Hardest of all our living is living our consequences. Some things that happen to us are way beyond our control and have consequences we like or dislike. Some things that happen to us are choices we make and we had some control over the consequences. Some decisions we make are good for us and some choices we make are definitely to the bad. In all respects we live with consequences of actions we take and the consequences of a world beyond our control. All consequences and as we learn in hindsight some we love and some we hate. And sometime if we are lucky we get beyond the hindsight and get to a place of acceptance. Acceptance of where we are today.

If ever a race, a breed, an animal was born to make mistakes and learn from them with consciousness, then human beings are definitely at an advantage. We learn from nature and memorise our experiences. We learn consciously and we learn subconsciously all the time. The devil in our make up is a strong will to bend this world to our choices and a huge resentment when we can’t get our own way. Consequently human beings spend a lot of time in denial, the denial of self will, willing things our way and being stubborn when we fail.

From basic drives, like food and living, to procreation and everything we do connected to survival, we are as stubborn as anything we may encounter. We don’t give up easily, we don’t go with the flow, we deny that our will is not enough to secure whatever we might want. Our denial is tenacious and keeps us doing things we might be better off giving up and doing something else. Tell this to a determined human and we uncover a raft of harshness and resolve. Our denial makes us strong predators and useless at acceptance of sometimes obvious truths. Sometimes the obvious truth is so plain to others and we can never see our desires are thwarted by nature and mankind. Denial of lost causes will surely kill us and our potential if we do not develop the wisdom to know when to turn and find new paths and ways to make our lives work. Denial, so strong in survival, can kill as deadly as a bolt of lightening, as prolonged as life itself. Denial can last a lifetime and leave a bitter living. Wisdom enables a new outlook, a new path and new consequences.

Facing the unacceptable truth about ourselves comes in all manner of ways. We may not be the fittest, we may not be the most desirable, we may not be the most attractive. We might be just the ordinary. Or we might be just the measure of the day we are living. We might be hanging on by a thread to our sanity. Or we might be quite mad with desperation to make our living good, we are somewhere in our feelings and outlook across the scope of living.

We are human.

When we come into this world, we a part start canvas. Humans come to the world with their nature programmed , we have a template determined from untold generations of living. We find our characteristics fashioned by nature and the climate. We come with a basic template and we adapt to our environment. We are shaped and shape the future. And as part of the canvas is made before we even draw breath, we are born and then styled and pattered by our nurture. We develop our character and personality from our environment, family and society. We make use of the environs and fit in, or don’t fit.

We are human and we learn to be humans. We learn and depend on external elements to help us choose our way of living. For we do have choices and we are either able to make use of our world to get what we want or we make a way forward to choose differently. And at the same time we are compelled by drive and desire to find our way and what we will. We determine much of our choice. And as we learn sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we learn there is no choice and we don’t get it.

The consequences of endeavour and hard work, for it is hard work whatever we choose, are how we feel about our living and how others view our living too. Consequences can be excellent. Consequences can be catastrophic. And the risks we are willing to take to secure our living face everyone squarely whoever we are. We live with one consequence shared and common to all or deny our living completely.

Our prime consequence is our memory, what we know, what we did, what we achieved, what we failed to achieve. This consequence can lead to peaceful contemplation and acceptance of what we are, or it can lead to denial and madness, where we deny our living and live for a day when we do get our just reward. Consequently half the time, most of us can be driven mad at our achievements being less than we might have hoped, dreamed or wished had happened. And we resort to denial and oblivion to keep our world safe from truth. That our path is blocked and we cannot have our own way.

We also face the consequence of harm from others, where are harmed and hurt and cannot believe what has happened to us. We have sometimes to face the consequence of our life changed irrevocably by events and people responsible for maiming and damaging our living. The consequence of hurt and damage, that we never find a place of balance where our world works as it might had we not encountered and been so mutilated by life events. We carry scars deep on our surface and deep in our minds where no one can see our damage, that damage torments the will and torments the sufferer, who cannot face reality weakened living. If we just had time to overcome our denial of our damage them maybe we might become stronger in other ways, to make good use our living time as a consequence.

The gift of intellect and understanding our situation does nothing to help our feelings we experience when we face consequences. For part of our denial makes feelings hard to bear, as feelings are less developed than our intellect, that safe impartial territory that makes sense of success and calamity.

Our feelings we protect and keep to ourselves most often when our failings to get our way, or we have been damaged mean we hide our wounds, for wounded humans like animals face prejudice from nature and from mankind, who tend to shun weakness and most often at best tolerate it. The it being us.

Humans are useless with weakness in themselves, we are programmed to hide our pain, for in nature, a wounded animal is open game and open to prey. And like all good animals, human qualities prey on weakness or in recent times make fun of, ridicule and torment weakness. As animals do, humans still have this natural flair to torment and put to misery and often death what offends the eye and sensibility. Humans are not much human, not yet.

Consequences then are far reaching and often living with the consequences is hard as we make them. Hard choices and hard knocks, and damage are part of what makes humans adapt. Our very vulnerability makes us strong, for we adapt and change so well, when we know how and why. We are dependable in our calamity, and yet unforgiving. We are changeable and swift and fleet of foot and yet despise ourselves when our path is diverted. Somewhere in this living we might become more flexible if we learn to overcome our natural inclination to self destruct.

Self destruction is a consequence we all flirt with day to day. And some of us are prone through determination and grit to put ourselves to test after test. We view living as we are warriors and indestructible. We war on the world and our will conquers many elements of living. We bend life our way until life bends us another. Or we break.

Consequently some us take solace in oblivion, where we deny truth and reality for short and then long periods. Our grieving for loss and things lost to our vision of our living. We are good at coping with grief with a little help. We are useless at grieving when our will finds its way and denial remains embedded and resentful inside us. We need wish things, and we may live life, we are rarely doing both as dreams would determine.

As we live so we face truth, as we deny, we find reprieve from our pain. Denial is certainly a useful part of our living when truth so horrifying is encountered and we need time to get over our losses.

Grief becomes part of life if we are fortunate. Grief need not weigh us down if we learn how to grieve to our own recipe, without resort to self harm and harming others. Yet our world and we humans are caught like animals in blame and torture of past and consequences. We live hate and resent like no other form of life and can turn a lifetime to revenge and reprisal, most often for ourselves for there is no joy in war or its consequences.

Our feelings are prime inside us and we still hide them for most of our lives to avoid hurt and pain. Yet the pain and consequences of hiding our feelings mean we store them up to unmanageable levels and become impaired in our living so easily. We would do well to learn and educate ourselves in our feelings and make our consequences more manageable, as they are dealt with as we live, rather than store them up for future damage.

How we deal with consequences, best dealt with now, but left for future torment often determine great outpourings of anguish and reprisals. Such delayed action for extended times impairs living and making good our path. For war is the greatest consequence of all. War against ourselves and others as we fail to deal with reality. As we foster and develop our destruction and determine to will our justice to be done.

Consequently we can feel life is unfair, rather than life is for living. Consequently we can feel justice and satisfaction with our ego intact when we win wars and battles. And all the time as a consequence we do not live the life we might have had. We do not make the best of our living. When we seek justice and all it entails.

Somewhere is a middle ground of living and wisdom and appeals to our way of living. Wisdom helps and teaches, if only we had our wisdom from nature, and our living was more easy. Yet such patterns and developments are beyond mankind as we are today.

And the consequence of living is we face a fair unfair world, where we make of what we have what we will and can find acceptable. We will never be without our nature, and our choices determined to an extent by the world as is. Our path is consequently not perfect or ever likely to be, more likely indeed to be perfect in its imperfection and inequality. Perfect imperfect, a world of opportunity lived in this ever present moment, the true reality as we learn to experience this present moment.