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May 31, 2005

That Old Time Religion

mallholder at Naked Villainy posts on religion in a way that makes me laugh and makes me cry, writing in part:

A religion is, by definition, something that is held without a reasonable basis. A leap of faith, as you will. Faith is something you believe, despite the lack of evidence. Faith is not something that can be proven true or false.

Reading that I thought, "That's the most simplistic definition of religion I've heard since Marx's "opiate of the masses."

Let me start off by saying this post may very well be so off-the-cuff that Smallholder (hereafter SH) perhaps could have been more careful and precise, but in trying to be glib, got carried away with carelessness. I know. I do the same thing often enough.

Still let me limit my remarks to this passage, although the entire post has much to remark on. I will strive to take SH's words as I think he meant them despite their profound imprecision. SH makes fairly black-and-white statements that raises several direct and indirect questions:

I offer some thoughts for consideration. What makes a true scientist? What is a true scientist's distinguishing characteristic? I think the most crucial is a direct spirit of inquiry that refuses to base beliefs on the mere authority of others. In other words, a true scientist strives to test directly, for himself or herself, by direct experience.

A true scientist cares not a whit for the authority of others, except on a provisional basis. In the end, a true scientist bases their understanding on direct experiment or experience. It may be nice that other "scientists" may be able to repeat the results, or claim an experiment proves a hypothesis, but a true scientist recognizes the danger in relying on the mere testimony of others.

I've already written about my existential years. I'd already read all of Asimov, Heinlein, and the crowd of scientific writers surrounding them. I faced an interesting dilemma in those early years, especially after so much chemical experimentation: How do I distinguish the truly TRUE from the apparently TRUE?

I'd been duped by Christianity, at least the Jehovah Witness branch of it. I'd reached a point where I knew better than to rely on mere sacred texts or priestly authority on the meaning of life. So I found refuge in science. It seemed so neat and tidy. The Scientific Method is a boon to medicine and aeronautics and so much of what we materially value today.

But then I had experiences that would not be suffered by scientists--well, most of them. I won't go into those experiences just now. I just mean to point out the nature of the dilemma: Do I base my beliefs on my own direct experience, or do I deny those experiences and accept the AUTHORITY of science?

And I found that I was right back to my original dilemma: Giving over my own authority to some external authority. And I began to read scientists more critically. It soon became apparent that so much of what I took as scientific was in fact based on authority. Most scientists readily accepted as TRUE much that they had not personally experienced or tested. Yet they claimed an objectivity and a KNOWING that reminded me of the fundamentalist Christians I used to be involved with.

I didn't doubt the value of the Scientific Method. I did doubt the extremes that so-called scientists would go to elevate their method in opposition to religion.

Ask yourself this: Suppose you could leave you body at will and travel as a non-material consciousness unobserved by others. Suppose you could travel somewhere on earth, observe something that you had no physical knowledge of, and then later, when in the body, you could go to the same place and verify that what you had experienced out fo the body matches in extraordinary detail what you observed in the body. And suppose the nature of the experience was such that you were not able to try to prove it to anyone.

Do you see the dilemma, and why Smallholder's simplification would not stand up for you in this circumstance?

Here you have a case where you are in the position to prove something to yourself but not to anyone else. It's repeatable only for your own recognition but for no one else's. If you are told by external authorities that your experience is bullshit, especially authorities who currently seem to hold the premier spot as the Knowers of Truth, what would you do?

For me, I cast off both religious authorities AND scientific authorities insofar as either would claim that my direct, personal, repeatable, and personally verifiable experiences are non-scientific or anecdotal, or non-scriptural or Satanic, or any other label that strives to dismiss me and my experience by conveniently labeling it.

I believe first and foremost in the MICRO-SCIENTIFIC METHOD, where I take full responsibility for my ability and willingness to test my own experiences in such a way as to prove to myself whether they are real or not. I don't give a fig about any external authority who makes claims against what I know directly.

Some things simply cannot be proved to others. And the attempt to prove such subjective experiences as real in a scientific context meets the kinds of difficulties that allow skeptics to easily claim they aren't real.

Here's another point: Scientists ARE in a position to claim an agnostic position regarding Intelligent Design. The evidence for or against intellgient design is of such a subjective nature that it does not submit to the standard Scientific Method. But any so-called scientist who claims there is no Intelligent Design is making the SAME LEAP OF FAITH as one who claims there IS Intelligent Design.

The nature of the question and the nature of the evidence ONLY allows for leaps of faith.

And this is where I remain so disappointed in so many of the scientists I otherwise admire. Yes, there is scientific evidence of natural selection. Yes, there is scientific evidence of evolution. But NO NO NO...there is not the kind of evidence to pronounce from on high that there IS no Intelligent Design.

It so often seems to me that many scientists love to use natural selection and evolution as a stick to beat on religionists. Perhaps because they experienced the same kind of...disappointment? betrayal? treason?... that I did being brought up in a Christian religion.

They look at history and point to the ignorance of religion, its superstitions, its justifications for oppression and slaughter. And these same scientists forget that the same finger can be pointed to science. That natural selection has given thousands of power brokers justification for financial, legal, and military control, manipulation and slaughter, all in the name of "survival of the fittest." That Einstein's greatest scientific discovery led to atomic weapons.

That Science AS PROOF of no external moral inteeligence or design has led to thousands and millions of people who see no reason to take responsibility for being decent and good, who see no good reason not to be out for themselves at the expense of others.

I am no Luddite. I do not wish to return to the good old days of superstition and pre-scientific methods.

But I do get testy when scientists betray their own methods and become scientific fundamentalists who want to take the limited domain of their method and beat down others who claim value in experiences beyond the reach of the Scientific Method. I will take a mild, loving, helpful Christian as a neighbor any day over a scientist who arrogantly smirks and shakes their head at the ignorant, stupid Christian, as if scientific knowledge is the only possible knowledge.

Smallholder, you need to widen your reading, I suspect. You might want to start with Plato and Aristotle. They are good initial guides in what it means to think critically and how to beware of sloppy intellectual constructs.

As always, just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

*** You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters. Plato

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May 30, 2005

2. Kitchen Remodeling

. Creating Your Life 2. Kitchen Remodeling and 12-Year Cycles Because a couple of bloggers I know are going through big changes, I thought it a good time to get more deeply into natural cycles and how to take advantage of them.

One of the things that the Power of Positive Thinking crowd often fails to mention is that whenever you try to make a big change in your life, your life can sometimes enter a stage where it seems everything is falling apart. When you want to take your airplane to a new altitude, put on your seatbelt because you may experience some turbulence on the way up.

I liken making a major change in yourself or your life to kitchen remodeling.

You have your old kitchen. You are content with it out of sheer habit until something happens to offer you a vision of a new kitchen. The new vision has to be stronger than the current reality to get you to act.

Unfortunately, the transition to the new vision or goal is not immediate. There is a dismantling period where your kitchen must be removed and you have a gutted kitchen.

A gutted kitchen is when times are hard, and there is always danger, if the new vision hasn't fully taken hold, where a person goes back to the old kitchen rather than move forward into the new kitchen.

This is basically what happens whenever you set a vision or goal and work to make it happen. The key again is that whatever goal you set, you must hold it strongly in mind, inspire yourself with it continually, and sustain the vision so that when times get rough, because your old anchor points get pulled up to make room for the new vision, you have the energy to carry through to completion.

The mind is easily distracted. Therefore, one has to work hard to keep the mind focused and discpilined. This is why people work with positive statements and affirmations.

When I want to make a change, I use the "15 Times Exercise." I get a notepad, and every morning before I begin my day, I write a positive, changing statement 15 times. Currently, because my work has me sitting in front of a computer so much, I am writing, "I delight in physical activity and healthy exercise."

I know that "delight in" phrase sounds funny, but there are several rules about the 15 times exercise that you must apply if it's going to work:

Remember IMAGINATION X VIVIDNESS = REALITY.

When you do this exercise EVERY DAY for months, you will notice a change take hold in your consciousness.

But beware. Before that happens, SOMETHING will happen to try to interrupt your efforts. SOMETHING will try to get you to go back to your old habits. When it comes, DON'T LET IT GET TO YOU.

You will also notice that remodeling your consciousness is like remodeling your kitchen. When you hold a new vision, everything in you that contradicts that vision will come up. You will have to look at it and decide to either a) let it go, or b) take it back and not change.

A few weeks ago after 30 years I had to give up caffeine in all forms. No coffee, tea, cokes. Because I did not want to be the kind of person anymore who was attached to caffeine, so I began writing, "I love being caffeine-free." When I gave up daily tea and coke drinking, I held to that vision, even through the headaches and body changes and low energy days. People tried to buy me those drinks. I hung in there. Now two weeks later, my body is beginning to feel better than ever with more energy and more restful sleep.

12-Year Cycles

Not only can you CHOOSE to go through changes, it appears that about every 12 years it's part of a natural cycle for life to PUT you through changes.

Just before my 12th birthday, my family moved from Kansas to California. Around my 24th birthday I published my first magazine article, which got me out of wanting to be a computer programmer and become a writer instead. That led to my transfering to a university and getting a B.A. in English.

Around my 36th birthday, I moved from California to Minnesota, got married, got divorced, moved back to California with nothing, ready to rebuild my life, all within six months. Around my 48th birthday, I gave up being a consultant for 12 years and took a corporate job in a whole new field learning incredible things and traveling more in a single year than my entire life before.

12-year cycles seem to be associated with larger visions of life. At the end of a 12-year cycle, you experience a decaying of that vision. You can feel empty or lost. Anchorless. A Dark Night of the Soul. An empty, gutted kitchen.

This is the time to rest and wait and pay attention. Some new vision is on its way, some new cycle of opportunity that will present you with the opportunity of moving up, upgrading your kitchen, improving your consciousness.

Some people don't take the step and try to hold on to the past, to the decaying cycle. This attachment will either cause you pain, because you are holding on to something that is going to die, or it will stagnate you by keeping you from growing.

12-year cycles are not set in stone. Sometimes a cycle lasts 13 years. Some people begin one later or earlier. For example, some people begin their cycles at 2 years of age so that their dates are 14, 26, 38, 50, etc.

Also, ANYTHING you start will generate a 12-year cycle. So if 11 years ago you started a business, right about now the vision that started your business is decaying, and you will need to catch and actively implement the next vision to keep it going.

If you want to look at some of your 12-year cycles, you can take a major event in your life and count back or forward 12 years to see another event on that track of cycles.

I hope this makes enough sense, and is not presumed to be astrological. It's not. If you are a student of inductive reasoning, then look to your examples and see if it bears out.

Coming soon: 3. Creating Your Life.

*** You can defy gavity. The trick is to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

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May 29, 2005

25-Word Challenge Happening

'm a day late remembering this weekend's 25-Word Challenge over at Bobo Blogger. Get in on the action:

"Readying for this reunion of sorts, his pace slowed - today - the day he had to face his fears, face what he'd done many years ago . . ."


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May 28, 2005

What I've Done

ia Flaming Duck. Ten things I have done, that most people haven’t:

10. Taken 100 LSD trips. (see below)

9. Played my original piano compositions on stage for thousands of people.
8. Written a private eye novel. (unpublished)
7. Published a magazine article the first time I submitted one.
6. Programmed an IBM 360/370 computer in Assembly Language.
5. Spent time in a county jail for "Selling a substance and falsely claiming it was a controlled substance."
4. Walked on the Great Wall of China.

3. Have a law journal reference my article on Shakespeare's Knowledge of Law.
2. Taught Legal Writing and received a perfect evaluation at the end of the course.

And the #1 thing I have done, that most people haven’t:

1. Have a switchblade go all the way through my hand. (I can still play piano, Thank Gawd.)

Someday, I may mention the impossible things I'm too nervous to mention right now.


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May 27, 2005

1. Creating Your Life

his series of posts will make a lot more sense if you have already read the series How the Mind Works.

Is your life more a comedy or a tragedy? Do you feel you have the ability to create your life, or does it seem like your life creates you?

There's lots of Power of Positive Thinking approaches out there: Norman Vincent Peale, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar.

These can work for some people. Mostly they are based on mind-driven methods, and as good as they are, I think they don't tell the whole story. I don't think I'M capable of telling the whole story, but I intend to get into some things that go a bit further than you normally hear about. I hope you have the patience to hang in there with me.

Because I think there are at least two points to create from: Creating from Mind, and Creating from Soul. Be patient. I will define that distinction as we go along.

The Mind is a Good Slave but a Poor Master

If there is any hope in discovering a way to create from a vantage point OTHER than the mind, then the mind has to be disciplined and streamlined.

If you've read the How the Mind Works series, then you probably recognize that the mind tends to operate on a kind of habitual autopilot, generating thoughts and pictures of reality, most of which we now recognize as being LIMITED or LIMITING. Those posts have many clues to help you take charge of your mind and whip it into shape, rather than let it drive you every day.

Here is a list of propositions arising from that series of posts:

Let me give you an example of that last principle. The RAS only lets through what is of value or a threat. When you set a goal, you tell your RAS that now anything associated with achieving that goal is of value. This is why you DO NOT WAIT FOR THE RESOURCES BEFORE SETTING OUT TO ACHIEVE A GOAL.

If you think in terms of having to have the money or resources FIRST, you are doing it backwards. You set the GOAL first, then look for the resources to achieve it.

I play piano. In my college days, I didn't have one, couldn't afford to buy or rent one. For the longest time that stopped me from getting a piano. Why? Because I THOUGHT (held the picture) that I could only have a piano if I bought or rented one.

WRONG!

Once I was presented with the principle of being END-RESULT ORIENTED, not first thinking I needed the resources first, I gave it a shot.

I began picturing having a piano and looking for a way of getting one that I didn't have to buy or rent. Once I set the goal, I soon had the thought, Hey, you know there are a lot of people out there that probably have a piano and find it a burden. I could offer to store it for them. Actually, I thought, there are probably people with TWO pianos and they would LOVE to have me take one off their hands. That way, they would probably let me keep it for years, since they already have one piano.

So at my job as a 7-11 manager (putting myself through college), I began asking all my regular customers who had known me for some time whether they had an extra piano that they need to have someone store for them.

It only took TWO WEEKS. An older gentleman who lived nearby said his wife had two pianos and they had been thinking for a while what to do with them since they only need one. He invited me to get a friend with a truck and move one of them into my condo.

I arrived that weekend with a friend and a truck. We walked into a very nice home. One piano was an older black upright Baldwin piano. The other was an even older, beautifully crafted Chickering spinet piano with a top that folded down turning it into a table. It was lovely.

We started heading toward the upright piano, and the man said, no, his wife likes the touch of that piano, we could take the Chickering.

It was INCREDIBLE! Beautiful appearance. Wonderful touch. Bell-like tone. I had that piano in my home for almost 5 years.

Even today, the piano in our house belongs to someone who has no room for it right now.

So you see, it wasn't a matter of Positive Thinking. It was more a matter of End-Result Thinking. Thinking differently, not harder. It required no extra effort, just a willingness to suspend disbelief and recognize that the possibilities of achieving a particular goal are much wider than we often believe. We just have to think from the End, AS IF.

I KNEW there was a way to get a piano with paying or renting one. I set the GOAL. I got the piano within a couple of weeks.

Try it. You will be properly amazed.

Go on to 2. Creating Your Life

*** The man who has no imagination has no wings. Muhammad Ali

*** To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination. Cynthia Ozick, novelist

*** You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. Mark Twain

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Mom's Favorite Joke

his is my mom's favorite joke. My mother is actually quite a lovely and generous person.

Back in the 1950s, a pair of big game hunters were hunting lions in Africa. They had been away from civilization for many weeks having lost their way and missing female companionship.

Suddenly they spied a large female gorilla sleeping under a shade tree in the grass. They hatched their plan and managed to knock the gorilla out before waking, stake her to the ground spread-eagled, and put duct tape over her mouth.

The first hunter lowered his pants while his partner stood by with his rifle raised just in case. The first hunter began humping away and the female gorilla woke up struggling. Suddenly she freed her left leg and wrapped it around the hunter's waist.

"Should I shoot yet, should I shoot yet?" cried his partner.

"No, not yet!" the humping hunter yelled.

The gorilla struggled and freed her right leg, wrapping it around the hunter's waist.

"Should I shoot yet, should I shoot yet?" cried his partner.

"No, not yet!" the humping hunter yelled.

Then the struggling female gorilla pulled out the stake holding her right arm and wrapped her arm around the hunter.

"Should I shoot NOW, should I shoot NOW?" cried his partner.

"No, no, no, not yet!" yelled the humping hunter nearly out of breath.

Finally the gorilla freed her left arm and wrapped it around the hunter.

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, SHOULD I SHOOT NOW?" yelled his partner.

"NO," yelled the humping hunter, "but rip off the tape. I want to KISS HER!"

*** I’ll give up my bad habits as soon as equally satisfying good habits become available. Ashleigh Brilliant


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May 26, 2005

Armageddon and LSD, Part 2

ome more experiences I remembered since yesterday:

As I say, all good things must come to an end. After 100 or so of these intergalactic, interplanetary, interpersonal, innerspace journeys, I got bored. Hard to believe, but I began to see that it was like spelunking. Sure, it's a beautiful cave, but it's still a cave. I was dependent on some chemical for these experiences. I recognized that it opened fascinating doors, even ones that transcended everyday reality in terms of apparent psychic and out of body experiences.

But it was still a cave.

Near the end, I was talking about God again. My mind and sense would be blasted all over the universe and I would say something like, "Hey, this has something to do with God" and they'd say, "Shut up, Mark, and listen to the music." Not as interested in exploring the experience philosophically.

I think if I could say one good thing about LSD, it allowed me to break down fundamentalist barriers and open doors to thinking that the universe might actually be a lot more interesting than daily life reveals, with its human comedies and tragedies.

I began having a strong desire to understand what the hell was going on. And somehow I didn't want it on the authority of anyone. Not on some sacred text. Not on some priest. Not on some religious dogma.

I wanted direct, personal experience, and I wanted some way to verify it to myself.

Thus was born my interest in the Micro-Scientific Method, which I only named many years later as I understood what it was I was doing.

As I've said before, the standard Macro-Scientific Method is used to prove in a repeatable way truths to OTHER people. By definition, it can only be applied to that which submits to being measured in such a way that it can offer PROOF TO OTHERS.

Thus, the standard Scientific Method is limited to material questions, questions that can submit to an external quantitative consistency.

The Micro-Scientific Method is not about proving anything to anybody else. It applies only to the subjective realm. It applies only to what you can prove to yourself. It deals in that which is not material: subjective experience, directing knowing, truths that ARE truths, but inaaccessible for the most part by others.

For example, I did something last night when nobody was around. I cannot prove what I did to anybody, but I know what I did. It is not any less true because I am the only one who knows it.

And I think a lot of what it truly important in our lives dwells in these personally knowing realms, yet so much of it seems to be dismissed by some influential scientists who conveniently want to dismiss so much outside of their experience.

For example (and here's where I start to test my readers' sense of my credibility), I once had a dream many years ago in which I had rather ravishing sex with a woman who in my waking life I would never have thought of in that way. Later, she and I had a conversation where she started talking about this dream. It didn't take long for us to realize that we both vividly remembered the same details. We were embarrassed and astonished at the same time.

That's when I started to look at my dreams more seriously and begin to test which ones truly involved other people and which ones were merely my own projections. I think we all have had different qualities of dreams that we recognize: some vivid, some chaotic, some seemlingly real, others caricaturish (and I know there is a lot of New Age nonsense out there about dreams...I for one believe that I have to learn to interpret my own dream symbols...that books can often lead us astray with the symbols that mostly apply to the writer).

Anyway, the thing about psychadelic drugs is they proved to be a testing ground for determining what was real and what was illusion.

On a side note: Pot, Marijuana. Widely regarded as harmless, that should be legal. Well, i disagree. Pot has an insidious side to it. I strongly believe, based on my personal experience and watching those around me who have smoked it regularly for decades, that pot stunts your emotional growth.

My brother starting smoking pot at 16. He never stopped. He is now 47 years old. He still has the mentality and emotional maturity of a 16-year-old.

There is something about being LOADED, STONED, FUCKED UP, with short-term memory clogginess that somehow keeps you from growing into full maturity.

Just my humble opinion.

Someday, I'll write about my first real fight: having to punch my brother and holding him down with a bloody broken nose until the cops could come, handcuff him, and take him away...

UPDATE: I forget to mention the dark side: LSD is best for people who understand that they are in full control of the experience (assuming the dose is not cut with Speed or something more pernicious). LSD opens areas in your perception that are highly malleable, highly suggestible. If your mind directs you into places where snakes and spiders lay, you will experience snakes and spiders. If you are paranoid, you will experience full paranoia. But you can walk out of any hell or any desert you find yourself in, just with a thought. If you carry a victim consciousness, LSD will drive you nuts. Overall, without a guide, a full dose of LSD is a very dangerous thing.

*** I hide things from you that I wouldn’t dream of hiding from anybody else.

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Gunslinger Chapter 6: BALLS!

n the words of Eric, "ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch" (I paraphrase.) Pammy at Lollygaggin has posted Chapter 6 of our Blog Western. Emily turns out to be a delicate flower who...awww, who am I kiddin'? Pammy has taken to THE DARK SIDE!

If you are up to speed, READ IT NOW. If not, you can always start:

Chapter 1 by Dax Montana
Chapter 2 by Moogie
Chapter 3 by Yours Truly

Chapter 4 by Kelley
Chapter 5 by Eric

Chapter 7 will finish everything thing up, courtesy of Velociman.

*** I’d love to assist you out of your difficulties, and into mine. Ashleigh Brillliant


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May 25, 2005

Armageddon and LSD

was raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, until about the age of 15.

That's right. I was a fundamentalist door knocker, ready to offer you copies of the Watchtower and Awake! magazines to give you the good news that the world was crap, Armageddon is coming (circa 1975 back in those days...they have to keep pushing back the date), and only 144,000 go to heaven while the rest lay dead until resurrection and a second chance at living eternally on earth.

I read enough of science and critical thought to be asking the wrong questions when I turned 15. Questions that got me into trouble, like "So if Cain and Able had children, then they must have married their sisters, right?" and "2 Corinthians 12:1-5 talks about a man out of the body and lifted to the third heaven. Third heaven? What's the difference between the three heavens? And what's this stuff about a live man being out of the body?" and "So Adam's body was created first and then God breathed into him the breath of life. So doesn't this mean abortion is okay because life begins with the first breath?"

I wasn't popular with the elders in my church. I suffered through that crisis of faith at 15 and by the time I turned 16 I was a full-blown existentialist. Life is what you make of it. There were simply too many religions in the world and the only way to find out if any of them are true, I'd have to tkae the time to investigate every one. And there wasn't enough time in a single lifetime to properly check out all of them.

(BTW, if you want to stop JWs in their tracks, just tell them, "Oh, I've been DISFELLOWSHIPPED." And smile as they nod and quickly leave. They are forbidden to talk spiritual matters with someone who has been officially disfellowshipped. Like me.)

So I stopped believing in Satan. And I found sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.

Between my 16th and 21st year, this A student got in deep, not on the speed/downer/needle side, but deep into pot and about, oh, 100 full-blown LSD trips.

I'm amazed sometimes that I still seem to have all my faculties. Some of my so-called friends from those years, including my brother, lost many of theirs.

The first time I took LSD, it was a small orange tablet. Orange Sunshine. It must have been very weak and cut with speed (which I never liked...I was already hyper enough. Speed made me itch. And by the way, you high school teachers, I was in Honors English and Honors History and almost all of us "intelligent" kids were so damned bored with all of your "creative" assignments and failure to teach real history, just social studies like how to get along with the Bantus in South Africa and I never met a Bantu, so what the fuck...anyway we were so bored that we all did drugs, speed, pot, mescaline, peyote, LSD...for God's sake teach us real grammar and real political history...it was profoundly embarassing to be a former honor's student in college and not understand the purpose of a preposition.)

So where was I before the rant? Oh yeah. Orange Sunshine. I barely saw trails and didn't really understand what LSD was. I think it was the fourth time I took it, in the form of a little piece of plastic about 1/8-inch square, Windowpane, which had smeared on it the real thing, LSD 25, full uncut dose, no speed or strychnine or whatever else the smarmy middle men do to it, from some chemist in UC Davis, and within 15 minutes my hands were melting before my eyes, and I was on an intergalactic journey that last literally centuries.

Here's some of the experiences that I remember that might give those who have never experienced real LSD what it COULD BE like. It has it's dangers, which I will descibe, but I never regretted doing any of it:

Needless to say, after returning from this heavenly land where clocks stop, where journeys last centuries, where one can control every sense and be the supreme architectonic artist, I would want to do it again and again and again...as I say, about 100 times over the space of three years.

But all good things must come to an end. More later.

*** My advice to people today is as follows: If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out. Timothy Leary

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In Case You Missed It...

e and my current wife, Bree. I'm the one with the mustache and oriental eyes.



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May 24, 2005

The Fire That Burns Bright

hen she was 13 years old, my first wife was thrown into a bathtub by her father, breaking both of her arms. At night, she would sleep on a ping pong table located in an enclosed back porch, so that she had easy getaway when she heard him coming. She'd never tell me much more than that.

I met the man before I knew this. Seemed like a nice enough guy.

She and I were married only a little over 3 months before it all ended. It was one of those vortex-sucking relationships that burned bright and burned out within a year. Let me tell you about it, and why it was worth it.

I'd seen her from a distance at a couple of conferences, but it was at a Writer's Conference in Los Angeles (Orange County, really, near Disneyland) where we first met. She would describe herself as a small mousy blonde. She claimed to remember a past life as a big man, a convict on a ship to Australia, and couldn't really stand being in such a mousy body.

There was something about her. A kind of light or radiance that shined that I never could explain. I just knew I was attracted to her. The catch was, she lived in Minnesota and I lived in California. So I didn't think about it too much. We did talk on the phone for several weeks. Then one night I was in Seattle at a Pacific Institute training. I called her from my hotel, we talked, and I don't remember what was said or how it happened, but several inner switches got flipped and we were both immediatley, intensely IN LOVE.

It was amazing. I felt controlled by it, wrapped in an intense warm radiance.

We had a mutual acquantance near Stockton, California, a guy who she would visit and go camping with in Yosemite. He was attached to another woman, but not yet married. For some odd reason, when he heard about us he wanted to fly her out so we could be together. The plan was for her to camp with him for a few days and then stay with me for about 10 days. (Later, she said he did it because we were all Japanese in a past life, we were married, I was the female, and I had been captured. He had been a ninja who led a raid to rescue me and I was killed. He stlil carried that guilt, so he was driven to help bring us together. I don't remember any such thing, but it was interesting. His behavior was very unusual. He didn't know me that well at the time.)

Cool! His flying her out, that is. I was teaching at a business college in Sacramento and didn't make enough money to make that happen, so I was agreeable. She had a job that didn't pay too much more than mine. We stayed at my house, but also stayed a few days on a sailboat in San Francisco Bay. It was owned by her ex-husband, a very wealthy man who was living in New York. Apparently, they were still friends.

I remember how we slept deeply together on that sailboat, how we could spoon and sleep for 8-10 hours without waking up. We began talking about me moving to Minnesota. I had actually been thinking in that direction already, either going back to graduate school or something. It was weird how everything seemed to point in that direction. Fortune cookies began saying things like "Now's the time to consider making your move," "Don't let this opportunity pass you by," and "Take love when it's placed in your hands." I never put stock in fortune cookies, but it was just plain weird how I got fortunes unlike any I'd had before.

Also, it seemed like there was a good teaching opportunity in Minnesota. I'd been wanting to get out of Sacramento for many years. This seemed made to order.

So I gave notice, liquidated a lot of my furniture and other accumulations, shipping a bunch of stuff to her condo in Minnetonka, including a birch desk and nice birch dresser cabinets handmade by a talented friend of mine.

I had saved money to fly her out so we could have a 2-day drive back to Minnesota, leaving 4 am one morning, spending the first night in Laredo, and arriving about midnight the second day.

I think it was in Nebraska on the U.S. 80 straightaway that I first realized this heavenly bliss was going to be much harder than I thought.

We were blissfully cruisin' down the highway that went straight for dozens of miles, I happened to glance in the mirror, and a cop was almost literally on my tail but no light flashing. I looked at my speedometer: 80 mph. I knew I was had, so I pulled over.

He was a straight shootin' good ol' boy who explained that he had been following me for 17 miles wondering when I would notice. I explained my blissed out state, but I still had to pull out my credit card and pay the fine right there in the cop car. He had the electrionic swiper and everything. The alternative was jail until the judge was ready. I paid.

I began driving again, more moderately, and I decided to reveal a secret truth about me to my new love. And she immediately squashed it. I assumed we had some deep connection that allowed for deep sharing. I've since come to see that the deep connection can be real, but that doesn't always mean you must share deeply.

After we started living together, I noticed that she would go through unpredictable shifts. At first I thought it was me. She said it was me. I would think she wanted one thing, but then it would shift to something else. She would have one expectation, but later claim, no, it was really something else instead, and why wasn't I getting it?

I put the pieces together slowly, but inevitably. She was rewriting reality as she went along. The abuse she suffered as a child forced her to create and recreate reality to avoid pain and punishment. And it was so deep, there was simply nothing I could do about it. Any attempt to point to it forced her to shift. I decided not to bother.

When she was bright, she was totally illuminated. I almost literally saw a yellow-gold glow around her. The radiance was inspiring and intoxicating. I still, ridiculously, thought things could work out. So I hung in there through a typical Minnesota winter where it's dark when you go to work, dark when you leave work, and sometimes you have to chip off a glacier that had appeared on your car during the day at work.

We arrived in Minnesota in late September. We married just after Christmas. We had our marriage annulled in March and I left Minnesota on April 1st, April Fool's Day, back to California.

I had started in California with a good job, a house full of furniture and personal items, two sets of keys to handle all my personal and business related locks. I returned to California with a car full of boxes, a single car key, and a friend's couch. She found another husband and moved to Missouri. Last I heard, after a couple of years, they were still in love.

That was 12 years ago. For the next ten years, I never had a real Mon-Fri job. I met my second wife, the REAL one, about 18 months later, and I ended up being a writing consultant in Silicon Valley, moving out of Sacramento, finally, for good. It's been good.

And I will always treasure that first marriage for two reasons:

1) No matter what anyone says, it's worth the experience of love that burns so bright that it flames out in months. The intensity and recklessness are a real rollercoaster ride. Yeah, it hurt. There were days I was laying on the carpet suffering. But I got over it.

2) While I was with her, I picked up, almost like sympathetic resonance, one of her character traits, one that was not strong enough in me: Remaining true to yourself.

I realized after returning to California that I acted differently, I was less accommodating and more assertive in what was deeply true to me. I drew more boundaries so that others, especially those I love, understand that there were lines I wouldn't cross, compromises I wouldn't make, because they were not ME.

I am very happy these days.

UPDATE: Weird! I just found out that the Tuesday topic for the Divas and Men's Club is " Which is worse: a lonely heart or a broken heart?" I guess we are kinda on the same page here. Christina, Sadie, Silk, Kathy, Lollygaggin, The Wizard, Phin, Naked Villainy, Puffy.


*** I will always love the false image I had of you. Ashleigh Brilliant


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May 23, 2005

Finding My Blog Voice

arvey at Bad Example has a good article on Finding Your Blog Voice. I've been at it for the last several months and can't seem to get away from having several voices.

But I just might be stuck with that. Any opinions? Do you like some of what you read here, but YAWN throught the rest? Would you like to hear more of one voice, less of another?

Or is li'l ol' me just fine the way I am?


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May 22, 2005

Fear Merchants

re you a FEAR MERCHANT? Is your livelihood in some way derived from instilling fear into people to get them to give you money, sign on to your business, support your enterprise?

Frankly, I'm so sick of fear merchants that the moment my inner "Fear Bullshit" detector goes off, that person loses my trust unless they are honest about what they are doing.

There are all kinds of fear merchants trying to sell us their wares. Some are fairly obvious:

However, there are lots of FEAR MERCHANTS that are not so obvious, or you have heard their voices for so long, you fail to recognize what they are selling:

I'm sure I'll think of more after I post this.

*** All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required. Dave Barry

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May 21, 2005

A Real Killer

Samurai

ou are a Samurai. You are full of honour and value respect. You are not really the stereotypical hero, but you do fight for good. Just in your own way. For you, it is most certainly okay to kill an evil person, if it is for justice and peace. You also don't belive in mourning all the time and think that once you've hit a bad stage in life you just have to get up again. It's pointless to concentrate on emotional pain and better to just get on with everything. You also are a down to earth type of person and think before you act. Impulsive people may annoy you somewhat.

Main weapon: Sword
Quote: "Always do the right thing.
This will gratify some people and astonish the
rest" -Mark Twain
Facial expression: Small smile

What Type of Killer Are You? [cool pictures]
brought to you by Quizilla

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What Color is YOUR Lightsaber?

HASH(0x8d0c418) our Lightsaber is Blue

Blue is often associated with depth and stability.
It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom,
confidence, and truth.

What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla


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God, I Love It!

"Don't even think about taking my guns. I'm mean. And pregnant. I'll remove your family jewels with a strawberry huller if you push me."

That's Phoenix at Villains Vanquished. Read the whole thing.


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25-Word Challenge

onker is delivering this weekend's 25-Word Challenge is happening over at Thunder and Roses. It's a thriller!


His lungs on fire, the man sprinted up the stairs towards the platform
where the train waited. "Almost there!" he thought as he looked back...

*** I became a police officer because I wanted to be in a business where the customer is always wrong.


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May 20, 2005

Gunslinger Chapter 5: Twist!

eez, Eric at Straight White Guy has gone and done it in Chapter 5 of The Gunslinger. Talk about a twist. If you are up to speed, READ IT NOW. If not, you can always start:

Chapter 1 by Dax Montana
Chapter 2 by Moogie

Chapter 3 by Yours Truly
Chapter 4 by Kelley

Chapter 6 will come next week from Pammy at Lollygaggin.
Chapter 7 will finish everything thing up, courtesy of Velociman.

*** Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.


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Carnival of the BabesWits #1



his is the first official Carnival of the BabeWits! Here they are, some of the wittiest, biting, soothing, thoughtful, and seductive women writing blogs today. (Arianna who?) Take a gander. I guarantee that you will find most of them to your taste. At least, I find they are to my taste, and what could be wrong with that? (BTW, for some strange reason, the mu.nu world won't take Trackback pings for this post because of alleged questionable content. Someone might want to have a word with the proprietor.)

Anna at Annalysis asks us "Is it OK to lie in order to get people involved in an issue?" Of course not, I say. Trust me. I'm a man. Anna writes, "Recently someone there posted a review of a book about "honor" crimes committed against women in the West Bank. For those interested in the review, it skewers the book, marketed as a true story by a woman who underwent horrible torture and mistreatment, as being basically completely made up. "

Kathy at Cake Eater Chronicles is glad that Donald Trump is sticking his nose into the whole building-the-twin-towers fiasco. "It's time they stopped f---ing about and just built the buildings. Every day construction of the new Towers is halted, is one more day that goes by that tells those b-----ds they've won. " I say first Trump needs to rearchitect his hair.

Ruth at Chaos Theory says it's all in the stars, admitting she's one of them there Virgos, so why not take the day off. "Some of your feelings may be expressed, but even more of them are apt to be repressed. There is a lot of drama in your personality and in the way you express yourself to others. Oddly enough, you don't expect as much in return as you give."


LeeAnn our Cheesemistress is in the middle of moving and has apparently gone mad, since it's been two weeks without a word. "Firstly, every single time the GM1 and I have moved, I have Gone Mad. It's my own doing, my own induced madness. I get so wound up and consumed with the task at hand that I don't eat, sleep, or see anything but boxes, scores and scores of boxes, crying out to be filled with all my carefully categorized bits and tinkets and painstakingly labeled with the contents."


Christina at Feisty Repartee has tuned pirate on us spouting a might ARRGGHHH! "In the bathroom this morning I was doing a little organzing and light packing for a quick weekend trip. The make-up bag was open and I inadvertantly knocked it over."


Sadie at Fistful of Fortnights offers us a beautiful photo of her ideal man. Just for White Trash Wednesdays!


Silk at Just Breathe gives us the best title of the week: "Technology leaps forward like a felt up chicken."


Kate at KateSpot offers a loving tribute to her grandmother who has just died.


Key at Key Issues blames an innocent, blameless planetary body for the fact that she's going bonkers over SiteMeter: "Does hit-seeking make one INSANE? I'd like to take a friggin baseball bat to the Sitemeter function sometimes. And not just on MY site...I think many bloggers would be much more tolerable if they had no friggin clue how many hits they were getting relative to their peers."


Lady Mac at Lady Mac's Musings reveals her strange preference for Tidey Whities. "I see London, I see France. I see Saddam in his underpants!"

Pammy at Lollygaggin is howling at the moon over her offically acknowledged Wolfish personality.

Michele at Meanderings is on vacation so Christina is subbing, and offers a little humor regarding Cajun Moose Hunters. "Boudreaux and Thibodeaux got a pilot to fly them to Canada to hunt moose. They bagged six."

Moogie at Moogie's World offers some words of wisdom regarding our friend, the book: "For me, a book is my entrance into a world of endless possibilities. When I read, I AM. I become the main character and remain so until I turn the last page."


Kelley at Suburban Blight is huffing and puffing and no man is involved: "This is the most egregiously superfluous @#$% I have seen on the internet in a long, long time. What is wrong with you people? Your bully pulpit not large enough?"


Phoenix at Villians Vanquished calmy and sweetly tells us a few of the things she thinks as she looks at the headlines: "1. Howard Dean is an idiot. And mean. And ugly. And possibly a psychopath."



And finally our Witty Sex Kitten gives us her thoughts on free range dating: "My friends tell me my type is "has a p---s." Which I completely disagree with because my type is solidly 6'2, corn fed, Midwestern, military guy."


*** If I can’t have access to your heart, at least let me have access to your refrigerator. Ashleigh Brilliant

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Yes, It's Me

Wolf
hat Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

Via just about everybody. Wished they'd spelled "truly" correctly.


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May 19, 2005

Don't Be So Hard On Yourself

ere's something to ponder, just in case you've been down on yourself lately. (Oh, and be grateful for your children.):




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The Death of Padme


aw Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. (7:15 am show, so I could get to work after.)

It was better than I and II but not as good as IV, V, and VI. Yeah, it probably has the greatest visuals of all the movies, so there's cool stuff to gawk at, and makes it worth the price of admission ($8.00 for a matinee--Sheez!).

It's just that except for A New Hope, ol' George cannot write dialogue, and has no patience to let his actors act.

Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote Empire Strikes Back, granted was not writing A class material, but at least it was good dialogue that helped to drive the action. In these last three movies, which I will buy and watch again, dammit, the dialogue seems to get in the way of the story.

Well, after almost 30 years, it's over. Finally. I was one of the original stand-in-line-for-hours-with-14-tickets-for-all-your-friends-so-they-could-get-the-best-seats kinda guys. Never dressed up though.

Now I'll go back and watch the best sci-fi in almost any form: all 5 seasons of Babylon 5.

UPDATE: Will Collier over a Vodkapundit is much more upbeat than I am. Maybe he sat with a loud and engaged audience. That helps a lot. He makes a lot of good points, so if you want a good review, his is just fine.


*** Obiwan to Skywalker at dinner: "Use the forks, Luke!"


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May 17, 2005

The Transparency of the Blogs

arvey at Bad Example makes a statement, while properly skewering Arianna Huffington, that I think gets to the heart of why blogs are such a threat to the MSM (vis Phin's Blog):

Bloggers who've started without readers understand that a blog can only invite and persuade, it cannot command and direct. The only tool it has is the original thoughts of the author, and his credibility with his peers. But trust amongst peers is a fragile thing, and only grows by pieces, one truth-telling post at a time.

I've already commented on The Real Power of Blogs. Harvey alludes to a kind of transparency that is crucial to credible blogs. But even more important is the distinction he alludes to that marks a profound difference between political leftists and down-home conservative blogs: Conservative blogs for the most part attempt to "invite and persuade" while political leftists want to command and direct."

This is a very good distinction, and it helps explain why the political lefties mostly don't get what the blogosphere is or what it's good for. These political lefties view everything in terms of a Will to Power. It's all about "command and direct." Because they are so immersed in political manipulation, they can only assume that their opponents are also immersed in political manipulation.

It's all a vast rightwing conspiracy.

They fail to recognize that to "invite and persuade" the way blogs do can have a powerful tranformative effect on how news, information, and opinion is delivered to readers. And how rapidly ill-formed opinions and mistatements of fact can be responded to.

And so an Arianna Huffington (go find the link yourself...she gets no pass on this blog) can look at the blogosphere, use the words, invite in her "friends," and think that she is participating in something that in fact she does not understand and is unable to actually participate in.

Why is Air America failing? Because they think the answer is propaganda. A kind of ventriloquism, where voices are thrown and people think that the meaning is actually coming from the dummies. Put the dummies on the air, pipe through the message, and the dummies in the world buy into it and repeat it. This works on television, which is susceptible to illusion and manipulation. It's harder on radio, where demigogues are more easily revealed in the tone of their voice.

Arianna and her cohorts think that blogs are the same thing. That blogging is for dummies, that they can pipe a message through, and that people will follow the propaganda. BZZZZT! Thank you for playing.

Print media is in trouble because they have operated on a standard of "command and direct."

This is the news. This is what's important. This is what we think about it. We are the standard bearers. Trust us.

No longer. The transparency of the blogs, the heart of which is to invite and persuade, is steadily demolishing those who stand on command and direct.

*** I'm looking for freedom. Can you direct me? Ashleigh Brilliant

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Fractured Fairy Penis

f you need proof that women are dangerous, here's the story:
A woman isn't legally responsible for injuries her boyfriend suffered while they were having consensual sex more than a decade ago, a state appeals court ruled Monday.

The man, identified only as John Doe in court papers, filed suit against the woman in 1997, claiming she was negligent when she suddenly changed positions, landed awkwardly on him and fractured his penis.

The man underwent emergency surgery in September 1994, "endured a painful and lengthy recovery" and has suffered from sexual dysfunction that hasn't responded to medication or counseling, the appeals court said.


Let this be a lesson to you women on top promoters!

*** Everything I am today I owe to people whom it’s too late to punish. Ashleigh Brilliant


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Evolution Experts Devolving #3,846

omen and Orgasms

One more reason why, even if there is some truth in evolution, evolution "experts" are devolving with their continuing willingness to support circular reasoning.

Evolutionary scientists have never had difficulty explaining the male orgasm, closely tied as it is to reproduction.

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant -- doing their part for the perpetuation of the species -- without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose?

Over the last four decades, scientists have come up with a variety of theories, arguing, for example, that orgasm encourages women to have sex and, therefore, reproduce, or that it leads women to favor stronger and healthier men, maximizing their offspring's chances of survival.

But in a new book, Dr. Elisabeth Lloyd, a philosopher of science and professor of biology at Indiana University, takes on 20 leading theories and finds them wanting.

The female orgasm, she argues in the book, "The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution," has no evolutionary function at all.

Rather, Lloyd says, the most convincing theory is one put forward in 1979 by Dr. Donald Symons, an anthropologist. That theory holds that female orgasms are simply artifacts -- a byproduct of the parallel development of male and female embryos in the first eight or nine weeks of life.

*** If you make one or two ridiculous assumptions, you’ll find everything I say or do totally justified. Ashleigh Brilliant

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Me, Cultural Creative. Ugg.

ia Naked Villainy. (Much better than the standard Clothed Villainy.)


You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

100%

Idealist

56%

Existentialist

56%

Postmodernist

44%

Fundamentalist

25%

Romanticist

19%

Modernist

13%

Materialist

13%

What is Your World View? (corrected...hopefully)
created with QuizFarm.com


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May 16, 2005

Newsweek Lied, People Died

oday, Newsweek apologizes for a glancing comment that American military flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet.
Newsweek apologized yesterday for an inaccurate report on the treatment of detainees that triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and other countries in which at least 15 people died.

Editor Mark Whitaker expressed regret over the item in the magazine's "Periscope" section, saying it was based on a confidential source -- a "senior U.S. government official" -- who now says he is not sure w