The Denver Shootings

First of all, I’d like to express my heartfelt sorrow and deepest, deepest sympathy to everyone affected by the truly horrible killings in Denver, this morning…

… to those who were killed; to those who were injured; to those who survived, physically unscathed, but who will have years of torment ahead of them as they come to terms with the horror of this atrocity; to the families of the dead, the injured and the traumatised, as they gather together and scream and cry and shout and try to comprehend what has happened; to the community, the emergency services and even the journalists sent to the scene to cover this awful story… and to everyone whose hearts are aching, right now, willing with futility that events could somehow be unfolded and made right.

It would be easy for the rest of the world to dismiss this as just another ‘only in America’ mass-murder-by-firearms, but it was two years ago, on the 2^nd June, 2010, that 52-year-old Derrick Bird raced around the quiet, country lanes of rural Cumbria – my home county, in England – and left a trail of incomprehensible slaughter, killing 12 people, including his own twin brother, and injuring 11 more.

I didn’t know anyone killed or connected to the Cumbria rampage, but there was an almost tangible sense of shock that it could have happened… here… of all places… so close to home… in such a quiet and peaceful community…

It’s not like we have the same level of access to firearms in the United Kingdom, as is a ‘right’ (I believe?) in the United States.

There were two previous atrocities which brought about massive changes in the law regarding the possession of guns.

The first, in recent history, was 27-year-old Michael Ryan’s rampage in 1987 – know as ‘The Hungerford Massacre’ – where, armed with two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, he shot 16 people dead (including his mother) and injured another 15 before turning the gun on himself.

This incident sent shockwaves through our society and led directly to the ‘Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988’, which tightened controls on the possession of firearms in the United Kingdom (except for Northern Ireland).

The UK has no ‘constitutional’ right to bear arms. Our police forces (in England, Scotland and Wales – which, along with Northern Ireland make up the United Kingdom), by the large, never carried firearms, and nor do they to this day, so why should the general public be allowed such ferocious weaponry?

The second atrocity, in 1996, was probably the most cowardly and disgusting act of internal slaughter in the history of Western society…

Thomas Hamilton, 43, a former Scout Leader, took four handguns into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane, and executed 16 children and one of their teachers. The children were, with the exception of one six-year-old, all aged five. The teacher, who tried to protect them, was 45.

Hamilton shot himself dead soon after, amidst the corpses he’d made of his victims, who simply went to school that morning; pupil and teacher.

In the wake of this, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 were enacted, which effectively made private ownership of handguns illegal in the United Kingdom.

Yet, in 2010, Derrick Bird still murdered 12 people with legally licenced and owned shotguns and rifles.

This is not an ‘only in America’ problem…

I don’t believe in evil and I don’t believe that there are evil people, but, absolutely, there are people in this world who seem hell-bent on causing untold pain and suffering to others, and though I would have previously said that I felt  the availability of firearms was a catalyst to these slaughters, it’s a truth that the people who commit these atrocities would likely have found some other way to at least attempt to cause this pain, if guns weren’t available to them…

There were three incidents of mass stabbings of young children in a single month in China, in 2010.

It’s the person, not the weapon, that kills and maims, and it happens all over the world… not just in the US, not just in the UK, not just in China…

I just want to give some advice to anyone who feels they are becoming compelled to hurt others on this sort of level…

I am, I hope you realise, an advocate of the importance of communicating to others if you’re feeling down and depressed, especially if you’re reaching the point of suicide and you can’t see a way out.

Ask for help, always. Make it known that you’re struggling to cope; that your mind is torturing you and you just can’t imagine a future. There are people who will help you.

But if it comes to the point where you’re all set to actively go out into the world and destroy the lives of others… to go on a gun rampage… to slash up a class of kids… to rape and bury a child…

… do this one thing, before you take action…

… kill yourself.

If you are so determined and at the point of ripping apart the families of strangers or friends, do the right thing and end yourself before you begin their endings.

The Beauty of Clear Vision

Specky Four Eyes

I picked up my first pair of glasses today… well, as long as you don’t count glasses in a pub… and I have to admit I feel a little stupid that I haven’t sorted that out earlier in my life.

I had to get them for my impending driving lessons (yes, I’m 38… I should have sorted that out earlier, too), but have quickly realised that they’re a far greater benefit than I originally envisaged.

For more years than I can rightly remember, life has been a blur beyond middle distance, so, for example, I had problems reading street signs until I got close up to them, and the stars – which I’ve always loved - became a fuzzy soup of diffused light.

I went out the back of my office, earlier, with the glasses on, and nearly cried happy tears, just watching the clouds…

With a little help from modern science, my long-distance vision is now perfect; it’s like upgrading from watching television on a 1970s set, to a modern, widescreen HDTV system. Even the colours are brighter and more vivid through the lenses of these glasses.

The level of detail in the banks of clouds that I simply couldn’t see before is astonishing. It’s not that they didn’t look great before (I have a thing about cloud-watching), but the feathering and definition is so much clearer.

Yes, I am rambling, but really… if you were like me and dithered over whether glasses would improve your life, don’t hesitate.

Now, I’m waiting for the Sun to go down so I can see the stars clearly again! And I can’t wait to get back to the mountains, before too long.

The Myths of Ego

I inadvertently caused a bit of a hoo-haa on Twitter, a few nights ago, after I posted a Tweet saying that depression was a ‘myth’ of the egoic mind.

The context of the statement was that I was comparing my life ‘before’ I found my way out of more than twenty years of nightmarish depression, to the peace and happiness that’s threaded through my enlightened existence, now.

I want to clear a few things up… and hopefully people can read to the end of this blog and fully understand my viewpoint, rather than reading the next few lines, getting riled up and blocking me.

This is the ‘offending’ Tweet:

“Depression is a terrible, clinging myth, created by the ego, in the minds of those who choose to suffer it.”

First of all, I fully understand – from long experience - that depression is a very real and very dangerous issue for many people, and it should never be dismissed as a nonsense.

At best, it’s debilitating, frightening and makes life a misery, and at its worst… it’s a killer – one of the most serious on the planet, taking the lives of around a million people each year.

It is an awful realisation to understand that, statistically, in the time it’s taken for you to read these words, so far, two people will have ended their life.

I’ve attempted suicide, quite a few times. I’ve been that low and lost. You can read about that in these two blogs:

The Woodpecker at the End of the World

A Brief History of Depression

I feel very fortunate that I made it through that darkness. I am a happy man and my life is brilliant. I could have been old bones or ash, by now, and would have missed out on this adventure… but, thankfully, that wasn’t my fate.

I don’t want it to be the fate of others, either, so I write about my experiences in the hope that my words may be just enough to guide someone back from the brink, or, better still, stop them approaching it in the first place.

My experience of those polar opposites – of being moments away from death, at my own hands, and, now, of living this life of happiness – affords me a perspective that I believe is useful to others who are still struggling, because it shows that, if you can just get through that moment of danger, then there’s the chance of a much brighter future, ahead.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learnt over the past two years is to recognise the ‘ego’ – the negative, destructive, ‘unconscious’ thought process that causes all our emotional pain.

I mean, what is the most dangerous aspect of depression? What is it that compels people to even contemplate suicide, let alone go through with it?

It’s not the lack of energy, ebbed motivation, or the host of other ‘physical’ symptoms.

It’s that the ego begins to attack us. Our own minds effectively turn against us.

Often, when I write about depression, I get comments along the lines of: “Everyone experiences depression in a different way.”

That is likely very true, but the common factor in every flavour of depression is this mental attack – this self-abusive part of the mind… the ego.

I’ve described this before as ‘compulsive, critical over-thinking’. It what keeps you awake at night, for hours on end; it’s why, when you look in the mirror, you think you’re ugly; it’s why you think people are talking about you, pointing fingers behind their curtains, and you don’t go out of your house for weeks or months on end; it’s what takes a person into the woods with a ligature, intending never to come out alive.

The ego causes you pain by concocting myths and repeating them, over and over again, in your mind.

Here’s an example:

You’re walking along the street and you see an old friend. You’re just about to open your mouth to say hello, but they walk right by you. You stop and turn, but they just keep walking, so you don’t say a word.

Your ego kicks in: “That’s so rude! How dare they ignore me! What a stuck-up moron!”

Then you’re searching your head, trying to recall something that could have inspired this ignorance – you look to arm yourself with some information that can be used to defend your sense of outrage, and you’ll probably find some almost insignificant detail… a mole-hill that you turn into a mountain… which shapes your opinion of them from thereon in.

This story plays out in your head and is repeated, possibly for the rest of your life.

But what if that person simply didn’t see you? Or they could have been daydreaming. They could have forgotten to put their contacts in that morning. Maybe a relative was ill, or, worse, they were grieving?

So, the ego doesn’t need facts to form an opinion, but once it does form an opinion, it can be very difficult to dissolve it.

We do this to ourselves, too.

If you’re thinking about suicide or are on the verge of committing it, it’s because your ego has been attacking you, ranting at you, repeatedly highlighting all of your perceived weaknesses and failures, to the point that you don’t see any worth in yourself at all and you feel certain the future is not worth living for.

The future is unwritten, for us all, so the decision to slaughter ourselves is not reached through evaluating the facts. It is reached through being so lost in the ego that you believe the myths and stories it tells you.

Yet, the ego is nothing but thoughts in your head – a dance of neurons in your brain. It’s a phantom.

Becoming aware of this dysfunctional facet of mind allows you to interrupt and silence the destructive inner-dialogue.

Consider how many victims of suicide (and they are victims - of intense psychological abuse) would still be alive if they had known how to silence that angry, internal voice?

The truth is, nearly all of them.

Through the practice of present awareness/mindfulness, you can learn to dismiss the ego and dissipate its power over you. When you stop listening to its stories, it becomes benign and won’t hurt you anymore.

If you defend the ego… if you defend and personalise ‘your’ depression… it gets more powerful and becomes more dangerous. It’s like keeping and feeding a dog that you know will bite you. The more energy you give it, the stronger it gets.

Although it may not seem clear to some, we do have a choice on where to invest our energy. I know (and have experienced) it may be difficult to see that, especially if you’re in the depths of another depressive bout, but that choice really does exist. Even in your darkest days, you can switch on that light of true consciousness and chase your shadow existence away.

If you learn present awareness and reject defending the ego, you can change your life, as I’ve done.

I really don’t possess extreme willpower.

Being happy and at peace is not a hard thing to achieve. That’s the secret.

What is much, much harder is being depressed.

Life is good and always worth living. Don't let anyone - especially yourself - convince you otherwise.

If you want to read more about my journey, check out this blog:

The Cure to Depression

The Wisdom of Socrates

I didn't write this, but I felt the wisdom was so important that I should repost it here, for you all to read and take to heart:

Keep this in mind the next time you are about to repeat a rumour or spread gossip.

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.

One day an acquaintance ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about Diogenes?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied, "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

'Triple filter?" asked the acquaintance.

"That's right," Socrates continued, "Before you talk to me about Diogenes let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said. "Actually I just heard about it."

"All right," said Socrates, "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about Diogenes something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "You want to tell me something about Diogenes that may be bad, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued: "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter, the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about Diogenes going to be useful to me?

"No, not really."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even useful, why tell it to me or anyone at all?"

The man was bewildered and ashamed.

This is an example of why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diogenes was shagging his wife.

The Friendship of a Cat

“Isn’t it lucky that cats have two little holes in their fur just where their eyes go.”

– Victor Lewis Smith

  

I genuinely feel quite sad for those people out there who have never made friends with a cat; who have never felt the unique peace of laying their ear against a perplexed-looking kitty’s chest and listening to the perfect contentment resonating from a deep purr.

Even some people that have cats (although, that’s technically incorrect, as it’s well known that cats ‘have’ humans, and not the other way around) don’t take the time to experience the bond that could be. To them, their moggies are reluctantly fed and shooed out of the way – just another peripheral to family life, like the saucepan set and garden furniture.

I love dogs, too, but with their lanky legs, easy excitability and over-enthusiasm, they’re buffoons all of the time. Cats are graceful, elegant, cunning and only buffoons some of the time.

It’s a curious relationship we have with our pussos, and odd that we weave our lives around them so willingly. Some say this is due to mind-control, but I think it’s actually down to love.

They make even the clearest headed and most sensible person act like they have serious psychological problems. It’s like all that crazy talk and speaking in tongues, from both women and men, when their child is born. Upon meeting a kitten for the first time, it’s etiquette to talk to it in a very silly voice… and it’s a voice that stays with you for all your days together, unlike with human children, unless you’re a very, very patronising parent. I talk in different voices to all three of my cats. I just want to point out that I’m not mental – this is a cat thing.

Cats are known for their love of comfort, warmth and Sunlight, yet how many of us self-proclaimed ‘cat lovers’ have delighted in dropping our worried kitty into a foot of snow, just to see how they’d react? That’s not very nice, really, but we’ll be doing the same the next time there’s heavy snow.

Likewise, in a bath, with kitty at one end and the water creeping up toward them, waiting to see how close it can get before the cat decides enough is enough and take a hike.

Why can’t I walk in a straight line up the stairs without the cat trying to trip me up? And how come, most often, cats stroll lazily around, yet they seem insistent on running up stairs?

Why is it, when I make a mug of coffee and carry it back to my room, that the cat insists on walking directly below the steaming, hurty hotness?

What is it that makes cats think that it’s fine for them to scratch the bathroom door and barge in to watch you on the toilet, when if you watch a cat doing the same, they give you a look that lets you know you’ve temporarily become their enemy?

I shouldn’t need to be a champion Twister player to get into my own bed. I guess it would be easier if I were to shoo them off and not clamber around them, but for some reason, I’ve never tried that out. Mind control?

And there are times when they really spook you out, especially in the middle of the night. I went down for a coffee in the early hours of one morning and Orion, my big, fluffy, black cat, quickly ran down the stairs, skidded in front of me, looked at me with ears back and mystery in his eyes, then turned tail and hurtled straight back upstairs. He never explained why.

Particularly freaky is when they go stock still and look intently at something… that isn’t there… and you conclude you have a ghost in the house that only kitty can see – but kitty’s just doing it to mess with our minds. There is no ghost!

When human babies grow up, they become different and rubbisher, but dangle a string in front of a cat of any age and you have your kitten back, for a moment. Not even the grumpiest and non-compliant of our kitty friends can resist the wrigglies!

There’s nothing like a friendly head-butt from a happy cat, or a chilled-out snuggle on the bed, both just watching things and going nowhere in particular for a while.

I guess that’s why cats seem the more popular companion for writers. They’re happy to sit on the desk beside you and be stroked now and again; they’re rarely in a hurry, whereas a dog wants you to take it on a walk and throw things for it.

Anyone who can say ‘just a cat’ and mean it misses out on one of the greatest joys of life: real friendship and love that has no conditions attached.

(P.S. If anyone has the will and ability to contribute to my ‘fighting fund’... I need carpets... donations would be most welcome through PayPal, at ‘Lesism@btinternet.com’. Anything would be greatly appreciated.)

The Dream Breaker

The Dream Breaker

 by Les Floyd

And again, she summoned him to her dreams.

With hands raised and fingers intertwined, taking the weight of each other on pressed palms, they kissed; behind closed eyes, a swirling euphoria.

“I missed you,” she said, breaking away and looking up. She smiled. Her arms slid tight around his back as she nestled her cheek against his chest.

He held her, placing a kiss on her scalp.

They were on the shore, as dusk settled. The sinking Sun lit mountainous grey clouds in gold and red, and they drifted across the horizon on a canvas of powder blue and swirling pink that faded to indigo overhead, then on to inky darkness and the glitter of starlight behind. It was a skyscape never seen beyond this place.

They walked in the sand, barefoot, as the lazy ocean yawned to and fro, the sigh and thump of gentle waves a slow drum roll in lament to their lost love.

She hadn’t remembered that, yet… but she would, as she always did.

At the edge of the expanse of ocean and heavens, they found a throne of rock, carved from millennia of wind and tides, and there they sat, together. She curled in to him and held him like he were priceless, her head in the nape of his neck, her face turned towards the zenith of a blood red Sun that would never set.

“Do you remember when we first met?” she said, words warmed from the heart.

“I do. You were the most beautiful woman in all the Universe. You still are. I knew from that first moment together that I’d love you for all of my days.”

She hugged him tighter.

“You didn’t believe me when I told you that. You never did,” he said.

“I believe you now.”

The screech and cackle of a flock of seagulls passing high above lifted her eyes to the flickering starlight and, puzzled, she looked again towards the setting Sun.

He whispered in her ear. “Let your mind rest. It’s not important.”

So easily, as it was when she remembered, the tension left her body and she was at peace again. Her thoughts were gone and she drank joy from the vision on the horizon, letting it frame her moment.

He looked down and gazed at the light in her eyes, and smiled for the smile on her face. It was the last time he would see it.

“We can’t see each other again,” he said, as he had to say.

She sat straight and looked at him, locking eyes, biting her lower lip and drawing it into her mouth. For a while, she just stared, watching his face.

“Don’t say that. Why?”

He stood up, lifting her with him, and took her hands again. “Because for all these moments of perfection, they have a far greater magnitude of pain in the other place.”

“I don’t understand. What ‘other place’?”

“Do you remember my funeral?”

She jerked her body away and fixed an intent glare. “No!” she protested, her voice breaking as the fog of confusion began to clear.

“That’s because you didn’t go.”

“What?”

“We hadn’t seen each other for nearly a year. You didn’t want me in your life.”

A sob rose from her chest and she fell into him again, wrapping herself around him.

“I felt guilty,” she said, as she cried.

“It wasn’t your fault. I don’t think anyone could have anticipated what happened. I was as surprised as anyone.”

“But if we’d stayed together; if I’d kept you close, you wouldn’t have been there. You’d have been safe.”

“Or we’d have been there, together.”

“I don’t care. I would have been with you.”

“You didn’t love me, so why do you grieve for me?”

With a sharp exhale, she withdrew and looked at him through tearful eyes. “How can you say that?”

“Every day, you wish me back; you wish I were there, that I’d never gone; that you’d never pushed me away. And every time you dream, I come back to you.”

“Because I love you,” she said.

“And every morning when you open your eyes, the elusive sorrow of that parting claws against all your day, and you destroy yourself, over and over again, mourning a love that never lived.”

“But I loved you!” she insisted.

“Loved… emphasis on…” he said, and they fell silent for a while.

“If I had lived until I were eighty,” he supposed, “you’d never have seen me again and I’d have barely crossed your mind, except when you were walking up the vegetable aisle of a supermarket.”

A brief smile lit her sadness.

“I was just someone from your past; someone you cared about but didn’t love, and, like the others, I would have dwelled in vague and dusty memory. But when you heard what happened, you let it crush you. You tried to bring me back and held those memories so tightly that they became as dense as diamonds, cutting your hands as you clenched them.”

“You’re alive, with me, now – here and now,” she said. “Isn’t that where you always told me was the most important place to be?”

“You are in love with your memories, not me. If I'd have lived, you’d have held on to all the things that made you push me away. It’s time to let them all go; to forget me.”

She balled her fists and softly pounded at his chest, tears dripping down her face again. “I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want to forget you.”

“But you must…”

“Why?” she cried. “Why must I? Why do you keep coming back to me if you’re not in love with me? Why would you end this for us?”

“Because I love you. I loved you to my dying day. In my dying breath I called for you… and then on, here, eternal, I love you… and this agony has to end.”

In her grief, the stars twisted in the sky and fell like jewels, slapping the sand as an angry wave thumped and rushed the shoreline, spray whipped up from a following squall.

Putting his hands on her shoulders and looking at her one last time, he said, “Wake up.”

Resigned, she closed her eyes and held him.

A great wave swept in, impossibly high and fierce, and under its pounding weight the dream was broken.

And so she awoke, compelled to rise from her bed and, without knowing what, she sensed that something was different – something good.

She had no memory of the flash in his blue eyes, his grin, the smell of him, the timbre in his voice, the sound of his laughter, the warmth and protection she once felt from his arms, and she breathed deeply and smiled, standing at her bedroom window, gazing out over the patchwork fields, bathed in joy from the early morning Sunlight.

He was gone. The path they once walked had been brushed away, to be forgotten, almost forever, until the moment that all trails converge.

Peace bubbled up from the unblocked spring inside her.

It was a new day and true love approached.

The End

Ian Taylor & Harry Moseley

With Aston Villa, Ian Taylor was a League Cup winner and FA Cup finalists, and he scored against some of the biggest teams in the world, including Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. He also scored against Leeds.

Other clubs he’s played for include Port Vale, Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County, and while at his final club (as a player), Northampton, he helped them gain promotion from League Two – they came second behind the glorious Carlisle United… my home team.

(Incidentally, before Ian arrived for the interview, I mentioned Carlisle United to Steve Jacques - who organised the meetings of that day, at the Belfry golf course - and Steve replied: “Do they have a football team up there?”)

Reinstalled at Villa as Club Ambassador, I can see why they made that choice. Ian is a good, good man and the following is an excerpt from a powerful and emotive interview with him, about his friend, Harry Moseley:

You can follow Ian on Twitter at: 

@IanTaylor7 

And please follow Harry Moseley’s Mom, Georgie, on Twitter, at:

@Harry_Moseley

If you’d like to make a donation to Harry’s ongoing fundraising efforts, his website is here:

Help Harry Help Others

* * * * *

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www.facebook.com/Lesism

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