Today's deep thoughts

Today's deep thoughts

I am petting my dogs with a strange but eager fervor today, I want to hug and feel their love seep into my seemingly tainted consciousness.

I fell into a restless slumber last night after reading and seeing ghastly short videos of young men being systematically slaughtered. In one clip their executioner was indifferently one by one shooting them in the head then pushing them over a blood stained step into a river. In another clip thirty or so young men were herded off the back of a truck like cattle into a field then unceremoniously machine gunned to the ground. Even after this mass murder other executioners rushed into the event proudly wanting to be seen machine gunning the already dead.

It brought back awful memories as a child what I saw on a TV documentary; wheel barrows full of dead emaciated people being tipped into huge open graves during the atrocities at the extermination camps in Germany. I remember crying like a baby afterwards followed by many nightmares. My mother ensured I never got to see late night TV again after that episode.

What is going on? Has the world gone completely insane?

I try to comfort myself, I have been mostly insulated from this kind of carnage. I constantly tell myself how fortunate it is that I have been brought up in the West, as it were. I can simply turn off the TV, close the paper even switch off my IPAD. Ah! Those people are all nuts anyway, what do I care. Let them murder each other until there is none remaining. Then I can at least turn on my TV in peace!

I don’t think I am alone with these callous thoughts if we were all to be brutally honest with ourselves.

Yesterday I spent trudging around Marineland Exhibition Park while Joan’s niece and kids enjoyed the many rides. It was a beautiful day everyone having fun and enjoying life. Smiling laughing kids without a care in the world only to get to the next ride and the ensuing thrill. I couldn't help noticing that I was definitely a minority; English speaking white male of the Caucasian race. Now you might already be thinking this is a blog about: what are these people doing in ‘OUR’ country. And that Kevin has gone to the other side! Nope not at all in fact probably the opposite. I feel quite proud that Canada; my home for many years is so cosmopolitan. We go so far trying to make foreigners (like myself) feel welcome and at home. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we are ALL of the same race; ‘human’. I lost count of the amount of turbans and brightly coloured sarongs. Somehow I do take offence to the women that have to wear a yashmak or niqab covering their faces and even to the guy who actually wore a curly sword on his hip.

I also noticed how few smiles were returned. It almost felt like, Oh oh he is a white male – the enemy! Most of the kids however that were out of their national dress seemed carefree just like any other kid. I wonder when it is that the dogma that is probably hammered in to them take effect and they have to become like their parents. And I am not only talking about turbans, I am talking about Amish and Jewish that are so obvious by their different dress or uniform but also the Catholics and whatever religion that is among us. Not one of these religions is without guilt of some atrocity or other against the other team or even their own.

Religion separates and divides, anyone that has studied history just a little knows that to defeat your enemy that is exactly what the leader’s first need to attain.

I certainly do not profess to be a conspiracy theorist there is a lot of silly stuff out there already. But while half of the world is committing genocide on a grand scale and terrorism has become a common by- word spread by presidents. The rich are becoming staggeringly richer, the multi billionaires of the famous one percent are now the multi, multi billionaires of the now point five percent. Basically there are a few people so extremely rich that it is beyond our imagination who are probably calling the shots. It is no doubt in any thinking mind that these people support both sides of any war. This happened in the Second World War in England by a few English gents while many brave men lost their lives. The facts are available to any one that can read. Vietnam was one president’s greed for power while many thousands of other brave men lost their lives.

I dearly love my freedom, I love the people that I have been in the good fortune to acquaint, you all know who you are. I love the fact that I can travel and see and feel others point of view, the world is such a wonderful and very different place. I have been gifted with many rewards not least my Daughter and Son and my wonderful grandchildren. I don’t want them killed by some idiot’s missile while flying. I don’t even want them to have to witness the atrocious videos I saw last night.

 I am absolutely no different than any other father/grandfather. If I had to kill to save them, it goes without thinking, of course I would. I would probably have an enemy for life to someone who had harmed me and or my family. I would be a Jihadist call it what you like. A Catholic or Protestant on the streets of Belfast. And the wars would go on and on for eternity until the dried out and burnt crust of humanity was nothing but blowing dust.

I did two long military tours in the Middle East for Her Majesty’s Service on Naval ships. Thankfully it was in peacetime, I did however board suspected vessels of transporting arms. I was armed and saw the terror in the faces of the men on board. I have had guns pointed in my direction and I know the feeling very well. I don’t ever want to repeat either. 

I witnessed the extremely rich Sheikhs driving by in their luxury limousines with the tinted glass windows, guarded by truck loads of soldiers. They were completely above ANY law and could pick any female at will, alcohol and drugs was for them the norm. Meanwhile the rest of the population almost starved and any minimal breach of law or religion was dealt with -- extremely.

I Fear that what I witnessed in Bahrain many years ago was a microcosm of what could become of our society should we allow it to happen.

Come on boy’s time for your walk, stay close now.

From Blogger iPhone client

Deep thoughts while walking the dogs

I know I should probably be doing something more useful with my time to day but I just feel the need to get this down on paper.

               So much futility in the world today huh? Unimaginable horror and tragic loss of life, everywhere!

How can one human being treat another human or animal for that matter with such senseless remoteness or hate? Where did that come from? I don’t profess to have the answers or more to the point the inclination to stand in the way of harm to stop such stupid behavior. I am not attempting to, ‘stand on the higher ground’ here either; I was, many years ago in, ‘the service of my country’ and thank God (I should change that phrase as you’ll see later) I didn't see any meaningful, ‘Action’. So I don’t need to boast about being in a ‘special service’ and having killed for my country. I am one of the fortunate few who will hopefully go to my grave having harmed NO ONE.

Surprise! I’m not going to ramble on about being anti war and maybe sing you a tune or two, no this is not about that either. I’ll get to the point: what is it ALL about? The big questions you ask yourself, usually in later life or maybe after a life threatening situation (not in my case, thank God….stop that God shit Kevin). Call it an epiphany while walking my dogs this morning or something that has been brewing for a while now. Maybe part of the reason for these thoughts, over the last few weeks I've been witness to the biggest side show on earth as two men embarrassingly battle for complete power over the most powerful country on this planet both of them citing GOD as being on their side. How we as mankind actually made it out of our caves baffles me to this day. We've traveled to the moon, designed amazing technologies that yesterday was only science fiction, drugs that have let us live longer and healthier lives and stopped pain and suffering everywhere. In the last century alone mankind has leaped forward tenfold, we are indeed very fortunate to be living in an exciting and wondrous time.

OK so here it is folks; Why Oh why are we still dealing with this GOD thing?

Alright so just after we left the cave the ones that succeeded where the ones that grouped together and fended of enemies and very big game, yep safety in numbers, makes sense so far. Until one of the star gazers decided upon him/herself (probably him as he owns the big club) that this whole thing is way beyond his thinking ability and he also conveniently sees a way to make a free meal ticket. Just by the mere fact of looking at the stars and thinking, dare I say it, a guy called Darwin comes along and gives him a few extra brain cell connections more than the rest of the tribe. Wallah!  He then invents GOD. How else could all the daily calamities occur, someone / thing must be in charge, if we appease and worship this invisible GOD maybe he’ll keep that nasty tyrannosaurus from eating who the hell he feels like every tea time. OK so far I buy it, It all makes sense and much later because of this so called GOD the successful tribes design shrines which in turn makes humans stay put and sow seeds. Yup it all makes sense…I buy it. My subscription to National Geographic has finally paid off!

Fast forward a few millennia and a few billion lives later that have been murdered and mutilated in the name of GOD. We read in history how many of the various civilizations successfully used religion to control the masses, how else could you control an uneducated usually hungry and contempt people from lynching you in your ivory castles and usually for very good reason.

Sadly most of you have probably stopped reading this by now as this is blasphemous and the writer will probably go to a fiery hell for eternity for even thinking such wickedness. Most of us have been programmed from early childhood to, ‘BELIEVE’.  

Mum for a little while forced us to go to Sunday school, my happiest memories were singing the songs but the Jesus thing was a kind of leap of faith for me. Fortunately for us the other choice was catholic I am so glad as a child I did not have to withstand the heavy hand and forced programming that many of my friends had to endure.

During times of extreme sadness and loss in my life I have even prayed to this unseen GOD of ours. For many years when asked, I always replied….agnostic! I believed that if Jesus Christ were to appear before my very eyes and say, ‘hey you got it wrong mate and get on your knees…NOW! Over the years I have battled with these thoughts; am I a hypocrite? Should I bottle under and just have faith and be happy knowing there is a heavenly father who will always steer me in the right direction. One day I will go to heaven and meet up with all those loved ones; such endearing love can never be lost forever…could it?

I think of myself as being a spiritual person and I feel a glimmer of hope in our future. It makes sense that there should be some rules; we can’t all just go around murdering each other. We are all a family (there’s a song) and if we don’t look out for one another then we are just unintelligent savages. Life as we know it is meaningless. We owe it to ourselves from everything we as a race have learned from our irrational history. Protecting ones borders may seem to make sense in the short term but from a point of view of a civilization it makes absolutely no sense. While there is a, ‘them and us’ mentality there will always be conflict. Security just equates to mean bigger and more evil weapons of destruction. Although I have an attachment, I don’t think of myself as a Canadian or a Brit I have traveled enough and proud to feel that I am a man of this beautiful world. Beating ones chest around the world does not make for making friends.

Getting back to the god thing and what this blurb seems to be about. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling very positive about a, ‘new world order’ sounds pretty deep huh! I’m not completely sold on it…yet! But getting there. As the scientist are getting closer every day to the very meaning of life; every other week now it seems they look further and further into the cosmos almost to the beginning of time itself. They even think there are other universes out there in fact one theory shows that there could even be mirror universes! yeah you got it, other mirror Kevin Firth’s writing as I write, pretty confusing stuff. Don’t laugh who was it said that men would never fly? 

Is there a creator to all of this? …..Hmm let me think about that for an eon or two. This might bring us right back to what we started except it isn't a GOD not as we know it anyway, most definitely not singular.

How is it that when I feel positive and strong, things just seem to come my way, when I really put my mind to something I am usually pleasantly rewarded. Those days when I’m the opposite, well we won’t talk about those days. I just saw a video only yesterday showing a French Buddhist monk who’s head was completely wired during an experiment showing that his brain during meditation showed an unusually high reading of that part of his brain that shows happiness. Scientifically I believe we are at the cusp of great new advances in exactly what that gray mass in our heads is actually capable of.

This, 'new order' might sound silly to some but I am beginning to believe we all have an inner consciousness that we are learning to control if that is the correct term to use. When we can each leave our ego behind and concentrate on the bigger picture only then will we find our inner happiness and with that a global awareness will eventually take place….Peace! and humankind's next big step. 

Just a thought ya know! come on Tig and Pantera.

Playa Panama 06:00 9th Oct 2012