Brutally Honest

Amateur Photography...

2011-05-16T14:46:00.000-05:00

Beer at Dusk

Photo of Chicago Downtown

Altered with Fx Photo Studio to add definition to the Lights

Downtown Chicago

Altered with Fx Photo to contrast the colors against a Dark back

Coachella Festival 2011

Voodoo Festival 2010

The Dawn of Halloween

Duplicate but altered with Fx Photo Studio

Lounging

Photo Taken with Histamatic Film

Na Poli Coastline in Kaua'i

Stairway to Heaven

Na Poli Coastline Kaua'i

Outside of Taos, New Mexico

Altered with Fx Photo Studio Antique

Whiskey Glass

Altered with Fx Photo

Rays of Sun

Hawai'i Sunset

Stratus Clouds on a Spring Afternoon

Vanilla Sunset

Similar Picture: Photo Altered with Fx Photo water

Photo altered with Fx Photo Stencil

Too mundane with out the altercation

Waikiki Beach Sunset

Altered with Fx Photo Rainbow effects

Hazy Days....

2010-10-05T19:24:00.000-05:00

  As the days melt away since my Father's death, I am left with a hurricane of debris. The debris of uncontrollable emotions, numerous questions, and no answers surrounding me. They lay like dead leaves in the middle of fall, as this vicious storm has taken a piece of my soul as it has fled. For their was no warning, no good-byes, not even an echo that could reply, just silence in its most inhumane form, the kind of quietness that only a lonely tree in the Forrest could see. I cry at least once a day, without control or restraint, it could be from seeing a deer or hearing Bob Seger and the Silver Bullets on the radio. It could be from me thinking about having kids, and knowing that he'll never get to see their faces light up like mine during Christmas time. Or the fact that he was my Dad and we can never have a beer again, fish again, or just watch a game of baseball as we talked about life.

   The severity of my emotions lie in the face that me and my father's relationship was rocky, I was as stubborn as they come probably from a DNA line of a donkey-mull breed, and He mostly the same with rage that could explode like Mt. St. Helens. We faught constantly throughout my teenage/adolescence years with things a man at that age should never have to deal with. I'll leave those details out for the fact that family is family and I'll love the man that gave me life till I die. He was human but to a son, a dad isn't Human, he is his maker, his creator, and the man he wants to be!

   I feel like a the tree in the picture, black and cold. Bent by the unmerciful winds of wickedness and despair, only reaching up for light, but I fear there is none there.......

GOOO HOGS....

2010-09-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

Baby I got a plan... Run away as fast as you can.

2010-09-13T12:18:00.002-05:00

2010 MTV Video Music Awards - More VMA Video

She's Brutally Honest....

2010-09-06T12:12:00.000-05:00

Quotes Today...

2010-08-31T17:14:00.004-05:00

‎

"Ideas, without the legs of motivation, can never crawl outta the mind, nor can they ever walk into the eyes of society."

"Dream so big that your ideas stretch aross the skys and touch the stars, So if you were to fall on your face, its a long fall into a cloud"

"The soul does not comply to the chaos of society but to the cosmos of the universe."

Faith, Hope, and Love

The Ego Vs. The Soul

2010-08-30T15:11:00.004-05:00

   The ego is defined as the "I" or "Self" of any person, having the perception or thinking that distinguishes itself from the selves of others. What I have learned over the years studying psychology is that when we are born, we are not born with this innate awareness or consciousness of one's own self. We become aware first of others, the first touch from other hands, smiles from other faces, security in the embrace of others, and recognizing the voices of others.

   The Ego is a by-product of society's reflection upon your 'self'. As a child grows up his interactions increase and the reflection of his society increases with each interaction. The child thus learns to reflect on his society's reflections from his interactions, which ultimately the child will deem as his self worth. The child will learn to adapt to society's reflection as it seeks acceptance from its source i.e. friends, family, loved ones. The Ego is always in search of food, and the Ego's food is acceptance, attention, and constant gratification. If the ego starts to starve you will see your perception of the "Self" is agitated and shaken. The ego is society's perception of you, it is not who 'you' are, because 'you' did not create this perception, society painted it for you. If this perception is indeed painted then it can not be real, so the Ego has to constantly reassure itself that it is real through the food it repeatedly seeks. If no one is paying attention to him the Ego feels hungry, thus it is constantly seeking gratification through others, not gratification through its real 'self'.

   The real "I" or "Self" is your soul, it cannot be swayed by opinions, social norms, nor gratification. The door to the soul is attained by first becoming aware of your Ego and aware of the constant need to please itself, instead of pleasing others. The soul does not comply to the chaos of society but to the cosmos of the universe. It sees the beauty in nature and not human made things. It sees himself, as a cog in a wheel that is continuously spinning. The soul is infinite the Ego is finite. The Hindu call it the one thousand petaled lotus, one thousand meaning infinite petals, which implies that the flower never dies and continues to keep flowering for eternity. Life can exist without the Ego, the evil lie it tells, is that YOU cannot live without him. But the real truth is that HE cannot live without you, he is a parasite that needs a host. So until you rid yourself of this attention loving, self serving parasite, one cannot find the real 'Self' or "I and I" as it is termed in Rastafarian vocabulary.

   The soul is simple for it is neither a egotist nor is he humble, because if you are aware that you are humble then the ego still is rooted within. The soul is at peace, never ready for battle i.e.  "It happened that one Zen master was passing through a street. A man came running and hit him hard. The master fell down. Then he got up and started to walk in the same direction in which he was going before, not even looking back. A disciple who was with the master, was simply shocked. He said, "Who is this man? What is this? If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person, who he is, and why he did it." The master said, "That is his problem, not mine."

   The greatest trick the Ego has ever played is tricking you into believing that HE is You. That he is your best friend when indeed his is your worst enemy. You trust him because you think you are him, the biggest con the Ego has ever pulled off. He is right in front of you, but you're blind to its presence, because it hides in the last place you would ever look, within You.

"The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would ever look" Julius Caesar 75 b.c.

Faith, Hope, and Love

A Fictitious Design

2010-08-29T14:42:00.015-05:00

Sitting here tryin to sort the the thoughts in my mind
There I find, that time is a fictitious design, assigning people tasks

To those who decline to ask. To those who wear masks

I bask in the thought that I don’t believe in time

Only believing in this instance, this worded sentence

For it’s the only time that I’m given the chance for repentance

This secular body, will soon breathe its last breath

So I illustrate no fear of death, because my soul can never die

I defy to imply that this world is all there is, and as a kid I always did

So I trust that my soul will live for a timeless existence,

I’m defined as subsistence, as God views me from a distance

The Somebodiness Of Me

2010-08-28T17:21:00.003-05:00

As this is a continuation to the previous post 'If anything matters, Everything matters'. My Friend Aron found this video of Ruby Dee, Dee is a well-known civil rights activists. Among others, She also is a member of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dee was personal friends of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.

As I was listening to her to speak about "I am somebody because you, you make me somebody, because you, you are apart of me." She conveys my whole post into a poem of passion, beauty, and grace. She allows the audience to be apart of the poem, and most of all Ruby Dee shares the 'The Somebodiness of Me', and for that I thank her!

Faith, Hope, and Love

If Anything Matters, Everything Matters

2010-08-28T10:22:00.005-05:00

   It is a simple saying yet, so abstruse. Any action you are participating in or any choice you eventually make, each of them, are like drops of water into a bigger body of water. Those drops of water no matter how small cause ripples on the surface, no matter the size of the puddle, creek, lake, or ocean. That action or choice whether right or wrong, good or bad, causes a rippling effect in the world around us. You or me might not be aware of it's affect to others or our environment, but those actions and choices cause ripples in my water and others as well.

   These small drops create splashes and waves in the water that cause the surface of the entity to change. Those drops of water can be as simple as a march through the south for equality, and those drops of water can be as cruel as Katrina. They can ripple through time for people who stand for change; those that swim against the current of conformity and those same drops can enslave a man for the color of his own skin or religious belief. Those drops can create peace like Nelson Mandela or Genocide in Darfur.

   Hatred and Love are taught at least in my opinion, taught from the ripples of the actions of people who are unaware that their choices not only change themselves but the entity as a whole. Whether the rippling effect is producing joy or pain is up to you, because If Anything matters, Everything matters.

Faith, Hope, and Love

You Just Can't Fix Stupid

2010-08-27T00:57:00.007-05:00

I feel that I may actually be deathly allergic to dumb, close minded people. I heard via a friends update on their facebook page, "that you just can't fix stupid". I'm usually one to argue just about any topic, but this comment I relate to. Can you really teach someone something if their cup is already full? They feel like they know more than you because naturally their ego tells them that they are. The ego can tell the best lies quite often. Naturally you'll believe them eventually.

Take for example this article I read the other day. (http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/08/24/dumb-things-americans-believe.html) I mean 1 in 5 Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. 61% of Americans do not believe in the theory of Evolution. That means only 39% believe Darwin with evidence in nature all around us. This leads me to the point that we as a society focus on things that are totally irrelevant instead of the "Real" problems of the world.

If every American would read this article (http://www.buzzfeed.com/aestheticoctopus/facts-of-life-u4o) at least once a day, I feel maybe their ignorance could be lifted like a veil over the blind lambs eyes that follow the road to conformity. The one statement alone leaves me speechless "If you have money in the bank, your wallet and some extra change in your pocket you are among the top 8% of Worlds weatlh", more than 92% more than the rest of the world. It just baffles me to the point where I feel like I might lose faith in our system or worse become contaminated with their illness or catch the blindness that seems to be running rampant!

I feel like America has been conned right in our own home, and like any con the only person you can blame is yourself. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe one said that "We can never be deceived; We only deceive ourselves" I follow this guy on twitter who Aron my friend referred me to, @umairh, who really is a revolutionary at least in his thinking and ideals. His Generation M Manifesto (http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2009/07/today_in_capitalism_20_1.html) is a summary of the problems formed from the stupidity of others in this country. Our Ignorance has lead us to this collapse of our moral and economic systems due to greed and foolishness. People selected greed over steady growth, and my favorite excerpt from his article as it was written for the Old People that run our Country "You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, & McFood. We want to HUMANIZE LIFE.

Faith, Hope, and Love