Sunday, September 28, 2008
No Barriers
Life knows no barriers. Geography, culture, language, religion, politics ... none of these are even recognized by Life. And as I awakened yesterday ... with mind and Soul fertile from an evening listening to political debaters exchanging view on peoples and places that neither had any personal knowledge of, involvement with, or intimate participation in ... I was quite ripe for an introduction to Ghazala Khan with The Pakistani Spectator. Her introduction of herself, with its request for an Interview, found a ready mind and heart. Thusly, I, first, went to the site that she is a participant in ... read several postings there ... commented on one of them ... then, granted the requested Interview.
I now have a delightful new friend. And look forward to the fruits of my agreement to submit works, on topics of interest to the site, for publication by The Pakistani Spectator. All because I chose to respond ... to all that I was deluged with by the Debate participants ... and to the vacuous emptiness, devoid of comfort, that their remarks left my Spirit with.
Life is just so very cool!
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24 comments:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your inpsiring and well written interview with Ms. Khan. It was nice to learn a bit more about you. Our religious backgrounds and new outlooks on life are amazingly parallel! Thanks for the link. Hope you are enjoying your Sunday!
Willow x
I had a comfortable sense that our life-songs had many harmonies, Willow, My Dear. It is, indeed, nice to have that sense made clearer. I thank you for your openness and gentle voice.
Lovingly ...
Dear friend, I am so grateful for the mention on your pristine and great site.
Thanks and regards
It is a pleasure, to my Heart, Dear Ghazala, my Friend, to introduce my Friends and Readers to Another who makes our shared life-experience ever-better.
With admiring Honor ...
John-Michael the interview is wonderful, as I expected it would be. I didn't realize you cared for your son .... a very lucky boy. Those are indeed the moments that make a remarkable life. Lisa L.
i am smiling with you, my friend.
Lisa, My Darling, you are very sweet and kind. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to develop as a man and as a person, that my son's needs made necessary. I embraced his disabilities as my own call to response and growth. This was the only way that I could ever look him, my Self, and Life, in the eye and have a solid confidence that I had done everything that i could make myself able to be ... for Him. This resulted in him surpassing EVERY estimation of what he could ever be expected to achieve in his life's abilities to have enjoyment and satisfactions. I was blessed in the process, with having to grow and develop my Self.
I am so glad that I can share this blessing with you, my Darling Lime. To enjoy your encouragement and enthusiastic participation in the rich blessings of Life makes the experience far more joyous for me.
Wonderful interview, John~Michael!
Congratulations on your new friendship and opportunity.
Yes, sometimes life is very cool!
I just KNEW that you would appreciate all that is represented in the interview, NiteByrd. As I responded to questions having to do with the influence of other bloggers, relationships enjoyed with other bloggers, and the significant influence of blogging friends on me, were based on my thoughts of you. You do have a profound and meaningful part in my life. And I am so grateful for you.
Lovingly ...
WOW that is powerful stuff you write about in the interview John-Michael. Thank you for sharing it. Your words of course remain kind & gentle & always inspirational which is why I return again & again.
Hey, thanks, John-Michael! I was quite suspicious of the request I received at my place, from the same source. I thought it might be some way to get a worm onto my computer or something. Now that I know it's legit, I'll gladly reply and look forward to some fun!
A great big "Hey" right back to you, Jim, my SulDog Compadre. I knew, immediately, that your blog was the source of these folk finding me. In response to my initial reply to them (which was after my initial reflex to delete the Email from an "unknown") in which I said ...
"Please do me the honor and compliment of telling me how you came to an awareness of my blogging ... and how you are inclined to have an interest in my opinions from an interview. I want you to know that I have taken the opportunity to visit The Pakistani Spectator ... read some of its offerings ... and left a comment on one of them. This small exposure has encouraged me to welcome further communication, and hopefully, growing knowledge and understanding of who you are and what you believe and feel." ...
These nice folks replied ...
"The honour is all mine and I feel so elated and privileged by receiving such a kind and nice email from you, and the comment you left has also stirred the things instantly. Sir, we have carried out hundreds upon hundreds of interviews with the American bloggers, and I was looking for bloggers in the Boston area and came across your magnificent (I do mean it) blog, and couldn't resist to request you for interview." ...
So, My Friend, you can see how I knew that they had been led to you, and obviously wanted to know what sort of character would so unabashedly declare his open appreciation of and fondness for you. [smile]
Quite a fascinating community ... this world made open and available through this boundary-eliminating blogosphere! I sure do enjoy the experience of sharing it with You, Dear Friend.
The indefatigable power of Love permeates not only the boundaries mentioned already ... but those of anonymity and obscurity, my dearest Anonymous Friend. Hence, your comments caress and encourage my senses with gentle breezes of calming kindness. I thank you.
Dear friend...what a wonderful interview. I am also grateful that you apologized for our ignorant acts. You left a good reflection of our country and people...thank you.
Hugs,
Rose
My Darling, and ever-Precious Rose, I feel free to tell you that I felt (and continue to feel) a tremendous weight of responsibility in my interactions with this lovely young lady. So much so that I (before responding to the formal interview questions) sent a set of 13 personal photos that encompassed my life from a toddler, through Vietnam era Marine Corps, family, corporate, to the present date and time. I felt it critical to set a framework of imagery within which she could insert my "details" of interview responses.
All in all, the whole enterprise was a significant emotional investment ... and just prior to discovering your comment ... I was having a moment of emotional backlash, as I sat and let tears of spent emotions run down my face. So, as you can now appreciate, your sensitive notice of my willingly making my Self vulnerable to this person, and the over 4,000 who have already read the interview on their site, is met, by my Soul, with welcoming arms of gratitude.
How I do adore you ...
That was a wonderful interview with Ms. Khan. I am sure you two will continue to communicate. Perhaps that country will be of consideration to your future endeavors. Maybe your literary piece in the Pakastani Spectator will lead to publications in other media. You are a talented writer who deserves to be published and read by many, so that their lives will also be blessed by your insight.
How wonderfully generous and kind of you, My very Dear Anonymous Friend! I thank you for that ... quite sincerely.
You will be interested to know that a 'writer's account' has been established, for my written submissions, by The Pakistani Spectator. I look happily forward to our developing a mutually enjoyable and beneficial relationship of respectful camaradarie and sharing, in the future.
With loving appreciation ...
Hello, John-Michael! I would differ a bit on the not commenting on other people's blogs unless you're specially invited. I look at the whole internet as kind of an open-market bazaar. You never really know what you'll find one day to the next.
(So much more exciting than shopping at Wal-Mart.)
But I do appreciate the spirit behind your conviction in that you feel you want to be welcomed, etc. The thing is, if I weren't so doggone nosy and snooping into other people's blogrolls and comments, I'd have never found you and made myself welcome at "your place."
See, I just assume I'm welcome until I'm told otherwise. :] I guess you have to be kinda blunt with people like me. I used to live in New York so I can take that kind of thing. I also tell people to scram when they're not being nice on my blog.
Perhaps this is a cultural difference between you and me, eh? We can be friends anyway.
Well, Mrs C ... you have effectively stumped me. I haven't the most remote clue what you are referring to here. So ... I'll just leave it.
LOL, I read the interview carefully and you said something to the effect that you didn't want to bother other people on blogs unless you're invited.
And I just meant to say that I (respectfully!) don't see it that way, more that everyone is outside showing their blogs like an open-market bazaar. (Fun browsing in. Ever been to one?)
So. I just make myself at home on people's blogs until they tell me to go away.
I'm sorry we keep misunderstanding each other. Be assured that's not my intention at all. I saw that sweet spirit of yours in the way you replied to the interviewer's questions, and I **meant** to say that it's a very polite intention you have, but that I see things differently.
I guess I communicate differently, too.
:]
I realize that what we are discussing is the exercise of our natural Temperaments and Personalities, Dear Mrs C, I am of an innate Temperament that is intensely intimate, and immersed in every individual and their life/world. For me to open my Self to that level of involvement in the life of someone else (which, for me, is not an 'option,' but a spontaneous and innate function), would be presumptuous and desrespectful without that person's willing opening of themselves to my natural intimacies. For those of other temperaments (78% of the population) who are offended by and resentful of Intimacy in general (which they find uncomfortable and invasive [and, believe me, after 20 years of marriage to a person of that predisposition ... I know from, not only academic theory, but of painful experience, the factual realities of this conflict]), my natural and normal ways and means of involvement, are troublesome, uncomfortable, and infinitely resented.
So, I am respectful of the signs and signals, given by others, that communicate their openness or closedness to a person who functions and relates as I do. Hence, I do the best that I am able to do in order to respect that individual's right to their natural and completely appropriate desire for an involvement that compliments who they are.
I treat each and every blog just as I would someone's home (or their booth or stall in Life's great bazaar.) I will introduce my Self ... allow an opportunity to discover who that other person is ... and then only permit my Self to assume a place of comfort and welcome there if I am as sure as I can possibly be, that we are sharing, what we bring to that experience, on a mutually enjoyable and beneficial level.
This is simply who I am ... and how I am created to naturally Be.
There it is then! I hope that this makes this matter more clear and understandable. And I do respect and appreciate your willingness to permit this exchange between us.
namaste ...
Wed Oct 08, 04:06:
Thanks, John-Michael! And I think it's ok that we all have different temperments, as well. It does make for strained relationships when we don't recognize this.
I find sometimes (ok, a bit of a tangent) that my autistic children are perceived as "rude," when really, they are just on social overload.
Respect and consideration of the feelings of others is ALWAYS appreciated, even when we miscommunicate. (Um, or I do LOL)
Blessings back to ya! :]
It sometimes takes me a while to discover the rythm or tempo of the tune that you are dancing to ... but just be patient with me ... I will soon join you in your inner music.[smile]
Thanks for your patience Mrs C.
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