Lessons from walls

This posting has been long in gestation and today in Church I got the final threads to finish it off as promised previously... It is neither a lengthy or noble dissertation, just something that I have felt needs to be said.

Life is a procession, some may call it a comedy of errors, others call it a learning process. I call it an adventure these days...We all get hurt by life at some time or another, some build defensive walls and attitudes to protect them from the hurt. Others carry on regardless in their selfish ways. Others hide away in despair. Others take on the poisoned chains of pride.
Then there are people that want to throw off the yoke of past experiences to be able to live again as we are supposed to.Joyfully and adventurously.I am one of those people, but before I could do that I had to love myself again, to see that even with my bruised ego, broken heart and mangled self worth I was a person that was worthy to be a creature of joy again. Part of this was accepting and realizing that God loved me no matter what I did or had done. He had made me and He had loved me enough to create a way for me to be with Him eternally. How could I doubt my worth if the God of creation considered me worthy?
Once this was out of the way I realized that I had to get rid of my fortress that I had built around me as a result of past experiences.I had to get my psyche naked, this was the toughest part, because when you are exposed like this the flame of a passing soul is like a blowtorch, some have a flame of hatred, others of jealousy, even friendship scorches...
However if you persevere the freedom of not hiding behind a wall or mask is bliss itself, you know that you mean what you say and do what you mean. This honesty is sometimes disconcerting to others catching them off guard and flowing over them like a tsunami. I keep forgetting that part...

What I also have found is that I have lost the art of picking up hidden cues... I do not expect them because of my directness and openness... why should others play games when I cannot? But they do, mostly not intentionally but on a constant basis... I have to retrain myself to read these signs I suppose. Then I go read a recent study on kisses and I seem to be once again the exception to the rule as my goal when kissing is not to end up in the boudoir... I put a lot of emotional value in a kiss, to me a kiss is not part of what they say, a kiss is like cement for my heart, it fills in the cracks and makes me whole again. Yes it does set my heart racing but it also tells me that I am not alone in the adventure of life or the building of a relationship. Without a kiss it just a great friendship... but with a kiss once in a while there is a hint of something that may well grow to become that once in lifetime experience.

Being a gentleman is also a given when one has chosen the path I have, considering the other person and respecting their wishes is worth it, trust me, as the other way of being a boor and throwing a tantrum is not going to get you any points either. What I am talking about is when you have told the object of your affections your feelings, respect what you get back, I know it is hard to have to reign in your emotions but unless you expect instant gratification you are far better off being a friend than earning instant enmity. I actually think that the Victorian era had perfected this as a man would very often court a woman for many years before even telling her what he felt, rather getting to know her over time through many conversations and countless letters... we have forgotten that art gentlemen! Time to back track and do things in a proper and fitting fashion I believe. Chastity has it's own reward...

However as mentioned in a previous post, I think modern men are losers when it comes to understanding their purpose in the scheme of things, I am not excusing myself either, I have learnt that lesson well and have been shown the error of my ways regarding our responsibility to children we bring into the world. Only when we understand what the true meaning of being a Gentleman is will this change. Leaving a child in the lurch is a cowardly way to excuse
yourself from your responsibility. Just as God loves you you should love that child and do all you can to provide for this gift you received. At the same time if you had followed the proper order of things you may well never have gotten in this place at all... passion has both a price and a place.

Now all I want is to nurture those I love, to protect and serve and lead by example, in some small way show them the love I have been shown. When I see one of them hurting I wish I could take that cloak and put it on myself and bear their pain instead. I cry more easily because of this... I seem pray more often as well.
Lastly I leave you with this test of love that I only recently came to understand in full and without this any relationship is doomed to failure:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. - I Corinthians 13:4-8a (NIV)

Ugg the caveman thinks

he cannot hunt Mammoths because they can read his mind... then again it may be because he is of the Mammoth Clan?
I seem to have cast a puzzle earlier today by using Ugg and his hunting skills, or lack thereof... so I will have to explain in detail I suppose.
Being a Gemini I am a multidimensional person... or as normal mortals say, "Slightly daft, with split personalities." one of them is my caveman side that emerges when things puzzle and confuse me, then like a caveman I go hunting. By hunting I mean introspection and doing things I like that help me make sense of things.
Anyone that has been reading my blogs will sense that I have had a crush on someone and have been in mope mode ever since because the object of affection is not on the same wavelength...
However, before I do the Tsunami thing let me explain that I have realized why I feel so rejected and also know that I have no reason to feel this way. I did this to myself after all!
Experiencing a crush is a physiological and psychological thing and I have been able to understand the why and how of this whole Cupid induced madness and get over it and get back to just the wonderful friendship.
The rejection however is due to something I had not dealt with, I went and looked at my life since 2000 and I found that I had never faced up to why I always seem to be so crushed when any relationship seems to be going no where. An after effect of going through a divorce I would imagine...
I even went so far as to type up a posting especially after TUT sent me a rather cryptic message that seemed to confirm how I was feeling... I am putting it here just to be able to analyse it from a distance so to speak. The TUT message is in Italics by the way...
I titled it: Ummm yeah... talking in my sleep...
"Do you realize that you have never heard anything, from anyone, that you did not want to hear? Pretty tricky of you." Mmm... that is a hidden meaning if ever... but I hear it loud and clear and bow down before You in humility and wonder at your Infinite Wisdom, meanwhile tears stream down my cheeks as I realise I am lost once again... Would it be too much to ask to grant my wish?
No it is more than a wish, it is my life, my desire, my being, poured out like blood...
Must I chisel it out on tablets of stone?
Must I do penance forever for something I do not know I have done?
Answer me... this pain is too much to bear.
How is it that one can love so much that it causes pain, so much that it makes another person afraid?
This impotence, this inability to break down walls is wearing me down.
If this is how it ends I never want to love again.
I would sacrifice all I am to be the one...But then I would have lost a friend and I realise that that would be the greatest tragedy. So release me from this prison, let me be free, let my emotions fade away, let my eyes stop being hungry, let my heart be calm. This I beg of Thee.
So there... that was yesterday... now I look back and laugh and I am so glad I never posted it when I did, it would have been taken in the wrong context and most probably blown up in my face.
I was feeling that way because I was misreading everything, only hearing what I wanted to and not stopping to think that I am not being rejected as a friend or even physically but because this brought back feelings from the past I reacted as if I was not acceptable company any more... a pain so intense that eats away at reason. After doing some reading I found this that helped me realise what I have had so long...
Rejection sensitivity
Individuals differ widely in their level of rejection sensitivity. According to Geraldine Downey and her colleagues at Columbia University, rejection sensitivity is a tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and over-react to social rejection.[7] For those who have a high level of rejection sensitivity, an ambiguous social interaction may be perceived as rejection. This can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.
Individual differences in rejection sensitivity are believed to be the result of previous rejection experiences, particularly childhood experiences with parents and peers. This is consistent with attachment theory, but so far, there is little empirical evidence of the early causes of rejection sensitivity
Since then things have come into focus and I have rejected rejection and accepted the hand of friendship and looked at those words again. I will be listening more from now on that's for sure.
As I seem to still be in a juvenile stage of life I find the following very apt to today's subject in my diary;

[via FoxyTunes / The Ataris]

Here in this diary I write you visions of my summer
It was the best I ever had
There were choruses and sing alongs
And that unspoken feeling of knowing
That right now is all that matters

All the nights we stayed up talking
Listening to 80's songs
And quoting lines from all those movies that we love
It still brings a smile to my face

I guess when it comes down to it
Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up
These are the best days of our lives
The only thing that matters is just following your heart
And eventually you'll finally get it right

Breaking into hotel swimming pools
And wreaking havoc on our world
Hanging out at truck stops
Just to pass the time
The blacktop singing me to sleep

Lighting fireworks in parking lots
Illuminate the blackest nights
Cherry cokes under this moonlit summer sky
2015 Riverside, it's time to say goodbye

Get on the bus, it's time to go

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up
These are the best days of our lives
The only thing that matters is just following your heart
And eventually you'll finally get it right

(Get it right)

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up
These are the best days of our lives
The only thing that matters is just following your heart
And eventually you'll finally get it right

I really think that I am starting to get it right, it just took a long time for me to grow up I suppose, I have always felt 18 years old in any case... Oh the Guinea Fowl bit?
That was just me thinking of another animal and it's atributes. They are tough critters by the way and always go about their business in a jovial gregarious sort of way, when I see them on campus they always seem to be having fun along with their day to day foraging. I think we should be like them as well... Nice to see somone is back to blogging as well with a stunning photo and a theme to think over as well... It certainly helped me put things in perspective...
"In life we don’t get what we want, we get in life what we are. If we want more we have to be able to be more, in order to be more you have to face rejection." Farrah Gray