Guidelines de La Vida

Live with a ferocious intensity and vehemence...or not at all.

Book Facts -- Angst, Bildungsroman, Banned

Utterly fascinating: Kierkegaard believed that from the freedom given to mankind, man is in constant fear of failing in his responsibilities to God, producing a strong sensation of angst. But God wouldn't want deep-rooted spiritual conditions of insecurity and despair. There is nothing to fear; angst is an illusion! So is ennui or boredom, when the mind if fully engaged. Shame, according to John Bradshaw, is an "emotion that lets us know we are finite". Wrong! It's an emotion that conceals and denies our capacity. Shaming destroys dignity, it condemns potential. We can ameliorate any limitations by immmediately absolving ourself from self-induced or external shame. Anthropologists say that shame is violation of cultural values, while guilt is violation of internal rules. Both are unsatisfactory, invalid emotions, but knowing their origins can help pinpoint the origin of those false emotions.

While Holden Caulfield operates as the main character in the bildungsroman (a novel about spiritual growth), it's ironic that he resists maturity, condemning adulthood for its phoniness, superficiality, and hypocrisy. Additionally, this is the ultimate novel to witness the Eriksonian stage of growth "Isolation vs. Intimacy" as Holden is drawn to Sally Hayes, but then pushes her away out of need for isolation. After being the ultimate Holden Caulfield, I understand this book and can attest that there is some veracity in his claims.

Yet there is a rich dichotomy to be divulged regarding the Holden Caulfield to "Phlegmatic adult" spectrum -- neither extreme is desirable. Seizing and connecting with the childhood curiosity and honesty is incommensurately important, but Holden's discrepancies -- over-adherence to isolation and loneliness and reluctance and sexual immaturity -- to that should be discarded, but one certainly shouldn't flip to the other extreme -- a phlegmatic, stodgy hypocritical adult. The message of Catcher in the Rye is not to ridicule both ends of the spectrum. Rather, hypocritical, stodgy elements of adulthood should be harshly criticized and abandoned, and the general milieu of Holden should be embraced, but after dissecting out the intimacy vs. isolation problem and completely discarding notions of irrational fear, angst, and boredom

We must hold fast to the originality, the creativity, and the reality of our childhood throughout adulthood or the plunge down the slippery slope of hypocrisy and superficiality is inevitable. The contradictions lie in how "sex" is an adult (unless you're a member of the twisted Children of God cult), usually an adult concept and act, is a fascination to Holden. Obviously, lying is a form of phoniness, so the them is not resistance to adulthood, nor preservation of childhood, but cultivation of the childhood voice throughout life. Youth, to Holden, is thriving in the honest, curiosity of the great field of rye. Holden's goal -- to avoid the death plunge over the cliff into adulthood -- is right on, but his method should infuse love instead of cynicism. Holden, like myself and a few other inspirationalists out there, devote our time to guarding the death-cliff from the lucid field of rye.

The "safety cameras" put up all around Chicago, combined with the city's feeling of bleakness at times, totally reminds me of Orwellian Big Brother. LA doesn't have any of that; it's rich, from the source, and just pervasively safe, infused with great colors and energy.

Interesting that the number one factor in banning a book (atleast in the 90s decade) is sexual explicitness. 1,607 were challenges to “sexually explicit” material; 1,427 to material considered to use “offensive language”; and 1,256 to material considered “unsuited to age group” (http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/challengedbanned/challengedbanned.htm#mfcb). This is the ALA's Top Ten List of Banned books:
* “It's Perfectly Normal” for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group;
* “Forever” by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;
* “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
* “The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;
* “Whale Talk” by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language;
* “Detour for Emmy” by Marilyn Reynolds for sexual content;
* “What My Mother Doesn't Know” by Sonya Sones for sexual content and being unsuited to age group;
* Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence;
* “Crazy Lady!” by Jane Leslie Conly for offensive language; and
* “It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families” by Robie H. Harris for sex education and sexual content.

I can see where people are coming from; you shouldn't plug a readership into unsuitable age material.

Eliminate the Five Masks to Fully Experience Our Five Faces

Everyone wears 5 masks:

• The Psychological -- Labeling, maladaptive diagnosing
• The Computational -- Looping, repetition, mindless tasks
• The Political -- Prohibiting, barring
• The Dramatic -- Disuading emotions
• The Literary -- Mental illusions, ennui

These five masks protect one from false vulnerability, creating an illusion of spuriousness, but deleteriously conceal our five faces. The masks great a game -- fantastic, alert, and drawing from multiple intellects for people interaction.

Everyone has 5 faces:

• Nature -- Ocean, Flowers' mathematical precision of Fibonacci, wavelengths, frequency
  
• Sex -- Passion, Excitement, Affection, Joy, Happiness
  
• Music -- Precision, Math, The Number One Connection
• Humanity -- Spirituality, People Relationships, Profession, Work, Intimacy
  
• Body -- Stretching, Yoga, health, exercise, Zen focus, nutrition
  

These five faces are jubilant reality. Connecting with them and showing them makes your life a colorful joy-ride of heaven because you abandon the concept of distrust, fear, and doubt. The five masks protect us and give us an interface for success; our five faces are authentic and alive and total nature.

Here's What I've experimented with -- de-activating the brain. A girlfriend I had said some things that convinced me that I would feel more liberated, less inhibited, if I let my emotions direct my life. The theory was that you would react based on what you were really feeling instead of "over-thinking" something. Interesting theory, but after years of experimentation -- completely false. You need to have your brain engaged for the best sex, to make a professional living, to run marathons, to bike a Tour de France, to buy and drive a cool car, to navigate and map out an entertainment plan, to be a great, fantastic host, to have an amazing travel itinerary, to lead a brilliant and amazing life! This lead to the Charter...

5 Tenets of the Validity Charter

1. Karmic Equilibrium of Generosity
After personal fundamental needs for fulfillment are accomplished and MET, channel 90% of mental, emotional, and your spiritual energy SET of intention toward dissolving BARRIERS in and fulfilling the lives of other inhibition-CARRIERS to generate karmic equilibrium of reciprocating happiness generosity. This nourishes the factual principle of "if you help a person overcome the illusion of inadequacy or understand a belief that releases incredible happiness, someone will -- via reciprocal KINDNESS --do the same for you, curing your BLINDNESS".

2. Mind Engagement
Understand and fully live WITH the mind engaged, not disengaged or de-activated, knowing and understANDING that with the mind engaged

• nothing is too demANDING;

• things exertions become RISING and GALVANIZING;
  

• from close people or societal advertising, you are invincible to brainwashing conTROL;

• healthy living and eating occurs naturally and intrinsically, with momentous ROLL that's not DROLL, but sensually alive;

• sensual pleasures are experienced most fully, to the HILT without GUILT;

• talents are synchronized, synchronized, epitomized, and fully engAGED, never enrAGED, always stAGED for motivational joy;

• living with mental disengagement reveals the poignancy of mental commitment and engagement;

• improvisational and harmonious thriving with wholistic commitment and graceful clarity occurs naturally because you will navigate before immersing yourself -- Do I want to answer that phone call, that email, do I want to go to that place -- and if NO, to NOT do it! This is not disengaging, it is more fully engaging because you choose whether or not you want to immerse yourself in a phone call, email, appointment or environment, enabling you to improvisationally and harmoniously thrive in places you enjoy to connect with and avoid places you dislike, which only result in a bleak, disjointed existance(you'll want to commit to things you like and do it wholistically with grace and improvisational clarity, and you won't be present and won't be clear in a place that you don't want to be in, so engage the mind and only connect with environments you want to be in).

3. Honor and Validate Attractions and Repulsions
To cease struggle, to STOP generating predicaments in which you must DROP the disaggreable environment, by honoring and validating attractions and repulsions; to acknowledge a place of distaste is a natural and an aligned reaction (example, Distaste and loathe Colorado Springs, Chicago, and SB), and it's fantastic to love and fully wholistically resonate with other plACES (Los Angeles and Costa Rica), revealing your colorful, many FACES, causing a validated existence by living and loving according to those attractions and repulsions.

Example

• It's fantastic to say that you are no longer "from Chicago". You are not exactly "from L.A." yet, but are proud and invigorated to SAY that you are no longer "from Chicago" in the present (I have a small amount of roots there, but I took those with me)!
• To be in places where you sweat, feel clear in body, mind, and physiology (Like how you felt in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Los Angeles).
  

4. Money is not and Ends, but a Means
Understand and Live the notion that "money is a means, not an ends". People very close to me -- a parent, friend, or HONEY -- have ruined their lives becoming obsessed with MONEY. This is like being obsessed with the vine groves and not the wine, or the road signs and not the journey or destination. Don't be a FOOL; money is a VERY small, albeit at times necessary, TOOL, but nevertheless, simply a TOOL, believing anything else is for a FOOL. Money is not a reward or a goal, but a tool! Keep that FEAR and you'll feel less financial FEAR; you'll have synergistic confidence without having to look in the MIRROR.

5. Believer of your own Faith
To believe and understand that you are not a christian -- but a buddhist, hindu, muslim, christian, jew to a very small extent, but are primarily a Scientologist, but definitively and intrinsically you are a believer of your own faith. From this:
your life experience becomes infused with joyful serendipity of faces -- a sea of FACES, no DISGRACES -- of your best friends you've met and made in life. Your LIFE becomes a concentrated experience of only the best -- no STRIFE -- the best influences, the most fun, the cermoniously or improvisationally most alive people you've experienced in life. The subjective experience does generate the realITY, you'll SEE.

Extra:

Soaking Up Women

(Note: Do not Misinterpret this as permission to objectify women or any human void of emotional reactions. Humans are objects full of inner workings, functionings, specifics, and distinct, individually-defined certainties. Also, women who demand men to "pay for their wants and needs" are an unfortunate phenomena for healthy relationships, but worse, cripple and dehumanize women in general.)

You not only want to, but NEED to share your comprehensive, LONG journals with a person you trust (preferably a beautiful woman). Women are a sunset or an ocean wave or the Notre Dame, or a miraculous rock formation -- they are not visual eye-candy or pornography, but entities that should and must be not made holy, but almost sanctified and certainly cherished for their beauty.
For a long period of my life, sex, women, and physical attraction was an erroneous zone, a negatively violent and aggressive outlet; a maladaptive mechanism for dealing with pain and problems. It's not only fulfilling, evolving out of that, but magically centering to see not pleasure depots, but the beauty of women. Women have an intelligence and emotional comprehension, that is unique to men; similarly, men have a grace and understanding and intelligence that is unique to a woman. With savviness, and the right timing and amounts of initiative and patience, men and women are sincerely evolved together.

Excited Breath and Friendly Foe

Dan Millman writes, "The only difference between fear and excitement is whether you're breathing" (138). This distinction is such a fine line because the energy levels of alertness combined with flight/fight operate on such a hair-pin trigger. Doing some deep breathing, literally, restores confidence in your discovery of exhilaration and the renounciation of fear.

Millman, in his brilliance also writes, "The only safe and sure way to destroy your enemies is to make them your friends" (139). This is brilliant! Way of the peaceful warrior. This is not saying, you say, "I don't have a weed problem, I just consider weeds plants". Instead, this is transforming the ire, or it's utilizing the rancor or distaste for someone and developing that inimical relationship into one of, at the least, comraderie and at best, sincere rapport.

Verisimilitudes

Illusion is the basis of art. But art -- film, paintings, writings -- entertain, inspire, instruct, and inform an audience, so illusion, therefore, can inform of reality. There is a strong interdependence of illusion and reality. That mutualism is good and provocative.

Everything is verisimilitude; it's just that some things have reality backing them. One powerful method of creating illusory verisimilitude is the "false document". Utilized in the film, "Blair Witch Project", "false document" tips the scales for the viewer making them believe above and beyond the normal suspension of belief. Similar to how "false document" ups the ante if believability, trompe-l'œil is a freakish twist of the eye, where something in a painting to exist in reality due to realistic imagery.

The liar paradox divulges a bizarre lay-out of linguistic trickery with the phrase, "I am lying now" or "This sentence is false". After scrutiny, it's simple to realize that what is implied or intended determines the validity. In other words, if "this sentence is false" is true, then it is false, but if the sentence is false, then the message of the sentence is true.

Different from deception, which connotes guile and malignant dealings, artifice is a craft of cunning, "an artful strategem". Here's the main difference. Deceit generates delusions, false beliefs, while artifice produces delightful awe and inspiration.

Whether it be the "false document" technique of film or novels or the "trompe-l'œil" in paintings, illusions are neither evil nor wrong, but inspiring creations of brilliant art.

I always utilize artifice.

The Father of Acting Wisdom, Tom Hanks: "It's the basic need of all of humankind to be part of something bigger than themselves. As actors we get to create that -- you actually join this gestalt hold. For the rest of us who aren't actors, we do this of us do this by being members of an audience...in Shakespearean times you heard about plays attended by just about everybody...you went to witness this one-time only thing...in the modern era of the power of the cinema, you can't deny that kind of power that actors have is directly translated with these magic boxes, cameras...you are enraptured...you feel a part of a great massive story that impregnates your actuall life as you leave...the thing we are all here for is that we've had seminal moments in which we were part of an audience in which we've had suddenly, the world open up to us and we felt a part of something much, much greater and we said, I want to be a part of that story-telling process...it's the power of the art form...it's lightning in a bottle...it fails when it's supposed to work...it works when it's supposed to fail...but it's so very, very undeniably powerful...it's the power of the cinema...and let's not piss pelicula (the "goddess of everything film") off."

Hanks's brilliance, here, encapsulates the entire experience I've been going through for the past 8 years. But it was constantly phasing in and out. Sometimes I'd be working at a computer desk. Other times I'd be biking or sitting in a classroom as a student. I became confused thinking that I was actually those things -- that I was actually a programmer, a cylcist, or a student. However, I soon discovered that I was simply an actor playing those different roles. Like a cloud that gently wafts up a bird to a different level of the stratosphere, my emotional intention to become part of that story-telling process that produces a sensation of authentic gestalt and enraptured synngergy, carried me and motivated me to play those different "life roles". These "life roles" were guided by my motivation to act, not my interest in those specific activities! I was excited to play soccer, I was excited to finish a paper, I was intrigued by computer science, but those were just dishes in the cuisine of acting. I wavered becaue I thought my life was -- like so many other people do -- just the fettucine or the chicken or the sandwich (just the accounting of the teaching or the athleticism as professions) -- when in reality, it's a cuisine; it's acting.

In reproductive anatomy, the seminal vessicles produce 70% of the fluid in semen. It creates the nutrients, the proteins, the substance for the spermatozoa haploid cell to survie and thrive on it's way to being "born", fusing with the female ovum. Acting is that "seminal fluid"; it's the fundamental juice that enables new life to thrive. Just like every birth needs that seminal fluid, every bit of professionalism thrives within acting. Acting is clarity and minfulness generates action.

Listen Up Fatties (Just Kidding)

People Don't Lose Weight for three reasons. It's question of worth, capacity or understanding.

• Self-Worth -- You don't believe that you deserve to lose the weight.
  
  
• Realm of Possibility/Capacity -- You don't believe it's capable.
  
  
• Knowlede Base/Understanding -- You simply don't know what you're doing.
  

Diets don't work because they're restrictive. When you restrict yourself, you rebel.
If you want to lose weight don't diet. According to Occam's Razor, the answer is always a simple one; dieting is no exception. The answer is not the complex Atkins, South Beach "formulaes". Those lead to yo-yo dieting which increase your chances of heart disease by 70%. The answer is simple. Put down the fork, stop eating, and hit up the gym.

Creating a Motivationalist

An accomplished motivationalist is not someone endowed with answers, but a person gifted in the art of questioning. Take Dr. Phil, for example, someone who interfaces with people as if he has a lot of answers, which he does. His, or any motivationalist's, answers are a product of clarity which comes from seeking, which comes from questioning, which comes from motivation to discover. Therefore, a motivationalist is really simply a motivated "asker-discover" first, and a person dedicated to sharing that clarity, second.