Vision of myself about to be eaten

[starry-eyed pirate]

I spend too much time, alone in this house brooding on things I am interested in and possibly obsessed by.  Brooding and pacing like a caged animal.  It's tough to scale back my unhealthy levels of alcoholic self indulgence when there's no one else to talk to.  Sometimes I feel sad, like I've missed the love I should'a' had in this life.  I feel so lonesome and unloved and unknown and like all the wisdom I've lived for will just be unloved, unknown, dust of the Earth soon and my life feels meaningless when I consider all that.  I cannot even teach my own daughter the wisdom I've spent my life distilling.  I can only joke about it's worhtlessness with friends.

I envision the depths of the ocean, which is actually more of an unvision than a vision because it is a negation of color, but I can still otherwise sense the depths and the coldness and the feeling that I am a very far way from the safety of my land-dwelling, air-breathing, mothers arms.  Somewhere below and under me I feel a presence waiting for me to sink a little further.  There's a big giant fish just waiting, still, in the darkness.  Just waiting to swallow me whole.  He knows I am there, alone in the cold, deep, dark, salt-water, far from the reach of the sun's ray.  It is my own fear.  It is the vision of the manifestation of my own fears about my life and what it means to me to be 46 and staring at an uncertain and unknown future alone.  This has been an expression of a vision that I have of myself, about to be eaten by a monster fish of the deep ocean.

[Froderik]

What hinders you from bestowing that wisdom unto your daughter?

Perhaps these Jonah-esque visions are a sign you should be prophesying?

[starry-eyed pirate]

Thankyou Froderik, the wisdom I'd like to impart to her is not the kind that can be carried in mere words.  It requires time to be spent together and we just never had much.  Now she is 19 and far from home, caught up in the world and the usual goings on.  Working and trying to make money to pay bills and what-not.  She's my only child.

[starry-eyed pirate]

I once went swimming in the ocean.  I was born on the closest Island to the Mariana trench.  One day, while I was there, on that island, only visiting for a few days, I went swimming in the ocean with my friend.  My father had warned me.  Don't go out past the reef, he said, there were sharks out there, and wear shoes in the water.  I went out past the reef, when my friend made the suggestion.  We'd each bought a snorkel kit to explore the lagoons with.  I wasn't wearin my flippers though, or my snorkel.  I just had the mask on and was barefoot.  Once I got outside the reef, where I'd been warned not to go and was fully aware of the tragedies that had been brought to those who had earlier dared, I just stretched out my arms and legs and looked down and drifted there, lookin down into the depths of the underwater valleys below.  I could not see the floor.  The mountainsides just fell away into darkness and I drifted there for a few seconds holding my breath and being still and looking down into the depths of the ocean. 

It wasnt long though before I thought to myself, "better swim back".

I started to swim back toward the reef, but in a moment realized I was being carried in the opposite direction.  I began to swim harder and harder and finally in a desperate panic not to be swept out into the deep ocean full of sharks I got close enough to the reef that a swell picked me up and helped me along some, and then another, and finally a wave carried me over the rocky reef  and washed me back inside the lagoon.  I was within a hairs breadth of bein swept out to sea off the northwest tip of Guam, where I was born, during the war in Vietnam.  The Mariana Trench is 7 miles deep and I was born on top of the rise from the sea floor.  It's a part of my personal mythos.  I looked into the depths of the place I was born, looked into the depths of the deepest ocean.  And the humility of my body fighting the current of the sea as it tried to take me.  I wasnt at all sure I was strong enough to live and I was really afraid for my life for a few minutes during the crisis.

Surely nearly everyone has had some similar vision of being left alone to die.  I know that being lost at sea is almost an archetypical vision of the fear of Lovelessness. 

[Froderik]

Surely nearly everyone has had some similar vision of being left alone to die.  I know that being lost at sea is almost an archetypical vision of the fear of Lovelessness.

I've had real threats made on my life, and some really bad trips...

Yes; before space travel, the ocean was the largest void known to humankind...

[Antigen]

Ok, I'm skipping some so as to not lose my thought.

Pirate, you will never be alone nor unloved! I love you. Frod loves you. I don't know who all else, but I'd bet dollars to rolling doughnuts it's a long list! You may not get that magical romantic love that we all hope fore & crave so much. Me neither. That's rare. I envy the old couple  I take care of and often remind them both (when they're not in the same room, of course) how damned lucky they are; how rare a thing they have.

It's an ocean, alright. And we're all a part of the food chain. Enjoy what time we have and look forward to whatever the fuck is next.

BTW, my coworker has some vinyl. Itd?

[Antigen]

Thankyou Froderik, the wisdom I'd like to impart to her is not the kind that can be carried in mere words.  It requires time to be spent together and we just never had much.  Now she is 19 and far from home, caught up in the world and the usual goings on.  Working and trying to make money to pay bills and what-not.  She's my only child.

Ok, here's a little exercise I've come up with all on my own. Close your eyes, breath easy and try and remember 5 important things your family tried to teach you. ..............

Ok, now keep your eyes closed (but keep reading... you figure it out LOL) now try and not think about 10 important things your family taught you without knowing it.

You're cool as shit and she'll be fine. Just don't burn that bridge! That's all you have to deal with right now. Just don't allow yourself or your daughter to sever ties.

[Antigen]

Shit, I feel alone like that usually several times a day. The most palpable experience happened when I was pretty freshly out of the program. I had two jobs, just paid my share of the rent with a couple of older male roomies, both of whom I'd slept with, neither one seriously (on my end, anyway. I was so damned nieve!)

I had time off, for the first time in YEARS! No pressing business! No one watching! Damn! What will I do with myself? I decided to go out and catch a sunset on the jetties on Sarasota Beach. Walked/climbed all the way out to the end. Sat myself down and started .... breating .... meditating ... observing ... breath .... and then I was completely untethered! It was fucking terrifying! It occurred to me to wonder what, exactly, was the nature of the force that was holding me down to the rock I was sitting on and not letting me spin out into airless space. I felt so damned small in the world. I wondered, really entertained the notion, that I didn't exist at all. It's not the sharks I fear. They need to eat too, can't blame them. It's non-existence that haunts my worst nightmares.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Yeah.  Thanks Ginger !  LOL...Oh-hh... I'm still alive !