The Fair Path

The Fair Path

Have you ever been alone in a crowd before?

More precisely, I should ask, have you ever felt alone in a crowd? A buzz all around that somehow goes past or around you, never quite sinking in. Smiles, conversations, jokes, eye contact – that never reach you. You feel invisible at best – shunned at worst.

You may want to run, but there is nowhere to go.

You must move away from this uncomfortable state. There must be a change.

There are two possible roads ahead.

You feel like a boulder rolling down a hill when you come to a fork. All the difference is ahead.

One path is within. The other path is without.

One option is to move outwards. To reach out. To force the situation. To attempt to becoming a part of without the need for an invitation. To take a risk. Stepping out from oneself. To extend a hand, an opinion, a thought – with the knowledge that it may be turned away from, shunned, unwanted, rejected. To take the risk of being a fool, a busy body, obnoxious. The geek trying to break into the click. To expand the bubble around yourself to include others. To open up and be vulnerable. To risk appearing stupid or a social misfit. Trying to gain friendship at the possible consequence of garnering distain.

The reward for this path is you may become part of the buzz. One with the crowd. Known and no longer invisible.

The possible downside is that you are no longer invisible and now all your flaws and awkwardness is out in the open for all to see. Perhaps you don’t fit in and never will. Perhaps being invisible is the best you can do, the most you can hope for.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." – Abraham Lincoln.

Then there is the other path. The other direction. Instead of turning outwards in the hope of a connection, you can go inwards. Turning away from the trappings of the outside world. Moving toward self. To focus your attention to what’s inside. Your feelings and thoughts. To delve into your beliefs and emotions, to circle downwards deep into your personal cave. Trying to find you center and what makes you tick. What makes you unique. Searching for love of self and a deep inner respect. To find that place of knowing, that space of oneness. To seek the stillness, to explore through meditation.

The reward for this path, this direction, is pure radiance of being. Knowing that nothing can really hurt your pure essence. You are all. You will find that needs are merely flights of fantasy that we create out of the nothingness of fear. All is within and all is love.

The downside of this path is that sometimes when we go within we can spiral down and around until it becomes a narcissistic exercise. Self-worth somehow turns into self-importance. "We are one" becomes we are the one.

Sometimes seeing the beauty, weakness, and perfection in another is also the quickest way to seeing it within. Yes, somehow seeing the weakness in ourselves and in others becomes important. For it is only when we can see and come to terms with weakness and realize that they are just blocks, barriers to cover perfection. All weaknesses melt away in the light of true examination. Many times this is easier to see in others than in ourselves. Deep secrets become antidotes when the weight of darkness is lifted off.

Many times it is easier to move beyond judgment toward another than it is to do the same for ourselves.

So in the end I believe it’s the contemplative blend of reflective searching within and the reaching out, and shining out of our light towards the outside world in the hopes of connection that is our most beneficial and should be our ultimate goal.

Understanding ourselves and understanding others is a chicken or egg type of scenario.

Instead of asking which came, or should come, first – perhaps the real road to enlightenment comes from the realization that one cannot survive without the other. For if all is truly one… then there is no difference.

                                                           Sincerely signing off,

 

                                                                                             ò im Uhr

P.S. Again I am always playing the middleman. Walking the fence. Looking for that middle path. I usually end up in the ditch of the embankment that separates the two paths…

Ken Wilber

                                  Spiritual Path

  

                                                                         Path of thorns

Pandora's Path

Once

O n c e

A breath of passion

an out dated fashion

dress on the floor

my hand on the door

as I turn back to look

I see but do not know

all the things I know but do not see

hidden secretes

secretes revealed

revealing posture

posing sleep

cute as a button

buttons relented

crumpled covers

uncovered portrait

one eye open

at least I know

she watches me go

                            êim Uhr

Invisible?

Bean There

A blast from the past...

A FRIENDLY DRIVE

I was driving down the road the other day, when I flipped out. It wasn't a new song on the radio. It was the curb that caused it. Before I knew it I was doing summersaults.

My car landed right side up and I staggered out. I, literally, spit glass out of my mouth as I gazed disbelievingly at my car. People stopped and were asking me questions, but I just alternated nodding and shaking my head without listening to them.

My car ... me?

Not a bruise. Not a cut. The glass didn't even cut the inside of my mouth. Not one thing was wrong with me… No, I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

As my brain finally started excepting messages my eyes were sending it, I noticed my windshield lying a few feet from the car, shattered, but nearly whole. My newly bought side mirrors were, naturally, broken off. There was mud allover my car as luckily I had rolled on grass instead of pavement. The passenger side of the roof was smashed in a bit, my door was bent in, and the right rear fender was smashed.

Someone said I must have been listening to the radio to hit a rock and roll.

Somehow I got the idea of trying to start my car. Since no damage was done to the hood or anything under it, I got the car started without any trouble.

I ended up driving the car home, with no windshield in below freezing temperatures. I shook all the way home, partially from the cold and partially from shock.

One the way home I thought of something that Winston Churchill once said, one of my favorite quotes—

 "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

I made it home without getting pulled over, even though it's illegal to drive without a windshield.

I can still remember (in flashes) that sensation of turning upside down and rolling. Things flashed by so fast. I saw parts of my life in quick, unrelated glimpses. Then, in mid roll, I thought to myself, "This is a dream."

Microseconds later I realized it wasn't a dream, that my car was rolling over and I was in it, and that I would be late for work. I wondered why it rolled. Was I rolling up a hill? Through lanes of traffic? Was I dying? Had I ever lived? Was my car paid off? Did I have clean underwear?

A feeling soon to be forgot, but a time long remembered. If the feelings that one has during an uncontrollable moment in one's life could be totally recalled, I doubt if many mistakes would be repeated. But the only thing that is truly remembered are the after affects, and they never seem to be quite as bad.

Yes, how easily feelings are forgot.

Trying times can test us and show what we're made of. I'm not sure what I'm made of, but I know that I don't like tests.

It sounds unusual, but I think Cicero made a lot of sense when he said,

 "There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow."

Maybe it's just the fact that the adversity has been survived, and it makes present adversities seem conquerable. Something Friedrich Nietzsche said helps shed light into Cicero's statement:

       "What does not destroy me makes me strong."

You are stronger from living through past sorrows. Also past troubles seen through memory's eye always are less sharp and out of focus then is the pain of present problems.

Remember the lesson of the day — Brakes, steering and even good friends can fail. To remain strong without becoming bitter is the trick. Friends don't care about your failures, and they care only to beat your successes. The best one can ask of a friend is to tell the truth when you need it, also to lie when you need it, and to listen nearly as often as they talk. Many times I find myself praying like Marshall de Villars.         — "God save me from my friends

                  I can protect myself from my enemies."

I expect distress from my enemies but when it comes by way of friends it is unbearable. I guess I just have to learn something that Agnes Macphail put well by saying,

“Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."

I guess when you have news that makes your life miserable the best thing a friend can do, from his point of view, is to exclude you from his life so you don't make him share in your misery.

"Heaven for climate, hell for company." — James M. Barrie.

Half my friends are in heaven, and the rest just have their heads in the clouds.

Dearly befriended,

èim  Uhr

P.S. It's funny the way

       one thinks of friends

                          in times of sorrow. I

                          can usually think of

                          them, but I can't talk

                          to them. 

Drive me away                                       RIP or RID(rest in drive)

                            We all crash alone

Windows to the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows of the Soul

Windows. I have always loved windows. Standing in one atmosphere, gazing out at another environment that may be totally different. Removed, unconnected. Like looking out at a blizzard from a cozy warm home, the totally white frozen obliteration contrasting to the warmth and varied colors within. A thin, clear membrane separating you from frostbite. A thin clear line between Nevada and Alaska. It’s like looking at an historic painting that you feel so distant from – like instead of gazing at another time, you are looking into another dimension.

Sometimes when I’m depressed I can gaze out a window and imagine another life. It’s always nice to put glass between your pane [sic].

Just as children growing up strive to separate themselves from grownups, so we in general as humans are prone to feel the need to separate ourselves from history. Denying past errors. Maybe that’s why windows dominate today’s society, since we like separation, with windows we can at least be conscious of the division and pretend to care. (Kind of like seeing starving third world children on television and feeling compelled to send off a dollar or two to alleviate our guilt, pretending that we're not separated from their blight.) We air condition against the warmth outside, just as we heat when it is cold outside. Man – always trying to be separate from, trying to change reality. Never satisfied with the way things are.

For it is the change that always stands out. The difference is what’s important. If almost all birds were either blue or red, I’m sure that it would be the brown one’s that we considered beautiful.

We climb mountains with great delight in being able to look down into valleys. We live in the valley in order to have a view of the majestic mountains.

And it is with the help of windows that make all this so obvious. Windows let us see our separation, make us aware of the modifications we have made. Windows are constant reminders of man’s attempt to turn reality up-side-down.

Windows are barriers that at least let light get through so that we can fool ourselves into thinking there is no separation. Thus we can say, “I live in Moscow” or “I live in Cleveland” or “I live in Chambly,” instead of “I live in a 70 degree heated/air-conditioned bubble – just like you and most everybody else.”

We play with reality until reality loses it’s meaning. Is reality the inside of the cage or the world outside? It depends on which side one has his perspective from. Whether they are bars of steel or piled up bars of gold, poor are affected as well as the wealthy - as your personal prison can be from theft as well as riches. Money can separate us as it stacks up around us forming an inpenitratible barrier that no one can reach through. Seclusion can be our own private jail. The rich as well as the poor can experience alienation from society. Lock me away, or shun me. Observe me only through windows. Keep your distance! Not like a lion in a cage, but more that of a fish in an aquarium. You could never truly know my world. My glass separates universes, dimensions. My glass is a bubble that surrounds me as I float in and out of your reality.

It is sometimes said that separation is an illusion – but in reality anything and everything but separation is the illusion. Each object, each person, is made up of individual cells. Each cell in your body has as much connection to each other as do the planets in a solar system.

Space. Space is the truth. There is space between everything. The only connection between us is space. The Universe is essentionally empty. It is a vacuum by any standard. Even a pane of glass is not really solid. A neutrino passing through a window has a very small chance of colliding with any molecule in the glass – most assuredly it will pass right through without any effect. It would be almost impossible for it to strike anything.

Although you can see a completely different world outside your window, you have little chance of having any effect on it. Of all the animals on Earth it’s the human beings who are known as the creators on the planet, always building things, but in actuality our creations are small and usually temporary – just waiting for entropy to overtake them. As the debate rages on whether we are destroying the planet I think that we are locked in a perspective that is far from reality. I’m not sure we are as of yet able to destroy the Earth, we are only able to change it – possibly destroying the atmosphere and any possible living conditions. But the Earth, in one form or another, will survive. So the only thing we would probably be destroying is ourselves, along with a few billion animals. I think that long after we’re gone the Earth will repair itself. Maybe then the next incarnation of life will get it right.

Maybe we’re just like microbes in a Petri dish. The experiment of life on this planet may have passed its half-life. Maybe the scientist running this experiment has as much feelings for us as we do for mold spores. Possibly we are just a little experiment in filling up some space. We take up about as much space in the Universe as we do time in it’s history. We would not even register as a blip on the radar screen. We are dandruff on the head of the Universe, exaggerating our self worth. Is it man’s deterrent or his blessing to be so self-centered? Man’s ego is what has caused him to expand beyond any reasonable measure. In this microcosm, man is king. Man’s inflated self-importance is what makes him rise above the other microbes in the Petri dish.

The ultimate question is whether he can rise up enough through his own compost to really communicate with the scientist running this experiment and possible save himself with something more than complaints or simple pleas of help.

                                                                                    éim Uhr

P.S.   It is said that a millennium is just a moment to the Universe. Do you want to give me a moment to see if I can unstick this widow?

The eyes have it. [sic]

which window video is the best??? - let me know!

Window1                                   Window2

Window3

W I N D O W S

My latest book

People have been asking me what the latest Novel I've been working on is about.

First of all it's called "To The Sea."

Second of all it's just about done!

So here's a little bit about it...

T o    T h e    S e a

To the Sea is a story of a man and the effect that the sea has on him. But more than the effects that the sea can have, it points out the impact of friendship, kindness and love that influence everyone. It is a gentle but powerful story where feelings and emotions are laid bare. The interplay of tragedies and the various types of coping mechanisms employed are the backbone to all that is going on. The settings are also vital to the various moods and characters, as it moves from a deserted beach, to a crowded California beach and conversely to a Lisu Tribe in the remote mountains of Northern Thailand.

To the Sea is a serious work of fiction – how-ever that does not stop it from being playful, with it’s mistaken identities, language barrier confusions, and the good-natured banter between good friends, it has many light moments.

To the Sea leads you to a plausible conclusion that is never predictable or forced. It is a dynamic modern story with emotions that are timeless and a pace that is contemplative but always energetic.

Let me know if you want to read a little here...

Or if you would prefer me to continue with my inane rambling...

                Video Rant

A Light Beyond

A    L I G H T   B E Y O N D

Endings always come to fast. Indeed, I've heard it said before, but up until now I have never believed it. Throughout my life I have experienced that in most of my relationships, endings don't come fast enough to suit me. I have always pushed to reach conclusions, in movies, especially books, and even in relationships. But as I sit where I have sat for the past twelve hours, only the direction I'm facing having changed, alone, through a long night, I think about endings corning too fast. Endings always come at last, maybe that's why they seem to come too fast. If they are to truly come at last, then once you have an ending it has to be the end, there is nothing more. It seems the reason I have never before feared endings, is because I always assumed there would be more. After a movie ends, just take a stroll down to the next theatre and see Rambo #12. After turning the last page of a book, picking up another and starting on page one. After saying good-bye to a temporary friend, although they never seem to catch on to this fact until it's too late and they wind up hurt, saying hello to a new one.

But what if this is the last movie to be made? What if after this book I find that there are no others? What if the last girl I have said good-bye to, is also the last one I will ever say hello to. The word "end" never meant the same thing to me as it did to other people. This is a realistic approach, but is it the better? Have I been living my life to the fullest? I may be taking too many things for granted. Is it truly living if you don't die with every flower as the cool winter wind cuts through your petals?

I have been living like I know that I'll always be living. But all things must pass. Once I did believe that endings would come and go, flowers will die and grow, precipitation turns from rain to snow. But now as I sit here in this field alone, I'm not so sure I know. What page are the answers on? Although I finish the book, will I ever be given a change to go back and reread? Those pages I skipped over may be important…

I watched the sun set, hours ago. But time is nothing but what my memory makes it out to be. Did this memory ever really exist, or is it something that my brain manufactures just to make sense of the present? Do the people around me really exist, or do they just represent pages in my book, with no lives of their own, just waiting for me to read? Once I leave my friends, do they really do the things they say they do? Or does my mind just make them say that to fulfill the need I have to make them appear that they are real? Do other people really form opinions about me, or do I just think they do, pretending that they have any thoughts? Is this just a fail-safe system my mind has worked out to keep me sane? Am I alone?

It can be pretty hard to check your sanity when you're not sure if you're already insane. Is it the rest of the world that's crazy? Every person must feel that they are the only ones who is truly sane in this world, and those that don't feel this way are the ones locked up in the asylums.

As I sit here, waiting, in the grass, legs crossed, I wonder if we each don't, in our minds, build four convenient walls around ourselves. Forever safe, in our individual, custom-made, asylums.

The sky is much lighter than it was just an hour ago. The stars, already starting to fade, are completely blocked by a cloud that drifts overhead. It's a fluffy, average-size summer cumulus cloud, and for a moment I wish that I too were floating, unaware of time, with it.

But things are not always what they seem. The looks of this cloud are deceiving as I know that it weighs at least 550 tons.

So here I sit, expecting nothing except what I expected from the start.

I catch a last glimpse of the moon hanging in the sky, as it in many ways represents the opposite of the sun. The moon, slow and cold, while the sun is fast and hot.

Endings always come too fast. The sun, at first peeks over the horizon, then bursts into the now bright sky. Though its warmth seems immediate, it is not enough to dry a tear from my cheek.

Endings always come at last.

Though a new day is beginning, what can be said of tomorrow?

There's a fine line between the darkness and the dawn…

                                                             Lastingly True,

      èim  Uhr

P.S. Time doesn't pass too fast. It’s all relative. For along

        the Earth's equator, dawn arrives at 1,000 m.p.h.

        But along the moons equator, it comes at only

        10 M.P.H. — slow enough for a man on

        bicycle to keep up with it.

Sane?                    More craziness 

                          Many good Crazy songs!

From the archives... "Article Worth Framing"

#written over 30 years ago - dredged up from the pits#

A R T I C L E    W O R T H    F R A M I N G

Typing my life away. Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different. No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is just as tedious as ever. No, I have not sat down with something special to say ahead of time. This article will probably drift by word by word just like all the rest in a sea of paragraphs, being fed from a babbling stream of consciousness. Yes, this writer has his "Gone Fishing" sign up.

So what, you ask, is different about today's article? Today I face the typewriter alone. I have, for the first time, not written any of this down ahead of time in longhand. The thoughts flow directly from my head to the printed paper, with no middle pad involved. No change, no chance to update, cross out, add, or disintegrate. Leave the editing to the editor.

Darn, I'm not done yet. I don't want to let this paper sit in the typewriter too long. I don't want the editor to think the paper was yellow before I started. A true vintage work of art.

I have always believed in honesty, and anyone who says they believe differently is a liar. I have always told my readers how it is. If I'm having trouble writing a particular piece I come right out and admit it. If I doze off every now and then when writing I tell of the experiences of my dreams upon awakening. I try to get as close to my readers as possible. I have a theory that the majority of my readers are between the ages of 20 and 30, female, and beautiful. Now you can understand why I want to get as close to them as possible.

But of course this only applies to my articulate writing, when I know that the reader knows that she is reading me, and not just something about one of my characters that I made up, as in a novel. When writing a story about other people and places I really don't care how close and personal I bring my readers in to their particular lives. When I want to bring my readers close to my characters I just use a frame. By using unsung characters as a way to tell and develop a story about other characters whom the readers never come in direct contact with is my ploy to keep the readers far away from the story. After all, my characters have their own personal lives, and letting you into their minds might hurt their feelings. Me, I don't mind you coming into my mind. Don't worry-- there is plenty of room to wander about. But I think of my characters as people in their own right, and I wouldn't feel right about letting you trample around in the mind of someone else. My mind doesn't mind trampling, but I cannot speak for others. It's good to have my mind occasionally filled with something, even if it is unceremoniously trampling and generally mucking about of others, for it cuts down on the echoes and reverberations of thoughts past.

Most of the time my writing is intellectual and emotional, so it is not hurt by distance. My stories can be told just as well from the overhearing of another's conversation as from the contorted drivel from one of my main characters' brain. Creating distance in stories also can create new characters. The people you eavesdrop on become a secondary part of the story. These people must somehow be related to the story they are revealing.

Yes, creating a distance between the reader and the story can be useful in works of fiction. First of all, it doesn't embarrass the characters by letting a total stranger see something that they do not wish to show to just anyone. It resolves the writer from the sin of letting another beings brain be trampled on. It keeps with the intellectual aura of my usual writing. I don't like my stories exaggerated and overblown like the common "fish story." There is an art to creating new, unimportant characters and confusing the readers. I have often noticed that the more confused the reader is, the better he likes the story. Also the use of more characters makes the story longer just by having to take the space to explain their presence, and remember – writers get paid by the word count. So the more words I can force on to the paper … the greater the masterpiece.

He stumbled into the bar, rejected again. It was tough to be an unsold writer in New York City with revenues as well as patience dwindling. Five rejections in as many weeks! Maybe he was forcing out the novels a bit too fast…

He needed a drink…

Tom Collins. Didn't his brother used to be a wide receiver for the Browns? He dug the folded money from his wallet. The money he was counting on lasting until he started selling was running low. And not yet even one sale. He placed his head in his hands, trying to clear his head. He couldn't, wouldn't! go back home without a sale. As tears welled up in his eyes and trickled down through his fingers, his ears popped, and as they did the mull of mixed conversation dropped to a level of inaudibility and from the table behind him he could just make out what the participants of an interesting conversation were saying. He listened in a half dreaming state …

"…broke into the New York Times with a bang." a man's voice was saying. "He comes from Ohio. Already he's got a huge following, and to think that just weeks ago he was an unknown!"

I think he's gorgeous," came the lovely voice from a girl over twenty, but certainly not more than thirty.

"Certainly the new sensation. By his third article he had made the front page!"

“It's destiny."

"Truly words of wisdom. This one is something special…"

"Where has he been hiding all his life?"

"They say he's only in his teens. I think he's so gorgeous!"

"Surely words so wise could not possibly come from one so young. Where does he get his vast knowledge and experiences?"

"Truly a gift from above…"

"Yet, his words are so deep…"

"Deep, reaching the bottom of my heart... "

"…and meaningful…”

"Bringing his soul along with every word…"

"Did you read his latest masterpiece in today's paper?"

"First thing I do every morning!"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"Well, actually no. I save it for the night. When I can read him all alone in bed at night, sharing our inner feelings. Every time I read him I feel so close to him, like he's right there with me… He's so gorgeous!"

"Well, then let me tell you what he wrote today…"

"No! I told you! I save him for the night! I don't wanna hear…"

"That's not all you save for the night, Sally."

"Actually I get more of a thrill from reading the dictionary than I would if I was with you…"

"But Bob, I thought that you said that you and Sally, last weekend… "

"Shut up, Phil!"

"All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac." smiled Saul Bellow as he passed by their table on his way out, catching part of the conversation.

"He typed his article today directly from his head, he didn't write it first out in longhand like he usually does."

"I told you," Sally was growing furious, "I don't want to have my night spoiled. So shut up!"

"Hey, I wonder if the editor had to read yellow paper…?"

Ha.Ha.Ha.Ha!

"Hey, I have the article right here…"

"In your pocket?"

"Yes, I cut everyone out and carry it around with me for a week and then I have them framed. They hang nicely over the fireplace. I'm running out of room to hang them, though. I think I might have to buy a bigger house."

"Come on. Come on! Read that article out loud. I haven't memorized the third paragraph yet!"

"Ahem… Typing my life away." Bill read in his best voice, standing and waving his arms about, "Words appearing on paper, with nothing to say. But today is different… No, my typing has not quickened its pace, I have not taken typing lessons. Typing is…”

"I can not hear you! I can not hear you… I can not hear you… I can not he… " Her voice fades away as she leaves the bar.

As the dramatic reading of the article continues people gather around the table. Most of them are very good-looking girls… Those who haven't already, are busy memorizing every word coming from Bill's mouth. Soon the whole bar, as most of them already had the article submitted to memory, joined in with Bill and recited the article, and it sounded no less than a choir of angels, a symphony of words.

For one moment in one bar in New York City people forget everything and simply listened. All forgot their private worries and for one brief moment all was right with the world. Peace and harmony were plentiful and men were brothers as they finally found a commonality that could unite the world and solve all differences. One light that could shin for everyone for the common good and benefit of all mankind and lead us all to enlightenment.

The tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy on the young writer’s face, for young Isaac Asimov now knew that there was hope for him, and that soon he too, would find his place in the writing world, and maybe also write a thing or two.

                                                    Successfully Yours,

                                                           èim  Uhr

P.S. Don't feel too sorry for poor Isaac,

I feel that after his 200th book he is gaining

 some confidence and will soon grow up to be

 a better than average writer. 

old things sometimes crash

And people do too (and I thought Browns fans were  ridiculous )