eternity + 1

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Here is another day
Yippee!

I see some more
I hear
I feel
I think
I smile
I love
I give
I am

Perhaps today I learn
and understand
the real reason
why I’m here?

And if I find it,
would it change me
or
would I change it?

What is ahead
along my way?
Why am I still here?

Another sunrise
and an evening with you

Another melody
to this song
of my life

Another elegy
to the time
of me and you

Eternity plus one day
That is the present
of today

Defrost

pain-smoke-death

My heart screams. My brain finds no rest.

I have to speak out, and simultaneously I condemn any ridiculous arguments that attempt to justify harming even ONE human being in the process.
(i.e. It is absurd to assume that everyone nearing the fence in the Gaza strip is a Hamas terrorist?)

I see mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and loved ones in hellish agony. All of this has found echo in my head. Images of the affected in this progressive hate saga between Israelis & Palestinians continually interrupt my whole stream of consciousness when awake and asleep.

The future is for the young first, and only then it is for the rest of us. Alas, there is no future in this case. There is only hate and pain and segregation. Known also as Apartheid, this system forcefully singles out a group of people in the most demeaning, derogatory, insensitive, insulting and inhumane way. As is proven once more here, such systems are upheld by the powerful and the victims are depicted as the villains, who one has to be protected from at all cost, even by murder.

The world is mostly ruled by the old and stubborn who don’t waver from their stance and who continually garner support for what they think is the rightful cause, bending the ear of those who elected them.

When rulers bring war and destruction and hate instead of wisdom, love and peace, then you know they are the wrong leaders.

My roots reach deep into two countries: South Africa and Germany. Both have experienced the worst of humanity. The rainbow also doesn’t shine every day in our rainbow nation but the rainbow will forever be in our minds when we remember the atrocities of the past.

An answer can never be found in war, fences, concentration camps and human abuse.

Also, no answers are found when these leaders sit together because they will never agree as long as they insist on playing chess.

The solution lies with the young and innocent and the dreamers, thinkers and innovators.
They have to sit together and define what they want because the world belongs to them, and not to the warring, dead of conscience fanatics tainted with the brush of history, self-righteousness and other ills.

Analysing history, as we are known to do, should teach us how to deal with the future. Why don’t we get it?
All naysayers out there have a closer look at the miraculous, peaceful transformation of South Africa.

Where there is a will there is a way!

What is immediately required is a human bridge, an influx of support from all nations to stand with the oppressed, confused and petrified.

“Bring the future back to those who have lost it.”

I call on all in the world, young and old, to do this for those who suffer.

The promise of life only exists if you have a future.

“A denied future is dead life.”

Could any conscience live with such a thought any longer than a moment, let alone decades?

Let there be a human curtain made out of every living fabric that says: ‘Stop and change.’
Dismantle the barricades, the obstructions, the walls and fences and melt the ice of the frozen.

The time to forcefully exclude and deny has no space in the 21st century.

Here is an appeal to the big operators, profit-machines, life-changers, innovators and altruists and philanthropists, to dedicate a paragraph in a chapter of their book in their life to aid in solving this human catastrophe now. The affected parties can’t solve it: the UN can’t, and other nations can’t but the people of the world can. Some things are beyond governing bodies; they are in the individual hands of humanity across all and any divide.

This is an appeal to all the young and spirited and compassionate, — who cannot sleep another night just like I at 0230 this morning, — to create a tsunami, an avalanche, an eruption of change through their presence and their voice.

Let the airlines offer free tickets for this human cause. Let the food companies and all industries that make huge profits provide shelter and food for those heeding the cause.

Let it be a humanitarian evolution. Call it the Sunrise of Humanity. Let all nations congregate where weapons currently decide human fate. Let the flags of 190+ nations stare down any aggression from either side.

Will you shoot my flag?

May every soldier with a weapon become aware not only of the responsibility to his country/people but also the responsibility to humanity.

Could you bear the burden for the rest of your life of being a traitor to any one of them?

Let us be part of this movement lest we want to be judged for non-action when our conscience faces its last breath.

Do something. Anything. Everybody, do it. Make music, write, paint, go there…,we have to roll that drama over and bring those, who had the unimaginable happen in the life of their ancestors, to the realization of their inhumane actions. History is wagging a very irritated finger.

My old Zulu friend Jameson ‘Umkuhlu’ Mthembu speaks from deep within his wise soul when he says,

umkuhlu1

 

 

“Don’t put a fridge by your heart,”

 

 

 

…not for longer than a few hours or at most a day or two.

“Everyone:  your time is up,”

that is quite obvious to all and yourself.

One of the critical human lessons and actions towards progress is that you have to put ‘stuff’ behind you in order to move forward. — Do it!

It is time to defrost.

*Picture from AFP on http://www.spiegel.de

Pizza-base of happiness

What is (longterm) happiness reliant on?
On me being happy of course.
However, basing happiness on something/someone has a catch. When that something disappears, happiness goes with it.
Soever a bad idea.

Definitely, happiness is amped when I have what I want, and I wouldn’t want to live without what I wanted because that makes me happy.
Want – have – happiness, not-happiness, want – have – happiness, not-happiness, want …
The frequency of life. Roll-er-coast-er.

I pursue happiness. I run after it. Sometimes I catch it. I find that ‘…happiness…’ and I am ecstatically happy. Forever. Yeah really! — ?
I’ve got health, job, girl, cabriolet, aircraft, house, money galore, — G-d am I happy, over the moon. I float in transcendence.
Alas, that is a fleeting ecstasy. It’s a pill. Pills’ effect is not lasting.
Health gone, happiness gone.
Job gone, happiness gone. Girl gone, happiness gone. Cabriolet stolen, happiness gone. Aircraft crashed, happiness gone. House repossessed, happiness gone.
Everything gone, happiness gone with it.

Not being happy doesn’t necessarily infer that I am deadly, depressingly unhappy, but to me, not-happiness would be somewhat vegetating along. What’s the point? To get through a crisis and then find happiness?

Isn’t it that the accomplishment after the successful pursuit of pleasure makes us feel happy? Ahh, satisfaction. The consequence of taking a ‘pleasure pill’ is, well, pleasure, and that’s when I’m truly happy.
Uh, that word truly. Rampantly, crazy happy. Really? Or just overboard, cloud-nine walking till the novelty wears off?

Real, lasting, unblemished happiness is the product of the deliberate thought, “I am happy,” without a condition.
There is no “I am happy if… or when…” there just is “I am happy.”
You gotta beeee happy, you can’t find it. You create it by saying that you are. You instantiate, actualize, effect and realize it.

Wait a sec. How can that be? I need my sailboat to be happy. I need my Yorky to be happy. I need, I need…to be happy. You gotta be kidding me with this “I am happy,” unfinished sentence.
Maybe the great sages can be happy without any condition, but I, hmm?

And yet, whenever I think about it, and lately more often, I think being happy is a disposition, like a pizza base. I need to create the base. Tomato, cheese, olives, and artichokes without a base to put on are like pills, but, when you provide the base you have a real meal in your hands.
A base of happiness garnished with the ingredients of my liking. Now my mouth is watering and life is dancing. Scrumptious stuff.
Unattached and still happy, yeah, and then heap on the blessings.
Don’t just think it, say it out loud,

“I am happy, I am happy, I am happy.”

Now I’ve just created the base.
Words are expressively powerful.

Saying “I am happy” eliminates the desperation to find happiness by pursuing evermore garnishings.
Having an unconditionally happy base, being unarguably happy, un-joggle-able, allows me to gather my focus onto that which is important to me. The amusing thing is that suddenly I don’t want a thousand things anymore but literally just a few, — to make a really delicious pizza of my life.

Happiness is such a solidly good base that any decision reached in that state of happiness can only lead to more of the same.

Happiness from outside is makeup. Admittedly beautifying life immensely, but it washes off. Happiness from within is an unshakeable foundation.

Let’s all set our human cruise control to “I am happy.”
Imagine the impact of all us happy people in the world?
Staggering.