Category Archives: Appreciation

Roar Your Desires to the Heavens

Once upon a time there was a tiger. He was born in the part of the jungle that people haven’t discovered yet, except the people that live there. The people that live there know enough to stay away from where the tigers live. They learn very early, usually from the tribal elders, that a tiger’s roar is unmistakable danger. Whenever you hear the roar of a tiger, it is best to freeze, not make a move or a sound, and slowly and quietly find out which direction the roar is coming from, and as deftly and as quickly as possible, go in the other direction. Or wait, and die.

The people of this tribe are taught to decide quickly when they hear something that represents danger. Not to hesitate. Because those that hesitate, usually become dinner, or sometimes lunch (as leftovers the next day. Tigers aren’t famous for eating breakfast.) They also know that when they are out looking for food, sometimes it’s important to act quickly as well, because when you see something you want, it’s best to act quickly before it gets away. Otherwise you might go hungry. The trick is, for these people, is to decide what you are after, and decide what is good, and what is bad. So when you see something that is good, and you think to yourself, this is really fantastic, I must get this, you can move towards, and alter your behavior to acquire this which is beneficial to you.

But you can forget that, because this story is about the tiger. What happened was this tiger was born, and he happened to be born close to a big fight between two adult tigers. The temperature had been changing, and the migrating zebras made it hard for the tigers to track down their dinner as easily as they used to be able to. One day when the young tiger was out developing his roar the adult tigers were arguing. Some were saying that they needed to migrate west, along with the zebras, to ensure that their food supply would be plentiful. Others were arguing that they should stay put, and wait for the next herd to come through, as they had usually done. They argument got heated, with tigers roaring back and forth, each side illustrating the logic of their respective arguments.

Meanwhile, our little tiger friend came up, completely unaware of what was going on. He decided to have a go at his full strength roar that he’d been developing so far. When he bellowed out roar, he was completely surprised when the head tiger turned and told him to shut up. The adults were discussing serious matters. This was not playtime.

The young tiger slinked back into the jungle, wondering what he’d done wrong. A few months went by, and every time the young tiger was in a situation where he wanted to roar, all he could hear was the lead tigers voice in his head” “Shut up! This is not playtime!” followed by a flash of tiger anxiety. He looked around at all the other tigers. They seemed to be able to roar without a problem. Was there something wrong with him?

Finally when he was out moping around, he could hear an adult human talking to a younger human. He said:

“It’s ok. Scream as loud as you want. If people don’t want to hear what you have to say, that is there problem, not yours. Maybe they are mad because you can express yourself, and they can’t. Maybe they are angry at something that happened to them earlier. The truth of the matter is, you never really know what other people are thinking, so you might as well enjoy their reaction when it’s good, and ignore it and move on when it’s not good. Understand?”

“I think so,” came the young voice.

“Let me put it like this. You were born above all the animals in that you can speak, think, sing, and express yourself in beautiful ways. Your voice is the voice of the gods. Your desires were put inside you not to be held and bottled up, but to be shouted. If other’s can’t express themselves, it’s up to you to show them how. You understand that, don’t you?

He did, and so did the young tiger, who grew up to be the most fierce tiger the jungle has ever seen.

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Cyclists Spy the Sea

I was hanging out in a bookstore this morning. I got a Robert Ludlum spy book that I haven’t read before. I like reading spy books from time to time, because it’s kind of interesting when you get engrossed in this and you become really curious as to what is going to happen. It’s like you are sitting there, reading this, and you’re not exactly sure what is going to come next. One of the things I don’t really like about Ludlum books is, for me at least, they seem to take a while to get going. And the funny thing is, that even though I’ve read many of them, and should know by now what to expect, I have the same experience over and over. It’s like as soon as I start reading, I seem to forget what is happening. Usually the first hundred pages or so are the hardest. I usually have the same thoughts as I almost have to force myself to continue reading.  I sometimes wonder what I’m doing, maybe I could be doing something better.

One of my friends that I used to go bike riding with used to have the same experience. We used to go riding up these really long and windy hills where I used to live. The kind of hills where when you look up, you think you can see the top, but you’re not sure. Then when you get to where you think the top is, you go around the bend just a little bit and BAM there is another hill waiting for you. Unless you’ve ridden those course several times, it’s really easy to forget where you are and hope that you have enough energy to keep on going, hoping you won’t pass out before you get to the top.

Which is cool because on top is this really big park, next to one of these new age churches. And there is this pastor at the church who sometimes sits in the park when he is not busy counseling people. The park has a fantastic view of the city. It’s amazing what you can see from a different perspective. Sometimes this pastor talks to us and tells us these crazy stories. Once he gave us a lecture about the meaning of life. He said when you are a child, and think in childish ways, you expect other people to give you things, to provide for you. He said that the true measure of an adult is someone who has decided to make the transition from being a receiver from others to become a giver to others. He said the middle part is what is difficult for most people, because it can sometimes take a few years to get through, if at all. Many people get stuck in the middle part, and never get out. It’s so confusing because you are a grown adult with a job and maybe a family, but you still have a little bit of “what’s in it for me” kind of mentality. He said the amazing thing about life is that when you fully release dependency, you will become aware of the abundance of resources that you can gather with your the energy you’ve freed up by becoming fully human. He said that is what St. Paul was talking about when he said that stuff about putting away childish things, and how love is really a verb rather than a feeling. The guy also had some other stories which I hope I can remember this later.

But the other good thing about this hill is on the other side, is a fantastic, long road that looks as though it was built for cyclists. Even though this park is about twenty miles from the nearest body of water, you can see the ocean. And the road kind of curves to the left as it goes down, and there are no intersections for about two miles. So all you have to do is wait at the top until all the cars go by, and you can pretty much ride down the middle of the big, wide road without worrying about cars. And the bottom is long and flat, so you have plenty of time to slow down. The fastest I ever went down that hill was just a fraction over fifty MPH. That was an incredibly exhilarating experience that I’ll always remember.

The funny thing is, once I get past the one hundred page mark, I usually can’t put a Ludlum book down to save my life. All the characters and the story just springs to life. It’s really weird that way. All those feelings of doubt and worry that I had before about wasting my time or whatever just seem to mysteriously vanish. Which is one of the reasons I love to read. Reading gives you a great perspective on things.

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Paint Your Future Brightly

I was sitting in the barber shop this morning. I didn’t have to be anywhere until one, so I had my morning free. I usually get my hair cut with a number two blade, but there is one lady I like to go to at this specific barber shop because she does a really thorough job despite it being a rather easy haircut. I should cut my hair more often, but I tend to let it grow until it is a bit too long. Then after I decide to get it cut, I usually wait another two weeks. It’s kind of weird that way I do that sometimes. I know I have something that I need to do, and when I look at my schedule and see that I have some free time, I think “oh yea, then I can go and do…” The problem is, I often fill up my free time with activities that don’t really give me much benefit. It’s almost as if when I have a big block of free time, it gives me the luxury of procrastinating even more.

Not that procrastination is always a bad thing in every situation. I was at an art museum with a buddy of mine last weekend, and we were looking at all the paintings. He was actually going there to try and get a phone number from one of the girls that worked there. He kind of knew her, but wanted to go with a friend. He thought it would be too obvious if he showed up by himself, asked for her number, and then left. He thought that he would appear to desperate. After putting it off for a few weeks, we finally went. The way he was describing his plan, he made it sound like he was planning a jewelry heist or something.

One of more interesting paintings was one by a guy whose name I forgot. The guy painted it when he was well into his eighties, and it was his first work. They had little biographies of the painters under each painting, as none of them were world famous. This guy had wanted to be a painter his whole life, but as it said on the card “life kept getting in the way.” Some of the cards had just the basic biographical information, and other cards had a lot more. This had a message the artist wrote, which was kind of advice. It said as follows:

Gentle reader. Painting can be a difficult task. Sometimes you have a spirit in you that you have to release. If you cannot release it, you will lose it’s flavor forever. You must imagine the painting finished before you. You must imagine your future on that blank canvas of your mind, so that you can overcome any obstacles that stand you way. You must make the colors bright, and the images crisp. You must bring your future to the present, and  push out all that stops you.

The funny thing was that my friend read that quote probably twenty times. He was standing about a meter from the girl whom he wanted to ask out, and when he finally got the courage, she said yes. And when I asked him about the quote on the way home, he didn’t even remember what I am talking about.

And finally my barber came in, but because I was in such a hurry, she wasn’t able to do as thorough a job as she normally does. I’ll never make the mistake again of missing on one of her fantastic haircuts. I learned my lesson.

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Always Assume The Best

I had to visit a friend in the hospital this past weekend. Nothing serious, but where I live people get put into the hospital for the strangest things. He was suffering from what the doctors said might be an ulcer, or just might be gastritis, but to be on the safe side, they want to keep him overnight for observation. I guess different countries  have different rules about how to act based on what is going on inside somebody. Even when they are fairly sure it’s nothing serious, the usually put you into the hospital at least overnight, just to be sure. I don’t particularly like hospitals, so whenever I have to go visit them, I have to make sure to up a big defense so I don’t’ let the sadness creep inside. I was in the elevator on the way down, happy to be leaving, when I saw somebody staring at me. He wasn’t a patient, or a doctor. I didn’t think I recognized him, but he kept staring at me.

Like this one time I was at the library in town. I had only moved here a few days ago at the time. I really like to read so I decided to go and check out the local library to see if they had any books I’d read before. And I was sitting there,and this guy kept looking at me from across the room. And had a really angry expression on his face, like I’d done something to offend him or something. I was starting to get kind of nervous, but seeing how I was in a public place, I didn’t really think he would do anything. But he just kept staring. Maybe he thought I looked like somebody that stole his milk money when he was a kid or something. Maybe he didn’t like the shirt I was wearing.

I usually don’t think such mean things about people. One of my relatives once told me that giving the other person the benefit of the doubt has two sides of the same coin. One side is to always assume that others are acting on some kind of good intentions, no matter how deep. And they are always trying their best, based on their experiences, to act on those intentions in the best way they know how. And the other side of that is that you must always assume that they have are also assuming that you are somehow acting on your best intentions. That way you’ve not only got a precedent to live up to, but when you live up to that precedent, even if it’s imaginary, you can show them a good example. So it will always work out in the end.

And it turns out the guy wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at he guy sitting behind me. They had come together, the guy sitting behind me wanting to study, and his friend staring at him wanting to play baseball. Since they played baseball last Saturday, today was study day.

And the guy in the elevator had just heard some bad news about his cousin, so he wouldn’t’ have stared at anybody the way he was staring at me. I hope his cousin recovers.

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Clear the Path for Easy Living

This morning I was browsing in a new bookstore in my neighborhood. It is the kind of bookstore where they have used books as well as new books. Used book stores can be really fun to browse through, because you never know what you are going to find. Sometimes you’ll be looking through, and you will find some books that sort of look interesting, but not interesting enough to buy. Other times you can find things that you are really interested in. This particular bookstore had been only been open a couple of weeks, so they haven’t really built up their inventory of used books yet. They had quite a few new books. Novels, biographies, how to books, and even a few cookbooks. The store itself isn’t that large, so the aisles were pretty crowded, not like other bookstores, where people specifically go there for the open space.

Open space is important, because you need room to move around. I’m been moving around quite a bit in my life. Currently I’m living in my fifth country. It’s interesting how much extra stuff you think is really important that you naturally get rid of when you move as much as I have. I was telling a friend of mine the other day about all the cooking equipment I used to collect, because I really enjoy cooking. So I was in the habit of buying this, and buying that so that when I wanted to cook a really extravagant meal, I had the proper equipment to do so. But because I’ve moved so much, I’ve shed some the extra stuff that turned out to be not so important. A couple of large suitcases is really all you need.

It can be important to periodically take inventory of your life and see what extra baggage you are carrying around that isn’t that important. Or at least isn’t as important as you think it is. Because nothing can slow you down more than extra junk that can clog the precious neural pathways of your brain. When you just relax and release what isn’t important, your life can become easier. When you let go of fears, you can really begin to enjoy the ease with which you can live your life. And it really is a simple matter of shifting your thoughts towards ease and happiness, and away from stress and anxiety. One way to do this is through focused breathing. Another way to do this is through Chi Gong or other slow movement exercises. It’s not important exactly how specifically you choose to do this, rather that you do something on a regular basis that can clear out that which holds you back.

As it turns out, most of the cooking equipment I used to have, I didn’t really need. I can do the same thing that those machines did with creative use of some basic tools. And that can make cooking more fun.

And I’m not exactly sure where they will put all the new used books once they get them, because the shelves and aisles are already filled up with new books. I guess they are really confident that they will get a lot of business, and sell a lot of books. Perhaps their plan is that when people bring in their old books, they can get some money which they will then turn around and use to buy more books. And investing your money in books is a great idea, because learning is one of the greatest rewards in life. 

 

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It’s Good to Mix it Up Once in a While

Once upon a time there was this group of missionaries. And they traveled to different islands, and tried to persuade the island people to discard their old set of beliefs, and replace them with what they promised was a new, enhanced and better set of beliefs. Because they brought food that the island people had never seen before, the island people kind of accepted some of the beliefs, but not all of them. Kind of like a mix.

I have a friend that is from Vietnam. He was telling me that many Vietnamese dishes are actually influenced by the French. Because the French had colonized what was then called Indochina (by the French, no doubt,) they had a lot of influence on the culture, architecture, food, and even the writing system. The language itself was too far developed for the French to make it as confusing as the French language, so at least that part of the culture remained fairly intact. One of the great outcomes of the influence of one culture on another are this sandwiches called Bun Mi’s. They are made with small loaves of French bread sliced in half, and filled with Vietnamese style meats and other fillings. They are incredibly tasty, and usually fairly cheap.

It’s interesting what happens when you mix one thing with another, you’re never sure you know what you are going to get. Of course if you mix yellow and blue you are going to get green, but everybody knows that. I’m talking about mixing things when you have no idea how they are going to turn out. Cultures, ideas, whole races of people (depending if you believe in any Egyptian-UFO conspiracies.) One of the most important things to consider when mixing ideas is the simple fact that you can’t usually come back, so you need to be careful when mixing two things, like countries or genetic mutations. You don’t want to create something that won’t be beneficial. On the other hand, nobody ever was able to discover something wonderful by being too cautious. When you have some of this, and some of that, and you want to bring to bear one onto the other, go right ahead. That’s how great things happen.

And I even was telling my girlfriend once about this great French-Vietnamese restaurant, and she could scarcely believe such a combination could exist. And sure enough, there the restaurant was, just like I’d expected it to be. And they have some dandy tasting frog legs there.

And the missionaries decided that it wasn’t worth it because they kept running out of chocolate chip cookies, or whatever it was they had to bribe them with to accept their beliefs. They told them and they decided that they had to leave, and then went and left them behind.

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Feel Your Feelings Free Your Power

There is a guy who lives in my apartment building that I saw a few times when I first moved in.  I’d only seen him a couple of times as he was either entering or exiting his apartment, so I never really got a glimpse of his face. I’d only seen the back of him. And being as how I only recently moved in, I was a little wary of making sure to meet the neighbors under the right circumstances. And sneaking up behind somebody as they were coming home from a long days work isn’t the best way to meet somebody. And from I saw about this guy, I wanted to be careful. They way he was dressed, and the way his hair was cut, and the long single earring he had dangling from his left ear made me slightly cautious. I wanted to be sure and make a good first impression.

First impressions are extremely important. I remember once in a communications class I took in college. They said that a first impression of somebody is made within the first ten seconds of meeting them. One of the reasons they are incredibly important is because not only does it take a huge amount of willpower to overcome a first impression, but most of the time we aren’t even aware of the basic impressions we hold about other people. For the most part, they operate outside of our conscious awareness. We just kind of get a ‘feeling’ when we see a person. We’re not even aware that our incredibly fast brains routinely make hundreds of calculations in a few seconds to summarize all the data around us to give us that ‘feeling.’

Not that feelings aren’t important. They are incredibly important. If you don’t notice your feeings, you can scarcely make a rational decision. If that sounds like a contradiction, consider some experiments done recently on a poor fellow who had the emotional centers of his brain temporarily disabled due to a unique surgical procedure. He was completely unable to make a decision. You’d think with those pesky feelings out of the way, we would all think like Spock-like bulletproof logic, but it just isn’t so. Without feelings, we can’t feel desire, or notice what you want, and use these feelings to make a decision. Just because we aren’t aware of the thousands of incredibly fast circuits in our brain doesn’t mean they aren’t there, or aren’t important. The big secret is to accept all your feelings. Because when you accept and appreciate your feelings, you give yourself permission to access all the wonderful portions of your brain. You get to use your entire intelligence. Imagine what you could do if you could use your whole brain. What could you create?

Of course, the best part of the communications class was the incredible self confidence I was able to develop. It’s amazing what a public speaking class at a community college will do for you. Public speaking is one of the things that I recommend that anyone and everyone learn how to do. It will dramatically change your life for the better.

I did finally meet my neighbor, with his girlfriend, at the local grocery store. He really is a nice guy, who has an innocent smile that never quits. I’m glad I was able to hold back before I made any snap decisions about him.

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Share the Communicating Power of Experience

I have a friend that is several years older than me. I like to hang out with him, if only to listen to his stories. He is a great story teller. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting somebody, so that when you listen to this person, you can just sit there for hours and hours listening to this persons go on and on about this and that. Most of the stories this guy tells are from his own experience. But other ones are from other people that he himself has heard stories from. Because he has lived such a long a full life, he never runs out of stuff to say.

Many times he’ll be talking about the war he was in. He was drafted, and once he realized what was going to happen to him, he decided that he was going to make the best of things. So he decided that being a communications officer was his best bet. He didn’t think being a medic was such a great idea, as he said medics have to walk around with a target painted on their back. He said a communications officer was best, because communication is important. And if you are carrying around with you one of the best resources, you are treated with a great deal of respect.

I can remember a class I took once in communications, just for fun. It wasn’t a public communications, which is public speaking. I hadn’t yet learned how easy it was to be comfortable while speaking to a large group of people. I was still in my beginning stages of learning how to communicate well on a one to one basis. Those of you who have been keeping up and like to read my blog on a regular basis will know what I’m talking about. Developing skills in communicating is one of the best skills you can develop. Being able to communicate congruently with power and confidence can be one of the most important things that you can learn in life. The class was a real eye opener for me. I learned about different communication styles that people have, different media through which you can communicate. And most important of all, the simple truth that you can’t not communicate. So it pays to be aware of the message that you are sending. Regardless if you know it or not, people are receiving you, loud and clear.

One of the most interesting things I learned from him was how to throw a grenade. It’s not like in the movies, where you can just chuck it and duck behind a bush or something. Because the pieces that come off it when it explodes go much further than you can throw it. So you need to make sure to stay out of the way when whatever you put out comes back. Whenever you decide to throw out something harmful, you’d better watch out, because it usually comes back a lot stronger than you threw it. It pays to be careful. Of course, my friend is wise enough to only tell stories that took place during basic training, where nobody died. War itself is a horrible thing, and should be talked about in polite, social conversation, when absolutely necessary.

I strongly recommend becoming friends with somebody that has a lot of experience. Not only because it’s fun to share your experience with others, it’s also just as fun to hear them as well. And who could disagree that we could always use more sharing in this world?

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Tap The Power of Realistic Expectations for Incredibly Happy Relationships

Today in my neighborhood, the weather is unseasonably warm. Which is nice, because it’s still winter (or at least it was when I wrote this, now.) It’s nice to have a warm day every now and then when you don’t expect it. It breaks up the monotony of the coldness that I’m used to when I wake up in the morning. And since I try to wake up early every day, I enjoy having the sun just a little bit warmer than I expect it to be.

It’s like when I go to the movies. I am pretty easy to impress and entertain. Sometimes I read the reviews of movies I want to see, sometimes I don’t. An interesting thing that I’ve found was that when I read a particularly unflattering review of a movie, it allows me to enjoy this more, because I go in with less expectations. Like when you really expect to enjoy something, you sometimes can have an unconsciously higher standard that is harder for something to live up to.

I guess that is why on the stock market they always wait and see if earnings beat the markets expectations. Even ones that don’t make a lot of money, if they make more than the analysts have expected, then the stock will go up on that particular day. I remember a company I used to work for had a stock that performed tremendously well. The company had earnings in excess of one dollar per share, which is a lot. One particular day, when the earnings came out, they were only 99 cents a share instead of a dollar a share. Any company that earns 99 cents a share is a very financially stable company, so imagine the surprise when the stock went down almost 4 percent that day because it “didn’t meet the analysts expectations.”

It reminds me of a book I read on self improvement. If I remember correctly, it was a relationships book. And they key to having a happy relationship was having accurate expectations on what to get out of the relationship. Because when you are with somebody, and you find this person interesting, you have to make sure that you like this person because of real reasons, and not imaginary ones. Because when you start to expect reality to behave based on your imagination, and not an accurate assessment of what is out there, you can run into trouble. The book went on to say that one of the best ways to have a really good, solid relationship with somebody was to establish solid expectations based on communication, and your own observations of each other’s behavior in certain circumstances.

My friend, who is married with three kids told me about this. As soon as he learned to plan ahead for his family taking almost an hour sometimes to get ready to leave the house, he was able to make plans, carry out these plans, without having the added stress of expecting his family to meet unrealistic expectations. He said that in the beginning, when it was only him and his wife, he could kind of push for her to be ready earlier, but the more people they added to the family, the more impossible this got. So he naturally realized that the best way to reduce stress, when other people are involved, is to stand back, and watch their behavior, and plan your activities based on reality rather than fantasy.

Which I have gotten down to a science. I used to rush to the movies, buy my large popcorn and coke, then rush to the theater to sit down. It took me about three months of willpower to not eat all my popcorn before the trailers finished showing. Now I usually get to my seat just as the real movie is starting. I’ve learned to ignore the stated start times in the newspaper, and use my experience as a guide. I find that is much easier, because I’d rather enjoy my popcorn while watching the movie I came to see, rather than the movies I’ll most likely come to see in the future.

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Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

I was watching that new movie recently, about that guy that goes on the adventure, and all the cool stuff happens to him. I forgot the name of the movie, and I’m terrible with names of actors so that’s pretty much the best I can do. There was part where he met a guy with a bunch of tattoos, and rode on a boat for a while. It was pretty interesting movie, and told an interesting metaphor about life, which I think can be valuable to anyone, despite where you are now.

I think he might have been the same guy that has been in a few other movies, and I think I’ve probably seen most of them. But as I write this, they are all kind of a blur, because one thing that I really enjoy is watching movies. I usually see one or even two movies a weekend, if there are enough new ones coming out. I really like to watch how the stories are structured, and  how the characters work together, and how they make the plot unfold completely spontaneous like they do. It’s really an amazing invention.

Makes me kind of wonder about who thinks up stuff like that. I mean one day, they had a bunch of pictures, and they were all looking at them, and then some guy came along and decided not only to make them sort of transparent, so you could shine light through them, but to make a bunch of transparent ones sort of similar, so that when you shone light through them and moved the pictures across the light really quickly, the light would shine on the wall and look real. And they just keep getting better and better. And the really fascinating thing is that despite all the advances in computer graphics and cameras and such, the basic concept is the same as it was when they first invented it.

And when I see a really good movie, I think to myself that I really want to share this. I really want to tell other people about this. Like when you see something that you really like and you can’t wait to tell other people about this. I think it is really a measure of how advanced humans are that we can share things with other people.

It kind of makes me wonder what movies will be like in a hundred years or so. Will they be the same or will they use the same basic technology they use today? Whatever they do, I’m sure it will be inside of a big theater. Because there is nothing cooler than sitting back in a dark theater with a huge bucket of popcorn and relaxing as you watch this story play out in front of you.

And that one movie was I think written by the same guy that wrote another movie that had the same kind of story. And there was something in there about a box of chocolates. Box of chocolates. Why does that make me feel like I need to go out and buy something? Am I missing something here? Or did I just forget. Oh well. Off to the movies I go.

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