The hours are waning until a new year is celebrated by pagans, shamans, druids, barbarians, and others relating more to the cosmos than the cultures that seek to replace observation with faith. *smile*, I am still a mouthful and relate with tempos that are critical of vehemence. 2021…2020…wow, those were some years there! Winter and summer solstices interrupted the weeks…the unfolding disaster of the Coronavirus v.2019 and the Delta Variant are multi-volume tomes that still have no end in sight as a new chapter recently started with the title Omnicron. Well, we all had an equilibrium of some sort busted. For many western countries, the cultural shocks were felt en masse! This was new for some cultures and just a fire drill for others…for some in America, the threat of dying by a contagious disease was indistinguishable from the fears of dying from other threats that are seemingly omnipresent in America. Was the last rotation around the sun particularly transformative for you? Yeah, not me either. I mean, no other major life-altering catastrophes have befallen me than the recipe we are all baking.
I am exhaling contented breaths frequently. The routine varied this year with long training periods to certify me as a Peer Support Specialist and a Behavioral Health Technician. The experiences blended exceptionally well with my demeanor…turns out my plateful smells about the same as those who have been traumatized in ways that I have not and dearly hope that all others can avoid. When teaching me, there will obviously be contentions for me when the material is taught as sacrosanct. I am no stranger to intervening with my own perspective when I deem an “authority” needing a check on the Authoritarian-Perspective. There are outcomes when a system is stress-tested…sometimes these outcomes become lawsuits, big nothingburgers, and/or intellectual stimulations. Well, the only Way I know is to advocate for improvement…albeit, those that know me well, they can attest under oath that I can embody the metaphor, “All gas and no brakes.” If you met me nowadays, you would probably remark how little I have changed in some ways and yet some things are distinctly different.
The results of my presence this year include being scolded as if I was a bad boy by the head of an organization more than twice; she did not realize that my stress tests revealed her own challenges with authoritarianism. Next up, the outcome culminated in a 15-page report that discusses the good, the opportunities to be great, and the downright unethical reality of some situations the supervisors and managers are actively ignoring. In retrospect, I employed a variety of ideas to find the comfort zones to really talk about what shit is bothering the members presently, and I was successful with being engaging. I called my favorite tool Walking Dialogues, which is distinctly different than anything tried in the movie What About Bob.
In conclusion, I explain that $13 an hour and a top range of $16.75 is unconscionable compared to the money provided by the Affordable Health Care Act (aka ObamaCare). *smile*, yup, I did exactly what you would expect me to do…I described what a Mandatory Reporter must do! Self-Care is a vital aspect of being successful on the front lines of the Behavioral-Health-Interface. It is clear that working BHTs to exhaustion by forcing them to work 20-40 hours of overtime to support their modest lives.
Other outcomes can be indirect from the inspirations…the aim, my hope, is that all of this is cumulative…culminating more than a life lived as a blip…Einstein would eruditely explain to me the concept of Perspective to better understand my relative impact in a system of varying mass, speed, and complexity. Last year prompted me to desire writing that book that keeps coming up as the explanation(s) of me…me and some Others that used to have a working title unapologetically captioned as, “An Unauthorized Autobiography.” *smile* the working title presently is, “The Tao of Peer Support.” Maybe all the different titles will be chapter headings. The work should be no shorter, and no longer than a pamphlet like the Communist Manifesto and The Prince (Marx and Machiavelli respectively and collectively were responsible for thousands of published pages that critiqued the authoritarianisms of their respective time periods). Without having read 90% of their tomes, I can unequivocally state that my conclusions compiled into a book would likely be fun presents to friends accompanying a future solstice letter. Yet, I really need to exhale my social critique(s)…Yes, you guessed it from the foreshadowing…why strive for a single when there is a need for an entire B-side of material.
My B-side has at least a twenty-pager on Micro-Intentional-Communities. This stems from my last two years in a MIC. There are valid arguments to discuss the benefits of affordable rent, shared spaces, convivial opportunities, and learning to live with enough to be Happy as opposed to defining happiness with consumerism. It is a superb permaculture experiment here with over 70 different trees and shrubs with 80% offering seasonal food. The owner lives onsite; his motivation is to not lose money, but his dialect does not want to derive profit vital to his lifestyle from the project called Sage Garden Ecovillas (I registered it on Google Maps if you want to search for it). I think this is the longest I have lived in one place for over a decade; and I cannot really imagine wanting to leave for any foreseeable reasons.
Of Course, Taoesm is on my mind. Big societal changes worldwide are inevitable as the western and eastern civilizations learn that there is not a friendly God who protects believers. I am continually impressed as the respective consciousnesses are becoming a Critical-Collective-Consciousness. Welcome to the “Renaissance 2.0” where justice is more likely when life is recorded than with the annals of “venerable” Justice Systems. *smile*, I am really digging the challenge to the status quo since BLM began marching, and I adore that the shrouds worn by authoritarians are being peeled off. In Arizona, the masks we wear to protect others from Covid have a side-effect of providing nice moist water vapor that softens the dryness of desert air…sadly, there a lot of suspicion with the experts…but this is still a long non-sequitur even if I just provided the crib notes. If you have not read Taoesm yet, then maybe you may pick up some parts of the Way this year given there is no whole volume to memorize…parts will make up the holes as the gist becomes evidence(d)…the fabric is not tightly woven enough to filter the solution. Taoesm is a Way to think about Happiness as a right rather than a lucky happenstance.
Oh, by the way, in case you think I have anarchistic tendencies, you would not be wrong…but, would an anarchist become a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) member certified by FEMA? Oh, I won a grant for $10k by a local organization called the Collective…well, they are not exactly clear…I may be in the running for it with a small class of others making it past the interview hurdle. I knew the outcome would be positive when I saw their responses to my answer about their question, “What will you bring to the Collective if you are chosen?” Being true to myself, I responded, “I am not an artist in that I can draw, paint, or sculpt. Rather I am more like an MBA-trained poet, and I bring a lot of gas to a project. My aim is to produce something that has multiplicative value, meaning it can be replicated as a known project.” I left out the “no brakes” part…sometimes I need to give my person a chance to navigate a new course the only way I know how. In brief, the idea is to interact with local schools to enlist the help of art teachers to lead the efforts to conceive of ideas around the ethos: “Mesa is for Everyone.” The institutionally gray concrete-block walls along snaking canals throughout Mesa are the objects of my colorful aggression. The motto is a collaboration between my mom and I…she said it, and I remembered it!
Exhaling like this is easier for me nowadays than it used to be. Changes, changes, microcosms amass into stepping stones. The next year…the ongoing Era still has the constraints of life, the turbulence of climates in flux, and other macro factors out of our control. Well, my trajectory has been to resolve the whatever-stresses-me-ethically, which includes a long letter to some representatives about student loans and increasing Social Security deposits that will then serve as the interest-free loan source for education. *smile* Why Not? Remember that old commercial, “Why Ask Why?...[We Must Try]. In a way, I may need to keep exhaling all this social justice [crap] so that I can one day in a distant future someplace not near capitalist corporations, relax knowing that steam rollers will continue to exist after I am long gone.
I miss you friends! The pages write themselves with my hand…your net effect on me is profound…because I would not be me without your person influencing me. In other words, you are partly responsible too! My best has always been around you…and, sorry, some of my worst was in there too. My balance used to be a rotating yin-yang with a bad U-joint on a swinging pendulum capable of being triggered in four dimensions by multi-variable stimuli. Currently, I feel relaxed, content, capable, transparently me, and not lost in my old vices that I used to escape unpleasantries and celebrate micro-wins. To be honest, I feel as I always have been…but I am more authentically me nowadays (If that makes sense, then that is one way I can describe where I am at). I am probably just as funny as you remember me, basically Stuck Between Two Ferns.
I started a new opportunity as an accountant for a telecommunications contracting outfit…I will probably not pursue the behavioral healthcare avenue unless the Integrated-Mental-Care Model dissolves into Health Care Portals with distributed assets (aka doctor offices instead of Mega Complexes). My letter to the former employer will be customized for the Arizona Heath Care Cost Containment System, which funnels federal Medicaid funds through insurance companies…you know, to make sure the administration of public money is sufficiently gleaned by the administrators in private enterprises. I am exhaling as this and everything else will be whatever it will be if nobody takes responsibility for making the systems fairer, more accessible, affordable, and refocused on the pursuit of Happiness. Anyway, my new boss hopes that the accounting will not involve any social justice issues and keep my focus on the numbers and unearthing business intelligence by comparing multiple datasets to effectuate a ‘best-fit story’ that can serve as the final reconciliation.
*HUG* Happy Solstice friends. I hope my letter finds you in good health, being interested in life, relishing the happy times, and inspiring communities. We may have only one life to live here on Earth…or anywhere else for that matter. But, we are also eternal and forever will be…we have each affected the makeup of the universe ever so slightly…atoms will be in non-random positions from your presence ever more. There are so many ways to say I love you…when we practice, we sometimes make miscalculations and subsequently try new or different or tried-and-true ways to continue the Practice. A favorite adage of mine is: “Knowledge Comes from Others. Wisdom Comes from Experience. And Genius Is their Unison.” I literally woke up in the middle of the night to write that one down almost 20 years ago…sometimes the subconscious can be traumatizing and other times revealing. We hold onto the past for various reasons…sometimes this is not helpful, and sometimes the past can be resolved with the Presence we embody Presently. I advocate that the latter is a Journey worth taking. Enjoy traversing the terrains…when we pay attention, even the familiar can be inspirational…when we idle in the same attitude that is incapable of authentic happiness, then that is a sign there could be something else that could provoke the limbic system to try something new. I am no expert in life, and my range is what it is because I have been present with a lot of intense emotions, endured physically draining experiences, and spent significant amounts of time sharing good vibes with congeniality. When it comes down to the brass tax, I do not think my details are different than anyone else…ultimately, we are all just trying to find some endearing, perpetual happiness… Ce Sont Nos Vies.
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