Musings

I forget sometimes that internally-generated energy isn’t enough to fuel a whole lot of things.  When you shut off the connections to the outside world, the energy inside of you will diminish.  Alone, isolated for extensive periods of time, a human being does not accomplish much.  There are exceptions, I know, but the vast majority of human beings thrive when the connections to those around them are nurtured and nourished.

 

I heard a great quote this weekend.  I was watching an interview with Meryl Streep.  She quoted someone else, actually, but I can’t recall who it was.  This is what she said, “I believe a germ of each of us is inside the rest of us.”  I believe this wholeheartedly, and it is the best reminder I could have gotten.  Ironically, I just used the Buddhist metaphor of Indra’s Net last week at work to describe to a group of people the potential inherent in the building up of community.  Indra’s Net illustrates that we are connected to each other (the strands of the net) in a vast network that extends indefinitely.  At the intersection of any two strands is a perfect, multi-faceted jewel.  Inside the jewel, we can see the reflection of the strands of the net extending outwards and the sparkling image of every other jewel in the net.  When we move on to the next jewel, we have the same experience.  Repeat, ad infinitum. 

 

Indeed, the germ of all others lives inside of you…

 

Energy flows where we direct it.  It is most potent in our lives when we allow it to flow through us.  Our intention draws it in, our actions direct it back out, out into the Universe, the vast network of interconnected life.  The key here is the married concepts of intention and action.  It is not enough to intend an outcome for the Universe.  It is not enough to merely act out.  Intention alone yields unrealized potential because well-thought-out action does not occur.  Action alone, without positive, purposeful intention driving it, yields unintended consequences because the full ramifications of the action are not considered.  Intention must be clear, and action must follow intention.  This is the looping path of energy flowing through the individual and the Universe.

 

My voice has been silent, but I am back now.  It is time to open the flow again to see where it will lead us.  You are out there.  I am here.  Making the connection will be the challenge.  However, we can’t recognize the connection if the energy isn’t flowing.  When my intention meets yours, our actions will encourage the flow of energy. 

 

The energy flows precisely where we direct it.

I forget sometimes that internally-generated energy isn’t enough to fuel a whole lot of things.  When you shut off the connections to the outside world, the energy inside of you will diminish.  Alone, isolated for extensive periods of time, a human being does not accomplish much.  There are exceptions, I know, but the vast majority of human beings thrive when the connections to those around them are nurtured and nourished.

 

I heard a great quote this weekend.  I was watching an interview with Meryl Streep.  She quoted someone else, actually, but I can’t recall who it was.  This is what she said, “I believe a germ of each of us is inside the rest of us.”  I believe this wholeheartedly, and it is the best reminder I could have gotten.  Ironically, I just used the Buddhist metaphor of Indra’s Net last week at work to describe to a group of people the potential inherent in the building up of community.  Indra’s Net illustrates that we are connected to each other (the strands of the net) in a vast network that extends indefinitely.  At the intersection of any two strands is a perfect, multi-faceted jewel.  Inside the jewel, we can see the reflection of the strands of the net extending outwards and the sparkling image of every other jewel in the net.  When we move on to the next jewel, we have the same experience.  Repeat, ad infinitum. 

 

Indeed, the germ of all others lives inside of you…

 

Energy flows where we direct it.  It is most potent in our lives when we allow it to flow through us.  Our intention draws it in, our actions direct it back out, out into the Universe, the vast network of interconnected life.  The key here is the married concepts of intention and action.  It is not enough to intend an outcome for the Universe.  It is not enough to merely act out.  Intention alone yields unrealized potential because well-thought-out action does not occur.  Action alone, without positive, purposeful intention driving it, yields unintended consequences because the full ramifications of the action are not considered.  Intention must be clear, and action must follow intention.  This is the looping path of energy flowing through the individual and the Universe.

 

My voice has been silent, but I am back now.  It is time to open the flow again to see where it will lead us.  You are out there.  I am here.  Making the connection will be the challenge.  However, we can’t recognize the connection if the energy isn’t flowing.  When my intention meets yours, our actions will encourage the flow of energy. 

 

The energy flows precisely where we direct it.

 

You can probably predict the outcome of most interactions with other people based solely on patterns of behavior.  The weird thing is that we often still do the same old thing we’ve always done and are surprised when the outcome follows the pattern.  There’s a bit of stupidity in the mix, honestly, but there’s also a sort of denial or bit of ignorance feigned.  Again, we do the same thing and expect a different result.  Didn’t I once read this as the definition of insanity?  I’m quite certain I did.

Trust me, when it happens, I’m as surprised as the next guy.  

So, the only conclusion I have is that consciousness is once again required to save the day.  We must always remain conscious.  We must always fight to stay in the present moment and see every interaction as the bead on a string that it is.  One bead follows another, and the pattern is easily discernable.  We can predict what might come if we are conscious of what has passed, as well as what is.  In Buddhist philosophy, it is called dependent origination: any single thing arises from the things around it.  It is the acknowledgement of interdependence as the connection between past, present, and future.  

The patterns of behavior are most obvious and easiest to predict when the circumstances leading up to them are most clearly seen.  Clarity comes with present moment consciousness. 

My friend asked me to write a few words about love.  Now I’m stuck.

What are you supposed to write about love that hasn’t already been written?  People have been writing stuff down for thousands of years, and I bet the first thing that Grog wrote down with a charred piece of wood on the back of a flat stone was something really romantic for the cave-lady who stole his heart.  With that kind of history, how do you write something that hasn’t already been written?

SHAZAM.  That’s the crux of it.

Just like that, we’re on to something.  Not only have people been writing stuff for generations and generations, but really smart people have been writing things for pretty much the whole time writing has been a thing to do.  Tons and tons of writing, and tons of it is really, really good.

So, again, with all that writing already done, what have I got to writing that’s new or interesting or worth writing?  The answer I hear is “probably nothing”, and I assume that answer is correct.  We are all just hacks, anyway.  Even the brilliant writers today are just regurgitating stuff that’s already been gurgitated.  The guys I admire…Daniel Pink, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Harry Turtledove…it’s a long list…they’re just mixing and remixing ideas and words that have come before.  They are like literary Taco Bell: same 7 or 8 ingredients mixed and mashed in different combinations and given pseudo-Mexican names.  Nothing new under the sun.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps this has occurred to those same guys before.  Maybe Mr. Pink has had that thought.  Maybe Mr. Godin has written about it.  Mr. King, Mr. Card, Mr. Kawasaki, and Mr. Turtledove…maybe they’ve all already had the thought and already dismissed it.

SHAZAM.  That’s the point.  They thought about it and dismissed it.

Are they frauds, hacks, posers, and peddlers of somebody else’s wares?  Not if they do what I know that they do, and that is put a little bit of themselves into the regurgitation.  By doing so, it becomes less regurgitation and more…well…their gurgitation.  After all, aren’t we all supposed to be learning from each other?  Aren’t we all supposed to be listening and taking in new ideas?  Aren’t we supposed to be formulating our system of beliefs, our own personal philosophies?  If we aren’t, then we’re just automatons, not autonomous.  I don’t like that view of the world.  I like the view where the mind and the soul and everything in between that I have been given continuously take the world in and spit it back out with a little piece of myself put into the mix.  As Seth once said, art isn’t the thing that’s produced but the act of overcoming resistance.  Art, he said, is in the soul of the artist.

I am here to create art, just like you are.  There may be precious little new under the sun, but I’ve still got something to say about it.

So, William, what is love?  I’ll tell you what I think…

Of course, the issue isn’t really about cheese and ice cream.  It’s about congruence.

What you believe and what you do should line up.  We’re humans, so we slip.  We’re far from perfect, so our performance is far from perfect.  It’s expected.  It’s part of the program.

I think you run into a problem when there’s too much slippage, when the gap gets too big.  The threshold is different for everyone, I’m sure, and the triggers are just as individualized.  The point is that we all get there from time to time, to this place of incongruence.

That’s when we have to take action.  And action can be a hard thing to take.  It all depends on how much incongruence you can stand.

I’ve had a hard time writing these past few days.  I am not sure why, exactly.  I think part of it has to do with all the stuff going on in my life, but, really, that’s a load of crap because we all have “stuff” going on all the time.  So, really, I should never be able to write anything.  That’s obviously not true.  There must be something else going on, then.

I love writing.  It feels good to do it.  I tend to chuckle when I read some of my humorous stuff again.  I get all pensive when I read some of the more thought-provoking reflections again.  I can pretty much write (and talk, really) about anything given very little notice.  I suppose I can play a game by ripping a headline from the news and writing about that.  That would work.  It would give me material about which to write.  But that’s not what’s keeping me from my keyboard.

I think the real reason I’m struggling is because my brain is scrambled.  No, I’m not taking hard-core drugs.  I’m not drinking excessively.  I have not sustained a physical injury.  My brain is just…scrambled.  I suppose it’s more accurate to say that my thought processes are sub-optimal at this particular juncture in time resulting in the overall cognitive net effect of my brain being or given the appearance of being or substantially causing to give the impression of being…scrambled.

What causes the human brain to become enscramblified?  I will tell you what does: dairy.  That’s right, dairy products cause the brain to become scrambled.  Cheese and ice cream, to be exact.  Cheese and ice cream.

How can this be?  How can cheese and ice cream cause a grown and educated man of 40 years to suffer from such a brain-related affliction?  I have a master’s degree, you know?  I am a Master of Business Administration or an MBA, as it is known.  I also have a Bachelor’s degree.  I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthroplogy.  I really do.  A BA in Anth, and an MBA.  How do you like that?  Impressed?  You should be.  I would have a “minor” degree in Human Development and Family Studies, too, but the department didn’t offer such a degree when I was in school.  I think they do now.  I suppose that’s evidence that I was more dedicated than the next cat because HE or SHE got a carrot for their troubles.  I didn’t get shit.  I just got the satisfaction and experience associated with dedicating that much time to a subject I found fascinating.  So there.  

And, seriously, I hold a “Master” sorta degree for Business just because I spent a few years going to classes?  What about the whole “10,000 hours” thing?  I didn’t spend 10,000 hours studying and practicing an art.  It didn’t take me 10 years of experience to get me where I needed to go.  It took me a few hundred hours and 3 years to get that degree.  I’m not dissin’ the degree, mind you.  You should still be impressed.  I’m just saying…maybe “Master” isn’t the right term, you know?

ANYWAY, back to the cheese and ice cream.  My brain’s scrambled, and it’s making it hard for me to write.  I think I know the reason why, too.  You see, I am 40.  At 40, as I’ve mentioned before, I am looking ahead at the decades I have left and asking myself, what now?  What now?  This line of questioning has had the very peculiar effect of making me examine everything through a lens of cheese and ice cream.  Cheese and ice cream.  I have to tell you: cheese and ice cream do not make a great lens.  Of any kind, in any way.

Cows make milk.  Humans take cow milk and make cheese and ice cream.  Cow milk is food for baby cows.  When a cow becomes a mommy, it makes milk.  It makes milk because the baby cow requires milk to survive.  When the baby cow is just a few hours old, it starts drinking it’s mommy’s milk.  This goes on for a while.  Then, a human comes and takes the baby cow away.  They attach some metal tubes to the mommy cow’s nipples (called teats) on their boobies (called udders), and a machine starts sucking milk from the mommy cow.  They do not give the milk to the baby.  Instead, they add chocolate powder to it and make ice cream.  They also let some get old and make cheese.  Yay, cheese!   Long after the baby cow even needs it, the metal tubes keep sucking the milk out of the mommy cow.  But don’t worry, the baby is off to a feedlot, anyway.

If the humans are not careful, the cow gets an infection in their teats and udder from all the milking called mastitis Some cows get gangrenous mastitis which can lead to necrosis of the tissue.  Google it.  Look at some pictures.  It’s disgusting.  If you think they catch all that and keep it out of your milk supply, you’re nuts.  Thank goodness for pasteurization, huh?

So, there you have it: cheese and ice cream.  I love cheese, and I love ice cream.  They are so damn yummy.  But cheese and ice cream are made from the nourishing, life-giving, love-fluid created by a mommy cow for it’s baby.  We take that away from the baby and keep it for ourselves.  We keep so much, in fact, that we artificially extend milk-producing period for a post-partum cow.  Milk, milk, milk.  

That’s the source of the scrambling.  I think about the cheese and the ice cream and the baby cow and the gangrenous mastitis…I think about it all and wonder, “What the HELL are we doing, people?”  Who decided that drinking the baby food of another species was a swell idea?  And who decided that treating animals this way made sense or was humane in any way?  Don’t cite the Bible, please.  There is nothing in there about chocolate cookie dough ice cream, I promise.  

Chances are, I’ll eat cheese again in my life.  And ice cream.  That’s what scrambles my brain.  There are the things I know and the things I do.  Every now and then, they don’t line up, and it scrambles my brain.  I am 40.  There must be more lining up.  Perhaps I have decades left.  Even if I do, time will slip away from me.  It already has.  I’m 4 months into 40.

At 40, there must be more lining up.  

Speaking of scrambled, have you ever read about what they do to chickens…

I am trying to figure out if the world was a better place when it was smaller. We say that it’s a small world and that technology has made it smaller, but I don’t think that’s true. I think the planet is small and that technology makes the smallness of Earth within the framework of the expansive universe totally apparent. But I also think that the world of information and possibility and communication is incomprehensibly huge. It is huge and getting huger. And this makes our tiny planet seem absolutely enormous.

There is too much to know and too much knowing at our disposal. It is distracting. It is debilitating. This has gotten me thinking that maybe things were better when world seemed smaller than it does today.

Then I realize that the fundamentals of being human haven’t changed, so the distractions of today were present yesterday, albeit in different form.

Things weren’t better when the world was smaller, they were just a little different

Where does the magic happen?  

 

Where do you perform your magic?  And by that I mean, where do you go, literally and figuratively, to do your best work, your best art?  You’re bound to have a place that gets your creative juices pumping.  You can probably think of the perfect storm of circumstances that result in you being able to quickly and completely reach a state of flow.  Mood music might help.  Or maybe silence is better.  Perhaps there’s a corner of your room you can tuck yourself into to get your mind cleared and ready for inspiration.  Or maybe it’s outside.  Maybe there’s a path or a bench or a rock by a small river to which you retreat to open yourself up to the Universe.

 

Think about what it takes to get you…there, to that place.  Not sure how you get there?  Experiment.  Chances are that you already know, subconsciously, how to do it.  When you find the formula, write it down.  When you’ve done that, you’ve essentially bottled lightning.  That’s real power. 

 

Unleashing it becomes a simple matter of finding the key elements that you can replicate anywhere, at any time.  It sounds impossible, I know, but you hold the keys to unlocking your inner, creative Tasmanian Devil. 

 

It has never really been about the thing or the place or the ritual that makes you feel powerful.  The power isn’t outside of you.  The power is always inside. 

 

It has only ever really been about having the confidence in your own ability to do your magic.  The magic happens wherever and whenever you choose to practice it.

Sounds like a stupid question, doesn’t it?  I sort of feel stupid for asking it.

What is “fun”, anyway?  I suppose there’s an element of subjectivity to however it’s defined, but I think one common characteristic upon which most people would agree is that fun is as much a feeling as it is a cognitive sensation.  When I say “feeling”, I mean like an emotion.  So, fun is a sensation…a tingling of the physical form…and an emotion…a tingling of the spiritual form.  Fun, then, is something you experience with your entire being, with physical and spiritual parts, in unison.

So, do I have the right to have fun?  Sure.  Of course I do.  We all do.  How often?  That’s largely a matter of choice!  

Now, here’s an even better question: do I have the right to have fun at work?  Better still, do I have the right to expect to have fun at work?  Surely, I don’t.  There can be fun moments, but the idea of ALL of work being fun is simply juvenile.  At some point, we have to grow up and recognize that work is about performing for your employer so that you can earn your wage.  Your wage, in turn, fuels the rest of your existence.  On your time, you have fun.  On company time, you produce.

The only problem is that I want to have fun at work.  I don’t want to experience an occasional fun moment.  I want to experience that physical and spiritual tingle every day when I sit down to get crackin’ at the whole work thing.  I want the work itself to be thrilling.  I want my day to whoosh by in a flow-induced blur.  I want there to be so much fun involved that I laugh as I retire for the day, recalling all the damn fun that I had.  

Stupid, I know.  Immature, I know.  Unrealistic, I know.  That’s me: stupid, immature, and unrealistic.  And I aim to stay that way.  I reserve the right to remain idealistic and hopeful.

You bet your ass I have the right to have fun, at work and outside of work.  That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it.  Do you know what?  You can, too.

 

I felt a lot older than 40 today. I went to a chiropractor. It had been well over a year since my last visit. I let time get away from me.

This doctor is new to me as my previous chiropractor moved farther north. This “new” guy is local, so, naturally, we switched to the new guy. His style is different from the other doctor. He focuses a lot of his attention on soft tissue. The previous guy did, too, but this guy is all about the soft tissue work first, then the adjusting. It’s a different take, and I’m intrigued.

So, cutting to the chase, he worked me over pretty hard. It highlighted to me how far my body has tightened up after just one year. I am not doing nearly as much for my body as I used to, and even then I wasn’t doing nearly as much as I should. Since then, something else important happened: I turned 40. All the parts got older. I’ve got to look for the warranty.

I am reminded of the words of my friend, Conway, on the eve of my 30th birthday: “Just wait until you turn 40.” He warned me about aches and pains and creaking parts. Now I’m 40.

Crap.

Whatever I started doing after my last post on the subject…not enough. And, unfortunately, I am reminded of the words of Sam Roberts: “As you get older, you have to get healthier just to maintain the status quo.”

Crap.

Tonight, I am tight and achy and feeling a lot older than 40.