'Time Is On His Side?'

The caption 'Time Is On His Side?' is a rework of the old Communist

slogan that justified for them all that they did -- 'Time is On Our

Side'. The slogan is a sort of historical determinism and therefore

historical justification for all the wrongs they did (as well as some few

good things, such as educating a largely nearly slave-based

population (serfs) and granting some equality to women (women

were expected to work and worked in most professions, unlike the

rest of the world), but nothing justifies the awful sins of the

Communists. This man sits at the crux, having in his lifetime

watched as a child, Communism's fall and the advent of a form of

Capitalism in some unnamed Communist country. Your ratings,

critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

Strong scene! 

But I think that this scene can be seen in many cities of the world. Time is never on our side. It is always against us.

Both ends of the current modern religions (communism and capitalism ) have their own inherent flaws and benefits ,in short one is beneficial to the mass at the expense of individual freedom,the other is beneficial to the sole individual and again at the expense of other individual.may be in the far future when humanity is sane and reasonable enough to construct a balanced system that is flawless,and very unfortunately that would be beyond our time.

The image is a good street and finely titled.

In Western philosophies, (except Communism which failed grandly and came to a blundering and very lame halt Western Christmas, 1991) time is NOT on your side.

Eastern philosophies have a different view.  Time is like a river. Time flows, and only one way.  One does not fight time; one goes with the flow.

If one goes with the flow, a person is at one with the universe.

Easily said if you're not getting old like me . . . . I think.

But then I'm gonna be taking my photos until they are shutting the lid on my box, and maybe even taking a camera down there, just in case. . . . .

That's my idea of going with the flow.

Or perhaps if (contrary to what I think) there is an afterlife, I'll find something else that consumes me, or the afterlife will be one big photo shoot, complete with beautiful. intelligent, wonderful women companions, who want my company, to be photographed by me, and my skills become heavenly in that regard.

However, regrettably, if there is an afterlife, I wonder if I'd be heading down instead of up, alas.

Maybe I'll just end up stoking ovens even for writing this.

Then sweating bullets eternally.

Some will swear that's so, and they believe that to the depth of their souls.

That's why I envy the Jews. 

No hell in Judaism. 

No fear of the afterlife and Dante's Rings or Circles of Hell (which he largely invented to place his political and cultural enemies inside of to mock and parody them, after very, very thinly disguising their identities; those who could read could figure out who they were.)

The Church was political, and dying without forgiveness in Confession for sins was unthinkable for it condemned the soul to hell and eternal damnation and hellfire.

Since the Roman Catholic Church was so political and because it could offer confession, why not make one of the confession duties to tell the Parish priest ALL of your life's bad parts under fear of failure to have those undisclosed sins forgiven.

If nothing else, parish priests were a GREAT spy apparatus and all they had to do was listen and in their sermon inspire the fear that drove the masses to the confessional!  What a great way to cement power!

The fear of hell has been a powerful motivator, but it's seldom mentioned in some of the Christian Bibles, and in some sects (the Anglican/Methodist/Lutheran/Presbyterian for instance I think (but have not verified) the book with Apocrypha and the final judgment scenes, I understand does not appear at all, much to the surprise (if they knew it was not included in some bibles, and I'm correct) of the Southern Baptists, most Fundamental Christian sects, and especially the Pentacostalists.

I believe in the Golden Rule; it's been a standard feature of almost all religions worldwide, and one supposes its near universal acceptance makes it worthy.  (That doesn't cut the mustard with the Fundamentalist Christians or the Fundamentalist Islamists, however, as both think you are basically infidel of one sort or another, and your soul is lost if you are not a true believer in their own brand of religion . . . . and for the Islamists, even between the two major branches is Islam which fight to this day just even to prove to their infidel brothers that theirs is the true path to God and righteousness.

However lest their be misunderstanding, remember charity is one of the pillars of Islam.  And billions who practice Islam are peaceable which is largely ignored  in the West in part because it's a non-centrist religion and anyone who speaks up against the strident religionists runs a variety of risks including personal risk for speaking against the fundamentalists; their lives may even be in danger.

I'm sick of killing supposed to prove that 'my religion is a better religion'.

Consider the Children's Crusades, for instance, for which the Pope himself found it necessary to apologize.

Too many people have died in the name of proving their religion 'better' than the other.

Have they really 'proved' anything?

I guess I'll just take my chances.

I've led a pretty good life, not hurt anybody very badly and tried to be respectful of people (see my photos and the way I treat people on this site, for an example of the way I lead my life, plus my descriptions of my life in my comments)

If that ain't good enough for God, then maybe God ain't what he's (or she's)  been touted all my life.

In any case, absent knowing anyone who's been actually resurrected, it's all conjecture.  If you know someone who's provably back from the dead (not just a hear stoppage but who has been to the afterlife and returned; immediately e-mail me; my e-mail address is in my biography page.)

NO ONE KNOWS except what they have been taught or know in their heart, or if someone 'on high' has spoken to them.

Regrettably when I practiced law, part of the law I practiced (mostly pro bono) was representing disabled persons getting benefits before government agencies on account of being disabled such as Social Security disability (SSDI and SSI).

Many were schizophrenic, and a great number of those truly believed they were Jesus when they weren't taking their antipsychotic medications.

I've heard the words more than once from more than one person basically:  'When I was Jesus . . . '

Some also believed they were pharaohs and/or pharaoh's generals among other high ranks represented among the disabled portion of my large clientele.

None believed they were slaves, serfs, lower animal forms, such as worms, amoebas, or bacteria, interestingly, but always some high, powerful figure.

Give them some Haldol, Thorazine or other powerful, newer psychotropic medication and some could hold down a job, and realize that they had been hallucinating, though their hallucinations were most firmly believed and as real as real could be, in their personal experience WHEN they experienced them.

I had an aunt at one time who was hospitalized for serious sickness and had a form of psychosis not uncommon to very ill hospital patients.

She believed it was raining a torrent outside her summery Californis hospital bed and the rain was coming down in buckets full as she watched while she was fighting for her life against an infection and even as she recuperated.  She fought; rain fell (in a part of CA where it goes six months at a time without rain).

She knew truly after she recovered that it had not rained for months.  She looked up the weather for the period and knew she had been hallucinating.

Yet she described being sick in the hospital and watching days of terrific rain through the large hospital windows.  She said the rain to her was 'absolutely real' yet when she was recovered, she was absolutely certain she had hallucinated, but she had 'experienced'  rainy weather, there in summer sunny California, from her hospital bed, while so sick. 

The hallucinations were transitory, and fortunately she recognized they were hallucinations; some who suffer hallucinations are not so lucky.

Some very few psychotics, it is being discovered, are high functioning, and live with psychotic voices inside their heads, telling them to do this or that, but fight the voices, and these more rare psychotic individuals KNOW that they are psychotic and the voices are hallucinations though they are real as real can be, but because these rare individuals are smart and scientifically trained, they can literally shove these unwanted thought into a figurative corner and/or disregard them as being hallucinatory, though to an ordinary schizophrenic they would be entirely 'real'.

These are the 'lucky' few psychotics/schizophrenics who have reasoned that they are sick, and the voices are not real but a figment of some mental disease and not to be regarded or to be controlled, and they do control them, and some very few psychotic/schizophrenic individuals function quite well this way.

However, most do not, though medications do help now, more and more.

And so many actually  'experience' 'being Jesus' or a 'Pharaoh' or a 'Pharaoh's general' in their psychosis.

But strangely most have told of torment by their beliefs for some reason . . . . which was never fully explained to me.  Perhaps there was no Pharaoh's army following them, and it vexed them, or they could not Jesus-like break fish and loaves and feed multitudes and that also vexed them, for the many who felt they were Jesus in their psychotic minds.

Whenever I hear a person claim righteousness or power because he has 'spoken to the Lord', I recall all those well meaning psychotics I have spoken to in my lifetime, who have taken their medicine, often regretting the times and the torments they have experienced during their times of psychosis.

Many of them have BEEN the Lord.

Your words are well chosen and well written.

I endorse your comments.

Thanks not only for the nice comments on the photo but also for the caption (title) as some thought went into it (it's of course a 'double entendre' just in case that slipped by).

You're welcome here any time.

john

John (Crosley)

We are all going with the flow - sailing down the river of life to the waters of the Styx. And it does not depends on what we believe.
Thank you for your comments and attention to my shots.

Svetlana.