On a warm late summer's day, at the edge of a town I've only known for four years, my mind looks forward beyond the hands of time for a chance to believe in something, a minute to escape the daunting boredoms of being removed from life for an ill plot of the malignant minds drenched in insanity, masquerading as martyrs, the few and the proud, the all they want to be, aiming high for the sky in every anchors away. Needing only an opportunity to be as I would be, if allowed, instead of the condemned where I am. For what need or purpose no one says, for what planned agenda they hide in disguise, knowing the only difference is them. If it weren't I would be just as important as everyone else in my part of the world, an active part of a community, working toward a goal for myself and my welfare, my children and my future, instead of the exception. Instead of an example of intolerance and domestic terrorism where behind the closed minds of the dictators and under the skins of the innocent, lurks the menacing madness of an intelligent mastermind who by force and coercion, extortion and blinded justice preys on the flesh of us all.

Yet here I sit with more thoughts in my mind than can possibly coexist in this time, gathered throughout a lifetime of experiences, battling the endless this and thats, yes and no, thumbs up and thumbs down, for an idea that is longer than nine seconds and a safe place to find myself welcomed, not forced, at ease, not offended, healing not assaulted by the unseen mechanics of industry's demands. Where the world looks so welcoming, nature so appealing, life so easily lived and compassion is alive and well in the mindsets of those who want to believe in living a good life. Forget the monsters who only exist in their own myths. Life is supposed to be lived not feared, growth not wasted, experienced not stalled and available to everyone without exceptions.

For we learn as we live, we understand as we experience, we are changed as our experiences combine into the present and ask us if we are still of the belief. Our persuasions increase and recede as our personal involvements with living prove to be pleasant or not. When they are daunted we become resistant to the ideas, we forge new areas in search of satisfying accommodations in which we can and would want more or less of those experiences. While the ones that we've had remain always in our memories as they were delivered for our decisions, unchanged in the judgments and decisions they provided. And so it becomes as marriages and divorces to the places and faces the adventures and boredoms, the acceptances and rejections of all our life. Even if so slight a pleasant remnant remains we are inevitably reminded of the finality of their appeal. The impact of their doings, the shaping of our existence that they molded into our small lives regardless of their proclamations of grandeur. Never fooling our psyche of their shaping. Never again to regain our belief in their benefit or able to persuade us back to their luring. They too become what they were applied to be.

Our days move on unfolding the leftovers of those moments. Our emotions adjust accordingly to the paths we are on. We can remain our basic identity without degrading our learned lives as long as we are able to understand that in reality, that's all it was. A time of venturing through uncharted circumstances, a learning of likes and dislikes to win our acceptance or rebuke their repetitiveness in our future yet to be lived. Too often we condemn ourselves before we have lived long enough to know we were only learning. We belittle ourselves into thinking we aren't worth our own forgiveness. Like a misspelled word on a piece of paper, we make mistakes to learn whether it's correct or not. When we learn to properly adjust our beliefs and behaviors we realize how very like a misspelled word our lives are. We can correct the misplacement and increase our own faiths in ourselves, we can accept that we need to improve our own doings, we can blame a distraction, we can blame other circumstance, we can resent the entire process and forsake ever trying, or we can easily make the correction, apply it to our understanding as a success well worth our learning and rely on our doings as something we will do again later in a myriad of happenings as we face the days in our future that we have left to live.

Some of us have been taught in the finality of right and wrong. That lives are being measured on a scale of good or bad. While our individuality is being measured to a standardized society forgetting or never knowing that ourselves are worth our own time without being forced into a pattern of self condemnation. While others look to encourage us, reach out and implore us to look at themselves as we would a young child learning first steps, coloring a blank pattern, getting along with others, or as a new employee, learning a new skill, following one step then another until they find their own success. To build our own confidence and gain the ability to acquire the success needed to be an individual. An individual who understands that in the grand scheme of all of life we learn as much from our accomplishments as we do our misgivings. We try we fail, we try we excel, all of it attributing to our learning, our living, in all areas of life. That is what life is from it's earliest beginnings. Not grand moments of failure or achievement but the continuation of evolving into a human experience where all of our moments are completing who we are.

There are many stages of life; from learning to eat our first foods both soft then crunchy, to blindly trusting our caregivers and those in charge of our well being not to harm us whether they're trustworthy or not. Learning we are unable to change our opinions of them and respond to them in any other manner than to their insistence on how they have treated us. We learn as awkward young toddlers learning to walk then walk and carry a toy, then again as developing teenagers, so eager to experience the world before we know of all it consists of. Wanting freedoms from restrictions of parents and structured life styles. Then becoming young adults working first jobs and greeting society as we shop, watch and listen to the varieties of our culture. Basing opinions on all we've learned before, all we've experienced and all we're told that we should believe. It isn't until we're faced with truths we don't know or have never experienced for ourselves that we're asked to reconsider our decisions, reformulate our opinions or stand firm in our beliefs. If we're looking in the right direction to self improve our own life we learn tolerance and patience. If our thinking has developed under the emotional and mental condemnation of unfair critics and harsh unforgiving situations we learn to shirk our own opinions for the acceptance of petty judgments. Often undoing our own equality when we insult the process of learning in another forgetting no one has experienced our life through their life the exact same as ours. We never stood in their shoes, walked in their steps, lived in their minds or saw through their eyes observing their circumstances the way each individual must do. And while some instances maybe similar, the truth of the matter is no one alive has encountered emotions the same way every time. The accumulation of all living moments throughout each venture ultimately deciding in our own personal truth regardless of how they are misrepresented to those around us.

Some are taught to become what they lacked or are still lacking in their minds dream about living while others are steadfastly taking advantage of their giving. Then others become calloused to the emotions of others at all only seeking an advantage to the inner personal lives for their own purposes, more often than not to exploit the tried and true to their exhausting schemes. Looking only for assistance to further their own plans than to reciprocate the giving of another's personal time and ambition. Of course we learn from those things as well and like everything else those moments shape our thinking and our ability to respond to others. We become more or less willing to extend our better self. We soften and harden our judgments. We develop our own sense of what is acceptable and what isn't and then meet our decisions again to reform them or remain resolute.