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Welcome!

I, God, welcome you to my blog!

The good book says only God is good, so it seems to me somebody needs to step up.

I hope you enjoy reading this, the Jesse Journal, as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to subscribe, write me an email, request that I write about any particular topic you may want my perspective on, send a prayer, click on the charity link, or donate money to my bicycle fund! Have fun!

Your pal, Jess
Ladies- I'm a single, straight, virgo/boar INTJ (age 51) who enjoys books, getting out into nature, music, and daily exercise.

(my email is JesseGod@live.com)

F.Y.I. There are about 2200 posts..

Here's a quote from Fyodor Dostoevsky to start things off right: Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

Monday, December 31, 2012

God is One

You gotta look out for number 1!

And, at the risk of sounding blasphemous, God is not number two (ha).
Urine? Yer in!
Yellow?  Yell "ow"!
One?  Won!
Neo? Noone Escapes Oblivion!
Oblivion? Ob, I liv on!

Retarded? You betcha!

Dog god? Devil lived?  Santa Satan? Live evil?  Good God! 
Nun none?  Mass m' ass.  Church -ch you are ch. 
Catholic means universal.  Meaning is mean?  Universe, one verse?
University -universe itty, or universe city..
Angel in spanish pronounced "on hell".  wtf?  wtc?
enough, already.
right? correct! core wrecked.
left?  Elvis has left the building.  Evil S.
building is both a noun and a verb.

"this is the word of the lord" (just one word?) (Just as in justice?)
why/Y is (si, senor, St. Ignatius, Sports Illustrated) language so Weird?
wired?  I just watched Dr. Strange on netflix.
Y&T.  champion and cross. 
midnite in tokyo, MIT.  wmbr.  5429.  2. 
it.  information technology.  the book.
the summer in winter.  calc you later.  Cal, cu later.  see u. 
holy see.  c, sea, see, si.  wholly.  hole.
is this at all interesting? Not! interred - only resting?
language is fricking bizarre.  not bazaar, biz like business.
busy, busy! -Cat's cradle reference

Friday, December 28, 2012

book-larnin'

I reckon' I'll always be stupid.  Here's why.

I'm having trouble with my goal of reading a book-a-day.
I like music just as much...and I probably shouldn't try and do both simultaneously.
Anyway,
I'm 41 years of age.
The oldest living human (unambiguously documented) is that of Jeanne Calment of France, who lived 122 years, 164 days (1875-1997).  The oldest male is Jiroemon Kimura of Japan, 115yrs, 253 days.

80 years of a book a day is only 29,200 books.
The library of congress, the world's biggest library, has 34.5 million books, plus.
They add like 10,000 items a day.
About 2/3 of their collection is non-english.
So 1/3 of 34.5M is around 12M books in english.
29 thousand is x percent of 12 million?
29/12,000 =.00241, or .241%, about a quarter of one percent
(of just the english-language books)
That's hardly omniscient.
So I'll never be that Godly.
Sorry.
At least I maybe have an idea how stupid I am.
-J

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Thou shalt not

take the name of the lord your god in vain...

hm.
My name is Jesse.
That's awfully close to Jesus.
In Spanish, Jesse can be Jesus (heyzeus),
 Chuy (like a wafer), or
 Isai (accent on the second i, eesah-e)

Isa is Jesus in arabic.  I, Isa.
Biblical hebrew often omits vowels, so JSS works that way, too.

Jesus can be rearranged to 'Jess u' -(me?)
And esse in latin is being, while J is the tenth letter.
X (as in xmas) is roman numeral 10...j esse -> christ being?
wwjd

In spanish class, I chose Chuy (pronounced chewy, like Chewbacca)
because who wants to be Jesus, right?
He only lived to around 33.
Not my bag, even if it is laudable to be 'christlike'.

Anyway,
it's debatable whether Jesus is the lord my god
because I actually think I'm better than he was
in the sense that Jesus said don't call me good, only God is good
and I think I'm good, (nothing too radical about that, right?)
and therefore God (like everybody else)
Have I taken the name of the lord my god in vain?
usually people don't think of vanity in relation to this commandment.
It usually isn't literal
It usually means don't say "Jesus Christ" derogatorily.
I see nothing wrong with that, by the way, myself.
In any case,
"in vain" means without effect, or unsuccessfully.
So we shall see what effect my name has.
I didn't choose it, although I do have the option of changing my name,
so in that sense, my name is elected.
I like my name, have no plans to change it, and don't have any alternates, in any case.

and that's just my first name.
My last name, Teshara, is arahset backwards, which has Ra (the sun god) and "set" which is what the sun does.  Jesse has "see" in it, and Isai has two "eyes".  Weirditude.  Jesus is "the light."  holy photons!
Happy hanukkwanzmas and new year, everyone!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Holiday Spirit

Hint: it has nothing to do with assault weapons or knives

Tit for tat, positivity in return for depravity
What I want to give the world for Christmas/Hannukkah/Kwanzaa, etc.:

Health
Happiness
Peace
Love
Comfort
Friendship
Truth
Justice
Freedom
Prosperity
Hope
Kindness
Understanding
Knowledge
Wisdom
Enlightenment
Joy
Bliss
Entertainment
i.e. internet, movies, music, books, magazines
Pleasure
Basic needs
i.e. food, shelter, clothing, clean water, sanitation
Virtue
Integrity
Compassion
Gratitude
Fitness
Strength
Sharing
Caring
Giving
Creativity
Imagination
Respect
Security
Sanity
Contentment
Purpose
Family
Community
Innocence
Humor
Cheer
Laughter
Smiles
Fun

May you have every one, everyone!
(and in throughout the new year, too)

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Iraq war

The stats are in

I read somewhere that the war cost 110,000 Iraqi lives, and 4500 American.
The pricetag? around $800 billion

So, America spent ($/life) around 7 million dollars per corpse.
(around 6.986 million, to be more precise)

This strikes me as supremely stupid.

War, like I said, results in fatalities, injuries, misery, loss of money, as well as opportunity cost.
War is hell.  Shouldn't we be trying to create heaven, instead?
I mean, duh.

And there's the regional instability, displacement, refugees, property damage, hatred, resentment, ptsd, mental illness, and creation of even more terrorists...
I guess I need to see what the argument FOR war is.
It's inconceivable, to me.

I realize the US has ended it's mission there, a year on now.
Is my hindsight 20-20?

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Bud

Bored, unmotivated, disinterested

(is it UN-interested? I forget)

Anyway, bud (a word for pot), can have that effect, appropriately enough.
Or maybe you're depressed or bipolar or schizoaffective.

Anyway,
waking up this way can lead to isolation and a choice to stay in bed / not do anything-
which can lead to
feeling lonely, depressed, angry

Lately, for me, though, I wake up and get motivated to attempt to have the perfect day.
It rarely happens, but I've been doing this since I was a boy.
This morning I heard some mindblowing jazz on Harvard radio, which portended a totally awesome day (although I didn't get done everything I wanted to).

My post-it note to-do list was:
Kaiser at 2p,
give Andrea Glover the 4 library info sheets that might prove useful to others with mental illness (emergency meals and shelters, mental health resources, local groups serving people with disabilities, and volunteer opportunities),
go to the SS office (social security, not schutzstaffel)
schedule a dental appt. with the BFC (Berkeley Free Clinic) -it's been 6 months-
Y (YMCA)
Safeway (I have 2 gift cards to redeem)
Library (NYTimes, Economist, F. Affairs)
Radio Shack
Walk the dogs

Radio shack was a disappointment because they couldn't print up a $10 coupon I'm eligible for (I don't have a printer), which sucks.
And I didn't go to the Y because rain was threatening, and I wanted to get home (on my new bike).
And the SS office was too busy, and it (making sure my address is right) can wait for tomorrow.
Safeway was in the opposite direction, can also wait.

my day, by Jesse Teshara, lol.

CBT

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for a very sick puppy
Then again, dogs are gods, too.

CBT at Kaiser, once a week, for 12 weeks, and then a party, has begun.
Today was Class 2.
I really hope this works.

The goal, I think, is Sanity.  That sure would be nice.

The main idea is we can change any of the links in the chain of a three-part dynamic that characterizes all of our social interactions.
The three parts are:
Mood
Thought
Behavior

The triangle of causation and effects flows in both directions.

-Emotion, Mood, Feelings (3 ways of describing the same thing) effect
-Thoughts, Beliefs, Cognition, Ideas, Thoughts, Perceptions, Mental Formations effect
-Behavior, Action...

Another catchy way of looking at it is ABC:
Action, Belief, Consequences (emotional and behavioral)

Here's a list of emotions/emotional consequences we've come up with so far:

Negative:
frustrated, resentful, sad, depressed, angry, mad, scared/afraid/fearful, panic, alarm, anxiety, paranoia, suspicion, caution, confusion, uncertainty, worry, hurt, lonely.

That's mostly what we're working on, negative emotions.

Also, there's maladaptive thinking, like delusions, or false beliefs,
automatic thoughts, a style of thinking, that are bad because they cause us distress.
under the rubric of "Cognitive Distortions".

The thing about perceptions is
You shouldn't believe everything you think.
And just maybe you shouldn't believe anything you think.
The idea here is to avoid mental patterns that cause distress by keeping an open mind- to try to hold in mind that perceptions are usually only theories, suppositions, possibilities, and we might be better off by taking the most charitable interpretation, if any.
My take-away is that the smart thing to do is to hold all possible explanations in your mind at the same time, and just live with uncertainty.

For example, if someone cuts you off in traffic, you might think they're a jerk, disrespecting you, harassing you, reading your thoughts, punishing you, part of a conspiracy, the CIA following you, or just in a hurry, for any number of reasons.

Your beliefs in this regard will affect your emotions and actions.  You might be cautious, angry, suspicious, or  even empathic (e.g. in a hurry for a good reason).  And you might react anywhere in the spectrum from getting in a fight (road rage), to being somewhat irked, to just laughing it off, maybe.  That's the general idea.

It's not all negative.
Positive emotional consequences:
Gratitude, Happiness

And -I think this is important-
You can be emotionally neutral:
Unperturbed, unfazed.
Cool, calm, and collected.
Having equanimity.
"Like water off a duck's back"

I kind of like the idea of being
dour, analytical.

because happiness just isn't in the biochemistry cards all the time, I'd say.