I like to swim upstream and my Future is my Past

I like to swim upstream. What this means? Life is a circular mote flowing downstream. Life's a gigantic circular mote. Most people float and surrender to the currents' of life's river. And the unaware people don't pick up on the fact that it's merely one gigantic circle they keep revolving in. I've surrendered. I've let life's river take me, twirl me around, slosh me into addictions and fixations incredibly dangerous places, and spit me out on the bank of nowhere with Nothing. I've touched my shadow. I've done all the truly challenging, heroic, adventurous stuff in the circular river of life by surrendering. I understand now that surrender is a waste of time. Because life is a circular river. Once you understand the cyclical nature of life, you realize that to truly live you change your relationship with the flow of the current. You can't change the current, but you can change your reactions to it! Focusing on the destination is about as intelligent as focusing on getting your toothpick at the end of a 5-course gourmet meal. To me, I understand life is the meal; life is the journey, not the destination. And I grow by swimming upstream. Swimming upstream does not mean fighting and experiencing toil and randomly jumping into dangerous situations in life; i've already done that. Sporadically jumping into the danger is the surrender. And I've done that so frequently it's become bland; Swimming upstream is just the opposite. It resembles smoothly growing stronger and simpler and simultaneously more aware internally. Swimming upstream is how the intelligent aware people change because they know how you approach the journey, the circular river of life, is all that matters. So while many people "surrender" to the flow of life and preach the wonders of that magnificent "ease", I'm going to be doing what I well and best and that's swimming upstream and that means I'll become a MUCH better swimmer than those who aimlessly surrender (as I have already done).



My future will consist of my past. Reconnecting with my past -- people from my past, events from my past, past memories -- will be moving forward. I've traveled the world. I've reached the end of life. But I did it too quickly. I skipped parts. I still have to finish my high school soccer and swimming and chemistry. There's friends from elementary school I skipped over, relationships from college I sliced by to get to the finish. I have uncompleted work in the past and I've completed all the work in the future. Every time I move forward in life it will be because of successfully completing my work in the past. (Note: This is not everyone's relationship with life. Most people do "new" things to move forward.) Their exist no "new" things for me. Ask someone who knows me well. It's true. There exist no "new" things. I've done everything. The "newness" of life emerges in a shocking and galvanizing adventure from connecting with and completing those exciting joyful fragments of my past! :D The further into the future I've gone with my life, the more diluted and nihilistic my life became. Poignancy and meaning become instantly interjected into my life upon connecting with my past, however. My future is connecting with my past.

I've had rough seas. I'm a good sailor . :D

List of High-Tech Dog Chemistry-Biology Words! Dogs and All the High-Tech Science Biology-Chemical Research

Here's a list of dog chemistry words to make you sound high-tech when discussing things in relation to dogs:

Theobromine. The substance (along with caffeine) in chocolate that makes dogs die if they eat too much of it. Leathal dose is 150mg/1kg of bodyweight but don't push this (great site; uses questions http://www.dogtopics.com/165/7-questions-about-dogs-and-chocolate/)

Antibiotic. A drug that kills, slows, or impedes the growth of bacteria. Typically used in situations like an ear infection.

Penicillin. (I was on the topic of Antibiotic, so wanted to add this).

DHPP

Bortapella

Rabies Vaccination.

Epi-Geneticism and Homosexuality.

I'm a HUGE believer in the understanding of epi-geneticism and how your completely aren't bound into your genes. But even if you WERE bound into your genes? WHERE is this "homosexual chromosome"? The entire idea of a "Gay Gene" is the most wretchedly absurd thing I've ever encountered or even heard of in my entire life. You genes only understand replication -- pure, straight-forward reproductive replication. That's the purpose of our genes. Our genes, our most rudimentary architect are designed to keep us alive and replicate themselves. From an evolutionary point of view (which is the ONLY POV that your genes "know" homo-sexuality. There's no possible way anyone's genes could EVER know homosexuality simply because that defies their very intention and nature (that of surviving and replicating).

So what does cause the sensation of homosexuality or the illusion of homosexuality in people? Lower female sexual arousal. Socetial, familial, social, historical incidents that caused a person to associate arousal and sex and attraction on a superficial level to the same sex. But all of those are just superficial mental confusions or temporary experimentations. Deep down (to our genes) we're all heterosexual. Saying that people are gay genetically is like saying "Well, some cars are meant to just jiggle in place and not move." The purpose of a car is to provide transportation, just like the purpose of genes is to provide life and replicate. If a certain contraption doesn't move forward or a bit of cellular technology doesn't create survival and replicate, you can't call those respectively, a car or genetic material.

Now the arguments of the church are ABSURD. IF (and this is a strong IF because we know from above genetic evidence that this is not true) there was some way that someone could be genetically born to be gay, and this is purely hypothetical because we know what not to be true, but hypothetically if someone were genetically gay then outlawing a genetically-defined state would be absolutely absurd and akin to saying to people that they had to collect their sweat and consume it after perspiring.

April 2009 -- Forgiveness/Gratitude List

April 2, 2009 -- 8:50 AM


March 27, 2009
10:00 PM
Just woke up and DAMN. I'm angry. I'm FURIOUS. This is something I'm certain about. HEre's the list of things that have made me furious..

1. kyle for cutting me off on phone call
2. Eric for making me panic about going up and then trivializing it by inviting everyone up on stage (even the audience non comedians)
3. Jack for being so confusing
4. Mary for not marrying me
5. The starcbucks northridge students for being so decieving, petty, naive, puerile and inconsiderate when they took my table and then the fuckers tried to make me think that I wasn't sitting there before them?? preoposterous!!
6. I'm angry at how drawn otu jonathon is making the dog adoption thing like literally 5-6 calls per week MORE and voicemails i want to adopt henry A LOT about damn man it isn't like a corporate merger.
7. i'm angry at ALL la women because maybe they're just impossible to hook up wiht, maybe no one has sex with them, and I certainly feel like I am not capable nor deserve to
8. I'm FURIOUS FURIOUS at that jamba for making fill out another resume
9. I'm fucious at jamba, chateau marmont
10. I'm FUIOUS at that Miyagi's dj for purposefully skipping my song WTF!
11. I'm angry and enraged at that sahara chick for purposefully distracting me with flirting and then eating half of MY damn sushi!
12. I'm fucious that I'm so broke and can't make money.
13. I'm angry that I feel my life is going no where (no job, no money, just TONS of work and tons of projects like I've been in prison).
14. I'm angry I cant' even geta job bagging groceries.
15. i'm angry at how I have to go to calabasas to sleep (which is kinda okay) but then I stay here for too long because going out means spending money that I dont' have.
16. I'm angry at the lawyer people from mca in the resident lounge.
17. I'm angry that I don't feel I deserve to USE the damn computer lab and gym that I"M paying for!!
18. I'm angry at how many websites I've made and how I haven't profitted of ANY of them.
19. I'm angry at how much junk food crap I've eaten.
20. I'm enraged at all the legal shit that is omnipresnet in America (restrictions of open mics at cofee bean tea leaf); the legal stuff about posting my work etc
21. I'm angry that I dont' feel capable of making money off my work Xmas carol recordings, vyl recoridngs, vyl books, websites, ALL that IMMENSE amount of work!!!!!!!!!!
22. i'm angry taht damn myth the fallen lords needs classic to run b/c I liked that game.
23. I'm angry that I don't know if I should be focusing and pursuing math teaching, some kind of teaching, acting? (nah), COMEDY, working in cheapo restaurant place.
24. I'm Angry but more Panicked and nervous about not knowing what to do for rent!


I'm grateful for/happy about

1. getting to go up and do my bringer comedy set AND get a recording of it.
2. that I have access to trails and ocean if I get over my anger and go
3. that I ahve acces to food (even though I cant' afford it)
4. eric and jack and rico are kind of cool.
5. that I did Do alllll of that outside work stuff (stripper club chateau, open mics, north hollywood explore etc).
6. I have a car, abike, a surfboard.
7. That I might adopt Henry!! :D
8. that I'm in cali
9. That I know i like the looks of australians
10. That atleast I'm getting in SOME miniscule form of auditons (explore talent ones and open mics)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 19, 2009 -- 1:59 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 18, 2009 -- 10:46 PM


DAYAMN!! Feel REALLY peaceful and GOOD today!! why? not sure but might have something to do with:
-- ebay $159 item selling!!
-- having henry AWESOME dog that I love!
-- maybe that interestin REAL gentleman ompliment from the woman!
--Math problems (YES!!!)
--reading curious incident of dog (YES!!)
--maybe my heartfelt fanmail laudatory letters arrived so that good energy got released or something haha coolaate


-------
April 18, 2009 -- 8:58 AM

I love how Henry
poops
pees
eats food
yawns
growls
protects himself
moves so fast
is so big and good

is simple and clear.
is big and beautiful!

Grateful for MATH!! and reading great (nonsticky preferably math-based novels) Did GREAT MAth problems tongiht felt SOOO RELAXING And fun and GOOD and aligning and MASSIVELY clarifying.

I showered, had the math problems all laid out, cooked GREAT rice ad roni rice during it, so felt clear nadn focused after shower and felt SOO clear and good to do math. MATH something SAFE you can apply your mind to!! (conservation, books, movies, all of that junk just creates more things to write. do math. have math probelsm then DONE!! SWEET! Brilliant yippee!!).


ALSO one guy said "incredulity" in the belief LOL. so I guess source of delight is cool fun math students too!
Man the day feels LIGHT COlorful GEntle. and DeLIGHTFUL and happy!! andneat!! I LOVE The math1!!

Also grateful for:
sending the gibson and pitt letters
that I took the time to learn and completed on time the taxes
that I'm in this cool place with great weather AMAZING trails, a dog, and I "COMPLETED "the move and th world IS a much mroe colorful place!!
that i've foudn peace with math1! YEAYAHA :D
That I have this awesome dog that's SOO frickin cool! perfect! the best! love!!!! YIPPEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RUNNING EXERCISE TRAIZLS outside fun stuff with henry carcharias huckleberry. !! HAHAH!
SOOO grateful that my ebay item SOLD!!!!!!! YEAYAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
moderately grateful that that christina hidalgo chick called me REAL gentleman. ( COOL! :0)
SO grateful for completely severed off tv/film and have rediscovered the relaxaing and FUn soomthin

I forgive:
jerks who didn't hire me (but maybe I'm grateful fro that LOL)
myself or jerks and not making moneye


April 19, 2009 -- 10:04 PM

Am REALLY freaking out. Because
Found fully engorged tick on henry TOTALLY disgusted, scared, concerned, and angry at DAMN ticks. And then angry about barely having enough money to afford Frontline, and did tons of yahoo answers and resarch on it

and I need cleanliness and order and structure and I have that but I can't have ticks hanging off my dog infesting lime disease into the house and freaking out. I feel really scared, really concerned, and OSBSCENELY DISGUSTED.


feeling really pissed and upset and Depressed, i was at the end of my rope. Now i've fallen off the rope. I hate this palce but feel too depressed to be angry.
Things Im furious about and (will aim to forgive if possible):
ticks and engorging on henry
tocks ifnesting my house
ticks making things dirty
the world for not paying me
having to live with outrageous fucked up rent (MCA) and no income
being unable to afford most things in life
strugglign with finances CONSTANTLY
having fiannces ALwASY be a fucking problem
How this fucked up california place makes you feel angry or scared the whoe time and angry for being around all this crap.
being depressed
no friends
missing the anne, geometry, CHEM BIO!!! track, swimming, that whole huge structure of my life. missing the high productivity, comfort, and succes s that brought!!
hating the "colorful" brighty shineyeye crap, wanting crisp, clear career
HATING WASTING my time with so many thigns
HATING how long it takes to get things done (like damn
HATING people who ALWAYS bring in massive doubt)
NOt feeling successful so having
FEELING Freaked nd istrbuted but alls o oddly awakened that My brother, mother, dad, are not friends.

I HATE my sexual energy. It's the one thing there's no outlet for.
If I have to poo, pee, get hungry, get tired....there's a toilet, a kitchen, and a bed for all those NEEDs. But for sex??? Well, There is no such always-there-constant outlet and that's painful to me. Incredibly painful. It's like having to go pee but having to hold it for a year. Sexual drive creates MASSIVE pain. I get drained and depressed from not having sex, or frustrated and hostile angry at women for not having sex.

Then my schedule gets ALL royally fucked up. I feel I have to do "tons of things during the day" and then instead of relaxing, then I have to go out at night and destroy my body with drinking even though I'm exhausted, and then get hungover and feel like shit and feel dirty and feel pissed and likely have to fight off the urge of whacking off in anger of having wasted so much time and energy in a foul emotional sewer bar with emotional sewer disgusting people and not getting laid..ALL OF THAT because of my DAMN sexual drive.
Let me just recap of what my sexual energy the IMMENSE PAIN my sexual energy creates in my life:
depression, rage, anger, exhaustion, alcoholic intoxication, anger, masturbation, desperation, rejection, feeling like lost, guilt (after masturbating), sense of lost soul (after masturbating). I

t's like ALL stages of it bring pain.

What I NEED is a sex toilet! A place to go when I'm horny that's free and clean (and not a whore house) I need that and deserve that and it's not here in CA. Nothing is. I hate this palce. When I want to exercise I have trails and a pool and all these resources, when Iwant to read, I have the library! When I want to eat, I have a kitchen, when I want to pee and poop, I have a toilet, when I want to clean myself, I have ashower. Do you see what I'm getting at????????????????? There's a biological PLACE for all those biological needs to occur, but NOT for sex, Sex is SOO FUCKED UP for me in life, like SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY WRONG IN MY LIFE, because sex is a biological NEED, but there's no goddamn outlet for it, and it should be recreational as well as reproductive.

And I've TRIED FUCKING EVERYTHING:
dating books
thousands of bars, with friends, without friends, different friends
trying to meet women in nature places, in weird random places (like book stores or the swimming pool)
I've had sex maybe 8 to 20 times with over half a dozen different partners but it was literally only like 8 to 15 days of my life that I've had sex. I NEED a sexual relationship. NEEDING a sexual relationship is not sex addiction. it's not dirty or slutty or "blasphemous" LMao! I need a sexual relationship where I'm with a woman and we fuck when we're horny and that could be 2-3 times per day, or week or month, but I NEED it to be reliable and not having a sexual outlet is destroying almost all other aspects of my life. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm 25 years old so hundreds of times per day my BODY is telling me to have intercourse, but I need to tell it to shutup because I don't have a place/girlfriend/etc to have intercourse with.. This is SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP. It's like Every day I have to tell my body 100s of times "shutup, we dont' have a place to pee, we can't pee." That's what I feel like I ahve to do with sex as sex is abiological need (like eating etc) but there's not outlet for it. I hate this. I fucking hate this.

I hate my sexual drive. I want to be having sex on a regular frequent basis or NEVER experiencing sexual drive.

My sexual drive TORTURES TORTURES TORTURES me. That's the essence of this.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 27
GRATITUDE

1. That henry's alive
2. That I took the time to bleach and massively clean
3. that I have a tent
4. That I'm alive
5. That I'm moving ahead with work.
   

April 28, 2009 -- 5:07 AM
Gratitude

1. That henry's so frickin lively and happy
2. Classical musical composers like holst, beethoven, and mozart. They're so amazingly cool and I'd feel wretchedly miserable without them.
3. That I put on a shirt and tie and did a recording of Compassionate Reservoirs.
4. that I actually have a shirt and tie to wear in the first place.
   
5. The fact that I wrote that awesome book.
6. That I have a computer
   
7. That I discovered NLP and have emplohyed it to make constructive canges in my life
8. That I've accepted the fact that I am a success with health and authoring and education and intelligence, but am a TOTAL failure with finances, as that provides personal veracity and reality-checkness.
9. Getting up early (midnight and writing and recording and working for the past 5 hours)

April 29, 2009 -- 10:13 PM

1. That I honored the experiences learned from maya and that it ultimately was overly-philosophical, BURDENING massively, and highly destructive. those lesson s were
   

r me to thoroughly digest maya, and extract her contamination from my life, I must honor the few good things that occurred from my interaction with maya. they were: exerpeince with hte unfamiliar, what it feels like to waste time, experience with the type of woman who is a poor match for me. expanisve life (by not focusing on math and sciences and doing lame surrender stuff temporarily so when refocus on math and sciences can have that cool focus towards the math and sciences and schem!)

1. How henry sniffs everything
2. That took henry to the doc and he's okay and healthy!
3. How awesome henry is and polite nad strong and good! and happy
   
4. For hottubs
5. That I got exercise in yesterday
6. That I got out of the way taht annoying-ass trip to glendale and knew/confirmed that that woman wsan't a good match
7. I'm grateful that I can recognize incompatibilities INSTANTLY in emails!! And I KNEW the trip to glendale wouldn't be a good match. Cool as!! :D Just gotta learn to trust that instinct to save time!! Trusting your instisncsts and saying that will/won't work based on estimation svaes you time!
8. food -- that I have some and can eat
9. credit card for ERs (but not that I have a damn balance on it!)
10. my imac.
11. That I signed up for lifecoaching training classes! YEAH!! :D
12. that I have the freedom of space and time to exercise (if only I could get aorund the crap of feeling as-if have to meet up with people crap etc how HIGHLY exclusve ca ppl are. omg jeez!)
13. 
    

1. Experience with the unfamiliar. This results in greater awareness and appreciation of what you do enjoy and are familiar with and good.

2. What it feels like to waste time. I wasted a lot of my life and time "waiting" for something to happen with maya. This was an important lesson because it gave me insight into what it feels like to waste time. (i get angry). awareness of wasting time with things and topics (chakras, astrology, etc) allows me to understand what that feels like which ensures that I can focus on the oppoiste types of things (math, science, clarity, productivity (non-waiting")

3. Experience with hte type of woman who is poor match for me. Maya was slow, naive, and unhealthy (she ate bowls of icecrea, she didn't eat healthily), very unhealthy with sex and unintelligent (She got pregnanat and had an abortion before or around 20, she's a young 20s year old mother). She's a very unintelligent person. Fine. I am not compatible with "little girls who want to have babies" as their only ambition in life. That was a great experience to feel because it made me realize that I my life partner will be a woman who has a strong career, and image, and personality and is meaningful outside of the objective of reproduction.

4. Expansive life. This truly was the one genuinely postive reward. I connected myself with something that's NOT me (energies, astrologies, ) that other people believe. untruths. Seeing that dimension added more color and meaning to my current truths of math and exercise and nature. So that part was rewarding. Expanding my life in that way is something I never want to do again. And all the "surrender stuff" was absolute complete and utter bs. random changes

April 30, 2009 -- 6:05 PM

1. Grateful for getting in touch with LPHS friends (Dan pinzske and sorta kokatays and OLD connections on facebook)
2. That I took that BOLD-ass step to go to lphs, it was intense but in the end will be good.
3. That I got up early and ran!
4. Fish. I love eating fish. Grateful that I cooked fish.
5. Grateful that I'm doing this lifecoaching training and that it can be structured at my own place
6. My scammer-immunity (after getting scammed so many times).
7. The precision of science (like immunology).
8. That I feel like my adventure is done!! all my MASSIVE anguish and toil (beat up, black eyes, travels, kicked out of places, ETC ETC) I am gratefu all that happened b/c makes for wild frightening scary disturbing poignant memories, but I'm glad for the feeling that it feels like it's over!
9. That I do the limiting belief dissolution
10. for NLP techniques.

Buying Bulk Saves Money, Time, the Environment: Win-Win-Win

Buying in bulk solves three problems very vital problems in life. Buying in bulk boost finances, is healthy from a temporal-sentient point of view, and keeps our planet cleaner and less polluted. Oh, you don't understand how did my mental-math? I'll show my work:

1. Saving money. Anyway you cut it, whether it be bulk salmon or bulk soap, purchasing in bulk means less marketing costs for the individual items and a closer to wholesale price which means less expensive, and more mullah (that stays) for your pocket!
   
2. Saving Time. Buying bulk decreases the amount of times you have to go to the store and purchase refills. It's a hassle to have to write "buy more hand soap" on a grocery list, what? maybe 6-7 times per year if you go through one of those every 1-2 months?! Well, with bulk, you write "buy more xyz" as little as once per year, and food items as infrequently as once per month! Most of my soaps, and cleaners (with the exception of bleach and ammonia, because I go through those quickly but they're extremely cheap) I buy in huge large quantities and seriously, laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent (I wash a lot of my own dishes and ration out the laundry detergent well) for example, last me a year. That's just a huge relief either way, to only have to worry about buying laundry detergent or dishwasher detergent ONCE a year (or more likely ONCE every two years)?! That's awesome. We have 365 days per year. What are some other cool creative, successful things you could be doing with your time now that you don't have to go to the grocery store for almost any kind of cleaning supply for the entire year?!! That's just rad! Here's a mini list of the items I buy in bulk
   • Handsoap (1x/year)
   • Dishwasher soap (1x/1-2year)
   • Laundry Detergent (1x/1-2year). Yes, the same thing of laundry detergent and soap has lasted me almost two years!
     
   • Toilet cleaner (1x/year)
   • Fish (1x/1-5month). (I freeze all my fish so you can easily buy a ton in bulk and freeze it for 5 months and if you get canned tuna, that can go for 6 mo. easily).
     
   • Vegetables (1x/month)
   • Cheese (2-4x/year). I'm dead serious. I freeze all the cheese and when I packet is gone in the fridge, just chuck one in the dairy bin from the freezer. You buy in bulk, you can buy cheese sooo infrequently but always have a ton.
     
   • Pasta (2x/year. I'm dead serious. You buy bulk pasta and even if you eat a lot of pasta, you only have to buy it twice per year!)
3. Saving the Environment. Buying in bulk is a direct enterprise in helping the environment because buying in bulk means less purchases which means less left over bottles and plastic wrappers simply because you'll be purchasing less plastic bottles and plastic wrapper and marketing packaging, and less plastic containers. Read up on the HORRIFYING Pacific Trash Vortex to fully understand the global wide "too much trash" problem. Basically, we're pumping so much plastic wrapper and bottle refuse into our ocean. Seriously. Seriously. How f$@ked up is that?! Couldn't we re-use our bottles instead of litterally pumping them into our ocean water?! The disgusting physiological ramification of this is mini fish eat the mini shreds of plastic, bigger fish eat the mini fish, we eat the bigger fish and therefor consume plaste. Read up on the PTV, it's nasty, very real, and very frigthening stuff; I'm becoming very interested at the very least informing myself of that problem and I donate toa charity that helps solve it. So, but buying in bulk, you purchase one huge one huge container that you can likely reuse and that saves the environment, the ocean, and our planet!
   
4. *Saving you from Disorganization. My little bonus perk idea. May not work for everyone, but truly works for me! This one seems like an odd ramification, but truly, I reuse over 50% of the bottles and containers I get that are "wrappers" typically discarded after opening something or using something for 1)organization, 2)environmenal safety and 3)cheaper. Some of the containers that contain products are as sturdy and useful as one you'd spend $14.99 on at the Container Store! True!. I'm an organizational freak so buying in bulk works toward this end, too!
   

Buying in Bulk saves the environment, saves you money, and saves you time (less trips to the store)! Bulk is a win-win-win!!

Honor Your Own System

I think one thing going on in life is that I'm discovering what systems and methods work for me. And career is part of this.

This is a reference to

1. Organization systems -- the literally dozen and dozens (over 50 easily) organizational system methods for emails, todos, phonecalls and life, and none of the systems work, but I've created one that works for me
2. Diets -- Again, found what works best for me after an exhausting and disturbing trial of fallacious food products and things that don't work. Again, for me personally, i've discovered simplest is best. I cook and make almost all my own food. Because 1) it's one of the few things I can afford, 2)food you make tastes better and 3)it's usually better for you because you avoid prepackaged crap and make more wholesome meals.
   
3. Exercise routines - when I go to the Gym I see people doing really stupid things with weights, really intelligent things, poor endurance programs, top-notch cardio circuits -- the whole gamut. Each one works or doesn't work for people.
4. Errands -- I have to use lists. I have electronic organizers on my phone to get things done. To some people it would drive them insane having lists of things to remind them what to get or do when they go out, but for me it's freedom and makes my life easier. Again, we have to honor our own system.
   

Everyone works out differently and everyone has their own unique style and approach. That must be respected. Respected not to "honor their individuality" but rather to honor your own. And to acknowledge the fact that because some person gets jacked doing one thing and is healthy doing xyz diet and is on top of their game with abc organizational system, does not mean that you'll be jacked, healthy, and organized with their system.

Part of life is discovering how you work and what's the best method and system and concourse of health and organization and exercise for you with your unique goals, dreams, fears, problems, and certainties, and then how to optimize interaction with others and co-existance with others despite these large differences.

The Brutal and Bemusing Criticism of Master American Wordsmith Mark Twain

An excerpt taken from Mark Twain's Autobiography. I don't think it'd be possible to experience a harsher or more bemusing critic than the iconic American wordsmith, Mark Twain himself.

Amongst. Wasn't "among" good enough?

Next half-dozen Corrections. Have you failed to perceive that by taking the word "both" out of its proper place you have made foolishness of the sentence? And don't you see that your smug "of which" has turned that sentence into reporter's English? "Quite." Why do you intrude that shopworn favorite of yours where there is nothing useful for it to do? Can't you rest easy in your literary grave without it?

Next sentence. You have made no improvement in it. Did you change it merely to be changing something?

Second Paragraph. Now you have begun on my punctuation. Don't you realize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate art like that, with your limitations? And do you think you have added just the right smear of polish to the closing clause of the sentence?

Second Paragraph. How do you know it was his "own" sword? It could have been a borrowed one, I am cautious in matters of history, and you should not put statements in my mouth for which you cannot produce vouchers. Your other corrections are rubbish.

Third Paragraph. Ditto.

Fourth Paragraph. Your word "directly" is misleading; it could be construed to mean "at once." Plain clarity is better than ornate obscurity. I note your sensitive marginal remark: "Rather unkind to French feelings--referring to Moscow." Indeed, I have not been concerning myself about French feelings, but only about stating the facts. I have said several uncourteous things about the French--calling them a "nation of ingrates," in one place--but you have been so busy editing commas and semicolons that you overlooked them and failed to get scared at them. The next paragraph ends with a slur at the French, but I have reasons for thinking you mistook it for a compliment. It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out and dance on it. That would take some of the rigidity out of it. And you ought to use it sometimes; that would help. If you had done this every now and then along through life, it would not have petrified.

Fifth Paragraph. Thus far, I regard this as your masterpiece! You are really perfect in the great art of reducing simple and dignified speech to clumsy and vapid commonplace.

Sixth Paragraph. You have a singularly fine and aristocratic disrespect for homely and unpretending English. Every time I use "go back" you get out your polisher and slick it up to "return." "Return" is suited only to the drawing-room--it is ducal, and says itself with a simper and a smirk.

Seventh Paragraph. "Permission" is ducal. Ducal and affected. "Her" great days were not "over"; they were only half over. Didn't you know that? Haven't you read anything at all about Joan of Arc? The truth is, you do not pay any attention; I told you on my very first page that the public part of her career lasted two years, and you have forgotten it already. You really must get your mind out and have it repaired; you see, yourself, that it is all caked together.

Eighth Paragraph. She "rode away to assault and capture a stronghold." Very well; but you do not tell us whether she succeeded or not. You should not worry the reader with uncertainties like that. I will remind you once more that clarity is a good thing in literature. An apprentice cannot do better than keep this useful rule in mind. Closing Sentences. Corrections which are not corrections.

Ninth Paragraph. "Known" history. That word is a polish which is too delicate for me; there doesn't seem to be any sense in it. This would have surprised me, last week.

¹ The letter was not sent, after all. The temptation was strong, but pity for the victim prevailed. The MS. was, however, recalled and later published in Harper's Magazine and in book form as St. Joan of Arc.

No More Religious Board Games! Anti-Christianity and Human Herbivore!

Finally, the best article on (anti) Christianity that I needed to read to reaffirm my new intentions, emerging beliefs, and values (Basically I've realized that all religions are just clever cult-worshipping myths. They're just elaborate myths, fables. Jesus isn't any different from the Hare in the tortoise and the hair or Buddha isn't any different from Prometheus (the god of fire from ancient greece). Religions are myths. They are not true. Jesus, Buddha, Allah...they never existed. That however is not condemning hope and faith. Hope and faith are very strong great things and MANY myths teach the lessons of hope, faith, discipline, etc. Religion is merely a myth. It's astonishing how BLIND so many people are in regards to how obvious it is that those figureheads truly did not exist, but they blindly go on believing...people that easily duped (i.e. devout christians) are frankly quite frightening because if they could be deluded into believing that a mythological figure like Jesus had as much evidence for existing as Paul Bunyan (see this great article on that) then...wow.

El Jesus Verdad (lmao!)

Great article. Discusses how all accounts of Jesus existing are hearsay. I think the most award-winning quote from the Great and truthful article was :

We know from history about witchcraft trials and kangaroo courts that hearsay provides neither reliable nor fair statements of evidence. We know that mythology can arise out of no good information whatsoever. We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from nothing but belief and hearsay. It derives from these reasons why hearsay cannot serves as good evidence, and the same reasoning must go against the claims of a historical Jesus or any other historical person.

They could seriously be deluded to committing seriously destructive acts possibly. I mean it's not "sane" to be that delusional. Additionally, people are alwasy messed up in life when they start speaking of Christianity and religion extensively (like Mel Gibson people gave him hell after his Passion of the Christ movie). Additionally, I was prosetylized pretty severely in Costa Rica a few times. To say the least, it ruined the vacation. I despise the delusional stubborness inherent to many Christians, so coming across the blog article felt SOO validating!!!!!! It felt validating because it made me realize that yes while 2.14 billion people in the world are Christians; 2.14 billion people are misled and delusional; their still exist who see through that illusion, that religion is truly merely a myth! So it felt validating probably in the same way that seeing a pink elephant in your living room that all guests deny exists and finally someone else admits that yes, they do see the pink elephant haha!! Or a more realistic analogy is maybe during a math test, everyone gets a certain answer wrong, and it's because the solution itself was inaccurate, but the teacher denies that the answer is innacurate and then you take the problem to a head of math board or something and they provide the real answer, proving that the book answer was inaccurate and everyone's "wrong answer" was in fact right. The clarity and validation I feel into seeing that someone else truly does "see the light" (and by see the "light", I mean, see the darkness in Christianity ...after all, it killed millions of people in the Crusades), is joyful.

It feels joyful to understand that finally someone else sees what I see (the author of that blog entry!) and that I can and should commence connecting with like-minded people who share similar spiritual beliefs. Just as a marathoner would feel uncomfortable around people who weigh over 300 pounds and have atrotious diets, I feel uncomfortable around Christians. Similarly, whether it be your behavior, diet, beliefs, and/or spirituality, it just feels validating to connect with people who share your similar behaviors, diets, beliefs and/or spirituality and capacity! Cool!!!!

This is major not exactly "changing point" in my life but "emerging point" of a change that's been occurring internally but hasn't had a place and time to emerge. Because for the longest time I'd known these Gross obviousl sources of untruth associated with widely-believed beliefs like Christianity, but was afraid of acknowledging them because:

• of fear of labeled as a demon-worshipper (a common fallacious argument of Christians. That if you don't believe in Christ, then you worship demons. A LUDICROUS argument. I don't believei Christ, or Demons, or Leprechauns, any more than the Pink tooth fairy eating a fig newton; they're all mytholgoical constructs!
• of fear that the cult-like warnings of christianity such as going to hell, not having salvation, being directionless, lost and confused would come true.
  But in Reality!! Confusion, directionless, and hellish condemntion, ironically, I feel is the grand result of Christianity (from personal experience and 'eye witness accounts")! haha
• just the fact that 2.14 BILLION people could be that deluded. This is the one that's scary. But then again. Tons of people do stupid things (like smoke or eat unhealthy food, which is somewhat delusional, too).

G.I. Joe Jesus



Squirrel Buddha

So again A lot of the reasons why I didn't validate my serious disbelief in Christianity was fear, the appeal to fear, appeal to the cudgel fallacious argument tactics that Christianity uses, and just atonishment with how many dumb-founded people there are! But these personal declaration is a MASSIVE vindication and personal exoneration because it means that instead of trying to "mull with" or "change" or try to see, or help, or interact with people who believe in Christianity, I can just know and deeply understand that on a spiritual level I hold completely concretely different believes from them and I will not expect to have a friendship on a spiritual level (on a belief, identity, social, behaviorial, level quite possibly friendship however!), but on a spiritual level, I deem Christianity an inferior spiritual belief simply because it represents a type of person who has not utilized their mind. Anyone who utilizes their mind will see that Christianity is just a myth and they should utilize and apply their mind to discover what ultimately brings them truth.

Kierkegaard writes, "I must find a truth that is true for me'

Very true, Soren! ;D

It makes me feel proud that while I can find a way to respect Christians, and can elicit a way to discover a respect for anyone who has belief and faith in something, I can do all that, but it does make me happy -- geuinely, deeply happy -- to say and know and validate that I hate Christianity. I hate the cult-like customs, myopic delusional methods, the appeals to fear that it utilizes, and most importantly I loathe and condemn Christainity's shadowing of many of the world's truths and leading 1/3 of the people in the world to beleive falsities, lies. I find this strong realization of mine, clear and validating because I know it resonates with my mind, my personal experiences, and it makes it easier to breathe (in life) knowing that I believe that. I think in the past, there was so much pressure (so immersed in the cult of Christianity) that it was difficult to even dissect what you genuinely believed. Nevertheless, I know I am true gentleman, I am not a demon-worshipper, I am not "going to hell", I am not any of those repurcussional traps that Christianity has set up to falsely categorize non-Christians, so I know I am none of those things, and I know that I am confident, and immensely clear, and happy, and I know that I hate Christianity! yippee!!!!!!!

Now that said. I thought it important to note that I don't have much anger at Christianity. Sure, I encountered some very brash, dangerous, and narrow-minded Christians in life, but I've had discussions about this and encountered devout Christians, people who are indiffernet to religion, people who are questioning of it, strict aethists, agnostics, etc all these different types of relationships to religon, and I'm finally realizing that I am not formulating my own view on religion but I already have deeply formulated my view on religion and have just awaited for the validation for my "equation" to emerge, so to speak. And it's thus: quite simply, I think faith, belief, good morals in life are very important; principles are essential! However, my source of those principles are what I consider safe resources, resources that are genuine and scientific and utilize reason, evidence, and are extractions of what works in a variety of areas:

1. Exercise
2. Nature
3. Emerson's Self-Reliance
4. NLP
5. Math
6. Understanding of Human Biology, Anatomy, Chemistry, Physiology
7. My books Validate Your Life, Compassionate Reservoir, and Expressing the Observation

Those are the basic "tenets and tomes" if you will of my personal creed.

There's no question about it, those 7 things, genuinely provide me with and embody IMMENSE clarity, energy, fulfillment, belief, trust, liberation, happiness, and success. I have so much clarity from those 7 things, that I can literally mentally run circles, thousands of circles ;), around Christians and people who have simply chosen to not utilize their mind. (Yes, while I respect Christians for setting up anchors to an idol figurine and associate hope, or faith, or penitence or whatever they want to it, I ultimately consider a devout Christian someone who hasn't fully utilized their cognitive 8-pound muscle that rests in their cranium. However, I do want to be clear on the distinction between :

1. valuing and respecting someone who has engaged the capacity to believe and follow a set of principles and rules (albeit an unintelligent set of believes)
2. someone whom has fully learned to utilize their mind on spiritual level

I'm saying that Christians have 1, but lack 2, meaning that I respect them more than a person who has neither 1 nor 2. However, I'll connect with a person who has both 1 and 2 with MUCH more respect than a Christian, obviously!

I've learned that religion (for me at least) not only does not bring clarity, peace, and happiness, but out of all the times in my life where I've studied and/or practiced a major religion I've experienced the opposite. I've experienced obfuscation, distraught, and distress. For ME Exercise, nature, Math, and Science are the ultimate forms of faith, clarity, fulfillment. I know that as truth. And it feels quite dandy understanding that about myself!!

Steve Pavlina's Brilliant #3 step for graduating from Christianity I resonated with SOooo strongly. Why? Because I'd done part of that. I picked up a Gideon's (isn't it clever that GIDEON is also the acronym for Global Infectious Disease & Epidemiology Network) LOL!! And I started in Genesis and then Exodus, etc. And I was like "Isn't it a little ridiculous that these people (these fictional characters in the Bible) live to be 800, 900 years? In the cult-worshipping-centers...erm I mean Christian Churches you don't hear priests blabbing about your 792nd birthday coming up "like the people in the Bible", right? No, of course not, because what goes on in Churches is part "semi-legitimate" anchoring of good values to words like "Jesus" and such and a lot cult-tactic. Churches leave out the utterly ridiculous stuff that's in the Bible. And the fact that so few Christians have actualy "read their textbook", read the Bible, is a testament, if you will, to their delusional and lost state! :D

"If you’re going to call yourself a Christian, then at the very least, you should read the entire Bible cover to cover. Wouldn’t you agree? After all, it’s touted as the most important work of your entire faith. If you’d rather watch TV than finish reading the Bible, perhaps you aren’t cut out to be a Christian. Don’t worry — my blog will still be here in a few years when you’re done." -- From Steve's Blog

Oh my god I love this guy!! That's BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Whenever I run into another brainwashed Christian, whose haranguing me for being a religious miscreant or some other absurdity, I now have the option of just labeling him as a delusionally obdurate and clouded person or grilling him on the Bible, the very text that he/she will likely know so little about!!! :D After all, the catch is, that upon reading the Bible cover to cover, any 100-IQ, average-minded individual or more intellient would realize that Christianity is just a mythology and the Bible, simply a long Wayyyy overrated, overtalked about fable (the Bible also serves as the backbone for the cult tactics utilized in Christianity as well!). Damn this is a liberating blog entry and era of vindication in my life! :D

I'm just going to go ahead and respond to a few VERY eloquent, VERY lucid, very reassuring, and joy-inducing paragraphs of validation I read on Steve's awesome site:

Now if you actually attempt this, it’s a safe bet that you’ll be bored to tears.

LMAO!! Exactly!! Genesis and Exodus were seriously some of the most Boring reads possible. And it's clear how the monotony and horrendously boring scripture of hte Bible was purposely meant to make it unbearably difficult to read and long, because a "core text" unread is more easily the source of delusion and brainwashing. And it's this aim, how the Bible was seriously literally engineered for cult, brainwashing, that angers me. But I digress and find salvation and humor in Steve's awesome and authentically true analysis!

The vast majority of the Bible’s content is very, very dull. It’s filled with long-winded genealogies and badly written stories. There’s a lot of aimless wandering in the desert. Very little of the Bible’s content is likely to be relevant or interesting to you. The good parts are few and far between. It’s an ideal cure for insomnia.

LMAO!! So true!! Go steve pavlina blogger friend!!

If you somehow manage to read the whole thing (an act that requires significant persistence), you’ll be left wondering what the big deal is. You’ll probably wish you’d spent that time reading something more interesting or educational.

The Bible is simply not a very interesting or useful book. Aside from the general dullness, it’s also filled with internal contradictions. This is intentional. You aren’t supposed to be able to make sense of it or discover profound truths on every page. The book is designed and marketed as a mystical work, such that you’re beholden to the Church as your interpreter.

Yikes! And that's true. I remember seeing a costa rican friend studying the Bible. The way he studied it, it was almost like he was trying to read a book but had forgotten how to read. He was always flipping pages and circulating ideas, and trying to "figure it out". I think that reaction is normal because there's absolutely NOTHING to figure out! The Bible is the biggest marketing scam on the planet!! Additionally, it's extremely circumventing. DELIBERATELY CIRCUMVENTING I think is the word of the day of the Bible so that it draws you into the church to "figure it out" (but remember there's nothing to figure out, except how to give alms out of your pocketbook into the church) lmoa!! scary and true. Truth is stranger (and scarier) than fiction. For Christians, this truth may hurt at first, but ultimately, understand the religion for what it is , an over-inflated, over-marketted, hyped up mythological marketing cult sham, it will be liberating to know that later on from a personal validity point of view!

Okay...great. So I know all of the above to be True. 100% true. I no longer fear the false cult-repurcussions and appeals to fear of firmly being a non-believer and firmly seeing Christianity as very poorly worded, incredibly hollow, and boring "myth" utilized for brainwashing. Great. But what do I do about the anger of so many people believing that and having been raised with that brainwashing and having done communion and then during my teens having wasted soooooo much time actually partially taking the time to question and maybe on-off believing in christianity?! What do I do about the anger of having been duped into thinking that for so long?? Well, I guess my exoneration from the anger arrives in teh form of the joy I feel in knowing that I'm liberated from the sham of Christianity and validate the future experience and joy of connecting with like-minded intelligent people like Steve Pavlina and others who share like-minded expansive and lucid spiritual vistas!

Steve writes "#4 Assess What You've Gained".

I think that is important especially for overcoming the anger of having been deluded for a good decade into partially believing Christianity. What did I gain from Christianity?? hhmm hhmm hhmm . Actually I don't have to think about it that much. I know very quickly what I gained:

1. Anchoring Awareness. I learned the power of anchors. A preacher can sit up on a pedastal and anchor the emotional states of "belief, hope", "discipline", "salvation from your problems" to a little t-shaped figurine and a five-lettered word beginning J. That's NLP at work, and that, mis amigos, is simply auditory and visual anchoring! The preacher gets people in this state of "respect", most people dress up for church, after all, and then all these anchors get fired off. So from any religion the anchoring done to the purely cognitive idea, the purely cognitive picture representation of a peaceful Buddha, or a compassionate Jesus, or an all-seeing Allah or something ARE great anchors to draw up. But all you're doing is mentally recalling those manufactured images, which is fine, because those peaceful, clear, states are poweful and good to be able to tap into any way that you can.
   
2. How a Cult Operates Awareness. The other thing I gained from Christianity is awareness how a cult operates. This knowledge is useful to 1)prevent getting trapped in a cult again and keeping yourself free with rational-minded intelligent people and 2)
   

Disconnecting from the "all non-christians are evil" mentality is huge. I

"If you study a lot of different belief systems as I have, you’ll learn that no one has a monopoly on your soul. All of these belief systems are man-made and flawed. Some are driven by powerful marketing machines. Whether you subscribe to any of them or not is of little concern to the rest of the universe."

I really like that one: "No one has a monopoly on your soul". So incredibly true and well-phrased! In a way, I did a lot of what Steve did. About 9 years ago, during my Junior year of highschool after I had this immense awakening and calling to lifecoaching, I spent hours and hours day after day for months in a local Barnes and Nobles perusing every religious tome, book, or encyclopedia (yes their are Eastern and Western religion actual encyclopedias). I studied religion simply like learning about the tenets and customs of ancient civilizations. The eight fold path and 4 noble truths of Buddhism, the very cool tonal scale of scientology, the commandments and proverbs of christianity, the 5 pillars of islam, the three deities Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, of the polytheistic religion, Hinduism, as well concepts such as Boddhisattva and Maya (illusion). I discovered there's an incredible amount of "junk" woven into religions! Each religion seemed to have this all-powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent deity that they just called different names (a Buddha, an Allah, a Jesus, a Kali) that were all basically the same thing and yet each religion vehemently and vicerally heralded their own "nickname" of thise all powerful force as the best and that all other "nicknames" were blasphemy. Additionally, each of these tenets or truths of the religion had a lot of similarities. The 8 fold path and 4 noble truths of Buddhism, for example were almost identical to the 10 commandments of Christianity. I thought, "Man! Did the creators of these religion all meet in a "Create Your Religion" club thousands of years ago, brainstorm similar ideas and all use their own marketing scheme?!" It certainly seemed that way. So I put enormous hours of study (probably close to 150-200 hours) into learning that religions are kind of like a board games! In monolopy or Chutes and Ladders for instance, there's always:

• an end (the Finish Line in Monopoly or Chutes and ladders that you have to get your piece to, or heaven for Christianity, Nirvana (Buddhism), or Moksha, "Exoneration from a cycle of suffering" (Hinduism)
• there's negative consequences for certain actions like "Going to Jail" (monopoly), falling down a Chute (Chutes and Ladders), Sinning or going to Hell (Christianity), Samsara's Cycle of Suffering (Buddhism)
• then there's weird little things that happen in the game: "Like buying houses or hotels" (monopoly), "getting a wild card" in Crazy 8s, Communion in Christianity, experiencing Meditation (Buddhism), Focusing on Rama and Sita (to made-up mythological characters of Hinduism).

One of the reasons why sharing this analysis become so uplifting to me was this exchange I had with a woman I met through one of those cheesy dating services. I had met quite a few women on it and non of them matched up to what we were each looking for. So when I found this one woman and we clicked it was exciting. She had majored in psychology; we were the same age; we were looking for identical qualities NOT in a relationship and IN a relationship (in other words, we both wanted and did not want the exact same things!), physically she was decently attractive, and we had a meaningful exchange. So it seemed like on our levels of capacity (I had a passion for and history of personal study with psychology a lot, too), belief, and maybe even identity, we clicked! It was exciting and it felt romantic. However, then I discovered that she was a Christian and that "her family was strict Christians" which meant that dating a non-Christian was impossible for her and she cut off the relationship like that!! My first reaction was astounded ridicule: Really?! This religion had really infected her so much that she couldnt' see that a potentially could match for experimenting with a meaningful relatinoship wasn't an option? It was just so incredibly illogical! My second reaction was frustration. I was frustrated that we seemed to connect on so many levels except spirituality and her spiritual level "wrote off" all the other parrallels! My third and final reaction was that of relief. I realized that if this woman was as close-minded as not being able to connect

So religions were just a silly board game with funny names and markers and a made-up "finish line" all heavily-marketted as this "spiritual necessity". Was about to take a board game seriously? So seriously that I would actually exclude people who didn't play my board game? In a sense, a Christian convening and associating with only Christians and frowning on non-Christians or Buddhists frowning on non-Buddhists is about as ridiculous as you chastising and looking down on non-Monopoly players or "non-Crazy 8s" or "non-Chutes & Ladders" players!! The whole reality of religion was so moronically peurile and pathetically manipulative and of all "SILLY" -- religion is so righeously absurdly silly -- that taking it seriously wasn't an option for me. I didn't have the qualifications of stupidity to continue to take any of these pre-ordained religions seriously. I wasn't stupid enough to believe in any of these religions! Now, it's VERY important to note that having a personal set of hand-crafted principles, beliefs and tenets is very uplifting and nourishing and something great to use as a guide in life. But hand-crafting your and structuring your own set of beliefs and principles is completely different than subscribing to these pre-packaged overly-spiritualized board games of religion. I think the best analogy is religion is like buying those pre-packaged frozen food meals that include the veggie, the meat, and the desert all in little microwaveable shrink-wrapped trays and eating the EXACT same meal for breakfast. lunch, and dinner for the rest of your life. What I encourage of cultivating your own set of principles and personal beliefs to guide and structure your life, is like gathering up fresh fruits and vegetables, maybe some fish, a bunch of spices, cutting, and cooking your own 3-course meal everytime you need nourishment. The result of cultivating your own set of beliefs and principles is that you get a much more nourishing, fulfilling, uplifting, and more "tasty" life! :D


Anyways. THIS Blog is FANTASTIC. OMG I love it!! From the Article on How humans are more anatomically designed as herbivores to this great article on moving beyond the nuisance of Christianity. It's a fantastic blog. I highly recommend it.

I don't think ANY post on these theme of liberating yourself from religion could be complete without Mentioned Richard Dawkins. Read Richard Dawkins. I just finished his book The God Delusion and hearing such a massively well-scholared intelligent dissection of religion and the commitment to understanding truth restored my faith in humanity and mankind.

Some notes on Dawkins's work.

1. Richawrd Dawkins. (anti-religion YAY!) To cap it all, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of
   the original sin, never existed in the first place: an awkward fact -
   excusably unknown to Paul but presumably known to an omnis-
   cient God (and Jesus, if you believe he was God?) - which
   fundamentally undermines the premise of the whole tortuously
   nasty theory. Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was
   only ever symbolic, wasn't it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress
   himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious
   punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent
   individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant.
2. George Carlin (in Richard Dawkins Book God Delusion). "Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible
   man - living in the sky - who watches everything you do, every
   minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten
   things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten
   things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning
   and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer
   and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the
   end of time . . . But He loves you!" (lmao. great ridicule).
3. GREAT Atheist Commandments (BEST!!)
1. • Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to
   you.
   • In all things, strive to cause no harm.
   • Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and
   the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and
   respect.
   • Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but
   always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and
   honestly regretted.
   • Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
   • Always seek to be learning something new.
   • Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and
   be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not
   conform to them.
   264 THR GOD DELUSION
   • Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always
   respect the right of others to disagree with you.
   • Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason
   and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by
   others.
   • Question everything.
   
4. Dawkins' Atheist commandments GREAT!
   
1. • Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else)
   and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their
   • inclinations, which are none of your business.
   • Do not discriminate or oppress on the basis of sex, race or (as
   far as possible) species.
   • Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think
   for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree
   with you.
   • Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.
5. Alfred Hitchcock (from Richard Dawkins) "It is said that Alfred Hitchcock, the great cinematic
   specialist in the art of frightening people, was once driving through
   Switzerland when he suddenly pointed out of the car window and
   said, 'That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.' It was a
   priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the boy's
   shoulder. Hitchcock leaned out of the car window and shouted,
   'Run, little boy! Run for your life!' "
6. Richard Dawkins -- "Religion has at one time or another been thought to fill four
   main roles in human life: explanation, exhortation, consolation and
   inspiration." (Science now completely Explains life. Religion provides no moral bearing on how to live; terrible group rapes and outdated commandments in religion. This is great because it shows that religion TRULY is obsolete!! A need for defining our own morality, however, IS VERY necessary and VERY present and that's why personal principles are essential!)....
7. Richard Dawkins -- Consolation, according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, is the
   alleviation of sorrow or mental distress. I shall divide consolation
   into two types.
   1. Direct physical consolation. A man stuck for the night on a
   bare mountain may find comfort in a large, warm St Bernard
   dog, not forgetting, of course, the brandy barrel around its
   neck. A weeping child may be consoled by the embrace of
   strong arms wrapped around her and reassuring words
   whispered in her ear.
   2. Consolation by discovery of a previously unappreciated fact,
   or a previously undiscovered way of looking at existing
   facts. A woman whose husband has been killed in war may be
   consoled by the discovery that she is pregnant by him, or that
   he died a hero.
8. (This is VERY interesting because to me, science, math, and the awe and mystery of mathematical precision and scientific technology found installed in Nature, in cellular technology, in science is the most inspiring. Again, this is MASSIVELY validating because for me the only thing religion has brought was the ANTI-THESIS OF CONSOLATION. Religion brought me being prosyletized in costa rica, religion brought me fear of fiery pits, screaming irate peope ranting things about trinities...religion brought discord and has never brought consolation! Why is that so many homeless people are connected with churhces? Because churches attract and manufuacture lost people! Science, in contrast, brought me deep truthful consolation. Science is something I can honestly absorb. I can pour over the "tenets" of the cellular respiration or the "tomes" of euclidian geometry and photosynthesis. Science and math are my source of explanation and consolation, and inspiration. And for exhoration, I combine and use a combination of science, logic, and my own principles! Seeing how much WELL-written (dawkins') material there is on anti-religion and how little well-written material on religion these days, restores my faith in humanity and mankind! :D
   
9. Carl Sagan (Science as truth!) -- "Not explaining science
   seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the
   world. This book is a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love
   affair with science."

How to Avoid Bringing Too Much When Traveling!

A huge fan of the "rolling clothes" WITH RUBBERBAND (Huge tip), I kept all my clothes like that even while at home!! I actually just stopped recently keeping all my clothes and rubberbanded AT HOME, but will likely do that on a trip.

My biggest problem is the "what if the opportunity arises for xyz?" and xyz could be "wearing a suit", looking sharp, that random sporting event that pops up, using a laptop need (bring laptop yeah/nae?)

I think one of the most outrageous "OVERPACKING" trips was a trip to Santa Barbara I took to see afriend, not knowing if i'd stay a night or a week, and knowing that we talked about surf I brought something like

• a laptop and bag
• a surfboard
• wetsuit
• suitcase with week's worth of clothes
• swim bag and suit
• formal dress clothes (collared shirts, ties (hanign in car))

Guess what, I didn't even stay ONE night, I drove back that same day. -_- LMAO!!!

This was great advice

Hi Mike.. :-)
The reality is that we all overpack…
We’re all thinking in the back of our minds, what if I need to be more formal ? What if something get’s soiled ?
Put that out of your mind..
If you really want to pack light, just pack the stuff you you wear every day…Your favorite Ts…That couple pair of jeans that fit perfect…
In an actual emergency, there’s always a laundrymat down the street.. :-)
In packing, just realize that less is more…You know what you need and that in a pinch you’ll figure it out…
Just take a step back, realize what you’ll actually “need”, and go from there.. >>

Conclusively, even when I went to Hawaii I was lugging around an entire extra suitcase I didn't need (I would've been fine with just a backpack). My best packing job was when I lived in the Yucatan in Mexico. WHY was the packing so good? Because it was a highly specific trip and we needed highly specific things (gators, bug repellant, jungle clothes) living in tent. So It was all laid out checklisted and whatnot.

I think the BIGGEST problem of packing is simply not enough planning. When I've overpacked it's been because I always throw in at the last minute..."oh dang I might need that..couldn't hurt to add that one other thing!" (repeat a dozen times with 12 other things!) And THEN the problem with "last minute chuckins" is that you don't have a cognizance of what you're bringing and a part of your brain knows you have this amorphorous blob of stuff you're hauling around and it truly DOES drain the vacation, the actual travel experience.

You're traveling to see/experience a different place (and time? ooo dr. who lol :D). Clumping up your travel with excess belongings seriously obscures and creates interference with connecting with the travel! In other words you aren't really traveling if you bring ALL your stuff you need, may need, and may/not need for xyz random occasion "if it arises". In many cases, I think if you travel and realize you forgot something but will have to make do without it, you're 50,000 times better off on the other extreme of having brought something that you realize you won't use!! ;). I think the best illustration of bringing "too much stuff" is picturing a travel carrying a 4 suitcases, clothes, various odd-sized items all in front of him so he can't even see what's in front of him. THAT is the gross exaggeration of what we're like when we overpack. We can't see and sensually experience the environment we're in. As a result, a lot of the value and peace of travel is burdened and hazy or partially lost. So I guess the bottom line with this fact is bringing less leaves more cognitive room for savoring the experience of actually traveling!

So I think the good rule of thumbs are:

1. 1. Overplan the packing. Checklist it. Stick to the list, so you have cognizance of what you're bringing and don't fall into the "ambiguous amorphorous blog of stuff" that you'd haul around.
2. 2. You're traveling to see/experience a different place (and time? ooo dr. who lol :D); bring the bare bones minimum of what you'll need so the purpose of travel is most rich and alive.
3. 3. Bringing less leaves more cognitive room for savoring the experience of actually traveling!

("Note: If you're a HUGE Joseph Campbell, Power of Myth, maybe Star Wars fan....look closely at the decals on the suitcase graphic! Victory! ;D)

Safe Plastics, Healthy Ocean!!

safe plastics healthy ocean article. My questions. what plastics are safe? Other than buying unwrapped produce, how can I as a consumer not contribute to ocean toxic waste and help the environment? If I have to buy plastic-wrapped items is there any kind that's "safer"? I'm a HUGE fan of reusing containers and I do. yogurt containers, coffee cans, protein containers I rarely ever discard and reuse around office-work-homespace as a recepteacle for something else. How do we not become plastic paranoid?! I like buying strawberries from the grocery store but they come in that clunky plastic container that I'll discard! There should be a cool way to get solid good inexpensive food and items without resorting to plastic. Like a BYOB method. At grocery stores I simply don't ask for bags because they'r clunky and cumbersome. NOT having plastic is smoother easier and simply...for you as an individual and with the external ecology check it's MUCH healthier for hte environment. The fact that that ratio of plastic-to-fish-weigh had skyrocketed so much was frightening and saddening. We've got to seriously change this and the interviewer dude is right, I think it does start with "not-marketing" not doing outrageous prepackaging stuff. It's actually a cool feeling ot get back from grocery shopping and having got primarily almost all produce, and to reuse the peanut butter containers, and maybe some plastic wrapped around fish, but it's simpler and much safer for the environment. Everyone should have to read that awesome, harrowing, but poignant Earth Island article interview with the chemist-captain dude. Just to get a sense of where we've got to start moving for environmental conservation and healthy environmental experiences to cherish our Nature!

Like I have to go pick up a printer ink cartridge and that has plastic wrapped in it. I like Hansen's soda, but it comes in a can. I need to pickup this xyz product and it only comes wrapped in plastic. I feel pretty unsettled and think this "scare" articles are Great. Hey, it worked. I'm scared and saddened by the amount of plastic infestation in our oceans, but they need to attach a solution to this. All these articles always end with the tone of :"This is royalled F$@%ed up..and we're working on a solution." There needs to BE a solution attached to these articles because when a normal person (like me) reads them, they want to do something but can't really take any kind of action except feel saddened, frightened, and maybe frustrated by the foul pollutants in our oceans, in our fish, in our very food. So where's the solutions man? The solutions that individual can take on their own? This is a group endeavor but everyone can contirbute. I mean I can avoid purchasing plastic-wrapped items but sometimes it's a necessity and reusing plastics, too. But yeah, freaky stuff.

Also from a global POV yeah this a MASSIVE dangerous, harrowing, freak-out-city problem! But from a consumer POV. Where are the people marketing CHEAP, INEXPENSIVE products that have no environment-contaminating plastic wrapper and such? I know there's tuna brands that don't harm dolphins...great. But where's the equivalent of that kind of product that I can purchase instead that doesn't contain harmful plastics (that will ultimately recirculate back into our own body! Plastic goes into ocean, eaten by small fish, eaten by larger fish, we eat the larger fish that contains the plastic. F$@!ed up!)

April 15, 2008 Day Journal

INTERESTING day!! Was outside doing stuff nonstop for 10.5 hours basically. Woke up noon. immediately did 6 circuts, showerd, tie, jacket, etc. Then drove to Michael Zanuck Agency. cool as!! Met katherine she said a lot:
I shouldn't squint during interviews
my glasses looked good
I looked thinner around the cheekbones than my 2006 picture
that my 2006 headshot didn't look professiona (I said because of my shading/coloring lol)
that I should email them for representation (and I did) in commercials if offered and I did LOL

Realized all the movie posters up was like MY room (austin powers, music stuff, world mape etc. cool as!! Funny wild! lol!!).

Michael zanuck also looked REALLY cool. He looked a LOT like Alan Arkin haha!! Hawaiian shirt, the office was the size of my dad's office which was interesting, so...pretty interesting stuff. cool!

Then I drove to 1514 gower off hollywood freeway. Where I got the 2006 headhots was near the "Roscoes Chicken n' Waffle House" haha!! Seriously the most peculiar combo of food, but hey I think it's some kind of one of those weird landmark diner places haha! Anyways, I knew the headshot place was near the waffle-chicken house. I found the restaurant, checked it out and then walked up gower (and it was cool seeing the hollywood sign from there again. Last time I saw it, it was from the Graumann's mall when I was locked out of the car after (never again) doing valet before meeting up with the acting friends at saddle ranch and walking around for 24 hours until could get car back haha) ) and saw that where the hollywood headshots place was, it was replaced and the building was up for lease LOL!! So that kind of disorientated me, so I walked around the blocks a few times, Called aunt sally, told her about life update -- lifecoaching, acting on the backburner, etc. she was doing a kind of class tutoring thing -- and I said I'd likely go out of the country if I didn't have some work set up in 6 months, which is good! I haven't had work in like 4-5 years!!! And I've been trying like crazy! Soo....yeah then I called matt and we talked about him coming out to cali and he said (this was astonishing) that he'd NEVER been out here! crazy!! The guy WORKS for an airline too! haha! We discussed seeing a dodgers game, going to new york, seeing the hollywood sign...everything I had just done basically haha. Anyways, strongly considering driving somewhere, but where (new york?). Then I drove a bit and called headshot places and felt a bit disorientated after not finding that one after it had gone. I think I found the hiking park area where you can climb to the top of the hollywood sign and by that time I was on the phone wiht Ron Finley who said he'd directed a lot of tv. I just looked him up and imdb shows him as "writer" for tales of the crypt (which he mentione,d and also mentioned sesame street haha!) so I don't know if hte imdb credit is innacurate or if he really did/didn't direct those shows, but whatever the guy sounded awesome, highly intelligent and was an awesome convo! He talked about using blue screens as backdrops for photography now!! I hadn't realize they're so high-tech for photos, for film I was aware of the massive technology, but that's wild! He mentioend how he went to italy and wrote some books and was doing massive high-tech photography with different backdrops (like an actor backdrop of a rugged new york street) or some kind of white screen for lifecoaching and the various images I wanted to portray. Definitely professional ones lifecoaching and acting ( and maybe a comedy one). But he asked if i was doing one for eharmony LOL! Apparently people get professional photo touchups for eharmony haha!! Hysterical! Anyways we talked about the "steve jobs" turtleneck book which was DEFINITELY not me and I joked how he was kind of the preacherrole more than the computer guy and he said he was the wheeler dealer and I agreed saying wozniak was the computer guy and jobs the business hound. Anyways it was a COOL convo. So like older retired, NON-JERK (I meet a LOT of jerk director-people in the film/media business that had the mentality of "get out of my face, dont' have time for you" or something. and I laugh now, that's such a ridiculous attitidue!) So basically yeah, it was pretty refershing and awesome to talk with a cool director dude and hear all about these backdrops for photos and cool to talk to someone in a relaxed mode who had experience in the media/film world.

Phone calls:
Aunt Sal
Matt parsons
Jeff smith (voice message)
Dean Smith (voice message)
Mom (about needing "play place" after hard work, lifescribing, older women thing)
Three headshot places
Ron Finley photographer-former director dude
A ton of self-recordings too (especially after the vacuum thing lol!) glad I didnt' pay for that repair, can totally repair it myself! and I don't even want ot use that vacuum! lol. I got a way better version more efficient, much more industrial sized sturdy one cool as.

Errands
1245 --MZA AGency
1514 Gower chicken and waffle place near old headshot (now gone)
Base of hollywood sign hike place
440pm -- Vacuum store on topanga (picked up vacuum)
545pm -- Costco -- got a bromeliad plant, berries, cibatta, juice, peanut butter, capers, paprika haha!
Citibank deposited check
Church (across from citibank -random for like 2 minutes exploring)
Got back immediately did trails with henry 2.87 miles at like 745pm
Then gym and talked with steve about how he knew brett michaels and actually played with him haha! wild! And about meeting women and talked about how I was into math and music now and we caught the tail ind of the Dodgers San fran (CA v CA! lol) game and I lifted did some pulls and did too sub-6 mile half miles on treadmill and then .5 miles at like 20 elip. cool! Intense good awesome workout! Cool beans!


anyways then I drove to the vacuum place then to costco talked wiht mom a ton. then to citibank to deposit a check on topanga heading south and stopped ina place that I thought was a school, but it turned out to be church with a spanish service. i'm not too big on christianity, but I had a HUGE realization: any form or religion is JUST an application of NLP. It's applying all these clarity, faith, hope, belief etc anchors to an idol! So that then when people see a cross of jesus, or of buddha, or mention allah, they connect all these positive emotions of belief, faith, hope, clarity into the service! Now THAT type of anchoring I can respect. So while I, personally, do not believe in religion, I seriously respect any type of positive anchoring, and if someone does that in a religion, I can respect that. I of course recognize that for what it is, just a manifestation of anchoring -- which was a shocking very cool realization! -- so I respect a bunch of people congregating in a place setting (unconsciously most likely) uplifting anchors for themselves sure! And if they want to slap those anchors to a buddha statue or shiva figurine or christ symbol or koran book, hey, I don't care. I've been critical of religion in the past because it discourages doing your own 50,000 foot thinking and identifying what's valuable to you individually spiritually and your core beliefs (because people will just typically get force fed biblical or buddhist orwhatever the religion is, those tenets when they're fully capable of extracting and deciphering what is valuable to them!). So yeah. Interesting stuff. In many ways, things that make people feel good and "okay" be them bad things (addictions, overwatching television, self-destructive behavior) or "okay things" are all just utilized because of their anchor effect!

So it was a shocking realization to see NLP at work in religion. Here nlp, there nlp, everywhere nlp, nlp!!! haha!

Then at 8 did like night run with henry, he was wild, then hit up gym for an hour.

5 Lessons Learned from Shipping and Selling an item on eBay.

Hello! I just feel angry, financially exploited, and a little upset because I spent $19 sending a 40z ipod through the UPS store and checked the same price and it would have been $4.00 with just general post office. It sold for $21.00 and I recieved $29.99 from the buyer for the entire exchange (including s&h). So despite my reaction to the shipping part, I definitely felt stoked to earn ANY kind of profit ($10 profit is great. > than nothing!) So I AM surprisingly rewarded about that, but have learned some lessons from this happenstance. So, I'm going to present the 5 lessons learned and would appreciate if someone could educate me on how to send things (packages etc) via post office. UPS/fedex etc are all SCAMS omg!! Huge ripoff!!

I have sold a few other things in ebay before, but this time proved to be a valuable learning experience.

1. Always Do it yourself. It's always less expensive and in many ways more rewarding. If If would've printed off the tracking labels myself it would've cost much less.
2. Make sure the profit that you make is worth/commensurate/proportional to the value of amount of time put into earning that profit. I spend 5-6 hours and a good bit of energy selling the ipod item on ebay, communicating with the buyer, posting photos, creating a sell item, sending it, preparing the item for sale. Make sure the profit you will earn is with the effort and time put into making that profit! From a purely economic point of view. The value of the time put into (effort, time, energy, other things you could be doing with your time + the value of the item or service sold) should = (profit!).
3. I will be never using the UPS store again; Post Office shipping is MUCH less expensive!
4. The U.S. is too brash for me, I prefer the European sophisticated experience and ambiance (I've even heard americans remark are French are "nicer" and I asked if that met more kind and they said yes).
5. The different between the post office and UPS is that the post office is MUCH less expensive (I didn't know that)!

634 Contacts! 100% Pure, Premium Concentrated Contacts!

I had 634 which was INSANE. I whittled it down to 514, but still want to edit it and get rid of a lot. Felt awesome to sort through them (all electronic of course, Apple Address Book); if you still use paper non-electronic address books, don't even respond, you're too outdated. Wondered what criteria people use for saving/editing out contacts. I've got work, biz, friend, random project, old new contacts from everything; am structuring it so get the most use though.

I asked around and got answers like 14, 28, 59, and 25. So if the average is 40. I have over 15 times the "average" number of contacts. Hhhmm I am stoked to get my "oktokeep" category down to 200, but even 200 is a ton! It's exciting to have this many, but ideally there's a lot of contacts that resemble doors and projects that I have closed and have moved on from and may want to keep closed so editting those down would be incredibly wise. Additionally, having a more concentrated less diluted (all these contacts are relevant) is opportune and an incredible form of clarity. Additionally it's a matter of ensuring that you maintain awareness of which one's technically (like working phone number and/or email) and emotionally-socially (still relevant and positive in your life and career at the moment and many will NOT be relevant nor compatibile) work and still are compatible.

Looking through your contacts and not having an "baggage contacts" like "oh don't want to contact her...or that project's ended" is ideal to not have negative psychological energy connected up with contacts so sorting them out. Whittling my now 514 down to 200 or less would be incredibly energizing. Additionally

Non-Brand ≠ Bland. Generic Brand or Making your own Stuff Generates Confidence and Soothing Reward.

I'm beginning to see how the working world works. How people invent products that are completely useless, copying various competitor brands, when always the simplest (and cheapest) is always the best. The simple best cheapest products stand out on a store shelf. Example: I went to go pick up dog shampoo. I knew the only thing I need for my awesome dog is 2 bowls (1 for food, 1 for water), huge bag of food, a deshedding brush, and doggie shampoo. SCREW all of those mini expensive toy, chemical, brushy, foofy, petty products; they're ALL scams to make money! And the store-brand (generic) bottle of doggy shampoo is like "glistening" on the shelf, it's by Far the best one!! Largest quantity, cheapest price, vanilla cent, does the EXACT same thing as all the other "designer" (designer dog shampoo OMG!! ffs!) shiny coat, oiled, good dermatologically, etc. The simplest, cheapest, and minimal items are ALWAYS the best. It's so easy to get lost and confused in the world of "brand". Of buying something not for it's purpose nor utility but it's brand. Such a concept is utterly ridiculous to me now! Now, don't get me wrong their are some brands that I use because I invest a lot of time into a certain resource; namely Apple brand computers and mabye Shell gas just because of good experiences from those stations, but other than that, NOTHING else really should be brand-bought! Even food, beverages, household items I always go to the cheapest bulk, "generic" label brands 1)because I don't have the option of affording another kind and 2)because it's Liberating!! To know that I didn't waste money on a packaging configuration of brand letters!! The intent with providing a solid brand is to ensure consistency and reliability, but you know what? The generic simplest naturalist product (be it strawberries or shampoo) is almost always the best, especially if it's something you need that isn't an everyday thing.

So as I passed these rows and rows and rows of trinketty ridiculous pet items, all your canus lupus needs to be happy is good, fun exercise outdoors, social play time with other animals (including homo sapiens), food, water, and staying clean/bathed! But I thought to myself, I could've been one of those people that invented a product and went through the HELL of branding and patenting paperwork and approvals, just to get my mini row of 10 or so identical invention items up on the shelf...NEXT TO 2-10 other types of competitor inventions that emerge with their own marketing advertising, labeling, twist angle just to make money! So I feel galvanized having chosen to just take a deep breath, pass by all that superfluous shit, grab the simplest, cheapest product, and not clutter my life with items that have little bearing on a person. I purchase items for utility (or if it's an investment, to sell later, but that's a different strategy); that makes me feel resourceful!

Purchasing the generic brand encourages creativity and modularity. This may sound ridiculously complex and unnecessarily over-scrutinized, but it's undeniably true! When I purchase generic "no-brand" cereal or vegetables, or rice, for example, I find it joyful to then resourcefully plugin interesting recipes to make that "bland no brand" extremely tasty or resourceful and exciting. It makes you feel self-sufficient to make things, construct things you need (if possible) instead of going to go purchase them. The experience of self-sufficiency of creating what you need if you have the necessary components (some things items like basic food ingredients feel good to purchase) to just make the tool or implement feels extremely rewarding, soothing, and confidence-boosting!

Phone Conversations - The Best Ones and How to End on a High Plateau!

we talked about the like design of our diploma, thomas being a doctor, my awesome NLP stuff I loved, That felt like a REAL conversation. A great and valuable and meaningful conversation, too! Because we talked about something obscure (a lot of my conversations are like my reciting some blog post or future blog post sometimes haha!) the diplomas, thomas being a doctor -- stuff that basically only we could have a conversation a bout, so that made it more fun and rewarding and meaningful too. On that topic, what exactly is qualifications for a "good, rewarding, GREAT phone convo"? Well, I've give this lot of thought. I think the best phone conversations are ones that are unique and highly-specific and maybe even obscure to the people in the conversation. In otherwords, highly relevant somewhat subjective phone calls! Now, I love universals -- universal truths, universal math, universal language, those solid everywhere you go truths, I love! But in phone calls I've spent a lot of time telling, kind of broadcasting, almost to people the same update or current event of my life or inspirational idea. That's GREAT to do for a seminar or for a motivational lifecoaching session because if it what you say is inspiring and great and motivational then more people should hear it! Great!! But for a casual phone conversation...sure it's great to share the inspirational snippet great! But ultimately, I could broadcast an inspirational snippet in a blog or hopefully when I get actual lifecoaching phone sessions going, so for a casual conversation, strangely I feel the most rewarded when we discuss something highly specific and relevant to each other!

I just had a great, great convo with my brother James and we talked about the text-font-design of our college diplomas as well as our younger brother's career path! haha! A very bizarre thing to examine but it was a topic -- a conversational topic -- that only could really exist from the relationship that exists between my brother and I.

For the longest time I erroneously thought the best phone conversation was me broadcast some inspirational lesson or message, and YES, that DOES have a place, if I'm in rapport with an audience or a person who's interested at that time in hearing and experiencing a motivational message, but if it's just a casual conversation, broadcasting a huge motivational message kind of just has a neutral effect and isn't as uplifting as a highly specific person-to-person relevant conversation!! That was very surprising to me!

One of the best things we talked about was how to properly end conversations. I've had tons of people and articles provide advice on the MILLIONS of lines, the script, the dialogue, the words, you can say to end a phone conversation such as...

• "I'm really sorry, but I have to go, it's dinner time. I'll call you tomorrow, OK? (pause) Bye!"
• "Sorry got to go, there's someone at the door, bye"
• "Oh my gosh! [Insert name of pet, younger sibling or child here!] Stop! You're going to kill yourself! Stop! Hold on!" [Hang up] If they call back later or something tell that the pet/ younger sibling/ child almost fell off the counter, or pulled a bookshelf down or something similar, but they ended up OK, despite some bruises and scrapes.
• "Hey, I'm going to have to let you go because I have to get off the phone."
• "Well i must be running up your bill, so Ill let you get on now, take care, bye"
• Blah Blah -- USELESS!

Those words are useless unless you know when you should or want to end a phone call!! My problem was that, frankly, I have all these little projects in my life that I could easily get to but valued phone conversations (I can be a very chatty person at times) and always feared ending a convo that might provide inspiration or interesting discussions. So the solution is WHILE you're talking you think of things on your todo list that you want to get done and then weave those into the conversation and share your excitement about doing this next project and then say so I'm "adios to go do xyz"! So you aren't "ending terminating, severing" the phone call; instead, you're getting stoked, psyched, and sharing your interest in this next project that you have to do (writing a blog entry, taking dog for walk, some appointment, a computer project I'm working on, making done, going to meet a friend) and then telling the person that you'll love to continue talking but are going to do that.

People have all these "lines", "excuses" to say in phone calls and I've experienced people saying those to me and frankly, it kind of bites. It hurts to have someone make up something they have to do to end a phone call. So basically I never gave myself permission to end phone calls, even when I mentioned another project I always "asked" the other person if it was okay for me to go!! I'd say "I'm so psyched about xyz, Isn't that a cool project! Is it okay if I go do that?" haha!! I seriously felt Sooo uncomfortable simply saying I have to go and choosing to end the phone conversation. Like my problem was not not having an awareness of how to end a phone call, but rather, that I never knew when I wanted to or when it was best to do! The key, again, is openness, sharing a project I'm working on and saying I have to get back to that!

I'm a very talkative and happy social person when I'm in the mood but that does not have to coexist with being focused and clear and sharing projects that I'm working on then weaving that into the convo to then launch into that next project or action from the convo. In other words, you shouldn't ever "end-terminate" phone calls with friends (you SHOULD with obnoxious people and I'm quite good at terminating phone calls haha!) But segueing-launching into the next action of your life is what you should do with phone calls with friends. Cool!



eHow suggests:

Use phrases that come at the end of a conversation such as, “it’s been great talking to you” or “thanks for the chat.” This is a subtle way to let the other party know you are trying to wrap up the conversation.

So in other words, ending a conversation is NOT saying no to the person, no to their ideas, nor anything like that! I erroneously assumed that if I ended a conversation, I would be trampling on the person's ideas and essence and personality. I literally ALWAYS waited for the other person to say they had to go. Seriously! Just about every single phone call I was in, I felt like I the other person needed to say they had to go or else I'd terminate the conversation at the wrong time or "illegitamately" which is ridiculous because there's no legitimate or illegitimate phone convos, it's just a chat. The mind maketh good or ill; if someone has to go and someone chooses to interpret that as a disparagement, that's an insecurity problem of THEIRS!! So basically I learned to validate ending phone conversations and the missing element of that for me was NOT learning knew ways to express or communicate saying no.

Instead, the missing link that I needed was that I never knew internally what needed to happen in my mind to validate ending the conversation. I never knew knew when I "should" or even "when I wanted" to end the conversation. When I tried to practice it I said "I'm doing this great awesome project where I scan in photos from experiences in my life and apply this very precise chronological naming system so that I get the things done

101 Ways to Say No -- Very funny!