Albert's Memorial

If I didn't get it before, the point is continued to be driven home. Watched a couple of movies between going to the gym and studying. The first one I watched was Albert's Memorial. This one hit very close to home. Highly recommend this film and it is actually very close to my experience with the other side (having 'odd' things happen so one ends up exactly where one needs to be and meeting people who guide my way).

Albert: Seventy bloody six and what have I got to show for it? Bugger all. A few words, a few faces. If someone was to say to me were you ever really alive? Do you know what I'd say?

I've stopped myself from being alive fully and living. There is something about this go round that has stopped me from being alive with other humans. Always being beholden to others, never being entirely sure of myself. Always feeling lesser than, that I am doing something wrong, etc.

The only time I have felt it to be ok to be who I am is in nature. When hiking across the Yorkshire moorland, bracing myself against the winds of the Orkney Islands, trudging in the snow of the Swedish Arctic Circle, feeling the spray of Argentinian side of the Iguaçu Falls, sleeping next to the sea in Espiritu Santo, smelling the pines of the Rocky Mountains en route to a peak, slowly walking along the rocky cliff with Dumb Dumb (yellow lab) who had adopted me for the day in Doolin, touching the 1000 year old oak trees in Wiltshire, squeezing through a small hole in a cave in Hungary testing both my will and strength, sitting beside the river in northern France, feeling the peace at the top of a mountain in the Taebaek mountains...

Considering I live in an expansive urban city, it seems that I have lived, but really only alone and in nature. Despite repeated attempts and various failed relationships, I need to learn how to be alive and live with others. How do I learn to play nice with others?

The other film I saw yesterday was All my friends are funeral singers. It isn't really a film I would recommend for anything other than the music. I loved it for the jamming sessions.