Happiness & Lasting Joy: The Freight Train Coming

Looking over my shoulder at life, there's ironic cyclicty to my behavior. When I was a child I followed my bliss. I was at the mercy of impulses & I lived in fear. I got injured a lot. Pain & fear have never confronted me. They only harden my resolve. It turns out that fundamental tendency to "harden" was reflected in my skeleton as well. I have a genetic trait that causes my body to lay down additional bony matter whenever there is insult to my skeleton. It probably saved my life: My father had hit me with such regularity in the face & head that, by the time the horse kicked me in the head, it was a very hard skull. Over time my past "injuries" came to burden me physically & mentally. "Anticipated outcomes" directed my choices by the time I was 35. I considered outcomes (instead of principle) before acting - and this was, to the world's standards, my "maturation".

I'm limit tester & realm cracker. I cannot long abide any limitation. "Limitations are for transcending. Barriers are for cracking." Being reflective, I noticed I still got hurt, just as often & I went into physical & mental retreat, "precipitated", like the new bony matter I laid down in my feet at the same time, by the death of my Father & "hardened" by the deaths of 3 core family members, & my closest friend, all in the course of seven years. I grew unwell & obviously "burdened" while I buttressed my "foundations" & considered outcomes. 3 years ago I decided to "Rise again". That second summer was triggered by an understanding: We all die but living & dying by principles is the only way I could be happy with my Self. It was the only outcome I could "abide", Dude.

My body echoed the changed mindset. I appear to be getting younger. Women my age are prone to osteoporosis. I am a stone. The laws of physics appear to be, for me, only "suggestions". Freedom. My behavior is directed by principle & only honed by "likely outcomes". "Situational happiness" has been transcended. It has been replaced by the Lasting Joy that only the truly Free can understand: by those who are not so concerned with "outcomes' as they are with "principle".

Lasting Joy cannot be approached while focused on passing pleasure. In fact, so long as one pursues passing pleasure, they will never transcend the limitations situations impose upon their happiness. To get to the state of "Lasting Joy" one cannot take a layover in Atlanta & enjoy the peaches. NO, to find Lasting Joy one must liberate action to principle. Two sorts of people know this: Those who have made a point of getting what they wanted find that one passing pleasure gave way to the next & none result in Lasting Joy. One must be circumspect, & discerning, when living out this sort of dream to "get the message". While those who have lived through a lot of pain & adversity catch on early & decide to "escape the confines of the dream entirely".

When I was a kid, I once tried for nearly two hours to teach my little sister how to leap from the roof of the garage & stand upon a BIG knot tied in the end of a rope I had hung in a tree adjacent to the garage. She saw me leaping & swinging with Liberated Joy. She asked me to teach her. After showing her many times & seeing her get into perfect position & balk, I pushed her from the roof. She exercised the maneuver perfectly & screamed in rage at me for my treachery -- but she learned to be free.

She was angry with me but I didn't care. I had given her something that could open any lock that secured any gate Life seemed to close before her. I had advanced her towards Lasting Joy.

I bless every person who ever "pushed me from the roof" & I am looking forward to a man with stones enough to pitch me from the plane. I'll either fly & laugh with delight or I'll tumble. Either way I'll be free and he's not likely to have to deal with my wrath.