Any time I start feeling sorry for myself all I have to do is find a friendly face and strike up a conversation.  Within a matter of moments I always feel better about life.  The simple act of communicating with another human — regardless of what we talk about — reminds me that I am never alone nor uniquely afflicted

Being a bartender for a decade has given me a knack for figuring out other people’s problems through polite conversation.  From my own experience I can safely say that we all have challenges to overcome and fears flickering behind the flawless facades that most of us fake.  Every day I see it all around me and often become aware of it within myself.

We all came into this life without our consent and most of us will leave it the same way.  Even in death we are not alone nor uniquely afflicted: everyone dies, just at different times and in different ways.

Historical disasters, wars, and plagues prove that dying one at a time is much preferable to everyone you know dying all at once.  Yes, as bad as I’ve ever felt at a painful point in life, I’ve never woken up to a wall of water, erupting volcano, epidemic, or invading army poised to wipe me and mine off the map.

Lucky me.  Lucky you too.

When I lose sight of how fortunate I am and feel a funk coming on, I seek out fellow souls to share some stories with. I often discover that their problems rival or exceed my own.  Examples abound.

When my dog breaks her leg I meet a man whose dog recently died impaled on a sharp stick.  When my body aches from too much work I find out a close friend can’t work at all anymore because his body is badly broken.  When I’m battling a broken heart I meet a man mourning the recent deaths of his father and his wife.

When I’m stressed because something small was stolen from me I meet a person wrongfully accused of a serious crime they did not commit.  When I feel like a failure for spending a decade of my life tending bar by night so my days are free for the finer things, I meet miserable, debt-ridden workaholics who envy me.  They envy me because their souls are being sucked away by day after day spent in subservience to the silly societal systems enslaving us all.

When anxiety  about an uncertain and uncontrollable future overwhelms me I see people smiling as they face uncontrollable uncertainties in the here and now.

Bearing witness to the struggles and suffering of others helps me overstand the silly shit that sends my soul spinning in downward spirals, makes my blood boil a bit, and sometimes sets me off.

As bad as life can appear, it could always be much worse.  The wise words a witchy woman once shared with me as I immaturely made a martyr of myself now come to mind:

“This is not a bed of nails which we are lying on.”

Even when it hurts life really is good, and the easiest way to make it better is by being grateful for what we’ve got and giving as much away as freely as we can.  Gratitude is easily acquired by assessing the obvious.  Here’s how it appears to me.

I am in the prime of my life and I have my health.  When I look in the mirror I see a piercing pair of blue eyes filled with passion and a depth of purpose that I can’t quite wrap my mind around.  My tangled mane of curly blonde hair hasn’t started falling out yet, and like an unshorn Samson it gives me a certain strength and sensitivity.

I have the gift of gab and a way with women.  My mother and several others swear they will always love me.  Most men respect me and some even say that they love me too.  An angelic dog once adopted me in Mexico, and she still stands beside me.

No machine or computer is poised to replace me anytime soon.  I can read critically and write analytically.  I can love completely and fight fear discretely.  I can gracefully surf the snow, the swell, and any wave that life sends my way.  Sometimes I fall on my face, but I always get back up.  My mind, heart, body, and soul are all resilient and regenerative.

Some say I’m the best bartender they’ve ever met, and I do make a damn good margarita.  When I remember to relax I can run around doing dishes, making drinks, processing payments, and keeping everyone happy while following several conversations simultaneously.

Whether bartending or just bopping around, with no effort at all I can say just the right thing with just the right smile at just the right moment to share the compassion I feel and release a beneficial brotherly blast of the energy flowing through and interconnecting all of us with one another and everything else.

Some say that my writing helps them feel less alone, more interconnected, and better about life.  It sure is an honor to hear something like that!

The funny thing about writing is this: when big thoughts start flowing and my pen really gets going it feels like I am merely a receiver writing down words that come from somewhere outside myself.  Call it God or Source or Ether or Muse or whatever you want, but know that I am not alone in feeling this way.  Countless other writers, artists, inventors, athletes, musicians, programmers, and creative lovers of life acknowledge feeling similarly inspired.

The creative capacity is a lot like love.  It arises within us but beyond our control.   It flows through and between us.  It affects our moods, makes many of our decisions for us, and motivates us to act in ways that appear unreasonable to outsiders.

Trying to control or contain either creativity or love is impossible.  Grasping on to either too tightly makes it go away.  Letting go of expectations and attachments to outcomes seems to bring it back.  With both love and creativity it seems that by giving freely we receive more.  Fear and destructiveness seem to operate in a similar but fundamentally opposed fashion.

While taking stock of what I’ve got to be grateful for I realize that my creative ability to write sensible and inspiring stuff is not entirely mine: it is a gift I must give in order to receive.

When I really write I aspire to seek and share the truth by tapping into and working with the one, true, sacred Source.  One thing I’ve noticed for several years is that it is hard to be sure that I’m working with the Source in a world lorded over by so many manmade systems of mind control.

If we exercise our logic and will we can see many of these control systems in action and analyze the way they affect us and our society.  The oldest control systems are obvious to anyone paying attention: organized religion, the legal/penal system, the education system, the economic system, the financial system, the political system, the mainstream media, etc.

Modern control systems are not necessarily bad, but they could be a lot better than they currently are.

The educational system could teach children more about creativity, compassion, and contemplation instead of setting kids up to be slaves.  The legal system could lock up the real criminals robbing us all, release people who were caught possessing a plant that cures cancer, and enforce actual justice in general.

The mainstream media could try telling the truth.  Organized religions could too.

The economic system could combat extreme income inequality, and the financial system could stop committing fraud by perpetually printing new money for the haves at the expense of the have-nots.

The healthcare system could focus on curing disease and promoting health instead of profiting from pushing pills designed to manage conditions, alter moods, and dull pain.  The political system we call “representative democracy” could crawl up its own asshole and die because most people have “direct democracy” voting machines in their pockets called smartphones.

Ironically, smartphones themselves are perhaps the most insidious and ingenious method of mind control ever unleashed on the unsuspecting masses.  “SMART” stands for Self-Monitoring And Recording Technologies.  When you acquiesce to carrying a smartphone or associating with folks that do you consent to having your movements tracked, your messages monitored, your conversations recorded, your personality automatically analyzed and categorized, and your soul stolen — or at least skewed — by a technocratic oligarchy bent on maintaining control over humanity.

Beyond the obvious influence, intrusiveness, and addicting nature of “smart” technology and associated social media, wireless devices can be utilized for more subtle manipulation of the human mind, body, and soul.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, we humans have bioelectrical systems within us that are susceptible to wireless electromagnetic influences.  Our eyes and brains provide an obvious example of this.  Our eyes receive energy from a region of the electromagnetic spectrum called visible light. Our brains instantaneously analyze that energy in great detail, providing us with the power of high definition sight in real time.  How cool is that?

Though less obvious, other parts of our bodies, minds, and souls are influenced wirelessly as well.  For example, the pineal gland is sensitive to many types of magnetic fields, including geomagnetic fields, solar radiation, and manmade EMF.  The pineal gland secretes melatonin, which contributes to our sense of spirituality, well-being, and regulates our sleep cycle.

Brain scans reveal that pineal gland activity increases with meditation. Ancient cultures and modern spiritualists believe that the pineal gland is the location of the “Third Eye” and that it regulates our conscious awareness.

The pineal gland can be tuned into certain frequencies which can result in a sense of euphoria and connection with ‘universal oneness.’   Low voltage EMF has been proven to disrupt melatonin levels produced by the pineal gland. What if the pineal glands of independent thinkers are being bombarded intentionally with frequencies that create internal confusion, carelessness, insomnia, depression?

If you can’t sleep, can’t focus, and feel disconnected could it be that smart phone sitting on your bedside table, that smart TV hanging on your wall, or that Wifi router out in the den?  That’s a question I ask myself every day.  This sort of thing is important to a person making an effort to connect with creativity and love flowing from the one, true, sacred Source in an era of manmade mind control systems.

The oldest and most obvious example of wireless mind control technology is the television.  All the way back in the 1940’s TVs were designed to emit Alpha waves in addition to visible light and audible sound.  Alpha waves naturally occur in the brain during deep sleep.  Alpha waves emitted by TVs put people into a dreamlike trance where they are prone to passively ingesting information without critical analysis.  TV may not literally rot your brain, but it certainly fills your head with heavily censored and severely skewed shit.  The Alpha waves make us more susceptible to believing the BS.

Smart devices can emit Alpha waves *and* many other wireless energy frequencies that people are subconsciously susceptible to.  These devices are linked to us as individuals and could be used to manipulate us individually.  If a person transcends the old control systems, perhaps they are subjected to the new control systems.  From my own experience I believe this to be true, but I could be wrong.

How do we know that our thoughts, feelings, moods, motivations, and sleep cycles are entirely our own?  We don’t and we can’t, at least not yet.  My interim solution is to accept the uncertainty, go with the flow that seems most natural, meditate on self-control, avoid unnatural EMF to the best of my abilities, and love life no matter what.  I hope you do too.

Take care.  One Love. Peace.