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Category Archives: Journal

Mambooko:  The native guide for adventurers, indigenous to the Amazon rain forest, his tribe protects the land.  He is a tall skinny white man with glasses.

 

Why am I here?

The animal has ravaged my lands?

Took my brother?

At first, it was my tribe that slowly killed the cattle.  The Brazilians were killing the land, and we took back what we could, but we full well knew it wouldn’t stop them.

The shaman went up the mountain, to the highest ridges, seeking for an answer.  He had been gone for 2 years, and we had lost hope.

We had all but accepted our fate when he walked out from the wilderness carrying a child.  He found the answer to our problem.

He never said where she came from, but we knew this was no ordinary child.  We had to feed her whole sides of beef as she grew, until we could teach her to hunt.  That was our mistake.

We did not know the power granted to this child, but we trained her to hunt like the panther, the tiger, the snake… then she killed a Brazilian rancher.  She devoured him down to the bones.

When we awoke that morning to a pungent smell of death, and found her lying asleep in a pool of blood, sucking on the thum of a meatless hand, we knew it was too late.

We tried to restrain her, but she killed four men before we were able to bind her legs.  As my brother tied her hands, she managed to lunge at this neck.  He died several hours later.

We sealed her in a cave with two sides of beef.  When we returned to feed her the next day, she had escaped.

I discovered her lair one day while hunting wild bore.  My tribe dared not go back to finish the job.

Every step I take back toward the monsters hiding place is a fearful one.

Today begins the day where I start life over.  I have not yet accepted that this pain will be forever, but I know I must relearn how to live.

I must learn to transition from a life with pain, to a life (just with pain).

In this case, the word just is ok, because the objective is to minimize the impact of the pain, not to minimize the pain completely.

I believe this is my test.  A life-long test.  A test that reminds me that I do not control everything that can happen to me, but that struggle in-and-of itself is the reward.

 

This spoke of my scoliosis, at the point at which the pain I was enduring had me limping.  I was eating Ibuprofen at more than 2400mg a day (for over a year) just to function.  Today I take no pills.  Today I am in no noticeable pain (most of the time).  It was shortly after this that I stopped taking Ibuprofen (cold turkey), and my therapies finally started to provide lasting relief.

Never fall into the trap of thinking you know better, and judging critically.

Elitism is a bath to burnt bridges.

Also, never get a tattoo.

The hardest thing in the world is to acknowledge that the only person who can push us to become our greatest is ourselves.  Other people may help us find the motivation along the way, but it is important to remember who makes the decision to take the first step, and who makes the decision to follow through.  When you can acknowledge that you are the person responsible for your own fate, the help you receive becomes an important part of survival.

You realize that while we are molded by the people we surround ourselves with, we are the ones that made the decision to listen to them.

 

Today I have 3 tattoos, and think this is a hilarious entry.  I also think 20 year old me was more enlightened than the now 25 year old me.