I've written about my experiences with shadow people here in the Philippines on more than one occasion. I was officially weirded out in April of 2007 and wrote about an uninvited guest a mere two weeks ago.
I hesitate to continue writing about these shadow people, but the story didn't end two weeks ago. I don't know how many of these "entities" are involved, but the appearances are becoming more and more commonplace.
After reading Monika's article, "How Do YOU Deal With Blogger Agro?", I felt the need to air my own feelings along these lines.
Borders, Language and Culture
These are the things that define a nation. On the Internet, however, there are no borders and language and culture are perceived instead of known. The Internet is truly a global phenomenon. The English language is the most dominant language used on the Internet, and many people make assumptions about a person's native language based on their usage of it.
As I wrote in my article, The Need For Work, I had to conquer some of my fears in order to be in the position where I could choose my own kind of work. Blogging is the kind of work I've chosen.
Everyone has goals in life, many that eventually lead to retirement. Retirement could be considered an ultimate goal, but not just any retirement. It has to be a retirement where you're financially secure. I'm 46 years old, retired and financially secure. Getting to this point in my life was the scariest thing that ever happened to me.
After I joined the military in 1978, I had to get over my fear of heights in order to jump off a 100-foot diving board while fully dressed in combat attire, as part of water survival training. Later, I had to continue to fight that fear in order to rappel from a simulated helicopter "hellhole" and down the side of a wall (the height of which I don't care to remember). Both of these events were nothing compared to the fear a major change in life would later create.
I retired from the military in 1998 and started drawing a monthly pension. I knew it would never be more than added income as long as I continued with the life I was leading. I had an "ace in hole", however, and knew that one day it would eventually be enough. My wife, whom I'd met and married in the eighties, was an American citizen with a rather large family still living in the Philippines. After a change in Philippine law in 2003, she became dual citizen, with citizenship in both the US and the Philippines. After that, we made future plans for retirement in the Philippines.
Since my father-in-law, who was living with us along with my mother-in-law, died in 2003, my mother-in-law eventually moved back to the Philippines. My younger son accompanied her so that he could start college there. That was in July of 2005, I believe. I and my wife planned to move to the Philippines in 2010 if things were favorable. The rise in housing prices prompted us to do it much quicker. Before I sold my house in 2006, it took nearly every ounce of courage I could muster to give up the lifestyle I was accustomed to. After I sold the house, it took the remainder to make the move to a country I was only vaguely familiar with.
Even after calculating costs and developing a reasonable monthly budget, my fears did not subside until I was actually here, in the Philippines and living amongst my wife's family and other relatives. All of my fears were unfounded, but I had no way of knowing that until worked past them. There was one final fear that I had to conquer, and it had yet to manifest itself.
That final fear was the fear of not having enough to do. Unlike some of my fellow countrymen that are also retired in the local area, I don't frequent bars or clubs, drink or chase loose women. Well, I do drink on occasion, but only around home. When I "discovered" blogging in May of 2006, that final fear was conquered. Sure, I started off slow, but that part wasn't by choice. I had other priorities to take care of with home and family before I could devote the time required to do what I do today.
I read a really good book a few years ago titled "Who Moved My Cheese?" in which the mice were resisting change. Resisting change, remaining in our little comfort zones, is the primary reason most of us develop fears in the first place. We fear change and we fear the unknown. Only when we conquer those fears can we move on to a place or into a position that's completely different from the one we're in.
The moment we die, we surrender the shell that is used to carry our mind and soul to the ravages of decomposition. The body's own enzymes immediately begin to digest surrounding tissues and bacteria in the gut and skin and begin the process of purification.
According to Wikipedia, an unembalmed adult body buried six feet deep in ordinary soil without a coffin, in a temperate climate normally takes ten to twelve years to fully decompose. A dead body immersed in water skeletonizes four times faster, eight times faster when the brain and soul transportation vessel is exposed to air.
A Wikipedia search reveals that the average human body, consisting of about 100,000,000,000,000 cells, has about ten times that number, 1,000,000,000,000,000 (one quadrillion) microorganisms in the gut. Bacteria make up most of the flora in the colon and 60% of the mass of feces.
When we die this army of bacteria quickly invades our bodies but when we are alive our gut is a battleground. The fortress of our body is on constant alert, fighting back these bacteria and rebuilding any part of our defense system that is compromised during the battle. Our intestine is lined with sticky mucosal cells. I like to think of these cells as the moat that fortifies our castle. Behind the moat lies several layers of epithelial cells, the wall around the castle, and hiding on the castle walls, inside the moat and scattered among the invading forces of bacterial is our Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GULT). These GULT are the gorilla fighters of our fortress, giving up their lives for the better good of the whole. The harmful bacteria, like nomads hungry for land and power, have one goal, to get to the oxygen rich cells inside our bodies. Once the bad bacteria breach these protective barriers they are free to march throughout our bodies, via our blood and circulatory system, invading other organ defenses and fortresses along the way.
Last Saturday my fortress was invaded. The warning alarms of my body sounded in the form of pain. I didn’t panic, confidant that my troops would make short work of the rogue marauders. It wasn’t until Tuesday morning that I began to doubt the strength and stamina of my intestinal troops and my son drove me to Arrowhead Emergency Hospital where I was subjected to hours of BDSM type activities (I’ll spare you the details), all while dressed in nothing but a flimsy, backless, pink and blue nightie. Once everyone that worked in the ER had a good look at me, inside and out, I was admitted “for treatment and observation”. The war was on and the battle was named “Acute Diverticulitis”. The efforts of my hard working but fatigued intestinal troops were augmented by antibiotics, the mustard gas of bacterial infections. The warning alarms had been quieted by morphine, and I was placed on a liquid diet. Breakfast, lunch and dinner consisted of ONLY beef broth, Jello, water and decaffeinated tea. Each time my meal arrived, I thought of former POW Senator John McCain, sitting in a cell at the Hanoi Hilton in Viet Nam.
Today, nearly a week after the invasion began, I live to tell the story. The pain alarms are quiet and the battleground has been cleared of debris and dead soldiers. In the coming months more BDSM type activity will occur as professionals in medical practice thoroughly inspect the battleground and sweep for hidden land mines. The attempt on my life was narrowly avoided and the processes associated with mortification and purification, reserved for the dead, appear to have been arrested.
Driving to work one morning I began to think about my life’s goals and evaluate if my thoughts and actions were consistent with what needed to be done in order to achieve those goals. More than 5 years ago I documented 6 common goals. The goals I selected to document were not special; in fact they are probably shared by nearly everyone. I documented each goal on a small slip of paper. I slipped those papers, in order of priority, into a small but conspicuous pocket in a black notebook I keep my notes in. Occasionally, without much forethought, I pull the stack of dog-eared and torn papers from their protective pocket and reevaluate their order of importance. Each time the tiny, yellow ragged pieces of paper, representing my life’s goals are evaluated, I find that the original order is appropriate and carefully slide them back into their protective pouch to be evaluated another day.
The papers, in order or priority have these words written on them:
While driving, my mind, influenced by habits and hormones, (and perhaps too much caffeine) begins to question why I rated "Wealth" at the bottom of my list. "You can’t take it with you", I thought. This is a phrase commonly muttered by people about to spend large amounts of money on some luxury item that had no lasting value. The purchaser is convinced that they will love the item and that owning the item will bring them happiness. My commute meanderings were interrupted when, from the corner of my eye I spotted a big breasted blond driving a fancy, silver Porsche Carrera GT. The Carrera GT is a 5.7 liter, 600 hp V-10, high performance, sports car, with a top speed of 205 mph and is capable of accelerating from 0 mph to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. I sure would love to have the $440,000 in greenbacks needed to buy one of those. Behind the Porsche Carrera GT, a super pumper slowly passes me. A super pumper is a truck hauling a large cylinder used to transport sewage removed from porta-potties and backed-up septic tanks. The sign on the side of the Supertanker said "McDonalds Pumping, Licensed, Bonded, Insured".
The tractor trailer, tugging its sewage filled tank pulled along side of me I looked up at Mr. McDonald. He looked like a happy, middle aged man and appeared to be whistling. Mr. McDonald looked down at me and smiled. I smiled back.
I pressed on my breaks as the Porsche Carrera, GT slowed in front of me. The license plate on the back of the super pumper said "Ron1". I assumed it was short for Ronald. The license plate on the back of the Porsche Carrera read "Dancer1". I assumed the driver of the sports car was a dancer, whose wealth was accumulated by rubbing her surgically altered breasts in the faces of nameless, lonely, rich guys.
On the back of the sewage containing cylinder someone had rubbed the dirt away with their finger allowing the stainless steel tanker to shine through. The letters read, "Show Your Tits".
My grandfather, before the ravages of chronic emphysema prevented him from absorbing oxygen, used to whistle constantly. His favorite tune to whistle was "Blue Moon". "Blue Moon was a classic, popular song written in 1934 by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The lyrics and title of the song refer to an English expression "Once in a Blue Moon" as it pertains to a stroke of good luck. According to Wikipedia, a "Blue Moon" is either the second full moon in a month or the third one when four full moons occur in one season of the year, which is somewhat of a rare occurrence. If something happens "Once in a blue moon", it almost never happens.
Ronald McDonald and his super tanker loaded with unwanted cargo slowly chugged past the Carrera GT. As fate would have it, the blond with the $440,000 udders noticed the shiny letters on the back of the tanker at the Macdonald off ramp of the 101.
In addition to whistling, my grandfather often talked about "Prosperity" and about how much better things were now then when he was a kid. He would say, "Scott, study hard and go to college so you can make lots of money. Wealth brings prosperity".
Once again I pressed on my breaks as the Carrera GT slowed, now even with Ronald McDonald.
This is the moment, at the off ramp to Macdonald and the 101, that the prosperous, buxom blond did something extremely dangerous while driving. She lifted her top up and over her head.
I saw Ronald McDonald look down and smile. The suggestion etched into the dirt on the back of his sloshing, elevated, silver cesspool had been answered. Ronald McDonald didn’t care if the naked breasts were surgically altered or that they might have been rubbed in the faces of nameless, lonely rich guys for money.
The boobs in the Carrera GT sped off, and Ronald McDonald looked up and began to whistle. I wonder if he was whistling "Blue Moon".
(This is a guest author article.)
I am talking about what RT said, again, in his guest blogging announcement, "Guest blogging can be beneficial to the host as well as the guest if it’s done right. It can also be a lot of fun!”.
It was amusing to think that I will be writing somewhere else than my own blog t.e.c.h.X.t.r.e.m.e that was rarely read by anyone, somewhere that is ranked in top 60k by Alexa; to think about how'd I be doing it. Something prepared and written in a sense of thrill, excitement, and a lot of nervousness (for I said, I'll sure have some kinda head and tail in my future posts… Something I was really unsure of!), "Make folders invisible in Windows XP" drew 136 views as of now. While the posts above and below mine's bear 21 and 22,15 and 23 views respectively. Now I don't know what draws to it so much, but am sure feeling good about it . And, I am believing what RT said. As I said in my very first post, I was already enjoying and having fun with what I was doing. And the measure of the benefits of guest-authoring at RT's are in front of me now,as clear as they can be. About 12 unique readers from (no traffic exchange this time) but from Untwisted Vortex. And the very first comments from people that I haven't even urged to review my post (as I sometimes used to do on t.e.c.h.X.t.r.e.m.e )
Feeling Open & so Comfortable blurting myself out. Look forward to more such stuff, people.
I haven't yet continued with my autobiographical posts, the last being my Autobiography, Part 2 back in April. The next installment will cover a period which starts in February 1974 and ends in November 1977. It was a troubling time for me, most of it being my high school years.
As I mentioned in my article, The Power of Positive Thinking, "Sometimes I purposely write about negative thoughts, memories, emotions and experiences so that I can bring them out into the light and examine them closely. By doing so, I can apply age and wisdom to those items and store them back as more positive items."
I haven't been writing about the negative things from most of my high school years, but I have been bringing the memories to the surface to examine them. One of the things I realized right away is that some of the anger and hatred I felt back then was still present. These are things that happened more than 30 years ago! The negative memories are now replaced by neutral memories, not positive but not negative either. Most of the teenagers that gave me grief back then are in my age group. The ones that didn't change could be in jail or even dead by now. The ones that did change may be regretting the things they did back then. Either way, it shouldn't matter to me anymore and it doesn't.
The negativity that I dug up from my memories has been replaced by neutrality. It's not positive, but it doesn't leave the damaging footprint that negativity does. I am now prepared to write about my life during that period and should have the next installment completed in a few short days.
When we're young, we are constantly told the magic words of "no", "don't" and "you can't". While these words can protect us from bad things happening to us, it starts a string of negative thoughts that can continue through childhood, adolescence and even into adulthood. Parents should decrease the amount of negative words and phrases as children grow older and replace them with words of encouragement as the need for protection decreases. I have observed that this is rarely the case.
It's difficult to break the cycle of negativity in anyone's life, including our own, because we have become conditioned to expect it. We are programmed, in a sense, to expect and think negative thoughts and have negative emotions. This conditioning, as it is stored in our brains, is similar to how we store and retrieve memories.
Have you ever been to a cafeteria or an "all you can eat" type of buffet restaurant? Do you remember how the plates are stacked in a cylinder with the freshest, cleanest plates being on top and the ones that have been out longer are pushed down toward the bottom of the cylinder? You can't get to the plates at the bottom and most people don't want to get to them. You pull the one off the top because it's the easiest to get to. Our memories and thought processes work the same way with the freshest thoughts and memories being the easiest to gain access to. Only after sifting through the freshest can we get to the ones that are not so fresh.
It's also a matter of balance. Imagine a bowl full of negative thoughts and memories. Now imagine a bowl halfway full of positive thoughts and memories. Hold the negative in your left hand and hold the positive in your right hand. If you're making a choice based on amount and weight, not knowing which one is which, which one would you draw from?
We need to practice thinking positive thoughts and spend time specifically recalling positive memories. We need to stack the new plates on top of the old ones to push the negativity further down the cylinder. We need to fill the positivity bowl to make it fuller and heavier than the negative one. Only then can we pull out the freshest, positive thoughts and memories which are nearest to the top and have the most weight in our lives.
Over the past few years, I have been practicing exactly those things. I believe it has enabled me to write about things that I consider positive and hesitate to write about things that are negative. I sleep better and sounder these days than I did ten years ago. I've learned to turn negative emotions into positive opportunities. Sometimes, I purposely write about negative thoughts, memories, emotions and experiences so that I can bring them out into the light and examine them closely. By doing so, I can apply age and wisdom to those items and store them back as more positive items.
This is the real power of positive thinking. It enables us to remove or replace the negative with the positive which further enables us to do things (and write things) that benefit us and not the other way around.
Perhaps, because I'm not an expert in the psychoanalytical field, I'm completely wrong in my analysis. What do you think? Is there a better way to explain it? Do you have a better analogy that's more precise? I'm all ears (or in this case, all eyes).
I suffered from chronic heartburn for years. In 1996, it irritated me so much I went to see a doctor about it. He diagnosed me with Esophageal Reflux Disease (acid reflux) and prescribed Zantac. I took it until the prescription expired. Guess what? The heartburn returned as soon as the last tablet wore off.
I was popping Tums and generic tums-like tablets like candy, everyday, to keep the bile at bay.
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