A Scream of Consciousness sampler

A Scream

of

Consciousness

Wake Up and Embrace the Present Moment

Warren Bluhm

b.w. richardson presshttp://www.lulu.com/spotlight/wpbluhm

A SCREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This book was published in October 2011 and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or, (b) send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 2nd Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA.

For more information visit www.creativecommons.org and www.wbluhm.blogspot.com.

Written and edited by Warren Bluhm.Published by Richardson Press.Edition 1.0

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consciousness/paperback/product-17989954.html

Did you love or hate this book?

Please don’t tell me it left you indifferent.

On second thought, do tell me. I want to know how to make

this, and future books, better.

Tell me about your own screams of consciousness, how this

book helped or hindered you along the way, and any other

thoughts that could help future editions.

[email protected]

wbluhm.blogspot.com

Table of Contents

A Scream of Consciousness .......................... 1

Turn Off the TV ............................................. 11

Find Your Passion ......................................... 17

Refuse to be Afraid ....................................... 23

Respect Your Instincts .................................. 29

Take a Stand ................................................. 33

Be Here Now .................................................. 39

Remember the Joy ........................................ 45

Trust God: In Touch with The Sacred ............ 57

Overcome, One Moment at a Time ................ 65

Trust the Still, Small Voice ............................ 69

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone .................... 73

Waste No Time on Hate or Judgment ............. 77

Get Quiet ....................................................... 81

Eschew the Corporate and Collective ............. 85

Stay Here and Now ......................................... 91

Acknowledgments .......................................... 93

Appendix: The Emperor’s Three Questions ..... 97

A Scream of Consciousness

Have you ever, figuratively or literally, awakened

from a stupor and become acutely aware of who

you are and what you’re doing?

You had been lulled to sleep by a stifling

everyday routine, and one day you woke up and

said, “Wait a minute. There’s got to be more to life

than this!”

Someone was abusing you, psychologically or

physically, and suddenly you stood up and said, “I

don’t deserve this!”

You were enslaved by a bad habit and suddenly

you became aware that you were headed in the

wrong direction. You stopped in your tracks and

said, “I’m not going to do this anymore!”

Or maybe you just were sitting by a window on a

cool summer morning and became aware of the

call of a bird, or several birds, and all you could

concentrate on was that beautiful sound and how

very much alive it made you feel.

Each of those was a scream of consciousness.

You rose out of your psychic fog and realized

you didn’t want to keep going in the direction your

life was going. You may not have known where you

want to go and what you wanted to do, but you

knew you didn’t want this.

You gained consciousness and screamed —

perhaps you literally shouted, or perhaps it was

more of a whisper of amazement. Whatever the

decibel level, in that moment you let out a scream

of consciousness. It may have been born from the

frustration of realizing you had been unconscious,

or it may have been born from the joy of

discovering beauty. But the moment you gain

consciousness — when you realize or remember

2 | A Scream of Consciousness

that you are sentient, that is, you are alive and

aware of being alive — is exhilarating.

There’s more to life!

I have no doubt God has a sense of humor. The

inspiration for this particular book is a case in

point.

In the fall of 2010 I made a homemade album of

songs I had written the previous year, and I gave it

the title Ten Thousand Days. One of the tunes was

meant as a nonsense song. I had been sitting at a

park bench and, more as a kind of exercise than

any real intention to write a song, started stringing

phrases together at random, as fast as I could.

Orange dogs and old black cats are crying at the

door;

A painted lady called my name, but I don’t go

there no more.

Pained ecstasy haunts aging dreams, and it’s

time to go to bed ...

A Scream of Consciousness | 3

The song gained a title, “All That’s Left You,”

when my wandering brain stumbled across a

fragment from the Simon and Garfunkel song

“Bookends” — “A time of innocence, a time of

confidences ... Preserve your memories, they’re all

that’s left you.”

Recognizing that all I was doing lyrically was to

yield to my ongoing stream of consciousness, I

adapted Paul Simon’s words to: “A stream of

consciousness, a stream of confidences, Protect

your innocence; it’s all that’s left you.”

And when I came to that line while recording the

song, I goofed. I sang, “A scream of

consciousness.” I laughed, and because it was a

nonsense song, for a time I thought about leaving

the song that way. I’m still not sure I made the right

decision by going back and re-recording the line

with the original lyric.

But I got to thinking about that phrase. What

would a “scream of consciousness” be, anyway?

When it hit me, I had the idea behind this book. In


a way, that “eureka” moment was a scream of

consciousness in itself.

God, with his big sense of humor, gave me a

book when I stumbled over the words while singing

a nonsense song.

How cool is that?

Inspiration can strike in the most exciting ways

when you keep your eyes and ears open to the

moment at hand.

All you have to do is stay conscious and be aware

of the moment. Every moment. Tend to this

moment; it’s all we have.

Easier said than done, of course: Every day is full

of traps to rob you of your consciousness, lull you

with a dull routine, and pretty much turn your

brain off.

How do you stay awake moment to moment, so

that when the idea of a lifetime presents itself, you

can seize it?

A scream of consciousness!

Sinking into the moment, one is suddenly struck


by the realization that the moment is all there is.

The concept of time — our universe split into

yesterday, today and tomorrow — is an abstract

apart from the reality of the moment. Yesterday is

a collection of moments like this. They cannot be

retrieved; what's done is done. Tomorrow will be

another such collection; it cannot be accessed, not

yet, not ever.

A joke I heard from Barry McGuire, the folk singer

who gave the world “Eve of Destruction” and has

contributed so much more since that 1965 hit

song:

Guy walks into a bar (as so many guys do in

jokes) and sees a sign: “Free beer, noon tomorrow.”

All right, sez he, I’m coming back to this little gin

joint tomorrow for the free beer.

The next day, right before noon, the guy walks in,

plants his hands on the counter and says, “Line ’em

up. I’m ready for the free beer.” Bartender looks at

him as if he’s nuts. “What are you talkin’ about?

There’s no free beer today.” The two men quarrel


for a few moments, and to prove their arguments,

they both point at the sign: “Free beer, noon

tomorrow.”

That’s when the first guy gets the joke.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow doesn’t exist. Only this moment is real.

What does this moment require? That’s the most

important question. The conscious person

considers the needs of the moment, and acts.

When Barry talked about this, it reminded me of

the cover of a book that had a bit of a cult

following years ago when I lived in the 1960s (I was

very surprised to discover it was published in

1971): Be Here Now. I never read it, but I

remembered the title: It has always seemed as good

a good philosophy of life as can be summarized in

three words.

Mr. McGuire said he encountered the idea in The

Sacrament of the Present Moment, written 350

years ago by a priest named Jean-Pierre de

Caussade. I ran out and found the priest’s book; it


is slow going but it is amazing if a person is so

inclined.

Here’s the gist of it: Only this moment is real.

You have control only over your actions of this

moment.

What do you need to do? Do it. Now.

Do you have a task to do that appears too much

for you? Do you think you can’t possibly handle all

that the task requires? Well, do you think you can

handle it just for this moment?

Barry spoke in the context of a friend who was

trying to stay sober. He asked the man, Do you

think you can keep from drinking just for this

moment?

“Sure, that’s not so hard.”

OK, How about this moment, now?

“Yeah, I can do that.”

And now this moment, can you keep from

drinking for this moment? Great. Now you’re

getting the hang of it.

Each day is a collection of moments. Stay in the


moment at hand, and do what the moment

requires. Don’t fret over past moments; you cannot

change what happened then. Don’t fret over

tomorrow; tomorrow doesn't exist — and if you

tend to the moment, the needs of future moments

will become self-evident. Stay in the present

moment.

I believe a scream of consciousness occurs when

you drift away for a while, only to occasionally

wake up and say to yourself or to the world, “I am

here! I can do this!” And then staying in the present

moment is the key to staying conscious.


Find Your Passion

Nearly halfway through my fifth decade on this

world, I met a little red-haired girl. Well, “girl” is a

bit of a misnomer, since she had also spent almost

four and a half decades on this planet. When I

began writing newspaper columns, she became Red

— well, actually, her dad had been Red, and she

was known as Little Red when she was a little red-

haired girl. But for all practical intents and

purposes, she is Red now. And more than a decade

later, she is still my best friend and dearest

companion, a relationship I pray will continue until

my last breath.

Red is a joy to behold in a garden. She will spend

hours digging in the soil, trimming wild growth into

some semblance of order, planting seeds and

nursing them into bloom. Sometimes I will step

into our yard, where wildflowers and roses and

morning glories and cedar trees compete for the

eye’s attention, and am overcome with the beauty

of the fruits of Red’s labors. I can only imagine

what she feels when she steps back to see what her

dirt-smudged hands have created.

Well, I can do a little bit more than imagine,

because she has converted me to the cause to a

certain extent. I need a little reward at the end of

my journey, so my focus has been in the realm of

growing food. I know the thrill of biting into a

radish or a tomato that I planted, and I know the

frustration of tending a plant that never yields what

it promised, so I guess I do have a small idea how

Red feels about her gardens.

But as wise souls know, in many many ways the

journey is the reward. Although there is some

satisfaction in the finished product, the point of

digging in the soil is the joy of digging in the soil.

Find Your Passion | 11

Red just has a passion for working with the natural

processes of nurturing and growing. Often the

results are spectacular, sometimes not so much —

but as she follows her passion, she retains a focus

that simultaneously settles, recharges and

energizes her soul.

I have a similar feeling when I sit at a typewriter

keyboard typing words like this, or holding my

guitar trying to coax a new song out of it. I believe

the process of creation is inherent to human

nature.

The X-Files was a popular TV series of the 1990s

(Yes, I know, I told you to turn off the TV, but ...),

and at the end of each program creator Chris

Carter inserted the sound of a child’s voice saying

with pride, “I made this!” It was a charming

moment.

An indescribable exhilaration accompanies the

completion of a project, as you step back and

admire the task and then realize, “I made this!”

Studies have shown that people feel more


motivated when they have a sense of ownership in

what they create during the course of a workday,

whether it’s a physical product or a more

existential or intellectual handiwork.

We were built this way. It is said that God made

human beings in His image, and after all “In the

beginning God created ...” The act of creation puts

us in touch with the divine, with something

essential to our very being.

And especially gratifying is when we can step

back, examine our finished creation and conclude,

“It is good.”

How do you maximize the number of moments

when you can cry “I made this!” or sigh with

satisfaction, “It is good”?

Find your passion.

What is it that you enjoy doing so much that it

feels more like play than work even when you’re

working on it? What makes your heart beat faster

when you do it or even just start thinking about it?

What gets your attention to the point that when


you’re learning about it or finding out how to do it

or reading about it, hours can go by and it’s like

time stood still? That’s your passion.

Happy is the soul who is making a living doing

what he or she loves best. These are the people

who have found their passion, for whom “work” is

more like play. Well, maybe not quite — people

who love their work still work hard; it’s just that the

drudge work doesn’t seem so bad. For Red, digging

in the soil is a release and a source of satisfaction;

for someone who is not passionate about

gardening, it’s just digging in the dirt. When I’m not

writing tomes like this or composing songs, I’m a

small-town newspaper editor. Editing can be a time-

consuming and repetitive task, but often the end of

the workday takes me by surprise, because I enjoy

the work.

“Hang on a second,” you might be asking at this

stage. “Is Red a gardener by trade? Does she ‘make

a living’ digging in the dirt?” Good question. No,

she isn’t and no, she doesn’t, at least not as of this


writing. But she is more fully alive because of the

time she spends following her passion, and that

helps her focus on her chosen field.

When you are following your passion, it’s easier

to remain conscious. Your attention zeroes in, your

senses are fully engaged, and your thoughts are

focused. It’s possible to look up and discover that

hours have gone by. You have stayed “in the

moment” for many, many moments. You were here

now, and many many “nows” have gone by.

It is a scream of consciousness: I love doing this!


Remember the Joy

There is a temptation when you find yourself

standing in the moment, enjoying the moment, to

waste time being frustrated.

Wow, I’m alive, you think. I’m surrounded by

color and beauty and I know exactly who I am and

what I want to do with this life. But then, perhaps,

a pang of regret: Why can’t I feel like this all of the

time?

Being alert and aware in the present moment is

clearly an improvement and an occasion of joy —

literally clear. Consciousness just makes everything

sharper. Real life is more clear than the life you

perceive in your dreams when you are asleep.

You can mope about not being conscious of the

present moment all the time, or you can enjoy the

moment and work to sustain it.

And yes, it will take a bit of work at first.

Learning anything takes time. From walking or

riding a bicycle to figuring out how to operate a

complex computer or piece of machinery, the first

time will be tentative and awkward and you won’t

master the process the first time. So it is with living

in the moment: The sensation will be new and

unfamiliar, and it will take a conscious effort to

remain aware.

The mind wanders. Not only is this natural, it’s

part of the process. Every day and every moment in

modern life, we are assaulted by a variety of

stimuli. The natural impulse is to dull the senses,

either by tuning out the distractions that are not

directly related to the task at hand, or by ignoring

them altogether.

Maintaining your scream of consciousness will

take an effort at first, a mighty effort at times. The

story of my depth perception may provide an

Remember the Joy | 17

example.

When I was nearly 50 years old, it became clear

that it was time for me to get reading glasses. But

an interesting thing happened at the optometrist’s

office. He showed me a device that displayed two

green lines, which appeared to me to be flickering.

“Tell me which green line is ahead of the other,”

the doctor said. I was completely confused. I could

see the two green lines, one more clearly than the

other, but they weren’t side-by-side and neither

seemed to be closer to my eye than the other.

My doctor seemed baffled, but after a little more

examination, he had it figured out. My right eye

was stronger than the left, and the more powerful

right eye had over the years taken control of how I

saw the world. I had always been proud of my

vision — in my younger days I could read a street

sign almost a block away — but I never realized the

20/10 vision in my right eye was accompanied by a

more pedestrian left eye. The right eye was doing

most of the work.


In addition to giving me glasses that sharpened

words in front of my face, the doctor added a

prism that would force my eyes to work together

cooperatively.

Putting those glasses on was a bizarre and almost

frightening experience. The world turned wobbly.

Lines on a page that I knew were straight appeared

curvy and distorted. The distortion was not so great

that I was hampered in walking or driving, but it

was great enough that I was convinced the

prescription for the glasses was wrong.

“Give it a couple of days,” the nurse assured me

when I called to ask for help. “If it doesn’t clear up,

call back.”

On the third morning after receiving the glasses, I

dutifully put them on and walked out to get the

morning newspaper from our mailbox. There was a

grove of birch trees across the street, and when I

looked at it I suddenly saw the trees in the forest.

In addition to the side-by-side distances, I could

perceive a gap between the front trees and the ones


deeper off the road.

I had always thought that 3-D movies and those

old Viewmaster photos looked fake, because the

real world didn’t look like that. Suddenly I

understood that it wasn’t the 3-D effect that was

wrong — it was the way I saw the world.

I remembered a conversation I had with my dad

when I was a little boy, and we were watching the

old science fiction movie World Without End. A

man about to battle a cyclops mused that he had

an advantage because with one eye, his adversary

had no depth perception.

“What’s depth perception?” I asked Dad.

“It’s the way you can tell one thing is closer than

the other, because you have two eyes working

together,” he said.

I remember nodding but not quite

understanding. Now I finally saw what he meant,

quite literally.

At some point through the years, I had turned

into a cyclops who did not perceive the physical


world in three dimensions! That first glimpse of the

woods was a revelation.

But I lost concentration, and the perception

faded, as I realized later in the day when we went

shopping. While browsing the aisles of the local

Hobby Lobby, I recalled my 3-D experience and

realized I had lapsed into my old two-dimensional

way of seeing things. Upon that thought, suddenly,

breathtakingly, the aisles unfolded for me very

much like the scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo,

when stairwells suddenly expand and it becomes

clear how far off the ground his protagonist has

climbed. I saw and felt how long the aisles were,

not just how wide.

I began to tell people about my glorious new 3-D

world. It seemed nothing short of miraculous. But I

could not depend solely on the new glasses,

because even with the artificial nudge, my left eye

fell back into its old lazy habit. For the longest

time, I would have to say to myself consciously,

“Left eye. Use your left eye,” to unfold the world


into its three dimensions.

In time it became easier, and the greatest

triumph came the morning that I saw in 3-D before

I put the glasses on my face. My eyes were finally

learning to work together without prompting!

I am telling you this story because living in the

present moment is very similar. It begins with a

scream of consciousness, but you are accustomed

to the unconscious way of living life. For a time

you will be very aware of the moment, eager and

willing to tend to its needs, but after a while

without even realizing it, you’ll ease back into your

comfort zone. But having seen and felt life in all of

its dimensions, you will eventually be able to

reboot your consciousness with a simple

command, much like my “Left eye!” reminders.

There is a joy in being alert and aware and alive.

Remember the joy, and you will be able to find it

again. Being awake is the opposite of sleeping and

dreaming, and the process of staying awake is

similar. When you awake from a memorable dream,


you want to remember it all, but it quickly fades.

Only with prompting and effort can you coax some

of the details from your subconscious. Capturing

the present moment is like that — when your

consciousness begins to become less sharp, it takes

an effort to regain it. The secret of doing so is in

the joy.

Because, at its core, the scream of consciousness

is, in fact, a joyful noise. You were asleep, and now

this moment you are awake. I’m alive! I feel this

moment! My mind and soul are fully engaged! I

think this moment, therefore, this moment, I am! I

am living life to the fullest!

And now, the joyful challenge: To stay awake, to

continue to think and feel and be, moment by

moment. Have you ever felt so much at peace, and

so alive, that you remarked to yourself, If only I

could bottle this feeling and take a drink of it when

I need it? The good news is that you can.

When I began to see in 3-D, it wasn’t quite like

flipping an electric switch. I had to concentrate on


my left eye until it cooperated and opened up the

world for me. After a while, all it took was for me to

think the words “left eye” and there was my three-

dimensional view. Some time later it did indeed

work more or less like flipping a switch, but only

after months and months of reminding myself to

see the world in 3-D. And even today, almost a

decade later, I sometimes have to remember to flip

that switch. Consciousness of the moment is the

same way.

Inertia is the enemy of energy — the tendency of

a thing at rest to remain at rest. Anytime you push

against something to get it rolling, you are

overcoming inertia. Once you get it going, it still

wants to slow down and stop, but once it’s moving

you will need less energy to keep it moving. Seeing

the world in 3-D, or living life in the present

moment, is much the same. Each time you’ll find

it’s easier to return to the scream of consciousness,

and you’ll stay awake and aware longer. Find a way

to prompt yourself — I’m here now! or I’m alive!


work for me.

The good news is how joyful it is to be conscious.

And the longer you can sustain, the greater the joy.

I enjoy joy. Embracing the thrill of living in all of

its colors feels delightful. When joy is the default

condition of the day, it’s a banner day.

Willow, our golden retriever companion, is a

remarkable example of how to live a joyful life. At

2 years old, she seeks out joy with the curiosity of

a child and the wisdom of the joyous.

When I follow her lead, I achieve an unmatchably

warm and peaceful contentment. Therefore, any

time I am in her sphere of influence, I make sure I

throw her ball or her orange disk, rub her belly, hug

her with all my strength, or whatever else the

moment requires.

The late winter and early spring in Wisconsin can

be short on moments of joy. But Willow has no

such shortage. She prances across lingering

snowdrifts like a miniature whitetail deer, she plays

hide-and-seek with her ball and whines impatiently


when I haven’t found it yet, and she comes to me

frequently with a look that seems to say, “Relax.

Life is joyful. Just live it.”

And so I choose to raise my head and lift my

spirits. They say when you have no control over

externals, you still have a choice over your internal

reaction. The choices are to laugh or to cry; I

choose to laugh. The choices are grumbling

through my work or pausing frequently to play with

Willow; I choose the puppy. The choices are to sink

into the mud or embrace the joy of the soaring

eagle; I choose the sky.

I enjoy joy. And for my own mental health, as

often as I remember, I choose joy.


On the cover

Willow, our golden retriever companion, is a

remarkable example of how to live a joyful life. At

2 years old, she seeks out joy with the curiosity of a

child and the wisdom of the joyous.

Chapter 8, “Remember the Joy”

Who is this guy?

Warren Bluhm is author of five books — this one,

Refuse to be Afraid, The Imaginary Bomb,

Wildflower Man and The Adventures of Myke

Phoenix — podcaster, amateur singer-songwriter,

life-partner to Red, friend of Willow and other furry

beasts, and journalist, among other pursuits. Red,

Willow and I live not far from the shores of Green

Bay. Contact me at [email protected] or

wbluhm.blogspot.com.

You can find other books I’ve written and edited

at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/wpbluhm.

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A Scream of Consciousness sampler