THANK GOD FOR OUR GUNS

June 2018

Erase all traces of the evil we’ve done

Wrap it up in Jesus, oh the lies we’ve spun

In his name some feel all there is should be theirs

The winner takes all, for the loser who cares?

 How long can this last, has the Devil claimed His throne?

He promises to cleanse us of our sins, no need to atone

All this is done in His holy name

So all that we want, we’ve but to claim

 This land created by men of wealth for the most part

Lived in a time of Enlightenment, reason came before  the heart

They thought they had banished the darkness from men’s souls

With a piece of paper that enshrined these goals

 Originalists, Evangelicals, those claiming to love the Constitution

Have forgotten the cruelty with which we deployed destitution

Like some fig leaf they cry Freedom and individual rights

But instead of reason, they seem to prefer the fights

 How manly these protectors of our liberty?

These are real men, no time for understanding or empathy

We’ve a nation to build, wars to fight

Proudly we march off into the dark night

 Safe from all fear for no one can take our guns away

For this second amendment we must fight every day

No need to think or ask ourselves why

Of what I’m so fearful that others must die

 Are there Indians circling my cabin hungry for my blood?

Are evil immigrant criminals covered in mud?

Are there men with dark skins wanting to rape our wives?

Are they all carrying in their boots lethal knives?

 Or maybe the danger is less real as I can’t name its source

Might it come from within us, whispering an evil course?

Or are the authorities wanting only to take all that is mine?

With their corrupt agendas, high values they opine

 After all, what’s mine I’ve acquired all alone

Really?  Do you live on some bountiful island as yet unknown?

Where the roads were there when you arrived

And the schools and the hospitals and the fields – as if by magic thrived

 And the armed forces, there always to protect

On the lookout for our enemies to detect

Have we lost all sense of perspective and proportion together?

Do we not also fear aliens, agnostics and even the weather?

 What a world to live in where everything causes us fear

When our insecurities rage, and reason we no longer see the need to hear

Some fantasy based on our myths, but deformed

Have we created a new religion, White Christianity, Reformed?

 Where we look to the past alone, for those were the days

When we were all white and Christian with our righteous ways

When it was normal to keep others down

To chase those not like us out of town

 To make them live far away from our homes

So we can be safe – but wait, who are the real gnomes?

The ones who abandon their minds and the souls

For us alone should be reserved our lofty goals

 Believing these others are less than we ,the blessed

I think by now my point you will have guessed

For I see in this nation a soul full of contradiction

Some of our values are real, others are now fiction

 Empowered we are, all hail to me

For I now live in the home of the brave and the free

To hell with the others, they poison our race

They can’t say it yet, but we seem to want to eliminate all trace

 Or at least to be sure they know their place

So all we ever see are ourselves – may it be so by His holy grace

Beyond racism, beyond creed, we are a self-righteous breed

We alone have the right on this bounteous land to feed

 To rape and despoil it so we can be rich today

To hell with those tree loving regulators, who cares what they say

Tomorrow will take care of itself as it has always done

We live in the present, so let’s just have fun

 With no regard for anything but how much we can earn

Too many stand by passively, as our future we burn

It’s not too late, for the day is long

To stand up for this land where all creatures have a right to belong

 No one here on Earth God’s truth can ever claim

It’s a coward’s way and a vile stain

If we be men, reason should prevail

If we rely on superstition we can only fail

  Not some beliefs from a time when men lived in a tent

Only the ignorant embrace what’s given without thoughtful time spent

Reflecting not just on grandiose ideas

Simple thoughts too can bring humility, not primitive fears

 So these guns we require to protect from enemies multitudinous yet unseen

Is that what makes us so uncaring, so mean?

Is not the demon we fear more the one living inside?

Drag him into the sunlight and no more will you  have to hide

 Imagine a world where you can walk without fear

And not depend on always having a sidearm near

When you could look at others and engage with a smile

You might be surprised if we all gave it a trial

 Ask yourself what does God have to do with gun rights?

Are we really his choice, the Protector, to win all the fights?

Or rather is this lord the one of Peace?

Would that He free us from fear, and our hearts release

 If of God one wishes to speak, do so alone

I’m certain there are other sins for which you could atone

Religion is not a fig leaf behind which to hide

Rather by its precepts we should try and abide

 Don’t rally the faithful, don’t speak of exception

Take a good hard look, it’s more than time to change direction.

WHO IS AMERICAN?

When talk about who is American, of whom do we speak?

Of the strong, the brave, the shy or the meek?

Of those who come from another place?

With another belief, of another race?

 Or in silence, who is it we really see?

That depends, of course, if our minds are free

For America is neither a race nor a creed

In some way all comers from their past were freed

 The founding fathers came often from a privileged class

Many others we poor, ignorant and crass

We think of them as Christian, white and good

It’s time we took a look under the hood

 There were slaves of course, but they didn’t count

And the vast majority  arrived with but a paltry amount

The true Americans, those who were here first

Got treated so cruelly and got off the worst

 America, in fact, is an idea, not a race

To be an American by birth no past can erase

One could declare those who came be choice

Worked hardest to succeed and should retain the loudest voice

 That too would be wrong, missing the fact

To be an American there’s a way one must act

If an idea lies at the root of it all

From this idea our ideas flow as if from a waterfall

 Rich in quantaty, pure in intent

Ancestors came here to own, not to rent

To build a nation of values, not the whims of some king

To shine a light in this world, something better to bring

 So those who legally may be Americans by right

Too should be required to earn the privilege before launching some fight

Are their actions reflective of those values which define this nation?

Or have they deformed turned them into a myth, a lie, a false creation

 If we no longer act as we said we should

Then the values have gone from gold to wood

We’ve become another people, no better than any other

All that remains of the idea is greed and money, our souls to smother

 It’s clear we are no longer who we say nor claim to be

Though we talk of freedom and liberty

That all men are equal – or so we say

As long as they are like me, and that’s the only way

 If this is the only criteria we’re willing to support

Then the idea is gone, the mission ready to abort

So stop thinking you’re  American if you act otherwise

You’re not, don’t you see, so open your eyes.

Friends or Furniture: Maybe Loyalty is the Better Choice

Book just published - available on Amazon.com and Createspace.com

See below for details.

DAWN OR DUSK?  A Time for Choices

A friend of mine, someone endowed with a caring heart, once said to me in her inimitable way “…who knew you had so much to say?”  I thought it an interesting question and a serious reflection on not just myself, but on the world as we populate it as well.  What she meant, I believe, was a question within a question.  In other words, as she knew me, my concerns about the national psyche, the apparent American vacation from mature reflection – individual and collective – it was an invitation to try and offer observations and , that we are more when we see ourselves as a whole and not as disparate parts, as something than can be better understood through induction rather than reduction, and that though science brings immense knowledge and benefits, some things will, and must always, escape its control.  I have no answers.  Nor should I. That’s up to you.  What I can do is offer food for those who recognize their own hunger.  It’s a tall order, and there is no telling if I will have succeeded.  But I will have tried.  Hopefully, this will encourage you to do as much.  For yourself.  For those you love.  For us all. I think that’s what she meant.

                        Available at:

www.Amazon.com/MitchellRitter/DawnorDusk

or

www.createspace.com/8716654

HASTE

July 2018

It’s news to no one

We live our lives now on the run

Busyness is the new sign

That everything in my world is fine

 Though it seems time is always short

Many projects I must abort

Put aside but in fact forgotten

They languish inside where they go rotten

 No matter we say, there’s just too much to do

Harried, we rush as if we knew

Why have things evolved this way?

Why is there never enough time in the day?

 I have every convenience one could need

Am I forgetting something that I must feed

The gym, my friends, work of course

There was even time for a divorce

 Like so many themselves likewise find

When we met were we really of a similar mind?

Life called and we answered, no time to delay

Living life in a rush, is there really a price to pay?

 Questions exist, but there’s the internet for that

If I need an answer I know where it’s at

Google’s algorithm has found the one most often cited

How could it fail me?  Love unrequited?

 Questions are real, complex and hard to find

Isn’t it wonderful, I no longer have to use my mind

The answer is there on my phone or my screen

It’s easier now than it’s ever been

 So why then am I so unsatisfied?

I keep all the balls in the air, there I’ve really tried

But is life about balls and air and juggling?

The direction we’ve taken has left me struggling?

 If indeed time is all that we own

Should we not use it for reasons known?

Not by others, purveyors of good taste

Following their lead has proven a waste

 No one seems to know in a deep and sincere way

How they make their choices every day

We are on some road where others decide

So no longer from ourselves will we have to hide

 That gnawing fear of getting it wrong

To that group how much longer will I belong?

Since I don’t, nor want,  to know how I feel

I have no compass to help keep me on an even keel

 Like a sailboat without one to keep me straight

I need someone or something to help me be “great”

No other option, I think, does exist

Where else can be found the essential fix?

 But what does that mean?  I have no idea

Disturbing that fact that I have no answer, I fear

I look inside and emptiness is all I find

My head, full of useless distractions, leaves no place for my mind

 This time that I own, how much do I waste?

I have so little because all is done in haste

Knowledge is like a meal requiring time to digest

Thoughts that emerge slowly are always the best

 Rush through a meal, no thought of what nourishment I took

It’s like turning the pages without reading the book

Why the hurry?  There reason is clear

It’s the stranger you’ve become to yourself, the one you really fear?

DARWIN’S OTHER ENDING

June 2018

In his theory of evolution

Species disappeared having no solution

To changing circumstance, adaptation failed

And to the survivor, all hailed

 Stronger, faster, more lethal in every way

As long as nothing came along to change the day

Some have lasted since life began

Some swam, some flew and others ran

 When we arrived, new on the scene

Fearful, we were living hungry and lean

Until together we came

And changed the nature of the game

 Day by day, stronger we grew

How far we could go?  No one cared or knew

Until it became unmistakeably clear

We were the one all creation would need to fear

 Our numbers grew and others disappeared

Virgin forests were burned and cleared

Inhabitants from times long ago

Real fear they all came to know

 For we took without reason, never thinking of why

Tomorrow was as distant as the sky

Sitting now atop our throne

No creature greater than us is known

 But why would evolution stop at our kind?

Never did it happen before, and no one seemed to mind

Are we the end point,  Creation’s ultimate expression

Will we rule forever, supreme with no digression?

 Perfection achieved, divine in our form

All hail to us, a new God is born

Our numbers never seem to slow

With all we learn, we never seem to know

 We build, we take, we kill, we can dare

Since the strongest survive, why should we care?

But in the shadows, life’s process marches on

This lie we tell ourselves is a con

 Our strength has blinded us, our fatal flaw

In life there is no such thing as a draw

Whether by our ignorance we destroy this place

And die off in darkness, and leave no trace

 Or fall victim to some menace as yet unknown

It will surely derive from the seeds we’ll have sown

Be it alien, or microbe, infectious or not

Of all God’s creatures, inside us lives a certain rot

 To live without measure, with no concern

To kill our own kind and the land we burn

With all our knowledge, hubris rules

Though it might be otherwise, we have the tools

 The world heats up, maybe later it cools

But I doubt we’ll be here, this mankind of fools

BUT TO WEAR A MASK

June 2018

In this age when we are supposed to multi-task

Would life be not simpler if we wore a mask?

One we could change, depending on the need

No more ego to coddle and feed

 Take one off, then put another in its place

And with it a personality appropriately matched to the face

It doesn’t have to go deep, what it needs to know is there

It might even look natural, but then who would care?

 No more search for identity

Who we are is what you’d see

If products, interchangeable, we have become

What matter if we  are all  alike, a zero sum?

 Would this make us happier still?

What would become of what’s left of our will?

It seems to have wilted, was it overfed?

On golden things it dwelled, now turned to lead

 Would we still need a purpose to fulfill?

And a way to give meaning towards the final bill

Would we care, I don’t see how?

All that matters is the here and now

 Would we dream of a future bright?

When we’d already given up the fight

Would we hope, towards what end?

Wearing masks there would be no message to send

 Would we study so as to better learn?

Why bother, only chaos inhabits the constant churn

Without these things, of our world what would remain?

I fear not much more than an ugly stain

 A mark where strong, we once rose

When we forgot what everyone knows

Awaken from this fitful sleep

Tear off the mask, never to keep

 If any truth exists, it lies within

It’s the place where we all begin

To abandon what can live but one time

Is never to have considered what means divine

 To see the world through my eyes alone

To want to know, no sin to atone

To bring a light of a spectrum unique

To illuminate our collective path, together we seek

 If we are content to wear a mask

To live on the surface alone, with no personal task

Our days we may fill with nothing uniquely ours

Mud huts we might build, but no more gleaming towers.

 We take so much more than we could ever need

A hole so deep can only be dug by greed

Always hungry, always on the prowl, this void inside

Can it ever be filled or from it can we hide?

 From the reason it pursues us unrelentingly

We eat, never sated, gluttonously

Like the air we breathe, greedily holding some in

The next breath will be smaller for lack of space within

 And with each breath, less air our lungs can fill

Until no more room remains, gasping until we all lie still

Think then whenever this hunger strikes

Look to see if you’ve fully opened the dykes

 With room aplenty to be filled anew

Alive and well, the many and not just the few

Why strive for better when less is enough?

Why struggle when the going gets tough?

 Excuses abound, never in short supply

As long as we don’t as that simple question, why?

Has this vision of what could come to be

If we cease our caring, in this land of the free

 No more bravery, that seems to have disappeared

Is the precipice drawing near, the one we’ve feared

The one that tells us, our presence serves no ideal

We care for so little, afraid to feel

 Should this day ever come, it has happened in the past

Would we have what we’d need in our disappointing cast

For what we know may come to an end

Is it near, is it far, or around the bend?

 Dreams come to an end, though they never announce their coming

One rarely hears the horses charge or the distant drumming

The forces of darkness are always on the march

Ignorance, greed, sloth – just the thought of them and our mouths parch

 No tower, no walls can ever protect

If we fail ourselves, no will to detect

Like so many others that have come before

Look back to the past and see the door

 We know what lies behind it, do we really want to pass through?

If we abandon what we have, in spite of all that we knew

Then the future that’s staring us in the face

Will sweep us away, leaving n’ary a trace.

 It’s happened before, it will happen again

I grow tired of writing this story with paper and pen

Who wants to hears words so dark

When pleasanter themes exist, with endings less stark

 Why me?  I ignore from whence it came

I am no one special, though I have rules by which I play the game

Each one must choose some truth, then abide by the choice

Remain silent and wait, or raise up your voice.

SUICIDE:  Is it a Sickness or a Choice?

SUICIDE:  IS IT A SICKNESS OR A CHOICE? June 2018 As so often happens, with our attention spans constantly shrinking, the media competition requires we be drawn into every event that occurs during any given day.  The consequences of this have been discussed at length elsewhere, and are well known – though we appear to be doing absolutely nothing to correct this growing threat to any continuity in our society.  I mention the media as it brought to our collective attention - like it or not -  the suicide this week of two relatively engaging, but frankly minor celebrities.  Two suicides in this group doesn’t really merit the “Breaking News” headline.  In fact, an argument could be made that it is vulgar and a sign of disrespect for the concerned individuals that such a fuss was made about it.  But since no one seems to care much about discretion or propriety anymore, the issue that does deserve our attention and which relates to both these individuals, is not so much them, but their suicide. Suicide has been rejected in most Judeo-Christian-Islamic cultures as a sin, essentially taking from God the life he gave us, without his permission.  In many pre-Christian, indigenous cultures, ritual suicide was widely viewed as a generous act designed to either placate an angry god or ensure his benevolence going forward.  A prized citizen would be called upon to sacrifice their lives for the collective good.  So, it would be an error to start from the premise that suicide has always been something to be avoided by all cultures.   There are other instances when individuals find themselves in situations where they are left with a choice – to save themselves or others.  Military heroes have committed a form of suicide and are honored for it.  Parents can find themselves in situations where they say, and may indeed execute, on their willingness to give their lives for that of their children or spouse.  Religious martyrs are another example, interestingly elevated to sainthood by the very institution which forbids sacrificing oneself – unless the sacrifice is designed to benefit the sanctioning institution.   So, it becomes obvious that once again, our penchant for oversimplification has resurfaced.  It is quite possible that our societal aversion to suicide may reflect our endemic narcissism, and the culture of self-gratification which has replaced any notion of self-sacrifice, manifesting itself in an exaggerated sense of self-worth along with a similarly exaggerated sense of fragility.   Governments usually  disapprove of suicide, as it does abortion and euthanasia., some even going so far as to view contraception as somehow contravening God’s law.  In my view, governments want order, and suicide is the ultimate rebellion of a citizen.  It also reflects poorly on the statistical record of an administration if suicides are on the rise. Interestingly, to better control the population, and any penchant a segment may have for suicide – often due to external circumstances related to diverse forms of hopelessness – the issue has been medicalized.  And once this has been accomplished, suicide becomes a form of preventable disease, treatable with different forms of behavioral and pharmaceutical therapies.  Lost in this wave of official good intentions, is the very reason why an individual has arrived at a state of despair such that leaving this world appears to be a more attractive option than remaining in it.  Even if explored, it is done superficially for questions of cost, collaboration and demand.   Of course, there are serious interests at stake here, including careers, huge sums of public and private money, institutions, insurance companies, social services, prevention services, philanthropic organizations, researchers, public health officials, and the list goes on.  Their goal is, of course, to provide assistance.  But as often happens in this area, the goal becomes as much the development of the institution as the assistance they may provide. In my early days as a psychotherapist, I had a patient who was referred to me by a neurologist for chronic depression.  She was a school teacher, in her fifties, born in harsh and rural circumstances, with an extremely cold and terrifying father who banished all forms of affection, tenderness, warmth from her life.  Education allowed her to escape her family, and she became a primary school teacher in a small city not far from where she grew up.  She had become a lesbian – not surprising given the forbidding nature of the men she was exposed to – though an immature, quite naïve and idealistic one.  Central to her problem was the face that all forms of pleasure had been excised from her life, and though she missed closeness, joy, connection, and could talk about their absence, she was incapable of forming any mature relationship.   When I first met her, the friendship she had shared with a fellow teacher over a number of years had come to an end, as my patient wasn’t able to step out of her impossible fantasy of unrequited love, and into some form of reality where a  reciprocal friendship could develop. I saw her for about two years, and she was a reliable participant – at least in terms of keeping her appointments.  But beyond that, all forms of constructive thought were simply not available to her.  And though we discussed this at length, and she was fully aware of the problem, her identity had become so entwined with a self-image based on poverty, frustration, absence of pleasure, unrequited love, that for her to change, her entire life story would have to be rewritten.  Her early life experience had become her destiny, a self-fulfilling prophesy from which she simply could not free herself.  To do so would erase her identity, her sense of self as all suffering, deserving of nothing.  And the prospect of that was more frightening than any other. She was self-aware enough to realize this, and pragmatic enough to see that at her age, with her attitude, experience, and almost happily failing health, there were to be no second acts for her.  What she believed from the start was now manifest, opening the door to the next step.  The question then became what were they?  Since continuing to suffer as a reason for her existence was achieved, it appeared on an exit could offer her to affirmation and freedom life had denied her. Why, you might wonder, continue?  I felt at the time that I was a source of fresh air for her, and that it kept her going.  And as long as she continued to come, I believed that she had not yet eliminated all options for herself.  Rather abruptly, she disappeared.  I became concerned, tried calling her, all to no avail.   After a short while, I contacted the neurologist who had referred her to me, who was also my friend, to alert him to the situation, and ask his opinion as to the opportunity of alerting the police to this possible suicide.  His attitude was more detached, more rational than mine.   In essence, he said that she was never going to change, that the purpose of her life had been set, and it was to be perennially unhappy.  She knew this too.  So, from his perspective, and he articulated it in unmistakable terms, if she was so inclined, and had no further desire to endure her existence, then suicide might be, in fact, the best solution. I was taken aback by this, caught up in the collective mindset that all suicides must be prevented – but never questioned how valid this assumption was. For her to kill herself would be a failure of mine - or so I thought at the time.  But the real failure was not to see what she was really doing -  tying off loose ends, getting ready for her exit - on her terms..   Other authors have raised this issue in more depth than I will do here, and some have come to a similar conclusion as my neurologist friend.   There may indeed come a time in a person’s life when hope can cannot be renewed, when continuing becomes the irrational choice, if we manage to see things from their perspective.  Our own fear of death gets in the way of understanding that for those for whom life is more a burden than a source of any form of pleasure, our fear is no longer theirs.   The obvious question then becomes, by right can our blindness to their true suffering empower us to deprive them of what has always been missing, but can be found in that final moment of affirmation?   As we know, most first attempts are calls for help.  But for those who choose a definitive, infallable answer, should we not consider their point of view as being at least, if not more, valid than our own. Of course help should be offered whenever asked for.  And prevention can be most effective in children and adolescents whose character is insufficiently formed  to withstand external events which may be overwhelming for a time.  But there are others whose very life set them on a course where they never had a chance to find their place in this world.  Where every effort met with defeat (or so it seemed to them), and where for reasons clear to any who care to really acknowledge the suffering, the struggle these people endure for years with little to no respite is indeed heroic in the same way as military heroes choosing their own end to save others, martyrs who die for a greater purpose, saints who give their lives for God - the list is long.   There comes a time for these people when all strength fails them, when the prospect of another day in their lives is unbearable, and putting an end to their lives at the time, the place and in the manner they chose, can be completely liberating.   The problem comes from the outside, where because we fear our own death, we think we are protecting our own by forcing others to live.  The medical profession has embraced the mental health perspective, where every life should be saved, no matter the cost, not to society, but to the individual.  It can be, for the concerned individual, worse than a life sentence in prison, for at least there, they would know where they belong.  You can prop them up, solve all their practical problems, and still, their sense of self is so closely tied to defeat, that suicide can become the only salvation. Are these people sick?  Should they be obligated to be medicated so that whatever life force they may still have is suppressed so the strength required to end their lives with some dignity is taken from them.  And the final statement whereby they decide where, how and when they will leave what, for them, has always been a vail of tears is denied. I have published a book recently, available on Amazon.com, addressing this issue from the perspective of a very personal experience with a young man  I tried to help.  If you want to see exactly what I mean, under which circumstances someone can reach a point where either madness or suicide will rescue them from their daily hell, you might want to read it.  * In closing, Think about some of the arbitrary positions societies have taken in its own self interest.  Consider the suffering, often in silence, some individuals are called upon  to endure, and through no fault of their own.  Feel their plight, a condition where they have struggled all their lives, to no avail, and finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Is if really for others to define an individual’s right to finally claim their own dignity, freedom, and ability to choose? Should we go so far, be so consequential, as to offer these people an infallible, humane way to leave this world?  I’m not sure, for to do so, would institutionalize the decision, impose evaluations, consultations, regulations, and a burdensome administrative process which would remove all dignity and respect from the process.  Just look at what we are doing with abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood in some states.   Is there an easy answer?  In a sense, yes.  Help whenever requested, whenever needed, and not just in the moment.  Rare is a brief push sufficient, and to set someone already on the way down to a new failure is beyond cruel.  But I don’t believe it is either humane or even right to stigmatize what may be a final act, and not as desperate as we portray it, of self-affirmation.  Insofar as no one chooses one’s own destiny, if the cards one has drawn offer only a losing hand, how is it unreasonable or some  sign of mental illness (debunked by the latest statistics which suggest that 54% of suicides have no record of any mental health issue, though rejected by the prevention community as misleading), to realize, being in full possession of one’s means, that it's time to pick up one's chips and leave the game?  For good.

*THE LEFTOVERS OF GOD'S ANGER - The Chris Chronicles https://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=leftovers+of+God%27s+Anger

INSIDE OR OUTSIDE?  WHERE TO LOOK FOR ANSWERS

Most everyone finds themselves at some point confronted with a dilemma that they just can’t seem to solve.  In our externally oriented world, the natural reflex is to look outside of oneself.  That can be talking with friends, observing others, even mimicking their lifestyles or hobbies.  Self-help books, touting all sorts of answers, programs, steps, ledgers have become an industry.  There is also religion and positive thinkers, offering promises of a better life, one that is deserved, and saying all you need to do is ask God to provide, and he will. Some people even go into therapy. But more on that later.

Answers can indeed be found, depending on the problem, but more often than not, the next phase begins when those avenues have been exhausted, and people tell you to just learn to accept it.  But what exactly are they telling you accept?  And what, even if you think you know what that is, you either just can’t accept the status quo, in which case you might become depressed, ill-humored, or worse.  Has it ever occurred to you that maybe there is a very good reason why things aren’t going your way.  Maybe your discomfort is actually a healthy response to an accommodation you may have made a long time ago, and just taken that as the right path for you.  

Before delving further, there are two essential points I would like to make  First, maybe you have been looking in the wrong places because those are the places you’ve always gone to  before. Some wells do actually run dry. So the choice is look elsewhere or die.  It might surprise you just how many people think the second alternative is the only one available – figuratively speaking, of course.  Second, the problem may not actually be you.  Depending on one’s personal evolution and story, not every path leads down the same road.  This should be obvious, but in our mass market easy fix culture, the notion of originality, individuality, is not widely practiced.  In essence, you may be quite alright, the fact that you are not happy in a given context could be a healthy response, and it may just be society has fallen ill and continues based more on inertia than on any healthy evolution.

With those caveats in mind, where indeed can one look?  Where is that place that is waiting, but which we just can’t seem to find?  We’ve tried everything, or so it seems, but nothing changes.  Why?  One perspective is to actually take the time to find out what exactly isn’t providing you with a way forward.  And to begin that reflection, if one’s goal is to be rich, happy or successful, some critical self-analysis might be in order.

No one ever said that every life deserves happiness.  A quick review of history and its multitude of tragedies should take care of that childish fantasy.  Life is best considered a challenge, possibly even an adventure, with times that will be rich and fulfilling, and times that will bring their share of sadness, even tragedy.  For those who remain fixated on positivity are more likely to be engaged in a serious effort to delude themselves, since growing up, whenever they may have expressed some disappointment, they were quickly corrected and told not to be negative But if life is made of good and bad, happiness and pain, health and disease, it is clear that one needs to acknowledge the existence of both to be able to deal with their inevitable encounter.

There is an excellent example of a collective fantasy, and we live it every day here in the States.  Without interruption we are constantly telling ourselves how great our country is, that we are the best, the smartest, the bravest, and so one. Having lived elsewhere, this type of inflation was more common to absolute monarchs who ruled over incredible suffering by their people, justifying it by their glorious persons. They were to be rich, beautiful and happy.  We know how that has worked out.

So why do we engage in that here?  We have no tradition of absolute rulers, no culture of subservience – in fact, quite the contrary.  Perhaps the last presidential election can provide some insight, for we elected, through a fluke in our otherwise admirable system, someone so totally inappropriate to be our leader.  He embodies, in fact, many of the attributes of absolute monarchs, and possibly even aspires to such a station in life.  We all know that is impossible, though, if that which led his electors to give him their vote in full knowledge of his many flaws, who knows.  Our particularity, as a people, is that we consider celebrity and wealth as signs of an endorsement of some higher power, and wish we were like them.  Their values, their misdeeds of the past no longer count as we have embraced success as the hallmark of a winner.  What has changed is that we only superficially expect our leaders to actually live the values they use more as fig leafs than as any moral guide. We have more fully embraced the old adage – the end justifies the means.  After all, who doesn’t want to be a winner.

The miracle of self-promotion, the dislocation of language, and the many channels of communication available can provide a platform from which one can transmit one’s message to a vast audience.  And this vast audience, otherwise preoccupied with their immediate circumstances and local life,  have become too distracted to think critically about the message they are receiving.  As many have said, and some have proven in the past, repeat any message often enough, and enough people will believe it.

How is this relevant to the subject?  Because it clearly points to something that is wrong on so many levels. We live, all of us, in two worlds. One inside ourselves, our very personal, individual selves, our emotions, subjectivity, history, all reside inside our minds where they interact continuously, but who we have come to regard as little more than distractions, less worthy than our active pursuit of any and all pleasures available to us in that other world.  The outside world.

The source of our identity, of our values, beliefs – everything – flows from this inner world.  How?  Because it is the repository of everything we have experienced since birth.  It is not a passive repository.  For proof, one need only take note during the course of one day, how often a thought will emerge, an emotion will erupt, a problem will appear out of nowhere to which we react poorly, since we take from granted when things go our way.  To use the popular, though I believe inappropriate metaphor of software, this individuality, this thing that defines us as unique and which no one else shares, is the source code to our personality.

Now think for a moment.  What if we have this software, but choose neither to acknowledge it, or even be curious about it.  Is that not to live deaf, dumb and blind?

Fortunately, evolution has provided us with many tools with which we can adapt to changing circumstance.  Those species that didn’t make it provide ample proof of lethal failure. Those that have – and none are guaranteed a free pass forever – have developed with an innate capacity to adapt by seeking a balance between where they started, and where they need to go.  This is a natural process, but vital to not only every species, but also to every individual.  Even in the animal kingdom, there may be a collective or herd mentality. But within that context, every individual is different.  Identity between two beings does not exist.

The problem intervenes when we stop using this equilibrating ability as more and more of our basic needs are seen to.  Food, safety, procreation – all have grown far more accessible at a lesser cost.  So, in our comfort, we need it less, grow less curious and aware of its existence, and eventually, like all things which fall into disuse, atrophy sets in.  All answers are thought to reside in the outside world.  The inner world is first ignored, next abandoned, and finally is seen as some sort of foreign intruder whose presence we’d wish would disappear.  

What’s happened?  We have simply abandoned a good part of ourselves, or at least our consciousness has. And in so doing, we have become strangers to ourselves.  Tell me, how does one help a stranger, someone whose essence we don’t even want to know, but still claim to want to help?

So, if you’ve hit a wall, tried everything, and still come up empty, consider this.  You have become a stranger to yourself.  How could you possibly find what’s missing when you have no idea what’s actually there? The outside is where we live.  The inside is who we are.  If you don’t know who you are, how can you ever hope to help yourself?

Jung has a wonderful quote which captures, in a very few words, something i required far too many.  

“THOSE WHO LOOK OUTSIDE, DREAM.  THOSE WHO LOOK INSIDE, AWAKEN”

A PLANE HIGHER April 2018

April 2018

An odd fate it is when oneself one finds

Alone among so many different kinds

In a place that claims diversity

When in fact, difference is in paucity

 To have a mind to be smart, though less in vogue

It’s traits of rigor and reflection appear to have gone rogue

Leaving us with something hard to define

We now prefer the surface to mine

 And what of the heart, in other times prized

It too has changed, somehow resized

One or the other, perhaps would not be so bad

But both together lost in some desert nomad

 What’s left to guide us to find our way

To know our path, never far to stray

Vague beliefs embraced as absolutes

With no depth just faith, only shallow roots

 Nothing of substance to see us through the inevitable storm

Each thing exists alone, no definition, no defined form

Hedonism, an alternate choice

That’s easy, any slight excitation speaks with a clear voice

 It feels good,  I like it, I want more – all one needs to know

Sex, money, fun right now is what I want and I don’t care how

Put back in context, where is the glue

As we chase our tails after whatever is new

 Out goes the past and whatever we’ve learned

Rename it for illusion’s sake, let the old books be burned

Have I grown old without being aware

Is all that is new causing my scare

 I do I see further, backward and  ahead

The consequences threaten, is that why I see red?

A warning, a clarity others  don’t see

I may be smart but share the same reality

 In conversation I listen to what preoccupies their minds

All seem to live in the now but shut are the blinds

So few care to look at what they don’t want to see

Am I alone to know this must not be

 The distance that separates the future from the present

Has shrunken so why buy, let’s just rent

And leave it to unnamed others, or things immaterial

And blame that which does not exist, institutions ethereal

 Movements may form the appearance to give

That hope is reborn so we can live

Has comfort rendered us selfish and dumb

That our minds and our hearts have gone so numb

 Or rather that we have come to believe

In the power of our desires our problems to relieve

This has happened before to others in the past

No one survives their own success, it does not last

 How many saw it as decline took hold

As the summers grew short and the winters more cold

God gave us a mind to nourish and grow

So better ways we would find so we could know

 Our place on the gift and the scheme of things

So we could survive and know the peace that it brings

I fear for our race, progress is what saved humankind

To know man is to know what is possible for the evil mind

 Survival requires heart and mind together find

No matter how the path does wind

The road to our future is the one we require

It lies on a plane above us, we must climb higher

 To use what we have and find a way

Or the moon will rule the night, and we will lose the day.

WHAT SCARES YOU SO?

As promised, here is something I just wrote.  For those who may have read Mr. Hide’s Progress, this will be a familiar theme.  What’s it about?  If you think about things you wanted to change about your behavior, have procrastinated for what even you consider to be too long and have concluded that that’s just how things are, there are voices in your head, voices of others who have planted seeds of doubt long ago, who align against change.  Why?  Because they were voices of authority to which we all bend growing up in one way or another.  They are integrated into the structure of our personality, where they become part of the virtual walls of the edifice.  Whereas initially they may have protected us from further interventions, as we grow and become more autonomous, required to meet the demands of adult life, these voices have not evolved.  They see you as a child, and their role as one of protector.  But what if you don’t need protection any longer?  That’s the point when fortresses become prisons, and guides become guardians.  And when you want to change something, they rise to defend the you from an earlier day.  And change is thwarted unless one has come to terms, or is prepared to confront them.  Perhaps the poem can convey this better.  That’s probably why I wrote it.

Jung wrote:  “....I am not what happened to me but who I chose to be.”  That is a very powerful statement, well beyond the words which convey it.  If one can truly embrace and live by it, demons from the past can be confronted, voices can grow silent, and at times, even helpful.  It’s not easy.  But then nothing of any value really is.  And something we’ve earned by ourselves, something like this, can never be taken away.  

www.analyticalpsychologynyc.com

April  2018

I’ve written of change, the elusive solution

When things don’t work and we want a revolution

So I can be happy, a success to all

If I stay on this path, no failure will I manage to forestall

 So what is lurking in the shadows I can’t see

What  renders the future opaque, will I ever be free

There’s a good start – but free of what might that be

A new thought enters my head – I need clarity

 I can’t really say what this is, for I should know

I’ve done it all right, so my garden should grow

Yet nagging in the background, I sense a a phantom hidden in the clouds

So much noise surrounds me, millions of words coming from the crowds

 No clarity rises from above the din

Am I being punished, and if so for what sin?

When you pass by a mirror,does the image return you gave

Or is it just a face in 2 dimensions surrounded by a have

 Can you see past the filter you’ve learned to engage

The one the won’t allow you to look inside the cage

That dark place we all have, hidden from view

Where we hide all our fears from this motley crew

 Here’s another question, what might be best

To not see what scares us, would that pass the test?

And what of time passing, will these fears have died

Dissolved by that haze on which I’ve relied

 For the years have cost them, punished, condemned

Their resentment grows, they know no friend

They take on a form I neither recognize or understand

Always more threatening, I must make my stand

 Never to allow them to cross the line

If I can hold fast to this rule, I should be fine

Now stop for a moment, and ask yourself this

Who said they were demons, might something else be amiss?

 Have I simply swallowed someone’s judgement, not mine

And banished the innocent hoping they would perish on the vine

How fair is that?  What have I done?

I’ve closed my eyes and lived on the run

 Too busy, too ready with excuses which fool none

Except perhaps myself, I’ve hidden from the Sun

It didn’t come all at once, this fateful day

When I resolved to look at my fears and let them have their say

 And something happened I didn’t expect

My fears grew smaller to where I could no longer detect

Like bringing home some relative long lost

Much to my surprise, there was no cost

 But a profit for a weight was lifted

Change in the form of freedom was I gifted

A sense of owning  myself, no debts to burden my soul

Dear God, had I somehow stumbled onto the road to become whole

 So next time you feel you’ve hit a wall

When a nameless something has made you fall

When you pick yourself up, with courage and resolve

Look your fears in the eyes and let them evolve

 For their goal was never to frighten, the fault lies with you

Who you are, in the end, depends not on your fear, but on you.

There you go - all 4 publications.  All available on Amazon.com/ebooks/MitchellRitter/title

or

www.createspace.com/ 6876165 for Mr. Hide’s Progress

www.createspace.com/ 6957658 for Six Years

www.createspace.com/ 7888004 for In The Seventh Year

www.createspace.com 7189577 for The Prophet

Insights from my practice

If you enjoy what I have posted here or my books, there is one additional place where you can look - my website.  I got started here so I remain loyal.  But updating the different channels, so I am trying to simplify.

On the last page of my website (www.anaylticalpsychologynyc.com) is a collection of insights gleaned from my practice which are reflections on questions posed in that context.  They are practical, current and fully accessible to everyone.  I’ve always felt that seeking a sense of self-importance by seasoning one’s words with too many specialist expressions.  They confuse as much as they clarify, but worse, I feel they exclude rather than include.  Like manure, knowledge is worthless unless it widely distributed.  That’ s perhaps not the best metaphor, but I’m sure you see where I’m coming from.

As always, comments, questions - anything you feel is worth thinking is probably worth saying.  I look forward to it.  And i will post one of the poems from the latest collection shortly.

And look for me on YouTube this summer.

All About Me

No poem this time, but wanted to share a thought.  The exaggerated focus on oneself, placing oneself at the center of everything - the principal objective of inappropriately named “social” media and the role played by technology in it - is the hallmark of teenagers for whom it is natural to spend huge amounts of time trying to figure out who they are.  This is the beginning of the transition from childhood to becoming an adult.  The hallmark of an adult is the realization that one is NOT the center of the world, with one’s friends, one’s music, one’s activities, even one’s news.  Odd how we speak about an interactive world when people have stopped interacting in real ways, replacing them with virtual ways, which are prone to fantasy and getting lost on that slippery slope.

And for those who have gotten stuck there, you  have no doubt noticed that after some initial excitement, we tend to find ourselves even more isolated than before.  The hole gets deeper and darker.  

So, if social media has led you to a dark place, acknowledge it.  If you feel anxiety when disconnected from the net, that’s the surest sign that their objective is being achieved - isolation you from real connection, and substituting themselves as the center of your world, though none admit it.  As their prisoners, they can sell your personal information to advertisers, making money on you and the products you may but (by the way the cost of advertising raises the price of what you buy - considerably).  

Get out for real.  Open yourselves to experience.  And if you get hurt - which is the most normal part of life (it’s how we learn, stubborn creatures that we are) - don’t worry about it.  You will come out on the other end smarter, better equipped to meet the right people, and have so much more free time once you stop social networking.  It’s a skill that requires practice.  And broken hearts always heal.  

Why am I here you might ask?  Because I write to show those who care that there is much more to life than what you can ever hope to experience through your phones, your pictures.  Your focus on yourself holds you back.  It doesn’t teach you anything you didn’t already know since that’s how its set up.  

CLOSING DOORS FIRST

We always think the future is found through an open door

It’s as if that’s all we need for a world that offers more

But who thinks of what we’ve brought along?

It’s the past we’ve carried on our backs, and to it we still belong

 It’s filled with images of various hew

Different places, different times, some old, some new

Loaded on our backs, we bend under its weight

With no realization of its influence or just how great

 The voices, the images received mostly from others

Were our first impressions of ourselves given by fathers and mothers

Like a rough sketch, to be filled in later on

It nonetheless creates the foundation we will build upon

 For unnoticed by most who labor on for years

There is one theme, and it’s the mother of all fears

For it is the gift that keeps on giving, as long as we allow

Each time we approach a new field, waiting for the plough

 For we are made of the images that others shared along the    way

They tell us more what we can’t do, than how to have our own say

The reflection of others, each subjective and not assuredly benign

Though it’s right in front of us, we don’t recognize the sign

 Danger would be its first alert, setting off some bells

Too soon to evaluate its present threat, for it offers no obvious tells

In the absence of anything clear that would specifically define

The machine is set in motion, ready to block the line

 Not the case for everyone, some voices heard in our head

Yes, there are people residing there, be they living or dead

Whisper words of capacity, telling us to advance, and to be strong

They give no answers simplre, but confidence that we belong

 Yet sadly such instances of benign empowerment

Are rarely alone in residence, sharing the rent

With all the criticisms recived – some gone, others still around

Try though w may, we cannot block their sound

 They speak of years gone by, of advice given, the right thing to do

Listen carefully to their words, for they offer little new

Repeating the same message of hesitation, confirming the doubt

That it’s their version of us – not ours – that it’s all about

 Some are paralyzed by fear, others blinded by their rage

Regardless of the time or the place, or even of our age

But nowhere in this mix of muddled emotions and pain

Some set us up for failure, others enable us for gain

 The point here is to indicate, unless we are aware

That our paths are traced by others and of their warnings, beware

In fact and truth how much do we alone decide?

Who holds the tillar, who commands the ship, the ride?

 Is it me who makes the choice?

When I speak, is it mine the voice?

With each repetition, is laid another stone

Our true selves less to be known

A hybrid, a mix, a synthesis of opposing forces

Torn in different directions, pulled apart by raging horses

And before we know it we have indeed become

In this game of life, who has really won?

 Confused as to we really are, who holds the key?

Who is driving the car?  And am I really free?

So before searching for that supposed waiting door

The one with promised riches, for me in store

 The one you thought was yours, the road to something more

Check out the room, the walls and especially the floor

Is it familiar, disquieting, and have you heard it all before?

Does it offer the same thing or something new, something more?

 For born we are, each with a path, our lives spent searching for

The truth lies hidden deep within our treasure trove, our core

Yet like Frankenstein, if not of one piece but stitched together from different parts

Somehow alive yet dead, our hearts blind to possibilities and their sacred charts

Daily reminders from the past abound, calling you back home

Weekend visits, birthday celebrations, or each day on the phone

Do they point to someone place new, yours to be known

Or do they hold you back, a sin for which you will atone

 Be sure that those who defined you in days long gone by’

Why told you what was good or bad, but rarely why

Who warned you to be one way, when you wanted to be another

Thus does one get lost, courage and ambition they smother

 See who you have become when freed from their defining eye

When you look to the horizon, wherein does it lie?

Do you lift your gaze up high into the sky?

Filled with enthusiasm, can you not learn to fly?

 There you have it, two choices, two ways through two doors

Will you see your life as an adventure, or just a bunch of chores

This happens more than you think, depression rules the realm

That’s because no captain with a taste for life stands tall and holds the helm

 One choice more commom, sold as prudent, in fact its rather weak

Who made it, was it the past that did in face speak?

Or was it something coming from deep within your soul

If yes, then listen, for it will make you whole.

 Reflect on these voices and ask yourself this essential question

Is it truly your own path or the one prescribed by other’s direction?

Which do you want – theirs or one of your own confection?

Theirs is designed to fulfill their own dreams too often unrealized

How clearly do they really see you, or have they criticized?

Who you became when far from their guiding hand

After sampling life from some foreign land

A place of difference, where assumptions are not the same

Where others see you as you are, not caught in some game

 Surprsing to discover you have a face of your own

The child starts to explore, and a life waiting to be known

For if the life you had was mostly theirs

Needing, like some grown up childl their nurturing cares

 Unwittingly have you always played along?

Adjusting your trajectory when they said you were wrong

For almost never are we who are parents imagined us to be

The chains of love and obligation struggle to set your free

Blind rebellion is no valid course, for its equally defined

Even if in opposition, the past still controls your mind

It has always been this way when we had to leave the nest

Driven by need in the past, time to face the test

 For when the unknown crosses our path, opportunity arrives

And if embraced as such, it can enrich our lives

 Your dreams are filled with things too often set aside

So much easier in the daytime from oneself it is to hide

 The night’s voices may indeed be closer to your own

Listen to them, their words, their message, their tone

All questions best asked while on your way

Be mindful how strangers see you and how they hear what you say

For they come from the present with no agenda dating from your birth

Nor are they invested in your value, or your net worth

Listen carefully, for these strangers don’t know your name

They may just help you find your true game

They know only what now they see and hear

Suddenly the road looks different – not cluttered but free and clear

They have no filter and see only who you now are

Take this image for it might just take you far

For therein lies your true hidden door

Dare to go through it if from life you want more

 It truly is your future, the only one you will get

So step up to the table, and on yourelf place your bet

I’m Back

Apologies for the long absence.  I’ve been busy publishing 2 volumes of poetry (Six Years:  A Concentrate of Life, and In the 7th Year, both available on www.createspace.com/Six Years or In the 7th Year or on Amazon/com//ebooks/Six Years or In the 7th Year.  A third is in it’s finishing stages. 

Why poetry?  Because it uses a language, a blend of images and words to evoke rather than to tell, a story.  It evokes the thought instead of pushing on you.  More subtle, more powerful, more playful than prose.  What’s funny is that the only poetry I read is either Shakespeare of Dr. Seuss, the latter being my true inspiration.  

Time to reveal a bit more about me - www.analyticalpsychologynyc.com.  Have a look.  There is also a professional blog which might be of interest under “Insights From My Practice” - the last page on the website.

Here’s a sample from the upcoming collection.  As always, your thoughts are mosgt welcome

TOTEM

December 2017

In times long past

In cultures that did not last

At birth each was given

As one’s sins were forgiven

 To start life fresh, with a special friend

One connecting us in a way that would never end

An animal, from Nature’s realm

So when in need, to take the helm

 To point the way to a place secure

This was a gift immense and pure

Now look what we have done

In the name of indulgent fun

 These creatures, those who still roam wild

These beings that are Nature’s child

Their magic lost to simple pleasure

All that’s left of this immense treasure

 Is to rescue us from our solitude

Ensuring a more stable mood

As our power has grown

As technology’s seeds were sown

 As what once ruled us all

As it now stands on the precipice, ready to fall

God like now, we seem to think

Our manufactured world could never sink

 Yet signs appear from all points diverse

Things don’t have to improve, they can also get worse

Now, when the temples built to our own glory

The end to a chapter takes shape to our story

 Oh that these totems, the animals divine

Their friendship everlasting, their path a line

By their connection to this world we dismiss

Teach us once again the ground to kiss

 For born of it, a part not apart

If only we could once again hear the beat of its heart

Reminding us all is not take

Before it’s too late, that we awake.