Life Story

[autumnleavesnnovember]

Well, you may not have received some "greater powers", Ken, but I'm happy you are still alive to participate in this interesting conversation we are having. What a horrible accident! How long did it take you to recover? Did you see it as an accident, or do you believe it was a predestined incident. (That topic can definitely lead to some "heated" discussions!)

It is so interesting, though, when people acquire sudden savant like abilities or such after an accident or stroke. Darold Treffert touched on that topic in his book: https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Geni...=1495154914&sr=8-1&keywords=islands+of+genius. Really fascinating reading. Most of the book is about savants, but he does look at sudden savant abilities, as well as savant abilities in individuals who do not have the disabilities of a savant.

Of course, acquiring new abilities, including psychic ones, is often touched on in NDE books, too. I can certainly believe someone who had an NDE had "happenings" or newly acquired abilities after the NDE, but it depends on what the person says or writes, and if I believe the person is telling the truth or not. I'll tell you right now, though, if you came across like a narcissist in a book on the topic, like Eben Alexander did, I wouldn't believe a word you said! You know, at least one of the medical doctors who reviewed his book at Amazon did state that Dr. Alexander obviously was left brain damaged by his e-coli illness. Others, though, expressed the belief that he was just a "down and out" physician. I personally felt for sure he was a brain surgeon looking for a new day job, and he hoped those who read metaphysical books were going to help financially support him for the rest of his life.

 

[KenJ]

How long did it take you to recover? Did you see it as an accident, or do you believe it was a predestined incident. (That topic can definitely lead to some "heated" discussions!)

Recovery was indeed something I wanted, I'd say that it took about five years to get through the physical things. Unfortunately, that was only part of the struggle, my marriage was fractured and my family was in disarray. I really need to find a place to consolidate what I have written about that major happening in my life. Anyway, to find that I had lost muscle control (not sensation) of so much of my body as well as my wife was truly a test of my beliefs. I resolved to do everything that I could to rebuild my marriage forever, but changed that to twenty-years after picturing myself on my death-bed still trying. Even that was a dream since there were no assurances about my life span that was of course day-to-day at the start - then I was told that I had probably five years. Eventually, one doctor told me that I might even live to the age of sixty. I accepted that as a reality at some level and was surprised when I found myself about that age and still healthy.

I was thirty-three when I was injured and I too stubbornly held onto the "no-divorce" until at fifty-nine I knew that we both needed more than we had together, the children were raised, and it was time to move on. The problem was that I could barely keep myself safe, and my abilities were declining. I had immediately enrolled in college in order to start another career to support my family - became a professional student - ended up retiring in 2011 as a computer programmer. I had to give up my manual wheelchair in 2014 when my shoulder could no longer propel me and I had it replaced. It is harder now to feel that I am inspiring people by showing them what you can do despite such an injury because of added physical decline I am having. I'd love to tell the entire story, but it is not really appropriate for this forum.

What is appropriate is that a year before my injury, I asked a friend about another classmate and he told me that he "could not make it here any longer and had moved to Florida", I responded that "I could make it (anywhere) as long as I had my head and right arm". I often thought about my response a year later. My having an understanding about reincarnation was very helpful for me, a gift from my father that allowed me to continue on despite all that I faced in the 1970's.

As I said before, I was disappointed in not gaining some special abilities or some greater understanding that I could share that would make me feel special in some way. Instead, I'm just an old man with a wonderful young wife - we recently celebrated our nineteenth anniversary.

 

[autumnleavesnnovember]

Well, you have a wonderful young wife. Seriously, though, it also sounds like you have acquired quite a bit of wisdom over the years due to your terrible trials. Have you thought of writing a memoir? Also, I'm curious--what "special abilities" were you wishing you had acquired? I like the idea of "special abilities" more than the idea of "greater understanding", because the latter seems too much like a cliche. Or maybe it's just age that makes me feel that way. I mean, have you ever felt you have read it all or heard it all? Like no one could possibly say anything new about learning from tragedy and suffering? In addition, it was your Dad who believed in reincarnation long before reincarnation went mainstream? Please elaborate! My mother believed in reincarnation and Edgar Cayce when I was a child--'60s-'70s. But I saw those beliefs as "nutty" and unchristian. It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I started reading Edgar Cayce, and slowly but surely found it impossible not to believe in reincarnation. My mother still believes in reincarnation, only she has never grasped the concept of karma . . . at all . . . ever.

 

[KenJ]

Thank you for those warm remarks.

I have indeed attempted to create a record of my travels in this lifetime, and as humans will do, I have pondered if they are worthy of being printed/read. The main problem I find is keeping the story PG-13 or milder. I'd also surly offend the "Participation-Trophy" PC crowd, and have other conflicts perhaps with the intent of Steve and Carol's great forum. I have, over the past few years, gotten in touch with as many of the wonderful cast of characters that agreed to be a part of my adventure, one (2015) after a period of sixty years, another (2008) after thirty-seven years, and I am distressed that there are some that I can not find - women are harder to locate, and my life has been blessed with quite a few wonderful women.

Times were different in the '50s than they are now and most everything that was normal in those days is seen as "unreal" by the current Millennial generation, the thought of not having "Driver-Training", being allowed to take the family car on a date at age fifteen, a time when $3 was a darned good hourly wage. How can I communicate my "Reality" in a way to have it understood in today's world? Driving is a good example - It became Very important to me after my injury. I discovered a Company that modified vehicles when I ran-away to California in 1973 when the full details of my wife's infidelities were exposed and I was trying to keep my sanity. I spent three months in Vallejo, two months in the rehab hospital and a month in a hotel seeing if I could possibly manage on my own. Bought the van, had it shipped to Ohio, and learned to drive it in my driveway - something that would now be illegal (so sad).

What Special Abilities did I want? I wanted a better understanding of "reality", I wanted to be clairvoyant, I wanted to remain conscious when having OBEs that I know I still have. That is the short-list, I can add to that! I wondered why I agreed to this challenging life, was it a "payback", was it an attempt to take a Big-step, was there more to it than appeared on the surface, should I be ashamed for "deserving" this life? I never lost my love-of-life, even through the very dark period in the 1970s. I have few regrets, mainly my Fathering, particularly my youngest daughter for not protecting her from her mother's using her in our marital disputes. Of one thing I'm sure, I was involved in the creation of the script of this lifetime, I would love to know the intended learnings and how I "did" - I'll probably find out soon enough as I'm wondering if I'm currently in an "opt-out" period.

 

[autumnleavesnnovember]

Okay, Ken . . . I think I'll number my questions and comments to better organize my post . . . .

1) What is the "Participation-Trophy" PC crowd?

2) In regards to PG-13 memoirs . . . I can just tell you that I personally don't care for explicit memories in memoirs. I think it's too much information and individuals should possess a personal sense of privacy, not an intense desire to tell others, particularly strangers, really private things about their lives. Of course, there's countless people out there in memoir reading land who don't agree with me, and really like explicit stuff.

3) I think it's a very good sign you care how your audience feels about something you write, and if they will understand what you're describing. Because there are far too many contemporary memoirs where the authors obviously couldn't care less about their reading audiences. They think a memoir gives them the license to just ramble on and on about themselves . . . and their lives . . . and their relatives . . . as if everyone reading their book is obviously going to be happily hanging on every word they write.

4) Yet why worry if those from a younger generation aren't familiar with how life was decades ago? Your book will be teaching them history. No need to explain why something was like it was, unless you strongly feel younger generation readers will highly misunderstand what you're describing. Moreover, your most appreciative audience will probably be those in your own age group.

Your last paragraph was interesting. I use to want to acquire all sorts of special abilities, too--automatic writing, ESP, being able to dream past lives of my own and those of others, etc. I definitely read enough books on such topics! I also wanted to know why I chose this lifetime and all. Then, one day, I just stopped wanting such things and wanting to know such things. I questioned the "special abilities" were even real; questioned that past lives were even real or that dreaming was anything but some brain exercise. Today, I do firmly believe in reincarnation; but still find my dreams are pretty worthless, when once they were anything but that; and I still question the "reality" of special abilities and such. At this point in my lifetime, it's I'll believe it when I personally see it or when I experience it.

 

[KenJ]

Sunday, you are making me think too hard, but I'll try to comply.

1.) The folk that have such delicate sensibilities that they need "Safe spaces" from which to tell others how despicable they are. The ones who feel that the realities of life are too harsh and people need to be protected from them.

2.) There were two life-changing occurrences in my life that fit in that category, one when I had knowledge gained from a prior lifetime, and another when a nurse and I saved each other from events that were destroying us, truly a time when people come into our lives for a purpose.

3.) Amen.

4.) I listen to the younger members of my family and see the differences in their "reality" and mine. An example came to mind as I read your question. I started out as a youngster in a small town where everyone knew everyone and my parents usually knew what I'd done before I got home, especially if it was something bad. I grew up next to a creek and befriended about everyone I met, including the kids that lived "on the street" and were considered to be from the "wrong side of the tracks". My years as an ironworker in the 50's and 60's put me in daily contact with people that would do unspeakable things - that was just the way it was at that time. I was thinking of a contemporary who was from Dayton, about twenty miles north of where I now live. He told me that he had started as I did, but got too involved with people in his pre-teens that his Dad thought he needed to avoid. His Dad's solution was that on Friday evenings, he packed his son up with bed-roll, fishing pole and rifle, and dropped him off at the river here in this little village. He would pick him up on Sunday evening and repeat this for about a year to build character and self-reliance in his son. That would not be allowed today, even thinking in that manner would cause Child-welfare folk to have a hissy-fit, let alone the gun-fearing folk that would think that was Crazy. My thoughts were that it would be too "unbelievable" and detract from the credibility of the story, much like Cathy's apparent need for attention detracts from the book about Christian.

My need to read about reincarnation seems to have slacked-off for one reason or another as has my wondering about what I am supposed to be doing at this point in my life. My loss of core muscles over the years has seriously reduced the things that I can do. I'm beginning to look a bit like Stephen Hawking, not really, but it feels like it. I have never been into dream work, always felt that it was just a way of part of me to express things for its own needs.

 

[deborah]

Hey hey, that was going to be my point. Lololol I think everyone's experience is unique. Just like every snowflake.

What comes into play is what we create in our lives leads us to our beliefs. Thoughts, feelings and emotions. The unseen but REAL and unprovable parts of life.

I talked with Carol, about this case before the book, before the internet posts. I need to read it yet to really comment, but IMHO it should have been written by a third unbiased party. Presentation is everything!

 

[deborah]

Hi Ken,

Loved reading your post. Reminds me of my days by the creek behind our house. Riding my horse 20 miles at age 14 to camp out by the lake. Bareback. We always were outside playing. Building forts, swinging over the pond from the big tree. Swimming, hiking etc.

I am thankful for those childhood days. Taught me how to be responsible and step up. Mom held the bar high.

 

[KenJ]

I admire your equestrian experiences, however I can not relate that much as my main memories were of hitting the ground pretty hard. I love animals, but riding them was not a part of this lifetime. Twenty miles is a pretty good ways by horseback, an accomplishment that I'm sure brings good feelings to you. I have a horse-loving granddaughter, actually on her third horse now I think.

Yeah, those were the days, I'll soon start my eightieth year, but some memories still seem like yesterday.

 

[autumnleavesnnovember]

Thinking is good for you, Ken. At your age, you better keep doing so, too!

1) Don't even get me started about the trigger warning topic.

2) Talking about age, sometimes I wonder if advanced aging doesn't make some people become more explicit when talking about their lives. In fact, there were two memoirs I read by older actors that made me start wondering that. One was Shirley Jones' memoir and I can't remember who wrote the other one. (Middle-aged Swiss cheese brains sometimes are holier than elder brains, in more ways than one. )

3) I'm amazed that many authors who write memoirs bashing their relatives don't get sued by said relatives, such as their mothers.

4) I don't think that story would be unbelievable to many readers and would not be a distraction. Yes, some younger readers may be "shocked" by it, but so be it! History certainly should not be rewritten or hidden to accommodate or "protect" younger generations. Moreover, I think one day "helicopter parenting" is going to be seen as something that never should have existed in the first place.

I love horses, but have always been somewhat scared of them and have always feared the idea of falling off one. I think it's a past life thing!

Sunday

 

[KenJ]

The need for everyone to work in order to have "enough" income, for whatever reason, certainly changed the way of life in America as I knew it as a youngster. I have wondered if that and the "feminist" movement were perhaps tied to gender changes in incarnations somehow.

I'm not clear about how this ties into this conversation, but it does somehow. Years ago, I read the books by Carlos Castaneda and recognized a "truth" in them, not that the books were the "truth", just that there was truth being spoken among the many things being said. I feel the same way about the Christian Bible (all the many versions thereof). In the books, Carlos described the "Witness" or "Observer" (I can't recall which term he used now) and I recognized that part of me in the thread I started about "Have you ever been used?" I also recognized his description of a Warrior as I was certainly aware of how I dealt with my disability. I am not attributing this to anything about ego, rather an attitude, taking it as a challenge that allowed it to be meaningful rather than destructive. This first quote is very meaningful to me.

"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”
― Carlos Castaneda

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
― Carlos Castaneda

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/8088.Carlos_Castaneda?page=1

 

[autumnleavesnnovember]

The need for everyone to work in order to have "enough" income, for whatever reason, certainly changed the way of life in America as I knew it as a youngster. I have wondered if that and the "feminist" movement were perhaps tied to gender changes in incarnations somehow.

There seems to be a stereotype of past . . . as in decades ago, not past lives . . . housewives always being miserable and "cheated" of a paying job and a "real" occupation; when so many women very much enjoyed their housewife lives, and didn't or don't envy at all women who work outside the home.