Life Gift
Share Article To feel better, clean my heart, purge old fears and improve the quality of life I climbed down to donate a pint at The Blood Bank. Good old hemoglobin.
Suffering from cancer, a hospitalized child I will never meet, know, or love needs platelets more than I do. It’s been sixty-four clicks of Earth’s rotation between donations. It’s the best re-cycling program on the planet.
Give the gift of life that keeps on giving.
My calmness meets a scared mother pacing sterile emergency rooms at Sacred Heart Hospital wondering if her daughter will receive essential ingredients in time.
A solemn-faced, stressed out cardiovascular lab tech with his personal set of challenges and opportunities, said to her, “At this moment we have no matching donors. We’ve released a global search engine to see what’s available on the market. People are selling short to cut their losses. It’s all about supply, demand and the fear of poverty. Scarcity. There are indications of further interest rate cuts to stimulate consumer confidence. We have no immediate indication of a stimulus. We will keep you informed.”
The mother doesn’t need to hear this prattle from a white lab coat.
Fingering her bone prayer beads, skeleton heads shake, rattle and roll. Fingers caress thorns. Everything happens by accident on purpose in her life, speaking of destiny, fate and chance. Life for her and millions in the land of the free, home of the brave and broke is free will versus random chance.
Everything’s already happened. People need to experience it while confronting their shadow and alienation, loneliness and loving community in a corrupt, cynical, hysterical greed-based world where people try to Control their fear.
Write FEAR & ANGER on a paper napkin.
Burn it.
Let go.
Citizen sheep believed in fear and unsustainable consumption because they were afraid of being lonely and poor.
Happiness is a myth. The wish of desire said so.
Humans were willing victims of their fear, healthy uncertainty, and doubt. Their amygdala, a small almond shaped brain structure creating fear and emotional response fired up. Fight or flight?
Are you the hunter or the prey?
Manipulated by the collective unconscious and a pervasive system of socialization control mechanisms, consumer sheep were happy. The subtle influence of right wing conservatives and media addiction bought idiots. Facing their mind-numbing daily grind with heart breaking choices sheep needed someone/something to Control them.
Accepting responsibility for their freedom was scary.
Intelligent centered ones feeling gratitude and empathy in their heart danced with Death. Everyone lives and dies.
“You work, breed and get slaughtered,” said an Asian child with a junior philosopher badge.
It’s essential to die once while you’re alive. Get it out of the way.
Saigon amputee, knife sharpening man.
*
I carried a copy of Omar’s book, A Century Is Nothing from Turkey to Indonesia to Nam in 2009.
Together with Omar we used fire, this crucible of alchemical combinations, diversities, sweat, blood and tears to create it so I’d use fire to release it. Save books, build a library.
Books are universes of ideas, experiences, feelings, visions, paths, and destinations obliterated through discovery, reminding memory. They are worlds of dreams, stories, dramas, plays, songs, histories and guides into new visceral experiences.
Pages sing their laughter with wisdom, song, and poetry. Preserve memory. Live forever with paper’s tactile voice. Voices of reason, comedy, and tragedy are skintight drum stories. They are oral transmissions recorded on parchment, vellum, and illustrated manuscripts in Irish Gaelic talking tongues, Sumerian clay and Asian scrolls.
I didn’t burn it, a way of sacrifice offering and letting go. Down the road in Saigon I gifted the brick to three Asian women. They had Chinese ancestry from Hong Kong and lived in Australia.
I said a friend wrote it so I signed it and laughed letting it travel with them. Thanks for the book. You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy it. It took all three to carry it. They staggered up guesthouse stairs with the tome.
After breaking down a wall they struggled to get it through an opening. People need to break down before they break through. Maneuvering it into a bag they discarded cheap Vietnamese souvenirs. We’ll have to check this monster all the way to Sydney.
Saigon piano practice
