(By the way, I’m not necessarily saying I endorse this book: I haven’t read it. I like the title and, apparently, it’s a bestseller.)
My most dearest Jaialai, and Shosh:
I wish for you the best of birthdays. May you know that you are loved from near and far. You are special. Know that. Embrace that. Find joy wherever and whenever possible. You have a gift with a great imagination. Use it. Be you. Be the best you possible. That is your gift to the world and your curse to those who attempted to destroy our once beautiful and joyful family.
Jaialai, it is always tough to celebrate your birthday year after year when not surrounded by all of your loved ones. It’s a dark stain on what should be a joyous occasion. Birthdays are always a stark reminder of what we have lost as a family to the vile and evil creatures who do the devil’s work in the name of goodness. May 1000 generations of their families be cursed.
I know the feeling. I, too, am alone. I am truly alone. I don’t have you kids, and haven’t seen or heard from you in more than 10 years. More recently, Ms. L was taken by the vile and corrupt when she needed to return home to attend to important personal matters. I have neither heard or seen her in months.
Most days are hard. Very hard. Impossibly hard. I literally have nothing left to lose. The arrogant fools forgot … or simply didn’t care to learn:
(James Baldwin is a brilliant thinker. You should read his books and writings to expand your horizons. Fools censure because they are afraid. Wisemen dare to read widely and explore different ideas in order to expand their horizons and improve their mental toolsets.)
Back to my situation, it has gotten slightly better over the months. Only ever so slightly. Most days, I exist on the brink of tears. The slightest trigger — a scent, a laughter, a familiar sight, a sound — can force me to fight back tears and paste a smile on my lips. But that need to not burden others with my misery often saves me from a deeper descent into the endless abyss.
For example, this morning, I had to put on a happy face to banter and joke with my hosts when they invited me to breakfast with them. We had a good time. But the moment I returned to my room, a sad tune by Nina Simone returned to haunt me. Her beautiful voice, the melodic and sad music, and the lyrics … oh how I wish I could simply turn off my mind like I could a radio, but I cannot. Not today. Not at the moment. Thus, I make haste to get out of the house, get out of my head, and get into the world of the living.
Now, I realize that this problem may not be the case for everyone. I assume people with richer imagination than mine can spend endless hours within themselves, mining the unimaginable things they find there. Others, particularly nuns living a cloistered life, can while away the hours communing with God. Unfortunately, I am not wired that way. I assume most of us aren’t either.
Thus, my lesson for you today is to get out of your head! Avoid at all costs living within yourself 24/7.
Yes, an unexamined life is not worth living, but that doesn’t mean you should spend all your time in your head. No, go within as needed from time to time to reevaluate your action, your intention, your errant analysis, etc. However, once done with the task, return to the present moment of the living.
The inherent danger of constantly living in your head is two-fold.
First, when you are down, as everyone is from time and to time and as members of our family must be given its destruction by the evil and corrupt, dark thoughts swirl within your mind, creating a vortex darkness which will swallow you whole if you let it. Like a black hole, that vortex of darkness defies the rules of gravity and works to suck you deeper within its grasp.
Avoid that at all costs! Change the scene, go for a walk, splash cold water on your face, go to the mall or library where you are surrounded by the living instead of ghosts of the past or undefined fears of the future. Immerse yourselves in the acts of the living, in life. Cook. Clean. Plant. Help the poor.
Second, as Professor B.P. once warned me at Duke University, overuse of self-analysis can land you in an endless loop. Fall into a mental rut, as it were.
Each of us have a limit mental toolset with which you use to solve problems. One of the important goals in life is to expand that mental toolbox to include as many tools of critical analysis as possible, or rely on the mental tools of those we trust. We often use the latter strategy by bouncing ideas off friends and loved one to get their honest feedback. In other words, we borrow their mental tools when we pick their brains.
Even more importantly, talking things over with others help us gain different perspectives. People often fall into a mental rut and are trapped in their own limited viewpoint. For example, a journalist friend once shared that she hated people who extolled the virtues of international travel and how it opened their minds … until she finally could afford international travel and raved about how her trip to Europe gave her fresh perspectives about life, ways of thinking, problem solving, etc.
We often fear and we hate what we don’t know or understand. Talking to others help expose us to new ideas and new approaches we had never considered or even thought to consider.
As I sit here in my room to write this post, I can hear my hosts talking to neighbors and laughing. That’s living!! That’s the opposite of us hiding out in our hidey holes and “conversing” with unknown entities from unknown corners of the world with unknown motives.
On Halloween, for example, there is always a spike in bad events because people hide behind masks to do the unthinkable if they were unmasked. That dynamic is amplified a thousandfold through the anonymity of the internet. Freaks pose as kids to chat with kids. Thieves living off the emaciated carcasses and lives of the marginalized and dispossessed, pretending to care only to line their pocketbooks. People in the devil’s employ while donning the mantel of goodness.
So, get out of your head and rejoin the world of the living.
All my love, always and forever,
Dad
shoshandjaialai 