Duct Tape for the Soul for Feb. 28, 2014

Don’t lie! You need love too!

Are you serious, or just trying to pull our legs? You’d like to tell us that you have no need for love? How astounding! Really? Normally this state of un-needfulness is the result of having been trounced by someone, of bitterly having loved and lost. It is a form of sour grapes. Why should I waste time on love?! the bitter ones loudly protest.

Naturally, this hasty denial, this repudiation of love and all its difficulties is in reality, a veiled attempt to garner some love and attention. You’d deny this? You haven’t been disappointed in love? Haven’t had your heart stepped on? Your butt kicked by it?

Perhaps you merely reject the whole idea of love on philosophical grounds? You’re loath to surrender to someone else? Maybe you find the whole thing messy and time consuming? You hate the vulnerability that loves burdens you with? Thye fact that it can make you into a crazy fool? Oh, so you’re too practical for love?

Perhaps you shoud stop trying to stare at your feet a moment and listen to me? You need love. Assuming you aren’t lobotomized! Your heart and soul are desperate for it. If you think otherwise, you’re lying to yourself! Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed, we all share the same need, the same burdens!

Perhaps you’d like to try a better approach? Instead of running from it, or pretending you have no need for it, you’d try to actually find some? There are billions of others out there, as lonely and desperate as you! Get off your butt and make a real attempt to find someone! You aren’t getting any younger. The task just gets harder, the longer you put it off!

Perhaps you’d like to know how I figured out you’re lying to yourself? Easy. You’re alive. As long as you are, you’ll need to be loved. It’s really that simple. Now, get off your butt and start looking. And don’t stop until you’re dead, or in love. There’s no plan “B”. Sorry.

Jack

Duct Tape for the Soul for Feb. 27, 2014

There is Likely Nothing You Won’t Need To Know

I’ve heard young people say a hundred times, “Why do I need to learn that? I’ll never use it!” I smile. Ultimately, you are destined to grow your soul to be the equal of God. You’re going to be busy a very long time. But be that as it is, right now, in the maundane here and now, you’re going to have many times when you’ll wish you knew a whole lot more than you do!

The embarrassing fact is this; you have no idea on God’s earth what’s in store for you, even in this puny small life. It is a remakable fact of God’s universe that He tends to rearrange your priorities with no warning, and He does so frequently! You just let yourself get the least bit comfortable, and BOOM! Everything turns upside down.

We all cry and complain about the unfairness of this, but it does no good. I’d guess that complacency is a sin, even though it got left off the tablets. You get comfortable in a cosy rut, and you’re in for an adventure, no matter how much you cry and moan. You can be snug on dry land one moment, and you’ll wake to find your bed floating down stream. You thought you didn’t need to learn to swim? Hows that working for you now?! Suprise!

Of course, God isn’t mean or vindictive, at least not nearly as much as He should be, considering how wicked most of us live. He simply wants you to grow your soul, and make it stronger. Tossing your butt down the mountainside occasionally helps with that a lot more than you’d ever admit. Arguing about it is a one way ticket to more change and upheaval, so you might as well accept your fate, and get busy.

Trust me, I have lots of personal experience to support my observations. I hated English in both high school and college. I was a passable writer, but thought I’d never need or care to know much about the whole subject. I’ve now written twelve novels in the last six years. Care to guess how much I’ve regretted not paying better attention when I had decent instructors? Somewhere out there, a pantheon of former English teachers are grinning wickedly, every time I screw up and have to correct something I should have learned in sixth grade English class!

My point is simply this; learn everything you can, you have no idea what you’ll need! You’ll have a much better life if you’re even  halfway prepared. And the craziest thing you might think you’d never need will always be the one you miss the most, when you suddenly discover you need it!

Jack

Duct Tape for the Soul for Feb. 26,2014

Why Did You Forget How To Play?

Have you ever noticed that children can do at least one thing much easier than you? They can go from being bored, cranky, mad, and upset to being in complete and utter joy instantly! You set a puppy, kitten, bunny or fun toy in front of one, and they’re launched into complete fits of fun giggles instantly. Makes you jealous, now that you think about it doesn’t it?

Adults need to get ready first, before they can have fun. There’s always something important that needs to be done, finished or attended to, isn’t there? You’ll have fun later…maybe, if you get your chores done, if no one calls or drops by to interrupt you. You’re an adult, and you’ve got burdens and responsibilities, don’t you? And you wonder why you’re sad and unhappy?

Frankly, I’d love to drop by your place, and squirt a full can of whipped topping down your pants, just to loosen you up! This adult stuff has dragged you down to the point that you have no fun, no joy in your life. Way too many of you can’t even get laid, you’re so grumpy and disagreeable! How can you live like you do?

We all need fun, joy and laughter. You need to see fireflys, sunsets, rainbows and stars! Fuzzy animals and someone naked to play with are good too! (but not necessarily at the same moment!). Perhaps you need a big enema of fun in your sad existance? Trying to be grown up is a drag, and not good for your health either.

Do you even remember what joy and laughter were like? How much fun being tickled was? If you’ve got small children, I pray you have lots of that. But the rest of you need someone to play with too! Don’t listen to the old farts who will tell you to “act grown up” or to act, “responsible.” Your heart and soul need play. Such things are not ungodly, are in fact the very essence of godliness.  Frankly, you need to have fun and laugh now. Seeing how some people are living, they won’t have much fun when they die, and God checks their record, that’s for sure!

Jack

Duct Tape for the Soul for Feb. 25, 2014

Exactly What Are You Doing With Your Life?

You may have come upon the vague realization at some point, that living day to day, ramdomly zigging and zagging from one crisis to the next, probably isn’t getting you to the sort of rewarding life you’d like to have! Endulging your urges, with no sense, plan or vision is pretty much a one way ticket to the swamp.

When did you start to suspect this truth? Are you under thirty, or contemplating the retirement you can’t afford? If you’re young, congratulations! You may have time to chart a new and better course. If you’ve got the Senior Citizens Discount cards in hand, you’re in trouble! It won’t be easy to save yourself from an entire lifetime of folly, but you can still try!

Now understanding what you’re doing wrong is a great first step, or even better, just understanding that you are lost and in a mess. It’s painful to admit that you did this to yourself, but that’s a necessary first step to improving your life. What you need more than anything is to take stock of your dreams. You once had them, as all people do. It just seems many lose them, or worse, throw them away! You aren’t going anywhere in life without a functional and doable dream!

What are your issues? Lonely? Broke? Crappy job you hate? You’d not be wise to expect some miricle to happen, and everything suddenly be roses and puppy dogs. Fixing your problems takes work. But first it takes planning! I’ve known lots of people who worked nonstop at things, but got nowhere. Why? Because it wasn’t their true path. You’ve got one; every soul comes here with one. The farther you get from it, the worse off you’ll live!

Understand this: no one is supposed to be alone and miserable. You aren’t supposed to end up in jail or dead either.  If you had a workable dream, you’d have small chance of that happening. How do you find that? Think. Contemplate. Dream. Learn to understand yourself and those around you. These are the things that will move you towards a better life. Being drunk or stoned, mean or bitchy aren’t doing it, are they? You know better! You need to think more deeply about this, don’t you?

Jack

Bessie-isms and Quotables for Feb. 24, 2014

Bessie-ism:

*You don’t know the truth because you won’t hear the truth. You won’t hear the truth because you think you already know the truth! Ah ha! Now do you see what’s keeping you from having a better life?

*An open mind is a great thing to have, allowing you to learn and seek wisdom. Even more important is to have an open heart, for without such you will never learn to love.

Quotables:

A wise person will make more opportunities than they will find.

Francis Bacon, 1561-1626

Duct Tape for the Soul for Feb 24, 2014

You Need More Than Looks

There are a few conceited people around who think they’re beautiful. But not as many as you’d imagine. I’d bet good money that ninety percent of the beautiful people alive think they’re unattractive, if not down right ugly!  How many have you met? Sad, isn’t it?

Having raised six daughters, a couple of whom were hot enough to set the couch on fire, but who thought, much like their plainer sisters, that they were “plain or ugly” I can attest to what watching such self abuse looks like. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t help anyone that we live in a society fixated on appearance more than inner worth either.

Young women, especially teens will wear out the subject. “I’m too fat, too short or tall, too ugly, boobs too small or too big, bad skin, have terrible, frizzy hair,” Nothing suits or pleases them. Some of that is just fishing for compliments. If you’re a terrible parent, you might agree with them, just out of frustration. Very bad idea! They’ll never get over it.

Learning from your parents, or worse, having to learn it on your own, that what you look like doesn’t determine your worth as a human being, is hard. But it’s one of the most fundamental discoveries you’ll ever make! A person who has nothing but their physical self to offer the world is reduced to being a sort of cheap whore, and likely will be treated little better! Is this your dream, or do you wnat something better?

I knew a girl in college, tall, freckled, warm, sweet, utterly femminine and sexy, but she had small boobs. You guessed it, she was obsessed with that fact. She had all sorts of problems and issues, which she blamed her inadequate chest for. She finally saved up the money and had them “improved.” Sure, she looked nice, and didn’t suffer any problems, but guess what? Her life still sucked! Changing her appearance didn’t improve the real part of her, the unhappy and miserable part! I tried to tell her, as you’d imagine, but she didn’t listen! (I’ve been handing out unappreciated advice for a long time!).

I worked hard to teach all my daughters to smile, as nothing else takes so little, but makes a human more attractive to others. The rest of my effort was to help them become a real, decent person, whom others might love. That’s what you need to be working on, if you’re not thrilled with your life. Improve your soul. The body you’ve got now will be gone in a few decades, but you’re stuck with the same soul. Make it better, and all your lives will be much better.

Forget the cosmetic surgery, it isn’t your body that needs enhancement; its your heart and soul! A person obbsessed with their looks is doomed to living a shallow and meaningless life.  You don’t want that, trust me. Assuming you’d like to be more than an ornament to someone, or a decoration for their life? You deserve more than that!

Jack