Month: March 2018

As the logic of this comes to me, it tells me that I should be seeking a duller, more “boring” life, so that what counts as novelty, what counts as exciting, is made smaller, less intense, less compulsive.

On this rendering, a credible case could be made that the credo “You only live once” actually works to make people more unhappy on balance.  You can’t be doing cool things continually, and the constant quest for novelty and excitement makes ordinary life seem unpleasant and unwelcome.

There is a yang, of course, to every yin.  I am not pooh-poohing people who want to go out and live lives of danger.  What I would say I most definitely am pointing out to be life deadening, is endless hours seeking excitement in media–on the internet, in movies, in fake life.

I watched “The Big Sleep” over the weekend, and enjoyed the dialogue thoroughly, as have several generations before me.  I missed much of it, and really need to rewatch it, but the wit and savage insight were a lot of fun.

But this movie was not my life, really.  It might have created new ideas for me, perhaps taught me something about the world, but I certainly do not want to lie on my deathbed remembering scenes from movies.

The way it works is that it represents the interests of single issue–or few issue–voters.  They have a lot of power because THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY WHO VALUE THE SECOND AMENDMENT. 

The NRA did not create this constituency, and it would have little or no power if it did not speak to the values and interests of many millions of Americans.  The NRA is us, in important respects.  It is the voice of tens of millions of people who think marching in a parade in some city carrying stupid signs would be ridiculous.

They, of course they have lobbyists.  What the lobbyists do is tell politicians what will happen to their endorsements if they pursue one policy versus another.  If you want to be elected in many counties and States, you need the NRA behind you, which is to say, you need to ACTUALLY represent the interests and concerns of the people sending you to office. The NRA just keeps you honest.

For my part, I am going to wait and see how many Republicans are cowards, how many Democrats are fools, and depending on my perceptions, I might bump my contributions up from quarterly to monthly, which is to say triple the dues I’ve been paying.  I’m on a ten year plan to Lifetime Membership, but I can certainly do it faster.

How fucking stupid do you have to be to think that 1) we should listen to kids; and 2) to THESE KIDS, this generation, the Tide Pod people, in particular?  9 out of 10 of these kids, guaranteed, can’t say anything intelligent about the Bill of Rights or why it exists.  Probably a quarter of them don’t even know what it is, or THAT it exists.  This is the future?  If I ever decide it is, I’m moving to some other country, and moving to a cabin far from the world.

But I retain hope.  One can hope that these rumors I hear that Jeff Sessions is more or less doing his job COULD be true.

I coined the term “Tubaform” some time ago to denote cognitive heuristic, a lens, through which the world can be made to transform into different shapes and patterns.  The tubaform can be forced onto an inappropriate set of data–Communism is the opposite of justice, for example–but when selected correctly, entire worlds emerge.

For me, the tubaform of trauma was life changing.  It caused so many things to make sense, to form sensible patterns.

Dopamine regulation is another such rubric.  It is ENORMOUS.  Our entire world is constructed on it.  I am, to be honest, overwhelmed by how important it is.

NOVELTY creates dopamine hits, and EVERYTHING on the internet, with the exception of long articles few people take the time to read any more, is oriented around novelty.  Porn is just one example.

Dopamine dysregulation, in turn, affects the frontal cortex.  Specifically, it decreases impulse control, rational thinking, and social connection.

Our entire society currently rests on an addictive nest of distractions which are making us stupider, less mature, and more alienated.


That something is wrong has long seemed obvious.  But the sheer scope of this is overwhelming me.  If someone had set out to engineer a system to make people into impulsive idiots, this would have been the system they would have come up with.  And perhaps they did, although it seems more likely they stumbled into it, and quickly realized the benefits.

When a kid eats a Tide Pod, that is because they 1) lack impulse control; 2) are addicted to novelty; 3) crave attention because they feel socially alienated.

This whole thing is huge.  If we survive this era with our freedoms intact, it will be remembered as a bad dream, a collective fog, an inexplicable period of irresponsibility, and widespread stupidity.

This march on Washington: novelty.  Kids who can’t put two coherent sentences together, can’t name the first three Presidents, can’t begin to speak of the history of the Bill of Rights, nonetheless get excited to FEEL like they are doing something new and exciting.

In recent weeks, it has really felt like I am preparing to die.  I suppose that is the process of opening to life, because feeling fully alive means sensing the nearness of death.  But I do wonder–and obviously many, many millions of people this with me–how authentic goodness can survive in such a fallen world.  It has always been rare, and exists perhaps in greater abundance than ever before.  It is easy to be nice when you have material plenty.  But there are so many ways to throw a stick into our collective spokes, and so many people trying so hard.

I don’t know what it means to say “it is in God’s hands”, but I can for certain it is not in mine.  Why not grant myself peace, by making my troubles so much smaller?  I will write a book one day.  I will start a small church one day.  Beyond that, I can control nothing.

It is always possible to build unhappiness from nothing.  It is like falling downhill.  But you can build happiness too.  It is, perhaps, like climbing UP hill, but of course, that is also where the views are the best.

I’m sure I will obsess over this whole dopamine thing for a while.  I don’t know if I will post on here much, but I can feel a long simmer going.  My passions have to work themselves out.  Much of my life is sort of project managing a deep soul.

Some would argue that, with the election of Donald Trump, the American public made the most self-destructive and irrational decision in our nation’s history. And yet, despite this overwhelming evidence that rational choice plays little to no part in political decision-making, those who advocate for liberal causes continue to build arguments around logic, facts, statistics, and science, rather than reckoning with the seemingly impenetrable potency of emotions like hate, shame, and fear that lead people to make unreasonable choices and form baseless opinions about one another. 

What is irrational about being horrified, listening to Hillary brag about getting a man acquitted of the rape of a 12 year old girl SHE KNEW HE WAS GUILTY OF?  She thought it was funny.  Is it irrational to think the worst of someone capable of such absolute cold-heartedness?   Seriously: if this were Trump tape, would he have been elected?  Of course not.  Nobody not being protected completely by the national media could admit to using the tactic of attacking the sanity and credibility of a 12 year old rape victim–who was left in a coma for 2 days–to advance her legal career, and doing so without the slightest shred of remorse or pity, and get away with it.

Rational people are quite justified in using this to evaluate Hillary.

And as far as the Access Hollywood tape, what did Trump say? 

Trump: when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
Bush: Whatever you want.
Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

He said “they LET YOU DO IT”.  Now, I have seduced quite a few women, most of them in my late teens and early 20’s, something around 35 or so.  In every seduction, at some point she LETS YOU do one thing, then LETS YOU DO something else.  At one point she lets you touch her breasts?  Why?  She’s into it.  At some point, she lets you stick your hand in her panties.  Why?  She is into it.

The claim made tacitly, and in many cases explicitly, is that unless you have explicit verbal permission for each and every step, every escalation, then it is rape.  This removes ALL the magic from the act, for both parties, in my view.  It would be much easier just to contract with a prostitute, and secure written permission for all relevant, or potentially relevant sexual acts in advance.  Get both parties to sign, and you’re good to go.  You have a legally binding agreement to have absolutely fantastic, extraordinarily spontaneous and passionate sex.  Either that, or you contractually obligate her to go down on you for 3 minutes, then to lay down so you can penetrate her, wearing a condom specifically approved by the hookers union, with coitus to last no longer than 10 minutes, lest additional fees apply.

Now, Bill Clinton was sued, in office, for having Paula Jones brought up to his room, where he allegedly exposed himself to her, and asked for sex, like Harvey Weinstein.  She sued him, the case was temporarily dismissed due to lack of evidence, then restarted when it became obvious Bill was someone quite capable of lying under oath to governing authorities of various sorts.  He was, and remains, a liar.  This is obvious.

He was accused by Kathleen Willey of the following:

According to Willey, during an early afternoon meeting on November 29, 1993 in the private study of the Oval Office, Clinton had embraced her tightly, kissed her on the mouth, grabbed her breast, and forced her hand on his genitals.^[2] Clinton denied assaulting Willey. According to Monica Lewinsky‘s testimony, Clinton stated that the allegation was absurd because Willey is a small-breasted woman, and he would never pursue such a woman. 

According to Juanita Broadrick:

Broaddrick says the two spoke briefly in her room, with Clinton describing plans to renovate a prison visible from her window if he became governor. Then, according to Broaddrick, Clinton suddenly kissed her. Broaddrick says she pushed Clinton away and told him she was married and not interested, but he persisted. As recounted in the NBC interview:^[3]

Then he tries to kiss me again. And the second time he tries to kiss me he starts biting my lip … He starts to, um, bite on my top lip and I tried to pull away from him. And then he forces me down on the bed. And I just was very frightened, and I tried to get away from him and I told him ‘No,’ that I didn’t want this to happen but he wouldn’t listen to me. … It was a real panicky, panicky situation. I was even to the point where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling to ‘Please stop.’ And that’s when he pressed down on my right shoulder and he would bite my lip. … When everything was over with, he got up and straightened himself, and I was crying at the moment and he walks to the door, and calmly puts on his sunglasses. And before he goes out the door he says ‘You better get some ice on that.’ And he turned and went out the door.”

When asked if there was any way Clinton could have thought it was consensual, Broaddrick said “No, not with what I told him and with how I tried to push him away. It was not consensual.”

Broadrick stated that she received what she, credibly in context, perceived as a threat from Hillary not to speak.  During the election, all of the women who claimed to have been victimized by Bill Clinton said that they were afraid of Hillary, afraid of all the ways she could and would get back at them if she were elected.

Given all the hubbub about the Access Hollywood tape–some of it seemingly sincere, although most of it clearly was and is not–why were all these facts never laid out honestly by our national media? 

It was ABSOLUTELY possible, for these and many, many other reasons, to vote for Trump out of an abundance of compassion, wisdom, and concern for the well being of all Americans.

For my part, I would like to see the rationalizations of those who wanted to put our entire governments in the hands of a woman incapable of feeling an ounce of pity for a horribly abused child, who had been further abused–in what amounted to a second, psychological rape–by her.

When do the good people of the Left wake up, and see the horrors that their propaganda organs continually cover up?  When?

My philosophy, though, is that there is inherent benefit to having a generative mind.  I like who I am, and even if I never get credit for this, or some other things which have literally made people fortunes, I’m perfectly OK with it.  I’m happy, actually.  I like to see things work.  This is what drives me. I like to see things done better.  I like to see people and organizations get smarter.  I like more order in the world, not less.

This is why the best thing you can do, the greatest compliment you can give me, is to take one of my ideas, run with it, and do some good with it.

We are all here such a short time.  It is crazy to hold onto anything like a drowning man in a storm.  Let it go.  Let it all go.  Then what you find is THERE IS MORE.  There is always more, if your neck doesn’t get cramped looking backwards, and you don’t close your eyes in terror while trying to look forward.

If there is one secret to my creativity, that is it.  It has always felt like a form of murder to me to try and commercialize myself, although I have made some very half-assed efforts.  To be sure, I want to write a book someday that will sell widely. I am waiting for my work to be more complete.  The best work comes from a truly organized spirit.  But I will be happier if I can do it anonymously, or put my ideas in someone else’s mouth.  It is the IDEAS which matter.  The money: I make enough to get by, mostly, so fuck it.

And fame: dear God no.

What I am feeling is that returning from where we are (well, where I am) to God, to joy and love, happens in the following order: 1) heal your brain; 2) release trauma and tension from your muscles; 3) release trauma and tension from your emotional/subtle body; 4) make connection with space at an experiential level; 5) make connection with Time at an experiential level; 6) make connection with what lies beyond both space and time.

Provisionally, and this is highly abstract, and I am still working it out, this would involve Neurofeedback to “turn off the fire alarm”, where that alarm is present; physical stretching, myofascial release and mindful movement; Kum Nye at the physical level; Kum Nye at the spatial level; Kum Nye Dancing; true meditation.  I believe that latter sequence is what was intended by Tarthang Tulku.

You might ask what it feels like to feel connected to Space.  Or Time.  It feels like “that”.  I have felt flashes of both.

Describe to me the odor of jasmine, such that I could differentiate it from the odor of a rose, without ever having smelled either.

We value much too little, in this culture, all the “things” which really aren’t things at all.

This is me realizing there are some things I can’t say.

But I have been doing a “yoga”, a system of body relaxation, that is really working.  It’s roughly the system I’ve outlined in the past, combining myofascial release, stretching, and rest, with incense and relaxing music.  I may describe its current form at some point.  I may not.

But what I feel is that sufficiently deep relaxation feels like home too.  You value yourself. You feel safe.  There is a light in the air.

And it is an odd thing, but relaxation is scary for  a long time, at least for some of us.  I know, intellectually, that I need it, but it frightens me.  I get relaxed, but then traumatic intrusions start, and fuck the whole thing up.  You have to stay with it, until it feels good consistently.  When you get there, you are healing.

I think so many are addicted to stress.  If you look at Silicon Valley, which I would extend up the coast to Washington, so many of these techies are like Stanley Bing’s attempted, and failed–because it is too close to real life–parody of them. This really does read like an actual users manual.  Or did when I read it while working for one of the big Telecom companies back in the 1990’s.  It was psychotic, and required functional psychoses and obsessiveness to survive.  As Bing puts it, you wind up with a schedule of values of roughly 1) work; 2) weird sex; 3) golf; 4) family.  Maybe.

Are these the people we want lecturing us on the future?  On proper morality, or the point and purpose of life?  I don’t think so.

I’m wandering.  I had something else to say, but it disappeared.  C’est la vie.

I think most of us have done some version of this exercise.  Tim McGraw, for example, has his song “Live like you’re dying”.  As he points out, most of us have been thinking about something, thought it would be cool to do something, but just never made the time. None of us are getting any younger, are we?  It doesn’t work like that.  Time keeps passing, and eventually runs out, whether you are doing anything with it or not.

But it occurs to me to add a wrinkle to this well-worn but still highly important theme.  What if you couldn’t change ANYTHING about the next 48 hours?  What if you had to go to work?  What if you couldn’t tell anyone?  What if you still had to do the work (this is a thought exercise, yes I know you would not do the work)?  What if your Tuesday March 20th, and Wednesday March 21st were going to be EXACTLY the same, except that you got to think about them differently?  And that you died in the night of Wednesday the 21st in your sleep?

How would your approach change?   How would you deal with people?  Would you be kinder?  Would you look at them an extra moment, appreciating them, or feeling compassion for them?  How would you deal with your work?  Could you find joy in it, even if you are crunching numbers all day, or digging ditches, or otherwise doing something you would prefer not to do?

All of us have this choice every day.  You don’t have to go skydiving to live. You don’t have to ride the bull, or take that long delayed vacation. Inhabit your day.  Be there.  Don’t be somewhere else.  Value what you see and do, and appreciate who you are, and the unique contributions you make to this world.

And I’m tempted to say “don’t aim high”.  Aim low.  Aim to be present, not to fancy daydreams, not to fantastic visions, but to the mundane, the ordinary, the simple, the plain, the humble.

This is what I am feeling this morning.  I am growing. I can feel it.

Image: the Earth, this life, what we can see, the world we were all born into, is a structure with a roof and a floor.  People lacking in life are kept from floating downward by the floor.  People full of life are kept from floating up by the ceiling. Logically, if there is a structure to the realms above this room, there is a hierarchy, with more darkness, relatively, the closer to Earth, and the less, as they diminish in the distance.  Perhaps one reason to come here is to confront darkness in a more pure form, so as to see it, and discard it more mindfully, resulting in, ultimately, spiritual growth and a higher state of being.

Image: God is pure light, at the top.  At the bottom, there is nothing, not even (the visible appearance of) God.

Thought: light and dark are not objective, but rather conditions of awareness.  All aspects of the universe are lit by God equally, but this is God’s immanent, latent aspect.  In terms of what is accessible to consciousness, God is in some places, and is not in others.  There is light within darkness, and darkness within darkness, if I might reference the Tao Te Ching in my own way, and according to my own interpretation.

Idea: God, in turn, is a physical force, like physical light, or gravity.  God can be “used” for good and ill, just like the laws of physics, which do not change based on the intent.  And God’s use is that of the non-local transfer of information.  This is what prayer does.  Prayer (and cursing) does not always work, because the “user” is not always informationally coherent (i.e. the signal is weak or non-existent in the ways that matter), and because there are factors in play–as with any other physical force–which are variable and which we have not even begun to understand, except in those repositories of memory we call religions and spiritual practices, and whose collective wisdom we have not even begun to fathom or even investigate scientifically.