Conspiracy

Have you heard the one about the man in the bush?
Or the Deep State of "Forrest Gump"?
The Govt. has been putting fluoride in all of the water because kids don't brush their teeth!

Disclaimer: Anyone I know that is a believer in "Conspiracy Theories", this is not about you :)
(well maybe a little, but not really)

I love a good story, as much as the next person.
I love a mystery with complex details and plots that in the end wrap up into a great movie or book.
I am a child of the 70's that grew up watching TV all day and night.
I lived in the fantasy world of the television. I believed that life was like the Brady Bunch,
just not at my house. I thought that the good guy always got the girl in the end and that the bad guys
were always brought to justice. This, of course, is not true at all.
Life seems to have no rhyme or reason most times. Most times, no one gets the girl.
The "bad" guys were not as bad as we thought they were and the "good" guys were not so good.
Crazy huh?  We read history books and go to school and learn what is put in front of us as the truth.
No one ever considered that maybe the history we were learning was biased to the country we lived in.......that maybe if we had been born in Russia, our history lessons would be quite different, not just with the aspect of the country, but the outcomes and disputes with others.
Throughout history, many things have happened that are atrocious, blinding and unexplainable.
Wars that have torn through the fabric, hateful genocide and destruction.
Things happen and we need to explain them away some how.

The first "Conspiracy Theory" I ever heard of was the assassination of JFK.
I think I heard something about it in high school in history class, but kind of jokingly.
It was fascinating to say the least. Then a few years later the Oliver Stone movie came out and
I became very interested in this possibility. It was time consuming and very mysterious, I loved it.
What if this happened? What if the Govt did this? What are "they" not telling us??
You get the gist of it, it's exciting because it's not real life.
In reality the story seems so boring. A lone gunman shot the President from a tower in Dallas.
It just doesn't seem very fitting or mysterious at all........but as far as we absolutely know........
that is exactly what happened. In the end it doesn't really matter anyway, the man was killed.
He is dead and that is that. We can all agree that John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Tx.
If there is a deep, dark secret story to this outcome.......he is still dead. And more importantly, there is nothing any of us can do about it at all. If "they" can kill the President of the USA, they surely can wack a half-ass blues musician. 

I believed most of these theories for a long time.
The more I used drugs and alcohol, the more conspiracy I believed.
The truth was never good enough, there was a deeper story to all of this.
In the end it took the responsibility away from me, I was free.  Why should I pay my bills
or taxes when this Govt. is corrupt and committing "sinister" crimes against it's own people.
911 was an inside job man.......

I watched two planes fly into two buildings on the morning of September 11th, 2001 live on tv.
I saw the second plane make impact with my own eyes. That happened.
It was brutal and awful and heartbreaking. How is this story in our history not enough.
Terrorists committed these awful crimes and killed thousands of people.
Believe what you want to believe, but thousands of people died that day for no good reason.

Ok, I cannot go through each and every conspiracy and tell you what I think, in the end it doesn't really matter what I think, it matters what you think.
My point is on a more spiritual level than anything else.
Once I worked the steps of my recovery program and began to follow the spiritual principles in my life, I made a commitment.....a commitment to the sad, awful truth.
The sad, awful truth is that life is painful at best. It hurts to be alive. Our bodies get older and breakdown and life around us is not always pleasant. My mind is sick and thinks on it's own and it makes me do awful things that I regret in the end. Once I realized the sad, awful truth.....I became responsible. I became responsible for taking the necessary steps to overcome the pain of living by following the spiritual principles. Spirituality was the only way to ease the pain of living and to at best sleep good at night. I am now responsible because I know the truth, I cannot claim ignorance anymore.  I am responsible for my life, my mind and how I treat the world.

What does this have to do with Conspiracy Theories???
Well, when I was using drugs and drinking heavily, I never believed the truth, I believed the lie.
I believed in whatever took responsibility away from me because I was irresponsible.
Today I cannot do that, I have to follow the truth whether I like it or not, that is my path.
The nature of believing in most of these Conspiracy Theories is that it explains away our responsibilities. We are no longer responsible for the world around us, because something more powerful is working against us. These "theories" create an untrusting mind. We do not trust others or the world because we believe their is a sinister plot underneath it all that is working against us,
much like belief in the boogie man or the devil.  If we clear away all of this mistrust and look at the sad, awful truth.....we are responsible.  If our Presidential choice was not elected, then it must be something larger than life that made this happen, we certainly could not have lost!
Global warming is a hoax! This cannot be true, science is a lie.......it must be, because if it's not a lie
we are truly responsible for the outcome.

We could argue all day about each and every conspiracy and I will say that some probably have good basis and I am certainly not suggesting that we all go along blindly accepting the world like sheep.
I am suggesting that this distrust is viral, it has created distrust in us all and for our fellow man.
It's infectious and awful and has to be stopped.

It seems easier to believe something that is so ridiculous than it is to believe the sad, awful truth.
The sad, awful truth is to take responsibility for our actions.
We play a part in all of this, we could try harder and do better.
Instead of blaming someone or something, try to step in and do our part to make it better.
Even if you think Global Warming is a complete hoax by the scientific community (my God that sounds so fucking ridiculous to even type), why wouldn't you want to do better for our planet and our future generations???
What if your candidate just actually lost because they did not get enough votes?
If that were the case (and probably are), we are mostly responsible.
We did not get the vote out and do more and stand up and take part in the process.

We always play a part in everything and are somewhat responsible for every outcome.
I am a true believer that the Conspiracy Theory is the plague of the modern adult.
It has created such a distrust and irresponsibility in us all that is going to continue to do harm for years, unless we get our heads out of our asses and take responsibility for our own lives.

Chances are - what happened, happened. There might be more, there might not be,
in the end we can do better.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

I am certain than many people will read this today and take away a point to argue,
but I ask you to consider trusting the process and believing the sad, awful truth for a change.
In the end it has made me a better person for my family and the world around me.
I still have a long way to go, but life is much easier when you trust others.

Peace, Love...Zito

Rebirth

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Holiday.
Even if you are not religious, it's nice to spend time with your loved ones,
or at least have a three day weekend, if you were that lucky.
I grew up Catholic and have always observed Easter as the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If you ever wonder where the Rabbits, and Eggs and candy and such come from,
they come from the Pagan holidays of old Europe before Christianity when people celebrated
the Spring Equinox and the goddess Eostre. Like most major Christian holidays, Christian Easter was organized around the already celebrated Spring festival and in the time of "Eosturmonath" named after the goddess and thus the name stuck. Rabbits/Hares were always a sign of Spring well before most religious celebrations as a time of rebirth and fertility. Eggs and the coloring of eggs predates Christianity as a very old Eastern European tradition to give to good children as a reward.
None of this takes away from the celebration of the resurrection. In fact it is meant to be a part of the celebration together, that is why the Catholic Church decided to celebrate the resurrected Christ at this time. It is also the time of Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrating the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery to the Egyptians. Some of the followers of Jesus said they had seen the living Christ after his death at this time and it made sense to celebrate his rebirth during Passover. In AD 325, the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea decided that Easter should be fixed on a Sunday after the first moon of the Vernal Equinox. This allowed the pagan celebration of Easter and the Spring Festival to coincide with the Resurrection Celebration and would help attract more people to the Catholic church and the Christian religion. It makes sense to me. Back then the Christian religion was the newest of religions and to allow the people to continue their celebrations and include the risen Christ, was an easier transition for all.
This is in brief, is why we call the holiday Easter and why you have chocolate bunnies and colored eggs during the celebration of the Resurrection. Similar stories of Christmas and the decorated tree and Halloween all have longer pagan traditions than they do religious.

None of this takes away from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not at all.
This is just history and how it all came about. There is no right or wrong here, it is all based on one theme and one theme alone - rebirth.
Spring is rebirth. The time of year when it begins to warm up and the flowers and animals begin to come out again. Born again is the planet and life itself. This tradition of celebrating the new season of rebirth is as old as time. It only makes sense to celebrate the crucifixion and resurrection during this period of time. History dates that this is the time when this actually happened, so it all goes hand in hand. The rebirth of Christ in resurrected form.

Even if you are not religious, the resurrection story of Christ is full of learning and spiritual principles.
The idea that we can shed the human suffering and transform into the spiritual is a lesson for all.
 "Life is painful at best. The only thing that eases the physical pain is being spiritually minded." 
roughly translated from the teachings of Buddha. 
To live this life with a mind that is spiritually motivated rather than physically motivated is a rebirth that is unparalleled on this planet. It usually takes some suffering and some devoted change on our part, but it is possible for anyone who has the ability to be honest.  

I know all of this seems fluffy and upright, but I enjoy Easter today. I grew up Catholic and although I am not very religious, I am spiritual and I now I appreciate the traditions more than in the past. I have less contempt today for the religious life. When I think of all the things I can do to change even more, the one thing that comes to mind this spring is to be more understanding of my fellow man.  To let go of resentments and try and listen rather than explain. I owe no one an explanation. I need to listen to others and what they believe and understand that it is important to them, I am not greater than my fellow man, I am equal to.  If someone taking a knee at a football game makes me very angry and resentful, maybe I will try to understand why they feel this is important. I don't even have to agree with them, just try and understand. They are my brothers and sisters and they have a right to be here. If someone is angry with gun owners and thinks that guns should be banned, I will listen and try to comprehend why they feel that way, or vice versa.  Whatever the issues that are ruling our daily lives on social media, why not try to spend more time understanding the opposite view rather than explaining my view? Most people are not "dumb". Most people are not "bad". They're just having a different experience than we are. It is easy to explain away why someone does something wrong by calling it "evil" or blame society for the cause of tragedies......but it's much harder to take time to try and understand. Thats my goal to be reborn this spring, to stop explaining and listen more.  Inside, I know what it is right and wrong for me, but maybe that is not true for you.  In the end, I trust the process, and I know that is very hard for some people to do, but I do. I know that the good will outweigh the bad, it always has and always will. You may not be able to see it, but it's there. Horrible tragedies have taken place on this planet, atrocities that cannot be forgiven in our human hearts, but the Spirit of the Universe is not human and much greater than I can comprehend. I do not suggest that we sit idly by and let horrible things happen and write them off as God's plan. We must be involved. Stand up for our fellow man and take action for what is right in our hearts. If we have nothing to stand up for, at least do not belittle those that do, how lucky we must be to have not to worry about anything. 

Understanding. Rebirth. Resurrection.
Begin again in a new form. I will try my best and certainly will fail, but I will try.

I will also try NOT to eat every chocolate ass bunny that is laying around this house today, and trust me there are way too many. 

Give yourself a break this spring. If you give yourself a break, you most certainly will give me one too.

Peace, Love, Zito