The Progressive Pragmatist

My personal Mottos

2011-04-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

Vita Exsisto Inter Ordo et Chao – Life exists between Order & Chaos

Post tenebras lux - After the darkness comes the light.

Semper paratus - Always prepared.

Dum spiro, spero - While I breathe, I hope.

Montani Semper Liberi - Mountaineers are Always Free.

When do we wake up?

2010-07-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

An intriguing puzzle of being human is consciousness. What is it exactly? It is both mind-numbingly complicated and simple, self-awareness. After struggling to understand this I came to the conclusion that life is essentially narrowly focused consciousness filtered through the sensations and perceptions of our body. It is the one aspect of life that goes beyond simple bio-mechanics. This precise and focused consciousness that our lives produce is essential for the survival of the human body but it is not the end of who we really are. Like staring at a beautiful vista through a straw we only experience a sliver of true reality. When that straw is taken away our minds expand in infinite directions instantly sucking in all of the known and unperceived universe. Pure consciousness is so large that it would be impossible for us to sustain it and live normal lives at the same time. The important part is to realize this relationship and simply know that we are part of a much larger fabric that sustains existence. Life appears to be a game that consciousness plays with itself, like looking at picture or a view from different angles. When it unravels and disperses back into itself it loses all concept of self and just is. Like a drop of water that has separated itself from the ocean we feel the boundaries of our own existence and yet we know and feel we are part of something much larger. We are consciousness, but only a piece of a whole. Life is a dream that we are trying to finally wake up from into pure consciousness.

The Power of the Storyteller

2010-05-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

All of us are storytellers. It is one of the most powerful characteristics of being human. We are obsessed with stories. Life is almost nothing but the stories that we tell ourselves and each other. Desperately we cling to them. The universe is vast and intimidating, to give us at least the illusion of control over it we tame the universe through stories. Once told the stories bring at least some peace to our minds as we begin to think we "know" or understand. The most fascinating aspect is the very personal story that we are telling ourselves. Living and narrating our own autobiography it is a living story that grows and changes with us. We are the author of this tale, we create the plot and assign meaning to all of the events that transpire throughout our lives. We chose the narrative we are going to live by as a way of giving our lives meaning. Unable to live calm or peaceful lives we crave climaxes, tragedies and chaos to enliven our story. We throw obstacles in our path so that we can either overcome them or to be overcome by them. This self-storytelling is so powerful that we very rarely realize we are doing it.

When our lives brush up against others we invite them into our story as co-authors. More often than not, we already have an accepted script in our mind that we wish others would follow. Whenever we find ourselves, angry, irritated or upset at others it is because they are not following the internal script that we have already written about how each scene is supposed to unfold. We have an incredibly difficult time accepting that others are writing their own narrative and that they are independent of ours. We can't control other people like they are characters in a novel, but that is exactly what our mind-as-narrator is trying to do. We want the world to follow our storyline.

We assume that everyone just thinks like we do or understands events the same way. The reality is the opposite. Everyone has been influenced by different beliefs and cultural forces that governs their narrative. What one person considers bad another person might consider good. The next step that we seem to take after writing our own narrative is to share that narrative with others. Once a narrative has become the common narrative of a group it becomes their culture. Essentially culture is a group-shared-narrative. It influences how the group perceives and interprets their environment and the events in it. This shared narrative is powerful because it becomes part of each individuals shared identity. They become part of something larger than themselves. The narrative will also tell them how the story of their life should play out to be considered an acceptable or good life.

Religion is the most powerful of shared narratives. When a story or mythology becomes enshrined in rituals and ceremony it becomes a religion, this in turn creates the common plot line for the group to follow. It tells the followers what is right and what is wrong and how to live the good life and attain the ultimate resolution: Heaven, Enlightenment or reincarnation or how to avoid your life becoming a tragedy: Hell and ignorance. It is a narrative that in many cases gives birth to cultures.

Now the unfortunate side-effect of this complex storytelling is how deeply involved people become in carrying out the intended plots of their stories. When two powerful, competing and opposing narratives crash into each other it becomes a battle for the ultimate narrative. They become locked in a death-struggle for they both believe their can only be one. As the narratives viciously clash for the hearts and minds of the people the causalities can be counted in acts of war, terrorism, genocide and murder. Even though the narratives are abstractions created by humans the followers adhere to them so devoutly and unquestioningly that is is beyond fathoming the possibility that it is just a story. History is littered with the war of the gods, the gods being the stories of the human heart's struggle to find meaning.

Ancestral Memories

2010-04-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

Comprehending the many facets of the genetic heritage we have all received from our ancestors and the implications of it is almost unimaginable. Try to fathom the sheer number of people and lives that it takes just to create a single individual. This has left me often wondering if we have been the physiological inheritors of all the physical traits of our ancestors if it isn't also possible to have stored somewhere inside us their memories. It might only be manifested in our physical or personality characteristics, which though they might be subtle still play a critical role in our lives. But what if actual memories of our ancestors lives were inside our unconsciousness imprinted on us? What if part of why we are all the way we are is because of those hidden memories deep inside of us?

There are aspects of my own life that I haven't been able to understand about why I like some of the things I do. For example, most of my life I have lived far from the sea and yet I remember once while I was a teenager watching a movie about sailing and feeling an intense passion to go sailing. I dreamed about sailing and at one point it almost influenced the entire direction of my adult life as I strongly considered joining the United States Coast Guard just so I could go sailing. This hidden passion of mine felt like it came from nowhere, surprising me, or maybe it came from a part of me that is much older sleeping deep inside me. I don't ever remember reading any books, watching any movies or even talking about sailing growing up and yet there it was this desire to be out at sea. Now, what is not a coincidence is that both of my Grandfathers were sailors and given my Scandinavian heritage they were likely not my only ancestors who spent their lives at sea.

The past isn't over, it is still alive today in each of us, generations past are touching us and our day. They are not so distant as we might think. The secret of immortality is posterity.

Monsters are Real

2010-03-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

I have often wondered where the fascination with Horror movies and novels comes from. It always seemed a bit strange to me that people actually want to freak themselves out. Then after reading a few classic horror novels I began to realize there is something much deeper going on here. Monsters are real. Yep, they are very real, they are us. External projections of the our darker sides. The live just beneath the surface.

Look at some of the classic monsters. Zombies, why have they been especially popular lately in both film and literature? I don't think it is because of anything unique that zombies do, but that to many people they are able to relate with Zombies on an unconscious level. They are the symbol of the living dead, which is probably what many people feel their lives are like after giving up on their ambitions and dreams and instead have settled into a monotonous routine that drains the life from them. Zombies feed on the living, meaning that those without dreams try and feed on those that do, maybe in an attempt to share in that "living" that appears so appetizing.

The werewolf is an interesting one. It is a half/man half/animal and the struggles that a person might have with their own animal appetites. It is interesting that the werewolf only transforms at night under a full moon. The animal side of us only coming out at night. The hunger of the flesh. This is a dualistic battle of the man vs. his own instincts and appetites which fight as hard as he can he still succumbs. The werewolf could be that person inside us that struggles with an addiction. Anything that overpowers us and turns us into something that we despise.

The Vampire is another fascinating one. In nature blood suckers are also known as parasites. They feed on the lives of others therefore they are dependent on others. Vampires are the reflection of the overly dependent personality. The person who drains relationships by always taking and needing and never giving. Thus vampires are those who prey on the "living" in this case the living might be those who are seemingly happy with their own lives. Not satisfied with the life of their own they try to drink it in from off of others.
The feed on other's happiness unable to sustain it on their own because they have never gained their own independence.

Frankenstein, (incorrectly named, but it is the name everyone knows him by) is the created or artificial man. The one who has worked hard to style their life in a fashion to be accepted and loved by others. Instead they find their efforts have made them more difficult to love because they don't seem real, they are inauthentic. Their mask prevents them from having genuine relationships because people are unable to connect with something or someone who isn't real, or true to themselves. Most are ostracized.

This can be done with any monster. When you take a monster apart and focus on the elements that make it such one can begin to see the very "human" patterns. There is definitely something comforting about externalizing the things we hate or despise about our own nature. When it is outside of us then we can focus our hate on to it. Maybe this is why we like scary books and movies. It is a chance to look in the mirror and see our own shadows.

Fear

2010-02-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

The essays on love wouldn't be complete without discussing the opposite of love. Now for many obvious reasons hate appears to be the opposite. This is simply not the case. Hate is strange, it is a twisted form of love, more like a malevolent love. Where love is recognizing that connection with others and wanting what is best for others, hate recognizes that connection and seeks to destroy it, but the more it tries the more impossible it becomes making one only that much more tightly connected to their object of hate. Therefore both love and hate share this key attribute in common.

Now, on the other hand the real opposite of love is Fear. For the longest time it escaped me as to why this was. I always felt like there was something unique about fear and its relationship to love but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I think I understand it a little better.

The irony of fear is that from a biological and evolutionary perspective it is designed to help us survive. However, this obsession with survival can also do that which it is supposed to protect us from, only this time we are dead to living.

The core of fear is the inability to accept death. In whatever form death may come in, it can be as literal as the passing away of a loved one or a final good bye when someone leaves people behind they may never see again. Rooted in our mortality, death lurks behind every corner of our life as the ultimate boogie man. We run, hide and avoid it with tremendous psychological and emotional effort. This anxiety of death is what fear is.

Fear is a paralytic that renders us inactive. It is the ultimate suppressant, depressant and oppressant. Mullifier and nullifier of dreams. The rust that degrades our existence. The silent killer of human potential. Why do we fear so much? Why does it fill our veins and gain control over us? What is the end goal and purpose of fear? To leave us incapacitated and reactive? Fear isolates us. That is where its true power lies. When we give into fear we feel cut off, from life, from others from those connections that sustain us and life. That is why it is the opposite of love. Fear accomplishes what hate cannot, it severs those connections, at least psychologically and emotionally. Where hate still leaves us bound to others, fear separates us. The end of fear is to so thoroughly shrink our internal lives till we suffer a spiritual death.

Feeding on Insecurities

2010-01-26T15:05:00.001-08:00

The backbone of American consumerism is built upon the insecurities of its citizens. To successfully convince people their worth depends on external factors is to enslave them. Unfortunately I think there is a little more to it than just that. Consumerism is a quasi-replacement for self-actualization through the numbing of one's life growing pains. It is depressing to walk into any large department store and see the lifeless stares of people piling their carts full of worthless junk. The lost passion, potential and craving for a deeper and higher purpose to life. You just want to walk up to them and give them a big hug and shake them in an attempt to re-ignite that flame for life. I think the scariest journey that most of us want to avoid at almost any cost is the journey inside ourselves and the questioning of our own existence. It is a painful, difficult journey of self-discovery that is the only thing that brings about the self-fulfillment we all so secretly and desperately crave.

However, those who chose to surrender their journey towards their own center are easily controlled either physically, emotionally or psychologically by forces outside themselves. Marketers will sell them their dreams, their identity and their place and purpose in the world. Others will tell them what to believe and what to do with their life. Once you delve bellow the surface of their skin you won't find anything left but emptiness.

Our lives are a struggle, a fight for control and responsibility for our own existence. We battle the emptiness and void that fills the dark recesses of our hearts. Seek as we might for salvation from our human condition in others or things all will certainly fail us. Only when we finally realize that we alone can give meaning to our existence do we find our stride, confidence and our own lives.

Love Part II

2010-01-20T14:49:00.000-08:00

I should have finished this blog long ago, but I must admit that the topic so thoroughly intimidates me that I have had a hard time finishing it. So here it is, after a 9 year journey to discover what I thought the real root and core of love is. So in my simple and crude way I hope I can pull it off.

Picking up where I left off from my last entry which was after discovering all the things that love is not I stumbled on a big clue, empathy. I felt like there was something to Empathy and that it might be a big part of Love. It made sense, to be able to feel and see things from others point of view. To share this life with others and experience many of the same things. It seems to strengthen people's ability to connect with each other. Empathy took me one step closer but it was still not satisfying to me. The main part that caught my attention about empathy was connection. That was the piece that seemed to be everywhere when I analyzed love.

After much frustration and thought slowly the pieces began to come together. That is when I finally understood it. With this last big piece it finally dawned on me: Love is the recognition of the unity of all things.

I wish there was a stronger word than recognition that could convey the penetrating depth of that idea. This is no small thing, when it actually sinks in it can bring about a huge paradigm shift of a person's reality. All of a sudden life no longer seems quite so empty or meaningless, everything starts to make a little more sense. The good and bad go together, pain and pleasure, happiness and sadness, life and death, order and chaos. All of it is connected, we are connected, life feeds on death and death feeds on life. Chaos destroys order and order tries to tame chaos. In relationships when this love is realized we see on a micro level how two lives become so completely intertwined and how connected they are for better or for worse. When a couple can truly see that connection they have with each other they are capable of realizing that to hurt the other is to hurt one's self. To bless another is to bless yourself. To dehumanize another is to dehumanize yourself. We can't escape the fact that we are all in this together. We are separate individuals, but every aspect of our lives touches other people, countless, most of whom we don't even know. When we realize that connection, then all of a sudden the light of life burns the eyes of our souls and we realize how beautiful and simply amazing life really is. This goes beyond just relationships with humans, but with all life both animate and inanimate. Love helps us in seeing reality for what it truly is.

There is transcendence in love, it is possible that once it is truly realized one can rise above the human condition. I think that is why all who attain it seem to have an almost impenetrable serenity about them. It is possible for anyone. I wish I could do this topic more justice but alas I have not the skill or ability.

Airports,

2010-01-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

Airports, the in between place.

Feet scurrying, departures, arrivals.
The coffee stained air, the red eyes, tired faces, long journeys behind, the long ones ahead.
Powered by jet fuel and caffeine, everything moves quickly, efficiently.

Stop,

waiting,

sitting,

watching,

dreams of homecomings,

lofty adventures,

the exhausted longing for a bed.

A Clock keeps ticking, the merciless Emperor of the realm,
controlling, dictating to all.

Love: Part I.

2009-10-30T06:19:00.000-07:00

Alright I am about to embark on my most difficult bit of writing. For years now I have contemplated how to best share this central aspect of my life philosophy, Love. During that time I have added new insights into the topic and gained a clearer understanding of it. In trying to figure out how to tackle this most daunting task of extracting it from my mind and soul I decided to share what I have learned about it over the years in chronological form. That way the reader can understand the full context of how this topic has become so thoroughly important to me. And so it begins.

Love is a strange word. It has so many nuances that it can mean so many different things to many people. It is used so commonly and profanely that it has even lost a bit of its luster. Yet even so it is probably the single most important life enriching word of any language. The sheer depth of it is tremendous and many aspects beyond words or comprehension. Part of it is known, part of it is felt and part of it is simply embraced. So to begin this exploration I will rewind to where it all began for me. In the confusion over the myriad of values and principles by which to govern my life often I felt overwhelmed by which should be given priority.

Years ago I came across this passage over and over again and each time I read it I was lost as to what exactly it meant. And thus my pilgrimage into my soul began .

1 Corthinians 13:1-3: Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
(charity also can be translated as love)

Religion completely aside, this passage is striking. It got me started looking in the right direction and it wasn't the only one nor the last. Over and over again I found it everywhere as a central unifying theme in art and literature. It essentially sums up life's ultimate purpose and priority. No amount of success, wealth or grand achievements in life will ever compare or mean anything if this one important part of our lives is missing. This is not love as preference, affection, loyalty, brotherhood, or romance though those are all branches of it, no it must be beyond those. It couldn't just simply be an evolutionary attribute developed as the glue of social organization. There must be something more, something much more meaningful, powerful and with purpose. I wasn't satisfied with the popular conceptions of love. I felt it had to be larger and more enduring than all of us.

So love is important so what? Why should anyone care? There must be some reason or purpose behind it besides people just saying it is important or it feeling nice. This is where I got stuck. Why does it matter? And so I continued to delve deeper.....

Eyes of Eternity

2009-09-22T21:31:00.000-07:00

Staring into the eyes of eternity

I see generations past gazing

back at me.

Countless lives have come before

her, to make this little soul be.

How many will follow and what

stories will they tell?

Each life an unwritten drama

that plays out on the Present's

stage.

So tiny and fragile, I hold the

infinite in my arms.

Completely unaware of all life

connections, she sighs.

Author's Note

2009-09-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I realize that some of my blogs as of recent have had a dark undertone to them. I have been going through some difficult times and the temptation to focus on voicing only the pain was very enticing. Upon recognizing my imbalance I am now seeking to correct it as it is not a true picture of what is really go on with me at the moment nor what I truly believe.

I love life, I love everything about it, the good with the bad, the comfort with the pain. The contradictions, paradoxes and frustrations. There is so much to experience and learn that I am extremely grateful to be able to be a part of it all. At times it can feel a bit overwhelming, but it doesn't last forever. Soon the sun rises again, the dark disperses and life refreshes itself anew. I am an optimist, I believe that there is something to be learned from everything. The more pain and sorrow we experience only carves out the insides of our heart so it can be filled with more joy soon after.

Balance and an accurate reflection of my real thoughts are my new goal now.

Reality: A Self-Created Hell or Paradise

2009-09-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

If reality is largely based on perception how do we ensure our's are not skewed? How can we see clearly? The most frustrating element of dreaming for me is how even though I am supposedly in control how powerless I feel in my dreams. Like the sensation of seeing everything through half-closed eyse and I can't open them all the way no matter how hard I try. I imagine myself trying to do something and I exert a mental effort to accomplish a task that feels more arduous than its physical equivalent. Being awake though doesn't feel all too much different except for a few more consistencies. The lingering feeling of not being completely in control of my universe is still there. I reach and grasp at understanding only to have it escape me. Like a mind half-awake I stumble trying to match my will with my actions.

Flower

2009-09-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

I once found a lovely flower,
with such a lively essence

Everything around it enhanced
by its delightful presence.

Along ungracious age came,
robbing that fragile beauty.

Wilting, I observed ignoble
death perform its solemn duty.

Drooping, the petals fell, color
faded and slowly it blew away.

Withered, crumbled no longer
what it was in eternal yesterday.

Sad little flower you once awoke
such feelings with your enticing hue

Dust methodically reclaiming, taking
those precious gifts back with you.

Silently Sitting

2009-09-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

In a dark room,
with a heavy heart,
the tears creep down
without a sound.

Reaching and not
grasping. hoping
and not finding.
pain all around.

I find myself
alone, constantly
aching, pondering
and silently sitting.

The Eternal Present

2009-08-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

What if time was nothing more than an illusion? What if the present was nothing more than an illumination on one part of our lives? What if we have already lived our lives and the future is no different than the past? Like a completed film, the characters that exist within the meta-reality of the film can't percieve that all their choices have already been made all the way to the end of the movie. They only know that fraction of the film that is illuminated by the film projector. Something about this rings true to me but I am not sure exactly what. I have had dreams in my life where I have seen specific events in the future. Of course at the time I have the dream they mean absolutely nothing to me. I disregard them as just pure randomness. Then later I will find myself in that exact moment I dreamed of an have an intense and powerful feeling of deja-vu. Then I remember the dream. This all happens quickly and then the feeling passes and my mind goes blank. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it except that I find that if happens over and over again. I have no explanation for it. The other thing I find intriguing is how the events are usually seemingly trivial, of little significance in themselves but they are powerful in their specificity. It makes me wonder about how I am able to dream these things. The way I see it I have a few possible explanations. First, these are just random visions produced by my unconscious mind from extrapolating the sum of my entire past and past decisions and then making a prediction of how I will act or do something at a future date. Second, its simply some revelation confirming that I am where I am because this is where I am supposed to be. Or thirdly, my future is actually my past and I have already lived my life out in a series of different lives based on different choices I've made or will make. There is a problem with some of these explanations as I see it and that being free will, another topic entirely. Is free will an illusion? does it even exist? Am I really making choices in my life or have I already made them? The idea of not having free will always sounds terrifying. I think this is in part because of how we perceive time in a linear fashion. Is time linear just because that is how we perceive it? I am inclined to doubt that. We already know time is relative. If it isn't linear then, what is it? I don't know, that is too far out of the box for me to comprehend. I am stuck in the present.

The Glance that Changed the World

2009-08-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

The bell has rung.
The students sit.
A joke is told.
A glance is made.
One smile is seen.
One heart is touched.
Two eyes have met.
Two lives forever changed.

Passionate about Politics

2009-08-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

I hesitated for a long time about even making this slide show. I have been collecting these images for a couple of years and simply stashed them away. My difficulty with sharing them and putting them to music is and has been the fear of trivialization. This is not entertainment, each image portrays raw human power and emotion. I intentionally chose the music not to be flamboyant but to add a touch of irony to the soberness. In the end we are all like children that never completely grow up, we only take ourselves more seriously.

Timid

2009-08-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

Playful, trusting love, why
do you cower away and hide?

Come out and teach me
to heartily laugh once more.

Wrap your mirthful arms around
me, open my trembling heart.

Let my face feel the dancing of
merry grins and smiles.

Shake me free from all my
crippling oppressive fears.

Peel away the darkness that
clouds my weary sight.

Show me how to see again
the world so full of color.

Firmly take my hand and
leave me alone no more.

Stay with me, guiding me
and walk this lonely path.

Bureaucracy

2009-08-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

It's a monster that was created to counter act our our own inability to be honest. Dishonesty comes at such a steep price that we are ever increasing the size of this beast. It takes on a life of its own, difficult like bacteria to get rid of once created. As our own cultural values and morals of integrity erode the necessity for bureaucracy unfortunately increases. It is an ironic cycle, for as bureaucracy grows it too contributes to the dissolution of integrity by negating its need. Someone's word doesn't mean much anymore when we value written contracts more. Bureaucratic culture makes itself more important by isolating and weakening bonds and relationships between people that once were only held together by verbal commitments. Now you need a contract, a certificate and a signature for everything. This whole process is rather dehumanizing as you no longer have an identity outside what your are granted. Part of the beauty of a human birth is stripped away when amid the celebrations of a new life the thought that your baby doesn't legally exist until you fill out a couple a dozen forms weigh down your mind. And so before we are allowed to live we must first get a certificate that says we are alive. Our lives continue upon this framework of reality filling out form after form so we can be a certified person, certified child, driver, adult, married person, tax payer, home owner, car owner child owner, land owner, knowledge owner. The climax of course is our own death. One isn't dead until they have their certificate saying they are.

This isn't to say that Bureaucracy should be abolished, it has its function and purpose. The irony simply lies in the fact that it contributes to the problem it was designed to resolve, trust.

Truth Pried Open

2009-08-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

The blinding light that burns the dimly lit eyes of our souls. It vanquishes our lies and exposes our hypocrisy. It is the familiar song that resonates with our entire being. We feel it, recognize it and want to express it but words defy us. One cannot control it, contain it, manipulate it. Only embrace it and be embraced by it. We lose it the harder we try to find it. As our minds become more and more institutionalized we create our own internal prison. cutting ourselves off from it we grow more ignorant the more we try to be competent. We tame, mold, force beat our own thoughts into a systematized, dogmatized way of thinking. Our world is flipped upside down, conformity is celebrated and praised in the most deceitful way, by attaining degrees and certifications we feign to be closer to truth but instead all we have done is imprisoned our mind into others' ways of thinking.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" John 8:32

Chinnese Torture

2009-08-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

Drip....Drip.... Drip....

The house lies still, every noise pierces the silence
shaking me from my desperate sleep.
A creak, a step. A car door slam.
The click and the soft cool hum of the air conditioner.

Thump.. Thump.. my heart beat is audible,
slow and clear I listen.
Inhale. Exhale. Air rushes through my nostrils.
Anxiety keeps me company.

Time creeps by as I wait to fall asleep.
Someone stirs. A muffled cry.
My thoughts hastily swirling.
Can't quiet my mind.

A constant sound haunts the night.
The loud echo of dripping water.
Each drop hits a pool of nerves
rippling through me.

Drip... Drip....Drip....Drip....

Lost in the Insanity of Words

2009-07-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

Oh the irony of blogging about the very means I use to communicate with. Trapped!! I cannot escape the frustration of life being filtered through something so small and abstract as words. Yet without them I am stuck inside my own head. My mind is screaming and not a sound is heard. The limitless fathoms of my imagination and still I feel so isolated.

Often I have wondered about what solitary confinement in a prison is like. Yet I realize that is how our souls have always lived. The infinite ways to ignore this consuming darkness keeps the insanity at bay.

Why else would so many rather stare outward then into the nothingness and emptiness of their own hearts? Every time I take a glimpse I feel myself suffocating. I want to take in a deep breathe and all I can find is a straw.

Words are the ultimate school bullies, they intimidate, taunt, demean, belittle, cheapen our thoughts, feelings and experiences. Wearing those insecurities like sickening bruises.

Silently screaming AHHHHHH!!!!!!

Painful Dreams

2009-05-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

On the back of lofty dreams
I dropped a precious stone

Released, it flew downward
to a place for me unknown,

Hurriedly I dived to scoop
it back in my gentle arm

Too late, upon arriving, it
had already suffered harm

When did my dreams fly so
blindly into the burning sun?

That I didn't see what I was
doing until the deed was done.

Precious stone come back to
me, the heart of all life's splendor

My dreams can survive no more
without your brilliant wonder

-Johann Petros

HONESTY

2008-02-04T00:44:00.001-08:00

Honesty is problematic. It seems as though being honest is not as big of a problem as hearing it. We have things that help us guard or protect ourselves from it: Politeness, manners, tact, and other unwritten rules of social behavior. We don't tell people the truth because we think it'll hurt them and so we think we are doing them a service by sparing them. The reality appears to be the contrary. Dishonesty cuts us off from others, it isolates us. We hide behind these facades of pleasantries at the expense of having genuine relationships with others. I think as a culture, we are at the point where we not only can't handle total honesty but we don't even want it. I guess where the line has been drawn is that just because someone is being honest doesn't mean what they are saying is true. Opinions can be honest and still false. Honesty got lost somewhere when we pushed for everyone to keep their opinions to themselves. Still, opinions even negative ones are reflections of who we are and we hide them and instead tell people what they want to hear. I think every time we do this we cheapen that relationship. Making it more superficial. With so many natural barriers, culture, ideological paradigms, beliefs, that already distance us from others why add to it.

Insanity

2008-01-22T17:58:00.000-08:00

What is insanity really? Why does the word have such negative connotations? Is insanity bad? I guess it all matters who you ask. Many people who might have once been thought insane have had deep impacts on history. People who have unorthodox beliefs plus the courage to act on them are commonly considered insane. But these are the people that bring about change. They are the gadflies that sting complicit societies into a higher level of consciousness. Their lives are uncomfortable to us because they challenge us and our apathetic views and existence. What if instead we associated a negative stigma towards blatant and unthinking conformity? What if we treat that as a threat instead? Insanity is a hard word to peg down because it is used in a variety of extreme situations. But it is reasonable to simply state that it is the opposite of sane purely based on semantics. That being the case maybe it would be easier to define insane by defining what it isn't; sane. So what is sane? Some would answer that it is "Behavior based on rational thought" But that doesn't tell us anything. What is and isn't rational changes easily with context. Slavery may have been rational in a brutal world where death and uncertainty meant that you did whatever you had to to survive, including adopting practices that are now considered obscene. So then is sanity just mainstream thought and behavior? Whatever the masses think? If that is the case then it is based on a weak foundation. The masses aren't always known for their "thinking" but conformity. Nor are they known for their great contributions towards the societal and intellectual evolution of Humanity. We all too readily use the label of insanity as a way to discredit or write someone off. They become easier to ignore, like they are sub-human because they don't think like the rest of us. If in the end the distinction between sanity and insanity is nothing more than thoughtless Conformity and any level of Non-conformity then I would rather be insane.

Universal Truths

2007-12-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Does such a concept even exist? Is it possible to have universal truths? It seems that every time mankind tries to tie down a universal truth it eludes them. This has been a ferocious debate and little consensus has ever been reached. It appears that we want universal truths almost out of a fear of the Alternative. To not have universal truths opens up a Pandora's box of strange explanations. We cling to this idea that there must be universal truths despite not being able to prove a single one. But why must we prove things? Something is lost when we confine some part of reality in a fact or definition, we limit it, we make it mortal and want to control it. Maybe there really are universal truths but they are lost when we try to define them. Concepts or principles like love, happiness, joy, quality, excellence and perfection; we all have vague notions of what they are and maybe recognize some manifestations when we see it. But we still can't say what they are exactly. Like trying to squeeze water, the harder we squeeze the more we lose what we are trying to hold on to. Even our so called "hard sciences' can't be proven as universal truths, physics has become more and more uncertain as the realm of Quantum physics has re-written and changed the rules of the universe. Math, basic arithmetic is unprovable , and geometry can be re-written with new axioms to create equally valid and functional geometries. So even the fields of study we thought were concrete are not. Again, maybe it comes back to definition, maybe life can't be contained or confined in words or some universal law. Maybe life and the universe follows a more organic pattern and is meant to be in constant flux.

Books

2007-12-08T21:38:00.000-08:00

Through them I transcend into other worlds.

I have lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths.

I've fallen in love hundreds of times and fallen out of it hundreds more.

I've wept for the savagery of humanity and savored its beauty and glory.

Though none of these lives are my own, once read, they all have become part of who I am.

Another Observation on Journalism

2007-10-23T17:28:00.001-07:00

If reading the news could be compared to eating I would be obese, especially since a lot of news is the equivalent of junk food. As a major consumer of news articles I have noticed a pattern in the writing style that I find a bit intriguing. I can't help but notice that Journalists sound a lot like college student term papers with just a few less grammatical errors. Think about it, Journalists are not specialists in any one field and their job is to report (make) the news. They have deadlines and there is a grading system, front page = A paper. When a Journalist receives an assignment they may know little about it and they have limited time to learn.
Now anyone familiar with college term papers is aware how students will take a topic and a thesis and then try to back it up with some research. A common sin in writing these papers would be to try and build the best argument possible by omitting certain details that might be damming to the paper or spinning statistics in a more favorable light. Due to the time constraints one thing a student tries to avoid is actually changing their thesis or adapting it after they have discovered that they are in error and there is little time left. I have noticed that Journalists tend to do the same thing, whether or not they do it intentionally or as a result of not fully comprehending what they are reporting. Imagine using a college term paper and then having everyone read it like it was fact or read by people who don't know how to see through the obvious mistakes or errors? You are basically building a social "knowledge database" based on erroneously or not entirely accurate papers. Yet this is what happens, Journalists do it for a living and are rarely questioned by the public at large if they are even qualified to be reporting on certain topics. This could also contribute to the reason behind why our news sounds so alarmist and definite about the things they report. The more believable sounding an article the better. Of course, to not sound completely biased they will throw in a few qualifiers that can be easily over-looked.
The only proper way for me to finish this metaphor would be to adopt the journalistic style of finishing my article with some anecdotal humor like: When reading the news, take it as serious as peer reviewing a term paper.

Conservatisation of America

2007-10-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

You got to love the media in the U.S. Especially the news agencies, now the only thing that rivals the news in their fear-mongering style has to be the tabloids. I think the real kicker is that the media, except for FOX, generally speaking has a bit of a liberal bias, but no one does more damage to their own bias then they do. The stories they run are enough to make some want to live in a Bomb-Shelter and home-school their children. Stories like "Is your neighbor a Pedophile?", "Students in Peril?: Sexual Misconduct Plagues US Schools", "Is the Stock Market Going to repeat the crash of '87?", "Bush Announces Possibility of WWIII". The titles of the stories almost always sound more serious than what is really going on. The drama is endless, and that is what most of it is exaggerated drama. That isn't to say that there isn't truth in the stories, of course they have to have it based on something, that is where glorious statistics come in. Citing statistics seems like the "end all discussion it is a fact" method most loved by reporters. That is because numbers can be intimidating and taken lightly out of context can be hard to understand. But, statistics like words, can be spun to serve anyones agenda. Someone could use the same statistics and argue both sides that something is getting better and getting worse depending on how you interpret the numbers.
All of that isn't my point, my point is how some people wonder why there is this conservative resurgence in the US. Well, if you get a good dose of doped up American news everyday you too might find yourself asking "why can't we go back to the good old days?" as if life in the past was better and had less problems. Thus the irony, a liberal media pushing the conservatisation of America.
This is all coming from a real news junkie.

After Dippin Into the Summa Contra Gentiles

2007-10-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

To truth, it seems to us life once was nearer,
The world ordered, intelligences clearer,
Wisdom and knowledge were not yet divided.
They lived far more serenely, many-sided,
Those ancients of whom Plato, the Chinese,
Relate their incandescent verities.
Whenever we entered the temple of Aquinas,
The graceful Summa contra Gentiles,
A new world greeted us, sweet, mature,
A world of truth clarified and pure.
There all seemed lucid, Nature charged with Mind,
Man moving from God to Him, as He designed.
The Law, in one great formulary bound,
Forming a whole, a still unbroken round.
But we who belong to his posterity
Seem condemned to doubt and irony,
To journeys in the wilderness, to strife,
Obsessions, and longings for a better life.

But if our children's children undergo
Such sufferings as ours, they will bestow
Praise up us as blessed and as wise.
We will appear transfigured in their eyes,
For out of our lives' harsh cacophonies
They will hear only fading harmonies,
The legends of an anguish often told,
The echoes of contentions long grown cold.

And whose of us who trust ourselves the least,
who doubt and question most, these, it may be,
Will make their mark upon eternity,
And youth will turn to them as to a feast.
The time may come when a man who confessed
His self-doubts will be ranked among the blessed
Who never suffered anguish or knew fear,
Whose times were times of glory and good cheer,
Who lived like children, simple happy lives.

For in us too is part of that Eternal Mind
Which through the aeons calls to brothers of its kind:
Both you and I will pass, but it survives.

-Hermann Hesse

Stages

2007-10-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.

Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
Th Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.

Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
An life may summon us to newer races.
So be it heart: bid farewell without end.

-Hermann Hesse

Religion as Escapism

2007-10-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

I know this title seems a bit unfair. I am not dogging religion per-se but how some people interact or apply it in their lives. There are many things that can be considered escapist, and its true almost any aspect of our lives can be escapist. Television, video games, drugs, drinking, you name it whatever time consuming and mind-numbing experience you can think of would be escapist. Now, first what is escapism? I am not sure if that is a word or not, but I am inclined to think so since my spell-check hasn't tried to correct me. I define it thus, escapism in the context I am using it is when people try to find a way to hide from and or ignore the realities of life. Now as for religion, this is my beef, I actually believe that there are a great deal of religionists who use religion as a way to not have to think for themselves. They actually like the idea of having someone else tell them everything to believe or not to believe. This can be true in regards to religious authority figures or even higher up than that RELIGIOUS BOOKS. People mindlessly read these things without ever questioning if any of it is ridiculous or even applicable. I am not saying that religious texts are bad or incorrect, what I am suggesting is that many people want others to make decisions for them. They don't want to think, they want someone else to tell them what to do or believe. They put all their trust in a religious text and don't bother thinking about it. I think as humans we crave truth, but many of us don't want to sacrifice much to find it, in fact it is much easier if someone just told us so we don't even need to bother. What bothers me particularly about the interaction with religion is how people surrender their search for truth because they don't think there is any thing more than what has already been written or said. These non-thinking religious people actually hurt religion, they are the ones who create the frustrating religious culturalisms and try to get others to follow. They spread their bad ideas and try to make them of equal value to the good ones. In its extreme form these are the also the religious Zealouts who become martyrs that hurt not only themselves but others as well. I think that filling that void in our lives that craves truth is a deeply personal journey, one no one or no text can do for us, alone is the only way. I think it is part of what makes a life rich is the journey, the personal struggle to find that truth and maybe in most cases that truth is nothing more than truth about yourself. It is just sad how easily people will give up their search and quickly embrace unquestioned statements made by others. (I wrote this a little late at night and I wasn't fully coherent so my thoughts may seem scrambled, I will edit it later).

The Pre-Packaged Life

2007-09-08T21:12:00.001-07:00

How much of one's life is already lived for them when they are born? They enter the world with a detailed plan for all the things they have to do when the reach a certain age. They of course still have a choice, but the pressure to conform is so strong that many are simply shamed into submission living the life others want them and expect them to live. When the individual finally gets around to asking themselves who they are they cannot honestly answer. They have become a non-person, someone who has lived their lives the way others wanted them to. Their sole motivation has been to please others. They never questioned anything, never sought true introspection and drowned out that hunger by wrapping themselves more and more into their social lives and conformity. When they die their shallow footprint on life quickly fades with them.

Passion Without a Cause

2007-09-08T21:11:00.001-07:00

That is how I feel about myself. It is the bane of my existence, not the Passion part, but the lack of a cause with which to focus it. I have found I have never truly been satisfied with anything I have done, everything that I have done I could have done better. In many instances I have only half-heartedly involved myself in my pursuits. Few are the times in my life when I can truly say that I came very close to giving everything I had and dedicated myself so fully there was little left to give. It is the frustration of knowing that I have and am living below my potential that drives me mad. I have the desire but what I need is a focal point, something that I can throw myself into completely. When I think about what it is I really want to do with my life I have these vague notions in my head but no way of knowing for sure if that is what I truly want. I live with a persistent fear that I will not accomplish anything of significant value to myself. I don't want to live an unlived life. At times when I believe I have found something I feel I want to do I jump at it with all the force I can muster to only to quickly run out of steam. By steam I mean motivation. I look at my school career and I am almost disgusted with it, by some standards many would consider my meager accomplishment acceptable and even above average, but what they think doesn't matter. I am the one that has to live with the fact that I know I underperformed. I gave what my professors wanted but I didn't give anything uniquely my own. This is only an example of many instances in my life where the input and outcome was the same. To some this note may seem almost petty, but to me it makes all the difference in the world. To others what I say may resonate with them because they too feel the same dissatisfaction. And so with nothing else to do, I trudge on.

Negative Faith

2007-09-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

I know the title seems a bit strange. But I am using the word "Negative" in a different context. When I was reading "Man's search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl I was intrigued by his use of the word in reference to "Negative Happiness" in which he defined it as merely "freedom from suffering". It wasn't a real happiness per-se. I was thinking about this in regards to faith. I believe that the whole purpose of our existence is about relationships, first with God and second with our fellow man. Because relationships are so important that is why Christ-like-love is the supreme gift of God man can receive. I believe that was what Christ's message was all about when he came to earth. He saw that many had drifted from the true purpose of our existence and he came to restore it back to its simple purity. This drifting had occurred because many had become so dogmatic they cared more about creating and keeping of rules than developing any true relationship with God and their fellow man and thus charity and love were no longer central to religion. I think that many religious zealots have what I have now coined "negative faith". Their idea of true faith lies in creating and obeying strict rules and that through that they come to know God. However by focusing on the observation of these standards they miss the most important aspect of God, Love. Negative Faith lacks a real communion or relationship with God because without first developing Christ-like love we will never truly come to understand who he is. Hence, Negative faith creates more of a void than fills one. Second, like Christ said when asked which was the most important commandment "love the lord thy God with all thy heart, might, mind and strength and the second is like unto it, love thy neighbor as thy self. Upon this hangs all the laws of the prophets" when we do achieve this love everything else falls into place because if we truly love God and our fellow man we will not do anything to intentionally hurt or offend either. Negative faith loses God by trying to find him in dogmatized religion and strict obedience to man made rules becomes their God.

Ownership

2007-09-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

After what point does the owner become the owned? I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I find it interesting that in our scramble to accumulate more and more wealth and possessions there comes a point where our possessions start to posses us. For example the more things we buy the more things we have to buy to take care of those things. We buy a house, we have to fix it, paint it, buy insurance, fill it with things inside, remodel it. When the house gets really big and we are working all the time so we can afford the big house then we consider hiring someone to take care of our house, now we are scared of it being broken into because it is so expensive so we have to buy expensive security systems. We buy lawn care, pest-control, and join the homeowners association. We have to have a pool and the pool needs maintenance. Then we have to buy nice cars to go with the nice house we own. The nice cars need insurance and a big garage to protect them from theft and weathering. Of course we own more cars than we have drivers to drive them. And they can't be any ordinary cars but ones that draw attention ones that while we drive them others look at us in envy and wish they were us. Then we have to buy a big boat, an d the boat spends about 350 days out of the year just sitting in our garage accumulating dust. But now we have to buy boat insurance and life vests, water-skis, wake boards and other flotation devices that can be dragged behind a boat like a inflatable banana. After a while we accumulate so much junk that we are working ourselves into the ground just so we can keep all of this stuff. Now in this picture who is the master and who is the slave? And is ownership the means to true freedom? As Americans it seems like our goals in life is to work hard so that we can one day retire with the most stuff, but in the meantime life passed us by while we slaved away in an office trying to make more money than the next man.

Ignorance

2007-09-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Ignorance, one of the greatest and most dangerous plagues of mankind still wreaks havoc upon us in our “Information Age”. Ignorance is expensive. It exacts a high toll from us through out our entire lives. It affects us on several levels from spiritual to material. Like a darkness that blinds our vision we stumble through life because of it. We are slaves bound in heavy chains and our existence reduced to being trivial. It damages relationships between people because they don't understand each other. It destroys countries because the people can't see what they are doing to themselves. Individuals can spend their lives never learning or knowing themselves. What if we treated ignorance as an individual and social disease, one that we had to fight our whole lives to eradicate? Though it would always be with us, our lives would be richer from the fight. It is not that we are ignorant that is bad, because we will always be ignorant of something all our lives, it is the complacency of not wanting to try and rid ourselves of as much of it as we can. The false belief that we don't need to know anymore because we have our lovely diplomas from our prestigious schools hanging on our office walls for all to see and know that we are above ignorance, that is when we have become proud of our ignorance. I wouldn't necessarily say knowledge is the antithesis of Ignorance, but understanding. This idea has been stuck in my head for a long time and I can't help but think about how Western society focuses so much on Good and Evil, Saint and Sinner, good deeds and sins that ignorance may be looked upon with pity but not as a scourge like it should be. It costs everybody, we are all hurt by it we all suffer its effects. Wars are started in Ignorance, fights between friends and family. It turns humans into cattle and they can be driven whichever way the clever please; whether to be consumer-oriented or to blow themselves up. It is what makes history repeat itself after a lesson should have been learned the first time. Whatever I don't know or understand I pay for, whether it is a mechanic to fix my car or the emotional cost of a misunderstanding with my wife. We are all born into it; we should all be striving to climb out of it. Humility will prevent us from falling back into it.

Deification

2007-09-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

I wonder if it is not an inherent part of man to seek "God" or the "Divine". There almost seems to be an internal mechanism the drives us to seek Him/Her out. Even for those who verbally and consciously don't believe in a supreme being still find God in other things. At times God may be experienced in or through nature, or through an individual that one admires for their finer qualities. Our heroes are our heroes I believe in part because they have aspects that we consider quasi-God-like and so our admiration is more like a reverence for them. The majesty of a mountain or the simpleness of a strawberry, wherever we find things that strike awe or wonderment in our hearts, there we have found God.

American Nightmare

2007-09-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

It's ironic that our lifestyle as it is now, is ultimately what will destroy us as a country. The American dream, as it is sold to us by such clever marketers, is that it is every American's birth-right to live larger than life, to consume more than any other nation, to live wastefully and inefficiently. Our happiness is dependent on consumption. The ultimate paradox is that while a good portion of the world is starving to death, Americans are the only country where obesity is becoming a leading cause of death due to its relationship to heart failure. Yet we perpetuate it, and we force other countries to suffer so that we can continue to indulge ourselves in this delusion.

Suffering from Idealism

2007-04-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

Idealism like a sickness, once infected forever changes one's life. All of a sudden your life becomes driven by a burning disatisfaction of the world and your place in it.
- You want to feast on all the beauties of life and rid it of all the ugliness.
-You live with an almost constant frustration with how badly you wish things could be better and yet they are not.
-You want to stop being idealistic and yet you can not.
-You want to end the suffering in the world and yet it does not.
-You want to do great things and change the world and yet you probably will not.
- When others suffer you suffer with them, you want to give up hope and yet you must not.
So why are we idealistic knowing that many of our ideals will never be realized? In the words of a friend from the Czech Republic "we are idealistic so that we still have something to live for".

Welcome the the World of blogging

2007-04-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

Wow, I feel like I am now part of a new club of savvy internet users shooting out my personal thoughts into the empty world of cyber-space. It is a little funny how even though millions of people may use the internet how few will ever take notice of each other. People's thoughts are simply lost to the vast expanse of the omnicient world wide web.