September 19, 2009 Saturday 'Truth'

I often post on a local newspaper forum. Its fun and I learn a lot about the people who post with me and I learn about myself; however I learned something very important yesterday--so important that I decided to write about it here.

Most of the time, I post under the opinion section of the paper under editorials and letters-to the editor. Since President Obama has been elected, there has been different people writing how bad socialism is for this country. Many have been angry at the new president and many posters have been defending the president and the new policies including the new health reform bills in congress. It has gotten very lively and so many posts are full of information from different sources, both pro and anti.

Yesterday, I decided to ask the question that has been bothering me for a long time. Many of the posters to the right, many of the Republican congress members including radio and Fox News people have been harping on how bad socialism was for this country; so, I asked why was socialism which is used in many countries bad for this country? I was neither for or against and have not been in past posts. None of the posters who had been posting for some time could say why. None of them. It went on and on for a while with me asking "why" and none of them could say why. One finally said that there were guards on borders to keep people in. I said I have recently been to some of these countries such as the U.K. and I saw none of those guards.

Finally, their anger erupted. I got posters telling me to give back their country and that they were going to fight me to the death. I asked them if they were going to fight me to the death could they at least tell me why? None of them could. Finally one of them said that socialism kills the soul. I said how does socialism kill the soul. Nothing. They told me to leave this country since I loved communism so much.

I was astonished as were many of the other posters since none of them thought to ask them why they called the president Hitler, a Nazi, a communist and supported people taking guns to town hall meetings where the president was going to show up. They called Senator Ted Kennedy a socialist but no one could say why he was. All they could say was that he drank too much and killed a woman off a bridge.

There are lots of questions in my mind. This morning, many of the posters from the left were still asking questions of those who were from the right. I said I lost a lot of respect for those who would not or could not answer my questions and that I would never get caught like that again. I question what people say on that forum from now on, everything not just a few things. When someone did put a definition of socialism down although not complete I checked Wikipedia and saw he got it from there. I was able to say that he needed to attribute and not just take for it is plagiarizing to take without giving credit.

All of those posters who posted ideas, opinions without understanding what they were talking about were like the wizard behind the curtain operating all of those wheels and pulleys. How can they look in the mirror and look at themselves in the face? How can they live with themselves? These posters, and it does not matter what political persuasion they are, are too easily led for they don't question what they are told. They live in a country where they can educate themselves. There are free libraries everywhere, the Internet and free computers, if they don't have one, are everywhere. They become the tools of dictators, of fascists, of evil corporations interested only in the bottom line, they are the mob, the easy led, the unthinking, the devil's own, Mala's army.

So, what does this have to do with becoming healthier? A lot really. Part of the journey to unhealthiness was listening to people tell me that I wasn't worth much, that I did not have much to offer this world, that I wasn't worth looking at if I was over-weight and so on. Those people over the years were family members, friends, strangers, medical providers and they sounded so darn convincing like those posters who had the truth in their pockets. Even when people like Rachel Maddow on MSNBC said those to the right were full of baloney I listen to those to the right and figured they had their reasons for believing what they believed. Now, I listen more critically--not just to people to the right, but I listen to people on the left as well.

It was the Buddha (Gautama) who said that one should run everything they hear and read through their hearts and minds even things that he said and if it seems right believe it and if it isn't right then don't believe it. I had forgotten this. This important aspect of Buddhism was what attracted me to this religion in the first place many years ago. If anyone says that I am doing things wrong in getting healthier but it seems right to me then I will ignore them or fuck them. People can be so darn convincing and be lying through their teeth.

I really thought that people were like me and that they needed to understand what they believed in and explore the world around them. I see how naive that was, but I am not going to beat myself up over it. This journey to get healthier is not just to lose weight, build muscles but to examine who I am and where I am going.

I remember a dream several months ago in which I was at my Aunt's house who is now deceased. I loved her very much. I was living in my Uncle's room. I wanted to stay in his room and quit college and get myself together for a year. I was going to ask her if I could live there for that year. That was before I thought of doing this quest. I thought she would say yes. I wanted to quit college and stop studying classification. I long ago finished college. I think I was getting ready to do this particular journey. Instead of putting everything in its place, I needed to start looking at my own life for I have never done that before.