The City of Zion

Things have been pretty intense on the personal homefront over the past three weeks and I confess I feel like I have been participating in a "psychological boot camp". Not complaining mind you because even boot camps have a potential up side. I've written some 100 pages worth of journal notes over the past ten days and would like to share some of what I have written during this time for consideration, contemplation, and hopefully edification. I don't want to get into the context or specifics of these ponderings because the actual situations involve other individuals who I don't think would appreciate being associated with a hobbit of my reputation in such a public manner ...so...without any further fanfare....here goes...... A wise person once said that, "If you push past your fears, bad things may happen"....This one kind of threw me for a loop, after all, popular sentiment at least implies that as one conquers or at least learns to control their fears than good things will surely follow. While this would hopefully be true in the long haul it may not be true, at all, in the short term or in certain situations. Why? As one pushes past one's fears than it generally follows that one becomes more authentic, assertive, and honest in regards to expressing oneself in terms of one's needs, opinions, desires, hopes, and dreams. One would hope that others would value the fruits of pushing past one's fears but that may not be the case because many people might feel threatened by anyone who is honest and assertive in regards to their opinions, needs, etc. And, if that person is currently gripped by their own fears than people who push past their own fears may remind them of their own weakness' and bondage to the fears that haunt their souls and rather than rejoice with their fellow pilgrim they may react instead with envy, jealously, or a host of other unsavory character flaws which may result in bad things happening to good people, through no fault of their own. We all would like to believe that the world is fair and just and good things always happen to good people and the like, but that's not the world we have inherited and the sooner we realize that bad things happen despite all our good intentions and hard work than the sooner we can escape the Matrix and enter into the city of Zion......