"Next Blog"

Have you ever clicked the ''next blog'' button? I just had the most amazing idea creep up my lower lumbar, wiggle up onto my shoulders and whisper into my ear. I decided to go on a "next blog" rampage. I must have viewed maybe 12 blogs before i noticed a pattern. Everyone was exactly like me. There was all these tiny bubbles of life. Each one an independent ecosystem of values, beliefs, pursuits, rants, tears, happiness, experiences, laughs, and all thinking the same thought....i am so important. Worlds within a world, doing our best to carve out a niche in the minds of others. We want to feel like people recognize us. We want them to look at our shoes. "Oh, wow what nice shoes"!! We want them to look at our pictures. We want them to look at our minds, our words, and our accomplishments. "Wow, your so awesome!!!! I want to be like you." I admit here before the congress of subscribers....all 5 of you die hard Electric Milk followers...that i am guilty of posting blogs with that motivation. I have broken the 11th commandment of the sacred Jones Manuscript found in lost caves of Zanzabar. I stroke my ego!!!
I feel like my mom just caught me masturbating. I feel like she caught me and there is a sense of "now what"? Now what am i supposed to feel? i was afraid she was going to catch me, now that the fear is over, what should i be afraid of next?
Your in the Now when you say,"Wow i have been off in my head for the last 20 minutes, i want to come back to this moment" Likewise your free of the ego when you say, "Boy i have really been focused on how others perceive me, i must remember that how others see me has nothing to do with my self-worth." All that is needed is awareness. Just turning an eye onto the creature allows you to control it. For us humans, our minds tell us to open outwards. Mind chatter: "Look around you and gather the information provided to you by neighboring humans to evaluate your worth. What do they say about you? How do they treat you? Do they smile or laugh at you? Do they envy or look down on you? Do they want you sexually or are they rejecting you? " We gather up all the feed back and based off our software (conditioning) we make an estimation of how valuable we are to the world or really just the world around us. This is only one aspect of our existence. This is an accurate way to access your "tangible worth" to others, but is only a fraction of what we truly are.
This "tangible worth" is like the stock market. It changes every 5 sec. If we lean too heavy at any given moment and build our life around a peak or a low, we are very foolish. The foundation is ever shifting! There is no stability. True stability comes in knowing that there is no such thing as stability! Our "self-worth" is just an illusion we are whole. We are composed of the same thing everything else is composed of, we are part of One, we are One. There is no division and no part is greater than any other part. We discover this when we open inward and search the depths of our personal ocean. And after you have plunged into the dark waters, and gone miles and miles into the icy abyss, keep an eye out for a creature with an icon in tow that says ''next blog''. Its the indicator that you crossed into someone elses ocean.
And so i blog for you and me, for my ego,
for your ego,
for my Now, your Now, to know my ocean,
to know your ocean
To tell my story so that you can see its yours too
To listen to your story so i can see that its mine.

Happy MLK day!!

Yesterday i celebrated Martian Luther King Jr. day by taking a civil rights hike instead of a march. A friend and i spent the entire day enjoying the holiday. We toasted Martin with Dos Equis and lime. I have never really celebrated the day. Being from Alabama and also being a white boy, the day is kind of glossed over and the importance of what he did is always in the shadow of him being a black man. He was a black man. His skin retained more pigment than mine. His facial features were different than mine. He had a different culture than mine, but we shared this planet together. Martin had a mother and a father like me. Martian experienced fear, joy, sadness, happiness, disappointment, and victory like me. He wore shoes and suits. He had friends and they talked about the things they liked. He had sex and ate good food.

When we were buying the beer i told the cashier "Happy MLK day". She looked at me like i was crazy. She was an older white woman and probably lived through the 60's as the civil rights movement was developing. Obviously she was not very fond of African-American heros. I wonder what she was taught growing up as a little girl? How much fear was instilled into her to cause her to dislike someone based off of skin tone? I am by no means an activist for racial issues, but i do believe in challenging stagnant thought. I am sure that lady was not aware that she had adopted a dangerous thought as her own through the influence of others. I dont think she could even give an answer as to why she didnt like Martian Luther King Jr. For her he probably just embodied the idea of what she was taught to dislike, nothing personal just skin.

And thats how those thoughts work. They are programed into our baby minds and we live out the values of those thoughts. They bring us suffering at times and we are clueless as to the cause. Well i encourage Cashier Lady and anyone else to take time to reflect. Take time to confront pain and trace it to its origin. Take time to get to know yourself and gain a sense of control. It will be challenging but also highly rewarding.

Thanks for the story Cashier Lady.

Television

I no longer have cable television. I still have a TV but it will only play movies. I made the decision to cancel the cable for two reasons. One, I want to save the $60 a month that it costs to have it and two i want to minimize the sources for excuses that make it difficult for me to realize my goals.

Life is full of excuses. Its easy to sabotage our goals without even being aware that we are doing so. T V takes away from the available awake hours of a day and offers us the excuse of not having the time to develop our dreams. I heard on NPR that the average American watches 34 hrs of television a week. What could you do with an extra 34hrs a week? Develop a hobby? Start an exercise program? Spend time in nature? Spend some quality time with your family?

It is a scary thought for most people to imagine life without TV. Their only experience of not having it is when the power is out. Those days of boredom are locked into their minds as something to be avoided. I will admit there is an adjustment period and how long it lasts depends on the depth of the addiction, but before long we find things to do. All of a sudden the excuse of not having enough time disappears and we start making things happen. When we string enough days of being intentional together we soon find ourselves manifesting our goals. We do not have to just cope with feelings of inadequacy and defeat. We can do something about those feelings. We can bring about any change we would like!!!