"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach." That is a quote by Aldous Huxley. Huxley is best known as the author of "A Brave New World" and "The Doors Of Perception". The Doors Of Perception recalls his experiences when taking a psychedelic drug, and was a book that had great influence on Jim Morrison. In fact, the book had such an impact on him that he named his rock band The Doors. How's that for trivia! Although I am sure that most true Doors fans already knew that. Anyway, Huxley was considered one of the greatest intellectuals of his time and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature in seven different years. While I am thinking about it, congratulations to Bob Dylan for winning the 2016 Noble Prize for literature. He won the award for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. The Swedish academy stated: “We’re really giving it to Bob Dylan as a great poet – that’s the reason we awarded him the prize. He’s a great poet in the great English tradition, stretching from Milton and Blake onwards. And he’s a very interesting traditionalist, in a highly original way. Not just the written tradition, but also the oral one; not just high literature, but also low literature.” Though Dylan is considered by many to be a musician, not a writer, Danius said the artistic reach of his lyrics and poetry could not be put in a single box. “I came to realize that we still read Homer and Sappho from ancient Greece, and they were writing 2,500 years ago,” she said. “They were meant to be performed, often together with instruments, but they have survived, and survived incredibly well, on the book page. We enjoy [their] poetry, and I think Bob Dylan deserves to be read as a poet.” I find it fitting to write about Aldous Huxley on the same day that Bob Dylan wins a Noble Prize because both men, in their own ways, called for social change. In fact, way back in 1958 Huxley gave a prescient warning about what he saw coming for the world in the future. Now, 58 years later, some of those predictions look startlingly accurate! Meanwhile, Dylan wrote songs in the sixties that called for social changes that also seem to be slowly gaining traction.
To get back to Huxley, after nearly sixty years, his words too are now history. Let's see what he was saying and if there is anything we should have learned. The quotes below come from an interview he did with Mike Wallace back in 1958. At that time Huxley stated that: 1."Technology, bureaucracy and Television will be used to enslave us." Huxley believed that: "we mustn’t be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology. This has happened again and again in history with technology’s advance and this changes social condition, and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn’t foresee and doing all sorts of things they really didn’t want to do." Specifically, on television he stated: " it is being used too much to distract everybody all the time. But, I mean, imagine which must be the situation in all communist countries where the television, where it exists, is always saying the same things the whole time; it’s always driving along. It’s not creating a wide front of distraction it’s creating a one-pointed, er…drumming in of a single idea, all the time. It’s obviously an immensely powerful instrument. ' There were a lot of other things that Huxley said too. Isaac Davis recently wrote an article about Huxley. Instead of just quoting from his article, follow this link to read it yourself Huxley It is rare that I ever just send my readers to another blog to read, but the article is well worth reading. In my opinion, Huxley was amazing. Now that you have read the article linked to above, I think you can see how self evident Huxley's quote to him. And remember, Brave New World was written in 1931. About 27 years before he gave that interview! Truly, He was a man ahead of his time. It's no wonder that his name often comes up when people speak of George Orwell, another writer of dystopian novels. He is best known for his book 1984. A Brave New World, 1984, and even Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand are all history now. Why not read them? And see if you can learn the messages these authors were trying to alert us to way back then.
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"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” I like this quote. Again, this quote lends itself to Buddhist thought and the way of Zen. In fact. it's almost a koan in and of itself!
Funny, this quote is by Meister Eckhart, a German theologian and philosopher who was tried for heresy by the Catholic church. In other words, he was very far from being a Buddhist! I am also fairly certain that his meaning for this quote was much different to the meaning I am going to give it. I view the quote as one of the steps toward gaining enlightenment. What is the true thing? It is nothing. And Everything. There is no past. There is no future. There is just the present. Although we all hope that we will live for a long time, there is no guarantee. All we have is the present. The now. In the end, we have our minds, and that's about it. We have what we are doing right now. And nothing else. Although there are alternatives to what I am doing right now, I am not doing them. Thus, they do not really exist anywhere but in my mind. And the potentials that those actions may produce, are only that. Potentials. The body is made up of a number of living cells. And yet we recognize ourselves as only one. If we lose a limb, it is detached from us, and withers and dies. Meanwhile the rest of us lumbers on. A little inconvenienced, but still alive and able to function. In the end, our possessions do not matter. We cannot take them with us. We spend all of our lives collecting this or that and actually saving it, expecting it to give us happiness. And yet, in the end, we all return to the source. Our survivors throw what remains away. And we return to the nothing, as if we were erased from history. Sometimes, people mistake happy and joyful as the same thing. I do it too, sometimes, where I will use the words interchangeably. For the record, the definitions I am using for the two words are:
Joy: The emotion of great delight or happiness. Happy: Delighted, pleased, or glad. Contented... favored by fortune. Using those definitions, then I'd say I have been, and will be happy, but I haven't been joyful in quite some time. Happy? Yes. Joyful? No. To be honest, I can't think of the last time I had a moment of great delight was when Sharon told me she was pregnant with Ashleigh. Prior to that, I can think of maybe four occasions where I was joyous. All of them revolved around the birth of my children... except for one in which I coached an 8 to 10 year old basketball team to an undefeated season and beat my Dad's team in the finals. Aside from those times, I have been happy, but not truly joyful. Funny, when I was growing up I would watch movies where there were so-called joyous occasions. (The end of "It's a Wonderful Life" comes to mind here), and I would see some idiot (picture Jimmy Stewart)with a huge grin on his face and running around all excited and I would wonder "what is that guy on. and where can I get some?" The looks on their faces were just so over the top, that I could never really picture anyone ever really being like that. In other words, I thought that they were gigantic phonies (which, of course, they were, They were actors, of course they were being phony!). I would see them, and I would think "I could never be like that." And I guess I was right. I never could be that way. When I have had my moments of joy, I have been serious and contemplative, not loud and dopey. And yet, the more I look around, the more I see people acting just the way Jimmy Stewart did in "It's A Wonderful Life." or like how Dorothy acted when she finally woke up at home in The Wizard of Oz. It makes me wonder "What is wrong with them?" or "Is there something wrong with me?". Of the two, I don't think there is anything wrong with me. I have fun. I am generally a happy person... or I try to be. I just can't pretend to be something I am not. Believe it or not, I believe these phony portrayals are actually bad for people's psyches. People see these actors acting dopey and overly kind, and then they wonder why they don't ever feel that way. They shoot for an ideal that is false. Yes, I have felt joy in my life. At no point did I ever run around like Jimmy Stewart smiling and making a horses ass out of myself. If I ever did, my sense of joy would end quickly as I would get very very embarrassed. In fact, when watching that movie, that is the emotion I feel most for Stewart's character... embarrassment. The character actors around him act like it is the happiest moment in the world to be approached by that madman. And they all smile and act like it is super. That's all it is folks. Acting! Don't ever act like that around me. Be happy? Yes, definitely! Be excited? Sure. But don't act all crazy and expect me to join in. Crazy doesn't live here... and never has. Honestly, I am at a complete loss for words currently. This weekend has been all kinds of long and messed up and my inspiration to write is gone. I know I promised you guys answers to the questions I left you with last week; but I'm going to put them off... at least for today. I have enough on my mind without adding to it with philosophical questions about my own life. If I feel better tomorrow, I'll try to post them up.
Maybe I should make an effort to answer them, though. At least a few. It may help take my mind off of shit, so let's go. If you had known 5 years ago you would be where you are right now, would you have believed it? 5 years ago would put me at the age of 9, almost 10... and if you told me where I'd be currently I think I'd have a hard time accepting it. I mean, in the course of five years I've gone through my parents divorcing and my mother's death, plus depression and the anxiety and pressure that came with that... I've also gotten past that and realized a lot. Friendships have come and gone, as have relationships. I have a lot more memories and experiences now than I did then and I have a much deeper understanding of life that seems to grow more each day. If you were to tell 9 year old me all of that... it would be a smack in the face as while I was mature for my age, I was nowhere near the maturity level I am now. I'm still not mature enough to "adult" successfully, but that's okay. I'm still a kid and I have the rest of my life to learn how to grow up. Honestly, I wish I could've had a more normal childhood. But it is what it is and the past can't be changed. I can only take what I've learned and use it to help me now and in the future... and to help others. I don't know... there's the answer to the first question. I'll finish the rest tomorrow. Thank you for taking the time to read. - Maddie "Goodness is the only investment that never fails." That's a quote by Henry David Thoreau. I am always a little leery of a person that uses three names. It always rubs me the wrong way. I can't think of any reason why this would be. Other than John Wayne Gacy, I can't think of anyone in particular who was evil and used three names. Well, maybe Hillary Rodham Clinton might fit in that category too. At any rate, I don't really have anything bad to say about old Henry so I might as well get back to the quote.
I can see how it would be easy to think that being good would lead to good results, but this is not always the case. The problem is, that not everybody defines good in the same way. Also, sometimes good won't work... Take addiction, for instance. Addictions are very hard to beat, and although you may think you are doing good you could be doing the opposite without realizing it. My wife had addictive personality disorder. This was just a way of saying that she had many addictions going on simultaneously. While we were married, I only really knew of two of them... while some of the others were there, I just thought they were really odd behavior tied to the two or three things I knew about. The ones I knew about, I naturally tried to help her fight. I would sweep the house for bottles of booze, keep her away from social situations that would trigger bouts of drinking, and try not to say things that would trigger excessive dieting (she was an alcoholic and also fought anorexia). It ends up, the psychologists called me an enabler since I didn't kick her out of the house and tell her that her behavior was unacceptable. Well, for the last three years of her life, Sharon was not in our house. She lived on her own and she only had supervised visits with the children. Listening to the psychologists, you would think that Sharon would have gotten better. "She needed to hit bottom" a number of them said. One went so far as to say that she would not see Sharon anymore since she was not following her instructions. This little end came once Sharon fell off the wagon and had gotten drunk one night. Given Sharon's inability to stop drinking was the key reason we were seeing her, I found this social worker's reason for abandoning working with Sharon pathetic. The one positive thing I will say about working with that particular social worker was, she was the only one to ever diagnose Sharon accurately in my opinion. She is the one that diagnosed her with addictive personality disorder. Up until that point, we thought we were only fighting alcoholism and anorexia/binge eating. So what was really good and what was bad? In this instance I don't really know. I divorced Sharon to protect the girls, since her behavior was getting too erratic and really was dangerous for the baby. The psychologists said I needed to show her there was repercussions for her drinking. Three years after we first separated, Sharon drank herself to death. In those three years she was on her own, she never hit a bottom that couldn't fall deeper. After living through it all, I can say that Sharon needed more help than I could give her... or anyone for that matter. The doctors could not help her, I could not help her, the in-patient and out-patient programs could not help her. She needed to help herself. I feel bad that the last three years of her life was spent without me and her daughters by her side throughout it. To this day, my heart is with Sharon. She was my wife and I loved her deeply. She could not be around our children regularly, because of her drinking... And that hurt her tremendously. It hurt me too, and the girls. Ashleigh was never raised by Sharon. I brought her home from the hospital when she was four days old, and I raised her on my own. Ashleigh still remembers her Mom, but more as a friend who played with her. She was three when Sharon died. Maddie was eleven. The anniversary of Sharon's death comes up in four days. This time always makes me look back and think could I have done anything different that would have helped Sharon. My answer is no. I loved her with all of my heart. I tried to do what I thought was best. Later, I tried to do what the doctors said, even though I did not think it was best. Sometimes, the good can be the bad and the ugly as well. In the end, do what you believe is good, but like anything else, know that sometimes being good isn't going to be enough. I want to do a quick follow up on my post from yesterday due to a comment I received on it. In the post from yesterday, I discussed the military and how I believed that those in the military were usually manipulated to think that they were going off to fight for some glorious cause; when in reality they would be killing innocent people for a corrupt government. However, I didn't go into nearly enough detail as I should have with my opinion and thus caused a little confusion. I'd like to thank my Aunt Michelle for her very thoughtful comment on my post, and close my idea a bit.
I do believe that our country needs a good military- for defense purposes. For when other countries attack US. But the issue I have with war is that the last time I checked, we had gone and stuck our own nose where it didn't belong due to oil or some other such trivial matter; and the country we invaded had retaliated. That, in my opinion, is not any of our military's business. You're literally sending people to go die over-seas for a cause they may not know anything about. Can you imagine explaining to a grieving family that their child had just sacrificed their life so that some big government-funded corporation could make a better deal? I can't see that going well. I mean no disrespect to those who recognize the corruption- and obviously; there are those who do. In the end, it's their choice and if they believe they are called to defend our country; then by all means have at it. In today's world, it does seem like things can happen out of nowhere... a beautiful example being all the bombings going on. I'm just completely against people who get manipulated to the point that they can't see what's in front of them. Those who join knowing exactly what they are going into have at least a good portion of their wits about them. That, I hope, ties up the loose ends from my last post. Good day. - Maddie “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” This is a quote by George Orwell. I have thought about this quote for a bit, and I think that he is right... to some extent. Think about it. Everything you or I know is known through our perceptions. Describe a tree. You are going to tell me what a tree is by how you perceive it. Same thing if I ask you to describe a person. Whether its a person you know, or just someone passing by in the street, you are going to tell me how you perceive them.
Now, I know that there are a lot of things that exist, that you can describe without seeing them. But you can only describe them because you have either heard about them, seen them, or have seen enough similar things that you believe you can describe them. Secondly. think about the old philosophical argument called the caverns of Socrates. Socrates tells of a prisoner who has only lived in a cavern for his whole life, and he can only see out of it to a certain level. So much so that he can only see feet. His entire life, all he can see outside of his cave is feet. What would that man's reality be like compared to yours? And, if it is all he has experienced... and ever will experience, is his reality wrong? I would argue that it is not. It is what he can experience. Although there is a great wide world out there right outside his cavern, he does not know about it... and it is not a piece of his reality. If someone who has experienced it told him about it, he may believe it, or not. Similar to someone telling you what China is like. Whether you have been there or not! Also, consider that when someone tells you about a place you have never been, you are relying on their perceptions. How much of what they are saying will be true for all, versus just true for them? At the end of the day, reality is what we make it. There are some things that are usually true. But can we be certain that they are always true? And what is our definition of always? A strict definition of always, can negate the reality about many things. It all comes down to your perceptions. And where do you perceive things? In your mind! If any of you disagree, please leave your thoughts in the comments. I find this topic very interesting and I would love to see differing opinions. "History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools." This is a quote by Ambrose Bierce. If you don't know who Ambrose is, then you really need to read more! "Bitter Bierce" wrote for a number of magazines and newspapers in the 1870's through about 1913.
In addition to writing for the papers, he also wrote poetry and short stories. Bierce had been a soldier during the civil war and fought in many battles. He was injured grieviously, and his war experience had a huge impact on his writing. In 1913, he disappeared in Mexico while travelling with Pancho Villa. Where he died, why and how all remain a mystery to this day. Enough about Bierce! He was an interesting character. If you want to know more go read about him. If you want to see some of his satire in action, then read the Devil's Dictionary... a tongue in cheek book with cynical and bitter definitions of words. Quite funny actually. Just remember the time period that it was written in since some of the definitions are now outdated. To get back to the quote, I think he has a point. History is an account of events that are usually written by the victor. Thus, while you do get an idea of what happened, you never get the full truth. In fact, I imagine that you rarely get the full truth in most of it! Secondly, many of the things that you learn in history are not overly important in themselves, but when taken in the whole, can help to give you some context towards what has happened in the past. My main beef about history is that it often glorifies war. I think that Bierce saw this as a distinct negative too. Some of his war stories are particularly gruesome. He doesn't write about it to gross people out, but to show what he experienced in war. I think that no one can really read his war stories and come away with the thought that war is glorious. In fact, after reading the stories, you may come away with the feeling that soldiers may be fools for believing that war IS glorious. Read "Chickamauga" to see what I mean. Still, history is one of my favorite subjects. I like to see if I can find facts that differ from what I was taught in school. Oftentimes I find that I can find dissenting views... or at least differing points of view. One thing that I find again and again that is different from what we learn in school is that war is hell. This and other similar quotes are written by the soldiers themselves and their leaders. The only ones who say otherwise are the politicians and the people who have never experienced war first hand. With that said, I tell my daughters to avoid military service. Many of the wars that are fought are not fought for the reasons given. For a recent example, think about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction". Furthermore, think about why did we attack Iraq? The Muslims that were said to be on the planes that crashed into the world trade center were said to be from Saudi Arabia... not Iraq, and the sect of Islam that they followed was not followed in Iraq. So, why did we attack Iraq? I will leave that up to you, dear reader. Surely the fact that they have oil had nothing to do with it. Or the fact that they wanted to start selling the oil in a currency other than the U.S. dollar. History is written by the victor. Assume much of it is bullshit. Did we go to war? Yes. Was it for the reasons the government told us? Doubtfully. "In our society leaving baby with Daddy is just one step above leaving the kids to be raised by wolves or apes." That's a quote by Al Roker, the lovable weatherman from numerous television programs. Given that weathermen are wrong just as often as they are right, I am going to go out on a limb and say he was wrong with his above quote...(just like the weather!) I'm sure Al was just trying to be funny with his quote above, but for me, it hits close to home. You see, my wife became ill when she was pregnant with our second child, and never came home. I brought Ashleigh home at 4 days old and raised her and her then seven year old sister since then. After three years, my Mom moved in to help me with the girls. My father died in the interim, and her moving in worked best for the both of us. Six years after bringing her home, Ashleigh is doing great! Maddie is doing well also. Unless you asked them, I don't think anyone would be able to tell that either of my girls did not have a Mom living at home.
My girls are sweet and feminine... although Maddie can likely hit harder than Al (she is a second-degree black belt) and probably takes a punch better too. Ashleigh is a purple belt and the highest rank in her little ninjas class. Part of being a good father is making sure that my girls are protected whether I am there or not. Training both of my girls in the martial arts is one way I am making sure that they at least have a chance to protect themselves if the need ever arises. In Al's defense, there are some men who should not be left home with the children. Indeed, Al or his father could be these very people! Some people, when they see me with my girls, assume that I am watching them because "Mom" is busy. It's even worse on the weekends...some people think that it is my weekend to have the kids. Sigh! I let people think what they want. I know. And my daughters know that I do my best to raise them properly. AND THAT I AM ALWAYS THERE FOR THEM! If others want to think that I am a part-time Dad like their husband or own father...that is up to them. As for Al, he can say what he pleases. I rarely heed his advice about the weather... and that is what he is paid to do. My guess is that the quote above is less accurate than one of his weather reports. He has about a 50% chance of getting the weather right...it is either going to rain or it isn't. I would think that the accuracy of his quote is maybe a direct hit for less than 10% of the population. Way to go Al! "Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." That's a quote by Terry Pratchett. Pratchett was an English author of fantasy novels. He died in March, 2015. I never read any of his novels, so I am not sure what context was behind this quote. For me, it still holds meaning though.
You see, I, in a sense, have come back full circle to where I have started. In 1991, I started as a research assistant at the Value Line Investment Survey. It was my first job on Wall Street, and I was proud to work there. I moved up through the ranks quickly and left five years later as an editor and the editor in charge of the Supplementary Reports portion of the survey. I left to go to Merrill Lynch in 1996. In September 2014, I rejoined Value Line, and in a sense it felt like a homecoming. I still knew many of the older analysts there and many of the younger analysts were very welcoming. After my wife died, it was very hard to keep my hedge fund consulting business viable, since I was also raising two young girls on my own. There just wasn't enough time to do everything, and the business suffered even further, while I supervised visits for the girls with their Mom, or had to drive Sharon to doctors visits as the courts had decreed. In 2014, I still had clients, but I was writing a lot of proprietary reports that I could not send out to other prospective clients, thus the business was stagnating. In July, a number of old friends came up for a fishing trip, and I was talking shop with one of the analysts that still worked at Value Line. He told me that Value Line was looking for analysts to work from home, and I immediately jumped at the opportunity. Two weeks later, I was hired! I must say that coming back to where I started is not like never leaving. I picked up the Value Line system again very easily, and I am thoroughly enjoying working for Value Line again. I, of course, work from New Hampshire. My New York extension rings in my home office. Some of my old friends ask me if it bothers me going back to where I started. And I must say that it doesn't bother me at all. Sure I miss working with the hedge funds and trying to out think the Street. But the reality of it is that that wasn't what I was doing anymore at my own company. I didn't have the time to do the research AND the marketing AND the client talks that are necessary to keep that type of business going. I had more than enough work to keep me going, but I was just making the bills. And the work was no longer run and gun trading and shorts, but more management critiques and operational synopsis'. I enjoyed doing them, and was happy for the work, but it was just not going to allow me to comfortably increase the rest of my business and home school my daughters. At this point, I am covering about 50 stocks for Value Line. Although the press schedule can be tight, particularly during earnings season, I still have time to teach my daughters, train in the martial arts and do other things that need to be done around the house. Although I miss the camaraderie of being in an office setting, I am older now, and it just wouldn't be what it used to be anyway. In the end, I feel like I have to some extent come home... even though I never really leave my home to work anyway. At least not since 2003. It's funny how life changes, yet still manages to stay the same in so many ways. One final thought: If I never left Value Line, I never would have met my wife, and I never would have then had my daughters that I have now. I also never would have moved to New Hampshire, where I am extremely happy. Thus, although I have come back to where I started, I am also happy that I am never really leaving my happy place in New Hampshire! "Knowledge is the eye of desire, and can become the pilot of the soul." That gem is by Will Durant. I actually had to look this guy up because I really had no clue about who he was. Turns out he was a writer, historian and philosopher. The combination likely makes for a long-winded read. In fact, his most famous work ran to eleven volumes and was written over four decades. Yikes!
Anyway, back to the quote. When I originally looked at the quote, I was just going to paraphrase it and say "Knowledge is the pilot of the soul." I changed my mind for two reasons. First, I started to think about what he was saying and apply it to my own life, and I noticed that oftentimes does lead the soul about. Anyone who has ever been happily married likely knows what I am talking about here. Secondly, my daughter Maddie usually complains if I write about the soul or say anything that has religious connotations. I must say that I am very interested in the existence (or non-existence) of souls, although I don't necessarily think that my interest is due to any religious fervor on my part. Overall, I suspect that we have souls, although, even after thinking about it, I can't tell you why I actually believe it. Some of it is likely actually the hope that I will one day be able to be with my wife again. She died two years ago and I miss her dearly. Sometimes the hope of being able to see her again when it is my time is all that keeps me from falling into a well of sadness. A second reason for my belief is that I have had a number of personal experiences where things have happened to me that I just can't understand. These things are small, and personal, yet they have had a large impact on my thinking. Clinically, I am sure much of what I have experienced could be called minor hallucinations brought on by stress. And I can accept that answer, for some of them. For other things, though, I find it hard to accept that answer though. And thus, like a moth to a flame I am drawn to studies and articles about souls and psyches, and the impact of memories on our day to day lives. For me, it seems that the desire for knowledge is the pilot of my soul. I truly want to understand what I have experienced, and to do that I need to be able to compare it to other people's experiences. Unfortunately, there are a lot of charlatans out there. Some books and movies that have been produced that many people believed to be true, were later said to be hoaxes by one of the people involved. To sum it up, knowledge for me is not the eye of desire. Instead, the desire for knowledge is the pilot of my soul. It's a little different than the way the quote was actually written, but for me, it is a lot more correct and meaningful. "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." That is a quote by William Penn, and although it is very short...it is also very true! I guess you can say he wasted no time in writing that thought!
To give a good example of wanting time, yet wasting it, take this post for instance. I started writing it this morning around 10:00, but I quickly got busy and didn't get around to coming back to finish it until 10:20 this evening. Naturally, what I am writing now is different than what I would have written then. Unfortunately, I had a very full day in between. I completed a spreadsheet for a new company I am covering and wrote two thirds of the report for it. I will likely go back and finish the report once I finish this post. I also made changes to six reports that came back from editing and sent an additional two reports in to the editor. I have sent out five emails to various people solving near-term issues, and I have worked Ashleigh through three lessons for her home schooling. Maddie and I have had three discussions about her school work as well. At 3:45 I showered and got ready to help teach Ashleigh's karate class at 4:30. After the class I stopped at Mc Donald's for a cookie for Ashleigh and a coffee for me. I then drove home, dropped Ashleigh off, and picked up Maddie for our karate class at 6:00. After class, we stopped for a coffee (I know I am addicted!) and a soda for her. We came home, ate dinner, and I worked with Ashleigh on her blog post. I also downloaded a program I needed for work while I waited for Ashleigh to finish typing in her blog post. Once she was done, I went upstairs to spend a little bit of quality time with Ashleigh. Now, as I sit here, I am reflecting on all of the time I have wasted over the years doing things that were not productive. Arguments with my wife that I wish never happened. Hurt feelings about little inconsequential things. Time I spent angry or upset. I regret the moments I never got to spend with a friend or my wife or children because I chose to do other things. I think of the work I have yet to do on projects due next week and I think, in twenty years, no one will remember what I wrote, or for that matter whether I was right or wrong with my call. My report is good for about a week or two after it is published. After that, no one is likely to read it again, except for me, at some point in the future, when I am getting ready to write another report on the company in the future, and I then want to see how I phrased something in the past. Time is a man-made construct. What we did in the past can't be undone. There is no guarantee we will be around in the future to do anything. We make plans anyway just in case. What we have now is this moment. How are you going to spend this moment? Reading this blog post? I will tell you how I am going to spend my next moments...the best part of my day. I am going to go and hug my daughter Ashleigh good night. I will give her a kiss and tell her I love her. I will then give my Mom a kiss good night and tell her I love her. Finally, I will go in and give my daughter Maddie a hug and tell her that I love her as well. That is how I wish all of my moments to be. Letting those I love know that I love them. Instead, life happens and I do other things. Enough things so that most of my day is taken up with things other than me focused on the ones I love. Make time for yourself every day. Spend that time with the ones you love. If you must do other things. Do them efficiently so that you will actually get the time to spend with the ones that you love. As far as I know, we are only on this world for one go around. When you are on your death bed, are you going to regret that you didn't get one more report done? Or might you regret the day a long time ago, when you were alone on the beach with the one you loved, and instead of just enjoying the moment you were worried about writing a report that nobody now even remembers or ever gave two shits about? In the end, we all have responsibilities and work. We DO NOT have to worry about it though. We should get it done as quickly as we can while doing a good job with it and then move on to do other better things with the ones we love. I miss my wife, and while I regret the times we were together where we were arguing. If we could have seen the future, I think we would have spent those moments differently. I know I would have. The fact is that none of us can see the future. Because of this, I think it is best to act towards each other how we would if we could. I am not talking about neglecting your responsibilities. I am talking about the time it takes you to do your responsibilities, and then what you do with your time afterwards. One day will not be another day, for all of us. What do you hope that you will do on that day? Since there is no way to tell when that day will be for you or your loved ones, It's best to spend those precious moments between responsibilities as if there was no tomorrow...for one day, there won't be. "Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness, and the burning up of the ego." That is a quote by Eckhart Tolle. He is an author who wrote "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose" to name two. I have never read any of his work, but the above quote really struck me because in a perverse way, it is true.
Believe me, this is not what I expected to write about this morning.The only reason I chose it is because I thought back to my wife's illness and death, and I thought of the way I think now, versus what I thought then, and I see that my state of consciousness is different and that what I care about has changed greatly. I do not mean to say that the suffering had a purpose. "Purpose" was likely a poor choice of word for that quote. The use of the word "noble" was also a little bit unsettling. But I do see that the suffering I went through watching my wife disintegrate, changed me in profound ways. To start, I no longer care about money at all. I have my house paid off. I make a good salary, and I am not very motivated to work longer hours to make more money. My daughters are the most important things in my life, and I just want to spend my time raising them and making sure they are ready for adulthood. I also noticed that my ego has just about dried up and disappeared. I really don't care what people think of me any more. I care about making sure my daughters know I love them and that I am always here for them. I dress the way I like, and I can care less about what others think about that. I have no urge to buy the latest car or watch the most popular TV shows. In my work, I write about what I think will drive the stock price higher or lower. I try to do my best for our subscribers...and that is what I am focused on. I try to keep my editing honest and focused. If someone makes a mistake, I tell them. I was never one to let things slide, but I am even less like that now. I no longer care about what others thik about me (at least I think I don't). Now, I do things for me and my daughters...and my Mom too. If I can help someone else out, I'll do that too, but I don't really feel compelled to do so. In the end, there is nothing "noble" about suffering. I watched my wife suffer. I suffered with her. As did my daughter. I doubt anyone who saw what happened with my wife would think there was anything noble about it. To what purpose did we suffer. In my mind, it was pointless. I would not wish what my wife went through on anyone. Nor would I wish what I went through, or my daughter went through on anyone. It was pointless. It was sad. And it never really goes away. Some people, like Eckhart Tolle, write things without ever really experiencing what they write about. He writes a sentence and puts in words that he thinks will make people sigh and feel better about themselves...and he fails miserably. Suffering is not a noble purpose. It is suffering. And while suffering will change the way you think, It takes a horrible mental and physical toll. If you really want an evolution in consciousness and a burning away of the ego, you need to think. Not about a bunch of sappy sentences written by a man who has likely never experienced the things that he is writing about... but about what is right and wrong in your own life. Think about how you can change what makes you unhappy. Think about what truly makes you happy. What changes can you make today that will help you to build happiness for your lifetime? It is this type of thinking that will lead to a burning away of your ego. When you live for yourself and stop caring what the neighbors will think. This will bring about a change in your consciousness. Be true to thine own heart. Well. It's 2:00 AM and I'm out of blog ideas. SO without further ado- here are things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I don't know... this is my blog post I guess. I'm probably going to be told it was shitty. But I don't really care. These are my thoughts. ~Maddie "And so castles made of sand, slips into the sea...eventually." That is a quote from the incomparable Jimi Hendrix. If you don't know Jimi. you just haven't lived! His songs are haunting, and stay with you for decades. At least they did with me.
When I chose the above lyric to write about tonight, I was thinking of my wife, and how her life just slipped away like a sand castle built too close to the water at the shore. But that is not what that lyric is about. If you listen to the song (Here is a link), I think he is implying that all life is transitory and that all dreams come to an end, no matter how strong a foundation they may have. In fact, all three stanzas of the song speak of broken dreams. The first two are tragic, a love that falls apart leaving a man shattered in the street, and a young boys dream ending the night before its achievement due to his unexpected death. It's only in the final stanza where the girl's dream is broken, but the outcome is for the good. What good is a solid foundation for our hopes and dreams, if it can all be taken away from us at any moment? Jimi never touches on the why of the destroyed dreams...what caused the relationship to crumble or what caused the sneak attack that took the young boy's life. Instead, he just focuses on that it happened...and that it CAN happen to any of us. How would you respond if your entire life was suddenly turned upside down? What would you choose to protect? What would you let go? How would you decide? Or, here's another question: How would your family respond if you died suddenly? Would they survive? What would they do? Or not do? I can tell you what I'd do for the first part. You see, it happened to me. I let it all go and tried to protect my daughters as best as I could. I fought the waves crashing into the foundation of my castle and shored up the defenses. Between the crashing waves, I trained in karate to forget for an hour each day all the troubles that were plaguing me. I took every step I could to shelter my daughters from the storm, and I came within inches of going bankrupt. I fought the storm until all of my hope was lost... and it was at that point, while I kept pushing on, that light finally appeared at the end of the tunnel. I know now that our lives are like castles made of sand. No matter how strongly we think we are grounded to reality. It only takes an errant wave to start our castle crumbling. Things have gotten a bit better lately. The tide has receded a bit. But I don't fool myself. Nothing is permanent. Each day, I make sure to hug my daughters, and tell them how much I love them. I try to have a smile for everyone. A joke or two for some, and wise words for others. While I tend to work hard, I try to set aside time for what is really important too. It is hard though, work has always been an interesting and fun part of my life. Still, I love to spend time with my daughters, or a few minutes with my Mom to enjoy a cup of coffee. Lastly, I look for a little alone time so that I can catch up on reading and write these blog posts. I like to look at my woods and know that I can walk out my door and enjoy solitude within fifty feet of my house. I think back on holding my wife while she lie dying in my arms. I held her for six hours. Words failed me. I tried to let her know that I was there for her, that she wouldn't die alone, but the words, I felt, were hollow. I wasn't dying with her, and in the end, we all die alone whether someone is there or not. I hope that she knew she wasn't alone. I hope she knew I was there for her, and that since the time we had started dating I had always tried to be there for her. My heart breaks thinking about her..about my inability to help her. Sharon died two years ago, and yet her castle is still washing out to sea. Some of her things are still out in the garage. I have been trying to sell them and/or bring them to good will, but it takes time and energy. The emotional toll is high. At times I feel my castle walls start flowing out to sea as well, and I know that I have to step back again and focus on other things. There are a lot of good things. I just have to look. I can't just wash away. I need to be a strong foundation rock for my daughters' lives. Because castles made of sand, fall into the sea...eventually. "Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." That's a quote from Marcus Aurelius. Best known as a stoic philosopher, he was also a Roman Emperor! Out of the two, I'd rather be known as a stoic philosopher. Still, if he wasn't Emperor, I doubt we would know him as a philosopher at all. Why is it we remember the names of generals and politicians that led to the death and suffering of thousands of people, yet never know the names of common people who did incredible things?
The answer to that last question is likely the quote! Think about it, billions of people have lived since the beginning of time. I am certain that many of them lived overly happy lives. Some of them may have been brutally short, but happy nonetheless. What makes for happiness? Do you need to be a stoic philosopher or a Roman Emperor? I think not. And what about Marcus Aurelius himself? He seems to have lived half his life as emperor on campaign, killing people. Does THAT make for a happy man? For a man who espoused a philosophy of service and duty, probably. Think about that. Service and duty. Does a man owe service to anyone but himself or his family? What is a person's true duty? And who decides that? Do we owe service to the state? Why? Most large "states" have become corrupted over time. Should we serve corruption? I believe the best service we can do for someone is to teach them how to think. Not what to think, mind you, but HOW to think. Too many people seem to go through life without taking their individual actions to their logical conclusions. I will smoke a cigarette now, because I like the feeling that the nicotine gives me. Multiply this actions by the thousands of times that may happen over a lifetime and you have a good chance of getting lung cancer. I am not just getting down on smokers here folks. What about the person who relaxes with a beer? Or the person who calms their fears with a doughnut? My wife drank herself to death. Esophageal varacies to be exact. She had first gotten esophageal varacies and was told she needed to stop drinking or she was going to die. She stopped for a while, but her addiction got the best of her, and she eventually went back to drinking and died from it. She isn't the only one. Others have been diagnosed with diabetes and kept eating sugary snacks. They figure, this one doughnut won't kill me...never thinking that it isn't the one, but the compilation of the many. That last example was my Dad. My Dad taught me many things, but the one lesson that had a huge impact on me is a lesson he never knew he taught me. Watching him die from the complications from his diabetes taught me that that is not how I want to go out of this world. By the time he passed, my Dad was taking about seventeen pills a day, He had numerous heart operations, he had had toes amputated and he was on dialysis. His last couple of years were very tough on him. I sometimes wonder if he had ever thought past the pleasure of that doughnut, or that full sugar soda, to what they may cause later. When I was younger, I never thought past the immediate pleasure. I started to look past it, originally when I was in college and I saw how my grades were suffering from a lack of study and too much drinking. I put myself in AA then, to help get past my problem and get my grades back. I did it, eventually. I graduated in five years, but sadly went back to "casually" drinking. Essentially, I was a functional alcoholic. I finally stopped once my wife (then my girlfriend) confessed that she was an alcoholic and asked me to help her stop. I quit right then and tried to help her to do the same. Unfortunately, she was never able to stop and fourteen years later she was dead. Seeing what was happening to my Dad started me on a road to eating healthier. I read up on diabetes and sent him articles trying to educate him on the disease and help him to make changes to his lifestyle that would help him. I don't think he read any of them. I did read, them, though, and made changes to my own lifestyle to help me not to follow in his footsteps. At one time, my blood tests showed that I was just a tad below being considered pre-diabetic. That scared me. I went on a diet and lost weight. I cut out bread and pasta and most sugary snacks and treats. (I occasionally eat a coffee roll or pretzels...hey I am not perfect!). The end result is that I have lost sixty-five pounds and my blood tests have improved to where my levels are at dead center for healthy blood sugar levels. It is a struggle to stay on a low-card diet, particularly when the cook at my house thinks that it is all bullshit. I have tried to give her the literature, but she says she is too old and busy to read it. Thinking past the comfortable is one of the signposts on the way to happiness. The more areas in your life where you can force yourself to think past the comfortable, the happier you will be. Poison with a lump of sugar in it is still poison. There are better ways to relieve stress than to eat or drink yourself to death. We all have our weaknesses. Better to recognize them for what they are and then find ways to combat them. This post has drifted away from where I originally intended for it to go. I think this message is important, though, so I hope you can read between the lines. Life is what you make it. You will make it more by thinking. I usually write these blogs for my daughters, Today, I have written it for them, but also for three other people. Two likely won't read it unless I ask them to. Even then, I am not certain they will read it...or if they do, they won't see the message as pertaining to them. The third person likely will read it. I hope she can think through it and see the deeper message. "When we talk to God, we are praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic." Don't worry this won't be an overly religious post. That quote, by Jane Wagner, was said tongue in cheek to get a laugh. But of course, I am going to ask my usual question: But is it true? My answer to that is that it could be true. It might be true for some people...or it might be false. And nowadays, with the government, or anyone else with access to microwave technology able to beam voices into your head, we will never actually know now will we?
Allan Frey was the first to publish a paper about the microwave auditory effect, and that's why it is also known as the Frey effect. I touched briefly about this in a blog post a couple of weeks ago. Frey wrote about the effect in 1961. By the early 1970's, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research was already beaming voices into people's heads at a distance of 100 meters. In 2003, Waveband Corp. had a contract with the U.S. Navy for a system called MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) intended to remotely, temporarily incapacitate personnel. The project was supposedly cancelled in 2005. Now let me ask you a question. If the U.S. government has been experimenting with this stuff since the early 1960's, do you really think they cancelled it in 2005? More likely, the program was changed to a different name and is being studied more discreetly. Believe me, if something has the potential to be weaponized, our government wants it! Not just to use it versus their perceived enemies... which may include you, but also so that they are up to date with all of the research so that they can block the technology from being used against them. With that said, think of the havoc that would ensue if large numbers of people believed that they were having conversations with their God. Many, not knowing of the Frey effect, would listen to the voices without question. If enough people fell for it, All of the people of the world could become slaves to the perpetrators of the hoax. Think about it, who wouldn't do what their God told them to do...particularly if most of the people around them also heard the voice in their head too! Thankfully, the amount of energy necessary to reach hundreds of people at once would be too high, and many of the people would be in danger. If it wasn't for that, though, I honestly believe someone would have tried this scheme already. Still, the potential for damage could be staggering. Think about it, Some people would likely very willingly become God's assassin. And not just Muslims either! Voices in your head would likely go a long way towards convincing a person to do heinous crimes...particularly if they thought it was their God speaking to them. As for me, knowing about the Frey effect, I would never listen to a voice in my head that told me to do something violent to another. Any voices in my head will be blatantly ignored (to the best of my ability anyway). It is a sad world we live in when you can't trust your government, many of the people around you, the media or even the voices in your head! All said, don't just follow the crowd blindly. A lot of what they are told to do doesn't makes sense. Don't listen to voices in your head...particularly if it is telling you to do something self destructive or violent. And finally, take everything that the big media companies or the government tells you to do with a grain of salt. "There's is no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality, and never allow the world within them to assert itself." That;s a quote by Hermann Hesse. Nowadays, many people mistakenly assume Hesse was a Nazi. Not so. Hesse was a writer active during the early years of the twentieth century. While he was alive during World War II, he was not a fan of the Nazis. That would be evident to anyone who has read any of his works. There is the rub. I doubt any of you have read any of his work. In fact, I would imagine that maybe one out of every one hundred thousand people have read any of his stuff nowadays (and yes, I have read some of his work). And THAT brings me back to his quote.
Hesse was socially awkward in his younger years, and likely throughout his life. He was very bookish and wrote to express his thoughts. His first published works were not very successful, yet he persevered. Eventually, he won a noble prize for his writing. The book I read by Hesse was "Steppenwolf". To me, "Steppenwolf" was about Hermann Hesse's reality. The book was his way of expressing how he saw the world. The main character in the book (Harry Haller) has the same initials as Hesse, and his bouts with depression fit Hesse to a "T"! Moreover, in a part of the book where Harry is walking around town, afraid to go home because it is there where he figures he will commit suicide, Harry meets a dancer who gives him a reason to live. Oddly enough, Hesse wrote this book soon after he had met and married a singer. The dancer's name was Hermine. (I wonder if "Steppenwolf" is where J.K Rowling got her inspiration for her character with the same name?) Hermine teaches Harry that dancing, drinking, drug use and girlfriends are okay, and that they are part of living a "true" life. Give me a little leeway here folks on the story...I read it about twenty years ago and I am writing by memory right now. I may have spelled their names wrong, and I may have a few of the facts out of order, but I still think I am getting the gist of the story correct. (I will have to go back and reread it now to see how well I did!) Anyway, eventually Hermine introduces Harry to a musician named Pablo, who seems to be a psychedelic Buddha of the twenties. He brings Harry to his mythical Magic Theatre, where Harry meets the fantasies from his mind. So was THAT Hesse's reality? In part. In the book Hermine is killed off, and I do not remember reading about any homicides in Hesse's history. To me, Hermine might have just been a convenient way for Hesse to depict changes in his own thought patterns over time. "Steppenwolf" seems to be a journey. A journey that shows the progression of Hesse's thinking over many years, right up until the time he wrote that novel. The pessimism that pervades the novel to the end almost seems to finish with a ray of hope. Truly, Steppenwolf was a bizarre novel. If you are a thinker, it will make you think...just likely not about what you usually think about. In the end, it seems Hesse's reality was one of madness. Despair and pessimism, seemed to rule his early years (as it does with many people), yet as he grew older and he was exposed to the world, his world brightened a bit. Depression was a constant companion throughout his life, however. How little we know about a man's inner thoughts. Sometimes we can recognize little parts of ourselves in other people's writings. These are the stories that call to us. And they are not always happy ones. Reality is a mixture of emotions and thoughts swirling around us as we walk through the physical world. Two people can sit in the same room and experience totally different realities. The room doesn't change, our perceptions of it does. In a happy mood, I may notice the beautiful trees just outside my window. When I am unhappy, I may notice the dust on the furniture, or the nick in the wood near the bottom of my desk. All of those things were there yesterday...all that has changed is my mood. Reality IS what we make it. While we can share small slices of reality with each other, and find a commonality, the real game is within our head. Think, and change your reality. Act, and change everyone's. So today's rant will be an actual rant on a serious topic for me. The other day, a friend of mine told me that an old friend (who burned bridges and let our friendship fall) was talking smack about me. She defended me, which I was very grateful for. HOWEVER, later that night the same person got in contact with me and tried to trash me. I kept relatively calm about what they were saying and just blocked them, as I have no need for negativity in my life- but now I'm going to let what I would have LIKED to say out here.
I was told by this person that karate is not a real sport. This same person has played field hockey- for 4 months, no less. I was FURTHER told that I would never survive a day on the field because it requires hard work and dedication. Clearly something I don't have, right? I mean- I've only persevered through 11 years of rigorous training and conditioning in my SPORT AND LIFESTYLE and gone through 2 5-hour tests; each in which I had to do over 1,000 pushups... I don't have enough dedication though. Well, I'm very glad you dedicated four months of your life to a sport that will get you nowhere in life. Yes, I'm sure it's fun and does require some hard work and to you; it probably DOES take a lot of dedication (considering you have trouble keeping friendships for more than 7-8 months). But to tell a second degree black belt who has worked hard and dedicated their whole life to building stamina, power, and MORALS that they wouldn't survive a day on your field... is a bit much. I could come out on that field and last forever. But what I'd like to see is you for one come say that karate isn't a real sport to my face. And for two- come out on the mat and fight me. Because I doubt you would last 30 seconds. For those still wondering- yes, karate is a sport. Obviously. It takes a lot of dedication, hard work, stamina, power, and a love for what you do. But in return- you learn so much. Too many people see karate as a tool to kick people's asses with. I see it as a way to live life. In taking karate; I have learned: Honor Loyalty Bravery Honesty Self Control Etiquette Sincerity Character Effort Support Teamwork Leadership Compassion Acceptance And so much more. It isn't just a sport. It's a code for life. And I feel very sorry for you if you don't understand that. ~Maddie |
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