Another milestone (#1400)

Numbers are just a method for signifying amounts, times, dates, etcetera. But they do have a way of infiltrating our emotions as well. Take for example our birthdays and anniversaries. Numbers can change our attitudes and offer opportunities for us to remember. Such is a day for me today. Nothing too special but significant to me. This is my 1400th blog post. I would say consecutive blog post but there were 3 days in which I was did not post a subject. I did however post 2 blog subjects on the very next day, 3 times, to keep my total up with the one blog per day since the first day I started, January 31, 2009. Regardless of those 3 missed days, I have had a real satisfying feeling whenever I reach a 100 level of blog posts. I guess I am just happy that I have found a forum for expressing my thoughts on varied subjects as they strike me. It is satisfying as well that I don't just let my thoughts go into the ether without spending some time recognizing them. More that anything, whenever I reach a personal milestone like this it reminds me that I have committed to something that isn't always a comfort to accomplish. Sometimes I just have very little to say but when I start typing a thought it amazes me where it leads me. I do try to keep the words down to between 250 and 350 and so far I have been able to generalize and specify within those limits. Not all of my blog posts leave me feeling like I have done something useful but they do leave me with the knowledge that I have given what I have and that is all I can expect from myself. Tomorrow will be just another day but for today I am well satisfied that I have moved closer to whatever limit I may reach. :)

Our human destiny (#1399)

What is our purpose as humans? What is it that makes us worthy of surviving in this existence? Is it our brute force? Is it our kill or be killed fear? If all we were supposed to be is an agile low intelligent animal then we would still be that! Instead we have evolved into a species that has changed what is known about the past into a future with tremendous possibility. We are on the verge of mastering our surroundings and that includes the space around our planet. That we have evolved speaks to our abilities beyond physical force. It speaks to our curious minds and what our minds are capable of. We have learned and stored knowledge in our minds much like the memory of a computer. Not nearly as efficient as a computer, yet we did create the computer so that our minds are free to create new thoughts without the actual burden of having our minds full of facts and figures. We keep those facts and figures at our fingertips in the form of the Internet as a library. Our minds are freed up to concoct new horizons, to improve what is still an awful manifestation of humanity. We are shedding the ways of the past that had served to bring us out of the dark ages of building a civilized society and now we are entering a new phase where all human life in it's glory can have a rational and reasonable expectation of happy pursuits. We humans are in place to move beyond our own selfish ambitions toward laying a foundation that settles our own society into a model for behavior which then allows us to propel ourselves out into the unknown that still surrounds us. We have evolved into a mighty force and with the understanding of our purpose on whole, to care and to wonder, we will continue our evolution into the millenniums yet lived.

Common courtesy (#1398)

This is where we all need to stop with the game playing and just acknowledge each other like we want to be acknowledged ourselves. The cynical outlook most of us have incorporated into our lives is slowly killing off any happiness we may find in this world. Being smart about how we interact is always a priority but not to the point of exclusion through strategy. We are human and none of us is in any way more or less human than anyone else. Our behaviors may vary but not because we are genetically engineered differently, it is because we come from different environments and we are differently inculcated. We must relearn how to overcome such changeable attitudes and actions through being thorough in our welcomes and our by your leaves. Respect is what we need to display and not just the kind that resides on the surface but deep down where our hearts are. We are all guilty of cynicism because we all have been manipulated when giving our trust and have had it most seriously abused. Nothing like that ever feels good and so we throw up protective barriers so that it won't happen again. Yet it is the barriers that separate us from who we should be and who we should become. We are all amazing, all of us. Some are more expressive and reflective of our amazing talents and others are far more subtle and introverted about theirs. No one should ever doubt that we all have some particular talent that is to be admired and respected with at least a minimum of common courtesy. Life has been unkind to far too many and that unkindness has embittered both the givers of the unkindness and the receivers of the unkindness, however, we need to stop with the past mistakes and each of us in our own way need to begin to smile and see the world as what it truly is, a gift.

Building a new society (#1397)

We now have the technology and innovative processes to be able to redesign how our society functions. We have all the components in place to continue to supply information and intelligence on a vast scale to effectively be able to discard old institutional thinking. What I am saying here is that the previous engines of greed and fear or no longer necessary to build a society. We have amazing capabilities now to feed, clothe, shelter and transport our citizens of not only our own country but of the world. We can now initiate sound health practices to prevent our population from knowable maladies whilst also controlling our birth in order to maximize the logistics of eliminating poverty. We have moved into the enlightenment of our surroundings with such measure as to realize that although we come from different parts of the Earth we are all of us still human beings with too many more similarities than differences. The old paradigms of greed and fear have served a mixed bag of purposes and arguments for their continuance have become obsolete. We are greater together than apart and once we all find our way to each other without the negativism that has stirred among us for all of our history, we will prove it. We all have a duty to survive and if surviving is the only purpose then we have achieved that but we are much more than creatures who survive. We are curious and we care about people, places and things. As we continue to evolve as a species in this existential environment, we should now begin our reevaluation of how we move forward into our and our children's bold futures.

Strength should be quiet until needed (#1396)

Those that have to display power as a means to rectify wrong are using their strength correctly. A sort of reserved approach to strength's force. We all have an inner strength that is at times a glorious thing to experience. I try to respect everyone's right to freedom but when their freedom intersects and diminishes mine, I am one solid buttress against it. I hold that power beneath how I reflect myself out to the world. I don't need to show my strength to anyone until it is needed. There are those who feel that if they don't express their strength as a strategy then they are not worthy of respect. That is one hundred percent backwards to expressing their worth. Those who do show their strength are the driven types of people who bully and coerce with the threat of duress. That does not show courage or strength, instead it shows weakness and cowardice. The balance between expressing strength and reserving it is subtle but distinguishable. When harm or denial of basic right is being advanced then the time for girding up one's strength is appropriate. When selfishness and or an illusory greedy gain is the goal then quite obviously using strength to achieve that is inappropriate. Not everything is perfectly distinguishable however most all things have a conscious component that allows us the ability to understand our actions. We must not allow ourselves the option to ignore how and when we use our will's power when experiencing life. We have a duty to our society, we have a duty to our families and friends and we ultimately have a duty to our own sense of right and wrong, to only unleash our strength only when it is rightly regarded by those who are affected by it's application. Respect through strength will never be earned through strategies that harm. The only way to respectfully use our strength, as a force for good, is to reserve our power until it is needed. 

To be loved and then to be right (#1395)

Once we have found someone who loves us unconditionally, within acceptable boundaries lol., then we need to have a purpose. Certainly we can have a purpose without being loved but who would want that? We are a duo entity. We have emotion and we have intellect. Having both of them as our main priorities should be all of our goals. It is my opinion, and opinion for myself only, that finding and settling into a loving personal relationship is the greatest priority. There is something calming and fulfilling about sharing love with one who shares love with you. It sets the foundation for everything else that follows and the most important thing that follows is learning and understanding. Not only about ourselves, within the love relationship, but also outside that about what is good and right about our world. The best of outcomes for the rightness of things is when there is no downside or negative impact on others. A happy world to reflect the inner happiness we hopefully find in our personal relationship. We cannot all find our process of finding love and then applying ourselves to doing good in the world in that order. Some of us must muddle through life with the hope or expectation that love will find us regardless of the time that has already passed. We must keep a vigil for the hope and ride out the present with the thought that an intimate happiness is just around the corner. We all deserve a shot at finding the warmth and caring of being loved and we all deserve a shot at doing in the world the things that are right and good. Life is very simply understood when we find our priorities align with a shared personal contentment along with heroic behavior.

Levels of expectations (#1394)

Their are subtle differences in what I expect of myself and much less from others. I demand from myself certain thoughts and actions as related to my personal health and welfare. We all have some level of expectation as to how we think and act in life. Those are fundamental and don't need much explanation. However the extraneous aspects of my life get a little trickier. Let's start with my level of comfort. I hope to live a life that offers me some basic conveniences like good transportation and actual relaxing living spaces. I also hope for decent attire and healthy food. Like most things of this nature I have some expectation but not to the point that I demand that they exist to the point of recklessness. I place things in motion around me that does seem to help me attain some sense of my proper propriety. As I have gotten older I have been fortunate to live in a country that has opportunities, albeit limited in our current economic climate, that allow for different pathways toward keeping my expectations somewhat hopeful. Then there are the expectations of what a happy life life should look like. I have no control over those things except to participate as a happy person. I have wants and desires that go beyond foundational needs, yet I live to level of what my expectations can properly and rationally achieve. I do not lose sleep over circumstances that don't rise to a hoped for expectation because I have not staked or placed myself into some type of jeopardy regardless of outcome. I get what comes to me and I am thankful for it's appearance. My happiness is not dependent upon an outcome, my happiness is only dependent upon how I shape my outlook.

Greed is not the true motivation (#1393)

This is the problem of our species. We have been told that we can only advance into technology and innovation through processes that are built upon greed. Competition against one another is accepted as the true means for creating better outcomes. I happen to think that we are all curious enough about what is going on around us as motivation enough. I like to learn and put to action new ideas because it is the right thing to do, not the most profitable. It is an illogical assumption to begin an advocating argument with deciding that our society, must be organized around how much we can attain for ourselves, as the only possible pathway. It is incredulous to me that people out in the world cannot grasp the concept that segregating and classifying our lives by how much treasure we can attain from each other is antithetical to enlightenment. We, as a species, like to think we are enlightened but our defense of the reasoning, analysis and conclusions as to how our society functions disproves that notion. We cannibalize our best intentions with the urges and desires of our ancient baser animal instincts that are inculcated with whims of being a demigod. The psychological mess we live in does accurately reflect back on how we implement our societal functions. We don't honor life as the greatest realization, we instead denigrate it based upon social and economic factors. Instead of prioritizing education and health as our greatest legacies, we pass along injustice and illusion as our great gifts to the future. We have sold what is best within us for a vessel of promises which cannot ever come true. We must always remember that we are human beings, not a creating god, and a civilization who are all varied by some degree but never so much that we are greater or lesser than anyone else.

Being afraid of fear (#1392)

To default to fear is to lose before even starting. Why would we do this? Simple, we have a backup plan. We just ignore our loss to fear and pretend it never happened. We actually use logic to lie to ourselves. Well, not really logic but an illogical application of logic. It works so why not continue to live and forget how we live our lives? Again, simply because it is wrong and living in the defeat of fear does nothing to overcome fear and move on in our and others' lives. Another thing about losing to fear before we even start is the irrational considerations we start to have. Like some alternate universe, we misshape reality to fit our comfortable thinking into absolutism. We then defend our illogical truths as the only possible solution to myriad problems. Whenever I hear something that has a non-sequitur understanding, I either laugh, because the use of a non-sequitur usually implies a comedic strategy or I know that the person delivering the irrational message has been subjected to fear and cannot move beyond it. Fear is like that, it is over-powering and can halt us in our tracks, even to the point of taking our breath away. Fear can freeze our physical abilities to the point of incapable conscience movement. Yet fear is a reasoned understanding, as well as a survival technique, that has a direct physical response. We can moderate that, like all things that are instinctual and learned. Our minds are the most powerful force that we know of ever in existence. Ever in existence! We are the holders of a force so powerful that we can actually change the existence we have at our own whim. How can such an ability be possible without us living a sanguine life free from any doubt about conquering fear, whenever and wherever it's form makes an appearance.

Slowing myself down (#1391)

It seems that most of my life has been spent hurrying to either get something done or to get from one place to another. Another aspect of my life, having been athletic in nature, brings the consequential mindset of going hard and fast at physical goals. It seems that pushing my mind to go fast to keep up with my body, has had a residual effect that is not necessarily a good thing. I am older now and the physicality at which I had previously performed at is no longer possible, yet my mind is not restricted by such continually growing resistant evidence. What I have been left with is a need or urge to go fast and hard at things that don't offer prizes for such application, on the contrary, it seems that negative results abound from my absurdity. I am working on slowing down so that I can sense the lives and places around me with a deeper appreciation as well as to make myself more available to those who truly need me. It is a wonderful thing to have had a way of life that endeared itself to me but the losing of that way of life requires me to adapt. Adapting is not such an easy task for stubborn bullheaded persons of my ilk. lol. Yet it is what I have to do. I need to step back from the hurrying and instead plan for a methodical approach that has the best of just being alive and taking in the world around me. It is well past time I grew into a new type of person and put down the old competitive one. I had sold out on the live fast and hard motto but life has me still here and that motto is no longer a value. So slower it is and watching the younger ones use their abilities and mindsets to foster new opportunities and realities is my new paradigm.

Should we live forever? (#1390)

Sounds like a strange question but it seems that innovation and technology may make it so in the future. We all have had or will have death in our close circle of family and friends and of course we wish none of it to have or to happen. I want everyone to remain in my life and inside me I know that none should die. Is it possible then to consider an existence where life continues, even maybe in a "body" that stays strong and vibrant? I think so and with our species' ability to remain curious and full of discovery I actually think that in the future it may well happen. I am not trying to make us out as a god-like creature but the potential is there for us to explore the possibility of eternity on demand. I know this much, as my body wears down it seems that my soul has become tired as well. I don't have the vibrancy or agility I once had and I think that the corresponding physical deterioration I am experiencing is correlative to my spirit also becoming less vigorous. I therefore think that if my body was able to regenerate through some medical advancement or if transferring my soul to another form of body were possible, I have little doubt that I would also regenerate within my soul and feel the lively attributes of my spirit's beginning. I have reconciled to myself that the cycle of life and death with me is a certainty but into the future I cannot say that there is no hope for longer life spans with renewed vigor. We seem to be heading that way as a by-product of our insatiable, and instinctual desire to survive. We are only following our instincts to live forever and that is not in contradiction with what it is to be a human being.

Boundaries and dogmas are killing us (#1389)

The world needs to be one big city. Why do we have such a hard time understanding that we are all citizens of Planet Earth? More than anything else that reality trumps all lesser organizational ideas. When you hear that some are interested in solving all of our problems and they don't start from this simple beginning they are not truly interested in solving all of our problems. It is not that they are intentionally being deceptive, it is just that they fail to understand the word all. Think about it! All of our wars with each other are over national boundaries and ideologies. Can we rationally justify the premeditated killing of humans based upon selfishness? Can we actually say that one person deserves to have opportunities to exist in some parts of the world and others don't? Can we continue to turn our backs on the real devastation and death we allow to happen without having a fierce objection? Are we so selfish in our lives that pain, suffering and death are of no consequence to us because we feel helpless to stop it? I will not quit screaming from the top of my lungs about the injustice we continue to hurl upon others while little repercussion to the act settles upon ourselves. We need to form a society with all humans as it's citizens. We cannot continue to kill each other in the name of lines on a map and words in "archaic" books. I am ashamed at us for not being the 21st century human beings we think we are. We must stop the insanity of treating some as nothing and some as everything. We are all the same and no amount of manipulating ancient ideas as a strategy to continue selfishness is worth one single human death on our heads.

My own worst critic (#1388)

No one is more critical of me than I. I have scolded myself more times than I will ever remember. Which brings me to another subject, remembering. I haven't a clue where most of my memories have gone but I know this much, I cannot find them. It seems that my memory is on a timer and that timer has gone off more times than I can remember. lol. Circular logic here. Anyway, the criticism I heap upon myself has lessened with time because the mistakes I make now are not as obvious in the sense that they are super important. I make a lot of little mistakes because I don't give enough time to all things that I do. My foundation is good and right but the building blocks upon it are somewhat loose. Kind of like my humor. :) What has happened for me though is that by being my own worst critic, I have adapted very nicely to my conscious. I have a conscience and the emotions within it, have matured to verify that fact. None of us is without doubt about ourselves but it is in how we approach that doubt that we find real differences. Some of us have gotten it in our heads that we don't forget and what we think today is a comprehensive compilation of all we have learned or intuitively know. I can testify to the fact that we are not all comprehensive in what we remember and furthermore, we are not likely to remember most of what we have learned. Our memories are not perfect and can be a cause of consternation for those of us who place heavy reliance on them. I have admitted to being both critical, and forgetful, of myself into this post, well done me! I don't beat myself up for being imperfect, like I used to do when I was younger. Getting older is showing me that what has passed me in the past is likely to stay there and what I keep myself doing today is what is most critical, even when I screw it up. :)

Controlling our urges (#1387)

This is what is the great achievement of the human species, we can control what drives us. Our motivations, mental and physical, can be harnessed to be unleashed when defined by civilization to be appropriate. All of us are still working on those definitions of civilization but we are very able to do so. It is usually intentional when we don't control our urges. We are animals and prone to animalistic instincts and of that we will never be free of if we remain in our natural state. But modifying what we act upon as animals is our duty if we are ever going to participate in the progress of our societies. We all have the foundation for reason. We can understand consequences based upon experience and knowledge. Nothing is so difficult as to be impossible to figure out. Instead of focusing on ourselves as the highest priority in existence, we need to see a more panoramic view of what is happening in the world to all of us. Certainly, we are individually responsible for a duty to ourselves but not to the exclusion of the basis for our civilization, which is to maintain a semblance of order while allowing for opportunity to all who can participate. We are fortunate to be born into a time when most of the hard struggle for our civilized structure has already been achieved. We now need to look inside ourselves and find those areas where we need improvement. Like controlling those urges that are fleeting and often denigrated once applied. We are not the prehistoric creatures that it took for us to evolve. We are a more advanced species for our mistakes and rectifications. We have more room to improve and that is the next step in how we advance our destiny.

Actions have consequences (#1386)

It is important to understand what a little sensitivity can do for oneself. If what I am doing to others is not considered when evaluating my future action, then I have some work to do. No one can rationally justify making decisions based only upon the outcome to themselves. There are others out there who feel the impact. That is why a little sensitivity to how actions prevail a cost upon others is necessary for fair human interaction. Some of course could care less if they exact a cost upon others as long as they get what they want. That is a strategy they employ as a rule and their inability to function in normal healthy relationships is less important than the attainment of some, ambiguous or otherwise, goal. That is not a healthy relationship to keep. Those who keep to a pattern of complaining when they are harmed yet inversely, are unable, or are unwilling to see themselves as the harm makers, are the ones of which I write. The irony is thick to say the least. If a person wants empathy from others then they need to know what empathy is. Not just the cold clinical definition of empathy but the nurturing effect of the return of that kindness when it is needed. In other words, do unto others that which you would have others do unto you. There is nothing magical here but in a practical sense it does seem to require magic for it to be understood. Just kidding, all it takes is some awareness and modification of behavior. Simply, think a bit before reacting. We all can accept what the whirligig of life brings us if we are all aware that it could, and more than likely will, happen to all of us. But for the grace of whatever go I.

Never stop wondering! (#1385)

All of us at some point in our lives have given up wondering what all of this existence is about and have instead focused on how we operate our society as a means to an end. We place ourselves, strategically mind you, into positions that help us to live modern and abundant lives. There is nothing wrong with this type of plan, except it is just marking time, not moving forward. Certainly we need some essential things in our lives like food, shelter, clothing and means for transporting, however once we have secured these, most move further with making these needs and adding special wants. The default position as I like to think of it. We settle for what we can do instead of using what we are naturally given to question all that is around us even to the point of sacrificing the quality of those oft needed essentials for living. If I am not clear let me put it this way. We have given up on our wondering what this existence means to us and have instead decided to play a role within society that revolves around just security and limited freedom. Our main priority has become to keep improving on the level of the quality of our needs instead of just securing our needs and then questing to find answers to the mysteries of existence. Just going about being a statistic within society and maintaining a level of comfort we have decided is the most important priority to ourselves. A neutral existence within an unknown. I personally could care less about the quality of my needs, I care far more on knowing why I even need them to begin with. I have questions about existence that no human can answer so it is incumbent upon me to wonder and seek any and all means to my ability to discover. I will not come into this existence and just allow myself to spend the time I have been given settling for anything less!

Get out of your head! (#1384)

It is so easy to think what is going on in the world than it is too actually know what is going on in the world. I know in my brain, assumptions abound galore! lol. It isn't until I get out and actually converse and interact with folks that I find that my assumptive thinking is mostly wrong. Of course my intent is always good but the outcome of my assumptive thinking usually leaves me less than where I really am. I somehow conjure up in my mind, scenarios that tend toward our less than better instincts and then the conspiracies begin. As if I am important enough for others to conspire against. I do have an imagination and when I leave it unoccupied for any lengthy period of time it goes into overdrive with possibilities. Thus I need to get out of my head and out into the world where all the real living is taking place. No one has earned the right or deserves to be able to sit back and make decisions about others when they don't allow themselves the necessity of being involved in life on a personal level. I know sometimes I just sit back and calculate what should be from my previous experiences, but what I have come to realize is that I cannot do that. Life is ever changing and the facts continue to modify with every second that ticks off the clock. None of us is so knowing that we can displace living our lives with each other with just logical theories. Life is too complicated because of our increasing knowledge base and because of the panoramic effect of our emotions. There is no formula that can apply to so many of us. So get out of your head and quit assuming, it is what I tell myself and it seems to be sinking in for me.

Changing attitudes to find common ground (#1383)

Well, here we are in America, needing to figure out a way to move forward despite our different approaches to what society should look like. We have just had an election and the will of the people has been heard. Now that a general direction has been given a majority, it would seem that those who backed another general direction would need to accept the will of the majority and at least begin to see the framework of the approved direction. Hiding one's head in the sand because a defined direction was overruled, is not doing one's part in progressing our democracy. All of us need to apply ourselves to the will of the country when choices have been made. Now it is about filling in the edges of policies so that they may be implemented and either found to be helpful or found to be wanting. Life should be about the actual living of it and not so much about past theories that have been renounced. There are real problems that need immediate solutions and gearing our efforts toward those problems should be our course, not squabbling over what could have been. We are all honorable humans and as such we need to honor ourselves by becoming involved in creative solutions while not creating new problems. History has shown us that we are much stronger when we ameliorate our differences in lieu of finding common ground. Such is that time now. Our country needs all of us to accept the outcome of our national election and move forward with that will. Remember, we all want a better life and that is the goal here, not to destroy any chance of obtaining it.

The effect of curiosity (#1382)

What is my curiosity? My curiosity is a desire, a want, a need to know that which I don't know. It is a driving sensation that I can actually feel within me. It has a spiritual connection to my existence that is real and starts the engine of my motivations. I need to know why! Why is the greatest question in my life and knowing why is my challenge. You may ask what question of why am I referring? The greatest of all why's is why am I here? Why do we exist? I know that the answer to that particular why may never be known to me but still, I need to know the answer. It is who I am and how I am made to exist. I have said this before and once again I will say it here, we are like data processors, we need input gathered from our 5 senses, and yes, even from our innate intuitions. We gather information we need to not only to continue to exist but to better help our existence. We gather information so that we can continue to gain insight into questions not yet considered. We are a marvel and I want to know why. There are also the hows, whats, wheres, who's and whens, but for me the why is the key. I subscribe to the idea that everything has a purpose. That nothing about all of things is random. There is chaos and confusion all around us but that is because we are not able to sense out all the factors yet. That is why it is so important to continue to question all things that are unknown. If however not everything has a purpose, then why not? If nothing has purpose then why do we exist? Still questions with no answers, regardless of the final verdict. My nature is to know things, it is what I do as a human being. Just existing is not enough!

Always question the question (#1381)

Simply akin to the Socratic Method. Asking a series of questions which allow the listeners to formulate their own answers or understandings. I like this method of learning. It allows for us to use our own reasoning based upon our own knowledge base to define what may be right, good or true answers. Most of us have similar knowledge bases however our perspectives are not as similar as one may opine. I am not a contrarian by strategy but it does seem to fit my modus operandi. So much in life is rationalized as a given and I refute that foundational assumption. Certainly there are known truths and facts that I accept but not as many as there are promoted. I do question most everything and when I am questioned about more complex issues I find that returning a question as an answer helps me to understand the nature of the questioner and their motive. Not all questions are asked for the purpose of true honorable enlightenment and distinguishing between the few that are and the many that are not, is done by answering questions with questions. Once I have established that the questions are legitimate questions of honest inquiry, I then like to answer questions with more questions as to help the questioner realize the scope of the question being asked. If I can enlarge the panorama of the possible answers, I have then given the questioner more possibilities of seeing their initial question with a deeper understanding. Most answers are simple and general to be sure, but if we can breakdown the subject of the question into it's varying parts, it helps the questioner realize they have the answer within them already but just need a process for retrieving it through their own logical sequencing. I would rather teach someone how to reason for themselves than to spoon feed them answers without them having to do reason, analysis and conclusions on their own.

If we survive our life lessons, we can begin to live (#1380)

I vividly remember a line in the movie, The Natural, where the actress, Glenn Close said, paraphrased, that we live 2 lives, the first we learn with, and then the life after that. I couldn't agree more with that sage counsel. I struggled mightily to learn what life meant for me and until I had experienced so many differences, was I able to see who I was and what I wanted out of life. I am and have been in that second phase of living for many years now and the clarity I have now is a reversal of the chaos and confusion I was experiencing before. All the hard lessons I learned were well worth the time since it is what has gotten me to where I am now. I only wish that I hadn't spent so much time but it took what it took as the saying goes. My life today truly is a beautiful thing in my eyes. I don't have doubts about my intentions. They are clear and for the most part highly honorable. I am human and prone to making mistakes regardless of how hard I try not to not make mistakes so the times I fail I don't get discouraged, I just get it right the next time. I have order in my life now and priorities fill my day. What I also get is the ability to see the same set of values and principles in others. What this does for me is to be able to trust like I have never been able to do before. Trust requires a stable foundation and now that I have one I can see those who also have a stable foundation as well. There is so much hope for all of us once we get past being our own obstruction. It will take whatever it takes and the best hope is that the lessons we learn are not too devastating as to prohibit us from moving into a better plane of living.

Keep moving forward (#1379)

What is fascinating is that my future is being defined right now by how I live my present. Everything I do right now is shaping how my future will be. I know that external forces play a major role in my future and in most of those external forces I have no control whatsoever. Knowing that however, gives me the opportunity to choose how I will live in the present, which then translates to my future regardless of events outside my control. What I have found to be most helpful is the notion that I understand what has happened in the past but I don't look backwards for my guidance, I continue to look forward toward my goals. Life really is all about whether we choose to be positive or negative about our futures. I cannot continue to advance forward when the past keeps harping in my ear the older and getting old ideals that have less to do with progress and more to do with restriction. I am not living in a bubble or isolated from reality. I have as a duty to this existence to remain cogent and logical about what is going on around me, not just in my limited sphere but in all areas of human survival. I have said this before and I will say it here again, all of us are individual data collectors and information is the means we use to fulfill our curiosities. I will not blunt my natural inclination to know by abdicating my reason over to a finite set of principles based in myth and superstition. I owe myself and my fellow human being species' the best of my ability to data collect and then the process of reason, analysis and conclusion.

Winning is a mandate (#1378)

I suppose I will have a couple of more posts regarding our national election and this will be one of them. Our President won his re-election handily but yet the opposing party is desperately trying to portray our president's win as inconsequential for his policies. They have been sounding the alarm that since he didn't overwhelming win the down ballot elections as well he has not been given a mandate to follow through on his policies. I disagree. First off, the mere fact that he won justifies him having a mandate, even if he only won by 1 vote, instead of the more than 2.8 million votes he did win by. Second, since a formidable opponent ran against him and lost, who had a totally different set of policies to offer that reflected the opposing party's view, we can deduce that the opposing party's views were rejected, leaving only the winners policies as acceptable. Now the down ballot races in the House of Representatives did skew toward our President's party in a handful of races overall, 8 to 9 more precisely, yet the opposing party did maintain control. By the mere fact that the opposing party lost seats in it's majority is being used as a less than clever argument that the opposing party still has rejected policies that overrule our President's policies, is nonsense! The opposing party is having problems with losing on the ideological front and they are pulling out all the stops in order to somehow ameliorate their rejected vision. It won't work, as people as simple as myself see through their strategy. Our President does have a mandate and he will wield it to move our country forward despite the opposing party's last gasp to make itself relevant in the face of it's diminution.

Last night, inclusion won out over exclusion (#1377)

Here in America we had our presidential election that culminated yesterday. What can be discerned is that the party that went out of it's way to include many different groups won the day. The contrast was stark between the two parties and should now be a model for our country as we ever more diversify. A paradigm shift has been made and counting on just a few groups, as the base for claiming election success, has proven unsuccessful. We truly have become the melting pot that we have over the decades thought ourselves to be. Holding onto segregating ideals out of fear or advantage has shown itself to be unworthy and self defeating. What was proved last night is that without a careful consideration of all of our needs together, we cannot help ourselves govern with any authority. Integrating ideals won the day yesterday and for that I heave a delighted sigh of relief. We deserve more from our society than self inflicted hardships when we can better survey the landscape of society and see where pulling us all together includes shared progress and opportunity. We are not immune to selfishness, look how the other party promulgated measured equality from different starting points. Hardly fair or equal. However, when we build our society with the idea that all of us can and should share in it's prosperity, we elevate the consciousness of our citizens to a place where we all feel like we are important parts of our own future. There will always be graduated levels of participation because we all have different motivations, but to assign some of us to lesser because we don't fit nicely into a pre-ordained group is disrespectful and as last night proved a losing strategy.

Courage on display, patriotism for truth (#1376)

It is curious how courage can manifest itself. I know I don't have the final results yet but I can already feel it's empowering effect. Today's election will take place today and already tens of millions have already voted for the candidate that didn't have most of the, money and lies, on his side. You may very well say hey, when someone lies it is easy to vote against them. In most cases that is true but when vast amounts of money are used to obfuscate or camouflage the truth, it is not always simple to distinguish truth. Especially when the messenger is subtly and deliberately adept at delivering the lies. What has been truly remarkable, and I say this from past experience, is that when a convincing illusion is spread with an abundance of money behind it, the illusion usually prevails. The truth gets muddled and lost in all the manipulations around it. I fully expected the same scenario to play out but it didn't. I know I am premature in my expected analysis, but in my soul and my gut, I feel like we have triumphed over the past status quo and have allowed for the truth to overcome both, money and lies. How were we able to do this overcoming? In my mind we mostly did it through the Internet. The inter-connectivity we now have through this medium, throughout the whole world, is amazing and judicious. We can be far more elaborate in our new method of communication with our understandings in simple and complex ways that have never been possible before. The real time logical fact checking and references with citations has made revealing lies and false claims as simple as writing a short note. I say courage on display to recognize all of us who have given of ourselves to promote truth over lies when it comes to our national reputation and the health of our country. Patriots all!

This election cycle (#1375)

2008 was an election of firsts. In the primaries on the Democratic side there were two individuals asking to become our national leader who represented a woman and a man of color. Neither has a woman or until 2008, a man of color ever held our highest American office. So when the man of color won out a tight primary race against the woman, a predictable emotional surge followed. Regardless of whether the man of color won or the woman had won, the emotional surge was fairly certain to follow. It just happened that it followed the man of color, which he rode all the way to the White House. 4 years later the emotion of electing the first man of color is no longer a surge following this election so the election has now moved from our emotion to our intellect. Rightly so, and because of that we have to look at performance and not the making new history. When President Obama was elected in 2008, his ideas were quite strong and in conjunction with the emotion of the moment, was plenty enough to elect him. Now we only have his ideas as a purpose for re-electing him and it is in the ideas that we are seeing the stuff of which he is made. He carried us through emotion and now he is carrying us through with intellect. President Obama is no straw man, someone propped up into place that others control. He is his own man and his election in 2008 was not just based upon his skin color. His election in 2008 was despite his skin color and was really all about his love for our country. Today we get to see that love through his policies to strengthen our society in areas of equality and justice through fairness. Quite an accomplishment for a man who was thought more a sensation four years ago than what he really is, a statesman with gravitas.

Lying is legitimized for profit (#1374)

What kind of society do we want for ourselves? If my statement is correct and lying is utilized to increase profit, then why not lie to persuade outcomes in other endeavors? It would be discriminatory to allow only lying in economics and not allow it in politics, religion, philosophy, history, even in the varying levels of our social order. Once the slippery slope of justifying the use of lying is condoned, we cannot stop the flow of it into other paradigms without creating a disconnect between why we allow and it why we don't allow it. The logic doesn't follow. We could lie about the logic but then how would we ever be able to distinguish between a lie and the truth? It would seem that we should as a society on whole banish lying from our processes. How do we do that? By exacting punishments for lying that have a real consequence. The best way our society has for a future of promising equal opportunities is to create an atmosphere of honesty. An honesty that can be counted upon as fact and not disturbed and compromised by willful manipulated dishonesty. The only ones who benefit and profit from lying are the ones who would thieve and cheat. Why would we encourage such behavior unless we are not principled enough in our own virtues to care? No amount of wishful hoping will change what is now a staple of our society. We must take an active role in what we allow the liars to perpetrate upon us. We cannot do nothing and expect things will change for the better without our involvement. Whenever we confront lies we must call attention to them, even if the lies benefit us, because if lies do benefit us, then we are the ones who are perpetrating the hoax on society. Is that who we are? 

The Earth's resources belong to the Earth (#1373)

We are just guests here on this planet Earth. We do not own it or decide how it will exist. Our planet is it's own system and we are just fellow travelers who are fortunate enough to exist on it. I am not saying the Earth has a mind of it's own, but what I am saying is that the Earth is an incredibly complex ecosystem that has no fully known predictability to it. Aside from that reality, the Earth is also a place where we have designed our society and what we think of as our's within this society is predicated upon extracting resources from our planet and calling them our own. Now it is true that we have devised or defaulted to a paradigm where ownership has rights, but remember, we are only borrowing our ownership rights from the orb we inhabit. Now the question becomes what is the form that our individual and collective ownership of the Earth's borrowed resources look like in utilization? We have thus far allowed our society to take from the Earth, in a heavily uneven distribution, rationed by a winner take all dynamic. Far be it from me to call this present form of distribution "fair", however I will call it illogical. We tend to place an emotional attachment to "gimme it's mine" as an ideal as opposed to creating a allocation system devoid of a stratified level of importance. in other words, instead of building society that has ever revolving rotational responsibilities, we have allowed a system to form that excludes and segregates, based upon boundaries and mental conceptions outside of equality and social justice. A broken system is still a broken system regardless of whether it kind of, sort of, works. Our Earth places no restrictions on itself and it is as far as can logically be discerned inanimate, how much less we are in practice and yet we know we are animate.

Our ability to reason overcoming our animal instincts (#1372)

As the evolution of the human being has been recorded, a clear pattern of moving from the need to be animal in our approach to survival is being replaced with our ability to reason as the approach to our survival. What necessitated brute strength and unhindered natural desires to determine survival is now being slowly replaced by the ability to rationalize situations and a self restraint of our instinctual animal desires. We are evolving and in that evolution our baser vicious natures, needed at the time to survive, are no longer the best course for us to survive. We are progressing into an enlightenment stage of our evolution where the need to kill and maim are replaced by learning and logic. We have created a civilization that has morphed within it a society that has structure and stability. We are closer than ever to caring for each other than we are to eliminating each other. We are evolving into a a species that has less to do with the needed animal traits of bygone milleniums that saw destruction through wars and carnage, and are now on a path where we think and reason through situations as a response to survival. We are less the animals we needed to be and more the logical reasoners our future holds out to us. We are evolving into a new species that is leaving behind the ways of past necessities for a future where our knowledge based acumen is our greatest source for survival. We are morphing and we all need to take our place within the morph in order for us to advance together. We all are responsible for recognizing and containing our animal choices with the reason we are capable of utilizing. Once we control ourselves from the old natural instincts, we can then replace them with the new natural instincts of reasoned thoughts.

Fear will steal time and your will from you (#1371)

When you let fear overcome your ambitions or desires, you have given up not only time but your will as well. We only have our own time and will that is all ours so giving up our time and will leaves us with a dead space in our lives. Why does fear control us so dominatingly? We allow it is why. We don't try to push past it and accept our path as honest and true. We decide instead to doubt our intent and let others critique that which is only truly understood by ourselves. It is a character flaw in that we don't admire our own character enough to trust it. Some lesser behaviors and patterns of lesser behaviors have become second nature to us out of some consistent depressing default acceptance. We have let ourselves believe that we are not worthy to fight for our own realizations. Remember, we only live once and each of us has the gift of deciding our own fate, outside of any influence that may come to bear. When we are at the age of maturity, we are given the awesome responsibility and duty to make ourselves a part of society that encourages freedoms and equalities. We should pursue those things that reward not only our own ambitions and desires but that positively affect others. Taking the inner perspective to categorize what is best about ourselves and defending it with courage is easier done than to be drawn down from a principled stance by manipulations of fear. Once we get used to standing for ourselves and protecting our right to stand the easier it gets when others would force their way into knocking us down as their strategy. I love knocking aside those who bully and bombast rhetorical inanities in order to thwart us from our place in life, where our time and will operate freely from us.