Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Caught In The Middle Of Truth Or Reason

Wikipedia states; In traditional belief, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely: The mode of manifestation can range from an invisible presence to translucent or wispy shapes, to realistic, life-like visions. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased person is known as necromancy, or in spiritism as a séance.The belief in manifestations of the spirits of the dead is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to appease the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary essences that haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life, though stories of phantom armies, ghost trains, phantom ships, and even ghost animals and numbers have also been recounted.
  If you have been reading any of my posts then you know my belief in ghosts is ambivalent. I have had many experiences with those beings that no longer have a body that needs air to breathe and blood flowing through their veins. I have been confronted
by a being that I cannot prove if it was a ghost, a presence, or a spirit. It could have been a dream. My brain tells me it was a dream. I want to believe that those visits were more than just a dream. It would validate my sanity to the point that my belief system could accept that a living, breathing person could travel in different planes of time. I am a believer in a creator that created all things in 6 days and rested on the seventh. I believe, as the Bible states, that Jesus the Christ, was the son of God, he was crucified and after three days, he arose from the dead. If I find this so easy to believe, why do I have such a hard time to believe that someone, after death, can visit me in some other form. Why is it such an internal struggle when I have these dreams that I document? When I was 11 years old, my brothers and I were walking across the field to catch the bus when I was hit by such a sense of foreboding, a sense that something bad was about to happen that I turned around and started home. My brothers ask what I was doing and I could not explain it, so, I just told them I was sick. I heard the bus leaving as I reached our house and my mother got all over me for missing school. We had only one vehicle, so she couldn't take me to school. I had a little sister that was 4 years old and we were sitting in the den watching television when I heard an ear splitting scream. I ran to my mother's room and she was lying on her back, clutching her chest. I ran to the phone and called the plant where my Dad worked. The plant operator asked me what extension he worked. I did not know what she was talking about. However, I did say "extension 36." My dad was immediately on the phone. I told him that Mom was on the floor clutching her chest. He called the ambulance and a few minutes, later, the ambulance and my Dad were there. I was told to take care of my sister. The next day my mother was in Birmingham, Alabama having quadruple by-pass heart surgery. She was the first woman to have that surgery at UAB. This was 1969 and if I had not came back home that day, my mother would have died. Somebody told me to not catch the bus and what extension my Dad worked in. I cannot explain it. There has been a lot that has happened to me that I cannot explain. I do not believe it is through.     theblogmeister






Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Insight

  It was so black I could not see my hands in front of my face.The feeling of my heartbeat inside my head was harmonic. I was lying flat on my back, could not move a muscle. The pushing down towards the bed felt as if I were trying to hold up the weight of an automobile, sitting directly on my chest. It seemed I was in phase four of sleep, my eyes darting back and forth so fast there was no way of knowing just how fast, REM's at the speed of light. The rise and fall of my chest could not be detected but I was not hypo ventilating. It was the exact opposite. My respiration were over 80 per minute. There was no skin that felt wet from perspiration. The neurons in my brain were firing fast and with precision. The occipital lobe was processing visual stimuli and charging my corpus collasum to generate my right hemisphere to mimic my left hemisphere so the whole brain could work as one master of creativity. Logic did not find quarter. I immediately understood the masters of the past. Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Sandro Boticelli, Raphael. The creativity of those masters became such that I understood what they were relaying to themselves and why so much was avoided for fear of complete and total insanity. They were, collectively, on the brink of such calamity that their expressions became the core of my existence. Creativity is, simply put, the ability to look at one thing and see another. Creativity is combining and recombining previously known into the unknown. Creativity is insanity and insanity is creativity. Perceptions of creativity is supported by at least one major theoretical framework. These theories are entitled creativity as a function of behavior, personality, and cognitive processes.
  A third view is becoming increasingly more common in recent years; creativity is latent in all of us and it just needs to be brought out.
  As my right hemisphere would not completely let go of its function, allowing my frontal lobe to get into the conversation. This part is associated with reason, planning, speech, movement, which is on vacation at this point in time. Emotions and problem-solving brought to bear the work of B.F. Skinner and behavioral viewpoint, while Maslows ideas will illustrate humanist perception. These individuals provide useful insight into the functioning of the creative person.
  A third major theoretical framework examines creativity as a cognitive process. The behaviorist believes a person is not an initiating force in the creative act, but rather a focal point where environmental and genetic forces come together to have a common effect. Skinner states that the environment acts upon the individual "determining that he will perceive it( the environment ) and act in special ways." It is funny how all this happened while I lay on my lazy ass hoping my wife makes the coffee.     theblogmeister  

Monday, February 7, 2011

Further Escapades

  I waited around while my 5th lumbar vertebrae slid so far down the sciatic nerve became pinched creating the pain that started this thing off in 2006. I found a neurosurgeon that accepted medicare and medicaid and we tried the level 3 spinal fusion, once again. The surgery was a success and after a year I had the hardware removed. I then had to deal with scar tissue. In 2009, I had to have my back operated on for the 4th time. The scar tissue had to be removed to free my sciatic nerve from irritation. I now see a pain management doctor who prescribes powerful narcotics and every other month performs a procedure that is similar to an epidural. I am put to sleep with diprovan, the same drug that Michael Jackson overdosed on, and the caudal is done while I am at the neverland ranch. The nurses become aware that I have come to when they hear my renditions of Billy Jean and Thriller. I must be fairly good because I receive standing ovations in the recovery room. I tell the nurses that I am just showing my ass.
  I have been doing legal research to have my VA check increased and have found cases that support my claim. Having been denied 100% service-connected disability for PTSD I filed a claim for increased compensation due to individual unemployability. Pursuant to 38C.F.R. 4.16(b)It is established policy of the Department of Veteran Affairs that all veterans who are unable to sustain gainful employment due to a service-connected disability shall be rated totally disabled. Well, that is me. I have a 20% rating on my back and have been awarded social security disability because of my back, the VA will rule that I be awarded total(100%) disability. That award will be $2,383/mo. I will be paid in back pay from the time I filed in June, 2008. However, the way my luck is going the appeal will be denied because my appeal for PTSD was denied. That is the way the military works, especially since we have been in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hundreds and thousands of killed and wounded in a war that we have no reason, whatsoever, of being in. Thanks to The Bush's, and the Republicans, our foreign policy is in dire straits. That is a whole other post to be talked about at some other time. Once I get this behind me I can concentrate on trying to figure out the meaning of life. I will not try to win a Nobel prize for physics I am only looking for the answers to a half dozen questions. The first one will be asked, soon.      theblogmeister