Connection.

 
         On the road since Gulf Shores, I have been spending these weeks trying to reach out to as many different people as possible in my daily life and connect on an emotional level with our humanity.  It has been an amazing trip.   Our silly, regional beliefs and ideas and politics can be put aside to reach out to that which we all have in us and then we will be building  a better world.
       Community is what will do it.  It's what will make a better world.  That and connecting with people in any meaningful way.
        This summer we started a Facebook page called Gulf Shores Sustainability.   https://www.facebook.com/groups/1851642038394987/
We have over 200 people on it now!  Wow.   That's more then enough for 2 intentional communities.      It's theorized that our brains are this big so we can intimately keep track of 150 people.
After that communities fragment.  Amish communities split in two at that number.   People just start making a separate clique at that point.    
      But this is a sustainability site, not necessarily one for making intentional community...maybe you're not so interested in that.  
     I think that intentional community is a prerequisite for sustainability.     Daniel Quinn is a writer that had ideas about this and spoke of how every animal has a social order. http://www.ishmael.org/welcome.cfm  Wolves have their pack, geese a flock, and humans aren't left out of this.  Humans have the tribe.
All through the majority of the history of the species we had tribe and sustainable community.   So that's easy enough, lets team up.
      Societies can be based off of two things: competition or cooperation.   Generally societies based off of competition have more mental disorder and treat their women and children worse. Societies based off of cooperation generally have less mental disorder and treat their women and children better.
      ..and no kidding.  of course we would be happier hanging out with our friends more often.    With few exceptions, generally what isolates you is going to make you less happy and what brings you in connection will make you happier.  
     Humanity is misbehaving on a grand grand scale right now.  But to judge humanity for how it acts now is like judging someone for how they act when they are trapped in a locked room alone that is slowly filling up with water.  People are cut off from each other.
     We need this now. Not just because the planet is in danger, but for our own happiness and sweet, sweet freedom. And when i say the planet is in danger, that is a gross understatement.  What I mean is it is on a direct trajectory for destruction unless we change the course of society... and change it we will.  or have a damn well fun time trying.
      You can even make community for completely selfish reasons.  Even if you're getting filthy rich while you are alone, you're not going to achieve mental health with that either.
The super rich make this very evident.  You need people.  That's just the animal you are.   A zillion years ago if you were too much of a loner then you would probably get eaten by something alone in the woods.
        And it is so much more fun together.  Aside from all that abstract conceptual crap I'm talking about now.    We had a pretty cool drum circle.  Maybe you were there?
      Imagine if we were out from underneath the oppressive foot of debt, bills, and rent and in a close enough proximity to hangout and have the free time to accomplish real things.  Human things.  Like the arts-  make music together, start an artists' collective, write poems, grow healthy food to eat that we grew ourselves and know exactly where it came from, practice circus arts, make hand crafts, engage in deeper thought and live an examined life, ..the only kind of life worth living as they say. And all of the other amazing and beautiful things that we are capable of when we actually have the time to learn, grow, explore, develop, and connect with one another.
       We can build beautiful Eco homes from the abundant, non toxic materials that are all around us.  Homes that are creative and beautiful and that inspire us.
       To whatever degree this happens or doesn't is fine.   I'm out traveling right now.  Ill be back soon enough but that doesn't matter.  This isn't my Facebook page or any idea that I solely came up with.   This is just one guy ranting here.  Really it is your sustainability page.   Post what you want.   Make whatever happen that you want.   https://www.facebook.com/groups/1851642038394987/
      What makes me, a semi nomadic person, even a good candidate to help organize this?  Maybe I'm not.  You are.  But really, the best place to start community is wherever you are.  Love and connection and reaching out.
   
   

This summer on the too cool for school bus.

   

      Look at this photo.   ..on first glace it’s just me sitting in my bus.. ..but look further and you will notice something strange.  …that’s right.  I use my kitchen in my living area.  They are both actually the same room.  I'm not only used to it.  I prefer it that way.  ..but what’s behind that door back there?  Wouldn't you like to know.   Okay I'll tell you. 
  It’s where I shower and poo and stuff like that… but not in the exact same place.  There is a shower and separate toilet.  Ill show you later… past that is yet another door. ..oooh secret.  It is where I have a little art and craft room.  Fun!!!  ..and past that is another door.  It makes you fall right out the back side of the bus.   

This summer I have been at the beach and drawing and juggling everyday and sitting in my bus….got me thinking some…  Here is some of that thinky stuff and some pictures of inside my bus.

HOW TO REALLY END WAR AND EXPLOITATION AND A BUNCH OF THAT BAD STUFF FOR GOOD

A lot of people seem worried about the problems in the world today.  It’s easy to do.  I hear pretty freaky stories about what kind of bad stuff is happening and our world leaders often make some horrible and self serving choices.  World leaders actually make decisions like bombing cities where children and families live so they can take over and send in their own business to rebuild or make money off of oil or some other silly crap.  Other powerful people who own media misrepresent or don’t report important stories of how their other businesses and powerful friends are doing nasty things to the planet and to people and to animals.  They also don't report much on the resistance to all that. This all happens on purpose so they can get more money and power..   …Weird.  That's super weird really.  So hard to understand….  How to solve this?  What kind of person acts this way?   …Well it turns out that we know exactly what kind of person acts this way.  It has a name.  It can be diagnosed.   Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths excel at politics and business.   Those things can be tested for.  In some cases it can even be seen in these crazy pictures of the brain that doctors can take.   Right now we test mass amounts of the poorest people in the country before they can get a job or even get welfare.  We test them for marijuana to make sure they aren’t trying to ease their poverty stricken life with a little of gods sweet herb.  There are lots of excuses for this, like making sure they are normal enough to perform their jobs without endangering people.   Well then wouldn’t it make more sense to test the people who have the capability to endanger the most lives?  They must be able to perform their job correctly.  A representatives job is to represent other people. If you are not capable of feeling empathy, then you are not capable of having others best interests in mind; thus not capable of representing someone.  A psychopath cannot do the job they are elected to do and this is easily tested for.  It's a hell of a lot easier to test a few rich and powerful men then it is to test everybody for weed.  This is totally doable.  And so we will.  Start by signing these petitions and getting the idea out there.  All you have to do is click on them and type your name to sign them.  Sign them both and pass them around.  They are both the same.

https://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/ban-psychopaths-from-government?source=facebook-share-button&time=1407257393

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/ban-psychopaths-from.fb48?source=c.fb&r_by=969419

HOW TO END SUFFERING,  BECOME  MORE REALIZED, AND PRETTY MUCH MAKE JOHN LENNON'S IMAGINE SONG COME TRUE. 

     This one is as easy as the last one.  Easier really.  All you have to do is look.   Look at yourself and look at your life.  and be super honest about it.  All you have to do is really look.  ..but you’re probably not going to do that yet.  You are busy.  Busy distracting yourself.  Reading this, working too much, seeing people all the time, watching something on a screen, thinking about politics and the world situation, getting stoned or drunk.  Anything but spending some sober time by yourself to really notice life.  I’m super guilty of this too.  Very.

     Take some time to notice your life and here is what you might notice.   ..There is no you.  You are just a label.  An idea.  That’s what your mind does.  It recognizes patterns and makes labels.  That’s it.  You might have had a sneaky suspicion about this or you might think that it is bullshit.  Either way you need to test it out.   If it’s bullshit then you have nothing to lose, if there is no you and you notice it then you also have nothing to lose.    It’s not just meditation you need to do.  That helps.  Mindfulness meditation and direct pointing are the methods.  Not going into trance this time but sitting to become more aware and awake and to notice your body and your thought processes.   This is some of the stuff I have been doing this summer sitting around in my bus.  Lets do it now.  Hurray!!!

     A MEDITATION…KIND OF…

Sit comfy but up right.  Maybe cross legged (is it okay to say Indian style like when we were kids?).   Sit with some good posture.                                                                                                                                           Breath through your honker.  Do it nice and slow and deep.                                                                                                                             
     Notice your heart beat.  ………Are you doing that?  Are you beating your heart?  ….or is your heart beating you?                                                                                                                                                       Notice your thoughts.    ….where do they come from?  Are you thinking?  Are you doing that?  Let them come and go like clouds.  That’s what they do.                                     
     Notice that your stomach is releasing the exact perfect chemicals to digest the exact foods you ate earlier and if you ate something different then it would release different chemicals ….   How do you know how to do that?  Wow!  You sure must be smart.     ….Wait, you can’t even notice that last one… and you aren’t doing it.  It’s just happening.  It’s the universe that has the smarts.    ..and you can tune into that.    It’s behind your thinking and its much more wise and kind then thinking is.                                                                                                   
     Now notice your hearing.  You’re not doing anything either.   There doesn’t need to be a “you” to hear.   Hearing happens.   So does your seeing.  Look at that.  It doesn’t stop.  Even if your eyes close you just see the back of the lids.      (haha, “look at seeing”)

Try to do stuff like that.  Notice the difference between the real and the imagined.  Try to get a feel for the for real.    I was thinking about  this here crazy country.  What is it?  Is it the land area?  I have been to the borders.  They are imaginary and invisible.  Is it the people?  Then if I put all the people in china is china America.. or is it Americans in china?  Is it the music?  Sound waves?  The culture?  Hand me a piece of culture please.  Is it the food?  If I make some B’s and G’s for breakfast in Mexico am I now in the U.S.?   It’s just a label for reference.    And so are you.  It means nothing.  No countries.  No self.
     haha, and don't get me started on no religion too. hahaaha

What does getting rich or famous mean when you realize you are just an idea and an idea is not a thing?  What happens to a fancy title that some ego dude made up and gave you on a piece of paper that makes you feel like a bigger ego dude when there is no more ego?   What is patriotism when you realize there are no countries?  This ends racism too…its just another idea…so is religion.   It’s a belief and now the game is getting rid of belief to see reality for what it truly is and truly we aren’t brothers and sisters…we are so much more than that. 

Of course I couldn’t have come up with any of this on my own.  Tons of brilliant folk thought it up and figured it out and I just want to help spread the word and realize it all more myself.  Here are links to free books and web sites of amazing people and philosophers who have sat on this for years to find the end of suffering and the no self realization that goes back all the way to the beginnings of zen Buddhism and probably much further.   Some of these people are so damn smart…  I don’t even want to be that smart.   Hell, they sit and think all day.  Literally.   I have other hobbies.  I like to draw and juggle and travel, and make sweet love, and play on this computer and many things.  But they are amazing and did the work for us.  “Every revolution is first a philosophical one”.   Some of these sites will walk you through it step by step.  Awakening is happening now on a grand scale.  But we have to hurry. 


Here are some links.

This crazy book is free and coming across it changed my life http://holybooks.lichtenbergpress.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Brutal-Beginnings-ebook.pdf

This brilliant fellow broke the code on human suffering http://ruthlesstruthdotcom.blogspot.com/

This site is a great starting point http://www.no-self.com/

This site is sooo cool too.  And great name.  Ghost virus....oooh...maybe we are just a ghost virus. hahahah!http://ghostvirus2011.blogspot.com/

Here is another free e-book that is short but amazing. http://www.mediafire.com/?mhg99y6fk2wxtoo

This is a big site with all sorts of free info.   An ebook, videos, even an app!  An app for realizing whats up.  wow.  http://liberationunleashed.com/

And there is tons more all over the net!

HOW TO END MALNUTRITION AND THE PROBLEM OF DIRTY DRINKING WATER

A one word solution.  “Moringa”.  ..No, make that a 3 word solution.  “Mother F#*ing Moringa!!!

What happens when we don’t need their grocery stores or their doctors anymore?  What happens when they come and ask us to work their slave jobs and we don’t need their money?  Who is rich then and who is poor? 

Moringa tree is easy to grow and drought resistant.

 I will be growing this everywhere when I travel so we can all be happy and healthy.   If you research the info just goes on and on.  Here is a list of some of its qualities.   

Moringa grows best in places that it is needed the most.

And you can squeeze a lot of oil from the seed.  It's super healing and moisturizing and fuel can be made from it...http://www.eco-business.com/press-releases/moringa-biodiesel-meets-social-technical-commercial-criteria/ and you can filter water with the left over husk of the seed.  You can do this at home and they are even doing it on a large scale..  Look at this link!  Water treatment with Moringa. https://www.uu.se/en/news/news-document/?id=3080&area=2,16&typ=artikel&na=&lang=en

And you can make stuff out of the fibers.

As my trees grow I will get more and more seeds and powder and oil to as many everybody as I can.

Here I am doing some indoor gardening with my trees.

Okay.   In case you haven’t noticed.  That’s a lot of the bases.  People's problems solved.  Now lets get to work on it.  …well I have some other really great things in the works too…   I don’t want to say a spoiler yet… but some pretty amazing stuff.   Ooooh its exciting and will change things.   In the mean time…  It’s end of summer!  Time for adventures in distant lands!!!   …or hang here and make some art first!!!!   Big big thanks to all the people and the universe who keeps giving me all this free stuff and places to park my bus that make this life possible and to you….you sexy human animal you! 

People say I should open my own GNC.  I like vitamins and herbs a lot.

Vegan kitchen.  Clean counters and tools with no e coli or salmonella.  No animal has ever been prepared here.

Reclaimed wood and plenty of juggle stuff and toys in this bus.

Radical cook books!!!

Taking a break from the summer heat to chill in the family size hammock

This blog post is late as usual. ..I stashed the bus at the beach.  I'm already out adventuring again.

"The world is still a paradise despite mankinds efforts"

     This is a post I made last January but never posted until now.  I'm back in the U.S. and it's easier to get on the computer now. 




     Every trip to Mexico that I take starts with some days on a bus.  This is a great time for me to reflect on the past season in the U.S., myself, and the lessons I have learned.  I also spent a lot of it listening to ¨The Power of Now¨ on my head phones.  Go get it now.  It´s great and is going to help you a lot.   http://www.eckharttolle.com/books/now/

     I got into Mexico city and took the crowded subway to a hostel that I love to stay at.  Right away I met rare and beautiful people from around the world.  Connections that don't happen so much in other settings.  Communication that only people who are really feeling life full on have.
     That´s really what I want to write about here.  I want to write about emotions and connection, but I will tell some cool travel story too so you know some of what I´m up to.  There are plenty of articles on the Internet about being sensitive or "oversensitive".  They are almost all written by women.  There is a lack of information from the male perspective on this for various reasons.  We are taught that it is weakness.  It is actually strength.  In fact, sensitive guys are the most bad ass guys there are.  We have to be.  "Bravery isn´t the absence of fear.  It´s having that fear and facing it and doing what you´re afraid of anyway."   That goes for all the other emotions.   You can´t numb one of them and keep others.   Your ability to feel bad and good are connected.  You can learn to have strong feelings and master them.   You have to have the balls to live with the volume turned up and face yourself and know that this is the only way that anyone ever really lives and learns.   ...and so many aren´t.   So make it easier on yourself and others.  Get brave and admit that you feel.  Master those feelings and live an extraordinary life.  You have a gift.  Emotions are information that not everyone is getting.  It took a long time to evolve this. 
     If you are a sensitive person then you need to find others like you.  Stay with them.   Go talk to the ones that aren´t like you and check it out.   They don´t even really understand emotions.  It´s like explaining color to a blind person, but really I think that people who don´t feel it strongly are more disabled than the deaf or blind.   Now I don´t mean being oversensitive to criticism or inability to laugh at yourself.  Those are narcissistic traits.  I´m talking more about compassion and empathy.
     Connection to ourselves and other living things and the natural world is all we really have in this life and if there is anything that is going to save us from ourselves, it might be this.  If you can learn to connect to something or someone then you won´t want to hurt, abuse, or take advantage of it.
     When you are around the non feeling people you will both be getting the feeling that the other just isn´t getting it, or that they are crazy. And of course you both think that way.  You are feeling things that are out of the scope of their perception. 
     I use to want to take people traveling with me.  So they could be amazed, touched, and changed by the fantastic and mysterious world we live in.  Then I found out that if they aren´t doing it already then there may be a good reason for it.  If I take someone to see the most beautiful sunset ever, one that some say opens a portal, and if they aren´t a sensitive person then we are seeing two different sunsets.  The portal won´t open for them.  They won´t know what the hell I´m talking about and would probably rather be at the resort then getting bit by mosquitoes and trekking through the bush to see something that is only breathtakingly beautiful to those who are capable of experiencing breath taking beauty.

     Oh, so back to my Mexico story.    I rushed around Mexico city for some days preparing for my trip.  I needed cloths and supplies.  There were tons of natives in the main square, dancing, drum playing, selling handcrafts.   I bought some cool sandals and got purified by a bruja.  That's a good way to start out the trip.  A good palm reading too.  Talked about love... they always do.  I got some new glasses to see what the hell sites I was looking at and a new phone with a camera as my camera broke already and then I was off to see some giant pyramids.   Wandering through the ruins of various civilizations past, in different places around the world is also another great moment of connection and reflection for me.    .... the phone I bought on the street didn´t save any of the photos.. It´s okay. They are all still in my head. 

We live on a blue ball.  We are floating around a red ball.  There is a white ball floating around us.

    
     In the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world I ran into my friend the Norwegian painter.  I randomly ran into him at the beach in Mexico various times, in Chiapas, and in Guatemala.   Weird.  Maybe fate.  We took the bus to Oaxaca with a German kid from Jamaica.  Partying it up and collaborating our ideas to change the world.  More on that later but it might be huge! 
     New years was amazing.  Letting off Thai style lanterns into the sky and partying with friends who feel like family.  I had a lot of drinks and got home very sandy.
      I have a great little house up on the hill from the beach.  I live there with my roommate and a cat named Lupita and an iguana named Godzilla.  I have been spending my days exercising, cooking with my roommate (one of the best guys ever.  Feels like we´re Fin and Jake) reading, drawing, practicing poi, juggling, and playing lots of paddle ball...  understanding myself and life and just taking in the beauty of it all.   It feels like love. 

Toxic narcissistic culture: Don't be stupid. Be weird!

      I just came across this book recently and love it.  I'm posting the introduction below because it's really really good.  He so eloquently says almost everything I was wanting to say regarding narcissism and our society.  What a great writer.  With the current problems we all face concerning the environment and our cultural and personal issues this information has never been more important and relevant 
   
      If you don't follow this stupid and destructive culture and do what most others are doing you are going to be weird.   So you get to choose between being either stupid or weird.  I hope you go for the weird.  :)





Introduction to the book NARCISSISM: Denial of the True Self by Alexander Lowen, M.D.
Macmillan Publishing Company, 1983 – Hard cover, 1st edition

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Front cover (photo)
Back cover (photo)
Cover flap (photo)

INTRODUCTION
NARCISSISM describes both a psychological and a cultural condition. On the individual level, it denotes a personality disturbance characterized by an exaggerated investment in one's image at the expense of the self. Narcissists are more concerned with how they appear than what they feel. Indeed, they deny feelings that contradict the image they seek. Acting without feeling, they tend to be seductive and manipulative, striving for power and control. They are egotists, focused on their own interests but lacking the true values of the self—namely, self-expression, self-possession, dignity, and integrity. Narcissists lack a sense of self derived from body feelings. Without a solid sense of self, they experience life as empty and meaningless. It is a desolate state.
    On the cultural level, narcissism can be seen in a loss of human values—in a lack of concern for the environment, for the quality of life, for one's fellow human beings. A society that sacrifices the natural environment for profit and power betrays its insensitivity to human needs. The proliferation of material things becomes the measure of progress in living, and man is pitted against woman, worker against employer, individual against community. When wealth occupies a higher position than wisdom, when notoriety is admired more than dignity, when success is more important than self-respect, the culture itself overvalues "image" and must be regarded as narcissistic.
    The narcissism of the individual parallels that of the culture. We shape our culture according to our image and in turn we are shaped by that culture. Can we understand one without understanding the other? Can psychology ignore sociology, or vice versa?
    In the forty years I have worked as a therapist, I have seen a marked change in the personality problems of the people consulting me. The neuroses of earlier times, represented by incapacitating guilts, anxieties, phobias, or obsessions, are not commonly seen today. Instead, I see more people who complain of depression; they describe a lack of feeling, an inner emptiness, a deep sense of frustration and unfulfillment. Many are quite successful in their work, which suggests a split between the way they perform in the world and what goes on inside. What seems rather strange is a relative absence of anxiety and guilt, despite the severity of the disturbance. This absence of anxiety and guilt, coupled with an absence of feeling, gives one an impression of unreality about these people. Their performance—socially, sexually, and in the work world—seems too efficient, too mechanical, too perfect to be human. They function more like machines than people.
    Narcissists can be identified by their lack of humanness. They don't feel the tragedy of a world threatened by a nuclear holocaust, nor do they feel the tragedy of a life spent trying to prove their worth to an uncaring world. When the narcissistic facade of superiority and specialness breaks down, allowing the sense of loss and sadness to become conscious, it is often too late. One man, the head of a large company, was told that he had terminal cancer. Faced with the loss of life, he discovered what life was. "I never saw flowers before," he explained, "nor the sunshine and the fields. I spent my life trying to prove to my father that I was a success. Love had no place in my life." For the first time in his adult life, this man was able to cry and to reach out to his wife and children for help.
    My theme is that narcissism denotes a degree of unreality in the individual and in the culture. Unreality is not just neurotic, it verges on the psychotic. There is something crazy about a pattern of behavior that places the achievement of success above the need to love and to be loved. There is something crazy about a person who is out of touch with the reality of his or her being—the body and its feelings. And there is something crazy about a culture that pollutes the air, the waters, and the earth in the name of a "higher" standard of living. But can a culture be insane? That idea is hardly an accepted concept in psychiatry. In general, insanity is seen as the mark of an individual who is out of touch with the reality of his or her culture. By that criterion (which has its validity), the successful narcissist is far from insane. Unless . . . unless, of course, there is some insanity in the culture. Personally, I see the frenzied activity of people in our large cities—people who are trying to make more money, gain more power, get ahead—as a little crazy. Isn't frenzy a sign of madness?
     To understand the insanity that underlies narcissism, we need a broader, nontechnical view of personality problems. When we say that the noise in New York City, for example, is enough to drive one "crazy," we are speaking in a language that is real, human, and meaningful. When we describe someone as "a little crazy," we are expressing a truth not found in the psychiatric literature. I believe that psychiatry would gain much if it broadened its concepts and understanding to include the experience of people expressed in their common, everyday language.
    It is my intention to share with the reader my understanding of the narcissistic condition. We need to understand the forces in the culture that create the problem and the factors in the human personality that predispose the individual to it. And we need to know what it is to be human, if we are to avoid becoming narcissists.
    My treatment of narcissistic patients is directed toward helping them get in touch with their bodies, to recover their suppressed feelings and to regain their lost humanity. This approach involves working to reduce the muscular tensions and rigidities that bind the person's feelings. But I have never regarded the specific techniques I use as the important thing. The key to therapy is understanding. Without understanding, no therapeutic approach or technique is meaningful or effective on a deep level. Only with understanding can one offer real help. All patients are desperate for someone who will understand them. As children, they were not understood by their parents; they were not seen as individuals with feelings, nor treated with respect for their humanity. No therapist who fails to see the pain in his or her patients, to sense their fear and to know the intensity of their struggle to guard their sanity in a home situation that could drive one crazy, can effectively help patients work through the narcissistic disorder.

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Some thoughts about enlightenment and the good guys and bad guys.

     It helps me sleep to type this stuff out when I get to thinky.


      Is our true nature good or evil?  Selfish or altruistic?  Your answer to that may shed some light onto your true nature or at least what kind of people you were exposed to when you formed beliefs like this.   Anne Frank said she thought people were basically good.  She was right about herself but wrong about narcissists.  Narcissists believe everyone has a bad nature and are on guard from it.  You can't appeal to a narcissists better nature, they don't have one.   The truly good person believes they can change the narcissist with empathy and love.  Both sides are correct about themselves and in LaLaLand about the other.  You can change yourself though and that might be the best you can do to change others.
     Narcissism and co dependence may be the psychological names for the pathology of our culture.  Ours is the dominant culture.  The one that a couple of generations back thought slavery was okay, and before that committed genocide against the native people of this country.   We are all still nuts and committing eco-side.  We have to heal up our brains.   This all might have started with the first civilization.  The very first city 10 thousand years ago.  Then it slowly spread.   Daniel Quinn explains it well in his books.  http://www.ishmael.org/origins/DQ/    The first city brought hierarchy.  No longer people working together in tribes (the only system that ever sustainably worked for humans)   Quinn writes about the "Takers" and the "Leavers".   Or how I would call it "jacked up people" and "decent folk".   The first hierarchy.  People over other people.   Royalty and people who need to be told what to do.   Narcissism and Co-dependents.   It's not just life on earth that is at stake now, it's what has always been at stake,  our mental health, happiness, and sweet sweet connection, intimacy, and freedom in this short life that may be the only one we ever know.
     Even  though we can't change bad people we can still stand up to them and still have compassion for them.   We can still work on ourselves and help the little man.  We can do this because there is no room for blame.  They are just acting out their conditioning.  Acting unconsciously.  Without the conditioning of your mind and your ego and all that crap, you might just be the universe or god or something.  Get rid of that stuff and connect.  If you want to play the stupid blame game then you can see that we got screwed up because of how our parents or others in our lives acted when we were young... but they only did that because of how their parents and early influences acted towards them and on back until...  the first city.   Maybe there was the first asshole.  Original sin?   The first sin?   I don't really know anything about that concept.   hahaha.


     The following are some quotes I found while reading around.  Look it up yourself if you want a reference (yea, I'm super professional, huh?)
"Some theorists estimate that 96% of Americans are codependent."  "This past summer [a study of] a nationally representative sample of 35,000 Americans  found that 6 percent of Americans, or 1 out of 16, had experienced [clinical narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) at some point in their lives."
     Those percentages spill over on each other.  Anyway, everybody is affected by this stuff.  It's so widespread that some call it a "narcissistic epidemic".  Our society is run by the narcissists.  Narcissism is lack of empathy.  People can seek personal gain at the expense of others or without caring how it harms the planet by not having empathy for those people, animals, and things.
     Codependents are easily influenced by narcissists.  Narcissists are also pretty good at influencing non codependents.  Here is one way they do it with language and memory.  http://www.winning-teams.com/teamwork_narcissism.html
     How could it be that in our society so many people try to get the same material crap and vision for what is presented to them as the perfect life?   It's a bunch of easily influenced masses who are influenced by master manipulators who have no empathy.   That's how they can sell us products that they know are harmful and we all to often don't question it and just go along.  Everything that mainstream society makes is like this.   They don't care about you.   That's why the shows and movies will make you think divorce or cheating is normal and also show an unrealistic perception of love instead of teaching how to connect or make real intimacy.   If you stay discontent you will stay complacent and shop and go to your slave job more.  Not many Buddhist monks would go to a shopping mall.  Almost everything that comes from a non empathetic system is going to be toxic.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lrqjcvIiEc
     So maybe 96% of people are codependent...   That many people with their heads full of chatter that need to get in the now, live in the present moment, ask themselves the important questions and truly, honestly get to know themselves, and connect to the energy of the universe (god, a higher power, the Tao, your real self deep down, whatever you want to call it) and stop trying to influence others and help themselves.   That is the cure for codependency.  That's what society at large must do.  While doing that, narcissistic people must still be stopped from exploiting and destroying the living world.
     It's a long path of self realization to find out if the wants you've had your whole life are really yours.

Oneness

   I was listening to this Physicist on the youtube talk about how on the sub-atomic level we are all one.   They know this now and we should act accordingly.   Psychology knows this stuff already.   Jung called it the "Oceanic feeling". It's the idea that we are connected by a psyche and a physical space.   I was thinking for example, If I kick you in the leg I am doing some great psychological harm to myself.   If I find you with a hurt leg and come and help you then I will be doing some good things for my psyche and feel like a better person.

     So now that we have that information we can set about to change society and arrange it in a different way that isn't based off of competition, exploitation, and money.   Through history you could divide societies into ones that were based off of competition and ones based off of cooperation.  Societies based off of competition generally were less happy, had lots more problems and treated their women and children worse.  Societies based off of cooperation were happier, had less issues, and treated their women and children better.   That all would have led

to better mental health for the cooperative societies then the competitive ones.  

     How will we accomplish this change from a competitive to a cooperative society?  We have to realize this oneness that science and psychology and your own damn experience will tell you if you get out and feel it.   On the scale of the most co-dependent giver to the most narcissistic greedy business dude, we have to tell the giver that if they really want to help others then they need to show more self love, treat themselves to something nice, remember they are as important as those they help, or more so.   The narcissist needs to be told that if they really want to be the best and get more then everyone then they have to help everyone else because they are connected and everyone else is just as important as he, if not more so.   There is the psychological catch 22 that we will have to deal with.   So go out and love yourself and others to the extent that you need to based off of how currently over or under self appreciating you are.

   

Enlightenment and love!

"Unless you embrace love, true love, then you will never know the full potential of being a human. "
           That must be my favorite quote from the book "the power of self coaching".  http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Self-Coaching-Essential-Creating/dp/0471463604 Go read it now.

I just read an article in a business website that was saying how Narcissism is good.  ..and remember a narcissist is someone who doesn't feel empathy or love for themselves or others or anything really.    The article said   "A recent study conducted by accredited psychologist Oliver James, has classified the four types of people who excel in business: psychopaths, Machiavellians, narcissists and the amalgamation of all three."   And remember I said that this article is in support of narcissism.  That's the kind of people we are dealing with.
     I always had a weird feeling in my stomach around such people and in most of mainstream society.   Until recently I didn't know how important it is to listen to that feeling.   I now have the clarity of thought besides just the feeling of why these people are to be avoided.     It is in fact these types and this disorder that is the problem with the world.   It is lack of love that is putting the planet in peril.    If you can't truly connect with or love another person then you won't be able to connect with or love a tree or nature.    In one Derrick Jensen book he quoted a logging business man as saying  "when I look at the trees I see dollars".   That is a huge disconnect.   So is looking at people and seeing consumers.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hx-G1uhRqA

     Wow the U.S. is super messed up and it's strange to be here.    I know.  It's not just the U.S. but it is way more narcissistic here then in say..Scandinavia or most other first world countries.   It's narcissism that makes one not want to help their fellow humans.   In other first world countries they have free doctors and university.   They have lots of co housing and a social safety net.   Here they blame the poor for not working.   Blame the victim.         ..I know I mostly hang out in third world countries and love to visit native people.   I think most people there are poor.  They are way less materialist then first worlders.  ..and the poor are usually more generous too.   There are even natives that still remember how to live the old way without jacking up the planet.

     In this world love is the most revolutionary act one can do.   Love makes ordinary people extraordinary.   It makes non poets write poems.   It makes people skip out of work or run away together.   It boosts your immune system and makes you live 10 years longer.  
      Love also makes you help out a poor person.   Love and empathy.   The ability to feel other peoples feelings.    That is being more alive.   If you can't feel all that then you aren't really living.  Love also makes you stop a forest from being cut or try to stop a war.
     
     Connection to people, ourselves, and to the natural world through love and empathy  is what we must cultivate if we are to survive on this planet.

       The Buddha means "the awakened one".   The Buddhist quote of "if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." refers to that the Buddha is nobody other then yourself.   If you think it's something else then that idea, kill the idea.   I'm not Buddhist but I can get the good out of any philosophy.   I agree with this stuff.   We need to be trying to wake up.   All of us need to wake up and then try to wake up the others.
       Studies have shown that Sociopaths and people of this sort have brain waves similar to a normal person while asleep.   They didn't have a totally enlightened person to brain scan, but when they scanned some of the Dali lamas buddies, the happy parts of their brains were lit way up.   That was from a happiness psychology video.  I will post the link.  It's great.   here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-RVECUWOGQ    It's the best.   So we know that the sociopath, the psychopath, the narcissist, is literally more asleep then us...and the Buddha is totally awake... how much waking up do we all have to do?    
                The long path to waking up can be a hard one.   but then it just keeps getting better and better.   I recently had loads of difficult feelings and came out the other side a better person.   I think that will continue to happen for a while.   One of my favorite things he said in that video that I hope you just watched is that you can't be happy all the time.   There are 2 types of people who don't experience bad feelings like fear, shame, guilt, remorse, and such.  They are psychopaths and dead people.   So when you are feeling not so hot, be glad because you probably aren't a psychopath or dead.

      Now go out in the world.   Wake up.   Feel things and fall in love.   Have amazing adventures.  Make giant smiley faces while you play your favorite childhood games.    I will be.  Maybe I will see you there.