Saturday, December 27, 2008

Beautiful American Elegance

Elegance in American culture is about balance. In a place where we have more than we need, where at every turn there is plenty, it is good to step back and take pause as to what things we want from this wonderful material world. What do we really need? Every person has a different set of requirements to perform their daily work tasks but living far beyond your physical needs can become a nightmare of material objects floating obstructing and distracting the inside of your world. Simplicity and wealth coexist among the rich more than we might think. And yet there are many beautiful homes in America all occupied by people, families who have obtained the right to such residences by what ever means. They are there and they occupy that space. Clear understanding of order and structure of your environment must find you in a place where it is always a pleasure to be... at home. Pleasing the physical senses, the need for privacy, continuity of personal experience and creative expression moment to moment uninterrupted are incredibly important to this new understanding of what is truly Elegant in life.

Attainable, elegance itself is not enjoyed by your average Joe. The feeling of a complete and ordered life is so rare yet it is within the grasp of most everyone. So why don't they have it? Elegance is an intellectual state of mind where one knows everything fits together in their world. Giving and receiving, playing and using the world for its riches is part of life here. Accepting our role in the planetary and cosmic or "universal" paradigm (set of assumptions) is as natural as the growing grass. Taking title to this privilege appears to be the problem when working a concept, job or goal. It is sad when people do not work towards unity but, indeed, it is their business and they must take responsibility for what exists in their world. Coarse disorganized and filthy living leads to meandering lives that are lived in continuous controlled colapse of imaginary structures (like the "American Dream") too large to manage. When these dreams/visions/imaginary goals falter order turns to chaos and we are removed from peace. Excessive ambition threatens peace, the precursor state of mind that brings forth the elegant human. The true American for whom opportunity is endless if he were only open to fields of different and diverse possibility and opportunity. If only he could focus on one thing at leave that focus upon a goal worthy of the individual then one stands a chance of achieving success. The trick is in the choice. Choosing a lifestyle is much trickier than one might think. By lifestyle I mean job, mate, and how you spend your time alone and when you are not at work. Elegance emerges when all things in your life are attended to in a life that is worth living. A life that positively effects others attracts the same encouraging enthusiasm "or vibe" from others. All other types of people tend to fall away into obscurity and are forgotten completely as we go about our tasks here in this place now.

Certainly the media taunts us and politics teases us into civic action and participation in the system as we know it but now life insists we do so to a greater degree than we are used to, effecting elegance a purely American Elegance also mis-coined "the American Dream" which to me just means buy more real estate and stuff to be happy. There is more to being an American than the American Dream. Our place in the universe is so special, it is a universal laboratory for human growth. However our planet has been recently rocked by war (again) and stupid decisions (again) based on greed and the inevitable suffering people experience when "the haves" strip the wealth deliberately and effectively from the hands of the "have not's." There is no guilt in the minds of the people who perpetrate these kinds of acts upon humanity. But who are the real terrorists? Who are the people are truly "out of line" in the world. What decisions are effecting the world negatively?

More on this topic later. Have a good night.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

LESS ALONE An Exploration Into Internet Society

LESS ALONE:
AN EXPLORATION INTO INTERNET SOCIETY
or
A STUDY IN VOYEURISM INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE NEW SOCIETY
or
INSIGHT INTO PERSONAL SEPARATION UNITY AND THE STRANGE SPACE IN BETWEEN


Introduction:

“Internet society” is moving fast, very fast toward an unknown that is attracting legions of Americans, especially young people to a more intimate, pseudo reality than that “reality” that makes reality TV as archaic and structured as a soap opera. Welcome to the world of the video blog. A more voyeuristic view into the lives of celebrities and wanabe celebs who vie for your face time and your dollar as pre recorded Television goes the way of the Flintstones. Real-time internet reality video-blogs are going mainstream… with all their crude video foibles and boring circumstance they are becoming the new television especially for young viewers who want more of a connection with those around them.

Where did all this stuff come from? And all this before my spell checker has learned the word “blogging” this new generation of viewers is leaving the heavily formatted world of cable and network television for a more real time, interactive and less rehearsed form of entertainment.

Since real time internet video/television hooked up with interactive text blogging everything has changed. Instant blog-style feedback engages the mind of viewers-readers and the data could not be more welcomed or timely! Instantaneous feedback puts the fingers of the media monitors directly on the pulse of a rapidly changing society in real time. This provides valuable data that is worth big bucks while analysts bet on trends created or revealed directly from the commentary from viewers – the holy grail of market research.

Entertainment meets socializing?
So who are the girls of Nonsociety.com? They are three New York City friends, (can you say Sex and the City?) columnist Julia Alison designer Mary Ramen and hedge fund annalist Megan Asha. They can be viewed, blogged, and enjoyed much like the burgeoning stars of the fifties when television produced Lucy and Leave it to Beaver, these girls are walking a riding on the fast moving edge of media. They are perfecting a forward-thinking form of entertainment sure to capture the mind and dollars of a seriously bored television weary consumer market advertisers only once dreamed of. What do you have to do with this new wave of web-stars? Well nothing really. But they do everything in their power to make you think you are right there with them, enjoying that grilled Mahi Mahi or when you witness a real-time-blooper! The interactive qualities of these video blogs satisfy (and get valuable feed from) thousands of viewers on what they claim are “interesting daily activities” which might be an ice cream spill on a dress, their new shoes, what they are eating, what restaurants they are going to, what they are ordering, what tampon they buy ad nauseum! It makes a young girl in Hong Kong feel as though they are one of the girls in New York City. How cool is that? Has Sex and the City joined with Barbie’s dream house? Not quite. But the time has come for real girls of New York City to give this a shot and to make us feel less alone. If the entire public has not yet decided that television is too boring to hold their attention is it this kind of voyeuristic schlock that will hold their interest rather than wait for the weekly drama of Desperate Housewives? Is the DVR a vain attempt to hold market share from the dynamic and immediate gratification provided by new internet video? Tune out, tune in and don’t touch that dial / keyboard for we are only a market share away from television going the way of AM radio.

The interactive video blog-o-sphere is the new infant on the block. Interaction is key and the illusion of real participation and contact with internet stars is the hook. But is it contact? Is someone really there? Of course not! Is it a magazine, a TV show and a blog that you can talk to! It is an interactive mechanism that is interesting and fun and seductive in a creepy voyeuristic kind way, but unlike television, it draws you real-time into terribly a current “dialogue” that viewers find not only seductive but addictive. The higher reality being that it is global. New Yorkers have figured out that their grunge chic lives sell. And what the Girls of Nonsociety.com have figured out is that they while perhaps not the first in the blog-o-sphere to combine media in this manner may just be the best. They know how to give their public just enough gratification to engage them into their lives just enough to hook them while genuine interaction with The Girls of Non Society, if they are as smart as I suspect are collecting data that will eventually be processed into as many of your dollars as they can shove in their Coach handbags. While new interesting and fun it is my opinion that this playful mode of media will become another conduit to our bank accounts while creating a new kind of altar on which plain and simple dreamers can lay their dreams. Is this playful media or is it mechanical manipulation designed to pump fame, ego’s and bank accounts of celebrity wanabes while the viewer may “feel” less alone he or she is alone as ever… if not more so.

But is “less alone” good for you? While Madison Avenue is tickled pink with this new media grunge, dollars outweigh your psyche every time. Will a young girl blog endlessly with the girls of Nonsociety.com thinking she is really part of the lives of the girls while they are just sucking her soul and picking her pocket and mind for their piece of consumer market share? Of course! Once they figure out, if they have not already that feedback is date made “fun” will the girls on Nonsociety.com go down in history as the Lucille Ball of the internet? I can hear the orgasm from Madison Avenue now!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

"Things To Do Instead Of Watching TV."

I came across this list of I thought it was insightful and practical and useful. So I am going to post it for today. I have edited it extensively...hence it "is" original.
Read a book. Go to the cinema. Watch someone play or play a musical instrument yourself. Write a letter. Go for a walk. Pick up litter. Call a friend. Sing. Pursue your hobby. Bowl. Write a poem. Clean your drawers. Take a class. Floss. Plan a trip. Exercise. State your dream. Volunteer.
Ride a bicycle. Paint a picture. Teach someone to read. Learn Spanish. Look out the window. Go to the library. Visit a neighbor. Do your dishes. Fix a broken item. Learn improvisational comedy.
Visit an art museum. Volunteer at your local humane society and spend time with animals. Go ice skating at UTC. Compose a song. Eat a good breakfast. Sort your old photographs. Take your unwanted newspapers and magazines to someone who would like them or to recycling. Fish.
Satisfy your craving for "reality programming" by going out in the "real world." Trace your genealogy. Rearrange the furniture. Help someone build a house. Jump on the bed. Get your cholesterol checked. Visit a new restaurant. Volunteer to clean up a freeway exit near you. Do the laundry. Bake a pie.
Save whales. Brush your teeth. Remember what your mother told you. Write a poem.
Take up a new hobby. Walk along the seashore, lakeside, desert, mountains. Test your strength. Hit the gym. Ride the bus. Talk to a cat. Take an adult education class. Plant a garden. Talk with someone real different from you. Hoe the garden. Take a bath.
Balance your checkbook. Coin a term. Found a literary movement. Chop wood. Change your mind. Mow the grass. Do the macarena. Write a manifesto.
Choose your long distance carrier. Tie your shoes. Comb your hair. Clean the windows. Take a five. Go for broke. Inventory. Make an appointment for dental care. Take your pills. Attend a festival. Dance the night away. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Play ping-pong. Take photos. Chase rainbows. Chase Manhattan. Chase Chevy Chase. Paint the town.
Settle old bets. Change a diaper that needs changing. Change a bill if you need some coins. Keep an appointment.
Finish that book you've been reading. Toil in obscurity. Learn a new language. Lower your cholesterol somehow. Escape to Wisconsin. Find a pin and pick it up.
Herd cats. Jump like a bunny. Collate papers. Sharpen the pencils.
Try walking up the stairs. Tell someone that I love you. Don't spread rumors. Tell someone that you love them.
Lose weight naturally.
Go to a church, synagogue or a house of worship. But try going there when there is a service.
Go to a planetarium. Teach a class.
State the fundamental theorem of calculus. Learn Java, the object-oriented computer language of interactivity on the Web. Pick your seat. Cancel your subscription. Pile it high and deep.
Take a shower. Take another look around.
Minister to the sick. Visit the aged. Treasure the moments. Appreciate the veterans.
Pursue art for Art's sake. Tune a guitar. Walk a dog. Mend a fence.
Clean your plate. Announce your secret disgust and revilement for Kenny G. Fall in love.
Learn line dancing. Diet more sanely. Shake hands with your neighbor. Clean your house.
Don't covet your neighbor's wife. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and vote for love not for "freedom."
Shoot the moon. Shoot the rapids.
Memorize a sonnet. Can vegetables or test a new recipe. Take a cool second job that exposes you to more people. Listen to a symphony. Sort your CD's. Call me sometime. Rinse. Repeat.
Save this page to any social bookmarking site!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

My thoughts on gay marriage and to those who could always marry:

By William Zimmermann

Your weddings are hard upon them yet they wish you very happy wedding days. But that really doesn't matter at all. Weddings don't matter. Marriages matter. But it is the weddings, the moments where your lives are transformed into lifetimes of commitment for better or for worse that leaves gay men and women out in the cold. It is the absence of sanctity, approval and the joyous celebration of that commitment that pains them deeply. They live in houses with many rooms but for the disenfranchised they are sorely empty. They wait silently beside the fireplace hoping and yearning that the flames of community will spark. But they do not and with no comfort from family, church and society they sit alone in cold and empty rooms. Praying for love and acceptance while not having a clue how to navigate them confronts them head on. They break. They stumble around the planet alone and without partners and without genuine companionship. It is a lonely numb and biter life especially for the sexually exclusive or monogamous men and women who do not fit in with those who have sold out to the renegade and uncontrolled sexual inferno that consumes genuine love for the majority of potentially same sex couples. The best they can do is to become numb and wade through endless sexual encounters or simply become celibate. I have met them all and of them I have known few who survived to navigate love.

The sad truth in my experience is when love bade me welcome I forgot to invite it in. When love was begging to be made strong I caved or I looked the other way. I had no training. I was young neglected undereducated ill-mentored inexperienced and very foolish when love came to my door. I can make excuses for youth and inexperience even for the lack of wisdom. But there is no excuse for those who failed me. I have come to know, after all these years that I came from very unwise and imperfect people. I have paid the price for the systemic arrogance and yet I have lived long enough to confront it. But it is too late? I am alone.

The Break

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of lust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit but shame forbade me to eat.



From the Bible: Song of Songs 8:6 and 7

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy as cruel as the grave;
Its flames are flames of fire,
A most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised.


Love strong as death. Yet anything stronger than the grip of death could only be love. It wields power over our lives and imagines infinite possibility.

Grow your love. Nurture it. Don't let it falter. For if love is healthy, it is stronger than death itself. I have used a term sometimes when talking about these things. "Deliberate desire." Lust can be a impetuous, but can be controlled by the investment you place in love. Women are the instigators of this. Men are servants. There is no more to tell... but the "third sex" understands both, and that is what makes them masters. How could they be so terribly disrespected? We can only blame our culture, for the Aboriginal tribes throughout thousands of years knew this third sex. As normal and healthy as any and as loved and cherished as all those who found love.

Live in love, act in love, commit to your partner, for in his or her eyes you will see the fuel fire of a sustainable happy marriage. And until you see the small glimmer of your love in everyone try to hold on and walk your walk with the strength of your own self that sustains you... and be the exception.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Slick whte guy thinks he can pull it off in Africa

Aids in Africa. Bill Clinton's new big push. He's a great guy but the man is such a dreamer. I could not help but write to him these words today sent to his 'web team.' Why is it that nobody ever talks about population control except the Chinese?

Dear President Clinton,
I respect your initiative to cure Aids in Africa. I have to take exception to this goal though I hope you are capable of success. My question for you is: Why would drug companies cure Aids (or cancer) when the economic impact of the cure would leave the companies bankrupt? Drug companies have a vested interest in perpetuating disease regardless of what their credibility is. There is no hope for Africa without the science to bring to a halt the cause of this disease with a preventative vaccine. Your glowing words in your video here are fashioned beautifully and certainly we all want to end suffering. We can not ignore the population growth problem in Africa. Without birth control there will always be death. For most countries in Africa can not sustain the number of people who live there. If death does not come from Aids it will come from starvation. Virtually 100% of Africa's peril is due to unwanted pregnancy. Sex, while enjoyable, as we all know is not a joy easily controlled. But control it the Africans MUST. Like the Chinese Africa must create and implement a zero population growth manifesto. Until this becomes a reality I faithfully believe that all attempts to assist Africa will be in vain. I wish you well and unlimited success in this effort. But do not be blind to the underlying causes of this epidemic.

I can't help but recall the Chris Rock quote from Bigger and Blacker:
You think they're gonna cure AlDS?
No, they can't even cure athlete's foot.
They ain't curing AlDS.
Shit, they ain't never curing AlDS.
Don't even think about that shit.
They ain't curing it,
'cause there ain't no money in the cure.
The money's in the medicine.
That's how you get paid, on the comeback.
That's how a drug dealer makes his money,
on the comeback.
That's all the government is:
a bunch of motherfucking drug dealers,
on the comeback.
They ain't curing no AlDS.
That's all it is.
You think they're gonna cure AlDS?
They're still mad at all the money
they lost on polio!
Curing AlDS? Shit, that's like Cadillac
making a car that lasts for years.
And you know they can do it...
but they ain't gonna do nothing
that fucking dumb.
Shit, they got metal on the space shuttle
that can go around the moon...
and withstand temperatures
of up to degrees.
You mean to tell me you don't think
they can make an Eldorado...
where the fucking bumper don't fall off?
They can, but they won't.
So what they will do with AlDS is the
same thing they do with everything else.
They will figure out a way
for you to live with it.
They don't cure shit, they just patch it up.
Get you to the next stop,
so they can get more of your money.

Still think slick Willie can pull it off in Africa?

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Good Ideas

Good ideas come not from laying around the house wishing for them, they must be inspired, coaxed from or dragged out of you. My dad used to tell me that good ideas are few in a sea of what we think are good ideas. How do we know the difference between a good idea and one that just looks like a good idea? Ask people who know, do the research and test it. I have rarely had an original idea but occasionally I do have an original thought though that too is rare. Testing new ideas is alien to me as much as they are to you... so give it a try. Envision a future that is ideal. See yourself in a life that you have not yet considered. Then try envisioning yourself in another completely different life. Probable futures are created from thoughts... believe it or not so try some original thinking. Lay back and envision different scenario's. Recommended reading: Jane Roberts, The Nature of Personal Reality. Or listen on YouTube to Seth Speaks. What does this have to do with Comfort Zones? It is a way to rattle the cage of your reality. Check out the audio on YouTube. It is remarkable to say the least.

Hero's and Comfort Zones

By William Zimmermann

We all have our hero's. Here is mine. Dean Kaman is an inventor of new technologies. He's a rich guy with a heart and a purpose. He did not forget what it is to be human. He tops my list of people to meet. He was recently featured on the Sundance channel's series Iconoclast.

Comfort Zones and Change:
Getting what you want in this world are complicated and sometimes daunting tasks. Setting up a plan to get exactly what you want can be a fascinating and interesting process that becomes more fascinating and over time it can snowball. But it takes guts to make changes from comfort zones. I am in one of those zones, are you? It is so difficult to exit comfort zones I thought it would be a shame not to discuss them in terms of positive change to forward our lives substantially enough to make life so valuable to you that it becomes a spiritual experience beyond words and you become one of those people who make a difference. In future entries I am going on a journey. A journey into new ideas that might just break my CZ dysfunction. Stick around, we're just getting started. Oct 9, 08

October 9th - welcome to my blog

Before I begin I want to welcome everyone to this record of events. Some of us write better than we speak and our world is better shared (or best shared) through this wonderful and useful medium. The music you hear is always my very favorite and the photos are random images from my Picasa image bank. I took all the images you see.

Blogging I like to think of as letter writing. It is the format of language I hope to maintain through the months and years of this blog before it vanishes into the ether-wind of the net one day.

Hopefully the significance will not be lost or that those of you who read are not bored or indifferent to the life of someone who you may have not seen for years or decades in some cases. The views and attitudes found within may change and bend with time. I can be very critical, literal and borderline cruel in my views. I do not edit or censor them. However I try to remain civil and maintain an attitude of loving awareness through the threads. Enjoy along with my wish for peace and love in your days always.