in a santa bikini...
Or transvestites. Could always be transvestites.

I love Christmas. Or want to.
I like the American Christmas tradition - I am not religious, and if anything I am more likely to celebrate the winter solstice with vim and vigor than the birth of Christ - but the stereotypical, Norman Rockwell, Christmas is something I love.
Of course, Norman Rockwell never painted the madness that the holiday has become. The decorations going up in September in the stores. The buying and gifting and wanting and having, let it begin early and let the bucks flow freely. The spirit of Christmas, is by GAWD, spending money on a ton of other people, of whom you probably only really care about a third or less.

And of course, Christmas is the time of year when all the relatives congregate, and out comes the hate, just a wee bit ahead of the knives.
My cuz, Whickey (Whitney, but when I was three I couldnt say it... said Whickey... she's whickey, tough shit) wasnt going to be allowed to my aunts for Christmas with the rest of the fam, because she is, gasp, living with a black man. Apparently something changed, because Whit. was there today, thank god... someone I didnt want to strangle.

So yes... Christmas time makes me hate people. It makes me appreciate a few individuals a lot more, but it brings out the misanthrope in me in a big way.
But, at the same time... I like the season, I like winter. I just think the ideal way to spend it would be up in the high country, away from all the madness, with a nice soft warm woman to curl up with on the cold nights, and a pretty little tree with the antique glass balls on it glimmering and glittering in the light of the fireplace across the room. Thats my Christmas wish, if I have one.
Instead... I have lesbian fisting to enjoy. Merry Christmas, and to all a good night.

Connections

My recent post has strong connections with three of my older posts as well. Just for the sake of completeness, I wanted to link them here:

Lost - Being observations on the state of searching, the spirit of the wanderer.

Hymn to God, My God, In My Sickness - Being a commentary on J. Robery Oppenheimer's spirituality at Trinity Site, and the particular work of John Donne used in the title. Important for the following post.

Wanderers - Being a further commentary on "being as passerby", the implications of a wanderer and connecting thoughts between the two previous posts, the quoted material there-in, and other spiritual and mythological works.

The Journey

This is from Col. John Boyd's book Creation and Destruction (which is, interestingly enough, a book on warfare - Its subtitle being "The Operational Level of War". All things intertwined and in harmony, in the natural order).

"Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, all taken together, show that we cannot determine the character or nature of a system within itself. Moreover attempts to do so lead to confusion and disorder - mental as well as physical. Point: We need an external environment, or outside world, to define ourselves and maintain organic integrity, otherwise we experience dissolution and disintegration - i.e. we come unglued.

Living systems are open systems; closed systems are nonliving systems. Point: If we don't communicate with the outside world - to gain information for knowledge and understanding as well as matter and energy for sustenance - we die out to become a nondiscerning and uninteresting part of that world."

Emphasis (bolding and italics) is mine.

To find the source (God) we must journey. To journey we must step forward into the unknown and experience it, in success and failure, in triumph and mistakes. To have the journey, we must walk new roads and see new things.
For some, for many, the road to God is well paved, heavily traveled and the journey has a group leader and very good roadmaps in every motel along the way.
But law, natural law (Gods law), is not evident from the teachings of other people to those who's spirits are of the wanderer. The wanderer must come to know God and the natural order, the harmony, of things through personal journey - not the guided tour. And that is about making decisions, making choices, and having control.
We are all part of the infinite, and the events that make up our lives happen according to the infinite, but the roads we choose to walk (perhaps are born to walk) help us to find the right events, the right places to be, to learn what we need to learn to complete this leg of the journey. None of those things are the same for everyone, but the voice in our hearts is our compass for the path.
Somehow, I think that voice in our hearts is not that different than the voice of the infinite.

Control & Faith

One of my very dearest friends, perhaps my dearest friend, has been having a problem balancing her need for control with her religious views which require relinquishing complete control to God.
I was, to say the least, fairly blown away to hear this coming from her because of her past history with her religion - in fact our history with that religion (I dabbled... well, actually seriously tried to be one of the faithful, but that nose-dived - although I sincerely tried to walk that road, the sincerity of my effort was my love for her, not for the religion, and no love is strong enough to support a lie, so I stopped lying.) Her religion has always seemed to me to be strong with her - something that I have both lamented and respected a great deal.
It is this issue of control that I lamented - I believe in freedom a great deal, beyond other men and God and law, and never found it within the laws of any religion. Every claimed truth, and professed "way to heaven" has always left me with the distinct feeling of being caged - forced on a guided tour through a museum that I know there are more exhibits in.
My understanding of God, which I have come to through being a wanderer in the spiritual sense and the teachings of many (From Jesus and Sidharta, to the very friend I speak of now), is not of a God who requires all that - who requires that the very essence of life, be given up to an idea of who or what He is, and could do for you if He had all that. I dont believe God needs all that - and I dont believe God is a dog and pony show for any of that either - Pennies for the popper and pay for the performer, but prayer doesnt buy services. What I know of God, what I have learned and seen of the Creator/Great Spirit/Higher Power, doesnt support that idea. It is not neccessary to be an automaton, to live in harmony and love with the higher power.
Free will is perhaps the strongest part of purely human nature - and the idea proposed by saying we must give up our freedom and our will (free will) to that unknown force that made us all, to be loved by Him, is absolutely contrary to common sense, and to the nature of the heart.
Love is a free and willful thing, and thats a two way street. No one requires a lover or a loved one to give up the very core of who they are, using love as a hostage to receive that. It is not in the nature of love - and I cannot imagine that greater love being so different from all the rest as to be that way. Have never seen it.

My belief, how I relate to the spiritual, the Creator, and the notion of freedom is a hard thing to explain. Essentially, I believe in both. I find freedom in the spiritual journey, comfort in keeping myself in harmony with it, and guidance in that comfort if I listen. I believe in a creator, God if you will, who is the beginning, the end and the one and all with everything, in the greatest of balances, harmonies.
I believe in faith, as a personal involvement in the spiritual and a belief in elements of the spiritual, God and Angels, The Great Spirit and other Spirits, The Creator, however you wish to phrase it. I believe that when it is truly a relationship of honesty, honesty about the natural order and all components of it, and living in loving harmony with the nature of the world and the spiritual (in the end these are the same - the spiritual is in all things) to the best of ones ability, the name of the Creator is not important. Our names, our ideas of form and shape, of thought or speech, are in our terms, to our understanding - they serve for us, but in the greater sense they are but dust on the wind: There are many particles of dust each of them reflecting light differently, in different angles, but it is all the same light - all from the same place. The relation of the size, shape and displayed color of each floating grain, to the sun itself is almost nothing, but if a reflecting bit of dust was all the nature of your eyes allowed you to see, it would be how you understood the sun and light - such are the names for God. Faith in God, in the spiritual, that strength to believe and work for spiritual harmony with all that is, is whats important.
There is a saying in a series of novels I've been reading which I really like, "There will be water if God wills it". I find myself using that a lot - Its not exactly a belief in fate, but it is a trust (a part of my faith) that as I go along in my life, things happen for a reason. I make choices, and for every action an equal and opposite reaction, but if I am in harmony these happenings, even the worst of them, carry me forward on my journey, and bring me closer to myself and the spiritual, God.
Its not about giving up our choices, our control, as a proof of our devotion to an idea - Its about going with the flow, letting what happens carry us forward into greater understanding, harmony and connection, with ourselves, the world around and the spiritual. In the end, we are all part of the same great infinite.

What the greater good, the end result, is I cant hope to know or imagine. Many things are bigger than ourselves. It is my belief that if our harmony and learning, the connection to the spiritual, come to some level of integration we can move on to the next place, the next step in this greater thing called life - the next session of classes with the Creator.

I hope my friend can come to find her balance, her harmony. Maybe the opportunity will arise to share my thoughts with her, and maybe they will help her. Because this is important – Not religion, not going to a particular building to worship, those are tools that I believe some people do truly need to make these connections, but that I think can only serve to hinder others in making their connection with the spiritual, finding their harmony, and hearing the voice of God within all things. That is what is important, that balance. In harmony is learning, in learning is balance, in balance there is connection, and from that connection is learning – the great wheel turns ever onward.

Tookie

Tookie Williams is going to die. The Govenator his'self has declined to grant clemency, and the execution will go ahead as planned. In the wee morning hours Tookie is going to close his eyes and take the big nap.
And everyone seems to be upset about this.
I'm not.

There are a few people on death row, and a few others doing hard time, who I think need their situation improved - be it taken off the row, or pardoned all togather. I think there's probably more than a few who I dont even know about who dont deserve to die, and may be innocent all togather, and I'm all for doing what is necessary to find the truth.
But, if you've been convicted beyond any reasonable doubt, not railroaded, set up or framed (and I think we can all agree that Stan "Tookie" Williams was guilty, of some murders if by some slim chance not those murders) then you need to take your lumps.
Now, I believe in vengance to a degree. But I think vengance is personal, I dont believe the state has a right to carry it out. The state's duty is simply to handle the working end of a jury's decision, and carry out sentance - be it jail, or actual punishment - as an aid to the society it (the state, the government) serves, to keep harmful and predatory humans from having room and freedom to cause harm and prey upon others. If that means execution, then so be it.
I've said this before, people are too serious about death. Death is not an end, it is another part of the journey.
Tookie Williams, people like him (or like he was, if you believe he has truly changed), have lived horrible, tortured lives. They have also chosen to inflict that horror and torture on others in some awful ways. Beyond the need for vengance, beyond event he need for justice, there is a greater need served by their deaths - They need to be set free from this world, for their own good.
If you are Christian and believe Tookie has reformed, then you can take comfort that he will stand before his God, and be welcomed by Him.
If you dont think he has reformed, you will take the same comfort that he may burn in the fires of Hell.
I am not a Christian, but I think thats a lovely idea... both of them. To a point. I believe that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, on the spiritual plane. For every kindness, a kindness. For every evil, an evil in return. Salvation, in whatever form you believe in it in, is a work in progress for us all - Tookie Williams has a lot to attone for... far more than he can in this life. If he has already started here, more the better, but to be free of the brutality, the negativity, of his life and to really turn it around he has to be free of his life.

I also believe that if Tookie were truly reformed he would accept his death, without whining and sniveling, trying to get out of it.
He would stand up, comfortable in his own skin and comfortable with his fate, look at it head on and go quietly. He hasnt gone quietly, and that strikes me as very selfish, self serving.
Tookie Williams is a murderer, among other things, and in his heart probably an unrepentant one. Tookie needs to leave this life, and try, try again, in whatever form the cosmos would provide, to do better the next time around.
And the families of his victims need to know he is dead. Vengance is personal... and if they can find it in this, they deserve it.

Code Pink

I was surfing one of the bulletin boards devoted to the tactical and special operations communities today when I came across this gem: http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=96

In short, in case that link is broken someday, CodePink is advocating a boycott on "war toys", with slogans such as "Dont let your child be a victim of G.I. Joe!" and "Violent Toys = Violent Boys". They are also advocating disruptng commerce by sticking labels on "war toys" in stores that carry such slogans.

This directly relates to the post I made earlier - where I said if we continue fighting so hard to supress the harder truths of human nature, in the end we will also destroy the beauty of things like love.
Movements such as Code Pink, for all their attempts at sounding educated and backed up by science, are actually going directly against the grain of nature. War toys dont make violent anyone... Look at wolf pups or lion cubs in the wild, they play fighting games.
Look at non-carnivorous species, such as big horn sheep, or elk, or even cattle. They too play fighting games in youth.
Fighting is a part of the world. It is biology. We will never overcome biology.

It is a waste of resources, at the very least, to create such advocacy as CodePink. Its junk science, holier-than-thou, message does more to harm positive causes than anything else.
The idea such groups promote is on the same level as saying that if you stop feeding a lioness meat, she will become a vegetarian. Its not a realistic effort to affect change... its a feel-good movement for yuppies and middle America to cling to, and get their "superiority" fix off of for awhile. Its not radical, its trendy... and thats all its trying to be.
To affect change we must change the way the world understands violence.
Our tolerance for un-neccessary violence, for cruelty, torture, tyranny and human rights abuses, must be absolutely zero. The consequences for such behavior should be swift, and very very permanent.
But we must also re-draw the lines between the small bit of violence that is truly necessary, and everything else. Necessity should be allowed... as a measure against the hateful, the cruel, the unnecessary, un-tolerable sorts of violence.
So long as men are willing to take what is not theirs, by force, the need for violence to defend against that will be there. We must set the world straight on this reality, once again. To bring an end to all the evils, we have to be honest about violence.
CodePink is not honesty... far far from it. And that hurts us all.

Violence is Destroying Humanity... But Not How You'd Expect...

In the media recently there have been several stories being kicked around about violence, of one form or another. Negative stories.
The first type is the sort where something awful happens, someone is hurt, and the instrument that did the damage is blamed, and condemned. This instrument of late has been guns - as it usually is, because its hard to convince Mr. and Ms. America that the Honda Civic is more deadly in the wrong hands and killed more people last year, than a gun.
I will never be able to understand the need to find some outside source to blame for the bad things that happen... especially when that thing being blamed is anything or anyone but the person(s) responsible for the bad thing.
It should be okay to blame people. People pull the trigger... more often than that, people get tanked, hop behind the wheel and plow their SUV's into the side of minivans loaded with families on their way to Christmas with Gran'ma. But people do it. People.
We never blame the car - We always blame the drunk driver. So when violence happens, why is the reaction always to blame the tool, never the user... the killer?
I guess because it’s easier. Guns, weapons of any kind, can be inflated into some greater evil... something on par with what the hearts of good people want the guilty party to be, a great malevolence hell bent on wreaking death and destruction. Satan himself. And no man, or even group of men, will ever... ever be as evil, as vile, repulsive and horrifyingly cruel as what we want to believe they must have been to commit such vile acts upon someone we cared about.
To see a human being as the actor responsible for violence, strikes too close to home to be comfortable for a great many people. It speaks far too loudly at the truth of the human condition, the truth of human nature. A truth that does not fit into the vision, the mythology, of goodness and decency that our society has created. So instead of blaming the person... we blame the weapon, the tool. Which is no more responsible than a drunk drivers car... for no metal thing, no inanimate thing, has a heart, or a mind. But to say a man, and just a man, can be responsible for cruelty, violence, the infliction of pain and suffering onto not just a victim, but the entire family of that victim, requires too much truth about the very nature of what is "Human".
To kill is human.
As is to love.
As is to care, protect, defend, hope, wonder, learn, teach, give, share, help.
But "kill" is an word we cannot let ourselves be comfortable with.
Killing is wrong... it says so in the Bible - "Thou Shalt Not Kill". But what it actually says... what the original wording was, is far closer to "Thou Shalt Not Murder". But, we've had a few thousand years of oral tradition becoming inscription in ancient and varied languages, becoming collection, translation and re-inscription into Latin, and then into French, and English... and then a series of major rewordings and removals of a few things, to create not only the King James Version, but the Holy Mother Churches approved version before it... and then hundreds of other versions, and translations into all the languages of the modern world. At the end of all that a few things are bound to be different... but "thou shalt not kill" is a commandment upon which even the non-religious will throw themselves, as if upon a sword. (Ahh, there I go again with the violence metaphors....).
And, really, why shouldn’t they? The idea that killing is bad is a powerful undercurrent in the mythology most people use to frame their understanding of the world around them, and what is good and decent in that world.
It takes great acts, of horror and depravity, to shock people into remembering that violence, at its ugliest, most horrific, is sometimes necessary. Acts like 9/11, when the passengers and crew of Flight 93 rose up and said, we will not go quiet into that good night... even if it means dying, even if it means killing a lot of people. But that is a massive thing for one little, and quickly fading, wake-up call.
I think it is for the best that most people - sane people - do not embrace the ability to kill and run with it. But to completely shun the ability, to the point at which we try to fervently deny the occasionally, horrible, need for it... goes completely against the natural order.
Like so many things in this world which go against the natural order, which fight so hard to fit the myth we have created about the way of the world that they approach the completely synthetic. It is a sad state of affairs where being human has become a thing to be shunned... the very essence of humanity must be wiped clean and replaced with one that fits the myth. In the end, by trying to suppress all the unpleasant, uncomfortable, parts of raw human nature, we will suppress those our mythology has come to idolize.... like love.