Pain is not everything, everywhere

I know that I write of many things so that the great and small all appear as mere words in a protracted set of self-tortures.

That is not how my life is, or has to be.

Though it is true I have been uncertain of much, confused of much and even had to live through a certain amount of damage, I am still alive, OFTEN feeling pleasure in being alive and able to enjoy what there is around me.

This is possible largely because of copious amounts of support from family and friends and the fact that I am not as far from being an average human being as I would like to believe. I feel many emotions that I have not adequately expressed or described here that deeply affect how I live and my outlook on myself and the future.

One example of a different approach I want to take is the part money plays here and in my life. I know that money is a very basic concern of mine. I hope to make it less so. I also hope to stop making it an issue in my relations with others. You don't deserve my throwing any more shit at you than you are already taking.

There's a lot of wonder, a lot of joy, there's a lot of beauty that I still hope to share, even in this blog, if possible. If you are going to read my earlier posts I invite you to read them with the knowledge that the writer is prone to extremism and great expectations that don't always lead to easy intercourse with the rest of the world. (Literally: I wanted to set up a tent in Central Park and be the Whore of Babylon -- open for business to all. This was more than fifteen years ago, and that desire still influences my thinking.) LOL!

A little bit of ease goes a long way toward making me comfortable with some of the harsher realities and supposed realities. I should say that I often try to embrace them as a way to escape from them. The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom, etc.

I think I'm a lot closer to being somewhere on the steps leading to that Palace rather than dragging myself and you through the mud and sharp stones on the way there.

That's the good stuff.

So, where am I at THIS moment?

There's good and there's bad in everything.

I know that I can live and feel; give and be real.

I just want to be known.

So, if you want to know me, I invite you to keep reading this blog, which I hope will expand to something with less abstract pain and more everyday happiness.

Remember to thank yourself for the universe and vice versa.

"cstar"

P.S., Arizona has the highest poverty rate in the nation, next to Mississippi.