heart broken by someone who doesn't seem to give a shit?
got a kid that lives off you, as if they deserve to be kept up?
got a friend that is an eternal, unemployable mooch?
You just may know an undiagnosed Narcissist.
I urge everyone to watch these videos. Chances are you know someone who is an undiagnosed Narcissist. They think they're the shit, they don't seek diagnosis. They don't know they have the disorder, they think it's normal and everyone else is meat who isn't like them.
Recent events in my life have led me to look into Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I feel a need to share this information, as I feel that the vast majority of us are suffering on this planet because there is a sizable chunk of our population that are undiagnosed Narcissists.
I really only started looking into this stuff because I have concerns about my kids. But I suddenly think we all might need to watch this.
Surely there are may of you who have long term emotional scars from brushes with this type of person, or it may even be possible that you may have it! I am seriously going have myself checked. It runs too deep in my family and I see it all around me.
Here is what I mean. You are stuck in traffic. It's 4 lanes deep. At a point a head of you, the 4th lane vanishes. There is a sign which says "Merge Left" in symbol.
A normal person will thoughtfully merge with the traffic to the left.
A psychopathic narcissist will race ahead and cut in at the last possible moment, and hurl insults at anyone who tries to impede them.
I may be a form of narcissist that I have yet to hear about. Chad help me out here! I will sit in that right lane, right down to the bitter end... and only just exceed the speed of the cars to my left. I don't give a rats ass what the people behind me think.
They are the reason that all those thousands to the left are stuck going bumper to bumper for 45 minutes over 4 miles. Try my tactic sometime. You will notice that the traffic jam will have dramatically improved by the time you merge.
And when you do merge, you have no problem whatsoever, the people on the left let you in happily.
Don't let the narcissists bully you any more. Claim the outside lane for the sane people, we deserve to get home just as soon as those psychos on the right.
here's the first link I found that set me off: boring but effective
Narcissistic Personality Disorder pt 1
here are the professionally produced feature links:
Sam Vaknin Analyzes Barack Obama (part 1) on youtbe
I, Psychopath - Sam Vaknin
Frankly, after watching these shows, I am shocked.
My mom has it. Undiagnosed, but in my opinion it would explain a lot.
My Father had most of the criteria.
My Ex Wife seems to have it.
I fear that the only two things standing between me and having this full on were two childhood accidents. The first involved a lawn dart which struck me right between the hemispheres of my brain, where ones Self Awareness, Philosophy and Religion sit. Amazingly, I have always had difficulty reading and writing in first person. One summer when I was 15, I wanted to learn how to touch type. I put a finger chart on my bedroom wall, and I wrote a novel, in first person, and it was so incredibly difficult for me to do it. I can't describe my difficulty with writing fiction in first person. Metaphorically, it's akin to typing with work gloves on.
I was involved in a motorcycle accident at the age of nine. It left me without an ankle and cut my adult height from a physician estimated 6'5" to 6'7" to 5"9". It did leave me with a malpractice annuity that seems to have served as a Narcissist Magnet my entire life.
However, absent these two events in specific, I can't help but wonder if I too may have been a full blown Narcissist. Heck, I may be, I haven't finished researching this. I may have a form of it I have yet to hear about.
I urge everyone to watch these videos. Chances are you know someone who is an undiagnosed Narcissist. They think they're the shit, they don't seek diagnosis. They don't know they have the disorder, they think it's normal and everyone else is meat who isn't like them.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Drug "Cartel Suspected in deaths of 72 illegal immigrants
I’m sitting here reading the news today, and I come across this gem. I am so disgusted with my country’s Drug War these days. As a youth I took on the views I was expected to about drug users. Whatever happens to them, they deserve, right?
Putting aside the fact that we’re allowing the government to terrorize, murder and economically ruin our own neighbors and family. What about the immigrants families. So may people are dying over our country’s failed drug policy it is turning into a hidden holocaust.
Can you imagine your husband, brother, wife, sister, son or daughter trying to sneak into America to get a job, so they can send money home and end the suffering for your family. Only to find out, that instead, they were thrown, alive, into an abandoned mine?
The next time you see something in the news about the Drug War, or read about one of your neighbors losing their lives over being busted and having their car confiscated, or their home and loss of employment, possibly the Right to Vote. Imagine one of your loved ones, barely alive, bones broken, lying atop dozens of other broken dying and dead people. Knowing what their ultimate fate would be. Imagine for ten minutes the last person down the hole, the softest landing, was your most loved one…. I dare you. It probably took that person DAYS to die. And you think Christ suffered?
How do those people go to sleep at night, thinking about that?Their relatives are dead, over our war on Vices. And now I wonder, how do we go to sleep at night, while our neighbors, and people we do not even know are paying this price.
We look down our noses and condemn ancient cultures for human sacrifice, just as we do drug users. Yet we send our sons and daughters off to war over oil. We allow countless thousands to be sacrificed in the name of the Drug War every year.
Everyone needs to take a critical look at our nation’s drug policy and our own personal views. There must be a better way.
How many people do you know who have fallen prey to this money grabbing machine called the Drug War? Every drunk driving death is a victim of our nation’s failed drug policy. Every tobacco death is another example of failed drug policy and our nation’s knuckling under to corporate money and not serving the interests of it’s people. Every thug who falls in the street, or loses his employment and voting future is another human sacrifice.
Stop human sacrifice over failed government policy!
We need to write our representatives, hand write and postal mail, not email. Pour your heart out, give your honest opinion, tell the stories of the people you know who have fallen, or been sacrificed. Better yet, make an appointment, and go speak to them.
In my youth I thought drug prohibition was the right thing. Now that I have learned about the Prohibition of Alcohol and how it caused our modern gang problem as we know it. Now that I have lived through 30 years of the Drug War I see it was nothing but a political device to cause money to flow to pork projects and more importantly, win elections.
When Marijuana was made illegal in 1937 with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act. It was over the protest of many clear thinking American who knew the outcome of Prohibition, Al Capones and Mafias. They knew the prohibition of Alcohol caused more harm than Alcohol. The LaGuardia Committee Report on Marihuana in 1944 was commissioned by the Mayor of New York who was against it. It concluded that the prohibition of the drug, was far more detrimental to society than the drug itself.
Nixon’s Drug war started off with a bang, and a special commission to show how justified the Drug War was. But the report showed quite the opposite, it was unjustified. Unfortunately, the war had already begun and the report was covered up.
We cannot stop the illegal drug trade. It has never been stopped, anywhere. Even in countries where the penalty for possession is death, there is a drug problem. There is a drug problem in prisons. If you can’t keep drugs out of prisons, how in the hell can you control it in the public venue?
I AM NOT SAYING MAKE DRUGS LEGAL. But addiction is not a criminal problem, it is a medical problem. Giving drugs the same status as tobacco and alcohol does not mean people can work or drive under the influence. These things are ALREADY illegal.
I know these three things though.
We must decriminalize it, and as soon as possible. The day people can grow their own, and sell and give it to their neighbors and friends is the day there is no longer any reason for people to have crime syndicates to supply the drug habit machine.
(Imagine the boost to the economy! all those billions not going back to the Cartels but instead into buying new stuff, and paying off credit cards)
It must be regulated and kept out of the hands of minors. It is currently easier for our youngsters to get marijuana and hard drugs and illicit pharmaceuticals than it is for them to get beer or cigarettes.
It SHOULD be taxed and regulated to help pay for the social harms it causes. Let’s be honest, there is a dark side to all drugs and addiction, even our beloved ganga.
Putting aside the fact that we’re allowing the government to terrorize, murder and economically ruin our own neighbors and family. What about the immigrants families. So may people are dying over our country’s failed drug policy it is turning into a hidden holocaust.
Can you imagine your husband, brother, wife, sister, son or daughter trying to sneak into America to get a job, so they can send money home and end the suffering for your family. Only to find out, that instead, they were thrown, alive, into an abandoned mine?
The next time you see something in the news about the Drug War, or read about one of your neighbors losing their lives over being busted and having their car confiscated, or their home and loss of employment, possibly the Right to Vote. Imagine one of your loved ones, barely alive, bones broken, lying atop dozens of other broken dying and dead people. Knowing what their ultimate fate would be. Imagine for ten minutes the last person down the hole, the softest landing, was your most loved one…. I dare you. It probably took that person DAYS to die. And you think Christ suffered?
How do those people go to sleep at night, thinking about that?Their relatives are dead, over our war on Vices. And now I wonder, how do we go to sleep at night, while our neighbors, and people we do not even know are paying this price.
We look down our noses and condemn ancient cultures for human sacrifice, just as we do drug users. Yet we send our sons and daughters off to war over oil. We allow countless thousands to be sacrificed in the name of the Drug War every year.
Everyone needs to take a critical look at our nation’s drug policy and our own personal views. There must be a better way.
How many people do you know who have fallen prey to this money grabbing machine called the Drug War? Every drunk driving death is a victim of our nation’s failed drug policy. Every tobacco death is another example of failed drug policy and our nation’s knuckling under to corporate money and not serving the interests of it’s people. Every thug who falls in the street, or loses his employment and voting future is another human sacrifice.
Stop human sacrifice over failed government policy!
We need to write our representatives, hand write and postal mail, not email. Pour your heart out, give your honest opinion, tell the stories of the people you know who have fallen, or been sacrificed. Better yet, make an appointment, and go speak to them.
In my youth I thought drug prohibition was the right thing. Now that I have learned about the Prohibition of Alcohol and how it caused our modern gang problem as we know it. Now that I have lived through 30 years of the Drug War I see it was nothing but a political device to cause money to flow to pork projects and more importantly, win elections.
When Marijuana was made illegal in 1937 with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act. It was over the protest of many clear thinking American who knew the outcome of Prohibition, Al Capones and Mafias. They knew the prohibition of Alcohol caused more harm than Alcohol. The LaGuardia Committee Report on Marihuana in 1944 was commissioned by the Mayor of New York who was against it. It concluded that the prohibition of the drug, was far more detrimental to society than the drug itself.
Nixon’s Drug war started off with a bang, and a special commission to show how justified the Drug War was. But the report showed quite the opposite, it was unjustified. Unfortunately, the war had already begun and the report was covered up.
We cannot stop the illegal drug trade. It has never been stopped, anywhere. Even in countries where the penalty for possession is death, there is a drug problem. There is a drug problem in prisons. If you can’t keep drugs out of prisons, how in the hell can you control it in the public venue?
I AM NOT SAYING MAKE DRUGS LEGAL. But addiction is not a criminal problem, it is a medical problem. Giving drugs the same status as tobacco and alcohol does not mean people can work or drive under the influence. These things are ALREADY illegal.
I know these three things though.
We must decriminalize it, and as soon as possible. The day people can grow their own, and sell and give it to their neighbors and friends is the day there is no longer any reason for people to have crime syndicates to supply the drug habit machine.
(Imagine the boost to the economy! all those billions not going back to the Cartels but instead into buying new stuff, and paying off credit cards)
It must be regulated and kept out of the hands of minors. It is currently easier for our youngsters to get marijuana and hard drugs and illicit pharmaceuticals than it is for them to get beer or cigarettes.
It SHOULD be taxed and regulated to help pay for the social harms it causes. Let’s be honest, there is a dark side to all drugs and addiction, even our beloved ganga.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Hatred
Hatred is caused by neurochemical secretions of the brain. While a person is harboring hateful mental conditions, the brain is unable to achieve the proper neurochemical balance to achieve Love, Happiness, or any other positive, lasting emotion.
Hatred is the ultimate enemy of happiness and it must not be given any toe-hold within the mind, exept in the rare case of genuine Evil acts. There is nothing wrong with hating evil things.
This is why nations, races and organized religions use evil=hatred to control their populations.
Teach the people to hate or view homosexuality as evil and birth control immoral, and you have more tithe. Especially if you're willing to wait many generations.
Teach the people to hate another religious group or believe them to be evil, and you can make good people do bad things.
Teach people to hate or view as evil/lesser someone of a different race, and they will take everything and enslave them without remorse.
Teach someone to hate everything American, and they'll murder innocent people in the name of Allah and feel justified.
Teach someone that being filthy rich while there are starving and poor amongst us is not evil, and they will be billionaires while people who are their 6th and 7th cousins perish for lack of a good role model, education, health care, food, and shelter from the elements.
Hatred is the ultimate enemy of happiness and it must not be given any toe-hold within the mind, exept in the rare case of genuine Evil acts. There is nothing wrong with hating evil things.
This is why nations, races and organized religions use evil=hatred to control their populations.
Teach the people to hate or view homosexuality as evil and birth control immoral, and you have more tithe. Especially if you're willing to wait many generations.
Teach the people to hate another religious group or believe them to be evil, and you can make good people do bad things.
Teach people to hate or view as evil/lesser someone of a different race, and they will take everything and enslave them without remorse.
Teach someone to hate everything American, and they'll murder innocent people in the name of Allah and feel justified.
Teach someone that being filthy rich while there are starving and poor amongst us is not evil, and they will be billionaires while people who are their 6th and 7th cousins perish for lack of a good role model, education, health care, food, and shelter from the elements.
Friday, July 2, 2010
inner wealth cannot be stolen
I saw a video clip on facebook from the Dalai Lama. 1:40, watch it if you have the time, great motivational message!
This message is the same message I believe Jesus brought to the people, and probably similar to the prophets of all the religions. Love thy neighbor as thyself. I mean, who can deny the wisdom of this video, and most of the sayings of our ancient holy men. This video is using a language that we understand, and he is putting his words together in a way that modern humans can understand clearly what is being said. He has a rare gift for it, "interpreting the words of God". :) (thank you for this video, and for crafting these sentences to be so clearly understandable)
Our ancient holy men were trying to send similar messages. They made wise philosophies, taught them, and then some people wrote them down. And then some people who want rank and privilege take the stories and change them a little and suddenly there are droves of easy jobs for the Faithful down at the church house and a tax is levied upon the believer to support them.
We all need the wisdom and kindness of this message within us, but we must turn a critical eye to our Holy Books and understand that there were once lazy, greedy men who wanted easy jobs. Today that type of person sits around oval tables and wear fancy clothes, and make decisions that cause oil volcanoes in the Gulf of Mexico. Or they sit in comfortable chairs while their people kill those people over imaginary lines in the sand, or failed political policy.
The traditions caused by these first Multinational Corporations have huge ripples throughout our societies, just like science can still hear echoes of the Big Bang in the static noise of the universe. This echo of religion will be with us for a long time. It will come and go and with each ripple it will steadily grow calmer.
I don't have any answers to these things, and I stand firmly astride the Battle of Belief. I have gone from True Believer to Atheist during most of my life, but not too long ago I lost my new religion, Atheism. I listened to a podcast with Carl Sagan's wife, Ann Druyen, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and someone else I can't recall... but at one point Ann laughs and says, "you know, Carl thought Atheists were kinda silly..." and the next few lines literally changed my opinion of Agnostics, and converted me. Until then I had always seen an Agnostic as a fence sitter, unwilling to make a decision. When in fact, Atheism makes a leap of Faith, just like Belief does, in it's conclusion that there is no God.
Basically, in a nutshell it boils down to this. Until we have been to every corner of the Universe, and looked behind every speck of dust to make sure he's not hiding there watching, who's to say. While I do not believe in a Personal God, watching my every move and a running total of my good deeds v. my bad deeds, I do not have any suggestion whatsoever as to where all the stuff came from that the Universe is made of.
Where did all the stuff come from? Why do atomic particles obey so many laws of science and why does Gravity work? Many of our Founding Father's, in America, were Deists. Their belief in "God" was in a god of science and math who made the universe and then set it free. For many Deists the religion of a Personal God, was a tool for taxing and controlling the People. It was a cruder, less effective form of Government that had once ruled most of the world.
For all I know, when we do look behind that one speck of dust, and notice something isn't obeying the Laws and find Him sitting there watching, and waiting for us to find him....
This message is the same message I believe Jesus brought to the people, and probably similar to the prophets of all the religions. Love thy neighbor as thyself. I mean, who can deny the wisdom of this video, and most of the sayings of our ancient holy men. This video is using a language that we understand, and he is putting his words together in a way that modern humans can understand clearly what is being said. He has a rare gift for it, "interpreting the words of God". :) (thank you for this video, and for crafting these sentences to be so clearly understandable)
Our ancient holy men were trying to send similar messages. They made wise philosophies, taught them, and then some people wrote them down. And then some people who want rank and privilege take the stories and change them a little and suddenly there are droves of easy jobs for the Faithful down at the church house and a tax is levied upon the believer to support them.
We all need the wisdom and kindness of this message within us, but we must turn a critical eye to our Holy Books and understand that there were once lazy, greedy men who wanted easy jobs. Today that type of person sits around oval tables and wear fancy clothes, and make decisions that cause oil volcanoes in the Gulf of Mexico. Or they sit in comfortable chairs while their people kill those people over imaginary lines in the sand, or failed political policy.
The traditions caused by these first Multinational Corporations have huge ripples throughout our societies, just like science can still hear echoes of the Big Bang in the static noise of the universe. This echo of religion will be with us for a long time. It will come and go and with each ripple it will steadily grow calmer.
I don't have any answers to these things, and I stand firmly astride the Battle of Belief. I have gone from True Believer to Atheist during most of my life, but not too long ago I lost my new religion, Atheism. I listened to a podcast with Carl Sagan's wife, Ann Druyen, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and someone else I can't recall... but at one point Ann laughs and says, "you know, Carl thought Atheists were kinda silly..." and the next few lines literally changed my opinion of Agnostics, and converted me. Until then I had always seen an Agnostic as a fence sitter, unwilling to make a decision. When in fact, Atheism makes a leap of Faith, just like Belief does, in it's conclusion that there is no God.
Basically, in a nutshell it boils down to this. Until we have been to every corner of the Universe, and looked behind every speck of dust to make sure he's not hiding there watching, who's to say. While I do not believe in a Personal God, watching my every move and a running total of my good deeds v. my bad deeds, I do not have any suggestion whatsoever as to where all the stuff came from that the Universe is made of.
Where did all the stuff come from? Why do atomic particles obey so many laws of science and why does Gravity work? Many of our Founding Father's, in America, were Deists. Their belief in "God" was in a god of science and math who made the universe and then set it free. For many Deists the religion of a Personal God, was a tool for taxing and controlling the People. It was a cruder, less effective form of Government that had once ruled most of the world.
For all I know, when we do look behind that one speck of dust, and notice something isn't obeying the Laws and find Him sitting there watching, and waiting for us to find him....
Thursday, June 24, 2010
End the Drug War
Why am I against the Drug War? All the closet stoner accusations, denials etc aside, my biggest complaint is that is accomplishes only one thing. It employs lots of law enforcement, and with them, generates lots of revenues via fines. It is funded by taxpayers.
It feeds on taxpayers to sustain itself, and it preys on taxpayers. There are over 20 million (end-users, not dealers), Americans who have been imprisoned over this controversial flower. They have criminal records. Millions have lost their homes, land, cars, jobs, and even their LIVES. Over this flower, and who should, and should not smoke it.
When Nixon assigned a special commission to study his Drug War idea, they told him the most dangerous thing about marijuana was the prohibition of it.
By prohibiting it, crime was bound to come in, and get worse as time went on. In 1944 the The La Guardia Committee refuted all of the government's "Reefer Madness" points, and spoke out against the dangers of prohibition of intoxicating substances. They were barely a decade out from the violence and insanity of alcohol prohibition and knew full well what would happen.
If it were unknown to science, and discovered in the rainforest today, we would marvel at it and immediately begin trying to figure out it's patentable biomedical secrets. We have inherited this War, and everyone is scared to death of this political hot potato.
Plain and simple. They lied about what it's effects are. It is REAL medicine. It's time for all the BS to go away, and for the American people to stop being prey animals for the prison industrial complex.
Tax and regulate like alcohol and tobacco. It's harder for teens to get beer and cigarettes than it is weed. There are laws against public intoxication. Flower, pill or alcohol, an experienced cop can tell.
It has removed millions of potential working Americans from the roles of the employable, by giving them felony records, for nonviolent crimes. For things that probably shouldn't be illegal in the first place. More people have died on our border with Mexico than we have suffered American Casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War combined. No one cares.
Just pretend like you don't know anything, and don't get caught. Repeat what the Official Doctrine is, the truth be damned.
It feeds on taxpayers to sustain itself, and it preys on taxpayers. There are over 20 million (end-users, not dealers), Americans who have been imprisoned over this controversial flower. They have criminal records. Millions have lost their homes, land, cars, jobs, and even their LIVES. Over this flower, and who should, and should not smoke it.
When Nixon assigned a special commission to study his Drug War idea, they told him the most dangerous thing about marijuana was the prohibition of it.
By prohibiting it, crime was bound to come in, and get worse as time went on. In 1944 the The La Guardia Committee refuted all of the government's "Reefer Madness" points, and spoke out against the dangers of prohibition of intoxicating substances. They were barely a decade out from the violence and insanity of alcohol prohibition and knew full well what would happen.
If it were unknown to science, and discovered in the rainforest today, we would marvel at it and immediately begin trying to figure out it's patentable biomedical secrets. We have inherited this War, and everyone is scared to death of this political hot potato.
Plain and simple. They lied about what it's effects are. It is REAL medicine. It's time for all the BS to go away, and for the American people to stop being prey animals for the prison industrial complex.
Tax and regulate like alcohol and tobacco. It's harder for teens to get beer and cigarettes than it is weed. There are laws against public intoxication. Flower, pill or alcohol, an experienced cop can tell.
It has removed millions of potential working Americans from the roles of the employable, by giving them felony records, for nonviolent crimes. For things that probably shouldn't be illegal in the first place. More people have died on our border with Mexico than we have suffered American Casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War combined. No one cares.
Just pretend like you don't know anything, and don't get caught. Repeat what the Official Doctrine is, the truth be damned.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Endurance
I have worked outdoors, year round, for most of the last ten years. From drenched in sweat to clothes layered 7 deep and standing in snow. It's a very humbling experience to so up close and personal with the weather, being out in the elements nearly all day, just so others can sit back and be warm/cool.
Now that's not lame attempt to gain pity, it's just given as defining the perspective from which this post comes. I have an understanding of "suffering" that is quite unlike the vast majority of the rest of "you people". :) I can "feel hot" I have nerves just for doing that, they report their data to my brain. I feel hot. I sweat, so long as I keep water flowing, I can operate until I been to feel overly hot. For me I begin to notice I feel sunburned, not possible in the attic, but I don't care what I'm doing, even if its just one more screw. I go out, I drink water, I lay down and I wait until do not feel hot anymore.
It's all biomechanical function that will be required of someone else if I am not up to the task. Where most people go wrong is they have learned that sweating is suffering. So when the water begins to bead up on their skin, they also simultaneously fire up their Drama and Suffering subroutines. I've learned to smile and be happy I wasn't born 30,000 years ago, I get to go home at night and take a cool/warm shower and enjoy some comfort! And I sweat. In air conditioner duct fabrication you get cut, it's just part of business. One could possibly wear gloves, but the speed loss and frustration of fumbling with small screws will try any but the softest of hands. I just scrub them clean with soap and a nail brush and apply antibiotics. I'm learning to avoid stitches... they're expensive.
I remember once, this woman walks outside, complaining about how she's been suffering all night and couldn't sleep, her house was up to 76 the night before and had been climbing nearly one degree an hour!... And I believe the heat index was 110 or something like that. The unit was on the sunny side of the house on a windless day after an early afternoon shower. I was drenched with sweat before I even set my tools down next to the air conditioner. I don't mean drenched the way most of the world understands this to mean. I can take off my shirt and wring sweat out like it was dipped in a bucket of water. One thing I can do, and do well, is sweat. I can load up a cotton T-shirt in 15minutes if it's over 95. And for the most part, it doesn't phase me. So long as some bonehead doesn't come along and kick start my Drama Subroutine with some lame attempt at Heat Humor. I grew up southern, in a trailer park... there was no internet, no game consoles, and parents still had dominion of the television set, and mom was addicted to All My Children, which, ironically meant for an hour or two every day, her real kids were a nuisance! Every good child molester learns the favorite soaps of the kid's moms, trust me on this one. If the dishwasher guy starts asking when you're watching your favorite TV shows... get a broom and a knife and chase him out of the house... do not ever let this guy babysit for you.
When they come out with their cold drink joking about how hot it is, and how busy you must be, What it really means is, "why aren't you hurrying? My house is a sweltering 78 degrees" One can tell when the people are more concerned about how long it will take the service elf to fix the Magic Cold Thingy, than how busy he is or how long his work hours are... They're the ones that bring you a glass of ice water ...
and arrive with an umbrella to give you shade. I wanted to propose to that woman, but she was 73!. She'd been mowing her yard when I arrived and after I got started she went to get ice waters for the two of us. II wound up driving away smiling and shaking my head and wishing I was 30yrs older. Acted like she was offended when I offered to finish mowing the yard! It was pretend acting, but still, what a trooper! When I'm 73 I hope to be half as healthy and good natured.
So back to sweating. I listened to this audio course once that was about biological anthropology. It was like 34, thirty minute lectures, and so interesting I did not even play City of Heroes for nearly two weeks. (those who know me are rubbing their foreheads, as their eyebrows achieved Maximum Height Cramps). One of the conclusions that hung with me the strongest was SWEAT. God bless it! If He made me, I indeed am grateful for my sweat. According to the audio series though, we evolved the ability to sweat, and our very primitive ancestors didn't have to be very smart at all really, just clever enough to learn how to follow animals by their tracks, and carry water in skins or containers. The nuts and bolts of it are simple, large animals with furry pelts do not sweat. In the heat of the day, if a human being harasses an animal, preventing it from getting water, the animal will run until it falls down, it will die within 15 minutes. Not even a sharp stick or rock required. It's called Endurance hunting. I have used this understanding of my sweat to see my work in a more humbling way than I know how to explain. In a way, I guess, I'm proud that I sweat, or that I am cold sometimes. I never have to feel like I didn't earn my pay!
Last night when I sat down to wait for laundry to finish, I hit the BBC channel and it's a show about... my favorite thing, SWEAT and it's a bit about the bushmen of the Kalahari desert. They still hunt this way.
This short documentary clip is the exact bit I saw last night, I found it on YouTube
Summed up: guy chases big animal, guy sweats and drinks water from canteen, guy keeps animal from drinking water, animal runs, animal falls down and dies, no need to even stab with a sharp stick or bleed it to death with a sharp rock.
This is really the "evolutionary" advantage that has made us what we are today. Sweat. Food got easy after sweat. So when I find myself in an attic during the summer blowing insulation for people who earn sick money in Nashville.... I sweat, and I am content to be a good sweater, and rather than get tangled up with my Drama Subroutine and mix up a batch of Suffering, I pay very close attention to my body, and how long I'm in the heat, and how much water I drink. (apologies to my Xwife for suffering through the occasional hateful text message before I learned better)
Drama kills people in this line of work. So be proud of your sweat! Don't feel like your suffering just because you're body is having to do what it does best! DRink water. Endure. It's what Our People do. We sweat.
It's the ones that don't sweat anymore you need to watch out for... they've become better than what they are.
Now that's not lame attempt to gain pity, it's just given as defining the perspective from which this post comes. I have an understanding of "suffering" that is quite unlike the vast majority of the rest of "you people". :) I can "feel hot" I have nerves just for doing that, they report their data to my brain. I feel hot. I sweat, so long as I keep water flowing, I can operate until I been to feel overly hot. For me I begin to notice I feel sunburned, not possible in the attic, but I don't care what I'm doing, even if its just one more screw. I go out, I drink water, I lay down and I wait until do not feel hot anymore.
It's all biomechanical function that will be required of someone else if I am not up to the task. Where most people go wrong is they have learned that sweating is suffering. So when the water begins to bead up on their skin, they also simultaneously fire up their Drama and Suffering subroutines. I've learned to smile and be happy I wasn't born 30,000 years ago, I get to go home at night and take a cool/warm shower and enjoy some comfort! And I sweat. In air conditioner duct fabrication you get cut, it's just part of business. One could possibly wear gloves, but the speed loss and frustration of fumbling with small screws will try any but the softest of hands. I just scrub them clean with soap and a nail brush and apply antibiotics. I'm learning to avoid stitches... they're expensive.
I remember once, this woman walks outside, complaining about how she's been suffering all night and couldn't sleep, her house was up to 76 the night before and had been climbing nearly one degree an hour!... And I believe the heat index was 110 or something like that. The unit was on the sunny side of the house on a windless day after an early afternoon shower. I was drenched with sweat before I even set my tools down next to the air conditioner. I don't mean drenched the way most of the world understands this to mean. I can take off my shirt and wring sweat out like it was dipped in a bucket of water. One thing I can do, and do well, is sweat. I can load up a cotton T-shirt in 15minutes if it's over 95. And for the most part, it doesn't phase me. So long as some bonehead doesn't come along and kick start my Drama Subroutine with some lame attempt at Heat Humor. I grew up southern, in a trailer park... there was no internet, no game consoles, and parents still had dominion of the television set, and mom was addicted to All My Children, which, ironically meant for an hour or two every day, her real kids were a nuisance! Every good child molester learns the favorite soaps of the kid's moms, trust me on this one. If the dishwasher guy starts asking when you're watching your favorite TV shows... get a broom and a knife and chase him out of the house... do not ever let this guy babysit for you.
When they come out with their cold drink joking about how hot it is, and how busy you must be, What it really means is, "why aren't you hurrying? My house is a sweltering 78 degrees" One can tell when the people are more concerned about how long it will take the service elf to fix the Magic Cold Thingy, than how busy he is or how long his work hours are... They're the ones that bring you a glass of ice water ...
and arrive with an umbrella to give you shade. I wanted to propose to that woman, but she was 73!. She'd been mowing her yard when I arrived and after I got started she went to get ice waters for the two of us. II wound up driving away smiling and shaking my head and wishing I was 30yrs older. Acted like she was offended when I offered to finish mowing the yard! It was pretend acting, but still, what a trooper! When I'm 73 I hope to be half as healthy and good natured.
So back to sweating. I listened to this audio course once that was about biological anthropology. It was like 34, thirty minute lectures, and so interesting I did not even play City of Heroes for nearly two weeks. (those who know me are rubbing their foreheads, as their eyebrows achieved Maximum Height Cramps). One of the conclusions that hung with me the strongest was SWEAT. God bless it! If He made me, I indeed am grateful for my sweat. According to the audio series though, we evolved the ability to sweat, and our very primitive ancestors didn't have to be very smart at all really, just clever enough to learn how to follow animals by their tracks, and carry water in skins or containers. The nuts and bolts of it are simple, large animals with furry pelts do not sweat. In the heat of the day, if a human being harasses an animal, preventing it from getting water, the animal will run until it falls down, it will die within 15 minutes. Not even a sharp stick or rock required. It's called Endurance hunting. I have used this understanding of my sweat to see my work in a more humbling way than I know how to explain. In a way, I guess, I'm proud that I sweat, or that I am cold sometimes. I never have to feel like I didn't earn my pay!
Last night when I sat down to wait for laundry to finish, I hit the BBC channel and it's a show about... my favorite thing, SWEAT and it's a bit about the bushmen of the Kalahari desert. They still hunt this way.
This short documentary clip is the exact bit I saw last night, I found it on YouTube
Summed up: guy chases big animal, guy sweats and drinks water from canteen, guy keeps animal from drinking water, animal runs, animal falls down and dies, no need to even stab with a sharp stick or bleed it to death with a sharp rock.
This is really the "evolutionary" advantage that has made us what we are today. Sweat. Food got easy after sweat. So when I find myself in an attic during the summer blowing insulation for people who earn sick money in Nashville.... I sweat, and I am content to be a good sweater, and rather than get tangled up with my Drama Subroutine and mix up a batch of Suffering, I pay very close attention to my body, and how long I'm in the heat, and how much water I drink. (apologies to my Xwife for suffering through the occasional hateful text message before I learned better)
Drama kills people in this line of work. So be proud of your sweat! Don't feel like your suffering just because you're body is having to do what it does best! DRink water. Endure. It's what Our People do. We sweat.
It's the ones that don't sweat anymore you need to watch out for... they've become better than what they are.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Unseen Hand of God
I've lost my religion these days, but my fall from grace wasn't led by anger or a desire to be immoral, it was through study and understanding, and I am now more of a biblical scholar than I ever was during the height of my True Belief. I no longer see religion as a magical gift to His Special Creation, nor as an organization of people whose primary benefit is to not have a real job, because they can con enough people into giving them money every week. I see that it is a little of both, and a lot of what's in between.
Religion gives some people a calmness and peace that an Unbeliever cannot comprehend. But for most people, it only does this sometimes. At other times it "prevents us from having fun". Most of the religious men my age, that I know, would have been more promiscuous, been a "player", when they were younger, if they knew life was going to turn out the way it did.
As an agnostic, whose walked the gamut of Christianity, I find that notion a bit abhorrent. Dishonorable. If I had it to do over, I probably would not even have had sex until I was 20, and I would have kept all notions of marriage out of my head as nonsense until after college!
I didn't understand how in control of my thoughts and behavior my primitive mind was. Most people do not.
But this morning I added another positive of God. While there may be a few downsides to the notion of God, religious wars and intolerance. The Unseen Hand of God moves us daily, even the Agnostic and the Atheist.
Scientists have observed for the first time, the self-assembly of "buckyballs". (geodesic dome houses are buckyballs) When they work with new nano-graphite materials they self-assemble into a variety of shapes depending on what gas they're cooking them in, or what temperature...
They were doing an experiment to make some buckyballs, and they got to see them forming up out of the "graphene substrate" a sheet of graphene, nanoscale graphite. And it just zips itself up! It's rather astonishing. The buckyball is the most stable graphene structure so it just kinda "happens". They don't fully understand why.
While I was watching it, I had the notion "It's as if the hand of God is assembling them before our very eyes." And it dawned on me, God's greatest power, where knowledge is concerned. Irregardless of whether or not He exists in reality, simply using the metaphor "As if the Hand of God assembled them" is enough to inspire great minds, Believer and UnBelierver alike, to look closer, to try to understand the mystery.
Throughout the last several thousand years God and Science have been at odds with one another, in a rather bloody and uncooth game of "crossing the line". Religion draws a line, "The Earth is Flat!" and back then, crossing that line could get you killed. "The Sun revolves around the Earth," Many people died to move this line for us, and today we all take it for granted that the Earth indeed moves about the Sun. And God is still with us, and the Heavens did not fall, and the Gates of Hell did not open up.
He's zipping up buckyballs before our very eyes and showing us a Universe larger than we can imagine, and probably chock full of life. And yet, we still fight over whose Book is True and invisible lines in the sand.
Religion gives some people a calmness and peace that an Unbeliever cannot comprehend. But for most people, it only does this sometimes. At other times it "prevents us from having fun". Most of the religious men my age, that I know, would have been more promiscuous, been a "player", when they were younger, if they knew life was going to turn out the way it did.
As an agnostic, whose walked the gamut of Christianity, I find that notion a bit abhorrent. Dishonorable. If I had it to do over, I probably would not even have had sex until I was 20, and I would have kept all notions of marriage out of my head as nonsense until after college!
I didn't understand how in control of my thoughts and behavior my primitive mind was. Most people do not.
But this morning I added another positive of God. While there may be a few downsides to the notion of God, religious wars and intolerance. The Unseen Hand of God moves us daily, even the Agnostic and the Atheist.
Scientists have observed for the first time, the self-assembly of "buckyballs". (geodesic dome houses are buckyballs) When they work with new nano-graphite materials they self-assemble into a variety of shapes depending on what gas they're cooking them in, or what temperature...
They were doing an experiment to make some buckyballs, and they got to see them forming up out of the "graphene substrate" a sheet of graphene, nanoscale graphite. And it just zips itself up! It's rather astonishing. The buckyball is the most stable graphene structure so it just kinda "happens". They don't fully understand why.
While I was watching it, I had the notion "It's as if the hand of God is assembling them before our very eyes." And it dawned on me, God's greatest power, where knowledge is concerned. Irregardless of whether or not He exists in reality, simply using the metaphor "As if the Hand of God assembled them" is enough to inspire great minds, Believer and UnBelierver alike, to look closer, to try to understand the mystery.
Throughout the last several thousand years God and Science have been at odds with one another, in a rather bloody and uncooth game of "crossing the line". Religion draws a line, "The Earth is Flat!" and back then, crossing that line could get you killed. "The Sun revolves around the Earth," Many people died to move this line for us, and today we all take it for granted that the Earth indeed moves about the Sun. And God is still with us, and the Heavens did not fall, and the Gates of Hell did not open up.
He's zipping up buckyballs before our very eyes and showing us a Universe larger than we can imagine, and probably chock full of life. And yet, we still fight over whose Book is True and invisible lines in the sand.
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