1.31.2019
1.09.2019
1.04.2019
Extremely important update. Joy is the answer, LSGIABeing is the way.
12.25.2018
Susie come!" How close to the edge she is, measured by how irritating she is I suspect.....
12.09.2018
Regarding our cultural yearning for a life partner. Comments to a sister.
A dear young sister shared with me the yearning that she feels to find a loving committed partner:
Those few that ever hear what I have to say must have incredible patience because what a broken record I am. I share this with you not at you but it comes to mind with what you've shared with me. Again.
I remain convinced that we are born to be, the butterfly, the Wagers of loving, for the every breath that we do reward of joy. Not happiness, more likely intense pain, but joy. But for that to transpire it seems that we need enough of a cocoon. I'm not certain of that because it seems to me there are exceptions, young Rachel Corrie for example. But for all practical purposes we need a cocoon throughout our childhood or maybe just for a couple of days. Hard to know.
My dad was that cocoon for me all of my youth.
But once enough of that cocoon has been available only a butterfly in a really sick collection of butterflies succumbs to their insistence that the Cocoon is where they want to be. And all of us are swimming in that sick collection of butterflies. 2018.
More than life itself I was convinced for my first 45 years or so that all I wanted and all I needed to survive, way more than anything else, was to be in a loving partnership. I will never know if that was true for me.
I know that it is not true for me now, and there is no one that seems to have it that I find myself envying. I have to acknowledge that it could be a function of a different hormonal mixture in me now and brain development which was not available earlier. But I see myself of today, 67 years old, in young Rachel Corrie who to my knowledge did not have such a partnership Central in her life. I see myself, my soul, the joyful Part of Me, In Jane Goodall who to my knowledge never had such a partnership Central in her life.
Again, dear sister, this is not directed at you rather you have brought it to my mind to further explore for myself and to share.
12.06.2018
Joy is the solution to life, Goodness, Flourishing, Parenting, Optimal Experience, Personal trauma..... [species flourishing].....>>>
Joy is the solution to life, Goodness, Flourishing, Parenting, Optimal Experience, Personal trauma..... [species flourishing].....
40 years I've been living on the basis of this Theory. As an executive leader in the high-tech industry it was my guiding principle. As a parent. But not blindly, nothing blindly.
My initial base of information was observing my father who did this in my view, and through him the person Jesus, and Gandhi, and King, Teresa of Calcutta and many since.
To say that joy is the answer is to say that the cure for individual or Collective cancer has been found. This Theory may be incorrect but that is the import of what it asserts, far more important than the Cure of cancer which only kills the body.
Instrumentation is beginning to exist to prove or disprove this Theory within the human nervous system but what is lacking is scientists with their hands on these instruments that have any knowledge or experience of joy in their lives so the best I can hope is that they will slowly approximate and I'm afraid like George vaillant, spiritual Evolution, totally misinterpret and Missapply the results.
Were any of the individuals I just mentioned in on this conversation they would be saying, yes, James, the above is exactly right.
If I did anything right as a father it was realizing pretty much on the day of the first one's birth, that joy is what I wanted for that child and then the second one, more than anything else. And that therefore as a father I owed to that child more than anything else that there be joy in my life as my example would be the most powerful influence I would have on that child, those children. I was quite sure that was true then, all of my study, practice, experience, life everyday since has indicated that it was.
Where does Joy come from? It is the reward provided by the nervous system when it thinks we are devoting our very existence to do something really really important for others who are in dire need. The best formula I've come up with is serving the neediest from the soul in solidarity.
[It was the solution to species survival and flourishing, but it is too late for that. But it will always be the solution to the individual flourishing even on the sinking Titanic, every breath.]
Every breath that I am given my highest priority will be on substantiating the above for myself through exhaustive study of the most scholarly information, practice, and sharing that in how I live and in what I write as best I can.
The most substantiated book on psychology in this vein is George vaillant, spiritual evolution. I'm on my 5th reading and struggling to keep my head from exploding with how much he got wrong, but he got Nuggets right that the horrible insane field of psychology has gotten wrong for so long.
At his recommendation I'm also reading Karen Armstrong, the great transformation, which among other things brilliantly presents the history of the Great inventors throughout history for ways of being individually and collectively to optimize experience, so-called religions. They have been relative failures, but there is much much much much to be learned from what they have done so that some of us can figure out how to go beyond, how to invent what was really needed.
Suicide, drugs, mountains of material things, alcohol, marijuana, wallowing in regret for depression or guilt, sex addiction, do not occur with the individuals devoted to a life of joy, see LSGIABeing.com. it doesn't happen. Inconceivable. People who are trying to be good? Yes, these things happen. But those pursuing Joy by whatever conception or none, no, it doesn't happen. These are the equivalent of the Buddhist ideal who have refused Nirvana to stay and serve.
10.14.2018
I would die rather than accept a middle or upper economic class lifestyle were it offered to me. I'm sure.....
I would die rather than accept a middle or upper economic class lifestyle were it offered to me. I'm sure of it. That would be to leave my family, the neediest in creation, the masses of creation. Who would leave their family? Here in DC it is impossible not to see the Masters of the Universe, those empty Souls, poor souls, they have done just that. Walking Dead people. Thinking the opposite. Madness.
12.11.2017
P1. the extreme essential life and death Joy of wrestling with evil for good
12.10.2017
Decades too late now to avert Armageddon never too late to lessen the evil and increase the good, and joy, for our fellow creatures.
Decades too late now to avert Armageddon never too late to lessen the evil and increase the good, and joy, for our fellow creatures.
12.06.2017
11.29.2017
The valid function of Prayer: to seek and execute marching orders in service of creation.
The valid function of Prayer: to seek and execute marching orders in service of creation.
11.15.2017
Without a mission I am Paralyzed by the horror in this world. With a mission I cannot sit on the sidelines.
Without a mission I am Paralyzed by the horror in this world. With a mission I cannot sit on the sidelines.
11.09.2017
She throws up on you for the 8th time today, your beloved 2 year old daughter desperately ill with the flu. Do you yell at her yet? Do you cut off her food......
She throws up on you for the 8th time today, your beloved 2 year old daughter desperately ill with the flu. Do you yell at her yet? Do you cut off her food...... or threaten to end her housing because of her horrible Behavior? Of course not! You ache for her pain, care not how many times she throws up, only that you help her pain subside. And yet my sisters and brothers often draw my Fury and ire. The rich in their disgusting criminally selfish mansions. My sisters and brothers in their pickup trucks with their cursing at this vehicle and their hatred. The homeless, the poor, with their trash all over the place and their wretched appearance. All are terribly sick, victims of this diseased society, and yet too often they draw not my compassion and solidarity but my hatred. But what I've just written is a new Glimpse for me of the problem within me. And I'm glad of that. I'm learning a new way to see these horrible behaviors for what they are, sickness of this Society made manifest, needing my attempts, my best attempts, to be a cure.
10.16.2017
If a water skier lets go the tow rope they almost immediately sink. The most dire needs of creation is my tow rope. Nothing less can keep me from drowning.
If a water skier lets go the tow rope they almost immediately sink. The most dire needs of creation is my tow rope. Nothing less can keep me from drowning.
4.07.2017
No, everything is not fine. My depression has been periodic in my life, an inspirational and creative friend. Yes I have understandably.....
No, everything is not fine. My depression has been periodic in my life, an inspirational and creative friend. Yes I have understandably worked to surmount the depression. I no longer find that this is called for for me. My job, the job of all of us is and must be, to stir people's hearts. Fun, Pleasant, nice to be around, is not what the world needs from me, or you. Disturbed, mildly depressed. Not as an act, but as the only sane response to what is being done by us to all creation. One of the few great psychologists, Abraham Maslow, was asked at an august convention where he was speaking, dr. Maslow you cite Abraham Lincoln as iconic of human health , yet Lincoln was known to be depressive. Maslow replied, you think someone being depressed in the midst of a civil war Slaughter is a sign of unhealthy?
3.13.2017
Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was.....
Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic Crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was to preserve the one thing that those masses being destroyed by the Roman Empire could hold onto if they chose, their community, being family to one another, regardless of how incredibly difficult the Roman Empire made that through their savagery.
The communal meal was not symbolic, it was the central Ministry. His Central message was, you must not allow this savagery to destroy that which is most sacred, your unconditional loving, your being unconditional family one to another, especially the outcast, the enemy...
I have known and been impressed by this scholarly insight for many years. But just this morning several things are colliding in my mind, the fact that more than half of this country now lives in objective material poverty, the fact that the most joyous larger community that I have ever personally witnessed lived in considerable material misery at Standing Rock for months , that the most joyful body of people of any huge size that ever was on this continent were the Native Americans before Columbus arrived, and this recollection of Jesus teaching.
When 15 years ago I left a $300,000 a year career in Industry and became an elementary school guidance counselor in one of the country's largest and neediest elementary schools, Chester Pennsylvania , I was aware of a problem that I never adequately solved at the time, what did I want for these children, these materially poor children, did I want them to become part of the sick society that created them? I now have a much better understanding of the answer.
The answer is hinted at in a vision that I shared some days ago, ( please see Link in comments below).
When, as I hope occurs, I soon resume my travels across the country I expect to add to my itinerary places like Detroit where I think there may be some fertile ground for sewing/cultivating this seed, for helping the materially poor in cities and places like that to possibly see that their opportunity is not to seek the faux-Heaven, the actual hell, that Mammon tells us looks like the capitalist society, but the heaven that Jesus spoke of, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. The world Gandhi hinted at, a world that has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for anyone's greed.
2.22.2017
Standing Rock update: it's 5 minutes after 5 in the afternoon. More than three hours after......
Standing Rock update: it's 5 minutes after 5 in the afternoon. More than three hours after I expected to be arrested. I've got hypothermia. It's quite interesting. To my knowledge I could walk out of the camp right now and Escape six months in prison, a felony charge, and possible severe physical abuse now and then prison. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't cooperate with the evil that is being done to our Native American brothers and sisters, even if they can. I can't do it. I can't cooperate with this evil anymore. This state, our country, our economy, totally Antichrist. I can't cooperate with it. Isn't that wild?
Standing Rock update: Everyone wants to be a revolutionary, but no one wants to be the revolution.
Standing Rock update: Everyone wants to be a revolutionary, but no one wants to be the revolution.
Standing Rock update: The battlefield, 100% of the battlefield, on which the future of humanity, of creation, will be finally lost or won, is 0% physical, 100% spiritual. This has always been true. We have always pretended......
Standing Rock update: The battlefield, 100% of the battlefield, on which the future of humanity, of creation, will be finally lost or won, is 0% physical, 100% spiritual. This has always been true. We have always pretended this was not true. The most powerful creatures known in the universe are the two legged humans. Where our individual and Collective spirit is, there we go. Only through a massive and sustained Global shift in the spirit of humanity is there any prayer for a decent future. I hope to remember this on today, February 22nd here at Standing Rock. If my body, my life limb and treasure, can be used so that the terminal savagery of our fascist greedy Antichrist satanic Collective spirit in this sick country and world, if my body can be used by Savage perpetrators, possessed by their evil spirit, if my body life limb and treasure can be used to sicken the spectators to the final destruction of their children's future, if I can use my body to help them become sick and at the evil of their passivity, and possibly to sicken even one or two of the perpetrators, immediate or distant, crushing us today, then I hope to be glad of that. I think I will be glad of that.
I have heard what I understand to be native story. A grandfather and a grandson are speaking, the grandfather says to the grandson, there are two wolves fighting each other within you, a good wolf, and a bad wolf. The grandson thinks for moment and says to his grandfather, grandfather, which of the Wolves will win? Grandfather answers, the one that you feed. The story is broader than that in its implications. With each breath, with each action or omission of ours, we feed one of those two wolves in those who are impacted by our lives. Everything depends on which ones we choose to feed.
Even Napoleon saw this:
"Do you know, Fontanes, what astonishes me most in this world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit."
Written as I am here here on self-assigned duty at the composting toilet complex taking out bags of s***, sweeping, feeling the sawdust bins, making certain there's enough toilet paper.... I like to serve. This is a nice way to to lovingly serve my sisters and brothers here, and there by the world, as best I can see to do at the moment.
2.21.2017
A mass permanent revolution of loving possessing the world's people is the only hope for a future worth living. This by any and every objective measure.......
A mass permanent revolution of loving possessing the world's people is the only hope for a future worth living. This by any and every objective measure that I know. The loving revolutionary in this world that is self-extinguishing due to vast oceans of evil, the loving revolutionary makes of their life as powerful an antidote, as powerful a cure as possible. Possibly being chemo drugs such as have held my cancer at Bay, possibly being chemo drugs is no picnic. Being the loving revolutionary is no picnic and if it is one is not a loving revolutionary. The loving revolutionary relentlessly places their life limb treasure such that the savagery, hatred, inhumanity, Godlessness, satanic nature of those people and institutions possessed by evil might become so sickening at the site of their own evil that the all-important spectators cannot tolerate the sickness and begin to act, and even some of those most possessed by the evil become the so sickened by seeing their own evil so that they act to cure it. This is the best description I know of those throughout history that has been loving revolutionaries. I believe that this understanding just expressed advances the thought process of how to fight evil. It came to me as I slept. I believe that my soul is committed to being that type of chemo, to being that type of antidote, that type of cure and I expect it to be living hell. I will be glad when my life is over, when I have breathed my last breath. But I will not hasten that by my own action intentionally despite the relief that I would get from that. I have no belief in a life after this one for me or for anyone else. I never have near as I can recall. I have no interest in it. In part I have no interest in it because I can't imagine a heaven that would be a place I'd like to be. But yesterday I received a wonderful thought. I do find it morally clarifying to imagine such Concepts as heaven and hell and how you get to one or the other. Anyway what popped into my mind, I have no recollection why, what popped into my mind was that there are no angels in heaven. It was a wonderful thought. I was so glad for it. I am so glad for it. Of course there would be no angels in heaven. Why, you may ask? Well, an Angel would want to be here on Earth and would return here to try and lessen the suffering.