Comments and Further Clarification

I'm going to take a break from reporting on the Odyssey while I compile some more video footage.  This last week was a good one overall and I'm adjusting to this new life fairly well.  It is nice that it is taking place in the spring I guess. 

Now for a bit of house cleaning...

Many people have misunderstood what this "Odyssey" has been about.  I want to clarify it again, just briefly, before I continue on with more important matters.

It is disappointing to me to see how a person's past accomplishments can be thrown away in favor of the image that they project temporarily at any one time.  The conventional memes and prejudices of American society are a merciless and illogical magic--but a powerful one all the same.

Even the respect and love I have always gotten from my own family is quite dissolved by how they think they are supposed to treat me now as a "homeless" person.  Pavlov was dead-on when it comes to mammalian behavior.  Lacking foresight, humans will always revert to automatic assumptions and biases.  Homeless people are lazy, drunk and foolish.  They are losers.  They are seen to CHOOSE the life they are leading.  So it is their fault if they are uncomfortable, struggling for money, unwashed.  They need to be clumped together and then pigeon-holed on a case-by-case basis.  They need "tough love."  How will they ever pull themselves up, if we give them any financial or emotional support?  They need to be "taught a lesson."  Well, for me, the only lesson I've learned is that the Christian morality that was preached down my throat as a child, is not worth practicing on me as an adult.

The homeless deserve what they are going through, because in some way or other they have refused to buy into every convention of society--and everyone knows that buying-in is the only acceptable form of participation.  In my case it makes no difference that I am not lazy, not drunk, not foolish, not a loser, not choosing this life and simply had things that happen that were not my fault.   Why would anyone want to know the story?  Knowing it would mean actually thinking.  It is the image one projects that means EVERYTHING.  So, I am to be shunned, because that's just what you do to someone who's equation has had more negative numbers than positive ones.

Except for a few people, I have not been supported at all by this once-loving family.  I guess I am an embarrassment for them...they have forgotten quickly all the times in my past that I have done things that made them exceedingly proud - things they had never seen other people do.  Yes, in my family, memories are short and thus so is their sightedness.  This is especially true with my very ignorant, presumptuous and self-righteous parents.  I say this rather deliberately, as today (yesterday now) is Mother's Day.  John Lennon knew.  Old age has made them blind.  Childhood memories are like a fiction now.  I want to look back and feel nostalgia.  Instead I only feel betrayal and emptiness.

My friends however aren't quite as tainted by the specter of my circumstances, nor are they bound by the slavery of society's out-moded expectations and labels.  They are not blind.  They still believe.  And well they should!  They know that this will not be my ultimate fate.  They see further.  I have a long way to go still in life.  I will be back on top of my game sooner rather than later, and ten times as strong for going through this hell.  My story is not written.  I am still writing it.  The people in the second half of this story will be the ones who stuck by me.  And they will participate along with me in the successes of the future.  I AM strong.  I AM confident of eventual success.  And I have an iron will.  I have another Father who is my partner in all of this, and He NEVER loses.

Let me say once and for all...

I do not want to spend every daylight hour walking the streets.  I do not want to spend every night sleeping in a dusty attic.  I want, and will get, my cats back.  I want, and will get, a new place to live in.  I want, and will get, an income source that supports these things.  This time in the wilderness is NOT for adventure.  It may BE an adventure, but that is not the point.  The point is, I have had some set-backs in my life and am going to document them, along with my triumph over them.  Most people go through these kinds of things privately.  I am simply too restless and have too much to say to just submit to the darkness that is trying to drag me down.  I want to illustrate the transition from one secure living space to another secure living space.  But why should I stay silent about what I am experiencing and the philosophical insights that arise in between?  It is my strong belief that someday this documentation will mean a great deal to someone; maybe even many people.

I believe and so should all of you.

Peace and Light will triumph.