GENERAL ORDER #3

MAY BE AN INTERESTING MONTH...


...though I haven't given in to accepting that I won't reach some of my goals just yet, it may happen. Have to be cool with that, as I think I have had a lot of personally successful months rolling on since last May ... shall see what is going to happen.


Now, as I have had to change my 'writing style' to accomodate the 'ripple effect', I feel the need to be clear and clarify things. Now, this IS the purpose of my having a journal out in the world ... because if I 1) Could comfortably write this in a more personal journal, then I would. I do have one and write stuff down, but I type much more easily than I write. Yeah, you and everyone else Mark, but it isn't like that for me. It is a little bit more to it, and since you aren't here, you don't know that.


AND SECOND ...


One of the reasons I identified with the XTC song, 'Making Plans For Nigel', is that he is who he is, in spite of the indifference of his surroundings. I am pretty mellow, externally for sure, pleasant at first glance and more than likely the second one as well. Yet, as Nigel was a 'nice bloke, who loves to speak and loves to be spoken to', I don't think it mentioned if he actually HAD anyone in his life, or had any friends.


I had never thought about actually having any friends, but I am quick to be one. I enjoy my solitude. There have been times where I have been alone, and I give myself a little smile, like the one that creases my face now.


It is 0600, and I am chill. Moments like these, are what keeps me going until the next moment where I am somewhere, in the 'eye of a hurricane', as the world swirls around me. Me, I am cool with my 'aloneness'. When my body keeps me in the house and not outside roaming wherever I be (and goal is that will be in the cornfields of Nebraska), my #1 goal is to be 'chill'. No complaints and no worries.


Want to carry the mood of Sinatra's, '...regrets, yeah I have a few' from the song 'My Way'. Cause at the end of the day, I have been living on house money. I liked my run, and had things broke a little differently at certain times, I could have had maybe a dream life ...


... or I could have been in born in the hopelessness of one of the world's great slums. So I will play the hand I am dealt the best I can, and not ask for a second time at the table.


Anywho, that I do have 'friends' in you, gentle reader, satisfies that need to reach out and feel a part of something. It has been very much apprieciated that you have came along for the ride. Would I have made it here without you? How about I am glad that I didn't have to find that out!!


NUMBER THREE


"I will report violations of my special orders, emergencies, and anything not covered in my instructions to the commander of the relief."


I grew up most of my life without a father in the home. I would go on to father children out of wedlock, and leave the one that I fathered in marriage. There is plenty of studies showing links to my parentage to my subsquent acts. And that is all they are, links, not anything that had to become something that had to be a reality. Particularly when I had the information at hand, those willing to show and help me get thru some difficult situations.


Whenever I want to do a 'what if, why couldn't' kind of scene, I have to begin with me. My Dad was not in my house for much of my life, but he was a phone call away. I had a next door neighbor who could have been the one who's wing I grew under ... then there is Hutch ... in short, I could go on and on and talk about the influences that helped me to know right from wrong.


Then, failing all else, there is this: "Answer questions on 'what's best', never on 'what's easy'." Answering 'Ruth' when you should have said 'DiMaggio', means you have to accept the individual responsibility for your choices, and don't give me 'I didn't have anyone to share this with,' excuse. The only way you get to do that... uh, that is just it, you DON'T.

COMMANDER OF THE RELIEF

A friend who seems removed from the fray, whose life seems uncomplicated in comparison, how do they do it? How did they get to where they are? What does it take to be something you admire, to have the different things you think that makes a better life?

When I was a kid, we used to say, "If you don't know, then you better ask somebody." I can't escape that fact, that when I have came up against some of the larger personal questions in my life, that I did not ask anyone.

Whether you meditate, or find answers in prayer, or thru reason, wherever you are getting answers from, that is your 'commander of the relief', the source of your peace and where you find comfort.

Always think out of the best mind. That is what I believe. If you aren't in it, then wait until you are. Then go forward from that. And that is that, with that!!