One day when I used to have a Facebook account, I made a comment on a picture somebody had posted. The picture showed the Earth and its position in the universe through a sequence of eight pictures with each picture being shown as merely a dot in the next picture, until the last of the pictures which showed the observable universe. The sequence was; Earth, Solar System, Solar Interstellar Neighbourhood, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Galactic Group, Virgo Supercluster, Local Superclusters, Observable Universe. It was a sequence of pictures which I had seen before, a picture which never fails to astound me as to the staggering size of the cosmos. So I posted a tongue-in-cheek comment: “So where does God live?, a friend of mine replied with the comment “Everywhere”, to which I replied “Prove it”, another friend then posted a comment which said “Disprove it”, to which I replied “Is that a challenge”, this second friend then posted “If you think you’re up to it”, to which I replied “you know I am”.
I went to the folder in my computer where I keep my writings, and started to post some of them on Facebook. These writings mainly dealt with the nature of man and our lives, but they all subtly alluded to something more, and some of them directly mentioned what that something more was: a very powerful force. The force.
I was expecting ridicule to follow these posts, but very little came, just a few little comments here and there, some exhibiting an understanding, some that suggested an awareness, but not an understanding. I felt a little down.
No-one had really responded to them in the way that I had hoped. I felt that people had read them, and then run away from the things I had mentioned or alluded to. I felt as if they were scared to face up to what I had brought to their attention. I felt that their relative silence was an unnatural response to what I had written, which I felt should have elicited a lively response that leaned towards ridicule. I realised that I had not explained myself properly, and so set out to write a more definitive description of what I was trying to convey.

After writing this definitive piece, I re-read it back many times and made many small adjustments, trying to ensure that the reader would and could understand exactly what I was trying to tell them. It took quite a while to finish, but when it was, I was pleased with it, I felt it was ready for others to see.
The first lines of the piece were:
‘I’d like to tell you what happened to me.
It’s very important, and needs to be shared’.

I printed the whole piece out and handed it to someone to read, this was the only time I have done so, even up to now. I did this before posting it for the world to see, as I wanted this person to see it first. This was the only time I got a response which correlated with what I expected, and this person was visibly shocked at the nature of the piece. The person was my mother, and she was the only one who understood, the only person who could see and feel how honest I was being.
Then I posted it on Facebook. This piece of writing was not like the others. All the previous pieces had been very much in the style of ‘this is how it sort of is’, whereas this new piece was very definite in the way that it said ‘This is how it is’. When I posted this piece, it was met with even more silence than before.
One person got it, and made a warm, and heartfelt comment.
One person attempted to mock it, and then quickly deleted the comment.
One person made a comment, which seemed to have clearly misunderstood the point I was making. And a few people ‘liked’ it.
Not the response I was expecting, nor hoping for. I was expecting more ridicule than I had expected for my first set of writings, but none came. My posted piece was met with relative silence, and this really caused me to think as to why. What I wrote was akin to telling people I was going to be an astronaut, or I was going to change my gender, something as unusual as that, and yet it was met with silence.
I then e-mailed the ‘definitive’ piece to two friends, who were both vocally and demonstratively religious, neither responded or acknowledged that they had received it or read it. The next time I saw both of them individually, neither of them mentioned the e-mail. At one point I asked one of them had he read the ‘long piece I had written’, and he responded by saying that he had started to, but hadn’t read it all, as it was very long, though at a later date he inadvertently admitted to knowing the theme of the entire piece and what the last lines written were. The same person has since become noticeably less vociferous in expressing the virtues of his beliefs to me.
I know of all the people who could have read the piece, I know the people who may have read it and those who will have read it, but no-one has spoken to me about it, not one. Not one person has even hinted or alluded to it in conversation. I know people from different backgrounds, different beliefs, of differing levels of intelligence and education, of different outlooks, and yet, not one person has spoken to me about this thing which I announced.
I emailed a copy of it to my older brother, who has never acknowledged receiving it.
I emailed a copy of it to my eldest brother, who acknowledged receiving it, but claimed for three weeks, through a serious of text messages, that he had been too busy to read it, then he just stopped texting.
I posted it to my website, and sent my younger brother the link, he has never acknowledged receiving the link.

Before I explain what I wrote about, this thing that I know and want you all to know about, I would like to tell you a little more about me.

I’m a very honest man. My honesty regularly gets me in trouble. I believe in the truth in all things. I believe in the truth being the only way. I believe in saying my opinions as truthfully as I can. I know the difference in a lie and a lie. I never lie to people, though I will lie to organisations. I never cheat people, though I’m happy to cheat the system. I care for people, though I care not at all for the system they live under. I hate to see the system holding people down, and I love to see when people live free. I know about lies and excuses, and I know about the truth, and I know the truth will set people free.
As a result of who I am, how I think and feel, and how I express myself, I seem to stick out like a sore thumb, I seem different, I don’t seem to be guided by the same things that guide most people around me. I’m always speaking of doing the right thing, of not using excuses to excuse behaviour, of understanding why we need to use excuses to excuse our behaviour.
I am always speaking of why the truth is much better than excuses, and I always find that people seldom want to hear me saying these things, they seem to feel safer in their world of excuses and blame and someone speaking of the truth appears to make them very uncomfortable. It seems as if I’m saying to them something they know, but would rather not face up to.
I have noticed a pattern when speaking the truth to people, their eyes dart around, they shuffle and fidget, they move away, they seem to be trying to get away from what I’m saying to them, they seem as if the words are causing them discomfort, putting them out of their comfort zone, asking something of them they don’t want to be asked.
It seems to me that most people don’t want to admit the truth, as if it’s something that frightens them and fills them with a sort of dread.
But then I see in the same people, a slight change in their behaviour, as a result of being shown the truth, of having experienced someone not using excuses for their behaviour, of witnessing someone admitting their wrongs and failings and taking the blame themselves, rather than, as most people seem to do, using blame and excuses as a defence mechanism.
I get asked by people to tell them the truth about something, as a second opinion, for they know that I will tell them the truth as honestly as I see it, which may or may not be help them, may or may not be right, but will at least be the situation as I see it, as truthfully as I see it. I am known for my honesty.
As much as this honesty has caused me in life to be, as I said something akin to a sore thumb sticking out in society, it has taught me something very important, it has taught me that people, deep down, are crying out for the truth, they crave the truth, they seem to be sick of people hiding it and hiding from it. They seem to be sick of living in a world so obviously full of lies. It seems to me that people feel liberated when they hear the truth being spoken, despite their initial and apparent fear of it, they seem to demonstrate that the truth is what they long to hear, and that the truth touches them in a part of themselves they hold very dear.
They seem to be yearning to be told the truth.

The piece that I wrote, the ‘long piece’ I posted on Facebook, the one I showed my mum, and sent to others, the definitive one, was written in an attempt to convey to others an experience which happened to me about 7-8 years ago, an experience which from the instant it happened, changed everything in me and about me, everything I believed and everything I knew. It was this experience which caused me to write the other previous pieces which alluded to or mentioned a force, and it is the guiding principle of every thing I’ve ever written since. The theme of the definitive piece was all about this force, what I knew of it and how I came to know of it, and it is that experience I am now going to attempt to convey. It should explain everything.

Whilst laying on my sofa, after smoking a very, very weak cannabis joint, which had, in comparison to the content I usually smoked, very little cannabis in relation to tobacco. It was mostly tobacco. I felt very little in the way of ‘highness’, after smoking it and in truth I felt virtually nothing of what I know to be the cannabis effect. I must say at this point, that I like a strong joint, I like to be really high, not just a bit stoned, I don’t see the point in rationing the feeling cannabis, or for that matter any other drug, gives. I think, and always have thought , that if I’m going to take drugs to get high, then I want to get as high as I can, I want to see the fullness of what the drug can do, of what it can show me. This occasion though, was the exact opposite. The tiny percentage of cannabis contained within the joint I had just smoked caused me in no way to get high, it only caused me to regret making such a pathetic joint to smoke, comprised of tawdry bits I had salvaged and scraped from my grinder and such. It caused me to question, as I had done on many occasions like this, just as to why I do this. Why, if I love to get high on drugs, would I settle for such a crappy drug high? What is it within me that makes me do this?, where is my willpower? As I lay there contemplating this, it was then that the experience happened, the one I have been trying to convey ever since, the one that changed everything for me, everything that is, and everything I am.

My Name Is Martin

(Part 2)