What is Real?

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

-Velveteen Rabbit by Margaret Williams

Wayne Dyer Quotes

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

There's no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There is only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with.

As you think so shall you be! Since you cannot physically experience another person, you can only experience them in your mind. Conclusion: All of the other people in your life are simply thoughts in your mind. Not physical beings to you, but thoughts. Your relationships are all in how you think about the other people of your life. Your experience of all those people is only in your mind. Your feelings about your lovers come from your thoughts. For example, they may in fact behave in ways that you find offensive. However, your relationship to them when they behave offensively is not determined by their behavior, it is determined only by how you choose to relate to that behavior. Their actions are theirs, you cannot own them, you cannot be them, you can only process them in your mind.


-Wayne Dyer 1940-, American Psychotherapist, Author, Lecturer

An Uplifiting Poem by Max Ehrmann

Max Ehrmann


Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.


Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.


Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.


Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.


You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.


Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.


With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.


Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

Define Insanity

According to www.dictionary.com the definition of insanity is... in·san·i·ty Pronunciation[in-san-i-tee] –noun, plural -ties. 1. the condition of being insane; a derangement of the mind. 2. Law. such unsoundness of mind as affects legal responsibility or capacity. 3. Psychiatry. (formerly) psychosis. 4. extreme folly; senselessness; foolhardiness. [Origin: 1580–90; <>in-3, sanity] —Synonyms 1. dementia, lunacy, madness, craziness, mania, aberration. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. American Psychological Association (APA): Insanity. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved August 16, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Insanity Chicago Manual Style (CMS): Insanity. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Insanity (accessed: August 16, 2007). Modern Language Association (MLA): "Insanity." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 16 Aug. 2007. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Insanity>. I picked this meaning from the Urban Dictionary... 1. Insanity 54 up, 8 down 1) A mental state where one can not tell the difference between reality and their imagination. 3) A type of behaviour where a person may act in a way that may be seen as "uncool" or "weird" (and doesn't care). 3) The only way to fly. Example: Austin Powers: You're insane! Goldmember: And that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it! by Peeves Apr 12, 2004 I don't know for sure what definition adequately describes "insanity", although I have seen different forms. Today while walking downtown with my boyfriend (yes, he's back) and son, a vagrant with a bottle of liquor in his hand talked very loudly to us, He told of an income he had and that was about all I could make sense of from his ramblings. About a month ago I saw the same man and he was giving the same lecture, without a bottle in his hand, and he seemed more upbeat. He could have an alcohol induced mental disorder but I have read somewhere that most people who are homeless do suffer from a mental affliction of some type. I had a friend once who always claimed to be insane and I never saw it, but didn't doubt her either. Then one day after a series of events she turned on me and saw me as an enemy. She went against her own morals, common sense, and contradicted herself. On that day I saw that insanity can be very subtle and quiet yet set the foundation for chaos and violence. Recently I have stumbled across another form of insanity. Infatuation can also be insane. Again quoting the Urban Dictionary I found this definition of infatuation that describes "insane infatuation" very well. 3. infatuation 50 up, 13 down All-encompassing, gut-wrenching, soul-draining activity that only requires the active involvement of one individual: the obsessor. A second individual is required for the peripheral need of providing the obsessor with an object of needless, unappreciated, possibly unwanted, often unwarranted affection. The second individual may or may not be aware of his/her peripheral involvement, and may or may not be willing to be peripherally involved: the object's awareness and/or willingness of being an object of desire is of no consequence to the obsessor. Example: The innocent girl lost her sensibility due to her infatuation with the nice boy, who was in constant denial of the entire situation. by X.25 Detroit, Michigan May 25, 2006 I worry about this infatuation a certain person has and how it will affect me in the future. I have what she wants and I don't think she will let me stand in her way.

Covets

I'm forever amazed by how stupid a woman can act over a man and vice versa. I would think that women take displays of envy and jealousy to a higher extreme than men because they are more likely to make their feelings openly apparent where as men are more likely to repress these types of emotions for fear of "looking silly".

The Bible proclaims "Envy" to be one of the Seven Deadly Sins. If more people were happy with what they have instead of obsessing over what they don't have, the world would be a better place indeed.

Hope

I have hopes for the future

I have dreams I want to turn into reality

I have faith everything will turn out as it should

I have promises to make

I have beliefs that I stand by

I have things to discuss

I want to disuss you

I hope you are alone for the rest of your life

I dream you beg for me to take you back

I have faith you already are feeling remorse

I promise I'll never forget what you did

I believe that one day you will hurt as much as you hurt me

I have nothing more to say

I have nothing more to discuss

Fade

I think, how did I get to this point in my mind? Easy for me to skip back one track at a time and then skip forward again to where I'd left off. Maybe if I go over the album of this evening thoughts, I will lose the motivation to make a bonus track.
I go back. I was raging in my mind for so many of the lies by omission and commission directed at me.
I go back. I was listing all the reasons why it's so difficult.
I go back. I was pondering my hesitation.
I skip foward and stop where the bonus track should be, where i left off. The feeling is gone.
It worked.
My feelings of hurt, anger, rage, embarassment, and resentment are coming back, but not with the same inward assualt.
Being back in the moment I start again. Everything intesifies and the volume is turned up so loud it's overwhelming. The black hole of hopelessness and defeat spans out forever in every which direction all around me. I fear to take a step in any direction. I am in a contant state of permanent confusion.
Which way is the right way?
Which is the wrong way?
Who should I trust to tell me the right way?
Why should I trust what they say?
Why is their way the right way?
Yet they are still somehow lost and in the middle of nowhere?
I love life with the same intensity from which I use to hate it.
Life gives me a variety of stories to read and songs to listen to.
Life gives me beautiful things to see and feel.
Hate comes to me when I am refused, persuaded, and/or manipulated to not experience life the way it was made to be experienced.
When my reading is interrupted I begin to hate.
When my songs are not allowed to be played my hate grows.
When I'm not allowed to see the things I want to see my hate blossoms. When I'm told to experience life, but only experience it by the filtering of another, I begin to rage.
I do not place blame where it is deserved but instead take it upon my own head to deal with.
I turn the anger on myself.
The CD breaks and shatters. I fall asleeep wishing I never wake up.
I get up with the sun. Last nights mania is forgotten and is only a dim memory and I doubt I was ever in such a state dellusion.
Out ahead is another solitary evening coming towards me. It looks oddly familiar.
I put in the CD again and listen to it as it begins to jump then annoyingly remains stuck on repeat.
It feels like deja vu.
I momentarily wonder how long it's been on repeat and continue on my way.