Monday, May 26, 2014

How to Do What You Love Regardless of Your Circumstances

If you are strong enough, and willing to make some probably temporary sacrifices, it is possible to do whatever most fulfills you, regardless of your circumstances. Consider the steps below a loose guide, and be willing to modify them to fit your purposes.

# Lose the notion that you must have money to survive. This is a lie fabricated to keep you trapped in a system that may not be able to fulfill you. Millions of people do what they love, regardless of any remuneration. Yes, this may require an even radical adjustment. Take baby steps, but understand that some major leaps of faith may be needed.

# Imagine what you might most like to be doing in a year. It does not matter what it is. Just as a computer can do any operation that you can say with your mouth, you can also do and be whatever your heart desires if you are prepared to ignore or overcome any obstacles.

# Find some people doing what you want to do. This is a s simple as a Google search for your locale. They are probably closer than you think. They are doing it right now. Pick a family-owned or local small business over a large multi-national conglomerate for easier penetration.

# Volunteer to help. I mean, what the heck, you're reading this because you hate your life, anyway, probably. You might even have a job--or a career, for that matter--collecting a paycheck to pay for the house you get to sleep in, and the car, clothes, and insurance needed to get to work.

You can even volunteer part time at first, one day a week at one or more of your Google finds, until you click with one--but an advantage of being destitute here is that you might volunteer full time (after all, it is doing what you love, right?), displaying the commitment that will get you noticed.

# Don't be surprised. Your desire to forward yourself in your dream field, coupled with your stated lack of interest in a slavish requirement for a paycheck, will cause strange reactions from those you seek to mentor you; because it is strange. We are, most of us, completely focused on how much an hourly wage might be gained, regardless of the type or fulfillment level of the work offered. This is a recipe for personal disaster.

People with money are rarely happier than those without all but the most basic needs, which are easily obtainable from charity services if needed. Sleep in a tent in a friend's back yard for a summer if you have to.

When others see that you are willing to do whatever it takes, they are often motivated to give you the things you need to succeed, and these things will often come to you when you just state a need for them out loud, to the air, even.

*Count your blessings. Being grateful for what you possess will allow hidden channels of bounty to come to you as you reflect to others your gratitude.

*Keep your priorities in order. A recent example decided that the most important things for them were nutritious, organic food; volunteered at an organic fruit stand for raw milk and honey and good veggies, expecting to stay a stint in the forest--and ended up with the keys and a motor home out back as caretaker. You can, too.

*Expect some periods of doubt and self-examination. Once committed, people may consider you nuts; you might even think that you are nuts yourself. Stick to your priorities at all costs--write them down if you have to, and reinforce, reexamine, or change them as needed, but don't be very willing to abandon them at the first resistance--and there is going to be resistance. The way the world is set up is often anathema to your commitment; disregard anything that would swerve you from a priority.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Man Powers House With Almost 10,000 Discarded Mini Solar Panels

Ok, I didn't really string 10,000 of these mini solar panels together; yet. Psych! But you could, since it's always the cheesy battery that goes out first in these, and not the panel. The LED is usually fine too, so you could also replace the battery, but it needs to be a rechargeable one, so the benefits gained here are dubious.

I also lack a house to power, as I have committed to being homeless (more fun, anyway) until I can get an earth ship built on my own permacultured land; but that's another story. I have begun collecting these, a couple of years ago, stashing them at friends' or family's houses in whatever locale I happen to be in. 

The LEDs may be saved for other projects, and they are pretty tolerant of voltage variations. The body of the light, with the top removed, makes a great rain gauge or mini vase, or you can stick them back out on the driveway border and fill them with glow stick stuff to have another temporary light, for as long as it lasts. The black stem makes great predator habitat for the garden, and I bet you could come up with about 50 more uses to keep these out of our landfulls. Start collecting!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Sovereign Altcoin Exchange; Iran's Golden Dinar

As soon as Iran figures out that a Sovereign Altcoin Exchange presents a fait accompli to the dollar, it is game over. Or WWIII, lol.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Is the US Government Itching for a Fight?

I'm well past the age when things of this nature (that being, this thread title) not being widely commented upon add up to "common knowledge" to my little, possibly autistic mind--meaning, no one has written this article because everyone just understands it. I can't number the times this resulted in some later Eureka! moment. And so I'm writing this as I pack my stuff to go be homeless again; hardly the most qualified, to say the least, and yet a search of the salient terms leads me to zero articles on the subject?

So, since I've dimly begun grasping that this may be my savant power, let me--well, I would say postulate, but to me it's as plain as a nose--declare, I guess, that that is exactly what they are trying to do; entice small, manageable groups (we're all hopelessly divided now) who are prone to a violent response out into the 'open,' so to speak, so that they can be massacred. See, one Gandhi type they have no problem with; a random JFK or MLK can just be offed at will; but millions of Gandhi's, against an obviously militarized police, or an increasingly rabid military, just produces too much internet backlash (even though they are doing this at will, anyway). As a matter of fact, their whole get-down should be obvious by the way they treat non-violent protesters on the whole.

I haven't quite grasped how all the cops in Ukraine playing pussy fits into this--but like I said, I'm really not the person to be writing this anyway. I highly suspect that there is some social engineering going on there.

I have kept the Anonymous Movement at arm's length until now, suspicious of "we will not forgive," and suspecting the movement was a cover for some violent core which never seems to have materialized, despite the rhetoric, which often got heated. But now that Facebook has just completed their latest Anonymous purge, I just don't feel right accepting this "common, but unspoken" knowledge anymore. So, in case it isn't obvious to you--especially if you're a gun owner--you might reflect that that parapolice-guy exhibits all the signs of a sociopath (read, "gang member"), and he has you in his sights.

I am proud of our Constitution, and the recognition of the rights it gives--well, gave--each of us, as citizens. Unfortunately, it does not take eyes to see that those "rights" are now vastly diminished, or non-existent now. If you are what I will call an "active" gun owner, see that now is not the time to be trumpeting it; especially if you are not yet in a local militia. As firm a believer as I am in "What you resist, persists," I also recognize that many of us might be in FEMA camps already if it weren't for gun nuts. If you need a CO who can cook and is a little too smart for his own good, just holler. 

Saturday, November 2, 2013

The Day you Lost Nothing ~ Remembering Pre Self Consciousness

Although it is virtually impossible for most people to really grasp pre self consciousness, having become self conscious, it is possible to remember the time when you were not aware of your self; or at least, the moment you came to self-sonsciousness--you did not recognize yourself in the mirror that morning.

Since this may be a good reflection of the state that our religious or mental models seek to reproduce (despite failure in a Google search of pre self consciousness~the only return was for pre-reflective self consciousness), it becomes illuminating at some point in most walks to examine this state of mind from a different perspective~that of remembering when, or at least the doorway from there, rather than aspiring to.

Pre reflective self consciousness provides an interesting analog in helping to understand your state of mind at the time, so we'll look at a brief of this concept:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One can get a bearing on the notion of pre-reflective self-consciousness by contrasting it with reflective self-consciousness. If you ask me to give you a description of the pain I feel in my right foot, or of what I was just thinking about, I would reflect on it and thereby take up a certain perspective that was one order removed from the pain or the thought. Thus, reflective self-consciousness is at least a higher-order cognition. It may be the basis for a report on one's experience, although not all reports involve a significant amount of reflection.

In contrast, pre-reflective self-consciousness is pre-reflective in the sense that
(1) It is an awareness we have before we do any reflecting on our experience, and
(2) It is an implicit and first-order awareness rather than an explicit or   higher-order form of self-consciousness.

Indeed, an explicit reflective self-consciousness is possible only because there is a pre-reflective self-awareness that is an on-going and more primary self-consciousness. Although phenomenologists do not always agree on important questions about method, focus, or even whether there is an ego or self, they are in close to unanimous agreement about the idea that the experiential dimension always involves such an implicit pre-reflective self-awareness.
{In line with Edmund Husserl (1959, 189, 412), who maintains that consciousness always involves a self-appearance (Für-sich-selbst-erscheinens), and in agreement with Michel Henry (1963, 1965), who notes that experience is always self-manifesting, and with Maurice Merleau-Ponty who states that consciousness is always given to itself and that the word ‘consciousness’ has no meaning independently of this self-givenness (Merleau-Ponty 1945, 488)}

Jean-Paul Sartre writes that pre-reflective self-consciousness is not simply a quality added to the experience, an accessory; rather, it constitutes the very mode of being of the experience...

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousness-phenomenological/#PreRefSelCon
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Or in  other words, you, completely in the moment, before mental processing.

We’ll take a look at how to remember the moment you came to self awareness, but unfortunately, even though this experience alone will be quite a jolt, all you will be left with, most likely anyway, is a memory of that moment; although intriguing echoes of pre self consciousness will reverberate.

And who knows? Maybe you will be the one who writes the article about further regression here, since the Indians apparently are not.


An intro for a failed article.

The spoiler is that I did this with a (woo-woo) Indian, in a 'ceremony,' with a mildly euphoric 'tea of remembering,' all of which just served to help imprint, and cause later reflection on a memory that we all have inside us. Very powerful.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Can you see me?

You can look at an an atom's trajectory, but it has ceased to be a 'thing' as you understand that concept--"thing;" "chair"--and it cannot be imaged. No image is possible, no matter how good microscopes get. its true nature is revealed as energy.

You can look at an atom--of what makes up me, say--you can pin it down, and peer at a snapshot; but it has lost the "Now" that it had in it. It is dead. This is all just--ha, just--Einstein.

The way you are indoctrinated into a manufactured-and even informed-consent into an unholy association of accepting a snapshot of reality--that which is 'seen'--is the way in which you are denying yourself the association with my atoms as waves, the Now from which they are from.

How to Ski Aspen, Colorado for Free

Aspen Highlands is arguably at least one of the best ski mountains in the country; and you can ski it for free! What many don't realize is that many ski mountains are on public land, and that it is the lift that you pay for. We'll just gabble on here, for a minute, to get beyond Google's web crawlers...and tell you how you can lift at Highlands for free, too! In Aspen! This article will assume you have no gear, and don't even know how to ski.


Patterns over the last several years indicate that just as they are shutting the mountain down has been some of the best skiing of the year; conditions are epic right now, April 15, at Highlands.

EditSteps

  1. 1
    Get your balance. Spend the summer on a longboard, or even a plain old skateboard, getting your 'balance.' If you are young, you can probably skip this step.
  2. 2
    Gear up. We're going to show you how to lift for free at Highlands all year, but the best deals for gearing up are, obviously, at the end of the season. The many thrift shops in Glenwood Springs can't give the stuff away this time of year. You should be able to completely gear up for under $50! Aspen has a thrift store, also, where you may get premium gear; but expect a gear-up to run you more like $75-$100.
    • If you spent the summer on a longboard, you can now snowboard, with about a day's practice! As Highlands is an advanced mountain, you will want to stay on the "Broadway," however, if you are new.
  3. 3
  4. Get to Highlands. It is a $14 round trip from Glenwood Springs, where normal people live.
  5. 4
    Pay your pound of flesh. You didn't think free meant no pain, did you? You have to hike halfway up the mountain; 45 minutes for a monster, about 2 hours for you. The scenery makes it all worth it, anyway.
  6. 5
    Catch the lift at Loge Peak, or Cloud Nine. These will take you all the way to the top of Aspen Highlands, and you can caterpillar up to the Bowl hike with all the
  7.  way to the top of Aspen Highlands, and you can caterpillar up to the Bowl hike with all the other pass holders, or ski halfway down to the aforementioned lifts, utilizing the top half of the mountain, for the rest of the day! What more, really, could anyone ask for? While you might think that Skico, the entity that runs the lifts in Aspen, would care, they do not--this is the best kept secret in the valley.
  8. 6
    You gotta sleep somewhere. Aspen room rates are bottom dollar in the spring, in the neighborhood of $150 a night! If you are on a more limited budget, bus it back down valley for $60 a night; or take advantage of the many opportunities to camp around Glenwood Springs, where it's warmer--but see that the whole valley is surrounded by the White River National Forest...you own it.