update

my life lately

going to beach blanket babylon tomorrow, in sf
(with mom and dad, dinner after)
did a bunch of origami, but not the crane yet.
(the box, a boat, pelican, piano, hat, pigeon, house)
bought a slice of vegetarian pizza from Papa John's today
bought gnc protein powder (chocolate wheybolic ripped)
spent $61 at target (with xmas gift cards)
i have a cold.  slept in.  therefore, didn't do:
gardening this morning at MSJ.   or the gym.  or 10m daily run.
listening to itunes as i type this (kalx, wprb, wmbr, whrb, mostly)
did troubleshooting for the blog
    (an annoying cgi-bin/redirect.ha problem)
    (it works now, :-)
skimmed the ny times at the library
read about buddhism on wikipedia (a lot more awaits)
and surfing my new encyclopaedia britannica disk
(my computer won't eject it!!i rarely use the drive, not a problem (yet)
reading Vonnegut's Mother Night
discovered a cool website: phrontistery.info (for word lovers)
bought a lotto ticket for tonight's superlotto plus
(didn't win, entered 2nd chance)
$- planning on joining WAG (dogwalking app) soon
surveys, taskrabbit, cal psychology ESI* lab study
maybe i'll do a bit of okcupid dating
will help mom with gardening, weather permitting
and i really want Bernie Sanders to win
*emotion and social interaction

Problems and Solutions

An (almost) Comprehensive List!

suffering, discontent
                - Buddhism (mindfulness meditation; result: equanimity)*
                -yoga (a hare krishna i met called it the "path to god")
                 -humor, laughter (making yourself and others happy)

crime, sin - law and order, justice; repentance, forgiveness
(e.g. 7 deadly sins: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth)

unhealth, mental/physical illness
                   -diet, exercise, hospital, meds, time/healing
                   -balanced diet, food groups; variety
                   -vegetarian, fruits and vegetables, of different colors
                    (quality, quantity: not too much, not too little, healthy)
                   -stay hydrated, 7 glasses of water/day
                   -medication/medicine/drugs/pharmaceuticals
                    (self-medicated, and/or doctor prescribed)
                   -fish oil (omega 3), vitamin c
                   -well as we'll: togetherness, community, being social
                    (example, the pope)
                   -mental health: group/cbt (cognitive behavioral therapy)
                   -depression/anxiety:
                          -shower, swim, walk, talk, shop, eat, nap/sleep
                   -enough sleep
                   -cleanliness, hygiene (brush, floss, rinse)
                   -look good, feel good
                   -spiritual life: friends, family, love, nature, comfort, security
                   -moderation
                   -fitness: walk, exercise, fresh air, movement, dance,
                     sports participation, gym, swim, lift, bike

supply meeting demand -logistics              
poverty -employment, money
basic needs- charity, gvt/taxation
insecurity- self-defense/martial arts, military/police, home-security
war- diplomacy (or victory)

ignorance- curiosity, education, discipline, reading,
                    research, teaching, writing
                 -computers/tablets/smartphones: internet
                    (e.g. google, wikipedia, open yale courses, etc.)
                 -library/librarians
                     (books, magazines, newspapers, audio cd's, video dvd's)
                 -enlightenment (mindfulness, reflection, discernment)
                 -"knowing" (in the biblical sense)
                 -science

boredom- art/creativity, blog, exercise, sports, family, books, magazines, newspapers, internet, music, movies, travel, games, tv

tired-nap, sleep; hungry-eat! thirsty- drink.
horny -! (sex? masturbate? extinguish desire?)

behavior, morality, ethics- incentives, inducements,
           carrots and sticks, rewards and punishments

Bjorn Lomborg (his Ted talk on his book, Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems)
solution: read my book report, on this blog! SWBP (link on sidebar, on right, under "SAVE THE WORLD") (again, that's Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, which I bought, read, have, and wrote about)

Love is the main solution
followed closely by Nature, Money, and Humor
(I listen to a lot more Music than comedy, though, myself)

*about Buddhism:
(extinguish the buddhist "poisons": greed, hatred, delusion)
(what is different about a buddhist vacuum cleaner? no attachments)
(attachments, negative and positive:  craving and aversion*)
 *(attachment/clinging/lust/desire/greed/need/want/craving/
  aversion/anger/hatred/rage)

Teshara

What's in a name?
A list of wikipedia articles answering (some of) what's in my (last) name:

T (cross)
Te (also a priest, formerly at St. Stephen's parish in SF) (2,5, like 'Jesus' 'Christ', in numerology)(and Theistic Evolution)
Tes (8, like 'God')
Tesh (John is my confirmation name)
Tesha (laughter is therapeutic)(jesus as comedian?!)
(no teshar) (but there is a 'tessera')
(no teshara) (but there is a teixeira (my great-grandfather's name was changed from this at Ellis island)

and backwards:
Et (phone home!)
Set (son of adam and eve, and an egyptian deity)
H-set (also, all the words beginning with h? and, my high school's hallways)
(eg, heaven, hell, his holiness, hatred, happiness, harvard, honda, hollow, hospital, healthy)
(hset is a burmese name)
(no ahset) (but there is AH (islamic calendar)
(also anthony hopkins, anthony harris, adolf hitler, alfred hitchcock, anne heche, etc)
(no 'rahset') (but there is a 'rah', god of mu (!); mooo says the holy cow)
(no arahset) (but there is the arabian satellite, arabsat)

A (Teshara is like 'to share A', e.g. my dad is a school administrator)
Ra (arabic for ten!, and another egyptian deity)
Ara (latin for altar)
Hara (early name for Shiva)
Shara (minor sumerian god of war)
Eshara (ishara, goddess of oath, from syria)

Ar (such as animal rights)
Arah (gi joe!) (also, 'arahant', an enlightened buddhist)(and 'arahura', a divine canoe)
(no 'arahs')
(no 'arahse') (but 'arroz' is rice, in spanish)

esh (a latin letter, same as the integral sign, in maths)
(no 'esha' wiki page (yet), but a bunch of people have the name)
(eshar, no page, but a word, in proto indo-european, something to do with blood)
sha (a cyrillic letter, literally the same as esh! (another name for)
shar ('east,' in Tibetan)
sh (back in the day, SH (sacred heart) was the rival of SI;
interestingly, also stand for self-harm, and self-injury)
ha (ancient egyptian god of the desert to their west)
(also, east african people and their language (cool, eh?); as well as hell's angels)
es (another cyrillic letter; and a manga (Eternal Sabbath)

and, of course, anagrams!
some of the embedded words are:
as, at, sat, re-, has, ash, he, haters, earths, hearts, aha, rest, erst, hare, hear, rhea, share, hears, shear, hares, era, ear, eta, stare, shat, hast, aster, sera, tares, rates, sea, hart, eats, ate rash, rats, star, tsar, art, tar, as at her, the sara, et sarah, tears eh, ares, hats, arehats.

aster is a plant (aster -risk? toxicity class 4 -skin rash, irritation)
sera is plural of serum
erst is formerly, before the present time
rhea is the ramie plant or fiber
eta is the 7th letter of the greek alphabet (and an initialism for estimated time of arrival)
era is equal rights amendment, too
Ares is an ancient greek god of war
AR can be annette riddle, as well as alternate reality, all right?

'ate rash' reminds me of a gross corn flakes joke
(punchline: scab collection) (to go with the blood pie reference)

wordles reveals other words-in-words:
areas, haste, resh, rathe, reata, rase, sate, seta, trash, teas

resh is the 20th letter of hebrew
rathe is growing, ripening, or blooming early in the year or season
reata is another spelling of riata, which is a lariat
rase is another spelling of raze, which is to tear down, demolish, level to the ground
seta is a stiff hair or bristle

Also, there's:
Ishtar (goddess of love, fertility, war, and sex)
Ashura (arabic for tenth)
Ashur (mesopotamian deity, head of pantheon)
Asura (hindu powerful superhuman demigods)
Asura (the lowest rank of buddhist deities/demigods) (also, a Soul Eater character)
Ahura (a class of zoroastrian angelic divinities) (just add S and T (st.!)
Avalokitesvara (buddhist bodhisattva, representing/embodying compassion)
(substitutes v for h) (means "lord who looks down")
Shura (arabic for "consultation," used in Quran)
(e.g. Surat ash-Shura, 42nd sura of the Quran -with 53 ayat)
(also, japanese term for one of 6 realms of reincarnation)
and
Teshie is "one of the biggest towns in Ghana"
Teshaya is/was a native american settlement in monterey county, california
Tesse is a lake in Norway (about 4 hrs from Hell)
Sharavati is a river in India
Al-Asharah is a town in eastern Syria, on the Euphrates
and
Teshenawa is an extinct Nigerian language
Sharabha is a creature in Hindu mythology, parts lion/bird/human
Sharia is Islamic law, the pathway to be followed, the divine and infallible law of God (!) (Shiite provides the 'te')
Tassajara is a zen buddhist retreat in california
Tejava's logo (iced tea) looks like my signature (v is similar to r)

aside:
words looks like it could be pronounced wards, with wor or war
letters has let in it (as in blood-letting)
meaning has mean in it (and nin- such as nine inch nails)

What to Do?

Don't Let Anybody Tell You

what to do, what to do-
 I heard a song on kalx today that said, "Don't let anybody tell you what to do"

but that, itself, is an injunction!
and, of course, the law tells you what not to do.

so, do whatever you want, including whatever anybody else wants, but only if it's legal!!

'todo', btw, means 'all' in spanish
do it all, know-it-all!

A Part of Something Bigger

You are God, and So is Reality

(you are your own reality, but reality is not just you)
does that make sense?

it's like light being a particle and a wave: both are true.

Other people are not you, unless you're the body of christ, or the body politic, or 'as earth'
(for example, or whatever)

cause or reflection?
but, even then, it's debatable whether you are the cause of the larger entity, or just reflect it.
(or maybe both)
on reflection, I think we're all both

anyway,
I was thinking about Bill Gates recently.
Numerology (mine, anyway): God=8.  Satan=10
and
Bill H Gates is 8888, and his birthday is 10/28/1955 (which is 10-10-10-10!)
pretty cool, eh?

J is the 10th letter
wwjd
jesse, jesus, satan..
john jacob jingleheimer... (that's my name, too) ha

allah, all a H, all a god
10: I and O, input and output, information overload
also, binary, ones and zeros.
10 fingers, digital
fin, the end  (gr)
i-o, i-o, it's off to work i go!

also,
Today, Presidents' Day, I finished reading Bernie Sanders' book, Outsider in the White House (good stuff!) Go Bernie!  I worked out at the gym, and at home too, and feel really good.  I weigh 210.
On a related note, I checked out a book from the library with 2,100 yoga asanas (poses/positions).
Yesterday, I had dinner at my folks' in SF, played with Ben, and my bro gave me a suit.
Tomorrow I go to San Leandro, and Wed thru Fri it's supposed to rain! yes.

My Credo

Religion

What do I believe? Who do I believe (in)? And, of course, why? Has it changed?

Where and when...am I a product of my place and time, and the people in my life and past?

Or, alternatively, are my beliefs a result of detached purely philosophical speculation?

In college, I took a theology class, which included a Credo: On God, Human Nature, and Morality.

And finally, are these beliefs merely personal, or do I claim universality, catholicity, their truth for All?

I believe:

1. God is a muddy concept, and needs clarification, if the term is to be used meaningfully. If God is always and everywhere, omnipresent, then He is everything, reality, the universe, the All-
2. then you are a part of Him/Her/It. God is One: A corporation, including everyone/everything.
   People are animals and things, and bodies, not souls, and share Godhood with paperclips and persimmons and pelicans. Always means infinite, in both directions of the timeline, past and future. Always was, always is, and always will be, in the eternal now. Spacetime.
3. God is also defined and described as alpha and omega, beginning and end, birth and death, from conception to decayed, disintegrated dust; creation by your parents/sex to destruction by time/cellular replication. This also includes evolution, from the start of humanity to its potential, possible extinction. From the big bang to all possible futures, including a deep future when all the stars finally go dark.
4. God is good, and God is love, and God is light. But also bad, hate, and darkness. You can't say God is everywhere and deny his presence in any category or sphere or location, even hell and sin and pain and suffering and disease and death and destruction. God is in the devil, too, if you believe in an entity who is the adversary of everything, including himself (!) You could also say the devil is in God. If God is everywhere, the devil is God, too. In the sentient, maybe life is All-in-all. I believe everyone is equal, everyone is their own God, the primary architect of each one's own happiness. Maybe matter itself is conscious. Matter is energy, and energy a form of matter, and light a form of energy, as well as a form of consciousness (like dreams). Mind is bigger than each individual brain, and humans share thoughts telepathically, both day and night. Humanity is a collective, within Animalia, within Earth, within the Universe. There is only one universe, although each mind can be considered a universe unto itself (thus, reality as a multiverse).

Reflect on this, young grasshopper.