Category Archives: Abundance

Untie Your Elephant Leg and Roam Free

The other day I was reading this really interesting article on the Internet. You know how you are just surfing around and come across something that intrigues you somehow. You get a feeling of curiosity, and you have to read this, like something here is really fascinating.

The article was about elephant trainers in India. It was talking about how when they take an elephant at a certain age, they tie a long rope around it’s leg, and the other end to a large post in the middle of the elephant training camp. The interesting thing about this is that they have to tie the rope to the elephant’s leg at just the right time, or else it won’t have the right effect.

Timing is very important in cases like this. People can realize how important timing is because life itself is a long succession of events, which are dependent upon events that transpired before them. When you think of how events are really based largely on what happens before them, you can appreciate the value of proper timing. I’m sure many comedians have made the mistake of telling a punch line at the wrong time, to unhappy professional consequence.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried stand up comedy, but it’s an interesting study in communication, there is a unique style of communication that makes doing stand up particularly humorous. And when you can combine the skills of stand up with other acting skills such as improv, then you can be really influential with your communication. There are lots of different books on this subject, if you are interested in improving your communication skills. Most people can realize the importance of being able to improve your communication skills.

So when they tie the elephant’s leg to the middle of the camp, they only need to keep him tied up for a few months before he learns of the limitation. Even when they remove the rope later on, the elephant still thinks he is constrained by a physical limitation that is no longer there. Some elephants can go their whole lives and be tied by an imaginary rope that was taken away a long time ago.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been constrained by something in the past that no longer applies, but it can be useful to look through the list of limitations in that you keep in your head and go through them. You might be surprised to find that many of them are no longer applicable. And when you can take any list of things where most of the items on the list don’t apply any more, most people just go ahead and crumple up the whole list and throw it in the garbage.

When you can remove all your limitations just like that, you are free to do pretty much anything. Have sex with beautiful men and women, make lots of money, run for president, whatever you can think of is how way more possible than when you had that old list of outdated ideas in your head. Something to think about next time it feels as though something is tugging at your leg.

Easily Reduce Stress to Enjoy Life More

Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like there is a giant conspiracy of the gods to make sure you experience as much friction as possible? You don’t get any green lights, all the parking spots you get are at the far end of the lot, even when you are putting on your shoes, your sock picks up some piece of lint from the carpet, and you don’t notice it until later when you are at a place where taking off your shoes and shaking them out would be a bit of an inconvenience. And eve the people you interact with seem to be distracted and just can’t understand what it is that you are trying get across.

When this happens, the best thing to do is just to take a step back, and laugh. Yea, I know sometimes that seems the least popular idea in your mind at the time. The automatic response for some is to pick up whatever is bothering you and fling it across the room, or out the window. I’m reminded of that scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” when the hero is having all kinds of problems, and coming down the stairs he puts his hand on the banister, which promptly falls apart. He picks up a section of it, and is about to throw it across the room when he grabs hold of himself, calms himself, and gently places it back down where it belongs.

While it usually does one more harm than good to hurl a piece of broken furniture across the room, keeping your anger bottled up can have deadly effects. High stress is the major cause of many illnesses today in western society, in some form of another. Your doctor may tell you your hypertension is from your smoking or your overeating, but those two are almost always caused by stress.

So if you can’t launch a nearby inanimate object into a low orbit every time you feel some friction or anxiety? What can you do? Planned expression of anger is one way. I’ve heard different takes on this, with different philosophies underneath this, but they all seem to share on thing in common. Find a place where you can be alone (so nobody calls the cops when they see what you are doing!) and find a way that is appropriate for you to let out your anger.

Screaming, banging on your steering wheel, hitting a heavy bag a few nights a week all can help to reduce the stress and anger that has been building up. I tried one method a few years ago that worked fantastic. You get an old tennis racket, and kneel in front of your bed (while nobody is home, of course) and then pound on your bed with the tennis racket while screaming at the top of your lungs a the person or situation that is giving you the most grief. It has a great calming effect. If you have nosy neighbors, this might be troublesome, as they might think you are murdering somebody. You can also go to a park, and bang a tennis racket in to the grass (but be careful about screaming at the top of your lungs, you might scare some kids).

The best way is to get into the habit of laughing at yourself whenever you encounter those situations that might have caused you stress before. Laughter has a proven medical benefit to release stress an anxiety. From a structural standpoint, when you let out a good extended belly laugh, the tightening of the muscles has a calming effect. When you finish laughing, all the muscles of your body move to a relaxed state, loosening the walls of your blood vessels, and effectively lowering your blood pressure in the short term. The more you laugh, the lower you will consistently lower your short-term blood pressure.

Of course, lifestyle habits like smoking and drinking and eating french fries cause a serious long term increase in blood pressure, but by training yourself to find the humor in situations, you will lower your overall stress which may lead to some of these lifestyle behaviors.

Another great exercise is called the rubber band. Whenever you feel yourself getting angry, imagine your body as one giant rubber band, and just go limp. But loosening and relaxing all your muscles, you are sending a message to your brain that all is well, and there is no reason to get upset. The great thing about this exercise is you can practice it by remembering things from your past that caused you anxiety. Just sit in a comfortable chair, or lie back on your bed, and start to bring to mind some situation that really raised your hackles (whatever a hackle is). When you feel yourself getting upset, just switch to imagining yourself as a giant rubber band, and release all thought. The more you practice, the easier this gets, and sooner or later you will be able to do this real time, even when somebody is in your face yelling about some thing that used to concern you. Just rubber band yourself, and you’ll be able to relax and enjoy the situation.

These are just a few tips to help you to release anger, and reduce stress. Nothing saps your ability to really enjoy life more than stress, anxiety, and anger. The more you practice these techniques, the smoother your life will become.

The Thunderbolt Comes for YOU

Have you ever had an experience that you just had to tell somebody about? Like you just experienced something incredible, but you are by yourself, so you can’t wait to share this with somebody that you know would really appreciate this? Not just anybody, a close friend, somebody who you’ve shared many similar experiences and stories, maybe somebody you grew up with, or maybe somebody you just met recently that you just click, that when you think about this person you think that you are really close. When was that last time something like happened?

Well, it happened to me recently. It was incredible. I didn’t have my phone with me, and the only person I could think of to share it with lived in a different country, so I had to rush home to email them, and send them the pictures I’d taken of this incredible event. So I was rushing home, and then I bumped into another friend.

Now this suddenly turned into an awkward situation. Because the guy I bumped into wasn’t quite a close enough friend to share my experience with, but he was close enough to not just say “hi” quickly to and then go on my way. And he was close enough that he could tell I was excited about something, I could to tell that he could tell, you know? So we chatted for a while, and one thing led to another, and we were having lunch at this restaurant. It was one of those restaurants where you can tell them at the front it’s our birthday, and they’ll come over and sing this goofy happy birthday song, which they’ve kind of morphed into a singing pitch for their restaurant. I guess because the restaurant is on a busy pedestrian sidewalk, they are kind of hoping to make people feel really excited about the atmosphere and want to come inside to find out more. But after the birthday singing stopped, my friend started telling me about his dilemma.

A competitor from back was heavily recruiting him east. It would give him a huge pay raise, and lots of increased authority, and he would actually have several people reporting directly to him. It sounded like a no brainer, until he told me that he was in love. And you know how much love throws a monkey wrench into life. It’s almost as if Cupid waits around until your life is almost perfect, and then shoots one of those magic arrows right up your you know what, and suddenly everything is confusing. I believe Michael Corleone described it as a thunderbolt.

Its like money suddenly loses its value, the house you live in suddenly loses its value, your job, and your clothes suddenly lose their value. All you care about is this person who you feel these feelings for. Those wonderful feelings that swirl through your head and make all the colors around you brighter, and all the sounds more pleasant, and all the people suddenly having goofy smiles on their faces.

As my friend was explaining his dilemma, the obvious solution was to simply take his girl with him to his new job.

“It’s not that simple,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.

He said that they were at “that stage.” You know what I’m talking about. That beginning stage where you know that you really like each other, but you don’t know exactly when and how and how much, your heads are both swirling in a cloud. You are kind of afraid to put a label on it, or limitations for fear that it might get scared and run away. So you just hope that it grows on its own, hope that it flourishes and becomes strong enough to swoop you both into the bliss of an unknown future.

I asked him when he was going to make his decisions. He just shook his head, smiled and said that he’d already made it.

Oh well, I thought. Good for him. I had to hurry up and get home and email my friend before I lost my excitement.

How to Create a MasterMind Group

I was re-reading Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” the other day. I was reading the part where he was describing his “imaginary master mind group.” If you haven’t had a chance to read that fantastic book, or if you haven’t read it in a while, I can’t recommend it enough. There are several free versions of it online, or you can go buy yourself a hard copy to take with you. Lately I’ve been reading snippets whenever I’m on the train, or hanging out in a coffee shop. I think it’s a great idea to always have a good book such as “Think and Grow Rich,” or other books of that nature to pull out and read this whenever you get a chance. It can really be helpful.

The “imaginary mastermind group” that Hill was describing was a modified version of his Mastermind Group idea. I don’t think the idea was his, most likely several people over the centuries have discovered the concept of synergy in a group. The basic idea is to get a group of people together, and collectively solve a problem. Business problems, social problems, political problems have all been solved in the past with the application of a mastermind group. The original framers of the United States Constitution is a particular good example of an effective and powerful mastermind group. Their efforts have proved to be valuable to many people over the years.

Sometimes, though, you don’t have a group of powerful individuals at your disposal to collect together and figure out how you are going to pay your rent, or write that report at work. Sometimes, you have to go it alone. Which is how the imaginary mastermind group comes in. You look through history, and get a collection of real, historical figures that you admire. It’s good to have a wide variety of disciplines. Doctors, scientists, orators, mystics, magicians, politicians, whatever. Come up with as many different specific fields as you can, and then choose on person from each one. I think Napoleon Hill had Darwin, Lincoln, Henry Ford, and Emerson, among others, in his group. Just choose anybody who exists, either currently, or historically that you’d like giving you advice and counsel.

Then at night, just as drifting off into sleep, gather your imaginary mastermind group together and have a meeting regarding the day’s issues. Make sure you are in charge, and each can only speak when you give them the floor. If you want, you can ask them questions regarding different problems you are having in your life, and the best way to solve it. You’ll be amazed at the insight they will offer. It’s important to release any weird feelings that you have about doing this, and allow your imagination to speak through them. It kind of gives your brain permission to look at things from a different perspective, and think of ideas you wouldn’t normally think of.

You can also imagine key members of your mastermind group going with you into certain situations. For example, if you have a big meeting with your boss, you can have a meeting with your mastermind group the night before. Whoever seems to give you the best advice, take them with you, and imagine they are standing behind you, whispering into your ear. (Just make sure not to turn around and say “Huh? What was that?” to them during the meeting.)

Hill even went on to say that after a few months of regular meetings with his mastermind group, they began to take on distinct personalities, and he had to stop because he feared they were becoming too real, even for him. So be careful, and don’t let your imagination run away with you. You don’t want to end up like that mathematician in “Beautiful Mind.”

Your brain is a fantastically wonderful and barely understood part of you that can offer up many different ways to get what you want out of life. The imaginary mastermind group is but one way to tap this fantastic source for whatever pleasure you want to easily achieve in life.

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The Mirror of Your Soul

I was riding a bus recently to another city. There was a particular art exhibit I was interested in, and because it was fairly small, I had to travel to another city to see it. It’s one of those things that you know this is really special when you see this, even if you can’t put your finger on it. It’s like there is something here that you can’t really describe but you really feel compelled to come here and look. Some people feel this way about different forms of music, or poetry, or performance art. Others feel this feeling about certain restaurants or shops. It is something defies logical explanation. But for some reason, you feel strangely compelled to see this.

So I was on this bus ride, and I was sitting next to this guy who was reading this book on esoteric philosophy. Just judging by the way he was reading the book, it seemed to be a deep subject. He would read for a few moments, and then look out the window, as if in deep thought. Then he would get his look of recognition on his face, and then turn back to the book. He did this several times, until I finally got up the courage to ask him about the book. I could only see the partial title, and I’m not even sure then if I could make out the title correctly.

He said it was a philosophical book about human emotions. The particular section that he was reading, and kept looking out the window to digest, was based on some writings of some ancient Indian scholar. He said the name a few times, but for the life of me I can’t remember even how many syllables it contained, let alone how it was pronounced. But he said that humans are basically transmitters of our emotions. That when humans come into contact, we communicate long before the first words are spoken.

If you are in a particularly high vibrational state, that is if you are holding “good” emotions predominantly in your body, like confidence, acceptance, appreciation, you will be primarily attract the emotional energy of others, as it matches your emotional energy. The converse is also true. If you hold more “negative” emotions, like fear, anger, jealousy, and judgment, you will attract those emotions as well.

He also said that if you have a mix of the two, negative and positive, like most people do, whenever you come in contact with another person or a group the “average” emotional energy will generally win out. He said that the transfer and commingling of emotions among people could be treated almost as a science. The secret to attracting people in your life that you want to support and help you, is to first become that which you want to attract.

He said that many people fool themselves into thinking they are emitting positive emotions, when in reality they are emitting emotions of need and lack, and they have convinced themselves otherwise. That is why this is such a hard concept to understand, because of our strong ability at self-deception.

He said that the real secret is to first understand yourself, and your emotions before trying to worry about those of others. Once you get a hold on your own emotions, the rest is easy. Because once you dig deep enough, and hold your emotions positive, that is all you will attract, and the rest will disappear. I asked him exactly how to do that, and he said that he hadn’t gotten that far in the book.

I told him that you should keep reading, until you can discover the secret here. Then find me and tell me about it. He just laughed and went back to his book, as if he knew something that the rest of us don’t, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. If you have any secrets, please share them, so we can figure his out.

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Find Fascination Here

I had an interesting discussion at a bar the other night. I sometimes find it extremely fun to go out alone to places like that, simply because you meet so many new people that way. Some people, many people, prefer to go out in a group, or with at least two or three others. That way you are assured to having a good time, good conversation and an enjoyable evening. I completely see the value in that. I usually feel the same way. You don’ work at your job all week, only to get one or two days off, and then waste a valuable night of free time sitting by yourself nursing a cocktail. I can think of better ways to spend my time.

Sometimes, though, I like to go places alone, knowing that I will always be able to meet new people wherever I go. Nothing can be more invigorating than meeting up with new and interesting people, especially if they are completely different from you. There are so many different people with so many different backgrounds; you are almost always bound to find treasure wherever you look for it.

So I was sitting in this café/bar/restaurant downtown, when I started talking to these two guys. One was a local guy, who had never left this region in his entire life. The furthest away he’d ever been was to University, which was about an hour away by car or bus. The other guy had a strange profession. He was originally from Britain, but had been traveling the world for the past ten years. He had two licenses, or skills, that on their own would be enough to build a career on, but he had figured a way to combine them so that he could live in almost any country in the world and make a decent living. One was a professional Chef. He got his chef license, or certificate, or whatever you call it from a school in London. With this he could work in many top restaurants in the world. His second skill was a certified Scuba Diving Instructor. He explained that with this, he could teach scuba diving, or organize scuba diving parties, in any country where scuba diving is popular.

It would seem that he would be a fairly interesting person, given his skills and experience, but he seemed a bit bored with life. He said that everywhere he went; he found that people were the same. He cooked the same food; he encountered the same scuba problems and hang-ups. He didn’t seem like the globetrotting carefree Brit that you’d expect.

The other guy was a different story. This guy was one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. He was a type of biologist that deals with farming. He spends his days looking into microscopes to try and figure out what kinds of microbes are best for growing rice. When he does go outside, it is always to nearby rice farms, which are participating in some government funded university study on some bacteriological effect on rice crops. Something that would normally put me to sleep in a hurry. But something about this was really fascinating; the way the guy explained it. It was like he was able to find fascination in any aspect of life. He was so engaged with his work, and he was able feel large amounts of appreciation, that you couldn’t help but to feel appreciation as well as he described it.

He was one of those rare individuals that just by being near this person, you can really feel and experience the wonder of life that is all around you, all the time. Wherever you go, there it is. And it’s not like its shrouded in some kind of secret mystery or something. All you have to do is look, really look. And you’ll see it.

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The Fisherman’s Dream

As you read this and sink into that chair that you are sitting in, you might become aware of the thoughts that are running round your head. You know that ones I’m talking about. Those thoughts that are the most familiar to you. The ones that you think the most often. I’m going to ask you to put them aside just for a moment. Don’t worry, you can have them back when we are finished. Of course, they might never be the same. But then again, they never were to begin with, right?

When the old man suddenly realized that the sun had been up for several minutes, he quickly rolled out of bed. He noticed that his alarm hadn’t gone off as he’d hoped. That was ok. He still had plenty of time. He noticed that the fish he’d caught the day before were still where he’d left them. That wasn’t particularly surprising, as it was getting late in the season, and most of the bears had probably found a place to hibernate already. He checked his tackle and set out for another day of fishing.

As he was walking to the lake, he came across a rather large beaver dam. He didn’t recall seeing it yesterday, so he stopped to take a look. He noticed that the beavers were acting particularly strange, but how he knew this he couldn’t really put his finger on it. He decided to stop and watch. He’d been walking for about an hour when he came across the new dam, so he decided it would be as good a place as any to enjoy a quiet break. Something about these beavers was not quite right. The more he watched them, the more he became determined to find out exactly what it was about them that was so intriguing.

He set his bags down, and found a nice spot on the ground to sit. He leaned up against the hard bark of a sycamore tree, and began what was to be the most interesting afternoon of his life.

The beavers seemed to notice him watching, although they didn’t change the procedures, at least as far as he could tell. He was almost mesmerized by their methodical efficiency, scurrying off into the forest and coming back with pieces of tree that were the exact same size that they needed. They would carefully place the piece in just the exact place. Everything in order. It was amazing, the old man thought.

Trees would grow, taking different elements from the ground and the soil and the air and the rain. They would grow over the years, then these animals would come and chew down the trees to dam up the water to build their house. Did the trees mind that they were being taken to build a house? Did the water mind that its course was being changed? Were the beavers aware of all that they were doing?

The man remarked at the impressive way in which things so naturally fit together. So peacefully. So perfectly. Did he belong? Did he really? It was as if the earth itself was giving of one part of itself to help out the other part. As if it were taking resources from one area, that were becoming almost superfluous, and somehow using itself to move those resources to another more helpful self. Like it was constantly rearranging itself to rebuild itself, so it would more easily sustain itself.

The old man wondered why he never had the ability to see things from such a clear perspective. He realized then that everything was cyclical. From the earth to the tree to the water to the ocean back to the sky to the earth. He wondered how this cycle ever began, and how it knew how to sustain itself. Surely there must be some underlying pattern that lies beneath that which is seen?

The old man awoke, after having dozed off while watching the beavers. Their dam was complete. The sun had begun to set off in the west. The old man realized that he’s missed his opportunity to catch more fish. That was all right, he had enough to last him through a couple of weeks, and a couple of weeks would be enough to allow him to catch enough to keep for the winter.

As he walked back to his cabin, which would soon be warmed by the fire he would build, he wondered vaguely how the bears were doing. It will be good to see them again in the spring, he thought.

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The Parable of the Tree and the Rock

Once upon a time there were two friends. They were really good friends, and had been really good friends for several hundred years. One was a rock, a large rock. This rock, in his current, state,was only partially above the ground. There was a lot more of this rock below the surface. Sometimes things are like that, you have this small part sticking up, but you don’t realize that there is a fantastic amount of depth here. And no matter how much you dig into this, there is still more to discover. The other friend was a tree. A big evergreen tree.

The two friends lived high up in the mountains. They lived near the tree line, which is the border between where trees grow, and where they can’t grow. Being on the border is convenient, most of the time. You can enjoy both worlds, because you really live in both. You can enjoy the openness and fresh air of the side where trees don’t grow, and you can enjoy the companionship of other trees and animals and squirrels where the trees grow. The rock of course, doesn’t care, because he is a rock. All he needs is a piece of ground to anchor himself to.

Of course, there are other rocks, that aren’t fixed. They have a whole different set of circumstances. They can roll around, finding themselves sometimes on land, sometimes under water. The funny thing is that rocks that are stuck in the ground sometimes feel envious of the rocks that can roll around, and vice versa. The truth is that you can really enjoy who you are, regardless of your situation.

So one day the tree and the rock were talking. The tree seemed worried. Because he was an evergreen tree, he needed a fairly consistent source of water. The rock, of course, being a rock, didn’t really need that. However, he was kind, and because they were good friends, he would listen to his friend the tree when he had difficulties.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do!” said the tree. “It hasn’t rained in a long time!” The rock could understand the problem, as the trees hadn’t been looking to well lately. It seemed that there had been some kind of change recently, and the water hadn’t been flowing as much as it used to.

“What do you think I should do?” The tree asked.
“Hmm. Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”

A few weeks went by, (of course without any rain) and the tree was getting more and more desperate.

“I think I have something,” The rock said one day.
“Maybe you should try something different?” The rock suggested.

“But I don’t know what to do. I’m only a tree,” he replied. Now the rock was very smart, because he was very old. The tree was only several hundred years old, but the rock had been born in the time of volcanoes, and so he had a lot of experience in these matters. He had watched many things come and go, and many different friends he had made over the years had died.

“All of my old friends, they died, because they all had the same excuse. The dinosaurs said they are only dinosaurs. And look what happened to them. You must be innovative. You must do something different. How else can you find a flow of life sustaining water?”

“But isn’t the rain the only way?”

“No, It is not. Look, over there,” the rock said. The tree wasn’t sure which way he was pointing, because the rock, being a rock, didn’t have any arms to point with. Finally, the trees saw. The lake. The pristine lake off just above the tree line, surrounded by nothing but rocks. Rocks that don’t need water.

“Can you grow your roots over towards that lake?” the rock suggested.

“I’ll try.”

Several weeks past. One by one, the other trees of the forest succumbed to the dryness. One day, the rock woke up, and noticed the tree looked a bit more greener than usual.

“You look like you are feeling better today, old friend!”

“Yes!” the tree happily replied.

“I finally got some water to the lake. Look at all that water! I can drink from the lake for hundreds of years without rain now!”

The rock smiled inwardly.

“You see, my friend? Because you were able to reach out for what you needed, instead of waiting for it to come to you, you have lived, while your friends have died. “

The tree smiled, and nodded his thanks.

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Notice This Opportunity That is All Around You

So there I was. Sitting in the middle of a third semester test in calculus. Three dimensional integrals. I was panicked. There was another method that we had recently learned, but I could remember it. I was panicking. Surely I would fail. The harder I tried to think, the more difficult it became. My mind was frozen like a turkey a week before thanksgiving. I checked the clock. Fifteen minutes left. I looked at the half solved equation. No idea what to do. I looked at the girl sitting next to me. She always did well in class. Maybe looking at her calm face would give me inspiration.

It was just like when I was driving down the freeway. I had just bought a new Toyota. And I was amazed that there were so many Toyota’s around before. And so many just like my car. But then a car, just like mine, began to tailgate behind me. They were driving really close. I was getting nervous, but not too nervous. I kept driving, still amazed that there were so many cars just like mine. Maybe the person behind wanted to make friends because we had the same car. Maybe she wanted to exchange emails or something. I looked back and she had no license plates, which meant that she had purchased her car recently as well.

It’s weird the way that works. You do the same thing day after day, and you don’t really stop and notice what is around you. It’s easy to not realize that there is something wonderful right in front of you. Some wonderful opportunity. And once you see this opportunity, you can’t help but to imagine now, what wonderful things will happen when you take this opportunity. And opportunities can come in many shapes and sizes too. They can be something that you never would have expected before. All you have to do is relax, open your eyes, and appreciate what is right in front of you.

So I finally realized the car behind me was a friend that I worked with about five years ago. When I finally recognized her, we exchanged hand signals and pulled of the freeway. We went to a fabulous Indian restaurant and caught up on old times. That’s another strange thing. I’d driven down that street literally hundreds of times and wasn’t aware of that particular restaurant.

And as soon as I glanced over at my classmate, something about her shirt reminded me of the new method we learned to solve three dimensional integrals. After I realized that, the test was a snap. Because I did sit there with a frozen brain for a few moments, I didn’t finish the test, and only got an 82, but that is a lot better had I not distracted myself so I could look around and see what was there. Wonderful things happen when you do that.

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Synchronicity and the Spanish Priest

I had an interesting experience today. I was out looking for a shop to buy a piece of cloth to use as a backdrop for my recent project I’ve started. Having only lived in my current city for a few months, I wasn’t quite sure where I could find a fabric store, as I only wanted a large piece of fabric. I wasn’t looking for anything special like a bed sheet or anything. Each person I asked at work gave me some different information. One person told me this place, another person told me that place, and I ended up writing down the name of one of the places, with kind of a vague idea of where it was.

Earlier in the day I had listened to a CD I bought several years ago. On the CD this guy was lecturing on the principle of synchronicity. Synchronicity is a concept made popular by the a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, Dr. Jung. He believed in some kind of superconscious, which has been described in several different kinds of areas of study, from religion to esoteric spirituality, to financial success. Basically the idea is that when you charge your brain with an intention, and “put it out there,” so to speak, the universe will respond. According to this theory, there is a kind of connection between people and things on some mystical level. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “what you want wants you,” or have had the experience of thinking of calling your friend, only to hear the phone ring as you turn to call them. I had the experience once where I picked up the phone to call my friend the moment he finished dialing my number. I picked it up before it had a chance to ring. I was expecting a dial tone, and didn’t hear one. He was expecting to hear the ring, and he didn’t hear it. So we both sat there for a minute going “huh?” before we realized what had happened.

I read a book called “Fooled by Randomness,” by Taleb, which basically said that all these synchronistic events are nothing more than random chance, and it’s our mistaken belief systems that delude us into thinking there is some magical connection between everything. While I don’t believe that our lives are nothing than a bunch of random pieces of matter clumped together wandering around, I’m not sure to what extent I believe in some superconscious brain that is connecting.  Whenever I develop a model for the world, I usually try to make it fit both basic scientific models and as esoteric as I can get away with.

So I was walking down this one covered shopping arcade, a big long covered street only open to pedestrians. I had walked down this street probably twenty times since I’ve moved here. The shop that I had written down was supposedly just south of this street, but I had no clue. I started thinking about another store I went to in another city I lived in to buy the same thing. Just as I was thinking about all the different colored rolls of material I was able to choose from, I looked immediately to my right, and there was a kimono store. Not just any kimono store, but the kind that had different rolls of material so you could make your own kimono’s. And cheap. One meter for between 2 and 5 dollars. So I bought a couple meters, it worked out pretty good (if you want you can go watch my youtube videos) so I’m sure I’ll be shopping there in the future. And while I was in there having a look around, a Spanish priest came in and said something to the owner, and then left. I’m not exactly sure how the Spanish priest fits into all this, but it seemed interesting. Perhaps foreshadowing for the future. Stay tuned.

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