Wednesday Morning Journal

I’m feeling a failure.  It’s something that comes over me in waves.  I’ve got this aging thing happening. Like I’ve had my time and blown it. There were so many dreams and they’ve gone past. The first was family. The decisions and abortions took those. The glass is half empty. I had this belief that I’d save the world in some way in medicine, make things better. I was a cog in the machine. I served my time. I did my part in a thousand little ways but I was plagued by the complaint that always comes to those who want to change something. The reformer is the enemy of all who benefit from the status quo.  The corruption and deceit in the system is putrid to the max and yet others move along stepping around the cesspools. I waded right in and began with a bucket to no avail.  There’s a cesspool swamp in every system. I learned that too late. I look back on years of frustration. There was always this really scummy dirty ignorant person in a position of leadership.  They were killing people and I couldn’t stop them because there was always someone holding me back.  Mostly that was to save my life. The amount of money in killing is amazing. Healing gets a fraction. The big boys and big girls dish out death like it was a fashion designer item.
Spirituality teaches me to look for the positive. Use both hands and pull my head out of my ass. Look back on your life and see the successes.  You’re still alive. Others have died. You’ve been in multiple crashes and walked away. Others are missing limbs. You’ve known incredible stress especially dealing with the corruption of government and the lies of authorities and the theft of the finances meant for services but you’ve not had a heart attack. The stress has been countered by exercise and meditation, family and friends. Others are dying of chronic disease because they’ve had to deal with these same assholes in their own worlds. Cancers come from stress as do all the diseases.  Acute stress is what our bodies are built for not the chronic debilitating stress of endless legal cases and beaurocratic miasma’s that go on for years.
Daily I’ve been required to make a decision , a diagnosis and a recommendation in less than a hour.  I’m on the front line.  Step back one leadership position and they form a committee to make a lesser decision. Step back one more leadership position and they have an enquiry. Step back another leadership position and they have a review. All of these ‘processes’ are to ensure that nothing gets done till maximum graft has been taken from the system and that the ones deepest in the shit have been able to get out and move to more lucrative grounds.  I get paid x for making a decision.  The next level gets 2 x and then 3x and 4 x.  The longer one can delay making a decision in the courts and bureaucracy the more money and power one has.  We’re living in a world of siege mentality.
And every year I’ve tried to stop someone killing some baby somewhere. And I’ve been punished and humiliated and shut up year after year.  I feel like my life could be called one baby too far. I’ve just tried to save one life too many and someone a whole lot higher wanted that life killed. It’s the Morgentaller system. The whole abortion industry of our times. It’s a metaphor.  Like Solyent Green.
And spirituality calls this my personal ‘black dog’. , my ‘depressive thinking’.  I must daily struggle to focus on the positives. Today the worm of despair entered my mind when I read in the papers how a colleague I know as the most deceitful and psychopathic is being rewarded.  It’s like the Aliens with a hidden head and no heart have a little gift ceremony for their cronies and this guys name comes up.
I see it with mixed envy and horror.  It’s like Hitler getting the Nobel Prize. Who can want a Nobel Prize after Hitler gets it.  I see this and wonder as always am I wrong. Was this fellow a good guy. He’s rich and famous now and I knew him as the liar and cheat. I personally know a fellow who let people die and ensured that others were seriously hurt, who sold out everyone and he got ahead.
So my cognitive behaviour therapy teaches me that I have to focus on those who are good people.  I can’t let the drop of ink discolour all the water. I just heard a lovely woman I know won a beauty contest.  A fellow I think is great got a job. My favourite person in academia got a professorship.  Another friend’s book was awarded. There’s all manner of positives there if I can just focus on them.
I wake up now and drag myself out of bed. There’s a whole lot of aches.The dog is ecstatic. He bounces on me.  When I get his leash he barks.  He’s exuberant. He’s loving life. He’s showing me what we both should be doing. I walk him outside down to the park. He sniffs up a storm then has a marvellous bowel movement.  I scoop it up and put it into the container.  He’s happy to walk back with me pulling on the leash.
I think maybe I’d better stop reading the medical news in the morning.  I’ve all but stopped listening to CBC.  I feel like increasingly I’m becoming monastic turning away from the insanity of the world.  I see that a whole lot of the folk I went to school with are hunkering down. They’re retired and kind of preparing for death.  They’ve taken what ever crumbs they’ve been offered and have got out. They don’t plan to do more and are kind of like kids on summer vacation. They don’t think of the future. They don’t particularly care what’s happening in politics.  They’re prepared for Armageddon and mostly just looking to their individual comfort.  I remember dad began fishing seriously when he was my age.  Fame is foolish.  Fortune makes more sense but it’s pretty obvious most of the casinos are rigged in some way. The house always wins.  Maybe next time around the karmic reincarnation cycle I’ll have more tools to win against the bank.
I read about St. John of the Cross in prison for 11 months being flogged every week or so for the entertainment of his fellow monks, the ones who didn’t like the reforms he’d tried to make.  It’s in failure that we find Christ. If I had a room full of sex objects, cocaine and bags of money and a personal army and world leaders dropping by to give me prizes I’d not think of inward riches, those infinite glories that surpass death.  Here it’s about the temporal. I’ve been given all manner of awards and made fortunes.  I’ve delivered babies and had so many children treat me with love and respect. I’ve a full life. I’ve been blessed beyond my wildest dreams.  If I measure my success from the bottom up. It’s success. But if I measure my success from the top down, from my not being an astronaut flying to Mars for instance, then yes my life is a failure.  I haven’t written the great canadian novel, found the cure for all cancer or developed a faster than light space ship.  I’ve been humbled by the reality of limitations.  I’ve done my part. I’ve contributed. I’ve paid taxes. I’ve worked and been a good man when the temptations were overwhelming to be other.  I’m not particularly wanting to be flogged every week so that I can compose the ‘long dark night of the soul’ to point the direction to the infinite. I’m kind of focussed on comfortable. Now I must get to work.  Mid week.  A few more days to go.  The weekends are always down hill.
Thank you Jesus for opening an individual door of communication with the infinite.