What does it mean to be human? The simple answer we may guess is every variation of living and life we can imagine has the right to develop and form. Of course provided we find that life and development agreeable. Being human seems to me to include a lot of judgment made on a day to day basis and a lot of thinking and feeling about how we want our world and everything in it to be the way we prefer, demand, like and don’t dislike.

The problem with being human is part of our strength and a very obvious weakness. We are attracted to what we find acceptable and reject what we find unacceptable. We develop prejudice in the extreme, sometimes rational and sometimes emotional we develop peculiar idiosyncrasies and preferences. At the same time as feeling the need to reject we have a moral compass inside us which suggests we may need diversity. For in diversity we humans beings are better for it, can discern our likes and dislikes and be better for diversity.

Being human, means we want integrity in our world, yet as we want integrity we seem capable of bending our integrity to suit us, our outlook and our behaviour towards ourselves and others. We are confident users of the selective truth, we bend and make our truth to suit ourselves and what we wish for and what we settle for. We accept unacceptable behaviour in ourselves in case we get a payoff in the future. We are masters of self delusion and deluding others. We mask our needs and wants in the hope that we attract and fulfil our needs and wants. We lie confidently to achieve the possible and work harder at our deluded behaviour when the stakes are even higher.

Being human means we forgive our behaviour and lapse in integrity to get something, to get things done, to hoodwink the world till the world sees our point of view and accepts our way as the best way. Or is it just me who sees my own fallibility and the world sees my truth and corruption in outlook? Or do I see so much going on that one more lie along the way on my journey makes no substantive difference. Or that the means justify the ends to whatever I am doing and truth is hardly the issue at all.

Or being human, do I flourish and develop better when the truth is told. Or am I able to deal with a reality where much of the truth gets in the way of getting on with people. Am I confused? Not really. For in this odd world where we wander and wonder, the truth of what we see and our reactions to the present are merely survival in an imperfect world.

Our imperfect perfect.

There may be some who know the source to much of what is written here, unlike Da Vinci it is easy to find and yet I hesitate to share the complete picture on this page, maybe time will reveal a thousand words right here, they are if you know the key...

Sounds like double Dutch thinking as we English put it. The double Dutch as I see it is how easy we think we fool others when we want something, when those who are our “marks” are pretty much aware of what is occurring and how the whole game will play.

So time will show them and with wry smile recognise there was no need to include me in the game at all. So with hindsight a scenario played again in times gone by. For power and keys are all relative.

There have been times like this before. And my integrity assures me I will not use the bartering of truth to play a game where the pay offs come in superficial degrees and thin veneers of association. Will slide by and not corrupt the outcomes or my own self in this process beyond the door.

The intensity of living, the human being we feel we are, the connection we have, our worth and value. Our worth in being ourselves is much greater than power perceived or tolerated to get a result. Yet bargains in power and understanding seem to be diplomatic tools in life.

I see power shift from one to another with ease where parity is assumed and trust and mutually self assured outcomes release friendship and love. And others where love is never the outcome, friendship lost to corrupted and flawed thinking. Assumptions that means justify ends will let down those who use. As using is the loss and fixing results will never sustain.

Power perceived, real or imagined, tools of negotiation, slick practice, open intent, secret walls, open declarations, where is the truth.

And we can hide ourselves and insulate, yet we feel their touch, good maybe in outcome, lousy journeys as we queer their value in our deployment of ourselves.

Conduct in life is best made with open heart and plain intent. We are better informed to choice as we develop trust and understanding of our desires and hopes, where dreams need some extra boost to come to light as reality gained.

Our master games of self, from our shadows in the mind where we store every element of mankind. Our elements of living and the repertoire we deploy is on the surface to the good, we harbour every device in us and choose what we use to orchestrate our desires.

Our shadow selves, where lurks the fevers, the ways of dark to get our just rewards. And justice may suggest our rewards are best earned in other ways of open declaration, yet our short hand use of manipulation hides our lies and insecurity, that life indeed is never blessed merely by merit and our capacity, but by some form of patronage we acknowledge in our behaviour to get our ends.

In my world, our world, we find we bend and make use of shadow selves and devices to make good our intent. For often the intent was good.

And if we apply this mere incident of nothing in particular to me to out in this mad world. I see the same fast strokes to use of power like Iraq and what we face right now.

An intent to good and make safe a country, where a leader kept all in check, where madness made the man make war on his own people and keep his power safe. And governments used force to get him out. The club of violence and short result where armies went to make the peace, spark more and more of worse results and violence rules the game.

There is no short way to our goals, we need with honour and a steady resolve to make our way to being human and to the good. Yet in the living we can abide by our codes and conduct and see our results as they can be made. And we cannot make the path for others. Yet we think we can for time is short and we will never be complete, as life runs out before we achieve what we might.

This impatience to conclude and make good what a thousand generations have never done, is forgetting the spirit of humanity, and its slowness in its development.

As all of us flirt and shift to Ego’s drift and thinking rules our feelings kept so needy underneath, the compromise as our inner shadows elements come out and play the game of life. Those shadow elements as Jung describes, from ego’s drift in my old eyes, see the rationale complete and harshness in their failing grip, we humans fail to see, time itself and not our will, our impatience is the failure to admit, we are not the equal of the intent we commit and chaos gathers the dark of man.

So challenged in the shadow lands, denial runs riot and all pay a price for sullen outcomes grip. We know this shadow lurks and churns, yet we need it as life itself dictates the sharp shocks to keep us safe. Our risks are greater in all ways when we deviate from truth and from our real right size.

Mankind bedevilled by his intellect, wields the power of Gods of yesteryear and fable, yet fails to understand that game is merely kept as equal in the minds of man. No soul has bigger priority than any other when it comes to civil rights and place in time. We squander life as if it were free, and steal without concerns. Unless we realise our value is the equal of the other, we fail to see our folly grow. And merely live in shadows grasp and never rid of Ego’s drift to reverie and desire corrupted by our lies, deceptions made good in myths and held as legends we revere.

Best keep to simple living, and meet our fellows on our journey as they are and how they will, and make our path as we might wish. We are not judges and jurors sitting with complete immunity. For we have inside all elements, and our fears know so well where many tread to keep themselves from harm.

Being human means we get the gift, we get the day and present. We have the present moment now and wield our heavy shadow too, as heavy in all its elements, until we expose and let the light of day where fears imagined loose their sway. And ego’s drift is checked again and confidence resumes,

The dark of man, is lost in light, emerges like in nature’s pattern, not as we will or would imagine, a self taught daily experience to our end and endings are not the journey. Hapless are we who see the world, its beauty and its stark relief, held to ransom as Ego’s drift will bend it out of man made shapes and climate closes in, to make good nature’s pattern and purpose beyond mankind…

As Universe talks to God, the hand of man is lost to time…