The title to yesterday’s post referred to huge shifts in my own life, though I did not state that in the title. I imagine now, that many readers expected it to be about huge shifts everywhere, outside my own little world. Instead, I offered myself as an example, without explicitly saying so.
Are our own lives not fractals of everything, everywhere?
Okay, one more huge shift yesterday, which slammed into me after I had already posted. I’m afraid I forgot for awhile, to become the trees, become the stream. . .
Oh I knew that I needed to, but frankly, my emotions were rocketing around, and I just had to wait for them to settle.
Here it is:
After texting several times, and not hearing back, from the 29-year-old graduate student who was scheduled to move into Adam’s room yesterday, and who had paid the $200 to hold this room; wondering when he would arrive, and would I get his room cleaned in time? — he finally texted me a short message: “Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it. Had to withdraw last second, due to financial difficulties.”
To which I texted back, stunned and furious: “And you’re just now telling me this?” (August 1 is traditional lease signing date in this college town).
Another graduate student had wanted his room earlier, one who would have been a perfect fit. Unfortunately, I had had to tell him it was already filled . . . And now it wasn’t. I called him. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I have already signed a lease.” But he wants to come to Community Dinners . . .
But what really riled me was, frankly, the lack of apology, or any processing whatsoever, from the 29-year-old who, I assumed, because he was 29, and had already been around the block a few times, he would have learned to do so.
But I forget what generation I’m dealing with. I forget what our cancel culture has degenerated into . . .
And I also forgot to wonder what it’s like for him, not to be able to do what he had planned on. And likely, too embarrassed, to admit it to me, until forced.
All of which reminds me . . .
My own turbulence increased a thousand-fold when I listened to the audio where Michael Jaco interviews Ole Dammegard, likely the number one “conspiracy theorist” (theory, he claims, means “to make visible” . . .) in dissecting, and revealing the details of false flags, major psyops that grab our attention, to both demoralize and distract us from whatever else “they” don’t want us to know about.
Check this out, if you dare. In fact, listen to the whole damn thing.
I admit, I may have been conned. Like millions of others, I may have been conned. And I also admit, that the iconic close-up photo, of Trump down, his face and ear bloodied . . .
. . . always bothered me on a subliminal level. How did a photographer get that close, at that second, to get that shot? Dammegard doesn’t discuss that shot, but he does thoroughly investigate the iconic “fight fight fight” shot, where is standing, fist raised, supposed secret service folks supporting him and flag behind. The shot that’s supposed to subconsciously remind us of the soldiers carrying the flag up the hill at Iwo Jima — which he also debunks, says that was staged for the camera the day after the island was finally captured by the military.
Another thing that bothered me, before I listened to Dammegard. And that’s the short take a few days ago, where Trump is being interviewed by a hostile black woman in what seems the color of the week, tiffany blue; and in the middle of it, he suddenly raises his hand and grabs a water bottle that is a few feet from where he’s sitting, twists it tight, and puts it back. As he puts it back, the camera pans back, to include the woman. It was her water bottle!
Or did he really tighten the cap?
If so, the ease with which he played this little joke on his latest opponent, his naturalness, did me in. Made me think of that photo of his face near the ground, above. How natural that seemed. But was it real, or was it staged?
Back in 1972, during my oral defense of my doctoral dissertation in philosophy at Boston University, the panel became so disgusted with my thoroughly unconventional attitude that one of them finally asked me, as if the question was sure to take me down: “Okay, Ms. Cudmore (my name back then; my sons’ father’s name) . . . Since you think there’s a fine line between fiction and fact, give us an example.” I thought for a moment, and then shot back: “My (then five year-old) son Colin asked me a few days ago: “Mom, which is more real — my dreams or yesterday?”
Well, that response did them in. They banished me to a room across the hall, while they debated my fate.
In the end, they only made me change one thing, the title: “This Is Not A Book about Wittgenstein.”
I’ve told this story before — and BTW, if you’re interested in Colin Cudmore now, see my daily posts on his already year-long healing journey ; that I was noticing the collective smearing between fiction and fact way back then, over 50 years ago, astonishes me. But it shouldn’t. I had already been PTSD’ed by the Kennedy Assasination (plus the other two, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, in short order) — and the jokester Warren Commission that followed. I was already red-pilled, as we say now. But what still surprises me, is how I can still be conned. Thank you, Ole Dammegard.
But, Ole: what about the fact that after a couple of days he took off the ear bandage, showing a perfectly normal ear. Rather than keeping a bandage on it, even though it may have been perfectly fine all along, pretending that it had taken a bullet, he shows off his perfectly fine ear? If so, why? Why would he lead us on to think that the whole thing was a joke, unless he meant for us to find out?
AND THAT QUESTION LEADS DOWN A WHOLE OTHER BUNCH OF RABBIT HOLES . . .
Want to go crazy, Ann? Or want to maintain your sanity.
If the latter, then best to focus locally. Right here and now. Pay attention to every blessed moment, the mysterious, infinite spaciousness, the presence. Be as real as possible. Follow the Four Agreements. In my own language, they are:
Be impeccable with my language. I.e., don’t speak with intent to deceive, and try to be aware of where I am being deceived, so that I don’t pass it on to others. Shadow work!
Live from the inside out rather than the outside in. (I.e., ignore what others think of me, my “reputation.”)
Don’t make assumptions. Don’t presume to judge. Which I always do! Always! I take cues from someone’s appearance, age, dress, language, manner, on and on, and draw conclusions, almost instantly. I’m usually wrong. For example here, my assumption that the 29-year-old would be old enough to act like an adult. But what is an adult? Different standards for different generations. Which of course, as a member of a dying-off generation that prefers to work through difficulties until both parties are once again harmonized, means I was profoundly disappointed by the 29-year-old’s attitude.
Let it go, Ann!
And the fourth agreement: Do the best you can, every single day, every single hour; your capacity will, obviously fluctuate, due to all sorts of variables, not the least of them being, like now, the internal Uranian turbulence. My expectations, always of a future that never, ever, actually turns out the way I had foolishly hoped for. Hopium IS the name of the game.
See again, Dammegard, but realize that he too, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, despite his intense rabbit hole investigative ability; as he would be the first to admit!
