Self-Portrait
Preface
I always told my Dad that when he died, I wouldn’t cry. There would be no unfinished business between us, because I always told my Dad everything.
Then he died.
I wept like a baby.
The reason I cried (especially when they showed that video of his life at the funeral) pertained to the value of “a life”.
I wept when considering the intrinsic and unique value of each and every life lived.
They are all equally valuable: one, not an iota more or less, than any other.
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This series is about my life.
Over the course of my life, there have been those who have helped me, and others who have tried to hinder me.
Right up front, I want to set the record straight, as to how I view these people and situations.
There are no good guys and bad guys.
There is only “that which is” respective to this unique time and place.
“That which is” (when it comes to people and personality types) had to be, as these times, created those specific roles.
SOMEBODY had to fill each and every one of those slots.
The person I want you to think about, when you read this series, is Jack Nicholson.
Jack Nicholson, over the course of his career, has played the role of some incredibly mean and nasty people.
After you watch the movie, do you think badly of Jack? It was just a role in a movie. It’s not who Jack actually is. It was just the script that he was handed.
Life is like a movie, and I have always been everyone’s biggest fan. No matter what I myself may have looked like – how I may have been responding to the words or actions of whoever at the time (I have my own role to play in the cosmic drama) I want you to know that internally, I have always felt deeply honored to share the stage with everyone who showed up.
I have always experienced the other as being my equal, because that is the obvious truth - and this pertains to each and every person, respective to any time and place.
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I’m always expecting the entire world to change.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what it will be like.
I think that once we drop the individual ego thing, once that naturally falls away like autumn leaves and we begin to appreciate all of the unique roles for being what they were, and why they had to be exactly like that - I think, initially, we will all spend a lot of time laughing.
It will be the relief. Everything and everyone will finally make perfect sense.
This will be followed by a long period of tears, as we all embrace each other, truly fall deeply in love with each other, as we reflect upon and appreciate all that we have done to each other, and about how great we all truly are to have been able to go the course.
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This series will be ongoing for as long as I am living stories to write about.
Each chapter is preceded by a self-portrait drawing from my New Beginning series, which I did in 2009.
Tim Folzenlogen
March, 2012