Category: Blog

New Mindset: Playing With Fire

PLAYING WITH FIRE

What is your passion? There is one inside all of that burns with an unquenchable thirst. We feel it in times of high emotions and in the lows of despair. It’s a feeling, a voice, a desire and a sense rolled into one. It never leaves us and it never rests in peaceful slumber. It’s a part of us that we may not have yet met. But it’s there in every part of us

Our passion is as much a part of us as bones and blood. It lives, it grows and it dies within us . It knocks on our souls’ doors and begs entry into our thoughts. To know it is as simple as opening a door. With it come fear and delight, secrets and plight. A realm it is that is more than who we are, but one of who we never believed before we could be.

Dare to dream so that when death comes for you, it will know that you lived with purpose in every valuable moment given to you. Show it that you gave to life what only you could. Tell it that you heard the voice and you followed. You persevered even when darkness stole the light, you opened the door, you kept the fight.

Once passion is lit, it never burns out, never runs out of fuel. It builds rightenous and destroys maladies. It’s the sixth sense that each of us can unlock and free. Find it! Live up to it! Die with it! We are never fully whole until we find it. Every part of us is tied to it and without its discovery, we have existed having never truly lived at all.

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Mindset Origins: Grant Yourself A Pardon

Mindset Origins: Grant Yourself A Pardon

I have been writing Mindsets for 25 years. I thought I might take some time to explain exactly what they are and how they originated. For most, if not all of us, we have defining moments or experiences which mold us into who we become. For me, that was a clinical depression in early adulthood. I began writing to help me express and understand that depression. Initially, most of it was dark poetry, but the more I wrote the less about expression and the more about understanding and finding hope it became. Within a few years, the dark poetry became more, eventually morphing into what would become Mindsets. I had chosen to focus on what could be as opposed to what was. I chose to understand instead of escape into a vice or become completely lost in misery. I needed to believe that everything has meaning and that life is not a cosmic roll of the dice without rhyme and reason. Writing Mindsets has helped me to answer many of my questions and hopefully answer a few for others as well. In addition, it has allowed me to write about subjects for which I am passionate. I will be publishing a series of my early Mindsets that I hope you will enjoy. Most of what I usually publish are new ones that I have written recently and so you will see subtle differences in styles and context as my style has evolved over the years, Below is the second Mindset in this series.

Grant Yourself A Pardon

Life leaves scars, regrets, and sorrows that grow and integrate into our daily experiences. Because of this, they eventually become more than feelings, developing into an integral part of who we are. As they grow, they begin to mislead us causing us to believe their hold on us is stronger than our gift of choice.

If we simply resist the deception and remember that who we are and where we are going is our choice, then we can choose for every day to be a new beginning. What has brought us contempt and unhappiness in the past can feel erased by the mere choice to be free of them.

What we hold on to, holds on to us be it positive or negative. If we choose to keep the negative then it chooses to keep us in that darkness. Circumstances are not punishments or rewards. They are, however, prisons or freedoms we either build or grant ourselves.

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Mindset Origins

Mindset Origins

It Only Takes A Spark In The Darkness To See

So often it seems the root of humanity stems from what we want instead of what others need. The desire of tending to our own comforts can build walls separating us from those who need us the most. It is not always a conscious act of neglect but more of an unwilling blindness that keeps us from the most important issues and people in our lives.

It is a simple gesture to give, one that requires only the choices to see and then to act. This simplicity has an awesome effect on both the giver and the receiver because it brings positivity, which sparks an internal change that never ceases to evolve.

After truly experiencing the power of giving, we no longer see ourselves as individuals with personal desires but rather part of a large family whose needs lead us to the understanding that we are only as comfortable and secure as those to whom we give.

Untitled Short Story: Part 1

For those who read this blog, you generally find material of a more serious nature. However, I felt it was time to add something a little different into the mix. I have an idea for a short story and thought it might be fun to see where it goes without edits or rewrites. Consider it like a tv sit-com recorded in front of a live audience. I encourage comments and hope we can have a fun little journey together.

C.L. Harmon

He was born Malachi Martín Musgrave, a fitting name it seems for someone such as this peculiar creation. Born in 1975 in a small town in Oklahoma, he would quickly become an oddity of sorts to many once he began junior high. Although his parents already had their suspicions that he seemed to have a part of his brain switched on that the rest didn’t, they hoped for him a normal life.

But there was something very different about Malachi; something that no one else in the world possessed. It was something that would take him all over the world and into an incredibly abnormal life. He had a gift which seemed to jump out of the Old Testament from the days of prophets and into the present and into a relatively no one. Strangely though, other than this extraordinary gift. Malachi was normal. In fact so normal, he was boring. He was a mediocre student, awkward around girls, was into the new arcade game craze and had wet dreams like all pubescent boys who fantasized about what breasts feel like and if sex was really heaven on earth as he had heard from older kids and his brother Caleb.

Malachi had a love of history. All the other subjects were simply a waste of time after the seventh grade he believed. But history had a fascination about. It held a connection to him that felt as real to him as any connection he had with family and friends. An eighth-grade history class incident would help him to begin understanding why. One day while flipping through the textbook to the subject matter of that day, he came across a photo of a tablet with cuneiform writing. The symbols on that tablet made sense to him. It was as though he was reading the English alphabet. It made perfect sense to him. He then read the caption below the photo and realized that it explained what he had just read on the tablet.

Immediately, he walked to the teacher’s desk to ask about it but was told to return to his seat and get on board with what the class was learning that day. Try as he may to listen to the teacher, his thoughts were a flurry of possible explanations as to how he could read the tablet. Pac-Man scores and even the thoughts of naked teenage girls would soon come to be taken over by afternoon sessions in the school library and eventually the town library. A slight obsession his parents thought, one that would subside with the excitement of high school, driving, and dating. They were wrong.

By the time he had started his sophomore year, the local library had borrowed hundreds of books from other libraries for him. He had even taught himself to write cuneiform so he would have copies of what he had been reading. However, he had kept his gift a secret from everyone. He told his parents that he had a love of history and that he was curious about learning all he could about it. He knew that what he could do was strange, but had no idea as to how extraordinary a gift it actually was or how beneficial it would someday be. His father, not the bookworm type, worried about his son who seemed to have no interest in girls, cars or sports. He did have friends that he spent time with, but only if there was not a new book at the library.

His fascination with what he was learning was like an addicting drug. The more he read, the more he wanted to learn. Every shard of clay was a puzzle piece that became part of an ever increasing and intriguing picture. Most of it made no sense. It was a book with many of its pages torn out. But there was definitely a story there he believed. It was more of a feeling than anything else. Archaic communications that held no meaning or purpose in the present is really what they seemed to be. They should be nothing more than pieces of a collection in the world’s museums. But what if they were more, Malachi wondered as he began seeing glimpses into the world of 5,000 years ago. But then again, maybe those thoughts were nothing more than the desired fantasy of a boy who dreamt of a life filled with adventure instead of one with old books, joysticks and the curiosity of hormone-raged teen. Reality it seems is never far behind one’s fantasies.

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What The Hell…

What The Hell…

C.L. Harmon

For me, writing a blog with Mindsets and other bits of knowledge and wisdom gained throughout my life is about several things. One of these is helping others find answers or peace. Others include discovery, pursuing understanding about the human condition and helping people to connect with other people among other objectives. My favorite part about writing anything though is that I can do it while hiding away from the world. It’s safe and it’s private. I have become introverted over the years and spend much of my time in thought and alone. Because of this, much of what I write has hidden meanings and twisted definitions with the purpose of making those who read them to think deeper than they are accustomed to as I do.

I like knowing that I can affect you or impact your life without probably ever meeting you. The only problem with this is that I cannot be affected by you, learn from you. This, what I am doing now, is how I cope without outside help. I write. I share. Having written that, I am just going to talk this time without a point or lesson. I had a very, very bad week. The particulars or causes won’t change anything and so there is no need to write them here. But how certain words and actions made me feel this week, those I will share.

These negatives felt as though I had been hit so hard that my breath couldn’t return to my lungs. Adrenaline, anger, shock and confusion overwhelmed me to the point where my perceived clarity was no longer focused. This is the first time in my life that this has ever happened. Dealing with numerous career disappointments, clinical depression, hardships of many sorts and feeling alone even in a crowd for most of my life has hardened me to the point that feeling is more of a practiced response than an actual expression of true emotion. That certainly changed this week. Damn sure sent me reeling!

So now I am in territory that I have not been in since I was 19. It’s strange and I am still reeling from this burst of real emotion. I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to with this. I am breathing again, but cautiously and very slowly. Is this the way that most people live? If so, it seems like an intense way of living. Of course, I assume most people probably express a little at a time and so maybe the intensity is not that overwhelming as in my case. Still, how does anyone stay sane? Hell, maybe their emotions are what keeps them sane and I am the insane one. As I said, things don’t make a lot of sense to me right now. So I guess it’s possible.

At any rate, there has been something that has come out of this that seems almost out of context in this whole scenario.

I now feel as though I have been looking at life through a dirty window pane for so long that what I have been seeing is not actually what has been going on outside, but illusions made from the images out of the dust on the window. Now that the glass has been shattered, nothing looks familiar. It’s frightening and hopefully enlightening at some point. It’s so bizarre. I have never been stopped dead in my tracks like I was this week. I don’t know how to feel. I have nothing to teach and nothing to give in this writing except personal honesty. But I am writing anyway. Who knows, maybe there is a message even in this rambling. Then again…maybe not. For those of you who read me faithfully and take my writings as messages as to how to cope with life and find peace, please accept my apologies this time. I am only human…as I rediscovered this week.

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In A New Light: Does God Ever Leave Us?

In A New Light: Does God Ever Leave Us?

C.L. Harmon

Many times while watching documentaries, I have heard Jewish survivors say that God was no there during that evil period we know as the Holocaust. Each time I would hear one of them say it, an uneasy feeling would pulse through me. I guess as a Christian who has been taught that God is always with me, it gave me pause and challenged my traditional beliefs. To have endured such evil, perhaps I too would feel the same way as these people. I don’t know. But I do know it bothered me. Is God sometimes absent from our lives? For people raised in Christianity, it must seem almost as blasphemy to think such a thought. But I want to know.

I am not sure that the question has an answer. At least not a complete answer we are privy to in this realm of existence. It is intriguing to me though that it’s possible humanity is sometimes responsible for dealing with its own messes. There must have been many people in the world at that time who knew that an evil regime was in power, yet only a few ever tried to stop it. Most in the Axis countries did nothing. Maybe God felt like that He had given enough. Maybe He thought that so much had been given to humanity already and that it was time for us to learn a lesson.

Although those persecuted by the Nazis suffered the greatest as a whole without a doubt, everyone involved in a war suffers to some extent. Each country and each person suffers during conflicts. Perhaps He did step back and expect humanity to step up and finally learn the words by Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”. Maybe this was God’s way of saying that He did not allow this, but humanity allowed it by doing nothing when something had to be done.

If this were true, it would certainly explain a great deal about the miseries we suffer in our own lives. Perhaps free will carries a much greater meaning than we are willing to accept and thus accept its responsibility. As parents, do we not know that by allowing our children to make mistakes, we teach them? Does not requiring them to pay for those mistakes not teach them about the consequences of their actions or failure to act? I do not believe God punishes us for using our free will in poor judgment. I do, however, believe that he allows the consequences from it to serve as life lessons.

I further don’t believe that God ever abandons us entirely at any time. I believe He is always with us but remains silent and inactive while giving humanity the opportunity and the time to do what is right and noble. Perhaps those who believe God was absent in the concentration camps and occupied territories feel that way because God was silent just as he had been the 400 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament (Malachi’s Warning to the Jewish people). God did not abandon His children then; He remained silent while they found their way back to Him in their practices. Had He decided to abandon them, then what would have been the point of sending Malachi in 430 BC and Christ 430 years later?

These are simply my thoughts, nothing more. I find that writing allows me to explore the questions this life offers me. These writings are not proclamations of truth, but simply investigative writings which help me understand my world. It is always my hope to open up my mind and others’ as to new ways of seeing the world so that we may all have a better understanding of life and the role we play in it.

Thanks for Reading!

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Dreams Don’t Grow In The Dark

Dreams Don’t Grow In The Dark

By C.L. Harmon

When we lose our direction, we lose more than just our way. We lose ourselves. We are tied to our dreams, and it is the part of which defines us internally. I believe the dream is who we are and not that we are someone with a dream. Our dreams are powerful when we are young. They still seem within reach, and the idea of those dreams becoming elusive has not yet become a reality.

Life, however, is a thief. As days go by, they blend into a period of time and then into a past time. Our dreams begin wandering aimlessly into our subconscious as they no longer have a place in our conscious thoughts. They are as a memory that never happened. They slip into the darkness of our psyches because we feel as though they ask too much from us.

They are in constant need of attention, never fulfilled. It becomes burdensome as it requires more and more to grow. And so we let go, but are left with this sense of abandonment that we cannot explain, yet know it’s real. We feel it always with us; something lost to us but not forgotten. Our dreams are roadmaps in life. They are the directions, not to the most wonderful experiences, but directions out of the chaos of the worst experiences.

Most of us do not think of our dreams in such a way. But do we not think of dreams as paths to betterment? Is not reaching for something out of reach just another way of removing us from the negativity that is ever close to us? We lose ourselves in the chaos because we have stopped moving away from it as it grows. Does it not seem logical that our Creator would give us a tool to escape that which destroys and consumes us? Without our dreams and the pursuit of them, we no longer define who we are but instead become the definition of those who left theirs in the dark recesses of their subconscious.

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Putting The Pieces Together

Putting The Pieces Together

My mother once told me a story about a successful man from whom God took the use of his legs. I don’t remember all of the particulars but the gist of it was that the man had made choices in his life that led him to financial success. Apparently, God had other plans for him. Modern medicine could not find the cause of the man’s inability to walk and so the man writhed in bed from mental anguish as all he had worked for slipped away. He was helpless and in despair as nothing improved his situation. Depression set in and grew as weeks turned into months and the man became suicidal. Although not a religious woman, his wife called a priest to speak with her husband and talk him out of such thoughts.

While in the man’s bedroom, the priest noticed a very unusual carving on the dresser. He inquired as to its origin and the man said that he had carved it as a boy. He explained how he had loved to carve as a child, but his father had forced him to put away such childish hobbies as they were not a method in which to make a living. He had not carved any since. The priest, in awe of such a creation, persuaded the man to begin carving again as therapy. Miraculously the more he carved the more use of his legs he regained.

There are two ways one can interpret what happened to this man. One is that it was coincidental and the man would have regained the use of his legs anyway. Or, there is the one in which God took away the use of the man’s legs for not doing what He wanted this man to do. Since I don’t believe in coincidences, I shall focus on the second scenario where God took away the use of his legs.

I believe that we need to revisit a part of my last blog when I write about doing what God wants us to do, according to His plan for us. Perhaps the Biblical phrase “Thy Will Be Done” comes to mind here. God does not create a universe and not retain at least, a certain amount of control over it. The problem it seems is that others, especially those who love us, often do not understand the amount of control these desires which God gives us impacts our lives. Just as the man who lost the use of his legs, his father believed that working with carving was not what was best for his son. He was wrong.

Although the father’s intentions were good, they were not God’s intentions for the man. I believe that creative people struggle with this more than any other type of people. I think it’s a fair statement that most creative people struggle financially, often for long periods of time, while attempting to use their talent to make a living. It’s a very difficult road to take and one that is often very long before reaching the destination we desire. What we must all understand though is that we didn’t choose to be this way any more than a person chooses to have cancer or limited intelligence. It was given to us before we were born for a purpose that is not disclosed to us.

We are beholden to a desire we did not ask for. And yes we do have a choice to not pursue that desire as did the man who lost the use of his legs. It is doubtful to me that God goes to such drastic measures with all of His children who do not follow the desires given to them. But I do believe that He keeps a sense of happiness from them, a sense of fulfillment even. It is that happiness which we seek above all else. And so we are only content when we are pursuing those desires.

Walls that are constructed and broken bridges are not to keep us from those following our hearts and from reaching our desires; they are instructions informing us that we must turn and follow another direction to reach what we seek. What others may see as failures or mistakes we have made, God knows to be directional logistics. We should always listen to others as God provides direction in many ways, but we should never follow the words of those who do not understand that God sets a course for us based in faith and not in logic.

That pursuit is our journey. The failures, the triumphs, the losses and the gains are all part of what our desire is to teach us. Remember always that it is not others who must understand what we are doing. What God desires for us is not a riddle for others to solve, it is a puzzle that we alone must assemble in order to discover the meaning of who we are meant to be.

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The Cellar Door

The Cellar Door

It is to be locked inside a cellar. There are noises on the other side of the door; voices and sounds of which most have familiarity. Sometimes there is laughter and other times only quiet. The silence though is most of what rings in this angular and hollow room. It is as an old friend who never parts from my side. It is the noises and the voices from outside this room that are guests at my door, never knocking.

I stretch my imagination to match up voices with faces that I have not seen, adding new features each time the voice utters a word or laughs or cries in the house which I do not see from my closed and locked room. It is to be kept company by what I imagine to be on the other side of the door. It is the hope I think that can only be known to those who understand that isolation has a place in every soul. It is a way of life in this cellar.

Footsteps from above and below on the opposite side of the door are directions on a map that allows for a layout in my mind of what the world beyond this locked door must be like. Each footstep is a marker in my mind as I hear them tapping the floor beyond the corners, on stairs, and down corridors. Some are soft as though made by tiny feet, while others thuddish and louder as though made by giants. There are faint images from the crack at the bottom of the door, but they are only shadows pierced by the light beyond them when others stand outside the door.

There is artificial light in this depth, but it is void of sunlight. There is little warmth from it. It is to be tempted with what is true and then tested with what is false inside this cellar of stone and repetitive echoes. On certain days from windows outside this room, the truth does shine in as slivers from the gaps around the jambs. As minute as are the rays, I can still feel the warmth from them inside. It is far from me, but still, I know it holds no artificial properties. It is foreign and yet longing.

There is only outside and inside from this perspective. A door made of steel, wood or even cloth that separates one from another, one world from another. There are those who walk the rooms with both artificial light and sun and those who stand at locked doors imagining what that must be like. There are those who see a world that is with these bright lights. And there are those, who with candles in their minds, only imagine it with a flicker. This is what it is to know to a crowd can be a haunted place. This is what it is to feel a sharp wound from a dull knife. This is what it is to know depression.

The Way I See It

I have written a lot about life. Some have been positive as in reflected in most of the Mindset columns I have published over the years. Other works have been sarcastic, funny and even angry. I have done so, in part, in an effort to try and understand it…make sense of it somehow. I haven’t figured much of it out yet, but I have formulated many theories over the years through my experiences, the Bible, my upbringing and the impact others’ experiences have had on me. I thought I might write about a theory or two in this blog. Now before you get all ‘kitty has claws’ on me, remember that I am not a prophet or the Oracle at Delphi but just a person who has a few ideas. What I am though is honest in what I write. This is not to say that I am right or wrong but honestly based on the information available to me.

Is it possible that great effort does not equal great outcome? I believe so. In other words, I don’t believe that the amount of effort put in always produces the same amount in results. Nor do I care for the idea that others try and sell the concept that it does it as it’s some precious commodity. One of my irritations is going into just about any corporate setting in the US and seeing one of those framed posters with a beautiful natural landscape and a word like BELIEVE or DREAMS or some other positive word with smaller text under the big word explaining how the implementation of these words can get you to where you wish to be. Trust me on this, Look away! This is BS! Effort does not equal outcome.

Let me tell you why you should not give any credence to these types of signs or listen to others with the same mentality to get inspiration. They are false prophets. Not because they are entirely wrong but because their message may not apply to you. Taking inspiration from something or someone that is not meant for you is like taking medication that is not prescribed to and that you don’t need. In other words, it does more harm than good. If an Olympic swimmer tells you to jump into the ocean without a life jacket because it’s a good way to learn how to swim, would that be good advice? Just because something may work for someone else, does not mean it will work for you. Drowning is not what I would consider good advice.

In addition, it seems to me that people always leave out the most important part of our earthly excursion, God. Remember God? He is the one who made you and the earth and universe and your pet and the moon, the flu, rats, flies and everything else in existence. Those of you old enough may remember the line in the Jethro Tull song Bungle in the Jungle “He who made kittens put snakes in the grass”. Yeah, that God. Before moving further, let me ask you a question? Granted you had God-like powers, how likely is it that you would create an existence full of life and then just leave it to its own devices? Would you really be okay with just letting the chips fall where they may?

Seriously, would you not have some plan, some purpose in mind for your creation after its completion? Now keep in mind that it is not forced control over your dominion that you want, but voluntarily submission to your will. Slavery and forced will upon your creation will not bear the fruit of love, which is what you truly want as the creator of your human experiment. Obviously, the first action you would allow is free will to your creation. This way, you know that they willingly choose to serve you without fear from your wrath but out of a choice to do so.

Now consider what would be the one thing that you could give back to the Creator that proves you are completely willing to serve Him? Of course, it’s the only thing you actually have to give…your free will. Now here is what I believe happens with free will; a person can serve God or one’s self. If one serves him or herself, then that person is choosing to take God out of the equation. They are choosing to live a life without God’s interference and not according to His rules. With freewill God allows them to remove Him even though He has a plan for their lives. They are now the master of their own destiny. They can pursue money, fame success or any other desire without interference. They can believe in God and acknowledge His existence, but this does not mean that they serve Him. Both Hitler and Stalin believed in God. I doubt anyone with any intelligence at all would say these men were serving God regardless of what name they may call God.

Back to the point, I believe that by giving back one’s free will allows them to now be used by God for HIS purposes. Now let’s read that again, for HIS purposes. I believe that it goes without saying, but I will say it anyway. If you don’t know how to create a universe, then you are never going to understand the mind, heart, and will of the one who does. God can and apparently does give blessings of wealth to those who do not work for it. He gives health to those who commit unspeakable atrocities while giving a failing heart to an eight-year-old child who has never even had an evil thought. And why, you can bet your ass, will never be made known to you in this realm. And even if it were, you probably wouldn’t have the brain power to comprehend it anyway. These injustices are allowed for HIS purposes which He doesn’t feel a need to share with the rest of us.

Remember as you read this that there are no answers here. There is no right answer for you in this blog or on one of those stupid posters in a corporate office or in the stars or the formations of clouds. You are a lock and God is the key. Only He has the answers and He decides if and when you get them. As angry or upset with God as you may become, you will not get those answers if He does not want you to have them. If you don’t believe me then read Job in the Bible and find out what God told Job when he was pissed about the way God had allowed him to suffer.

Here is what you should walk away with after reading my theory, God does exist. You cannot serve Him and yourself. He doesn’t like that, so it’s either Him or the highway. If you choose the highway, He will let you go your own way even into a dead end. Don’t expect your desires to be the same as God’s. He doesn’t need money, fame, success or security. He will give you what you need according to what He wants you to have, not necessarily what you want. Be prepared to fail in your endeavors. He will allow you to fail one hundred times while allowing others who do not choose to serve Him, success with minimal effort. You will suffer. You will do so because it is proof that you choose Him even when it seems He doesn’t choose you. Your dreams are not guaranteed. There are no contracts with God. As such your desires are not a promise written in your heart. And lastly, positive thinking and word posters in corporate offices are not signs from God. They were a marketing plan to make money and encourage employees to work harder so the owners can make more money.

In the end, it’s all about free will and the God you serve; the God you create within yourself or the God that created you within Himself.