This morning I listened to the speech the husband gave on TV who was
married to the lady that died from the handcuff incident at the
airport. You know the one..she was furious cause she was late and
missed her plane and she ended up choking herself to death from her
rage fits after she was subdued?

He suggested a little loving kindness and a hug or touch from the
security forces may have saved her life.

It is hard to say how things would have turned out with mentally ill
people.

Sometimes when frantic and distraught people get hugged or touched
they scream don't touch me or don't patronize me and get more
enraged.

And nowadays all you hear is cries sex discrimination from the women.

No, the security forces were right in keeping things professional and
according to the book. That is why we have SOP in place.

I've talked with a few people in similar jobs about this subject of
'personal contact' and they say their official policy is hands off.

The less personal contact they have in doing their job, the safer they
are with lawsuits.

And of course this hubby hired lawyer instantly...so their concerns
are right.

I have to wonder why the family let such a sick lady travel alone? Why
didn't they show her the compassion and time she obviously needed
instead of looking to strangers to provide it?

Humans tend to look for scapegoats to blame their troubles on. It is
always 'someone else' that caused the problem and not me...ego
sickness.

While I feel for the husband and the 3 kids left behind, they must
accept that all our actions have consequences, and many of our actions
produce consequences that end up destroying peace. They destroy our
peace as well as the inner peace of others.

The sooner that family accepts that, the sooner they can come to peace
with it.

See my post:

'Justified anger'

http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=613.0

People will be headed off the deep end more and more as time goes by.

As our earth heats up, we have too much stress on our backs from wrong
living and overcrowding, we will continue to get bombarded with more
radio and satellite waves and radiation and when our excessive desires
cannot be fulfilled any longer to distract us from the hellish world
we have created for humans to live in...people will snap.

Our food supply has degenerated unbelievably in recent years and is
getting worse every day that goes by. It is factory made, genetically
engineered poison.

If the poison does not drive us crazy, the salty and unnatural
combinations and nutritionally bankrupt content will do the job.

But the world has bigger problems that bad fruits and food. We could
clean up our food - but cannot clean up the real mess we have
created.

See:

'Why don't we do anything about global warming...because we can't.'

http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=718.0

Whatever the area of mind abuse - a sick mind that is constantly busy
cannot heal itself without rest. Nor can that mind think rationally
when it is sick.

Meditation on nothingness (zazen) helps quiet a "sticky brain" that
seems to hold onto everything. I can get positive results with just 15
to 20 minutes a day sitting meditation time. It helps if I sit at
regular time. I meditate on nothingness, although some meditate on an
object If you can get to a half hour meditation time, that is great.

Do not confuse zazen with sleep. Having a brain awake and empty if far
different from a brain asleep and still producing thoughts and
dreams. It just takes time and practice. Morning works better for me
than mid day...there are less things distracting me earlier in the day
usually.

I've meditated in airports many times to relax my mind. This lady may
have benefited from such calmness of mind...a sick mind that is
constantly busy cannot heal itself without rest. Nor can that mind
think rationally when it is sick.

In our own lives and the search for inner peace, we seldom question if
more of a "good thing" is desirable for our supposed happiness in
life. The question, that Voluntary Simplicity helps answer, is the
question of what IS enough so we may be happy right now in the
present.

A life of Voluntary Simplicity focuses our attention on the fact that
"everything we own take a little piece ~ peace of us." And in doing
so, we can let go of peace and life destroying rituals and possessions
and replace them with a contented, satisfied and complete life in the
present moment instead of a life that revolves around the next thing
to be acquired in hopes of satisfying our insatiable appetites.

Greed is never satisfied by attainment - it is only satisfied by
contentment. This orientation of conscious thought to simplify ones
life in whatever activity the individual is engaged in is the
foundation of success when it comes to simple living...mindfulness of
our direction in life. Voluntary Simplicity is the tool I use to
counter this desire to constantly expand my life with more
complexities, stress and problems and to live within my comfortable
boundaries for a serene life.

I started with 12 step programs in 1974 to work on various addictions.
As such, I find a less complex life very useful to my addictions
recovery work. The 12 Step programs do actually touch on the VS topic,
although it is not specifically called VS. Here are a couple of quotes
that can be taken as their efforts at applying VS to one's life.

........From page 76 of the 12 & 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous........

"The chief activator of our defects has been a self-centered fear-
primarily that we would lose something we already possessed or would
fail to get something we demanded. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied
demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustrations.
Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of
reducing these demands."

End of Quote

I cannot tell you that I have no unsatisfied demands in my life; but,
I will say that since joining the simple living movent my unsatisfied
demands can now be counted on one hand, whereas in my prior life, I
needed a notebook to record them all.

........Taken from pages 122-125 of the 12 & 12 of Alcoholics
Anonymous.......

"In later life he (the addict) finds that real happiness is not to be
found in just trying to be a number one man, or even a first-rater in
the heartbreaking struggle for money, romance, or self-importance. He
learns that he can be content as long as he plays well whatever cards
life deal him. He's still ambitious, but not absurdly so, because he
can now see and accept actual reality. He is willing to stay right
size."

End of quote.

I find VS to be a very important state of mind to be in. It shows
which direction a person is pointed in with their life. The same way
an addiction has 3 roads to go down, so it goes with VS. An addict can
be expanding their addiction, freezing their addiction or reducing
their addiction. A person suffering from an overly stressed or
complicated life can be expanding the complications, freezing the
complications or reducing the complications. Thoreau says that we need
food, shelter, fuel and clothes as necessities. In modern times, I
will add transportation to the list depending on your local.
Everything else is pretty much optional. If we have these needs met
and are not happy, then their is no end to our supposed needs for that
elusive state of happiness that we seek. We all seem to have no
shortage of supposed needs or wants as complexity addicts. We only
want to go in one direction...more.

Life does not go in one direction no matter how wealthy you are, life
is always up and down. My goal in life prior to joining the VS
movement was to get rich and buy anything I wanted to. My goal now is
to live within my means, comfortably fit within my space and
gratefully accept my current position in life. VS has contributed to
this recovery and continues to do so each day. I make it a practice to
wake up with VS, eat lunch with VS and to go to bed with VS the same
way I do with my 12 step program work and without this constant
awareness of how daily decisions affect my VS or 12 Step program, I'd
be back on the road to my prior sick life.

Do not confuse VS with the misnomer of 'Voluntary Poverty' VS is not
about living low, it is about making choices and balanced living. You
get out what you put in with VS. If you do not cut back enough on the
complexities that rob you of living life, then all you have is your
same complex life back that you started with. If you cut out too many
complexities and are unhappy or bored, don't worry, you can always add
them back. We suffer from no shortage of stress and complexities of
living, especially if you have a family. Life gives us plenty of
problems for free. You can even trade the complexities that offer no
reward other than more problems for new complexities that offer rich
rewards or good feelings.

For instance, I gave up some of my computer compulsion time and put
that time into yoga class and meditation. I started with VS in 1996
by canceling some subscriptions to 5 business newspapers and magazines
and pulled out about 50-60 rosebushes that we could not care for.
After that, I saw the beneficial results and kept at it, questioning
everything and experimenting with which complexities could be removed
and which needed to stay in order to live a balanced life. We make
what we want of VS, there are no rules other than if you do not do
enough you do not get any results. There are no VS police to boss you
around and tell you what is right or wrong. We have to decide this for
ourselves as individuals. As I have said before, the program is the
final judge of your success, not you, not me, not anyone else.

A lady wrote in asking if she could be into VS and still have a gold
chain? Yes, we can have a gold chain, we can even have 10 gold chains
if we please. Can a person have 100 gold chains and still be into VS?
No, I could not say with a straight face I was into VS and own 100
gold chains. But, the person that has scaled back from owning 1000
gold chains could definitely say they have applied VS to their
lifestyle by cutting back from 1000 to 100 gold chains. It is all
relative and all up to us and what we wish to derive from our efforts
at simplicity. Another fellow posted how he wanted a canoe, but his
wife said he could not have one and be a VS devotee.

It is not up to others to tell us what we can have - our recovery or
VS program will tell us. If the canoe would comfortably fit within a
financial budget, and a person has the comfortable space required to
store it and the object does not cause a person any undue harm or
problems such as maintenance that they cannot upkeep, legal problems
or rob them of time they cannot afford to give, I see no problem in
having it. A person wrote me and asked, "Is writing your long 5 page
post really simple living? " My response was, "Yes, writing 5 pages or
even 5000 pages is vastly superior to living the old, sick life that I
used to live." Critics are all around us and work to tear down
programs instead of building them up. Either our efforts at simplicity
or recovery will promote our peace or destroy our peace - so put peace
first. Always listen to your recovery program instead of the critics -
it has the final say.

Below are some definitions of VS from the book The Circle of
Simplicity ~ Andrews.

"For me, voluntary simplicity is living consciously, trying to
eliminate the unnecessary, the superficial clutter. It is trying to
live morally and ethically in the global economy by using less."

"I think that voluntary simplicity as living on purpose, making sure I
have the time to do the things I want to do, not wishing my time
away."

"I think voluntary simplicity is being true to yourself, true to the
environment. It's finding that place for every facet of my life and
defining how much is enough. For me it is spiritual."

"It's choosing to enhance one's life by surrounding yourself with what
really brings you fulfillment. It is defining my own standard of
success and prosperity, community and fun."

"Voluntary simplicity is balancing the realities of my life (limited
economics, time and energy) with my values and implementing them into
a lifestyle that is comfortable and rewarding. I think voluntary
simplicity is an "art of living." I believe it is an art to live, to
be true to yourself and to be open to innovation."

An in-depth discussion and clarification of the term "Voluntary
Simplicity" by Philip Slater

All personal solutions to wealth addiction involve one form or another
of what has come to be called Voluntary Simplicity. This doesn't not
necessarily mean going "back to nature" and does not mean living in
poverty and discomfort, although some people may elect forms of
simplicity that would be highly uncomfortable for the rest of us.
Above all, it does not mean forcing yourself to give up something you
really enjoy, out of some pious conviction that it's the "right thing
to do." Voluntary Simplicity merely means trying to rid one's life as
much as possible of material clutter so as to concentrate on more
important things: creativity, human survival and development,
community well-being, play.

The key word in Voluntary Simplicity is "voluntary," which means that
the giving up of the material clutter is not coerced either from the
outside or from the inside. As Andre Vanden Broeck observers, only
those who have experienced affluence are in a position to have a
"choice divorced from need." The poor aren't in a position to make
such a choice-they are stuck with a scarcity that is neither simple
nor voluntary.

Nor is Voluntary Simplicity coerced from within, for to deprive
yourself out of some ideological conviction is merely to feed the Ego
Mafia. The word "simplicity" may have overtones that arouse our
suspicions: a vaguely puritan ring, conjuring up images of drab
smocks, self-righteousness and flagellation. But if this is in the
spirit in which Voluntary Simplicity is embraced the result will most
certainly be noxious.

There is an old Zen story about two monks traveling together who
encounter a nude woman trying to cross a stream. One of them carries
her across, much to the consternation of the other. They continue in
silence for a couple of hours until the second monk can stand it no
longer. "How," he asks "could you expose yourself to such temptation?"
The first monk replies, "I put her down two hours ago. You're still
carrying her."

Addiction is internal; if you experiment sincerely with Voluntary
Simplicity and find yourself still thinking of money and possessions,
your simplicity is a fraud and you might just as well go back to
pursuing wealth until you've had your fill of it. To achieve its goal,
Voluntary simplicity must be undertaken in the spirit, not of
Puritanism or self-flagellation, but out of adventure. All adventurers
throughout history have, after all, been people who abandoned
comforts, possessions, love and security to seek new experiences in
faraway places.

Richard Gregg, who coined the term in 1936, once complained to Gandhi
that while he had no trouble giving up most things, he could not let
go of his books. Gandhi told he shouldn't try: "As long as you derive
inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it." He pointed
out that if you give things up out of a sense of duty or self-
sacrifice they continue to preoccupy you and clutter your mind. To
talk of "denying oneself" is to use the language of despotism.
Simplicity is an affirmation, not a denial of oneself.

End of quote

It is always nice to have our own work confirmed by others that have
gone before us as well as those that follow us. Many years ago I
coined the phrase "Everything you own takes a little piece ~ peace of
you." A couple years ago I came across Richard Gregg's original work
on Voluntary Simplicity penned in 1936 and this is what he said on the
subject of peace disturbance or as he termed it "SIMPLICITY A KIND OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL HYGIENE".

Taken from the original work:

Pendle Hill Essays Number Three
THE VALUE OF VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY
RICHARD B. GREGG
Acting Director of Pendle Hill 1935-36

Chapter X. SIMPLICITY A KIND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HYGIENE
There is one further value to simplicity. It may be regarded as a
mode of psychological hygiene. Just as eating too much is harmful to
the body, even though the quality of all the food eaten is excellent,
so it seems that there may be a limit to the number of things or the
amount of property which a person may own and yet keep himself
psychologically healthy. The possession of many things and of great
wealth creates so many possible choices and decisions to be made every
day that it becomes a nervous strain. Often the choices have to be
narrow. The Russian physiologist, Pavlov, while doing experiments on
conditioned reflexes with dogs, presented one dog with the necessity
of making many choices involving fine discriminations, and the dog
actually had a nervous breakdown and had to be sent away for six
months' rest before he became normal again.

Subsequently, American psychologists, by similar methods, produced
neuroses in sheep by requiring many repetitions of mere inhibition and
action; and as inhibition is an element in all choices, they believe
it was that element which may have caused the neurosis in Pavlov's
dog. Of course, people are more highly organized than dogs and are
easily able to weigh more possibilities and endure more inhibitions
and make more choices and nice distinctions without strain, but
nevertheless making decisions is work and can be overdone.

I'll leave you with a snip of wisdom from Thoreau from his book
Walden.

"The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those
which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had
an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any
monster or finished any labor. They had no friend Iolaus to burn with
a hot iron the root of hydra's head, but as soon as one head is
crushed, two spring up."

Take care,

V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2