Where is the Love?

[click on this link] Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway's version

I read somewhere we only come from two places in our behavior; love or fear.
From my reading about Near Death Experiences that one of the common takeaways from those who come back from the dead is that our sole purpose and focus in our life is to love.
The other thing that sticks with me about this subject is the only thing I remember from Neale Donald Walsch's book, "Conversations With God" (which came out in 1999?) was that our purpose in life is to remember our own perfection.  In other words, basically it does come down to love.

Now, that's all well in good but Love, with a capital "L" is a BIG concept and subject to wide interpretation (in my humble opinion).  The Greek language has 6 words for love.  So why the hell am I writing about this abstract concept?  It is because I want to get clarity on how I can best live my life.  I want to live.  I want to live fully and deeply.  I see the path to this goal is to be In Love.  Not the romantic, gooey, stars in my eyes kind of In Love but fully incorporate Love within my entire being and live from there.  But first, I need to determine what the hell is that.

So this blog is my stab in exploring what that means, not in "concept" but in practice, in guidelines, in principle, in vision, in something that I can point to in order to live by.

Right now, I believe that this abstract concept of Love with a capital "L" is compassion.  Compassion to me is allowing the other to be who they are without negative judgement or at least with some understanding on the "why" of the behavior.  I do this with my dog when he does something that gets me angry.  I work on doing this even with Donald Trump by reminding myself that he is a lost soul coming from fear and pain which results in anger.  I am pained that people like him that spread pain, fear, and harm to those around him.  Still this is my challenge, my spiritual journey.  I believe if I can truly love all then I have peace.

I ran across this haunting and amazing [click on this link] choir song that captures the essence of the struggle of Love-ing.  I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining.  I believe in love even when I don’t feel it.  I believe in God even when He is silent.

Of course, love starts for our own selves first. [click on this link]  Keb Mo' You Can Love Yourself  Another word for Love is Acceptance.  Accepting myself is Love to me.  I have this view of who I am that I can always do better.  There is a difference between who I am and what I do.  However for most, those two are intertwined if not being the same thing.  I do not dwell on whether I'm "good enough."  I focus on being "OK" with who I am.  I focus on getting to that place within which is Peace.

Love is a verb.  Love is a process.  Love is an attitude.  Love is a state of being.

I have people around me who practice that.  Love begets love.  I am blessed that I have such support and circle of friends and family who reinforces on what Love means.  I believe that who I attract in my life is an indicator of my spiritual health.  I'm on my way.

I'm putting the Suck into Success

Success
I wonder about that, this success thing.  This is what we all been exhorted to seek, to achieve, to be admired for.  This is supposedly what is our purpose in life to become.  This is what people eulogize when we are gone.  The slippery thing about it though is that we can damn well define it any way we want.  It's like painting the bullseye around the already shot arrow.

Success is something we measure, quantify, qualitatively define.  This is society's metric for a life well lived.  This is what should drive us.  This is what we should be setting our goals for.  This is the destination for our journey.

I have struggled mightily to look at how my life is with this success thing.  Yes, I can self-justify and rationalize that my life is successful by virture of how my amazing children are.  I don't buy that.  That implies that their mother, their teachers, their friends and many others had no hand in them becoming who they are.  Plus not to mention their own beautiful personality, character, and intelligence that helped make them who they are.  No, my children are not is something that I call a success of my own though I do take credit in my part in their lives.

I look around me, toward my friends.  I see those who are following their heart, their own path. A lot of them don't have college degrees. Those who have them aren't working in the field of their major.

R is a book store clerk and was a Union organizer.  A was a long time massage therapist, now a food blogger.  C was in sales and now an author and a teacher.  C has her own adult care business with a side hustle of alternative farming.  T is an international traveler with a doctorate is a trainer, teacher, and consultant who practices her talents to various schools and agencies.  M has a Master's in Organizational Development who worked for Intel for almost a score and is now on a journey of self actualization and discovery while living in Madrid.  M has a Master's in psychology and counseling and he has his own business in organizing other people's spaces  A has her own spiritual products store and a singer.  M is a retired business owner whose business helped children who have struggled getting a traditional high school education.  L has been focused on being a great mother and trying to find her way to financially sustain herself now.  J has a dog walking business who also is an artist/painter.  S was working for a print shop and now is focused on her health.  B is a therapist who has done that for over twenty years. F is a customer service rep for a large utility company but her true love is her art.  For the most part, what they are doing is not easy financially for them. There are others but I see this pattern of those in my life who are struggling to live their lives with integrity and happiness.


I wonder if they consider themselves a success?   What about me?  For someone who hated school since grammar school, I have two Master's degrees.  I find that highly ironic.  I am someone who has not been able to hold onto a job my entire life for more than 3 years.  That is another irony for I wanted to follow in my Father's footsteps by staying in one company until I could retire.  He did that but at a price.  He absolutely hated his Government job and soon after he retired, he died.  I am someone who is still looking for what truly brings me joy. I was a janitor in my 40s.  I did so with the chagrin of knowing how my parents worked hard and gave such a stellar education so I could live a better life than them. Right now I am a security guard walking the beat three times a day, 8 miles a day.  And no, this is not my dream job. I am not ashamed of this but I know this is not what I am meant to do on this planet.

Should I even go along with society and measure myself against the yardstick of success? https://longreads.com/2019/09/06/the-myth-of-making-it/?utm_source=pocket-newtab If I don't then that would another chicken shit way of avoiding  failure? My short answer is "no" I rather not use this descriptor as who I am.  However I do dwell on how I can make the world a better place.  What the f**k does that mean or look like?  For me, it means being able to help people help themselves.  This is what I have honed in on what my Life's Purpose looks like  Can this be measured?  Quantified? Unlikely.

I am rejecting this descriptor, this measure of a man for myself.  Rather I would rather work on how I can practice being a more compassionate human who leverages my talents in helping those around me to help themselves, to heal themselves, to feel more loved.  I see this as my legacy.

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.” ― Rumi   

Where the Hell is Mark?

An artist friend Cher Odom, who is known for her whimsical paintings, shared the following  from the book Your Soul’s Plan by Robert Schwartz:

"And when Christina returns to spirit, the effects of her lifetime will continue to ripple across the physical plane.  Like a hand on a clear window, each of our lives leaves fingerprints that endure long after the touch.  Some of our energy lingers in the thoughtforms of which Cassandra spoke; all of it echoes across time and space, affecting not only those who share Earth with us when we are here, but also those who will follow."

"Each of us is a seed that was planted within our world's current vibration.  When we raise our own frequencies through the growth produced by life challenges, we raise the world's frequency from within.  Like a single drop of dye added to a glass of water, each person alters the entire hue.  As we create feelings of joy, even if we do so while living alone on a mountaintop, we emit a frequency that makes it easier for others to be joyful.  As we create feelings of peace, we resonate an energy that helps to end wars.  As we love we make it easier for others, both those whom we meet and those who will never know of us, to love.  Who we are is therefore far more meaningful than anything we may ever do."

"... each of us has an impact that far exceeds our knowing.  Our ability to affect the world so forcefully is equally a wonderful opportunity and a great responsibility."

Cher shared this gratitude with me...
I have no clue if the message radiates with you as it does me (on a very deep level) but I felt the need/desire to share. Your FB posts are a clear example of how you touch other souls long after your post/thoughts have been shared. We never really know exactly the power of the energy we send out through the world and to those close to us.

I love "Where The Hell Is Matt?" videos and the songtrack (Trip the Light sung by Alicia Lemke, composed by Garry Schyman) conveys the worldwide togetherness illustrating the feeling of  this essay's theme.

I know we all are connected, some more deeply than with others.  I know we affect those around us directly and indirectly.  We teach our children by how we live our lives.  We give permission to those around us to share their essence more by how we show up in life authentically with vulnerability.

This connection we all have is something that I am aware of and therefore feel a responsibility for.  I not only owe it to myself to live the best, meaningful, and loving life I can but also to those around me.

As I muddle through life, I keep looking to get to that place of feeling that I am living my life's purpose and making a positive difference in this world.  I want to feel some sort of satisfaction or even joy in this process. 

I think that I may be looking for this ideal rather than what really would a realistic fit for who I am.  I suspect that this is more common for people than any of us care to admit to.  I believe that is a big part of my grand journey, to fully accept myself which means to not only accept where I am at in life but to fully embrace it.  I suspect this acceptance of being OK with how I am living my life insofar making a difference is the main aspect of loving myself.

Who Will Date Me?

I have been fortunate  in my life to have lovely women who were willing not only to date me but to actually have a romantic relationship with me.  However growing up in a predominately white, middle class suburb of New Jersey where our family was the only Japanese American family and one of a handful of other Asians living there made me highly self-conscious about my "otherness."  Because of my self consciousness which resulted in being very shy, I did not date.  I kept my head down during those school years from elementary school and into graduate school.
If any girl was interested in me I did not notice.  I married someone who was the second only person I dated until then. 

Now I am single again.  I have made stabs at

http://www.womensmediacenter.com/fbomb/what-makes-asian-american-men-undateable

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504218812869

Syphilis

Syphilis no I mean Sisyphus, but let's start from the beginning....

I cringed when I first heard about Melania Trump's initiative To Be Best, for it not only reeks of the non sequitur pablum that characterizes 45's Administration but it recalls back to my childhood where the entreaty was "to do your best." 

I doubly cringe with the memory.I loved my parents.  I had a good childhood.  

My parents devoted their lives to us, their children.  They were involved with our academics where my Mother would go over my Spanish assignments and quiz me on my English vocabulary words, the sports we participated in like track where my Father was the Booster Club treasurer, Cub and Boy Scouts with my Father taking my Patrol hiking and camping as well as assisting me to complete my merit badges,  they scrimped and saved so we were able to go to the college of our choice, they even offered to pay for graduate school for any of the three of us, they took us on family vacations and got encyclopedias.  

We each had chores to do while growing up.  Me cleaning the kitchen floor nightly and all the bathrooms weekly.  I hung out the wash.  During the Fall we all went out with our dog to rake the leaves and during the winter snow, we all went out with our shovels to clear out the driveway and sidewalk..

My parents did not count the number of "A's" we got, nor the trophies or awards, or not even whether we went out for sports or engage in extracurricular activities.  They were lassie faire about what we did and how we did it.  All they cared about was for us to "do our best."  Of course we had the strong familial and cultural examples of focused, heads down, hard work that reinforced us not slacking off.  Our parents demonstrated that by how they lived their lives.  

My Mother took in work in order to be a stay-at-home parent.  She typed legal documents with her Royal manual typewriter using correction tape and carbon paper.  She was one of the first telemarketers who sold magazine subscriptions for the Saturday Evening Post under the pseudonym of Mrs. Miller for who could pronounce or remember the name Hashizume?  My Father got his Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering while working full time with a family at home.  He worked his way through Rutgers by being a waiter, among other things for a fraternity which he was not a member of.

I found that the bar was always set just out of my reach, not because of my parents but because of me.  I could always do better.  I could spend that extra couple of hours studying.  I could be more clever or smarter.  I could think harder.  I could try harder.  It was a constantly losing proposition for me hence the Sisyphus reference.  I felt that I kept pushing that boulder up that hill only to fall back on me.

Eventually I gave up.  I got too many "C's" and fell short in the other things I tried to accomplish.  I learned to not even start something for I could not be good at it right away.  Even though I knew it would take patience and practice to get to that point of competency, I stopped having the desire or drive to put forth the effort.  Monty Python has captured what I am trying to do: This is my quest.

This approach severely limited me in activities and interests that I may have enjoyed or been fulfilled by.  I was somewhat conscious about that and worked on approaching life with a more relaxed attitude.  However I found that I could not overcome the imprint that was put on my child psyche.  I have this attitude that I cannot shake, try as I may.  I don't have the heart to put forth much effort in any of my endeavors.  I go through the motions, whether it is recreational or things that deal with making a living.  Of course this is a recipe for failure.  

I've been told that I excel in certain things; like deep listening, presence and compassion.  I have intelligence and humor.  Those are qualities, not activities.  I'm better at being rather than doing with these qualities. I have been stumped in how I can apply what I am good at, that I enjoy to something that creates something, that is financially valued, that can be applied to an activity.  In the meantime, I am still pushing up the mountain but nowadays they are rocks rather than boulders and the mountain is more like a hill.

Guys Suck as Friends

There I said it.  Guys suck as friends.  At least for me.  Ironically it was my guy friend who said this as well.  Of course I am being deliberately provocative as well as generalizing and stereotyping but I do find that most are that way.  Ironically I came from a loving family of two brothers with an intact family of great parents who would do everything for their sons.  I wonder what is the thing with me that cannot keep male friends in my middle age and beyond.  I find that the men I befriended that they eventually drop out of my life, they usually do it by ghosting.  No returned texts or phone calls.  No explanation on why.  Puzzling ... and rude especially when the last time we have gotten together bore no indication of any issues between us.  

In general, I find most men to be more interested in talking rather than listening,  to know-it-all and quick to tell me what I should do even though I never ask for their advice.  I don't trust such people and am on guard around them.  They are not empathetic nor willing to be open.  

I seek and connect with those who ask the deep questions, of themselves and of the world around them especially in the spiritual and psychological realms.  I cannot relate to those who rather focus on the logical and rational which covers most people which are both men and women but men more so than women.  With all of that said, I do have some beautiful male friends in my life.  They are spiritual, kind, good listeners.  

For me it comes down to trust. While growing up I learned that men tend to judge me more harshly and focus more on results of what I can do rather than who I am.  I found that I had to withstand being the target of aggression for being aggressive is a measure of strength.  Being raised in a Japanese American family where as a culture, we were not that way.  We focused on being cooperative rather than competitive.  We focused on getting along and keeping a low profile rather than standing out and being arrogant.  We were taciturn.  All qualities which males grew up learning to be.  This is the cultural norm.  These are valued and factors for success. And even my brothers all come from this common family and cultural background, I cannot relate to them from the heart level.  I do not trust them for me to be vulnerable with them for they are advice givers, non-listeners and left brain bound.

My Boston U roommates and I trying to look manly & sophisticated

So I ponder this from time-to-time because not having a lot of male friends compared to the women in my life, I think there is somewhat of an imbalance.  I have given up trying to change myself to be more masculine in that traditional sense.  I now focus my attention in accepting who I am and getting in touch that yang energy on my terms.  I believe the balance is being assertive rather than aggressive, being confident and proud without being arrogant, and being focused on self improvement rather than being a winner where there is a loser.  This is where I want to go.

Check out this funny song about men:
Martin Mull men song

Music Makes the World Go 'Round

I really admire those who can create music, whether by singing or by playing instruments.  Our First World sensibilities gives that away to those "professionals" or at least those who have talent and competence in that area.  That concept of music being relegated to a separate group is foreign to indigenous cultures.  There is the tradition of percussion playing and chanting in which anyone can do.  I believe that we all need to make music for ourselves.  This seems such a primal need for us humans.  We lost that along the way.

I find listening to music as a great mood shifter.  It is not the same as making music since one is passive and the other engages more parts of ourselves, not only physically but in other ways that light up more parts of the brain.  Regardless, I find music magic.  Nothing like how music transforms me when I am in a down mood or stuck in a place where I cannot figure my way out.   What is more magical is enjoying music with people I enjoy being with.  I vibe with them vibing with the music and visa versa.

Now what makes this noteworthy for me as oppose to everyone else and their brother who feels the same way?  I feel that I have lost touch of my joy (see my July 3, 2019 blog Where is my Joie de Vivre?).  I really want to find that "place" within to have me really feel that delight, that energy center of delight.  Music seems to be that one enabler that I can look to in assisting me towards that feeling.  Not always but more than any other thing in my life.  More than sex or photography or bicycling.  Being with my children trumps all of that but in general, music is my go-to activity for joy.

I still tear up when listening to a familiar song from my formative years like a James Taylor song of You Can Close Your Eyes for it touches something deep within my soul that I cannot really identify or articulate.  My body reveals the truth of my heart.  Bittersweet, melancholy, yearning are emotions which are familiar but not frequently felt.  I find crying is my body's way of releasing what needs to, what has been held in too tightly.

I loved the light, fun music of such groups as The Monkees, Small Faces, The Mamas and the Papas, The Turtles, Herman's Hermits.  Those songs put a smile on my face with some sing along refrains coming out of my mouth.

Great energy generator songs from groups like Led Zepplin, Grand Funk Railroad, The Who made me get out of my head and into my body.  Of course the Motown classics a la The Big Chill dancing around the kitchen scene is another class of music that has me wanting to pull people into a dance line with me.  Or to be one of the backup singers for Aretha's Respect song.  Unabashed joy is hand clapping, foot tapping, percussion driving music for me.

I put together a funeral playlist after being inspired from attending an friend's friend funeral with music.  That really moved me.  Each song has a link to the YouTube song.
Coming Home - Skylar Grey
You Can Close Your Eyes - James Taylor
Goodbye My Friend – Karla Bonoff
I Think Its Going to Rain Today – Bette Midler
Down So Low – Linda Ronstadt
One Moment More – Mindy Smith
So Far Away – Carole King
I Can't Stand the Rain - Ann Peebles
Feels Like Home – Bonnie Raitt
Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye – Leonard Cohen
Think of Me - The Phantom of the Opera
Bring Him Home - Les Miserables
What'll I Do - Lisa Hannigan

Always Look On The Bright Side of Life – Monty Python
It's a Beautiful Morning – The Rascals
Born to be Alive - Patrick Hernandez


What I seek in music is to have it move me, literally and emotionally.  I find it difficult to tap into my emotions and this is the avenue I take to do that.  I know that being in my head is not the way to get to my Happy Place or Creative Place.  From there I look to be part of this World and fully myself.

See the Psychology Today article on how music affects our emotions.

“Keep on knocking
'til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who's there”
― Jelalludin Rumi