Why So Passive Aggressive, When It Comes to Real Change?

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

-Albert Einstein

I’ve always been somewhat vocal about my views on just about anything important to me.  The way I see it, if you believe something is important and you have something to say about it; you may as well get it out there; else you’re just committing intellectual suicide.

I don’t worry much anymore about what others think of me for being who I am; because being who I am is much more important than what they think of me.  In fact, if I had spent much of my efforts in recent years worrying what other people think, trying to be popular, it’s likely I wouldn’t have accomplished much of anything at all aside from being a selfish, intellectually lazy, ego-centric, attention-whore; which is generally what the really popular people are, though they’ll never admit it.

As you may imagine, this means I’m often not the most favored person; but the people who really do appreciate me for who I am, form a lasting mutual bond that is virtually impenetrable.  Because there still are some people out there who appreciate intellectual honesty and despise the kind of mundane conformity that has gripped so many in it’s clutches.

One thing I notice about most people I come across these days, is they don’t really have much, in the way of their own unique viewpoints.  If you happen to have a unique viewpoint, they really don’t want to hear it.  They’ll either pretend they are listening and have absolutely nothing to say about it, or they will flat out ignore you once they realize that you have a viewpoint that they don’t agree with.  It seems to me as if they’re so afraid to have a real discussion about something, where there might be differences of opinion and the possibility that their own views may become vulnerable; that they’d rather steer clear of it altogether.

That’s the way most of the places/groups one can go to, in order to socialize have become.  You’re expected to just sit down, play the game and not say anything too controversial or “out of the box.”  If you do, then many people will start to isolate you and ignore you. If that’s the way so-called communication is supposed to place, then who the hell needs it!

If the new definition of communication is to have watered down conversations in which everyone focuses on the same old same old talking points and nothing new is ventured into; then it isn’t really communication at all.  We may as well just go to our coffee houses, sip on caffeine and make beeping noises at one another.

It’s just frustrating to have so many people in this world, yet so few who really want to try new ways of seeing things and doing things.  Is it any wonder why the years keep on passing, the problems keep mounting and not much of anything seems to get done about it.

What I’d love to see, is for more of us to be willing to really engage one another in discussions of things that really have the potential to bring about grass-roots changes in the world.  If someone has an opinion that is different than yours, discuss it in great detail so you can at least understand it; don’t just slam the door on them.

When you slam the door to communication, because you don’t want to have an uncomfortable discussion; then you’re just missing another opportunity to create meaningful change.  We can’t really afford to do that anymore, can we?  Let’s stop this bullshitting and time wasting, so we can get down to business; because I for one am not going to just sit around twiddling my thumbs while the world comes crashing down from all sides.

A World of Escapists

A recurring thought, in my stream of consciousness as of late, centers on the all encompassing desire, virtually every human being has; to engage in various forms of escapism. I’ve noticed this at various times in my life and kind of swept it under the rug; but this idea is becoming apparent once again.

Realizing this has got me somewhat depressed and I just have to get this written down; in writing this, I hope to figure out more about this phenomena and my relationship to it. I’d really like to know what we are trying to get away from, what we are hoping to find and if there are any lessons we can learn from these observations.

Maybe it’s a good thing that we are trying to escape, maybe not, maybe I’m totally off base and we, as humans, can’t do anything but escape. I’m not saying that I know anything for sure; I just want to explore something that is, in my mind at least, begging to be explored.

The sad thing about these kinds of thoughts, is the fact that it is very difficult to discuss these thoughts with anyone else. Most people don’t really give a damn what I have to say about anything like this; they either change the subject, ignore me or try to act like having a seemingly “negative” observation about something means that I’m not focusing on what I need to.

That may well be; but it doesn’t change the fact that I am extremely curious about this. I want to know why so little is said about it and why so many engage in this vacuous practice that basically consumes most of people’s lives.

Absurdities in Everyday Life

Why is it that people would rather spend the better part of their free time, frittering away, and/or watching a fictional, or highly controlled, reality via a television screen; when there is a huge glut of unaddressed dilemmas which threaten our long-term survival as individuals and quite possibly as a species.

Why is it, that in many social situations, individuals choose to smoke and drink, often (but not always) in order to escape their daily lives; even if it means that they may not remember the experience, or worse, may even harm their bodies in the process.

Why is it that, when we become activists, who want to see “change” in the world, we often focus our efforts on issues, which we stand little to no chance of having any effect on; while there are other issues which we can have a major impact on, right under our noses, that we simply ignore as if they don’t exist.

Prime examples of this, are the attention given to relatively small scale man made ecological disasters. These disasters get most of the press and activist attention, while most of the damage wrought by man takes place routinely and meticulously planned, in broad daylight, with the massive system of government subsidized, corporatized, monoculture agriculture.

All of this large scale farming is happening, while hundreds of millions of individuals are living atop perfectly productive land on their 1/4 – 1/3 acre lots; usually growing nothing but worthless grass on it.

Since we aren’t using the land that we are on, and we still must eat, we visit the restaurants and supermarkets and spend most of our monies on highly processed, additive laced, genetically modified, franken-food.

What Are We Running Away From

It is starting to become clear to me, that we tend to shy away from self examination and especially the examination of our own personal contribution to our personal survival. Society has given us so many tools to escape this responsibility, namely money; that in just a few decades, we have largely lost the skills which helped build great nations of free self sufficient individuals.

Not only has society given us tools to escape our responsibilities; but it has also given us plenty of red herrings; so that we are less likely to discover a method of curing the underlying cause. We become polarized into phony political, religious and economic paradigms; which only serve to divide us and pit us against each other.

Instead of cooperating amongst ourselves, forming real communities, creating genuine, robust, bottom up, solution-oriented, changes; we expect someone else to take on what is ultimately our own responsibility. We have a solemn responsibility, as individuals, to take decisive action in our daily lives.

What Can We Do?

The most important thing we can do, is to first identify what we really need, to survive and flourish as integrated individuals; while doing so, we need to also determine what we don’t need.

Once this is sorted out as best we can, we need to determine what we can do to get what we need, what impediments if any are stopping us from meeting those needs. Then we need to organize a plan, for how we are going to meet our needs on a continuous basis.

We have to regularly re-evaluate our lives, so that we are eliminating unneeded processes and focusing more energy on those which are necessary; else we will live lives which are not as meaningful as they could be.

Let’s Get Started

As most of us realize, deep down inside; we are facing some serious problems, on so many levels. Many of the problems are already effecting us, while there are many which will only affect us years down the road.

We can’t keep delaying the solutions until tomorrow. If something is not going to be done today; it is probably not going to happen tomorrow either. The desire to escape is addictive and infective. The more we engage in escapism, the more we are likely to do so in the future.

Conversely, the more we engage in decisive individual actions, the more we are likely to do so in the future; especially as we begin to see the effects of our efforts. Each day is like a sliding scale; we either make some progress towards our goals, or we move away from those goals.

We know for certain that if we choose to ignore our responsibilities, they will not simply go away. We can’t just pretend that they aren’t there and they go away; because they are real concrete problems; they will remain with us until we each address them as individuals.

Once enough of us address these problems as individuals, we will undoubtedly see more synergy in our communities. Once successfully kindled, this synergy will have a momentum all its own; which will help to continue the process.

All of this is up to us. If we aren’t willing to do it, then who will.

The People’s Republic of California

Rioting in LA because of a stupid ball game. Cali is so full of jerk offs, bums and commies. Perhaps those words are interchangeable.

It’s no wonder that:

• The Cali government is hopelessly bankrupt. Yet they continue to raise people’s tax in order to fund the government’s fruitless excess.
• People are living in homes they borrowed 500k to 1 million dollars for, which are worth a fraction of the cost anywhere else in the country. Of course, they got adjustable rate interest only loans for many of these homes. They’ll just walk away scott free and drag their community down in the process. They don’t care, they don’t have to face the consequences and that’s all that matters.
• They have a huge socialist tax & spend state which they can’t afford, yet when they try to cut it back to more reasonable levels, the leftists come out into the streets to protest. A state which is soon to fail and be bailed out with an old favorite tool, other people’s money.
• They pump water hundreds of miles, at great expense, so they can grow oranges in the desert.

I tell ya, I was in my rental car earlier today (in San Diego) just in a parking space looking at a map, and some lady came up behind and started honking her damn horn, trying to pressure me to leave the spot. She even had cars piling up behind her waiting for her to get her ass out of the way.

To top it all off, I saw a bum crapping on the sidewalk of a busy street. This must just be the last place one can stumble to, before they fall completely into the Pacific Ocean!

They need to just shut this asylum down and figure out how to produce something or provide something of value. Some really deep thoughts into realistic solutions that aren’t pie in the sky BS are going to be necessary if they are to pull things together around here.

The Genius Of The Crowd

by Charles Bukowski

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

The Tao of Principle

Principle is originally there; just call it to mind and it is there of itself. Desire is originally not there; if you can just see through it, it disappears of itself. Stopping desire and keeping to principle are basically not two things; to the extent that you have stopped desire, to that extent you keep to principle. Nothing benefits people more than principle, yet those who keep to principle are few. Nothing harms people more than desire, yet those who indulge desires are many.

When people have desires, it is like trees having insects; consumed within unknown, before long they collapse. Those who think desire is fun do not realize desire is like fire; if you do not put it out, you will burn yourself. Your spirit will suffer from irritation, alcohol and sex will wear out your vital energy, producing illness and ulcers, so you cry out in pain day and night. Buddhists who say you suffer from your sins after death do not realize you already suffer while still alive.

–Thomas Cleary

What the Matrix Can Teach us About Life and Rules

Morpheus in this conversation with Neo (‘the One’) in the first Matrix movie:

‘I’ve seen an agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air. Yet their strength and their speed are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be.’

‘What are you trying to tell me, that I can dodge bullets?’

‘No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.’

Many years ago, I entered this movie without a clue of what to expect. Incidentally, I find that these kinds of unexpected surprises, are often the best kinds of transformative experiences. The mind has no time to prepare any expectations for the experience. Instead the mind is just hit with the new reality and must quickly transform itself in response; there is no time to filter or deflect the experience.

The Matrix exceeded my wildest expectations and instilled a newfound curiosity towards the very nature of our experiential reality. At first there was a stream of thought to the effect that, maybe we are literally plugged into a mechanical device which simulates our reality. This further brought about thoughts such as, “What in fact is reality anyways?”

If our conscious reality is simply impulses arriving via the nervous system, then the reality is quite literally a projection in our own minds and is therefore holographic in it’s very nature. This essentially means there is not a solid, tangible, world out there, as our rational minds often like to think. Instead, we have this biological operating system which constructs these rule sets, which govern our impression of reality, in order to function more effectively (by it’s own definition, of course) in our environment.

What I am getting at here is the fact that our minds have a basic rule-set by which they operate, in order to survive in the current environment. This rule-set is generally set-up for the basic survival of our biological envelopes (bodies). However, by no-means are these foundational rules concrete; they are simply the consensus that we have, as a collective, chosen to instill via the socialization process.

When I imply that the rules are not concrete, I mean there may be a different, perhaps more succinct, set of rules; which will at some point, allow us an even deeper connection with the world around us. We have to be willing to look at the current set of rules in a critical light, in order to enable our selves to do this. Clearly there is an inherent resistance to this, which seems to be a product of the Ego not wanting to let go.

If we, on an individual level, can genuinely undock from this control grid, as many have done in the Matrix; then I foresee many of the limitations which now impede our day-to-day lives falling by the wayside.

If such a movement were to come to fruition, perhaps the people who made this conscious decision to undock from the control grid and redesign reality, will again build great societies, where they and their descendants can better self-actualize. A society where novelty is in great abundance, where individuals are no longer a drain on resources; but instead a priceless asset which compounds novelty as they reflect it from their own unique perspective in order to generate a richness of experience which most of us can only dream of in today’s world.

Thoughts on the Gold Chart and Economics

As of September 25, gold has broken through two long-term formations and sits at the neckline of an inverse head & shoulders formation.

Given that gold closed the week at the neckline of such a long-term Head & Shoulders formation, after having shown such resilience over the past few weeks, it is time we prepare ourselves for a significant move, further into unknown territory. The chart above indicates that gold is acting like a coiled spring, ready for the slightest trigger, to send it into launch mode; bringing the price into the $1200-1300 USD range.

When I look at this chart, I am reminded of the 2002-2003 period, when gold was hovering around the $375 range in a large wedge formation. At the time everyone was thinking, “this must be it for gold, it’s already had such a run from $250, the bull run surely must be over by now.”

I remember seeing the wedges, similar to the current chart, though less volatile than the current price fluctuations. I remember seeing a good-sized wedge in the MACD which had broken to the upside. In fact, it was at this time that Jim Sinclair, the CEO of Tanzanian Royalty Exploration and the author of Jim Sinclair’s Mine Set had a contest for gold community members to draw the relevant trend lines on an Investors Business Daily gold chart that he provided. The prize for this contest was a one ounce gold coin.

Well, I took Jim up on his offer and drew formations similar to those on the attached chart. Including a MACD breakout precisely like the one on the current chart. I made the chart simple yet elegant and intuitive and fortunately for me; out of all of the hundreds of charts sent in to his fax, he chose mine as the winner. What a great feeling that was and what an appreciation I gained for the power that each of us has to understand what is going on in the economic world with elegant simplicity not endless complexity.

It was even more rewarding to see gold advance to $450 by late 2004 and then $700 by 2006. What you have to realize, when you are studying these charts, is the fact that the underlying forces which propel gold skyward have not changed. The governments and central banks of the world continue to employ their disastrously flawed Keynesian economic models which create welfare, warfare and ultimately massive inflation.

Politicians love having all of the “free” money, hot off the printing press, to buy votes, line the pockets of their associates and bail out their friends. That is why these leftist notions of a nanny state taking care of us from cradle to grave, often embraced by Republicans and Democrats alike, is not going to solve the problems it was intended to solve.

This is because everything has a cost, yes even the nanny state, corporate welfare and the like. As the price of the yellow metal rises the buying power of the savings of billions of individuals decreases; so they are in effect robbed in broad daylight by the Keynesian inflationary policies. Is it any wonder that the standard of living continues to decline all over the western world.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” –Einstein

One of these days, it may dawn upon people, en mass; that in general the government doesn’t solve problems, it only creates problems. So the only way to truly solve problems is by strictly limiting the role of government to that of a referee and letting the free market bring about the solutions we need.

Had the free market been allowed to act upon zombie banks years ago, when the problems first arose; these banks would have never become “too big to fail.” Had the free markets been allowed to act, unhindered, in the health care field, we would have more choices and less people unable to get the help they need.

Unfortunately, with the public school educated populace; the first place they turn whenever their is a problem is the government. So we have the Hegelian dialectic, “(problem) oh goodness, what a dreadful problem! — (reaction) what are they going to do about it? — (solution) the policies that were originally sought, but did not find the political support are now widely supported and then implemented without much opposition.”

It really saddens me to see my countrymen repeating this cycle over and over again, unaware and uncaring of the fact that it makes their lives much more difficult and constrained. I often wonder when it will become apparent to them that all of this nonsense isn’t working. Will it be when gold is at 3,000? 5,000? 10,000?

I can’t say for sure when decisive action will be taken; but if history is any indicator, inevitably there will come a point at which the pull of the massively centralized state on people’s lives distorts the culture of these people to such an extent that they decide they’ve had enough of it. This would be the point where they realize that it costs so much more to live in a massive welfare state than the benefits that are derived from it and the productive individuals either demand real change, or they pull up anchor and head for some place which will suit their needs.

The Importance of the Jeffersonian Model

At the dawn of America’s independence, her newly formed government was populated with reluctant leaders; statesmen in the truest sense of the word.  Whereas in today’s world, such statesmanship is practically an anathema; for those who do exhibit statesmen-like principle are often ridiculed, for their strict opposition to the unprincipled, morally bankrupt, tactics of today’s political movements.

The Hypocrisy of the Ruling Party

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

- Thomas Jefferson

In contemporary American society, there is a considerable hubris and hypocrisy, exhibited by the ruling party and supporters of this party; whether it be Republican or Democrat.  Both parties claim to be adherents of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, yet both parties unapologetically denigrate these foundational principles at virtually every opportunity.

It is as if the principles of equal protection under the law, upon which our republic was founded, have been discarded in favor of a democracy in which favored groups are rewarded using protection rackets and money powers to govern.

American society is ever becoming like many ancient societies, where the national government becomes the centerpiece of everyone’s lives.  They use bread and circuses to keep the people occupied, such that they do not object to the gradual takeover and subjugation of an individual’s right to self-determination.

Some-day in the near future, it may be virtually impossible to make a decent living in America, without working directly for the government or as a contractor of the government.  This merging of the corporations with the government is the very definition of Industrial Fascism.

The Immorality of Unconstitutional Spending

“This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.” — Thomas Jefferson

If you consider the extent to which we are taxed and scrutinized, as well as the legal definition of Citizen of the United States, then we are already employees of United States; because in legalese the term Citizen is held to mean Employee. This is how the government gets away with the so-called Income Tax, despite the fact that direct un-apportioned taxes are expressly forbidden in the Constitution. In fact many Americans are already working 3+ months out of the year to pay for the taxes they are compelled to pay by the government. Read the rest of this entry »

Nassim Haramein interview on Coast to Coast AM: August 18, 2009

Nassim Haramein has a promising theory, which unifies the fundamental forces of physics and shows the universe as being a fractal of a 64 tetrahedron grid. This means that the universe is not only infinitely large, but it is also infinitely small; because the 65 tetrahedron grid is a recursive geometric structure which you can go into or out of infinitely.

There is a great deal of background behind Dr. Haramein’s theory. For further research, listen to the Coast to Coast interview below, or check out his foundation’s site The Resonance Project. Read the rest of this entry »

Alternatives to Empiricism: Experiencing Beyond the “Five Senses”

In this western empiricism “box” that we often put ourselves in, we are resigned to acknowledging only the images that enter our minds through the visual cortex. There are, however, other ways of seeing and experiencing which neither involve the eyes, nor objects that the eyes have seen.

This reliance on the so-called “five senses,” as the only valid form of experience, tends to blind us. Because of it, we often fail to experience the deeper aspects of our being. Indeed there is a kind of circular reasoning behind empiricism; there is this implicitly accepted idea that I cannot know anything beyond what the “five senses” experience of the material realm.

Is there really any basis for the belief that there is nothing beyond the “five senses”?

There are a number of experiences one can have, be it shamanic or meditative, which provide a glimpse of realms of being which are altogether alien to the material world.

Intuition: Delusion or Perception?

Toward a Scientific Explanation of the Akashic Experience

Irvin Laszlo | New Dawn Magazine

The intuitions reported by mystics, poets, artists, ordinary people, even scientists, often go beyond the range of sensory perception. In the reductionist culture inspired by classical science, they are dismissed as mere delusion – classical empiricism claims that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the eye. However, the classical tenet is not universally upheld. It is exceptional in the annals of history, and even in the context of contemporary cultures. Read the rest of this entry »