Worry

Have always felt that to worry was and is a waste of time. But today I am uneasy as my wife who just had eye surgery last week is having problems. Yesterday when the stitch was removed, it didn’t come out as it should have and caused a problem, so today she must go back in for more surgery on that eye. Whether I worry or not, the out come will be the same. But still, it bothers me to want the best for her and knowing that nothing I do or want makes any difference.

To me worry is the cause of most of the illness we have in this country. Worry is stress and stress kills the mind and body. The body is or ought to be a finely tuned machine, start stressing that machine and parts start to brake down. Always loved that Adel Davis, a health nut about eating right to keep from getting cancer and such, died from cancer. Yule Kippens,(not sure how that name is spelled)  another health nut who said you could eat pine nuts all the time on TV also died from cancer. One of the Kellogg’s brothers, the one who was a health nut died I think from a heart attack. So much for being healthy. There are people who drink and smoke everyday of their lives and live to be a hundred, others walk out from passing a physcial with flying colors and die outside the doctors office.  I believe that the stress of worrying about keeping from getting cancer is what caused the cancer of those health nuts.

My sister is an ex-smoker and I never hear the end of her telling me Ishould quit. Our mother died from lung cancer, but she had quit smoking some 20 years or so before, so much for being healthier by quiting. Some say if it is in the genes you will get it. That is where worry and stress come into picture for me. When it shows up, you can stop worrying, there is nothing to worry about anymore, I guess one could start worry about how soon one might die though. But at least one doesn’t have to worry about getting cancer any more.

Worry can also go un-noticed in ones life. The day I told my brother that he had out lived our father, you could see the tension drop right out of his face and body. I don’t think he was even aware that he had that worry in him. I sure didn’t know it. But worry and tension can hide within and eat away at the life force of a person. So long ago I quit worrying about things as best I could. What happens will happen. I always hope for the best, expect the worst and accept what happens. Can’t really say it could have been worse, cause it wasn’t, can’t say it could have been better cause it wasn’t, it is as it is.

Have always wondered about those who pray to a god for the best out come and then don’t get it. If it goes right for them they can say a god answered their prayers, but what reason can they have for a god not answering that prayer? Does god think they are not worthy? Is it the plan for god to be taking a soul into heaven despite what the person or people praying want? God moves in mysterious ways is just a why of saying one doesn’t know and one can keep believing any how. Of course if one puts the out come in a gods hands, one need not worry about it, that at least is good for ones health I’d say. So I have found one good reason for the belief in a god.

One can fall from a three story building and live, one can fall off a foot stool and die, no rhyme or reason to it. When ones number is up, that is it. But I have to wonder about that. I had by-pass surgery some 11 years ago, so the question is, did I cheat death by doing that? Am I living on borrowed time? Considering the over all out come, I am not sure that death might not have been a better deal for me. Sure I have gotten to spend these many years with the woman I love, but the side effect I have to live with is mean to me. Before I had the surgery, I could handle the heat and cold of this world, now I cannot. I am trapped indoors most of the time because it is too hot or too cold for me to go out and do the things I used to do and still want to do. Alive, but a prisoner from living life, a fair trade? I had a choice at the time before the surgery. Spend what time the doctors thought I had left with my love or chance death on the table and lose that time, or do the surgery and have years with my love or lose her by dieing on the table. I tease my love with that, the old Chinese saying that if you save a persons life, you are responsible for that life. I did the operation because she wanted me to do it, she was willing to gamble my life away for a chance that she would have more years with me. Now to make this story a little more interesting, the time frame for this decision was less than 12 hours, the doctors didn’t I would last the night if didn’t have the surgery the next morning, I had a nurse with me all night just in case. How did I feel at the time, well I felt just fine, I couldn’t have said I had a problem in the world, no pain, no heart attacks, no nothing really to say I was about to die. But, I did have one completely closed main artery to the heart and one main 95% blocked off, I didn’t mess around with all of the little ones, just 2 of the 3 main ones. Anyhow, with that being the case, that is why the doctors thought I could go at any second, and bumped two people out of the way so I could have that surgery first the next morning.

Worry was not a part of that whole deal, either I live or I die, either way was alright with me once I decided to do it. Death does not scare me, It will be the end of my questions about ????? About what? Why we are here, is there a god or gods? Is there a point to all of this? I can only hope it might give me the answers, but no one knows, do they? Another reason for one not to worry, it really doesn’t really matter what is next, we have to go anyway, there is no choice about that. Sooner or later we will find out what’s on the other side of life. I am at this point not in a hurry to get there, I am still curious about what the human race will do next. I hope to see some growth in the mind set of mankind, but I doubt it. Still watching the History and Discovery Channels on TV gives me hope that man might yet grow up, for they do have shows about life and ask the questions that I ask. Be nice if they could really come up with some answers though.

A foot note here, just heard that my wife’s second eye surgery went just fine. So no “worry” there, it went as it went, lucky it was good, glad it was good too.

The fair sex?

Women are the fair sex? Women are the weaker sex? Women are the dumber sex? Just where did these ideas ever come from? Once upon a time, before men figured out that they were the reason women had children, women were the most important members of primitive tribes. Once the men got the idea that it was themselves alone who could father a child and know it was their own child, the importance of the woman fell. In order to make sure the child born was yours, one had to keep his female from being able to mate with any other male. Thus the idea of ownership of women by males. Seeing how any male could bring forth a child with any female, it made the male the now important one. One could only carry on the lineage through the male seed. The female now became the second sex, the one who really didn’t matter, for the male could continue his line with any female.

Today we know that more male children are born than females, but females survive better. For centuries males died earlier than females, of course now that may not be quite so true. The stress of life is much more equal now. Men are usually  much stronger than women when it come s to physical strength, so the label of the weaker sex comes into being. But it is known that women have a higher pain tolerance than men, as it is said, if men had to bare the children, the human race would die out. Men withstand pain by being macho about it. Women do it naturally.

Dumb women, just can’t understand the world, let us men who do run it. Right! Just another way men have tried to keep the female as the second sex in this world. Even in religion, women are considered less than men. Why? It gives validity to what men do. God made man first, so man is the most important. If god made man in his image, then god must be a male.  But why does a god who is the only god have to have a sexual identity? What point is having a male god if there is no female for him? If a god impregnates one of his children, is he a sexual deviant?  Any way, keeping women ignorant helps keep them in their place.

But why did  man have to make women second class people? Because deep down man knows he is just a weird copy of the female. The nipples thing, men have them but don’t need them, so why are they there? Always thought the creation story would have made more sense if Adam was made from Eve’s rib, that would at least account for the nipple thing in some way. Men know that females drive them crazy, they have to have one or more than one. It is women who give men their driving force to do things in the world.Women want the best provider to keep themselves and their children alive and well, so the man must do that if he wants a woman at his side. I think men are ashamed of their need for women and take it out on them for making them do things. I some times think that rape is just an extension of that feeling, the need to prove that the male is more important, the dominant one of the species. It is part of the need to keep the female in her place.

When it comes to listening to the way men talk and the way women talk, it is the female is who much more open, more vicious in comments about other people, more open about sexual feelings. Hell, in every way women are just more than men. Women communicate better than men, part of the reason they tend to be the child rears in most all of the animal kingdom, plus they are the ones who nurture the children. Any male can father a child, but only a mother can really raise one.

Well enough of my ramblings. The end idea is that I think man is the weaker and the second sex of the world, not woman. I have to wonder why it took so long for women to get the vote in this country, wonder why it is alright for men to have as much sex as they can get and women are labeled bad for the same feelings, the double standard. Why the country had to vote for women getting as much pay as men for the same job? How long is it going to take for humankind to grow up and see the world as it really is? A very long time I am afraid, as long as we have religions that keep women in a second class position. It is hard to argue with what people see as a gods plan, for who wants to argue with their god? After all the Bible says god said to Eve, “he shall rule over you” and god blamed Eve for mans exit from Eden, so do men still believe it. Even with the first so called people, it was woman who made man do things. Without the female, men have no reason to be. True it is the same for women, for without men they have no reason to be.

A strange after thought. There is a species of fish, that when dominant male dies, the dominant female turns into a male to take it place. Female into male, just the way I think it happened way back in the dawn of life on this world.

Patriotism

I have to say I am confused as to what a patriot is these days, hell have been ever since the Vietnam war. I severed in the Navy from 1966 to 1969, got spit on and yelled at by anti-war protester and yet a lot of us were writing things like ban the bomb on the 2,000 pound bombs we were sending to the aircraft carriers, I was on an ammunition ship for my first two years in the Navy. The confusion comes from trying to decide if it was unpatriotic to protest the war or if it was unpatriotic to put down the protesters, after all to protest is an American freedom that goes all the way back to our revolutionary beginnings. Would one say that our founding fathers were unpatriotic, not on your life it might be said, but then they certainly were. for they were not Americans then were they? Benedict Arnold is considered to be one of the worst traitors in this country, but he is and was a patriot to the British. He fought for his country. He just happened to be on the losing side.

So is it if you win or lose that makes you a patriot? I remember the saying “My country right or wrong, my country”, I always hated that saying. Yet the ones saying it thought they were being patriotic and all I could think of was the Germans during WWII who followed what their country was doing to the Jews at the time. That was “My country right or wrong, my country” to its limit. And the people of this country thought it was so wrong for them do have done that and it was those same people who were saying and thinking with the same mentally as those Germans.

The Patriot Act of this country, is it really patriotic? Again it reminds me of Germany before and during WWII, everyone spying on each other and most likely telling lies just to get someone you don’t like in trouble. Land of the Free, well maybe it was once, but its not to free these days. Even as I write this and then post it, some spy guy for the government will note what I have said here and that will make a mark in my FBI file. I am sure we all have one. So am I a patriot for wanting my country to free of the spying or a traitor for not wanting to stop terrorism by the ending of the spying? Just depends on which side of the fence one stands on I guess. I would be willing to bet our founding fathers would not be happy with way this country has been run up to this point. I believe they would start another revolution if they were here now. And the question is, would that be the patriotic thing to do?