The Heroic Spirit of Manhood and Peoplehood

On July 1934, the messages, inherent style, and defining parameters of American cinema dramatically changed. “Under duress at the urging of priests and politicians, Hollywood’s “Hays Office” established a Production Code, dubbed the Magna Charta of decency, that would forever, “systematically and scrupulously” regulate elements of film such as “sex, vice, violence, and moral meaning” (Doherty 1). While the post-Code era launched off what is known as the Golden Age of film, the pre-Code films exhibited a unique eccentricity. With an original unbridled salaciousness, moral creativity, and inventiveness, the pre-Code films were seriously from another universe. One of the largest impacts of this pre-Code film era, according to Mick Lasalle, is based in how Hollywood defined images of manhood.

In his discussion of the difficulties in defining manhood, Lasalle writes, “the concept of manhood is too imposing, associated with heroics and domination” (Lasalle 1). While his message of the ideal image of manhood possesses nebulous characteristics holds true, his mentioning of heroism is a bit askew. The heroic nature does not detract from, but adds to the vitality and admiration of any role.

Joseph Campbell writes how, after the stages of a heroic journey – introduction to ordinary world, call to adventure, reluctance, encouragement from the wise, passing the threshold, encounters tests and helpers, reaches the innermost cave, endures the supreme ordeal, seizes the sword, returns back, resurrects, returns with the elixer – the hero is imparted with an incredible gift. The elixer bears prescient knowledge, wisdom, certainty of purpose or “some lesson from the special world”. Campbell writes that the elixer could simply be awareness of the existence of a special world, love, treasure, or just returning with a good story to tell. But the point is the heroic journey brings back gifts -- bounties of inveterate moral goodness -- making the heroic nature of manhood is a very prosperous, admirable quality. Heroism is neither an obligatory process nor a debilitating characteristic, but its process is crucial; it is an honorable component of manhood.

No one should ever feel an obligation to dominate or feel that, as Disraeli wrote, “youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret”. Get out of my face Disraeli. The British statesman, Benjamin Disraeli could not possibly be more wrong in his erroneous logic.

Youth should be a miracle; manhood a journey; and old age a reflection of happiness. Additionally, we experience all of these stages – youth, old age, and manhood – not necessarily in chronological order. One could experience miracles in their old age, and reflect in their early years or in any combination of the youth, manhood, old age sequence. The sequence of youth, manhood, and old age are given more detail in Shakespeare's discussion of the stages of life, divided into seven classifications of growth --

• The Infant
• The Schoolboy
• The Lover
• The Soldier
• The Judge
• The Retired Wiseman person
• The Withered Old Person

These archetypes can be observed in the following soliloquy spoken by Jaques from As You Like It (II.vii):

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining Morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwilling to school. And then the lover,
Signing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and beard like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the Justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacle on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning toward childish treble,
Pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is the second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Although this Shakespearean sonnet displays linguistic elegance and captivating phrasing, its complex message may need some deciphering. Basically, good ‘ol Shakes’ is saying that throughout our “strange eventful history” (life) we, chronologically go through seven ages of a:

The "seven ages", according to Shakespeare, however, are more than simple archetypes. They are parts in the play of life. Shakespeare felt that one must change the part they play on the world’s stage many times. To be more exact – seven times. And while each of those seven actors is unique for each person, carrying a personally unique agenda, characteristic, emotion set, and profile, each of the seven ages -- like Campbell's stages of heroism -- marks a stage in developing journey of manhood and of peoplehood.

Everyone has their own Bible for defining the stages of life -- the chronology of manhood. The psychological spin brings up Erik Erikson. About 340 years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, the famous psychologist, Erik Erikson created the seven stages of human psychological growth. Similar to roles that we play on stage, as designated by the famous playwright, these psychological stages start off when we are born and progress through our life until death. They include:

1. Trust vs. Mistrust
   
2. Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
   
3. Initiative vs. Guilt
   
4. Industry vs. Inferiority
   
5. Identity vs. Identity Confusion
   
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation
   
7. Integrity vs. Despair
   

The item on the left is always the desired trait, whereas the item on the right is the result of not performing or “becoming” the item on the left. This weaves in nicely to Shakespeare because Erikson’s stages are a “to be or not to be” prototype. You either, for example, become industrious, or become inferior; you either become autonomous or revert to shamefulness and self-doubt.. Just as Shakespeare was no doubt alluding to the power of choosing “to be”, Erikson has a similar message over three centuries later.

So we have the three classifications of Disraeli, Campbell's steps of the heroic adventure, Shakespeare's seven actors in the stage of life, and Eriksons seven tiers of psychological growth all defining manhood. Campbell's journey of the hero definitively defines the evolution of manhood as something adventurous, heralding great treasure and challenge. The shakespearean actor blueprint of infant to withered old man signifies the constant presence of performance, acting, and transition in life. The Eriksonian 7-stage development of psychological growth or maladaptive fixation clarifies the necessity of moving forward to ensure psychological growth. Then there's was Disraeli's tripartite classification of youth, manhood, and old age.

With the exception of Campbell's procession of heroic steps and possible Erikson's procedural stages of development, all of these archetypes have the potential to be anachronistic, occur with variable duration, and lack mutually exlusivity. The anachronistic nature of the eras of life means you can experience a Judge before being a Lover or be forced to decide between Intimacy and Isolation before experiencing an Eriksonian Initiative vs. Guilt phase. Because they occur with variable durations, you could be in Youth for 50 years and Manhood for 10, or be in the Encounters tests phase for 20 years and in the Resurrection phase for 4 months, for example. Finally, they are mutually exclusive -- meaning that there is the possibility for overlap. You could be simultaneously be experiencing the Returns Back episode of the hero's journey, while also in the Schoolboy stage, or you could experience Youth simultaneously with Manhood, for example. The chronological sequence, duration and timing of occurence, and the potential for overlapping circuits depends on how focused one is on their life's trials and tests, your commitment to understanding the self and the world, the capacity for compassion, and the sincerity of purpose.

Whatever stage you are at, whether or not the stages are occurring simultaneously or out of order, ideally they should be occurring chrnologically. Frequently, if a person develops a fixation, or neglects a portion of their growth do the phases skip or get stuck on "replay" or something. But life is a process of growth and no one surges through the circuits of life in a few years -- the stages of life take lifetimes. One shouldn't look at being "stuck at one phase" as problem -- that blockage is your life work and, therefore, a barrier is an indication that you could be tremendously on your path into the journey of manhood and peoplehood.

It is important to note that generally the circuits of life -- Shakespearean, Disraeli, Erkisonian, or Campbellian -- always occur in the defined, chronology sequence. There exist fortune-telling flickers of the future phases or past relapses of previous stages, but these are often quick, subtle, dicey episodes or anachronistic jumpstarts. These blips in the processional -- normal sequential pattern -- of the life chronology ircuits could be disturbing ruptures, illuminating visions, or brilliant experiences of things to come. How the blips are interpretted and the duration of each blip depends on whether or not the person rejects or embraces the new circuit, their personality (whether are not they are suited for each experience), and their capacity to adapt with evolutionary intelligence. However, the grand consummation is understanding that eventually all phases occur simultaneously not in some chaotic quagmire but in a scintillating dance of expansive journey coupled, simultaneously, with destination. Therefore, manhood and peoplehood is a simultaneous journey and destination -- a constant process of singular episodes of travel and arrival.

Roosevelt is right on when he mentions the stalwart necessity of needing the “iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done”. The fierce tenacity of the indomitable spirit must be the indelible mark not just of man, but of any person.



Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. New Jersey, Princeton U P, 1949.
Doherty, Thomas. Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: Columbia U P, 1999.
www.nytimes.com/books/first/d/doherty-hollywood.html.
Lasalle, Mick. Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of Modern Man.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002.

Trying too Hard or Not Hard enough

I have been told before that I work too hard. Why is it that the assiduous are told they are working too hard more often than the lazy are not working hard enough? How can you judge that work ethic -- that assiduous commitment -- has reached a maximum level? Indications of over-exertion are burnout, struggling, burning more rubber than going forward, but what's more important is looking for indications of people not trying hard enough. Some of those symptoms are criticizing others, disparaging externally to wallow in one's own impassiveness. In other words, if you go around telling people they are working too hard, you are exhibiting a symptom of not working hard enough yourself. People who lack diligence and self-discipline, and, thus, independent productivity, are intimidated by those with a high work ethic. If someone is "working too hard" that should be inspiring to push and motivate yourself to a higher dimension not a provocation of fear. You can evaluate the alignment of your own beliefs this way. People who work harder than others are not better and certainly not superior to those who lack work ethic, but the people who can push themselves possess more self-sufficiency and independence, and that self-reliance generates happiness.

It is only the lethargic souls and the spiritless minds that are deterred by people pushing themselves; self-discipline and people exerting themselves in productive ways is electrifying. If you watch the Olympics you could easily say those Figure skaters, ski jumpers, slalom racers, and snowboarders try way to hard, because after all the only reason why the arrived at where they are is because of trying to hard. But trying hard generates excellence. There is of course a balance. There is a japanese word wu wei, or "non-action" which is doing without doing, achieving without trying. But that takes tremendous focus and is, in a way, the highest form of "trying" because it is executing an action with such grace that it is instantaneously successful.

If you find yourself inspired by someone else's perseverance, your beliefs are independently motivated and lucidly harmonized. If you find yourself disgusted by people pushing themselves, you are programmed for failure. Olympians, top CEOs, the most prolific writers, and breakthrough architects, and the artists who create masterpieces all push themselves "too hard", while others criticized their fervent, passionate work ethic. Let's examine who's not working hard enough instead of trying to impede those who are independently charged and sincere about their work.

Action not Decision

The impassive process of decision-making generates the illusion of choice. Meaning that you can't make decisions. No one ever makes decisions; people just take action. Action is the only way things ever get accomplished, initiated, and done. You finish things and start things by taking action not be deciding or making a decision. You generate initiative from commitment, not choice. Decisions are illusory. Action is reality.

Just as no one is ever doing "nothing" (i.e. you're always breathing, cells are reproducing, heart is pumping, even if you're dead, you're laying horizontally, which is, technically, something). People never make decisions; you are always taking action.

Embrace the Karass, Discard the Granfalloon

You assimilate with people surrounding you, and manufacture symmetry with the beings you frequently encounter. Through a psychology transparency you either adapt and assume through simulation or mimicry, the qualities you prefer, or resiliently choose to not acquire qualities your detest. This social vehicle of the people you interact with, live with, work with, have recreation with ideally should be a karass not a granfalloon.

According to Kurt Vonnegut, a karass is a spontaneous, serendipitously orchestrated group -- “a team that do[es] God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing.' The momentum for a karass is caused in time and space by the tensions of the souls in that company. While the productivity and the participation in a karass occurs unbeknownst to the batch of people of a karass, the karass accepts the unknown. Through its mastery of embracing unknown, the karass, while formed via unpredictable connections and links, truly gets very important things done. The granfalloon, on the other hand, is the false karass. The composition of the granfalloon is of bureaucratic structures, identification cards, pre-planned deadlines and lots of policy and paper-pushing. The granfalloon “is meaningless in terms of the way God gets things done”. While finding yourself in a karass is an inherently unpremeditated and impromptu experience, such a collaboration is intuitively unifying and spiritually successful.

Whatever the group in which you most frequently participate -- karass or granfalloon --within that batch of folks, you instinctively watch and decide if you like or dislike their appearance (clothing, hairstyle, physical shape), health diet and nutrition choices, workout schedule, spiritual clarity, meditation), profession (medicine, acting, music are things I love, for example -- also there's business, psychology, academia), their vocational motivation (if they work for activity, money, challenge, philanthropy), biorhythms (when they sleep, when they wake up), recreational habits (when they party, how they party, where they take recreation) and you either adapt with those and develop them or reject them and continue with your own agenda.

For example, if you frequently interact with a rowdy fraternity group, they could wear sweatshirts and business clothing, live off pizza, have recreation by having kegs of beer and loud music, exercise at a gym, and work in a cubicle. If you experience the company of a spiritual guru priest, for example, he or she may wear ironed robes, eat all hand-cooked vegetable foods, workout on a regular schedule in nature walks with meditation, work for benevolence, rise and sleep with the sun, and have recreation by indulging in a feast or reading enlightening scriptures. You must be selective about wanting to, for example, exercise in a gym or with nature, read scripts or watch television, work in a cubicle or work at a podium, or be a pizza-eater or vegetarian. One is not better than the other generally, but personally it makes all the difference. Our bodies respond positively and negatively to different substances. We must discern with a distinct selection process which people, foods, habits, environments, professions, and devices cripple us and which ones proliferate happiness.

The qualities you desire to integrate into your life are cultivated through a selection process and assimilation process. The selection process should be prioritized, causing you to choose only the authentically empowering and uplifting options. In other words, you would only choose the habits and tendencies that would bring happiness and further compassion. Additionally, we must cultivate an ability to repudiate tendencies that cripple our intention. If pizza motivates you to altruistically communicate and share knowledge and cultivate happiness, eating pizza should be selected and assimilated. If it burdens and slows your mind, it should be repudiates. We must undergo these selections or else be denied admittance to our personal agenda and style in exchange for being repulsively delivered a generic, societal, external, preprogrammed blueprint. Working from such preprogrammed blueprint will create functionality -- you will pay the bills, work the 9 to 5, get three squares a day, and have a place to rest your bones -- but never deep happiness. Therefore, we avoid the preprogrammed blueprint. We must take up this largely trial-and-error and intuitive process of tendency and style selection. The process of discarding the habits that blind us from our spiritual goals must be done with care, but, ultimately, the choice of rejecting the burdens and embracing the joys are equally significant.

Either way you generate a tremendously integrated life psychology with the people you are around. Choose with prudence the people that not just surround you, but that you encounter on a habitual basis. Alternatively, make habit of connecting with a variety of intuitively connected people regardless of a schedule or predefined interaction. Ensure that those frequently encountered people (at a home, on the way to work, at work, any potential encounters throughout the day) invigorate and genuinely engender sincere guidance and movement in the direction of your choosing and spiritual fulfillment.

Darwin and Religion

What's fascinating about natural selection and Darwinian evolution is recognizing how young Charles Darwin was in first making his discoveries. While beyond the youth of adolescence, young Charlie was only 22 when he embarked on the Beagle voyage. Even though he was a naturalist, his sole purpose for being recruited on the voyage was to "provide company for the Beagle's aloof and moody captain, Robert FitzRoy" (Adler 50). Luckily, as a break from soothing the qualms of the moody Ahab-like FitzRoy, Darwin discovered giant tortoises and wildlife of the Galapagos islands as well as a range of different species along the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific before returning It was only 28 years after the five year voyage, originally designed to chart the coast of South America, did Darwin write the "Origin of Species" at 50.

The amount of religions and scientific controversy the young Darwin provoked after publishing his book in 1859, was gastronomical. After publishing it, he developed intestinal and heart distress due to, possibly, a bug he had picked up traveling or "anxiety over where his intellectual journey was leading him, and the world" (Adler 54). Claiming that "the lineages of living things change, diverge and go extinct over time, rather than appear suddenly in immutable form, as Genesis would have it" was a stark contrast to the Biblical "origin of species" which depicts organisms spontaneously appearing in immutable form (spontaneous generation was scientifically refuted by Louis Pasteur with experimental data, and of course also by Darwin).

Darwin's erudite father, Erasmus Darwin, had similar notions of evolution, but Darwin's generation possessed the scientific advancements to prove it. He knew that the earth's calculated age was 4.5 billion years old, meaning that species around 4004 b.c would be long before the Bible. Darwin was committed to finding the origin of all species and made a massive discovery when he first observed similar shell patterns corresponding to certain turtles of distinct islands. These shell patterns convinced Darwin that the shell patterns had evolved due to each species habituating upon each respective island.'' In a world that saw the hand of God in everything, Darwin introduced a "creative force altogether, an undirected, morally neutral process he called natural selection" (55).

Darwin recognized winning species in his studies and determined, which was influenced by Thomas Malthus, that finite food supply, predators, and disease threatened the existence of animals so that only the fittest -- those possessive an edge, like speed or camouflage -- would survive. "Survival of the fittest" was a phrase coined later, to have economic and social significance that Darwin never imagined, but still he created the core of the theory.

Darwin writes that the "war of nature, from famine and death" is where the "production of higher animals" arises (Adler 55). The notion of man's original birthmark, "the indelible stamp of his lowly origin" was what really upset the strong religious advocates in "The Descent of Man", written 12 years after Darwin's first book, and explicitly connected man to the animal kingdom through apes.

The first official emergence of the Darwinian debate was in 1860 when Thomas Huxley and Joseph Hooker fiercely defended Darwin's work against the Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Clearly, however, Darwin's work was not simply challenging the six-day creation of Genesis, but possibly the core of Christianity and all of theology in general. Evolution sparked a huge hope for nonbelievers. Richard Darwins, a british biologist wrote, "evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" (Adler 56).

The creationism versus science debate reached a charged a moment in 1925, during the so-called "Scopes Monkey Trial, where John Scopes was accused of teaching evolution illegally. The trial bolstered support of the evolution theory. Then, only 23 years later, in 1948 the Supreme Court bans religious theory from being taught in public schools -- a complete 180° from the outcome of the 1925 trial. Only 12 years after the banning of religious Creationist theory in public schools, Chief Justice Earl Warren, heading the Supreme court, pulls another litigation flip-around, making it legal for evolutionary theory to be taught in Arkansas schools, saying prohibiting evolutionary theory from being taught violates the 1st amendment. 21 years after evolution was cleared "okay", in 1981, Arkansas tries to even out the debate with the Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act, which did not get passed, but shows some efforts toward reconciliation of the two extremes in academia. It was during this time of reaching a balance, in 1980, that intelligent design arose, of life commencing from some intelligent designer. Reconciliation between religion and science grows stronger when the Pope John Paul II, himself, says "evolution is more than just a hypothesis" (Adler 53).

The ping-pong game of religion versus evolutionary instruction in school went from no evolution, religion in 1925 to less religious in 1948 and the 1960s (except for the Abington School District v. Shempp case in 1963, which required Bible passages to be read to commence school) to downright acceptance of evolutionary with the Pope. Currently, 80% of Americans believe God created the earth, and in England Darwin is so highly revered that his face marks a 10-pound note. Clearly, the debate -- especially in the 60s, where religious prayer was banned and then Bible recitations required in a single year for some schools -- has been vacillating between religious and evolutionary prohibitions, requirements, and permissions. In 1992, the Court ruled that public schools may not sponsor invocations at graduation ceremonies. However, the long anthology of creationism-darwinism debates appears to present an evolving synthesis.

Currently, ever since 1860 with the original Hooker & Huxley versus Bishop Wilberforce debate to Scopes, outlawing evolutionism, to such decisions in the 60s (like Engel v. Vital in 1962, which forbade public schools to require prayer recitation) which diminished religious emphasis in schools to the equilibrium attempt in 1981 to the Pope's acceptance of some of the science, religion and darwinism has traveled a long way.

Holmes Rolston III, a philosopher at Colorado State University, and writer of a book on genetics and genesis writes that the Biblical creation story is simply a poetic account of the reality with the accounts of flora and fauna of the land and sea occurring in the same order.

One of Darwin's greatest concerns was that of theodicy, the nature of the origin of evil in man. Christians and other believers say that suffering is "ennobling", meaning that anguish and pains are "agents of moral improvement" (Adler 56). Darwin quickly refuted this notion, knowing that omnivores have an amoral creation. Darwin was challenged by the thought -- along with many other theodicians -- with the possibility that God was indifferent to the sufferings of man. He fell into a period of despair when his daughter, Annie, suffered from and ultimately died from Tuberculosis at age 10. Darwin died in 1882, 43 years before the emergence of the first major contemporary debate of creationism versus evolution, the Scopes Trial. However, he was anything but forgotten. His body was buried in Westminster Abbey, honorably with Sir Isaac Newton, in a funeral attended by the leading scientists, clergy, and politicians. The mixed attendance of Darwin's funeral -- the clergy and the scientists -- connotes of a greater balance between the two dichotomies, possibly reducing the clash to something more resembling a harmony.

The emergence of ID is the alternative ideology to the extremes of Darwinism and Creationism, positing that "a supernatural force [is] behind the emergence of complex biological systems -- such as the eye -- composed of interdependent parts" (Adler 58). This is, of course, strongly refuted by biologists, as repackaged Creationism. Board member, Sue Gamble states that "Science does not investigate the evidence of the supernatural. Once you have supernatural explanations, you no longer have science". Another member of the same board, Ken Willard, claims that alternative ideas to science pose ideas which give students a broader base from which they can reach their own conclusions. The importance of drawing one's own conclusions is vitally important to the process of deciding where one's faith lies -- in religion, in science, or in a fusion of both those ideologies.

Where is the synthesis to the science of genetics, inheritance, and species relationships and the location of God. The Bible depicts the latter in detail, but not the former. Darwin and science can describe the interrelationship between species of finches and any other species, but not the location of god. Jerry Adler writes, "it is human nature to seek both kinds of knowledge" (Adler 58). Every scientific paradigm -- ever since Copernicus proved that it was not God that pulled the sun up every new morn, but the rotation of the earth within the solar system --aims to discover a little more about the existence of the unknown, whether that unknown is God or a new variety of mushroom species. The important thing is to honor the quest and the embrace that scientific process.

On a closing note, we must remember how young Darwin was when he first began writing the centerpiece for scientific evolution. Social, scientific, and political impact is not undermined by youth -- usually it is in youth that people define their niche for making tremendous impact.

Adler, Jerry. "The Evolution of a Scientist." Time. Nov, 2005.
Court Rulings. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/courtrulings.html

Freedom Quotes

Roosevelt. "Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive."

Taking Action

Because idle hands are the devil's playground, taking any morally good action is more important than ensuring those actions are productive. We have to stop wasting time planning out productive actions in moments of idleness. Instead, knowingly commit to a genuine and aligned direction that is congruent with our body's signals. Basically, don't fret about being productive, just take genuine actions and the harvest of prolificacy will ripen in season.

To Panacea or Not to Panacea, that is the Question

Dreams and Non-Dreamers

Of the two archetypal life trajectories -- abandoning dreams for fear of residing in fantasy or accepting the risk of visions and carving a reality for seemingly wild aspirations -- the former is reliable and stable, but ultimately mundane, while the latter has its own vibe and frequency, its own unique risks, and a distinct robustness.

The positive outcome of abandoning dreams as hogwash drivel is that one can quickly plan their life. Without a focus on dreams, one's life may be robotic or inhuman, but there lacks uncertainty of enigma. Lives void of dreams are very predictable. If you aren't dreaming of starting your own business, for example, you know that the next morn will begin another day of slaving away for the manager, but there will be exactness about your vocation. However, not dreaming deflates the intention of one's actions and committing to a dream ultimately must occur. But dreams can be planned. They are not always spontaneously generated occurrences. In fact, dreams are only accomplished through very detailed planning and a vehement focus and ardent commitment to that dream.

When one commits to a prudent and sincerely good dream, a regression is not only ridiculously unfeasible, but completely impossible. Oliver Wendel Holmes writes, "One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions", meaning once a cultivated dream has taken roots, its delivery is in the pipeline, and it becomes an anchored dream. Retraction of commitment and choosing to consciously dispose of an anchored dream furthers the state of fantasy because the anchored dream has become the sole reality. Once one's spirit has already committed to a dream, the subconscious fulfillment is inevitable. This may sound like one is imminently drawn into the rabbit hole, but this path is of one's own devising, customized and personalized to the impassioned individual.

Non-dreamers frequently have a problem with dreamers, and vice versa. In addition to fallaciously believing they are lost, wandering souls, non-dreamers are intimidated by dreamers for fear of those dreams coming to fruition. If all the dreams suddenly sparked into reality, the non-dreamers would be missing a great harvest and would lose.

The dreamers are insulted and repulsed by a non-dreamer's waste. Through the eyes of the dreamer, the methods in which non-dreamers make refuse of their life by disposing of it -- by obsequiously handing it over to some unwarranted authority -- is repugnant. But dreamer's must implement there dreams through scheduling, planning, and tangible deadlines in order for them to come into fruition. The dreamers disgusted by laziness of people who fail to dream and, thus, avoid doing anything poignant with there life, and the non-dreamers scoff at the dogged pursuit of dreamers, claiming it to be a futile quest for a non-existant panacea?

The interesting part arises when dreamers ultimately reach success. This not only perturbs the non-dreamers, but it frightens them. The more oft birth of dreams into reality engenders in the non-dreamers, neurotic fright not of the fruition of a dream, but the sudden horror that their life lack connection to poignant intention.

The Tools of Non-Dreamers and Dreamers
Non-dreamers have conformity, society, and conventionality for structure with legal-rational authority to keep them afloat. Dreamers have tools at their disposal, too. The can catalyze motivation from nowhere, manufacture a creative and unique style, and utilize enthusiasm as an invigorating source.

Non-dreamers may appear to have an upper hand most of the time, but ultimately they only possess the hollow authority of detritus, things that are irrelvent; the dreamers must have continuation with transforming dreams to reality and recognize their obstacles not as opposition, but as a peculiar form of summoning motivation.

Successful dreamers are not in the clouds, but organized, scheduled and glued into a very demanding regimen.

If your sentient time is a blank canvas and your life is the painting, then your unique style is the paint to color your existence. Eventually, the weathered dreamer cultivates his or her original style. One’s style allows you to cultivate originality and it allows you to take an optimistic view on life because you act as a vibrant traveler heading through life with clarity of a destination and awareness of what you want to do during your travel. Style allows you to transform your ideas, thoughts, awareness, and dreams into reality.

Finally, the dreamer must tap into his enthusiasm, which is best accomplished, according to Aldous Huxley, by re-accessing the childhood voice. Huxley writers how childhood is an enthusiastic the path to genius: "The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm". It's vital to keep this connection to childhood voice a sincere beacon of our commitment to passions. However, those passions easily get derailed without planning and regimen. You have to program your own life and design. Dreaming is only half the process. Creating a strict, and discipling, but not enervating regimen that manufacture steps to success creates that inner knowing. Childhood zeal is a vital touch to all of this, however. Childhood zeal propels the mature adult into the experience of unbridled effulgence and invigoration.

Archive Success and Delete the Accomplishment

One hindrance in furthering success for people is that they believe they have accomplished enough already. Donald Trump, Julia Roberts, and Michael Phelps could easily say that. Those three could wake up and say I've made enough money, I've acted in enough movies, or I've won enough swimming medals, respectively. But they don't. Despite their tremendously gigantic accomplishments and achievemtns, there success continues to prosper. Trump, Roberts, and Phelps, like all successful people don't let their accomplishments sever there future aspirations.

Past accomplishments never legitimate retirement. Many people look at what they've done and say, "Well, that's enough for ten lifetiems. I'm done." No, success isn't made that way. So how could people continue to keep going despite all their achievements? They split the past and present achievements.

Believe in the present that you have not accomplished anything, and that -- in that specific, finite, present moment -- is true. Never forget your triumphs; never fail to herald your feats. But archive those successes in the past!

Forget your accomplishments in the present, but archive them in your history. That way you wake up and feel like there's so much you need to still do; you rejuvenate your youthful ambition, while maintaing your wisdom and experience.

The Deliberates (Warm) and the Festies (Cold)

At the apex of linguistic mastery, there emerges two distinct and corresponding methods of correspondence. One is not better than the other; neither is good nor bad, just dichotomous. The first conversational temperate is the deliberates. They are the Tony Robbins, the James K's. Their element is the earth -- the tree. They are calm, warm, slow, deliberate, Oak-like, in demeanor, and their words are the essence of the person's message. Note that, even though they depict the opposite of Cold feisties, they are not "hot" because hot connotes waspish and viciously quickness. They maintain stability by recieving a few blows, making their roots strong, and enduring despite some hardships and weather. How to interact with them (beating or dancing with) them: these guys are not marvelled by fancy footwork, but by the right usage of words. The right diction will achieve victory and comradeship with subtle footwork or all excessive footwork playing on the weakness, would be easiest

The other type are the feisties. They are the Basketball players, the Alex Ekmans, the Mike Maizels (maybe). Their element is water -- the ocean. They are feisty, agile, limber, cutting, icy, and quick. They are the instigators, the provocateurs, who insult and then compliment, throwing in slapshot comments to get people off balance, but then interjecting incredibly poignant praise. They are more deceivous than the deliberates, but equally as socially competent. They maintain their stability not with firmly planted roots, but with being able to dance around, avoid, evade, and dodge attacks, and move quickly with agility. How to beat them or befriend them: play on their strength, keeping up with the fast-paced dialouge, but then deliver a poignant deliberate mentality. Because they are very serious, the best method for interaction is realizing that excessive seriousness tends to cause myopia, so use gentle, mocking humor that is ontop of a narrow, but serious, focus.

I remember encountering a "feisty" in the suana once. I was sitting in there relaxing, having a calm conversation with a person, and talking about some pretty philosophical stuff -- creating ingenuity with passion to resolve a strength. In walks a "feisty", decked out in full long-sleeved clothing (warming up for a run), heard a few sentences, and then interjects, "You've got to stop smoking dope." I said that I wasn't interested in drugs and then shut up, kind of stunned that he had said that when I was so interested in health and non-drugs and the vitality of that certainty. What would have been a good strategy would have been to respond with a feisty comment to show that I could play that game, and then ease back into the deliberate mentality. Tactically, I could have responsed, "Nope, I'm clean as a whistle, monkey boy." Throwing around jargon and phraseology about not being on drugs and then commenting on how ridiculous he looked in the sauna, would have counteracted the comment.

Of course I, like George Costanza, can't think of these comebacks on the fly, but it is something I am working on.

Trouncing Violent Opposition

Einstein said that "great souls have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds". When you start encountering opposition one of two things is happening, you're being a moron, doing somethign really stupid, or your engaging your great spirit from an incredible level of certainty, and that intimidates people. Don't let yourself be intimidated by their fear. For the longest time I would really start living it up at a party, singing, speaking my mind, and having fun, and people would get pissed. That's fine and dandy but my error was to use the pissed state of other people as indication that I was doing something wrong, when it could just as easily be something extremely aligned and right. Could it be so outrageous of a belief that someone could be getting pissed at you because what you are doing is something they can't? Could it be that I am doing something that might reveal an inadequacy or fallacy of their own? Doesn't seem to far-fetched. Life can be battle to prove that you're right and are going to party if reference frames are external, meaning people define themselves with outside anchors. I am not saying I am a great soul. Great soul's are Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Mick Jagger, Emerson, and others that have legacy. Just as everyone has a great soul to access, I am definitely committed to connecting with and showing others my great soul. Even though I have not encountered as violent confrontation and am nowhere as near as incredible as the Mahatmas (Indian for "great soul", literally) of the past, I definitely have encountered opposition.

At the bar I went to on Friday night, I was called a whore, oxnoxious, and a tool for dancing, singing with everyone else, and having a great time. Let's dissect these disparagements in a positive light to actually make them laudatory comments. After all, they are indications that I am doing stuff right in some light. How would it feel if you could never be insulted; if you were invulnerable to criticism? That deflection can occur with the process I call "Dissecting the Intention". The slang for tool means a dull, slow-witted, socially inept person. Sounds quite disparaging at first. Dull can mean "slow to understand" and slow also means enduring for a long time, so dull can mean that you're understood for a long period of time, or what you say sticks and holds true. Now for tackling "slow-witted". Your wit, being "slow and enduring" perpetuates, and inept can mean stupid, which means not using commmon sense. Well, if you aren't using common sense, then you must be using non-common, or different sense -- a creative sense. So just to recap, by being called a tool, what the person really meant was that my words stuck, endured the test of time, my wit perpetuated and persisted, and that I used a unique, non-common, creative sense. Thank you! The other "disparagements" can be dissected in a similar fashion. Whore, a promiscuous woman, is a little more challenging but it could be interpretted as though I have access to my femine side and have many stimulating, not necessarily sexual, relationships with people. Obnoxious could be interpretted as ob-noxious, the opposite of noxious, or the antithesis of harmful and poisonous, being very pleasant and curative, even.

I was derisively called a tool, a whore, and obnoxious. The villifying intent of the people who said those comments was to poison me. Would you ever try to inspire someone with snide ridicule or motivate some group with opprobrium? Nope, sorry. Their intent was certainly not to encourage me by throwing jeering aspersions; they were interested in delivering the low blow of humiliation. That's not dancing! Obloquy and insults do not normally bring you up; the intention is to put you down. Their malicious aim was to make me feel degraded and whithered. But, as we just learned, you can dissect intent from delivery and spin your own interpretation. What they really did was say that I was a creative person, possessing enduring, long-lasting wit, who had access to his male and female personality characteristics, all while being innocuous -- not noxious -- pleasant and curative! Why follow through with someone elses derogatory agenda? Bring people up, not down. And what better way to deal with violent opposition than to do more than neutralize it, but to become motivated by it!

One Craziness, Hold the Insanity, To Go, Please

Crazies can be sinkers or drowners, or they can be geniuses, affluent eccentrics. Crazy people sink to a watery grave or they can swim, generating tremendous erudition, applied intelligence, and wealth. Michael Gelb explain the avenues in which craziness can be channeled to create tremendously enriching outcomes. "Crazy people who are productive are geniuses. Crazy people who are rich are eccentric. Crazy people who are neither. productive nor rich are just plain crazy." Clearly, the goal is to not minimize the insanity, but to channel the "non compos mentis" (Latin, literally meaning, not having control of one's mind) into creativity by dancing with your own craziness to create productive eccentricity and genius. In other words, you can be crazy one of two ways: Successful crazy or Insane crazy. Both successful crazy and Insane crazy people have somewhat of a psychopathology at their core, but insane crazy people destroy and create malign, while the successful crazy people auspiciously channel that core into creative, nourishing, inventive acts. The trick is to not remonstrate craziness, but to herald it.

C.S. Lewis writes that Jesus -- given his outrageous claims of being able to enact miracles, revive the dead, exorcise the demons, and more -- was a "Lunatic, a Lord, or a Liar". Saying he was the son of God could only mean that he was a complete nutso, a total liar, or an actual lord. This is not implying that we all are either a lord, lunatic, or a liar, but that we must take up honesty to avoid lies, and embrace productivity and wealth to negate the insanity and the wretched suffering from lunacy. There are some brilliant comedians, for example, who would not be funny if they weren't crazy. Instead of suffering and combating their craziness in an ornery denial, they allowed it to flourish. Gelb reminds us that crazy people who are neither productive nor rich and active, simply wallow in their lunacy. However, committing to that unknown can generate a wild, but galvanizing roller-coaster.

Truly though, most of the successful people are lunatics. The unparralled, superlative intelligence or strength or artistic ability -- whatever the attribute -- can only be reached by an unparalled, superlative method, a unique unconverntional method. If the superlative could be acquired by simply following the status quo with a simple, ho-hum, convenvtional method, it would mean that everyone could be much more or much less intelligent, but that procedure could never be the path of a genius because genius posesses "exceptiona" creative power, intellectual ability or some other ability. Key emphasis on the exceptional. If everyone else has that same intellectual ability and creative power, it ceases to be an exception. In his book GENIUS, author James Gleick describes mathematician Richard Feynman as a "'Renaissance Man' were that term not so diluted from its application to everyone from television sitcom stars who scribble a few lines of poetic doggerel to major league athletes who speak in complete sentences. Instead, let's just say that, in this Jewish-American son of a New York uniform salesman, we find a remarkable marriage of transcendental intellect, hubris, and frat house debauchery. A "character" to be sure. But also a genius." A renaissance man possessing transcendental brainpower, pride, and an affinity for parties? With all of those zany characteristics stewing together in the same melting pot, how on earth could Feynman be anything but a little crazy? He was very much crazy, but this made him VERY much a genius.

Similarly, Picasso was psychotic, John Nash, inventor of Game Theory, was a diagnosed schizophrenic, Einstein, incredibly eccentric, the list goes on. This certainly does not exclude people who lack psychological disorders or eccentricities from becoming wealthy, exceptionally intelligent, or immensely successful, but it does mean that you have to get in the water. Gelb writes, "Geniuses and crazy people are both out in the middle of a deep ocean; geniuses swim, crazy people drown. Most of us are sitting safely on shore. Take a chacne and get your feet wet". Picasso, Nash, Einstein, and all the other successful crazies swam and, in doing so, they churned up all kinds of enlightening inventions of art, math, and physics.

The rich and famous, the eccentrically intelligent, the superbly successful people are not normal! Normal is staying on the shore. Normal is safe, innocuous, harmless, average, and typical. It is a constant, but does not imply, necessarily, goodness; it certainly does not imply craziness, productive or unproductive. Think about it, normalcy certainly never impllies genius, wealth, or supreme success. If someone is exceptional in anything you never refer to them as "normal". Normal is safe and without risk, but drab, discolored and debilitating towards expansive, but, channeled craziness. Don't avoid being normal, it's important to have a stability zone in life. You can have a comfort, normal, constant zone with the types of books you read, people you interact with, rituals you have, exercise you perform, and other invariates. Constancy can be the eye in the tornado of successful craziness.

Clearly, the correct measuring of craziness, is the ingredient to success. Important to note that while "normal" may not insinuate genius, the "state of normalcy" should never be relegated as an inferior state of being. Normal is simple, commonplace, prevalent, but it is never lesser or inferior. Obviously, most of the time, to be different, one must get off the conventional, well-beaten path and listen to his own drum beat. Or one could make their own impression within a well-beaten path, but some form of divergence from the norm must occur. The trick is avoid having that divergence from being a meandering, dismal distraction, and, instead, make it productive by maintaining resilience, generating a high-faculty of concentration,a and having immense faith in the process.

Faith is needed for success. Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, and many times the scintillating endeavor for creating success, demands faith to take the necessary risks. The risks necessary to success can be undertaken with or without faith. Risks endeavored without faith become frightening and disturbing changes of tumult. Risks endeavored with faith transform fearful moments of doubt into inspiring and dynamic moments of exciting "Satori" because you have the confidence from perseverence and the awareness that that risk is pursuing a goal.

Satori is a Zen word meaning, ""sudden awakening". Satori is "insight into our fundamental nature...not the result of abstract mental concepts or ideas but rather a momentary, experiential fusing of body, mind, and emotions" (Millman 92). When your emotional and physical energies flow freely you are experiencing the inner peace and power of the moving inner experience of satori. A great method for acquiring satori is creating craziness channeling in structure by using sound judgment for our decisions.".

Additionally, Famous story-teller, Roald Dahl, writes. "Most of the really exciting things that we do in our lives scare us to death" (52). Crazy endeavors possess the dichotomous quality of being frightening and exciting because you know that task is a stepping-stone to achieving a goal, but in the back of your mind, you know you are "acting crazy', abondoning the norm, and are entering the unknown. Don't purposefully pursue things that make you afraid, but that closeness to fear, is often an ingredient in things that are certainly exciting.Risk, craziness, and fear with the linchpin of faith, self-confidence, and personal belief, become invigorating and stimulating excitement. We must never abandon tact because prudence ensures success, but we must avoid "paralysis by analysis", while still analyzing our past, connecting it with the present, and moving forward with certainty.

We must abandon the reliance on restricting compartments for structure. Compartments provide obligation and structure. While the benefits of structure and support are undenialby vital to growth, obligation can get messy. The best positon remains outside of the cubicle by creating your own self-defined responsibilities. Define your own vocational department. Get your life aligned by identifying your interests and passions, access the freedom to discover those investments, experience the happiness from being prudent about your future, but passionate about your present, and the elaborate the happiness by expressing it.

The trick for happiness is to not avoid lunacy, but to embrace craziness, while engaging prudence. Tactfully create the resources you need to channel the non-normal, wild, sincere talent into productive outlets. Bach, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Haydn -- masters in setting different, totally new Baroque, Romantic, and Renaissance-Baroque movements -- had the attributes for would-be "crazies" if failed to discover a piano, and music. Instead, their talent was channeled into sound and logical craziness, a productive zone, making incredible "crazy" -- different, setting totally new periods and movements -- and successful symphonic classical composition.

George Orwell asks, "What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?" Nothing. Nothing at person, operating at high faculty of intelligence, yeilds to no obstacle. Abraham Lincoln failed 13 times trying to get elected into Congress, trying any more seemed like lunacy, but he persisted in his "crazy pursuit" and became the sixteenth President of the United States. Dogged, but calculated, persistence in any noble endeavor propitiously transforms the insane process into prodigious success because it is within that inner tenacity that we discover our subtle genius.

All success and true genius is acquired with the risk of admitting your own craziness. Athletes who train copious hours, insane number of miles, do so with a twinge of looniness; musicians who have psychotic fits on stage producing the greatest performances imaginable embrace being bonkers and engage their crazyiness; and the greatest breakthroughs in science, medicinee, mathematics, and chemistry occur with a zany and warped hunch that proves to be a new vaccine, cure, or discvory. Embrace the craziness, hold off the lunacy by being productive, but never deny that you're nuts. Denying your insanity limits yourself. Give testimony that you will recognize, honor, and nurture your wild crazy side is not an ominous crutch, but as an exhilarating springboard for catalyzing ingenuity.

Success is not categorical; it is never somewhat successful or not, it is black and white, make or break. Some people could argue that unhealthy crazies like John Wayne Gacey, Jeffrey Dommer, Ted Kazinski were all "successful", possibly notorieties, because they were certainly crazy (you'd have to be to murder that way), turned heads and became well known names. However, they were unsound, unlogical, destructive crazy people that were unsuccessful in every way possible. They drew attention, but did not experience an iota of success. Craziness is only successful if it is channelled into creativity. Notice the etymological backbone of "creative" is create, not destroy. Success is expansive and ultimately good. A twinge of craziness mixed with dogged persistence combined in a concoction of harmonious connection with humanity, creates a powerful elixer of genius and success.