Sunday Sermon [Welcome to the Real]

Hola mi Gente,

One day I found myself at a maximum-security prison sitting in the mess hall mentally criticizing everyone else there. I did this daily. How stupid these people are, I used to think to myself. Every day I would observe their selfishness, and lack of awareness and how I wasn’t like “them.” I did this until the very real fact that I was there also became clear to me. If those people were so defected, then what did that say about me? That question right there was more important than any answer.

* * *

Reality and the War on Our Senses

We throw our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

-- Unknown

We use one sense at the expense of the others. Ever since the invention of the photograph, for example, the visual sense has taken predominance over the others. We’ve become more and more insistent of having illustrations with stories, for example. Eventually movies became all the rage. Then television arrived in our homes, followed by video, cable, computer graphics, digital animation, and now, virtual reality. Imagine someone in the far future trying to explain our obsession with a piece of furniture... 

Our taste buds take second place. Fruits and vegetables are genetically engineered to satisfy our visual appetites, regardless of the sacrifice in flavor and nutrition. Poisons of every kind assault our biochemistry. Electromagnetic radiation zaps our natural bioelectrical fields that shape us.

Air pollution and synthetic fragrances dominate our sense of smell. Traffic, loud radios, and congested population over stimulate our hearing. In watching television, our right-brain hemispheres have to assemble the dots into a picture. As a result, we haven’t sufficient energy needed for left-brain discrimination. In actuality, heavy viewers literally become heavy; something in the habit of watching television slows down the metabolism.

“Natural flavors” are natural in name only, extracted from organic chemicals through harsh chemical processing. The multinational corporations that sell us these toxins call it “clean labeling” and the Food and Drug Administration co-signs it.

Our senses have become the pawns in a foolish game. Only when we awaken to our deepest, genuine sense will our intelligence flourish. I’m speaking here of a deep-seated common sense that chooses to remember, to know, to open up all the sensory channels and explore our intuitive common sense, what we call our imagination. Instead of asking, “Will we make it?” we should be asking, “What should we be doing now?”

As the historian Howard Zinn noted, neutrality on a moving train is not an option and we’re moving all the time, whether we want to or not. The wise among us are gathering their clues and direction from everywhere, even the knowledge of children and eccentrics, and those with whom they disagree.

The ability to question will be our saving grace. Our questions will be our liberators. When a large enough question has been asked, the lesson plan will appear. Years ago, a leader challenged the nation by asserting that in ten years a human would land on the moon. There is no such leadership available today (if there ever really was). Today we must take on the mantle of our own leadership, asking the questions needing asking and facing with creativity and innovation the challenges such questions pose.

It we are to thrive as individuals and as a society, the solution is the same: the deepest good sense to take leadership for ourselves. True visionaries identify with a cause that transcends personal ego, family, and friends. Causes and principles that transcend something larger than a mere grasp for personal success. And we can get there from here. We are a problem-solving species. When we finally make the decision to call upon our resources we make the impossible possible, and the possible inevitable.

I realize that during these challenging times that this might be hard to accept but the good news is that we’re living in a moment in time where we have the advantage of the fruits of the cross-fertilization of art and science, of spirituality and science, of analysis and intuitive flashes. By pulling together the scattered threads of our collective wisdom, we can consciously learn to tap into our deepest common sense. The next evolutionary leap demands that we, in fact, become the people we were always meant to be or become extinct.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Sunday Sermon [Acceptance]

¡Hola! Everybody...
It's another beach day today! During the 60s there was a famous poster depicting a swami, complete with flowing beard and robes, on a surfboard with the caption, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.” LOL! Here’s something to consider, especially relevant when life’s “waves” get too rough…

* * *

-=[ Living Life on Life’s Terms ]=-

This too shall pass...

The last thing we want to hear when we’re in pain is some truism. We’re in pain and clichés really have no place at the moment of impact. I mean, would you tell a victim of a car accident, “This too shall pass?” Well, I know some people who probably would! LOL

Nevertheless, clichés become clichés because they contain truths. Some of the most important teachings that help us with life’s hardships are simple to understand intellectually, but harder to integrate psycho-spiritually. It is only when we are finally free from a hurtful experience that we can claim to understand a truth. The following is based on a true story... 

Being in prison is depressing, to say the least, and as the prisoner looked at his surroundings -- the stone walls, the cold cell, the bars -- he couldn’t help but feel the weight on life on his shoulders. As the days passed, and the reality of his sentence settled in, his heart sank lower. Then one day, he attended a mandatory meeting and he heard one of the speakers say, “This too shall pass.”

At first those words elicited resentment, but as the days passed, those words seemed to pull him through. He printed those words on a blank sheet of legal pad paper, and he taped it above his bed and in that way, those were the last words he would see at the end of the day and the first words upon awakening. Eventually, he would pay an artist friend two packs of cigarettes so that now he had the words artistically engraved with fancy calligraphy on heavy stock paper. No matter how hard it got, he would look at those words and remember, “This too shall pass.”

On the day he was released, except for a few books, he gave away most of his belongings. As he was leaving, a friend asked about the sign, and the prisoner left it, perhaps hoping those words would comfort the next resident of that cell.

As he went about picking up the piece of his life after release, he would continue giving away that message, speaking on it at meetings and sharing it with those close to him -- those who were suffering. And even when times were bad, he never got depressed because he remembered the truth of, “This too shall pass,” and he struggled, one day at a time, sometimes one breath at a time. There were good times too, and he made sure to enjoy them, but never carelessly or mindlessly. In times of joy, he remembered again, “this too shall pass,” and so he continued living his life on life’s terms, not taking anything for granted. At first, living in this way, it seemed as if the good times lasted much too long.

Years passed, and the rewards of his actions accumulated, the former prisoner would become a lover, a father, a dutiful son, a husband. But along with the victories came pain and he would experience the loss of loved ones, relationships lost, the trials, and tribulations of life. He buried loved ones, grieved the losses of love, and experienced the slings of betrayal. Even then, “This too shall pass” still gave him hope and served to keep him focused and directed.

And that was his message to his friends and family -- to any who would listen. Finally, he understood that depression and sadness is a form of prison that “this too shall pass” helps us pass through. It is also one of the secrets to avoid depression, which is too often taking the happy times for granted.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

The Friday Sex Blog [Awakening]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Es un dia bonito aqui in the Center of the Known Universe…

* * *

-=[ Awakening to Emptiness ]=-

Oh no,
my body used to scream and,
curse that final spasm.

Love is the process
I would proclaim,
to finish it
my crime.

The other day, I was sitting down with a casual acquaintance engaged in a rather interesting conversation. As often happens when you’re having a good time, time seemed to fly and my friend excused himself. When pressed, he admitted he had to go home because he and the wife had scheduled time for sex. He didn’t seem especially excited. In fact, he looked like a condemned man going to his execution. And… his wife is a babe. She’s, like, instant hard-on gorgeous.

Sooner or later, even sex with someone you love can become routine. It can become a dry series of rituals which one has to perform dutifully.

The irony is that sex is so full of promise. Passion with skin on fire and almost unbearable bliss. The weeping embraces of vulnerable rapture -- yeah those moments when you make that noise that sounds like a chuckle married a sob. Those moments of transcendent merger as oneness… but usually, sex is pretty much mundane.

Men get hard, pump and grunt, squirt, let out their tension and relax. Women get wet, moan and hump, clutch and weep, and snuggle in affectionate comfort. Initially exciting, sex can become quite predictable. Even good sex can become standardized: you both learn each other buttons, which you push in order to get the right responses and then… pooof. Gone…

In this way sex somehow mirrors life in general. It’s actually less than you hoped. For almost anyone who’s been around the block a few times, sex and life become a comfortable or customary enjoyment, a habitualized routine of pleasure, comfort, and pain that is neurotically consoling at best, and often meaningless.

This is a good thing, dearest. Meaninglessness is a sign of growth. When something becomes boring it means that you are ready to delve deeper. When you are humping away in dissatisfaction, you are ready for deeper sex. Sex that feels empty reveals a deeper truth: sex is empty. Just like any other moment in life.

When you surrender yourself to the possibility of experiencing sex completely, you feel two things. On one level your genitals are engorged, your breathing is heavy, and your passion is inflamed. On another level… so what? You’ve been there/ done that and nothing fundamental has transpired. This moment of sex -- like every moment -- is amazingly rich and deliciously textured, but also strangely and paradoxically empty.

What happens if you dare to venture is that you come to the realization that nothing specific is missing from your sexual life. Of course, you can improve your sexual skills -- communicating your emotions more fully and enjoying multiple orgasms that last for hours -- yet, when your preoccupation with new pleasure and achievement wears off, you are again confronted with the awareness of a sense of emptiness.

The truth is all life is like that. We spend most of life energy trying to attach to or create something concrete in a reality where the only truth is that everything changes, nothing stays the same. You are not the same person you were when you first starting reading this. Biological processes have killed off cells and replaced them with new ones. Five years from now, your whole body will have been replaced using this dying/ birthing process. If you’re even a little awake, deeply held opinions and how you see yourself has changed and will continue to change. All around you, everything is dying and being reborn and dying again. Lovers come and go, loved ones pass away…

Every moment is empty in the sense that if you try to latch on to it, it slips through your fingers like the proverbial sands in the hourglass. The truth, dearest, is that every sexual moment is empty, insubstantial, unreal. And yet it is also true that every sexual moment is full, tangible, and explosively alive. Like a vivid dream, each moment is intense, spontaneously dynamic, and just as spontaneously gone, as if it never happened. Sex can be tender, a miracle of love, yet at the same time inconsequential. Sex is at the same time intense and vanished, and even when it’s utterly blissful, it is also utterly empty.

Immature lovers get lost in the brief rush of pleasure. Depressed adults stay stuck in the unsatisfying embrace of “not enough.” The truth is that every moment is substantially insubstantial -- both tangible and empty. The mature lover surrenders beyond the attachment, naked and vulnerable as life.

But to get to this level requires letting go of your neurotic need to feel good (or bad) about sex. My father, a wise man, advised me in my young adulthood to be a selfish lover. I think he meant for me to enjoy the thrill of romance and fascination for as long as it lasts because I would have to learn how to dance in the middle years of unsatisfying but decent sexual routine.

But this is where it gets really good (or beyond good or bad): eventually, when you have been shorn of your naïve hope, you will have no other choice but to relax within the reality of the emptiness. In this way, and only in this way, you’re able to wear love’s raiment of open bliss; to withstand the boundless luminosity, and you awaken to the awareness that sex is an intense revelation of what is.

Love,

Eddie

Hunger Myths

¡Hola! Everybody...
The way we look at ourselves is central to how we see the world. The way we see the world is central to how we see ourselves. In this way, our view of self and others is an ever-changing circle of influence -- a feedback loop. There is evidence, for example, that those who are happy see more positive aspects of the world than those who are depressed. We also know that living in an abusive or an overly restrictive environment (prisons are a prime example) can lead to depression. Today, I will use this framework in order to elaborate on world hunger...

* * *

-=[ Hunger Myths ]=-

The way I’ve heard it expressed, many Americans are inclined to think that if only the “third” world masses would stop having so many babies, they would have enough to eat. This is a convenient explanation because it has the advantage of easing our collective guilt because the implication is that starving people have only themselves to blame for their predicament. It’s the same defense mechanism used when addressing poverty or even immigration.

However, the data tells a different story. United Nations food and agriculture studies show conclusively that there is no obvious relation between hunger and population density. Yes, Virginia, I realize there are countries where people are both crowded and undernourished. Conversely, there are countries where people are starving despite a relatively low ratio of people to farmable land: Honduras and Angola, for example. And then there are countries with a far higher population density but much less hunger, China and Japan, for instance.

Once again, as is often the case, we find that a presumptive cause-and-effect relationship doesn’t stand up to close examination. The most likely explanation, according to decades-long studies at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, is that when hunger and population growth do go together it is because they are both the results of the same dynamic: powerlessness.

If a tiny number of rich people or multinational corporations control most of the land -- as is the case in Honduras and Angola -- then neither the size of the population nor the number of arable acres is the cause of the problem. Even relatively few people may be kept poor and hungry if they’re working for someone else. And even relatively plentiful cropland isn’t going to help if it’s being used to raise feed for cows that will end up as hamburgers on a McDonalds counter.

Having lots of children (in some parts of the world potential breadwinners) may be a rational strategy for survival when people live from hand to mouth. By the same token, well-meaning birth control programs alone cannot improve people’s lives. To the contrary, the evidence suggests that starvation is less a function of people having too many mouths to feed than of having too little control over their bodies, their land, and their future.

Here are some facts to ponder (adapted from the Institute for Food and Development Policy):

Myth: Not Enough Food to Go Around

Reality: Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other commonly eaten foods -- vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs -- enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most “hungry countries” have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.

Myth: Too Many People

Reality: Although rapid population growth remains a serious concern in many countries, nowhere does population density explain hunger. For every Bangladesh, a densely populated and hungry country, we find a Nigeria, Brazil or Bolivia, where abundant food resources coexist with hunger. Or we find a country like the Netherlands, where very little land per person has not prevented it from eliminating hunger and becoming a net exporter of food. Rapid population growth is not the root cause of hunger. Like hunger itself, it results from underlying inequities that deprive people, especially poor women, of economic opportunity and security. Rapid population growth and hunger are endemic to societies where land ownership, jobs, education, health care, and old age security are beyond the reach of most people.

Myth: The Environment vs. More Food?

Reality: We should be alarmed that an environmental crisis is undercutting our food-production resources, but a trade-off between our environment and the world’s need for food is not inevitable. Efforts to feed the hungry are not causing the environmental crisis. Large corporations are mainly responsible for deforestation -- creating and profiting from developed-country consumer demand for tropical hardwoods and exotic or out-of-season food items. Most pesticides used in the Third World are applied to export crops, playing little role in feeding the hungry, while in the U.S. they are used to give a blemish-free cosmetic appearance to produce, with no improvement in nutritional value.

Alternatives exist now and many more are possible. The success of organic farmers in the U.S. gives a glimpse of the possibilities. Indeed, environmentally sound agricultural alternatives can be more productive than environmentally destructive ones.

For a closer look at this issue, see the Institute for Food and Development Policy's website (click here)

Love,

Eddie

The Chains of Fools

¡Hola! Everybody...
I need to stop working weekends! Having only one day off sucks dead dawg farts. It seems I have no rest. This is a busy time of the year, what with the end of the fiscal year upon us and the unending parsing og budgets.. anyway, all this stops me from writing for myself...

* * *

-=[ Entertaining Ourselves to Death ]=-

Reality doesn't bite, it's our perception of reality that bites.
-- Anthony J. D'Angelo

I have lived long enough to witness the fabrication of the greatest lie ever told: “Reality TV.”

What’s his name, Orwell, is doing a triple Salchow as I write.

Of all the shackles we willingly wear, two of the most powerful are those of spectacle and illusion. the chains we wear today are expensive, they have names like Coach, Hilfiger, and Chanel. That our ancestors fought to rid themselves of the brands we so readily accept (and pay huge sums for), has to be one of the greatest and tragic ironies in history. What difference does it make whether your chains are made of iron or gold?

Chains are expensive, as are surveillance tools and armed guards. A less expensive, more efficient strategy is to keep the slave entertained. Sublimation is the best cure for rebellion. Give them something inconsequential to think about or a dream that leads to a dead end.

I love sports, but I also know that sports as spectacle are perfect for these ends. More people will watch the Superbowl than an election. Shit, Ferdinand Marcos distracted a whole revolutionary movement in the Philippines by hosting the Thrilla in Manila, the epic battle between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.

And while even the Romans knew sports are good distractions, we all know sex is better. Movies, celebrations, mud-slinging elections, or even a grisly string of murders are excellent distractions that work to pacify the masses.

All the while, you’re paying for gaudy trinkets embedded with the names of your masters, and for the most part they are nothing but the modern equivalent of shackles.

There is a way out, but it will take your turning away from the glow of the television screen and actually looking at reality.

Love,

Eddie

Ghost in the Machine

Hola Everybody...
I am gone all day today. Those around make sure the village idiots don’t burn down my house?

Thanks in advance for your attention in this matter.

We finally have a reasonably intelligent man in the Oval Office who’s actually going to allow science to do--- well -- science! In light of the recent hoopla around scientific research, I thought the following pertinent...

I miss you, Latina.

* * *

-=[ Ghost in the Machine ]=-

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

-- Philip K. Dick

“Few are those who can see with their own eyes and hear with their own hearts.”

-- Albert Einstein

Most people see philosophy as something pointed-headed nerds do in academia – as something totally divorced from reality and anything of practical value. However, the fact is that we’re all philosophers at some level. We all have assumptions that guide our perception of reality.

The difference, I guess, is that some people have never questioned the assumptions they inherited from their family of origin or culture. Others, more cynical, choose to shrug their shoulders as if saying it doesn’t matter. Still others, the more skeptical among us, have questioned our assumptions and come away with a clearer, or at least more conscious sense of direction. Whatever the case may be, the basic definition of a philosopher is lover of knowledge. And almost everything you do or use today has as its origin a philosophical assumption.

Everything we do, every action we take, is a response to a question. The difference between those that sleep walk through life and those that are awake is that former have lost sight of the questions while the latter not only are conscious of the questions, but are asking newer ones.

You probably know the work of Philip K. Dick through the various films that have been adapted from his science fiction novels, including Total Recall and Minority Report. One of the best-known (and best made), Blade Runner, was based on his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As is most often true with literary works, the movie, while being one of the better adaptations, does not do justice to the strange but subtle thinking that drives the novel.

So why am I writing about a science fiction writer if I’m discussing philosophy? Well, while Dick wouldn’t be considered a philosopher in the strict sense of the word, the philosophical questions he addresses in his novels cut to the heart of philosophy and shows that philosophy is not just merely academic papers and theory. Many writers of fiction -- especially science fiction – address profound philosophical ideas.

Dick was a prolific writer who initially set out to become a “serious novelist” but because he first found success within science fiction, he became categorized in that genre. He was clearly fascinated the early pre-Socratic philosophers who claimed that all reality is in constant flux.

His books, often featuring spaceships, aliens, and probable futures, are vehicles for his exploration into questions such as whether or not we can ever know the world we live in is real; what would happen if time ran backwards; the nature of alternate realities, and the roots of our self identities. He created societies where humanity is organized into tribes according to their mental state, or where each character is forced to experience the world through the consciousness of others, or in which all the characters are dead, but haven’t realized this (I know people like that on 360 LOL!). The really fascinating thing about Dick’s novels is that he rarely answers the philosophical questions he poses, allowing instead the absurdities of those questions create and play out through his plot. It also forces us, the readers, to attempt to think about these questions for ourselves.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? asks a simple but deceptive question: what makes us human? In the novel, Dick imagines a future society in which organic androids, so advanced that they are indistinguishable from humans, are used as laborers and slaves for “real” humans. He makes us question whether we can tell the difference between androids and people, and more radically, if there is a real difference. To make matters more interesting, this debate takes place against a background of a radioactive future world, where humans who stay on earth can at any time be downgraded to the non-person status of “specials” if they become too contaminated.

One of the main relationships in the novel is between an android and a “special,” two very different types of “non-person.”

The idea of a soul is central to religious philosophy and the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle coined the term “ghost in the machine” to argue against Descartes’ contention that the soul is something non-physical. The idea that we have no soul, that everything can be reduced to physical explanations was extremely threatening

The work directly addresses some of the most fundamental questions of philosophy. What is a person? Do humans have souls? As imagined by Dick, an android possesses the same physical make-up as a person, made up of artificial flesh and blood, with an artificial brain. So does this make them “human” or not? The hero of the novel, Deckard, has the job of hunting down and killing runaway androids. Humans have developed increasingly more complex methods to identify androids as they in turn evolve and become more sophisticated. The idea being that while an artificial intelligence might eventually give the impression of being human, if put to the test, emotions such as empathy would be missing.

Eventually, Deckhard questions whether a bounty hunter like him can really be human since he feels no empathy for the androids he kills. He is also challenged whether he could pass an empathy test himself, when an android asks him to take one, although he ends up realizing that he actually does feel empathy for androids, if only for the pretty female ones. *grin*

All these questions are never fully resolved creating an intense and dark reflection of the nature of identity and the soul. The fact that all this takes place in a genre, sci-fi, that was considered lowly, should not detract from the fact that Dick was one of the most thought-provoking writers of the last century.

Love,

Eddie

Of Constipated Yaks and Reality

¡Hola! Everybody...

I have to admit that I was pleased beyond words watching those tight-assed neocons squirm while our (yes, he’s your president too Kansas!) delivered one of the great speeches (in style and substance) in recent memory. I mean you could almost hear their anal sphincters under the tightening pressure.

And, yes, I’m happy that Barry reminded everybody we inherited the current mess...

But what struck me most, was the incompetent, intellectually bankrupt, laughable Republican response as personified by Louisiana governor Jindal. Can you say out of touch?!! BTW, call me mean, but is it just me, or do you also note a resemblance between Jindal and a constipated yak? I’m sayin’!

* * *

-=[Reality Testing ]=-

“Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the rafters of which are rotten and worm-eaten, and those who embark in them are fated to be shipwrecked.”

-- Siddhartha Guatama Buddha (563–483 BC)

Okay! Here’s reality

::points left::

And here are the neoCONS

::points right::

And never the twain shall meet! LOL In case you missed it, last night President Obama hit the ball out of the park. He bitched-slapped some silly neocon butt early on, gave some substance in the middle, and left off with a message of hope and can-do. Whatever your political affiliation, you can’t deny it was a masterful performance. I’m willing to bet even some of Red State Randy’s family members secretly wet themselves.

Jindal, and some other Republican governors, notably Haley Barbour of Mississippi, are actually making some noise about turning down millions in federal funds for their own state’s unemployed out of fear that, four years from now, they may have to maintain full unemployment insurance -- like the rest of America.

Barbour’s excuse, mimicked by Jindal, is that the Obama payments to the unemployed of their states would mean, when the economy recovers, that their state would have to increase unemployment insurance taxes and payments (hence bringing it out of the Dark Ages and commensurate to the US average) scaring away new employers. Barbour squeals that he wants more jobs. Hello!! This is Mississippi. Exactly what new “jobs” is he talking about? An economist would be hard put to explain what job sector that state leads in. Sure, they can boast of growing employment at several casinos and cathouses sprouting in what the locals call the “Coon-ass Riviera,” but otherwise it’s zips-ville in Louisiana and Mississippi. On second thought, Jindal’s Louisiana was the state that solved its unemployment problem by sending its unemployed to Texas in FEMA trailers.

And it’s true that the two states lead the nation in a few important indicators. Like poverty: Mississippi has America's highest poverty rate. Louisiana is third worst in America.

And how about their commitment to education? Louisiana ranks 5th and Mississippi 2nd worst in school kids’ math scores.

::blank stare::

Jindal himself is a product of a more advanced culture: His parents are Democrats. The Jindals are Hindus who came from the Punjab in India, a state known for its welfare safety net. Jindal apparently has gone native, becoming a born-again Christian Republican who doesn’t accept Darwinian evolution nor Keynesian economics. Next thing you know, he’ll be marrying his cousin at a tractor pull in order to complete his redneck makeover.

For over a century, Louisiana and Mississippi have been trying to attract employers by selling their citizens to the lowest bidder. The results, according to economic indicators, are blindingly visible: Mississippi and Louisiana, under the Barbour/Jindal Republican regime, maintain the lowest per-capita incomes in the nation (50th and 46th respectively). MississippiLouisiana infant mortality rates (1st and 3rd in deaths in the USA) would shame Third World nations. and

The Louisiana State Legislature has seriously considered demanding the requirement that schools teach evolution as merely a theory equal to the Bible’s creation myth. Sure, big time employers salivate at the thought of basing their headquarters in a state filled with Bible-thumping, dumb-fuck rednecks.

I know, I know! It’s cruel to make jokes about America’s own “special” Third World states. And before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I’ll be the first to point out that Jazz was purportedly invented in Nawlins’.

Still, Jindal’s rejection of funds for his state’s own unemployed is simply a consequence of Republican plantation-mentality cruelty. I still find it hard to believe Jindal had the cojones to mention Hurricane Katrina as a rationale for continuing the lie that “Gub’mint is evil.” That was so out of touch with even rednecks that the Red line (denoting people who voted for McCain) in the video above flat-lined in favor of Obama! (I think that was Randy getting moist, personally.)

To evoke the drowning of New Orleans and the “let 'em drown” rescue plans of the Bush Administration was more than incompetent; it was sickening, heartless and, well, Republican. Marie Antoinette at least offered cake.

In the face of a courageous and honest speech by a sitting president, the neoCONS sent up Jindal and what we witnessed was the dismantling of a young career (I can see the SNL skit already) and a refusal by the Republicans to come up with anything other than tax cuts for the rich in the face of a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis.

SMH

Love,

Eddie

The Happiness Cross-Training Machine

¡Hola! Everybody...
It’s cold out here!

I have a few busy days coming up right before Christmas. I was out sick for a couple of days last week, and now is catch up time!

Repost!

* * *

-=[ Happiness 101 ]=-

“Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.”

-- Greg Anderson (1964–) NBA basketball player

For many of us, being happy is a state of mind just around the corner. It will come, but only when we get that job, education, lover, shoes, or bag. We will be happy, we seem to be saying, only when we somehow get our act together. In essence, what we’re saying is that we don’t deserve, or cannot attain, that elusive feeling of happiness right at this moment.

I’m here to tell you today that’s all a bunch of crock. We can only be happy right now, this very moment, even in the midst of pain and loss.

If not you, who?

If not now, when?

Yesterday? Tomorrow?

Keep digging up those bodies of yesterday – the trauma and the hurt of your past -- and all you will get are memories. What about tomorrow, you ask? Won’t happiness come tomorrow when we get it together, meet the perfect lover, get the perfect job, find the perfect Coach bag? Find God?

Maybe you’re busy creating a slew of resolutions for the New Year!

Dearest, tomorrow is but a fantasy, a figment of your imagination, and get this bit of news: it’s not even guaranteed. You could drop dead today, right in the middle of reading this, say, or crossing the street, or while taking a particularly challenging dump (your mother was right: wear clean underwear).

All you have, dear reader, is this moment – right here right now.

Here’s a revolutionary notion: Why not be happy now?!! What’s that you say? You have problems and I don’t understand? You have no food and are hungry. You’re bi-polar and heavily medicated? You have no home and are a broke, wretched soul?

Welcome!

You’re not as unique as you would like to think maybe part of the issue is that terminal uniqueness you cling to so tenaciously?). If you’re not happy this very moment it’s simply because you have chosen not to be happy. Face it: most of us are addicted to our sadness and our wounds, it’s what we know and leaving sadness and pain can be very traumatizing because then we come to the realization that our happiness must radiate from within. In leaving your default attitude of cynicism and sadness, you come face-to-face with your own accountability.

Go ahead, leave, but before you close my door, please know that sooner or later you’re going to have to face the fact that what you most want can happen today, not tomorrow, but right now -- in this very life.

If you want it.

Yes it is that fuckin’ simple... The issue is that we buy into the conditioning that somehow we’re incomplete. We practice being miserable. We’re even proud of it -- proud of our cynicism and bleak outlook. It’s really cool to be in touch with our misery. We seem to be trying to outdo one another in just how miserable we can all be and how cool we can look while feeling it. My even pointing out that happiness is attainable at this very moment is the height of being uncool.

I’ll leave you with something today and I know 99.99% of you will be too busy analyzing it and miss the forest for the trees, but if even one person actually tries this, then my own life is richer because there’ll be one less miserable person on this little plot of greenery we call Earth.

Just do it…shut the noise for a second…

The Practice

Think of something you really desire. It could be a new pair of shoes, a Benz, or that Grand prize: the ever so elusive “The One” -- your soulmate, the perfect lover! Or, it could be twenty million dollars. Whatever comes to your mind first, something you really want, but don’t have.

Think of that... Got it?

Now, imagine that you have it. How would you act, right now? How would you feel, right now? Act and feel as if you had what you desire, right now. Breathe, move, speak, and adopt the facial expressions as if you had it. Act this way for a few minutes; become comfortable with the feeling of abundance that comes with having what you want.

Don’t just sit there and think about it, do it! Go!

Back?

Is acting and feeling this way basically better than how you were acting and feeling before you imagined having what you desire?

If the answer is yes, then continue acting and feeling this way! Why not allow yourself to feel this abundance now?!! Why are you still waiting for an excuse?

If the answer is that feeling this way is not better, then ignore and forget about the object of your desire because getting it won’t make you feel or act any better than how you’re acting now.

The saying goes that there are two great disappointments in life: not getting what you want and getting it. I’ll disagree with that. I will submit that there are desires that can lead us to be happier, but why wait?

A better way of putting it would be:

1. Act like you feel as if you had everything you wanted. Or…

2. Ignore your desires because they don’t lead to happiness anyway.

Either way, it’s a no-lose situation: you are free.

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Love,

Eddie

Welcome to the Real

¡Hola! Everybody...
One day I found myself at a maximum-security prison sitting in the mess hall mentally criticizing everyone else there. I did this daily. How stupid these people were, how selfish, how unaware... everyday. I wasn’t like “them” I would tell myself, feeling some measure of satisfaction. I did this until the very real fact that I was there also became clear. If those people were are all that, then what did it say about me?

Sometimes I read comments on my blog and elsewhere or just listen to people in general and they remind me of myself at that time...

Today... Repost!

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-=[ Reality and the War on Our Senses ]=-

“We throw our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”

-- Unknown

We use one sense at the expense of the others. Ever since the invention of the photograph, for example, the visual sense has taken predominance over the others. We’ve become more and more insistent of having illustrations with stories. Eventually movies became all the rage. Then television arrived in our homes, followed by video, cable, computer graphics, digital animation, and virtual reality. Imagine someone in the far future trying to explain our obsession with this piece of furniture...

Our taste buds take second place. Fruits and vegetables are genetically engineered to satisfy our visual appetites, regardless of the sacrifice in flavor and nutrition. Poisons of every kind assault our biochemistry. Electromagnetic radiation zaps our natural bioelectrical fields that shape us.

Air pollution and synthetic fragrances dominate our sense of smell. Traffic, loud radios, and congested population over stimulate our hearing. In watching television, our right-brain hemispheres have to assemble the dots into a picture. As a result, we haven’t sufficient energy needed for left-brain discrimination. In actuality, heavy viewers literally become heavy; something in the habit of watching television slows down the metabolism.

“Natural flavors” are natural in name only, extracted from organic chemicals through harsh chemical processing. The multinational corporations that sell us these toxins call it “clean labeling” and the Food and Drug Administration calls it “okay.”

Our senses have become the pawns in a foolish game. Only when we awaken to our deepest, genuine sense will our intelligence flourish. I’m speaking here of a deep-seated common sense that chooses to remember, to know, to open up all the sensory channels and explore our intuitive common sense, what we call our imagination. Instead of asking, “Will we make it?” we should be asking, “What should I be doing now?”

As the historian Howard Zinn noted, we can’t be neutral on a moving train and we’re moving all the time, whether we want to or not. The wise among us are gathering their clues and direction from everywhere, even the knowledge of children and eccentrics, and those with whom they disagree.

The ability to question will be our saving grace. Our questions will be our liberators. When a large enough question has been asked, the lesson plan will appear. Years a go, a leader challenged the nation by asserting that in ten years a man would land on the moon. There is no such leadership available today (if there ever really was). Today we must become our own leaders, asking the questions needing asking and facing with creativity and innovation the challenges such questions pose.

It we are to thrive as individuals and as a society, the solution is the same: the deepest good sense to take leadership for ourselves. True visionaries identify with a cause that transcends themselves, family, and friends. Something bigger than a mere grasp for personal success. And we can get there from here. We are a problem-solving species. When we finally make the decision to call upon our resources we make the impossible possible, and the possible inevitable.

The good news is that we’re living in a moment in time where we have the advantage of the fruits of the cross-fertilization of art and science, of spirituality and science, of analysis and intuitive flashes. By pulling together the scattered threads of psychology and brain science, we can consciously learn to tap into our deepest common sense. The next evolutionary leap demands that we, in fact, become the people we were always meant to be.

Love,

Eddie