Conditions

For those of you who want more from me, I oblige. Don't take this as negative, but as a fill-in to what is obvious for someone in my condition. All struggles do not meet the eye.

Breathing : shallow, due to a weak diaphragm caused by motor neuron death and the depletion of healthy muscle cells. Example, when I yawn, afterwards I cannot inhale until my sluggish diaphragm catches up with the process. Also, I lack the ability to separate inhale and exhale between mouth and nose. This problem prevents me from blowing my nose or sneezing properly. Any distress prevents me from exhaling through my nose. I must consciously relax in order to regain the ability. Sometimes my anxiety gets the better of me and I feel like I'm suffocating. If I'm in bed, I need to be put in my wheelchair. Lately I've been able to do better at focusing through this with meditation.

Swallowing : I can't really eat anything with texture. My swallow reflex is diminished, resulting in food not going down with one effort. The result is alarming. I'm always on the alert when I experiment with solids. I've learned to enjoy a pureed BLT! Don't dismiss it until you try.

Nerve problems in my legs : incessant.

Drooling : out of my mouth, sorry. At least I'm able to hide it.

Gut ache : more controlled than before.

Bad breath : this might have been a pre-existing injury.


Don't assume I'm getting worse. On the contrary, I've been worse and I'm not about to go down that road again. The only way to heal in to get better in your mind. Everything else follows. It's just common sense.

Ozone

It is time to write.

This week is busy. Today my home health care nurse checks me out to see if I'm sick enough for her to continue service. Tomorrow is around the lake day. Wednesday is physical therapy. Thursday is an ozone therapy qualification meeting. Friday we go to Austin for Paige and the Reverent Few at the Gypsy Lounge. Saturday is the Mayweather Pacquiao fight on my tv.

The paved trails around White Rock Lake provide easy travel, even for me in my wheelchair. Circumnavigation is about ten miles. Just past the spillway we can take a trail to Deep Ellum, about nine miles round trip from there. This Santa Fe trail is twelve feet wide, concrete and smooth. We hope to explore many more trails before long.

Why do I get the feeling you don't think I'm writing this?

Too simple? Too sterile? Too unlike me?

Well, I am writing this and have every right to be boring. As for the ozone therapy? Your guess is as good as mine.

More meditation

Meditation is nothing. I mean this in the most complimentary way. Achieving nothing is by far the most difficult thing I've ever done and duplicating such is proving to be even more difficult. I will continue my efforts at achieving nothing until nothing happens again. Today I almost achieved nothing, but something happened and screwed it all up.

Seriously, this is much ado about nothing, as it should be. The complications of life, added to the complexity of my symptoms do no less than camouflage the answers to my questions. If I'm to succeed at ridding myself of the monster in the room, I need not distraction. What better way to achieve that than by extracting every nonessential thought or idea and allow my mind to dwell upon the core of my problem, casting it out once and for all? The perfect installation of common (not so) sense here is Occam's Razor. Nothing is more simple than nothing.

I leave the conscious clutter intact in order to easily differentiate between my two minds. That way I'm able to identify which half a mind beckons.

As I meditate things are clear. I'm pursuing clarity. What better environment than that which contains nothing? None that I can't think of.

All joviality aside, this is a great revelatory moment for me. Much better than sucking down gallons of coconut oil every day (which I'm inclined to continue).

On meditation

Meditation. I'm going to say that most people have no idea just what it is. Fewer still achieve it. Let me tell you why.

I've spent many an hour meditating. Or so I thought. I was never there. Never. Meditation is not daydreaming or relaxing or sleeping or trance, but possibly all of those and more. I simply can't tell you. I can only speak of my recent discovery, my recent breakthrough, my recent realization. Don't get hung up on the words of choice like alpha, beta and theta. I've been able to drop a biofeedback machine with ease for years. It really has nothing to do with meditation. It merely demonstrates my ability to disengage the anxiety roaming my nervous system.

Cutting to the chase, I feel I've actually achieved a level of meditation that is real, tangible, controllable. The effort is effortless, as effort in itself denies the event. Here's what I experience:

After believing I was meditating for hours, I began to realize that I had an awareness of every sound, every flash of light, the clock on the wall, the temperature, the itch on my nose, the position of my arms, the position of my legs, the pain in my back and my neck, the nervous twitches that are continual, what was on television that night........ The pasty drool draining from the right side of my mouth as my head lolled in feigned relaxation.

It was all a self inflicted ruse. Until it got real.

I'm not sure when it happened or how long it lasted. I'm sure it was real. All senses exterior vanished. The only sense I had was of my breathing. In, out. Balance. Everything else was gone. Time had no meaning. The sense of a required balance led me to believe that this was my only path to health. It transcends logic, my singular largest barrier. The ultimate success is not in being right, but being in a moment free of tangibles. I found that moment. Or that eternity. Doesn't matter which. I'm convinced time is inconsequential here, in this state.

Detailed, I'm just breath. The air blooms and flows and is all important. If I can succeed to maintain equilibrium, the sensation remains.

This feels like it is internal. I'm not sensing any supreme entity or energy. Minimalism at the source.

I'm hoping this is going to be commonplace in my experiences and not just the result of oxygen deprivation. I'm thinking not the latter.

As for the long term effects of learning to REALLY meditate, I'm going to find out something, or it will become another mystery in a long list that I need to solve.

I will be meditating more every day in order to unlock my brain and find the switch that decides my future.

For those who read my blog this is bizarre, even for me. I'll keep you posted. (pun).

Slight return

This is not really a good time to post on my blog.

Why? Because I'm guilty of pandering to my readers. Yes. I've given in to the misinformation juggernaut. I've written what you hoped to hear rather than what I wanted to write. I listened to others rather than myself. If sin exists (which it does not), insincerity is a big one. Guilty as charged.

The entire premise of this blog revolves around honesty. No matter how brutal, the truth should be paramount. Lately, it has been diluted by omission. I'm guilty of leaving out the reality if it is gritty or sad. I'm guilty of side stepping the lurid details in order to spare the feelings of the unindoctrinated. For those who have followed my blog this is inexcusable. Even my penchant for the macabre has taken the back seat to decency.

In the course of my story, I've segued from grit to polite.

At the risk of alienating the optimistic, I'm returning to my previous form and will be dumping the rhetoric that I have found to put pressure on my writing that which people want to hear, want to believe.

It's time you were brought back to me. It's time I revealed my former candor. It's time to get back to reality.

Count on it.

I still feel like shit, but tomorrow could be worse. No respite for the stricken.

I'm inclined to tell you it is not all bad stuff. I've decided to put my faith and effort into following the Protocol of a gentleman from Belgium. I meditated for three hours today and it was almost as enlightening as a good night's sleep. This is new for me. And good.

Break

I'm taking a break from posting until I'm feeling better, whenever that is. Sorry.

Thinking

One can only find peace without if one has peace within.

A dimestore thought.

Everything you experience today is a result of your past experiences.

For a quarter.

The only way to understand yourself is by listening to others.

I'll buy that for a dollar.

All disease is self administered.

Maybe.

If it worked before it can work again.

Not my old ipod.

The key to health is communication with your subconscious.

I never had that key, and don't know the language.

The best way to eat is wisely.

Okay.

I'm waiting to eat a pureed filet Mignon. Yum. No really, yum. I've had pureed ham, fatoush, ravioli, etc.

I'm in hot water for failing to embrace Mesmerism. I need to reconsider this. I don't give anything much of a chance. It is foolish to be so narrow. Color me the fool. I don't blame this guy for not wanting to waste his time with me. I'm going to step up and get after it if he will have me. There comes a time when the options are few. I'm well past that. Who am I to be selective?

Often I'm an idiot. Often.

Follow up

Don't expect a miracle and you won't be disappointed. Rule to live by, indeed. Since my session? I'm not expecting a miracle, therefore I'm not disappointed. Voila!

Its apparent that I'm not yet completely on board with the mind thing. I've half a mind to.... I've half a mind. Herein lies my problem! My subconscious half has not returned from holiday. I'm swimming without limbs while others search abroad for the ever elusive prankster. He has most definitely left the premises with the intention of carrying on in the ways of a child free of parental bondage. Meanwhile, I am left with all the responsibility to function entirely on a cognitive level.

What is one to do without a subconscious? Where is mine?

Until my mind can recover its binary function, all I'm left with is a slant toward the practical. We know how poorly that has worked.

Existential thinking is not my forte. Perhaps I need to investigate. As soon as I find my subconscious I'll give him the Assignment.

I'm not feeling anything specifically different, but I'm more focused on what is good for me and what is bad. I'm planning on making my certainties clear. This development is significant.