Above the Law of Intelligence?

When a nation of actors and performers begin to rise above the Law of Intelligence in order to cheat and scam one’s way to the top, or to give one’s offspring or family an unfair advantage over others, the entire nation suffers.

I was appalled when I heard Melania Trump deliver a canned speech to our nation which was already delivered basically verbatim by Michelle Obama. WTF? I was taught that a person of integrity writes and delivers their own original thoughts and wisdom based on one’s own personal experiences or research. Respect? What kind of a leader smashes his lips on women and then turns around and calls the victims “nasty”? A leader like Trump!

I would have been kicked out of the University of Oregon while working on my English Degree if I had plagiarized my papers and speeches. I made certain that I did my own work; I did my own hours and hours of research, and devoted hours and hours of deep thinking and writing in isolation. “Study and show yourself approved” is a value that my father instilled in me as a young child as he held “court” in our living room, arguing his narrow-minded views of the Bible and society. He taught me how to argue well.

BTW: I was STILL escorted off the campus by the leaders of the University of Oregon due to their ignorance and lack of education concerning satire and trauma recovery. They did not appreciate my costumes or my political signs and suggestions about how to solve certain problems. I think I might have scared the shit out of them due to my severe case of “filter flop.” (That is a condition where one’s social filter flops on the floor because one just doesn’t give a flying flip what one says to anyone holding a title anymore…it’s also known as speaking the truth as one sees it).

Today, I turn on the news and am shocked at the college admissions scandals perpetrated by “infamous” people with ambitions for their children to succeed. I have several children who I want to see succeed in life, but I would never tell them that I believe they are unable to stand on their own merits. Their successes and/or failures should be authentic, not handed to them due to someone else’s ability to “purchase” their success by an unethical use of money, power,or connections.

If I were rich and famous, I would pay for my children’s college tuition to whatever college they could gain admission into based on *their* hard work, so that they can pursue their dreams and aspirations for their future happiness. However, I am not rich nor famous, in fact…I am now so far in debt due to pursuing a modest dream of improving my family’s chances of success in life, it is traumatizing. I now have to pay out the nose to see any of my children for even two hours a month.

So, I was married to a “monster” of my own making like Lorraine Bracco…I was a therapist to a “monster” of my own making as well….I put up with abuse for many, many years during my twenty-year marriage. I trusted that my first husband would not ever actually kill me, but he also began to get very, very aggressive toward the end of my marriage, so I had to flee or I might not even be alive today. I could have drank myself to death as a means for escape if I hadn’t broken free. Our marriage had become toxic and out of balance and I had the right to pursue something healthier and less constrictive.

Today, I have developed some empathy for my “enemies”…I see Melania as a woman who is being used like a puppet. Yet, she might also be a perpetrator in her support of a narcissistic man who behaves like a great big screaming baby who just wants everyone to think he is King Midas, God, or worthy of the “Man of the Century.” I have to trust the universe to balance out imbalances. Maybe this next election will do so.

I can sometimes be too trusting. I am learning to be less trusting. This is domestic violence awareness month. Sometimes it is our own citizens who attack each other, rather than supporting one another and respecting one another’s safety boundaries. We are conditioned not to trust each other. We should be conditioned to trust ourselves and our own best judgments. That involves risk.

In fact, I once opened my home to a young man from the streets who traveled to my community so troubled and damaged he may never be able to operate normally in society. He was abandoned as a child by a mother on meth, and he thinks he is the embodiment of “Satan” as well as the father of “Jesus.”

That was an interesting experience. This man could be diagnosed with schizophrenia and autism and might benefit from psychotropic medication. His sweetie said he had a few positive breakthroughs while living with me and my partner. That feels successful. However, we all had a few showdowns while they lived in my home. Let’s just say everyone had a few issues with “power and control” and I was determined to take control over my own realm and not feel held hostage by strangers full of issues who I was trying to help. My own family has enough issues for anyone’s platter.

“Satan” was highly intelligent in some areas of understanding, yet had so much PTSD that he couldn’t even make coffee for himself in the morning. He was very well versed in mythology, the Bible, and in Magical thinking. He was battling some very dark demons and did his best to intimidate me, while also respecting me, and doing his best to keep me and my partner safe in this harsh world. I learned a lot about street culture from these two people.

Part of me wishes I could adopt “Satan” and help him navigate through this world…but, I already have enough children to worry about. I wish I could travel back in time and cause “Satan’s” world to feel safe and secure, loving and encouraging. He just wants to live in a Medieval world full of flying dragons and lavender where everything you need is right at your fingertips and nobody is trying to kill you. Who doesn’t?

My therapist tells me to avoid engaging in the “Martyr Complex” and to recognize that I cannot save anyone from their own issues with how they relate to the world around them. So, I take a chill pill, sit back and learn once again to laugh at situations from which I walk away. Situations like church services, weddings, car accidents, random physical attacks, surgeries gone wrong, years and years of schooling, several years of working in society, several childbirth experiences (not to mention the experiences that caused the pregnancies), and getting locked out on the roof of my house by a teenager who didn’t want to clean her room,as well as the ensuing legal proceedings that followed.

So, I am a fan of Jana Freedman…I understand dark humor as a way to process events that are horrific…yet, I avoid violence and crime as much as I can in my personal life. My father taught me that a person who lives by violence, will die by violence. There is some wisdom in that saying.

I have been recently accused of a heinous crime that I DID NOT COMMIT! I never attacked my beautiful daughter with a hammer, nor would I!!!! I know the difference between a head and a door hinge. I also never tried to “commit suicide” by means of a complete bowel obstruction ten days after a routine hysterectomy. I never “beat” my other daughter with a boot, although I did step on her foot when she wouldn’t move. That was not very nice of me, and I owe her an apology.

Some lawyers do their best to dig up “dirt” on a target…and in their efforts to cause their client’s “win” go a little bit too far. Unethical lawyers do actually exist on every level and in every community.

I will go to the grave making my statements of protest. My children deserve to know the TRUTH! The truth is that there are many, many people who will lie to them, lie about them, and remain in intentional delusional thinking to cover their own butts and their own fears of punishment or public shaming.

Freedman states that “Four and a half” women are murdered every day in the United States…is that like families that have “Two and a half” children? I think I’d prefer to be the other “half”…The one who is erased, but left alive to exist in a different realm of reality. I’d rather “kill” myself on the page or on the open-mic comedy stage, than become someone’s stupid death statistic and victim. I’d rather create a fictitious character in a novel and mutilate the character on the page, than harm a real live human. If energy begets energy, then hurting people hurt people…healing people heal people. Healthy people gravitate to healthy people, and intelligence gravitates toward intelligence…right?

I have read Stephen King and Jonathan Swift, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible…pretty dark and gruesome stuff. I prefer Dr. Seuss and Shell Silverstein, or Lucille Maude Montgomery. I wish I could enjoy a day with my children, just hanging out and reading books from my small personal library sitting around on my couch…but, their dad is AFRAID of me…and he erases those of whom he is afraid..so, whatever.

My children’s father is a freak. He is intelligent. He knows history and can recall dates of wars like nobody’s business. He has a fascination with military leaders and chess moves. However, I think he might have been brain damaged, or at least emotionally damaged, as a child by his abusive step-father, his own mother, or maybe traumatized by the teachers in England who used to smack his knuckles if he did not perform well. He can’t help it that he has dyslexia and was placed into “special education” back in the day before it was diagnosed and accommodated. So now, he has developed a few insecurities which he tries his best to make up for by playing the “victim” and creating a “criminal” opponent out of his children’s mother. It is sad and tragic how dysfunctions can develop in families.

I divorced him and flew off to gain a higher education after I discovered that I have a progressive disease that many, many, many people in this world also have. I decided that I no longer wanted to be his personal slave and had to escape in some way, shape, or form. I discovered that I wanted to have the freedom to make friends who don’t cheat and lie and that I had the right to pursue my own dreams…not just help him with his. I needed to set an example for my children on how to escape poverty and domestic violence. I don’t know how well of an example I set after all of my efforts.

So, my hard-working ex-husband became the “winner” and I lost custody of our children over a drummed-up and constructed lie while pursuing an authentic dream of gaining a higher education that could help others and make a positive difference in other people’s lives. I once told my children that someone could be a bad winner as well as a bad loser when playing sports. Gracious losing is difficult when it involves an entire lifetime of effort to overcome obstacles and ingrained family patterns.

Then, I had my eyes opened to the truth of the cost behind pursuing dreams. Sometimes bright, intelligent, promising people of all ages, genders, cultures, socio-economic statuses are eliminated from the game of life due to ignorance. Our human bodies can sometimes play tricks on us and even turn on us. We can develop symptoms of diseases that can remain un-diagnosed for decades. We can develop mental-health diseases that remain un-diagnosed for decades…our entire nation has citizens who are suffering every day from conditions we cover up with a smile and a story that helps us feel better.

I believe we are a nation of GREAT storytellers! I have read some great stories and have heard some amazing stories from people who are either pulling their stories out of thin air, or are telling me truths I don’t want to go to sleep thinking about. Many stories from those who I talk to involve fantastical events that seem unbelievable. Many people have a heart to make this world a better place, but they feel so powerless that they don’t know where to place their angst and their fears.

I encourage them to place their fears in a book or a poem. I encourage them to express them through dance, creative art, creative cussing, scream therapy if needed, or any expression that is SAFE and keeps those around us safe. Comedy helps. Embracing comedy and safe hugs helps.

I believe higher education should be FREE! I believe access to universal knowledge that can save lives should be FREE and equally accessible. If our youth were kept safe and occupied with pursuing their dreams with the belief that achieving them was actually possible, wouldn’t that benefit EVERYONE?

When I watch the news, I am daily reminded that money does NOT buy intelligence. The recent news of the young man who took his girlfriend on an expensive vacation, stayed in a resort that cost $17,000 a night, and who dove under water *without any scuba gear* to propose marriage proves that money does not buy wisdom.

Now, Alec Baldwin does not believe that his rich and famous friends should spend any time in prison for their efforts to promote their *obviously* less than stellar children above poor people’s children who may not have the same advantages given to those of the elite. Isn’t having enough income to buy one’s children books and giving them an atmosphere that encourages studiousness enough? Isn’t setting an example of hard work, achieving success and honors WITHOUT cheating enough?

Now, once upon a time I was able to be a stay-at-home mother who educated my children to the best of my ability. Each and every one of my eight children learned very differently and at a different pacing. My younger children never got to be home-schooled. My oldest used to spin on the floor while listening to her lessons. She liked to stay active and expecting her to sit still in a chair was excruciating to her. My second child was reading chapter books by the time she was four and seemed to have a brain wired to be inquisitive and bright.

My oldest seemed to have no desire to pursue a higher education, yet she is successful and I am very proud of her achievements! My second child is pursuing a career as a pharmacist and is also successful in pursuing her dreams. My other children are also pursuing their dreams of happiness and personal achievements, making friends, and growing up.

The only thing I was able to give to them along the way was a good start in life, as much healthy food as I could, and many, many hours of reading to them, singing to them, and letting them explore the big wide world around them while doing my best to keep them safe…I was able to do my best to create many happy memories in the midst of a hell of a lot of trauma and drama….and, I did my best to protect them as long as I could from the knowledge of the nature of certain humans and certain forms of evilness on this planet.

I wish I had the ability to give them more positive tools to put in their tool bags, but I was accused of not knowing how to handle a hammer or renovate a house safely.

Children live what they learn. What kind of lessons are we teaching them?