Image by M. Mesplé 2013
Whew, I feel like I have had my head in a plastic bag breathing the same stale air for way too long! Even if that bag was a bag from a health food store it was so organically suffocating! Okay, the Metaphor is all about being and feeling stagnate, useless, non-productive and generally hopeless. A self inflicted suffocation is often hard to accept hence the ridiculous length of time it takes to recognize we are our own executioners! Self induced punishment is just stupid but unfortunately it is not until our spirit is almost dead that the proverbial light bulb goes off! The light bulb that reveals those great ideas hiding in the dark recesses of our mind. That 'ol light bulb revealed to me that I needed to get my act together and get away from FACEBOOK. I believe it will eventually be proven that many a life is lost to the mental vacuum that happens when sitting in front of the computer screen or transfixed to your Smartphone checking "your wall" or "your news feed" as if those pages are critical life support in today's society. I snapped out of it and started counting my brain cells only to discover I had lost a large number of neurons but fortunately with a new paradigm of thought I know how to self induce Neurogenesis. I do! I hope!
Photo by M.Mesplé 2013
My face had that blank look as I consumed all the commentary posted about the world's condition and global perspectives of life which is good; diversity is healthy. But more specifically, most of my news was from my circle of connections comprised of family, friends, acquaintances, and those random strangers from near and far away. Those random strangers would become friends because of an affinity that would develop between us. That affinity between myself and a stranger was born from similar likes exposed via news feeds or games. Friendships created exclusively via written opinions or game scores or little virtual tokens would inspire the friend request and its acceptance and soon my circle of friends bloomed like a huge peony! It is not uncommon for many people have 300, 400, or even 2,000 friends! But, seriously, even in the land of the 3-D I can't fill up my fingers and toes with names of local friends! So I diverge and now back to my suffocation: I would get online and my whole countenance would change and my face would get that look, that stare, and that washed out lack of expression that eeriely confirms zombies exist. The zombiefied face is proof that life is being sucked out of your aura and carried away by electrons and ghost particles that deposit your life force bit by bit into a "cloud" somewhere other worldly, or down the street. Enough! I screamed inside and out, Enough!!!!!!
Photo by M.Mesplé 2010
It is not that Facebook does not have a good side, it does. I so enjoyed sharing my playtime with my grandchildren or showing pictures of my latest magical concoction in the kitchen or sharing my inspirational musings but there is a side to Facebook that is demoralizing for me personally. I just had enough! I had enough and knew I had enough every time I felt my heart ache and my stomach knot up in pain and my chest tighten and I could no longer be objective about what I was reading. I could no longer just stare blankly at nor be unmoved by words and or images that glorify automatic weaponry designed specifically for killing human beings included in the same sentence expressing one's undying love for God. I began to twitch when I would read about how filthy and stupid and manipulating Mexican's here in the U.S. illegally (and legally) are because of course they know how to pull the wool over our government's eyes and get everything for free AND all Mexican women scheme and plan on having children only to receive welfare checks! How stupid am I, eh? All these years I could have just gone into the baby making business and not work like a "real American"! After all, I have enough Mexican blood in me straight from Chihuahua Mexico courtesy of my Great Grandmother Refugeo! I could have made a fortune but my baby making days are gone and so too is that gold mine of an opportunity. No, I am not serious about making money having babies and I take offense with anyone who believes this nonsense is true for "Mexicans". Makes me want to eat nails and spit razor blades!
So, every night I would sign onto Facebook with my plastic bag over my head and put a lot of effort into being happy and objective while my stomach would twist in knots and my chest muscles would tighten down and make it difficult for me to breathe. Why? Why is because in addition to post about guns and God and illegal Mexicans I began to seeing more and more post implying God cares about money and God wants his people to make lots of money and tithe lots of money to the church so that the church can go out and find more souls to make more money to tithe more and on and on and on! BUT when it comes to starving children then God's opinion was a bit different according to a lot of people dumping information into Facebook's news feeds. I read people's statements, opinions, and endorsements inferring that God saw starving children having only themselves and their parents to blame damn it AND people who don't have a job are lazy S.O.B.s! People on unemployment and or receiving food stamps are obviously lazy no good drug addicts or freeloaders that only want to mooch off of those who do have a job (and they have a job because God loves them). What? Yes!!! AND the hateful, judgmental commentary only worsened. Here is where that plastic bag over my head began to kill me and here is where I have to raise my hand, and stand up and admit that I became filled with raging anger and nauseating disgust and searing pain in my heart and soul. People passing judgment on children and their parents and speaking as if they personally are witness to these so called scum bags taking "their" hard earned money is just about as ignorant as one can get. For me, I am speaking about an area where I have real living experience and I know about being part Mexican, I know about being without food and being without clothes and I know about begging for crumbs and stealing to eat and ... UGH!!!!!!!! I have known of 2 people in my life that truly sucked off the system deliberately and neither one of them is of Mexican heritage and both are beautiful Caucasion women and between them both they only have 3 children. I grew up with guns and God and military and real Vaqueros. I lived for a time when I had no one to care for me, when I watched rats and mice have more to eat than myself or my brothers. I lived where I would play "catch ya" with cockroaches by flipping on and off the light switches and counting how many roaches I could see before the disappeared into the walls. I could go on but I am wanting to get some fresh air.
Homeless Children photo from Safe and Ready Life
I have wonderful friends coaching me to just ignore certain people and be yourself and to not take Facebook so seriously. I don't take Facebook seriously; I take narrow minded racist hate filled ignorant commentary by real people seriously and to heart and it hurts. I can't live with my head inside a plastic bag called Facebook and pretend that everything is okay and that people will just be silly la la la la! No, I cannot do that. I feel that by being on Facebook I am endorsing those hateful people to continue to be hateful. By swallowing my anger I am letting the bully bully me and give away my power. By spending my time on Facebook I am letting myself disappear into the far reaches of another world that does not fit my soul's expression nor does it reflect my soul's desires. Again, I am not implying that everyone who uses Facebook is an arse for certainly I have used Facebook a lot since 2006. I have really enjoyed my Facebook time and I have developed real long lasting friendships. I am stating that Facebook has become a venue where a nasty side of our society has a huge voice and I am sorry, I don't have time for nor do I support ugliness. I need to breathe! I need to have my days filled with creative adventures and I need to give expression to my soul 100%. I can live without a constant news feed and without a wall and without watching people whom I thought I knew reveal that I never really knew them. Of course, my perspective of life is only as wide as my path and I know that I have my shadows and that I pass judgment and that I could use a lot more devotion to forgiveness BUT I also know that without Facebook I begin to have clarity about me and what I want and what I need ... and I realize that I don't need to suffocate myself with that damn plastic bag.
B R E A T H E and thrive and be alive!
