Back in my apartment, once again sitting in front
of my computer while looking out the window ahead at the mango tree as it
begins to bud its tiny mangoes, I wonder what I am able to write that might
possibly make a difference for me or anyone else; or what I’m able to write (that
I want to write) that anyone but a few will even understand. Let’s start with
the standard system stuff and see where I end up.
Yesterday, I went to visit an eye doctor, the
fourth one in about three years. The funny thing is, with Taiwan’s national
health insurance, I don’t even get charged the usual 3-4 dollars anymore, even
for my fourth eye exam in three years.
The head of the optometry department seemed a
little skeptical: “you’ve been here four times,” he said. “I needed to
understand the procedure,” I told him. “Now I understand and I want a mono focal
intraocular lens put in for sure.” After the eye exams, which I’m extremely
familiar with by this time, he scheduled me in for early next month. In case
you’re thinking, what could be so difficult about getting an intraocular lens
put into your eye?
Well, it took me three different visits and about
three years to figure out why the price always seemed to be double what I
thought it should be. Finally, I found out that I would have to do both eyes
(including the left one through which I still see fine) if I wanted the
multifocal option. Lol, I’m still not sure if I missed something in the
translation or if it was just something that nobody bothered to tell me.
Thankfully, classes (in the classroom) will begin
tomorrow, and for this semester, I am determined to be less demanding and more
flexible with my students. Why? Because last semester, wherein I thought I was
doing these young adults a favor by helping them to learn how to be
disciplined, come to class on time, follow the syllabus instructions, etc., by
insisting on high standards, I ended up receiving lower evaluation marks from
my high level classes, which tells me that my students would probably prefer me
to be less demanding. And as the saying goes, the customer is always right.
I’ve never really liked being a hard-ass instructor anyway.
In other news, I’m still somewhat perplexed as to
what’s going on in the world. While I understand the technicalities of the mass
insanity that has been and will likely continue to spread throughout the world,
I’m not yet certain what is going on in relation to the vaccine rollout.
While it’s clear to me that the virus itself (as
far as viruses go) has and will probably continue to be beneficial to human
beings (in terms of freeing us from the enslavement of consciousness systems),
the vaccines, which apparently aren’t even vaccines as per the definition of
vaccines, are still somewhat of a mystery to me. Nevertheless, I feel that the
decision to get shot or not to get shot is a personal one that is most likely being
made on a beingness level.Metaphorically
speaking, perhaps it’s like choosing the red pill or the blue pill.
In the news, which I barely read any more these
days, everything seems more and more senseless – as though the reality of
humanity is crumbling. Thus I am focusing more on myself and what is right here
in front of me. As I haven’t been swimming in about five months, I bought some
exercise equipment and have begun exercising regularly in my apartment and
walking in the hills whenever I get the opportunity. And the photo above is from the Lunar new year celebrations at my partner's family home in the countryside.
I do so appreciate being able to pack my
things into my car at the of every summer and go back to school just as I used
to, minus the distress that used to accompany me in terms of finances, having
to find a place to live, convincing the university to let me pay them later,
and so many more difficulties that used to make going back to school more like
a complex scam that I had to pull off rather than a youthful adventure. In
hindsight, I guess it was a little of both. Nowadays though, it’s all
opportunity.
For example, rather than positioning
myself to get as much as I can from the system (as I used to), I aim to
expressly give and receive unconditionally from the within to the without with
the intention of creating a free-flowing circle of life/living - from the within of
I/myself to the without as all of me. That’s my starting-point intention, the
design of which is as always, still a work in progress - as I process ego out of the design of myself.
On a side note (that I suddenly found myself
writing - until I stopped) I wonder if in terms of the whole of existence,
there is just one physical body that is all of “me” as the sum-total of
everything, and whereas “I” would simply be one location-point of awareness
within the cell I call “myself” in relation to the rest of the whole as “me.”
Yep, I guess, if you were to merge all of the dimensions together again and
eliminate all of the cell liners of separation, that’s what would be left, one
consisting of everything - which is how it was just before the beginning.
Anyway, having looked at, seen and written a
lot about many things, mostly just my ponderings, I once again realize how
utterly inverted everything has become - and thankfully, I’m not the only one that sees this. I have always enjoyed hanging out with the country folk and the
mountain people because, whereas their comprehension of the system often seems more limited, they also often seem to have more of a certain wisdom about them that I rarely
ever see in the higher echelons of the world system.
For example, the other day
in a meeting, I curiously asked my boss about what the people in the top levels
of the system think about this virus, do they really believe that it’s a deadly
biological threat to us all? His reply, they think it is much, much worse. Now
contrast this with my day to day reality.
In returning to school during the pre-arrival
week, as I was approaching one of the buildings to go to the office, I stopped
to enjoy the large crowds of students all gathered together socializing and
watching groups of other students perform various cultural dances. After
finishing the Google form and getting the Ok to enter the building, I realized
that I hadn’t yet put on a face mask - because most of the hundreds of other
people were also not wearing one. So I asked the woman, do I need to put on a
face mask to enter the building? The woman replied, “no, that rule won’t start
until next week.”
And now I’m going for a walk in the hills.
When I came back, the farmer in the video above gave me some fruit
that he and his wife had just picked.
