Author Archives: Guus

Matthew 6:33

Kingdom “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”. – Authorized King James Version of the Bible.

Spiritual journey

For quite a while now I feel like being on a spiritual journey and I am starting to believe more and more that the “first seek the kingdom of God” may indeed be the most important thing a human being can do. As that sentence goes back to something like finding purpose, and without purpose life is kind of useless, unimportant, without meaning.

Search, not find

And no, I did not find meaning yet, but I may be on the right way, as the text doesn’t say “find the Kingdom of God”, but it says “search the Kingdom of God”. And yes, no matter how desperate and depressed I still am, this sentence somehow gives me hope, especially when I am meditating, searching for The Truth, searching for God, searching for meaning and purpose. As at least I am searching, at least I am somehow asking the right question or questions, meaning at least I am on some kind of, maybe spiritual, path.

And recently another text related to “first seek the Kingdom of God” came into mind: “search and you shall find”. So maybe, as I am searching, I will also find the Kingdom of God. And maybe more important, peace, as I guess that is what I am looking for most.

And His righteousness

I often tend to forget the part “and his righteousness” as I don’t like it and don’t understand it. So much easier to just only “search the Kingdom of God”. Or actually that part is not in my mind. So much easier to just say or think something like “just search the Kingdom of God and all the the rest will just be given to you”.

So what is it I don’t like about “and his righteousness”. I guess the main thing is that it just feels like some kind of catch to me. Like it is not enough (to just search the Kingdom of God). And right now I am still scared writing about this. As in my perception of God it is never enough for God (what I do). And I know by now that is not true, that I am just enough as I am, yes, also for God. Or maybe especially for God. As He created me in His Image, so if I would not be enough, He would also not be enough. Or at least it would imply that He made a mistake making me or how He made me. And I guess God doesn’t make mistakes; or does He?

Ah, need to do some research about this, but ended up with some pretty long explanation. Next time.

And I did: righteousness.

Creator or Source

And in my search for The Truth recently I am very much inspired by the meditations and teachings of Lisa A. Romano, who uses words like Creator and Source for “God“. And who strongly suggests not to put any label to “God”, or to Creator, or to Source, or to Infinite Intelligence, or whatever name that can be used for That What Created Us and everything there is.

And that “don’t label God or Creator or Source” made me choose the image I chose for this page. As often I, and I guess I can say “we”, have some kind of image of God in our mind, most probably the image of God as an old man with a beard issuing all kinds of laws and punishing us if we don’t follow His Law. At least that is the image I am still living with. And I know more and more that image has been doing a lot of harm to me, as somehow a Punishing God seems to be opposite to Love, to Positivity, at least according to my feeling, even though I reasoned out that punishment is not perse contradicting love, as e.g. I love my dog Arf a lot, but I also punish him a lot as he is often not listening.

Post image

Kingdom After putting the image I put on the top, the image I also used as the “page image” of this page I realized it has a fence, a gate, a closed gate, bars, where at first I was mainly attracted to the gold in the image, as to me that gold represented riches, abundance, a giving God, a loving God. And yes, the image represents “kingdom”, “kings”, “rich and famous”.

Ah, and reason to put a completely different image from whatever anybody could relate to related to “God”, was that indeed I wanted to show that God could be, most likely, or actually surely is Something or Someone completely different from what you and I have in mind.

Creator And today I added the page Creator and wanted to put something more related to the things I imagine when listening to the meditation videos and other stuff of Lisa A. Romano. And what came to mind as ‘noise’, so I started searching for images about ‘noise’. And when I was about to copy one of them I realized I could relatively easy create a ‘noise image’ myself, so I did, not in the last place to avoid copyright issues, as yes, somehow I still believe people still need to be paid if we use something that they created.

So I started with three small boxes, one red, one green, one blue, the root colors as I know them from the RGB color system. And then created ‘noise’ from there with the Photoshop noise filter. And then I realized that ‘noise’ is a pretty complicated thing, even though it may look very simple, e.g. very smooth, like ‘everywhere the same’. But as the size of the image also told me, this noise thing I created is actually pretty complicated, full of all kinds of variation, like probably nothing, no area, is the same. And I did not try to zoom in (yet), but the whole thing may not be as ‘random’ as I intended it to be. And then, the image is probably compressed a lot, as I saved it in PNG format. So you can’t even see the details of what I actually created in Photoshop.

So well, amazing, and maybe something to think about. Creation or Creator may not be as simple as we often think.

Two words

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Stuck

I was kind of complaining to a friend that my life is not working, that I am fully stuck again. And that I don’t know what to do. Then she mentioned a friend who had recovered from whatever addiction and was earning millions a month (again). Then I asked if he could teach me and then she replied he had two posters with two words in his bedroom, so I asked what words were on the posters, and after a while she replied ‘goal’ and ‘strategy’. Those things sound very familiar to me as I set goals many times and applied a strategy to reach them. And I succeeded many times, most of the times I guess. Or maybe even all the times. Then still I did not feel satisfied and I replied something like ‘been there, done that’, and yes, those things worked. Except that in general after reaching the goals they fell apart. So somehow it doesn’t work for me, or it does work, but not the way I want it. Then she replied something like that indeed we have to find our own way to live a healthy and successful life. And that was it.

Then of course those things stuck in my mind, as of course I know very well that things like setting goals and creating a strategy, thinking about a strategy, implementing a strategy and working the strategy work.

So why didn’t it work for me? Why didn’t it work in a satisfying way? Well, I don’t really have a clue right now. Maybe that is why I started writing this article now, to clear my mind, organize my mind, thing and write about things like goals and strategies and why they didn’t work for me, at least not in the long term.

Goal

Yeah, pretty human I guess, setting goals. Except I have no clue what goals to set, what I still want to achieve. As I am so discouraged with things falling apart after having achieved some important goals. So I guess I am just scared to set goals again and achieve them as I believe the result will just fall apart the moment or shortly after I reach the goal.

But yes, somehow I still have goals, somehow I still want things, otherwise I would not be writing here, otherwise I would already have killed myself. And somehow my current goal is something like ‘getting unstuck’ as I feel stuck and don’t know how to get out of it. So implicitly I do want to get out of that, out of the ‘stuck’.

So as per program, I could set my goal for today to get or be unstuck just for today, yes, just for today.

Strategy

Well, yes, of course it needs some kind of strategy to reach a goal. Or no, as I could just leave everything to Higher Power, to God, to The Universe. But then, in the last case, why would I be here and do anything anyhow. I guess I am, human beings are, kind of intended to set goals and try to reach them. That is just nature.

So what would be my strategy to get or be unstuck for today, just for today? Well, maybe I already set some strategy as I am writing here, about being stuck and getting unstuck, about not knowing what to do. But I am doing things as I am writing here. And implicitly I have another goal, as I still want to update the DoctorsConnect site as that update is long overdue. And yes, I could feel guilty and bad about it, and somehow I do, but I am learning that the past is just the past and right now I know no way to change the past. So the only thing I can do is do something today, do something now; not yesterday, not tomorrow, but just now, just today.

So what would be my strategy for today, my strategy for being unstuck, getting unstuck? Well, maybe just take a shower now, then work a bit on DoctorsConnect, and then I don’t know as I also know I need to be very careful and kind to myself as apparently I am very sick.

And then of course my goal for today is finishing what I was not able to finish yesterday: update the DoctorsConnect site.

And maybe just be satisfied if I only do that today as a work assignment, and nothing more, not all the things that are in my head that I want to do, feel the need to do. So just do one thing today, just one thing and just for today. Nothing more, nothing less.

Bitcoin

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Bitcoin

I recently decided to do something with Bitcoin and I thought it might be a good idea to share my experiences here. And many things in my mind now, as I can’t exactly remember why I wanted to start with Bitcoin and while writing here now I realized quite some people must have made quite some money with Bitcoin as the rate has shot up exponentially the last years. And yes, while I started, a few weeks ago, the rate was pretty unstable and (had) dropped quite a bit, as far as I know because China closed down Bitcoin exchanges, but I still believe Bitcoin has a future, even though I don’t fully get the (technical) concept yet.

Bitcoin wallet

Well, I understood I needed a Bitcoin wallet, so I searched a bit and found Bitcoin Core, so I decided to install that on my computer. Kind of a mistake, as Bitcoin Core seems to be part of the Bitcoin network that maintains the transactions, so it started downloading more than 100 Gb of data (and that is still not finished). And I can’t use my Bitcoin wallet until the download is complete, so I was not able to get Bitcoin yet with that.

Slow progress with Bitcoin Core

Anyhow, I normally don’t give up easily if I want something so I started looking for other ways to get Bitcoin, which was much harder than I thought, as I needed to sign up to some site that would exchange Euro or USD for Bitcoin. And being a Dutch citizen living in The Philippines it took me a few sites I found in Google I was able to sign up for. And again, I ended up with something I did not really want, namely the Kraken Bitcoin Exchange, which is more of a currency trading account than a way to just buy Bitcoin. Like I found the charge to get my Euro back would be USD 60.00 or more, which does not make sense as I just put EUR 100.00 in the account to buy Bitcoin.

What do I want?

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Frustration

I am mainly frustrated because I don’t have, or think I don’t have what I want. Or maybe I am mainly frustrated because I don’t know how to get what I want. But I think I never really wrote down what I want in a tangible way. Like mostly I say something like “I want my old life back, but in a better, more healthy way”, but I never really specified that I think. And with “my old life” I mainly mean the life Lee and I had together from 2003 to 2010 or so. But I also mean part of the life I had before, when I traveled the world together with Nico. As yes, that was fantastic, even though there was an underlying problem in our relationship most of the time. And the same was true in the time I was with Lee. I was happy and in love and we had a good life, but some things were wrong, very wrong I know now. And I guess it was the same or a similar thing going on. And I guess it goes back to codependency and to not loving myself and not having a spiritual foundation I could build from. And as I have been working very hard on the last I may be much closer to what I want than I think, even though it does not feel that way. Actually I feel worse than ever in my life before, even though I had a very bad time when I was a student, also being very depressed and suicidal. I remember driving on my Yamaha XZ550S and thinking with almost every truck I encountered whether I would drive into it or not. Well, somehow I didn’t, and I still don’t know why, as it would have been so easy.

Fantastic

And thinking of that bike, riding it was really fantastic. It was the best thing I ever did and I still miss it. And amazing I did not kill myself with it at the time, as I was young and could drive pretty fast most of the time on ordinary roads in The Netherlands, like 150 km/h, yes, really, 150 km/h on average country roads.

And yes, I consider myself a safe driver, not really taking risks, but 150 km/h on country roads, even good roads, is pretty fast, way too fast looking back, but I did it, and I never had an accident at the time. And I guess that is amazing, looking how much I used that bike as it was also my daily means of transportation, going anywhere I wanted and needed to go.

And I realize now that at the time nobody really knew me, how I enjoyed that bike and also how fast I drove and such. I guess at the time I was also already pretty alone, pretty lonely, very lonely.

But that is a sideline, although it brings me back to what I want, and also to thinking about how it all happened, why went down the drain so far and so deep.

Finance, money

As at the time I was very lonely and was already looking for a lover and partner I could not find. But what I had was safety, basically in the form of money. And some kind of outlook to the future as I was studying at the highest level University in The Netherlands and was supposed to get a good job after I was finished. And yes, maybe I was spoiled, getting Dfl. 1,000.00 per month as study allowance from my dad. And I got Dfl. 10,000.00 savings on my 18^th birthday or something. Or my 21^st , I don’t remember.

So that is what I want, feel financially safe again, as at the time I felt financially safe. Every month Dfl. 1,000.00 was deposited in my account and I had a few thousand guilders as savings. As right now I feel completely unsafe financially, as I don’t have enough money coming in on a monthly basis to sustain my current lifestyle. And my current lifestyle may be still pretty high, but it does not feel like extraordinary, especially not related to how I lived before, until 2001 or so.

And strange, writing this, as it seems financial security is the most important thing for me in life. As yes, I used to want a regular sex life, preferably, or actually only, through having a lifetime lover and partner, but I am pretty sure the last can be found if I am financially secure, if I feel financially secure. As, and I never realized this before, money CAN buy some kind of safety, some kind of security, some kind of feeling secure and safe. And I still believe if I would have been able to earn enough, pull of Active Discovery Designs in a way it would earn enough money to sustain our lifestyle, Lee would still be with me, would not have left me. Shortage of money, financial insecurity, seems to be a very bad thing, at least for me.

The good life

So what does “the good life” mean to me? Or what did it mean to me before and what would I want to get back or what do I want to retain? And what would I like to be changed, what would I like to be better?

Well, let me try to make a list:

With Nico we often went out during weekends, mostly on initiative of Nico, some things I did on my initiative. And strange, looking back, I mostly, or virtually always joined Nico in his quests, in his hobbies, but he hardly joined mine. Or is that not true?
With NIco, and also before, I had at least one large holiday per year, four weeks going some place far away, yes, as a tourist.
With Nico I often went away for a weekend, to Berlin, or Paris, or some other place. Mostly camping, sometimes in hotels.
With Nico I mostly had at least one extra week of holiday, going to Greece or something, but I also remember Portugal. And sometimes also just by car, to Eastern Germany or something.
With Nico I often went out to good restaurants, like at least once a month, have a good night out having a very nice dinner. I miss that so much. Ah, and yes, Nico still does that. So weird he can and I can’t anymore. And I know with Lee that didn’t really work the same way, but still.
With Nico there was enough money, so we could buy basically anything we wanted, especially food and such, but we also had nice furniture and things like that. And cars of course, each one car.
With Lee I often went to the beach, yes, with the dogs, or with friends. I miss that so much, would like to do that again.
With Lee I often went to Davao, visit family, or make other trips, yes, by car.
We often went to the land in Salumay and made plans, worked there, had plans for the future there.
We mostly held hands while driving. I love that feeling of being together, of being lovers. I miss that so much.
With Lee as well as with Nico I really felt like being a couple. That feels so good to me.
I would want the life at The Malasag House like before, when I was just working and Lee taking care of the house and guests and the garden, and inviting friends and guests.

What would I like to change, what would I want to be better? Well, this I guess:

I would want to have a private sex life, just the two of us enjoying sex, enjoying making love, not the crazy sauna things and other things Nico and I did to escape our terrible difference in how to deal with sex. And not the things I did and still do when I feel Lee is not close to me, when he is not my lover. Or when he just (still) rejects me.
I would like to be more like friends with my partner, just being able to talk about anything, discuss anything, without any fear. I guess I could combine that now with being lovers. That would be so great, being friends and partners and lovers at the same time. Who wouldn’t want that?
I would not want to have that terrible feeling as I had when we had the Landcruiser, like something was terribly wrong. And various things were very wrong related to that.
I wouldn’t want Lee to just leave, like what he did when he bought his property in Siargao. I want to stay together, do things together. Strangely enough I would want to be able to travel alone for my business, going around the world when I am rich and famous.
Find a way to also have my own friends at The Malasag House, independent from Lee.

Ah, and my codependent treats come out so well making above list, as I often want to write ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, for things I did.

Summary

So what do I want, summarizing the above? Well, this I guess:

Financial security.
Some future outlook.
“The good life”, like before, but then without the catch.

Power greater than myself

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Last night I kind of hit bottom as I really didn’t know anymore what to do or even why I am here. I feel so powerless and my life has become so unmanageable. I hardly do anything, especially in the morning as I just feel so weak, so powerless, so overwhelmed by that indescribable feeling. Or maybe empty indeed, the ‘hole in the soul’ type of feeling. And I keep thinking of the times where life was just normal, where I just worked, had a relationship, income, money, savings, a house, holidays, visits to friends and family. And it is all gone, it seems there is nothing but emptiness and drudgery, not even goals. So yes, I often think of just getting out, just killing myself, hanging myself. And I could (easily?) do now I guess, as two weeks ago I bought a long, pretty strong rope for one of my dog training sessions.

Power on my desk

And no, no friends to go to, or family, or whatever, as I know they also don’t have the answer. It is really up to me what to do with my life, or up to the will of my Higher Power.

And that is what I got last night, as it seems I finally kind of got to Step 2, came to believe a Power Greater than myself could restore me to sanity. As yes, I feel sick now. I never felt sick, but I really feel sick now, emotionally, spiritually sick. So last night was one of the first times I guess I really cried out loud my pain, my helplessness, my despair. It was the first time I think I really felt powerlessness as I think is meant in Step 1. And amazingly it gave room for something else, surrendering like that somehow opened a door to ‘coming to believe in a Power Greater than myself’. As I just can’t do it alone anymore, I just don’t know what to do anymore.

And I am not sure in what order things happened, but I was listening to Steps videos on YouTube, and heard a story about someone mentioning someone having a large rock in his garden as his Higher Power. And while kind of joking he replaced “Higher Power” with “rock” in the texts, and somehow that opened a door to me to a concept of a Higher Power that would work for me. As I could admit my shortcomings to a ‘rock’ or anything else, I could read my Step 4 work to a ‘rock’ or something, I could write a letter to a ‘rock’, as I realized I just needed something outside of me to address, something more powerful in some kind of way, like rocks are not easy to destroy, they are pretty stable and sound. I also remembered one day, long time ago, I tried to destroy plywood with a hammer as kind of a healing method, but I was stunned and disappointed how touch the plywood was, not easy to destroy, it would not even break. It was just tough. And believe me, I had a very big hammer.

So I started searching for some kind of Higher Power, a rock or stone or something else that is not easy to destroy, that is like iron or, indeed, rock. And I found some old piece of pipe and some small stones and also thought of the gold necklace I am wearing lately, but couldn’t really find something strong like a stone, like a rock. And the necklace is too vulnerable to me to represent the kind of Power I am looking for. So well, I took that old piece of steel water pipe with some rubber on it and put it on my desk, as that was the best I could find at that moment. And went to bed again and slept I think.

Power Greater Than Myself

So this morning I started searching for something ‘power’, like a stone or rock, or maybe the big Acacia tree in the garden, but nothing really seemed suitable. Until I saw a small stone/rock lying on a bigger rock, just on the top. And it felt just right for me, like a miracle, as how could such a small rock end up on top of this big rock. And later I realized someone could have just put it there, but that doesn’t really matter. It was just there and it caught my attention and it suits my purpose for now: something outside of myself that is ‘hard’, that is strong. And yes, I am starting to realize it doesn’t really matter what I choose as my Higher Power, as long as it suits the purpose of ‘Higher Power’. As yes, I was thinking a rock like this could be lost or broken or even pulverized or whatever. But that doesn’t matter, as I can always replace it, always find a new Higher Power, as long as I make a choice. And yes, that is what I wanted to add. It felt very important that I made a choice, that I just made ‘some choice’ for ‘some Higher Power’, right now, just for today, or this week, or this month, or this year, or yes, this lifetime, but that doesn’t seem to really matter now. The main decision to make was making a choice, which I did.