Life
Q: Do you have any closing message for out readers?
Chief Paul Waterman: Live. Don't be afraid to live. We can live through this time.
I did reburials at the Penn Site. Germ warfare killed them. At the Bloody Hill Site, it was small pox. Some of the burials were of parents and their children. They were holding hands. This seems to happen when germ warfare kills families.
But we are here today. It's our turn to live now. And if you are reading this, it's your turn as well. Make the most of it. Enjoy your family.
Quite a few people find life in 2024 stressful. It could be from factors in their daily life, to the state of our society. I thought I'd attempt to start a discussion on this, starting with a story about a "potentially" stressful situation tat Chief Waterman and another member of the Council of Chiefs found themselves in years ago. The other Chief shared this story with me.
A group of Iroquois men who self-identified as the Warrior Society were holding Paul and Oren hostage in the Oneida bingo hall. The NYS Police and Sheriff's Departmet had surrounded the place. Oren said that being held at the wrong end of shotguns was stressful. But Paul was relaxed, and telling the younger men about temselves. The fellow holding the gun on Paul wanted to shut him up by placing the barrel in Paul's mouth. He told Paul to open his mouth, or he'd blow Paul's head off.
"Fuck you," Paul replied, laughing. "The first sound of a gun shot, and the police will kill every Indian in here." In a relatively short time, the stand-off ended. Oren told me that he had never witnessed anyone as calm and brave as Paul that day. (If you are thinking, "No big deal," you can stop reading now.)
Now, when do you do your best thinking? When you are well rested and relaxed? Or when you haven't gotten proper rest, and have had existential stress since, say, the defendant became president? Most people function better mentally when well rested and relaxed.
Jon Steward recently reported on how often the media reports on the defendant, including on unimportant issues such as his ride to court. I will speculate that someone somewhere was talking about the defendant on television or the internet every hour of every day since he announced he was running for president back in 2015. Stop and think of the sum total of hours that you have been exposed to either the defendant or someone talking about him.
Watching the defendant increases the levels of the hormone cortisol in your blood, and that blood goes throughout your body, including your brain. Those high levels take a toll on you. Thus, high levels are "the tip of the iceberg" of problems people experience, according to Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist and cortisol expert at The Rockefeller University.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ldquo-stress-hormone-rdquo-cortisol-linked-to-early-toll-on-thinking-ability/
Among things effected are memory, organization, visual perception, and attention. It also can reduce adequate sleep. It can cause changes in your brain that show up on brain scans. Thus, it seems evident that frequent and prolonged exposure to the defendant isn't healthy. I think it is worse than if one was exposed to the individual I think shared the most personality traits with the defendant, Charles Manson. Might we agree that if one was exposed to Charlie's madness for the same amount of hours you have been exposed to the defendant, it would not improve the quality of your life?
It is no coincidence that the prophet Bob Marley sang, "Live if you want to live." This is the opening line of his powerful song "Positive Vibration." Other lyrics include, "If you get down and you quarrel everyday you're saying prayers to the devils, I say" and "Say you just can't live that negative way, if you know what I mean. Make way for the positive day."
The amount of acrimony on this forum, along with some of the thinking expressed, indicates that we can all benefit from turning off the defendant, relax, and listen to Bob Marley. It's a little bit easier.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Constant barrage of defendant info and endless speculation. I don't watch much of what I used to watch or read lately and I am feeling better for it. I took a week long vacation early last month and it helped me quickly wean myself off of the addiction to "news".
Life's too short for tons of bullshit everyday. But that is part of the plan of attack, overwhelm everybody with insanity all day every day and they won't be able to notice everything else that is going on to harm them. The original shock doctrine.
For DU where I can catch the important parts, including videos of news shows, and all the news I care to see at my choosing. Beats waiting on teevee schedules and all.
And a good reminder to high stress people like me to take it easier. To live in gratitude and tune out the noise. Might fall on deaf ears for some here on DU but for me a very apt cue to live and love and stop paying attention to the garbage coming out of the defendant's mouth and the news machine.
In gratitude.
