Archive for April, 2007

Deferred Pain

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

I was chatting with Adam Clark the other day when he brought up his new instrument, the dulcimer. I’ve been giving him crap over such a lame instrument for some time now and admonish him for not taking up guitar. Dulcimer? Cheess. Who the heck plays dulcimer?

So during this particular conversation Adam mentioned that Kai, his 5 year old kid, wants to play guitar. Oh blessed sanity! At least someone in the family has some sense. So Adam asks me about guitars and I recommend that he go ahead and get Kai a 3/4 size axe for to start with so as to fit his size better. And I also recommend that he get him a steel string guitar, though more difficult to play in some regards, more painful for the tender fingertips, why defer the pain? Funny idea that, having to face pain at some point and choosing to defer it by selecting a nylon string guitar, or gut string as we say in reference to the pre-petroleum cat gut strings, on which to learn.

So as an expansion of the old saying we now have, no pain, no pain.

But then again, its inevitable.

Accidental Achievement

Saturday, April 14th, 2007

This concept is an extension of my typical thoughts along the line of goal setting. I wrote down this inspiration on 4/10/07 so as not to forget and to help guarantee the article would get written. Why that is no accident.

You’ve read, or haven’t, some of the ideas here about goals and reaching goals through work or taking steps. The tallest mountain may be climbed in the smallest steps.

So I am having a conversation with Joe Middleton and I am telling him about how in this life, mine actually, very little that I have achieved did I achieve with a plan, with a purpose, with a goal. Still don’t.

As is with all of my articles there is no point, however, if I had a point, the point would be that most of what all of us achieve, measurable in terms of our cultures, are default achievements, not planned or pursued. This blatant generalization notwithstanding there are those of us that do plan and do achieve specific goals. I am not one of those.

I am the King of Accidental Achievement.

You Are Who You Are

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

This is a pretty simple idea, or shall I say fact. The fact is. . . you are who you are or should that be you are whom you are but that doesn’t have nearly the ring to it.

In essence this fact states that we are all fixed, static, solid, set, unmoving or in another way we are all complete beings with a set of tools, our minds and bodies, that are already in place and unmovable. Provocative because this opens the whole not so appealing nature vs. nurture debate, a debate we aren’t having here.

Accepting that we are who we are is difficult for most people I have ever observed, especially in this western United States of America culture where contentment is not present and success is based on a set of external values that few ever achieve where we are typically led to believe negative views of ourselves, not led literally, as we are all responsible for ourselves, but led by circumstance to tend toward seeing ourselves in a negative light. This is an illusion produced by mass delusion.

So this is really a repeat of my bit on seeing yourself. Seeing yourself is step one and is tantamount to accepting yourself. I ain’t talking about some crazy break down crying love thyself bogus crap, I am talking about simply seeing the truth.

This reminds me of The Matix scene where the boy, one of the hopefuls, is bending spoons and Neo has a chat with him. The kid has a British accent which of course lends a nice flavor to his philosophical discussion of reality. Do not try to bend the spoon; that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you will see, it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. That is one side of the conversation probably not verbatim but you get the gist. This opens yet another great topic for Nothing Has Meaning but lets stick to our discussion here.

Peeling back the layers of polarity and illusion to reveal self, accept self, and understand that the self exists, as it is, begins the inexorable journey to contentment.

This is really about letting go, letting go of everything, then deciding what you want to hold on to, with point of view and values. Seems like a dichotomy, and it is, suffice to say we humans generally get involved with reality. And Letting Go has such a crappy connotation but there isn’t really a better way to put it, or a more effective way. Letting go of emotion, letting go of attachment, letting go of reality, letting go of meaning.

The Matrix has the letting go bit too, but instead using the Matrix metaphor, the digital virtual reality.

So expose the core and you’ll see more, and relax for a change.