PCH

What I'd do if I win tomorrow's prize

Yes, I admit I've been assiduously entering the Publisher's Clearing House lottery every day for awhile now...

The prize is 5000 a week for life.  That's more than 700 dollars a day.

I've got 7 categories of how I'd spend my winnings: ("heaven's sevens", lol)
1)Buy stuff:
e.g. House, Car, Technological Gadgets
(I'd like to wire my place like Bill Gates' futuristic pad)

2)Eat at restaurants
I have my own "pivot" to Asia: I like stic: Sushi, Thai, Indian, & Chinese
(and Ethiopian, Mexican, Pizza, and Burgers, too)

3)Travel the world, learn new languages...

4)Publish my blog (edited, and cleaned up, for Book form)
(they ARE called "publishers" clearing house)

5)(maybe) go back to school, get / earn a master's or doctorate...
earn and learn
I like everything, and am happy now just going to the library...
it would be hard to choose a field/discipline..
maybe psychology, anthropology, sociology, theology, history, geography, or philosophy.
or all of the above!  And, of course, literature.
Degrees are ways to acquire status and become an "expert" or "authority"
I consider them exercises in puffery and vanity, though
but the bible does say "all is vanity" (so why not, really)
really, though, any high school dropout can just go to the library and read alot
and I think that's probably just as good.

6)Raise a family (!)
This project got sidetracked for me, when Sara and I split.
It's in the genes, it's my evolutionary purpose (and, I like kids)
I'm 41 years old.
And crazy, although I'm trying my damnedist to be / get sane.
But if Dave Letterman and Steve Martin can be older dads...
the pool of women gets smaller each day, I suppose-
but if I've got 700 bucks a day to spend, that would probably change the picture.
okcupid has been a complete fiasco, by the way

7)Give to charity, with whatever's left.
I'm thinking Unicef & Kiva
if 3 billion people really are scraping by, like half of humanity, on less than 2 dollars a day-
it's only human.

Scar

Strength, Clarity & Resolve

an acronym to describe making good of the bad in your life...
that's all I wanted to say (!)

actually,
also,
no one, with a period, can become No. 1

Does this mean no one is #1?
Or does it mean, for example, that "no one loves me" actually means "Number One loves me!"

food for thought
no woman can become pope
pussy means cat, so a catholic is a pussyholic (!)

Conscious-Light

some thoughts from the shower

The guru Adi Da Samraj said he was the "incarnation of conscious-light" (I think).
I still plan to read his Aletheon.
Anyway,
If we live in a holographic universe, in which everything is light, (which, then, only SEEMS to be different from mass or matter), then consciousness is light, too, which is a bit hard for me to wrap my head around, as they say.  (New meaning to feeling 'light-headed')

Maybe there is some reality to both the Star Wars depiction of Obi Won turning into light upon being struck by darth vader's lightsaber,
and
Jesus saying I am the way, the truth, and the light/ light of the world.

Also,
what does a cold (the illness) have to do with low temperature?
Maybe light (which is associated with heat) can be used in healing,
and conscious-light (the mind)
can cure sickness, like the christian scientists say.
 Battle/War/Fighting/Combat is GOOD, when used versus SID (sickness, illness, disease) vicious.  

-If society is a hive mind, and the body is permeated with "the force" from other members of society (if not animals, too),
as well as
-the entire ecosystem of fauna/flora in our gut,
and (for example) the apparent independence of each sperm.

I think it is safe to say we are not what we seem.

Doom

a few thoughts on the subject

Vivian, a sophomore psychology student at Cal I met at the Berkeley musical drama about a female buddha, "The fourth messenger", said she learned (in high school) that humanity is doomed because of human nature, as described by 5 psychological studies, which I found online at this site:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5-psychological-experiments-that-prove-humanity-doomed.html

Which brought up the video game, Doom, and first person shooter games in general, in the context of the recent Adam Lanza shooting.  I mentioned how the military actually has video games of their own, as simulations to train their personnel.  And how I thought I read somewhere about videogames actually being cathartic and therapeutic, and therefore less likely to cause violence.  She told me how friends of hers said that, actually, these games get them worked up, amped, and stressed, more than relaxed.   Hmm.

I thought the conformity experiment had implications for democracy.
And it also made me think of 'memes'.

Anyway,
We ARE doomed, of course.  The sun will expand and engulf the earth, probably in the distant future.   Maybe mankind will have figured out space travel and which exoplanet to engineer a habitable environment on,  by then.  'terraform' is the word I was looking for.

Also, I just read about the 'God particle', which a poorly (in my opinion) written yahoo article reported that scientists who plugged in the new data provided by the (LHC? large hadron collider?) on the Higgs boson (measuring it's mass in electron-volts, because mass is energy, e=mc2) indicated that the results show the entire universe is doomed, (!)  This particle is said to impart mass to everything else, I think.
-but we don't have to worry, because "it is coming at us at the speed of light."  I wish I knew specifically what they are talking about.  I mentioned to Vivian that I read a book by physicist Leonard Susskind, who threw out a line in passing, that he thinks we live in a "holographic universe", which I guess makes sense if we think of all mass as energy as light, which I suppose a physicist thinking abstractly might do to understand the big U.  But I'm not sure he's right.

Anyway, I read about space aliens, and there seems to be evidence they can teleport, which maybe lends credence to the holographic universe concept.  And some Russian scientists, explaining the recent meteorite event that coincided with the near-miss of another meteoroid (am I getting the terminology correct?), proffered the view that a spaceship prevented a much worse impact by getting involved and saving the earth/humanity.   I think I like this explanation.   Someone out there is looking out for us?   Maybe we aren't doomed.  Or not for awhile yet, anyway.

Threats

in just two categories: transnational, and nuclear-

transnational:
terrorism, piracy, organized crime, climate change, and pandemics

nuclear:
illicit transfers, irrational decisions, accidents, unforeseen crises

(I think these are both gleaned from the magazine Foreign Affairs)

healthy america

eating right, exercise, and good healthcare

a mediteranean diet (med, it?) is good, says the NY Times, which includes:
olive oil, nuts, beans, fish (3x/week), fruit/vegetable (2+ servings/day), wine, dark chocolate (over 50% cocoa), whole grain cereals, lowfat cheese, white meat (chicken or turkey -vs. red meat), tomatoes/onions/garlic...

Beatiful weather in Berkeley today.  A good day to swim.  I didn't swim at the Y, but I did work up a sweat for like 40 minutes doing cardio on the elliptical and exercise bike.

From the NY Times:
In 2010, the U.S. spent 17.6% of it's GDP on healthcare.
But 48 million people (16%) lack health insurance.

undead

a quote from the NY Times, quoting somebody in Kenya

This was in the Daily Nation:
"All the tribal prejudice, all the ancient grudges and feuds, all the real and imagined slights, all the dislikes and hatreds, everything is out walking the streets like hordes of thirsty undeads looking for innocents to devour."

what I say-
I get angry, myself, mostly with the voice in my head (enraged, actually -sometimes)...it's hard to be alive and not be undead, I guess.  Again, please leave me alone, David.

a few more quotes I like

quoth the ravenous

1) It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge -Albert Einstein

2)If you can't explain it to a 6 year old, you don't understand it yourself -Einstein

3)I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear. -MLK, jr.

4)Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. -Oscar Wilde

5)If you judge people, you have no time to love them. -Mother Theresa

6)Nothing is impossible.  The word itself says I'm possible! -Audrey Hepburn

7)Choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life. -Confucius

8)The question isn't who is going to let me.  It's who is going to stop me. -Ayn Rand

9)Here's to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy. -Charlaine Harris

10)The harder you work, the luckier you get. -Gary Player

11)Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read  yourself. -George Bernard Shaw

12)If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane. -Robert Frost

13)You have not failed until you have quit trying. -Gordon B. Hinckley

14)For every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ignant

a ridiculous okcupid exchange

(after reading that my okcupid profile lists me as catholic, AJ said:)
Thanks for the message. Although OKcupid may match us highly, I think we would not be a good match, not least because I am Jewish and you are Catholic, and I couldn't date someone who thought I'm going to hell, and who held me responsible for killing his savior.


(my response)

I don't believe in hell (or heaven, for that matter), aside from what we make of our planet and ourselves, while we're alive. My birthfather is jewish. I look jewish. I've read the old testament. I believe jesus was delusional. I am only nominally catholic. Even if I believed, I wouldn't have held you responsible for what other jews did 2000 years ago (and what jesus apparently accepted as the will of his father). I don't even believe in sin. Hell is a village in Norway. You can go there. -Jesse

aside-

As for "savior", does that mean

saved from dying,

saved from hell,

saved from suffering (in this context, either the

consequences of my own sin,

or the consequences of the sin of others)

I don't know what the word even means, and I also don't believe in any of the above theorized possiblities of the meaning of the word:

Everyone dies, there is no eternal punishment (what most people mean by 'hell'), jesus can't do anything now (he's dead) to alleviate suffering (although christians I suppose think they are the "body of christ" now, who definitely do good works to lessen suffering and increase happiness, which can be done of course by anyone of any or no faith), and belief in him might even cause suffering  (such as giving up all your possessions).

Sin doesn't exist objectively

But it DOES exist subjectively- if you defy:

1)your conscience

2)others' preferences

3)the will of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

God's law is the totality of everyone's personal preferences, in my opinion. And I'm always right, lol. And because there are so many different people in the world, this means you can do whatever you want, or alternatively, you're a sinner no matter what you do.  So maybe you should just forget about religion altogether, and concentrate on the Law.

And AJ is seriously ignorant, if she thinks ALL catholics hate jews.

Of course, she probably thinks Jews are "God's chosen people", which is equally stupid.

death

The End

It seems to me Oblivion should be approached in 3 ways:

1)Gratitude
2)Tranquility
3)Hope

Gratitude, both for
-a life well-lived,
and
-the cessation of suffering

Tranquility, without any
-craving for heaven, or rebirth
-aversion to death, or hell

and a little bit of Hope, mingled with curiosity, in the back of your mind, for the improbable (I suspect impossible) possibility of paradise/heaven/afterlife,
otherwise known as
"the life of the world to come"

my concept of the afterlife is simply
-your dna, children/grandchildren
-whatever memories of you remain, in the heads of people who knew you,
and
-whatever legacy you've left, such as art, writings, quotes, etc.
as well as
-your body, meat and bones, cycling back into Nature as it decays

I don't believe in souls.

God, NOT!

I'm not really God

I thought I was, but I was mistaken
I'm not always right, I'm imperfect, I'm an ordinary human being..
I'm not omnipotent, or omniscient, and certainly not omnipresent.
And I didn't create the universe (but I did create this blog!)

Everybody thinks I'm crazy, so I'll stop being God, alright?
If I really am God, I'll be God undercover, and inadvertently.

and on my own terms, not according to the crazy definitions out there.  And I'm not a vampire, either, lol.

How can one "Be" love?
I think it's impossible to love everything and everyone.
But maybe it's worth an attempt.

I still suspect that God, as almost universally conceived, is imaginary.
But goodness exists, and I still think I'm good.

-Jesse

the passion of christ

that's what they call the crucifixion

they being christians
passion, for the rest of us, is 1)enthusiasm, or 2)sex

as in "the throes of passion"
sex can also be called coitus, copulation, or the horizontal mambo.
or, "the beast with two backs"

the sign of the beast is 666
xxx, and fox, are 666
(x is the 24th letter, f is the 6th, o is the 15th)

porn and fox news are the antichrist?

anyway,
sex makes babies
and babies "go toward the light"
and the process of childbirth is painful (excruciating)
cruc is the crux is the cross (to bear)

so if a man, like -say- Jesus wants to be a symbolic woman
and have symbolic sex (the holy trinity of holes: oral, anal, vaginal)
then fellatio, etc. can be approximated in "cum-union" (communion) wafer/host
and if he wants to be reborn, simulating the birth of his own child/dna,
then crucifixion pain would seem an apt correlation to birth
and being the "light of the world", coming out of the cave
would be coming out of the uterus

but it's all shit, in my opinion.
sorry.
shit comes out into the light, too.

holy shit
nailing and penetration
neo nailed trinity, lol

anagrams
money -my one (god is One)
listen-silent

$, $ why have you forsaken me.
gettin laid and gettin paid

okcupid

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/jesswimmer

I'm single.

Sunday

a day of rest

I'm sick.  Lost my voice.  Coughing up phlegm.  Not pretty.  Stay away.  I'm staying home.  Reading Jane Austen's Emma.

Just went to the oakland zoo with my aunt, my mom's sister, the dominican nun, Rose Marie Hennessy, O.P.
Saw monkeys, chimps, ischial callosities, tigers, elephants, giraffes, elands, zebra, birds, snakes, lizards, a warthog, giant tortoises, lions, hyena, and lots of kids (the human animal kind- those beastly little monsters).

listening to blues hangover on whrb this morning, 7a.m.
good stuff.

signing out,
Jesse

from the Shambhala Sun

The good and bad in a nutshell:
two quotes from this month's Shambhala Sun-

(Shambhala means 'enlightened society')

from the article by Dzongsar Jamyong Khyentse:
1) "For a dharma practitioner, wealth is not gold, silver, or a healthy bank account; wealth is contentment -the feeling that you have enough and need nothing more."

2)"The masters of the past suggest we should constantly remind ourselves about: the imminence of death; the futility of our worldly activities; and the worst news of all, that there is no end to samsara's sufferings.   Just look around you, and you will see the world never ceases to churn out more and more of the same thing, and that the result is unremitting pain and unbearable suffering."

Goodness, gracious!

An attempt to define goodness, systematically-

Gratitude: pleasure
-time, freedom, liberty (from jail, prison, incarceration, slavery, pain)
-stuff n' things, property, toys
-prosperity, wealth, income, money, cash, security
-happiness, joy, bliss, glee, smiles, laughter, fun, humor, cheer, jokes, play, frivolity, merriment, jolly, alive!
-contentment, relaxation, comfort, satisfaction, pleasantry -sustainably
-variety, travel, nature, hiking, camping, swimming, restaurants, museums, cirque, rollercoasters, magic
-health, wellness, sanity, strength, fitness, sweat, endorphins, thrive!
-beauty, bodybuilding, galleries, concerts, dance
-basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, clean water, sanitation
-smart, intelligent: knowledge, wisdom, understanding, truth, enlightenment, nirvana, curiosity, lifelong learning, listening, reading, writing, teaching, perspective, experience
-imagination, creativity, dreams, inspiration, perspiration, action, cooking
-winning, champion, achievement, honor, fulfillment
-goodness, benevolence, kindness, love, compassion, mercy, values, virtue, honor, integrity, respect, righteous, morally straight, honesty, innocence, justice, fair, trustworthy, friendly, courteous, obedient, thrifty, brave, clean, sympathy, empathy, caring, moral, ethical, law-abiding, solid, responsible, patient, human, humane, gentle, genuine
-sacred, holy, reverent, faithful, pious, yourself
-change, growth, improvement, gain
-dance, romance, hugs, kisses, intimacy, flirting, foreplay, fantasy, sex, orgasm, ecstasy
-giving, sharing, helping, altruism, generous, authenticity
-safety, security, aware, awake, prepared, peaceful
-community, country, citizen of world, loyalty, development
-purpose, drive, motivation, goals, objectives, discipline
-friendship, companionship, camaraderie, cooperation, belonging, social, positive, optimism
-tranquility, serenity, cool, calm, collected, at ease, equanimity, discernment, mindfulness
-immaculate, meticulous, precise
-hope

My Daily To-Do List

more like a wish-list, lol

input
COMPUTER
(music) pandora, gdradio, windows-media-player: comedy, german pop
kalx, whrb, wmbr, kzsu, kcpr, kdvs, kuci, kucr, ksdt, kcsb, kzsc, uclaradio.com, wybc.com
philosophy talk, joe frank, hos (hearts of space), grooveshark
-random radio (spinitron, local fm dial)

(video) youtube, netflix, ted, theonion, bbc minute

(data) wikipedia, j!archive, yale (oyc), philosophy of religion, funtrivia.com, schizophrenia.com, wolfram, learn-out-loud, columbia, encyclopedia brittanica, ask.com, anagrams, email (incl. word-a-day), jokes, other blogs, my blog (25 free book-reading sites)

(news) economist, ny times, csmonitor, huffington, wapo, yahoo, cnn, msnbc, npr, bbc, wikipedia, berkeleyside.

LIBRARY
(magazines) mad, foreign affairs, people, psychology today, economist, virtually anything

(paper) daily new york times

(reference) 3 encyclopedias of religion, slang, atlas, grzimek, history, UN, britannica, spanish dictionary, crime/war/terrorism/spying

(music) cd collection (all; several/day)

(books) 1001 list (fiction), the other booklist, staff pics, award-winners, best-sellers, literature, children's books, the occasional physics book, schopenhauer, religion, geography, new books, foreign languages, world book encyclopedia, shakespeare, proust, grimm's fairy tales, horror/fantasy.
-vary genres, a b-a-d (book-a-day), random picks, speed-reading practice.

output
ACTION
exercise (YMCA), walk dogs, cook, write (blog, book), photography, nature (hike, camp, wwr), volunteer, update okcupid profile, origami, kaiser cbt, different churches, meditation, tell jokes, teach, date, make $.

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

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

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!

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)

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?

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.

Godhood

I am

I don't require, or even request, admiration, adulation, celebration, or validation.

There is no God but the good that you or I or we do and are.  Without creating God, there is no God.  God is real, but only what we make of Him.

This is what I believe.  If you are not God, then you should be an atheist.   You yourself are your primary reality.  I am not an independent God for you to worship.  I merely bring the truth -which is holy and Godly and good- that all goodness is the incarnation of God, and it is up to you to make real the oft-worded street phrase "it's all good" or even "all right."  Make your life all good.  This is not to say there is no bad or evil in the world.   What I am saying is we can make good of any and all circumstances - that even the most cruel, insidious evil can be converted into the most sacred of blessings.   Loving kindness trumps horror and suffering.   We are all basically good.  Depravity is a twisted form of saintliness.  Love is all-powerful.   To make God real, I am, and love you (all).  Glee: God loves everyone equally, and has no preference or exclusionary attachments.   Pleasure is of course preferable to pain, psychic or physical, and will always be so.

So love one another, make love, love life, love everything, become love, and be good: do good, think good, say good, make good of all life offers  you.  Eschew evil.  What other message could a God conceive of to relate?  Well, be happy, of course.  Living the good life should be fun.  Strive to be an example, a role model, to be pleasant and humorous, to be -as the army used to say- all that you can be, a paragon of virtue, a holy, jolly, incarnation of our highest ideals, a person for others, a servant of development, a friend and companion to all, a respected and appreciated and much-loved member of society, a source of wisdom and succor, a diminished of suffering, a creator of comfort, a bringer of bliss, and a source of strength.

Peace.
love,
JESSE

reduce the wrongness
increase the peace
tap into happiness
and love life

What's Wrong

things to work on

money: poverty, unemployment, inequality, underemployment, recession, depression, debt, deficit, inflation, stagnation, greed, corruption

health: hunger, malnutrition, famine, starvation; obesity, smoking, disease, clean water, sanitation

education: ignorance, illiteracy, innumeracy

psych: anger, hatred, rage, wrath, fury, spite, malice, revenge
pain, agony, suffering, torment, misery, anguish, resentment
craving, aversion, attachments, delusion
cruelty, torture, war, terrorism, violence
death, old age, breakup, divorce
mental illness, suicide
alienation, isolation
bullying, neglect, abuse
discontent, nausea, crime, sin
lying, distrust
abortion, meat, capital punishment, nukes
murder, homicide, killing, assassination
tyranny, despotism, authoritarianism, absolutism
sociopathic, psychopathic, amoral
wrong, immoral, bad, unethical, illegal, criminal, unlawful

as for buddhism,
you're supposed to have aversion to aversion, which is tautological.

congratulations, Barack.
Good luck, and may the force be with you in your second term in office.

later thought- old age is natural, not wrong, and actually right, hopefully.
as is death (if it's not unnatural or premature)

Free Online Education

some links

www.edx.org

http://oyc.yale.edu

http://webcast.berkeley.edu

www.ocwconsortium.org

www.coursera.org

www.ted.com

www.j-archive.com

Looking for a room

Contact me if you want me for a roommate!

I'm looking for a Room, Share, or Studio in the Bay Area (SF, or East Bay-Berkeley, Oakland)
-for $650 or less-

I am a 41 y.o. male, who is quiet (I use headphones for tv/computer/music), friendly, respectful, neat, clean, responsible,  and usually out (my daily routine includes exercise at the Y, and going to the public library).  I will not have pets.  I have never been evicted, my credit should be perfect (I have never been in debt), and I don't smoke or use drugs (besides my meds).  I'm actually a bit of a bookworm - I aspire to read a new book every day.  I have family in the Bay Area, and love the people and weather here.  And the resources, too (like libraries, food, university, museums, etc).  I don't have a car, and won't need a parking space -I ride bike and bart everywhere.  My email is jessteshara@yahoo.com.

Please contact me if you can help! Thanks -Jess
UPDATE: I HAVE A PLACE NOW :-)
so nevermind. 

insanity quotes

un poco loco

1) When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained -Mark Twain

2)We are all born mad.  Some remain so. -Samuel Beckett

3)There is no great genius without some touch of madness -Seneca

4) Sanity is very rare -Emerson

5) Sanity is madness put to good uses -George Santayana

6)If you talk to God, you are praying.  If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. -Thomas Szasz

The Cure for Depression

Depression may be the biggest killer of happiness on the planet.

Someone related this story to me today after a Shambhala Buddhist meditation group:

In response to a patient feeling depressed, the doctor prescribes the following remedy-
For the following 30 days:
1)Do one thing kind for yourself each day
2)Do one thing kind for someone you know each day
3)Do one thing kind for a stranger each day

Get back to me in 30 days, and tell me how you are feeling.

It was said that number one may be the hardest to do...

Crazy -synonyms and expressions

Insane in the membrane, insane in the BRAIN!

MCI- mad, crazy, insane
mentally ill, schizophrenic, schizoaffective
psycho, psychotic, psychopathic
screwy, screwball, screw loose, sick, sick in the head, schizo
scatterbrained, space cadet
loco, loony, lunatic, lost her mind, lost his marbles
batty, barmy, balmy, buggy, bugged out, brainsick, berserk
bananas, bedlamite, blue devils,bonkers
bats in the belfry, toys in the attic
unhinged, unzipped, of unsound mind
not all there, not right, nuts, nutty as a fruitcake, non compos mentis
off one's rocker, off one's head , off one's trolley, overdrawn
out of one's mind, out of one's tree, out to lunch, off one's nut
mad as a march hare, mad as a hatter
mental, mentally unbalanced, moonstruck, manic, maniac, meshugga
witless, wacky, weird, wacko, whacked out
demented, disturbed, deranged, delirious, dotty, daft, dippy
potty, paranoid, pixillated
incoherent, irrational, in a fog, in a haze
twisted, touched, tetched
headcase, haywire
gonzo, gomer
kooky, cuckoo, crazed, cracked, crackpot, certifiable
raving, raging, round the bend
zany

if you're any of the above, maybe you need to be taking:
drugs, medications, medicines, pharmaceuticals

and maybe the world, to you, is best explained by:
-the collective unconscious
-other "planes" of consciousness
-telepathy
-a matrix
-aliens
-holographic universe

or, if you're oldschool:
-spirits, ghosts
-God/god, angels
-devil, demons

the latest

I am both angry and serene

Angry,
because my ex-"wife" is:
-taking practically all my money to pay bills, including
her debt, a new computer, a smart phone, and cigarrettes (while unemployed),
-loudly f-ing her new boyfriend in the next room
-getting in my face to see what's wrong, as if she doesn't know
-and finally, I'm mad at myself for being stupid enough to spend over 6 years of my life with this woman who:
1)only had sex with me like 5 times total, since we exchanged rings
(rings I might add that have proven to be worthless for resale,
 which I suppose perfectly sums up why her jewelry business went bankrupt)
2)cheated on me with at least 3 people, (Shaw, Paul, and some BDSM guy)
 and possibly more, while I stayed true
(truth, of course, is a whole other story)
while having the gall of her breaking up with me for not showing "emotional support"
whatever that is-
I asked her repeatedly what she meant and she never once told me.

argh.  gr.
anyway,

I'm also serene (some of the time, but hopefully progressively more as time goes on)
-because I'm happy it's over, as well (good riddance)
-I've resumed buddhist meditation,
which helps extinguish suffering through mindfulness meditation (peaceful abiding)
(they say, and I hope)
focusing on posture, breath, and just noting thoughts as they come and go,
still and quiet,
emphasizing compassion, kindness, and gentleness
as well as coming to a realization of what's making me unhappy:
namely, attachments and ignorance/delusion
attachments can be positive or negative, craving or aversion, greed or hatred...
and what makes me happy:
endorphins/exercise, library stimulus (e.g. music, blog, books, magazines, movies), and nature.
for starters.  I like smiles.  I need to learn to be "happy for no reason."

anyway, I'm looking in earnest for a new place now, so a change will be good.
move on, as they say.
and I'm going to the zoo with my aunt (just like a kid, but why not!)

Man of War

watch out!

bible quotes:
God is a man of war
Vengeance is mine sayeth the lord
The wages of sin is death
There is a time for all things under heaven: a time to kill

And yet,
Thou shalt not kill
Only God is good

(the doctrine of original sin)
-There is none righteous, no, not one (romans 3:10)
-For there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and does not sin (Ecclesiastes 7:20)
-For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)
-For there is no man that sins not.. (1Kings8:46)

So how, then, can I be God?
Maybe I'm not. 
I submit to you I'm better than God.
I don't kill people.

Why is virtue part of the word 'virtual'?
Is it because sin is virtual?
Without God, there is no sin (but there is, of course, law)
'EL' is a word for God...
"Sin is virtue, el"
that kind of turns things on it's head
make of this what you will

Where I've Been

Out n' About

To and Fro
Hither and Yon
Here and There
Up and Down
Right and Left
There and Back
and, of course, In Between

I'm currently in Berkeley, California,
United States, Planet Earth,
Solar System, Milky Way galaxy,
The Universe. Infinity.

a thought
Jesus is worse than Hitler?
Hitler was responsible for the death of 6M Jews
(although he himself may not have actually killed anyone)

while

Jesus said he was, in addition to being "the alpha",
I am the Omega (which is presumably the death of everyone)

Shaw

SHAW: be Safe, Happy, and Well.

ILL- I lean left
(says the christian science monitor online survey I answered)

why I'm voting Barack:
-I take issue with increasing the defense budget by 2 Trillion dollars.
-I believe Barack holds the interests of the poor, both nationally and globally, more to heart.
-I like Obamacare
-I like Obama
-Mormonism is weird
-I am republican-averse, with their dirty coal and drill baby drill and nra support for assault weapons; I see God in Nature (not in fighting more wars), and, as Barack says, I don't want to "double-down" on the failed policies of Dubya.  In fact, I actually think W. Bush should be arrested (but that's beside the point).
-I go beyond obamacare- believe in universal health care; I think it ought to be a human right.

although
-Obama does seem tired (maybe anybody in his position would be -he's juggling a lot)
-He said he learned you can't change Washington from the inside
(which negates his previous platform of 'change')
-I'm pro-life

I want to give B.O. (and Michelle) a chance- they inherited a bad scene, and I like the idea of a former community organizer as president (reminiscent of the movie Dave), over a wallstreet millionaire (although it's possible that could be a good thing).

Who God Roots For

Honestly, God couldn't care less

BUT
if words are to be taken literally-

In sports, the offense is, well, offensive
(so God roots for Defense)

while, in politics, the Left is not Right,
while the Right is always, well, right (!)
(so God is conservative)

Plus, there's this meme going around that Satanism is the "left-hand path",
while the Godly are "righteous"
and
(in latin?)
left is sinister, while right is dexter (as in dexterity, dextrous)
L or D (life/love or death)(light or darkness)

On the other hand (lol)-
leftovers
-what's left of them-
can be eaten with Jesus "who is seated at the right hand of the father"
(the poor guy never gets up to stretch or walk around?)

what to make of all this?
You're guess is as good as mind.
Are you right-brained or left-brain dominant?
Does it matter?  Like a Catholic "mass"?

GLEE: God Loves Everybody Equally

Presidential rock/meat

The non-human element

Barack sounds like 'Be a rock'
(and he did run for president partly to  be like a 'rock star')
while
Romney sounds like 'Raw Meat'
(which brings new meaning to 'eating right')

I also learned that Wavy Gravy's real name is Hugh Romney.
Are they related?
And does Wavy still support Nobody for president?

Christ ends in T

poor guy

He's dead; if he died on the cross then he didn't rise again, because
once you die, you're dead, kaput, that's it, all she wrote.
And he will never return, either, because you only live once.
Nobody escapes oblivion.  To dust you shall return.

If anybody "comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead,"
it would be somebody like me, a new God, one deity among many,
and just another person like anybody else, created equal.

And I don't believe in souls or ghosts, so there will be no ethereal presences lurking around us, pushing pennies on doors, being captured as invisible whisps on camera, or otherwise surviving our deaths, and bringing us to some new world, better or worse than the one we're in (no matter how hard you pray for it).

From alpha to omega, we each have a personal moment of conception and time of death, which is much more relevant than worrying about when the mitochondrial eve existed in Africa, or when/if humanity goes extinct, for whatever reason at whatever date in the future.  If you think Jesus is controlling history, down to the level of your personal fate, I'm sorry to report that you are deluded, if not irrational, because Jesus is now only the name of some guys from Mexico (pronounced heyzeus), and nobody is controlling humanity from an afterlife.  Perhaps our dna will survive millions of years, and humanity will evolve into new forms, which is interesting to think about, since science is equipping us with greater genetic control, in addition to robots with artificial intelligence, and maybe we will colonize places like the moon, mars, or even exoplanets.  

So anyway, you're home eucharistic menu might include:
a cup of tea, unless it makes you "cross"
cheeses of nazareth
seitan
communion wafer (cum union waif-r, whatever that might be).
blood of christ (be lewd of chris-ty)

food (6664)
what's eating you?
eat up, chow down, on your te-bull

Eucharist

An idea for a more modern holy communion

Different varieties of Swiss Cheese from Israel

why?
swiss is the holiest
and
Cheeses of Nazareth!

yuk yuk yuk. 
why not?
You can eat seitan

and
There's Papa John's and Papa Murphy's
(Father John Murphy, S.J. was one of my highschool english teachers)
Holy Pizza, batman! 
I like garlic sauce with chicken, artichoke and uncooked tomatoes
yum

says Jesse,
whose name means "the whole office of the eucharist"
as well as "god makes forget"
fuggedaboutit

Heart

Anagrams, Things I enjoy, and Feelings

Heart anagrams:
Earth, Hater (which is interesting because the heart symbolizes love),
Herat (a city in Afghanistan)
Art, eh? and The AR (the initials of Annette Riddle, my birthmother)
H rate, H tear

(8) Things I enjoy  (H is the 8th letter)
1) books
2) my blog
3) music
4) movies, esp. documentaries, animation, nature shows
5) food, esp. sushi, thai, chinese, mexican, pizza, and sweets
6) dreams
7) my dogs, Oliver and Marcel
8) endorphins

Feelings:
-the "ads": sad, mad, glad*
-the state of being "just there", empty mind, doing nothing, simply existing, passing time
-a peaceful state (the same thing, but happier, such as sitting in the sun, or in a forest glade, etc.)

*madness, in the sense of MCI (mad crazy insane),
i.e. mentally ill or schizophrenic
is different
from being mad in the sense of angry, frustrated, upset, resentful.

should Insane be considered different form Un-sane?

heart related stuff: flow (the "flow state", such as being engrossed in reading/lost in a book, is a happy state).   The word flowers has flow in it.  Rappers spit a flow.  The heart beats, thump-thump, systole-diastole, which is the basis for most music.   There's a record store in Sacramento called The Beat.  And a band, too, formerly called the English Beat (of mirror in the bathroom fame).  Pump up the jam, pump it up, pump it, pump it.  The heart pumps blood, blood.  The heart symbol (as opposed to the actual organ), is comprised of a V and a 3 (or a less than sign and a 3).

various observations:
-Nature sums to 7, like heart/earth, and has 4 of heart's 5 letters in it.
-Nature is green, or red in tooth and claw.
-Gr (hater) and Gr e'en (earth/nature), and yellow (yell ow : heart without vowels is hrt)
-I was given a tour of Berkeley, when shopping for colleges,
by Gary Hart's press secretary, Kevin Sweeney.

Amazing Statistics re: Global Inequality

From online (world inequality), and the NYX (U.S. inequality)

5 stats from  http://www.fightpoverty.mmbrico.com/poverty/facts.html

Dealing with the world as a whole:
1)Half the world, around 3B people, live on less than $2 a day. (that's $730/year or less)
1.3B of those people live on less than $1 a day (that's $365/year or less).

2)The GDP of the 48 poorest nations is less than the top 3 richest people.
(Carlos Slim, the richest, has $69B)
(Bill Gates, #2, has $66B)
(Warren Buffett, third, $44B)
The population of the 48 poorest nations (link) is ?
(less than half of 1.7B people, the projected 2050 pop.)
The world population is 6.9B people. 
So, about 12% of the entire world population, in aggregate,
has as much as the mere top 3 people.
(if the stats are correct, but they're drawn from different years)
-Question: How many of the poorest make Carlos Slim's $69B?
I calculate about 319.1M people.

math
12% of 6.9B is 828Mpeople
69 divided by 69+66+44
69 divided by 179= 38.54% of 828M=319.1M people

3)The 200 richest people made $1T (in '99),
while the 43 least developed countries (LDC's), i.e. 582M people,
only made $146B
 
The top 10 richest people have $405.1B (as of March '11):
ranks 4 thru 10:
fourth, Bernard Arnault, $41B
fifth, Lawrence Ellison, $39.5B
sixth, Lakshmi Mittal, $31.1B
seventh, Amancio Ortega, $31B
eighth, Eike Batista, $30B
ninth, Mukesh Ambani, $27B
tenth, Christy Walton, $26.5B

4)A few hundred millionaires= 2.5B of the world's poorest people.

5)497 billionaires = $1.54T, which is more than the poorest half of humanity.
The GNP of all of sub-saharan africa was only $929.3B
The population of sub-saharan africa ('11) was 874,841,049 (874.8M)

The website I started with is dated '06, so I suspect some of the data has changed.

The world economy in 2011 had a total product of $78.94T
The world population, Sept. 2012, is 6,928,198,253 people (rounded to 6.9B)
Forbes data, via wikipedia, says there were 1,210 billionaires as of March '11.

And from an Opinion in the NY Times, 10-4-12, by Nicholas D. Kristof:
1) American inequality is so stark that the Top 1%
has more money than the bottom 90% -the Economic Policy Inst. in Washington

2)The 6 heirs of Sam Walton has as much money as 100M americans

and from the Economist:
3)"In the USA, the top 0.01% (about 16 thousand families) have almost 5% of the income."

And to put this in perspective:
-The U.S. National Debt is 16T dollars (T as in trillion)

-"LIBOR determines rates in $300T (yes, you read correctly, 300 trillion) worth of derivatives contracts and other financial instruments"

What I'm Worth

some budgetary calculus

-I get 876 a month in social security/disability
-My meds are about 22 per day

(876x12)+(22x365) =$18,542 per year
10,512 + 8,030

aside: It is interesting to note that I am at about the average global per capita income.
The world GDP (PPP) per capita, in international dollars, is $10,700
GDP stands for gross domestic product
PPP stands for purchasing power parity.

Right now, I have about 5 bucks in my bank account.
But I have zero debt.
Unlike, say, over 70% of American families.
So I'm not doing too bad :-)

Cleanliness

is next to Godliness

(at the right hand of the Father?)

suicide bomber satire

A story of an atheist S-B killing agnostics

link

Test of progress

a quote from FDR

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little."

some thoughts on God

random scribblings

kwuteo: knowledge, wisdom, understanding, truth, enlightenment, omniscience
clu: compassion, love, understanding

aside: what's overstanding?

empathy, sympathy
ethos, pathos, bathos
sexus, nexus, plexus, lexus
nature, development, truth, power, imagination

omni-potent, scient, present
love yourself
kind, caring, compassionate, loving, benevolent
joy, contentment
peace, relaxation, bliss, nirvana
Love, HP (higher power)
be right with ourselves, others, and God
Increase the peace!
Be good, reduce suffering, increase happiness
life, health, love, happiness, comfort, prosperity
food, friends, family
community, country

saw: stress, anxiety, worry
anger, hatred, rage, wrath, fury
pain, agony, suffering, torment, misery, anguish, resentment

poverty, inequality, famine, starvation, hunger, malnutrition
illiteracy, innumeracy, ignorance
crime, corruption
disease, sanitation

centered, grounded
driven, purposeful
calm, tranquil
free

vs. in jail, prison
enslaved

spectrum
healthy, psychotic
well, ill
normal, schizo
negative, positive (-,+)
(what's so negative about subtraction? take it away, band!)
hope, despair

dream, reality
God is an atheist if he doesn't believe in himself

entertaining trivia:
Pope Boniface VIII asserted in 1302 that a belief in the sovereignty of the pope over everyone was necessary for salvation.

chinese zodiac

About me, a boar/pig

Noble and chivalrous
I will have lifelong friends
yet prone to marital strife
avoid other boars, ('47,'59,'71,'83,'95,'07)
seek rabbit or sheep

rabbit:'63,'75,'87
sheep: '67,'79,'91

this thing smacks of bestiality, but I'm not chinese

Happy!

an old list I found

smile, good company, interesting conversation, good food, comfort
joy, bliss, nirvana
others' smiles, happy eyes
acceptance
positive frame of mind
love
dancing, exercise, endorphins, heart rate, sweat
looking good, feeling good
satisfied, well being
feeling strong
good books, movies
finding something lost
finding a bargain
friends
blog feedback
achievement
sex, intimacy, flirting
creativity
travel
beauty
Nature
truth
something well-written
sanity, feeling sane, mental silence, no pain or shocks
health, wellness, fitness, strength
physical prowess- gymnastics, juggling, martial arts, dance
happy dogs
sushi
rollercoasters
"trippy" experience
swimming
sunbathing on a beach
concerts
galleries
art books
presents
money
taking pictures
nudity
fast cars, convertibles, weird cars
family
vivid dreams
Camp Royaneh
white water rafting
hugs and kisses
massage
kids
libraries
snowmen
fireplaces
learning something new
knowing the answer
teaching someone
making a difference
mad magazine
the internet
freedom
cooking well
a good think

what i believe

Be good, Do good, and Don't do evil

do good, but survive (unlike Jesus)
purity is ideal, but it is enough to simply just not be bad

Evil
S&M, uncle Sam
spite: petty ill-will or hatred, with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart
malice: desire to see another suffer

DEmon
death, disease, disaster, destruction, decay, depression

pain agony suffering torment, you are PAST
misery and depression, you are MAD

psychia-tryst, the- rapist
schadenfreude

fascist america
there is no privacy, your thoughts are processed, your teeth click, your body pains, your head shocks, your fingers tap, you are not your own..
you are possessed, controlled, monitored, manipulated, restrained, limited, enslaved.

symptoms: headshocks, chest pains, voice, finger/teeth tapping
the mind control, the everyday chilling effect,
the inability to think/say/do

wanting to end it all (either literally, or just me)
consumed with annoyance
in my own tormented, soulless, evil, painful, place
hating, hating, hating
there are no souls

clouds
clouds of opaque whispers
either soitary, or in formation
forming forms for the formal
dissolving into nothingness
like us

rain
hovering in mysterious hold
lakes of suspended water float above
and, when sad, or bladder-full,
release
droplets drip from drooping leaf-stalks
splashing and splattering, below
collecting and flowing
always downhill
penetrating, searching, soaking, absorbing, puddling
rivulets become streams becoming creeks becoming rivers
washing all
becoming ocean, anonymous, in the Vast

to be Misunderstood
is to be great
said the misunderstanding
unless IS flows in both directions
as a rule of law
like gravity pulls
or pain hurts

life is fog, haze, unheard words
spilled syllables, splashing into unintended shapes
lyrics of subliminal confusion
heap intrusion during sleep,
in the daily nap of everyday life
if only I heard the words
if only I remembered the units of thought
of phrase, of speech, of life,
if only I became human, awake, alive-
z is for zombie
catch some

life, footprints in the sand
libaries full of footprints
attempts at immortality
before being washed away

Yummy Religion

Satan and Jesus, or Seitan and Cheeses?

I have to admit I didn't think of this - I got it from a Kalx deejay (Sex 14s), but it's clever, no?

What is seitan? link
We all know about the frommage (french for cheese).

from mage?

some weirdness:
I know a Brandi, a Hennessy
a French and a Fries
an Edom and a Brie

Here's a (kind of sort of maybeish) magical thought -
we all really are at the center of the universe.
because the Big U goes on forever, so why not locate yourself in the middle, right?

Religion is yummy.
I'm gonna read both Encyclopedias of Religion at the Berkeley central public library.

I had an English teacher in high school named Father John Murphy, S.J.:
Papa John and Papa Murphy's!

I know a Kat and a Duv, too. And a Nat.
And a Starr and Starfire.
And a Ellen, Helen, and Lenore...
It kind of makes me think my life has been scripted.