#WINNING

Our society really values winning.

We create and play games to experience "winning" even though playing means there will be losers.  We put our children into all sorts of competitions, create pyramids of hierarchy within the structure of religion, corporations, schools, oh, everywhere, carry a concept of "better than" and sometimes don't even notice our own scorn towards those beneath. 

And we've extended this concept to life itself.  We imagine ourselves to be the top species on the planet, and if the other life forms can't hold their own against us, too bad. Eat them, kill them, destroy their homes, poison every part of the planet. 

Humans are intelligent creatures who shape their environments to match their preferences so bam, lo and behold, a society where people who have not "won" at the game of physical acquisition are considered "lower class."  Those who don't match the description of the "winners" are treated as "less than." If you play into the game, you seek to work your way up.  And someone still has to lose.

When we look at the position we are in, if we aren't fond of it, it makes sense to dig for the roots that created it instead of stopping at the fruit it has produced. Whatever leadership we have is fruit we grew.  We created the conditions that naturally brought someone who could be the kind of leader we were asking for into office.  We have someone who seeks "winning."  That is our representation. 

We decide our leadership on contests yet the majority of us can't describe the platform our political candidates stand upon because it's the "winning/losing" part that's important to us.  Winning, winning, winning.  Stack the odds.  Rewrite the rules, even. Whatever works.  Oh, is that "unfair"? Boo hoo. Sounds like something a loser would say.  Losers don't matter to winners.  They're in their rightful place, after all. Survival of the fittest!  That's the way the world works!  It's human nature!

Yet we are not so small that such impulses are our only drives.  We contain the capability of infinite expressions, so it is also human nature to embrace the weeping, to volunteer after a disaster or during crisis, to give to those who need, to stand in solidarity with our fellow humans.  To protect each other.  To serve.  It is human nature to love much more powerfully than it is to fear.  We learn to erect the walls of fear.

We are so civilized that we have advanced technology and infrastructure, yet we still don't treat others with equal consideration because of a difference in skin color, religion, gender, orientation, nationality.  Hell, some of us blatantly murder those whose existence doesn't fit with what we prefer.  Yes.  We give ourselves the authority to perform atrocities on other beings based on our preferences, and sometimes our preference is to hope someone else will do something because we don't believe we have the power to do anything ourselves.  We're still letting banks put people out of their homes, letting insurance companies refuse treatment to the ill, and very, very commonly put people struggling to survive so far into debt, they exist in a state of indentured servitude they may work all their lives to pay it off.  There are people who pour their life's energy into work that breaks down their bodies while it benefits someone else, people who keep themselves going for those two days off, or work other jobs so they have no days off.  If that's someone's preference, sure.  But if giving so much of one's self has become necessary just to live, goodness, can't we do "better" for each other? 

Who wants to live in an unhappy, unfulfilled society of half-hearted, unequal, unfree souls?  What sort of world is that?  It's one we perpetuate by buying in, by playing the game of division, by believing there is any difference between "us" and "them."  No one has any shadowy unseen authority over you unless you believe they do.  Society is just people.  It doesn't exist without us; it has no structure to hold us in place.  Society is a fabric of relationships between individuals.  This means we are the only ones who can make our choices for ourselves.

So why not choose a game where everyone wins?  Why not make a game out of making life wonderful for each other?  Can you imagine an economy where everyone has money instead of just a few?  Can you imagine a nation/world of clever intelligent humans operating at a level where the basics for survival are taken care of so we can develop our beingness, our creations, our consciousness further?  Imagine the capability of a population that can learn whatever it pleases to without limitation?  Imagine a society that cares enough in their people to invest in THEM and their future?

"Who will work the shite jobs?"  Which jobs are those and more importantly, why are they considered shite?  If they're jobs you wouldn't want to do, isn't it fair to pay someone willing to do them for you?  Aren't you glad you don't have to do them yourself?  Doesn't a grocery clerk deserve to live with the same dignity as their manager?  Doesn't a sanitation worker deserve as much basic human respect as a teacher, a politician, a brother, a sister, a mother, a father?  Oh, how quickly boundaries dissolve with a little "walk in their shoes."

If a structure doesn't work for everyone, it doesn't work.  We have so many more options than the presented visible ones.  I can't say what choice will bring us to the brightest possible reality, because it's up to each of us how we choose to use what we experience, and in darkness we see our own light.  We have had an intensely polarizing year with much darkness coming to light, but are we polarized enough yet to make the ever-important conscious choice between power, fear, or love?

In this moment, what do we choose?  What do you choose?

In Which the False Falls Away

It's interesting that the "real" world values us based on our abilities to appear as unreal as possible.  We are most valued when we are tireless, errorless, emotionless, changeless.  In the "real" world, we are most valued when we are mechanical, when we appear to be not alive.

So we put on fake faces to interact with one another, to appear "professional," to appear to be that which others deem valuable so we can "earn a living."

And every bit of it is built on lies. The "real" world is the most artificial thing there is.

So why bother with it? 

I don't think I'm really all that depressed at all.  I think I've been in between worlds and haven't found my way in any of them.  I'm so tired of doing things that I don't care at all about.  Aren't you?

It's not that nothing matters; it's that none of -this- matters.  There are plenty of other things that do, and that's where I'll be.

The Inexpressible One

Mystics from various traditions describe the same ultimate "source" in much of the same concepts. This example is from the Secret Book of John, but reads like the Dao de Jing, descriptions of the idea of Brahman, or a Buddhist teaching on rigpa.

The Inexpressible One

The One rules all. Nothing has authority over it. 
            It is the God. 
            It is Father of everything, 
                        Holy One
                        The invisible one over everything.
It is uncontaminated
            Pure light no eye can bear to look within.

The One is the Invisible Spirit.
            It is not right to think of it as a God or as like God.
            It is more than just God.

Nothing is above it.
Nothing rules it. 
            Since everything exists within it
                        It does not exist within anything.
            Since it is not dependent on anything
                        It is eternal.

It is absolutely complete and so needs nothing.
It is utterly perfect
Light.

The One is without boundaries
            Nothing exists outside of it to border it
The One cannot be investigated
            Nothing exists apart from it to investigate it
The One cannot be measured
            Nothing exists external to it to measure it

The One cannot be seen
            For no one can envision it
The One is eternal
            For it exists forever
The One is inconceivable 
            For no one can comprehend it
The One is indescribable
            For no one can put any words to it.

The One is infinite light
            Purity
            Holiness
            Stainless,

The One is incomprehensible
            Perfectly free from corruption.
Not “perfect”
Not “blessed”
Not “divine”
But superior to such concepts.
            Neither physical nor unphysical
            Neither immense nor infinitesimal
            It is impossible to specify in quantity or quality
                        For it is beyond knowledge.

The One is not a being among other beings  
            It is vastly superior
                        But it is not “superior.”

It is outside of realms of being and time
            For whatever is within realms of being was created
            And whatever is within time had time allotted to it
The One receives nothing from anything.
            It simply apprehends itself in its own perfect light

The One is majestic. 
            The One is measureless majesty

Chief of all Realms 
            Producing all realms

Light
            Producing light

Life
            Producing life

Blessedness
            Producing blessedness

Knowledge
            Producing knowledge

Good
            Producing goodness

Mercy
            Producing mercy

Generous
            Producing generosity

            [It does not “possess” these things.]

It gives forth light beyond measure, beyond comprehension.

[What can I say?]

His realm is eternal, peaceful, silent, resting, before everything.
He is the head of every realm sustaining each of them through goodness.
 

October 23, 2017; Talking to myself

It astounds me how much has changed in my perspective, how much more I see now, how many things I always took for granted even when I thought I was questioning anything, and I am so grateful to everything that has been a catalyst.  There have been a lot of catalysts.

I am not doing anyone any favors by refusing to acknowledge my personal power.  I don't mean this in the sense of "me" being the Source, being a do-er, being anything at all.

Everything is divine.  I don't know how to express this as fully as I feel it.  We define ourselves by embracing and rejecting.  We create boundaries based on our beliefs about what we wish to express.   It's all divine.  You, with the the temper and dissatisfaction, you are divine.  You, with the million watt smile and the children who adore you even though you put your dreams on hold.   You, who ventured off on your own and left everyone behind wondering what the hell was wrong with you and how you could be so selfish. You are divine. 

You are perfectly expressing this nexus of concepts and ideas, refracting that exact spectrum of light through you to create this divine aspect with your particular name and face and the very song of your energy that is being expressed on the threads that weave the tapestry of the infinite.  There is nothing that could be outside of the Absolute.  No moment that could be beyond it, no circumstance.  We can express that, or not, as we choose.

This is part of stepping into your own power, your ability to affect the world.  This recognition is the moment you begin to co-create our reality.  You can continue to wait for things to happen for you to react to, or you can get up on the horse of time and steer it down the timeline you wish to experience.

I came here thinking I had to try to blend in and go unnoticed.  I might have had a mission to write stories and share them, introduce or develop some ideas or considerations.  But we are past the point where fiction is needed as the vehicle.  People are actively seeking now.  We can all seek together, and build a new future together, and become conscious of what we are.

We have to shine a light into all the shadows of our subconscious, so we can consciously respond for ourselves rather than operate on unconscious knee-jerk reactions.  Otherwise we are running a program rather than creating.

November 3, 2017; Seeing the End of Inauthenticity

It's 2:30 A.M. The moon is almost full.  Personally, I am feeling disheartened, isolated, stuck, and unmoored, with the belief that I have a destination but no compass.  It's the belief in a predetermined destination, in "I should be going there" that is most negatively impacting my well-being.

So many pieces about what we really are and how things could really be keep coming up, and it's so beautiful.  It's so beautiful.  It's changed my perspective of everything, deepening the level at which I sense other people.  I used to think about people on their mental level, overlooking their emotions for the rational truth behind them.   I had teaching moments as a result; I learned, I grew, I recognized in others what it took me too long to see in myself.

Now that I understand that I am moving toward the type of being that I've always wanted.   The pieces are coming together.  The world that I want cannot come from people as they are now.  We cannot fully realize ourselves as one until we feel our connection to one another.  That is something that cannot be dictated, regulated, or enacted into law.  You cannot force someone into unity.

I disregarded the idea that healing was the answer, and in a way, it isn't, because we are infinite and eternal.  We can really lose nothing.  We do, however, deny ourselves over and over and over.  We turn parts of ourselves away because we don't know how to deal with them.  I don't think I really understood this before.  Considering it a preprogrammed, knee jerk reaction rather than a mindful choosing, I was still neglecting the part that allows the programmed, conditioned response to exist in the first place.

Our emotions are communications to us from deeper parts of ourselves.  When we are desensitized (I am very desensitized), we have buried our feeling about something so much that our awareness is programmed to skip over it.  We don't want to feel the horror.  We don't want to feel the betrayal.  We don't want to be afraid or in mourning.  And so, when I hear about the latest tragedy, or some heinous act of senseless violence, I don't register a reaction.  It's par for the course.  It's become normalized.  I'm not afraid, I'm not upset, I'm not affected.  It's not even news anymore.

When I was a kid, I imagined myself in every horrifying situation I saw on T.V.  Many of my earlier memories are not good ones.  I remembered people dying, baby Jessica in the hole, the Challenger explosion, the San Francisco earthquake where the overpass had fallen on the people below, bodies floating in the water after a plane blew up over the ocean, old footage of the Civil Rights movements where fire hoses were turned on people crouched against a building.  There was also the Easter I spent with chicken pox and a raging fever watching (and feeling) Jesus getting nailed to a cross.

And because I just naturally tend to do this, I imagined myself in those situations.  I laid in my bed trying to contort my limbs to match the body floating in the water, imagining what it was like to have my body crushed beneath tons of concrete and cars from the road above, being blown apart, burning as I fell from the sky in pieces.  I'd try to imagine what it was like to have a dead body, to have everything so quiet, no breath, no heartbeat.  I remember trying this while I was still in my carseat.  My heart stopped for a moment (maybe it just skipped a beat, but it certainly felt longer) and I still think about it when I pass that part of the highway.

One night I laid awake in tears because I was asking God to give me all the pain in the world so no one else would have to ever feel it.  I totally believed that God would do as I asked.  I was bracing myself for it.  This perfectly kind feeling came over me, calmly, assuring me that God wouldn't do that to me.  I thought about heaven a lot.  I never believed in hell, not actually.  Not as punishment.  I didn't believe God got angry.  It wasn't the idea of God I had, anyway.  If I could understand other people, certainly God could.

I went to church camp when I was 12 or 13, and they did this passion walk that left most of the kids in tears thinking about what Jesus went through during the Crucifiction.  And then there was me, with the totally numb and desensitized reaction of "are you kidding?  Yeah, it's awful, but there are -way- worse things people have done to each other." 

The world is full of people who want us to be afraid.  We are afraid of being afraid, of being weak, of being emotional.  We bury our emotions.  We don't tell other people our feelings because we've been taught that our feelings don't matter, that we're wrong, that something is wrong with us.  I was having a conversation with a man once, who was in his 70s, and I, this 23 year old kid, was telling him that I was not afraid of anything, and his response was a furrowed, confused brow, and the response, "That scares me."

People's thoughts about things can be mistaken, persuaded to change.  Our feelings about something are instant and true to ourselves.  We deny them, bury them behind masks, layers, and more fear.  We paint over them with a collection of other feelings (perhaps more acceptable ones), concepts, distractions, intellectual reckonings.  We are all hiding ourselves from ourselves.  I know it sounds totally cliché, but I mean it in total seriousness:  I -get- it now.

We see people making fun of the idea of "getting in touch with our emotions" but that's all out of insecurity and fear.  We are hiding from ourselves, layers and layers because we have a genuinely unhealthy way of viewing ourselves, of elevating intellect as superior, of making our feelings only selectively permeable.  It's getting worse.  People wouldn't run around killing other people without trying to escape from their own pain.  People wouldn't get road rage if they could process feeling powerless or being treated as less than human.

I know it's super obvious, and I know it's rote for a lot of people, but I had a relatively good childhood with a Moma I love and who loves me.  I've had a comparatively uneventful life.  I can't imagine how much pain and hurt is being carried around in everyone else.  How can I help people?  This seems like the most obvious problem with the most obvious solution.

October 20, 2017 When I Grow Up, I Want to Be the Universe

When I grow up, I want to be the universe.

I have many ideas about how to go about growing toward this.  I have a natural inclination to be theoretically inclusive, because that erases boundaries and soothes divisions.  In practice, I isolate myself.

People of Earth can be hard to take.  It's a clashing collision of opposites, duality, polarities, gulfs of difference between what is said and consciously accepted and the way things actually seem to play out.

I learn what I can from wherever I find what seems to be an accurate reflection of reality.  It can be a line of movie dialogue:  "We accept the love we think we deserve;" a song lyric: "if you love somebody, set them free;"  a teaching from a book:  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you;" an out of context quote: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."   Anything is a possible teacher.  Everything is a possible teacher.

In New Age thought systems, there's this idea of taking what resonates and leaving what does not.  It's what everyone does at every moment, but it's often used as an excuse for evading reality or catering to cognitive dissonance.  Avoidance does not help one expand the horizons of consciousness.  Denial is a hindrance to growth.  It can all be carefree, it really could, but there are shadows in our psyches that have to have the spotlight of our attention directed upon them before they can be truly cared for and integrated.

We are an integrated collection of countless beings who generally work as one.  From our cells, to our families, nations, galaxies and forever outward, each entity can be an agent of peaceful togetherness, joining with others to make something greater than themselves alone.  If the heart, lungs, or brain turned on one another in competition, everyone would lose.

This is why I hold love in such high regard.  It is that which unifies us, accepts, soothes, heals.  It is the fuel of creativity, that which frees us from our fear, the gravity that draws us together.

In Which Much Shifts in a Short Time

Now, this may sound a little woo-woo, but if you know me relatively well, you know that is where I dwell.  Leading up to the eclipse, it felt as though everything was getting faster:  time, expectation, restlessness.  The general feeling of "I've been waiting my entire life for this," swarmed up around me, boiling within.

Here we are, today, a moon and a day later, and things in my life are cycling into a new sort of dawn.  Meaningful people have fallen out of my life, concerns have dropped out of mind, and the sense of consciously trusting my heart and my intuition has never been so prominent.

Everything really seems as though it is for the best right now, regardless of how it will be in the future, regardless of how it was in the past.  It is all love.  I may see love differently than most, I understand, but when you recognize all beings as the same consciousness, flowing through perspectives, filters, stories of the perceived past or hopeful futures, you respect it.

The "other" person is you, not figuratively, not metaphorically, literally and completely you.  This lets you free them entirely from your own expectations and demands.  Recognizing them as an equal creator, as equally divine, their path as equally valid, lets you gift them with absolute freedom to be as they are without attachment or demand.

We are all.  There's only one of us.  The more time goes by, the more obvious this becomes to me, the greater the pervasion of this perspective on the surface of my awareness.  Now I recognize that attachments are fear based, because there can be no loss if you are all and all are you.  You can choose to be with those you love freely, and when they choose otherwise, you don't hold it against them because you recognize that they are choosing/creating their own experiences just as you are choosing/creating yours.

It really is geometry, shape, and tone.  It is all vibration.  We are everything simultaneously, but we focus our attention in such particular ways we perceive time and singular lines of that time.  But it is all love.  It is all you.  It is all me, free to experience anything at all.

Identity as attention

"Now, you are an identity. Pretend that you hold a flashlight. The flashlight is your own consciousness. Now. You can turn this flashlight in an infinite number of directions. These directions are always available to you. But instead, you get the habit of directing your flashlight in one particular direction. You hold it in this direction constantly and you have forgotten, you see, that there are any other directions.

All you have to do is swing the flashlight in other directions. You must momentarily, for now, shift the focus of the flashlight. And when you shift it, the direction in which you are used to looking will momentarily appear dark, but other images and realities will become available to you. There is nothing to prevent you from swinging the flashlight back. And when you learn what you are doing, when you learn what you are doing— "

Seth, ESP CLASS SESSION, OCTOBER 14,1969 TUESDAY

Anita Moorjani, Dying to be Me:

"Although I try to share my near-death experience, there are no words that can come close to describing its depth and the amount of knowledge that came flooding through. So the best way to express it is through the use of metaphors and analogies. Hopefully, they capture a part of the essence of what I’m trying to convey at least in some small way.

Imagine, if you will, a huge, dark warehouse. You live there with only one flashlight to see by. Everything you know about what’s contained within this enormous space is what you’ve seen by the beam of one small flashlight. Whenever you want to look for something, you may or may not find it, but that doesn’t mean the thing doesn’t exist. It’s there, but you just haven’t shone your light on it. And even when you do, the object you see may be difficult to make out. You may get a fairly clear idea of it, but often you’re left wondering. You can only see what your light is focused on, and only identify that which you already know.

That is what physical life is like. We’re only aware of what we focus our senses on at any given time, and we can only understand what is already familiar.

Next, imagine that one day, someone flicks on a switch. There for the first time, in a sudden burst of brilliance and sound and color, you can see the entire warehouse, and it’s nothing like anything you’d ever imagined. Lights are blinking, flashing, glowing, and shooting sparks of red, yellow, blue, and green. You see colors you don’t recognize, ones you’ve never seen before. Music floods the room with fantastic, kaleidoscopic, surround-sound melodies you’ve never heard before.

Neon signs pulse and boogie in rainbow strobes of cherry, lemon, vermillion, grape, lavender, and gold. Electric toys run on tracks up, down, and around shelves stacked with indescribable colored boxes, packages, papers, pencils, paints, inks, cans of food, packages of multihued candies, bottles of effervescent sodas, chocolates of every possible variety, champagne, and wines from every corner of the world. Skyrockets suddenly explode in starbursts, setting off sparkling flowers, cascades of cold fire, whistling embers, and animations of light.

The vastness, complexity, depth, and breadth of everything going on around you is almost overwhelming. You can’t see all the way to the end of the space, and you know there’s more to it than what you can take in from this torrent that’s tantalizing your senses and emotions. But you do get a strong feeling that you’re actually part of something alive, infinite, and altogether fantastic, that you are part of a large and unfolding tapestry that goes beyond sight and sound.

You understand that what you used to think was your reality was, in fact, hardly a speck within the vast wonder that surrounds you. You can see how all the various parts are interrelated, how they all play off each other, how everything fits. You notice just how many different things there are in the warehouse that you’d never seen, never even dreamed of existing in such splendor and glory of color, sound, and texture—but here they are, along with everything you already knew. And even the objects you were aware of have an entirely new context so that they, too, seem completely new and strangely superreal.

Even when the switch goes back off, nothing can take away your understanding and clarity, the wonder and beauty, or the fabulous aliveness of the experience. Nothing can ever cancel your knowledge of all that exists in the warehouse. You’re now far more aware of what’s there, how to access it, and what’s possible than you ever were with your little flashlight. And you’re left with a sense of awe over everything you experienced in those blindingly lucid moments. Life has taken on a different meaning, and your new experiences moving forward are created from this awareness."

In Which I Offer an Unedited Stream of Consciousness Without Apology

I wish I'd taken at least one poetry workshop (did I ever? I don't think I did) at some point.

I know I'm no poet, but I think it would have shown me something about pacing and phrasing and keeping a musical rhythm.

Poetry is a finer art than prose; a novel can tell you a story, but a poem makes you feel what it's about.

I think about all the experimental short stories I put forward for workshops because they were nothing I really cared about.  I never really risked myself, did I?  I feel a bit fraudulent.  That's not much of an artist, is it, to disallow vulnerability, to only put forth the events that I'd already processed and healed?  There's no rawness or growth from such a practice.

Maybe I don't really know myself after all (and how could I?); I only know what is past, not at at this moment, and certainly not where I am going.  I don't ask "who am I?" because that assumes I am a "who," when "what am I" --no, "what is 'I'?" is the question I am really pondering.

I don't consider myself a writer anymore, because I don't know what it means.  I'm not an artist because I'm not expressing anything real.  I'm hiding.  I'm always hiding, or running to some new town, or coming back to an old one to rest.

What is real is that I'm empty, and cluttering up the space with ideas about reality that I can never confirm, identities I as a human can never truly know.  I select aspects of a persona to present because they are the most pleasing, all the while I am an empty eye staring out from behind a rotating handful of filters to shape my perspective.  I'm not a person.  No one is a person.  That's just another filter, another shape to take.

People will insist that I am loved, but to be loved, don't you have to be known?  How can emptiness be known?  How can an eternal, infinite, undifferentiated void be known or loved or understood to be different from anything else?  You don't love me; you cannot.  You love your perception of me, and I love my perception of you.  "I" is a mystery, perhaps the only unsolvable one, and it is the same for all of us.

Is it a shape we take, is it a story we tell ourselves? Is it the pages and canvas upon which we are scrawled?  So many times we look at what comes next, as if we are drawing a line through time, when perhaps we are painting a portrait, revisiting our definitions and contrasts through the use of negative space.  We may not know what we are, but we usually know what we are not.

People who try to control you try to tell you what you are.  They're just telling you what lenses they use.  I have no interest in control.  I have an interest in love, and I love you so much I will always let go of my idea of you, to allow you to be whatever you choose, for you are not your portrait.  You are the canvas, the artist, the paints, and absolutely nothing in particular.

I will love you by believing that you are free, completely and entirely.  You do not need me or my ideas or my stories.  I will not tell you a story about time, beginnings or endings, because I don't know if any of that is real.

I don't know what I am, or what you are, but I cannot be convinced that the you beneath the you you think you are is temporary.  What can exist without the whole of itself?  What could exist without you or I, because I am certain they are the same, although I can never convince anyone of anything at all.  I wouldn't want to, though, because that is an attempt at control, and control is the opposite of true love.

All we ever really do is use our ideas to fill the empty space of self and tomorrow.  The more we let go, the clearer the void becomes, until even the questions go silent.

I lied in the title; I do apologize.  Thank you.

In Which I Update my Circumstances

I moved from Florida (apparently, I can't do large cities) back in with my mom in Michigan in March. We got a car, which I am driving much better than I thought I would (haven't driven since I was 15). Thanks, years of video games!

I was fired August 18th.  I was told bereavement wouldn't count against me; I just wouldn't be paid for those days.  I was told this by personnel.  Well, apparently they do count (eventually, because I checked and they were not on my record).  The next day I got sick, I was fired outright.  No coaching, no warning, nothing.

I did not fight it.  I don't want to be there.  If I'd known they could hold up my unemployment pay for at least a month, I might have fought it.  Fight for a job in retail that was killing me slowly?  How twisted and sick is that?

I haven't been so happy since I was in college.

September 9th, I published part 3 of my series.

September 18th, I published part 4.

September 27th, I will (just kidding!... maybe).

Happy Equinox everyone!

In Which There is Ranting about Hypocrisy and Love

Why is it easier for people who claim this is a Christian country to support killing people halfway across the world than it is to feed and shelter those at home?  To want for them to be healthy and healed?  If you value your money/things more than someone else's life, you are no Christian.

Those people have remade God in their own image.  They must be questioned, their corruptions brought to light.  Why accept the bold faced lies that are used to manipulate the population into compliance?  Can so many so-called Christians forget the one thing Christ said was more important than all others:  "love thy neighbor as yourself."   I'm not a Christian by any terms, but that is what I aim for on the daily.  That is the goal of life, the universe, and everything.  Love thy neighbor.

Love them because they are you. Love because it is the only way to unify and heal.  Love whether or not they deserve it but because of the person you are. Love because of the person you wish to become. Love because it is the only way to peace, equality, and real freedom.   Love until you forget about you and just become love itself.

The teachings of religions have the potential to unite people, but they are used as tools to divide us. Rather than cloister ourselves within the exclusive walls of particular faiths, why can't we just agree that we value life?  When I see the news, I see human suffering in an astounding array of forms.  It does not matter where, it does not matter who, what nation, what color, what thoughts they have about the history of humankind or the nature or preferences of the creator (which, by the way, would have created EVERYONE, if you believe there's only one God).

It doesn't make any sense to me.  Have your faith, have your beliefs, fine, but if you think you have the right to kill someone because they disagree with your beliefs, it makes you as equally radical as they are.

If your God is Christ, bloody well act like it.  Get your little egoic self out of the way and be love.

In Which Love is Discussed

When we fall in love with someone, it is our own feelings that we get so caught up in.  We get hooked on what we feel in response to them.

There can be an adjustment period, where we really learn how this other person is as the boundaries lower and we become closer. 

Our love can deepen and expand, where we appreciate their little quirks and idiosyncrasies and truly admire this person.  And it can be mutual and beautiful. 

Of course it exists, and of course it is real, but it's in us, always in us.  Our ideas of reality,  of what the other person feels or thinks can be flawed, but our love isn't really misdirected; it's just that sometimes we don't realize that the light/love we see shining from someone is really our own.

Some people blaze their own sunlight right back at you.  It really does exist.  It's no guarantee things will work out, unfortunately, regardless of how powerfully you both feel, but it exists.

You know that song,  "if you love somebody, set them free"?  It's one of those things that always struck me as being true, and it made it easier to let people go.  If I love someone, I always want what is best for them, and to let them make their own choices.  If they choose to stay with me, wonderful.  If they choose their own path away from me, I respect it, even if it hurts.  I wish them the best on their way.  It's also helped me respect my own choice to leave when a relationship had run its course.

We don't choose how we feel, but we can choose how we act on those feelings.

We never know what someone has planned when they come into this world, and maybe our paths coincide for a long time, or maybe only briefly.  Maybe they came into our lives to show us how profound our own hearts can be,  when the light of our own love can be so brilliant we think everything else is shining too.

If you cultivate your own light, eventually it's not going to be such a heartbreak when you don't see someone shining back at you, because you can see your own way.  You won't need a lighthouse in the distance to reach for, because you are your own sun.

So many of us confuse want, need, attachment, and control for love.  Love is an outward radiation.  It is light.  It is not something we need from other people to fill ourselves--if we look at it from that perspective, we will always be disappointed.  We will feel as though no one reaches us because we're not meeting their light with our own.  And if we are busily radiating our love, there is little darkness left within us.

Note: this was initially a reply on Facebook but I considered it relevant enough to make into a post.

In Which America is Addressed

Open letter to America the Brave:

Ye gods I'm tired. I'm tired of people arguing about one group of people being more important than others. Of "our own" vs. "them." Are you a being? Yes? Okay, then you're one of mine.

Human being comes before nation, religion, race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, political leanings, musical taste, or which side of the stadium you cheer from on game day. Erase the arbitrary and the abstract and you have human beings in need of help. And here we are, able to give it. Why wouldn't we? Because some people from that country might want to kill some of our citizens? There are people already here, who were born here, who want the same.

If the problem is that you don't believe there isn't enough to go around, please consider that the U.S. discards an enormous amount of the food it produces; that it spends hundreds of times on "defense" as what would be required to give every person within its borders (homeless, veteran, professor, doctor, or retail wizard) a living wage, provide housing, education and healthcare; that religious freedom goes for everyone, not just the people who agree with you. There's enough for 360 million people to help out ten, twenty or fifty thousand and then some.

Now, if the problem is really xenophobia, might I suggest you consider that the U.S. is country made of immigrants (some by choice, some not), refugees and indigenous people who were forced into becoming refugees in their own homeland. There was never a time the American flag flew that it wasn't. There was never a time that people didn't complain about the neighbor being from another country/race/religion.

Please, please, stop letting things (especially a few outraged voices in the media spreading their hysteria) divide us. It is not likely to personally affect you besides maybe another person you see at Wal-mart. All right?

Stop letting fear keep you from looking into the eyes in a face in need. You'll only see yourself looking back.

In Which I Discuss My Untreated Depression

During these episodes, symptoms occur most of the day, nearly every day and may include:

• Feelings of sadness, emptiness or unhappiness. Check.  That's constant.  It's just... dude, what is there in the world that could satisfy the holes in my heart?  Really?  Everything changes, shifts, slides out of reach.  There is nothing fulfilling on this planet.  I really would like to shift planes, please.
• Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters. I do get frustrated now, sadly often, and I say things like, "I used to be so patient and kind..."  I've just had enough.
• Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities, such as sex.  When I can't even summon the energy to reach for the game controller to turn on the Xbox, that's pretty bad.
• Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much.  This comes and goes.  Most often it's just that I fall asleep suddenly.  Lately I've been wondering if it's a deeper part of my mind burning off stuff/fixing my energy/realigning things.  Yes, seriously.
• Tiredness and lack of energy, so that even small tasks take extra effort.  Like getting out of bed to go to work, or taking a shower on a day off?  Or turning on a computer/TV/game system?  Mmm. Check.
• Changes in appetite — often reduced appetite and weight loss, but increased cravings for food and weight gain in some people.  Check.
• Anxiety, agitation or restlessness — for example, excessive worrying, pacing, hand-wringing or an inability to sit still.  Mental rather than physical, often getting wrapped up in my thoughts so completely I don't realize hours have gone by.
• Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements.  Yeah. 
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt, fixating on past failures or blaming yourself for things that are not your responsibility.  Not so much that I'm worthless, but that nothing I could do could ever matter/make any difference.  So what's the use in anything?
• Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things.  My memory has really been depleted.
• Frequent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide.  I don't think I'd ever commit suicide but that's mostly because I don't think it actually solves anything.  It's a momentary respite.  You still come back anyway, and I'd rather be getting completely out of the physical morass forever.  I think about the life beyond the physical a lot, but there's no rush in getting there.
• Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches. Dread and nausea.  Lots of that.

Hahaha episodes?  Episodes end.  This is always.

Two young acquaintances of mine killed themselves in the last few months and I just heard of another young man who I did not know personally.  I have no doubt they are in a soothing, loving place now, and yes, I even envy them a bit.  But that part is inevitable.  I know I have things I'm supposed to be doing here.

And that "supposed to be" feeling is the hardest part about living here.  I don't know what to do. I don't know how to live.  I know I need to get away from the job that is making me nauseous daily before I go there.  I'm getting nauseous thinking about it right now.

People talk about having passion and to follow it, and I don't feel like I have passion for anything.  I have things that I do, things that feel like an engrained part of me.  I write.  I draw, I surround myself with crystals, I burn lots of incense, I wish madly that I was a sorcerer dwelling in some sacred site where the ley lines of the planet converged and opened into other dimensions.  Writing is an escape.

I need a new kind of existence.  One that does not depend on being a mechanical cog in a heirarchical machine.  I am a being whose lifeblood is joy and awe.  I am starving.

I know a bunch of people, if they read this, they would say, go see a doctor.  Get treated.  Get your brain chemicals in order.  No, sorry.  No thank you.  I'm trying to stay on the planet a little longer and not be done in by brain chemicals being thrown so completely out of wack that I forget that all this pain is an illusion.

I am actually better than I have been in a long time.  It's been a few months since I actually felt hopeless.  I do have some hope for something.  Self-reflection always makes me feel so much worse, and I think it's because it's a false self upon which I'm focusing.  This life doesn't matter.  This life of wake, work, and sleep, with the only respite being two days off that I spend too weary to do the things I've been looking forward to all week.  I can do without it in a moment.  

I'm afraid to.  I'm afraid of failing as an author, which is why I don't push harder for people to find out about my books.  I'm afraid of people.  I'm afraid of human beings.  I do not feel like one of them.  I know we're all the same underneath it all, regardless of our planet or plane of origin, but human beings are some of the most extraordinary and horrible beings I've ever imagined.  I'm afraid of them.  I'm afraid of having negativity directed toward me.  I'm afraid of no one understanding.  I'm afraid of having hope and being disappointed.  I'm afraid that the only thing I've ever done that I really feel proud of is wrapped up in my identity and if it is negatively viewed that it is an attack on me as well.  

It's all ridiculous for an infinite eternal being to be concerned about.  But I am, because I think I'm a person.  I think I'm one of the beings of which I am most afraid.  No one is as horrible to me as I am.  They couldn't be.  No one knows how to hurt me like I do.

And I have to forgive myself for being limited, for being so small in mind and consciousness, for wanting to cradle the universe's wonders in my skull, and going on through the rest of my life thirsting for starlight in my soul.  I have to forgive myself for believing I'm a person.  I have been trying very hard to be a convincing one for a very long time.

Eternal Being/One Infinite Creator, please help remind me of your light as I navigate this ridiculous planet.

In Which There Is Self-Talk and Book Ramblins

For me, writing is not particularly hard.

Overcoming the feeling of “nothing I could ever do could possibly matter,” that's the hard part.

I have been sitting on two nearly finished drafts (edits/polishing is all that's needed) for months. Books two and three of Rivermist are fermenting on this flash drive that overheats frighteningly fast in my netbook. And I need to come up with cover art for both of them. I have no idea what I want to do for the second book, but I think it would be good to have someone with their back toward the viewer, facing this white block (it's an attunement hub in the stories) where people come and lay their hands upon it and through it you can really do whatever you direct your mind to. Relive your memories, become attuned to the cosmos, tune yourself to the goddess/light/Laki, whathaveyou.

For book 3, I am thinking, since it covers two lifetimes, having the characters' faces split between current and past self, but that would get complicated and ruin plot points sooooo... maybe not. I think I see it in my mind though. Just have Caida/Salm in the middle and have Christopher with Caida and Zhetmar with Salm. Problem solved! Except it's really, really hard to draw people the way I want them to look. It really is. Sorry for all the self-talk.

Also, I am in the midst of this many year long existential crisis. Okay, it's probably a lifelong kind of thing, really, which means I should basically know how to cope by now. But really. I feel like I don't know how to do anything, which means I have to learn things and I'm not sure I'd be getting good information.

I'm thinking of running a visual promo. Instead of being all “HEY Y'ALL READ MY STUFF LOL HERE'S LINKS” making images with quotes. Starborn is rife with quotable quotes. Cynosure? Mmm... maybe the first line. But what image to put with that?

I am also trying to process all this stuff that's been coming out from Corey Goode regarding the Sphere Being Alliance and continually getting stunned by him verifying all this stuff that I've been thinking (and in some cases putting into stories--I need to write faster so I can get to the final book, otherwise disclosure will have already happened and my stuff will be obsolete) for years. I feel like I can accept it with ease, but at the same time, I'm kind of like damn it, I need this stuff to come out in the open because I cannot live in a world this small. I cannot live among human beings who are blatantly proud of being racist and selfish, where the boundaries of “self” so commonly begins and ends with a single individual.  I cannot live in a heirarchically based business model anymore and yet I have mad bills to pay and no idea how to really advertise without feeling incredibly slimy.

So please, humanity, open your hearts and eyes. Fear not. You are infinite.

And self, it's okay. Do what you can. You are loved, I promise. No matter how utterly alone in your mind you feel.

In Which Mercury Goes Retrograde

I am perhaps a quasi-believer in astrology.   I am so specifically well described by the interpretations of the arrangement and interactions between the planets at the time of my birth, I don't really have anything in me to say, "nah, I don't believe in it."  I'm not obsessed with it or anything.  If I have a bad day or an excellent day, I'll sometimes check the horoscopes to see what was going on in the solar system.

I have never, ever, noticed Mercury in retrograde before.  I heard people talking about it, and was always like eh, whatever.  Nothing happened to me.

And then it hit me.  And rolled over me a few more times for good measure.

My birthdate is June 10th, 1982.  I was born in Saginaw, Michigan around 9:35 p.m.  Mercury was in retrograde (as were Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, with Saturn stationary after being in retrograde the day before) in Gemini, which is also what happened this year, May 18th through June 11th.  

When I was born, Mercury was in the fifth house, which is the house of love matters, pleasure, leisure, children (none of those to worry about), and creations (according to Astro.com).  These would be the areas I am likely to have trouble with while Mercury does its retrograde thing.  Oh?  Yeah?  Is that all? Yeah?  You don't say?

In the last few months, I'd met someone I had this instant interest/connection with, but he was at the moment out of the country for a few weeks, so while I was on vacation and away from my Xbox's party chat, we were often on a messenger service, typing a tremendous amount.  When he got back from his trip, we had plans.  Lots of plans.

I was finally at a point financially where I actually had a bit of money left over in the bank after my bills and everything, and things were finally feeling good in that area.  My three year loan was paid off, so I was able to start applying that extra money towards getting other things paid off--things were looking good.

And then, while I was on vacation, my mom, aunt and I were driving back to Florida from Michigan, and we stopped at a gas station.  I went in to get drinks, and my card was declined.  Oh, spectacular.  I didn't call the bank to let them know I was travelling.  My bad.  Went back to the car, looked up my bank account and found it overdrawn by nearly 100 dollars.  Six hundred dollars, wiped out.  

The department of education had apparently decided it was time to review my loan repayment method, and unbeknownst to me, had adjusted my payments back to the default amount, which is six hundred dollars a month. I had been paying fifty.   

Excellent.  My vacation ended and I went back to normal life.  And then one day while the person for whom I felt affection and I were playing online, he abruptly left the game we were playing and proceeded to stop talking to me entirely.  He didn't respond to my invitations to play or for party chat.  He read my messages, but didn't reply.  Not a word.

It took me a good week (during which he'd said he was to return to our city) or so to actually give up and accept that he wasn't going to talk to me anymore, even though I didn't know why.  I mean... what?  Why?  Why?  How does someone talk to someone for weeks every day for hours and hours and then just poof, wordlessly, especially knowing my feelings and claiming to have some of his own?  Poof.  POOF.  He eventually blocked me on Live when I had the gall to "like" one of his videos doing something in a game he had told me he'd wanted to do and that I'd said I'd wanted to see.  Ouch.  Well... okay.

So, I deleted our chats so I couldn't reread the flood of messages I'd sent that he maybe had read, or perhaps had just opened the window, and stop wondering about that.  I had saved the morning bad hair selfies and random pictures (look at this hideous hotel carpet!) we'd sent each other on my netbook in case my phone died or something, but it was just torture to have them there within looking distance on the device I carry with me all the time.  Deleted.  And then when I scrolled through my texts, I came across those we exchanged before he left the country.  It hurt my heart to see the last thing I'd sent, so I meant to enter a space to have an empty draft.  But that bumped the conversation to the top of the list of my text conversations, so I went to delete the single space... AND PRESSED SEND INSTEAD.  Did I roll a 1 or something?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!  Hopefully he got a new number when he came back to the states.

All right, so, I decided to just move on with my life.  It was June, I was about to turn 33, and I caught fire for the story I've been working on for the last year.  I was in the home stretch.  The final two chapters.  I wrote a good thirty to forty pages, and on June tenth, my birthday, I was home from work.  Perfect opportunity.  For my birthday present to myself, I was going to finish my draft.

So there I was, enjoying my morning.  I was sitting on the couch with my netbook (I have a netbook just for writing.  It fits in my work locker and is really the perfect size for bringing with me everywhere), typing away merrily, and then I pressed "save."

The screen went blue.  Ugh, awesome, I thought, hoping my work for the last hour had made it.  If not, no big deal; OpenOffice autosaves and can usually recover the document.  Except this time, when I went to turn the netbook back on, it made this weird click and claimed to be unable to boot.  

Wtf.

No boot device.

OH HELL NO.  DID MY HARD DRIVE JUST CRASH?!?!?  WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I SAVED TO MY FLASH DRIVE?!?!

The answer, dear reader, was March.  After that, I hadn't really been writing much because my free time was sort of absorbed in something(one) else.

I went from being at the end of my story, +80k words, 110 pages, to being back to 70 pages, ~60k words.  A fourth of my book was gone, along with all the edits I'd done going back and rereading.  It was my own fault for not doing a backup, and I kept thinking "oh, I will at the end of this scene, I'm on a roll right now, I'm rolling so hard!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

The next day, June 11th, was the last day of Mercury in retrograde, and it was as if a horrible, wretched weight was lifted off of my shoulders.  I know it wasn't because of Mercury appearing to be moving counter to its usual motion that so and so stopped talking to me and the Dept of Education wiped out my account or that my hard drive crashed...

But I don't believe in clusters of coincidences either.

Moral of the story:  BACK UP YOUR WORK DAILY.  And don't ignore any gut feelings.  And don't call customer service while driving through mountainous terrain.  And when you feel yourself falling for someone, temper it with the reminder that pain is the result of hope, of expectation, of want.  Even when someone is with you (and claims certainty that you (including your feelings and inherent weirdness) cannot scare them away), don't hope.  Don't look to the future or to the past.  Just be there in the moment with them and enjoy them while it lasts.

And when you miss the sound of their laughter, think of it as a blessing that the only copy of the video they sent of them making fun of you for missing the sound of their voice was on the hard drive that crashed so you can't torture yourself about them anymore, ever again.

In Which I Remember How I Used to Be

I had a sort of dream last night in which I was having a conversation, but it was more that the other person was asking questions and I was answering them.

In it, I figured out that I was still in pain from my first relationship not because I miss the person, but because I loved freely.  No holding back, no reservations.  An unfettered heart.

I felt that feeling once after all the hurt and whatnot of that first relationship.  It was three days I spent in this elevated state of perception, the three most glorious days of this entire lifetime that showed me how else we could live.  I loved all, because it was all God, or whatever you want to call it.

It was me with a shining sun for a heart, beaming.  It was the most myself I could ever be, and I wanted to stay that way.  It was also right when my partner was returning from his study abroad, and I was afraid he wouldn't be able to accept me in this state, so I lost it.

And for a moment, last night, in a dreamy in-between, the sun was my heart again.  I actually have a great deal of love--scratch that--I am a great deal of love, and I don't need a specific outlet for it. 

I tend to shut myself off and look away because people are so demanding of my energy and I feel like I don't have anything left to give, but it's still there.  I'm still alive inside.  There is still at least a spark.  There is still a light to hold against the darkness.

In Which I Blather Excessively

I have been undergoing what some might call a crisis of faith for a couple years now.  I used to be nearly obsessive about the nature of reality, about seeing everything beneath the physical, about finding God within me.

I read a Course in Miracles cover to cover; nonduality dressed in Christian terminology--it changed the way in which I thought about the world.  It stripped away the insistence that I am here for something special.  It destroyed the me I always wanted to believe I was.

But now I'm empty.  Everything is empty.  The world is an empty masquerade. There is no joy to be had; there are few people who reach me.  There is also no reason to do anything.

I switched on autopilot.  I am sleepwalking.  I crave distraction and don't even spin my wheels in attempt to escape the rut I'm in.  Why bother?  There's nothing out there for me.

Some insist I need a relationship to cheer me up.  What then?  What would I do with a relationship except use it to dull the intensity of my isolation?  What can it be besides another distraction?  What are any relationships besides attempts at being special?

The want for specialness is still there, but I feel I am far too tolerant of mental noise, of permissiveness for useless things, and when the thoughts come, I talk myself out of them.  I don't try to talk myself out of them;  I ruthlessly excise them.  I am not terribly kind to myself.

And that's all there is to it.  I have no solutions.  I see no way out.  I'm stuck.

In Which... Aw Hell, I'll Figure it Out

I read something rather quotable in a Cracked.com article the other day, about how people tend to seek external validation rather than personal growth.

It struck me because I'm pretty sure I'm backsliding; at the very least, I am not evolving in the direction I wish to be. 

Until very recently--okay, I'll be honest--I really wanted life as I know it to dramatically shift at the end of 2012.  I knew it was too much to hope for, but all the logistics in the world did not keep me from hoping and hoping.  When nothing happened at all, at least in the visible world, there was nothing left for me to hope for (perhaps I simply have unreasonable expectations).

See, I don't really want to live in this world.  And I am so dissatisfied that absolutely nothing seems to matter.  The feeling of fatedness has vanished.  There is no longer meaning awaiting me, no messages from higher selves, nothing but the bleak monotony of an illusionary world that will slip and fade into the nothing from which it came.

Science affords much of the greatest awe I have experienced in recent years, but I don't really believe our universe is real.  Holographic, perhaps, even hallucinatory.  But real?  I don't sense it. 

Perhaps I should simply face my worst fear by submerging myself into it:  becoming a hopeless, dreamless, self-medicating, self-absorbed muggle for whom all the lights have gone out. 

At least then there will be no direction left to go but out.  At least then the delusions of my own grandeur will wash away, leaving the grasping desire to-be-recognized-for-how-very-special-I-am exposed to be scoured away by the elements. 

Perhaps then I would be able to surrender the delusional mind that insists it has good ideas about what I am and what I should be doing/thinking/feeling.  I know it's mistaken.  I know it has no more clue about my identity than a goldfish has about its own.  Yet I value it undeservedly, identify with it, believe it to be Me.

If we are not our minds, what are we? I ask, because I'm sure there is an answer.  I'm also sure the answer will never come in words or thoughts, but those are the only places I find myself looking.

In Flatland, a 2D polygon encounters a 3D sphere and is brought up into 3D.  Upon his return, he is seen as a madman and tries to remember what direction he had gone in.  Not North, East, West, or South, but Up.

Maybe I just need to find my Up.

In Which I Capitalize Things of Importance

I really don't know who or what I am.  I don't think anyone else does either, but a lot of folks believe they do, and that's enough for them.  But what does any of it mean? It's likely to be totally inconsequential, and this entire paragraph is a pretty good illustration of how seemingly impossible it is for me to really, truly relate to people.

I seem to be pretty open minded, and by that I mean that I very much enjoy pondering all sorts of ideas about the nature of reality.  I was raised as a Christian, but it didn't explain a damn thing about anything to my satisfaction.  Besides, nobody seemed to really care about the "love each other" bit, so I moved on with my time and focus.

Actually, I spent the tail end of my Christian worldview as a self-styled Satanist, but when I got to a place that considered that the mythology was simply not the case, I stopped being so murderously hateful toward myself. 

I went through being a pagan, but I couldn't really believe any of that either, and it's hard to distinguish the culture from the philosophy so often that it would have felt like appropriation, and I'd rather avoid that can of worms. 

So where did that leave me?  Questioning.  Everything.  I am an extremely mental creature, and any belief system I consider for long has to make sense, has to incorporate the evidence and take into consideration universal tendencies.

I can't say that I envy people who have faith in things they can't prove (mostly because it seems to be blinding them to other possibilities) partly because I have some unprovable ideas myself.  Ultimately, all of it could be wishful thinking in a purely physical brain, or (more likely), delusional projections from a broken mind dreaming the entire universe and all its alternate realities and its infinities of rebirth. 

There are no answers to be found in the world because I'd have to be out of the world to see the bigger picture.  Brighter minds have pondered the same questions for depressingly ever, and the only way out seems to be from Realization.  It's such an important term that I am going to Capitalize the Shit Out of It.

This is how I used to visualize the Apocalypse:  it was the journey we take as we die.  I thought it happened to each person as they passed away, back when I still believed in an afterlife.  I thought there might be one big one during my lifetime (because, like so many who have come before and will come after, I came to Earth for something Important), but I didn't think people had to wait around to get into heaven.

I thought it was something intensely personal and specific to each individual, because it had to be. Two people can commit the same act for vastly different reasons, and it can't be judged so narrowly as to be black and white.  We can see our errors and change our ways, or we can keep our pride and justify our actions to ourselves and keep going. 

It's funny to say that reincarnation saved my life, but really, I would have offed myself a hundred years ago if I didn't believe I'd just come back again.  But the purpose of reincarnation cannot be to just keep coming back as other people.  Hell no. 

We can get out of here, stop the merry go round, and fly away.  And there can really be only one ultimate goal.  I mean sure, you could keep cavorting about the universe in a myriad of forms and lives, but what's the point if you don't figure out what you are?

Realization.  If you know, you stop not knowing.  You don't look for the things you're holding in your hands unless you don't recognize you have them.