“When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.
--Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief
Are people stressed out, angry and disillusioned? Not
the people I know, of course, but those nebulous someone’s out there. Well,
drivers especially. They know where they’re going and are hell-bent to get
there as fast as they can. Don’t slow down in front of them to read a road
sign. Sorry, I don’t read as fast as I used to, or from as far away. They will
zoom around me to make sure I get the message.
I wonder if most people are holding their emotional lid
on, and any small infraction can set them off.
Traffic can do it. Around 5 o’clock here in Eugene the
Beltline (The highway that connects one part of town with the other) is a
constant stream of red tail lights. And getting on it is a major
accomplishment. (Hello L.A.)
My daughter has been interviewing for a new job, and
the interviewing process is a joke. She used to be a director of Pet Smart and as such, she conducted interviews and
hired people. She wanted to get to know them. That was the purpose of the
interview. Yesterday the interviewer simply read her a list of questions she
could just as easily—easier—answered online. The interviewer was dullified.
Sorry, mam, that your life is so
crappy.
When I meet a happy server, I praise them to high
heaven.
I guess it’s the dullified
ones that need raising up, but to raise someone you must first meet them at
their level. There’s the rub.
Okay guys, what do we do about this?
One suggestion I would offer if to get out from under
the television.
Not
one minute after I wrote the above sentence, the following information appeared
in my mailbox. Courtesy of husband dear. Woo
woo.
“So much insanity is being broadcast into
our society that people are beginning to crack and turn on each other.” --Dylan Charles, Editor of Waking times.
The late Terence McKenna,
Canadian, journalist, and filmmaker, pointed out that TV is a drug.
What else could persuade
people spend an average of 5-7 hours a
day sitting in front of the TV?
“You sit
someone down in front of a TV set and turn it on. Twenty minutes later come
back, sample their blood pressure, their eye movement rate, blood is pooling in
their rear end, their breathing takes on a certain quality, the stare reflex
sets in. They are thoroughly zoned on a drug.”
Obsessive and unexamined behavior in pursuit of a familiar stimulus is what drug addiction is
about.
One point taken is that initially psychedelic drugs
were meant to be consciousness-raising,
to be a mirror. TV IS A BILLBOARD.
McKenna said his mother pressed a book on him when he
was 12-years-old, and it changed the way he viewed the world. The book was the Art
of Seeing by Aldous Huxley*. Huxley says to overcome bias, draw free-hand. (Interesting.)
And go into nature and train the eye to see.
McKenna commented that the Vietnam war couldn’t be won by traditional means when
it was broadcast into our living rooms.
We could see it. We could hear the screams and see the maggots.
When war is read, as is
often the traditional recording of it, it is made to sound heroic.
The media has sanitized recent wars, including
deliberately not showing caskets being shipped home.
Okay, is TV good/bad/terrible or what?
It depends on what’s on TV.
Consider this:
If you want to be successful in your business, get on television.
Appear on Shark Tank and your sales will skyrocket.
Have a couple of interviewers talk about the Keto
diet, and it becomes mainstream.
Used to be a book touted by Oprah became a runaway
best seller. (Of course, I would love to have my book touted by Oprah, except I
don’t want to appear on TV.)
Guess I’ll limp along.
All the coaches out there teaching you how to be rich
could sum it up in one sentence.
Get on TV.
Good stuff is on TV, however, and this is hard for us
to understand, TV has qualities that are
shaping our values. (Doesn’t everything?)
However, values
not questioned is mindless following.
I know we’re all in this soup together, except when
it comes to sorting it all out, we’re on our own.
Lesson from the Buddha:
“Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, or who said it, even if I have said it unless it agrees with your own reason and
your own common sense.”
“We are
the champions, my friends
And we'll keep on fighting 'til the end
We are the champions.”
And we'll keep on fighting 'til the end
We are the champions.”
-- Songwriter: Freddie
Mercury
We Are the Champions lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
You can tell I saw the
movie Bohemian Rhapsody. It ended with that song.
