The Energon Pub

Your post is very touching.I showed it and many of the replies to my wife, who is a Schoolteacher and is therefore involved in her own version of "daily, mindless warfare", if you take what I mean.Don't you see that just by putting it here (this post) you become a particular type of "important" to this community? Isn't that a perticular type of "special" and "necessary"? To me, useful is successful.

There are so many replies here that there's little I can say for myself-it's been expressed-nobody is a Superbeing.We are beautiful and what we can be, talented at what we wish to be, lazy in what we are gifted to be and amazing at what we hate to be.

I'll give you 4 bits of wisdom on the topic of success that I consider Gems. Forgive me if I appear 'sensationalist', I just consider them more reliable messages than anything I could say:

**In Greece, the Old ladies say we are never brought to confront something that we aren't strong enough to handle, but that we are born destined to confront that something.When the confrontation comes, it assists everyone nearby.

**A Romanian woman told me: "In a nightmare,we face a Demon, like us, but a Vampire version of our self,which feeds only on what we have believed about ourselves so far. In the traditional nightmare,we can't fight this Dark Angel,but we also can't run from it, and we don't remember to become the Angel: we are glued in place- What we need to defeat it is behind it,usually a treasure chest or a sword or some other symbol, but we can't pass the monster to access the weapon we need to defeat this monster.Few people realise the "treasure" is already inside us, and it was always stronger than what we must fight.We are the ones who push it (the weapon/treasure/symbol) away from inside of us, because we believe it will make us so tough that it will poison our gentleness.This is not so:It will conquer our environment so that we may spend the rest of our lives being only gentle.People think Gentleness is weakness, but it is not, it is instinct, which is our oldest power."

**Old Greek men say, (and I know this is a famous quote but I don't know from whom and suspect a major player like Ghandi),that: "If we are truly successful in life, our final personal battle will never happen".(In which case I'm turning out to be a miserable failure).

**A story I was told by a Shaman I knew: note that it's 'glammed up' with a Dragon:

So the beasts of the forest are running out of food and drinking holes.There's a mountain pass, home to a hungry Dragon, and beyond it, greener grazing country.

Lion: "I'll go fight the dragon in the name of all.I'll kill the beast so that we can pass.I am the King but also the symbol of Human Kings and it is my place, as we are cousins to Humans."
The Lion never returns.
Elephant: "Stupid ass me listening to crap about Lions being in charge when the Elephant Ancestors' bones already whisper how close we are to humans.I should have gone.Now I will.Humans are our Totems after all,and their capabilities are our capabilities"
The Elephant never returns.
The Bear says "I doubt any of us will survive this,but I'll do what I can", and leaves, never to return.
Coyote sidles up to the Wasp and whispers:"You're FAST, Man!"
Wasp:"YEAH!"
Coyote:"You got the poison touch, man! You can zip in and zip out, too little to see, too little to block!"
Wasp:"Yeah!YEAH!"
Coyote:"You gotta save us, Man!"
Wasp:"Yeah, Man, YEAH!!!"
Off goes the Wasp.Makes it to the Dragon.
"I'll kick yo ass, Mungflungr!!" yells the Wasp.
*SWAT* goes the Dragon.
The Wasp zips to the side.
"Woohoo, I dodged ya" Yells the wasp in ecstatic adrenalization, "I did it, I'm the one who's gonna-"
*SWAT*
The wasp never returns.
The Magpies, the Crows, the Vultures, they look at each other. "This is hopeless". says one."Yup". Says another.They just leave, fly across to the other grazing lands. "Hey, Carry us!" yell the other animals.
They don't.
The pidgeons, the finches, eagles and hawks, and all other flyers converse amongst themselves, and follow the Magpies and the crows.
"Taaaake us with yuuuuuz!" yell the other animals.
"Soooooryyyyyyy" yell the departing.
A Fawn steps out from amongst the remaining creatures and says "I will go".
"That's unheard of" say the other creatures."It is our place to propagate new life, not sacrifice it.We must go".
"-And it is the place of new life and sick life to offer itself up be preyed upon" says the Fawn,"I am new life, but if I remain here, I will become sick life.All the plants that were devoured, killed, to forge the energy to create me will have been wasted life if I remain.For me to sicken here is a dishonor to all the wombs,back to the beginning, that created me with the capabilities to move myself to the place where I should be. I must go."
And it does.
It reaches the Dragon,
and says,
"May I pass, please?"


Like I said, forgive me if I appear 'sensationalist' instead of pragmatic. Everything above has been more stable input to me than my own spinning brains in regards to the interpretation, or even identification, of success.I hope you overcome what's been troubling you,but I,for one,am grateful that you posted here in the first place.Good luck.

Being alive and having something close to "a life" and the ability to enjoy it is how I messure sucess.

Rant below:
Now that I feel like my life is being threatened by the Tea Party, The Republicans, and the Ultra-Radical Right Wing psychopaths like Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, and the rest of their ilk. I feel like a Jew in 1930s Germany, in sense that I'm going to sent to a death camp, because I'm disabled and have to live on disability and I don't fit into their twisted vision of America.

I don't Social Security want privatized, because I don't trust and never will trust Wall Street because it's too unpredictable for my tastes.

I want Social Security to be left alone in the hands of the federal governement where it can be fixed and tweaked by people that are aswerable to me (I vote them in and I can vote them out) and not to feel like I'm a scape goat for all the country's problems.
Rant over.

Sorry, but I needed to vent.

I think I am successful. I do what I have always wanted to (Tattooing) for the last 13 years all over the U.S. and the world for that matter. I have a great wife and we are both healthy. I have a huge toy collection LOL! So I am happy. And I think happy is successful. If you are happy with your life and not hurting or being a burden on others, you may just be a success.