Business and pleasure.

Today's one of those times there's nothing different to say, but I log in anyway. I've been busy, I got two out of my last three photo trips done today which are now loaded, and flickr is full till January so I've got four new pictures there and about ten more to add when they let me again. Now my ram card is also full I either have to buy a new one until I get the ones printed I want, or buy a DVD burner and get them all transferred, which is preferable. Two are also with a relative hoping to be printed on A4, finger crossed it works.

Otherwise I did also see a house with about 30 flattened boxes outside near where my car was parked, and I knocked and asked if she wanted them and she said no. So I now have the last few boxes I need which will take everything from the remaining kitchen cupboards. That was a lucky break, and if only more things worked as smoothly I'd have a very different life now. One concept I'd been toying with recently was karma. I accidentally managed to avoid all the areas that used to give me stress, mainly a job and exams. The exams thank god are over eventually, though potentially I'd be happier with either/or a masters degree/professional chartered qualification like social work. But at 45 I will have to exploit what I have as the master's option is too tough as I dropped off one already, and the professional qualification would probably finish me off nowadays. Technically I ought to have enough already, but once you start on this track until you get a PhD there's always 'one more' should you rise to the bait and have the large sums of money you now also require.

So the karma bit is the evil side of a higher power, the devil. I will explain. Making lessons difficult is not god's work. A parent wants their child to learn but at the lowest costs possible. They'd rather they learnt to ride their bikes without getting hurt, pass exams without resitting, and get partners without being dumped on too much. But unless I'm in a bad weather zone, every task seems not to happen without a sudden or continuous exertion of effort. Punishment is for the lazy, so anyone who wants a reward without effort is put in the naughty corner where every project goes wrong as you don't deserve it. As I said, karma, cause and effect. So despite never choosing not to have a job, my naive wish for success without a regular routine appears to break the rules of karma, and impose a feeling of guilt that of course I've brough failure on myself as I'll never get a thing out of life if I put nothing in. This of course is one polar and truly satanic view, much employed by religions worldwide and grandparents.

The new age view is nothing needs to be an effort. The effort-result connection is pure illusion, and if we drop it things will happen as they can easily with no need to justify a reward with an earlier episode of suffering. In fact, the old satanic argument you can't see the light without the dark is usually interpreted to mean just the opposite of this. In fact, if it is true at all and not more of the same illusion, the actual meaning is once you are aware of the darkness once, you needn't ever experience it again to distinguish the light. Once you know shit stinks, you basically don't need to be reminded by having it around the whole time. Nice description, but it's a memorable one. So the compromise situation is up to me. I have to realise the effort-result equation is false before it will be. Complex but possibly the actual scenario. Just like you can't not think about an elephant, or let go of letting go, you can't do any of this yourself. It requires a combination of grace and others to shift you from outside. You can't choose to directly shift your perception or there would be a world of masters and no students. I have read enough books and been to enough lectures to know the theories, but my only practical teaching is to be aware of where I am and what I'm feeling, and the karma will gradually die. There are more complicated methods but there lies the path to madness and I don't need any more help on that.

So my current status is hoping to gain the rewards others get from 'working' (whichever way you read it), without actually doing so. People do, such as the British aristocracy who inherit enough to stop starvation in Mali if it was shared equally, but earn millions a year from rental on family properties and the like. They never feel guilty as they know nothing else, also making a nonsense of the satanic view of reward. I was from the middle class study, qualify and work your arse off to buy a nice house and average but new car. I did the first bit and then it all went wobbly as described in an earlier post. But every now and then when the devil creeps in I think 'no wonder I've got so little, I don't deserve it as I'm not working'. Long held beliefs you know in your heart are wrong still seem right in your head when you look at friends with everything you don't have, possibly just 'because they have a job'. I'm beyond looking now for various health and related reasons, but am able to either work from home (little chance of that) or do the odd media piece and earn so much it pays for the gaps, which is possible but relies on both talent possibly beyond my own, and a hell of a lot of luck someone picks up the tiny worm I have in a sea the size of the Atlantic.

That's the path I've been forced onto, and whether I feel guilty or not can't change my direction, but will make me feel a lot better when I stop believing it's my own fault. Tough call.