Look into my eyes, see the truth, the only truth there is in the universe. Only I have the keys to the questions that don’t have answers, the key to the words which cannot be defined. Truth? Beauty? Justice? Pah … I laugh at your ideas of the indefinable and give you something to consider. Truth you say; well, truth is nothing more than a statement which integrates effortlessly into your ideas of what currently valid in your reality. I say the sky is blue, you have seen pictures of a blue sky since you were 2 years old and in your literature the sky is always described as some hue of blue. See, that is truth.
As they say, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ and how true that is. Beauty is nothing more than subjectively perceived symmetry. The more symmetrical the object being viewed is determined to be, the more ‘beautiful’ the perceiver will assume this thing, place, or person to be. Justice is nothing more than truth on a large scale. Justice is a statement or an outcome which serves appropriately the common expectations of the greatest number of people. Someone murders a child and receives the death penalty for his crime and the people say “justice has been served”. Someone euthanizes a child dying of bone cancer, a child who is wracked with pain each waking moment and this person receives a 6 month jail sentence for taking the law into his own hands. Again, “justice has been served” and the people are content.
Come with me to my haven, my sanctuary away from the world of discord, unfairness, ugliness and violence. You will be welcome as long as you promise to uphold your agreement in becoming an active member of this cult. Your first responsibility is thinking for yourself. We have television here at the compound however each time you watch, you must invert the information so that you immediately see both sides of the information presented as “news”. If someone confides something to you or gives you information you are only allowed to believe half of what they say and no more. Should someone become extremely aggressive verbally with you, you must at once form in your imagination a scenario where this angry person has just endured the most trying circumstance of his life and right now he is unable to think clearly or reason logically. You must do this every time.
Yes, there is much asked of you in the way of controlling your wandering mind and in not letting your ego run wild with your imagination, but the rewards are immense. I cannot define how you will be spiritually compensated but it is enough to say, you’ll know it when you feel it.
Take my hand, sign on the dotted line, join the Church of Get Over Yourself and Get Past Your Drive for Easy Answers to Life’s Unending Problems. Membership is free; there is nothing to pay and no need to compensate the church community. ¶ 12:34 PM 3 comments
I just wanted to stop by and say a quick “thanks” to the American generation shaping my country’s culture before I was born in 1966. Again, I say, “thank you” because you’ve done something, when all is reduced to the lowest common denominator, that no other generation before you has done--- or now, will do again.
The television newscaster and best-selling author Tom Brokaw referred to the baby boomers as “The Greatest Generation” and many of the multinational corporations couldn’t agree more. I look at you and realize, you just might be the only generation who made all of their cultural decisions based on who was cool or what they were doing … which of course eventually became “cool”.In the 1950s hundreds of thousands of kids wore jeans, white t-shirts and because James Dean did so, and James Dean was cool. Add the leather motorcycle jacket that Marlon Brando wore in the movies and you couldn’t be cooler. In the 1960s, Rock and Roll was the definition of cool and people who wrote lyrics to rock and folk songs told us not to support the Vietnam military action in Southeast Asia. These musical poets were cool and you were also cool, not only to protest the Vietnam War, but you were on television being cool for saying how “uncool” the whole war scene really was, man.
Along rolled the 1970s, and fashion designers who dressed movie stars and rock stars were cool. They dressed all of the beautiful people in polyester and they hung out with their beautiful international fashion models. They were cool and had a lifestyle with a lot of pressure so they openly used cocaine, heroin and went to disco clubs to enjoy the good life. Talk about cool….. these people were ‘cool wrapped in a Halston label’ and people stood in line to wear clothes with someone else’s name on the outside of the garment, rather than writing your own name on the inside of your underwear, like when you were a kid at summer camp. Everyone got to wear cool clothes, be hip and happening, listen to awesome music in clubs and get high and have sex in public places. How cool could you get?
Thank the gods the eighties came along and with this beautiful decade we had the ultra-cool athlete. The athlete was cool because he (generally male, sorry gals) was able to do things we physically couldn’t do. Michael Jordan was everywhere and Nike was on Mr. Jordan like cool flies on cool shit. Why purchase a pair of $30 canvas gym shoes when you could spend $120 or more on leather high-tops with a fat checkmark sewn onto the sides. Hey, now people KNOW you’re cool, just look at the shoes dude. Spending $160 on a pair of tickets for 5th row seats at the stadium made you cool because you could tell everyone where you sat and how awesome Bo Jackson was as Bo ran down the sidelines. Besides, you had his Los Angeles Raiders jersey and wore it out to the bars at night so the chicks would think you were cool. You paid $175 for the jersey, but you know what – overspending was cool, too.
The final 10-year stretch of our century was cool-on-wheels. Arnold Schwarzenegger bought a Hummer-Humvee and he was the Terminator. The Terminator would “be back” and hell THAT was cool. Now buying oversized cars was cool, especially if you could afford Arnold’s $70,000 military vehicle, oh you were SO cool! Otherwise you could get a luxury Jeep or a tricked-out Suburban or a stylin’ Ford Bronco. You’d have to wait until your lease expired to get the newly minted models such as Tahoe, Excursion, Land Cruiser or Navigator. Then you could be cool, especially if you were talking to someone cool on your cell phone while you were driving to somewhere that was really cool.
Yep, the baby boomers had “cool” down to a science and practiced it hourly. Their lives were filled with cool plastic stuff and sped up by technology which kept them so busy they almost skipped their cool vacations with people whom they hardly saw, such as their kids. Awesome! You lived a life -- those of you born between 1946 and 1964 -- emulating people who you were convinced had it all figured out; people who were cool. You lead our culture down a path where, in the year 2005, someone who plays a kid’s playground game for a living is referred to as a professional baseball player. On average, a professional athlete makes about $5 million annually but an Emergency Medical Technician (note the “technician” part) will pull down…… ooohhhh…..erm…. around $32,000 each year. One of these people saves your child’s life in case of a house fire or an accidental drowning, the other one hits a ball with a wooden stick. But, hey … that’s cool…..
But I digress; I wish again to say a heartfelt “thanks” to you American Baby Boomers for showing me cool, being cool, and what it takes to stay cool. I’ve learned alot and can promise from what I’ve seen of your lives, this country, our economy and our national sense of pride, I’m going to avoid cool for awhile. Maybe it is not cool to emulate or support someone who is not on television but who follows their sense of integrity to begin a noble cause, but I think that’s what I am gonna do for the next several decades. Maybe it will become cool to spend your life’s energy trying to get rid of suffering and allow dignity for those of us who are starving (not cool), who are homeless (not cool), those people who have no clean drinking water (not cool), or those people recovering from a natural disaster (not cool).
I’m gonna be very ‘not cool’ for as long as I can stand it and hopefully no cool people will bother telling me to ‘get a life’.
¶ 12:05 PM 0 comments
"Are we not men?"
Take a look around, objectively, at the daily events which give cause, pause or substance to your reality. I can’t define what these patterns of energy translated into waves of light and of sound are for you specifically, but I do know what I observe can hold interest if seen by me in terms of perpetual progression.
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I submit for your delectation or for your derision, the idea of a right to free speech. Okay and YAY! Free speech and the unalienable right to it are often cited by a person who says something... the same person who is offended should anyone disagree. "Hey, I’ve got a right to free speech!" But of course, and does not the person with whom you disagree also have this same right? Say it, leave it as your legacy but don’t integrate it as part of your identity ... or do so at your peril. Thoughts change, times change, perspective changes and content changes, too.
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Submit what you will (sounds like an apt title for a porn film, eh?) and simply walk away. You’ve stated your version of reality based upon what you’ve subjectively learned in life, via decisions made from personal trials and errors accrued during your years on this watery, round rock. Get over yourself, get on with life, get a haircut and get a job. You don’t have the sublime secrets of the universe in your private possession to grant gracefully to the ignorant masses. Let everyone figure out life as they will; should they ask for assistance, do what is appropriate given the circumstances.
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No one needs religion. No one needs national identity. No one needs a reason, a motive, a sign or a confirmation their way is THE way and it must be shared with everybody in order to save people from themselves. Trust me; from what I’ve seen, it is only the most desperately driven people who feel they need to enlighten the so-called unenlightened to the ways of their personal god, who take the most drastic measures. Desperate people do desperate things. If your religion is working so freakin’ well, why do you feel the need to force someone else to follow in your prayer recitation? Yeah, NOW don’t you look stupid? Or did you completely miss my point? Yep, thought so......
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Treat all people with dignity, be kind in the correct context, don’t assume, do not pass “Go” and do not collect $200. It’s all a game in which you set the rules of engagement by how you decipher impulses of light and sound. Your way of understanding life will not match up with someone else’s version of “let’s get happy” so why begrudge them their differences? Wake up and smell the year 2005 and realize just as my dad can’t beat up your dad, my god won’t put the smack down on your god and for me to imply this is so only shows what wusses both my god and I really are. Seriously.
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Oh, and before I forget.... it is your right, privilege, task or option to disagree with me on this topic. I don’t mind.
I was walking down the street on a beautiful September morning. I saw my friend, Elvis Presley, outside a sandwich shop and asked him if he wanted to come along with me to pick up some groceries. On the way to the store, I saw an old lady and pushed her off the curb and in front of an oncoming bus. The woman was able to step away at the last minute, and Elvis looked at me and said, "Hey man, don't be cruel."
I said, "Elvis! Write that down." And the rest is now history.
