The Significance of 22:22 for Lou

Great stuff!

Hey, let me get a bit Sue and Barry on you for a moment please as there are just too many ingredients for me to let it pass without comment!

Before we went to Centerparcs, Lou and I were stood in the kitchen chatting about coincidences or petunia oil or something and Lou momentarily became very numerological on me. He asked if I ever looked at clocks and kept seeing the same time more often than I'd normally expect, and whether I had pondered upon the possibility of this phenomenon holding any significance for me.

Don't think I said anything to that really.

Then he was just about to tell me what significance it held for him, but something happened and we were both wrenched out of Mystic Meg Land suddenly.

What's compelled me to tell you this now (apart from Covid-19), is that I was on facebook just now and saw that my friend had posted an article at 22.22pm last night (about Covid-19 surprise, surprise!).

I suddenly thought to myself "Ooh!! I must tell Di to ask Lou to tell her to pass onto me, the rest of his story that was cut short. What is the significance of looking up and seeing 22:22 for Lou? I want to know.

So I fired up whatsapp and noticed there was already a message from you there, and it had been sent at the time which I keep being badged by and holds a deep significance for me.

11:11. 

This time presents itself on a daily basis and makes me feel like my Dad is around somewhere in the ether of the perpetually present. Probably spying on me or making sure I've not amok! 😂

So I guess I just wanted to know if the significance of Lou's 22:22 is similar to my one of 11:11?

Does Lou seeing that time on the clock face indicate that a loved one who has passed away is present? X

On Wisdom

That's right, and I agree with your use of that proverb in that specific CONTEXT. But remove context and you have nothing.

What is known and functions within a society as conventional 'wisdom' are just seductive, marketable snappy phrases that describe 'the way the world works'.

Like 'ignorance is bliss'. It means nothing without a context and an ideal circumstance to which it is best suited.

Is ignorance always bliss? Does not knowing something always feel blissful? Clearly not. The phrase 'Ignorance is bliss' is worthless unless it is married with a context which elicits new beneficial knowledge in that particular moment.

True wisdom cannot be put into words, because when you put something into words you automatically date it. You freeze it by taking a snapshot of it in time, and so it begins to age.

Wisdom in the sense that I understand it, which is not how most people understand it - is eternal. It is a knowing which eludes those who search for it. It is knowledge of the self's essence and being staying attuned to that essence.

The term 'wisdom' as it is used within society is just another confusing label that generates misunderstandings. I don't need the word 'wisdom', because there are no words that can help me grasp what it means to me.

We all have different conceptions and understandings of what words like wisdom mean, so we should dispense with labels as far as possible, and only enlist them when it is absolutely necessary, particularly for the more abstract concepts I reckon. Because labels become meaningless especially if the concept it is attached to is hard to define, and so we end up causing unnecessary conflicts because of the multitude of interpretations possible.

What matters, what counts, is being able to fully grasp with our consciousness, what the thing in itself actually IS. 

The labels we attach to things hold different meanings for each of us, and so fighting over labels is one of the most foolish things we as humans are constantly doing. 

I AM

If I AM

Then

How do I BE?

I AM NOT

And so

I DO NOT

and 

I WILL NOT

as I AM

IS

And can never

BE

IS NOT

Our True Nature Is About To Return

When people are confined for long periods of time, and their desire to resume the normality they know and are accustomed to is still denied them, their internal urge to 'do what they normally do' gradually builds up inside, becoming noticeable on their surface the longer confinement continues.

 

Because the outlets they had to channel themselves into are no longer available, and if they don't have adequate replacements or substitutes for what they need in the meantime, the desire to transgress the boundaries keeping them in, keeping them safe, starts to increase. 

So the warlike man may make enemies of those within his vicinity not because he sees them as an enemy or a threat, but because his nature requires an enemy to fight in order to feel like it is acting in accordance with itself. And if there is no one around to fight then the warlike man will attack himself.

We Yearn For The Real

There are so many things all happening at once that its difficult to select one particular thread that can bind them all together.

But over the last few days especially, a certain feature has become more prescient for me. The increasing use of conferencing apps and software for friends to remotely connect in order to bridge the sense of there being a divide and an effort to keep at bay the spectre of loneliness.

But I see the emerging trend towards the use of technologies that require increasing levels of our belief invested into it in order to render the experience as real as possible, a bit of a double-edged sword. I

Belief is such a fascinating currency. And civilisation needs to run on the shit. At the same time belief is just a belief. It's nothing really.

And so at this particular moment in time, facing a predicament which is a concentrated and necessary version of the thing which the system was eliciting anyway - namely social alienation. This is quite dangerous territory I think.

What happens when the yearning to be connected with other can be satisfied no longer? When people's desire for the real thing cannot be fully quenched by imbibing synthetic or artificial replacements?

Life doesn't cease being Faustian at any point, but more so during a global pandemic. There will always be a price to pay, at some point in the future, for whatever you have just gained even though may seem as though you are only accumulating good beneficial shit.

And the thing is, it's not all bad. I quite like and approve of many of the things that are getting clarified right now. The coronavirus is a clarifying event. THIS is the event which helps us see clearly, in 2020.

COVID-19 is making is painfully clear that pandemics do not care much for marketing rhetoric. They are nonplussed about your rapidly diminishing hopes of election success.You cannot gaslight a contagious disease even if you feel like you speak its language.

So clarification of what is, is the take home for me from all this. The reassertion of science and facts (not alternative ones). A reassertion of the value of love, of compassion, of truth, of cooperation and the sharing of burdens which in turn boosts performance and efficiency and expertise naturally. With a bit of luck, it will all become clear to us.

The significance of God being called the I AM

I feel I have gained a greater understanding of the significance of God being referred to as the I AM, or simply, I AM. It is because we humans are the I AM NOT. If God's actions are the I DO then we are the I DO NOT or as I say, I DON'T. It is all about divine destiny. The perfect sequence of events which flows as it should.

The effortless narrative which is the thing that does the doing. Humans ruin themselves by becoming excited when they catch a glimpse of God, behold the true nature things, and feel compelled to bring about the wondrous vision they saw themselves when they should have remained humble, and simply accepted the unfolding of their fate. No one needs to try because it has already been written. It has already been done.

The world cannot become any less simple than it is because everything within it cannot be disonnected to the initial cause that brought it into being and remains that which still already is and has been. 

So all that is needed, is for you to grasp the initial simplicity of where everything began, because every manifestation that takes place thereafter that place can be understood as being natural. In the same way we speak about the cradle of civilisation - Africa. Understand Africa and you understand humanity.

And there, brought into existence as a natural consequence of achieving enlightenment, is the trap that all organised religions have fallen into -because you lose what enlightenment you just gained by grasping it and using it to build your own house, your own institution, which is nothing more than an idolatrous shrine to enable you to sustain your worship of the truth that was once yours, but now persists only as a memory of what it is which you seek in vain for a path back towards.

The truth about truth is it can never be shared. It must be made by the self for the self. Its material extracted from the knowledge of the world, woven into fabric with which we shape our own container to hold all that is valuable to us and speaks to us alone. 

"THIS is the truth of things!", I heard myself think when I found myself compelled to dismount from my bike at once outside the Bridge Inn pub and hurriedly sat upon one of its benches in the courtyard. 

Yes, it was the truth of things! It was the trap that all humans eternally fall into and are perpetually seduced by. Their obsession with "bringing the good news" to others. Their arrogance in assuming that the truth that they now possess trumps all others and so must supersede and be reaffirmed as the sole truth. The only truth.

And this is the definition of evil.

Perception Vs Reality

Thinking about those with less than me during the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic

It's really easy for me to say "Stay at home you inconsiderate little pillocks!". 

I have a garden, my Mum enjoys making tasty food for us, and before he passed away my Dad had managed to pay back the mortgage he bought our house with in full, a feat which seems staggering to me right now.

But I'm thinking about how some of my friends live. Those who have never really shared close relationships with their parents or guardians and perhaps prefer to just get in touch once every 2-3 months to exchange some meaningless platitudes in order to be reassured that they are still alive.

Many of my mates are living in various concrete cities, devoid of nature's presence, scattered around the UK and abroad with only themselves to rely on and trust. 

The thought of having to stay holed up in a shared house in THE HAROLDS in Hyde Park, Leeds with housemates who mean nothing to me, knowing my XBOX 360 is still in storage somewhere, and all my real physical books I stupidly foisted on POVERTY AID to free up space in my box room... My food reserves dwindling because I thought everyone around me was just overreacting and very soon they would start chilling the hell out and calm would quickly be restored.....

I'd hate to be someone in that situation whose sense of claustrophobia or cabin fever might soon become inflamed in the next few days if they run out of things to give them a boost.

Two things I'd recommend (which you may already be doing - I don't want to assume too much here), is bringing your bedtime forward a lot. I've been getting up at 6am each morning and riding/walking to the local woods and inhaling tree farts. It's amazing that a tree's fart is what I call fresh air!! 😄 

On second thoughts it's probably tree burps that I'm inhaling. I'll look into this...

Two massive beech trees could be standing next to each other on a path that I'm walking and be silently communicating with each other totally unbeknownst to me.

"Sid....Sid.....Sidney!!!"

"What??? What is it? What do you want?"

"Here comes that boy again. The one who's always taking revealing photographs of us. Damn pervert!!!"

"It's what humans do you stupid oaf!"

"You're wrong Sidney. It's a violation of our privacy is what it is!"

"I'm going back to sleep...."

*Ben gradually approaches with camera in hand snapping away*

"Right you little pest, I've been storing up a right stinker for you here. Inhale this you meaty little cretin!"

*tree exudes huge burst of oxygen of the purest quality*

Me: "My God! The air which surrounds this fine looking beech is the freshest I've ever had the pleasure of inhaling!"

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So getting up at sunrise to inhale tree farts deep into your lungs at full capacity is the first thing I'd recommend. 10 of your deepest slowest breaths which feel like you are drawing in the universe and then you keep it there when you are totally filled with air. Put a cap on it when you can't inhale any more and then carry on sucking in air like you suck up cream soda through a straw to fill in the remaining space in your lungs and bring them to your actual full lung capacity. Then hold it....HOLD IT!!!!!!.....

And then exhale................

AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!.............

Do 10 of them in a your local wood or forest when you wake up and I promise you, very soon......Instant ZEN Monk Mode! More inner calm. Increased lung capacity. Increased brain power due to increased oxygen levels in the blood. Improved circulation. Great mental focus and concentration. The whole nine yards mate! The full flaming monty!

The second thing I was going to recommend I'll recommend some another time because this post has gone on long enough already and I want some breakfast.

Post-Modernism's Shadow

BREXIT, CLIMATE CHANGE, COVID-19....

Isn't it a ironic how Post-Modernism had the audacity to claim that the age of Grand Narratives was now behind us?

They seem to have returned, but happen to be nemesis of the ones we originally embarked upon. Our shadow narratives. Cast whenever we insist on the way things OUGHT to be, overuling the sovereignty of how things actually are. 

ASDA staff caused me to shed tears of what must have been the love of togetherness

Just over a week or so ago I was in ASDA. It was pre-peak stockpiling, but the shelves were already looking ragged, as products were being left in their cardboard boxes because there simply wasn't enough staff to maintain the usual level of service, and so empty boxes lay strewn across the floor beneath.

I'd just popped in to get some essentials:

-----------------------------------------------

2 Dr Oetker Spinach Pizzas

1 bag of Kings Veggie Jerky

1 bottle of Gordon's Gin

1 bottle of Diet Indian Tonic Water

1 Tiger Loaf (reduced to 27p)

1 bag of Haribo Super Mix

----‐---‐-----‐------------‐-----------‐-------

The atmosphere felt a tiny bit apocalyptic, but you could see that the rule of law was still being respected, so aisles were free of bandits and acts of a lawless nature. 

I took the items in my basket to the self-checkout and scanned them through. Owing to my childish features, the ASDA helper woman asked to see proof of my years before running off with haste to remove the security tag on the Gordon's. 

Considering the fact that the demands of her job had forced her to have to stand in close proximity and help thousands of increasingly panic stricken strangers all preparing for something that was unprecedented for them, the ASDA woman looked very chipper and cheerful, but was having to do the job of at least 4 people - darting about the shop floor like a wholesome entertainer at the Queen's Variety Performance, enthralling Her Majesty with her ability to keep as many plates spinning on poles as her small frame could manage.

She came back with my Gordon's and felt compelled to confess she thought I was her daughter's age and not approaching retirement age as my passport had confirmed. We had a little laugh before I popped my essentials in my bag, popped my earphones in my ears and then headed towards the exit.

In the distance, the two security guards who had been seated at the entrance when arrived suddenly got up and began walking towards me. I thought to myself "But I don't even remember robbing anything! Maybe I have a psychological condition which causes me to steal groceries and then erase all memory of doing so??!!"

I quickly checked my bag for tins of peas and sweetcorn or anything else not on my receipt. Everything was accounted for. As I got closer to the security guards I could see now that they were actually both smiling at me and gestering for me to look behind myself. 

My earphones had been pumping some seriously sweet bass grooves into my lug holes so I couldn't hear a single thing going on in the world around me. I pulled them out and turned around and it was the cheerful woman I'd just been having a little laugh with! She'd been trying to get my attention because I'd walked off and left my Kings Veggie Jerky at the self-checkout till! 

I said to her, "Amazing! Thanks for letting me know. I bloody love jerky!". I looked back at the security guards again and they were beaming with pride like they'd just made it possible for a father to be reunited with his long lost son so I thanked them too.

As I walked over to where my bike had been locked up outside, I felt really touched that despite the drastically reduced amount of staff working at ASDA that day, the fact that I should still leave the store with everything I'd paid for mattered enough to these staff members to chase me down and make sure that I got my jerky. The woman could have just said or done  nothing, as so many other shoppers were demanding her time.

I'm not fully sure why, but I did well up a bit riding back home, and wondered why such a frequent and unsurprising event at any other time hadn't moved me like the one that had just taken place.

Resistance is Strength

I went out for a ride on my bike early this morning to snap some trees because the light was nice, but as I got to the tree I wished to capture the disc brakes on my bike seized up and wouldn't release, and so my front wheel would only go around if I could overcome the resistance from the brakes still being on. 

It wasn't so hard to ride on the flat but it was a right bastard going uphill. I thought about calling a big taxi to pick me up and also pondered doing a wheelie all the way home but then realised that strength is a product of resistance. 

When you go to the gym you can raise up objects that want to go down, push other objects outward that are designed to squeeze you inward, and run forwards upon objects that keep sending you backwards. Resistance leads to strength, and resistance is anything which requires energy in order to be overcome. And so we build up our strength by expending it. By using it up. The more we use it up, the more we have to use up as long as it isn't used wastefully or in vain, is directed in the right way, at the right thing and at the right time.

By the time I'd got back home my thighs looked like they belonged to Wolf from Gladiators.

Resistance may be a source of strength, but what happens to the fuse in a plug which has a resistance too weak to sustain the current passing through it? It blows.

Therefore it's not enough just to go with the flow. It's not always wise or safe to abandon ourselves so recklessly or rashly. As best we can we must try to establish the maximum strength of the current we are about to yield all control to before surrendering to its impulses and desires.

We Have Snapped Out Of Our Self-Delusion and Self-Denial

It seems 5:30am to get some shopping in is nowhere near early enough! ASDA was completely log jammed before sunrise.

I don't know how it is in your town, but in mine I'm pretty sure you could get Huw Stephens on BBC news to announce on all TV channels simultaneously that the Bubonic Plague, Black Death and Small Pox had all returned to our shores once more, but even more deadly this time around, and the people in my village would still remain crammed together lined up in queues filling every aisle of ASDA, stockpiling bog roll and Findus Crispy Pancakes, their trollies bumper to bumper as they debate amongst themselves just how fast you would die after contracting the new strains of these classic diseases, while standing face to face and inhaling each other's breathy responses, complaining how they are still too socially awkward to wear a face mask in public because it's just "not me". 

To the people in my local ASDA it appears as though the job of curbing the spread of a contagious new disease they know endangers the lives of people who are vulnerable by simply covering their mouths with a bit of material, remains an act only Chinese people and trendy looking hipsters from London do. Not them.

Put a fucking mask on your germ dispenser will you. Especially if you want to sneeze, cough and belch in public with abandon yer dirty bastard!

If doing something so self-evidently necessary in order to increase the speed with which we all get through this growing social crisis, then how the hell do we expect to be able to make the internal self-changes in our behaviours to ensure the Earth remains a place our kids have clean air to breathe and fresh clean water to drink? 

In general, the level of self-delusion and self-denial coursing through the whole of Western society is painful to watch continue, even when the vision of the end of everything is facing us in plain sight. Instead, our answer is to retreat back into our fantasy land of Netflix again to try and overwrite the truth of our reality.

Our deeply embedded habit of avoiding the truth about what's happening to us, here and now in the present moment, refusing to accept the cold facts of our situation until it's far far too late, is something we have to snap out of today.