a chat -- recognition

so i was having a chat with my friend. he was talking about how he wanted his life to be different. he stated that he wanted to be recognized publicly for something "good". in the past he had worked on projects that he considers "good" or considers a contribution to society. in the medical field on a project that distributed organs to people who needed it, on fortune 1,2,3 hundred company projects managing large groups of people. various actions he considers "worthy" of attention from the public. and within those projects he received no recognition. and if he did received recognition it wasnt "big" enough for him to consider it public enough. or "good" enough.

currently what he is doing is expanding a business he considers a nothing contribution to the world. he feels its just something that he has ended up doing and since he cannot turn it into something he is "proud" of, he strives to turn it into something widely lucrative. so if he cannot be doing something "good" to which he would receive recognition, of which he "requires" to "feel good" about what he is doing, he has settled for doing something that will make him more money.

its interesting because there was a lot we talked about within this point of him needing recognition. going back to the attention that was received, or in his case not received from his parents. which was pointed out as something that this point of needing public recognition stems from. i talked about how the point of movement should not be dictated or judged by how many people saw or talked about or recognized u doing it. that 'that which needs to be done', needs to be done. and being recognized is not a necessity of life. its a necessity of the mind. its something that makes us feel "good" but we dont consider that the simple act of doing 'that which needs to be done' should be enough in and of itself. the value in the simple movement that is best for all life is missed in favor of stroking the ego through the mental "need" to be recognized. i mentioned that a lot is shown about a person within how they treat someone who can do absolutely nothing in return for them and within doing something "good" that no one will ever know about unless u go spouting about how much recognition u should get for this and that. not seeing the compromise of self within a "good deed".

when i pointed out some of those^ things it was "hard" for him to hear. he said why am i always picking and taking out the negative within everything. to which i responded that i was not doing that at all. what i was doing is not being afraid to address much of what we brush over in the way of 'what is', not being afraid to consider much that is being overlooked in terms of ALL of what an action or statement means and entails. not resting in "negative" or "positive" but seeing shit for what it really was. and i mentioned that we cannot do that with shame because this is ALL 'us shit' here. all of it. if we are not willing to look at it all (every minute detail of us), how can we do anything different..

i talked to him about self forgiveness. to release the ideas he has accepted and allowed and currently used to manifest the situations in his life. we talked about him essentially walking the path of his parents within the way he accepts and allows the things that were adopted from or introduced to him through the actions and beliefs of his parents. we agreed that this was at the core of many of the things he considered 'issues' within himself.

cool chat..

life for rIFLEs

i listen to npr often. i enjoy it. they talk about real shit.

ive been hearing lately about this story of a man that was contacted by a prosecutor from his hometown of guatemala with information that he was one of two survivors of a massacre in dos erres that went down many years ago during a civil war within guatemala. now, this made him, oscar, take a step back. as he considered himself having had a great life. his father had died in an accident when he was just 4 years old and he had never met his mother. he was raised by his grandmother and other relatives and he was raised to love and respect and honor his father. the soldier. however, oscar was not the son of a soldier. oscar was actual a kidnapping victim.

the man who oscar loved and revered as 'his father' was actually a "random" lieutenant in the government military. witihin guatemala there was civil war between the government and the guerrillas know as the fuerzas armadas rebeldes (FAR) or rebel armed forces. the dictator in guatemala, efrain rios montt, wanted the guerrillas found and killed. all of them. he had his men go to the small villages that were suspected of hiding the FAR.

after the guerrillas killed a group of government soliders and secured rifles (20 rifles i find our later with research), this was taken as a personal attack to the ego of the dictator. he set out to teach the guerrillas "a lesson" by way of the villagers he was sure were hiding them. he sent a team of skilled killers (these men were in charge of torturing and questioning prisoners and ultimately killing them, hands on killing). they were called the kaibiles, which means ':having the strength and astuteness of two tigers'. their motto is "if i advance, follow me; if i stop, urge me on; if i retreat, kill me."

the kaibiles set on the village in dos erres as they were informed by intelligence that the rifles that were taken were there. they went in dressed to the t as the FAR did. as to set up the blame, for whatever went down, to go towards the guerrillas. they stormed the village at about 2am... they kicked in the doors of all of the families and got them out of their homes. they searched for the rifles but found none. they then split the people up. women and children in the church. men in the school.

a young girl, about 12 years old, was grabbed up and taken a few steps away to a field and raped by lieutenant cesar adan rosales batres who was a very high ranking officer. in front of her family. and as the kaibiles motto states, "if i advance, follow me.." and so they did. the "lower ranking" men were given the go to do the same to any they saw. there were many rapes. all the women and girls were raped and then forced to cook meals and feed their abusers.

the first to die was a child. a baby. a soldier took the baby and threw the baby in a large well that was about 40 feet deep. the soldier did not want to do this. but as the kaibiles motton states, "if i stop, urge me on..." and so they did. the soldiers continued to throw children in to the well.

they began to bring people to the well a bit at a time. they would question them about the rifles and the location of the. the villages protested they knew nothing and cursed the men. they were hit on the head with a hammer and thrown into the well. many still alive. the soldier who was giving this account on npr was asked how many people does he think he brought to the well/to their death. he estimated around 15 people. they asked him, why? why did u continue to bring people to their doom knowing this was not the thing that should be being done. and he said if he had tried to protest, they would have killed them. as the kaibiles motto states, "if i retreat, kill me.." and they would have gladly.

after much time and many murders there were not many villagers left. the soldiers rounded up the women and children that were left. one pregnant, one with her child, two young boys.. the women, at this point, were beside themselves. having witness and been through what they had (rapes, beatings, watching family raped and killed). they scream to the soldiers that they are not animals and they know they are going to be killed and do not want to be taken into the woods to do so. they wanted it to be done right then and there. when the men started to get angry with the women and grab on them, the two boys ran in to the woods. the one crouched behind a tree trunk and sat quiet as they sent shots his way. they then rounded up the women and shot them all. they went to each of them and shot them to make sure they were dead. something they did not do for many within the path of this massacre which continued. they never did find any rifles...

by morning the children wandered back into the village. they were rounded up by the commanders. two young boys (and with research later it seems three young girls as well. they were raped and strangled.). both boys were of mixed race, lighter skin and eyes. one commander, the baker, decided to take the older boy. and the younger boy was taken by oscar's "father". oscar ovidio ramirez ramos. who he, subsequently, renamed oscar at three years old and brought him home to his family and introduced him as his son.

really interesting the way we follow.

follow thoughts..

follow feelings..

follow ideas..

follow others..

follow orders..

follow hearts..

follow directions..

follow fears..

^none of this shit is self. we dont consider that THAT is where the issue lies. that we are not ourselves currently. we have accepted and allowed this illusion of self, of life. all this shit we follow is NOT who we really are. all those soldiers that followed those orders to kill (and even those who enjoyed it) were not moving as themselves. they were moving as orders or fears or generational taught acceptance. many seeds are planted within children that manifest men like the kaibiles.

really interesting interview..

denim and diamonds

watching the news yesterday i saw the story of this denim and diamonds fundraiser. i am going to paste the article below in then give notice and attention to the overlooked aspects within ways of dealing with our issues and programs such as this...

It's not the usual jewelry worn with jeans, but a local women's counseling center is asking you to wear denim and diamonds this week.
A short time ago Gina Graham said even little things such as shopping and sharing with friends, were not enough to help her cope anymore with the aftermath of a painful childhood.
"It really came to the point where I felt like I was having an identity crisis and really the ways I'd been thinking that got through those tough times for many years, weren't working for me anymore." Said Graham, a former client of Eve Center.
So Graham sought out the help of some of the people such as peer counselors at the Eve Center. The center provides faith based counseling for women by women.
"It's safe, no cost and very confidential." Said Cinny Roy, Executive Director of the Eve Center.
Graham, Roy and peer counselor Wanda Taylor Smith met up with us to wear denim and go shopping for a few perfectly sized diamond at Philip Bortz Jewelry downtown.
But when it comes to what they are supporting, you might say one size fits all with these diamonds. We are talking about demin and diamonds for a very important reason. This weekend is the first ever Denim and Diamonds Fundraiser for the Eve Center. The money raised will provide even more free mental health counseling.
"One of the ways women process things is by talking through things, and this helps them to understand that god has given them the where-withal to talk through some of their issues." Said Wanda Taylor-Smith, an Eve Center counselor.
Those issues are gone for Gina Graham. "I want other people to know what I know now, that life can be different." She said.
In other words, you can get the spark, or in this case the sparkle, back again.

ok, this is a blatant example of selective viewing of the part instead of the whole in many ways within this story.

first shown in the fact that gina graham created the 'denim and diamonds' idea because her childhood was so painful that she, apparently, could not cope with without the help of the eve center and making herself and others feel pretty with some diamonds. now this is not to down the support and assistance of organizations but instead to point out that most of us have had things happen in our childhood that would be considered painful and all of us have the ability to deal with these things without the help of a center or things like diamonds to make us feel pretty or loved. we advocate self discovery but not self creation. as pointed out here "It really came to the point where I felt like I was having an identity crisis and really the ways I'd been thinking that got through those tough times for many years, weren't working for me anymore." gina was aware that she had a hard childhood discovered that it had affects on her but didnt actually do anything about how she accepted and allowed her childhood to affect her. instead of getting down to the ideas she had accepted about herself and life by way of her painful childhood and letting go of those ideas to create a different gina, she rested in ways that were not helpful because they did not stand the test of time. seen in her later "identity crisis".

another display of the disregard of the whole in favor of the part is our collective view of diamonds. when we think of diamonds we think of love, "foreverness", money, commitment. in this we completely slight the big picture of the acquisition of diamonds. whether it is a conflict diamond or not is besides the point on the fact that we need a reality check about the relationship we accept and allow ourselves to have with diamonds as a WHOLE. two-thirds of all diamonds come from africa. this is something that happens often where a country that is considered poor is rich in some resources that we here in the united states has mental value in. many children are killed by way of diamonds and the diamond industry. many are either forced to be a child laborer or a child soldiers. sometimes whole communities forced into labor and an abusive existence, low or no pay and many times death. do diamonds, in totality, make people happy and represent love? definitely not. and we adopt and spout phrases like 'diamonds are a girls best friend' not seeing the implications of such a statement when looking at the whole and not just the part. with the implementation of the equal money system this brutality would end. for one, because life and its value will be respected from birth until death. for all. period. and another because in an equal money system the fact that one thinks it is acceptable to brutalize another being would not be overlooked. it will be addressed and gotten to the root of the issue. no longer will we sit on the sidelines and simply accept and allow bullshit in OUR life. the profit driven murder does not have to be. but we accept it and allow it by holding onto these delusional ideas about diamonds.

so for $60 per person, $85 if u desire a sapphire ticket which includes consideration of being in actual sponsor and a t-shirt, people can enjoy a dinner and music and the chance to win $3700 worth of jewelry and feel like they are helping people who would require faith based counseling via the eve center. all the while being okay with our "love" of diamonds so intense and "special" as to lead to children having their limbs cut off or communities enslaved and brutalized. all the while being okay with our idea of "helping" with a problem without addressing the starting point or considering all of the consequences there of. always looking at the part instead of the whole.

we need to stop this greed within us. it the same greed that allows one to cut the limbs off a child. its the same greed that allows us to blindly value diamonds when the outflow of their acquisition is apparent. its the same greed that allows us to require the involvement of money to dictate the quality of "help" that is given in any situation towards any issue. it the same greed that allows us to feel good about spending $60 towards a cause instead of taking collective action to stop the cause.

if we truly cared about prevention of painful childhoods that would lead to needing support from the help of the eve center which needs money to run which would require a fund raiser in which we support the acquisition of diamonds that people die for daily...then we would establish a world wide system that supports life. so life does not feel the need to do whatever to get money and survive. if we truly cared we would honestly investigate an equal money system. one that addresses and stops causes instead of raises money for them.