Living – Life – Large, With The Intrepid Explorer

Living – Life – Large

With The Intrepid Explorer

Dan Abernathy

October 25th, 2021

Way back in the wonder days of youth, when time was something that was obscure and hidden behind the mayonnaise jar, I saw an advertisement for a self-help book on the back page of a Johan Hex comic. I purchased a postal money order from the post office and sent for, “How To Hide Your Insanity.”

It arrived in anonymous packaging and I kept it anonymous as I took it to the top of Dromedary Hill, jointly named, by two naked teenagers. The preface was about how to hide what’s in the book itself, just as you hide what is inside of yourself. This is about all I had time to read before all attention was diverted to who I was with.

Decades later, this book entered the realm of my psyche and now it seemed a guidebook to normality, or at least the false projection of normality. During this time of being, as I see people look at what they are seeing with puzzlement and fear, I wonder of the actuality or illusion of this book revealing the obscurity of insanity. Is it perhaps just a delusion from the mind of a man that will not fit in?

There is no longer room to except or play with being a victim to what is. Outwardly there is chaos quickly percolating out of control. This collapsing world of mayhem is not a place to live while cohabiting with the serenity of being. We must pause and take a sabbatical and the only route is clearing the debris and looking inwardly in a new world where you can be alive.

Discover yourself and listen to your accurate heartbeat of now. If not, you will only hear other people’s opinions of who you are. This source that you are hearing from, often comes from people that do not know themselves.

As you look society directly in the face and let them know that you understand who they want you to be. Instead, calmly show them who you truly are without any fear of knowing who you actually are. This is how we preserve time.

Time is becoming more and more, “now,” as each day I find that time is being more elusive. The way time is turning it’s kind of frantic if I allow any, off thought, to enter into the equation.

Time is the epoch of a particular period, the duration regarded as belonging to the present life as a distinct moment in the sequential relations that any event has to any other. This is what is finding the moments of hectic.

Time quickly passes by because we fill it with too much to do, knowing that there isn’t enough time to do what we are placing in the realm of being done. This is time pressure and it is a part of a stress factor that is damaging who we are.

These frantic moments of time are where mindfulness is needed. Do not compare the present time with your entire life. Live in the present moment, not with what has been done, or what is needed to be done, just what is being done. Worrying about what may happen in the future only destroys what is happening in the moment.

Meditation is the key. It will help you calm down and focus. You do not have to be deeply spiritual or religious to meditate. Meditation is simply a time to find a quiet calmness as you focus on the breath and quiet the mind. Anyone and everyone can do it.

Mindfulness is awareness and focusing on the present. It is being part of the moment and nothing more. It is being aware of what is not what was or what will be. Being in the now is pausing and inhaling your surroundings without the worry of anything else. This in itself will slow down the thought of time, as time waits for no one.

Mindfulness simply means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, body sensations and your surrounding environment. Mindfulness involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them and without believing that there is a “right” or “wrong”. When practicing mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.

As for myself, what you must understand is just how long and hard it was to design and build my own universe of peace and calmness so joy would sprout and bloom all around me. This is why I ask you not to bring your baggage when you come to visit. I ask that you remove your shoes and use a coaster, as I don’t want you to leave a coffee ring on my soul.

Then, perhaps “my selfness,” is secure in knowing that all the reindeer are still laughing. I’ve been elusive and admit that I’ve never known what fitting in feels like. With the calming breath of who I am, I ask you to indulge and tolerate my distraction as a slight inconvenience while I display my self-proclaimed sanity to a world of the insane. - dbA