Category Archives: Fears

Swing Free of Fear

Once upon a time, not too long ago, maybe even yesterday, there lived a monkey. He lived with his fellow monkey troops in their monkey village. His name was Larry. He was a young monkey that still kind of followed the grownup monkeys around, as he wasn’t sure how to be a complete monkey all on his own yet. He could do a lot of monkey stuff, like swing from branch’s, and peel bananas, and even find the best trees to hide in when the tigers came.

The tigers lived in the next jungle over. They were friendly tigers, at least when they didn’t want to eat you. But when they were hungry, they dropped all pretence and went after anything and everything that looked like it might be chewable and digestible. And if you ever had the opportunity to examine the digestive track of tigers, you’ll surely find that they can eat pretty much anything. Like that shark in jaws (not the bad shark, the other one) that ate that license plate and all that other junk.

Humans on the other hand, can’t eat everything, but this story isn’t about humans, so never mind that.

So there Larry was, sitting on his haunches one day, when his older brother, Bill, said “Larry, it’s time you need to find your own food. You can’t follow me around all the time. I need to find a lady monkey and make a monkey family. You need to figure out things for yourself. You need to find your own way. You have to become independent.” Larry understood. He had realized for quite some time that it’s better to be independent than to have to depend on others.

But there was one problem. One big problem. One giant, scary, terrifyingly seemingly unsurmountable problem. The monkeys had this ritual. Before being accepted as a grown up monkey by the rest of the troop, you had to perform a task. Kind of like a ritual, if you will.

You had to cross many jungles, through many dangerous areas, filled with tigers and elephants and sharks and piranhas and go to the cave of the mighty boar. And in this cave was a special tree. A special banana tree. They looked like bananas, except they were supposed to be a lot smaller than all the other bananas. At least that’s what all Larry’s friends said. They always talked about this banana tree, and the boar that guarded it. They all knew that someday, they would have to pass the rite of initiation into adult monkeyhood, and go steal a tiny banana from this gigantic and horrible boar, that liked to eat monkeys for breakfast. And lunch, and dinner.

The more the young adolescent monkeys talked to each other about this horrible creature, the more they became afraid of being his next breakfast or lunch. Or even his dinner.

Finally, the day came. Larry had to set off, all alone, to go face the evil boar, and steal one of the magic bananas. None of the adults gave him any advice. The adolescent monkeys were to afraid to talk to him. The baby monkeys were too busy playing with their ABC blocks.

So off Larry went. For days he swung through the jungle, branch to branch, vine to vine. Sleeping in trees, hoping they would keep him safe from the tigers and the leopards and the kangaroos.  With every passing night, the horrible boar transformed himself more and more into a unfathomable creature in poor Larry’s mind, and the banana’s became smaller, and less yellow, and less tasty.

Finally, the day arrived. The cave was in sight. Larry crept slowly to the cave. Trembling in fear. He knew now why they adult monkeys didn’t talk to him before he left. He knew now why the adolescent monkeys shunned him before his departure. He was not expected to live. Perhaps it was a big joke, a lie, a ruse. Perhaps there was some hideous monkey god living in the cave that demanded regularly sacrificed young monkeys to keep from bringing his wrath to the monkey jungle.

Larry crept closer to the cave opening. Slowly, carefully, almost devoid of any remaining hope that he would return alive to his happy monkey jungle.

He peeked into the cave.

There it was!

It wasn’t a lie. The tree was right there, in front of him. Filled with bananas. Hundreds of bananas. Huge bananas, rich in color, and even from where he was he could smell the delicious aroma wafting across the cool floor of the cave. Surely he could run, grab a banana, and return without being spotted by the evil boar.

Where was the evil boar, anyway?

Larry crept closer, slowly, slowly. He stopped, ever so quietly, and reached up and quickly snatched the lowest hanging branch. No boar in sight. He grabbed another banana, and another, and another.

“Please don’t eat too many,” said a voice from behind him.

Larry turned, and to his horror, was the hideously large boar, readying to pounce and devour him where he stood. Sort of. Actually, not at all. The boar was not even a boar. He was just a tiny field mouse.

“But…” Larry began.

“You thought I was a hideous boar did you?”

“Well, yea. What happened? Why did you change?”

The tiny field mouse rose up on his hind legs to his full height.

It is you that changed. It is you chose to see things differently than before. Something happened to you on the way here. You were able to make a decision. You were able to forget those thoughts that you had before, and see for yourself what was really in here. Because when you choose to approach your fears, with caution, as you did, you will realize that which you are afraid of is seldom as big and scary as you think it is. And that which you hope to achieve by facing your fears is a far greater reward that you will allow yourself to imagine. That is nature’s way of making sure you walk into situations with caution. You see Larry, fear is your friend. Fear helps to warn you of possible danger, and those feelings you feel are really just the extra energy which allows you to see better, to hear better, to think more quickly and more accurately. Fear is the juice of life. Fear is your friend, your guide, your helper, letting you know that you are on the verge of glory.You are never truly an adult unless you can accept and embrace your fears.

“But why the stories, why the lies?”

“No monkey can be an adult unless they face their fears. Today you are an adult Lawrence. Today you shall swing free.”

Larry turned and walked away. His arms full of the sweet bananas from the magic banana tree. They were the sweetest bananas he’d ever eaten.

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Claim Your Incredible Sexual Power

You see a girl, a cute girl, across the room. Your eyes meet briefly. You think you should go over and do something, but your feet are suddenly glued to the floor. You imagine what you would say, and your heart begins to beat incredibly fast. You think of about eighteen million reasons all of a sudden why you shouldn’t go and talk to her. You are busy. She’s not your type. She probably has a boring personality.

What happens when you begin to become curious about what would happen if those self defeating thoughts didn’t enter into your brain? What would happen if you could discover a way to feel different when you saw a cute girl? Instead of feeling nervous and anxious, what if you could automatically feel incredibly confident and powerful? Sound too far fetched? Read on, because it’s not.

Have you ever discovered something really incredible? Have you ever come across something that was really able to make an incredible impact on your life? For me it was when I learned some specific public speaking skills. Before, I got incredibly nervous when I even thought about standing up in front of people. Even people I knew. But when I learned how to control my anxiety, and even use the natural energy that you produce, I was able to learn how to feel incredibly confident when I was speaking in front of people. How about you? Have you ever discovered a skill or technique that made your life easier?

As you think about that, imagine how good it really feels to discover something new. To take a look at something, and when you see this, you can’t help but to think that this is something that can really help your life. This is something that can help you to become incredibly powerful.  And as you sit there, and continue to read this, I wonder if you can start to imagine how you took this knowledge, and were able to apply this to your life in incredible ways so you naturally became more successful. How many examples can you think of, in your own past?

One thing that separates children from adults is the ability to make a decision. To see something you like, and instead of waiting for permission, instead of waiting for somebody to tell you that it will be ok, you just make a decision and go after what you want. Imagine you’re at the grocery store. You want to buy something. You check your pockets to make sure that you have enough money. You think about what it is that you want to buy. You look around, and see it. That’s it. You decide then and there, that’s it. No hesitation. No wondering if it’s the right thing. No worrying about what people will think if you go over and grab whatever it was that you were just thinking of.

How would you like to feel that way when you walked into a bar, or a party? You look around, choose the girl you like, and make a decision right then, and right here. The same process. The same process that you used to buy something in the supermarket, without hesitation, you use then to choose what girl you want to talk to. You don’t worry about what people think, or what she’ll say, or what goofy line you want to use. You just look around, see something that you like, make your choice, and let the chips fall where they may. How would that be? Would you like that? What would life be like if you could do that all the time? Do you think that would make you more attractive to cute girls? You bet it would.

One product that I’ve used over and over, as it is filled with useful techniques to get you to that mindset, is the Alpha Male System. And because the Alpha Male System is so full of useful techniques, I’ve read it at least a dozen times, if not more. And not only will it give you exactly the right things to do and say, but it gives you incredibly powerful techniques to work on your ‘inner game’ as well, so doing and saying the right things become incredibly easy. Pickup experts and gurus alike agree that this is one of the finest products out there to improve your life in this area.

I’m not going to tell you to go and buy this now, because you are smart enough to make your own decision to buy. And you don’t have to buy it now, you can go have a look now and decide to buy it later if it’s more convenient. The important thing is to realize that as you continuously develop your skills with whatever materials you can get your hands on, you can’t help but to become the person you’ve always wanted to be. And the Alpha Male System is an easily affordable and natural step in the right direction.

You can have a look by clicking here.

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Powerfully Claim Your Manhood

I was talking to a friend of mine this morning. Well, not really a friend, seeing as how I’ve just met the guy. And he was telling me about this seminar he went to a few weeks ago. And there was this guest speaker at the seminar (which incidentally was an investment seminar) and he started talking about how different aspects of your life really can start to overlap into others.

For example, he started talking about fear. And how fear of failure is really a manifestation of the fear of success.  And how when we are really young, like before we can learn to speak, we really only have two fears. Falling, and loud noises. As we grow older, we gradually learn to be afraid of other things. And the funny thing is, most of the things we learn to be afraid of are not real in the first place.

For example, if a guy is growing up, he will soon learn (and when I say soon I mean within a few hours of birth) that expressing your desire doesn’t always mean that desire will result in a happy ending. Sometimes you cry, and you get picked up. Sometimes you cry, and you don’t get picked up. I say ‘guy’ in this sense, because as men, we later learn to associate this ‘expression of desire’ with our expression of desire of other women. Of course you know by now that the brain categorizes and deletes and distorts many things as we grow and learn.

So when guys think about approaching an attractive woman, we have a long history of experience that expressing a desire doesn’t always bring immediate satisfaction. Sometimes we even got scolded for expressing our desire. Of course, even though those learnings were installed many many years ago, they still can interfere with our daily life.

One way to overcome them is to become fully adult. To do this, one can realize that as you grow and become an adult, it’s helpful to understand that the world won’t give you what you want simply because you asked. You have to ask the right way. And the right way today, may not be the right way tomorrow.

Nowhere is this more evident, and more complicated in the world of dating. Men today seemingly have to wade through a maze of confusion and mixed messages just to say “hello.” And because we are the product of men who lived through the same thing, there really hasn’t been a lot of support in this area.

Fortunately, in the age of the internet and mass communication, there are many systems and tools that can help us out. Of course we still need to get up off our behinds and make that first approach, but once the ice is broken, it can become much easier. So long as you have the right tools. And if you’ve read my other posts, you know by now that I’m a big fan of learning from your experiences. And when you venture into the world of dating and relationships, it can be helpful to have a helpful companion to help you in this process.

This is one system that I’ve used with fantastic success, and other reviews I’ve read say the same thing. It seems that most people that have become successful in this area of their lives have realized that skills in interpersonal relationships are easily transferable to other areas of their lives. So do yourself a favor and have a look, and you can decide for yourself that this is something that you can quickly and easily benefit from.

Link to Alpha Male System

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Instantly Kill Social Anxiety And Let Your Brilliance Shine

And our next speaker will be telling us the exciting news about [insert your specialty here], please show a warm welcome for [YOU]!

You stride up to the podium, completely calm, right? Not a worry at all, right? No probably don’t even need note cards, since when you speak in front of a large crowd you feel the same as though you are speaking to an old friend over a couple of beers, right?

How about this. You are meeting a friend for a drink, you think it’s going to be just the two of you. You show up, and there are about six people that you don’t know. You slowly walk up to the table, and your buddy says “Hey! He’s here! I’ve been telling these guys all about you!” They all beam looks of expectation you’d normally see just before the curtain opens at Cirque du Soleil. Of course, since you are completely at ease and outgoing without need for any preparation going into any social situation, you can handle this situation flawlessly, right?

Or how about this. You see a fantastically attractive member of the opposite sex standing across the room. You flirt with your eyes a few times, and you’re pretty sure you see a brief flash of something that could be a smile. Of course, being the socially at ease person you are, you naturally stroll over, confident that your social and conversation skills are sufficient to easily decide within a few minutes of conversation whether this person is a match for you or not. Right?

Well, if you fall a bit short in the above situations, please raise your hand and join the human race. Social anxiety is one of the biggest obstacles known to mankind. People consistently rank the fear of public speaking higher even than dying. There’s a reason at high school dances boys stand on one side of the gym, and girls on the other. 

Luckily, I have a couple tricks that can help you easily overcome this. One is a realization that you probably already know, and the other is some mental practice that you can do that will consistently give you an edge as you practice it.

First the realization. What are you thinking of in these situations? If you can, imagine now that you are in one of the above situations, and pay attention to your thoughts. What are you thinking of? Your faults? Your weaknesses? The worst thing that can happen (or more accurately about a billion worst things that can happen?) Well guess what, whenever you are in a social situation, everybody thinks those thoughts. People don’t have near enough brain energy to focus on their own worst fears AND be cognizant of what you might be afraid of at the time.

Of course, this is easy to forget when you are hit with the unexpected adrenalin shot of social pressure, but the more you practice remembering, the easier it will get.

This realization really sunk in for me when I was taking a public speaking class. During one of the speeches, I was the first to go. I don’t what it was, maybe because I was talking about a subject that I was really familiar with, or the teacher was really nice, I’m not sure. But I was really relaxed. And during the middle my speech, I paused and actually scanned the room and noticed the expressions on everybody’s faces. They were all terrified. They were all thinking “oh no i’m next!” I probably could have been speaking Portuguese, and they wouldn’t have noticed.

Many times people will pretend they are not nervous, but trust me, they are doing their best to keep their game face while they think “oh no oh no what do I say???”

The trick I spoke of earlier is to focus outward as much as possible whenever you are in those situations that can make you feel less than comfortable. The idea is to stay out of your head as much as possible. Focus on their eyes, their nose, how their lips move when they talk, their boobs (ok, maybe not the boobs,) their ears, earrings, mustache, haircut. Try to figure out from their breath what they ate last, the sounds in the room, their posture, how many different colors they are wearing. Anything to keep the focus OUT side your head.

Of course, they key is to remember these two tricks when you get into those situations. If you know you are going to be in a situation, like a speech or a first or second date, no problem. Just make sure to rehearse doing this in your mind beforehand.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are suddenly on the spot unexpected, it’s good to set up a signal system to help you remember the two keys:

They are just as afraid as you.

Focus on physical things to reduce your own fear.

One thing you might do is use the pegging technique, and attach one to each thumb. Of course, like any new mind technique, it will take some practice. Another way to do this is to purposely go into situations that make you feel a little anxious and then just practice these techniques until you become natural.

While you might not become incredibly charismatic overnight, the more you practice these techniques, the easier it will be for you to be at ease in all situations, so you can feel relaxed enough to share your true self with the world. You owe the rest of us that much.

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Model of The World

“Really, you know you can do it. Just take a deep breath.”
“No, dude, I really can’t. I swear, it’s impossible.”

 
“Impossible? Why is it impossible?”
“It just is. If I drive over that bridge, I’ll die. I’ll have a panic attack or something. My heart will freeze up or something.”

 
“Ok, let me get this straight. If you drive over that bridge, you will die. But if I drive, you won’t drive.”
“Yea.”

 
“So it’s not actually the water that will kill you, it’s the combination of the water and the steering wheel? The brake pedal? The accelerator? How exactly does that work? How do you know that will happen?”
“What do you mean how will I know? I just know.”

 
“What if you could run through your thinking in slow slow motion. Like if they made a clone of somebody that was exactly like you, but they forgot to put in that piece of information about dying while driving over a bridge, how would you tell that clone to program that into his brain? What or how would he have to think for that to happen?”
“Well, first, wait! Why am I supposed to give this to somebody else? I don’t want it, why should he want it?”

 
“Just pretend, ok? So what would you tell him?”
“Well first, you see the water, and then you feel the car moving, and then, you get this, I dunno, tightness, and then you just know. You will die.”

 
“Ok, water, car moving, tightness, you’re gonna die. Got it.”
“Are we done yet?”

 
“No, well yea, well almost. Where did you learn this?”
“What do you mean?”

 
“This model of the world, it’s very interesting. Where or who from did you learn this model of the world?”
“I’m not sure, man.”

 
“I mean was there a time where water plus driving plus tightness meant something else? And for some reason you decided to make them equal death, that is when you mix them together right? Where exactly did you learn this model of the world? Did you see it on TV or something?”
“Wow, I never thought of it that way. I guess that time I was a kid. When I heard that that kid drowned.”

 
“Wow, sounds terrible. What happened?”
“These kids were jumping off a bridge, and their mom wasn’t paying attention, and one of them hit his head, and then died.”

 
“Were you there?”
“No, but I think my mom told me about it. To make me be careful and not jump off bridges, I guess.”

 
“Do you trust your mom?”
“Of course.”

 
“Did you ever jump off a bridge after that?”
“Um, nope, never.”

 
“So your mom’s story worked, right?”
“Yep.”

 
“You’re safe, right?”
“Yep.”

 
“Did she say anything about driving over bridges? Or only jumping.”
“Dude I was only six.”

 
“So you made up the driving part yourself. Did you understand driving at the time, how it works, how to go to the DMV and get a license and all that?”
“Dude, I was only six.”

 
“So maybe the driving part was a mistake?”
“Yea, I guess so.”

 
“Are you read to go?”
“Yea.”

 
“You want me to drive?”
“No, man, I got it.”

 
“Good.”

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Snakes on a Slope

This morning I was walking down the steps from the temple where I do my morning Qi Kong exercise, when I noticed a large snake stretched across one of the steps about halfway down.  It was almost, but not quite stretched out perfectly straight, as if he was seeing if he could stretch from one side of the step to the other. He hadn’t quite made it when I almost stepped on him. I paused and waited for him to finish his trek across the step. I wasn’t sure where he was going, but as I wasn’t in any rush, I didn’t ask him to hurry up. I’ve never really had any fears of snakes. Although once I was at a place called “Snake Alley” in Taipei, Taiwan, which is a street with a lot of weird shops. Some of which are shops which specialize in snakes. (Hence the name.) There was a woman standing outside with a rather large boa constrictor trying to entice customers to enter. I had just finished my second shot of snake blood liquor, (at least that’s what they said it was) when I decided to ask the woman if I could take a picture with her.

She didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Chinese, so she misunderstood me. She didn’t realize that I wanted to take a picture with her and the snake, and thought I wanted to take a picture with only the snake. As I stood next to her, and handed my camera to my snake blood liquor waiter, she proceeded to take the rather large boa constrictor and drape it around my neck. As I stood smiling for the snake blood liquor waiter to take what seemed like several long minutes to figure out my digital camera, the snake started to explore the side of my face with it’s tongue.  Finally, the waiter snapped a couple of photos and that was that.

I have a friend that would pass out cold if something like that happened to him. He is deathly afraid of snakes. Yet he is an avid skier, and the only time I went skiing with him, I was petrified to follow him down some of the jagged rock exposed, triple diamond runs he went on for fun.

He has been able to develop a skill which allows him to see a potentially dangerous situation as something to use to have lots of fun. He has gone on that particular run so many times, that his experience tells him that everything is ok. I, on the other hand, haven’t yet been able to develop good experience with respect to skiing, and perhaps I never will. For me, it is just too scary to think about being able to put in the effort in getting good at that so the good feelings naturally outweigh the bad.

It’s interesting when two people can look at the same experience and have two completely different interpretations of it.  It’s not like either of the snakes really had the time to decide whether they wanted to eat me or not. Besides, I don’t even like snake meat.

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Instant Conversation Skills

Who is that over there?  Wow. They look kind of interesting. Should you go talk to them? What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t know what to say?

Have you ever had these thoughts? Evil blobs of mind poison that instantly crippled any short lived hopes you’d had of maybe being able to make a friend?

Well, you are in luck, because I am going to not only show you a foolproof way to start a conversation with a complete stranger, but how you can make them do all the talking, and end up thinking you are the stunning conversationalist.  Ready? Let’s go.

You will need three basic tools.

1) How to form a tag question.

2) How to ask interesting, open ended follow up questions.

3) Basic body language reading skills.

First thing you need to do is approach casually, and stand a few yards from them for a couple of minutes.  Just find any old excuse to go hang out near their “space.” While you are standing there, notice something interesting about the environment. The trees, the weather, anything that makes you think, just a little bit, wow, cool. Let’s say you see a cool leaf on a tree. (This is just an example, if there are no trees in your situation, this probably won’t work out so well). Look at the leaf, imagine out how cool it is. Try and think of all the stuff that’s happened since the big bang, and here this leaf is right here, being all leafy.

Now you make your move. Bust out your brilliant tag question.

“Wow, that is a really cool leaf, isn’t it?”

Be sure when you say the “isn’t it” part, you don’t make it sound like a question. Make it sound like a statement. And smile. Next come your wicked body language skills. If the person responds with “um, yea” and looks like he or she just found a cockroach in their kool aid, then move on, the conversation is over. If they look at the leaf, and then at you, you’re in. Bonus points if they match your smile.

Next you ask your open ended question. About anything that’s easy to talk about, the surroundings, party, bar, study session, whatever.

“So what do you think about….” and insert any old topic. Then as he or she is speaking, watch their face for signs of life.  Whatever they say when their face lights up, grab it.

Watch them talk, watch their face, and ask them for more information about things they seem happy about. Nothing too personal. Some good questions are:

How do you feel about..

What do you like about…

What is your favorite part about…

Just pick out a few words here and there, follow up on them while you speak, and they will think you are the greatest conversationalist since Dale Carnegie. Make sure to throw your name out in there someplace, don’t wait for them to ask. They’re probably nervous. It’s not everyday people get approached by a wicked word master like you!

Make sure to come back often, and tell your friends, as I will be posting several “How To..” articles that can easily improve your life in many ways.

Instant Charisma

How would you like to be able to develop such powerful charisma that you naturally and automatically turn people’s heads when you walk into a room? How good would it feel to realize that people can’t wait to see you, talk to you, just hang around you? What happens when you imagine, now, all the reasons why having such incredible charisma can easily lead you to not only be able to achieve your goals more quickly, but almost unconsciously enlist the support of others in doing so?

Yea, yea, I know. Just about now, you’re probably wondering what it is that I might be trying to sell you. Or perhaps your are hoping that I have something to sell, so you can buy it, and immediately use it to create such powerfully wonderful feelings that you can’t help but to imagine how fantastic the world will change once you realize these largely overlooked truths.

Well, I have good news, and I have good news, depending on how you look at it. (Yea, I know, that doesn’t make any sense).

The first thing you might want to do is take a deep breath. Slowly. And another. And one more. Good. Now ask yourself.  What do I want? Got it? Ok. Now ask yourself again, what is important about that? Wait, it’ll come. Got it? Good.  Now one more time. Relax, no hurry. Take a deep breath if you need it. Ok. Ready? Ask yourself one more time, what is important about that?  These are called your values. And guess what, pretty much everbody can see the same values inside. Love. Respect. Safety. Recognition for a job well done. Acceptance. Peace.

And since you can now fully understand not only what other people want, but realize that it’s the same thing that you do, how many ways do you think you might look at people differently now? When you know, really know, that deep down, despite all of our differences, we share much more that we are even capable of imagining. And when you breath into that perspective, and look at people from that source of wisdom, what happens when you become aware that as you discover similarities in strangers that you’d never even noticed before, you will automatically be able to share an unconcious bond that can cut through all mistakenly percieved differences?

Not only will people wonder just exactly why you stand out, if only a little bit, but they will feel compelled to feel a desire to start a conversation with you just to see what you are all about.

So I’ll leave the choice up to you. Will you consciously take on this new perspective, and see how many ways you will discover it already making your life easier and smoother, or will you just stand back, and simply notice the obvious results?

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Blind Crow Lullaby

So I was walking up the steps to the Shinto Shrine in my neighborhood, when I heard this whoosh above my head. I looked up, and saw this big black crow gliding up in front of me, and then coming to rest on the branch of a large tree. I looked up, and saw two more crows sitting just beyond. Watching. Waiting. Images of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds flashed in my minds, along with an old Viking movie whose name I can’t remember where a guy got his eyes gouged out by some angry bird. Were they mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Did I anger the Shinto Gods? Lord have mercy, I hope not. I tried my crow call, (caw caw caw) which usually scares them away, but they don’t budge. They look at me. I’m certain ther’re deciding which eye to pluck out first before they send me plunging down the steps to a painful death.

I remember the first time I killed a crow. I was on my first ever hunting trip. Actually it was the only time I’d ever killed a crow. We went looking for doves, and a bunch of crows started flying overhead. Or a herd of crows or whatever you call a large number of crows flying in formation. I looked at my dad, and he gave me the go-ahead. So I closed my eyes, pointed my shotgun in the sky, and pulled the trigger. Naturally, because the crows were so thick, I hit one. I felt kind of bad. It’s not like the crow did anything to me. But from a skill standpoint, it was pretty easy. Close your eyes and shoot. Not nearly as a hard as I thought it would be.

It’s wierd when you think about it. That is how some people live their lives. You just go through, not giving much thought, and just close your eyes and shoot. I’m sure that most people, like you, have been able to consider at one time or another what would happen if you were to design your life. Instead of pulling the trigger and hoping to get something, you were able to develop a foolproof plan  that would make it almost impossible to not get what you want. Luckily, once you start to realize, now, how easy it is to set your sights on what you want, when you pull the trigger, you naturally can enjoy the benefits. And you know how to enjoy the benefits, do you not?

So after I got home, I looked up crows on google. Of course the first article that came up was how crows that hang out at shinto shrines have a tendency to eat peoples eyeballs when you least expect it. Go figure. Actually, that’s not what it said at all. It said that crows like to nest in places like small hills with lots of tall trees. And in when they have baby crows hatching, they suddenly become very aggressive and protective of their babies. I checked my watch, and sure enough, it was crow hatching season, not eyeball eating season. And here I was thinking the crows were gunning for my eyes, and they were thinking I had come to eat their children.  Now me and crows get along just great.

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Slumbering Thoughts on Self Reflexiveness

I wasn’t sure how we were going to manage. Or to be more specific, how I was going to manage. Because If I didn’t manage, we would likely die. We were on some windy road on the way up to some trailhead from which we were going to go on a multi day hike. Unless I fell asleep, which was fast becoming an inevitability, we would go a multi story crash to the earth. The only consolation was that we most likely not only not see it coming, as it was pitch black, but we would also die quickly and painlessly.  At least that’s what I’d hoped, or at least that’s what I probably had been planning on hoping had I fell asleep at the wrong moment. My friends of course were no help. All sleeping. The only company I had was the quickly lulling tones of In a Gadda Da Vida. It was way past the lyrics, and into the repetitive sleep inducing riff. No other stations came in. And I didn’t dare drive in silence.

There is an interesting story behind that song. I heard from an old roomate that one of the band members came home drunk one night, with a great idea for a song. And he said that because he was drunk, he slurred his words, and the song came out with the the words slurred. Funny how that works. If somebody does something, and they made a mistake while they were doing it, but they keep the mistake to themselves, nobody knows it’s a mistake, and they just keep repeating it over and over and over.

Like that one scene in Fight Club, where one of the characters was trying to get across the point that some dead guy was a real person, and they misunderstood and repeated his name over and over again. Now there was a movie based on a misunderstanding.  It was like a misunderstanding inside of a misunderstanding. 

It’s wierd when you have thoughts like that. Like you’re sitting there, now, reading all these letters put together to make words. And you can feel the feeling of yourself sitting in your chair. And you can see all the things on the outside of this particular column of words with your peripheral vision. And that, of course, leads you to think those thoughts. And thinking those thoughts, naturally, means that you have more thoughts about those thoughts, and even maybe about the thought before that. Until you can forget, now, the original thought that led to this one. Which is strange because just by choosing to point your thoughts in a direction that can lead you to realize that, most people, like you, can understand that thoughts produce results. And when you just take a breath, and feel the air going in and out of your lungs, you can choose good results that you want to be able to achieve easily, and by breathing that certain way, you can realize it’s not so hard after all. It actually can make it natural to live life easily.

But, yea, I was totally surprised when Ed Norton’s character and Brad Pitts’ were the same guy. When they were fighting after that part of the movie, I wasn’t really sure who to root for. I guessed it all worked out in the end, though.

And the views on the way back after our hike were incredible.  The cliffs were really high. Had I actually fallen asleep and crashed off the side, I might have woken up from fear for a little bit, and then probably fallen back asleep on the way down. My friends probably never would have noticed until after we were all dead. Then they would’ve probably been really mad at me.  All that planning, and we wouldn’t have been able to go hiking.

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