I’m off to the lake this fine AM, as long as the weather holds.
Midnight thoughts.
It happens a little after midnight, usually, strange thoughts that don’t fit anywhere.
Completely unrelated to anything, there was a stray thought. Had to do with flags. Personally? One of my favorite flags is the “Gonzales Come and Get It” flag. Unofficial start of the Texas War of Independence, Oct. 1835. Gonzales, Tejas, oddly enough.
But for a display? I was thinking, what would be right? A Lone Star front and center. Then, off to the left, underneath it, in a line, a US flag, a Mexican flag, and the Rebel flag. Just a visual image to pay homage to the way I see roots. Those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it.
It’s been a good six or seven years since I’ve worked for a 900 line. The psychic sewers, as it were. One company that I worked for stressed certain issues, if there was physical violence, tell the caller to dial 911. “Phone friends” are not social work caseworkers. In my own worldview – at this time – I see my work as filling a niche between a licensed mental health worker (therapist, psychologist, &c.) and a minister (priest, rabbi &c.)
All I do is work with personalities and the influence of planets on particular segments of populations. But I’m not used to doing charts for cities or state, or countries. Although, for what its worth, Austin is a Capricorn town. Not that matters.
The way of working with personalities? Looking at individuals? That definitely affects the way I see the world. While someone might be a (insert sign here), that person will reflect some characteristics of certain planet influences. Varies with individuals, too. Back to thinking about the “psychic sewers” and the other types of behavior I see, or more often, I hear about? The observation I’ve carried with me for many years has to do with the current population in a foreign country, I’ve been lathe to talk about the war because it’s bothersome. I’ve got friends on both side of the question, for and against.
I’m sticking pretty firmly to the middle ground, pretending to be balanced and allow both sides to voice their opinions. What I was looking at, though, goes back to a standard joke amongst me and several of my friends who worked the psychic sewers years ago.
The comment was a familiar complaint from people in our line of work, the phone call we all hated, usually included a line like, “But I love him when he’s not hitting me.”
It’s the nasty side of my business. One I’m not prepared to deal with. I can answer the astrology questions, but common sense dictates that domestic violence means it is time to leave. And not go back. Which is too often the case.
What’s Iraq got to do with domestic abuse? Maybe nothing. Or maybe there’s a similarity. Too often, look, I wrote a book about signs and romance, so I deal with the question a lot. It’s part of my business. What used to bother me was watching clientele repeatedly pick the same type of personality. So it’s the same dynamic in a relationship, even though the bodies are different.
Always going for an abusive partner, unwilling to break the chain. Karma, past life, upbringing, or, in some cases, the stars? Yeah, whatever. Going for the same type of person, abusive person, more than once qualifies as a trend. One that can be broken, if the person is willing to face to obvious.
Don’t get all high and mighty, either. It’s not like this isn’t some aspect of humanity that we all haven’t seen before.
So the population of Iraq, there are whole generations of citizens, who have lived under one totalitarian dictator, an abusive ruler, for years and years. Give them a dose a freedom? What are the chances that they will pick the next leader who is equally abusive? Perhaps a nicer haircut, a little more smooth at on the first date, but isn’t there a chance that the folks who’ve lived in oppression, don’t know how to handle it?
I just can’t imagine a Baptist – or Church of Christ – or a Catholic – bowing themselves up in my doorway because I don’t worship their way.
When I ran a nightclub in Dallas, I had a doorman who was born and raised in the Middle East. In a war zone. Tall, good-looking (judging from the female comments) guy. Wiry, really strong, and handy for controlling crowds. From various reports, though, he was raised, quite literally, in a war zone. Besides some skewed attitudes, at the time, written off as the times, I got thinking about a rumor from one of his girlfriends about his violent tendencies. So being raised in that environment probably affected the way he saw the world.