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Star date 20140308.

On star date 20140127, I took my 88 year-old father to the Emergency Room at his request. I watched his blood pressure fall to 39 over 21 while they worked to figure out what was wrong with him. He came close to dying. Six hours later, he underwent endoscopic surgery to reopen his gall bladder duct, and they later punched a needle into him to drain fluid from infection in his right lung. I spent a lot of time at the hospital as my father recovered, and eight days later, he was transferred to a convalescent home. He never regained his appetite, which he said had disappeared a week before we went to the ER, and I had the impression his body was not on the normal track that life usually follows.

Wednesday morning, 20140305 at 2am, I got a call that he was being transferred back to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing. I said "OK", and my cordless phone subsequently died because of a bad battery. I decided the transfer was probably a routine precaution, as he had been slowly improving despite a rising white blood cell count, and that I would call back in the morning. The hospital called me first the following morning and suggested I should come to Intensive Care as soon as I could. I got there in 45 minutes, and I found my father was breathing mechanically, on three different IV medications to keep his heartbeat and blood pressure in the acceptable zone, and was not really conscious. He had left instructions on this second entry into Intensive Care to not resuscitate, in stark contrast to his earlier visit when he wanted all life sustaining procedures. My younger brother was on his way, with still about two hours of mountain driving ahead of him. I stayed with my father for an hour, then decided to run over to the convalescent home to pick up his important papers and belongings. When I returned an hour later, all the monitors were off, and I knew my father had died. I talked with the nurse about what happened, and learned my father died at 1:22pm when his blood oxygen level fell off rapidly and his heartbeat flat-lined. Five minutes after I arrived, at 2:05, my brother walked into the room to an unpleasant sight.

During those 37 days, I had less time to spend on forum posts, and I was less-than-subtly criticized and attacked for being unresponsive to questioning by my opponents. This questioning was typically asinine and hardly worthy of a response, but it was true that I was less responsive than normal, given the additional responsibilities I was undertaking. I didn't want to say anything, as we all have our problems to deal with in life, and none of us really know what it is like to be in another's shoes.

I still have a lot of duties ahead of me that will surely keep me busy. This post is a short explanation of what has been occupying my time. I'm not soliciting condolences or other attention, I'm just doing what I usually do, documenting my journey in the search for truth. I'm not sure anyone is in a position to accurately judge how I'm doing, but Buddha might be close. I have started, and I may not be able to go all the way, but I will go as far as I am capable of going.

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Sat Mar 08, 2014 9:38 am
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Sorry to hear about your father. Getting old in this despotic world is definitely not my cup of tea. Any right to choose ones death is deemed illegal and Forbidden. The State acts if my body is their property, to the point of slow death being appropriate. I have worked in hospice care and it mirrors the depravity of our species. Our apparent lack of awareness in life also translates into how we deal with death and it aint pretty. All one can do is try to move forward each day and protect the candle of freedom each carries from being blown out. Godspeed...

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Sat Mar 08, 2014 10:30 am
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My condolences, Chico.

Words are mere wind rustles in times like these.

All fathers and sons have their differences, mostly because they are so much alike, e.g. proton dynamics. I hope you and your father had a chance to resolve your differences before he went to the next Great Adventure.

Finding eyes, ears, thoughts and limbs ... at 88 ... is not an easy thing. I'm sure he's eagerly anticipating fresh sets
and a fresh start wherever he is right now.


Pax

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Flight that sends into the clouds brings wings to rest upon the boughs. Then further down to the liquid lawn, to serve as sentries for the gliding swan. Curve, a perfect turning of the line between here and Heaven, with extensions into infinitum.


Sat Mar 08, 2014 3:06 pm
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magamud wrote:
The State acts if my body is their property...

The state is sociopathic, and like any sociopath, it sees the world as a hierarchy with it near the top. As far as it is concerned, it owns you. Likewise, any parent that is a sociopath sees its own offspring as his or her property. The children are simply tools to be manipulated by the sociopathic parent. If you want to know where sexual abuse of young daughters by their fathers comes from, this is the answer. It comes from the sociopathic mindset that is lacking responsibility, shame, compassion, and especially empathy.

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Sat Mar 08, 2014 10:45 pm
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UncleZook wrote:
Words are mere wind rustles in times like these.

I agree that it can seem so.

On the other hand, I am reminded of this quote from the film "V for Vendetta":

"Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth." -- V

UncleZook wrote:
I hope you and your father had a chance to resolve your differences before he went to the next Great Adventure.

Therein lies another story, one rich in irony, in tragedy, and in ethos. Perhaps one day I will share it, but not today.

There are some differences that cannot be resolved, like the difference between good and evil. Resolution of these fundamental differences is not the goal. As Neo said:

"Choice. The problem is choice."

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Sat Mar 08, 2014 11:09 pm
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Quote:
The problem is choice.


A curse or gift, for the price of freedom.

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Sat Mar 08, 2014 11:15 pm
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Hi Chico,

I come here to read from time to time, but do not post. I am very sorry to hear of your loss. It can be a very strange time when losing a parent. I have lost both mine now. My Mother 4 years ago, my Father 15 years ago. Yes, it will be a busy time, tying up loose ends (both physically and mentally). My heart goes out to you.

With Love,
Lily
x


Sun Mar 09, 2014 2:32 am
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My heart goes out to you.

Gracias. Love and empathy are the true essence of life.

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It's not that we can't handle the truth. It's that they can't handle us if we know the truth.


Sun Mar 09, 2014 3:22 am
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Each of our lives is a collage of events and experiences that is a unique to each of us. Many of those events and experiences are widely shared in the general sense while being unique in the specific sense, like your first kiss, or your first job, or your first child. Some events and experiences are more unusual, like out-of-body experiences, alien contact, or surviving a crash or disaster. There are also mundane things that you always remember, like the feel of putting on warm underwear that grandma so thoughtfully prepared for you on a cold morning when you were a child.

Some experiences are trivial but still personally noteworthy. I thought I had retired from gymnastics a few years back, but I recently decided to stop in at the gym once a week to maybe teach the kids and improve my own physical activity. Do I dare try my old skills on trampoline, or am I too old for such nonsense? It hurts to bounce now, which was never an issue in my youth. Yesterday, after avoiding the temptation for a couple of weeks, I decided to try one of my favorite tricks called a rudi — a front flip with one and one-half twists. I used to love doing it while jumping off the floor-level trampoline onto a 3 foot high crash mat. Do I dare try it at age 63? The fact that I would still attempt it, and successfully pull it off on the first try, put a grin on my face for a short, private moment. Trivial, mundane, and uniquely me.

And then today I found myself thinking back on the big campus streak that I participated in. How many people do such a thing? Hundreds of students at the University of Colorado had run naked as a large group all around the Boulder campus to the delight of crowds of spectators. When was that? It seems like it was my freshman year, so maybe 1974. Did I really dare do that at age 19? Does anyone else who was there think back to that evening? Would it be recorded on the Internet somewhere?

Wikipedia wrote:
The current record for the largest group streak was established at the University of Georgia, with 1,543 simultaneous streakers on March 7, 1974.[4] The University of Colorado comes in second with 1,200 streakers, and the University of Maryland ranks third, with 553 naked students streaking three miles in March 1974.

I seriously doubt anyone counted all the participants. The 1200 was surely just a rough estimate. It could have been twice that, as it was not an organized event with a planned route, but more like a free-for-all or a spontaneous chain reaction. It lasted for a few hours and then was done, never to happen again in the five years I was there. But it put a grin on my face then, and still does today as I recall just a few lingering memories of it.

There is so much that goes into the life of one individual. It's really an incredible collection of events and experiences that is different for each of us. The big question is "What does it mean?" I don't know, but there are times, like right now, that I think it is truly awesome.

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It's not that we can't handle the truth. It's that they can't handle us if we know the truth.


Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:05 am
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There is so much that goes into the life of one individual. It's really an incredible collection of events and experiences that is different for each of us. The big question is "What does it mean?"

Maybe the meaning is in the question "Do I dare?"

  • Do I dare question my own beliefs?
  • Do I dare question authority?
  • Do I dare understand the problems money causes?
  • Do I dare research 9/11?
  • Do I dare fight against censorship?
  • Do I dare expose sociopaths?
  • Do I dare question the Holocaust?
  • Do I dare criticize Judaism and Jews?
  • Do I dare investigate the truth about WW2 and Hitler?
  • Do I dare fight for justice and human rights?
  • Do I dare think independently and critically?
  • Do I dare criticize capitalism and democracy?
  • Do I dare oppose evil?
  • Do I dare make a difference?

Do we go with the flow or do we chart our own course? Do we adapt to our environment or do we improve it? Do we make the world a better place because we dared, or do we dare not?


Image

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It's not that we can't handle the truth. It's that they can't handle us if we know the truth.


Sat Jun 02, 2018 6:16 pm
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