Category Archives: Model of the World

If You Ask, They Will Give

Once upon a time there was a magic restaurant, run by a retired wizard. He used to be a very powerful wizard, and though he would enjoy playing golf after he retired, but that was kind of boring. So he opened a restaurant. It was kind of a fast food place, but there were also tables that people could see waitresses bringing food. There were three guys that would always come by and stand outside the restaurant and look in, but they were afraid to go in because they didn’t have any idea what kind of restaurant it was, what kind of food it was, or even if it was a traditional restaurant, where you sit down and order, or a hybrid, where you place your order at the front, and then somebody brings it to your table, or where you place your order at the front and have to sit around and wait at the front for your order.

They three guys watched with great interest as they observed different people doing different things. Some people would walk in and order, and sit down and the food was brought to them, others stood and waited, and still others walked in straight away and sat down. Once they even saw somebody walk in, and linger around near the front, and then some woman came out and led him to a table.

The three guys that were watching tried to formulate a theory about how the restaurant operated. At first, they thought that the difference was due to the socio-economic level of the people that came walking to the shop. They assumed that rich, upper class people got served better and with more respect that poor lower class people. But then they saw a few guys in expensive suits walk in, place their order, wait at the front for the order to put placed own in front of them, and then carry it themselves to a table, that sometimes they had to even bus themselves a little bit before sitting down.

And they saw a couple guys walk in that seemed to be wearing very old, very inexpensive clothing, and even smelling as though they hadn’t showered in a while. They saw a few of these guys treated with ultra first class treatment.

Then they decided that maybe it was due to the level of attractiveness of the people that came in. They figured that really attractive and sexy men and women that came in would receive first class treatment, while normal guys and gals might get the brown bag treatment. Then they saw some average guys receive first class treatment, and some people that looked as though they could be models of movie stars waiting at the front for their orders, which they had to carry themselves back to the table.

After weeks and weeks sitting outside, and formulating theory and theory, only to see it disproved, they finally they decided to experiment. They drew straws to see who would go in first. They the guy that was chosen to go in first, was very nervous. He wasn’t sure how to act, or what to say. He walked in, and stood around the front, waiting to see if somebody would lead him to a table. Nobody did. Then he went up slowly, and noticed there were no menu boards above the registers. Why didn’t they notice this before? He slowly walked up to the counter. The girl behind the register smiled at waited. Nervous, frustrated, anxious, he turned and ran.

The next guy went in two days later, after much discussion, they looked through the windows, watching what people were eating. Finally they decided that he would walk in, and order a cheeseburger, french fries, and a coke. Then he would wait and see what would happen.

Finally, it was his turn to walk in. He was even more nervous that the first guy. He timidly walked up to the register, and ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke. The girl behind the register smiled, tapped a few buttons on the mysterious looking object, which they assumed had been a cash register, but now the second guy wasn’t so sure. Why hadn’t they noticed this before?

“For here or to go?” she asked helpfully.

He looked around, trying to get an idea of what to do. He saw beautiful waitresses taking orders from plain looking sitting patrons, he saw rich businessmen reading the newspaper waiting for their take out order.

“um, to go.” He managed, wanting to leave as quickly as possible. Before he knew it, his food was placed down in front of him in a non-descript paper bag. He grabbed it and left as quickly as he could

Now the three were more dumbfounded that ever. This something strange happened. The third guy saw his next door neighbor walk in, pause and two stunning waitresses came out and led him to a large booth next to a huge window with a view of a beautiful waterfall. Why hadn’t they noticed that before? They were shocked. They watched as the third guys next-door neighbor made his way through a seemingly exquisite fourteen-course meal, complete with some kind of French appetizer they thought was only an urban legend. Frustrated beyond belief, because the third guy new what an absolute dweeb his next door neighbor was, walked in, his frustration overpowering his anxiety and fears.

“I’d like the best table you have. And four of the most gorgeous waitresses that have ever walked the earth!” he proclaimed in a loud and confident voice.

Before he could even inhale after his outburst, four of the most gorgeous waitresses came walking out, wearing brilliant evening gowns.

“I want the largest booth in the place, with a view of the ocean.” He didn’t know why he asked for an ocean view, that’s just what came out.

“Certainly,” said the apparent head waitress. They led him to a booth, and he was amazed to see the most gorgeous beach view he could ever imagine.

Filled with confidence, he ordered every possible luxury item he could possibly think of. The waitresses merely scribbled furiously on their pads, and nodded their heads in agreement. After they left, he noticed his neighbor smiling, looking at him.

“This place is great, isn’t it? I don’t know how it works, but they will give you whatever you ask for. I don’t know why they don’t advertise this place; I guess they don’t want it to get too busy. You kind of have to figure it out on your own. But not matter what you want, all you have to do is ask for it, and they will be happy to give it to you. They funny thing is, is that if you are unsure of what you want, they will be unsure of what to give you, and then you’ll usually end up getting something that isn’t worth much of anything. But the more you know what you want, the more eager they will be to give it to you.”

For some reason, the third guy felt a little reluctant to tell his friends about his discovery. Some things, he reckoned, are much much more rewarding when you discover them on your own.

Know Your Truth

As you are sitting there, in your chair reading this article, you might begin to wonder that time in your life before you learned how to read, as you look at this letters strung together to make words and sentences. Because you don’t have to even think about reading this. It is just something that happens automatically, without even thinking about it.

But there was a time in your life, whether or not you can remember that now, I don’t know, when you couldn’t tell a “b” from a “d,” and maybe you even thought that an “a” was completely different and unrelated to an “A.” You just looked at all those squiggly lines, the same lines you are looking at now and understanding completely, as something completely incomprehensible.

Take a moment and imagine what that was like for you. You moved from a stage in life where something was completely obscure and inexplicable, and moved to now, when you can look at these letters as a normal part of every day life.

When you realize that this potential of yours, from moving from confusion to mastery, it not something restricted to your young years, but something that you can tap into on a regular basis, you will really notice pervasive changes being made in your life at an unconscious level.

When you really accept the idea the brain was really developed to be a life long learning machine, you can really start to appreciate the power that you have between your ears. Sure you can always choose to shuffle through life like most people, doing and thinking the same things every day, but you don’t have to.

You can choose to live in harmony with Infinite Intelligence, which is an all-encompassing ever-expanding expression of creation. When you accept this as your truth, you will naturally find yourself looking at the world a big differently.

People throughout history who have made this realization are the real creators of societies of old. Every time you choose to remember this truth, you will connected to intelligence far greater than you ever could possibly imagine.

You may think that this is a bit far fetched, but as you start to look around and find evidence of this, you can start to realize how much potential you really have. And you will learn how to exercise and apply your potential, just like you learned the ABC’s so easily when you were younger.

And one of the greatest things about new learnings and experiences is the profound impact they have on your identity, you self esteem, and your self-confidence. You really get an experiential knowing of what you can accomplish.

Of course, it’s not important to fully realize these truths now; you can decide to let them become part of who you are in your own time. There’s no rush. Infinite Intelligence has been around for quite some time (some might say even since before Infinity) and it will wait for to realize the truth of who you really are.

You can either choose to take these ideas immediately into your awareness, or you can choose to simply allow them to happen in their own time. Either way you are in for a profound change of viewpoint.

The question is how soon you will really begin to appreciate who you really are to the point of sharing your beautiful truth with others? Because the more you share, the more you receive. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Star Trek and Jesus, Have you Seen the Prequel?

I just recently saw the new Star Trek movie. As a huge fan of the original series, I was incredibly impressed. I loved all the small quick references to original episodes. Because of where I saw it, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the plot was understood by those who don’t know what it’s like to be a trekkie. One interesting thought I had while I was watching is how many successful stories and moves will sometimes come up with the idea of a “prequel.”

Of course there are as many exceptions as there are examples, but couldn’t help thinking of the idea of making a “prequel” after the original series becomes popular. The prequel series for Star Wars didn’t come about until nearly thirty years after the original series were released. A few years ago, the James Bond was re-written as a prequel. Just recently I saw a movie poster for “Underworld, The Beginning.” Because movies here are released sometimes several months behind the rest of the world, I don’t know of the original release date of this movie. Another recent popular movie/story that had a prequel released was Hannibal Rising.

I guess it’s part of human nature to want to know the origin of things. Maybe because when a story is first conceived, it is wholly conceived according to the classical intro/climax/resolution model. And because many times, after the conflict resolution, there isn’t much room for more story to please eager fans who want more, so a prequel is the only direction a writer can go. I’m sure you can think of a few stories or movies where the sequels were just not as thrilling or entertaining as the original. (Jaws comes to mind.) Perhaps writing a prequel allows for much more leeway in story creation, as in Star Trek. Or maybe humans are just naturally curious about where things come from. The more we learn about something, the more we want to find out the beginning.

When you write a prequel for a story, you aren’t bound by matching the new story to the original story. Because it is a prequel, it only has to end where the previous one began. And the more you tell a story, the further back you can go, and the more creative you can be with how the story began.

One very popular story (arguable the most popular story ever told) that comes to mind that fits this model perfectly is the story of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s generally agreed that the first gospel that was written was the Gospel of Mark, around 40 or 50 AD. Twenty years after the crucifixion. Since the crucifixion happened around 20 or 30 AD (the calendar we used to guess the date wasn’t invented until around 400 AD, so there is plenty of room for error,) most of the “story’ that was circulating around was by what they call “oral tradition.” People telling and retelling stories. The interesting thing about the gospel of Mark is that it doesn’t contain the birth of Jesus. At that point in the stories life, people were really only concerned with His teachings and crucifixion/resurrection. Only when the next two gospels appeared twenty years later (Luke and Mathew), did they contain a narrative regarding the nativity. It’s like the more the story about Jesus spread, the more people wanted to know where He came from. And as they spread, they naturally grew and evolved backwards in time, to include this information.

One of course has to wonder about the accuracy of any of these stories, as it consisted of orally passed on renditions of Gospel. I once watched a fascinating rendition of the Gospel of Luke performed by an actor who portrayed what he imagined was an accurate rendition of how this would have occurred two thousand years ago. He gave a compellingly fascinating monologue for about an hour as he described the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It was completely amazing, and would be fascinating to see how this particular story spread an evolved over time as talented orators two thousand years ago retold, embellished, added to and improvised on the story that we now call the Gospel. I think you have to agree that one thing that is always on a storytellers mind is how to keep the audiences attention throughout the monologue.

Of course the final Gospel, or at least the final Gospel that was included in the Latin Vulgate around three or four hundred AD, was written around 90 AD and borders on the metaphysical, but that’s another story.

I don’t know if this makes any sense to you, or whether or not you see a connection between the evolution of stories and the nature of human curiosity. Maybe something to keep in mind next time you watch or read a prequel.

Choose Your Beliefs for Effortless Success

I was surfing the interwebs the other day and came across an interesting podcast. Some guy was talking about beliefs, and how they are really an interesting concept that, unfortunately, most people don’t give a second thought. They work as presuppositional filters on the reality that is outside our consciousness. The way they work is by separating out information that doesn’t match with what we think is true.

This is due to our evolutionary past. When we were in an area that was populated by red spotted tigers, our ancestors would quickly learn that they were dangerous. The brain was then programmed with a collection of information, sounds complex mathematical visual representations. If a red spotted tiger was detected by any one of our senses, it would automatically trigger a fight or flight induced panic, giving us the energy to run away. Conversely, when we lived in an environment which had a small green fruit that was extremely tasty and provided long term energy, that became important as well. So when our ancestors were out walking around and spotted one or a bunch of these out of the corner of their eyes, they immediately felt hungry and remembered how good these things taste.

Because humans can be so flexible and adaptable (arguably this is why we were the ones Mother Nature chose to give such big brains to,) we lived in several different environments. Because of this, we developed the capability of shifting the desirable and undesirable things in our environment for our brains to be on the lookout for. In one place and one generation, it might have been lions and purple fruits. In another place, and another generation, it might have been huge flying predators and small animals that were delicious.

So how does this affect you, and moreover, how can you profit from it? This is how beliefs work. Despite living in a modern society, where we have police to protect us from predators and grocery stores to provide us with all the food that we need, we still have these filtering mechanisms in our brains. These filtering mechanisms come into play when we have certain beliefs. The scary thing is, sometimes these beliefs can be self-sustaining. That is, if we believe a certain thing (even though it isn’t true) and see random events, which we take to be “proof” of these untrue beliefs, they reinforce the belief, making it harder to get rid of. Let’s say you believe that members of the opposite sex find you disgusting. You go through out your day, and because this belief has been programmed strong enough, you will only find evidence of it being true. Just like our cavemen ancestors only saw the purple fruits and ignored the rest, you will only register and remember the one odd fellow out of a hundred that behaves in a way that might be considered loathsome towards you. This of course reinforces the belief, which depressed you, changes your behavior, and actually invites behavior from others that reinforce this belief.

How about another example. You read the papers, watch the news, and decide the economy is in shambles. You go out, and only notice expensive things you can’t afford, people on the street begging for money, shops having going out of business sales, and so on. This reinforces this belief, and directly affects your ability to make money. What happens when you realize that even in a down economy, there are plenty of people making money? What do they believe about the economy? Many believe a down economy is the best time to start a new business venture, because you are getting in on the ground floor of future growth. Many people learn to see a down economy as an opportunity for wealth, rather than a scary situation.

The bottom line is you have two choices. You can choose to let your beliefs be set by others, and wander through life reacting to the world. Or you can sit down, spend a few hours, and choose powerful beliefs you would like to be true. For example, how would you feel if you believed you could easily make lots of money? How would it feel if you could easily persuade people to your way of thinking? How would it feel if you believed you were a highly talented writer, or musician, or actor? How would your life change for the better?

Although it does take effort, and time, the results are powerfully rewarding. You can either drift through life and hope to get lucky, or you can choose your beliefs, and go out and find (or make!) evidence of their truth. The longer you keep at this, the sooner the beliefs will start to sink in to an unconscious level, operating automatically.

This is where the magic really starts to happen.

Imagining Words Can Be Reflecting Truth

Last night I was walking home from this bar. It was a bar I’d never been to before, but a few of my friends convinced me to go, since it was fairly new and didn’t have huge crowds. You could still hang out with a few friends, have a decent conversation, and enjoy the interesting international food they had. They also have about thirty different beers on tap from all over the world. It’s interesting when new bar opens up in a part of town that has lots of bars. If you start going there before it becomes popular, you are the only person there, so you feel like you are in the wrong place, even if you are with a group of friends. If you wait until it is the hippest bar in town, you can forget about every getting a table unless you go there at two in the afternoon. This place where I went last night was just at the perfect spot on a bars rise to prominence. Just the right amount of people to feel like you are in a popular spot, but not so crowded as to feel like each time you see the waitress she is in some kind of hurry to fill your order so they can make room for the next customer.

So after several drinks and appetizers of various ethnicities, we decided to part ways. I don’t remember what time it was, but it was later than the last train, so I had to find my way back to the main station to catch a taxi home. Since I was in an unfamiliar part of town, I kind of meandered around through alleys and side streets. I wasn’t too worried about what time I made it back, and crime in my cit is relatively low, so I just was kind of content to wander around and lazily make my way back home. You know how you do that, when you have a vague destination in mind, but you aren’t really concerned with how or when you will arrive. For some reason you just want to take your time with this, and enjoy the experience. Sometimes I think it’s times like this that are the most rewarding, because for some reason you can be open to opportunities that you would normally overlook.

Once I was driving to a friend’s house. He was having a party so I wasn’t really concerned with what time I got there. It was a bit of a drive, and he was a good friend from a ways back, so I knew there would be a couch or a spare room I would be able to use. So I was just taking my time driving through the mountain roads, stopping here and there to check out the views. He had just bought a nice house up in the mountains, and I had never been there before, so I wanted to take my time and enjoy the scenery along the way. Sometimes we go through life just too fast with tunnel vision, missing out on all the cool stuff that is around you.

So there I was looking through the windows of closed shops when I saw him. Or heard him, as he came up from behind me. Judging by his voice, he was a good 5 or six meters behind me, and I could see his vague reflection the glass of the retro clothing shop window I was trying to look through. (I don’t know why, I’ve never really been a fan of retro clothing.) He said something that was both vague and interesting. Vague in that I didn’t know exactly what he meant by it, and interesting in that I wanted to turn around.

“You can take small steps when necessary.” Is what he said.

“Excuse me?” I asked, turning around slowly.

“Small steps. I don’t know where you are going, how could I, but you seem to be going somewhere. Some people have a fear of moving in the direction of their destination, afraid that they will make a mistake. But you can take small steps if you need to. That way if you make a miscalculation of direction, you can easily change course to put yourself quickly back on track.”

“Oh, um, thanks.” I said, still not sure what he was talking about. He seemed to want to say something else, so I waited for him to speak.

“Awaken from the dream.” He finally said, after giving me a seemingly long once over.

“Huh? What dream?” I asked, checking the palms of my hands for some reason.

“That which you fear, that which you think you are afraid of, that which you think you lack, is all an illusion. You have everything you need. Right here, right now. You don’t need anything else. Everything you see comes from within.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that, so for some reason I turned and looked back inside the vintage clothing. I was surprised to see that his reflection was no longer there. When I spun around, he was gone. A thousand questions ran through my mind. Was I imagining it? Had I drank too much? Was I too sleepy? Suddenly it hit me. Whoever, or whatever he was, it didn’t matter. It really didn’t matter, because I had a feeling that the words he spoke made sense. And when you think about it, the speaker of the words is really different than the words themselves. After a while, the words themselves are all that matters, so you can imagine this speaker as being whoever you want. And that can open the door to all kinds of opportunities. Now.

Are You In Sync with Infinite Intelligence?

This morning I was talking to my neighbor. Sort of my neighbor. She lives about three streets over, and has a huge rice field in her back yard. I live out in the countryside, and it’s not uncommon to see many houses that have pretty big sized rice fields next to their house. It’s kind of an old world traditional thing here that keeps people connected to their roots, so to speak. Lately people around here have been preparing the fields for planting rice, so they’ll be ready to harvest in fall. It’s interesting to watch the fields slowly, one by one, transform from lots of unkempt dirt and weeds, leftover from last season, into flat, tilled earth. And then flooded with water to soak deep into the ground, and then finally when they plant the seedlings. Then it’s only a matter of time before the result comes.

I went to a business seminar once, and the instructor was saying how creating a successful business is exactly like being a successful farmer. Many people start business with some vague hopes and only a partial understanding of the laws of human behavior. He said that when you have a clear outcome, and a solid understanding of human behavior, then your success would be inevitable. He went through a few examples of successful entrepreneurs that applied these principles. They knew exactly what they wanted, so much so that when it appeared, there was no misunderstanding. One of the dangers of not having a clear outcome is that when your wish comes true, you might not notice it. If you are having a bad day, or you just got into an argument with your boyfriend, you might not notice that what you’ve been working towards for so long is sitting here waiting for you to take advantage of this.

Farmers, on the other hand, know exactly what they want. They know how much they can sell a bushel of wheat for, and exactly what acreage is needed to produce exactly that much wheat. And they know exactly how to prepare the soil, and plant and feed the wheat, and when it’s ready to be picked. It’s like they buy a book on how to grow wheat and go to bed every night wishing the gods of wheat would visit them in the middle of the night and make the wheat magically appear. Sadly, too many people treat their business ventures that way. Especially folks that are starting a business for the first time.

One of the things that the instructor told us is that even if you don’t have a solid understanding of human behavior, if you have a solid goal in mind, and sufficient motivation and patience and drive to take you there, that will be enough. You jut have to be open to learn from your mistakes and be able to make adjustments along the way. One thing that he recommended was to dig underneath your motivations for that particular business, and find your underlying criteria for running our own shop instead of working for somebody else. He suggested once you have that, then you can shift your goals from being successful in that particular venture, to simply being a successful business owner. He explained that many successful businesses were started by people that had failed in several businesses before they became ultra successful. I think the average successful entrepreneur had five or six business failings before they finally hit their stride and began reaping the real rewards they were after. Persistence pays. This was due to their underlying belief in themselves, and their burning desire to be successful on their own.

So anyway, my neighbor was explaining to me the ins and outs of being a successful rice farmer. She started telling me how when she was a kid, she would sit and listen to her father tell her stories that his uncle told him and his brothers when they were kids. How you have to have a respect for nature and nature’s laws. And that how knowing and respecting natures laws is really not so difficult when you can embrace the cyclic nature of everything. Kind of like when you are on a swing and you swing your legs back and forth with just the right timing to get you higher and higher. Being able to pay attention to the cycles of nature, and not trying to control them, as so many people think you can do, but to respect and learn from them, and move in sync with them. Because when you move in sync with nature, you are moving in sync with the most powerful force in the universe.

And when you start to understand that people are also and expression of that infinite power of the universe, moving in sync with nature takes on a whole new range of possibilities.

Beware of Dangerous Ideas – Or Why You Shouldn’t Drop a Grilled Cheese

Last weekend I went to this really interesting seminar. It was vaguely marketed as a personal development seminar, and a friend of mine who went a few years ago had been raving about it for so long that I finally gave in and signed up. I don’t usually sign up for things like this only by a friend’s recommendation, I usually like to do research from several different sources to find out about what I think I might get involved in. Usually seminars like this turn out to be pretty good. I’ve had other friends try and recruit me to sign up for their seminars, or seminars that they have attended and feel some kind of a strange desire to tell people about. Kind of like the idea behind the seminar gets into their head somehow and they feel a need to spread it, like a virus or something.

Like this book I was reading recently about these things called “memes.” Memes are something that was invented by Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist. Actually he didn’t invent them, he coined the term, or thought up the idea, or made it up while he was sitting in his Jacuzzi. The concept behind the idea is that there are these things that are “units of cultural information” that get passed on from person to person. Like the specific directions of how to fold an origami, or how to make a sloe gin fizz. As these units spread from person to person, they become more popular, and pretty soon everybody is folding Japanese paper and drinking English gin. Some of these “units of information” are really popular, and others are not so popular. For example, I think everybody knows about or knows somebody who knows something about the idea of breaking a mirror equals bad luck. Some place in history, you could break a mirror and it wasn’t considered unlucky. Maybe dangerous, if there were a bunch of people walking around barefoot, but not unlucky. Then one day, somebody came up with the idea of breaking a mirror is unlucky. Maybe somebody broke a mirror right before they lost a big bet on a horserace, or somebody was shaving, and slipped and banged their forehead into the mirror just as the giant earthquake hit that reversed the course of the Mississippi River. Whatever it was, somebody (perhaps the mirror breaker himself) assumed the mirror caused the bad luck, he went and told all his friends, and the meme was born.

Some memes of course, never make it past puberty. Like maybe somebody was eating a grilled cheese, and he dropped it on the floor, and then it started to hail unexpectedly. So he went and told all his friends that if you dropped your grilled cheese it will start to hail, and all his friends laughed and said he was crazy, and that particular meme died then and there. Or maybe they all believed him, and then rushed home and dropped grilled cheeses on purpose only to find that it didn’t hail. Or maybe something completely different.

So my friend went to this really crazy seminar, and he seemed to be trying really hard to convince me to go. Like the particular meme of that seminar had a really strong reproductive urge built into it. My friend was a little bit overzealous, as I kept asking him for specific reasons why the seminar was so great, and he just giving me vague reasons. He didn’t become suddenly rich, or lose a bunch of weight, or learn any Jedi magic skills or anything. Maybe they brainwashed him or something. But he did everything else normally, but whenever the topic of that particular seminar came up, he just got this crazy glazed look on his eyes, like those pod people from that old black and white movie, and started telling me I should join. He even said that when you join, you get an advisor, and you are supposed to tell people about the wonderful truth. What really turned me off was when he said that the more seminars you go to, the more you want to go to and recruit more people. I didn’t really hang out with him very much after that, and for a while I kept checking for large pods under my bed at night.

But the recent seminar was different. My friend that convinced me to go didn’t seem to have anything particular invested in me going. She kept saying it was a good seminar, and gave me a bunch of websites for me to check out so I could make my own decision. She was confident that if I did my own research, I would come to the same conclusion that she did. Of course when I Googled the name of the seminar, I found a few sites dedicated to saying it was scam and all that, but there were a lot more of other websites where people were saying that they had achieved good results.

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy learning new things and finding ways to make life easier and more rewarding. And it’s really good when you find something like this that can do that. You want to share it with your friends not because you feel some kind of a brainwashed obligation, but because you can really see the value and think your friends might as well. And the best part is that you can trust your friends to make up their own minds, knowing that the best way to maintain a friendship is to share mutual trust and respect.

What God do You Worship?

I read an interesting paper on the Internet the other day. It was a long, academic treatise on the difference between males and females. I won’t bore you with the details, but the gist of it was that men are better at some things than women, and worse at other things. And women are better at some things, and worse at other things. I know, really breathtaking breakthrough, right? The interesting things, or one of the interesting things about the paper, which actually was transcribed from a speech the guy gave, was some interesting thing they found out through genetic research. Doing some kind of advanced genetic testing, the methods of which are way over my head, they discovered something really interesting. All humans, judging only by their DNA, have way more female ancestors than they do male ancestors.

Of course if you look at one person, then obviously they have to have an equal number of males and females. Mom and dad, grandma and grandpa and however many greats you want to add on down the line until you get to the proverbial (or not so proverbial, according to your belief system) Adam and Eve. But when you combine groups of people, they find they the females start to outnumber the males when you go back further into history.

What this means is that going way, way back in time, most of the kids were made by a relatively small group of males, and a generally large group of females. This of course, predates modern society, so we are talking about many thousands of years of pre-history. By this guy’s estimation, all of us collectively come from 40% of the males of history, and 80% of the females. Until very recently in human history, it was a sad fact that most males, and a few females didn’t ever get together with somebody long enough to produce a child.

Some have argued that when large societies were created, this became a problem, as so many males together competing for the females more often than not turned into violence and disaster. It wasn’t a problem when you had hunter-gatherers in groups of fifty or a hundred or so. But when they invented agriculture, and lots of people started living together, it became a problem. They needed to come up with a system. A one man, one woman system that would keep guys from braining each other to death whenever they passed each other on the street.

So how to the guys who were in the 40 percent from taking all the girls for themselves? How to create a system so the other 60 percent wouldn’t feel left out and conspire to destroy society? What beautiful method did they come up with to keep everybody in check? Yep.

Religion.

That’s right. As sacrilegious as it sounds, religion was invented so that everybody could get laid. That was God’s original job. To make sure there was enough sex to go around for everybody, and those that were naturally good at it (for whatever the reason) wouldn’t take more than their fair share.

So what happened? What happened after they invented the giant all seeing, all knowing eye in the sky to keep watch over everybody so they wouldn’t kill each other over a woman? Society flourished. Great temples and Churches and works of art were built. Art, music, literature were created. Giant cities were built. The Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the bold and daring journeys of Zheng He, Magellan, and Columbus.

Something to think about next time you’re in church, if that’s your thing.

Here’s a link to the article, and here’s a link to a YouTube video I recently made on the subject. Enjoy.

Pay Attention to the Wisdom of Your Mind

As you are sitting there now, reading these words, feeling those feelings in that chair, you can begin to notice the sounds around you. And as you expand your awareness to the sounds around you, you might begin to notice certain sensations that you hadn’t noticed before. The feeling in your left leg, the feeling behind your right ear, the sensations on the bottom of your feet. And as you feel those sensations, and hear those sounds around you, you may begin to remember memories of things that happened before. Memories that you hadn’t remembered to think about until now. Happy memories, pleasant memories. You might begin to recall ideas you had from before that you hadn’t begun to follow through on yet. Ideas like this one, or that one, that seemed like a wonderful thing, a wonderful idea of something that you could do or say or express, and then somehow something else happened, and that wonderful idea went to the back of your mind, where it’s been waiting ever since, for you to come here and remember it.

One of the good things about memories is that the really good ones have a tendency to come out more often than others. Some of these disguise themselves as “bad” memories that you don’t want to think about. Like one day you’ll be doing something that you normally do every day, and one of “those” thoughts will pop into your head and you’ll realize after you’ve thought this thought for a few moments that it isn’t a particularly happy thought, and you wonder why it keeps running around and around in your head if you don’t like thinking it.

The reason I use the word ‘disguise’ is because they are actually trying to help you in some way. Sometimes a thought will origin with the intention of pointing out something to you, and it will grab whatever metaphorical memories that it thinks will help you out the most. Often times these metaphorical memories are rather mysterious, and instead of looking for the underlying message, we tend to try and force the ‘bad’ thought out of our minds.

I had a friend once that was a really spiritual person. She was always wearing different colored crystals and practicing different forms of meditation. I went to a lecture once with her of this guy that was some mystical guru from India. It was at this new age center downtown in the city I was living at the time. There were several very interesting people there, and they were all from different disciplines and areas of expertise. It was interesting because the guru from India gave his message using lots of metaphorical terms that could be use to apply to many different situations. After the lecture, we went out with a couple of her friends to a Pakistani restaurant nearby. It’s interesting when you find things are close by that you didn’t know before. Kind of like finding related things when you didn’t have any idea these things have anything to do with each other.

So while we were eating, one of her friends started telling me about his spiritual guide. Now as soon as he started talking about a spiritual guide, I was reminded of an interesting religious ceremony I witnessed once while in Taiwan. I was at friends house, which happened to be next door to a temple. My friend’s uncle owned the temple, and my friend and her family lived in the house. One of her older relatives (I think) stood in front of the alter at the temple, and then started mumbling a bunch of really incoherent speech, at least it was incoherent to me. My friend calmly explained that he was channeling entities from some other Buddhist plain of existence. I wasn’t sure what to think about this so I just kind of watched with interest. He went on like this for about ten minutes, until he finished and left.

So this guy says that when he communities with his spiritual guide, his guide sometimes gives him direct suggestions, and ideas. Other times his guide speaks only in pictures that sometimes takes him several days to understand. He says that everybody has a spiritual guide, even if they don’t know it. He said that most people’s spirit guides try and communicate to the person based on the person’s own belief system and upbringing. This where the Catholic Church got the idea of Guardian Angels (which is an official belief in the Catholic Catechism).
He went on to say that the secret in correctly interpreting your spirit’s communication is to be open, and to trust your mind to come up with the right answer.

Which it’s good to always pay attention to your stray thoughts, because you never can be sure where they are coming from.

Making Connections can lead to Engaging Ideas

So I was sitting in the airport, waiting for my friend to come through the gate. The airport I was wasn’t an international one, just one that has domestic flights to different parts of country. My friend, however was coming from a connecting flight from an airport that was a major international hub. Because the island I live on doesn’t have an international airport, you can’t fly here directly from outside the country. You have to make a connection.

Some people don’t like to make connections. I remember I had a connection once in Seoul, where I had to wait for about ten hours. I don’t know if you’ve stayed ten hours in an airport where you were stuck in the international section, but it’s pretty boring. Because you are only passing through, and not staying, you can’t really go outside, because you’d have to go through customs, and figure out what to do with your bags, and it is generally a big hassle. Of course if you have to stay in such a boring section of an airport with uncomfortable seats, and only one channel on TV, then you can figure out a way to go outside your comfort zone and explore what is outside. There can be some pretty cool stuff out there sometimes.

Other people will go to great lengths to avoid making a connection. I don’t know if they think that making a connection is an inconvenience, or something bad will happen, like they might lose something. Sometimes people can’t help, despite how hard they try but to make a connection. Personally, I think connections can e really good. They can really make a trip more enjoyable. It adds to the distance between where you are coming from, and where you are going. Some people would just like to disappear at point A, and then reappear at point B. For them, traveling is a nuisance to be avoided at all costs. I suppose if you were going to an important business meeting where people would be discussing life and death situations of profits and mergers and other issues, you might want to stay focused, and teleport yourself there. But when you are traveling for fun, I think connections are fantastic.
The most elaborate sequence of connections I made was for a seminar I went to on an island in Belize. First I flew from LAX to Miami. Then I took another big plane from Miami to the Capital of Belize. Then I took a small chartered plane from the capital of Belize to the island. Then, because the part of the island I was going to wasn’t connected by enough land to build a road, I had to wait for a taxi boat to take me to my final destination. Then I had to walk through sand to get to my bungalow. It really made feel like I was in a completely different world. Los Angeles seemed like a whole other side of the galaxy, a million light years in the past.

Some connections can be long, some can be short, others can be really interesting and unexpected. Somebody I was talking to in an airport bar told me that connections aren’t really a hindrance, they’re really are a conspired sequence of people and events that are helping you to get where you are going. And it’s pretty cool knowing that wherever you want to go, you’ll likely run across a secret group of people to pop out of nowhere and help you along the way.
Who knows, you may even be one of these secret people that can pop out of nowhere to help somebody else.

When my friend finally showed up, she was really glad to be here. I asked her if she had any jet lag, and all she said was that although she had remembered thinking before she left that she might have jet let when she got here, she didn’t think her jet leg was nearly as bad as she had predicted before left. Which just goes to show, that when you get something new, like this, you can’t help but wonder why you didn’t discover this before, simply because you were able to make the connection.