The Flow

What went wrong? Was is just bad luck in a diabolical micro series of events on Kuma"s last day on earth? Was it a bigger, longer infected series of mistakes that led to her death? Looking back why is it so clear that correcting any one of the 99 wrong turns would have saved Kuma. Just one correction, just one change would have created a different outcome. One thing different and Kuma may have been alive today.

If the vet didn't call Cheryl, if Cheryl had trusted me and not listened to the vet like I warned her, if I hadn't kept Cheryl on file as Kuma's owner, Kuma would have had an extra day to recover from her vet induced coma. During Kuma"s hospital 22 hour stay so many things were wrong that led to her being killed. Every one of the 99 mistakes had to happen exactly as they did for the end result to happen and for Kuma to suffer and be killed the way she was.

But bigger than this was the last few years of her life where mistakes were made and things not done that led to the hospital stay of errors.

Looking back I can see the flow of mistakes that brought the circumstances that killed Kuma. The real question is why did I not see the flow at the time and why did I not change it when it began its bad course?

What is The Flow?

Time is a flow of events. You can't see time. You can only experience this moment now. You can't see time move but you can experience the movement of time when you think of the past or imagine the future. Obviously the past does not exist in time, it only exists in your memory. When we think of the past, we really think of an event that happened in a previous sequence of events. But these events are not in a recognizable sequence until we look back and see the flow of events. We didn't know where we were heading at the time but looking back we can more clearly understand the path of the flow through time.

The flow is the underground path of subconsciousness that guides our path of life above the ground. Similar to time, we cannot see it as a flow or series of events, we only see it as one event. Actually, we don't notice or think about it except in moments of consciousness.

Is My Future Determined by My Past?

Looking back everything makes sense but looking forward we cannot see nor control where we are headed. "Everything that happens today, began yesterday" is a scary thought. Are we caught in a flow and our future is determined by what happened in the past.

Why is this scary? Because if my life follows a flow and the decisions I make follow this flow which was built in my past events, then do I have any choice in the decisions I make today. In fact, if an artificial intelligence received all the imput I have from my past, would it be able to predict my future, arrive at the same decisions and draw a line to the same end point in my life. Even when I fight against the flow, isn't my resistence built by my past and also predictable. This is scary because if true, then my life may be scientifically deterministic and I don't have free will to make my own diecisions. In other words, my flow is in control and I cannot change it no more than I can change my past.

It's easy to see in others but not in ourselves. We see the path other's are on, we can predict where we think they are headed but we can't see where we are headed.

Do our health problems happen randomly or do they follow a flow of events that we can't see?

Go With the Flow

We are conditioned to the point that life is easier when we "go with the flow". From the time we are born we learn to do what everyone else is doing. We want to be accepted by our family and friends. We want to be a good child, a good friend, husband or wife, mother, grandfather. We learn to conform and do what is expected of us to earn respect. To rebel at any stage of life against the normal flow of expectations creates unpleasantness.

When I first began working as an engineer I became discouraged with what business was really about and what careers really meant. My discontent created problems for me. Business didn't folllow the rules of sport or the values learned in school. My boss's role was to keep me in my place. My role was to go and buy cigarettes for him and be quiet and do my job. After running into problems for years, I vowed to try harder to stop trying to swim upstream and just go with the flow. It worked. I ran into fewer problems and then I quit. The same in my relationships. Too many highs and lows, so I actually was able to live in a grey area for almost 10 years. No problems. No excitement.

But I look at those 10 years as lost wasted life.

The Relationship Flow

Being in school was a good time of life because we were not expected to pair off with someone and make a commitment for the rest of our lives. But by the time we graduated university the pressure began. Going out on a date was not the same anymore. Everything had a sequence now. The first date had behaviours expected then after 3 months other behaviours were expected. After a year a commitment was expected. If you really liked someone, you were caught in this relationship flow that needed to end up in marriage whether you really chose it or not. It was the respectable thing to do. Then you are expected to start a family and to make a commitment to stay in your career to provide for your family. There was very little chance of changing careers at this point and trying something else. You are caught in the flow of relationship expectations. You tell yourself that this is ok and you chose this. You can see it in others but not always so much in yourself.

Kuma was Killed by the Flow

I should have seen what was happening. I was there to protect Kuma from the vets, from her mother and from what everyone thought. I should have stopped this flow long ago.

I need to think about this more and add more later....