Jason Hedrick

Whoah, Noah

2014-04-13T21:51:00.001-07:00

Last night I finally made it to see the film Noah. It bothers me that we, Americans, don't enjoy 3D films and this movie wasn't released in 3D format in the States. The rest of the world gets to enjoy the movie in 3D because they seem to enjoy the technology. However, it isn't worth it for the makers of the film, Paramount Pictures, to show Noah in 3D based on the results of other worldwide features in the last several years.

I'm used to this experience of life taking place from the minority perspective. It has its positives and negatives. One of the negatives is it appears I'm in the minority of Americans that enjoy modern 3D films and because of that I don't get to watch as many of them as I would like. When they're done right, there is nothing more amazing to me in a movie experience. They are nothing like the 3D movies of my childhood with the gratuitous objects being flung toward the camera that reminded me, the goofy looking viewer that was sitting in front of the screen in cardboard blue and red glasses, I was watching 3D. Today's 3D is much more than that. Anyway, I can't help but wonder why any time Europe likes something (universal healthcare, investing in science, high speed rail, 3D movies) and I like the same thing then I end up going without.

Some of the positives that come along with viewing reality from the minority perspective is my take on the film Noah. Russell Crowe and Anthony Hopkins weren't star power enough to get me interested in this movie. That's not to say I'm not a huge fan of both of those guys. I am. But, it was Darren Aronofsky that made we want to take in this movie.

Every good director has their own style. I like Scorsese movies for different reasons than I like Tarantino movies. And, I like Aronofsky films because of his unique style he brings to the art. Aronofsky is known for getting up close, really close, and personal with the main character(s) of his films. Whatever the subject matter - struggling to be a ballet dancer, trying to find the Fountain of Youth, or even trying to figure out the meaning of the universe through a math formula - Aronofsky is magnificent at making the viewer share the pain and torment of the character on the screen. Requiem for a Dream is an amazing example of how Aronofsky presents his dramas to the audience, but it isn't that far of a leap to take drugs and addiction and over indulgence and show how much pain and chaos they can create. This is why I found myself fascinated with the idea of Aronofsky taking on the story of Noah.

The story is a biblical one and has different meanings to different people. I could care less about all of that. I simply entered the theater with the hopes of seeing Aronofsky do what he does best: sharing the pain. When I first watched the movie Clash of the Titans when I was a lot younger, I didn't get caught up on whether or not the writer of the movie was giving an accurate and historical presentation of the mythology. The same is true now, at my older age, for the movie Noah. The plot line was one I was familiar with and this is nothing new when it comes to watching movies. I knew what happened to the Titanic but I was interested to see how James Cameron wanted me to view it.

We all know the tale of Noah and how he built an ark and collected all of the animals and was tasked with repopulating the planet. The part of the tale that Aronofsky wanted us to experience was the anguish and guilt and suffering that came along with the task presented to Noah. It's easy to joke about how hard it must have been to collect two of every animal on the planet and then fit them on a boat and have them not devour one another. Aronofsky doesn't seem concerned about any of that. In essence, he is basically asking us to simply accept the story at face value and then go from there. I was totally cool with that. Where he was taking us was the human experience. I was totally cool with that too.

One thing I that I found surprising was how conflicted I was when it came to figuring out which character I was pulling for in the story. All involved parties make pretty good arguments for whatever their agenda happens to be concerning their envisioned future. Towards the end I couldn't help but wonder if I was in some random sample that was getting to view an alternate ending. I wasn't sure how it was all going to wrap itself up and still be the Noah tale I was familiar with, where everything works out in the end. Russell Crowe was fantastic in his portrayal of a very tormented man that was guided by a tremendous sense of faith, hope, and, the greatest of all (I'm quoting God here), love.

In the end, love is what it all comes down to in this particular tale. All isn't well in the new world. All isn't perfect. But, love is the only possible way to partake in the journey. Noah learned that lesson thousands of years ago according to Aronofsky's latest work. This is why I find it strangely peculiar that so many "Christians" were up in arms about this film. It seems these are the people that miss the message the most because they get offended at some of the bells and whistles that are designed to get one's attention in order to deliver a message.

Are we so shallow that the story that is leading to the moral is actually more important than the moral? With less than ten minutes to go I watched a couple get up and walk out. There could certainly be various reasons that made them leave the movie at that moment. Perhaps, they had previously sneaked in to the movie right at the tail end and this time, when they reached the moment where they began watching it last time, they walked out. It's possible. Maybe there was an emergency (they walked out pretty calm though) of some type at home. My guess is, because of the very moving and troubling stuff that was taking place on the screen, they weren't happy with their investment in the entertainment.

We're all different and this is America, the land of the free. If you're not happy with your movie experience then you definitely have the right to get up and walk out. I'm different, I suppose. I've never walked out on a movie, no matter how much I wasn't enjoying it. The closest I've even been to leaving a movie early was Fight Club. I know that's going to piss some of you off but I didn't enjoy it. The idea was great and the actors were cool but when you start doing stuff like that (people being the same people and not real people) and messing with time travel (not that Fight Club did that, just speaking in general terms about other movies) then you better at least make it somewhat believable to me. Even though the movie pained me and I was anxiously waiting for it to be over, I stuck it out. I'm no quitter. Once, unintentionally, I fell asleep during a Wesley Snipes movie.

If that couple didn't like Aronofsky's style then they certainly would have figured it out with only ten minutes left in the film. What, most likely, they didn't like was the story. I'm not going to give anything away and this isn't even a movie critique (that was the hook - the bells and whistles) but I did already mention it does get a little complicated and troubling toward the end. That's just the story this guy decided to tell. If nothing else, it makes you examine the entire Noah tale from a different perspective. For that, I am thankful. But, the moral of the story - LOVE - is untouched from the original. Isn't that what matters the most in this message? How could this message be any better? In 3d, that's how.

Fort Hood, Part III

2014-04-03T03:23:00.003-07:00

Any time a mass shooting of some kind occurs several things usually happen. Those that believe in more or a different kind of regulation on guns, let's call them the left for the sake of convenience, usually take the opportunity to bring forth their agenda. Those that believe heavily in the Second Amendment, let's call them the right, usually come forward and pronounce whatever mass shooting had occurred probably wouldn't have been as bad if more people had guns on them. Those that don't want to be bothered by the entire conversation usually claim "it's too soon" as their stance on the issue.

The latest mass shooting at Fort Hood seems the perfect time to address some of the real issues about our gun culture that we usually don't get to talk about because of all of the other programmed responses we typically have to endure during a time like this. There are some dynamics at play in this shooting that make it possible to negate some of the normal gibberish and address some of the more sensible approaches we should take moving forward. I'm not even talking about legislation or regulation; moreover, it's simply about a mindset.

Because this incident took place at a military "fort", basically a decent sized city, we can all accept the fact the "right" amount of guns were in play. Those on the left would be hard pressed to say we should somehow reduce the amount of guns at this location. The people that live in this city probably have more guns per capita than 99 to 100 percent of any other city in this country. And, that seems alright considering the type of city that it happens to be. For the most part, it seems like the people that own these guns in this city are the right type of people to be owning them. They are highly trained and very knowledgeable about their weapons. Often times they are a necessity for performing their particular type of work. This entire dynamic takes away the normal talking point about restricting gun rights. These people have to have guns in this city. No one with a reasonable opinion wants to restrict these people from having guns.

It would also be hard to argue from the right and say more guns were needed in this particular incident. I'm fairly confident there were just the right amount of guns present during this shooting; this compound wouldn't allow any less than that. No one with a reasonable opinion wants to suggest the military doesn't know how many guns should be in circulation at their own compound.

An additional dynamic that allows for a different angle on this topic is the fact it occurred at a location where another mass shooting had taken place less than five years ago. The people of this community have to have the confidence their community is "safe" going forward. I'm sure they addressed some major concerns the last time this happened, but now that it has happened again there will most certainly be more they will want to address. Mainly, they will just want to feel some type of assurance that the "wrong" people won't be the ones with the guns in the future. It won't be about the Second Amendment or regulations for the people of this particular community. It will simply be about having faith in their employer, a branch of the US military, to make sure they are doing everything they can to make sure people that shouldn't have guns don't have them.

The shooter in this latest incident was going through psychological therapy. He was possibly suffering from PDST from a tour in Iraq and had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

I haven't offered any type of solution that can prevent this type of incident. I'm not sure there is one. It's always a little bit astonishing to me that things like this don't happen more often in a diverse population of 300 plus million people. But I am suggesting we take a little bit of time to observe what is going to take place from this moment on within the Fort Hood community.

The military world doesn't really operate like the civilian world operates. The system and structure allows for the people with authority to wield that authority as they best see fit for the betterment of their system and, ultimately, the country at large. They won't need to go through Congress to enact policies to address this type of phenomena that has afflicted their community on two occasions. They will figure out, within their own military system, a strategy to provide themselves and their community better odds of not going through this type of ordeal yet again. I doubt whatever remedy they accept will be perfect, but I suspect it will evaluate exactly who it is that should NOT have a gun, regardless of their employment in the military.

Isn't this the strategy we all want for the entire country?

You Probably Think This Blog Is About You. Don't You?

2014-03-30T03:03:00.003-07:00

Some of my Christian friends have accused me of "hating God" or "hating people that believe in God". Nothing is further from the truth. First, I honestly don't believe I hate anyone. If, however, I do and simply can't recall that person or small amount of people (it must be a small amount if I don't even know who the people are that I hate), I can assure you there is no group of people that I hate.

You want to know what I do hate? Take a couple minutes and read this article by Larry O'Dell from The Associated Press:

FOREST, VA. — Eight-year-old Sunnie Kahle likes to keep her hair short, wear boys' clothes, collect hunting knives and shoot her BB gun

"She's a pure, 100 percent tomboy," said her great-grandfather Carroll Thompson, who along with his wife Doris adopted their granddaughter's child.

But to Timberlake Christian School administrators, the second-grader's boyish ways warranted an ultimatum: Start acting like a girl or find another school.

The Thompsons found another school, but they didn't go quietly. After being told by lawyers that they have no grounds for a lawsuit because Timberlake is a private school, the Thompsons have gone public with their complaints.

"I don't see nothing Christian about it," 66-year-old Carroll Thompson said in an interview at the family's house just outside Lynchburg, home of Liberty University, the Christian school founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Doris Thompson, who's 69, said she was stunned when she received a letter last month saying the school can deny enrollment to applicants for condoning "sexual immorality," homosexuality or alternative gender identity.

Principal Becky Bowman wrote that "we believe that unless Sunnie as well as her family clearly understand that God has made her female and her dress and behavior need to follow suit with her God-ordained identity, that TCS is not the best place for her future education."

Doris Thompson said Sunnie knows she is a girl and has never, to her knowledge, wished she were a boy.

Other disputes over gender expression at school have made headlines recently, including a demand, later rescinded, that a 9-year-old North Carolina boy cease carrying a My Little Pony backpack to school. But that case and others involved public schools rather than private religious academies that are not subject to anti-discrimination laws.

After a television news report about the Thompsons created a social media frenzy, the school retained the legal arm of Liberty University to tell its side. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said there is more to the situation than the Thompsons are saying.

"This is not at all about how she is dressing or she is going through a phase," Staver said in a telephone interview.

However, he said confidentiality laws prevented him from being more specific and school officials would rather not try to rebut the Thompsons' allegations. Earl Prince, an administrator at the school, also declined to discuss what prompted Bowman's letter.

Doris Thompson said she is unaware of anything, other than Sunnie's appearance and tomboy ways, that would prompt the school's action. She said Sunnie made good grades, was well-behaved and got along with the other children. New classmates would sometimes ask if she were a boy or a girl, but she would answer and that would be the end of it, Thompson said.

Bowman acknowledged in her letter that the school's position doesn't stem from Sunnie's grades or "general cooperation with school rules."

Staver said school officials were dismayed that the Thompsons chose not to resolve the issue with them privately. He said school officials would like to have Sunnie back.

"The school has never called the girl immoral, has never evicted her and is willing to work with her," Staver said. "She is a precious little girl."

This year, a girl mistook Sunnie for a boy in the girls' restroom and reported it to a teacher, and two boys tried to drag Sunnie into the boys' restroom. Sunnie said the boys got in trouble, but she did too "for yelling down the hallway."

Sunnie, eager to break away from an interview and ride her bike, said she liked Timberlake better than the public school she is now attending.

"I had a lot of friends there," she said of the school she attended since age 3.

Doris Thompson said Sunnie would grow her hair so she could return to Timberlake, but her husband said that's "out of the question."

Sunnie's troubles at Timberlake began in pre-kindergarten after she cut her hair to donate it to a program that provides wigs for cancer patients, Doris Thompson said. Around then, she started wanting boys' clothes.

"A teacher told me I was the parent and I needed to control her, and if she didn't obey I needed to take her in the bathroom and whip her butt," Thompson said.

Rather than just dismiss the teacher's concerns, she asked the family doctor for advice. "He said, 'Leave that child alone!'" she said.

Afterward, Thompson said the teacher told her: "You need to find a Christian doctor."

I'm not under the impression every single person that believes in God acts like the members of this "school". But, I am under the impression there are way too many people that do act like this and that's unsettling to me.

Let's strip this story down to its most basic of truths. Throw out all of the religion and cultural nuance and simply observe the one and only thing we know is true. Do we not all agree a child is being abused?

So many times I'm rebutted by, "What's the harm in believing?"

Do you see any harm in the above scenario? A young child, in this case biologically female, simply wants to be a young child and the adults in the room decide they know what is "better" for this kid and command the vanity to give her an ultimatum. I purposefully selected the word "vanity" so I could segue to the Ten Commandments.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

This one sentence is all the proof I need that this particular God doesn't exist. What god would author this mess of instructions to people? Atrocious punctuation, abstract terminology, and a double negative is the work of a god that made an entire universe? He couldn't take a second or two and create a less fucked up sentence?

Let's get to the meat and potatoes of this message to mankind. Don't make wrongful use of the name of God. I know we're so simplistic that we've come to believe this means don't mix up God in your curse words, but, is it really that difficult to understand? Don't use God's name wrongfully.

As a person that doesn't necessarily believe in all of the magical components of Christianity, I'm not really opposed to the message. Love people. Even if that's not the only message in the Bible, why would anyone look for anything else? Love is mentioned over and over in the instruction manual. Warnings are listed for people that don't follow the instructions. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who fucks up the instructions.

This is why it completely mindfucks me when I stumble upon the above newspaper article while reading The Fresno Bee. The people that claim they are the ones that are teaching the instructions from God are the ones most responsible for getting it all wrong.

Here is what I found on Timberlake Christian School's own website:

TCS strives for academic excellence with a Christ-centered, discipleship focus. Students are grounded in the truths and implications of the Gospel through the preaching and teaching of our daily Bible classes, weekly chapels and accountability groups, as well as a curriculum consistently taught from a biblical worldview. We provide a safe, loving, learning environment for our students. TCS is your partner in educating your children and training them to be genuine followers of Christ.

Now back to the Bible:

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

When a group of people that happen to be in charge of the education of a child and claim they are "partnering" with the parents to bring up a child in this world kick that child out of school because she's not "behaving" like a girl then someone isn't guiltless in the matter. And every one that lives in this world, a world that allows this type of child abuse to go on, is not guiltless either. That should trouble all of us, believers or not.

Eleven Score and Eighteen Years Ago...

2014-02-18T22:11:00.002-08:00

I finally got around to watching the movie Lincoln last night. I figured I would enjoy it and I did. I loved how the movie focused on Lincoln's battle to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. I think the default setting of our society believes the North was fighting for abolishing slavery and the South was fighting to keep it in place. No doubt, to some degree that is true. However, the war was ready to end and the issue of slavery wasn't even going to be addressed. Lincoln fought hard to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, and the people that supported him loved him for it.

One hundred and fifty years later everyone loves Lincoln. However, as loved as he was by the people of his time, he was also hated by half of the country. No other President has reigned during a civil war. Not just a little spat either. More U.S. soldiers died in this war than any other in the history of our nation. Our country was fighting itself in a war for over four years. Hard to believe this would be on the resume of, arguably, one of our best leaders.

My interest in politics isn't the politics. I'm fascinated by people and how they interact with one another, how they perceive reality, how they navigate the universe. It's an amazing thought to ponder that half of our country hated Lincoln and what he stood for so much that they literally went to war with him, coupled with the fact that every single person in our current time loves the man.

Black people were free in the North prior to the Civil War. Surprisingly, there were many free black people in the South during the same time period. In fact, the U.S. Census bureau shows there were more free black people in the South than there were the North. The difference was the North was no longer practicing slavery.

The most remarkable aspect of the Civil War, from a psychological perspective, is the mindset of the citizen of the North. It's easy to imagine the mindset of the Confederate. They were fighting for their "way of life" and to "protect" their livelihoods. One could argue the South even had more at stake in the war. What, then, was the North fighting for? They, too, were fighting for their "way of life". It was quite simply a culture war and slavery, as horrific as it was, was just a part of one of the cultures in the battle.

Examining the equation, trying to figure out how this culture clash reached the point of war, is far more complicated than simply tying it all together with the notion of slavery. I'm going out on a limb and positing one key ingredient that was necessary was a sense by those of the North that they weren't going to be comfortable staying on the same course. Even though they were treating black people the way they thought they should be treated (and they still weren't treated all that great, but at least they respected them as humans enough to want them to be free), they weren't going to have a good conscience about allowing half of their country to still practice crimes against humanity. The citizen of the North did not want to be on the wrong side of history.

It's that one ingredient, the fear of being frowned upon by future generations, that motivated the Union soldier to take up arms against his fellow American. I'm not talking about being looked down upon for things like muscle shirts or disco or CSI episodes or parachute pants or pebble tec in homes. I'm talking about being frowned upon for shameful things that we know will embarrass us in the future. We feel a duty to ourselves, as well as our future generations, to "do the right thing".

We have always had political disagreements. There has not been one President that hasn't faced opposition from about half of the country during his term. That dates back to our country's origin. They do some things we like, they do some things we don't like and we all go about our business. We debate our philosophies and ideologies but we still go about our lives and little changes. But, every once in a while that key ingredient turns up that sparks a culture war.

We may not be in a literal civil war today, but we might as well be. One positive of actual war is we could just get it over with and move on to the reconstruction. It's the construction we're fighting about anyway. So a war could destroy the status quo and the winner could reconstruct it. The issues of today, as controversial as they may seem, have already been decided in the future. We all know that. However, some people, it would seem about half our country, fear this reality and fight to change the history of the future. Gay rights, climate change, healthcare, and things like marijuana won't even exist as divides in the future. We will be frowned upon for not accepting the inevitable. And everything we did fighting over these issues detracted from real issues that our future generations would end up facing. They won't like us for that. Those of us that love our current President, despite all his faults, understand this idea. And even though it's hard to imagine this President as being loved by everyone in the future, I think that's just what the future holds.

Right now (the present) it's easy to point out the flaws. They exist. Some are really obvious. But in the future our present (now) isn't that relevant. What will matter to our future Americans, our great-great-great grandchildren, is the fact he was the one that allowed the future to play out the way they wanted it to. They wanted their bad times, the times when they enslaved people, when they didn't care for their needy, when they discriminated based on sexuality, basically anytime they simply weren't treating people the way they should be treated, to be behind them. And if we truly care about our future generations then we owe it to them to put those times behind them, not ahead of them. That's why Obama is loved by those that support him. That's why he'll be loved by everyone in the future.

Abraham Lincoln's push to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed was a good step in the right direction. However, it wasn't the perfect fix. Many of the cultural changes Obama has pushed for are a step in the right direction. Just like it took the 14th, 15th, 19th, and 24th Amendments to address additional rights of equal voting, I think it will take a lot of tinkering to our current laws, very new ones, to get them in working order. But at least we're headed in the right direction.

What Was That Whitesnake song?

2013-12-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

I was having a discussion with a friend on another friend's wall on Facebook. The conversation had gone on for a while and it really was no different than any other conversation I've had with someone from the far right persuasion. Anyway, at some point during one of my replies I laid out my current political position. For the longest time I was simply addressing the individual but somewhere along the way I knew I was writing more to explain my observations and beliefs about politics to a wider audience. That audience is you, the person that can't believe I have the gall to claim I'm conservative. You, the person that thinks I always pick on the Republicans and am blinded by the star power of Barack Obama because I think he's perfect. You, the person that thinks I'm a flaming liberal.

Before I share my replies I've strung together on this blog, I would like to make it clear that I wasn't really accusing this particular person of having all of these traits or beliefs. I was using the word "you" to address an overall strategy that seems to be the consensus of the far right. The person I was conversing with took exception to that fact I attributed some derogatory terms to him. I apologized for my sloppiness in conveying my message and he was kind enough to accept it and understand it.

I don't share this conversation because I think it's terribly important. It's pretty long winded and won't be very interesting to many of you and I'm quite confident most of you won't even make it through the entire piece (if you even made it this far). I only share it because I know my views perplex some people on the right. I feel obligated to explain my philosophy from time to time because I collect more friends along the way that might have no idea where I'm coming from. I also feel obligated to share sanity with those out there that are in my camp. So often it feels like everyone else is mad - in temperament and sanity. If you are one of those moderate people that find yourself in my boat I know it feels comforting to hear or read words by others that let you know you aren't in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Hope this helps:

...you can keep labeling me whatever you want. The truth of the matter is it is people just like me, people that have always voted Republican, that swayed the last two elections. The fringe right has hijacked the Republican Party and it has turned off moderates like me. I'm not a hard core righty like you. I admit that. I lean right but am capable of leaning left. I'm not anchored to any one ideology but feel I mostly embrace a Libertarian view toward the role of the federal government.

Instead of coming up with new ideas, you and your fringe crowd have chosen to do nothing but obstruct. You have taken a respected party and made it a joke. You don't understand politics enough to know you need to gain favor with the public, not call everyone a Nazi or a communist or queer or a Muslim. You chastise me for voting with the majority of the American citizens and imply you, the minority, know better than we do and we've all been duped. You only follow far right wing sites and denounce Politifact and even go as far as calling the Pulitizer Prize winning site a liar as well.

You view me as your adversary and fail to recognize you need me on your side to win elections. You don't even believe me when I tell you I'm on your side because you can't fathom a real conservative could do anything but vote for the same exact party every single time. That makes you a sheep. Yet, you spin that into the fault is mine for actually using my brain. I tell you I think we should find common ground, because I know there are views we share, and you tell me there is no common ground to be found. You're the Little Engine That Couldn't.

Win me over, man. Don't just regurgitate stuff I hear on the fringe sites. Until you do I suspect you'll continue to be disgruntled by the Democrats running the country.

I also agree that I'm not a hardcore Libertarian. I agree some of the things I've supported are counter to the Libertarian ideology. The world's not black and white. The reality is there are moderate people that can lean in either direction at any given time. My suggestion, and it's just that, is your camp find a way to stop alienating the swing voters. It's the Democrats and the liberal ideas you truly oppose. If I'm capable of returning to your side then why would you want to push me away? Instead of telling me I've been duped, how about winning me over with a new idea?

I know you think Obamacare is a disaster. What do you offer to address the mess we had on our hands prior to the Affordable Care Act? Do you really believe we should just go back to what we had? No matter what you might think, the majority of the people that actually decide elections, those that are capable of voting for either party - or in some cases a third party, think we have to do something.

We've known for half a century the Democrats were trying to address healthcare. The Republicans did nothing and still continue to do nothing. This doesn't mean I think the ACA is a perfect law. It doesn't even mean I think it's particularly a good law, at least on its technical merits. However, I'm on board with trying to do something instead of opting to do nothing. Whether or not you agree with that philosophy, it is imperative you understand the reality of the voting mentality. I see no effort to intellectually figure out how to win voters from the GOP. I see nothing but obstruction and, ironically, regulation and restrictions on voting rights. Again, I'm not saying you have to agree with my observation. However, I am saying it would benefit the GOP, and you as well, if you at least recognized the amount of people that share my view. Calling reality "skewed" simply because the truth isn't convenient is a losing proposition. Insinuating everyone else is wrong and not even attempting to find common ground will bury your party in the long run.

Someplace Else

2013-07-14T07:12:00.003-07:00

Every once in a while I get put to the test on a philosophy I have adopted that deals with my sanity and happiness. Several years ago I decided my only real purpose in life was to simply enjoy it. That seems so simple, yet, it's so hard to actually achieve. The philosophy that most helped me realize this goal was to remove my wants and wishes about reality and my environment and simply observe and experience. Again, a concept that seems so simple.

I am pretty open about my approach to my close friends and anyone that cares to know me at that level. It is because of many conversations with people that are very dear to me about this approach that I know it seems foreign to most people. I think the majority of them don't really believe me and think I'm explaining my philosophy tongue-in-cheek or simply kidding myself. The proof is in the pudding.

I don't have a favorite sports team at this point in my life. My friends that have known me most of my life would tell you I'm a Padres fan, a Cowboys fan, a Sixers and Flyers fan. I'm none of those. I was at some point in my life, but no longer. My friends that have known me most of my life would tell you I love to gamble on anything and everything. That's not me at all. At some point in my life that would have definitely be an accurate description of me. My friends that have known me most of my life would tell you I'm super competitive and have a strong desire to win at all costs. Not true at all. I don't deny that was me at one time. (I still win a lot but it's mostly just because I'm good. In other words, I can't help myself).

I completely understand that most people have no desire to take on my approach of simply observing. It doesn't seem "fun" or "interesting" or even "human" to people. All I can say is it works for me. However, there are still moments that occur in life that truly put this philosophy to the test. The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman affair was certainly one of those moments.

I can honestly report that my discipline to adhere to this approach is as steadfast as ever. I don't deny there is an idealist that once existed in me and it still attempts to gain power and influence in my life when it sees an opportunity. And the "not guilty" verdict in the George Zimmerman trial was the perfect moment for the idealist part of my debilitated ego, something that once wielded great influence, to rear its head.

If I was the same person I was several years ago then I know how I would have felt when I listened to the court reporter clearly announce "not guilty". I would have felt like I was kicked in the balls. I would have been devastated, not by the simple fact George Zimmerman got away with killing a child, but moreover by the fact that reality was fucked.

I would have been troubled to be existing in an environment where people were overjoyed by the verdict and praised God for the blessing. I would have been sickened to live in a reality where people are ignorant to the obvious, the fucking obvious, racism that exists all around us. I would have been deeply bothered by the fact that the default setting is being totally cool with walking around with guns, ignoring the instructions by the police dispatch, approaching innocent 17 year olds walking in their own neighborhood, and then shooting a another person in the heart point blank because the confrontation that was self initiated didn't go as planned.
However, I was none of that. I was simply an observer. I didn't have a dog in the fight. It would have been too hard on me. Thus, I adopted this approach that removes me from those moments and my wants and wishes aren't factored into the equation of my experience.

O.J. got away with murder because a jury of his peers didn't trust the white cops. George Zimmerman was deemed legally within his rights to take the life of Trayvon Martin because a jury of Zimmerman's peers don't trust black people walking around in white neighborhoods. Why in the world would I let those facts bother me if they don't seem to bother anyone else? It would be a miserable existence, a painful one, if I sincerely cared about outcomes such as these.

Well beyond this one trial, thousands of black kids are unproportionately killed every year compared to white kids. A police officer is more likely to shoot a black kid with a wallet in his hand than he is to shoot a white kid with a gun in his hand. Blacks make up disproportionate numbers in our prison systems. Blacks were targeted in our last election and they had to wait hours in line to simply vote. Our president's legitimacy to hold the office was questioned and still a large percentage of our population sincerely believes he is a fraud and a plant. There are scientific studies that clearly show we are all racist to some degree. Minorities are racist to minorities, even their own race.

We have subconscious biases that dictate our actions and we have no honest dialogue about our reality and why it is the way it is and why we behave and think and believe the way we do. We celebrate the right to arm ourselves and stand our ground, even to the death, against one another and we have no idea why this is our reality. Half of the population feels like reality is "broken" at some level and the other half believes it's patriotic to kill and a blessing from a loving creator. People would willingly choose to take their children to a theater where everyone is armed because that makes them feel "safer". Over half of the population truly believes the world will come to an end during their lifetime. Climate change a hoax. Evolution is just a theory. Elvis alive. One would go insane if they sincerely wanted the world to be a better place and let the failure of achieving this outcome effect them in any meaningful way.

I am so thankful that my ability to experience the joy of reality isn't based on my desire to have reality cater to my wishes. I experienced a news story that gained national attention about a year ago. I experienced a trial that accused a man of murdering a boy. I experienced a jury acquit a man and validate a law that allows people to believe whatever they want when it comes to defending themselves and kill other people that are perceived threats. I experienced a family suffer and grieve. I experienced a family feel elation and freedom and patriotism and faith. I experienced a population that felt good about the outcome and I experienced a population that was pained by the outcome. What I wanted to experience and how I wanted to experience it are irrelevant. Those are only obstacles to obtaining happiness.

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjust the sails." ~ William Arthur Ward

Bilifuster

2013-03-08T05:35:00.000-08:00

Almost everywhere in the world people that hold Libertarian views are considered to be very left leaning. Here in the United States our Libertarians seem to align with the far right.

The ideology of the average American Libertarian is a mixed bag for me. I really side with their ideas more than any other political philosophy but really take issue with some of the positions they are willing to take and defend in order to never budge an inch from their sacred principle of very little government.

The Tea Party houses a lot of Libertarian individuals. I have continually knocked those in the Republican Party that have allowed those in the Tea Party to hijack the GOP. This isn't a knock on the Tea Party. Those that have "primaried" Republicans and voted for Tea Party representatives have only played by the rules. They have rallied and found a voice and that's the American way. I'm knocking those in the Republican Party that didn't have enough foresight to see the damage that would be caused by allowing a third party into one of the two main parties. I suspect those in the traditional GOP were willing to chalk up, what seemed like, political wins in 2010 (an off year when the minority party usually does well) and only imagined the Tea Party being a thorn in the side to Obama and not their own party.

Rand Paul, son of Dr. Ron Paul, is a Senator from Kentucky. Jim Bunning, a former Major League baseball player and a Republican, had been the Senator since 1999. Prior to that Bunning had been a member of the House from 1987 to 1999. In 2009, Bunning noticed he was suddenly having difficulties raising campaign funds and he announced his retirement at the end of his term in 2010. Up stepped Tea Party favorite Rand Paul. Rand defeated a Republican, Trey Grayson, in the primary and cruised to beat a Democrat in the general. He caucuses with the GOP but he's hardly a traditional conservative that fits the Republican mold. He's very much like his father in this aspect and the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

On Wednesday Rand delivered a good old fashioned filibuster on the Senate floor. It went on for over 13 hours. He voiced concerns over the President's ability to order drone strikes on American citizens. Dr. Ron Paul voiced this concern the first time President Obama used a drone to kill an American citizen without a trial and simply by Executive Order. Rand Paul was pointing toward the inability of the Obama administration to simply say it was NOT Constitutional for drones to be used against Americans on American soil. He chose to use the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA as his stage because Brennan supports the current Obama policy when it comes to the use of drones.

Guess who doesn't agree with Rand Paul and his filibuster? Did you guess Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham?
"If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts..." ~ John McCain
"...to my party, I'm a bit disappointed that you no longer apparently think we're at war." ~ Lindsey Graham

Guess who did agree with and support Paul's filibuster? Did you guess Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both Tea Party favorites that beat Republicans in primaries. Did you guess Democratic Senator Ron Wyden?

Somehow, in some warped cultural American way, the Libertarian Party believes they have more in common with Republicans than they do Democrats. A real Libertarian would not identify with either party except when either party is attempting to reduce the government's role in our lives. Wanting the government to define marriage, not Libertarian. Wanting the government to fight a national war on drugs, not Libertarian. Wanting to engage in wars, especially unprovoked ones, not Libertarian. Wanting to spend somewhere between 30-50% of our budget on defense, not Libertarian. Whether the confused American Libertarian wants to admit it or not, they have as much in common with Democrats as they do Republicans.

There is no greater golden common ground between the Democrats and the Libertarians as there is within the ideology toward our military and our vision and strategy moving forward when it comes to national defense. For the longest time, many many years, the Republicans understood Ron Paul was dangerous to their ideology and refused to let him be taken seriously by other Republicans. It was mostly Republicans who called him "crazy" and a "nut job", not Democrats. Now his son is on the Senate floor raising the issue of the government's authority to kill its own citizens without trial and the traditional Republicans are painting him the fool. Too late. Too late. Way too fucking late.

Butterfingers

2013-03-07T08:10:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I went to reach for my phone and lost my grip causing me to fumble it around in the air for a brief moment and then finally launch it a couple of feet right into my dog's large water bowl.

The part where the phone was bouncing around on top of my hands, just out of my grasp, seemed to happen very fast. Even the part where my last attempt to gain control of it actually caused it to travel a couple of feet into the water bowl seemed to transpire rapidly. Seeing my phone sink immediately to the bottom of the bowl seemed instantaneous. However, when I took a couple of steps toward the bowl and looked directly down at it and gazed upon my smartphone emerged in four inches of water it seemed time stopped for a moment.

I've experienced this sensation before in my life, I imagine most people have. Unfortunately, it seems we are more apt to have this experience in times of distress instead of times of joy. One scientist I really enjoy following is David Eagleman. He fell off his roof when he was young and had this same experience, time stopping, on his way to the ground. It influenced him so much he's devoted much of his life to understanding our brain and how it perceives time.

What seems to pique my interest in this phenomenon is the potential we demonstrate to actually live in each individual moment. Our thoughts all run together and time goes by and it's all just a comfortable and convenient and familiar blur to us. We have thousands and thousands upon thousands and thousands of thoughts and information running through our brain at any given moment. If we choose to focus on any of them at any instance it appears we are quite comfortable selecting one of two of them to hone in on and identify with. Sometimes we are forced to deal with several or a bunch or many or a ton at some random moment and it feels as if time stops to us when this happens.

What trips me out mostly about human behavior is how content people are to not know anything about themselves. In every room in my house I have at least one light switch on the wall. When I flick the switch up then the light comes on. When I flick it down then the light goes off. I seriously don't know much more about how it all works. Sure, I know electricity is involved and the switch acts as some sort of lever that redirects the energy to the light, which is made of a substance that illuminates when the electricity runs through it. But, if someone with some sort of amnesia started probing me on the exact description of what's going on then I wouldn't get very far.

Person with amnesia: How does that work?
Me: This switch allows electricity to go to the light.
Amnesia: What's electricity?
Me: Aaaaahhhhhh.....
Amnesia: Does electricity come from some other place? How does the other place get it? Do they create it? Round it up? Store it? How do they get it to your place? What's it do when it's at your place but the switch is off? Why does the light just burn out after a while?

I know there are some people that truly do know the answers to all of those questions and understand this thing we all take for granted quite well. However, most people wouldn't do very well explaining how the light works and they use them all of the time. Having stated that, I think most people could explain electricity and the light better than they could how a thought works in their own head. That amazes me.

Memories are complicated things. A memory is not just one single thing that is stored in one single place in the brain. It's a collection of things that is stored in various locations throughout the brain. When we experience events that cause our brain to retrieve every memory it has about anything relevant to the situation at hand I believe we experience a stoppage of time.

It may seem like life is tough in today's hustle and bustle world where we all grind to make it to the next paycheck but life is pretty good when we step back and reflect upon the animal kingdom. Normal life allows us the security of knowing our most basic of needs are going to be met. We might have to earn them but we are allowed to choose our paths and feel confident that we will have food and shelter and our lives aren't in danger on a minute by minute basis. This has afforded our brain the ability to occupy our sense of self with truly meaningless things on the overall spectrum of important thoughts in the universe. However, every once in a while we are forced to observe a barrage of thoughts that our brain has to evaluate and consider in a split second prior to advancing to the next moment.

I've had more important and life threatening experiences that have created this sensation of time stopping, but that doesn't negate the fact I still had this experience again when looking down at my phone at the bottom of the dog bowl. Obviously, I was going to reach down and grab it out as quickly as I physically could but before that actually occurred it seemed like a gazillion thoughts entered my head in regard to that one phone.

Is my phone really sitting at the bottom of that water? How in the world did that happen? Remember the last time I dropped my phone in the toilet and vowed to myself to never have my phone around water at all? Yes, I do remember that and that's why I had the phone over there by the couch and not by the water bowl? Oh, that's right. Man that was nuts wasn't it? I tried to grab the phone and I fumbled it and fumbled it and fumbled it and then eventually slapped it all the way across the room and it land in that little area over there that just so happens to be my dog's water bowl. I know. And what's really nuts is there are times that it's empty and this could have been one of those times but it just so happens I just filled it up with water. Yes, she was very happy when I did that. She's such a sweet dog. What if the bowl wasn't all the way full, but only half way full? Would that matter at all? Is the phone still screwed either way? I don't know? I wonder how much the protection plan is to replace it? I hope it's not much more than fifty or sixty bucks? I can handle that? What a stupid mistake, a fifty or sixty dollar mistake. How am I going to call Verizon to get a new phone on the way? How long is it going to take to get here? Two days, three at the most? I can do that. You might like it. No, probably not. I hope it's two days at the most. Am I going to be one of those people that have to post I lost my phone on Facebook and have everyone message me with their numbers? That's going to suck to have to replace everyone's number. Will it shock me to reach in there and get it? It can't shock me. I've done this before, remember? I do remember and it's been a long time since I've done this. I'm so bummed this just happened. Do I have any rice? I don't think I do? Remember that big bag of rice I bought and never ate any of it for six months and then through it away? I have a nice steamer I never use, what's wrong with me? I bet they could make a water proof phone if they really wanted to.

All of that, and much much more, in less than half a second went through my head. That's probably not that rare at all. What made it unusual for me was my ability to observe them all in such a short amount of time. I suspect because the event happened so suddenly and my reality was dramatically altered (I know losing a smartphone is so white people problems but let's get real. Having no phone, especially when living alone, sucks.) then my brain began retrieving every memory it had about my phone. Some of those memories triggered other memories and the stream of information was all being sent to some area that allowed my "self" to observe the process. When my "self" normally entertains or observes this amount of thoughts it occurs over a longer period of time. Simply reading all of them probably took a couple of minutes for most people. However, when we observe more thoughts in a given moment then we're used to, especially a plethora of them, then our sense of time is disoriented. It's easier to believe time actually stopped than it is to conceive we are capable of operating like this and think about that many different things all in one instance.

Even though any of the specific thoughts and ideas that went through my head in that split second weren't really that Earth shattering, what seems to be of importance to me is the process that allowed this to happen. The potential that exists to observe this many thoughts more often and on a more regular basis and not just in times of stress is encouraging to me. As crazy as this sounds, I believe it's quite possible harnessing this ability can actually lead to a quieter state of mind. When things become normal or mundane or regular occurrences then we seem to take them for granted and pay little attention to them. When we experience tons of thoughts all at once that is out of the norm and seems like a weird sensation. However, if we could make this the norm then I believe it would be much easier to achieve the silence.

When I pulled the phone out of the water, a mere couple of seconds after it landed in it, it was still on. I pushed the buttons and they all worked. I tried to make a call and the other person couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear them but I could if I put them on speaker phone. That was the only hiccup at all and it only lasted two hours and everything was back to normal after that. True story.

Whatever Will Bewildered Me

2013-02-25T05:22:00.001-08:00

I have known for about a month and a half I was going to write this piece. It's the reason I haven't offered a blog piece since January 12. This was an essay I had been putting off for some time because I knew I was going to enjoy putting it together and I put off enjoyable things on occasion simply so I know I have something enjoyable on the shelf if I ever need a go to. I do this with movies or programs I have recorded on my television too. I know I'm going to love them so I don't watch them until a rainy day comes along. Kind of weird, I know. Anyway, I knew I wasn't going to write another article without doing this one first and I put it off all the way until now. It won't surprise me one bit if I bust out a few entries to my blog in a short time after this one because I've been thinking about the subject matter of them for some time now but vowed to myself to write this one prior. But that's just what I sense will happen and can't say for sure what I will actually do.

Play along with me for this little exercise. Pick your favorite eight songs of all time. Don't rank them one through eight, just pick eight songs that are your all time favorites. That will probably take a couple moments so if you're really going to play along then go ahead and take the time to do that. I'll share mine with you in just a bit.

Have you picked your songs yet? Did you really? I'll still share mine with you even though I don't believe you. Here they are: 46&2, Sweet Child O' Mine, More Than Words, Under Pressure, Black, Pretender, Levon, and the entire Dark Side of the Moon album which is just one amazing song that plays perfectly to The Wizard of Oz.

Now I want to know what my actual number one favorite song of all time happens to be. How am I going to do this exactly? I could put them in little brackets and let them square off March Madness style and see which one prevails. I could split them into two groups and narrow it down to one winner from each side and then have those two songs square off. I could just start ranking them one through eight right from the start. I know what I'll do; I'll start eliminating them and the one that is left will be my favorite song.

The first song to get the axe is More Than Words. Thanks Gary Cherone for this beautiful melody and thanks for trying to make Van Halen relevant again but More Than Words is the first of the top eight to be eliminated.

Next to go is Levon. Wear your war wound like a crown Elton.

Third to go, meaning it comes in at number six, is Pretender. Keep fighting the foo, Dave Grohl.

Now I'm to the top five and eliminations are getting tough. I think the next song to go is going to have to be Sweet Child O' Mine. Where do we go now?

Number four is awarded to Black. Don't fret it, Eddie. I'm sure you're a star in someone else's sky but not in mine.

The bronze medal goes to Under Pressure. It doesn't matter if it's Mercury and Bowie, Harper and Vedder, or some dude with two Kermit the Frogs on his hands, it awesome.

I always loved Dark Side of the Moon but once I saw it played alongside The Wizard of Oz it skyrocketed to the top of my favorites. I know it could totally be a coincidence that "balance" is mentioned when Dorthy is walking on the fence right before she falls, or the music becomes frantic and hectic the moment she hits her head, or when she runs away the song playing on the album is titled "On the Run", or when Dorthy is experiencing the tornado in her house that is being blown across the sky the tune is "Great Gig in the Sky", or the moment she lands side one of the original album is complete and when it's flipped over it begins with a "Ching ching" when the door is opened and the movie changes to color, or a song is called "Any Color You Like" on side two, or the album ends to a "Thump thump" of a heartbeat and Dorthy is knocking on the Tin Man's chest at the same time, but I'm going with Occam's Razor on this one despite the fact all of the band members deny it. Why wouldn't they? It makes it more legendary.

That leaves the sole survivor as 46&2 by Tool. The only song that speaks to me more than this is Lateralus by Tool. Wait a second. I forgot about Lateralus. This song is definitely in my top eight. Hell, it's probably number one. I like it more than 46&2 so doesn't it have to be my favorite song of all time? If the song Lateralus was never written then 46&2 would certainly be my favorite song but since I know it has been written and I absolutely love it then it is my number one.

The truth be told, I knew all along I was going to forget Lateralus during this exercise. And I didn't really take a lot of time to form my top eight even though the top five is probably pretty accurate, but who knows for sure? It's possible another song could pop into my head and I really could like it more than I like song number six or eight or ten. I did take some time, actually several weeks, to identify my favorite song of all time. I didn't want to have another song pop into my head and replace it so I pondered the thought for some time and announce it to you with confidence. The more I think about it occurs to me I never considered the live version of Yellow Ledbetter. Hmmmm....

No matter what format I would have chosen to implement to determine my favorite song the result would always be the same, assuming I had all the songs in my thought process and wasn't forgetting any. Lateralus would have prevailed in a tournament bracket structure. It would have survived the elimination format if it would have been included. There was only one possible outcome and it was Lateralus. I couldn't have chosen another song. Which leads me to ask myself why I chose this one at all.

Do you choose your favorite song? Do you choose your favorite color? Taste? Smell? Anything? Could I just decide I like brown more than red today? I have no idea why red appeals to me more than any other color or why purple is strange to me. Why do I think pizza tastes good? I have no idea why these things are the way they are. I'm only aware that I'm aware of it. I can try to rationalize why a song appeals to me more than another song but I'm really only kidding myself if I honestly believe I had a hand in the process. We like what we like because we are what we are and the thing we call "self" has nothing to do with it.

Even though we can't exactly put into words what the "self" is to one another, we certainly understand what each of us experiences as self. It feels like we kind of exist behind our eyes, in our head somewhere, but we are more than just a byproduct of brain activity, we kind of exist is an unknown dimension. I said we can't exactly put it into words but you know precisely what I'm describing. That thing I'm describing is what we all believe to be our unique "self" that is in control of all of the machinery. That thing I'm describing also can't be found anywhere except in our own head.

Our brain is nothing but a super powered computer that attempts to make the best decision available to it to survive the day. However, it fails quite often. I drop my keys. Do I decide to do that? I get lost when going places. Is it ok for a man to say that? I push the wrong buttons on my Xbox controller from time to time. I sing the wrong words to songs I know. I write the wrong date occasionally. I try to rewind things on the radio because I do it all the time on my television. I dial the wrong phone numbers. I type the wrong letters. Sometimes I totally say the wrong word that doesn't even make sense. I read the wrong word. I reread the wrong word. I remember things wrong. I try to unlock my front door with my vehicle keys. I touch the hot water in the shower with my hand and think it will be hot enough or cold enough and will be comfortable when I get in. I order the wrong amount of food. I bounce checks. I chew. I'm overweight. I interrupt people. I procrastinate. I talk too much. Why would I choose to make any of these poor decisions? Am I stupid?

I'm not suggesting that thing that feels like the "self" doesn't really feel like the "self", I know it does. I am suggesting that thing isn't exactly what we think it is. It doesn't do exactly what it feels like it does. It feels like that thing can make decisions and alter the course of reality. I contend it only observes the decisions and the outcomes and the rest is an illusion.

This doesn't mean decisions aren't made. That's a double negative there. Of course decisions are being made. Our brain is making decisions at a rate incomprehensible to the "self". It doesn't need the "self" to make decisions for it. Human beings existed without self awareness, at the sophisticated levels of modern man, for quite some time. We believe most all living things on the planet exist without very sophisticated levels of self awareness, if any at all. Yet, we believe we are different and are something more than all of our surroundings. We believe it because it feels like it.

We know the subconscious (the things we are unaware of) makes 99% of the decisions in our body and our lives. Yet, we still kid ourselves and convince ourselves we make the "really important" decisions. Have you ever been in your car and driven for miles and miles and were lost in thought and then realized you were at your destination? Were important driving decisions being made without the "self" making decisions? Have you ever "been in the zone" and allowed the brain to make decisions without the "self"? The brain does everything and makes all of the decisions and we aren't more than our brains. We are some part of it and we aren't even the part we think we are. I know people will argue disingenuously and say, "I know I am just my brain", but I don't know many people that truly think they are "just their brain". Almost everyone thinks they are something more than that, that thing I described earlier in a round-a-bout way.

I had this piece in my head before I learned of the ambitious plan of our president to map the human brain. Needless to say, I was extremely excited to hear this. In fact, it was the highlight of the address for me. We know so little about ourselves. We will dream away eight years of our lives (not sleep, dream) and we have no idea why. How can we not know why and how we dream but we're controlling a car on Mars right now?

We don't know why it feels like we are something that we're not. Many a great thinker has been suggesting it to us for hundreds and even thousands of years but we are closer to truly understanding it than ever before. Mapping our brain and knowing what a thought is and where it comes from is an exciting idea and a service to all things in the universe.

Friendly Skies

2013-01-12T16:36:00.000-08:00

Imagine you have a very good job that provides well for your family. The job is in another city but the company pays for you to commute to work each day and your work day begins the moment you start to head to the job and your travel back home counts as part of your work hours. You work four days a week, Monday through Thursday, and you enjoy all of your coworkers. It's awesome and you love it.

To get to work each day you have to drive to your local airport and hop on a small commuter flight. The plane holds 24 passengers and each day you travel with the same group of people. The flight takes exactly one hour and you actually enjoy flying and the idea of having an hour (both ways) to get some alone time and work on whatever you need to work on.

One day a wrinkle is thrown into the mix. One of the passengers gets a little unruly about halfway through the flight and it creates tension. The route is very short but there is a small, fifteen minute window, where the pilot informs the passengers they can remove their seat belts. Some of the passengers take this time to visit the restroom or stand up to retrieve some things from the overhead compartment or even change seats if they want to talk with different people on the flight. However, on this day one of the passengers becomes agitated by the idea of other passengers not wearing their seat belts and begins to loudly voice his concerns.

This becomes the new norm. Everyday this same person flips out when the pilot gives the green light to remove the seat belts to the people on the commuter. One passenger, let's call him Leon for convenience, starts ranting about the danger of removing the safety belt . Leon screams and yells and tries to scare others into putting on their seat belts. It makes him nervous and uncomfortable to feel the need to wear his seat belt and observe others demonstrating such a carefree and nonchalant approach. It bothers Leon so much he feels the need to create a fuss about it.

How would you handle this situation? Consider Leon's actions disrupt from an otherwise peaceful and enjoyable flight. Leon's actions have turned this two hour window in your day (an hour at the beginning and end of work) from something you used to enjoy into something you dread. You know he's going to get loud and start going on about the fact some planes wreck and the safest option is to wear the safety belt at all times. You know he's going to purposefully ruin it for everyone else because he's not happy with the current reality of people standing up and or walking around. He's going to try to make it miserable for everyone else to enjoy the flight. Do you do anything about it?

I don't know what your choice would be in this scenario but I know what mine would be. At some point I would have to address this situation. My first option would be to try to reason with Leon. I would find out why he feels this deep seeded fear and try to present him with comforting facts about flying. I would explain to Leon that only 1 fatal accident occurred per every 2.5 million flights in 2012 . I would explain to Leon that I'm fine with him not removing his seat belt if he doesn't want to but he shouldn't feel he has the right to impose his views on the other 23 passengers that enjoy the rules as they are. What if that didn't work?

At some point, if Leon refused to respond to logic but insisted on creating anxiety in my life, I would turn the tables on him. I would find a way to make it uncomfortable for Leon to make it uncomfortable on me. I work very hard to enjoy happiness whenever possible. I'm not cool with others affecting my harmony simply because they are idiots and happen to be rude idiots at that. If Leon wants to live in fear then so be it. If Leon wants to round up four or five other people and convince them they should always be on guard and always be on the lookout for the worst then it is what it is.That's not my choice. When the situation affords me the opportunity to take off the safety strap and enjoy the ride then I'm going to seize the moment. None of this changes the fact that sometimes planes fall from the sky.

If You Like Pina Coladas

2012-12-30T16:03:00.000-08:00

I have this constant inner battle with what to share publicly and what to keep private. I never get involved in changing my relationship status because I just don't feel like sharing that information. I do date and I have been in relationships. I'm pretty simple, very simple, but that makes me quite complicated to others. Some call it selfishness.

Anyway, I've written pieces in the past just so I could reference them or use them in the future (that's not very "now" of me, is it?). This is my Rupert Holmes piece for any future companion. It's my own little checklist that has eliminated every potential mate for the first 42 years.

"It is possible to live happily in the here and now. So many conditions of happiness are available—more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there." ~ Rumi

"Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop--and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.

You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else." ~ Michael Ende

“I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can
get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple
witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you.
Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you
judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great suprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, A watcher." ~ Osho

“The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion.” ~ Alan Wilson Watts

“When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation.” ~ Donna Quesada

“Who we are now is all that really matters.” ~ Amy Joy

“A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"
Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason.” ~ Shunryu Suzuki

"It is better to travel well than to arrive." ~ Buddha

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ~ Nietzsche

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself." ~ Gary McLain

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." ~ Charlotte Joko Beck

“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.” ~ Ram Dass

“I'm not interested in being a "lover." I'm interested in only being love.” ~ Ram Dass

Be Here Now

2012-12-30T14:56:00.000-08:00

I grew up a Cowboys fan. I believe fantasy football and free agency played a role in my loyalty fading over the years, but I suspect my approach toward life in my later years is the biggest contributor.

I pretty much enjoy all sports. The NBA drives me nuts but I still find myself amazed at the athletic ability of these gigantically tall men. But, the NFL is my favorite of all sports to watch. It truly is our modern day gladiator type event. The stadiums are enormous and are always packed with cheering fans.

I have huge respect for these men because I know how hard the sport was on my fit body when I was in my late teens. It hobbled me every Saturday morning and that was when I didn't get hurt. These guys are much older and playing against guys that can generate much harder collisions than we could in high school. The players in the NFL are very bright guys when it comes to their profession. It's a complicated job and one that demands tactic, precision, and execution.

I've mentioned this many times before but I must say it again for this piece: I try very hard to live in the now. This has lead me to not really identify with a specific team or be a hardcore fan like I used to be. I enjoy the moment and the things that are happening in the now. I found wanting things and outcomes to end the way I wanted them to end disrupted my happiness at times.

It seems I now find myself partial to situations more than long term commitments. I like certain players more than I like certain teams. Same is true for coaches. I gravitate toward the really smart ones. I enjoy the underdog story or the guy that is taking an opportunity and making the most of it. I find joy in the unexpected or the bizarre. I am amazed at the beauty and grace and artistry that takes place at any given moment. None of it hinges on anything I need or desire to happen. No outcome can distract from my happiness.

The Cowboys will play the Redskins tonight for the NFC East title. The winner goes on to the playoffs and the loser goes home. Two rival teams to boot. Couldn't be a better ending to the regular season. I predict a Cowboys win for no other reason than almost all of the analysts have chosen the Redskins, that's usually good enough to pick a winner in the NFL.

I am still fond of the Cowboys and can't shake my relationship with my ego completely. Part of me hopes they win the game, but a much bigger part of me is happy either way and truly won't be disappointed with any outcome. If we just judge the moment and nothing else then what a great moment.

I've had this type of discussion with some friends and a common response I encounter is, "That might all be true but I like rooting for my team and it brings me great joy when they win." I can't deny that. However, I do know that kind of happiness relies on events out of one's control. I also know when the undesired outcomes transpire then the odds of happiness are very much diminished.

The objection is a staple to any counter to the ego. The experience of self will always want to stay in existence if given a choice. The only thing I can offer is my experience and I have tried it both ways. I've tried to like diet soda really hard to no avail. I've tried to stop chewing tobacco. I've tried to get off my couch and run around the block a few times. In the end, I stick with what brings me the most joy.

My Friend: David C. Moyer

2012-12-20T08:37:00.001-08:00

I don't know the exact date, I'm guessing it was sometime last year, when David C. Moyer and I became friends on Facebook. I suppose I could probably do a little leg work and track down the answer but the beauty of this piece, at least for me, is the ability to write most of it right off the top of my head.

I do remember, for the most part, how it is we became friends. I used to tangle with another friend of mine, a guy who is actually a personal friend and someone I know, ad nauseam. I don't remember the exact post or even the subject matter, but I remember my friend spouting something I thought was complete nonsense. Due to the fact it was his wall the majority of people that commented agreed with his view, whatever that happened to be. When I finally decided it was time to bow out of the lion's den I offered a challenge to anyone commenting or reading the thread to "friend" me if they wanted to see how the intellectual people on my wall engaged in conversations. David was the only person to take me up on that offer. Ironically, my other friend is no longer on my friends list and, in fact, is invisible to me on Facebook, literally. It's the darndest thing.

The first thing that became apparent about David is his deep faith. He identifies himself as a Calvinist on his info page and I totally agree that is what he is. It's always wonderful when someone else agrees with what you think you are. This essay will have very little to do with religion other than this setup of how his Calvinistic views influence his philosophy on all of his other views.

Calvinism is a reformation on, mostly, the Catholic Church. It actually seems a tad limiting because of the name but the movement was large and encompassing. It truly was motivated by a large group of people that simply interpreted The Bible differently than the Roman Catholic Church. There are several, normally listed as five points, ideas that separate the Calvinists from the other denominations.

The idea of "total depravity" basically means man is born into sin. Beyond that, man is enslaved to sin and cannot, on his own, be anything better than that. Man desires to seek his own best interest and it isn't natural to want to obey God's will. The next idea focuses on "unconditional election". This means there is nothing you have done or can do that will change if you were chosen or not by God to be saved. "Irresistible Grace" is somewhat along the same lines and is explained like this: "God's Holy Spirit cannot be resisted. However, the Holy Spirit graciously causes the elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly to Christ." Paraphrased by me: God makes you who you are and what you do but you, if you are lucky enough to be chosen by no doing of your own, will feel like you did this by your own free will. "Limited Atonement" is the idea that the message sent by Christ was meant for a select group. It is workable for everyone, but it wasn't intended to be delivered for everyone. Which actually makes sense since God has already chosen who will be saved and damned. The last of the five points involves the idea of the "perseverance of the saints" and basically claims those that break from God were never really with God in the first place or they will return to God. Convenient way of looking at things.

I threw in a couple of observations but I truly tried to represent the reformed view of Christianity in a fair light. To be candid, this way of looking at The Bible makes the most sense to me. There are plenty of things I take exception to but I can understand how they connect the dots. It actually takes on the dynamic of predestination and answer it in the most honest fashion of any of the other Christian interpretations. It's not a pleasing answer and I give a lot of credit for a religion to stick to their guns and not just appease. It's also consistent with their view that it isn't natural for man to want to do anything but serve himself. Predestination doesn't really allow for the individual needs. God chose you or didn't and your wants and desires are animalistic, evil, and not godly. It's my observation David C. Moyer believes all of the tenets of Calvinism.

David's faith isn't in your face, so to speak. David's opinions are in your face. His opinions are molded by his faith but he doesn't ram his faith down your throat, he rams his opinions down your throat. That's a subtle, but significant, difference. And, it's not what his faith leads him to believe that causes the most issues for him when tangling with people on my wall, it's how his faith has created a perfect environment for him to be "chosen" and rarely (notice I didn't say never) wrong. He comes across as smug to those who disagree with his views. If he was selected by God to enjoy eternal bliss then how could he not be arrogant at some level?

Even with our differences in theological beliefs, it is still possible for David and me to search out common ground on an array of issues that affect all of us. I think this is possible, at least on my end, because I understand what motivates David. His propensity to fire people up on my wall or to downright sound delusional to others is alright by me. He doesn't harbor completely insane views (conceding people that believe in a magic being existing in another dimension that has predetermined my eternal fate isn't crazy - it is what it is) and have ideas that are exclusive to David C. Moyer. The vast majority of time David represents a very large sample of our population regardless of his particular side on any given issue. Even more important than that, he's able to clearly explain how he reasons through things. That trait is invaluable to all of us.

David is a great sport. I'm very confident he understands the dynamic when he takes on a particular stance on one of my posts. Just as I know I'm more than likely going to be in the minority when I bang my drum on David's post, I'm sure he knows what he's in for when he enters my den. I know I have made a couple of fans on David's wall and I'm sure he's probably gained more of a fan base from my friends list. I threw out a challenge for those interested in intellectual and meaningful conversations to join my army and he's been a great soldier.

David's a skeptic. Not so much when it comes to some of the oddities in the universe that he's willing to have faith in, but mostly about man's ability to understand things. I'm down with that, seems reasonable. He comes across as a "know it all" or arrogant or abrasive at times. I'm down with that too, he means well. He has strong opinions about his faith but he really seems to walk to walk more than most. I'm totally down with that, refreshing.

It would be so easy to narrow down our friends list to only people that shared all our views. Well, it wouldn't be that easy for other reasons but theorectically it would be easy and something most of us would do if it weren't for the other complications. However, if we chose to enact that option then we would limit ourselves and our ability to see and understand the world around us. I plead with people to think about their views and walk them down the line a view steps before marrying them. Draw your own conclusions but use some form of reason and leave a trail of breadcrumbs so we can come find you when you get lost. Rely on intelligence to guide you and those around you when forming opinions or making decisions. David brings all of this to the table and I love him for it.

Lastly, I want to address David's demeanor when frolicking on my playground or handling me when I'm peeing on his parade on his home court. It doesn't seem like the guy ever gets mad or takes things to heart. I really appreciate that. I know it seems to others that I'm often angry or upset when I'm engaging in a discussion. Believe it or not I can't remember a time when I've gotten upset from a conversation on Facebook. I participate for my own sanity and not to torment myself. I suspect David is in the same camp. He has very strong views about some very controversial issues. A lot of people do. However, he's intelligent and has given thought to his opinions. Obviously, I don't agree with some of them and we go toe to toe from time to time, but never does it cross my mind that I'm dealing with an idiot on the other end of the discussion, no matter how much I disagree with him.

If you've followed some of my lengthy battles you'll notice I try very hard to thank the other person when the discussion starts to wind down. David has received more of these thank yous than most people. In part that's due to his willingness to partake in the dialogue. But, another factor is his great sportsmanship. I'm not attacking him personally nor harbor ill will toward him when I'm trying to destroy one of his worldviews. I'm very confident this guy, despite some of his self professed oddities, is a solid dude. He's got a great looking family and he sincerely tries to be a positive influence in his community. He writes his congressman. He meets his congressman. He donates time and money to those in need. He finds a way to at least try to make a positive difference in people's lives. He posts his views on Facebook and is willing to discuss them. He comments on others views and is willing to entertain other ideas, even if he is seldom convinced to change his view. He's admitted he's been wrong about things from time to time. He'll break ranks and take a counter position from the average party loyalist. He's a realist and will shoot you as straight as he sees it. I wish I had more friends on my friends list like David C. Moyer.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

2012-12-16T06:13:00.001-08:00

Intelligence doesn't have a universal definition. We all seem to understand what it is and we also seem to understand there are different types of intelligence. Some people might be incredibly intelligent when it comes to using logic and reason to problem solve but they might have little emotional or social intelligence. Some people have the entire package. The vast majority of people have an average amount of intelligence. And some people have very little or none. It all falls within the Bell Curve.

The Bell Curve, not the book, is a pretty amazing thing. Pretty much everything can be described by it's placement on the Bell Curve. If we imagined all of the people that have ever played baseball in their life and placed them on the Bell Curve, based on how good they were at the sport, then we would find the overwhelming amount of people that could simply put on a glove and throw and catch the ball with moderate success would make up the largest portions of the curve. On the left edge (with the the spectrum ranging from horrible to great) would be the people that are in harms way when they try to play a sport of any kind. On the right edge would be most upper level, organized players, with the farthest part of the edge housing the professionals. We could even break it down further and place all of the Major League players on their own Bell Curve and the vast majority of them would take up the largest portions of the Curve and the truly great hall of famers would be found on the right edge of the curve. This can be done for just about anything known to us.

The book, The Bell Curve, was published in 1994. The thing the authors were actually measuring and trying to quantify was intelligence. The authors conducted an analysis of a long running study performed by The United States Labor Bureau. The book was controversial for several reasons. It dabbled in the idea of different levels of intelligence based on race. It made policy and social recommendations that were bold and abrasive. The book received its fair share of criticism. The most severe critiques accused the authors of waging a campaign against welfare and immigration and even the justification to embrace racism. However, there were many parts of the book that were accepted by respected authorities in the field of psychology. The American Psychological Association formed a task force to look into the validity of the book and ended up backing several of the authors' claims. They also didn't support some of the claims, especially those dealing with race, but they didn't throw out the baby with the bath water; they used the stuff that was considered sound.

It's an engaging read, regardless if you agree with some of the claims. It makes you think hard about some ideas. One claim made by the authors warns of the following:
"...those with high intelligence...are becoming separated from those with average and below-average intelligence, and that this is a dangerous social trend with the United States moving toward a more divided society..."

I'm not endorsing the book. Simply the idea of measuring intelligence with a number seems off to me. Theoretically it might be possible to assign a number someday to measure this thing we call intelligence, but when we still can't accept a universal definition of the concept then I feel uneasy ranking it in this fashion. I have no idea how to do it but it just seems like we still have so much to learn about the brain before we can feel confident in our exact numbers. This doesn't mean that it's not possible to test for intelligence and identify it at some level. It simply means I'm skeptical of the accuracy of the assigned number, not the implication of the number. If I went back in time, say five thousand years, and went to visit the weatherman he might tell me it's going to be 300 degrees tomorrow. I might not think his number is accurate but I get the point: he thinks it's going to be hot.

The authors of The Bell Curve claimed that average and below-average people of intelligence have more children than people of higher intelligence. They claimed intelligence was heritable within the range of 40 to 80%. They claimed that it has never been demonstrated that intelligence can be manipulated to a significant degree through environmental factors. They claimed the United States is in denial of these facts and a better understanding of the nature of intelligence is needed to make future policy decisions.

I can't recommend the book. I can remember reading it years ago, at a time when I was probably more in alignment with the worldview of the authors, and still feeling like it was pushing an agenda. Some of the analysis was brilliant, but when it came to forcing the data to mean what they wanted it to mean then it just became bad science. Nothing is more painful for me to read so I can't advise you to do it. However, the claims I mentioned in the above paragraph seem very relevant to me.

The first claim about generating offspring seems accurate. There are many, many factors that make this a reality and I won't take the time to get into them in detail. The second claim about the range of heritability seems acceptable. It's a wide range. In fact, it's so wide it gives me hope that environmental factors can play a significant role, even if their claim is true about it never being demonstrated as of yet, in influencing intelligence. Finally, their last claim of the denial and need for better understanding seems completely valid.

Discussing the topic of breeding is worthy of its own essay. It's complicated at many levels. However, it's pointless until we grasp the other claims and come to terms with them. Regardless of who is breeding and at what rate, the authors claim people only inherit part of their intelligence from their genes. If it's at the upper end at 80% that still leaves 20% of people's intelligence to be molded and influenced from outside factors. If it's in a lower range of 50%, that's not even the bottom end of the presented range, then that's wonderful. Half of a person's intelligence can be influenced by something other than their genetic makeup. They claim that it hasn't been demonstrated that environmental factors influence intelligence in a significant way, but how can it not?

If a certain percentage of our intelligence is made up of something other than our biological traits then what else could it be other than environmental factors? Even if one argues some influencing factors could be attributed to mutation or random acts then I would counter that's environmental influences. The fact that something didn't do exactly what we thought it would and acted randomly or mutated is a byproduct of our environment. That's how the universe seems to operate. That's how things survive and exist within it. Ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine percent of the time those mutations and random acts of deviation are fatal. However, the environment of the universe is accepting of those events if they prove worth in the battle against entropy.

Even though we still have much to learn about our brain, it seems we understand it is a learning machine. We might not know the exact horsepower of any given brain on the planet but we still work off of the premise that its function is to learn. From the moment the brain enters the world it begins to try to understand its environment. It's an amazing process to observe, as any of you with children can attest. So much absorption is taking place in a relatively quick amount of time. The brain learns to walk and talk, many languages if we encourage it (environment), and function on its own. It is constantly learning. It absorbs the stories people tell one another (environment) and gains the experience without experiencing the actual experience, an amazing feat in the venue of learning.

If we accept the reality there are probably more below-average to average intelligence brains than above-average and beyond intelligence brains entering our country each day and we accept the premise that we can potentially influence the brain, possibly up to 60%, environmentally then we're all in this together. Being able to influence intelligence in a significant way environmentally and then passing it on genetically would lead to an exponential boom in intelligence if we simply made it a priority. It doesn't matter if you're smart and you have a couple of kids and you teach them the ways of the world to your satisfaction. If the world, and specifically the country, is going to be molded by people of lesser intelligence then your child's future is far more at risk than it would be if intelligent people were shaping the future.

If we can't come together to protect our offspring and provide them with the best possible place to live then what could we ever come together on? How can we ensure they have the best opportunity to succeed in life if we don't rely on intelligence to guide our decisions now? By encouraging intelligence, by demanding intelligence, by leading with intelligence then we are working hard to create an environment that is suitable for our children to inherit. Instead of striving to exist on the far edge of the Bell Curve, in all areas of life, why not change the dynamic within the Curve? We want to escape from our fellow man. We want to get smarter, make more, move away, gate up our community, hang out with those just like us and live as far away from the people in the middle of the Curve as possible. Why not strive to make the vast majority of the people in the Curve better neighbors? It's a disconnect.

I've stated this many times before and I mean it sincerely when I say it again: I don't have many answers. All of my eggs are in one basket and that is encouraging us to figure out how to best coexist with one another. That can only be done if we work to create an environment that encourages intelligence and relies on this intelligence to help us problem solve and direct our path. How could we want our course to be routed in any other way?

We have to be able to intellectually discuss what we are, what we've been, and what we want to be. Decisions have to be based on reflection, introspection, and vision. We can't rally to the edges of the Curve every time we try to solve a shared problem. We have to be smart enough to understand the solution needs to evolve from the place where most people exist, the bulk of the Curve. When we fail to make this our reality and settle for less simply for our own personal comfort then we obviously aren't smart enough to understand how we are all connected and share the same space in the Curve. We aren't smart enough to understand that we play a role, however big or small it may be, in every horrific event across this land because it is us that creates our environment.

If it were simply a matter of us, the ones who have failed to encourage the one thing that made us so special - intelligence, reaping what we've sowed then that would be one thing. However, when we fail our offspring and contribute to the average to below-average brains entering the world then we should be ashamed of ourselves. We can't make the world a perfect place. We can't avoid unwanted outcomes at times. We can't avoid pain when reality deals us harsh circumstances. But, we can give ourselves and, more importantly, our offspring the best possible odds.

Meet The New Boss...

2012-12-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not usually awake around the noon hour but yesterday was different. I happened to have my television on a program on MSNBC when they broke in for a special report from the parent company, NBC, and it was done by the main man, Brian Williams. I immediately start guessing a million different things as to what the announcement could be. I found myself extremely let down to learn it was simply Susan Rice withdrawing her name for consideration for the Secretary of State position President Obama will fill very soon. That's breaking news worthy of a program interruption?

I have zero inside knowledge of what's going on when it comes to the matter of President Obama's thought process on his soon to be Cabinet member. However, I have a hunch this is all just a political stunt designed to play out better for the Democrats than the Republicans.

Susan Rice found herself on the hot seat after the Benghazi incident. This happened at a time when most people sensed Obama was probably going to win the presidency again and Romney just didn't have what it would take to defeat the incumbent. The Benghazi tragedy provided the desperate right the opportunity to go on a witch hunt and try to put a chink in the shiny foreign and military policy armor of Obama. It certainly seems like there were mistakes made when it comes to protecting the ambassador and the three others that were killed. It also seems like there was some confusion in the immediate aftermath of the ordeal as to exactly what went down. However, it just didn't seem as corrupt and diabolical as those on the right were trying to paint it.

Susan Rice was and is our Ambassador to The United Nations. It is rumored she was near the top of Obama's list to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Because Susan Rice made the rounds on the weekend news circuit and seemed to be inaccurate about some of the details a few days after the incident she became the target of the hail mary pass being attempted by the right wing. High profile leaders of the GOP were "shocked" someone of Rice's stature would even appear on the Sunday morning talk shows. What a hypocritical and nonsensical position to hold. I could go on and on about the right wing and their idiotic and dire tactics used at all costs to try to gain power, but what I really want to focus on is the politics of the left.

First of all, the fact that Rice was the one making the rounds immediately after the incident should have been an issue with people, especially those looking to have an issue. Why Rice? I suspect it wasn't Hillary Clinton because the administration knew things might not go well. I doubt it was because Hillary had a long week and was "tired".

Secondly, this magically, right before our eyes, turned from grilling Rice on Benghazi to having public hearings on the acceptance of Rice as a possible nomination for Secretary of State. How did that happen you ask? Well, Obama won the election and no one really cared about Benghazi anymore, as if they ever did. Those that were looking to bash Obama for any reason at all just shifted gears and kept Rice as their punching bag.

Next, if President Obama wanted to actually nominate Rice for his Cabinet and replace Hillary then I find it unpatriotic to "withdraw from consideration". Shouldn't the President be the one that decides if you are fit to serve the country in this capacity? If I were just sitting here in my man cave, no desire to publicly serve my country, and I received a call from Obama's team (or any President) and they informed me they were considering me for a position then I doubt I would withdraw my name. Even if I was the most unqualified and worst person for the spot, I still think I would let the President make that decision. I might tell him my concerns and explain to him I think he's looking for a different Jason Hedrick (I'm the dude), but I can't imagine withdrawing my name from consideration. Is that even possible?

What seems more likely, just a hunch, is Obama wasn't going to select Rice for the position. If he just announces a different nomination and leaves the Rice "controversy" hanging then that can be spun as a victory by the right. They could take it to mean Obama agreed with them and didn't think Rice was qualified. They could take it to mean Obama was afraid to fight this confirmation battle with them. However, if Rice withdraws from consideration then that solves that problem.

I also think this is a strategy to make the Republicans the losers in the public arena. The right will still spin this as a victory. The only problem in this scenario is they look like assholes. The left can paint the picture that Rice was totally qualified and possibly our best option but the jerk wads on the right were bullies and prevented that from happening. I totally admit this is quite clever and probably a good play, but it's not change; it's politics as usual. Sure, the Obama team is very smart and they seem to always be one step ahead of the ignorant hijackers of the Grand Old Party, but just because this team is very good at politics doesn't mean it's change.

I honestly believe President Obama will most likely go down in history as one of our best presidents. It's way too early to make good predictions about how future generations will view this period, but I'm confident his many accomplished feats will be viewed positively. Having stated that, I confess I find myself let down by his tenure. Not for any of the policies he's enacted or supported, but because the change he offered didn't really end up being something I can believe in.

I've always been a Dr. Ron Paul guy. I'm the first to admit the dude is anchored to some nutty positions and his strict Libertarian prescription isn't the remedy for all our ails, but he was change. Washington would have changed in some way if Paul would have won the presidency. I don't even know how but it would have.

I'm a realist. I suspect President Obama is a very bright guy and he probably is doing the best he can given the circumstances. But, this still disappoints me. This tells me he has assessed the situation and this is the best option. This is why he'll be viewed as one of the great ones. When future historians study the charts and examine the facts they'll clearly be able to spot a turning point in our nation during Obama's terms. Despite the fact that people are tired of hearing it, Obama did inherit a mess. He did a lot right to turn things around and get us headed back in the right direction. And, he did it with nothing but opposition from one party. Still, he's just a really good leader and talented at politics. I don't see the change.

Tight Ends

2012-12-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

I've always been a fan of simulation video games. Even the sports games these days have huge elements of simulation. The college football game I play is far more than simply playing a game of football. It tasks me with actually running the entire program: recruiting, training, scheduling, depth charts, staff decisions, conference preferences, Heisman campaigns, uniform designs, stadium upgrades, and redshirting the players. At the beginning of the season I might end up with too many guys on my roster. I'm allotted 70 players and often times I have to cut about ten players before advancing due to the fact I've over recruited.

Now it would seem that if one purchases a football game then they would probably find the most joy actually playing a game of football. However, to achieve the ultimate level of satisfaction one must invest in the infrastructure of the franchise to truly thrive and succeed. Every single category I listed above in regard to the program has to be addressed and examined and a strategy has to be implemented in every area. It is possible to skip over all of the elements and just get to the game but the end result would be left to chance. Having a subpar team or struggling every step of the way or losing wouldn't be fun to me. My happiness, when it comes to playing this game, hinges on winning when my team takes the field. I can't leave that to chance so I spend the necessary time in all of the other areas to give myself the best odds of winning.

The one area I want to examine in greater detail is the moment where I must decide which players are going to make my final 70 roster. This can be a difficult process. Sometimes I'm forced to keep lesser skilled players and cut pretty good ones in order to make all the pieces fit. I have to make sure I have balance on offense, defense, and special teams. I might have recruited ten amazing quarterbacks but it does me no good to keep them all. I can only play one and I need to have a couple backups in case of injury. Another dimension to consider is the age or grade level of the players. I might cut an upperclassman that is currently rated higher than a freshman because I see potential for the younger player to be better in the future, several years later. I have to have an understanding of what I'm trying to achieve this year and in future years.

I can't help but wonder what my team would be like if I had to negotiate with the GOP over this one process, cutting my roster to size. The Republican Party would refuse to ever cut any defensive players. Even if I argued factually that my team hadn't allowed more than one touchdown in the last ten seasons and we had 50 spots on the roster taken up by defensive players they would refuse to budge one inch. I then discover the GOP has an obsession with tight ends and they don't want any on the team. I attempt to explain to them that tight ends are a necessary component in our offense and we need three on the team and they counter by refusing to field the position because it has an immoral sounding name.

The fiscal cliff negotiation process provides a window into the thought process of how we address our long term strategies. We have camps that claim they want a good "offense" or a good "defense" but they have no desire to actually take the time to address the all of the fine details that make up the bigger whole. They just want to play the game and win but despise the idea of practice and weight training and recruiting. They represent only specialty players like quarterbacks and linebackers and disregard the ordinary lineman doing all the dirty work in the trenches.

I've heard a thousand times the President demands the rich people contribute more in taxes and the GOP wants to cut entitlements. Not one time have I heard these elected officials explain in detail our overall strategy and how implementing specific proposals will achieve a wanted outcome. I hear one thought, talking points over and over again. Taxes and entitlements. Taxes and entitlements.

Let's get real. We have to pay taxes. Social Security and Medicare (our something very like them) are here to stay. You can raise my taxes to 90% if you can explain to me exactly what I will get in return and I'm comfortable with that reality. The real problem is I know my tax money is wasted and I am cynical of the people in charge of allocating my hard earned cash. I have no qualms with chipping in for our elders or our citizens in need of assistance and it makes me feel good. The real problem is I know there is so much inefficiency and mishandling of the funds that I have little faith in the systems. Don't most people feel this exact same way?

The biggest disconnect I observe when it comes to politics is our role in the situation. We don't invest in any of the details but we are quick to armchair quarterback when things don't go our way. Instead of taking responsibility for not recruiting properly or not having a forward looking vision for our program, we opt to blame the controller for not working properly and making excuses for our failures. Our politicians are our controllers. From time to time one is flawed and needs to be replaced, no doubt. However, once we decide to use the controller and put it in our hands then the outcome of the game becomes our responsibility.

Reality is all around us. It is easy to observe the views people hold on an array of issues. How often do you observe a person engage in a conversation about our future vision and leave the discussion with a changed mind? How often do you observe a person even enter a conversation with the possibility of having their mind changed? How many people do you know that want to have their mind changed? How many people do you know that have "vision"? How many people do you know that will vote according to party lines regardless of the facts? Do you think any of the answers to any of these questions affects you in any way?

This isn't just a game that we show up and play every four years. This is our life and our happiness that takes place every moment. It's all connected at every level. We have to take responsibility for our role in that process. It seems such a daunting and impossible to task to change our world. However, it happens one simple step at a time.

Choices Always Were A Problem For You: Part III

2012-12-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

Choices Always Were A Problem For You: Part III
The final part of a three part series

The idea of free will has fascinated me for quite some time. It's fascinated man for hundreds and hundreds of years. The first time I can remember grappling with the concept involved trying to reconcile an omnipotent God knowing if I ended up in Heaven or Hell at the end of my life.

Our modern God is the grandest of most previous gods. Not too long ago, relatively speaking in the near 14 billion year existence of the universe, the gods were tasked with only one or two duties. Making the Sun come up was all one god would do. Another might make it rain. One could make people fertile. Today's God can do it all. It would be an incredibly godly feat to actually have the power to create the entire universe, but today's God also has the magical ability to know the thought of every human that lives on the planet and knows the outcome of every event that will take place. Truly amazing.

This next revelation might come as a huge shocker so be warned. I was president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes while in high school. The club didn't really exist when I entered high school. Perhaps it had in the past but it didn't when I began my four years. My wood shop teacher was brand new to the profession my freshman year and I really liked him. He just kind of brought up the idea of having the Christian athletes meet at his house and have food and talk about The Word. It was a blast. Since I was in his original group and participated regularly all four years I went to him and asked if I could list my title as the president of the group on my college applications. There wasn't really a president, it wasn't like that at all, but it looked good and he obliged. The thing that sticks with me most about those gatherings, besides the incredibly good times with good people, was how real it was. We would ask real questions about the religion and God and our adviser would answer as honestly as he could. He wasn't afraid to say, "good question, I don't know." I loved him for that.

There was nothing about the universe, to that point in my life, that had made me question my capacity to freely make decisions for myself. It was my studying of The Bible and the powers and abilities of God that first made me wonder about my destiny and my ability to do anything about it. It was my understanding that God knew every decision I would ever make and ultimately if I would "choose" to end up in Heaven or Hell. Was that really a choice I had? Who in the world would choose eternal damnation? I couldn't really choose to go to Hell, could I?

Then the miracle of prayer began to perplex me. It made me question even God's free will. Was I to believe God created me and then knew I might need Him to intervene when I asked him to with a pretty please with a cherry on top and a lifelong vow to never ever again do something I'm currently doing and He could actually alter the course and grant my wish, changing the outcome from the way it was going to resolve? If so, did He freely choose to change His own fate that He had created for me? Did He create me and then know what I would pray for in advance and know His own answer to my question? What choices did I control in any of these scenarios? Which choices did God control? And which God, the one that originally set my fate or the one that answered my prayers to change my fate or is that the same God and if so could He have "chosen" a different answer to any of my prayer requests? It was all very complicated to me. I thank religion for that experience. It played an enormous part in creating a sense of clarity in me and my approach to the universe. I was far simpler and less complicated than the requirements for believing in God.

I mentioned in the second piece of this series that letting go of the necessity for a god, and The God, was very liberating. It seems to me in my experience that most people who teeter on the verge of giving up on the idea of God are most tormented by the afterlife. It scares them. For some of my closest friends the thought of not existing at all scares them more than Hell. This wasn't an obstacle for me. The biggest hurdle was accepting that I might be on my own, in control of my own destiny in THIS existence. When I came to terms with that then the true feeling of liberation occurred. Instead of the instructions to life being carved in stone (literally), everything was now wide open. I was in control of me. I could only pray to myself now when I needed to face one of the many challenges life would inevitably present me. I was God. Not the God that has all of the magical powers we prescribe to him, but God of me and my journey.

Years later when I would discover the ability to actually acquire quiet time in my head and silence my mind then I began to scrutinize my new god. All of the gods of the past were only needed because of the unknowns of the time. My god came with some unknowns as well. My first real question of this god was where did It exist? I know where it feels like It exists, somewhere behind my eyes kind of floating around in my head. But there is no "real", physical thing that exists that we are aware of. That troubled me. My god was kind of magical too. This god existed in some other dimension, yet simultaneously existed in my head and could control my actions and was me. I (and billions of other people) had created my own personal Trinity. That also became complicated to me.

Many people that seek out enlightened states search out techniques and try to have some idea what they're getting into. My experiences with silencing my mind were created by happenstance. I wasn't looking for anything. I just happened to arrive at this place where I was totally functioning, far better than normal, and not giving any thought to it at all simply by chance. The experience was truly indescribable. It made me question what was happening and how I could function without consciously making decisions. In fact, if I dared make a decision or even think about making one then that experience would instantly come to an end.

Just as I had once questioned my first God about His ability to actually change the course of actions, I now began to apply the same questions to my current God. What power did I actually possess that could alter the forces of nature? Was I to believe I was this magical spirit energy that could "will" things to happen? Could I choose to be an alcoholic? Could I choose to kill myself? Could I choose to molest young boys? None of these things I seemed capable of, I couldn't make them happen. My powers were limited; I couldn't do all things. Maybe my god couldn't do anything. Again I had lost faith in my God and I felt liberated.

There are other animals we share the planet with that have developed forms of language. Even though their library of words isn't as sophisticated as ours, they are still capable of passing on knowledge to one another. Knowledge. Elephants and dolphins and some higher primates share many of the thoughts we share. They are an entity that took a different path than us but have developed many of the same skills, although it's in their own way. When an imprisoned orangutan can devise and plan his escape do we think it "willed" its actions? Do we think that animal has the same abilities to make conscious choices as we do?

What makes us unique is the complexity of our brains. We are unaware of anything in the universe as complex and powerful when it comes to "thinking". But the day is coming when there will be things more powerful than our brains. I don't know what that day will bring when we create that technology, but I do know that what will make it more powerful than our brain is its processing power.

We don't believe animals have "souls" that control their actions; we think we're special. Why would we be? Organic and non-organic things in this universe seem to share the trait of trying to learn. It might be different for a rock or a plant or an elephant, but all things seem to operate on the principle of becoming more knowledgeable about their environment. Obviously the "decision" making process of a rock isn't very complex compared to that of a human brain, but it has decided to be a rock. There are a lot, millions and billions, of molecules and atoms that have joined together in the form of a rock to exist as long as possible. Somehow they figured out that they have a much longer lifespan when they join together to make a rock than they do when they battle entropy alone in the universe. So is true of every single thing in the universe. We are just more sophisticated than most other things, at least in our opinion.

We attribute to no other thing in the universe an ability to "will" a decision, even things we have created to do nothing but make decisions. The key word here is "will" and what it means to wish something to happen when you're human. This implies multiple options and then some outside force coming in to generate a verdict on what action shall transpire. We are certain decisions are made all of the time; we aren't certain what controls those decisions. It feels like we do, but that's just how it feels. It feels like my car is moving forward at the stop light when the car next to me is the one slowly drifting.

As I mentioned in the first piece of this series, I struggled for a long time to figure out how to share these ideas that are very meaningful to me. It's impossible and pointless to present these topics in a way that makes sense to others in the same way it makes sense to me. My solution was to present them in a way that demonstrates how they influence my life and my thought process. It might seem like these beliefs hold no room for spirituality and I would argue it's the exact opposite. When I work to silence my mind and find peace and harmony with the universe I am transcending the self. All of the false creations that plague people and hinder happiness dissolve when the self disappears. I can honestly see me in each and every person I encounter and them in me. My life is far more meaningful to me when I understand it's bigger than me and some reward I might receive in some other non-guaranteed existence. When I'm not tormented with "decisions" that I must render I find happiness. When I accept I am not special and I can only sail where the wind takes me then I find happiness.

I don't begrudge anyone that finds there own happiness in their own way. I always wish others well on that journey. I know there are more roads than one to get to that destination. I just wanted to share my journey and the fact that anyone, if even only one person, can take anything at all I've written and use it in any way to make their experience on this wonderful ride more enjoyable then that brings me happiness.

Thanks for not choosing to not read this.

I Think, Therefore...: Part II

2012-12-07T10:37:00.001-08:00

I Think, Therefore... : Part II
Part two of a three part series

I know he never knew it, but one of my best friends provided me with the tools to view myself, and what I am, in an entirely different way than I was used to for the majority of my life. It was just a simple suggestion, nothing profound. "Turn up the speed to hyper," he said. Those words would eventually open up an entirely new world, even universe, for me a few years later.

The concept of consciousness is an enigma of sorts. It's truly impossible to find a universal definition of what it is. I have spent hundreds, probably thousands, of hours reading about the subject and this is my favorite quote about consciousness ...

The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with self-consciousness—to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it. ~ Stuart Sutherland

Although I don't agree completely with this assessment, I do think it perfectly encompasses everything about the subject matter. "Nothing worth reading" is a bit harsh but it's closer to the truth than fiction. It's actually because of the impossibility of writing anything worthwhile on the subject that I opted to do the setup piece. I needed to explain that by writing about consciousness, specifically self consciousness, and free will I wasn't attempting to bring anything new to the table that hasn't been presented for thousands of years. I wasn't attempting to convince anyone else I was right. I wasn't attempting to explain what these things are in reality. I was merely attempting to share my journey and relationship with these ideas and what they mean to mean. With that in mind I needed to share a little about me in the setup that would make the reading more meaningful and understandable.

Rock Band is a music game. There are several different ways to play it: singing, drumming, guitaring, keyboarding. Although I dabble in a little bit of everything, my true love when playing the game is the guitar. It's nothing like playing a real guitar and I'm under no illusion it's the same thing. Basically, the notes rain down on the screen in the form of different colors and the player is tasked with hitting the right color at the right time and strumming the plastic piece that represents all of the strings of the real instrument. Even though I don't feel like I'm playing a guitar, I do feel connected to the music. The song doesn't flow and sound right if I don't do my part.

It was the first video game, maybe any type of game, that I played that wasn't competitive for me. It was all about simply enjoying the experience. I totally admit I can understand how it can look foolish for a 40+ year old man to be playing a fake guitar to a video game from the outside,but from the inside it eventually became a very spiritual experience for me.

I have a few friends that also play the game but not many. And of those that do none of them really take on the guitar part of the game. One of my close friends, that has passed away, found the guitar to be his instrument of choice. He played the game on the top difficulty level and we would share experiences about different songs and what we thought about them. I can remember talking to him about a song that was giving me problems and he asked about the speed the notes were coming down on the screen. I told him I had the difficulty set to expert, the same as him. He asked if I was aware of a setting that would actually speed up the notes. This seemed incredibly bizarre to me because the difficulty I was having was trying to catch up to the notes in the first place. He must have meant I could find this setting and turn down the speed. "Turn up the speed to hyper," he recommended. I asked if that meant what I thought it meant and he assured me it did.

Long before I came across Rock Band I had been searching out the notion of enlightenment. Even though I found it extremely exciting, I was always frustrated because they would never get to the point. I just wanted to read the magic words that explained how to obtain Nirvana and they would never come. The recipes always described quietness and truth and reflection but they never explained them in exact measurements and they never told you exactly what you were cooking, only that you would know you were successful if it tasted good when you were done. They then go on to confuse the issue by telling you that you can actually never be done cooking, it's a never ending slow roast. Feel free to take a test bite every now and then. If it taste good then keep cooking.

I'm very practical when it comes to my happiness. I don't complicate it at all. As I mentioned in the first piece, I break things down when trying to understand them and then only put back in place the necessary components. When I was approaching thirty years old I happened to be facing some personal trials. It was the first time in my life I would lay in bed and not sleep because thoughts were racing through my mind. Soon the thoughts weren't my preoccupation, but thoughts about the thoughts controlling me were my interest. I realized I couldn't control the thoughts that would enter my head. They would just show up and I didn't know where they came from. I certainly didn't want them to enter my head, what I wanted was to sleep. It did seem, however, that I was in control of how long I focused on those thoughts once they entered my head.

There is a tactic most males learn to use when they are first gaining experience in the sexual arena. When a woman orgasms that's a wonderful thing but, in most cases, it's not the end of the game. The males role in the production, in most cases, is to keep the scene going on a little longer so all of the actors can enjoy their parts. If he just enters the stage, blurts out his lines, and disregards the script all together then he probably won't receive many curtain calls. When the male is young, and sometimes even older, that is a hard task to accomplish. One thing the male does to become a better partner is actually think about something else other than the sex he is currently engaging in. And when I say something else, I mean something completely different that has nothing to do with sex at all. This may all seem a little silly but it was because of this skill I had developed, sidetracking my thoughts, that I was able to eventually get a good night's sleep at a time in my life where I was facing difficulties and needed rest the most.

I decided that I would immediately think of something else when a troubling thought entered my head. Obviously, this took time to work. It was a form of conditioning. With discipline I discovered I could actually train my brain to recognize laying down as a time to shut down and not a time to get my attention. To this very day I sleep like a baby (when I say baby I mean a good baby that sleeps all night, not one of those cry babies that keeps everyone up all night).I take my happiness very seriously. I won't be a victim of chance when it comes to enjoying this ride if I can help it. Things popping into my head without my say so is chance. If my sleep, which plays a part in my happiness, is left to chance then my happiness is partially left to chance. This didn't seem like a necessary component to put back in place so I didn't. I require very little sleep and my friends can attest to this fact. When my head hits the pillow I spend no more than a couple of minutes falling to sleep. I sleep great. I'm human and I have problems just like everyone else. I have things that could keep me up at night if I allowed them to, but I don't.

I didn't know it at the time but that sleeping technique I created for myself was probably my first experience with "quietness". And it was something I would experience everyday of my life from that moment on, a little slice of Nirvana. It wasn't until I began to experience more "quiet" time later in my life that I began to put the pieces together. It seems odd that a tactic of thinking of a different thought than the one that first entered my mind would ultimately lead to no noise at all, but that's exactly what happened. My thought was just meant to be a distraction to my other thought, not something I really cared to think about. Eventually the original thought just gave up and I no longer needed to generate a thought to battle the other thought. It was now quiet when I went to bed. There were no thoughts at all. I was awake still but there was no internal dialogue taking place. It's an unfamiliar place, even when you've been there before. But it's a place you always yearn to visit again; it's surprisingly peaceful.

Even though I was unaware of any of this at the time I was devising a tactic to get sound sleep, it seems clear now I was observing thoughts in my head that were just that, thoughts. They weren't me, they were just thoughts. The me wanted to sleep and the thoughts got in the way. I say I created another thought to counter the unwanted thought but a better description would be like imagining you trying to say something to me and me saying mah na mah na (like the Muppets), mah na mah na, mah na mah na over and over again just to make noise and show you I'm not listening to you. I'm not really saying anything, nor do I have a point to my words other than to show you it's pointless for you to continue. So who was I in the sleep drill? I wasn't the thought that popped into my head and kept me awake. I created a thought (or so it seems) to distract the other thought but I'm not really that thought. I'm the thing observing this battle. When I later understood this and could view all thoughts in this fashion then I truly was on the verge of controlling my overall happiness at a substantial level.

Years after my trying situation my worries in life were of much less magnitude. The biggest concern I was facing about five years ago was how to play the really tough songs on Rock Band without struggling so much. The advice given to me by my friend was very counterintuitive. The notes were already coming at me so fast I couldn't play them and he wanted them to come at me faster. It's like starting another conversation on top of a conversation to create quietness.

I followed his advice and cranked up the speed. This one goes to Hyper. At first it was even more difficult. However, over time it did make things easier. Eventually I conquered songs that I couldn't finish before speeding up the notes. But why?

I'm pretty sure my buddy that made the recommendation didn't catapult his experience into an enlightened approach to life, but I am very confident he understood the tactic he was using when he opted to have the notes sped up. He was creating silence. He didn't have time to think about things; he just had time to react. There were no thoughts in his head when he was playing, at least not when he was playing well and "in the zone". We've all experienced these moments throughout our life. We see others experience them, especially in the sporting arena. They don't even have to be monumental feats. They are just those moments where you can't do anything wrong and you know the second you start thinking about what you're doing then you're going to screw it all up. Those that have achieved great things have made that moment last longer than our normal experiences.

I had played the game for a long time and had peaked out. I followed the advice and I discovered the silence my friend must have discovered. The game eventually became a tool to measure my "in synchness" with the universe. There are songs that I can absolutely play to perfection when I can clear my head, when I can let reality come at me and I just roll with it and do what I do. However, I can play the same songs on different days and find difficulty in certain spots. At this point in the process I can tell when those days are without even playing the game. I can sense when my thoughts are trying to dictate my reality and refuse to remain silent. It is at these moments when I find myself most out of synch with the universe, my energy. I now can use the game as a therapy session to feel a more positive energy and experience a sense of harmony with everything and clear my head of all the thoughts that have created this negative vibe. The vibe doesn't exist anywhere except inside my head. I know this to be true.

There are many gaps in the story of how I got from there to here. That was intended. Filling in the gaps is pointless and won't provide any more clarity. However, I'm quite happy to talk about where here happens to be for me at this point in my life. Here is a place that allows me see that I am not simply the thoughts in my head. Even when those thoughts don't exist I am still here. I am now able to get to a quiet place with a lot more frequency. It is here that makes me happy.

I know this place is hard to understand for most people. I know that even those that can grasp the idea of quietness can't apply it in a real or practical way to their lives. On top of that, most people don't think they would want to even after they say they understand it. If they ever experienced the silence I'm confident they wouldn't feel that way any longer. I'm also very confident most people will never do anything more than leave their happiness to chance.

For several years of my life I believed in Santa Claus. I'm sure my experience of discovering this was a hoax to control my naughty and niceness was similar to most. At the end of the day, even though there is initial shock and disappointment from this new reality, one is left with a feeling of liberation, even at a very young age. For many years of my life I believed in God. When those thoughts were no longer who I was and served as the controlling principle in my life I, again, felt liberated. Longer than I held any of those thoughts about what I was and how my life functioned, I held the thought that I was my thoughts. Again I was liberated when I discovered the hoax. Every day I wake up and put the necessary pieces into to place to experience this journey and I feel no need to put any of these things back into the equation. They complicate things.

My motivation for believing the universe is how it is isn't due to wishful thinking. If I could have it my way it would be a way different place. I simply seek to find out how it is so I can have the best experience possible. The more I learn about my place in the universe and what I am then the more likely I can eliminate things others leave to chance when it comes to happiness.

The opening lines from the movie Adaptation summarize my thoughts on the sense of self...

Charlie Kaufman - Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's gonna change that.

These lines found a little later in the movie are a teaser on my journey with free will ...

John Laroche - Look, I'll tell you a story, all right? I once fell deeply, you know, profoundly in love with tropical fish. Had 60 goddamn fish tanks in my house. I skin dived to find just the right ones. Anisotremus virginicus, Holdacanthus ciliaris, Chaetodon capistratus. You name it. Then one day I say, "fuck fish". I renounce fish. I vow never to set foot in that ocean again. That's how much "fuck fish".

The Setup: Part I

2012-11-26T04:02:00.001-08:00

The Setup: Part I
Part one of a three part series

We all have things about us that others find interesting, if they find us interesting at all. It can be jobs, stories, experiences, attitudes, approaches, etc... The things that others seem to question me about usually involve formerly being a cop, playing poker, and a few of the non-traditional positions I take on various subjects.

Two topics that continually run through my mind and dictate almost every attitude I hold on any subject deal with our sense of self and the notion of not actually having free will. Just like most things in life, these topics are very intertwined in my head but they are certainly their own entity and worthy of discussion. However, I've never really taken on the task of discussing these subjects because it seemed impossible for me to lay it out in a way that would convey any meaningful message.

I don't feel my talent is writing in any sense. I'm extremely thankful I loved my typing class in high school and learned the trade. It certainly makes writing my pieces easier. However, I labor at a lot of levels when it comes to putting down my thoughts in text. The first battle takes place simply trying to figure out what style I'm going to use to tell the story. I might know I'm going to write about a specific subject but I create a few different scenarios in my head and run them through several dress rehearsals, usually for days, before even beginning to actually write about the subject. Sometimes I even get about halfway through writing it and then nix it and go a different route. When I actually sit down and take the time to write the piece it usually takes a couple hours (one piece took about four hours -Kukulkan in the Sky With Diamonds- and another took about six hours- He Ain't Heavy, He's A Hologram). I'm not naturally a good speller and have to constantly look up everything. I know I make all kinds of errors in grammar but know most people don't know the rules any better than I do. I don't mention any of that other than to point out the fact I don't think I'm blessed at writing.

My ability, in my mind, is the telling of the story in an entertaining way, hopefully, that makes the reader consider looking at a topic in a new light. Rarely can you catch me offering up proven solutions to anything I'm discussing; mostly I'm simply asking, whether it's interpreted that way or not, others to question certainty. The two things I have wanted to write about and share more than any other deal with consciousness and free will and I've been unable to address them because I've never been able to come up with a template for conveying the message. Finally, I feel like I have an acceptable plan for allowing me the sanity to author the pieces I need to author. I had to break it up into segments and give each one it's due time.

It might seem so simple from the outside. "Just write a piece about self awareness and write a piece about free will," you say. I wish it was that easy for me. I could sense it didn't feel right to just simply write about the subjects but couldn't pinpoint what made me uneasy. It seems I've discovered I felt the need to author a setup piece prior to discussing the two topics that occupy so much of my thoughts.

When I was fairly young I was aware others thought I was smart. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't recognized as a genius or anything, I was just placed in the programs that identified seemingly bright kids. I never felt smart though. I didn't feel dumb either, but I didn't think I was all that smart. I knew smart kids and they seemed way smart to me in a ways I wasn't. They knew so much and could figure out so many things that were beyond me. I got good grades but other kids got good grades too. I never invented anything and was always disappointed that I wasn't creative enough to come up with something to enter into the science fair. I was pretty good in math but there was always a tier of kids that were higher than me all through my schooling. English wasn't my specialty and I hated to read. I found history boring. I just didn't feel like a smart kid.

As I entered my teen years and journeyed through high school I came to terms that I was "a different kind of smart" than the other smart kids. All of the same things were true about me from my elementary days in regard to my likes and dislikes of subjects and externally being viewed as smart but internally feeling like I wasn't as smart as it seemed. But as I aged I began to understand that it was how I looked at things that separated me in the intellect department. (If any of this sounds terribly conceited or arrogant be sure to tune into parts two and three where I discuss the ego and free will and relinquish all responsibility for my behavior and/or abilities). I was confident at this stage that I wasn't solving problems the same way my peers were. I had no idea what that difference was but I knew I didn't come to the same solutions they did traveling the same route. My very close friends were all really smart. I was always the "funny and crazy guy", never the smart one. I could compete with them and challenge them in games of intellect but I rarely won. I knew they were processing and retrieving information differently than me, I was observing it.

I can honestly say that it has been relatively recently, perhaps the last five years, that I finally realized enough about myself to understand how I think about things and how that is different than others I know. It has been my observation that the very bright people I'm around are very good at putting things together building upon a foundation and moving upward. They know and understand things and then they pile on another level of understanding. This is followed by another floor of understanding and then another. Finally, when we look at their buildings of knowledge we see the bright people have a few more floors than other people. They just know more.

I'm sure I'm not alone but I seem to work counter to this when I process information. I tear things down. I gaze at each floor and ask if it's necessary and true. I seek simplicity. I don't need a skyscraper to understand something; I only need to know the ground on which it is being built. If the ground is solid I know all I need to know. The elimination, in my head, of some very traditional loops in which society seems to process information places me in a spot where I often don't share a common reality with my fellow man. Those that live in towers built upon floor after floor of information, whether that information is "true" or not, don't like the idea of someone like me questioning whether their building is stable. If they have a structure of lie built upon lie built upon lie, even the removal of one floor can be a threat.

This isn't to say that however one operates and processes information is better than another way; they are just different. It's certainly possible to be a very intelligent person by building with knowledge and being the architect of a sturdy and towering structure. As I've mentioned, it seems like the bright people I know work this way. I bring up the different approaches because I'm aware it makes communication between the camps (the builders being the vast majority and the tear it downers being the small minority) difficult at times.

I think it is this gap that has caused me apprehension when discussing my views, in detail, about the ego and free will. This first piece (Part I) is a bridge for me. I needed to lay the groundwork of how I tick and why these ideas about these subjects are considered in my mind. I don't come in and buy the building even after I'm assured by the greatest engineers everything is up to par. I come in and purchase the lot and put one floor in place once I'm confident the ground is solid. I'm afraid of heights and don't long to live in the clouds of knowledge. I crave simplicity. Those that purchase sound buildings and live in the lofts aren't incompatible with my approach. Sound knowledge is sound knowledge. However, what seems to be uncomfortable to me is those that purchase condemned buildings of knowledge and then live under the illusion everyone else's building is crumbling.

I know from many conversations I've had with people that there is very little common ground when it comes to discussing the ego and free will. It's my observation that most people have given very little thought to either of these ideas. They are fascinating subjects to a lot of people but they enjoy the illusions and don't want to know how the trick really works, it would spoil it for them. It's because of these failed conversations time and time again that I knew I would fail at conveying any type of message when I finally wrote about two near and dear topics to me.

I opened by talking about things that people find interesting in others. I went on to discuss my attitude about my own intellect at various stages in my life. I know from my own experience that others find it interesting that I question our sense of self and even ponder, quite seriously, the idea that we don't have free will at all. I don't have delusions of grandeur when it comes to my audience. I'm very aware of the very small amount of regular readers I have. I am very comfortable with that. It is because of that I can author setup pieces and talk about all sorts of different things because I know I'm only truly connecting with a relatively small group of people - people that appreciate how it is I think.

When I write the next piece on our sense of self it won't be an argument. Instead it will simply be a journey through my thought process. Same is true for the third piece on free will. I truly felt shackled by the inability to present these two topics in a meaningful way. I feel freed by explaining to you in the setup piece what you're in for ahead of time. These are complicated areas that affect my processing of almost all information I receive. My thoughts on these subjects are very fluid and I'm not concrete on my positions. I would estimate I operate off of the premise that our idea of what we are, our sense of self, is wrong with about a 85% confidence level. I estimate my confidence in the idea that we don't have free will is about 65%.

Trying to quantify and explain in great detail why and how these things make sense to me seemed impossible. And it probably is. What did seem possible was simply sharing the thought process and let you observe how it affects my thinking. At the end of the day I can deliver the consistent message I wish to convey - question things. I feel if I didn't take the time to author the setup piece that the obstacles would be too much to overcome. Objecting to every statement I make or simply being confused and unable to follow would hinder my success of conveying a message. I've known this all along. By reading the subsequent pieces you are agreeing to the terms and conditions.

In a perfect world I would take a break, medicate, and begin Part II. In the real world I will take a break, medicate, and take another break.

The Levy Was Dry

2012-11-16T03:04:00.000-08:00

The idea of tithing is mentioned in The Bible. God commands his followers to give a part or their animals and crops back to the church.

Tithe: transitive verb - to pay or give a tenth part of especially for the support of the church

The instructions are pretty easy to follow. If you acquire ten mules then you should give the tenth one back to God and let Him give it to the less fortunate. Notice the poor person, who doesn't have a mule, isn't required to tithe. The poor person will actually be the benefactor of the tithe and receive a mule even though they never contribute to the system.

Approximately 2000 years later it seems we have adopted a different attitude about the givers and takers of our times. Now it seems we look down upon them and vilify the poor and don't appreciate the idea of being forced to give away part of our hard earned income to support those who feel entitled.

To be fair to those who do harbor this resentment of the needy, God's plan was for the church to take care of them and not the government. But this still seems like an inconsistent attitude, begrudging the poor, once walked through to completion. If one honestly believes this nation was founded on Christian values and they believe part of the problem we face in modern times is the fact our country has gotten away from its Christian roots, then it would seem like the idea of the government helping out the needy would be more embraced by the followers of Christ.

The man that just ran for President of the United States of America and received about sixty million votes and lost recently explained why he thinks he didn't win:
"The president's campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift...With regards to African American voters, Obamacare was a huge plus...Likewise with Hispanic voters, free health care was a big plus."

On election night Bill O'Reilly explained why he thought Romney was going to lose:
"It's not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is now the minority. There are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff...You're going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama...and women will probably break President Obama's way. People feel like they are entitled to things, and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?"

Now, completely ignoring the blatant racism and sexism (perhaps another blog post on a different day), it seems obvious these people don't really view the needy the same way God did. God didn't decipher between which poor people to give to and he didn't set criteria for them to be the benefactor; He simply gave to them because they were poor. And what He gave them was your hard earned crops and livestock.

I'm not suggesting there isn't waste and inefficient parts of our entitlement programs. And I'm not suggesting people can't discuss those areas without seeming cold and mean. But what I am suggesting is the attitude we hold toward the poor seems to be out of alignment from the entity most people claim to follow.

Neither derivative Nor dependent

2012-11-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

The election was a very interesting observation of the psyche of America. The world is a complicated place and there are literally thousands of different issues to address when attempting to govern a society of 314 million people. When all of those categories and ideas and worldviews and facts and lies and agendas got funneled into a two party system formula the end result was a clash of two entirely different realities.

I like President Obama and feel like I've been candid about that sentiment. I didn't even dislike Mitt Romney; I just disliked what he became when running for President. The Republican Party has been a mess for several years and the primary season forced Romney to embrace a reality of doom and gloom and trying to defend everything that was good about him (universal healthcare for his state, his success at Bain Capital, the fact that he was rich and good with his money). Even though I'm not a Democrat, I feel like they are at least trying to compromise and move forward. The Republicans have offered nothing but obstruction. My choice to vote for Obama really boiled down to something that simple. So that is that as far as the politics of the election.

The most interesting part of the entire process was the collision course of two entirely different views of reality. One side, pretty much half of the country, dismissed fact after fact and insisted reality was based on "feeling". Trickle Down Economics feels like it should work despite every fact that shows it hasn't. Climate Change feels like a hoax and government conspiracy and 95% of the scientists on the planet are on their payroll. It feels like the various rights of women, ranging from their equality in the workplace to their right to control their own body, should be granted by old white guys. It feels like Karl Rove and Dick Morris and Rush Limbaugh should know what they're talking about when it comes to elections and the "effeminate" Nate Silver must be in the tank for the left because he believes in skewed polling. It feels like the government should be smaller and stay out of our lives until disaster strikes and we want the government to step up and save the day.

About three o'clock on election day the first information was released: the exit polling data. It seemed everyone was reporting high turnout for BOTH sides. This wasn't the expected reality of half of the country. They had been promised the left wasn't as excited to vote as those on the right were. They were informed many of the people that voted for Obama in 2008 were disgruntled and weren't going to vote for him again. They were told the younger vote wouldn't turn out this election. They were instructed on the mathematics of the independent voter and how it favored a Romney victory in a landslide. They were shown electoral maps with states painted red even though Obama lead in nearly every swing state. They were given bogus predictions about the election and not one person ever foresaw a blowout win by Obama.

By four thirty in the afternoon I was extremely confident Obama had won the election and was getting giddy about the prospect of a triple digit win. At 4:50pm I posted to my Facebook wall, "49-3. Holy Shit. (wink, wink)". At this time Obama had only gathered three electoral votes to Romney's 49. By five thirty I was extremely confident Obama was on his way to 332. Florida seemed in the bag with the returns that were still out at that time. Virginia was a little scary to me but the scenario was nearly a carbon copy of that in Florida with the only remaining returns coming from huge Obama areas. Anyone that had communications with me during this time frame can testify to my outlook at that time. One text I received from a person very close to me commented about how they were surprised how much red they were seeing and how well Romney was doing. I texted back and explained the election was over and Obama was going to win handily. My favorite text of the evening followed: "What channel are you watching?"

Now I'm going to open up to you more than I normally do. Sure, I share a lot of ideas and jot down a lot of words talking about different things, but I don't normally get too personal with you about things that are close to me. My motivation is almost always to offer sanity and some form of entertainment for anyone that might want to read my stuff. My hope is to prod those that don't think they need prodding and to provide reassurance to those that must feel like they are alone at times and let them know there are others out there in the sea of chaos. Occasionally I will comment in a tongue-in-cheek way and remind my viewers that I have removed myself for pulling for an outcome in regard to the plight of humanity. But the truth is, this is really where I land on most issues. It's not because I'm callus or don't believe love is the answer; it's because it works for me. It's much more peaceful and quiet this way. I have very good friends that root for outcomes and it seems draining to me on the outside looking in. On top of that, it seems pointless. None of this means I abandon being the best person I can be or caring about my fellow brothers. It just means I go with it and speak my piece and enjoy the breeze whichever way it may blow.

Having stated all of that, I can't deny my interest in the outcome of this election. A different result would have affected me at some level. I could have easily swallowed the pill if it were simply accepting Romney as the President. I wouldn't have been devastated by the thought of Mitt Romney running the country like many on the right seem to be by another four years of Obama. I wasn't under the impression our country would fail and socialism would take over if Romney won to begin with. I wasn't under the impression our military would be surpassed by Russia or China or Iran if Romney won. I wasn't under the impression businesses across the country would go under if Romney won. So even though I have different ideas about which direction to go, I wouldn't have been unable to continue going about my normal day to day business if Romney was my President.

However, what would have been very different would be the reality I would have to live in. A reality where facts no longer mattered. A reality where models that successfully predict the likelihood of outcomes are viewed as witchcraft. A reality where religious dogma determined the liberty of an individual and their right to pursue their own happiness. A reality where people can get air time on television and spout nonsense and lies and gut feelings and that trumps truth. A reality where science and faith are on equal footing. A reality that doesn't cherish and rely on compromise when coexisting with one another. A reality that adopts "my way or the highway" as its motto. A reality that would rather demonize than discuss. A reality that is at odds with reality.

For my own personal reasons I found myself really pulling for an outcome. I work so hard to decipher the hidden truths that seem to willfully evade us. I use the best models known to me to help me on my endeavor. I vigorously crunch my own numbers into my own personal happiness model and enjoy the results. Things aren't perfect in the world because of this. Nor are they perfect with my country, the things around me, or even me. But I maintain sanity and happiness a sufficient amount of the time and this means everything to me. You can take everything in my life (everything I have, I do, I am) and walk it right back down to that principle of maintaining harmony.

This election seemed to threaten my reality in some way. I'm sure I would have been able to adapt but I didn't feel the need. I can't imagine my adaptation wouldn't involve a more cynical view of humanity and a further retreat from cheering for the home team. I'm relieved I didn't have to swallow that pill.

Four years ago I found myself teary-eyed on election night. The positive energy, people coming out onto the streets, huge crowds gathering to watch the new President speak, the making of history, it all seemed overwhelming to me. I honestly didn't think I could feel anything like that from this election, even if Obama won again. I was wrong.

Even though the reasons weren't the same, the feeling of being overwhelmed with joy was the same. And even though most of the time I truly don't root for outcomes, I can't help but feel a positive vibe when humanity does the right thing. It still feels good to experience that energy. We didn't do the right thing simply because we reelected our president. We did the right thing because we validated this reality. We can now go forward using the best models we have discovered to this point and don't have to adopt new ones that are pulled from the asses of asses.

Silver Lining

2012-11-01T09:22:00.001-07:00

One of the biggest functions of the human brain is to crunch numbers and make predictions. It takes in millions of pieces of information every second, processes what it deems relevant to its role in the universe (however wrong that sense of relevance may be), and predicts what will happen next given everything it knows.

No matter who you are or what you do in life you're probably in touch with your number crunching abilities in some aspect of your life. You are probably very knowledgeable about some things in some certain area and can successfully predict how things will unfold better than the average person. You probably know someone else that has a number crunching expertise in some other area.

Most people that own stock in the Stock Market rely on someone else to invest their money. It would seem that the majority of people have come to terms with the idea that someone else with more knowledge and understanding in this field is more equipped to make decisions of this nature. It would seem we value the people that are better predictors of the Market to handle our money than those that have less of a track record and those that are better at it certainly are financially compensated for their abilities. Has anyone ever given you a "tip" on investing in a "sure thing"? Naturally you evaluated what you thought about their predicting ability when taking this "advice", didn't you?

A lot of people enjoy going to the race track and betting on the ponies. I've seen people attend races and bet on which horses look the best. I've seen people bet on the names of the horses. A lot of people "in the know" at the track will simply place their money on the best jockey. They understand that jockey, usually, got to choose his pick of the litter. That jockey is going to make money based on how well he finishes in the race. They understand that jockey has inside information they don't have. Other people purchase a forum, a newspaper looking thing that is loaded with tons of information about everything pertaining to each race. The forum is raw information and lots of it. The more than casual bettor likes to crunch all of the numbers in the forum and try to successfully predict the winning horse(s). Those that do it better than others are financially rewarded for their talents of crunching the numbers.

We just experienced a huge storm on the East Coast. We knew this storm was coming and what to expect because someone crunched the numbers for us. We trust them, for the most part, because we know they know what they're doing. They are taking all the raw data and interpreting it and trying to successfully predict what will happen next. Even though it all seems so over the top when we see the media handle storms, they actually do save lives by passing on the information gathered by the number crunchers prior to the storm impacting us.

People that live in earthquake zones usually know about it and pay insurance based on this reality of number crunching. Same is true for flood zones. Vegas thrives off of being able to predict the number of people that will bet equally on each side of a proposition and then they charge a small ten percent service fee for delivering this ability. Anyone that's ever walked on the Moon (I capitalize it - makes sense to me) put their lives in the hands of people that crunched a lot of numbers. So it would seem the notion of relying on others to interpret information is a valued trait in our society.

Nate Silver is a guy that crunches the numbers when it comes to elections. He gained a small level of fame back in 2008 when he very accurately predicted how all but one (tiny) state would fall in the electoral college. He drilled his predictions in The Senate that year. A couple years later he laid out the odds of the Republicans whooping ass in The House and he predicted they were quite high; he was right. This year Silver has gained even more fame because those on the right are try to delegitimize him.

Silver has kind of a geeky look about him. He claims he used to be pretty successful at internet poker (after he sold a system to Baseball Prospectus that predicted the performance levels and development of MLB players) and leveraged some of his winnings to get him into a position where he could make a living in another arena. He's willing to crunch numbers on just about anything but it's his election predictions that have gained him notoriety. He's fairly candid about his process for crunching the numbers but he purposefully withholds the special sauce that makes his Big Mac's unique. I suspect he does this because this is his livelihood and his model is valuable. And why wouldn't a person that can successfully evaluate raw data and predict the likelihood that a given event will happen next be valuable to society? In 2009 he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2010 The New York Times licensed Silver's prediction blog for publication by their paper.

Nate Silver has been crunching the numbers of this election for the last four years. He has continually listed various probabilities for many months now. The numbers have moved in different directions over the months and Obama has almost always held the lead on Silvers FiveThirtyEight Blog. But the one probability that always gets people's attention is the odds of each presidential candidate of winning. At the time I write this essay, five days before the election, Silver's site predicts Obama with a 79% chance of winning and Romney a 21% chance.

In the last two weeks I've heard all of the talking heads on the right dismiss the lamestream media and their liberal leaning polls. Rove, Morris, Limbaugh, Beck, and the entire Fox News Network have been calling foul on the polls that suggest Obama is winning. And Nate Silver has been targeted as an "ideologue" and a "joke", along with having "effeminate qualities", by those that don't like his numbers.

Do you think when the owner of a football team sees his team listed as a two touchdown underdog that he tends to agree with the line or do you think it's more likely the owner thinks his team is better than what the odds makers think? Do you think when someone shows you a picture of their baby they accurately predict the likelihood that you'll think it's as adorable as they think it is? Do you think all of the above mentioned entities that are dismissing the polls that favor Obama have an interest in the outcome of the election?

I want Nate Silver to be right because I want Nate Silver to be right. I love that we have a numbers cruncher that appears to be this good in this arena amongst us. It's information. It's difficult information to interpret. It's above most of our pay grades and we should relish the fact someone or something is capable of accurately interpreting this data. We are so grateful in so many other areas for this ability that others provide us. We seek out this information because inside knowledge, on any subject matter, is hard to obtain in life.

If Silver had the numbers switched and predicted Romney to be the favorite I would be sad. The guy I want to win would be viewed as the underdog by the guy I think is good at predicting the outcomes of elections. That wouldn't make me change my opinion of Silver. Even if Silver gets this election wrong it probably won't change my respect for his talent. He's told us all along the chance, very specifically, that he'll get it wrong. When his model starts to fail at a number outside of his predictions then I'll consider reevaluating my admiration of him. Until then I'll continue to root for him because it's good for all of us to have him around.

In a time where we get nothing but punditry about meaningless conversations, where the right and left spin everything in every direction, where we no longer agree on facts, where we lack the desire to find common ground with one another, would we not embrace this numbers cruncher? Rooting against Silver is rooting against valuable knowledge. Even if it turns out that Silver just got lucky and had a good run but he's really full a shit and was making stuff up, why would we want to root against him? What has he done wrong to this point?

In the end this has little to do with politics for me. It has everything to do with how we coexist with one another. We should all desire the best working models known to man to help guide us in our endeavors. This doesn't mean we can't disagree. It doesn't mean that you have to vote for the same guy I'm voting for. Nor does it mean some of our best known models might fail us in the future. It simply means we all have to share the desire to search out those models and embrace them when we find them. We certainly can't root against discovering them.

Sandy

2012-10-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

How I Got Here

2012-10-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Immediately after the second debate I received a very lengthy text from a good friend. This friend is a solid Republican and always has been. He never has sent me a text like it in all our many years of being pals. He was very polite but he definitely sounded angry or maybe frustrated is a better term or maybe a little of both; it was hard to tell. Then he sent about four more lengthy texts. I wondered at first if he was drunk but he seemed to be making decent sense and all his words were spelled correctly (something even a smart phone can't completely compensate for - drunk texting).

The angle he presented was, "I hope you're happy with your guy". He then laid out a reasonable case against Obamacare and how it will be the demise of our country. He pointed out that the lack of compromise in Washington isn't all on the shoulders of the GOP and I agreed. He pointed out a lot of "mistruths" Obama has spoken and promised and, again, I agreed. He argued the Democratic position on the economy and their vision of regulation and taxes is the wrong approach.

My replies were short, for the most part, and very neutral. I would never defend Obama in my replies and continually pointed out I don't really align with the Democratic view overall. However, I would end each response letting him know I just didn't feel the Republican Party was speaking to a guy like me anymore. I explained I still felt very conservative in my mind but the words no longer mean what they used to mean to the, now, majority of the Party. On top of that, they totally shunned my vote. They never once tried to reason with me. The strategy was to appease the far right for as long as they had to and then totally pivot to the undecided, uninformed voter and tell them whatever they wanted to hear. In the long run their strategy might work and they can go on to rule without my support. We'll know the answer to that soon enough.

Another point, and probably the deeper message of the entire discussion, was his hitting on the issue of, "I just find it hard to believe a smart guy like you would end up drawing the conclusions you do." I mean this with all humility and sincerity (really I do), I don't think I'm that smart. I was always the goofball and of two of my closest friends I was the dumbest. No doubt, even at a young age, I was "bright". Maybe it's impossible to explain and convey properly but I know the reality of it all because it exists in my head. There are so many people that come in and comment and contribute on my threads on Facebook, about an array of topics, and bring great insight and perspective. So many people that are smarter than me in so many different areas: politics, science, economy, math, English, and the list goes on and on. I am very simple and only seek common ground from people so we can successfully share the same reality.

When it comes to this specific election my position isn't that complicated. It seems to be that most people on both sides of the aisle pretty much agree George W. Bush was a shitty President and left us with a mess. Even if they don't outwardly express their view using the same adjectives I use, it still seems pretty obvious even the Republicans weren't too fond of him when it was all said and done. The proof is The Tea Party. They are a bunch of Republicans that don't think Bush lead the way they want to be lead on many fronts. Another piece of evidence supporting the claim they didn't like him is the fact they only complain about Democrats always using the "inherited a mess" phrase over and over. They never dispute that fact, instead they just complain about the Obama supporters always using it as an excuse. So it would seem at this point, right after the Bush years, we all land on some common ground of sorts. Where to go from there is an entirely different matter but the fact remains we are standing on common footing at that moment.

The McCain election was an entirely different animal than the current election in my decision making process. I liked John McCain. I had liked him for a long time. McCain was my preferred choice over W. during his first run at the Republican nomination. I totally concede I bought into the feel good vibe of the Obama campaign. He was offering hope and change and that was a message that resonated with me. He was the American dream come true. He made history and I was proud to be a part of it. Even with all of that going for him I still hadn't ruled out McCain. I had never voted anything but Republican in all my elections. I found myself embarrassed for my 2004 vote supporting Bush and my loyalty was battling my conscience. The straw that broke the camel's back for me in 2008 was the nomination of Palin. It was gimmicky and it wasn't leadership. Even most of the insiders, those responsible for the nomination, have admitted it. That's how that one went down.

This election, however, is completely different. This one seems far less complicated and common ground seems more obtainable than four years ago. McCain wasn't W. Bush and he was happy to let us know that. He had clear differences with Bush and we could see them. So we all went our own ways and some of us voted out of character for many reasons that don't usually play a role in elections. This year the election is very traditional. The incumbent tells us he is doing the best he can and the next four years will be even better under his next term. The challenger points out the flaws of the President and tries to convince us he (not to be sexist but I'll start using he/she when a woman wins a primary - which might be sooner rather than later) is a better option.

So let's examine where we are at this moment. Let's throw out all the nonsense about the demise and doom of our country if Obama wins again. We will survive. We will survive if Romney wins. We will survive if either of the Vice Presidents have to take over. Harboring this type of sentiment is ignorant to the history of this nation and the people that have made it what it is. Every election cycle someone wins and someone loses and we plug along.

A legitimate knock against Obama is he hasn't laid out a clear plan for his next term. Even though I concede this is a valid and a worthy critique, we still pretty much know what to expect. The dude is pretty moderate and tries very hard to be bipartisan but hasn't met a willing partner. He's even pissed off his base because they think he's weak because he doesn't just ram things through and still tries to work with Republicans. Like him or not, agree with him or not, you pretty much know what is in store the next four years.

When turning to examine what Romney says he is offering it seems pretty clear he's bringing back the W. Bush policies. He was asked point blank how he's different from W. Bush during the last debate. He seemed so happy to answer and I was so happy to hear his answer. His difference, the only one he mentioned: China. He'll come in and wave his magic ~~underwear~~ wand and fix China and all their evilness. That was it, one thing. And why would it be any different? Romney has almost all of the neo-cons (Dan Senor of all people) that advised W. Bush during his eight years advising him and his campaign now. They will certainly be his advisers if he wins. He believes in trickle down economics. He believes in lowering taxes (though not actually "cutting" them) and raising our military budget. He believes we should overturn Roe V. Wade. He believes we should arm rebels in Syria. He believes we should "get tough" with Iran. How is this any different than if we re-elected W. Bush?

This is what gets me, the divergence at this point where we should have common ground. Didn't we all kind of agree W. Bush wasn't good for us? Then how is it half of our country can, with such fervor, be willing to go that direction again? You hate Obama that much? You live in that much fear and darkness? I'm not a Democrat. I think Obama has flaws. I don't have a lot of faith in the Democrats ability to govern. Having said all of that, these last four years haven't been worse than W. Bush's run. The Stock Market was half of what it was when Obama took office. Bin Laden was on the loose. Millions of children and needy people went without decent medical service and when they did require attention they received it at the most expensive facility possible at our expense anyway. We are no longer in a war in Iraq. We are ending the war in Afghanistan. Our auto industry was successfully bailed out, something I was against at the time (and still might be but at least I acknowledge it did work). The S&P and NASDAQ indexes are off the charts. Our standing on the global stage is more credible and we are liked more than we were four years ago (you can say this isn't important but it is). He appointed the first Latino Cabinet member and then went on to appoint another one, a female at that. He appointed the first Latino to the Supreme Court, again a female. He's never pulled anything out of his sleeve and he's only done what he said he would do all along, sometimes less but never more.

I don't hate Mitt Romney. I'm not going to be crushed if he wins. I probably won't even notice the difference between the two in my personal life. I think he's probably a very good man and it seems like he has an awesome family. But I can't be responsible for voting for policies I know have already failed. Facts matter. They even have them in nice little graphs so you don't have to think too hard. The part where everything is going down, and fast, is Bush policy. The part where the bleeding stops and eventually begins to head upward in the right direction is Obama. Facts. I'm not in the tank for Obama. If the truth be known I'd seriously take Gary Johnson over either of these two guys and be very happy about it. However, that's not the reality we face. When it comes to Obama and Romney I'm going with the evidence between what I've seen and experienced to not work and what I've seen and experienced to work better than how it was when it sucked.

I like both men personally. I think they're both American citizens. I think they both are good family men. I think they are both shining examples of success. I'm not voting based on emotion. I'm informed. I'm not imposing my will on others. I'm not asking for Amendments to The Constitution. I'm not angry. I not afraid. I'm not inclined to think our country will fail if the guy I vote for loses. I'm making a sincere effort to vote for the best for this country. I've encouraged many (maybe too many) conversations about politics and this election and brought many intelligent, respected, well liked, and very normal people to the table to present their views. The evidence has all been laid out before you. Simply look at the amount of quality people that have voiced support for Obama on my Facebook wall through numerous comments about many different political philosophies. By no means am I suggesting people that support Romney aren't quality people or haven't contributed in very meaningful ways to the discussion. I'm only pointing to the numbers. Personally I have people that I are my favorites on the medium and I follow their activities on Facebook because they have captured my attention. Almost every single one, if not all, of those people that I admire, that I look toward and up to for their perspective, that I think are truly smarter than me, are all voting for Obama. Does that mean anything? Have we all been duped?

I'm not trying to divide; I'm trying to unite. Let's get together and agree we know how this worked out the last time we went with W. Bush's policies. Let's agree that things have gotten better since Obama took over. Let's agree that we are part of the problem and our Congressmen and women are extensions of us and our lack of desire to compromise with one another. Let's agree that the reason we get lied to is because we don't really care about facts. Let's agree that it won't get any better until we decide to take our role seriously. Let's agree that we have way more in common than we are lead to believe. Let's agree that we all know the other person is moral and decent and shares values with us. Let's agree to look to those that seem the most in the know of those that we do know. Let's agree that we all don't know everything about everything and we have to go with those that demonstrate the best reasoning skills. Let's agree to not identify with anything other than the common good of all our citizens.

Warning Labels

2012-10-22T06:32:00.002-07:00

If we feel the need to warn people of these dangers ....

..... then I'm not sure why we are debating whether or not to warn them about the contents of the food they eat.