SILENT PARADISE

I don't have many silent moments... There's always someone who recognizes me (Lily has seen this personally...) or someone I'm aquainted with tagentially. Like yesterday a good aquaintence named John who performs an impressive drum show on the Promenade here in Santa Monica, told me about how his father died and how his mother gave and did bad things to him that ruined him finacially, then ther was his almost fatal accident... I've known him for about a year now and this is the first time he'd ever said this to me and somehow deep inside, I appreciated this and I felt confused about it. So many people out there are hoping, dreaming and believeing... They all want paradise and the terrible reality that human life is so very frail and short, it doesn't make sense to me that evil and deception could have such a stranglehold on us: so you get people killing each other, cheating on their wives, becoming politicians, etc.

The evening my girlfriend (we would've been married by now) passed away, I realized that I hated people in general... They turned the greatest sorrow I've ever experienced into their personal crusade: 'She's in a better place now..." or 'God has her , she'll be fine...' or still, 'It was her time...' I wanted to kill them. All! I've seen where the dead go and NO ONE CAN TELL ME THAT THAT IS THE 'BETTER PLACE.'

Paradise is not a cemetary.

Paradise (at least for me) is silent, it's a quiet walk through your memories, it is listening to yourself...

Now I lie a quiet life when I'm in my apartment (my books, my drawings, my photos...) I get to do things for me, and there are a lot of 'Me' things to do.

God can never be the End of who I am (or hope to be), though the dream is seductive, we have a religion based on it. Mel, I think you're headed in the right direction (though my Life-values depend on how near Death is to me). Paradise is a personal destination. Not everbody will join you there, but I don't think its a bad thing...