Hubert Schaub

Cut the bullshit. Talk is cheap, to fulfil a promise is what counts. It seems most politicians have never progressed from their bragging teenage years when the buck stopped with the rhetoric. The Roman emperors provided the people with bread and circuses trying to win their support. Our contemporary politicians withdraw the bread to help pay for more circuses whilst failing to deliver the goods. Pay your debts and don’t excuse crime. Excuses lead to impunity. Impunity creates repeat offenders, from the humble petty thief all the way to the political tyrant. If you genuinely want to do something, e.g.travel, study or join a club, don’t waste your time talking about it. Unless you actually commit to it you are not genuine.
If you run a shop, keep your shelves well stocked. If you run a restaurant, have what’s on the menu, if you are unable to do so, take it off the menu. If you work in the trades, turn up on time and finish the job. Forget the fancy ads and surveys. Most of all, be fair to the customer, your employees and yourself. The written word is powerful, though it only has value once materialised. A teacher or an author who doesn’t do as he/she preaches is an imposter. Philosophy in itself is useless – it only has value once implemented and cultivated.
“Use words only when necessary” (St. Francis of Assisi).

Circa late 1960’s, in a Catholic town, in a predominately Catholic state of Catholic southern Germany, what does a good Catholic boy do? He joins the ranks of the ‘Altar Boys’, so there I was, a halo growing ‘Saint seedling’. Living in a non-secular society our state school curriculum included grooming in catholic rituals, text, song, and protocol. Altar boy training offered a blend of fun and struggle, the latter, referring to some Latin prayers we were supposed to learn but gave up trying. As we all knelt around the altar, the priest in the centre praying the ‘Confiteor’, we just used to mumble in pretence, except at the point of the chest beating “Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa”, when the volume increased tenfold, then dropped back to a mumbling in pianissimo for the remainder of the prayer. ‘Fortune favours the volunteers’ was the motto of a group of us altar boys who always put our hands up when the priest came to school asking for assistance at weddings or funerals. First of all, this meant a few hours off school. Then, at funerals we had the privilege of riding in the priest’s car, waving to all the other people who had to walk from the church to the cemetery. We felt like celebrities. Traditionally, the family of the deceased would make a donation to the priest and the altar boys. Naturally, this had made our day as we went back to school, each of us carrying the monetary value of approx. six ice creams in their pockets. Weddings, being a happy event, paid double that. The altar boys’ job was a busy one. Besides the decorative task of standing in line, hands folded in prayer and looking important, there were various other tasks to complete, such as passing the collection box around, carrying the offerings to the altar or lighting and extinguishing all the candles. At the ‘Corpus Christi’ procession we carried heavy crosses and banners for two hours. At high masses and funerals, one of us had to swing the incense pot from side to side, engulfed in drowsing fragrant smoke. On one occasion, at a funeral, I baffled the priest and the congregation during the ‘dust to dust’ ritual, when I took three un-balanced steps backwards to avoid falling into the grave. I just wasn’t ready to turn back into dust.
For initiation, any self-respecting altar boy was expected to taste the mass wine without getting caught at least once during his career. Getting dressed for mass was an ordeal. Finding a fitting size and colour match of the three-piece outfit (skirt, shirt, and collar) seemed to lie beyond the power of prayer. Oversize skirts were rolled up to create a makeshift belt which would often loosen during mass and begin to slide down, leaving the audience wondering why we kept scratching our hips. Nobody is perfect including altar boys, so we committed our fair share of bloopers. In preparation for mass, we were divided into two groups, each one delegated to sit at the right or left side of the altar. One Sunday, halfway through the service, it dawned on me that I had placed myself on the wrong flank. Taking this minor mistake more seriously than it actually was, I suddenly decided to cross to the other side, right in front of the priest who paused his sermon staring at me, amidst giggles from the congregation and my fellow altar boys. Considering that politicians sometimes cross the floor in parliament, I found my act was harmless, even though I was the talk of the town that day. The Parish rewarded us for our efforts with annual excursions to places like Switzerland, as well as a Christmas party, where we were served a meal, shown a ‘colour movie’, and sent home with a book. The genres were tailored by the parish counsel to match the recipient’s presumed interests, such as science, sport, or art. Mysteriously, I always scored the adventure novels. During the Christmas and Easter period, the Church was an altar boy’s second home. We confessed sins we didn’t commit, just to be seen visiting the confessional, to be able to serve at mass. One Christmas, harbouring a freshly purified soul as usual, I was rostered on for midnight mass. This was no easy feat, for it went on for two and a half hours, most of which we would spend standing, holding a stand-up candle in a glass bowl, about the height of my chin. Entertained by our angelic church choir, who’s only handicap was that they didn’t know when to call it a day, my head sank forward. Next thing I remember is waking up to a smouldering smell, still standing upright. One ‘Ave Maria’ by Schubert and an ‘Ave Verum’ by Mozart later the smell had gone, leaving me to think I had imagined it. Once I reached home exhausted, my mother asked what happened to my fringe and eyebrows!
On this note I like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and please, beware of candles.

International mental health month, October 2020, will soon fade off into sunset but the sun of the enormously powerful human mind will keep shining for those who seek it. Read the sad story of Alias, who rejected the light and draw your own conclusions.
ALIAS
There was a man named Alias. His name allowed him to step into anyone’s boots and adopt their personality, gender, race, or ethnicity. The world lay at his feet. He was destined for a meaningful, exciting life of freedom, prosperity and all the good things the world has to offer, but Alias was a busy man.
Personally, he had no time to try anything outside the square of the daily routine. He was complacent, and had no time for truth because his world view, which he was busy guarding, served him ‘just fine’. He had neither the desire nor the time to try and understand the make-up of his world view, hence he didn’t realise it was actually created by other people’s interests and ambitions. He ignored the angel of truth, who came to visit regularly and vividly portrayed the real world right in front of Alias’s eyes. Alias had no opinion on most topics, but he enthusiastically supported those who did, without questioning their integrity. He even committed acts of violence on their behalf. After all, they seemed to know what they are doing, and their vociferous speeches and slogans conveyed a sense of competence, assurance, and self-righteousness. Alias was scared of freedom, because he didn’t like making his own decisions, except for election time, when he voted for the party that promised him the highest financial benefits. Alias felt secure and comfortable in groups of people no matter what their purpose of association was. He disliked challenges, and he only spoke up in support of and backed up his peer group. Alias began to experience re-occurring periods of unexplained sadness, but being the complacent man he was, he ignored what was happening within. As we know, he wasn’t interested in anything outside his world view’s curriculum, which did not cater for anything psychological, other than how to utilise your mind for academic and commercial success. At work, others got the job done while Alias sought success in self-promotion, an obsession he vigorously cultivated. He chose books by their cover but never read much of the content. According to his world view, reading was for wimps. Non-fiction was too scary for him. He found it more comforting to watch movies, mainly fantasy, because thinking wasn’t exactly his favourite activity.
His sadness worsened and occurred more frequently. His loved ones and acquaintances, some of whom had experienced and overcome depression themselves, noticed something wrong, offered advice and recommended beneficial literature, but he found it all too hard to follow. Alias wasn’t stupid. He understood that to solve a problem, you have to know, at least to some degree, the nature of the problem and it’s mechanisms, then take control of the situation at hand. His handicap was that he did not want to know how the human mind works and what was causing his depression. He believed that real men don’t get involved in those ‘girly things’. So he battled on, trying to escape his emotions, keeping busy ‘doing things’. The more things he did, the more drained and lonely he felt. He was afraid of going to sleep and the nightmares awaiting him. The days were no better. Nothing made sense and nothing was normal. There was only emptiness. After Alias survived a suicide attempt, he was treated for clinical depression. As part of the therapy, the psychologist introduced him to wonderful preventative methods for mental agony, such as change of life-style, relaxation, meditation techniques and education which Alias had previously heard of but fiercely rejected. Alias responded: ”If only I had known”.

Besides the increased level of attention mental health has been receiving in recent years and even more so during the current corona virus crisis, I find that the ‘social soil’ is very poor, a breeding ground for mental illness. The focus is treatment driven with little or no education on prevention.
Stress and anxiety, both conspicuous and silent are promoted in our hyperactive society that blindly runs ‘full speed ahead’ on overdrive.
Good news is quickly killed off by anxiety provoking horror predictions, quoting anonymous or fictitious experts. Constant, persistent panic mongering prevails, so does cut-throat competition in all aspects of daily life. Express learning and achievement leave us no ‘time to breathe’.
People ask for answers, seeking effortless solutions that only exist within their own fertile imagination. Help comes in vain when people don’t want to be helped but supported in ruining their lives with drugs and mind mutilating habits. Help often comes in the form of advice, which calls for effort, the reason why it is mostly ignored in the present ‘age of entitlement’.
‘Evil flourishes when good people do nothing’. Stress-based mental illness flourishes when people are too complacent and ignore the symptoms, as I did many years ago, eventually burned out and hit ‘rock bottom’.
Find out how I utilised the ‘enormously powerful human mind’ and travelled the journey of and far beyond recovery, becoming enriched with invaluable knowledge and insight, which I now share with the world, helping people to cultivate and maintain good mental health.
Read my book: “Journey of Life”, especially Chapter 3 Anxiety and Chapter 15 Relaxation. Download from this website.
“I consider myself not only cured, but also more content, healthier and happier than ever before”. (‘Journey of Life’ Chapter 3 Anxiety).
“The future is bright for those who are willing to make an effort to live in it, and it starts now”.

The traveller doesn’t shy an alien, for he himself is one wherever he goes. As a white European in Africa, the Middle East and Asia I was mostly met with curiosity and hospitality rather than discrimination or apathy.
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, good-bye is all an integral component of travelling. The traveller, desensitised, keeps his cool and ‘hits the highway’.
The traveller blends in, adapts and integrates wherever he goes. Home is wherever he hangs his hat. His mind dwells nowhere in particular. Like a martial artists’ mind, it flows like water in the river of freedom.
The traveller knows the game of life. He is a freelancer who embraces truth and faces reality on the front line of life, taking full responsibility for his actions. Unattached to any organisation, he finds his own way out of trouble or he simply perishes. He may share breakfast with beggars and dine with kings, he eats alone or not at all.
With no familiar door to knock on, he endures rejection and enjoys hospitality. The traveller will never settle, though he may establish a base from which to radiate into the world. Once flesh and bones deny him, his aura transcends into an elevated realm of motion.

The traveller never runs away from anything, he just moves on for no particular reason to the tune of the ‘highway blues’, riding the wind of intuition, divine guidance and destiny.
Like a passionate truckie, the traveller knows that life is a highway, more spiritual than bound to matter, that eventually evaporates into the clouds of heaven.
The traveller endures the bad times and savours the good. Neither the horrors nor the pleasures of the world are foreign to him.
The suffering of the species bears no hindrance, but compassion to the traveller. He remains calm in times of crisis.
When you mindfully travel the way, you live life to the fullest, knowing that all the ups and downs will balance out. You have won all your battles and made the greatest conquest of them all; that of your own mind.
“Keep on Travelling”