Finding Answers

It's funny the stuff you find when you go looking for answers to all your questions--and how fast you find them. I told a friend I want to find the solutions to all my problems tied up in one neat little bundle on the Internet. Why not? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be these days? We just do simple searches and voila! there's your answer. The problem with searches is that there are too many neat little bundles on the list. How does one choose? Is what fixes my problems the same thing that will fix your problems? Probably not. 

I grew up in a crappy environment. My parents divorced when I was five years-old. The day I was informed of this calamity was my first day of kindergarten. Imagine! I loved my Dad beyond words. He was the first man/friend/artist/humorist/humanitarian in my life and my beastly mother was kicking him to the curb. I was never given reasons. It was-what-it-was and my tiny mind had to accept it without question. Besides, the responses to questions in our house were usually either non-existent, sarcastic or angry. Still, it could have been worse. We had a roof over our heads, food to eat and clothes to wear. We laughed sometimes, especially when Mom wasn't home. So, according to everything I've ever heard or read, indeed,  it could have been worse. But we're each born with our own unique genetic makeup. Someone else raised in that environment might have thrived, another might have turned into a hardened criminal. I suppose I was sort of middle-of-the-road. Throwing screwed-up psychological genetics into the mix I became rebellious, followed by alcoholic and suicidal. But, hey, that's just me. I'm old enough that when I first sought help I was greeted with, "There's nothing wrong with you." and, "Don't tell anyone you have a problem." Now we live in an era where there's something wrong with you if you don't have a problem and ultimately I stumbled my way through therapy and sobriety. But I'm still looking for--answers.

As I said in my last post, I know I want to slay the Jabberwocky and then I decided there's more than one Jabberwocky in my life. Lots of Jabberwockys in fact, and I'm not Alice. So I was going to make a list of Jabberwockys and kill them one by one. I was going to write about all my accomplishments so that whoever reads this blog could be in awe of my progress. And then . . . I went back to sleep. I said I'm not Alice. 

When I got up I dawdled, I sighed, I thought, I pondered and I continued my Internet search for "The Answer." I began finding lots of people with lots of questions searching for lots of answers. One of these seekers led me to a long deceased man named Alan Watts. His name sounded familiar but when I went to visit one of his youtube videos I didn't know he was dead. In fact, he sounded . . . current, completely relevant. He said things I know; he said things I didn't know; he reminded me of things I'd forgotten. He was funny, and that's always a plus in my book. But what he did most for me was remind me of our interconnectedness. My spellcheck tells me that's not a word, but it is. It's a very important word. It means exactly what it sounds like it means. We are all connected in a very important way. In fact, according to what I believe, EVERYTHING is connected in a very important way. I believe in the Higgs Boson. It's the glue that holds everything together. I'm not gonna go all scientific on you, or spiritual, for that matter. You have enough to think about and worry about and question. But if you think like I think, you might want to consider reading some of Alan Watts books. You also might want to watch programs like Through the Wormhole. As crazy as it might sound to some people, I've found comfort in thinking about the cosmos and things we can't possibly prove. 

Maybe I'm more like Alice than I believed and maybe I AM the Jabberwocky.