(1) Turning points and alternatives in life! Life can be as a Chinese checkers game.

This is the last time I will take a pessimistic position

about the hard facts of life in this present generation.

It will be necessary to make it a turning point

in my digressions and future encouragements for all those younger than me,

who by chance or led by God, peruse through them.

Internet structures allow and facilitate to open up

or discard and avoid any unpleasantness,

if they scratch the raw, tender and wounded flesh of our prejudices or experiences.

IT ONLY TAKES A FINGER CLICK

TO ERASE AND SEND THE DISTURBING MESSAGE TO OBLIVION.

BUT THIS IS ONLY THE COWARDLIEST WAY TO AVOID

WHAT WE DO NOT WANT TO INNERLY FACE.

IT IS NOT OTHERS WE ERASE.

IT IS US WHO WE FIND UNWORTHY

OF THE CONFRONTATIONAL CHALLENGES´ GAME.

IT IS OUR WEAKLIEST ATTITUDE

TOWARD LIFE AND OUR RESPONSIBILITIES TOWARDS IT.

We do not want to recognize that life is like a Chinese checkers game,

where every gain is usually obtained through a sacrificial move,

a loss of something or someone,

in our seeking the ultimate goalwhich is or should be

the winning conscience of the worthiness

of a well and righteously lived life.

We want to win at all costs.

We manipulate, retrace, deny, compromise,

just to feel we are going ahead and winning,

when we really are just going backwards and losing.

Let´s analyze the content of the video “As in a Chinese checkers game”

The page of life!

Life can be as a Chinese checkers game.

Playing life and a Chinese checkers game are so alike!

Playing out life is not only “how to go and play about it”,

but, also, “how life demands us to live it”.

If you analyze the rules of this game

you will find what the exacting rules for success in life are.

We have to learn the hidden messages she sends us.

The rules are:

sometimes you have to sacrifice a piece to gain another.

You can never jump two steps of the ladder at one time.

Patience!

You can only go forward.

Going back or steps retracing are not allowed!

Only when you have gone to the end of your path

you will be free to go wherever you want.

Or wherever is your whim to do!

Anyway,

you will already be in the hands of your Creator!

Life is like the Chinese checkers game

where you have to give up a whim

to make a dream come true!

You have to go forward.

You can never go back to the beginnings.

· There are cycles that are gone

and end as the years do.

What we already did we can’t undone it.

What is more important is

to learn how to act in the present,

so, freerly and righteously,

move in the future.

If when a life cycle is over

we want to see what really happened,

let´s not see what is over!

On the contrary,

let´s observe what is just beginning!

“Life can only be understood

when looking back a it;

but it can only be lived

looking ahead to the future.

Oftentimes life does not give

to who deserves it,

but to the one who learns

to ask and receive, graciously.

If you received this message,

give thanks to God

for having someone who thinks about you!

Not all of us have such a privilege.

HAVE A NICE DAY…!!!



For the continuity of the message keep on reading down below

(2) WE MUST NOT DESPAIR OF BELIEVE THAT WHAT HAPPENS IS UNAVOIDABLE.

The normal way of life, nowadays, it is just a primeval fear of being rejected, isolated or discarded by the ruling systems. It is also comprised by the primeval desire to belong, wherever and however we can, even if at the cost of compromising our own identity, our own integrity, our own rightful beliefs and values.

And in doing so we become slaves! Slaves of our own fears and desires! Enslaved by life, by circumstances, by others, by ourselves! But this is not what the Lord visualized us to be when He created us.

One thing I learned while young. Sometimes you have to wash with soap and water, more soap than water, the burned layers of our emotional, spiritual or intellectual skins, if you want to see healing and survival, with dignity, honor and rectitude, even if covered by the scars of emotional hurt and pain.

Scars can be a disturbing sight but also can be considered the unavoidable mementos and trophies of life. Because of their wealth of experiences and lessons learned.

But let´s not beat the bushes any more. Let´s get down to business and set up the turning point by addressing, for the last time, as I promised, the pessimistic conclusions that the everyday occurrences bring to our mind, our emotions and spirits.

And I mention the three of them because they are the core of who we are.

Sometimes in life men have to stop and make fundamental decisions. And the most fundamental one is to recognize our undue enslavement and to make the necessary changing decisions to liberate us at all costs, understanding what life is and how to live it. Let´s find out what it is this all about it and how to find the ways out.

What are you “a slave of”?

Of the wounds you received when you were young?

Of your childhood´s traumas?

Of what someone decided you should be?

Of an unsatisfying relationship?

Of an unrewarding job?

Of the boring routine of your life?

Liberate yourself! The time is already overdue!

Throw away the backpack

you carry, filled with resentment, rancor and guilt!

It´s time to stop blaming others and your past

for everything that is not going well in your life.

You have the opportunity to start anew, everyday!

You are born again when you open your eyes, every morning!

You receive, every morning, the opportunity

to change and improve whatever you dislike in your life.

The responsibility is all yours!

Your happiness does not depend on your parents,

your spouse, your friends or your past!
The responsibility is all yours!

Your happiness depends on you, and you, only.
What is it that keeps you paralyzed? Fears?

Rejection´s fears? Fears to succeed? To fail?

To what others think? To criticism?

To make mistakes? To be alone or left alone?

It is time, overdue, to break the chains you, no one else, has put on you!

Break the chains you, no one else, has put on you!

The only thing you must fear is to not to be yourself!

To let life pass by without doing

what you dream inside you would like to do!

What you must only fear is to waste the opportunity

to show others who you are, to say what you think and believe,

to share what of good you have to offer.

You are a part of life, and as everyone else

you can walk with your forehead facing the winds.

The mistakes of the past are already forgotten,

and the errors of the future will also be forgiven.

Realize that no one is keeping track of your failures.

Only you do so!

That judge who reproaches you.

That executioner that punishes you.

That “no friend” who always criticizes you…

Is yourself!

Leave yourself in peace. Forgive yourself.

Only you can achieve it!

When are you going to show your love for your beloved?

Until a few minutes before your final departure?

Or until a few ones before their own?

The love not shown today will be lost forever.

Remember that life is so short and fragile

that we do not have time

to waste in dissentions and stupid divergences.

Today is the day of forgiving past offenses

and of patching up olden quarrels.

Give yourself to those you love without expecting to change them.

Accept them as they are

and respect the most valuable gift they have received:

their freedom.

Enjoy your relationships with no dramatic fuss about it.

If you pretend all to do what you want

or to be as you have decided they should be,

if you pretend to control those around you,

you will only fill your life with conflicts.

Let others make their own decisions

as you will make your own,

trying to achieve the best for all and everyone.

That way you will fill your life with harmony!

And lastly.

What are you waiting for to start enjoying your life?
For all your problems to be fixed?

For all your traumas to be healed?

For your worthiness to be finally recognized?

For the love of your life to arrive? For the gone to be back?
For everything to be like you want?

For the financial crisis to end?

For a miracle to be?

For as in a magician trick everything to become perfect and beautiful?

WAKE UP, BROTHER! WAKE UP, SISTER!

LIFE IS AS IT IS!

Life is not what happens when all your plans are accomplished.

Nor what will happen when you get that you so intensely desire.

Life is what is going on at this precise moment!
Your life, this moment, is to read these paragraphs.

Wherever you are reading them.

And within your surrounding circumstances, right now.

Something, right now, that we cannot understand,

is keeping you alive,

and allows you to see, to think, to express yourself, to move, to laugh.

Even to cry, if you want to do so!

Do not take life for granted.

Do not get used to wake up every day

and be bored or grouchy or overly concerned.

Open your eyes and be grateful for all the blessings you can see.
Give thanks for your capacity to hear the birds singing,

to listen to your favorite melodies and the laughter of your children.

Place your hand upon your chest and feel your heart strongly pulsing

and saying to you:

You are alive!

You are alive!

You are alive!

I know that life is not perfect.

And that it is full of difficult situations.

It may be that it is as it is supposed to be.

Maybe it is why you have been given all the tools you need to confront her.

The strength to endure all losses.

The freedom to choose how to react to the things that happen.

The love and support of your beloved ones.

I also know that you are not perfect.

Nobody is!

But, millions of circumstances gathered together to allow you to exist.

You were created according to a marvelous design

and share it with all humanity, with all its virtues and defects.

It is so written in you ADN.

As well as in the ADN of all the human beings

who have existed and will exist upon earth.

If you ask who am I to tell you all this?

I will answer you that I am nobody.

I am just a different version of who you are.

Another human being among thousands of millions

but one who has decided to be free and get back

all the power of his life.

Your passions, your fears, your wounds, your weaknesses,

your secrets and your aggressions

you share them with all your brothers and sisters.

Welcome to the human race!

Those supposed defects are part of your freedom,

part of your humanity.

I hope you also decide to do it!

Taken from the book: The slave

Author: Francisco J. Angel Real


For the continuity of the message keep on reading down below

(3) Some decisions to make are precisely if to face life, pessimistically or optimistically.

Let´s define what we should understand when referring to both.

Pessimistically facing is keeping on just lamenting or denouncing the injustices without doing anything about it. It is being just part of the problem and the hoped for factor by the unjust and abusers.

They love the complaining people or as they call them, useful fools who waste their time doing just that. Or complaining as crying babies, or naively hoping that by showing tolerance and even bona fide cooperation in the minor welfare schemes the abusers set up when the waters of impatience start boiling.

Optimistically facing is not only lamenting but as the business people love to say, is to proactively do what is required, by way of example and untiringly influencing other people to do the same. The optimistic thinking behind this is that, one by one, if adamantly convinced, people will star to change, not only themselves but their surrounding areas of actions and influence.

In other words, we must optimistically do whatever is required to reach the uppermost goals of a worthy to be lived life, not only for ourselves but for the ones who cannot fight back, get away or defend themselves.

Resignation, procrastination, giving up, compromising, defending what little has been given or left for us, is what should never be accepted and what every decent human being should arise against.

In order to be able to do what is uppermost than anything else to accomplish this in the long term, is to exactly know where you are standing, in all the aspects of the life of the spirit, the mind, the emotions, as well as in the overall realm of the social interaction at all levels.

This includes the family, the friendship circles, the community, the society as a whole, but upper mostly as I said before, you!

You can go to extremes, lyrically, philosophically, emotionally, eruditely, sophisticatedly, whatever, but you cannot, unless deliberately, deceive yourself.

There is a sad, very sad, very unfortunate, very alienating circumstance that is already lasting more than anyone thought. Something that is already affecting generations and generational behaviors, probably up and beyond of what could be considered a recoverable and recuperating point!

A tragicomic and at the same time epical and superficial dichotomy! An unbelievable technological advancement, and a puerile even if astronomically tragic failure of human values, abdication of the self, immersion in what is undeniably stupid, external and mediocre.

I call it the pretending factor that is relegating the human soul and spirit to the darkest corners of reality and unreality! The real and the unreal! The valid and the twisted invalidity turn into a virtual reality and validity in all the realms of the human thinking, understanding of life, and behavioral responses.

The mediocre, the ruthless when lapidating others and themselves, disguised and hidden in the masses and the mobs, reign and isolate, and command, and abuse, and shout, and gesticulate, and convince themselves of an unacceptable, invalid, theoretical, self deceiving and egocentric rationale and pretended temporal leadership of the unthinking, unwilling, ignorant by personal decision, masses of this world.

I personally like a game that my wife and I usually play at nights, after dinner and before going to bed. The game is the RUMMYKUB game. The Fast Moving Rummy Tile Game!

In this game tiles are organized in sets of runs and groups. You combine them in many different forms to place them all on the table up to the end.

You maneuver keeping them hidden, moving them around and exchanging them with the tiles of your opponents in the game, according to the rules, until all are played and the game is won. It is an extremely exciting game!

I assimilate this game to life´s going on and its twisting events that its living tiles are made of. What tiles they could be?

In time and form! The tragicomedy of life nowadays! The tragedy of the poor and the lower! The comedy of the powerful and the upper!

You set up possibilities, alternatives and scenarios in order to play your tiles to your advantage by analyzing and anticipating the moves of your opposing partner in the game. It is easier and pleasanter that any chase game, the uppity and sophisticated game of utopian even if similarly strategized game.

You ask yourself… Is it unbearable to be isolated and rejected by the systems? What about inner peace, certitude, consistency of attitudes and values? Usefulness… uselessness… what about it? What do you really need in life? Is this whole business of living a puppeteer’s game?

NO! if we have our feet firmly planted on the earth of realities, and the eyes focused into the future, elevated to heaven for making our own the highest purposes of life, righteousness, rectitude, values, and trust and confidence in God. No!

And after everything is said, let´s be encouraged by recognizing, optimistically who we are… wayfaring strangers in this world, and…

Let´s give thanks to God because we have a home beyond the skies and rainbows.

Let´s recognize that what we are, wayfaring strangers, is not only that, a fact of life, but also the promise of a real destination of Joy, Peace and Eternal Blessings.

A wayfaring stranger!

I am a poor wayfaring stranger traveling through this world of woes. Yet there is no sickness, nor toil nor danger in that bright world to which I go.

I am going there to see my Father. I am going there, no more around. I am going only way over Jordan. I am only going over home. Oh, yes, Lord! Oh, yes, Lord! Oh, yes, Lord!

I know dark clouds will gather ´round me. I know my way is rough and steep. Yet, beauteous fields lie just before me where God´s redeemed their vigils keep.

I am going there to see my mother. She said she´d meet me when I come. I am going only way over Jordan. I am only going over home. Going home!

I am going there to see my loved ones, gone before me one by one. Oh, somebody show me the way home! I am going only way over Jordan. I am only going over home.

For the continuity of the message keep on reading down below

(4) We can approach life as a Christian, as mentioned above, or as a highly motivated secular individual, as it is shown below.

I offer you, as I promised, video samples of both focusing ways. Choose the one you like best.

I personally try to see life as a Christian, but I have to recognize that I am also and irredeemable individual who likes music, secular music too. Specially that one of my younger years so full of hopes and transcendental longings!

At this precise moment I am listening to music as a background sound for my thoughts. It has been such a pleasure to go through all my records, C.Ds, the internet, and old long plays, to prepare the aleatory carpet of Christian and secular musical videos that sooth my spirit while I sit and write.

And about the musical videos that well intentioned secular people composed, I am here presenting two of them to you… Enjoy them! Both the lyrics as well as the background and the music.

I´ll keep going on! I´ll keep on believing, even if the rest lose their hopes.

I will keep on building, even if others destroy what I do.

I will keep on loving, even if others only spread hate around.
I will keep asking for Peace, even in the midst of war.

I will keep on lighting up even in the darkest of the nights.

And I will keep on planting even if others traipse upon the harvest or the seeds.

I will paint smiles on the tears full faces, softly soothing their pain, if I see they are hurt.

And I will keep on shouting even if others silence their voice.

I will spread nuggets of laughter among the hopelessly sad.

I’ll invite to keep on walking those who had decided to quit,

lifting by their arms those who have given up.

Because in the midst of desolation,

there will always be a child looking with hope at us,

waiting for what we could give to them.

Because in the midst of the storms, somewhere,

the sun will always rise up

and there always be an oasis in the deserts for the thirst and the heat.
And there will always be a child smiling at us

and a humming bird beautifully fluttering its wings.

But, if some day you see I have quit, do not smile or keep silent,

just come to me and give me a kiss, a hug or a smile.

That will be more than enough!

Probably what have happened to me is that life slapped my face,

and surprised me in a second of hesitation and pain.

Only that gesture of yours will make me get back on the track.

Do not ever forget.

Blowing in the wind! The answer is blowing in the wind!

How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

How many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned?

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.

How many years must a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea?

How many years can some people exist before they are allowed to be free?

How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn´t see ?

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.

How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?

How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?

How many deaths will it take ´till he knows that too many people are dying?

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.

I HAVE BEEN TOLD…

That blogs, being purposed for the actual technological generation, should be, not only short, concise, briefest as possible, but at the same time they must show, at a glance, the whole context of the intended message.

This includes, of course, the other, so popular, cybernetic communication programs such as Facebook, Twitters, Chats, Forums, etc.

Besides, I have been told that, in order to attract the attention of internet navigators, I should not emphasize the ideas through long or extended writing, as our generation was so used to.

And the reason why I have been told so is, apparently, because of the present generations´ usual short span of attention.

Consequently, in their understanding and recommendation, I should use as much as I could, images, pictures, and texts special effects. Let´s analyze all this!

I have decided to blend both tendencies, theirs and those of their generation graphical and pictorial fastness and special effects, and the ways of our generations, concentrated on concepts and discourses. I will try to adapt both into a single sequence of messages that could appeal at least to a single soul in the inner solitude of the spirit.

This is not a beauty or popularity contest. It is intended for the ones who, by God´s guidance may open their hearts to it.

If you become interested in these digressions keep rolling down to the next posting below, as these month´s blogging insertions are intended to be a series of meditations on this subject

START ROLLING DOWN THE LAST 8 ENTRIES IN THE BLOG IF YOU WANT TO VISUALIZE THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF THIS SERIES OF MESSAGES, DIGRESSIONS AND COMMENTARIES

THE TECNOLOGICAL FLOODING

Just a few decades ago, back in 1969 when I was studying logistics, we had a monster computer, lodged in an air conditioned building, with myriads of bulbs.

It was a hard task to learn how to learn the mysteries of the little slots meaning “void and filled”, one and zero, as the basis of the perforated cards, the COBOL or Common Business Oriented Language programming system, and the rest of the early computer paraphernalia stages.

We just dreamed about, the around the corner, coming third generation of computers that would use transistors instead of bulbs. We never imagined what is just an everyday unending and growing sophistication of the gadgets of today.

I honestly believe there has never been such a sudden and overwhelming flooding of technological development that has fueled the sizzling consumerism of today.

I remember at that time learning in my finance management training the principle of obsolescence, where you, at the same time learnt to plan, develop, envision and visualize, not only what you had on hand but its potential and inevitable replacement.

For these reasons I am not surprised by what is now the subject of so many harangues and complaints about the irrational consumerism of today.

The assembling techniques, the development of the already stated “obsolescence principle” now see themselves carried away to the ultimate sophistication stages.

And their end result products fill the radio waves, the television screens, and the cybernetic presentations, as in the latest presentation of the World Social Forum that took place in Belem, Brazil, in late January and early February 2009

Little chips, little things, little peripheral additions are visualized to keep the market going and the consumers buying.

But one thing remains unchanged as we were told in those early days. Planning logically and in sequence, as this is the only base for change and evolution. As in the Spanish saying: dress me slow because I am in a hurry.

And our instructors emphasized the need for us to remember that there is an axiom in everything: if you let garbage get into the system, you will only obtain garbage as the end result, despite how exquisitely disguised!

The logical end result has been that the common guy in our present generations has become extremely skilled in the usage of what the fewer in number thinkers, and programmers, have devised for what has become a trinket acquisitions world.

I am a trinket buyer and consumer, as the rest of all my brethren, as my wife jokingly say. But I still keep in my inner being that certitude that everything that repeats itself more than three times requires a systematic approach, planning and development.

KEEP ROLLING DOWN THE BLOG! THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST MESSAGE OF THE SERIES

ELDERS AND YOUNGSTERS CAN LEARN AND PROFIT FROM ONE ANOTHER EXPERIENCES, SKILLS AND EXPECTATIONS…

An interesting fact of life is the apparent generational contradiction in its appraisal of meaningful and natural behavioral tendencies, appreciation of circumstances, and cultural tastes.

We absorb ourselves in the melodically sweet sounding, for us, and tasteful rhythms of the blues, country, and early pop styles.

We also find repetitive, almost maniacally noisy and physically strenuous and strength depleting the, in our ears, un-meaningful fads of today.

Our youngsters find us prehistoric, boring, stiffly, and intolerant dinosaurs. They do not apprehend the notion that we were young as they are, but in more sedate times and circumstances.

We had boogie boogie. They have aerobics and rap. We did tap and rolled. They jump and crawl! They at times bring back melodies of our past and adapt them to their taste.

We did shout as crazy when, raptly, crowded the concert halls. They do shout in very similar, only separate in time, circumstances.

We did see technique, analysis and planning in a more overt way. They just enjoy the special effects that people like us, but faster in adapting the technological changes, offer them in such a flashy way.

But we can learn from each other. We can complement our experience with their renewed, even if some times, weird and confusing for us, understanding of the present and the coming times.
Generational living together can be like a pulsating hinge. Both past and future are joined together by the present in the middle.

The past is comprised by us, the grandparents, and our grown up children. At the same time we, both, are an undeniable and unavoidable reservoir of the experience available to the present.

Our grown up children and their children, at the same time, are also part, with us, the grandparents, of the present and the future!

We all have present and future valid expectations. We, even if waning ones, the expectation of a better future, before we depart from this world, if possible!

Our grown up children, the ongoing building up of their immediate future and their inheritance for their children!

Standing on the side, we, in the bottom of our hearts long for respect, and recognition, as the waning head, but head anyway, of the family nucleus.

Pitching on with what we feel is the precious reservoir of our memories, understanding of life, because we have already lived through many things and circumstances, and experience.

This getting together in the realm of this present can make the hinge close and open, depending on its flexible operation, and if it is not corroded and made useless by intolerance, misunderstanding, indifference and distrust.

My sons have taught me the intriguing ways to utilize the modern communication cybernetic programs. They have had to be patient enough to show, click by click, how to do it, as I am patterned by the step by step procedural ways of my past life.

I can convey to them my perspectives and perceptions, through my usage of these technical developments. Our generations can benefit from these exchanges and complementation of experience and skills.

This way I have finally found and understood the real meaning of the waning days of our lives. We can become the beacons of the experience light.

We can also become the sentinels on the ramparts who watch and keep safe the gates of the city and the sleep of its inhabitants, our children and descendants.

Because as we go down the road to our final rest we, paraphrasing, can still be like the prophet found out in Habakkuk chapter two verses one to three.

2:1. “we will stand at our watch post and station ourselves on the ramparts; we will keep watch to see what He will (and life) will say to us and what He (and life) will answer concerning our concern”.

2:2. “then the Lord (and life) answered us and said: write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so that runners (our children and younger generations) may read it”.

2:3. “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay”.

There lies the vision. There resides the mission for our later days.

KEEP ROLLING DOWN THE BLOG ENTRIES IF YOU WANT TO SEE HOW THE TALE UNFOLDS.