•let's get lost

this is the best reading nook ever. oh so cozy!!!

I feel at peace when I sit there - and I most certainly don't get to sit there enough...

I do desire it, though.

Utopia.

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

If I hadn't been baking in my mom's oven exactly 30 years ago today and had already been living my life, I feel I might have come close to being a part of the bitter end of another dream of Utopia.

My mom always said that if she were a couple few decades older, she'd have a hippie for a daughter.

And I believe that may be true.

Because of my trials, including the daily ones attributed to chronic illness/disease, I am always looking for the peace and serenity in life... I want to make my gift of sickness even better - (the gift of sickness..yeah. I'll address the irony of that in a blog soon to come.)

I don't think I could have been sucked into a cult, per se, but charasmatic leaders who promise a life one could only dream of.....
---well, I think I could have gotten into that. My bookshelves and armoire are filled with many, many types of books and I have a section full of ones about different ideas and ideals...such as buddhism, the science of God, Carl Sagan books, C.S. Lewis books, time travel and remote viewing, witchcraft (history - not the practice of), and on and on.. I'm obviously searching for something.
Not an answer, of course, but some sort of connection, understanding, or enlightenment.
Just as were the people of Jim Jones' congregation.

I would never go to that kind of extreme now, knowing the dangers (along with the fact that I have a settled down family life), but if I had been that hippie my mom speaks of... who knows?

---- now on to what this is all about...

The media has made Jonestown seem like a great massacre which only involved crazy cultish people, but that's just not the truth.

Those people were just searching for what every person wants.

The heartbreaking fact is that they were tricked. And even more heartbreaking is knowing (or at least understanding as much as we are capable) what the 'survivors' have to deal with to this day... I cannot fathom that kind of guilt and pain..

In the book, "Manhunt", by Colin Wilson, the Reverend Jim Jones is used as a Charles Manson comparison!!! And it's the truth. But I personally believe that even the Manson Family wasn't all bad.

Now, please don't take that the wrong way - Please! All I mean is that these people went into these situations with the best of intentions and became totally different people over time due to the dominating characteristics of their 'leaders'. Of course, that's not true of everyone - all groups have a couple (or more) bad seeds that were born that way and fell into opportunity, but for the most part, I feel that the majority of the 900some people who died in Guyana were not much different that I am.

And that's scary.

And sad.

Just depressing, really.

Especially for the children who were just there with their parents and did not choose that destiny.

The most sickening part of it all is that no one even really talks about it anymore. Our world has become so disgusting that these long forgotten tragedies don't even receive a short mention on the news the day of the anniversary!!

It's no wonder things keep getting worse!

History does indeed repeat itself and I'm afraid for what's to come...
I mean, Manson gets the most mail -FAN MAIL- than anyone in prison ever to this day. I wonder how many letters he'll receive today... I'll probably only get some bills!

Now that I've written all this, I don't know what else to say, which is odd for me. But, I'll just take it as a sign that I (hopefully) got most of my thoughts out and just stop writing. I hate forced writing that tries too hard to say something of importance. I'm just a self-admitted rambler; not necessarily a writer.

One last thing, though -
No, I don't have smudges on my living room wall. I pixelized my kid's pictures.
I don't understand people who can display their family online with all the craziness that goes on, but whatever. That's for another day.