The Daily G.I.F.T. from The GratiDude

I’m going to be the “Licker” now and not wait until I am old and feeble to sit and get licked.

www.grateful4.org

Gratitude

Intention

First

Things

The G.I.F.T. Today

Grateful-for knowing that measurable changes and results take time, but shifts inside can happen instantaneously

Intention-steady as she goes in and out through the nose

First-press release finalization coaching

Things-kids logistics next few weeks

Morning Platitude from The GratiDude

I had a professor in junior College before I transferred to University of California who was born in a small village in China. His parents were able to send him to the United States when he received an academic scholarship to The University of California and he remained in Northern California as he became a professor and started to earn good income.

Due to the type of person he was and the way he was raised in his culture, it was particularly important to The Professor that he save money and send it home as a thank you to both his parents and to the village that helped raise him. He was clear when he explained his story to us that his perception was that his entire village was his family, and that it was his obligation to help his entire family.

By the time I met the good professor, he was about 60 years old and he had been teaching for over 30 years and he had sent quite a bit of money back to his home Village.

A lot.

They built a school, got a bus, a health clinic, you get the idea. Hugely impactful.

When he went to visit for the first time in about 10 years when he was in his mid-40s, he received the most honorable of greetings at his home village that they could provide. They had the 20 oldest members of the Village lineup right at the edge of town at the entrance, where the professor would be arriving, and they stood in a straight line like a receiving line at a wedding, in order from the 20th oldest to the very oldest elder, who was the last person that the professor was greeted by at the entrance to his hometown.

Greetings went something like this:

“ Welcome home our kind and generous son. We are so happy to receive you today back to your village. I am the 20th oldest member of our village welcome home.”

And so, it went.

“ I am the 19th oldest member of the village welcome home, our beautiful and generous son that has provided so much for us here”

“ Welcome home, native son. We love you with all our hearts, thank you for your generosity. I am the 18th oldest member of our village.”

He explained to us that longevity was valued tremendously in Chinese culture, because there was no replacement or substitute for the experience of life and all the wisdom that it could teach you through its suffering, tribulations, education and moments of joy, happiness and pure bliss.

It was his opinion that because of the long-standing traditions of Confucianism thousand-year-old rituals that were still being practiced regularly, the ancient Chinese medicine, teachings, and rituals that tied individuals to the teachings of their parents grandparents and great grandparents created a much different and longer view of history and a greater respect for senior citizens and for the aged.

If the truth be told here in the United States, the idea and the culture of the elderly being disposable and being moved to separate living situations has a great deal to do with our economic system, and some of the changes in our society post-World War II, the move away from the land, and other encouraged and programmed consumer behaviors.

We lost track of our roots when we moved away from the land and so we sent grandma and grandpa away to go live in the hospital because they didn’t seem useful anymore here in the city.

Well, of course shit’s going to get fucked up.

But it’s never too late to move the sails in our society, tack and change direction.

And I don’t mean, just bringing puppies and licking faces, I mean, capturing oral history and bringing young people in to hear what life was like after World War II and explore some interesting subjects that could be of interest for the youth.

It would be interesting for the seniors to explain what it was like to do a nuclear bomb drill in elementary school when you were told to suddenly jump underneath your desk and duck your head between your legs because there might be a mushroom cloud forming on the horizon.

Subconsciously or consciously these kids knew because they had seen pictures and images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that sticking your head up your ass underneath your desk was not going to do a lot to protect you from nuclear fallout.

One of the points being that life wasn’t so pure and easy and simple back in the day because you would go to elementary school and be faced with some seriously scary existential shit about the end of humanity and the fact that you should practice kissing your ass goodbye on a regular basis.

And those kids grew up in the Vietnam era and then saw that the government was lying to us about what was going on got handed some acid(LSD) and all hell broke loose.

Hair got long and music got loud, black and white people partying together, this was all getting out of hand :).

Now we can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Society is confused and divided and lots of people want to go back to jumping under their desk and sticking their head in their ass while other people think we should all start tripping balls and move on to a new chapter.

Me?

I know it’s all perfect because it couldn’t be any other way and everything that is happening in societies is just stories told by people usually out of fear and more often out of desire to manipulate for their own selfish self-interest.

And I’m OK with that too because that’s just human nature when you don’t evolve your consciousness and you separate yourself from your higher self.

I also know it’s not a deeply satisfying way to live that provides joy and contentment in times of silence.

If you don’t have joy and contentment in the times of silence, you don’t have joy or contentment at all.

If you’ve been reading my blog here at all for the last couple of years, then you know I like to reference what the sweet folks in assisted living and in hospice will tell anyone that will listen about the regrets they have in their life as they come to the end of their human experience.

They tell you to live true to the whispers of your higher self to spend more time with friends and family and loved ones to laugh and love as much as possible and to live the true life that is your calling whatever that is without regard or concern for other people’s opinions.