The Cure

I found the cure for the blues.  (Not whiskey sours and tequila shots like I first thought).....

It's a good cure.

Works every time I've used it..  

The problem with it... however.... is that in every way it's a paradox.

To get the cure... first you have to stop  trying to get it...... and then do something else entirely.....

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When I realized it was the cure.... it surprised me that it didn't come from some of the places that I first thought it might.

It's not religious like a lot of people think.  And it's not spiritual in the sense that you have to light candles and meditate on it....

If you're reading about it (and it's not the first time you've read about it... even from a Holy book)....  then you're still along way off of it.

Its not a philosophy... or a theology.  And it's not made for seminars or sermons....

It IS existential in the sense that... just knowing about it means nothing...

All the concepts of life...... joy......... freedom..... happiness....

They all have no meaning unless you experience the cure.   

You have to jump off into it....  Immerse yourself in it.

In the end you have to do it.     

And it doesn't work.... if you do it with strings attached..... like if afterward.... you think people owe you....      

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I heard a guy say once that if you give....

then you'll receive...

But it turns out that for it to work you have to live in the front end of that phrase... (give)...

and completely abandon the back (receive)......  

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Within the last few years I learned something from an old church friend who adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. He did it because he says God told him to... (crazy?).  But he also did it because he wanted to.

He wanted to provide food and shelter ... and fatherhood... and a family (mother... brothers...) to a child who wouldn't normally have those things.

No strings attached.    

(despite my crap with the churchy's...... it turns out..... not all churchy's are always Churchy) 

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A few days ago I took advantage of a moment and listened to a lady (single mom) talk about how at one very desperate time in her life... the money she received from the government... saved her (and her children's) lives.

She took the money... used it to live and go to school...

She's working now... paying taxes.... living a normal life..... doing Tae-Bo.

And instead of bitching about it.... About how we all get screwed by the government....(I want my tax money... just like everyone else does).....   I just took in the moment... and realized that through my taxes.... in some indirect way..... I helped this woman... maybe even saved her life....

She seemed very grateful.    

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The biggest paradox in the cure is that it's both very natural and very unnatural at the same time...

I'm very protective of me and mine....   And sometimes people  can get hurt from trying to get at my stuff.  (Check out Libya while they move closer and closer to civil war...  At stake???  Someones Oil.... Power..... land.... world influence..... the usual).

Sometimes as I get closer to taking the cure.... it feels like I'm dying.  It's just not natural for me to give my stuff away like that.

But then.... after I do..... it seems very natural to me.... like maybe it was something I was supposed to do all along... like maybe this is the way the world was supposed operate.

Like... if I did this often.... in some freaky way... (by Gods grace).... it might save me.

Save us.

I don't mean.... whisk us off to heaven to escape life..........  I mean really save us.  Right here...  Right now.

Like take away our bitterness... and anger.... and hurt.... and hate...    

Like.... heal up our wounds... make us live together.... teach us to respect each other...

take away our blues.