Questioned Beliefs (Page 2)
When Kuma died, I died and most of what I believed before if not wiped out is at least being questioned. When I break it all down, it comes down to a fundamental fork in the road. Is life 'deterministic' or is it 'completely ramdom'? Is there a universal law of cause and effect? Cosmic Law and Order or Chaos?
When I say I have lost belief, this is what I mean. I am reset back to zero and asking the question, "Is there some power greater than us that is controlling our lives, watching over us, guiding us, rewarding us or punishing us?" Or is everything really just without purpose and completely random."
I saw Kuma die. I saw her go to nothing. I can't imagine where she went to, but I keep searching for her. I need to know if there is something else out there. I want to be proven wrong. I need to be proven wrong.
The more I think, the more questions I have and the less I know.
I talked with my neighbour and without hesitation, he stopped me and said, " why do you think so much? I just live my life and do the best I can to enjoy it". He may be right. I should stop thinking and living and the answers will come. Maybe I am just too impatient. I want to know now where Kuma is and if she is ok.
Why am I Alive?
All my life, I have been told that we all have a purpose in life, a mission and we should find our passion and purpose so we can fulfill our reason for being here. And, all my life I was fine with just doing the best I can, being honest, helping and serving people, loving and caring and learning to be more compassionate towards others. I worked hard, very hard because I was helping companies change for the better. Until, I realized that they didn't really care and after I left, they would just slide back into their old ways. The only person that really cared to help them was me. I was pushing a giant bolder up the mountain and unless I stayed and held it, it would just roll back down to where it started.
And now I feel, ok I have done that. And in the end it really doesn't matter.
The closest I can come to having a passion was to help and serve others. This is what I was good at and this is what gave me the most satisfying feeling of accomplishment. But, it all goes away. Maybe it stays awhile but after a few years it disappears like a sand castle on the beach.
What do I Want?
This is really pathetic. If God asked me or if a genie came out of the bottle and asked me what I want, I really don't know how to answer. I just want to go back in time and save Kuma in the hospital and beyond that I don't want anything. I know I can't have Kuma back and nothing else right now matters. So I am stuck missing Kuma or searching for her and not finding her.
What else would gives me pleasure. Nothing. What do you mean? Don't I want to go back into business and make lots of money and be successful? Maybe but not really.I've been on that merry-go-round and it doesn't really excite me to do that all over again other than to make enough money to live.
Do I want to get back into great shape? Sure, it's something I need to do but it's not a driving enjoyment like before.
But what do I really want that is worth fighting for, worth getting up for? I don't know.
My Life Before was a Happy Illusion
I was living the dream but when I look back and see pictures of myself and remember that time, I say now that I hate myself the way I was. But, why? To the outside world, I had it all or at least I looked and even thought that I was happy. Why? Because today I see this dream was built on a dissolving foundation. What I was building would soon be destroyed. My family would leave and say that they hate me. I would lose it all and hate myself for not standing up and fighting back. I put too much importance into everything. I cared too much for things that I shouldn't have and too little for things that I should have.
My goal or purpose in life was not a goal to make money. My goal was to develop myself as a person, to become a better person. But I had so many built in beliefs and fears that even though I was doing the best I could I was still making mistakes oblivious to me, that hurt people.
Things Don't Happen for a Reason
Believing that things all happen for a reason was a very big guiding principle in my life. This is how I accepted the bad and the good that life brought me. The modern expression then was, "it's all good". But, today, I see that it is not all good. There is no good in a lot of the things that have happened in my life. There is no good in the betrayals and broken relationships. No good at all. Only suffering. And unless you believe Mother Theresa, suffering does not bring you closer to God.
There is no good in Kuma being killed and suffering in the end like she did. There is no good in me listening to others and not standing up for her. Only suffering, regret and grief.
'All things don't happen for a reason' is a huge departure from a belief that God has a master plan or that 'do good and you will receive good back'.
The fact that I learned to make the best of bad things that happened and land on my feet, doesn't mean that they happened for a good reason, it just means that I learned to cope with the bad things in life and learned to make lemonaid from lemons instead of being soured by life.
It Was NOT Meant To Be
If you believe that our date of death (or anything else that happens in our life) is meant to be and is predetermined then this is fatalism. This means that your will has no effect on your date of death and no matter what you do or how hard you try or resist, death will happen when it is supposed to without change. It was fate or someone else that decided. We might as well throw our arms up and surrender to whatever was meant to be because we have no more responsibility for our lives, someone else does. I am not sure how this works in religions but I learned with Kuma that things were not meant to be.
Kuma was not meant to die. She was still strong and had more life to live. Kuma did not give up and in fact she fought hard to live. It was others who decided that it was her time to die and they killed her. This was not meant to be.
How do I know this? I just know. I just know inside. I know Kuma and I know.
Thnigs are not meant to be. This means that we have free will and responsibility for our actions.
Those that made the judgement that is was time to kill Kuma had no right to do that. Without knowing Kuma, without knowing her will and what she was going through and fighting for, they had no right to act as God and take away her life.
Why Did I Let It Happen?
Ah, now we are getting to the root of why I say I hate myself.
Cause and effect. There were 99 wrong turns that I made that caused Kuma to finally be killed. 99 opportunities to do the right thing that would have saved her and I did the wrong thing each time that pushed her further down the death plank. The real question was what were the causes of why I was blind and avoided the right road not just once but 99 times. Why did I turn left each time that I was supposed to turn right.
This is what upsets me the most. This is where I look back on my life and I see that I have lived in a haze of illusion. I have always done the same thing, which is nothing. I let things go and let them happen. I don't fight for what I believe in becasue I don't know what I believe in that is worth fighting for. I just let my life happen and let things happen to me then try to deal with them. I don't take control of my life. I don't fight for my life. Instead, I just hope that it all works out. I have lived in a cloud without real purpose.
Who is My Enemy? Who Should I Fight?
My enemy is my negative self. The demons that have been with me since I was a child and have frozen me with fear into staying still and not acting. These demons danced around and laughed while they threw me up and down and tormented me with fear and threatened me with unexplicable horrific consequences if I did something, if I acted. To make them go away, I stood still and didn't move so as not to provoke them. Just wait until their dance of fear is over and they will go away. Don't even think of acting and fighting them. My negative self locks me up in fear and tells me to close my eyes and do nothing until it all goes away. Then live a life of hiding so as not to attract attention. Don't stand out, don't fight back while my negative self destroys everything around me.
When I saw the demons attack Kuma, I had enough. I screamed out "Leave her alone!" I knew then who I was talking to. I had nothing to lose anymore and I would not stand for them to attack Kuma. I told them that after Kuma is gone, "And I am coming after you". Kuma looked at me and seemed to smile as if saying, "my job is done". She let out a big sigh of relief and put her head down on the pillow and stopped twitching. Kuma was now peaceful. I felt it.
I knew from this moment what I needed to do was to stand up for myself and stand up for Kuma. I would be strong now. But it didn't last. When Kuma went to the hospital, I didn't stand up for her. I caved and did what others expected of me. I let them kill Kuma.
When my daughter wsa a young girl I asked her if she had the courage to stand alone in front of the pack of wolves and say "No!"? But when the time came for me to do that, I didn't. Instead, I smiled a smile of weakness and let the wolves go after Kuma. I let them kill her. And, I did nothing. Do you understand now why I say I hate myself?
Everyone tells me that I should be happy that Kuma lived so long and that I gave her the best life possible and I did more than anyone else would have for her. This doesn't console me because I know that when the time came, I betrayed Kuma. I did not stand up for her. I smiled and let the wolves kill her. Nothing can change that.
Who is my enemy? I am, until I stand up and fight for what I believe in.
The 11th Hour
I have developed a theory in my life which I call the 11th hour. Basically, we live under illusion or without true purpose until the last hour of our life. Nothing is serious until we are about to lose it. We don't know what to do until we run out of time to think and then inside we always know what to do. We just don't get serious until then. We coast and float through life thinking that we need to do this and that, but deep down we know that this and that are not important and are really just distractions from what we really should be doing.
...more later