#grief reconstructing reality is always on my mind. but you know that

[yvtro]

thinking about how all families have their own customs. years of sharing a home makes them develop their own culture, dialects even. they share words with no meaning for the outsiders, inside jokes of which origins were long forgotten, gestures that definitely started with someone, but are now repeated by every member of the family.

there are rules that have never been discussed and just came to be, like each person having their own spot at the table, a favourite mug that no other should touch. 

now stop. take one person out of the equation. 

half of the language becomes a taboo. a common gesture suddenly has an initiator, and no one else should claim it. a rule becomes the law. grief is the new constitution.

#grief reconstructing reality is always on my mind. but you know that #idk what to tag it as. #didn't put it on my main because you know what i'm talking about. #hauntology

[naruto-scenarios-plus-akatsuki]

I'd like a scenario of Ino and Shika mourning the death of their dads and their uncles. It's not explored at all in the series, but I find it hard to believe that they weren't close. I wish Inoichi could have said something to Shikamaru, even if it was really short due to the time: "I'd have liked to see you grow even more. Work hard, Shikamaru". And Shikaku telling Ino something like "you've always been like a daughter to me. Make us proud'. Inoshikacho is the best family in Konoha.

Thank you for the request. I never lost a father or mother so I may not know the complete feeling but I have loss someone dear to me.  With those feelings, I hoped I conveyed the sense of mourning and loss one truly feels when anyone close to them passes away. 

“For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NKJV

Loss and Remembering

The war was won. The enemy was defeated. Naruto was safe and Sasuke had returned. You would think all was well with the world. That good had won the day. Yet with any war there was always a cost.  With anything left good to fight for there was a price.

Ino struggled with that price. Her and many of her comrades had suffered a loss during the war. There was an emptiness to her heart that she hadn’t felt before. A bare hole that was expanding with each passing day as the reconstruction of Konoha went on.

The memorial service for the fallen had already taken place and she had shed most of her tears at the event. Home was bittersweet without her dad. Every article and room had a memory of him in it that she could not erase. She had been a wreak the moment she stepped through the door of her house the first night she returned from the Land of Lightning.

The adrenaline and self-preservation no longer distracted her from the reality that her father had passed away. Her mother had already heard the news luckily before her arrival and embraced her only living child fully as soon as she returned. They both cried together, falling to the floor in their grief.

Death was common in the life of a shinobi, but although it is expected, the pain is still very real and affects the lives of those touched by the individual’s sacrifice. Both Ino and her mom knew what kind of man Inoichi was and how he would give his life for his village and comrades to keep them safe. He paid the ultimate price and although there was honor in his death, both of them were really hurt.

After the memorial and funeral service held for those fallen from the 4th Great Ninja War, Ino realized she wasn’t the only one hurting. The village had lost over a hundred lives. Her friends were all hurting. They had lost someone their own age, Neji, who died saving Hinata. Her teammate, Shikamaru, lost his own father. The pain evident on his face while Choji sympathized and cried too, feeling the lost of both of them.

She thought she had cried all that she had that day. The week building up to the funeral was nothing but tears and staying at home. When the day passed and the memory of the fallen forgotten, others were ready to pick up their lives where they left off. The second to the Yamanaka clan had took over as leader while the elders discuss what was next for the clan. They had expectations for her, and she soon had little time to feel anymore as she was filled with busy work.

They were prepping her to become the next leader. The added pressure weighing on her heart and shoulders, making her wonder if she was capable of it. She hadn’t seen her teammates since the funeral, but to be honest, she was currently lost in her own little world. A bubble filled with to-dos and things she had to learn.

Her elders and clan gave her many praises for her accomplishments in the war, but she would not take hold of the clan until she was of proper age. There were still many things for her to learn. They had told her that although war can advance someone’s maturity, they wanted to be sure she was ready.

Ino felt anything but ready. She hadn’t expected to come back from the war to take over her dad’s position. She thought he would still be here with her. She thought she had many more years left with him. With him teaching her, guiding her, loving her, but he was gone and now she wanted nothing more than her father’s warm embrace and kind smile, telling her how much he was proud of her.

Her mind winced at the thought. She thought she was okay but today was one of those days. She stopped in the middle of the street. The sun was beating down and sky was cloudless. There was hardly a breeze and civilians bustled around her going about their daily lives. So much has changed and yet life keeps on going. Her eyes were watching as the architects and stone cravers were working on the latest project of Kakashi’s face on the Hokage mountain.

She was staring at the piece for a while, lost in her own thoughts. A sense of discontent filling her being. She didn’t want to cry. She thought she was done crying. After the memorial service, she told herself she wasn’t going to cry anymore. She had her mom to be brave for and a clan to lead.

“Ino?”

She was driven out of her thoughts and looked away from the mountain top to see Choji in front of her.

“You okay?” He asked concerned.

“Yea,” she replied quickly, glad to have snapped out of it. She smiled out of habit.

“Are you sure?” he asked, not convinced. He was typically sensitive to other people’s emotions, especially his teammates that he has known since childhood.

“Yup, I had a few errands to run this morning and finally got a break for myself.” She gave a fake laugh.

Choji nodded. “How’s your mom doing? I’ve been meaning to stop by, but everything been so busy.”

“You’re telling me. Between clan duties, training, and the flower shop, I’m typically spent. My mom has been doing fine. She’s been tending to the Yamanaka gardens mostly. Spring just popped up, so we been replenishing our stock…” Ino trailed off.

Choji understood. The Yamanaka clan had supplied most of theflowers for the funeral service free of charge for those who were loss. The biggest bouquets going to Inoichi and Shikaku. Choji had a grim smile on his face.

“That’s great to hear.”

Ino nodded, smiling painfully. Her thoughts having led back to her dad. “Yup. Well I’ll catch you later Choji.” She said ready to make her exit and move pass him.

“Wait Ino.”

She stopped to listen.

“If you ever need to talk, you can talk to me. I miss your dad too, not as much as you probably do, and I know its probably not the same way I’m feeling. If anyone knows what your going through it would be Shikamaru,” he said gently.

Ino’s soft smile was more genuine this time. “Thanks Choji.” she said before she continuing on.

Her mind now was overwhelmed and swirling. She guessed she wasn’t doing as great as she thought she was if Choji could tell something was wrong. She sighed. She also felt like a terrible friend. She hadn’t checked up on Shikamaru. The loss of his dad was probably hurting him just as much and Ino knew Choji would be right that Shikamaru could relate to how she was feeling,but he seemed to be doing just fine.

She wondered how he was able to manage it. The grief, the pain, and the numbness from it. She made her way to the Hokage tower slowly, hoping to find her teammate.

Shikamaru was easy enough to find after asking the receptionist. He had his own personal office now and when she entered it, he was reading through a scroll. He looked up surprised to see her and greeted her. She felt awkward as she greeted him back.

He discerned her quickly, knowing something was on her mind.“What brings you here?”

“Oh, nothing just wanted to see how you are doing. I haven’t seen you in a while. I wanted to check in,” she expressed as if carefree.

Shikamaru leaned back in his chair and yawned. “Well I could use a break. Want to join me?”

She nodded and they both made their way out of his office and to the roof of the Hokage tower. They both found a seat on a bench up there and Shikamaru leaned back to stare at the clouds.

“So how are you holding up?” he asked bluntly.

“Is it that obvious?” She questioned insecure.

“No, but I know.” Shikamaru reasoned.

“I feel like I’m just supposed to magically move on from it but I don’t know how everything just keeps…”

“Reminding you of them?” Shikamaru finished.

“Yes,” Ino breathed. “It hurts. It really does. It feels like I lost…” She was lacking words how she was trying to express how she feels.

“I know,” Shikamaru nodded, his face solemn.

“How are you holding up so well?” Ino questioned in desperation.

“I’m not.” Shikamaru admitted. “I think of my father quite often. He showed me how to be a man. How to love. How to fight. How to be smart. I also think of Asuma often. He had depended on me, he was proud of me, he built me up, and never gave up on me.” He took out Asuma’s lighter, opening and closing it. “I miss them both greatly.” He said after a minute.

There was a silence.

“I miss your father as well.”

Ino sniffled trying to hold back tears but started to cry silently anyway.

“Inoichi was kind enough to relay a message from my father and I’m grateful for him to do so, to give me my father’s last words, but also, he too, gave me a message.”

Ino’s ears perked up and she stopped crying to listen more closely. “My dad left you a message too?”

“Yes, just briefly after my father’s words since there wasn’t much time. But your dad told me that he never had a son, but Choji and I were like sons to him. And he was proud of the men he knew we would become. He also asked for me to keep an eye on you.”

Ino smiled softly at that and thought about all Shikamaru had gone through. She thought of his dad, Shikaku. He was a brilliant man as well and she knew how much Shikamaru had admired and loved his dad.

“Your father gave me some advice once,” Ino recalled, and cleared her throat.

Shikamaru turned his head to listen now and stopped fidgeting with the lighter.

“It was when we were little and having a play date while the clan heads got together. You and Choji were being boys throwing rocks and climbing trees. I felt out of place and was mad about something and was sulking on the porch. The grownups went in to talk but before your dad went inside, he kneeled down next to me, seeing as I was staring at you two boys. He told me not to let my anger and sadness keep me from enjoying life and the people in my life.” Ino then giggled. “Of course, I was only six and couldn’t understand what he meant as of yet, but I think now his words ring a little clearer. I feel like the loss of them: Asuma, Shikaku, Neji and my dad will never go away.”

“Yet the pain shouldn’t keep us from living. Although the pain is very real, it is temporary. They will never be taken from our hearts or our memory. We’ll live a life they can be proud of and perhaps one day, we’ll see them again.”

That hope uplifted Ino’s spirits. “Yea, I suppose your right.”

Both of them fell into silence for a few moments, remembering the ones they lost. They spent a good while up on the rooftop, sharing more feelings and memories and coming to peace in the wake of the loss although the pain was definitely there. They had each other to comfort themselves and with that only time would heal.

#ino #shikamaru #choji #ino scenario #shikamaru scenario #Inoichi Yamanaka #inoichi #shikamaru nara #Ino Yamanaka #choji akimichi #inoshikacho #Shikaku #Shikaku Nara #loss #death #ino fanfic #team 10

[nitewrighter]

I just finished reading the pre-fall Gency argument fic that you made in response to an ask/prompt about another fic, and it’s amazing! Do Genji and Mercy make up after their argument, though? Does Genji tell Mercy more about what really happened with Moira in the Pining/Flight fic, and does he manage to explain to her why he felt he should still be stopping the Shimada clan (the part where he started to trip over his words during the pre-fall argument)? I’m so sorry for all the questions, but I loved this fic so much and would love to see them resolve their argument!

Yeah they make up, but more importantly have you ever gone, “OH FUCK I FIGURED OUT HOW TO WORK THIS FIC INTO A MAJOR CANON PLOT POINT?” Anyone?

Continuing off of this ficlet.

----

Genji lay on his narrow bed, staring at the too-high ceiling of his quarters and replaying the argument between himself and Mercy in his head as he had done so for the past few days.

I messed up.

A part of him felt like he should be used to it, after years of Hanzo telling him he was an embarrassment, but this stung differently and deeper. It wasn’t not meeting the draconian standards of the clan, it was realizing he had a perspective on death that was fundamentally incompatible with the morals of someone he cared for deeply. He glared at the ceiling as he remembered Moira’s words.

You’re finally understanding the difference between those up there, and those of us down here.

But McCree had spoken up against what Reyes had done. He wouldn’t shut up about it the whole mission. 

Well he and Angela were close so... Genji’s thoughts trailed off then, wondering if Ziegler and McCree would talk about how he and Reyes were monsters.

Even after having his body destroyed and reconstructed to this patchwork of flesh and metal, it had at least given him focus and purpose: vengeance. It was a relief from all the pain to commit himself to the destruction of the Shimada clan, to killing Hanzo, and he could have done that through Blackwatch, but now one death of someone who definitely had it coming had blocked the path. He had no way of knowing what was ahead, and he had just alienated one of the few people at the Watchpoint he actually liked talking to. But she didn’t get it, the Shimada clan had to be stopped. Hanzo had to die. What kind of world did she think she was living in? He raised his prosthetic hand and ran the thumb of his organic hand along the lines of its plates.

You’re not a weapon. I can’t let everything Overwatch touches become a weapon...  he remembered her words from the garden on a night that felt so long ago.

So what am I? Shimada Ninja? Blackwatch Agent? Assassin by another name?  Machine? his eyes trailed to his organic hand, Man?

He let his hands drop, hanging over the sides of the bed, I guess I’ve managed to screw up as every single one of those.

His morning alarm started beeping and he sighed. Cybernetics always woke him up a little too early.

After freshening up in the dormitory washrooms and dressing , Genji stepped out of his quarters and walked down the hall to the main body of the Blackwatch facilities. There were fewer bodies moving between the offices today. A significant number of office workers and agents had been either suspended or relocated to other Overwatch operations, and the remaining faces looked exhausted and grim.

It’s not just Angela dealing with the fallout of Venice... thought Genji as he walked through. He needed to talk to McCree, he decided. He wasn’t quite ready to talk to Angela yet. A part of him knew he needed to apologize, but another part of him knew an apology was worthless without a clear adjustment in behavior and perspective--and with the path before him so obscured now, he wasn’t sure what that shift would entail. Plus if anyone knew how to smooth things over between people, especially someone also from Blackwatch...

Genji’s thoughts were interrupted as he heard muffled shouting from Reyes’s office.  He looked around and saw what few agents were down in the Blackwatch offices had all chosen to give Reyes’s office a massively wide berth. One intern lingered close to the glass with wide eyes before being quickly escorted away by a more seasoned-looking clerk. The glass walls around Reyes’s office had been tinted opaque, but he made out Morrison’s muffled voice.

“---can assure you our agents and local law enforcement are doing everything they can, Gérard--”

“Don’t give me that!” Gérard was the shouter, something that sounded unnatural to Genji given how polite Gérard had always been in his previous brushes with the UN Attaché. “None of this would have happened if you had kept Reyes and his team where they needed to be!”

“We don’t have enough intel on Talon movements to know the timeframe on---”

“We have even less intel because of the shit you pulled in Rialto! Do you know how many active files I had to surrender to the UN Inquiry to keep Blackwatch from being completely gutted?!” Gérard snapped, “Talon took my wife and thanks to you I have to deal with that with both hands tied behind my back!”

“You’re not dealing with it alone--” Morrison was trying to reassure him.

“Morrison I cannot tell you how sick I am of covering for you covering for Reyes--And the fact that covering for Reyes is largely my job speaks to how much control you’ve ceded--” Gérard snarled.

“Chewing us out won’t get her back,” Reyes’s voice cut in bitterly.

“No, but you should both understand it’s one more product of your mistakes,” Gérard’s voice was thick.

Genji hadn’t realized how close he was leaning to the tinted glass of the office and started briskly walking down the hall, trying to put as much distance between himself and whatever was going down between Reyes, Morrison and LaCroix.  He heard the door slide open and shut and picked up the pace of his walk. He heard bitter muttering in French a ways behind him before hearing, “Agent Shimada?”

Genji pretended not to hear and started walking a bit faster down the hall.

“Agent Shimada!” there was a rapid clacking slap of expensive oxfords on the cement floor and Gerard suddenly caught up with him. Fast, was all Genji thought at first, I guess he was a field agent at some point-- But that trail of thought cut off as Genji took in the disheveled appearance of the usually suave and stylish Gérard Lacroix. Licks of dark hair were shrouding one side of his forehead, broken free of their usual glossy black coif. He wasn’t wearing a suit jacket or tie, his sleeves rolled and rumpled up to his elbows and his usually paper-crisp collar rumpled and wilting, his suspenders emphasizing all the wrinkles of his usually immaculate shirts. He smelled like cigarettes. Genji didn’t even know he smoked. 

“I need to talk to you--it’s paramount importance--Your dossier said Talon tried to recruit Sojiro once--Yes?”

“Um... yes?” said Genji.

“Do you remember any names from that time?” Gérard gripped Genji’s shoulders and Genji’s arms tightened at his sides at the touch, Gérard’s eyes were wide, pleading.

“Er...” Genji hesitated.

“Anything. Any name at all. Even aliases are a lead. Code names are a cypher. I can figure this out. We can get her back--we have to--there should have been demands--there have to be demands--we can’t negotiate but we can buy time--isolate the signal--” Gérard’s fingers were drumming on Genji’s prosthetic shoulder as if punching out sums on an invisible calculator. He wasn’t even looking at Genji.

“I... wish I could help,” Genji’s words came slowly to him. They felt strange, soft, helpless. He really couldn’t remember any names from that time, at least none that he could be sure he actually remembered and hadn’t just pulled out of nowhere that would only lead Gérard on a wild goose chase. For Genji, the only really memorable part of that meeting had been Hanzo had taken a shine to some Talon lieutenant and refused to tell Genji about it when he asked.  

So much for specialized Shimada intel... Genji thought a little bitterly. But Gérard stared straight into Genji’s eyes and Genji saw a flicker of heartbreaking realization in Gérard’s expression.

“....listen to me,” Gérard’s voice dropped slightly as his hands dropped from Genji’s shoulders, “I....I’m talking to a suspended agent hoping for nearly decade-old leads...” Gérard made a sound that was between a chuckle and stuffing down a sob as he pushed those dark licks of hair from his face, “I’m a mess without her.”

Genji’s stomach stung a little at the words ‘suspended agent.’ It had felt so temporary but hearing it from Gérard made it sink in as a reality with no visible end, but just as affecting was Gérard’s distress, the fact that the charming, if a little litigious, agent was suddenly up to his neck in paralyzing fear and helplessness when he wasn’t the one in danger. Genji studied Gérard for a few seconds.  

“Without.... who?” said Genji. He knew it was Gérard’s wife but wasn’t about to let Gérard know he had heard the whole exchange between him, Reyes, and Morrison.

“Amélie,” Gérard seemed to be looking through Genji then, his brow crinkled, “Talon they--I mean we’re not positive yet but--well you aren’t cleared for this yet. I shouldn’t...”

“Suspended,” Genji shrugged, “And... looking like this, I can’t exactly get off-site to talk about it.”

Gérard huffed “And... I’ve heard you’re not exactly the talkative type,” Gérard smiled a little.

“Ninja,” Genji shrugged.

“I-I think she’d like you...” His shoulders sagged, “Practical... steady... if she were here she’d probably tell me I’m making a fool of myself.”

You are and I have no idea how to help you so please let me go, thought Genji, but the smile on Gérard’s face eased him a bit. Genji wasn’t sure what to do with this feeling--helping and yet not helping. He remembered certain looks in Mercy’s face when he would talk about the Shimada clan, those hints of wanting to do something but feeling the ability to do so just beyond his reach. How often did she feel that with all of his fury? With all his grief?

“I wish I understood what was going through Reyes’s mind in Rialto...” Gérard spoke and startled Genji from his own thoughts. 

“...Antonio told him his associates would get him out within the week, Reyes... responded... practically,” said Genji.

“Practically,” a huff fell out of Gérard, “Just like in the debriefs.”

Genji’s brow crinkled. “The point of Blackwatch is to operate from the shadows. It was never about how it would be seen because it... wasn’t meant to be seen.”

“But it still has effects,” Gérard murmured, “And you still have to live with yourself afterwards.”

You still have to live with yourself.

The image of Zhihong Peh gurgling on his own blood on the end of Genji’s sword flashed to his mind. The thwack of his father hitting a fish on a rock in Shirakami-sanchi.

Make it clean. Make it quick.

“Would Amélie still have been taken if...?” Gérard’s voice pulled Genji from his memories again, but Gérard just lowered his head and furrowed his brow. “It doesn’t matter now.  have to find a new angle. I have to... she...” he lifted his chin slightly, “Monsieur Shimada. I appreciate you putting up with the ravings of a madman. I must go. Thank you.”

“....you’re welcome?”  said Genji, but Gérard was already walking past him.

Genji stood there in the hallway a few minutes longer. Amélie LaCroix had been taken. Whether or not that had happened in response to killing Antonio remained to be seen... but it was clear that the fallout from Rialto had not helped. He looked at his hands. For so long ‘practical’ had been a straight line, but now it seemed that the path he had been carving out was caving in on him. What was practical now?

Whatever you can do to help.

And where do you start?

With the people who you know always help.

----

It was late at night in the lab and Mercy was nodding off slightly, her chin in her hand at her monitor when a coffee mug gently clacked down on the desk beside her. She flinched awake and her head swung around to see Genji slowly withdrawing one hand, holding his own coffee cup in the other.

“Peace offering,” said Genji, “...if you don’t want to deal with me right now, you don’t have to. Say the word and I’ll leave you alone.”

Mercy tentatively picked up the mug and sipped at it, glaring at Genji slightly through her eyebrows before lowering the cup into her lap.

“What do you want?” she said, her voice clipped. 

“I wanted to say... I’m sorry for storming off like that and...You were right,” Genji said quietly, “Killing Antonio creates far more problems than it solves.”

There was some hope in Mercy’s eyes, but she also gave him a sort of uneasy, puzzled look.

“And...” Genji’s voice was a bit more tight, “On a... lawful and ethical level, it... was wrong.” He dropped his voice to a low mutter, “Even if he would have wormed his way out of the law.”

Mercy huffed and smiled a little. “I... I know the law also needs reforms so that doesn’t happen, so that justice can be done... but in the meantime...”

“In the meantime we shouldn’t shoot people in the face,” Genji conceded with a shrug.

“Right,” said Mercy. Her smile was a little crooked. There was a long silence then, tentative, and a little anxious. Genji leaned against the desk, wrapping his organic hand around the mug, taking some comfort in its warmth.

“Angela—I need you to understand something about me,” Genji said, not looking at her.

“Please don’t—“ Mercy started.

“Just listen. The first time the clan made me kill someone, I was 14 years old,” Mercy’s eyes widened and Genji’s knuckles rolled tight on the coffee mug, “And that wasn’t the only person I killed for them.

Mercy’s shoulders shrank inward, her eyes not meeting his.

“The clan,” Genji paused and took a steadying breath before continuing, “Worked to make me into something… no one should be. It…cultivated a way for me to see the world that very much affected my concepts of what is acceptable. What is good.” He gave a short huff. “But I don’t… I don’t want to be them. I don’t want to cause the same hurts they have caused.”

She looked at him then. That same searching look. That same ‘I want to help but I don’t know how’ look, and Genji’s stomach stung with the strange helplessness he felt when Gérard was gripping his shoulders earlier that day.

“But Blackwatch never asked me to question what the clan taught me. It just… saw I was angry, saw I was hurt, and pointed me in a certain direction,”  he huffed, “And now I’m stuck here. And I can’t do anything. And... ” he took a steadying breath, “I care about you. I care about our friendship. And I care about what you think of me. I don’t know... if I will ever be fully rid of what the Shimada clan cultivated in me... it... it feels like it only got sharper after what Hanzo did to me. It feels rooted in my very survival instincts. But I know I don’t want to be Reyes, and I don’t want to lose you, and... if what Blackwatch did caused all this hurt to all these people who had nothing to do with what happened in Rialto.. it’s true that it should be suspended.”

Mercy blinked a few times. “Do you really mean that?”

“Well... to an extent...” said Genji, “If Blackwatch still had its intel networks up...”

“Maybe we could help Gérard find Amélie,” Mercy said quietly.

“You know about Gérard?” Genji looked over at her.

“I only got the briefing a few hours ago,” said Mercy. She was quiet for a few seconds. “Genji... I... I don’t think you’re a bad person for what the Shimada clan conditioned you to do. You do scare me sometimes, but I genuinely believe, deep down, you want to do good.” 

“I scare you?” Genji lifted his prosthetic hand and looked down at it.

“Not because of that...” Mercy touched the metal of his knuckles and he let his hand drop as his eyes raised to hers, “I--I’m scared for you. I don’t want you to think you’re alone. And--and I want you to be able to have a life outside of Overwatch.” She huffed. “That’s what it does. It takes in people who have nowhere else to go and who just want to help and it takes everything they can give and you never know if it’s being used to help or to...” her voice trailed off and she was staring forward. Genji touched her shoulder gently.

“For what it’s worth... without Overwatch I would have never met you,” said Genji.

“I’m glad I’ve met you too,” said Mercy, smiling a little, “Silver linings right?” 

“Right...” said Genji.

A long pause passed between them. 

“...so where do we go from here?” said Genji, quietly.

“Well... I still have my work... I suppose this means we can spend more time together?” Mercy shrugged, “And... with Blackwatch suspended... maybe you can take some time to figure out what you want. Outside of Overwatch. Outside of taking down the Shimada clan.”

I don’t know how ready I am to deal with that, thought Genji, but he just nodded.

“So...” Genji swirled his coffee in its mug, “What are you working on tonight?”

“Well... apparently there’s been this incident at Watchpoint Pembrey,” said Mercy, glancing back to her monitor, “But it’s very confusing on, well... a physics level?”

“Something is confusing the genius Angela Ziegler?” Genji pulled up a chair, “Tell me more.”

Mercy snickered a little. Then started telling him.

#gency #gerard lacroix

[ronmanmob]

@brooklynislandgirl​

She is grateful for the quiet space.

She doesn't complain about the difficulties and distractions of trying to carry on conversation when everything is so loud in her ears, from the hum of traffic to the ticking of clocks, breeze against glass, the muffled chorus of human voice. Every sound beyond her companion's chisels a bit of understanding away, sometimes pieces so fine she has no hope of reconstructing what is said in her own mind which often leads to abject non-sequiturs or Beth simply fading from consensual reality until she's merely a silent ghost of herself, afraid of speaking up, afraid of making any kind of scene. 

 Perhaps that is one of Ron's best traits. Understanding what it is to always exist in a state of static. Of having few sign posts to guide social convention. How draining it is to exist in everyone else's normal. It isn't even just in relation to mental health and disabilities both genetic and human-made. He understands even if his experiences differ. He doesn't look down or feel pity or offer a hollow remorse for the things beyond his fixing, but he accommodates where and how he can. 

She hopes he finds the same comfort within her, around her. That she eases what he carries rather than add to it. That he finds grace and patience when he's at his most troubled. That he knows even when he understands that he need go and take care of himself for however long he needs to, that he will find her waiting on the other side of those doors. 

This is not so dire, and requires a much smaller effort between his lips and his voice. All his intentions, meanings. They are strung together like faery lights lighting things up in rainbow hues. A few catch the glass of his lenses and angel-kiss his cheeks. Her hand subconsciously reaches up and takes hold of the crucifix she wears on display around her throat. 

 Andy had slipped it around her neck after her confirmation. It should have been a gift from her parents; neither the mother who had abandoned her nor the Admiral had seemed inclined. It could almost be said that that was a reflection of what he calls her faith. It's also analogous to being hapa, a child of two worlds. Her brother's beliefs blended in an unbreakable bond with those of her people. The old and the new, both of which have her respect and her obedience.

 Beth is nothing, if she isn't obedient.

She offers him a small smile and a much larger truth. "F' me...'s easy, you know? sometimes I imagine religion...belief, not people's individual interpretations of right an' wrong, an' how f' practice it...Is like... like one trellis when ya small. It provides structure, a frame work t' help ya grow an' blossom. Suppose f' support ya when da wind comes choke strong an' t'reatens t' shake ya from ya eart'. Ya 'aina." 

 She looks away for a moment. "Before I realise dat I needed to hold hard to it, if I had any chance of regainin' myself, my oddah half, I was angry a' Him too, for a long time. Blamed Him f' takin' away from me da one person I knew evah truly love me. Lef' me alone in dis world. I suppose dat's mebbe how you felt, too?" 

She doesn't say the words aloud. Feels that it would be both unkind and blasphemous to speak of Aunt Rose, whom she only knows through stories he's told her, or the illness that robbed him of her, and sent him down the darkest path of his life. She doesn't speak of incarceration and of madness and how they must be demons latching at his soul with fiery claws threatening to tear him apart in his grief. She knows, far better than she'd like to.

But this isn't about what she knows or what she feels. There is something weighed and measured and it is his truth to speak. 

 One ankle crosses delicately behind its mate on the other leg, barely outside the radius of diminished flesh, how a lady is supposed to sit. She pushes aside the little collection of crockery and candle, and in opposition of the rest of her posture, a very uncouth arm spans the gulf of the table top, palm up, fingers partly curled, wrist bare. A hand reaching out in offer of support, in touch, in comfort. 

 "D'ya evah t'ink about reconnectin' an' makin' amends?"

A ripple of what looked like anger went through Ron’s expression. It firmed his jaw, drew his brows low in a scowl, narrowed his eyes and then -- gone. Its peak crested and then washed upon his shore. Far from anger really, it was grief; an old and recurring sadness that came out looking off thanks to how easy anger was to convey in comparison to nuanced pain. His words too, when he spoke to reply to all she’d shared with him, were dislocated from the look of him.

‘Amends?’ Ron repeated, his gaze fixed on his hands, which sat curled upon their table’s top. The pad of his thumb rubbed absently at a callus on the outside edge of his forefinger. ‘--Fer wha’ sins I’ve done? Devil’s advocate now -- ain’t it eye fer an eye, hm? Ain’t it right I sin back t’repay wha’ all ‘ee - if ‘ee’s up there - did t’me?’ In his more philosophical moments this is something Ron has considered deeply. There is no condemnation of Beth or her faith as he speaks. But there is a low-simmering anger now in his voice beside the sadness. 

‘Our Rose-’

..She’s dead, Kray..

The twitch that intruding voice brought on made Ron’s fists clench and his breath catch. For all the good it did, which was little, he breathed through the moment; re-found his place in what he had to say.

‘Me skizafrenia-’

A sickly laugh boiled up  by his left ear. Ron twitched away from it fractionally, but kept on with his litany. The last point was risky.

 ‘--------N Violet.’

There he paused, waiting for the baby’s shriek. It never came. Slowly,  his fists  unclenched, and  his gaze  found Beth again.

‘Weren’t bringin’ them fings on in my life, in me mum’s life, sin by ‘im I c’n repay? Don’t God sin by ‘is own laws, if ‘ee causes so much deaf ‘n pain? Devil’s advocate, yeah?’ He meant that and didn’t. He really hadn’t been on speaking terms with God for a long time. Belatedly, he shifted a hand over; touched its side to that she’d left outstretched - a peace offering despite the fact there was no conflict here, no war, no judgement; only talking. 

‘--I wondah ‘ow y’come away from blamin’ ‘im’ Ron added after a little thought gathering pause. ‘--If ‘ee made th’lot, ‘n causes all fings, th’same place - ‘im - made typhoid ‘n swans. Same place made ‘n took Violet-’

Still no shriek, much as he visibly braced for it; tensed all over.

‘---Made ‘n took Rose. Took me sanity b’cause why? Caprice?’

Snuffling out a breath, Ron shook his head. ‘Ow’d y’find fergivness, darlin?’ he wondered again, moving his hand now so it rested on Beth’s, palm to palm. ‘Admire yah fer it, like I say. Admire yah faif very much - f’all I know y’d be jus’ as lovely a person wiv or wivaht it.’

#brooklynislandgirl #modern!verse #<- with Bef #tw: death #tw: mental illness #tw: child loss #cw: death #cw: mental illness #cw: child loss

[luna-rainbow]

Sam, Steve and Bucky meta (part 3)

Meta on Sam's relationship with the 2 guys, particularly with Bucky during the movies. From Sam's POV.

Sam spent the next 2 years on the run. Sometimes he’s with Steve, other times the team splits up to be less conspicuous. Steve had a nasty penchant for attracting crime, so they were still fulfilling their roles of being Avengers even if not in name.

He missed his family sorely. He wondered how Sarah was going with her babies, how the business was doing, how that old boat was sailing. He so ached to be there for all their big days - the first time they opened their eyes, the first sound they uttered, the first little steps they took. Each day he was on the run, he was missing those days of his little nephews' lives.

In quieter interludes, when he’s by himself in a motel, where the halls were filled with languages he didn’t understand, sometimes he thought about Bucky. It was a habit that he couldn’t shake, and he blamed it on those 2 years of trawling through every lead in Eastern Europe.

He didn’t want to ask Steve about him. He didn’t know how he would answer if Steve asked why he wanted to know. He couldn’t explain that sometimes his mind just drifted there, especially moments like these when he’s alone and adrift and didn’t know where this life was going to lead, he would wonder if the feared Winter Soldier had the same doubts when he was on the run. He caught himself trying to humanise the man, and he was beginning to confuse reality with what he had imagined.

He still remembers that moment Bucky leapt in front of him to block Spiderman's kick. It didn't work, but the memory stuck. At the time, he still saw Bucky as the Winter Soldier - savage, emotionless and efficient. He expected during the fight he would have to cover for Bucky as an obligation to Steve. He did not expect himself to be the one protected.

He went to Wakanda a few times during this time. King T’Challa always tried to squeeze time out of his busy schedule to accommodate them, but they knew they should not rely too much on Wakanda’s hospitality, especially as Wakanda was undergoing a volatile transitional period. His stays were always brief and he only once saw Bucky from a distance.

Their reunion occurred with the threat of the end of the world. He wanted to crack a joke about only seeing Bucky when his life is in peril, but somehow couldn’t say it to the new saviour-like hairdo.

It was the first time he had seen Bucky smile as they walked off the plane. He then corrected himself: the first time was that monochrome video from the museum.

During his search, he had studied all of Bucky's available pictures to try and reconstruct his face, as he never saw the Winter Soldier's face properly. He remembered that he couldn't take his eyes off the short looping video of Bucky breaking into laughter beside Steve, his whole countenance kindling with unbridled mirth. He remembered his initial surprise, then confusion, and finally sympathy. No wonder it pained Steve to talk about him. Hydra had stripped away that life and humanity to create the robot they needed.

Even now, the smile wasn’t the same, Sam noted as he studied Bucky. The big boyish grin was much more subdued, and the light did not reach his eyes. When Steve turned away, the smile vanished.

Their eyes met. It wasn’t the emotionless eyes of the Winter Soldier. There was a lot more in there, but as though to stop him from reading more, Bucky averted his gaze.

Sam noticed another difference, “New arm?”

Bucky stared at the black metal hand, then clenched and unclenched his fist a few times. “Yes.”

Sam waited, then realised he hadn’t planned to say more.

Was it an upgrade? A paint job? What happened to the old one? But the intense way Bucky was staring at the hand made him hold back.

Suddenly, Bucky looked up and said, “It’s vibranium.”

It was fleeting, but there was a spark of pride in his eyes.

His image of Bucky came abruptly to life.

“Wakandan tech? What else did they fix it up with? Does it shoot lasers? Does it bounce like Steve’s shield? Can you use voice activation?” As the furrow between Bucky’s brows deepened, Sam laughed. The irritation made the man endearingly human, and certainly more approachable than the aloof stare he reserved for anyone that wasn’t Steve. “Come on, at least tell me you can grow claws like the Black Panther.”

“It's just a normal metal arm, Sam. It doesn’t grow anything.”

He was surprised by hearing his name, and the man said by way of explanation, "Steve told me all about you."

How fascinating, Sam thought, Bucky's expression softened when Steve's name came into the conversation. Steve rarely spoke about Bucky, like a treasure he was afraid to share. Bucky's conversations kept wandering back to Steve, like a proud badge he wanted to wear.

Sentimental, the word came to Sam abruptly, and surprised even him. Steve's best friend was loyal, brave, strong-willed, sentimental, and endearingly irritable.

Holding a conversation with him was like squeezing water from a stone, with the sense of exceptional fulfilment when something interesting is extracted.

"You live on a farm? With goats?"

If someone told Sam 3 years ago that the guy who tore off the steering wheel from his moving car would retire onto a farm to raise goats, he'd laugh their ass out of the bar.

He was starting to get the hang of Bucky's stare, and he could read perplexity and chagrin behind the unblinking eyes.

Before he could continue, Thanos' army had arrived.

He saw things he thought only existed in stories. They fought against him, and fought beside him. There were powers beyond comprehension, and he was just a regular guy in an upgraded jetpack.

It was a fight he tried not to remember, and the confusion of the days that followed helped take his mind away from the lingering sense of powerlessness and terror.

He found out that the world had jumped ahead 5 years for half of them. The "Blip" they called it, and the world was thrown back into turmoil.

It was a pyrrhic victory that left the Avengers without a leader.

And Steve handed him the shield.

He looked from Steve to Bucky, one was assured and the other one encouraging, and all he could say to their overbearing expectation was, "Thank you, I will do my best."

He thought about the exchange between Steve and Bucky before Steve left, the melodramatic words of reassurance for what he had thought would be 5 seconds of time. That 5 seconds turned into a lifetime and a separation he was not prepared for.

He recalled Bucky's reassuring nod as he went forward to speak to Steve. Bucky knew - he knew of Steve's decisions, about staying in the past and about the shield, but neither of them told him.

It was so characteristic of Steve. Once his mind was made there was no swaying it. Sam just wished he was included in a decision this momentous instead of being impelled to accept.

Before he left, Steve had arranged for Bucky's pardon. "His home is in Brooklyn."

But when he took Bucky back to New York, the look on the man's face wasn't joy. It was that of a lost child, led to a frighteningly unfamiliar place, and being told this would be his new home.

The grudge he held over being excluded from Steve's decision dampened a little. Steve must have known it was because Bucky could not say no. Because even he could see that Bucky put all his belief in Steve's judgement, as though fearful of trusting his own.

In that moment, Sam thought their uncertainty and grief was shared. Tentatively, he brought up his reservations about assuming the role of Captain America.

Bucky reacted badly.

As he watched the man shut down and withdraw in front of his eyes, Sam knew he could have extrapolated it.

Fiercely loyal.

Infuriatingly obstinate.

Blindly sentimental.

But that didn't make it an easier pill to swallow.

#sam wilson #bucky barnes #steve rogers #sambucky #meta #a:iw #a:eg #endgame #infinity war #mcu #marvel #tfatws

[gaycharr]

Stages of Grief

A bit different than my usual writing style i think, just a quick(ish) thing. Do the stages of grief apply to a life? When you lose your way, that is also a sort of grief, is it not ?

Vetrius and, in a way, resolutions. Initially inspired by @tyrias-library ‘s resolutions prompt but idk if it follows that theme enough to still count 

warning for themes of depression and talk of suicide

Shock and Denial

Childhood is innocent, yes, but at what point does that naivete start to change into a painful awareness of those around you? Vetrius could pinpoint the exact moment.

She’d never given much thought to her own image until here. She was happy, and sociable. She enjoyed chatting with the others in her Fahrar and never thought twice about offering a hand to another.

It seemed this very thing was what would bring her new revelation around. Practicing in the yard (swords today) after a heavy rain. When her sparring partner slipped backwards, falling heavily to the ground as their sword thudded away, there was no hesitation on her end. She dropped her sword, stepped forward to offer her hand to her friend, and froze at the look on their face.

They sneered up at her angrily, eyes glittering. Vet felt numb as they slapped her paw from them and scrambled to their paws themself. She didn’t react even as the smaller cub shoved at her shoulders, making her take a step back as she blinked at them, still processing.

“Burn it! You’re so...so..SOFT! Can’t you just be normal?” The other cub hissed at her before stalking away. Vet felt her ears burning under the weight of the stares of the others. Her stomach churned. How had she missed this? Now that she looked, she noticed the pattern of slit gazes and twitching tails. How bodies angled from her and the line of the shoulders grew tense and flat.

Vet clenched her fangs. No, no, this was fine. This was normal. Nothing had happened.

Pain and Guilt

In the wake of her newfound hyper vigilance of others, Vetrius seemed to see evidence of her wrongness everywhere. Always too ready to offer a smile, to compromise, to lend a hand. These came naturally to her, but now it was soured by the jarring realization that these weren’t strengths, but weaknesses. It sat heavy within her, writhing and occasionally growing overwhelming and clawing up her throat.

At night she curled up on her bunk in a tight ball hugging her knees to her chest, tail wrapped around her. She clenched her teeth against the cresting waves of despair within her, clawed at the sheets in the breathless pain of emotion. What had she done to be so alone?

Anger 

Slowly, so slowly, Vet’s pain and despair started to boil into anger. Why was it so hard for others to just accept each other, to be kind? Why was SHE the odd one out, for having fucking compassion? How dare she give a shit, how dare they treat her like this!

She withdrew ever further within herself. No longer attempting to bridge the gap between her and others, what was the point, she didn’t matter to them and she didn’t want to. No longer was she content either, to ignore snide remarks made against her, and her claws and fangs became ready to bear as she growled back.

She thought it was ironic, in a blood boiling way, how before she was too soft, but now she seemed too harsh, too prickly. The others avoided her now, not out of second hand embarrassment but out of a sort of discomfiting fear that the dog they’d beat might bite back now. She felt too big in her fur these days, felt as if she was always clenching her fangs against something- she didn't know what, just that it would be horrible to unleash.

Wasn’t she perfect now though? She thought with a snarl. Big and angry and ready to fight. 

(and Bargaining)

She didn’t need them to accept her though. She could just- run away. Start a new life.

This thought manifested in different ways, but quickly took a turn for unhealthy. To fantasize of a new life is okay, but not when you stray into the territory of ‘can i just die now so i can have a new life’. The thought turned into claws over skin, an increasing recklessness with herself, an always prickling sense of being prepared for a fight against her peers.

And then it happened. A heavy storm that her band was caught in, trekking back home after some field practice. Heavier than normal. Vet foolishly remarked this out loud, and instantly remembered herself as another scoffed. “Scared of a little water?” was the sneered reply.

Vet felt her fur grow hot, start to bristle at the shoulders. Felt that ugly something rear up in her, ready to bite. And just as she opened her mouth, a flash of lightning blinded her. In the receding bright and boom of thunder, they all stared in shocked awe as a large portal opened in front of them.

Instantly her band began to bicker about what to do. Vet felt her anger fade as she considered. “We should go back and tell the others, see what they want to do about this.” It seemed sensible to her, what were they gonna do, step through it? Nothing else to do but find someone who could at least take a proper look.

Except- to her band- it translated into cowardice, a want to leave the situation and have someone else handle it. “You would say that! Hah! Why dont you just run along for us, we’ll stay here and do the hard work.” And suddenly the anger was back and boiling up and finally, Vetrius could no longer bared it. 

It radiated off her, heavy and palpable, and even the storm seemed to quiet as everyone hushed and stared at her, waiting for the wave to crest. Her clenched fists trembled, blood mixing with the rain where her claws dug into her own skin.

She thought about turning around. Though about ripping into every single one, fighting until they had no choice but to admit that she was Strong, Stronger than them even. Distantly, breathlessly, and almost furiously disappointed in herself for it, she knew that she wasn’t going to do that.

Instead, she took a deep breath, and stepped through the portal. She would have a new life, one way or another.

Depression

The mists were unlike anything Vetrius had ever thought to expect. They were...ineffable, indescribable, in a way that sometimes struck an odd chord of nostalgia within her.

They were dangerous too, she quickly learned. When she first stepped into the mists from the portal, still  dripping with rain water as it snapped shut behind her, she’d felt only a numb angry sort of joy. She’d stuck it to them! Except...what now?

Time passed, or at least Vetrius thought it did. It was hard to tell, some areas seemed to lack any sort of sun or moon even. She could measure it only by her hunger, which stopped being effective as she slowly began to starve, the small meals she was able to catch not quite enough.

Often she could feel the weight of a gaze on her, or would snap her head around looking for the source of an imagine whisper. She must be going crazy. She must be dying. The thought came almost as a relief to her. Or...she wanted it to be a relief, so she refused to admit that it wasn’t.

She struggled on and on and on. The worse her shape became, the more she struggled, the more the panic within her started to rise. Her admittance was just on the tip of her tongue but still she couldn’t let it out.

It was in the dead of night. She’d come across some berries and, starving, had eaten them. It was the wrong choice, she could feel her stomach rolling. By the time the cold sweat of fear had reached her, she knew it was too late, whatever she had eaten was undeniably poison and finally she was faced with the reality that she was going to die, possibly any moment.

Her limbs began to tingle, her vision growing hazy. She shook her head dizzily, trying to stay in focus. Her breaths came in harsh pants. And finally, FINALLY, her realization hit her in a bright burst of light.

(the upward turn)

She...she didn’t want to die! She could feel the thought fill her, breaking through the walls she’d built against her own self. She didn’t want to die, she wanted to live! She WANTED to live.

Her teeth creaked as she clenched them, heaving breaths through her nose desperately as she crumbled but suddenly unwilling to give up. 

But it was too late, wasn’t it? Her arms shook, her mouth watered sickeningly. And- and-

Her vision was growing bright, so bright! She could barely see through the blinding light now. She was supposed to stay AWAY from the light, right? She stumbled back, not realizing that her vision had suddenly cleared, her limbs quickly regaining control.

“Be not afraid.” The voice sounded amused, and comforting. Vet could taste a spring breeze, despite the dusty crumbling walls of some mist castle around her. The light started to recede, and finally Vet realized that she wasn’t going to die, actually.

She looked up at the being of light, and it caused a weird feeling to squirm through her.  Vet was kneeling, she realized, looking up at this angel (what else could it be?) with teary eyes. The Angel extended a hand down to her, the limb solidifying within the fluctuating light.

Unthinking, Vet blinked away her tears as she reached up, took the hand, and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

Reconstruction 

“You want to leave this place.” Hearing Angel’s voice wasn’t always a common thing. Even now that they had learned some of their bond, Angel usually spoke through impressions of emotions or flashes of images in Vet’s mind.

Vet faltered. Much time had passed now, Vet was positive. She wasn’t a cub anymore. After Angel saved her, the two had just seemed to be entwined. Their bond wasn’t an instant thing after that, but it grew quickly as Angel followed and watched over Vet. The two grew together, and it was...nice, despite it all, Vet thought at least. She’d had a lot of growing to do, she’d realized.

Vet hadn’t had a home in a long time, but this place still wasn’t it. If Angel had asked before now, the fear of facing reality might have driven Vet to deny the statement, but intuitive as their connection was now she must have sensed that Vet was ready  to face these issues.

Acceptance and Hope

Vet didn’t vocally accept, but Angel’s presence brightened at the responding emotion of agreement and acceptance reflected from Vetrius. And excitement, even. 

A part of Vetrius felt terrified, as Angel steered her towards a portal that would spit her back out into Tyria after so long. But it was overpowered by the thrill of hope running through her.

She’d gone through so much, but she’d also learned so much. She was ready to accept the pain she’d been through: in her childhood, in the mists, the pain she may yet be to face. As long as she keeps growing, she’ll be okay. 

#gw2 #c: vet #and theres vet's backstory! for the most part

[mysticalmindblog]

A candid look at one of the most common sources of heartbreak and sadness readily available to each and every human being. The Internet is awash with memes and quotes mixing Positive Affirmation with Expectation. The reality is that when you are prone to expecting something, you are opening doors inviting disappointment and suffering to visit.

THEME: Until you can accept what is, you will never move into what could be.

Look back on your life, and count the many times you feel you have been let down, deflated, disenfranchised, because expectations and promised results didn't come to fruition. How much suffering have you gone through in your life because you mentally and emotionally invested far too much in expectations that proved unrealistic..??

There is a glut of memes and quotes all over Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and many other online sources that are very generic and 'feel good' but with no substance.

Examples are:

You Deserve It, So Expect It

Expect and You Will Receive

You're a Winner, Expect Great Things

It's Good to Know What to Expect

You Are Unique So Expect Unique Things

etc. etc. etc.

Some of these quotes have tens of thousands of likes. The problem is that they are so general and generic that the presupposition is applying to ego, rather than the truth. It is part of the 'INSTANT' gratification "Feel-Good" motivational movement that is nothing more than a mental band-aid rather than an enlightening revelation.

There's also a fine line between expectations & dependency. There is another fine line between expectations & an entitlement mentality. Inevitably, to be in expectation of something opens up the doors of possibility to disappointment & suffering. It is far preferable to work with Mindful intention instead, in the present moment you are in, to project desired results.

Expectations

Having expectations being thwarted leads to very deep sadness and longings... They can just rip out all of your cultivation and capacity for being able to give kindness and compassion to others and can make your soul stale.

They can make a warm heart turn ice cold.

They can cause mental anguish and intense frustration.

Expectations, for the most part, are made up of the imagined desired results for a future moment in time. They represent a large percentage of thoughts that are dedicated to the variables of the future. Expectations represent a diversion from present mindfulness, away from the moment you are in into the unknown moments of the future.

Truthfully, we all suffer from vulnerabilities intertwined with emotional dependency on expectations projected, like architectural blueprints, on those around us. Disappointment after disappointment wears down our patience, as well as our ability to trust and give unconditionally.

On the extreme far end of the mental spectrum, many people who walk around in a constant state of anxiousness due to 'Expectation', also exhibit egocentric and entitled behavioral patterns.

It's a trap.

Over-indulgent and pampered personalities tend to lead lives where they expect, and expect, and expect (the best, the more, the most), and often with emphasis on being entertained and distracted by nonsense more-so than anyone else around them, or the VIP treatment; is another way to put it.

Disassociate

It is for me an ongoing quest, to disassociate from emotionally attaching to high hopes and expectations in regards to the attitude, words, and actions of others.

From family, to friends, to acquaintances and strangers, in a variety of settings, they will invariably surprise you in a negative way at some point or other; it is inevitable. Often this is because we invest far too much expectation upon them. In some ways, our expectations can become so unrealistic, that they depend on the person in question making personality changes that are not even made clear.

I talk often of the Noisy Mind condition; where we go from moment to moment not actually living in the moment, but living either in the past, or the future, or even worse: Both simultaneously - all without actually living mindfully in the present moment.

The inherent problem with setting expectations in regards to all those you have come to know is that we always seem to set the bar too high. It helps me to look inside myself at my own failings, and the ways I could improve myself - before looking to others for inspiration. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, setting expectations makes us deviate away from present-moment mindfulness.

Here are some plain truths:

We have NO control over anyone but OURSELVES.

We have NO ability to see the FUTURE.

We have NO ability to change the PAST.

We live in NO other moment but the moment we are IN.

We have NO better immunity against emotional pain than ACCEPTANCE.

We have NO better immunity against anger than COMPASSION.

The ONLY one who can truly know you is YOU.

The ONLY one who can use the key that unlocks your heart is YOU.

The ONLY one who can make you change who you are is YOU.

So basically this article comes down to some harsh and unpleasant facts; such as dealing with the negative aspects of people that WILL invariably either go out of their way to hurt you, or alternatively hurt you in their ignorance. As such, you measure the depth of your sufferings and pain based on your expectations.

Expectation is a strong form of attachment making. It is that which will sink deep hooks into your most sensitive nerves, and will ever-so-often bring tremendous suffering.

Now it is important to point out here that I am not saying that as far as I am concerned, it is best to go around looking at everyone through cringing and skeptical eyes, treating them all as potential antagonists - definitely not. Alternatively, what I am saying is what I actually try to practice daily, treat others as you wish to be treated, but don't attach to the expectation that they will reciprocate. It is as simple a recipe as that.

The Alternative

The 2nd Noble Truth of Buddhism teaches that 'Suffering' is due to attachments and expectations, to grasping and clinging. This truth is a secular truth whatever your belief system.

So how do we liberate ourselves..??

You can literally transform your life by learning your own personal art of "Letting Go.."

It is a matter-of-fact that by cultivating and changing your mental thought processes, you can relieve emotional discomforts and pain, and chief among those changes are the way you accept & embrace change.

Realizing how we instinctively react when provoked by broken expectations and unexpected change, and then modifying the way we react can help us break out of the need to be micro-managing every little detail of an uncertain future, and individuals in our lives who we have no power to change or control, and instead, we can simply embrace with acceptance of the present moment we are in.

It's only possible in the present moment that we will find the courage to cross the threshold of the unknown and relax into the changes we cannot avoid.

The Attachment of a Sense of Predictability

It is a Human condition, we feel that much more secure when we are assured that we possess a sense of predictability, and in that effort we invariably develop a great capacity for denying a very basic & simple truth which is 'that nothing stays the same'.

Such a denial can invoke an inner arrogance, an egoic but illusionary 'reality' construct; and then along comes the unpredictability of life, and through loved ones, friends, or life changing situations, we are painfully shown that even if we do everything "right" and exercise every precaution, we can still face extreme disappointment and unexpected loss.

As such, all too frequently, rather than surrender to the inevitability of change, and embrace it, and work creatively with it, we Humans resort to the anxiety & fear-based behavior of forcing situations to occur the way we want them to, and to take charge and exert pressure on other people and situations to conform to our expectations. Again, this is a terrible trap.

Your inability to avoid disappointment, broken expectations, and deflated dreams as well as accepting change may make you wrathfully angry, sad, depressed, and frustrated. It can be hard to let go of the false belief that the only way to achieve happiness again is to regain what's been lost. Even when you know you can't reverse the situation, you may enter into a perpetual suffering, and constantly agonize over this unwanted reality, knowing no inner peace as a result.

When faced with disappointment and broken expectations, we can mistakenly cling on to what once was, actively avoiding the needed process of grief and acceptance, and end up in a constant state of non-growth and life paralysis; grasping for a future set of circumstances or a situation identical to the past holding you back from discovering what better roads lie ahead, just around the corner, simply just outside of your vision. The desire to backslide, or reconstruct the known comforts of the past will almost always result in you walking around in circles, lost in the ashes of the unchangeable past, instead of venturing forth with mindfulness and actively taking steps to look around those corners and see new ways to grow, new paths to follow.

Change your Perspective

The change in perspective that invariably happens when we come to the enlightening conclusion that there's no such thing as a permanent comfort zone, or feeling of happiness, will allow us to embark on a voyage of healing from suffering. It leads to a rise in wisdom, a new understanding, and helps us take the next brave step which is to accept that we must often be broken to mould ourselves anew, and broaden our reality giving a new definition of what we need in order to be productive, happy, and liberated - giving up the old and painful habits of clinging and grasping, as well as the need to control external circumstances and future events.

It's important to balance the concept of something you want, with an acceptance of what is, right in the moment you are in. It is no good wanting something for what you want it to be, rather than wanting it for what it is now in the present. You MUST know your limits.

This subtle balance which is a mindset to adopt, allows you to live in this, the present moment and trust that your acceptance of a given situation or individual or concept, will relieve the suffering and confusion that comes when not things do not go the way you 'expect' them.

In other words, having expectations is an inevitable Human condition, but it is down to your Mindful clear thinking on how much you invest in those expectations, and how realistic they are, cognitively understanding that everything is impermanent, even expectations, that will clear the brain-fog of confusion, unnecessary emotional attachments, and distractions, and show you the path to move into a more clear and unrestricted, happier, way of life.

When we cling to the past or what no longer serves us, we contract ourselves to the point where we're unable to be nourished and invigorated by the present moment. We have to accept that what's past has truly passed in order to open up to what the present moment offers us. In this opening we become nourished, refreshed and revitalized.

Finally, it takes us making an effort, and acknowledging not only our own flaws and damaging personality traits, but also for the most part, understanding that the general population ultimately only care for themselves and their own comfort zones and closed circles, and will extract what they can for their own pleasures and comforts from whoever can supply it the soonest. That's the modern sociologically imprinted "I want it and deserve it and I want it now" illusionary construct. It is damaging to everyone, and leads to awful entitlement issues.

We can CHOOSE not to be that way. That's part of the old 'primitive' brain that is programmed with a genetic self-preservation instinct and gets combined with the ego to the point that so many end up with toxic personalities.

If we see it, recognize it, choose not to be a part of it, and instead take care of all that we have power over (ourselves), then we can be liberated from the suffering it can cause.

Knowing this, it is up to us as the responsible entities to go within and make the changes necessary to better deal with those occurrences, and live more in the present moment while annihilating our expectations of things we have absolutely no control over.

#attachment #liberation #new attitude #new life #moving forward #being strong #detaching #overcoming #be better #no fear #be strong #enlightenment #evolving #breaking free #selfish #selfishness #ego #egoic

[funkymbtifiction]

Detective Pikachu (2019): Pikachu [ENFP]

SPOILER WARNING.

SUBMITTED by aanau.

Functional Order: Ne-Fi-Te-Si

Perceiving Functional Axis

Extraverted Intuition (Ne)/Introverted Sensing (Si):

Pikachu (aka Harry Goodman) says himself that he doesn’t plan and prefers to think on the fly, and he’s shown to be pretty hyperactive in chasing ideas down any and every avenue. Back and forth he goes from one possibility to the other, and there he is interpreting everything as something much grander than it may seem on the surface (like how he’s quick to believe that fate has brought him and Tim together, or him jumping to bizarre conclusions about Harry’s [his] “death”). On the other hand, he overworks himself, fueling up with ungodly amounts of coffee (claiming to not be addicted) to combat an all-nighter spent producing an “organized” chaos of ideas and connections. Before being turned into a pikachu, it’s said that Harry threw himself into his job after the death of his wife, all the while making up a room for Tim to look exactly like the one back home and yet never getting around to truly reaching out to him. This indicates inferior Si’s grip tendency to overexert itself and not realize ideas to completion or think about them practically. Detective work was his escape where he got the stimulation he clearly craved, while in his personal life he was suffering from his lack of focus and detachment from himself and reality out of grief and loneliness. It’s worth noting that he follows a lot of NFP stereotypical traits: idealistic, flighty, opportunistic, unable to commit or focus on anything for too long, extremely curious, and overthinks things (looking for deeper meaning). Like realistic ENFPs, however, he’s successful in what he sets his mind to and is able to be focused on his detective work (receiving plenty of awards and being well known as the Best detective), and is not strictly scatterbrained or easily distracted. 

Judging Functional Axis

Introverted Feeling (Fi)/Extraverted Thinking (Te):

Pretty much the first thing we notice about him is how eager he is not to be alone anymore, and how much emphasis he puts on a “feeling,” (“feeling it in my jellies” as he says). He earnestly tells Tim that it can’t be a coincidence that he understands him, and that some kind of magic or love brought them together “and that magic is called hope,” (he’s one to say the cheesiest but most genuine things in the movie). He’s good at listening to and comforting Tim when he cries over his dad (not knowing that HE’S his dad [yikes]), and when Tim remarks that he hasn’t been very nice to Pikachu, he bluntly replies “no you really haven’t.” While he has the empathy and moral code of a Fi user, he also has the bluntness of a Te user. As Harry, he risked his life and career to do what he believed was right: to free Mewtwo. Mewtwo itself comments that Harry’s morality is what changed his view on humanity. It’s also likely that he internalized his grief over his wife while throwing himself into his work, since he seemed to be a rather isolated person who never reached out to anyone. After the amnesia, he seems to always be looking inward trying to reconstruct his identity, and when the “truth” about his past revealed, he runs away believing himself to be a bad and hurtful person. The idea of him ever having a hand in hurting someone, and the possibility that he could do it again, is something he can’t handle. His Te is messy, literally. He likes to think out loud and have things laid out in front of him to look at and analyze, but is less than organized about it and still gets sidetracked by his imaginative Ne and personal experience/subjective emotion centered Fi. Despite being a great detective, he rarely shows complete objectivity in the movie, indicating a lower thinking function.

#detective pickachu #pickachu #enfp #c: enfp #m: enfp #mbti #submission #spoilers

[nastyaphrodite]

Mother Tongue - Demetria Martinez

fyi one of the most poetically written books I’ve ever read, quotes are too good to lose to time.

(will be tagged personal, but this is not personal ...)

pg. 4: and I was one of those women whose fate is to take war out of a man, or at least imagine she is doing so.

pg. 5: before his arrival the chaos of my life had no axis about which to spin, a center far from God that I asked for forgiveness in advance.

pg. 12: Everything else is remembering. Or dismembering. To create a man out of blanks that can never wound me.

pg. 15: From day one I looked for ways to graft a piece of myself onto him, to become indispensable. My gestures were perfectly timed, touching his hand, twisting my hair, excusing myself to touch up my lipstick---ordinary actions that would reverse the tides of my life as in the theories of physicists who say the dance of a butterfly can cause volcanoes to erupt.

pg 16: Love at first sight, this how I explained the urgency that would later shed its skin and reveal pure desperation. Some women fall in love in advance of knowing a man because it is much easier to love a mystery. And I needed a mystery---someone outside of ordinary time would could rescue me from an ordinary life, from my name ... a blessing that had become a curse. At age nineteen, I was looking for a man to tear apart the dry rind of that name so I could see what fruit fermented inside.

pg. 19: Yes, from the very beginning I wanted him. In that time of my life, men were mirrors that allowed me to see myself at different angles. Outside this function, they did not exist. It was a supreme selfishness, the kind that feeds on men’s attentions, a void flourishing in a void. **** In the end, I had no choice but to love him. Desire was not good enough. Love would ripen in the light of time we spent together, like an arranged marriage. Except that I was doing the arranging. And calling it fate.

pg. 20: I swear to God the moment I laid eyes on him I knew he was The One. And it can’t be a coincidence—that he arrived on the scene just as I was asking the universe whether or not there was more to life than just holding down boring jobs. I’d been so depressed. Now everything has changed. Still, I know I should slow these feelings down. Or else I’ll want to act on them—which always ruins everything. I’ve got to remember I can’t “make” anything happen beyond doing the footwork for some greater purpose that may be trying to manifest here. Maybe I’m supposed to just be his friend.

pg. 22: It’s like I’m going for longer and longer periods of time forgetting I’m depressed. Which maybe is a definition of happiness.

pg. 23: Peace. Joy. Openness to the future. How else can I describe what I’m feeling except for the big “L” word, which I don’t dare say out loud. Because it’s like yelling fire in a theater. Men flee and my girlfriends say to me, you fool.

pg. 26: Very often, when I try to remember those days, everything comes to mind except for memories of myself: what I looked like or said or felt. This is where it gets painful. You see, memory does not always serve me. It seeks images and feelings to hook on to, but at times encounters only voids. The facts are easy enough to recite. *** I fled the world, went inside, ceased to feel. You could say I fell asleep. There was no mystery to it. Quite simply, it was easier to sleep and pretend to be awake than to stay awake and pretend to be strong. *** They had words for women like me. Insane fell out of favor as did nervous breakdown. Clinically depressed was, I believe, in vogue. But ask any woman who has had times in her life when she was not all there. She will say she was asleep. And women who fall asleep and don’t know why lack a plot line; this is the secret source of their shame. So I concocted a plot of my own, orchestrating what I could until characters began to say and do things I had never imagined, me included. To prove the gods at least were interested in me, I courted disaster, set out to love a man I knew full well would go away. Falling in love was a way of pinching myself. It proved I was alive only on that thin line between drama and trauma. I handed my body over ... like a torch to help him out of his dark places. I felt no shame. I was utterly unoriginal. To love a man more than one’s self was a socially acceptable way for a woman to be insane.

pg. 32: It was like taking one last look around a hospital room where someone I loved had died. And I cried, I couldn’t stop, it was a surprise. I thought my arroyo of grief had long ago dried up, leaving only an imprint of the storm.

pg. 49: I was young, future tense came naturally to me: Iré, irás.… I will go, you will go. I have always lacked talent for living in the here and now, and back then I was easily transported into luminous, unobtainable futures.

pg. 55: Where others saw indigo, I saw blue; where others saw teal, I saw green. It’s the draining away of color that happens in a woman’s life when she can’t name her own reality. It is only now that I am able to go back and color in the pale places, creating a mural on the walls of the life I now inhabit.

pg. 59-60: The truth is, some of our tenderest moments are the ones I am least likely to remember. It has to do with what I said about sleep, how women like me sometimes flee, letting loving words or glances melt on the hot pavement of some nameless fear. So forgive me if I embellish; even a conjured memory is better than no memory at all if you would dare to give your life what the world did not, a myth, a plot. Besides, I never intended to reconstruct him from memory, just from love, which may be the only way anyone can ever hope to get at the whole truth.

pg. 61: I knew the name but not the man.

pg. 63-64: Now I have reason to improve my Spanish. I have a word and a way of life to conjugate: Quiero, quieres, quiere, queremos.… To want and to love, the same thing! God, make this thing last. Make it last. I sound crazed, I know, but with good reason. My period’s due any moment, and I have found true love. The kind that pulls all of life in one direction. It’s too much. Already, his presence in my life is helping me forget all the sadness (what was it about?) that pulled me down for so long before he came. *** The thought of being with him forever is intoxicating. But I’ve got to be careful. I’ve got to stay in the present. The minute I get hung up on the idea of forever, on what will happen tomorrow, I ruin everything.

pg. 65: But I don’t need sleep, I don’t need food, just you, I answered. I unpeeled myself from him, removed myself like a bandage. The cruelty of limits stung: the need for sleep, food, a paycheck however small. If an hour were a house one could move into for good, I would have built a wall around the 2 o’clock hour, a brick wall arrayed against the disfiguring fury of the future.

pg. 66: We opened each other up like sacred books, Spanish on one side, English on the other, truths simultaneously translated.

pg. 68-69: But I’m deceiving myself again. Lying. For a long time after (he) I continued to believe a man could touch my essence, make me whole. All that time I could have been writing, touching the fires of my being and returning to the world, purified and strong. *** You see, I was one of those women who is at her best when she wants something very badly. The mating dance, the yearning and flirting, surrenders and manipulations—I was good at that, so good at the pursuit that when I actually got what I wanted, terror appeared. Terror that wore the silly mask of disappointment.

pg. 73: The few friends I had during that spell of my life quit calling; the word must have gotten out that (I) was in love. They knew I wouldn’t come out of the house, the house I drew with crayons, a house of primary colors I called love. The first time I fell in love, friends tried to tell me it was not real. To prove them wrong, I drew a keyhole on the front door and invited them to look through to the other side. See for yourselves, I said.

pg. 76: It’s dangerous for a couple to promise to stay married until they die. It’s better to vow to stay together until the marriage dies—and to do everything in their power to keep it alive. If you don’t think of marriage as a plant, fragile and in need of attention, then you’re asking for major trouble.

pg. 77: That’s what I hate about love. Bit by bit you start to give things up. You become like a good parent. But I love him so it’s all worth it. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.

pg. 81-82: Unfortunately (or fortunately?), wounds will often start healing even if you don’t want them to, even if you would rather die quietly in the corner of a cell. The body’s will to live sometimes is greater than that of mind or spirit.

pg. 86: Do I just let things continue until they fall apart? The warmth of her flesh is all I have to make me forget. But alcohol does the same thing. Am I using her? Or is she using me each time she looks at me and loves what is not there?

pg. 87: No, I haven’t forgiven myself for being disappeared from myself any more than I have forgiven him.

pg. 88: He carved that question mark into my heart and kept watch over it until I could wake up and cry out.

pg. 89-90: Things began to happen. There were times he didn’t call, times he didn’t say I love you, nonevents that hurt in little ways, like paper cuts, but that added up. It could be these nonevents had happened all along, the normal ups and downs of relationships. But at a certain point, I began to perceive that he was pulling away from me and thinking about other things. And fear ate at my heart like battery acid. But it’s very likely that I only imagined him pulling away, imagined the whole thing. You see, the fear I am best at is always based upon a myth. *** ... assumption that to survive one sometimes must flee all that is loved. This is what terrified me. His body was branded with the equation, love equals flight.

pg. 94: You see, real love is quiet as snow, without chaos, hard to write about.

pg. 95: They were not like the white God I’d had to kill, that women like me must kill if we are to have any hope of ever finding God. Nothing replaced Him for a long time. But looking back now I can see that the growing chaos inside blazed away dead growth, clearing a space, however violently, for God to be reborn.

pg. 96-97: There were so many moments I would rather not talk about but in this dark night of remembering, they are blooming like night flowers. *** When he didn’t call, my world shriveled. Fetal position. Blistered finger pad. Or when he called and didn’t say, I love you, I shattered, then mistook a piece of me for the whole, a mistake that disfigures women’s lives time and again. But I lacked the nerve to tell him how I was feeling.

pg. 101: Now, as I write this, I can’t remember the real me. It’s terrifying, that you can love someone so much that you lose your own self in the uproar. I can’t remember the me who loves September, who loves to walk or read.

pg. 117: But every woman should have a special place inside where she can think, where no man is allowed, a place that will, you know, endure. Why do you think I took up letter writing? No man is worth falling apart over. Take it from me.

pg. 146: love could not be used like a cage to make a man stay. What if the universe now was telling me that it might take even greater love to let someone go? But I was not capable of detachment.

pg. 155: And as it is at times with bones, my heart needed to be broken and reset properly so it could carry me through life.

pg. 163: I’m tired, frightfully tired. Like snake venom, this story’s medicine had to be drawn from my own body. Maybe you won’t even read this, I don’t know. Long ago I began this tale for reasons I could not yet articulate, maybe for no reason at all. *** Promesas are as dangerous as skydiving, leaps into thin air. Nothing frightens me more than an answered prayer. And nothing taxes a body more than giving something back to God. This is why I am so tired, why I have spent this day crying in my room.

(4-2-19/4-2-19)

#personal #book #quote #mexican-american writer

[elitexlumiere]

ELITE V entries: by Selina Kyle The Stages

This story is not going to break anyone’s heart. 

This story is not what you think it is.

This story is just a story.

Have you ever heard about The Stages of Grief? If you haven’t, I’m going to tell you that there are some theories that use five, seven, and nine stages. Well, for me, five is too little and nine is too much. Nobody wants to move on that fast unless you’ve never loved your ex at all. And nobody wants to keep in the same old love for too long.

I know that losing is a devastating experience for someone to feel, although such feeling can be vanished with some help. Everybody agrees that moving on needs a certain period and that it might vary from one person to another. I, too, am still having a difficulty overcoming my own stages of grief.

I can still remember the time when I was so depressed. It took me about a year and half to finally understand that everything won’t come back for good.

Shock and Denial attacked me when the love melted away from his eyes. Just like what I heard from a movie, “The eyes, chico. They never lie.” Ah... if only I could meet that chico in real life, I would say, “That’s true, chico. His eyes said so.”

 Pain and Guilt embraced me when he walked away. I tried to run, but the more I chased, the more he moved. Holy moly, I knew he was such a runner, but I did not expect a movement like that.

Anger and Bargaining appeared when I heard a rumor about him seeing another girl. It knocked the shit out of me as I begged him to come back. How can this happen to us? Why us? It’s not fair. We were in love. <i>Please listen to me</i>

I was helpless and I had no idea that he would move on that fast. Was he faking all those romance with me? That was quite a show honestly.

 Of course, Depression, Reflection, and Loneliness came afterwards. I had a serious problem with sleeping for months. I visited the psychiatrist for a therapy, but the nightmare was still haunting me every night. I screamed, I wept, and I isolated myself. My lonely heart could not stop mourning even if my close friends and my parents were there. I questioned many things about fate. Alas, the answers were vague as always.

I, then, realized that I had turned myself into a monster. I was the one who let depression consume the half of me. I was the one who let the devil whisper a suicidal thought. I was fighting with myself. Eventually, the upward turn happened when I was a little calmer and organized. I slightly began to lift my chin and smile. People told me that I have been missed. I sincerely thanked them and cried. As I become more functional, my mind started working again. I started to reconstruct and and work through everything by looking at realistic solutions. At this point, I should have arrived at the last stage of grief. However, was I really moving on?

I met a guy out of my desperation, but I can assure you that it was not a bad call at all. His name was Meijer and I met him through an online dating site. Yes, I threw myself into an online dating site because everybody has their own way to fill the void inside. Besides, that guy listened to the same music as I did. He got a pair of doe eyes in a color of dark walnut. Strong cheekbones and a blade of nose were also perfectly engraved by the Almighty. And most importantly, he talked to me with that fruity voice.

My friends approved his presence in my life. They said that he is going to be good for me and that we looked good together. He was perfect, flawless, or so they said.

By the time we were together, he never failed me. He was still talking with the same excitement as if we met for the first time. He told me that he was on cloud nine after we had our first kiss. He showed me the love that I was wishing for. Meijer was the best guy I’ve ever met, and I am thankful for that. It was like God granted one of my wishes. Then again, was I really moving on?

 I knew Meijer was in love with me. I knew he put so much effort to cheer me up. I also knew that he worried much about my depression although I’ve never told him the real reason until now. Yet, I believe that loving a broken girl is difficult. That’s why I told Meijer that we should stop seeing each other after a lot of considerations. I was indeed being rude and selfish. Well, even keeping him beside me would not make any difference because I thought… I thought I have already accepted the previous lost and the hope to start a new chapter with him. I thought I made it to the very last stage.

Frankly my dear, I did not fake my happiness when I called his name—his name, his name, and only his name. I told Meijer many times that I truly love his name. And when he asked me why, I said the name was unique. Little did he know that I was thinking of another Meijer while calling him.

I would be lying if I said that Meijer's name was not the reason why I approached him in the first place. It was all because of my stupid assumption that I would find another Meijer in him. In fact, such assumption had me trapped in an unclear stage. I was faking it until I made it. I was lying to everyone as I deceived my mind.

I should admit that I still think of another Meijer in him. I was secretly hoping of a smile like home whenever Meijer turned his face after I called him. He smiled, but that was not the smile of my Meijer. Oh, my Lord, his smile was perfect, so flawless. But I am not impressed. I want the other Meijer back.

 Now that I have ended my relationship with both Meijers, I'm aware that I have not yet arrived in the final stage. But I swear that I'm still moving on. For me, moving on does not mean completely forgetting. I'm not defending myself here. Sometimes, I smile whenever the name of Meijer is mentioned. I mean, there are a lot of people who have Meijer as their name as well. I also gaze at his picture whenever it accidentally appeares out of nowhere, and I’ve always enjoyed the view.

 I realized that I could never erase everything completely. But I live my life, you know. My earth is still spinning on its own axis. I still wake up in the morning, improve myself and my personality, socialize with my friends, be active in any activity, until I go back to sleep and do the same routine in the next day. See? I am literally moving, right?

Indeed, my decision to find a replacement for another Meijer was wrong. Instead of accepting the new affection, I was just spinning around in one stage. Both Meijers were playing the biggest part in my life. But I cannot control another guy to keep me living in utopia and manipulate everyone around me. I must find my own happiness without sacrificing another existing Meijer. That way, I will not only complete my stages of grief, but also love myself more. It is all in my hand.

The stages of grief seem impossible to do. Once you go for the wrong step, you can hurt anyone’s feeling or even yourself. But life is all about trials and tribulations and going back to scratch is not an embarrassing thing to admit. Last but not the least, if anyone asks whether I am still moving on or not? The answer is yes, I still am.

 I just happened to accept reality.

#ON BOTH ENDS #ELITE #ELITEV #SELINA KYLE #ORIGINAL #STORIES

[realityebooks]

Alternative Reality For Illusioned Humanity

Life-Defining, Consciousness-Catalytic Reality eBook...

Short Description: Novelty and potential await you inside. Life-living reality has dimensions, you’ve never been told and therefore, you live in illusion. The eBook journeys you through dark truths and bares the falsity, unraveling delusions you’ve been living. It traverses you through hidden probabilities to enable you to create alternative realities, which alone can survive and excel you in contemporary madness.

First Few Chapters...

Potential of Human Intellect Is Infinite. Tragically, only a handful even thinks of the journey of the ‘Infinite’. Less embark on it; lesser trek a distance of definitiveness! Localized, partial and instinctive Consciousness prohibits and restricts journeys of mind. The specificpurpose and pursuits of life-living may be diverse; the singular genericattainment however, is Optimization of Potential of every single human being born and alive. Cultures that do not ensure mass ‘Optimization’ of People-Potential through Knowledge-Actualization are DEAD. The question is – Are contemporary cultures graveyards of Dead Intellect…? Are most people moving their bodies but mind is rooted like trees? Do mass majority of men and women even know what their ‘True Potential’ is? Do we need Change? Probably; complete Reconstruction! Of what? … Of REALITY; the contemporary, populist ‘Intellect’ is so trigger-happily ‘Illusioned’ to accept; since ages. If only; it could be possible for ‘self-validated’ egoistic ‘I’ to accept ‘Reality’ beyond its culturally installed Cognitive Empire! Can happen; happens; very rarely.

Optimismalone is Immortal…!

📷

📷

Humility is no virtue. However, it is Singular Existential Reality for Humanity; only a few realize. This fragile, ephemeral, conflicted and inconsequential human body-mind; standing under the infinite cosmic expanse, diversity and its Causalities, can have no other REALITY. This reality of humility engenders Compassion, which is one single qualifying element of Consciousness, making humans eligible to survive together. However, ‘Success’ for most individuals comes with single ‘available-to-all’ instinctive Eligibility – Be Shameless. The 99.9 percent go with this easy-availability than bothering a second for Reality. Successive successes empower and embolden The Beast every human is born as and erodes Collective Survival. This shameless Illusion of Success is the preferred REALITY for mass majority of horrid Humanity. We all dig our collective grave. Can this ever change? Probably! Knowledge alone can. It reconstructs Consciousness back to Humility. Can it happen? Happens; very rarely. Optimism alone is Immortal; it has to be…!

📷

📷

Incessantly, unrelentingly, in many possibly different ways, ‘I’ attempt to convince myself that the moon, sun, earth, stars, galaxies and even the cosmos itself shall die one day – It is not that ‘I’ alone shall die. It is not my Personal Destiny; it is the design of Cosmic Causality. With all intellectual and emotional resources at my behest, ‘I’ insist to myself that time; years, centuries, millenniums, are useless; just a mythically mystical idea; a Cognitive Conflation, having no reality, as the mind conceives. When ‘I’ die, everything is simply a Moment; probably the infinity of it but nothing else. In pragmatic actuality, even 14.5 billion years, when the universe came to be, before my birth, was just a moment for me and billions of years after my death, shall be the same – just a moment. The colossal Nothingness that was before my birth, had no meaning for me and the infinite nothingness that shall follow my death too shall have no meaning for me as, the very ‘Media of All Meanings’ – the Selfor ‘I’, itself shall become assimilated in Nothingness. The very Contextuality of Self, which creates the Consciousness that in turn bubbles up the Illusion of ‘I’, as some subject or protagonist, is emergent, transient and definitively holographic and hence mythically mystical culturalism. Etc.

Still, the Grief, the Suffocation of Option-less-ness, the excruciating Emptiness of the Nothingness and the resultant numbness of Non-Beingness of Consciousness does not go away…

This media, of body-mind cooperative; this consciousness, the cognition of the million causalities this Media processes; fails miserably. This media of consciousness cannot be persuaded; it cannot be made to stand in perpetuity of peaceful and poised acceptance of this whole idea and its cognition; let alone be in happy situation… Such Scammed is our existence; so structurally Insufficient and functionally Incapacitated are the faculties of the Media of Consciousness we are so remorselessly proud of; so much colossally Powerful and massively multidimensional is the content and intent of REALITY; so Haplessly Helpless is ‘I’…!

… Intellectually, may be, in peripheral probability, I am Ready to Die. Intellectually, feebly though, I may lend emotional credence to my resolve that I can Face Up to the Reality in its Entirety. The fabric of this reality of ‘Moment’ and Mortalityis probably not impossible to weave. Even, I can say, with humility but definitive certainty of honesty that at most times, I do feel the Strengthand Satisfactionof this mesmerizing bewilderment of un-put-down-able Emptiness, Nothingness, as it fills me up with prized possession of Compassion, my immense and deep sense of Grief leads me to. Also, this barrenness of nothingness proves to me as Huge Asset to remain rooted with unadulterated objectivity. In emptiness of nothingness survives and prospers the abundance of objectivity...

But then; intellect is also just a small part of this insufficient media of consciousness. This intellectual fabric of ‘reality’ still has to get internalized in and by all seven layers of my consciousness. Even intellectual understanding and acceptance is not easy but it is somehow and somewhat possible; at least peripherally. Internalization of the knowledge of the Realityis hugely tough; if not impossible. Without internalization; nothing stays, everything withers away. This media of consciousness, which is assigned to successfully complete this humungous enterprise, is a very patchy and poor design of evolution. This immensely restrictive and somewhat ‘Scammed’ body-mind plexus, especially the precariously presumptuous Brain States, which ensembles and makes emerge this media of consciousness, probably is not designed to handle such a vastly tough task. Or, probably, the objective, holistic knowledge of reality is too colossal and its true cognition is too massively unsettling for the genius of consciousness to handle successfully. At least; to present a brave and resolved façade to Reality, one needs the strength of evolved Consciousness and Non-Intuitive Cognition to lead the Intellect for a semblance of a battle with Reality. This comes only through painful Internalization of Reality. Given; the milieus, both internal and external, are not only non-facilitative; rather, always presenting the unscrupulous occasions to unsettle and unseat a somewhat undeserving enterprise to hit the poise…

Reality is unraveled in layers and in dimensions. The scientific knowledge and evolved objectivity, which this knowledge installs in consciousness, leads me far beyond my own restrictive cultural mind consciousness. It unravels the Reality about One Life and lays bare the futility and hypocrisy of old-archaic-obsolete cultural ideas about human life and divinity et al. This sure is empowering and helps a lot in optimizing the potential of mind consciousness in understanding holism of reality in its mesmerizing diversity. But, this reality then journeys into a domain where new cognitions of unsettling reality confront the consciousness, for which it is not trained. The untrained mind consciousness has no wherewithal to handle such self-negating and cataclysmic cognitions about the brute objectivity of reality as well as the nothingness of beingness. Years of education and bravery of so-called confidence of worldly attainments and successes fall flat. The mind consciousness needs Knowledge of completely different dimension to facilitate the mind consciousness a chance to stand tall. This knowledgeis the ‘personal internalization’ of ‘Information’, through the dialectical process of unlearning-learning-unlearning, powered by the energy of skepticism and self-negation, into all layers of Consciousness. This novel and alternative mind training is purely individual enterprise; nobody helps; nobody can; only Knowledgehelps; it alone can…

It is like; when I am stupidly happy and intellectually at peace with my intuitive acceptances; like earth is all that is and the Sun revolves around it, et al; I am in the animalistic domain, where my ‘joys’ as well as ‘pains’ are contextedand sourced from this Primary Cognition. However, when I accept a non-intuitive thinking and start to accept and internalize the objective scientific realities of our planetary system, the galaxies, the black holes, the threshold of universe that is around 90 billion light years apart, et al; the cultural core of my animalistic and intuitive consciousness gets cracked up and begins to melt. The novel cognitions that the new realities begin to install in my now melted old and archaic consciousness creates a new Self or ‘I’ in me. This is unsettling as it shatters the convenience and comfort of my ‘settled’ consciousness and status quoist cognition. But, this is just the beginning.

The progression of new objective scientific knowledge and its mesmerizing journey is orgasmic and addictive. Then comes the catalytic and cathartic realities of quantum world, super string theories, ontology and epistemology of forces, dimensions, energy, sub-particles, et al. More cultural and cognitive walls of my old and archaic consciousness crumble and the nothingness begins to fill in; the vacuum begins to orchestrate the song and dance of its scary oscillations. The journey is infinite… There is no stopping, no short sojourn to rest. The path-breaking knowledge pool of consciousness, through the prism of quantum physics-biology, informatics, neuro-science, microbiology, et al, beckons me and everything that was ‘Me’ or ‘I’, for last many decades, collapses and falls flat. This nothingness, which storms and blows up the old and archaic consciousness and cognition, is hugely vast and tough to handle.

It is humungous enterprise to put this huge and diversified knowledge into a linear and ‘Causal’ perspective for optimum internalization. This internalization, when it happens, is definitively magical and hugely satisfying. But then, it leaves the new Self or ‘I’ in a state of complete non-beingness, for which the brain states and its faculties are not trained beforehand. This mind training to strike peace and poise with the new reality and cognition is hugely challenging. Just when you think, ‘I’ have arrived, new pathways are created and novel journeys shatter your ‘arrived’ pride and possession…

As is known to everyone; Knowledge has similar trajectory of journey and arriving. The first stage of knowledge is hugely Unsettling. When you first know and realize how it is what it is, the primary accrual is consternation and destabilization. Knowledge begins by exposition of problems and troubles in all its dimensions and shades. This is like opening the door and getting blown up by gush of trapped energy of realism. This is unsettling also in the sense that most people get Stuck in the magnitude and Complexities of the first stage of trouble-exposition and begin to look for solace and support from spiritualism, psychology or philosophy to ‘escape’ from the acceptance of the reality. It is another dimension of ‘Ignorance Is Bliss’. Some also develop sense of egoism and pride that they now know the reality and therefore they are Free-Willedto lead their ‘Post-Reality Life’ not bothered by other shades and aspects of reality that others have.

The true journey begins only after this stage. The next stage is unraveling the elements that constitute the vastness and complexities of troubles. This stage of knowledge is the doorstep for arriving at true wisdom. When we persist and keep journeying the knowledge trajectory with innocence and compassion, not allowing ego and escapism to divert the journey ahead, we move onto this next stage of deciphering the genetics of the problems and troubles and Reality in its Entirety. This is the domain of Non-Intuitiveness. As we do this, we come to understand and accept that what we intuitively construed as Problemsthemselves have elements of Solutions, when perceptioned with a non-intuitive cognition. The Realities of all shades are linked in cyclicality. The causalities of cosmic realities are all cooperatively connecting and linked. The knowledge of Holism of Reality unravels this ‘Magic’ to a non-intuitive mind consciousness. Rather, in the final stage of the trajectory of knowledge, we clearly see that problems and solutions have the same constituting elements and only difference is cognitive – that is how we observe and accept them arranged and situationed in our life and living. This then facilitates all solutions, all sanities, order, poise and then begins our infinite journey to bliss and wellness…

… It is for sure, it is not something, which happens to me only. My brain states and mind consciousness are not unique. It is what 7.5 billion people on earth have. This has also not been beginning to happen only now. It is described in ancient Buddhist literary traditions that around 2500 years back, when Buddha attained enlightenment, the first lines he said was – ‘The walls of the house I lived in are now shattered and collapsed.’ What Buddha actually said or didn’t say cannot be verified but what the traditions accept him saying, clearly means that even thousands of years back, there was this consciousness, which accepted that Reality, when unraveled and deciphered in its holism and when true and objective knowledge of Reality dawns upon the surface of intellect, the walls of existing intuitive Reality, which stands as the ‘House of Illusion’ collapses and falls flat. What Buddha did after his enlightenment is known to all. He chose not to speak as probably what he understood was exclusively personal and not amenable to language. The consciousness is a massively potent window but language as the media of expression of consciousness is very restrictive and susceptible to misunderstanding. Buddha definitely understood – Words are most probable design to carry the culpability of unintended and un-conscientious violence. However, he was urged by his followers to speak and as he spoke, five of his closest disciples left him. Even today, when Buddhism is popular, most followers have failed him and what they do in the name of Buddha is definitively not what Buddha believed and preached. It is primarily because for an average untrained mind, it is impossible to understand what Buddha meant and what enlightenment seeks. The intuitiveness can never ever be the tool and technique to unravel and decipher the elements of reality in non-intuitive domain. The untrained mind therefore corrupts and mystifies a reality as it has the perpetual love for Illusion, which is Reality for average mind consciousnesses…

It sure raises a critical question – is humanity ready for knowledge of reality in its entirety and holism, which is now available to humanity but still not popular and restricted to a very small minority of scientists and aware people. It sure shall reach gradually; though vitiated and ritualized, and average human mind is so untrained to handle it. Already, half the humanity is finding it tough to handle the new conflicts and chaos the modern contemporary life-living has exposed people to. In the new millennium, we live in a very complex world with contemporary milieus filled with conflicting and competing shades of memes of realities. Mental disorders and mind debilitations are already posing as mounting challenge for wellness and poise of larger humanity. An average untrained mind is not poised to handle such complexities and diversity of illusions of reality. What shall happen when finally, the mass majority of people will have to confront the brute reality about existence, life-living and human body-mind realities? The new knowledge shall drastically alter the contemporary cultures, as it already has started to do, and then, the contemporary human mind with all its mediocrity and depravity shall be in for disaster. The early pink hue of the inevitable dawn of impending disaster is already on the horizon. A discerning mind, armed with non-intuitive cognition can see it coming…

This enterprise, this eBook, very compassionately and affectionately invites you to venture into a ‘journey’ of this tough terrain of ‘Internalization’ domain and processes. We accept that our intellect and the consciousness, which engenders it, are powerful media yet very insufficient because the REALITY is so colossal, diverse and the Internalization of Knowledge for lasting peace and poise is hugely tough. This humility makes our journey possible. This fills us with compassion, which alone qualifies us as humans. This humility makes us accept the cosmic duty that evolution bestowed on us by assigning humans the mesmerizing marvel of mind consciousness…

Together, in equal partnership and equal investment of all faculties that are available to our media of consciousnesses, we intend to traverse those issues, ideas, questions and probable answers, which humanity has not yet bothered to deal with. The Intellect shall delve into holism of available scientific and objective knowledge but we shall have to accept that intellect has to be evolved and matured to a level of conscious positioning and cognition, which opens up and makes possible a rather critical element of ‘Non-Intuitive Thinking’ and perceptional acceptances. We are intentionally dropping the use of the term ‘Counterintuitive’ and using the word Non-Intuitive, because, the former necessarily means opposite of Intuitiveness, whereas, the later is not necessarily one but a holism of both. Intuitiveness also has utility and we surely cannot label it as something always detrimental to consciousness. We must never miss the magic and marvel of Holism; non-intuitiveness is about this assimilation…

Much of the contemporary objective and holistic knowledge of humanity has come primarily through this core and cardinal tool of non-intuitive thinking. Sadly, average person is never trained to acquire this tool. More tragic is the fact that most of us even do not ever think, mind training is required to unravel and decipher big part of the holism of Reality. We are not even told, it is some eligibility for good life-living. Reality in its holism is available for deciphering and unraveling only through these cognitive processes. Thankfully, contemporary science has empowered us with this required knowledge for larger and deeper wellness. This eBook primarily pertains to the realm of Non-Intuitiveness of 3Cs – Consciousness, Cognition and Causalities…

Give me your hand; do kindly feel the warmth of trust and genuine objectivity and scientific sincerity. We are beginning a journey, not with the avowed purpose of arriving as we most humbly accept; arriving probably is beyond the genius of our restrictive and scammed consciousness and the journey itself is infinite. The journey traverses through landscapes filled with alternative and novel ideas, realities, awareness, purposes, utilities et al. Journeying itself is incredible invite to the feel of worthiness of Holism. Together, we shall travel, together we shall doubt, witness and experiment; together we test the validity of an alternative possibility, together we arrive; wherever possible…

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In classical musical tradition; may be also in all other forms of Art and expression of human thoughts, there is a stage of finality of rendering, where the grammar and Syntactic Disciplineof artfulness and exposition loses its primary and cardinal relevance. What remains of singular and lasting utility and worth is the Innocence of the artist and Honestyof art. The only weight that is felt by listeners and audience is that of the uniqueness of Melted Individuality, which the performer transports to the consciousnesses of the audience. This is Emergence – the Physics entering a Dimension where probably its structural plexus remains hidden as ‘roots under soil’ and the feel of functionality blossoms above as fruit-laden tree.

I, for sure, can never reach to such a stage of finality in my journey as a confabulator. However, this is what I cherish and seek. With all humility and compassionate honesty at my behest, I wish to assure you; I have been a sincere student of ‘The Art’, since last 54 years and shall keep my persevered learning and unlearning processes, till death, on this avowed journey of artfulness of life-living in general and writing in particular. Nobody can be greater than the Art but, the audience, in their compassionate acceptance, sure can encourage the artist for the sake of art itself. I write, because you are; a magnanimous consciousness. Thanks…

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Billions of men and women in the past, billions ahead; infinite years in the past and may be, infinite times ahead… The awesomeness of this ‘infinite’ however, is ‘Zero’, sans the advent of consciousness of ‘I’ – Mine and yours. This messy, incredibly fragile, amazingly conflicted and dreadfully ephemeral ‘bubble’ of Consciousness is, however, the brilliantly mesmerizing probabilistic ‘Window’ of endless Realities. The media of consciousness, which engenders the perceptional plexus of Cognition, knows deep down that most of these ‘Realities’ are brilliant but only a handful of them are ‘Happy’ ones.

The legendary poet, Meer mentioned about ephemeral existence and its flamboyantly illusionist positioning in a very famous poetry centuries back –

Hasti Apni Habab Ki Si Hai…

Ye Numaish Sharab Ki Si Hai…

(My existence and beingness is like a bubble, the exhibition of individuality however, is like the liquor…)

The innate and instinctive consciousness and its generic cognition is stupidly designed to understand and accept many a realities as hugely useful and empowering, as they always feel like the ‘happy ones’, but actually and eventually are calamitous for life-living wellness. In Indian philosophical traditions, ‘intuitive utility’ has been equated with an Itch, which all of us are ‘Happy’ scratching; though being fully aware that it shall always end in painfulness, bruised skin and blood stained hands. This ‘happy’ Predilectionand innate Bias towards most realities the media of consciousness accepts, is painfully restrictive one. Realities need never be understood and accepted through the prism of ‘Happy Preferentiality’. Rather, most realities, as they present themselves to the intuitiveness of the media of consciousness, are essentially Value-Neutral – neither good nor bad; neither happy nor sad. They are objective causalities or the cognitive effects of causalities, which the vast and variegated milieus, ambient to us or otherwise expansive, present to us.

Consciousness, as a probabilistic ‘Window’, as a media to unravel realities, is a huge gift. A rather disastrously scammed yet mesmerizing media or window! This media is Innately Scammed; assigned to painfulness and conflicted conflations by very design. The media of consciousness has to be understood, accepted with scientifically objective and holistic parameters of contemporary knowledge. This media needs to be trained to Unlearnarchaic, instinctive and obsolete auto-alignment to culturally installed and perpetuated ideas of good, bad, right, wrong and happy and sad. Once unlearning happens, the window throws up the brilliantly empowering shades of realities and their utility-worth in life-living wellness and excellence.

Rather, contrary to the ‘happy preferentiality’ about life-living realities, the consciousness must accept the universality and transcendence of Grief. Grief is the most potent energy of Creation. It is the primeval Causality of eternal Evolution. All Marvels of world are deep and embedded expressions of Grief and Pain. Grief is the portal of the singular element as eligibility to being human – Compassion. Sadly, only a handful can truly realize and internalize Grief to miraculous Revelation. The innate and intuitive Happy Preferentiality of untrained and un-evolved mind consciousness restricts ‘Grief-Acceptance’. Most people have the upfront and ever-ready ‘Bouncers’ of Denial and Deception to prevent the entry of grief-aligned compassion. Tragically; Marvels become tools to deny Grief itself. When Grief is denied; Compassion gets eclipsed and Reality stands mystified. Humanity is genius in Enterprise of Denial and Deception of Reality. This is biggest ‘Unlearning’. Together, we do it, together we partner in this enterprise here and right now…

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The very sense or feel of ‘Self’ or what we know as ‘I’, the mystical ‘Me’ is largely, if not exclusively, in relation to the milieus outside, not within. Our constant yet ever-changing interactions with our ambient external milieus largely define our Generic Consciousness – this very feel of ‘I’. There are vast Mechanismic interactional processes within our body and mind but they are almost largely not in the Conscious Domain. We are simply unaware of it. Innumerable neural and chemical processes are taking place within the body and mind every second but we never feel it; though they surely have their role and impact on shaping our subconscious, even conscious. Most of these processes are common in not only all humans but also most organisms and they happen for Homeostaticgoals.

Therefore, for most practical purposes, the Self, the ‘I’ is almost purely ‘Contextual’ to the ‘Externalities’ of the world of Reality; especially the populist and trending parts of the cultures of ambient milieus. Therefore, we can say with definitive certainty that our Consciousness– the sense of Self or ‘I’, is Emergent, Transient, Evolving and Dialectical registry of EXTERNAL milieus, probably, expressed as analogous holographic representation of the field of massively complex information plexus.

What does this mean to us? What this modern, contemporary scientific assertion of Realityof ‘I’ or Consciousness Requires us to understand and accept, as against our Intuitivethinking and perception about our ‘Self’ or ‘I’? What this scientifically objective Reality necessitates to change or even reconstruct our Old, Archaic and now Redundant view about Self or ‘I’?

This is the core question, which the new humanity must understand and accept. This seeks to upstage our current perceptions, which we innately and intuitively make of ourselves. This installs with definitive certainty that we all need to evolve Non-Intuitive thinking and cognition to accept a completely unpopular yet Novel Reality of Self, ‘I’ or Consciousness. This intuitive perception of ‘I’ is an Illusion and the contemporary scientific knowledge of consciousness tells us why? It tells us about the mechanism and processes of body-brain plexus, which engenders consciousness. It tells us that because of these very mechanisms and processes, we all are born as confused, conflicted and in Perpetuation of Illusion of the unique nature. The consciousness is always transient and emergent and that is why constantly changes its locus, commensurate to external Information. However, as these processes are largely unconscious and subconscious; and our body and physicality of external milieus seem constant, we do not have the registry of it. This creates the dualism and conflict of our intuitive feel of ‘I’ being in one situation or perception, whereas our subconscious keeps altering its situation and cognition. Most people somehow realize this dualism and conflict of ‘I’, only as an afterthought or realization in retrospection. They feel; things happened; I led it to, but should not have happened. Simple reason is – the subconscious is designed to ‘react’ instinctively to external information or situation. Most people being in auto-mode reactionary consciousness, simply do what the situations call for. However, later, when conscious thoughtfulness broods over it, some of them may feel, they were ‘led’ to act and behave in a way, they should not have. They feel the ‘conflict’ of ‘I’. Most do not. This Scammed reality of Self or ‘I’; this wired and entrenched dualism or conflict, which keeps most of us Illusioned has to be understood and accepted…

Given this assertion of Reality about the Consciousness, as a Media that is designed to find its Existential Trappings largely in response to information feedbacks from External Milieus, we can clearly see and accept how every human being has some sort of an innate and entrenched potential to be a ‘Slave’ to its society and cultures. This somehow presents a predicament as well as a probable trouble that Consciousness and its so called Free Will and cognition is not independent; rather in perpetual Shacklesof its immediate milieus and dominant cultures. Naturally, Reality, for every individual human may not be independent and objective as it shall always be susceptible to be ‘conditioned’ and ‘colored’ by the very ‘Localized’ shades and shapes of its populist and powerful External Milieus. This somehow makes the agenda clear for every human being and his or her consciousness. Reality has to be confronted only with a De-Cultured mind and for this to happen, one has to ‘Unlearn’ the cultural and milieu-specific cognitions. The embedded and ensconced ‘Localization’ of Consciousness has to be understood and then pruned and unlearnt very consciously. The ‘Cage’, which enslaves the Consciousness by restricting (localizing) its cognition of Holistic Reality, has to be broken and shackles removed. As we talked earlier, an evolved person has to understand the ‘field’ of intuitiveness, its restrictiveness and then look beyond in the field of non-intuitiveness to perfect the artistry of Holism or Reality in Entirety.

The objectivity and independence of Consciousness therefore, is not an Auto-Process; it has to be attained and arrived at, after aware and intended processes of Reverse-Learning. Slavery and Caging of Consciousnessis in fact the entrenched auto-process of all minds. The evolution designed it this way for bare basics but humans now have the evolved brain and cosmopolitanized life-living milieus and also, the life-living agenda of humans is now not Survivalbut Excellence and wisdom. This auto-process needs to be unlearnt and reversed for the consciousness to see, understand and accept Reality in its true, objective and independent shape and hues; through an evolved Non-Intuitive Cognition to optimize the Potential, the consciousness can lead to.

The Agendafor new millennium humans is to be non-intuitively Aware of the twin processes – first the Internal processes of body and brain, which the contemporary science has so brilliantly deciphered for us. Secondly, awareness of the larger, cosmic, holistic, objective and integrated Reality of the External world – the matter, the energy, the new emerging and brilliantly critical idea of Information as reality et al. The contemporary science has transformed the Reality we humans have accepted so far and made the basis of our popular and persevered cultures. The new transformed human consciousness, with novel critical knowledge shall have to Reconstruct the existing cultures and civilizational benchmarks. Somehow, Change is too insufficient as it may not usher in the required quantity and quality of transformation in the domains of individual life-living, cultures and other human systems. This status quo has probably lingered too long; piling up the backlog of changes, which humanity should have brought about decades back. Also, the calamitous probabilities of entropic energies currently unleashed in contemporary human world are too powerful to be remedied by anything less than a complete Reconstruction. It is time for New Evolution. It is now; or never…

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However best you look at it, you cannot visualize the Earth revolving around the Sun. The Sun rising, moving east to west and setting before the bare eyes is what we all see and subconsciously accept that Sun revolves around the Earth. That is why all humans readily agreed to ‘kill’ the man, who first proposed the ‘reverse’ of it as Reality. You simply cannot visualize that what you see as Reality is only a poor and restrictive representation of the neural mapping of your brain states, inside your head.

There are facts, objective and scientifically proven realities, which average person with his or her innate and entrenched intuitive perceptional faculties simply cannot understand and accept. They are beyond average cognition. So, the earth at the equator moves at a massive speed of around a 1000 miles per hour but a person living near the equator never ever shall accept that anything around him is moving, let alone at this high speed. Our solar system is also moving at a huge speed of 828,000 kilometers per hour. The whole universe is on the move. Yet, we all, stationed and standing still on earth, never feel any movement. These realities are not available to normal cognitive faculties. If we ever wish to understand these realities, we shall have to evolve a non-intuitive thinking and cognition. The tough and long journey of science, undertaken by our brilliant predecessors and contemporary scientists has become possible only because, they had the non-intuitive awareness of a possible, alternative reality, which the average illusion-savvy brain could not. The best of all is the quantum physics, which epitomizes how human potential can break free of all barriers of restrictive intuitive cognition and venture into something that defies impossibility…

The trouble, with all humans, is that very often, Reality in its objectivity, entirety and holism is Non-Intuitive. This means – it is intuitive to accept Sun as a moving thing and Earth as stationary. Intuitive thinking and spontaneous instinctive acceptance of what we see is what comes innately to us. It is only very natural and subjectively the perfect honesty to believe what the bare eyes can see or the brain plexus makes us feel. The trouble is – a large part of Reality is beyond the reach and sufficiency of our innate intuitive thinking and perceptions. The non-intuitiveness of Reality in its holism and colossal expanse is what we all need to open ourselves to. It is not something only the scientists should be adorned with. Every single human being has to evolve this brilliant faculty of non-intuitive thinking and cognition. This alone can Optimizethe Potential every human being is born with. If not, then a human is worse than an animal. Most of our contemporary Troubles at personal or collective levels are because of the singular fact that vast majority of humanity never attains its optimal potential as human; happily remaining slaved in the cage of intuitive stupidities and hypocrisies.

It is such a tragic state of contemporary human societies and cultures, even in 21stcentury that over 80 percent of this huge 7.5 billion human population on earth lives and dies, struggling for whole of their lives to sustain and survive themselves. The livelihood enterprise and survival necessities make them stand no better than animals. This sure is not the Destiny of Humanity. This definitely is not the avowed optimization of potential of a human life-living and its superior Consciousness. Massive majority of humans do not have the right education, enough resources, facilitative milieus and required time-space to even think of a alternative, novel and higher Purpose of life-living; especially the need of knowledge to unravel reality in its holism. The human societies and cultures have been Stinkingand Rotting marketplace of abject Mediocrity and non-conscientious Depravity; they still are. It is equally tragic that a handful of humans use this vast majority of uninitiated and enslaved human bulk of over 80 percent global population as feedstock/fodder for the attainment of their personal political and economic ambitions and greed. In such a contemporary culture of humanity, who cares for reality and who pays even a penny for reconstructing the human system for a humane culture of excellence, based on new scientific knowledge of Reality, Humanity and Reality of Humanity? When ignorance, slavery and survival become a profitable Political Capital, why should the ‘leadership’ of humanity ever invest in anything else? So far, there have been very few instances of political tribe thinking and acting beyond their personal profitability and continuance of power…

It is therefore only natural that contemporary human world remains culturally Animalistic in its structures and Brutal in its functionalities. Tragically enough, majority of humans remain worse than animals with their instinctive and entrenched intuitiveness and localized subjective realities. Developing and sustaining a non-intuitive thinking and perception about the cosmic Reality is the toughest thing to do for we humans. Because, it is something, we are not designed for. We have to do loads of hard work to evolve this non-intuitive thinking and perception. Scientists can do it as they are trained with lots of painful practice and perseverance. There are interesting stories of how budding scientists are trained about non-intuitive thinking by their seniors and academic institutions. However, where is the time, energy, inclination and initiation for the mass majority to even think of any other work than survival; let alone mind training and hard work?

Evolving non-intuitiveness is like Negatingyour own Self – assigning your entire existentialism to a spectrum of skepticism. It is like denying your innate and instinctive Self to allow the emergence and maturity of a new ‘Self’, which you have never known and accepted and which has the wherewithal for rising above the restrictive ‘intuitiveness’ of consciousness. Knowledge and wisdom is largely about evolving and mastering the Art and Science of non-intuitive thought processes and cognitions. It is tough but it begins with acceptance of the ‘Unlearning’ process and self-negation, which we have mentioned above. This novel process and new journey is tough but we simply cannot wish it away. If I keep sleeping till noon; the morning cannot wait to happen! It is Option-less to rise up, as and when the dawn happens and beckons us…

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The three dimensions of unconscious, subconscious and conscious of human brain plexus engender the sense of personal and subjective self. Almost every human being has the varied mix of the three dimensions and depending on effectiveness of each dimension and which dimension is predominant, a person’s individuality or personality is defined and decided. The unconscious is purely organismic, subconscious is largely animalistic and only the conscious has elements, which we can say is human.

Scientifically speaking, most men and women are dominated by the unconscious and subconscious, with conscious dimension coming into use very rarely and that too in fleeting moments. Most average men and women have almost 98 percent of their lives decided by their unconscious and subconscious mind states – this auto-mode action-reaction mechanism and processes, wired in brain states. Only 2 percent is aware and conscious mind state action, thoughts and choices. Even this awareness is not always sufficient enough and available to lead a person to what we know as Free Will. Many scientists anyway insist; free will is a misnomer. This probably hints at the dark reality that majority of humans are almost at par with animals. The Free Will being there but as restrictive and conflated as that of higher animals.

There is a fourth dimension of evolved and empowered Higher Consciousness, which is not automatically available by birth but added/evolved by a handful of men and women, making good use of their conscious faculties of mind states. Spiritualism has been advocating in favor of evolution of this fourth dimension of higher consciousness, which is considered a must for lasting wellness of life-living. This fourth dimension is considered to be an evolution out of the rest of the three dimensions and therefore works as ‘Witness’ to the actions of the three. We shall talk about it later in this eBook. Naturally, being an objective witness, the fourth dimension is considered to be a potentially good ‘Judge’ of the personal and subjective stupidities and hypocrisies, the three dimensions indulge in. This dimension having elements of ‘organization and planning’ is essentially about evolution of awareness domain and optimizing its potential.

There is also a Fifth Dimension of awareness and consciousness. It is very rare. It is hugely difficult to describe this fifth dimension of self or existence. It can be described as ‘Nothingness’ of Everythingness and is restricted and reserved to a very few, who have the mind mechanism-structure of high spatial sense and faculties. This fifth dimension happens when rest of the four dimensions cease to happen. This means – when nothingness becomes everything; when the vacuum engulfs all spaces and itself becomes the singular identity, this fifth dimension happens. It is like, when you close all doors, windows and vents, you can listen to the soft and serene music playing inside a room, which is there but lost in cacophony of external sounds…

As all these dimensions are essentially Mind States, not segregated or stratified as it may seem; it is almost impossible to describe and define them through words. Our brilliant neuroscientists are however working endlessly to unravel the working of brain to decipher how all these happen. There are hypotheses about these different mind states, which we shall not talk about here as it may divert our focus. You may know about them as they are easily available in public domains. So; barring the unconscious and subconscious, rest of the three dimensions are epiphanic, ephemeral and transient. Awareness itself is like a ‘Spark’ that comes and goes fast. It is like the neural firings lighting up and creating an ephemeral holographic imagery, vanishing in quick time. It is like a neural assemblage, happening in definitive probability and then withering away. The fifth dimension of nothingness however is the most crucial dimension as probably, it is in this mind state, the consciousness actually loses its innate and instinctive self and thus becomes amenable for non-intuitive cognition. This fifth dimension therefore is considered perfectly fit for unraveling many such objective and holistic Realities, which one can do only with non-intuitive thinking. This fifth dimension of consciousness and aware life-living is best suited to de-culture the mind and imbibe the somethingness of the nothingness. Culture, populist choices and embedded intuitiveness are embedded deep in the subconscious. They always present the subjectivity shade of an objective reality. Non-intuitiveness is needed to prune and de-culture the subconscious instinctiveness. The innate and instinctive mind state of average men and women, with unconscious and subconscious dominating their cognition and choices, is hugely restrictive to understand and accept most Realities. Their innate and instinctive ‘intuitiveness’ fails them and they cannot see and understand reality in its holism and everythingness. This intuitiveness must first be ‘unlearnt’. The fifth dimension of nothingness actually epitomizes the perfect preparedness and readiness of non-intuitiveness of consciousness.

The big trouble is; the additional fourth and fifth dimensions of self and existence are not automatically available by birth to everyone. Only handfuls have the inborn brain type and personal enterprise in later lives to arrive at these additional dimensions. As intuitive thinking and cognition is in absolute majority; with over 90 percent people on the earth living with it; the minority non-intuitiveness shall always be disliked and doubted by majority. In fact, most would label the fifth dimension non-intuitiveness as madness and would even wish to ‘kill’ them. Mass majority of humans therefore disbelieve science and even hate them. Science too has its ‘culpability’, which we shall talk about later. The innate and intuitively populist idea is – What I cannot fathom, presents the best excuse to label that as unworthy.Intuitive worthiness cannot overreach comfort of status quo.

The entire deliberation in this eBook hovers around the non-intuitive Realities. This presupposes a quantum of ‘nothingness’ of average, populist and culturally pervasive intuitiveness. This is a content of intents and essence of the fifth dimension. Naturally, it shall first seek to engulf everything within the expanding vacuum of nothingness. It shall be unsettling. But then, the good thing is – once you accept the basic premise that Reality in its holism requires an approach and cognition, which is beyond our normal perceptional domains, we can journey together.

Once you compassionately agree to have faith in what I am proposing, you shall enjoy the journey. The agreeable position for any doubting mind is to lend latitude to a probability to unfold itself and present a hypothesis. You always have the option and choice not to accept them or change them to your suitability. A compassionate and assimilative attitude towards something antithetical to personal/subjective beliefs and faith is what non-intuitiveness calls for. I humbly urge you to let this hypothesis unfurl and present novel probabilities. It is a journey worth taking. There are novelties awaiting you at the completion of the journey. These may enable you to have your own personal journeys of infinite wellness and successes in life ahead; irrespective of whether you accept them or not…

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A cancer of the body evolves and matures in months and we are never aware of it. There are millions of body-mind processes going on in our body and mind every passing second and we are never aware of most of them. This happens as most of these processes are handled by our unconscious and subconscious mind states. These processes are not available to our conscious or ‘aware’ mind state. Naturally, what we all consider as Free Will – the so-called conscious and aware ‘choices’, we make, considered ‘independent’ of the external as well as internal circumstances of milieus and body respectively, may not actually be ‘Free’ and the ‘Will’ may not be independent.

Many scientists doubt the very existence and reality of the Free Will. We may say, they may exist, as epiphanous, ephemeral and fleeting moments of conscious awareness but the Free Will, as we popularly understand it and expect it to be something all humans are adorned with, is almost a chimera and abstracted reality.

Simply speaking, ‘aware’ life-living is a huge misnomer, for vast majority of humans. Simply speaking, our brain is not probably designed for it. But yes; only hard work and perseverance of self-discipline and self-exploration can engender a semblance of Free Will for a handful of humans. Free Will, even if it becomes available to few, shall always remain epiphanous, ephemeral and fleeting reality.

However, it needs to be understood that ‘awareness’ and what we term as Free Will mode of consciousness, is not something we need to be perpetually in. Being aware and in possession of Free Will resource is just a tool, a weapon or a Media, which we require, when needed. For that matter, every layer or shade of consciousness is a media and also ephemeral and transient. But then; you don’t always keep swaying your sword or gun. You rarely draw it out and use it very sparingly, when in acute need of self-defense or protective aggression. Free Will or evolved awareness of consciousness is a tool and a medium like a sword or gun. You need to have it, but not always flaunt it. The unconscious and subconscious processes are sort of permanent and continuous as they handle the perpetual body-mind homeostatic processes, generic to all. The conscious layers are evolution out of the same mind state and are available as a media for ‘specific’ and specialized roles. It is a ‘learning’ how to use the media of higher consciousness for non-intuitive cognitions of different shades of realities. The primary thing is that we should understand Free Will or awareness, with scientific mind, learn to master its use and utility, not getting confused about it and use it like a sword, gun or any other media. We shall keep coming back to this very useful idea of Free Will in this eBook. As part of our preparedness to our further journey in this eBook, this clarity about the nature and scope of Free Will reality shall facilitate our understanding of non-intuitiveness and how alternative and novel models of wellness and purposes can be arrived at…

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If I cannot understand something, even in the language I have spoken and evolved with for years, it is not always the trouble of the language or insufficiencies of it. It may well be rather, the trouble and insufficiencies of my consciousness and cognition. Language is the Media of expression and communication of consciousness. As modern science says, consciousness is a ‘Representation’ of the plexus of information the brain states processes, which the senses feed to the brain states; along with the memories of the experiences. Similarly, language is also a ‘representation’ of information we take in and take out. Naturally, understanding and optimal cognition depends primarily on efficacy and brilliance of evolved consciousness. Effectiveness of linguistic skills is like silver linings.

Somehow, it seems, even a poor and insufficient Media of language can very well carry and transfer the intent of the content; poor and insufficient consciousness however, may never. Language is the ‘media’ of the Media – a vehicle for consciousness. The primary Media must be sound and sufficient. There have been greats in human history, who had little or no formal education and training of language and other craft. Yet, they were brilliant in communicating the intent of their evolved consciousness and had instant connect with masses. Even in and around us, we can see how even highly educated and brilliant speakers have very little or no quality in their intents and emotional connect.

It is a tragedy of contemporary humanity that in modern educational system, there is very little or no understanding and acceptance of this symbiotic relationship between language and consciousness. The education should essentially be designed to facilitate a child evolve his or her consciousness in non-intuitive domains and use the linguistic skills as a fluid-facilitative ‘media’ to express the excellence of intent of the contents of consciousness. Holism of education still eludes humanity. Consciousness of a child and its augmentation is largely at the mercy of inattentive parents, uncaring family and precarious peer groups, whereas education is imparted in schools of mediocre credentials. This process of holistic ‘learning’ has to start early for a child and this involves not only schools but parents, families and ambient cultures. Sadly enough, primary schooling syllabus globally are in experimental quandary and parents-family seldom extend their roles and support to the needs of child. It is only natural that a modern child grows up usually with a conflated consciousness and abstracted language. The ‘specificity’ of ‘representational’ roles is confused and has its impact on the popular cultures we have.

Essentially, we need to focus on the fact that as we see external Reality as a ‘representation’ of the neuro-chemical mapping engendered inside the brain plexus; similarly the language is also a ‘representation’ of a ‘Reality’, which the same brain states create. The structural and functional faculties and plexuses must be strong and sufficient for this ‘representation’ to be good and right. It is not only about language; all realities we see and feel being ‘representations’, their actualization in optimal quality and quantity depends primarily on the strength and sufficiency of consciousness; the Emergent, Transient, Evolving and Dialectical registry of the brain states. Consciousness itself is the media of body-brain reality and the language being the ‘media’ of the Media of consciousness, we must first fix the issues with primary media of consciousness. This seldom happens and most kids are either very poor in this ‘representational’ tasks or have good linguistic skills but poor media of consciousness. The trouble is manifested in the conflict-confusion-chaos of cultures. The psychologists love to give them the name of a syndrome and parents-family feel acquitted of their ‘culpability’ by blaming it on the ‘disease’. Denial, deception and depravity comes natural to most humans as these tools pave way to install Shamelessness– the foolproof guarantee of imminent success. The plexus of profitability is happy preying on stupidities.

Often, generic as well as specific and conscientious as well as non-conscientious stupidities and hypocrisies find expression and meanings through the language we speak. However, they belong largely to and owned majorly by the insufficiencies of the consciousness. Almost always, it does not require a genius to gauge and decide how good or bad is the knowledge base and upbringing of a person by the content of the language he or she speaks and the way he or she presents them. The brilliance of the Media cannot cover up the deficiency and depravity of its Master – the Consciousness.

This symbiosis between consciousness and language is critical element of wellness of an individual as well as cultures. If humans pretend to be far superior to higher animals in many ways, language happens to be one huge parameter of excellence, segregating humans from animals. Naturally, we humans need to understand the mechanism and processes of linguistic science in detail. The ontology and epistemology of language and its symbiotic relationship with consciousness must be understood in detail for larger wellness. This must also be made part of the educational and learning spectrum of children in later years of schooling. We shall keep coming back to the idea of language and deliberate about it in detail later in this eBook. We shall rather include a ‘possibility’ about this symbiosis, which may prove a facilitative knowledge for empowerment and wellness.

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Many times more, people die and are debilitated by climate change, pollution, lifestyle wrongs and cultural, especially populist political choices but we never accept it, as deaths, deprivations and devastations happen in long run and seldom in front of our eyes. Intuitively, we accept something only when it happens in short run and in our immediate, localized and ambient milieus. Reality for most is like that – Localized and Intuitive. The Covid pandemic menace and the death, deprivation and devastations happened quickly and we all could see them happening all around us. The world over, most people accepted the Covid devastation as true, real and hugely impacting Reality. However, compared to the deaths and miseries the climate changes, pollutions, lifestyle wrongs and cultural choices, political-administrative mediocrity and depravity etc heap on humanity every passing day, the Corona devastation is like peanuts.

We all were shocked and cried in unison for quick remedies and corrections of the Covid pandemic but majority of people are never convinced about the colossal losses humanity faces every year because of above reasons, as we never accept them as true and real. This is because of our poor and restrictive body-mind design. We are armed innately only with intuitive thinking and perceptions. We are not designed to see and perceive the vastness and holism of that part of Reality, which is available for perception only through non-intuitive thinking, which we have talked about earlier.

The human trouble and its Reality have to be understood and solved only through the holism of non-intuitive thinking. We are not innately designed for it. We have to evolve our consciousness to that level of wisdom. We take a painkiller pill and the pain goes away. However, this pill cannot correct the source of the pain. It is intuitive to feel and accept the pain only and feel ‘happy’ as it goes away by a pill. It is however the artistry and mastery of ‘non-intuitive’ thinking and perception to delve deep into diverse causalities of body-mind-milieus, which may engender the probabilities of pains. There are around 300 body-conditions, which can cause a fever. However, most of these fevers can temporarily or permanently go away by a single pill. Nobody cares, what caused the fever as the pill makes it go away. The long run of ‘causalities’ is seldom the intuitive genius of average men and women. We live and die in short run. Our survival economics has trained us to accept – ‘All worth and utilities are in short run as in the long run, we all are dead!’

We are like dust particles in the colossal expanse of the universe and therefore it is always instinctive and innate for us to see, feel and realize only the very localized and ambient milieus in which we live and move. Intuitiveness of a dust particlecannot go beyond a pebble. However, our lives are all intrinsically woven into the massive plexus of every particle of the colossal cosmos. Everything in this unimaginably vast cosmos has the potential to affect our lives as contemporary science can now very reliably tell us as how every speck of the cosmos is causally connected and part of everything else in the infinite universe. It takes this evolved and empowered non-intuitive thinking and cognitive abilities to accept the holistic Reality of human lives, the cosmos and causalities that stand us connected and unified in a singular destiny.

Humanity’s primary trouble is its restrictive and scammed ‘intuitive’ thinking and perception of Reality. Intuitively, average men and women see, accept and realize only a miniscule ‘part’ of Reality and fail to factor in the mega holism of Reality, to which all lives in the cosmos are connected and unified. It takes non-intuitive thinking to visualize the Holism of Reality. It begins with the simple and primary process of ‘Unlearning’.

When we accept this mechanismic trouble of human consciousness and factor in how we stand in the cosmic scheme of Reality, we can very clearly see how disastrous has been human journey to the present. We can see how calamitous cultures, we have created and perpetuated with zeal, which are essentially an expression of our innate stupidities-hypocrisies and Scammed Consciousness. We can see how scammed and depraved is contemporary human systems of life-living and how we are singularly responsible for the disaster we have wreaked on ourselves and yet, we are not even aware of our personal as well as collective culpability. We rather happily become inseparable part of the scammed systems and calamitous cultures. We rather celebrate our personal and collective ‘successes’, which are purely intuitive stupidities and hypocrisies. There is no short-cuts for wellness. Human systems have been a product of innate-instinctive intuitiveness and even today, when we have scientifically proven knowledge about how our own consciousness is scammed, we continue to invest in calamitous cultures and utilities-worth, which are weapons of our own self-destruction. This Cannot Be Changed; It Requires Complete Reconstruction…

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Every reality, which since inception of humanity, have been the basis of definition and acceptance of worth, utility and purposes, have now changed drastically; thanks to the contemporary knowledge of science and the reality of REALITY it has established so meticulously and almost definitively. Most of us, busy and struggling to find ways for survival and a good life-living, seldom find time and inclination to go into the details of how much and how mesmerizingly diverse knowledge modern science has created for us, which have the potential to change our lives and its quality very drastically. It has, already!

This quantum of new scientific knowledge however, means that humanity now has the express need to Redefine and Reposition its existing cultures and worldviews completely and holistically. Changes won’t be sufficient as contemporary knowledge has put up an agenda, which seeks complete and novel Reconstruction of most edifices, which humanity has held dear and working for centuries.

Modern contemporary science and the new Realties it has unraveled for us have almost entered the era of unthinkable Singularities. This means – humanity now stands in possession of such hugely empowering knowledge about Realities and causalities that engender realities that most of the Realities, which we all understood and accepted stand metamorphosed and transformed. Very naturally, this new knowledge requires humanity to dump the old realities and wisdom woven around the old and archaic realities. The new knowledge has perfectly exposed the stupidities and hypocrisies of the existing and practicing realities. There is no choice left with humanity to accept a completely new Reality and reconstruct a new wisdom around this newly established scientific Reality. This requires non-intuitive thinking and perception in the part of average men and women. It begins with this easy and inevitable process of unlearning. It is optionless. We do it right and now; or we all continue to rot in devastation and debility and eventually perish.

This critical and devastating lessons humanity has learnt at very high cost during the Covid pandemic global crisis. This crisis exposed the Illusion of strength and capabilities the humanity and its depraved leadership boasted off. The so-called edifice of superiority and brilliance of ‘super power’ humanity and their advanced cultures crumbled like cookies and went down like ninepins. The pandemic proved beyond doubts that humanity has created the castle of a billion worth and utilities over a rather fragile and shaky soil, which could not bear the weight of a rather manageable tremor. The pandemic posted a perfect picture of embedded and embellished stupidities and hypocrisies. It proved true the warnings of many ‘experts’, who kept reminding the humanity about their ‘misplaced’ sense of ‘utilities and worth’ and Illusion of Reality, which created the ‘Purpose’ of human systems around the world.

The fault is not something a ‘change’ can correct. The trouble is equally massively structural as it is brazenly functional. The message is clear and loud – either humanity ‘reconstructs’ its basics and grassroots Realities or it gets extinct in near future.

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All living beings; billions of us, are one singular mind. The brain happened and stayed with a singular purpose, after a long and somehow linear evolution of multitudes of species. Some scientists say; the brain happened because the universe wanted it to be ‘unraveled’ and explored!

What is embedded in this scientific assertion is the Reality that evolution has a simple philosophy – lower organisms evolved in time and space to higher, more complex and supposedly better organisms as this singular brain matured and evolved in its common role of being better equipped to ‘unravel’ and understand the External Milieus and Realities in them. Evolution is a linear journey of organisms evolving and maturing in their ‘Knowledge’ of their ambient and expansive milieus, to maximize survival. Humans have the best equipped brain to unravel the ‘Truths’ and ‘Realities’ of the cosmos. Scientists hint at this fact that essentially, cosmic causalities are designed this way to enable evolving species to understand their milieus better for survival and this ultimately leads to species knowing and then changing their larger habitat to their survival suitability. The singular mind has this singular role.

It is singular tragedy that only Humans have chosen to ‘Reverse’ this linearity of evolutionary progression and that too with the help of a brilliant facility called Brain. In most probability, only the Humans have ‘Regressed’ in their evolutionary journey of ‘Consciousness- Cavalierity’ and ‘happily’ opted to fall back to the Timeline as well as elemental Constitutionalityof antediluvian animalism. The contemporary human mind also showed brilliant animalism in ‘altering’ their habitat to such an extent that it now poses a threat to their own devastation and probable extinction…

That is why, only very naturally, if humans fail to make their brains and minds perform this singular role, they are worse off than even lower animals. A person not optimizing the potential of his or her mind potentials is actually shaming the very evolutional energy and cosmic design. Such a person is Definitive Enemy of a habitat. Tragically enough, contemporary human societies and cultures are over-crowded with such enemies; many of them in Leadership positions. Nature otherwise immediately prunes such individuals but humans are luckily ‘unlucky’ that such humans actually survive and even excel in societies and cultures. The scammed human mind consciousness has facilitated this by creating calamitous benchmarks of ‘successes’ and worthiness. Human habitat is replete with ‘enemies’ and tragically enough; they are mostly in leadership or otherwise ‘ensconced’ positions in contemporary societies and cultures. These enemies in their stupid hypocrisies, instead, ‘prune’ the dwindling ‘Intellect’ of devastated humanity…

Anyway; later in the evolutionary progression, the geography and causative cultures shaped and evolved different shades of mind consciousnesses. If we de-culture our existing human mind, which probably has massive debris of the archaic and obsolete Timeline‘still in use’, we can see the realities in their ‘original’ non-intuitive cognition…

Scientific assertion requires us to accept that brain, in its contemporary form, is a later evolution as new species required to discard the stationary and rooted living, to move in the larger milieus for better survival potential. Very naturally, a new organized brain evolved as an emergent and shuffling ‘mapping’ mechanism of the transient milieus, because of the ever moving new species. Plants and simple organisms rooted in their birth-milieu do not need a brain. Later evolution of brain consolidated its primary role of being a ‘quick reactive’ information processing and reality mapping for the ‘wandering’ species for their improved survival prospects.

Modern human brain however needs to discard this brain cultures too and move to evolve a brain, which has very different core competence than what it was originally designed as. Contemporary human milieus require our brains to have different and novel roles and capacities to stand the modern human in optimum self-sufficiencies. Anyways; modern humanity has ‘delegated’ this ‘primary’ role to what we now know as ‘Hybrid Brain’s’ artificial intelligence. We shall talk about it later. The existing contemporary human brain with its old, archaic and obsolete function and cultural orientations is the chief critical trouble for larger humanity. This obsolete intuitive brain design and mechanism has to be ‘unlearnt’ and evolve to a non-intuitive cognitive culture, which contemporary life-living challenges and roles require. This huge mind-debilitation needs to be ‘unlearnt’ quick, discarded decisively and then, evolved to the new needs…

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The core science of contemporary age and its utility for scientific community is more about the discovery of certain reality and also prove something novel. However, what it throws open and makes available for masses and especially the cultural-political leadership of humanity, is ingrained in what we may term as the ontology and epistemology of the EMERGENT and accrued philosophy of science.

In the last few years, especially since the beginning of the new millennium, some new establishments in the frontier science have opened up brilliant and hugely fruitful practical ideas for average person as well as larger cultures. Tragically, as has always been with human cultures, they have not been popularized and internalized in the common knowledge pool of contemporary humanity. They must. We shall talk about them and how they can transform human lives and living cultures, at almost every stage of the progression of this eBook. To bring home the idea and its importance in human life-living, we talk in short about one aspect of this new idea termed Emergence, we have listed above. This shall facilitate our understanding of how non-intuitiveness lands us to the portals of new knowledge and wisdom.

There was legendary music composer in India, who once narrated this story. When he was young, he worked as an assistant to a very famous movie music composer. One day, when the young assistant arrived to the house of his master, he saw him sitting with his harmonium and weeping. Tears rolled all over his cheeks but he looked very calm and composed. The young man was shocked to see his master in tears and asked him about his pains and troubles, so that he could help. The master replied, ‘I am not in pains, rather I am so happy. The tears are not of pain but gratitude.’

The young man could not understand what his master was saying. The master explained, ‘I am such a stupid, I am so worthless, I know nothing yet, see the love, blessings and generosity of the God almighty that he makes me compose such a beautiful tune. I am clueless how this could happen as I am such a unworthy person. I am weeping to express my gratitude to the almighty…’

This is EMERGENCE; this is the magic of the Potential, the human brain and consciousness can engender, which the famous composer could not fathom. As is natural to most people and as their faith makes them accept; they believe the ‘Magic’ as an ‘external’ intervention of God or other abstracted elements. The Reality, which contemporary science has unraveled to us is the scientific idea of Emergence.

The famous composer was a genius of music but he was not aware of how the brain and consciousness works. Emergence is essentially a mechanism and process of different brain states and it has little to do with elements of ‘external’ milieus. Emergence can be understood as different ‘permutations and combinations’ of Information, different brain states of unconscious, subconscious and conscious works out, when a person is in highly aware state of mind consciousness and focused on a particular work. The master’s brain created a Tune, which is some emergent Information not previously etched and installed in the brain states. The permutations and combinations of already available Information (about musicality) in the different brain states made the Emergence of the new Tune possible. As the emergent information has novelty of structure and feel, the mind consciousness accepts it as something it never ever previously knew. The fact remains that the brain itself engenders an Emergence and the mind consciousness seldom fathoms and accepts it as an engineering of its own. It willfully accepts it as some external endowment and accrual.

To make it simpler let us consider a far more popular and probable example from our daily lives. Suppose, some day, you decide that you shall donate some of the household items to charity, which you seldom use. So, you share your decision with other family members and ask them to give away what they do not regularly use and are idling in the house. Everyone begins the exercise and in the process, you discover that some items were hidden in the large house and you didn’t even remember they were there in your own house or room for years. Some items would show up which would be there within your reach but you never needed them so were not visible to your eyes. They ‘emerged’ as you occasioned to bring them into conscious awareness through a decision. The hidden or unused items were not created by your decisions as they were already there but simply ‘emerged’ and were brought to reckoning as you decided to give them to charity. So, the old laptop or an earphone you didn’t know were there in the house was not given to you by any miracle or external agency. They were part of your household and you didn’t even know. You got to know and even have them as they were made to emerge by a decision, which required their existence to surface up and be counted. The human brain also houses so many information, memories, experiences, etc, which we are not consciously aware of. As and when, we consciously trigger a situation, the brain states retrieve them through a neural cue and assemble them in a patterned way. This is emergence and the novelty of assemblage and feel makes you accept that it came out of nothing. You get inclined to accept it as magic or blessings.

This is an example to understand how we can unravel ‘Reality’, in a novel and alternative ways, if we use non-intuitive thinking and cognition. We just need to open up and accept that almost always, we unconsciously and subconsciously keep moving into different ‘Dimensions’ of probabilities, we are seldom aware of. These probabilities are Emergenceof the permutations and combinations our brain states continuously churn up so that we survive better in ever-changing milieus we keep moving. Most of us suddenly realize something, which we accept as ‘magic’ or miracle. Something like déjà vu, which most of us mystically accept as something externally installed. The emergence is processes within and we sure can feel and unravel them, if we have an aware mind consciousness and we sit still in perfect poise and calmness. We shall elaborate on these aspects later in the eBook.

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Species evolve in a dialectical chain of interaction with external milieus and milieus within body-mind plexus. Genetic adjustments and changes take shape in response to the new challenges (Information) the ever transient milieus make Emerge. Humans happened as the early tough and very challenging milieu required a powerful species that could master the milieus to survive and stay atop. The evolution was less bodily but more brainy and mental. Biology of evolution is probably more Emergent than physics of evolution.

The evolution of human brain made the differences as humans had it to tame the wild and calamitous nature and mould it to their survival suitability. Early humans could survive and excel in extremely different and tough habitats, from ice-laden northern tip of hemisphere to hot and sultry equatorial regions.

If we track the human evolution, the eugenics for humanity is essentially mind or brain-centric. Human precision and survival strategies have come from Emergentprobabilities of its superior brain, not body strength and superiority. Modern science has established that human brain, like most domesticated animals has shrunk up roughly 10 percent in the last 70,000 years. The shrinkage is ascribed to the lesser requirements of muscles and body strength in the same period as human brain could ensure a better settled life and countered the vagaries of wild milieus better. They required less muscle strength but more cognitive skills. The same with most domesticated animals. How many dogs today are required to have great hunting skills and attitude for their owners? The shrinkage may also be ascribed to better and smarter wiring of brain states. We know how computer over the ages have become smarter as they can stuff more memories in smaller chips.

Modern humanity has clearly paved the way for a new evolution, where the new human species of brainy and otherwise endowed humans shall survive and excel and the mediocre and less endowed shall perish in coming centuries, if not decades. This new evolution is very much evident and perceptible. We shall talk about it in detail later.

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My worthy elders taught me, made my consciousness ‘Unlearn’, with priceless humility but definitive certainty – There is nothing right, nothing wrong. There is also no good or bad. They do not actually matter and we humans must never waste our precious time and energy on them. What is singularly important and worth human understanding and enterprise is the reality that there are a few things, elements and entities, which are melodic and most things are cacophonous. Men and women should strive all their lives to adhere to the former and distance away from the later.

This eBook is in a language I have probably just begun to unravel, after 50 years of unlearning. It is not a language to transfer ‘Content’ of mind but Intent of innocence and honesty of de-cultured consciousness. May the mellifluous melody of my humble ‘Intent’ reach you and feel the same, even while I am apologetically in acceptance that at times, there is a lurking probability of some of my expressions sounding inharmonious. Do kindly forgive me. Some Realities may be too ‘harsh’ to be amenable to melodic sound and feel. And; my stupidity may also spoil possibilities…

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Humble Request & Acknowledgement

As has always been with my writings, I insist that I never say – ‘I know and that is why I am telling you’. I very humbly and sincerely request that you should never accept anything I say, without assigning it to the primary and transcendental energy of skepticism. I wish you to test the validity of any probability or hypothesis I am building up in this eBook. Why I say this? Because I believe, reading is a collaborative process. I have internalized and experienced things, which I am sharing with you. I have also gone through long process of learning; especially unlearning and observed skepticism. All this needs to sink in and get internalized in your consciousness. It shall sink in and get internalized through the same process of learning/unlearning and observed skepticism by you. Do step in, involve, evolve and optimize your best potentials by partnering into this eBook enterprise. Welcome…

Writing for me is an enterprise in self-negation. I am in peaceful acceptance of the futility of words as carriers of intent and content. Still, I write, continuing with this 45theBook and if life allows, shall keep writing, negating my own deep sense of futility of the exercise. I write just for the sake of my humble self-belief that whatever I have internalized in life through a long and painful process of learning and especially unlearning; must be documented, so that if probability has it, someone may save some precious time and energy in his or her own internalization process. This probably is what one may accept as an inheritance worth half a dime. Compassion is what I inherited and compassion is what I can leave as legacy. I dedicate my writings to that someone, who shares my humility for acceptance of compassion. Thanks…!

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PREFACE

Naqs Faryadi Hai Kiski Shokhi-e-Tehreer Ka,

Kagzi Hai Pairahan Har Paikar-e-Tasweer Ka...

This is the immortally celebrated lines of the legendary poet and cult celebrity of Indian subcontinent Mirza Ghalib, who is known to have said it impromptu, in front of the king and patron Bahadur Shah Zafar, reflecting brilliantly on the ‘Reality’ of reality and that of his own life situation. The lines have many shades of meanings embedded in the metaphoric selection of words and syntactic formulation. It sure expresses the twin core realities of human life-living – Depravityof culture and Illusion of reality.

The couplet speaks about how a piece of reality (a sketch on the paper), is standing as an accused, pleading innocence, in front of the court of justice, because someone, just for the sake of sadistic fun or egoism, has filed a complaint against it. The second line insists that the piece of reality, standing as ‘accused’, itself is being presented as ‘true copy’, even when it is wrapped in the muffling dress of ‘paper’. In other words, the ‘Reality’, which is being ‘judged’ for its culpability is being presented not in actuality but as an imagery or metaphor of the reality.

This speaks of the two classical dilemmas and confusion, every human life-living is destined for. First is the ‘Illusion’ of reality, as most of the times, the reality is only a supposed imagery of a reality, missing the details of the entirety and holism of actual reality. It speaks volumes on how hypocritical humanity seldom rises above the instinctive stupidity of ‘accepting’ a metaphor or ‘representation’ as Reality. Second is the ‘externalities’ of the ambient and localized milieus, primarily the elements of populist and predominant cultures, which dictate, who stands as accused-culprit and who runs scot-free as success. The Illusion of Realityand Slavery of Milieu/Culture are the two ever-pervasive elements in the life-living of every person, which is a Scammed Destiny. Sadly enough, even when the person himself or herself thinks he or she is at its Free Will, to make decisions of life, it is actually the embedded and undersurface twin-energy of illusion and cultures that shape and fix destinies. Average person is actually a slave, not a free person. One can imagine, what societies and human systems, comprising these slaved consciousnesses, are and what they in turn facilitate for larger humanity! Garbage in garbage out! And still, not even being aware; rather blissfully upbeat! This presents the probable advocacy for an ‘alternative’ reality for larger humanity…

This is the contemporary position of modern science, which has made great breakthroughs in neuro-science, brain research and Reality in general. Before that, aware and intelligent humans have expressed this bitter and scammed reality through different media of art and literature. This also is not a new knowledge as ancient Oriental philosophy has loads of writings on the same situation, since 3000 years back. This is what Buddha referred to, when he spoke of breaking the walls of his house. This is Unshackling the mind consciousness of the Incarcerating ‘walls’ of Illusion and Culture. We need to first unravel and decipher the twin ideas of illusion and cultures. As is the old and tested methodology for understanding a complicated and tough idea with simplicity and ease, we use a simple metaphor for it. This is something we all are familiar with and practice. However, we need to be warned that a metaphor is never the holism of Reality. It is only for understanding a reality in its entirety.

So, what we do, when we think of making the best use of our vacations and decide to travel to a popular tourist destination? We do good bit of thinking and loads of planning before embarking on the journey. We want to Optimizethe joy and satisfaction of the precious vacations and therefore, wish to take into account all possible aspects of the journey and visit to the destination. But then, the core trouble is that we usually do not have any or much Information and facts about the place and the facilities available at the destination. That is why we Pre-Plan and make efforts to have as much information as possible and make preparations suitably.

Someone, who may not like to leave anything on trial and error, may opt for tour package of a renowned tour operator and buy a guided stay and sightseeing, etc. Very naturally, there is good likelihood that everything would go great for this individual and his or her family as everything is handled by corporate finesse and benchmarked standards.

However, another person may like to take everything in his or her hands and not opt for former option. This person shall search online, access reviews of the sights, hotels, restaurants, transport facilities and a whole range of information. This person may prioritize his or her options by risking it on a budget hotel and then splurge the saved money on extending his travel to deeper countryside. In other words, this person may opt for something, which has his or her total and perfect Free Will, in all the choices available and would not like to conform to the ‘pre-decided’ packaged or benchmarked, populist options of his or her travel, stay and sightseeing, et al.

We sure cannot judge and decide on the merit, worth and utility of the two choices made by two different persons. It may be possible that both optimized their joys and satisfaction as per their desire and wish. It may also be possible that one got it right and other not. May be, both end up dissatisfied. In any case, we cannot judge which option is better. Both options had different shades of joys, satisfaction, thrills and even Free Will. Also, both options have probabilities of going right as well as flop. Moreover, right-wrong, satisfaction-dissatisfaction etc, are subjective entities and therefore, objective judgment is does not seem a probability here.

However, if we compare the above situation with our life-living, we can probably be in better position to ‘judge’ the utility-worth of the two options. We are born to specific parents, family, society, culture, geography and history. It is like making a trip to a place for tourism. Given the scale of life on earth, many since ages have considered the time period between our birth and death as ‘vacation’ and people as ‘tourists’.

In our lives too, there are broadly two options – first is like opting for a life-living, value system, faith, beliefs, habits, customs et al, which the parents, family, society and culture ‘packages’ for us. This package is standard, popularly benchmarked one and a settled option; therefore very naturally, this ‘package’ may well be considered ‘safe’ and as most things come as ‘guided’ and ‘pre-planned’, there is no or little personal investment and enterprise of time and energy on thinking and planning. Here, the corporate tour operator is existing popular ‘Culture’ and tour ‘package’ is the prevalent-dominant customs, practices, faith, beliefs, etc. There no doubt is a space for Free Will, even in guided ‘tour packages’, as the person may never ever think he is anyway being ‘guided’ and ‘pre-ordained’. There sure are enough small choices one can make, within this ‘packaged’ inevitability.

The trouble however is, the life-living is a much complex and layered reality than tourism and most importantly, these elements of ‘packaged’ and ‘guided’ embedment is not offered as ‘choice’ to a new born till the age of his adulthood. The tourist however is already an adult and when these packages and guided elements are offered to him or her for his or her free-willed discretion, it is accepted that he or she would make ‘informed choices’. The new born child, as the tourist, has in fact no choice but to take the only and inevitable ‘package’ of ‘guided’ tour, destination stay and sightseeing, compulsorily installed on the mind consciousness of the new born, as he or she journeys into his or her adulthood. A vast majority of people live out their complete life and die, ‘willfully’ adhering to and following the packaged-guided tourism of life-living. They too have small spaces of ‘free will’, as available to a tourist within corporate packages.

The second option in life, as in case of tourism, simply cannot start for a child. It may start only after the new born attains his or her adulthood, years after his or her arrival as ‘tourist’. He or she may think and plan differently than what his entrenched culture, geography, history and predominant belief system presuppose him or her to. This second option of completely free-willed life-living, owning the risks and exploring the ‘realities’ of the destinations and laying his or her own set of rules and routines for the ‘Stay’ at the ‘tourist’ destination called Life, becomes possible only after a certain age of maturity and that too to a handful, to whom maturity comes ‘packaged’ with objective scientific knowledge.

There are very few lucky new born, who have this great fortune to have parents, who raise him or her in a personal-societal-cultural milieus of liberty and self-decision. It is possible and many parents do it. They do not impose their will, culture, customs, faith, belief system, etc on the child. Rather, they inform a growing child of the various options available for choices and let him or her process the Information. The decision can wait but right, true and holistic information about probable shades of realities must always be offered to a child. The evolving brain and mind consciousness of a child may not be in a position to decide with certainty but then, where is the need in most cases to decide? Yes, the parents shall take those decisions, which are generic for all kids like going to school, learning languages, adhering to basic and fundamental disciplines of self-control and respect for others, etc. The specific decisions can wait, till the ‘tourist’ attains knowledgeable maturity.

The core issue here is not about free will or righteousness of choices. We have already talked about how right and wrong or good or bad are not the issue to waste our time and energies on. Reality is always value neutral; it is individual or collective cultures, which assign these subjective elements to a reality. There are larger and more fundamental issues about life-living and cultural ‘packaging’. We now have to come out of the metaphor and enter the contemporary world of humanity.

The larger issue pertains to the hugely non-intuitive understanding and perception of what we accept as Reality. When we perceive Reality as true and right, then only comes the question of righteousness or appropriateness of choices. One very critical element of the holism of Reality is the realism of Time and how average intuitive mind perceives it. In scientific world, ‘Time’ is probably one of the most abstracted ideas the understanding of which the scientists insists requires an evolved non-intuitiveness of consciousness and cognition. This understanding is also at the very core of most realities, which we intuitively see and accept as true and real. The Time, most of us intuitively see and accept, keeps us in Illusion of a vast part of reality, which the holism of reality of Time incorporates.

We need not go into details of time and its non-intuitive aspects. What we wish to talk about is Time may not be considered a linear thing or something that comes and goes. It is very much a constant and enveloping entity. It is like the sky we see, standing under it, always muffling us. The changes, which we usually associate with sky above is in elements that are part of the sky denomination and domain, like clouds, light, darkness, stars, moon, wind, rains etc. The sky remains the same as constant as anything but its visualization and perception changes as elements constituting the intuitive idea and feel of the sky changes. Non-intuitively, the sky above our heads is just a miniscule part of the vast cosmos, which usually is intuitively available for our very limited and restricted visual senses and brain states. The elements constituting the intuitive feel of sky are also restricted only up to a few kilometers of height. Above that the continuity and expanse of sky is constantly singular.

Time is also like the sky, which we intuitively feel as changing but like sky, time we accept, is just an insignificantly minuscule part of the holism of infinite cosmos. Like the sky, the Time is also a reality, contextual to many elements, which are inseparably associated and part of the intuitive feel of Time. Time is felt, as it is to most of us because of the changes that happen with elements constituting it or under its umbrella, like the sky. The situation of earth changes and everything around us suitably changes, linked to the primary change in the diurnal and seasonal changes happening to earth, vis-à-vis the Sun.

Therefore, essentially, when we non-intuitively visualize the idea and feel of Time, we understand that the movement or ‘change’ of time is actually the movement or change of other perceptional elements around us. What Time means? Suppose, there is a place, where there used to be a castle, where ten people lived in the year 1655. A person, who visits the castle in 2021, shall feel the change as there probably would be a crumbling castle or a fading one with nobody living in it. The charm and abundance has also withered away. The person shall feel 2021 and may look at the ruins as vestiges of 1655. The contrast of change makes the timeline well defined. However, if in anyway, the castle remained in the same glory, shine and abundance and the ten descendants of the same family still lived in the same lifestyle and customs as was in 1655, a visiting person in 2021 would ‘feel’ as if he or she has landed in the year 1655. In this case, the timeline gets blurred as change is minuscule or primarily psychological. This ‘feel’ too would be possible because other things changed and this visiting person was born and brought up in the contemporary and changed culture. If this person visiting in 2021 was kept in an isolated jungle, away from contemporary human culture, he or she would not even feel that he or she has been transported to 1655. For this person, there would be no basis to even have the comparison between 1655 and 2021. Intuitively however, a crumbling and dilapidated castle signifies a ‘big change’ and hence the feel of Time-Lapse. Like the sky above, the Time, we intuitively feel is subjectively contextual to changes in elements within the Time ‘sky’. Remove the ‘context’ and the idea of intuitive Time goes away.

The same happens with milieus and culture, in which we are born and brought up. Whether a person and the ambient culture, he or she lives in has the date (Time) of 1655 or 2021, depends not on the flickering pages of the calendar. It depends on the ‘changes’, which the culture and milieu has undergone, in comparison to the ‘changes’ the general and overall milieu and broad human culture has undergone. If we accept this non-intuitive cognition about Time, we can easily accept that Time is not the same everywhere on earth. There are societies, cultures and people still in 16th century, a good part of humanity and their ambient culture still in before Christ period and many lingering in 18-19th century realities. Only a small human population and its ambient cultures may be accepted as living in 2021. This is possible because they have ‘elements’ of those Timeline, irrespective of their contemporary date and year on the calendar. This is the biggest ‘Illusion’ of reality most people live in and are slave of. This illusion simply takes away all semblances of free will and righteousness.

But, the core question is – how can we say, this is 2021 culture? How can we be definitive about current time, when we non-intuitively accept Time as an umbrella and muffling reality and not a linear one? This is important and must be detailed.

Probably, the only single element of human culture, which truly maps the reality of Time, is the function of and ‘contextual’ to the Template of Contemporary Information (collective knowledge pool of humanity). The singular decisive and discerning ‘change’ in the spectrum of contemporaneous information (knowledge) seals the true progression of Time, not in linear arrow but in spherical totality. This is also what evolution probably accepts as progression of Time. This is the element, which stamps its existence on the very entity of perceptional plexus – the human brain. This needs to be detailed and understood in holism.

Suppose, a person living in Manhattan, who has never gone out of New York for whole of his life, is flown to a tribal village in tropical Africa. He would ‘feel’ he has relapsed into timeline of 14th century. Why? Simply because he is used to accepting ‘present’ as a situation, where tall and smart skyscrapers, shining commercial places, well-lighted wide streets, gleaming vehicles, high-tech life-living support system, etc are fixed landmarks. His intuitive perception makes him accept the jungle, thatched huts and muddy pathways, etc as something of a distant past.

Now, take a person from this tribal place to Manhattan and what he feels. Can we match the ‘perception’ and feel of the ‘Time’, the two persons have? They both live in 2021 and both exist on earth at the same date. What is different that differs the sense and feel of time? It is the Knowledge – The Contemporaneousness of Information. It is the singular dimension of ‘change’ that weighs in on Time intuitiveness. Contemporary human knowledge has made a Manhattan and its physical-cultural landmarks possible. The knowledge of humanity evolved, moved and changed since 14thcentury and now in 2021, it has benchmarked its contemporary knowledge in the form of physical-cultural realities, which we call ‘Contemporaneous’ and it represents the intuitive feel of ‘Presentness’.

To make it clearer, let us compare two different photographs of London in different Timelines. An aware person can tell that one photograph has been taken in around 1940-50s or other is of 2021. Why? Because the two photographs are of the same busy location of London and has images of cars, buildings and people. From these elements of the pictures, one can say they belong to what different timelines as cars, buildings, dressing of people changed over the years. However, take two pictures of Atlantic Ocean or Himalayan Peaks, containing only the ocean waters and snow respectively. Can we still say when the two pictures were taken? Why? Because the element in the pictures are constant! The idea is – intuitive perception of Timeliness is contextual to changes in elements constituting the denomination and domain of Time.

As we have talked earlier, all organisms, millions of them from unicellular to complex animals including humans are One Life – all organisms have singular origin; the DNA that made life chain commence on earth. The mind is also singular. Thousands of organisms, small to big have evolved out of One Brain, which came into existence as organisms became complex and required to move in their ambient milieus for survival optimization. The brain happened as there was this survival need to have a central perceptional processing of complex ‘information’ in the ambient milieus the organisms survived as moving entity. The brain itself creates the intuitive ‘Illusion of Time’, as we humans popularly accept it. This contextual change in Information, which the brain processes and stacks as part of experienced or informed memory, engenders the intuitiveness of Time and its linearity. This surely hints at the probability that we intuitively accept Time as metaphor and not actually Real…

The larger, spherical, muffling and ever-changing external milieu, which every organism is born to, is in non-intuitive Reality, a mega plexus of ‘Information’. Human knowledge, at any point of progression (Time), is only a small fragment of the cosmic ‘information’ plexus. The cosmic reality is a colossal and complex domain of ever-evolving ‘Information’. The information has the Codes of Causalities, which shape up the macrocosmic Reality into microcosmic ones, available to perceptional faculties of hugely limited and restrictive mind consciousness (brains) of organisms. The brain is designed to decode and decipher these codes of causalities, embedded in ‘Information plexus’ of the ambient milieus. This is the primary and essential role of the brain as it is a must for survival optimization of the organism. We can easily see this symbiotic relationship of brain and information processing of the milieus in all organisms, small to big.

It is this relationship of brain and milieus, which create the intuitive perception of Time in its populist form to humans. This in turn stands out as the singular benchmark of ‘contemporaneousness’ of a person as well as a culture. How?

If we accept a non-intuitive perspective, a human baby born either in 2021 or 1221, or for that matter a million years back, begins with singular sense of Time. So, we can say, the timeline for all new born, irrespective of when and where they are born, is always zero. This means, for the new born; be it Manhattan or Masai Mara; the milieu and its culture are irrelevant and non-impacting at the moment of birth. This happens as we can say that the new born has Zero Information. However, soon after the birth, the ambient milieu and its existing popular culture begins to stamp its timeline on the brain or mind consciousness (subconscious) of the new born, as Information creeps in and memories of Information are stacked in brain states. As and when the new born attains awareness of subjective self; this definitive sense and feel of ‘I’, the grown up person accepts the perceptional regime of Time. The ‘context’ has already been formed in his or her mind – one of early memories of experience of Information and other of current Information. It is all about ‘information’, which the brains of different humans receive from their ambient milieus. If human brain or mind consciousness is a soil, it is almost common for all new born. However, whether tall buildings or thatched hutments are erected on this soil depends on the parents, family, ambient culture, historicity and geographical determinism, etc. The date or place of birth of the ‘soil’ does not but the ‘buildings’, which decide the Time for the person. These buildings are metaphors for Timeliness.

Now, what this Timeis? If the grown up person, who started his or her life with a zero timeline, acquires and lives up to the entire existing knowledge pool of the humanity available at that point of time, he or she is at the same level of ‘contemporaneousness’, which the humanity at large is. Therefore, his or her timeline shall be the same as in the contemporary calendar of humanity. However, if he or she acquires and practices only that level of knowledge, which collective humanity had in 1221, his or her timeline is the same. The 2021 calendar is an illusion for him or her. This illusion of the larger reality this grown up person shall live till death but the Timeshall not change. Simple hypothesis is – Time for consciousness is contextual to contemporaneousness of the holistic Template of Information, at any point of progression of collective humanity.

Timeline evolves as the brain acquires contemporaneous plexus of information of the Reality available to humanity at that point or stage of collective life-living and the mind consciousness suitably lives up the contemporaneous timeline. Human tragedy is that majority of humans are never at the Contemporaneousness of Timeline. They do not have any inclination to upgrade their knowledge domain to contemporaneous levels. Knowledge has never been a priority for human societies and cultures. It is always the handful, who leads and ventures into knowledge pursuits and keep upgrading the collective knowledge pool of humanity. The vast majority of men and women only live and die in illusion of Time – Born in one timeline, yet living in a timeline, centuries back.

The 7.5 billion humans on earth at this point of time and space are in varied timeline – most lagging in centuries and decades; many still in before Christ era of inceptional cultural and civilizational time and space. Though the individual men and women cannot be stripped off their personal culpability; much of the blame is shared by the ambient cultures they live in as these cultures are in a timeline centuries back. The milieu is a huge impact on consciousness. The milieu and its timeline is the localized ‘sky’, the over-encompassing and impacting informational umbrella that muffles individuals under it. Intuitively, they can see only a small part of ‘sky’ and accept it as their ‘universe’. The non-intuitiveness, which can pull them out of the ‘illusion’, is not available to them as this brain-training is not made available to their mind consciousness.

What we are deliberating in this eBook is primarily about the ‘Illusions’ of average human life-living, which the entrenched and generic ‘Intuitiveness’ of un-evolved and untrained mind consciousness engenders for mass majority of humanity. This then entails that we discuss in details about how to develop and engineer this very critical element of non-intuitiveness of the same mind consciousness to break FREE of the illusions and decipher and understand the true Realism in its holism and entirety. The pathway, which we entail here, is that the illusions of the mind consciousness must first be ‘Unlearned’ so that alternative and novel truth and reality of life-living becomes available to our consciousness and cognition. However, in our journey to the Non-Intuitiveness and alternative realities, we shall traverse other domains too and shall make a short stay at various places of worth and utility. This is the true joy of journeying and also the right utility.

As you gear up for this journey, readying to go ahead with this eBook, I humbly request you that you should not burden yourself with unnecessary baggage. Just make a start not bothering about anything. Yes; just keep this small but very worthy ‘tool’ of Skepticism of mind consciousness. Never ever accept what I say and what I propose as a hypothesis. Test everything; doubt and self-explore the veracity and utility of everything with the help of objective scientific knowledge, which contemporary humanity has and is available gratuitously in public domain. If you objectively and scientifically ‘judge’ something yourself, then only you can internalize it. Internalize it but keep it evolving with the evolving knowledge pool of humanity. Be always ahead of the Time, which your calendar shows. This, your non-intuitive mind consciousness shall facilitate and muffle you with joy and satisfaction. Welcome…!

***

Author Page: Find my eBooks (fiction and non-fiction), ALL of them FREE at: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/SantoshJha

** Also FREE at Google Play, Google Books, apple iTunes, Nook Books, Kobo, free-ebooks.net, etc.

#Alternative Reality #Post-Covid World #Novel Life-living #Code of Causality #New Humanity Hopes #Information-Media-Milieu #Non-Intuitive Cognition

[agentfascinateur]

Blessed 2021

I never do resolutions. It's not a French thing, I don't think. It's an Ebenezer Scrooge thing and if you aren't generally very naughty then what's the point really. However. I've already started changing a few things. For one, if I want to speak out on the environment, I have to spend more time in it, hence I got hiking-ish winter boots (I finally let go of my subarctic dogwalking boots - it felt like the end of an era 😔). Next are snowshoes to help me recover my breath and cardio. I used to downhill ski, I can crosscountry ski (and ice skate) but I would now faint from lack of breathing power if I went to that first. Such is life. I have long had a septoplasty on deck - which is an option this year because mask-wearing is laborious too - but I've yet to find a surgeon who will just reconstruct rather than jump to making my nose smaller. I don't want a smaller nose. I want the one I was born with, truthfully. I may have found the right surgeon. Another thing I've started doing again, environment-wise, is cut my detergents with white vinegar as with the laundry and for washing floors. Another, is buying from health food stores (and independent stores in general). If I didn't like processed foods before, my new health reality requires that I don't even have cheat days that can clog my already challenged vascular system. I sound old, complaining of my aches and ills. So I'm continuing the trend into winter of my hours-long walks, like in beautiful Niagara Falls, that saw me lose the 40 lbs I took on from grief and the breakdown of my system in April-May. Apple-cider vinegar morning potions are key too. And now lactose-free overnight oats 😋. My 18 year-old cat is a blessing. Daily prayers keep the soul in shape. I'm on the fence about school, since my course options don't offer what I felt like challenging myself on. But I'll probably take the daily grind with the candy of the last two semesters. Plus the February blahs call for keeping the mind busy anyway. I'm letting go of toxic relationships this year, now that my duties to my parents are over. When I first set out in the world as a teen and nurtured my bonds by writing and phoning, only to realize later the envy and resentment I fostered in others instead, and that every dip in the family pool since has been excruciating, it's time to not waste what's left of life. I am unashamedly a loner and I don't have to translate myself anymore to those who were supposed to know me best but couldn't take off the lens of their chauvisnim and narrow-mindedness. I speak my very own language and have incompatible values (and boy am I glad 😄). My hair is too long, and I'll get around to the hairdresser's at last. It's accidentally red but it appears to not be as bad as I always imagined it would look on someone olive-skinned (a reverse pumpkin). I know I will be moving in 2021, and I very much look forward to it. My mind lives in a chalet by a mirror lake amid mountains with far-enough neighbours. It lives in the frontiers of old.

Have a blessed 2021.

[maychorian]

Weekly Voltron Fic Recs #38

I have been busy posting and editing AGAIN and almost forgot, but here’s the list! There are a LOT of fics posting right now that I haven’t had a chance to get to. So please, do yourself a favor and just go to the Voltron Mini Gen Bang collection on AO3 and read everything there. But here’s the ones I’ve read so far.

Rules: You can find past weekly rec lists here, and non-list recs in my general fic rec tag. Also follow @maychorianrecs for individually tagged posts, the easier to search and reblog. This is stuff I like, and I have a huge bias toward Lance, hurt/comfort, and general fluff, in that order. Gen unless otherwise noted. Please comment on the fics if you read and enjoy them!

Comfort Food by SerenePhenix Words: 4,299 Author’s Summary: Wherein cultural differences run deeper than expected and communication is key. OR Lance finally opens up to Shiro and the poor guy isn’t really sure about what to do. Doesn’t mean he won’t try. My Comments: Poor Lance, but I love Shiro for not giving up until Lance talks to him, and then doing everything he can to help. Part of a modern college AU hurt/comfort series that just seems to get better with every installment.

Reconstruction by grimwoode Words: 15,677 Author’s Summary: When their explosive battle with Zarkon is finally over, the paladins are shocked to find the Black Lion lifeless and her paladin missing. Little do they know, Shiro has unwillingly entered his own battle where his very essence is in danger. With the help of the paladins and the Black Lion, Shiro has to pave his own way back to reality. My Comments: Really lovely post Season Two fic with Shiro going on a journey through the dreams of the other paladins in a slow push back toward reality. I love how everyone cares for him and teaches him how valuable he is. Very sweet and satisfying fic.

We Come Running by a_fearsome_thing Words: 15,699 Author’s Summary: Keith has learned a lot since he discovered he can create fire: don’t trust other people, not even other mutants. Don’t stay in one place for too long. Stay away from the Garrison. Don’t get attached, because everyone leaves. He hasn’t quite learned how to control it, though, which is how he finds Shiro, who’s looking for a school. And just like that, everything he knows turns upside down. My Comments: X-Men AU with a really, really great relationship between Keith and Shiro. Though the others show up at the end, the focus is on them meeting and deciding to travel together, then becoming like brothers to each other. Makes it all the worse when Shiro goes missing, of course.

Kin by Dragonescence, Meteorysh Words: 5,194 Author’s Summary: With the Black Paladin gone, Kolivan decides to stay on board the Castle of Lions. He has his reasons. There is a young Galra aboard, and no matter how long it has been, instincts are instincts and they cannot be denied. My Comments: Absolutely lovely fic with Kolivan mentoring and then basically adopting Keith. Lance is also a sweet presence in this fic, but Kolivan deserves all the praise for making Keith feel wanted and valuable.

Birthday Boy by GemmaRose Words: 3,587 Author’s Summary: Lance never expected to understand the feelings of the girl from Sixteen Candles so well, but then he also never expected to be stuck in space with aliens fighting a war for the freedom of the universe on his birthday. Sometimes life just sucks. My Comments: Poor Lance. He really just needs a lot of love and attention when he’s feeling down. Fortunately, he gets it in this fic.

a dream is a wish by hanbunnotsuki Words: 1,714 Author’s Summary: It’s Lance’s first birthday ever since the whole thing with Voltron happened. He’s far away from home, and yet he still spends it with family. My Comments: Very sweet fic.

Radio Silence by kyanve Words: 21,558 Author’s Summary: Pidge starts a project to find a way to call home and contact their families, and recruits Slav to make sure it can’t be traced. She loses track of working on it in the excitement; Slav doesn’t. And after the events of the last battle, while the Castle is damaged and recovering, they all need it. (Title and chapter titles are references to Radio Silence by Styx.) Artwork included by Ninnani! My Comments: Very emotional post season two fic. I loved the different ways the paladins related to their families, and having Slav and Kolivan there added a nice outside perspective at moments. Lance’s conversations with his family were particularly poignant for me, but it was all good.

Somewhere by Ironic_Swag7782 Words: 1,008 Author’s Summary: Lance gets maybe the best birthday present ever - too bad he isn’t in the right mind to enjoy it. Well, he won’t let a simple fever beat him this time! A short little fic I wrote for Lance’s birthday. My Comments: Short and sweet, and Hunk is perfect.

Dark Places by Bandity Words: 12,183 Author’s Summary: After a terrifying battle, Lance begins to fall apart. Luckily, he has a team ready to pick up the pieces no matter what. My Comments: It’s Bandity, so you know it’s good. The peril Lance falls into is suspenseful and inventive, but this fic also stands out for the characterization of everyone else on the team. I especially love the use of Coran here. Always so satisfying, gah, I could read fics like this all day every day.

Miasma by YukiSkyes Words: 15,966 Author’s Summary: Verterna is slowly dying and Pidge calls for Shiro’s help to investigate the source of the affliction ailing her forest. But the area they must navigate has become a dangerous, noxious swamp shrouded in a miasma of poison. The help of all the Guardian Spirits is going to be needed if they want to find out what’s happening. It’s just as well when it becomes apparent that there’s something malicious lurking in the mists beyond. My Comments: I really love the pacing and worldbuilding of this fic. It starts out in a bad situation and never stops for an info-dump, just tells us what we need to along the way in a very efficient and interesting way. It feels like it’s part of an ongoing series, but it also stands on its own perfectly. I love all of the paladins’ abilities and their teamwork, and the conflict is very suspenseful and exciting. Super fun and original fantasy AU.

Operation Holiday by SmolPidge Words: 9,052 Author’s Summary: After Zarkon’s defeat and Shiro’s disappearance, a mourning Team Voltron, with no current plans for the universe’s future, decide to take a break and use this brief period of peace to celebrate everything they’ve missed on Earth in a rather unorthodox manner. In other words, Keith is salty about everyone having fun as they try to recreate Earth holidays. My Comments: Great, episode-like mix of humor, grief, fluff, and team bonding. Everyone gets a moment to shine.

Efficiently Vicious by Quiet_Shadow Words: 1,166 Author’s Summary: “Pidge was awesome!” Lance giggled nervously again. “I wish you had been with us, Shiro. Our little lioness was sooo brutal; the poor guys didn’t know what befell them!” Or: Lance is concussed, Pidge is embarrassed, and Shiro realizes he made a mistake letting the two of them go on their own and that Pidge can be damn vicious, even on accident… My Comments: Cute and funny fic featuring concussed Lance and badass Pidge.

When I Grow Up… by blueconstellation Words: 1,408 Author’s Summary: Lance is down after a hard battle, Keith talks him through it My Comments: Really sweet, introspective bonding fic.

Don’t Take No Sorcery by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 7,471 Author’s Summary: Just a few months ago, Shiro learned about the existence of the Wizarding World. Today, he boards the train to begin his first year.A prequel to Butteredonion’s Unafraid My Comments: The way Shiro and Matt and Allura meet and become friends is both adorable and realistic. They are all three such different people, yet they get along so well. I can really see how that one short train ride would have bonded them for life. And they’re all characterized brilliantly, of course, because this is bosstoaster.

The Drone Advantage by spitfire00 Words: 6,568 Author’s Summary: But the picture she had most clearly in her mind was the one in which she was forced to watch as some faceless Galrans beat Hunk with their guns until he stopped twitching on the floor, and how Keith had screamed so hard that no sound came out when Lance was shot point blank by one of the Galran’s blasters, then tossed into a room to bleed from his stomach until he died, or how Shiro fought with the desperation of a man gone mad- or, as Pidge couldn’t help but assume, with the desperation of a man who had already seen the horrors that awaited them in the Galran prison. or Team Voltron is captured by a Galra prison ship. Pidge orchestrates an escape with the aid of forty drones. My Comments: This fic is so intense, and Pidge is an incredible badass. Her determination to get them all out really drove the fic. It felt like a twenty-minute action scene in a movie. Very suspenseful, great driving pace.

Joker and the Thief by legendarydesvender (svensationalist) Words: 6,454 Author’s Summary: “I see you met Nyma,” the bartender says with a wry smile after Rolo returns to the nunvillary with questions. “You’re not the first person she fooled and I doubt you’ll be the last. Take anything important?” “Everything except my life, really,” Rolo admits. *** Life is shitty with the Empire breathing down your neck, but it’s not so bad when you’ve got a partner in crime. A backstory for Rolo and Nyma. Written for the Voltron Gen Mini Bang 2017; partnered with kickingshoes. My Comments: Great backstory for these characters, really made me care about them. Their histories both make a lot of sense in a universe consumed by war and subjugation, and I’m glad they found each other, because they both very badly need a friend. Rolo’s history was particularly painful.

Journey by Smoke_Wisp Words: 2,265 Author’s Summary: Coran opened the closet and peered inside at Pidge. He blinked a few times and gave a bemused Jeeves look. “Hello, there?” he said, “Have I interrupted one of your strange but culturally important Earth customs?” “Not exactly,” said Pidge as she extricated herself from the pile of buckets, “I thought you were the princess.” “Hmm,” Coran twirled his mustache and peered into the closet. “Are you two playing a game of Hide and Find?” “We humans call it Hide and Seek.” “Not a very ambitious game then, is it?” Since revealing her true gender to her teammates, Pidge has been having conflicting thoughts about her identity, and Allura’s seeking her out to have some “girl time” isn’t helping. My Comments: Great interaction between Coran and Pidge. He’s a good listener, and sometimes Pidge needs someone to listen.

For Want of Yeast by squirenonny Words: 2,676 Author’s Summary: It figured when he finally found real, genuine, eat-it-with-butter bread, it would be at Vrepit Sal’s. Or, Hunk just wants to make everyone’s favorite comfort foods, but they all seem to involve bread, and there’s no yeast in outer space–except at Sal’s. My Comments: I adore Hunk as a culinary expert, and he deserves all the fans in the universe. Sal is so genuinely delighted to see him and learn from him again. It really did my heart good.

Interlude: The Art of Friendship by TheQueen Words: 7,653 Author’s Summary: Lance and Hunk were not always friends. A gen minibang fic! My Comments: It’s great to see a fic that treats a platonic relationship with all the gravity and pathos of a romantic relationship. It’s so rare! But yes, friendships can be just as intense and full of drama and jealousy and misunderstandings as romantic relationships, and I love the journey that Hunk and Lance went on here in learning to accommodate each other and, yes, love each other just as they are.

Paladin’s Guide to Bonding in Space by Mikiri Words: 17,541 Author’s Summary: Pidge had tried to keep it a secret that she danced, but like any secret on an alien ship that had seven people, everyone found out. Upon discovery that she was not the only member of the crew with that secret, the Paladins decided to use dance to educate their Altean hosts on how humans conduct bonding exercises. My Comments: Really fun fic in which all of the paladins have different dance styles and decide to put on a recital for Allura and Coran. Of course it does not go completely smoothly, haha, but it’s great bonding for all. Lots of videos are linked to help you visualize the dances, which is great.

Of Homesickness and Baking by itsthevoid Words: 1,421 Author’s Summary: Allura wasn’t exactly known for her uninterrupted sleep schedule, and Hunk wasn’t known to sleep when homesick. So they end up making cookies instead. My Comments: Super sweet bonding fic! Those cookies sound delicious.

Feeling Blue by AgentHoot Words: 3,982 Author’s Summary: Lance finds himself sneaking out of his room late at night, plagued by his thoughts and unable to sleep. In the darkness of the castle, he’s left to face his feelings of inadequacy on his own.Or is he?Where Lance doubts his self-worth, but finds an unlikely friend to keep him going. My Comments: I love fics that explore Lance and Blue’s relationship, and this is a lovely one. Very soft and comforting.

Fusion Confusion by Amaranthkick Words: 6,086 (2/?) Author’s Summary: Lance was insecure about the skills he can offer for his team. Shiro overheard and came up with a plan to help prove to the blue paladin that he was stronger than he thought. He just didn’t expect the turn this mission was going to take. My Comments: Author notes that this can be read as pre-slash, but so far it feels gen to me. I’m always up for Lance and Shiro bonding, and this is a particularly interesting kind of bonding, haha. Kind of cracky premise, but I’m really enjoying and looking forward to more. They make a wonderful team.

Death Wish by Eastofthemoon Words: 3,481 Author’s Summary: Hunk is a Galra mechanic who is simply trying to mind his own business as he works on a mining colony. Yet, when he discovers an intruder he finds it hard to leave the matter alone. My Comments: I love this alternate version of the team getting together. Hunk is such a sweetheart, and Keith is like the mysterious boy that blows into town on his motorcycle and lures away the small-town girl to a life of adventure, haha.

Shadows in the Ocean by A_Zap Words: 1,591 Author’s Summary: One moment, things were cool. Then, there was fire and pain and smoke, and Lance found himself drowning in a sea of darkness. He needs to find a way out, because something tells him that things are not going well.AKA What was going on while Lance was unconscious. My Comments: Good take on the time when Lance was unconscious after the bomb in season one. I still feel cheated that we never got any actual cradling.

Deconstruction by grimwoode Words: 10,784 Author’s Summary: On good days, Shiro can’t remember how he was imprisoned or why. On bad days, he wishes he could forget everything all over again. Only his new friend manages to make his containment bearable, until he finally reaches his limit at the hands of the Galra, and Shiro decides that he’ll escape from their prison or he’ll very well die trying. My Comments: Warning for extremely graphic violence. This is a really interesting take on Shiro’s captivity and escape. It was written before season two came out, but there are some parallels with canon, even so. There’s a sequel with all kinds of fluff and bonding with the paladins, thankfully, since this is a rough read.

Something from Nothing by squirenonny Words: 1,899 Author’s Summary: Rolo needs food. Or money. Preferably both. He does NOT need his conscience getting in the way. My Comments: This is part of the Duality ‘verse but stands alone. And it made me fall in love with Rolo, which is quite an accomplishment, since I was always rather indifferent to him before. He’s just such a softie, even after an incredibly hard and lonely life.

Prince of Memory by VelkynKarma Words: 20,169 Author’s Summary: Shiro escaped the gladiator arenas. Hundreds of others didn’t; hundreds of others perished. But Shiro’s memories contain more than just patrol routes and battle techniques—and there may yet be a way to bring at least a few of those lost prisoners home, even after death. My Comments: Warning for OC death and graphic flashbacks. This fic made me straight-up cry at work, so don’t read it if you want something lighthearted, but it’s so so so good. Amazingly good. I love this concept for the way Shiro became a hero to his fellow prisoners, and it was also uplifting despite the pain, or maybe because of it. Absolutely stellar work. It blew me away.

No Wheels by isabeau25 Words: 14,103 Author’s Summary: In the wake of Shiro’s disappearance, the team struggles to get their feet back under them, and Lance tries to be whatever the team needs him to be, even if that means being separated from his beloved Blue. My Comments: Holy crow, I love this fic SO MUCH. This is the only kind of lion-swapping I can tolerate–where it’s terrible and temporary and really doesn’t work at all and everyone is kind of miserable and just wants Shiro back so things can go back to normal. I just hate Lance being separate from Blue, and they do too. It’s never stated outright, but Lance seems to be struggling with some depression here, in addition to insecurity and grief. Fortunately, his friends care about him very much and try to prove to him how important he is. Especially Blue. I love it love it love it. This one made my chest ache.

Previously Recced Fics That Updated:

The Machinations of Perception (35885 words) Coran's Guide to the Care and Keeping of Earthling Humans (25044 words) Bromances in Space (26539 words) Taking One For The Team (25791 words) Gate Keeper (84292 words) Lost Boys (17773 words) All The World Will Be Your Enemy (30238 words) In Sickness and Health (15141 words) Truce (149218 words) The Ones Who Were Left Behind (29145 words) As Color Fades Away (80067 words) A Mother Comes In Many Forms (6463 words)

#voltron legendary defender #weekly voltron fic recs #fic rec #yep this week is a lot longer than last week #and next week might be longer still #vldgen

[kuriquinn]

Green Fields

Disclaimer & Masterpost

Summary: In the eyes of the world, she and Neji were only teammates after all, and to pretend otherwise is an insult to his memory. Whatever carefully hidden feelings and secret hopes they might have had must remain unspoken, known only to her. [NarutoWeek2017 – Day 3 - Prompt: "Team Gai"]

Konoha's graveyard seems much bigger than Tenten remembers it being when she was a child. She would like to think it's because she didn't come here all that often before, but the sad truth of it is that it's grown in the months following the war.

So many died in the first battles, across so many fields of conflict, that the recovery teams are still looking for the missing. Every day a new headstone is added as more bodies are shipped back home, and she knows this best because of her daily pilgrimages to Neji's grave.

Since returning to the village, Tenten has become a frequent visitor to the Konoha memorial – even more frequent than Kakashi. These days his duties as Hokage don't leave much time for personal reflection. In the early weeks she would encounter him quite often, but as reconstruction and recovery get underway, he comes here less and less.

She also thinks he might finally have started making peace with his losses, which is something she knows she's nowhere near ready to do yet. The wounds are still fresh and the pain still lingers.

There are mornings since the end of the war that she wakes and stares at herself in the mirror, sees the eyes of a woman with a broken heart but who must not cry out or ask for sympathy for it. In the eyes of the world, she and Neji were only teammates after all, and to pretend otherwise is an insult to his memory. Whatever carefully hidden feelings and secret hopes they might have had must remain unspoken, known only to her.

And maybe Hinata, she thinks as she approaches the memorial stone and sees the other girl's familiar form. Neji's cousin might have been the only person to ever suspect, but she is too quiet and kind to ever voice a secret that is not her own. After all, she alone understands and sympathises with all of the reasons being more than teammates and friends would have been impossible.

"It's good to see you, Tenten," the Hyūga heiress says softly.

"You too. How are you and your family doing?"

The words are heartfelt. Tenten can't resent her for Neji's death; he protected Hinata with his life not because she was his superior within the clan but because he genuinely cared for her, and because she is a good person.

"Better every day, thank you," Hinata says. "I was just about to leave – but if you like, I can stay with you."

"No, that's alright. I might be here a while, and I know you're busy."

Hinata has had her hands full with clan business since the end of the war; especially as Neji was not the only casualty within their family. She and Hanabi have been splitting their duties as best as possible.

It also seems as if the death of the branch family's prodigy has prompted the elders to consider changing their generations old policies.

Too little, too late, Tenten can't help but think bitterly.

"Not too busy for this," Hinata says, and tentatively reaches out a comforting hand. Ever since the war, Hinata has been trying to come out of her shell a little more, and Tenten recognises the effort that takes. She accepts her friend's hand and they stand for a moment, the two girls who loved Neji the most, sharing their grief.

After several moments, Hinata takes her leave, recognising that Tenten wants to be alone.

Time passes, but she doesn't really notice. The breeze rustles across the flowers laid at the base of the memorial.

The list of names on the memorial stone is long and ever-growing. Tenten's eyes have long since memorised where Neji's is etched, but she knows the others written there as well.

Inoichi Yamanaka. Shikaku Nara.

Several members of her graduating class as well, which is sad and unexpected.

Not as unexpected as two other names among the list of heroes, though.

She's still not quite sure how she feels, seeing Itachi Uchiha's name written here as well. Even though Naruto and others have insisted that the honor his warranted, and that the world would have been lost without his intervention, she isn't so sure. He was Akatsuki, after all, and responsible for rounding up the jinchūriki that created the Ten Tails.

The creature responsible for Neji's death.

When darker thoughts begin to surface she moves away from the stone. There's no use getting angry about the past – it can't be changed, after all. Instead, she wanders over to the section of the cemetery reserved for the Hyūga, and kneels respectfully beside the all-to-familiar grave.

"I'm back," she tells him. "I can't stay very long today, as we have a mission later, but I thought I'd check in with you anyhow." She bites her lip, looks around to make sure there's no one there, and then adds, "I miss you. It's not getting any easier. It's not getting any harder, either, I guess, but it's still…it's still hard."

She sniffs, shakes her head in an effort to hold back tears. He would hate her crying over him. Either because he didn't appreciate weakness, or because he just wasn't good with comforting people.

"Or both," she concludes. "Probably both. It's what should have tipped me off that the other world wasn't real. You were too…different." She pauses. "I sometimes dream about it – that world that I got stuck in. It was so strange, and there was so much wrong with it – you and all of our friends acted so strange. But it…even if it was all wrong, the fact that you were there, and alive…I think I would have stayed there forever."

His grave is silent in response to this, and she sighs.

"Alright…that's enough moping for today," she decides, straightening her back. "You probably want to hear more about what's been happening around here. So, I'll do my best!"

She adjusts her posture so that she is sitting cross-legged in front of his headstone, deciding he probably wouldn't mind. Neji was never one to have patience with ceremony, considering how often his life was dictated by it.

"I'm improving all of the moves you showed me, and practicing every day," she tells him. "It's not the same, though. I miss your voice telling me to do it better. You always challenged me to do my best and even though I can pretend I still here you…it's not the same." She crosses her arms protectively over her front. "I've been considering asking Hinata to work with me, because – well, she knew your style so well in the end – but I'm worried it would be too painful."

She's not completely sure who it would be worse for, to be honest.

"Gai-sensei and Li are driving me crazy, but you probably already knew that," she informs him. "You'd think being stuck in a wheelchair would make him slow down, but he's as exuberant as ever. You just wait, he'll have an entire taijutsu form based on wheelchairs figured out within the next generation."

She's surprised he hasn't started already, to be honest.

"And oh! I never realised how hard it must have been for you to be the voice of reason," she sighs. "It's exhausting! The number of things I have to talk those two out of doing these days – it's ridiculous!" She smiles. "You were always so good at getting them side-tracked, but it's like they can't hear me when I talk – I keep getting dragged into their schemes and I can never figure out how. And now, you're not even here to commiserate with."

Or share looks of exasperation with.

"I'm not sure if I'm going to go on and try for jōnin," she goes on. "I don't know if I can take any more of the heartache that comes with active duty. But I've been thinking…maybe I'll open a weapon's shop. It's another one of my passions, after all. And I could organize my own hours, and have free time – I could even offer lessons to kids before they start the Academy. Or free lessons for civilian kids." A future shapes itself around her words, and even as she speaks the words the details fill in. "Not just the children of shinobi families, but civilian kids, too. Girls, especially. That way anyone who wants to do their best can get off to the right start. I don't want anyone to ever feel caged..."

At the sound of loud sniffling, she startles and whirls around, having been so lost in her words that she didn't notice she wasn't alone.

Gai and Li behind her, both with tears streaming down their cheeks.

If Neji were here he'd have something to say about that!

Tenten groans.

"Okay, how long have the two of you been standing there?"

"Long enough to experience your most beautiful words!" Gai blubbers.

"So beautiful they couldn't help move us to tears!"

"Such youthful dreams! So strong in the face of tragedy!"

"Truly, you are the cornerstone of our squad, Tenten!"

"Oh, knock it off, both of you!" she grumbles, her cheeks turning red both in embarrassment for having been heard and their absolutely ridiculous behaviour. "Could you at least pretend to have some decorum while we're standing here?"

"There is no need for decorum among friends! Neji would agree."

"He probably wouldn't…"

"Truly, I will fight to make your dream a reality!" Li yells suddenly striking a pose. "I will go to the ends of the earth to find you the best metals for your weapons!"

"And I will negotiate with our best demolitionist to provide the best explosive tags for a low price," Gai insists, forming a determined fist. "Top quality, low price!"

He punctuates each word with a karate chop.

"You sound like an infomercial," she deadpans. "And stop it – I can do all those things myself."

"Nonsense! It is our duty to help you with your dream and ensure Neji's legacy! It is what he would have wanted, I have no doubt!"

"Now, hold on, I don't think –"

"We shall have to find permits!"

"Not to worry, my most dedicated student, I can ask my old rival Kakashi for help there," Gai grins, nudging Li conspiratorially with his elbow. "It pays to have friends in high places."

"But wait," Tenten begins again, "I don't even –"

"and we will need a catchy slogan for advertisements," Li cuts her off.

"Aren't you two getting a little ahead of –"

"Perhaps we can have a special on jumpsuits!"

"And dumbbells!"

"Hey! Stop horning in on my dream!" Tenten yells, fists clenched and three seconds away from stabbing them both.

But they are already leaving the cemetery, Li jogging off behind Gai's wheelchair, both of them merrily chatting and becoming steadily more excited.

Against her will, her mouth begins to twitch, and a small smile escapes. Tenten sighs and stares up at the sky, watching a hawk soar in the distance.

Are you watching, Neji?

＊

Ever and away, a pale-eyed spectre watches three of the people dearest to him and smiles. "Always."

つづく

Well, this turned out a little more sad and a little more shippy than I expected, but I still enjoyed writing it. Hope you guys enjoyed reading it too!

クリ

Next Chapter

#narutoweek2017 #naruto shippuden #naruto week #naruto fanfiction #team gai #tenten #rock lee #maito gai #hinata hyuuga #hints nejitenten #chapter 699 #legacy of fire

[rinusagitora]

we will carve a home out of the hollow in your chest

Fandom: Bleach

Characters: Momo Hinamori, Izuru Kira, Renji Abarai, Shuuhei Hisagi, Toushirou Hitsugaya

Pairings: RenShuuKiraHina, familial HitsuHina, mentioned badship AiHina

Words: 1700+

Summary: Canon divergent, pos TYBW arc. WARNINGS-- body horror, minor violence, mass death. 1/4. The war is over, and the losses are permanent, but they know how to manage.

FFN | AO3 | Next

It was true the universe, or whatever power mastered destiny, gave her a bad hand with Sousuke and those fifteen years of Hell she spent with him. It was enough to put wrinkles across her face and tint her honey skin some ugly grey, it was enough to ruin her once lilted voice, it was enough to weigh down her limbs.

But this was enough to put an extra century or so on anybody’s face. It was more than what was called for with what she had already suffered.

She was okay though. She, Momo Hinamori, knew how to manage when every part of her ached. She dared argue that it was when she was most productive-- anything and everything that kept her mind off her heartbreak, her grief, her horror, her self-loathe. Even the mass destruction the Quincies caused rolled off her back and she took it in stride so long as she didn’t dwell on the amount of tally marks on her sheet. Not even the smell of burnt fat and gore really affected her.

Nanao’s hand clasped her shoulder as they watched other officers heave yet another charred husk onto the cart. Her friend had tied a wet rag around her face as if it would smother the fetid air, but she wondered, as she watched Nanao’s eyes shine, if it was partly to catch her tears. Nanao’s coldness was bravado. Was she put in the field, it took every fiber of her self-discipline to hold herself together. She wasn’t seasoned to battle, or it consequences, like their coworkers.

“Rest,” Nanao’s voice was almost lost in her rag, but it would’ve been easy to guess what her friend would’ve said regardless if she could’ve heard it or not. “You’ve been up even longer than our captains. You’re useless if you collapse.”

The concern in her voice betrayed her intentions, but Nanao was smart and knew what buttons to push to get people to do what she wanted. She was almost as good as Sousuke in that way.

She wordlessly handed over her clipboard and made her way through the debris. She wondered if she had stayed up long enough she wouldn’t toss and turn for hours until she actually fell asleep, she wondered if she was exhausted enough she wouldn’t remember her nightmares. They plagued her even worse at that time than even just after Aizen stabbed her.

The tents were a virtual city that had sprung up in a matter of hours just after word of Juha Bach’s death circulated. They weren’t meant to serve privacy or privilege, only as a center where officers could rest and refuel until they had to return to the mess that lie just outside of it. It was always full and always busy, but the only sounds were that of quiet snores, footfalls, chopsticks against trays, a sob every couple of minutes. It was the place where the massive losses finally sunk in, without any distractions. She hated the place for that reason. It made it even harder to breathe than where the smell of death coated nearly her every orifice.

She laid on a low bunk. She didn’t bother with the blankets because they were well-used and filthy and of no comfort to her. Blackness consumed her as soon as her head hit the pillow. Thank God. She may not able to hold herself together otherwise.

She was a light sleeper when she wasn’t comatose. Bumps, whispers, feather-like touches were enough to rouse her in most cases. It was her excuse why she didn’t sleep for days-- it was impossible for her to wake when she was worked to her very bones, but a relatively sedentary lifestyle, like her work normally was, made it difficult.

That time, it was an argument that woke her.

However much she loved her brother, however glad she was that he was alive, he needed to tone it down if he wanted to keep his vocal cords.

She took her arm off her eyes as she sat up. And then, for the first time since the invasion, tears sprang to her eyes as her gaze laid to rest on a familiar head of blonde hair and the handsome nose that peaked just beyond his bangs.

“Oh my god, Izuru!”

She didn’t care how many eyes were on her as she raced over to him. All of her boys were alright, all of her boys were home and in one piece. She had kept it together the entire time, she was allowed at least one lapse in her stoicism.

Izuru caught her wrists as she made to hold him. It was then her sight caught it; the mass in the shape of his arm that seemed to absorb every bit of light that hit it, the hole in his side.

Her sobs turned into horrified shrieks. It felt exactly like the first time she discovered the body of a lover, how it felt like it was she pinned up on that wall instead Aizen. It was as if her chest had been blown off too that moment. Her eyes ached, she couldn’t catch her breathe, and then it went as dark as that arm.

She wondered, for half a second, if that entire thing had just been a bad dream. But Izuru was still there, the hole in his chest and his arm still in clear view, and Toushirou called her name as he held her upright with his forearms under her pits. She must’ve been out for only a few seconds….

“I told you this would happen, you fool. I hope this makes you happy.” Izuru growled. She was about to shout his name as her lover turned away, but it died into some pathetic blubber.

“Can you stand?”

Her head whipped to her brother then. She couldn’t seem to gather her thoughts for a moment, and then she finally nodded.

“Kira’s… a lot of things right now.” Toushirou said. “I know you’ll think this is your fault in some way if you haven’t already, but it isn’t. It’s just hard for him for you to see him like this.

Her brother’s reassurances fell onto deaf ears. It felt as if her heart tore from her aorta and sunk into her belly. She couldn’t make herself stop crying, all the pain Izuru must be in whirled in her head. She barely registered when Toushirou shout for everyone to mind their own business.

“Grab grab something to eat and then get back to work.” He told her then. She could do that, the work part at least. She wouldn’t be able to eat so long as she was so emotional. Food didn’t sit well in her stomach was she was like that.

The trip to her captain was a blur, his orders were a blur, all the hours she moved rubble and counted bodies were a blur. She couldn’t even say if Nanao was with her or not. She could only replay that terrible sight over and over.

She was physically removed from that sense after someone grabbed her shoulder.

It was Renji, and Shuuhei was at his flank with trays under his arm. Her clipboard clattered on the ground as she fell into them. She bent them to her level and kissed their faces as they held her. It was hard to hold herself together around her lovers, when they cried together so often, when they made her feel loved and alright after her meltdowns.

“Ise tells us you’ve been out of it all day.” Renji said as he picked her up by the back of her knees. Of course Nanao would tattle. Granted, she wasn’t sure if she entirely blamed her friend, she thought as she laid her cheek on her lover’s temple.

“Izuru’s back and I didn’t take it well.” She sniffed. She knew she would cry again after she checked back into reality, she hated how gross her face was when she cried.

“Neither did I.” Shuuhei said. He, like her, must’ve wailed. People like them just couldn’t catch a break. Their hearts were always an open wound.

She sat between them on a fallen pillar. She laid her head on Shuuhei’s shoulder as he set a tray on her lap. Rice and beans. She would light them a fire and warm her cold feet, but the idea quickly made her sick with the stench of burnt human flesh still so thick.

“Eat, you’re as gaunt as a skeleton.” Renji chided. She lamely touched her food to her lips, but like normal, she simply couldn’t bring herself to have single meals. She couldn’t stomach anything for days or weeks, and then binged when her body finally couldn’t be starved anymore.

Still, she had been in less comfortable circumstances in the past. Little bites, she thought, so her stomach wouldn’t heave. Just to make Renji happy.

“Where’ve you guys been?” She asked.

“Mostly in the west end of the Seireitei with squads seven and thirteen. We’ve been helping with reconstruction since that area’s been cleared.” Shuuhei replied.

“Good. I’m glad we’re getting some of the barracks back. I can’t stand the tents.”

“You’re never so abashed around us.” Shuuhei said with some mild tone of smugness. That tone once made her knees weak and loins hot, but it didn’t seem to do anything to her then. It made her even sadder for some reason. She still hadn’t given them that. The thought made her relive every time Aizen fucked it, it brought back the phantoms of his unkind hands.

“I can keep you gentlemen clean.” She snort, as if they all weren’t still covered in welts and grime. “The tents are disgusting. So much filth can’t be good for anyone’s health.”

“It won’t be long. We are prioritizing living quarters, after all, starting with the captains’ quarters and moving down. Everybody’s been starting shit lately because of how packed together we are, so it’ll be good to have real beds to sleep in.” Shuuhei said.

She and Renji hummed

Renji nudged her with his elbow. “How’ve you been holding up?”

Her tears dripped onto her rice. Shuuhei kissed her scalp and combed his fingers through the tresses. It didn’t soothe her heartache like his touch normally could. It couldn’t fill the hole in Izuru’s side, it couldn’t restore his arm, it couldn’t bring back the sheen to his eyes, so of course it couldn’t relief her aches.

Renji sniffed. “Eat,” he told her. “We’ll take this one step at a time. There are other bridges we have to cross before that one.”

Part of her hoped her grief finally suffocated her.

#bleach #renshuukirahina #momo hinamori #izuru kira #toshiro hitsugaya #renji abarai #shuhei hisagi #I POSTED THIS TO THE WRONG BLOG A;WLEKJFAWEKFA

[brainfoodgp]

Brain Food Garden Project Blog/January 2017

“So a lot of difficulties, a lot of problems, but when you carry out the work, and the more difficulties you encounter, then when you see some results the greater the joy. Isn’t it? -Dalai Lama-

I am standing at the edge. I have been standing on the edge of a deep dark canyon for a while now. I would be lying to you, I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t write those words to open this first Brain Food Garden Project blog of the New Year.

When I started the hashtag #CandorSavesLives soon to be two years ago, it wasn’t meant to be just a catchy little way to get people to share their important and often healing stories of recovery. It was also a reminder to myself that speaking my truth every day was an important wellness tool at my disposal in keeping myself well. So for me not to say the words, “I am standing at the edge,” would be a grave disservice to myself and to those I go to work every day to serve and advocate for in the mental health community.

I know from my work that I am not alone in the way “change” affects my manic depression. Violent change in fact can send me reeling in ways that those with a healthy brain could never possibly comprehend. If you are indifferent to the violent changes our country, our world is currently witnessing then you probably voted for the fascist, authoritarian regime that has quickly, in just a few short days, started to dismantle our democracy and this is probably where you should stop reading.

I have been working hard to keep myself centered using all of the wellness tools I have developed for myself over the past several years. However, the bad days I’ve been experiencing lately have far outweighed the good. Trying to understand how my own mother could have been taken in by a tyrant has been the predominant theme of my therapy sessions lately. The uncertainty of the authoritarian states dismantling of the Affordable Care Act and how the very community I serve will be directly affected, including myself has occupied my brain on an ever ending loop. My hopes for the progress I thought we were starting to make as a citizenry has been sledgehammered and it seems my brain on most days incapable of picking up the splintered tiny pieces.

There have been moments of reconciliation, small seeds of gratitude sprinkled into the moist soil of my brain like the Women’s March that I hope will grow my warrior skin back, enabling me to fight on. I thought I was strong enough to start my first Farm School class of the year, further seeds of gratitude planted. However, the intensity of the Food Justice course and a two day ending racism seminar only left me with deeper questions about my own place in the movement and brought back plaguing questions about how to move forward with Brain Food Garden Project. My ongoing depression kept me away from several classes and I will need to retake the course next year.  That is one of the worst parts of depression it makes you doubt yourself and your abilities.

I have known for some time that January would be a difficult month for me. It marks the anniversaries of the death of two people that were very important in my life my grandmother who died two years ago this month and the fresher pain of the loss of my friend Todd to suicide last year. The idea of loss has been heavily on my mind since the outcome of our election in November as well. I have been relying heavily on the 7 Stages of Grief to help me through and it has been very helpful in understanding that the depression I am in right now is temporary. It is not the completely crushing and demoralizing blow of bipolar depression, but a depression that if I continue to work hard and use the wellness tools at my disposal I will be able to see myself through in the end.

We are all grieving for someone, some of us are grieving for the state of our world even. So for the first blog back of the New Year I thought it was a perfect time to discuss the 7 Stages of Grieving in our feature for January. Also, this year we are changing up the Top 5, which normally looks back on the top five social media posts from the month. Keep your eyes posted to this section moving forward because we are changing the name to “Notes From The Resistance” and we will be featuring articles that look at just how the new fascist order are treating those most effected in the food justice community and those with mental health concerns. I’ll be back with “What I’m Reading” next month with a special February book edition of the blog. And finally, this month a new comfort food recipe for you to try in your home kitchen. If you are anything like me the temptation of gorging on junk food when you are depressed is overwhelming but comfort food doesn’t need to be processed food. My time in the kitchen cooking even provides a necessary action for getting me out of bed when my brain doesn’t want me to lift my head from the pillow.

The BFGP Feature:

The Seven Stages of Grief

The first mistake I always make for myself is thinking that grieving is a linear progression. I forget that grieving is different for everyone with one commonality the process of chaotic twists and turns we all go through and how little to do with logical thinking the entire process entails. Many people use the 5 Stages of Grieving model. However, I have always found the 7 Stages directly connected with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s amazing book On Death and Dying to be the most helpful for me. Let’s first look at the stages as described by RecoverfromGrief.com:

1.   Shock & Denial- You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. You may deny the reality of the loss at some level, in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once. This may last for weeks.

2.       Pain & Guilt- As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you experience the pain fully, and not hide it, avoid it or escape these feelings.

3.       Anger & Bargaining- Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame for the death on someone else. Please try to control this, as permanent damage to your relationships may result. This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion.  You may rail against fate, questioning “Why me?” You may also try to bargain in vain with the powers that be for a way out of your despair (“I will never drink again if you just bring him back”)

4.   Depression, Reflection, Loneliness- Just when your friends may think you should be getting on with your life, a long period of sad reflection will likely overtake you. This is a normal stage of grief, so do not be “talked out of it” by well-meaning outsiders. Encouragement from others is not helpful to you during this stage of grieving.  During this time, you finally realize the true magnitude of your loss, and it depresses you. You may isolate yourself on purpose, reflect on things you did with your lost one, and focus on memories of the past. You may sense feelings of emptiness or despair

5.   The Upward Turn- As you start to adjust to life without your dear one, your life becomes a little calmer and more organized. Your physical symptoms lessen, and your “depression” begins to lift slightly.

6.   Reconstruction & Working Through- As you become more functional, your mind starts working again, and you will find yourself seeking realistic solutions to problems posed by life without your loved one. You will start to work on practical and financial problems and reconstructing yourself and your life without him or her.

7.   Acceptance & Hope- During this, the last of the seven stages in this grief model, you learn to accept and deal with the reality of your situation. Acceptance does not necessarily mean instant happiness. Given the pain and turmoil you have experienced, you can never return to the carefree, untroubled YOU that existed before this tragedy. But you will find a way forward.  You will start to look forward and actually plan things for the future. Eventually, you will be able to think about your lost loved one without pain; sadness, yes, but the wrenching pain will be gone. You will once again anticipate some good times to come, and yes, even find joy again in the experience of living.

It is somehow comforting to me to know where I fall in my process of grieving. It keeps me five steps back from the edge of the precipice because for me stepping off the ledge isn’t an option anymore. For now I seem to be stuck between steps 3 & 4. However, the more people I speak with I am not the only one weaving back and forth down this long dark road alone. For me the object is to simply stay on the road. And for me the way that I am doing this is to work through my wellness tools, to continue to be as honest with myself about my feelings as I possibly can and to not close myself off entirely sharing those feelings with like-minded people that understand where I am coming from.

If you are like me and are dealing with the wide range of emotions for what our country is facing but also have the loss of loved one’s deep on your psyche. You will need to work even harder to pinpoint what the specific emotion you’re experiencing at the given moment is and where that places you on the list. It is very important to be able to separate all of what you might be grieving for and pinpoint the emotion directly to better help you in your recovery process.

I believe working through my grief is the only way to avoid long term trauma. I have a mission for my life and it is important to me that I honor that mission. I believe that the quote I used to open this month’s blog by the Dalai Lama speaks volumes to this:  “So a lot of difficulties, a lot of problems, but when you carry out the work, and the more difficulties you encounter, then when you see some results the greater the joy. Isn’t it? To get to this place I need to fully work through my grief. Only then will I be able to honor my mission fully. Only then will the enormity and power of my true mission become crystal clear and fruitfully realised.

Notes From The Resistance: 

If you had asked someone from my generation, a generation that watched Walter Cronkite and then Dan Rather on the evening news with our family every night, if  words like “fake news” would one day topple our democracy. Most of us would have given you the classic Scooby Doo “Ruh-roh!” Then again we are now living in a world of “alternative facts” spun by the new propaganda machine of the new fascist, authoritarian state. We as a first step to resistance must never allow ourselves to normalize any of this. And so every month Brain Food Garden Project will do our part to bring you 5 articles highlighting this administrations horrible lack of policy and mind numbing and voracious speed in ripping our Constitution to shreds and disenfranchise any human being not part of the rich white male oligarchy. Our content will be food justice, food equity and mental health parity/advocacy based. However, we will not shy away from privilege or any other important issues threatening our democracy. So please read on…

1. Trump’s dismantling of the Affordable Care Act with absolutely no replacement plan is going to shorten the lives of millions of Americans. Those of us with mental health concerns will suffer too. Click here 

2. For us not to care about our treaties with the rightful custodians of this land is something that has gone on for generations. Each and everyone of us should defend the rights to the indigenous peoples sacred ground and the protection of their water supply. Click Here 

3. Our moto is the only walls we should be building in America are walls that grow more food to feed us. Trump’s isolationism, the wall, deportation of immigrants and so many other hurtful unconstitutional policies are meant to drive a wedge between us. But they are also going to put great burdens on our food supply. This article on avocados from Mexico is only the beginning. Click Here

4. Trump hates science and this article is the first of many I plan on posting on the subject. Click Here

5. White Privilege is one of the main reasons Trump was able to gain control of our democracy. We are not afraid to own it or discuss it at BFGP. This article by one of my favorite authors hits the nail on the head perfectly. Click Here 

Healthy & Delicious Recipes:

Avocado’s are high in fiber, potassium, Vitamin E and folic acid. As well as being a good source of fat. I am not looking forward to avocados going up in price. They are already what I consider a necessary splurge on my food budget due to the fact avocado’s have also been proven to aid in brain health. Avocado toast is one of my favorite quick go to breakfasts and I have even been known to make a version or two of my favorites for dinner. These are five of my favorites from What’s Gabby Cooking. Check them out here