And me the one suffering from a constant insecurity, though it has gotten better and better through the years, am now starting more and more to see that it is a creation that I am constantly recreating, a belief that I am living through, rather than a reality that I really do suck and that everyone hates me. of course its easier to feel that way, in a way. because then you can just walk around judging everything and everyone because after all you suck and everyone hates you, so you can take on that whole fuck them cynical attitude which a lot of people do. but that's not really what I'm talking about here. so anyway yes the feeling Manifests as something/anything similar to “I'm not good enough,” or “they don't like me,” “they don't want to hang with me” or “they don't like my work,” or “they don't want to work with us...” this type of thing. and any slight evidence in the physical universe of this will trigger it and I will kick and scream and struggle inside my head trying very hard to stomach it and pray it isn't so but know for a fact that it is so and feel very bad. And then ninety-nine times out of a hundred I find out that it was only my imagination playing tricks on me and that I just didn't know what was going on. when the person does contact me they were just busy or expected me to call or lost our contact info etc and then I realize that I had succumbed once again to an imaginary scenario that is being triggered by a series of beliefs I still hold that are negative and not serving me.

At those times I always tell myself that I will learn from that and I will stop automatically creating and assuming this dire outcome with people and events and stop being so insecure. But if something happens that triggers it, well, it just triggers it. and oftentimes I just feel a victim of it and can’t even reach out to connect with the other person. it makes me close up into a shell. And not be able to even make a move in the right direction. Oftentimes I can’t even make a call to anyone. Instead I just walk around feeling sorry for myself. this is an honest state that many of us live in/through but just aren't aware of what's going on. for me now I'm starting to become of aware of the causality of it.

I'm getting better and that was what I intended by writing here. I am getting better. I'm starting to see more and more that I am creating that, I am assuming these negative things to be true before I even know the reality. And through that I am creating a reality and acting from that reality. So I oftentimes don't even give myself I chance. But step by step and year by year I get better. More able to say hey man its o.k. you're o.k. everyone doesn’t hate you. you're alright just the way you are man. its all cool. you can relax. Let go. be yourself. Be happy. just try it for now. its o.k. even if it is true, even if someone doesn’t dig you, plenty of people do, so just ease up on yourself and love yourself. You're alright.

I think I come off pretty confident most of the time, because at another level I am, so I know that when my peeps hear that I feel this way sometimes it helps them come closer to that being cool with themselves too, thinking shit man if Fishy feels this way then hell everyone probably does. And then hopefully they start to go easier on themselves too. and if I can help in that manner by sharing this, then good, some good is coming out of it.

Shit, when you think about it, that's probably half of what's wrong with the world, everyone so afraid that people are out to get them or are dissing them or not digging them or are secretly harboring negative feelings towards them... the resistance to this creates pretense and arrogance and defense and offensive moves. And it all just gets hellish and confused from there. this is what causes arguments and deceptive acts and wars. But hopefully, eventually we will get over that. we will all get over ourselves and start trusting more. and the world will be a better place for it. 

------------------------------------------------------

O.k. here's something else I'm still working with, exploring: the difference between “meant to be” and “we created it through our thoughts and actually its up to us and it isn't “meant to be”.” right? I mean, that's our choice when things coincidental or synchronistic happen.  in other words, is the hand of God/fate/the universe? Or is it just us manifesting reality through our thoughts?

O.k. here's an example and this is why I started typing this right now in this instant. I'm sitting here typing what's up above a few paragraphs and I'm sitting here in the park having a smoke and enjoying the beautiful cool spring weather. and there are literally hundreds of beautiful manhattanites walking by every second. Beautiful girls of every nationality in sun dresses and all that. this is the best time for girls in nyc. And I'm telling you, as a guy you just think to yourself ‘I'm never going to be able to settle for just one girl because there are too many interesting and beautiful girls out there. oh look there's one of those long and tall fair skinned private school looking girls. And look there's one of those dark and mysterious Mediterranean girls. And look there's one of those sexy Indian girls. And there's one of those big-butt Latina chicks oye mamacita! And they're all great and you know you want to have them all at one time or another.

 So yeah it gets kind of confusing if you think about just choosing one. especially if you speak to a lot of older guys who have already been married and divorced and tell you that marriage is an outdated and totally unnatural concept and there is no way we should be trying to nail ourselves down to one person for a long period of time. and I can feel that idea. I can really feel that as being quite likely the real truth there. and marriage is probably something we force ourselves into because it’s a tradition of our culture, but we shouldn’t. but as a hopeless romantic I long to make it real and true anyway because I would love to believe it.

So me for a long time now, I just say fuck it. I'll never be able to just settle for one. its going to have to be something magical, something beyond looks, something that transcends looks and the physical, and special and like major in order for me to ever find one girl, just one girl, that I can settle down with and marry forever.’ now of course this is why I still haven’t married and why I sometimes worry that I will never marry. Because of this fact. And this is exactly what I was just thinking just this very minute. So then I just said this little prayer in my head, ‘well God, I know myself, you know me, this is who I am, this is what I'm thinking, so help me to get rid of all the wanting to be with every girl in the world stuff and help me to find that one girl who will have the capacity to be everything and more to me so I can settle down and really experience a deep life-long love and start building my family...’

so then right as I'm thinking this and praying this, I hear some people say ‘hey Fishy,’ and honestly I take a minute and don't look up and because if its just random strangers who want to talk then I would rather keep praying and thinking and typing so at first I try to pretend that I didn't hear whoever it is. but they say it again as if they know me and so I look up again. and I swear to God its this girl and guy from church. And what's uncanny is its this girl from church that when I first saw her I had this weird feeling about her. her name is Sky Alexander. A perfect name. a perfect northeastern school girl type. and trust me she is not your typical ambassador type of girl. She is not this ravishing Italian or gorgeous mysterious middle eastern type or not even that cute English Audrey Hepburn type. I think she's American and that's usually not my thing at all. in any case, there she was standing in front of me here at the park about fifty blocks from the neighborhood of our church at seven o'clock at night just as I was thinking about girls and wives and all that. as if it could be some kind of sign.

so the question is this. when we experience these kind of coincidental or synchronistic events, is it the hand of God or fate or the universe? This would be the new-age view. Or is it just our thoughts manifesting our reality? This would be the other very popular new age view, the Avatar view, the ‘we create it all’ view. Or is it just in the end nothing more than a coincidence? This would be the rationalist/pragmatist view that I clung so strongly to in the college years. How are we to ever know? what is creating reality? How are we to ever decipher signs if we never can tell what things are really telling us?

reminds me of Juliet? Remember Juliet? All the signs pointed to Juliet being the one, or certainly highly significant. I will never forget that. and yet as soon as I started hanging with Juliet I could tell that she wasn't the one. she was a soulmate surely, but not the soulmate I was looking for. So what were all those signs? Was it just the universe showing me that we indeed really do have the power to manifest reality and all these cool synchronistic events by our very thoughts alone? And that I am supposed to gather from this that we do indeed have this power and that we can use it to create what we prefer? If we have Juliet on the mind and we see a big sign that says Juliet in the sky is that a sign from God/the universe? Or is that just we have Juliet on the mind and therefore see her name everywhere?

And perhaps the real message is that in the end its up to us to create what we prefer. Its not going to be up to God or fate or the universe. And in a way, as freeing and enlightening as that may be, it still kind of sucks. Because I think that inside of us all we want to feel as though we are being looked after and guided by a power greater than ourselves. But perhaps this is nothing more than a strong desire in us. perhaps it is we who are the gods and the fate that we seek. That's a hard one to swallow of course. because we don't always walk around feeling all-powerful and super confident of our ability to create the reality we want. So we hope and long for something greater than ourselves to help get us through. But maybe that's why we’re here. to learn how to get ourselves through.