- Java Programming
- Computer Science in General
- Android App Development
- Interesting Mathematical Discoveries I find and want to share
- Maybe a few other languages like Ruby, Ajax, and python, but I am focusing on Java because that's what is needed for mobile app dev.
Keep up with VYL's Updates
9.28.2015
Okay this is switching over to Computer Science and Math
6.11.2009
WE HAVE OFFICIALLY MOVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6.08.2009
Purpose and Tools for Getting There
6.04.2009
Yeah...I'm Totally 100% I Followed Movies in order to Coach Actors
Carradine's death and Heath's death in early 2008 (both suicides) shows that actors are unhappy. They need and are lost and confused. I'm 100% convinced that the reaons for following film and studying acting for a bit was to eventually Coach actors in areas of fulfilment and health and performance and meaning. It's simple. Actor's have a lot of money and little happiness. I have a lot of happiness and little money. I can teach the happiness; they can give me the money. Both parties happy. :D!!
This makes you realize that Hollywood is truly just a massive Cult of Marketing and ploys nad disillusionment tied in with the media to create the illusion of the "glory of fame and stardom" etc. Well Hollywood went down the tubes. Seriously. I've been living 20 miles west of "Hollywood" the past year and the place is like a vacant ghost town when I visit it (seriously). Additionally, the silver screen pictures and that whole era from a sales/business point of view is completely wasted and gone. Youtube, private casts, internet "films" are now reality. So the Cultu of Hollywood is slowly dying.
Boy has my thought evolved rapidly the past years!! Only three years ago I was fascinated with and enthralled by actors. Now, after discovering some truly clear thinking rocking bodacious people (DB, Dawkins, etc). I've realized, sure, some actors may be genuinely cool, great people, but their profession is the biggest kind of cult disillusionment mass hypnosis possible. Tahts' why so many off themselves because their profession is so warped and disillusioned and they're a servant for "product placement" in the films! They likely have very little sense of self after playing characters and roles for many years of their life.
Coaching is the opposite of that. I spend YEARS of my life writing books on discovering exactly what I want to know and who I want to be and I discover that! I was interested in spirituality and when I was, it was exciting but various things (prosetylizatio in Costa Rica on multiple occasion, reading up on cults and witnessing identical similarities between cults and major religions etc) emerged and I evolved out of that. Now science and atheism are rivetting. TRULY rivetting. But the truth of the matter is. They've ALWAYS been rivetting! I've ALWAYS been this nerdy, scientific atheist. I watch home videos of me as a kid and I see that and know that. "Devout Atheism" (:D) is what's true for me. Kiekegaard says "I must find a truth that's true for me". Well, soren, I did just that and it's refreshing and incredibly MASSIVELY empowering!! Wow. So empowering to honor my genuine LOVE for science! Three kinds of symbiotic relationships, Stomata on plants, cellular respiration I love that high-tech jargon and better yet the fact that it's linked to real things in nature. But physics is like some of the most absolute truths of all tied in with the precision of math. I'm very interested in physics especially. Sweet!!
6.03.2009
Schwarzenegger: Keep Our Beaches Open! Move Towards At Least Commensualistic Symbiosis
Dear Governor Schwarzenneger,
(From John Thomas "Kooz" Kuczmarski)
I'm a strong believer that the purpose of a city should serve Nature. Nature -- wildlife, animals, we homo sapiens ARE Nature -- should be the intention of anything municipal, or city-based. Therefore the idea of actually closing beaches, closing a way for humans to enjoy nature (the ocean and beaches) would be undermining the very purpose of a city.
Do you really think people will stand for not being able to access beaches? Have you any idea how ludicrous that sounds?
I think anyone who believes eliminating parks-nature-Beach funding for the purpose of redirecting those funds to something non-Nature-based needs to re-evaluate their mission, don't you?
If the significance of Nature (the oxygen we breath from the botanical plants of parks) and the body of water that keeps us alive (planet earth ecologically could not survive if it were not for it being covered with over 70% water) is eclipsed, all is lost for EARTH and humans. This sounds extreme and that's because it is. If anything, funding needs to be redirected to opening MORE beaches and parks to remind us homo sapiens that we are just highly-evolved primates, elements of nature and truly do deserve to connect with Nature readily and frequently.
I think one problem with American government is that it HAS too much funding!! IT has so much funding that it redirects it's energies, finances, and time away from the absolute necessities (nature, oxygen, planetary perpetuation and survival).
What would be the result of this situation? What would the HUMAN RACE look like couped up in offices and buildings withotu access to Nature (our origin). To euphemistically refer to the chaos, inhuman treatment, loss of identity, uncertainty of values, drop in wholistic health, and slow disintegration of the third planet from the sun -- Bad things would occur to our planet and humans.
Closing parks is analogous to saying "we dont' need to focus on nature, on beaches, on the very oxygen we breath - the most fundamental survival necessity of us humans, mind you" And that is indirectly saying "it's okay for people to suffocate and die". I wont' go as far as saying that choosing to close beaches is identical to some kind of asphixiation concentration camp -- because that would be extreme -- but I think the analogy does exist there in some form.
For the Health of Homo Sapiens (and other flora and fauna on the planet), I urge you to make the decision to NOT close the beaches and to instead maybe apply funding to actually creating more (instead of less) of an awareness of the Significance of the health of our planet. The Pacific Trash Vortex, for example....that's something more people need to be aware of, in order to stop trash accumulation in the oceans. We're failing as a species, dumping trash into the ocean?! No other species does that.
The very LEAST we can do is keep beaches and parks open to ensure that the deteriorating of our most vital resource -- OUR PLANET -- does not continue.
And we do not possess the earth. The earth does not possess us either (for we can take flight into space and leave earth), but homo sapiens MUST have a MUTUALISTIC relationsihp with the earth and we are failing because The relationship of homo sapiens and Earth has become PARASITIC. We are feeding off and hurting the ecology or our own home (earth) and not giving back. A commensualistic Symbiosis would be better than the Parististic symbiosis that humans currently have with our planet. We Should be having a mutalistic symbiosis but are in fact, having the complete opposite of that.
So again, I urge you, could you try to elevate our already-suffering relationship with the planet from parasitistic to (at the very leaast) commensualistic symbiosis, and direct funds towards cultivating attention TOWARD the necessity of beaches and parks, not away from them?!!!
Thank you!
-- Johnt Thomas "Kooz" Kuczmarski
5.24.2009
Accessing the Core of Spirituality: Religion in Equus
Accessing the Core of Spirituality: Religion in Equus
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBUNdaBksh_AzKbraPbODGmBN4yP0uI1siYkDSGwUpEvXfJTu-39vWkbZEGSCB8a-exr5OEynMGVYMw2at89EXOwAhV-wzEnMUhtVef7pG3qnaWmHli98QfiV4Xzr06ZgGqSkx3g/s320/equus.jpg)
John Kuczmarski
November 8, 2004
Professor Soderholm
Accessing the Core of Spirituality: Religion in Equus
What is a church? What makes up a religiously spiritual sanctuary? Is it darkened corridors echoing with hymnal reverberations , ornately colored stained glass, and the smoothened, mahogany wood found in most chapels? Or is it some relationship that you intrinsically cultivate and carry around with you, regardless of your environmental surroundings? The Greek word for “church”, “kyriakos”, means “belonging to the lord”, “the body”, “extraordinary being”, and “to make a house”, while “ekklêsia” (another synonym for “church” used in the Gospels) means “assembly” or “congregation”(Liddel 385). Even further from the conventional connection of “church”, occurring before any of the books of the New Testament, is the Aramaic definition, which has a variety of etymological roots connoting festival and celebration (Liddel 385). Maybe a church-like experience should not be a confined, solemn habitat, but an atmosphere that simply provokes and promotes authentic spirituality and connected nurturing of one’s passion. According to Greek ideology, we must experience pain and suffering in order to become passionate spiritual beings. This painful suffering becomes a carving process, whittling away the excess residual sculpture, allowing one to arrive at the altruistic soul. This transparency is created not by a church, but by one’s relationship to his spirituality – his essential religious core. Almost 2000 years after St. Paul’s blinding and consequential conversation to Christian faith, Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play, Equus, exemplifies how the protagonist, Alan, initiates a blindingly pious worship involving horses. In Equus, the core of worship and sexuality is accessed on myriad different levels of interpretation, spiritual environment, and church.
The blinding and conversion of St. Paul (then known as Saul) occurred a couple decades after his birth in 10 ad. and caused Jesus of Nazareth to reveal his perception of Paul via Ananias “a vessel of election, to carry [God’s] name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 22:14). Could it be that the young teenager, Alan, felt compelled to become a “vessel of election” and, with missionary-like conviction, spread the word of his equestrian religion; or, possibly, did Alan deify himself to play the role of God by blinding six horses? Alan may not have deified himself, but he certainly was perceiving messages that were, like those Paul recieved, not being experienced by others: “the others could who were with [Paul] saw the light but did not hear the voice of” God (Acts 22: 9). In the story of Paul’s Conversion, Ananias plays the role of a Platonic Guardian because he went back into the cave, to provide Paul with his sight, encouraging him to spread the word of God and practicing moving the soul “from the world of becoming into that of being” by becoming “a vessel of election, to carry [the name of Jesus] before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel" (Plato 143)(Acts 22:14). Plato and the writer of Acts had congruent beliefs regarding the process of enlightenment involving an initial blinding glare of insight. Both of these authors would, no doubt, find meaning in the Zen parable encouraging one to “empty your cup”, insinuating that we only learn new knowledge by being a vessel to communicate a message.
In Equus, Alan becomes a similar kind of Guardian, like Ananias to Paul, liberating the psychiatrist, Dysart, from the “black cave of the Psyche” ( Shaffer p. 75). In Plato’s Allegory, the “church” or location of veritas (teachings of being, instead of becoming) was the new mysterious Sun of Reason and Goodness outside the dark psychic cave, and Alan became a master of this mysterious unknwon, with his “real worship” (p.82) -- the only form of worship he has ever known. Plato tells that stepping into the world of being revolves around the application of the soul: “the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being”. Because Alan applies his soul, unlike Dysart who only applies his mind, to knowledge (exemplified by his hour of equestrian freedom and worship) he steps into the liberating world of being. This profound worship allows Alan to grow: “without worship, you shrink”, and create a haven for his practices – the corral (Shaffer p. 82).
Alan’s conception of church clearly revolves around the stable and the horse corral. This environment provides spiritual cultivation and access to the deified Equus and other horses for sexual and spiritual worship. Yet, Alan interprets the corral as a permanently safe sanctuary solely for horse worship. By limiting the spiritual context of the stable solely for horse worship, Alan immerses himself in maladaptive isolation and fixates himself in a dangerously intractable position. An ancient Taoist monk said, “Changing with change, is the changeless state”. The wisdom entrenched in this simple adage rings remarkably true with Shaffer’s message regarding the dangers of immutability. By orchestrating a symphony of horse galloping, medieval-like worship, and “fantastic surrender to the primitive”, Shaffer depicts Alan’s interpretation of the corral as “church” to be exclusively used for spiritual connections with horses (p.82). Even though his “real worship” illuminates Dysart, like Ananias did with Paul, Alan’s rigid interpretation of the stable becomes his confining cave. With his excessibely myopic perception, he fails to change with the change, and this produces blatantly brutal and bloody ramifications, neglects to make the religious sanctuary a church that could house sexual spirituality with humans, and denies himself the capacity to grow and connect with Jill.
Our ability to comprehend that the relationship to the environment, and not the environment itself, cultivates spirituality in a place is remarkably important and poignant. Once we realize that “Passion, you see, can only be destroyed by a doctor. It never can be created”, we begin to cease external seeking a remedy for a lack of truth and fulfillment, and examine ourselves for spiritual prescriptions, engendering our internal capacity to nurture the generation of our intrinsic truths (p. 108). Once these truths have been accessed, we embrace the core of our spirituality, and by seizing and holding onto that core, we can, regardless of the atmosphere, remain engulfed in a connection spiritually-insightful poignancy and. Like any entity that can be used to catalyze serenity or deified to provoke celestial callings, the distinctive line separating horses and spiritual connections becomes remarkably porous if you’re committed to the experience. I have a friend who, after riding for over 14 years, has developed a connection with the horse where she simply thinks about turning, and through a meditative-like connection, the horse instantly responds as if the human and the horse were one. This exemplifies a fundamental tenet of Zen Buddhism: wie wu wie, or “doing not doing” (Lao-tzu vii). By being immersed in the experience of the present, the rider, thought and action, dream and reality, are smudged together in a cohesive bond of instantaneous connection. . If Baudrillard discusses the formation of an image, where the simulacra’s perversion and concealment of reality’s absence creates a “pure simulacra”, the meditative experience that unites horse and rider, like Alan’s relationship to Equus, represents the reverse process – the dissimulation of such an image, where the reality, and not the simulacra, becomes pristinely real (Baudrillard). This pure connection with religion is what Alan then tries to dissimulate, “to feign not to have what one has”, at the onset of his psychological dialogues with Dysart (Baudrillard). When Dysart sees through Alan’s ploy of Socratic irony, he becomes enticed by Alan’s intimate connection to the “dessert of the real” (Baudrillard) and uses some of his own “bloody tricks” to not only get Alan to confess, but to try to access his own authentic church (Shaffer 79).
It is clear that this pristine connection with the environment exemplifies the church that many characters in Equus try to emulate. The church for the psychiatrist, Dysart, in the play was clearly the psychological office and his ritualistic hobby of perusing Grecian art books. This was his ritual and provided him with a personally cultivated agenda for meaning, and, relative to Alan, this ritual manufactured an exponentially smaller amount of religious poignancy, but simulated fulfillment in Dysart’s dryly insipid sexual life, absent marriage, and confining home. Finally, the church for many of the men viewing the pornographic film, including Alan’s father, Frank Strang, was illuminated as the theater itself. When experiencing the milieu of the room, the bewildered and awe-struck Alan said, “all the men were staring up like they were in church” (p. 92). The lustful men had the metamorphic capacity to transform a sleezy porno theater, into the reverence one would exhibit in a cathedral. The role of the authentic church is one that holds on to a center, but has incredible spiritual potential, as well.
In the ancient Tao Te Ching, or “Book of the Way, by Lao-Tzu, a free-flowing entity called the Tao is discussed in detail: “The Tao is like a bellows:/ it is empty yet infinitely capable./ The more you use it, the more it produces;/ the more you talk of it the less you understand./ Hold on to the center” (Lao-tzu 5). Even though these Chinese words of wisdom were written nearly 500 years before Paul’s christening, the parallels between God’s message to hold on to the Christian center and to seek out its infinite capability are remarkably similar. The mathematician, Koch, produced a formula that deals with infinitum. His curve mathematically proves a infinite perimeter, but finite area of a curve. This simultaneously restricted and boundless – finite and infinite – curve illustrates the mathematical equivalent of the Tao. The Christian message of Paul’s conversion, the above Chinese words of wisdom, and Koch’s curve suggest a truly boundless faith – unconditionally infinite – in order connect with an authentic church. According to Thomas Paine who said, “my mind is my church”, we realize that this message encourages us to live connected to the spiritual core of our own vitality, not to become paralyzed by over-analysis, and most importantly, to hold fast to our own spiritual center of poignancy – the mind. Unlike the Cyclops, who lacks awareness and only “dwells in his own mountain cave…indifferent to what the others do”, we must avoid blindness in our mind’s eye by cultivating awareness and by holding on to our center, or we risk being distracted by tempting veils of unfulfilling endeavors (Homer 306: 119). The Christian church would refer to these as sins of temptation, but anything that doesn’t resonate with your authentic self keeps you in the cave, sacrificing mobility of your core.
Stepping out of the cave does not, certainly, insinuate abandoning the church, but it does imply the necessity of expanding our perception of religion and a house of religion. When I was in Costa Rica participating in a Christian Surfer mission, the religious priests, confident that “they carry the church with them”, had daily sermons on the beach. Despite their glamour, do we really need the stained glass, pews, and altar to create a building, housing religion? At the end of Equus Alan’s fervent piety provoked Dysart to realize his perversion with psychiatry and embrace the conversion of authentic being. Outside of one’s allegorical cave, authentic faith has the capacity for unconditional and omnipresent worship -- unaffected by the environment -- in any nostos (Greek, for home) be it a horse stable, movie theater, or Cycloptic cave.
But everything is reflective of the beholder. Embracing a religion that upholds morality and virtue doesn’t make your good. Everything is interpretative and dependent on how your utilize beliefs. Terrorists, for example, use the September 11 bombings as placation for religious qualms. They erroneously substantiated Islamic faith as proof to support the terrible destruction and death they incurred. Being ideologically allied with one of the world’s major religions, this erroneous alignment became dangerously charged. In his Republic, Plato reminds us of enlightenment’s double-edged design: “Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue --how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness”. Despite their inherent nature, enlightened beliefs can be used for malign, perpetuating evil or for devout veneration, promoting the endurance of benevolence and compassion. We must make the choice to enliven our generous capacity for love.
Works Cited
Bible, The. New International Version. Grand Rapids Michigan: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1984.
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulations. Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed.
Mark Poster. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1988. pp.166-184.
www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/ Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html - 54k - Nov 6, 2004
Homer. The Odyssey. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces; Ed 7,. Vol. 1.
Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: Norton & Company, 1999.
Lao-tzu. Tao Te Ching. Tran. Stephen Mitchell. New York; Harper & Row, 1988.
Liddel, Henry G. and Scott, Robert. A Greek and English Lexicon: Based on The German Work of Francis Passow; Ed. 3. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1849. p. 1-1622
Plato. The Republic. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
http://www.plotinus.com/plato_allegory_of_the_cave.htm
Shaffer, Peter. Equus. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
The Power of "I'm not Interested"
If you don't have the capacity to say those phrases, and control YOUR time, do you know how dangerous life will become??!!! Your life will become someone else's life. Some salesman who invites you to test drive his car, or some teacher who wants you to pay them to take her class...all of those things you will do and people will drain you of money, drain you of time, drain you of life.
People may get offended if you politely tell them you're not interested. Guess what? Their feeling offended is NOT your problem! If someone says to you "I'm not interested" and I feel offended because someone expressed their opinion about an offer, I'd have a seriously low-esteem or "taking things personally" or confidence problem! So honor someone being offended by you politely saying "I'm not interested, but I appreciate your offer" as some problem THEY have!!
If someone "NEEDs" you to accept their offer for the sake of their own self-esteem, emotional well-being they have a serious problem!! Acknowledge that clinginess as a problem (obviously, they've tied emotional validity to someone accepting their offer which is not true!)
So cultivating the comfort and ease of saying "I'm Not interested" reclaims the power and clarity back in life!
I could list all the times NOT saying "i'm not interested" and then continuing on my current problem/agenda created massive havoc for me, but I won't do that...the list is too long! Here's a sampler:
Was sorting contacts in address book. Friend invited me to go to bar. What happened because I FAILED to say "Not Intersted".
--Almost got beat up.
--Almost got assaulted
--Got locked out of car for 24 hours
--Got shinsplits
--Had to ice legs for next 4-5 days
What happened because I didn't say "Not interested": I drove to the bar, met the friends, started hitting on a girl, her Iraq meathead 2.5 IQ boyfriend showed up and said "get back here punk" and almost assaulted me because he thought I was stealing his girlfriend (which I was), then I got back at the valet area late so my car was locked for 24 hours. I then had to wander around Los angeles for 24 hours wearing sandals. I got shin splints and thought I seriously injured my leg.
What Would've Happened if I successfully said "Not Interested":
--Productivity on my addressbook
--Clarity on all my contacts
--Great peace of mind, freedom of thought
--Greater likelihood of connecting with good people in the future
--Less baggage with my communications
--Clarity on who my contact friends are
"I'm not interested" is a great thing to do!
Get er Done! Why Sign and Utilize Contracts?
In the business, professional, internet, or any world with which you associate yourself. Professionalism, formality, closure and safety are all important. Read on to see why contracts move goals forward!
1. Formality. It adds to the REALNESS of the coaching relationship for BOTH the client and coach. As a coach I don't want some client joking around wasting my time if they aren't committed to changing. I take coaching VERY seriously. I've deliberately started and stopped smoking for 2 month segments specifically for the purpose of learning about the addiction so I could educate myself on how to help clients break it! I take coachign incredibly seriously and I need clients that are committed to changing as well! From the Client POV, I'm sure a sincere and focused client who' serious about achieving his/her goals WANTS a serious coach who's determined to make them realize their goals and potential!! A contract creates this formality to the coaching-client relationship.
2. Closure. A contract creates closure and certainty on the duration of the coaching. This is ESSENTIAL for goal-setting because it shows the coach and client how fast they ahve to move and what they will have time to cover or not. If the coach and client only have 2 coachign sessions, they'll most certainly have to focus on different things than if they had 10 coaching sessions. A contract creates closure.
3. Professionalism. This is the most simple and obvious reason for using a contract -- Professionalism! Real coaches, real clients -- real professionals, be it a businessperson, an actor, a performer, a therapist, anyone exchanging in a business agreement with a person who expects to get anything done, does work AFTER signing a contract.
4. Safety. Again, another obvious, but vitally important reason. Contracts ensure that expectations and needs are agreed upon and it provides the comfort of knowing that the client and coach both will provide the details of the exchange! From the service-provider point of view, this ensures you get paid, and from a client point of view this ensures you don't get ripped off! That mutual safety creates for a more lucid experience.