"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.

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.

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?

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.