The Past vs Now

Going Nuts

(July  2024)

Don’t worry, I am not going insane, not yet anyway. Whilst writing I was reminded of how, in our previous life I would prepare roasted nuts. I had gotten the preparation and the roasting down to fine art. I felt that it was one of the things I had mastered up up to that point in my life. I remember my parents and grandparents having their specialities in the kitchen. Whether it be pickles or jams or even flaming the pudding at Christmas. I knew that nuts were “my thing”. It didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t an especially complex task, what was important was that it was done in a specific way. I had a methodology that worked and as a result my nuts tasted the best. 

I used to measure equal handfuls of peanuts, almonds and cashews into two mixing bowls which each had a tablespoon of salt dissolved in a cupful of boiling water. The nuts were briefly soaked and then spread onto two baking trays. I would set the oven to 145 degrees celsius and roast for 10 minutes. I timed on my smartwatch and after each period of 10 minutes I would mix the nuts so they would roast evenly and swap the tray position in the oven. Roasting usually took 40 minutes or so depending upon the desired level of roasting. 

When the nuts were ready I placed the trays on the kitchen surface to let them cool. I remember the noise as they cooled, they would chatter and crack and this always brought a smile to my face. Once cooled I packed them up into round tubs (tubs we had saved because we liked them), after that we had nuts for a good couple of weeks. This was one of those things that brought joy to my life and I hope will once again become a joy in our lives moving forward.

Social Media Is NOT Your Friend

The world of social media is a highly complex one. There are a multitude of platforms which have become our primary method of communication and which not only connects us with our friends but also distances us from reality.

I am not going to get into the whole psychology of social media because most people know the damage it can do. My take on social media is this, use it wisely for your own growth as a human being and don’t allow it to dictate how you are to view the world. If it doesn’t serve you then let it pass. Doom scrolling serves only the algorithm. The algorithm serves the stockholders of the platforms you are using. It basically all comes down to money and we are the ones making them rich.

I have fallen many times into the trap of believing what I am seeing. Commenting on posts that interest me only to get messages later on trying to sell me something or other. So many likable posts are simply shop fronts to attract potential customers. I have learned to be wary when commenting and I also respect the fact that these platforms are the goto marketing tool for the majority of online businesses.

Social media does however provide a platform for connecting you to the right people. I have discovered my amazing groups most of which are of a spiritual nature. These kinds of groups are what I have gravitated towards since October 7th 2023. I have also joined and swiftly left lots of these groups for the reasons mentioned above. Eventually I managed to find the good ones.

My Spirituality

Some years ago I wrote a book titled “Ben’s Kingdom”. It was my first serious attempt at writing a book. The books intent was to serve as a guide to help the reader figure out how to live a more meaningful life and how to deal with the obstacles we encounter along the way. I put much of my spirituality into that book and have found its message quite comforting after what happened to me.

My spirituality was put to the ultimate test on October 7th 2023 and the weeks and months following. I believe that my faith saved us on that, the darkest of days.

I write this in the full knowledge that very few of you reading this have ever experienced anything close to what I did. The situation that we found ourselves in was so far away from what we knew that for a while, probably only minutes, we couldn’t actually comprehend what was happening around us.

For thirteen long hours did we endure the terror that had engulfed our community. For thirteen long hours our lives, our history and our legacy was slowly being destroyed by fire. Everything that we had built as a family, I knew, was gone forever. It was like videos that I had seen from the tsunami in Japan, houses being lifted by the sea and everything washed away forever. 

The powerlessness that I felt was devastating. All we could do was sit tight, breathe and try and stay alive. 

Evil was on the other side of our safe room door. It was like the worst horror movie yet this was real, the most real possible. We could hear grenades going off close by, RPG’s and the deafening explosions that felt way to close that I thought the explosion would, at any moment, rip a hole in our wall. Close it was and our neighbors were not so lucky.

We sat in darkness as if waiting our turn to die. The smoke filled safe room was like an oven with our house burning ever so intensely. We couldn’t breathe so we lay on the floor where the smoke was thinnest. As I right this I feel short of breath, the physiological trauma still haunts me. 

I remember squatting low to the floor and saying aloud, “our story does not end today”. I was telling the universe that this was not our time to depart this world. I was willing us to get out of this horror alive. I do not know if we were being watched over and protected from above or whether my belief in the universal energies gave us the strength and the wisdom to have survived. What I do know is that we did survive and that many good and loving people did not.

The burden of surviving when so many lost their lives is a heavy burden to carry. There will always be questions of why some survived and why so many did not.