Celebrity Conglomerate Syndrome

Erik Erikkson talked about (after the search for identity commences) four stages of identity development, diffused(haven't started), foreclosed (prematurely defined), moratorium (still defining), and achieved (identity achievement).

One of the biggest things preventing people from reaching identity achievement is "celebrity conglomerate syndrome" (CCS). Where you pick and choose bits and pieces of a celebrity's personality or clothing or style or appearance to mimick and pile them onto yourself. The problem with this? You end up losing and burying yourself. Your strongest aspect -- your identity -- gets buried and that's the greatest source of confidence.

A symptom of CCS is "restlessness within a professional field, indicated by unproductively distracting variety" -- which of course means, spread too thin. In a good way, it makes you eclectic and diver, which is invaluable, but in a bad way, it makes you uncertain and panicky. But if you're interests are productive -- they go to your performance -- and probably good training -- meaning they aren't distracting -- you're in the clear.

Origins of Fear

I walked through cabrini green yesterday at 3-4am in the morning and didn't know where I was. I didn't feel afraid until this woman (who was selling marijuana out of a shoe polish container and said she could "read my book". Very wierd.)told me it was cabrini green and started acting like I should be afraid because I was white, in that neighborhood, and it was late. This says something interesting about fear. From where does fear originate? In you or in others? Is it contagious or encouraged? For me, if people expect me to be afraid and believe I would be afraid, it's hard to not feel fear (even though it's not really your "own" trepidation). If I'm never with a group, I am rarely afraid. What does this say about acting and relationships and career? The challenge is to hold on to your center and acknowledge when others are reluctant or maybe uncertain, and to still move forward and trust yourself, while not blocking out good advice from others. Achieving that balance, and you'll be successful anywhere.

2 Types of Pursuits & 4 Types of People

Blaise Pascal said there are 2 types of people in the world, those seeking god (providing rationality) and those who have found God (providing happiness) Of that, you get this:

Neglecters -- don't seek God (irrational); don't find god (unhappy)
Fantasizers -- don't seek God (irrational); do find god (happy)
Seekers-- seek god (rational); don't find god (unhappy)
Believers -- seek god (rational); do find god (happy).

I don't want to be a fantasizer with (not saying that acting is godly at all, but...) acting. I don't want to have this pretend conception that I harbor of being an actor or a musician within a fantasy, where I go out to bars to "act", but have no recognition or credentials for it (on the other hand, that's better than not trying at all, for sure, though). I want to be a believer and achieve my success in what I want and what's best for others, too, while not abandoning things that have kept me clear in the past, like computers and teaching.

Take Actions with the Active Voice

When the sordid, uncertain, or fear-based moment arises we frequently turn inwardly. Phobic fear causes us to focus in on ourselves. Most importantly it turns us into passive beings. We are not intrinsically, authentically, naturally passive beings. When we go "passive" we begin seeking outwardly for guidance, advice, forms of faith or knowledge. This is the basis of the enormous self-help genre in bookstores. Now granted, those books are incredibly worthwhile and poignant and offer insightful messages. But you have the capacity to write the same material you read, but accessing your active inner voice. If you're in financial troubles, why not "write" instead of "read" books offering financial wisdom? You're fully capable of doing so. If you're in relationship doubt and confusion, "write" the best script to say to your loved one, don't passively look for it! With the active voice engaged, you have the capacity to offer incredibly illuminating insight all the time.

Evil Contradictions

James Carse, author of "Finite and Infinite Games" writes, "the contradiction inherent in all evil is that it originates in the desire to eliminate evil. 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian.'" (Carse 33).

This fascinating twist onto the self-perpetuating nature of evil reveals the eradication of evil to be quite simple: stop excluding and start including.

Define interests, social groups, health choices, and every little life preference not through "exclusion" and "dislikes" throughout life, but through inclusion. Commence framing the scope of your life parameters by manufacturing a channelled focused commitment to your interests, while neutralizing your focus on the dislikes. Unconditionally nurturing only your interests, while disregarding your dislikes, generates an optimistically light and certifying personality cohesion.

Condemn Asinine Burocracy with Intentional Empathy

Apparently students are now being suspended and experiencing harsher punishments for improper paper-writing content, which is, of course, the classic American, idiotic attempt toward reform. This is what American’s do. They recognize a serious problem (like school shootings) and then, instead of observing, tapping into intention, listening into the feelings -- the essence of the problem, the ailment that needs to be nurtured -- they start punishing and prohibiting. Punishments and prohibitions dangerously glaze over a problem like school shootings, temporarily embalming it, only to have it resurrect itself with an even more uncontrollable ferocity. Are the people on school boards really this ignorant, naïve, and bloody stupid?! Do they really think that prohibiting a certain type of paper writing is an attempt towards a solution? This is a “sham resolution” – an attempt to remedy that APPEARS like a lot of action, but is actually all show. It’s useless, and it’s beyond infuriating and downright funny that they actually think they’re alleviating it.

If you read THIS, you’ll get some great insight into the origins of violence, and THIS paper offers another great insight.

After you read those quality pieces, you’ll quickly be able to assess that violence is schools is caused by improper upbringing, violence in the media and video games, and peer pressure for a reputation. Conclusively, the last thing you do is start scolding and slapping wrists (which is the first thing that American bureaucracy began doing) and you commence healing the home front, ensure family’s don’t infuse violence, change the exposure to violence in the media, and address social image concerns. ACTING like they have a solution, and knowing they really don’t is one thing, but the fact that bureaucracies may actually think that they’re solving a problem by actually altering paper writing topic structure is actually an asinine procedure quite typical of most bureaucracies.

Choosing to scold, “crack down”, and reprimand never solves anything. The solution is to nurture, cure, and empathically listen.

Validating Earth Science

I've come to realize how truly insignificant -- because of their instability, tendency to produce conflict, and mercurial nature -- most of the religious, political, and social ballyhoo is, compared to the science of our planet, solar system, and galaxy. Squabbling over borders and domains truly is rubbish, when we glance at our global "home". And considering what "Wired" concluded, only about 24 humans have actually seen the entire earth from space with their own eyes, we could grow a lot by attuning ourselves to our spatial placement.

It's especially easy to be keen on global awareness on "earth day", but we should develop not just a year-long reverence for our planet, but a perpetual fascination with our entire placement in galactic space.

Expanding our conscious scope to understanding spiral galaxies, Alpha Centari, dark matter, and neutron stars is just so much more meaningful and enduring. That said, let's delve into a quick synopsis of our closest star cluster.

Although triple-star system Alpha Centari, aka Rigel (1) , at 4.4 light-years, is the closest star system (smaller than a star cluster galaxy, but still a fairly decent sized arrangement of stars) to our own solar system, it is actually bigger and brighter than our own sun. To get technical, only Alpha Centari A, the largest star of the triple-star Alpha Centari system, is brighter than our sun. Actually, to get hyper-technical at 4.2 light years away, Proxima Centari, the mini red dwarf (2) star of Alpha Centari is the closest star (3) (other than our sun) to earth. However, because of its proximity, almost all interstellar science fiction mentions the Centari star system as a travel waypoint of sorts. Furthermore, in actual space travel, the first inter-galactic checkpoint for robotic probes will most likely be Alpha Centari. Although this is just a single minute, iota of spatial knowledge, learning about Centari is most certaintly a vital point to validating the significance of our planet.


1. Breaking down the etymology, Alpha, in Alpha Centari is simply indicating it as the brightest star system in the southern-located Centarus constellation, while Rigel Kentarus, in Arabic refers to "foot of the centaur"

2. Regarding Proxima Centari's red dwarf size, a red dwarf fuses hydrogen to helium at a very slow rate, emitting very little light (about 1 ten thousandth of the sun). Being fully connective, red dwarfs make up for their size with longevity, and can burn trillions of years if their mass is small. The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram classifies stars based on luminosity, color, and temperature. At the top of the charts are Supergiants, followed by Bright Giants, Giants, Main Sequenc (in which our sun is classified), White Dwarfs, and then red dwarfs.

3. In regards to proximity to earth, after the three Alpha Centari star, there is Barnard's Star, Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, and then the A and B stars from the Sirius cluster.

Selective Sayings on Virgina Tech

What to say? What not to say? How can you address the three elements of grieving in regards to the Virgia Tech Shootings:

1. Past -- Why did it happen? Why did Virigina Tech wait 2 hours before sending out an all-school email alert, and three hours before cancelling classes and taking drastic alert meaures? What compelled the shooter to act? Is it SES differences? Is it balancing out the academcic social scene or nurturing the emotional construct?
2. Present -- What stage of grief is everyone at? How can we most effectively be not owned by, but manage our emotions effectively. Do we talk about suffering or perseverence and learning? How can we not talk about vengeane and talk about healing? Do we draw our attention elsewhere? How can we reach out to friends, family, those closer to the calamity?
3. Future -- How can we What can we change to prevent this? How can we present non-violent forms of communication in additon to (of course) than reading my book, "Our Compassionate Reservoirs"? How can we focus not on what we want to expel, but what we want to include?