On Acknowledgement and Acceptance

     Anybody who knows me well will tell you that I have a bad habit of bottling up my emotion's or even articulate my feelings and/or emotions.  Bottling up my feelings and emotions is harmful to not only myself but to everyone around me.  I have tried other ways of bleeding off my feelings and emotions.  In the end, acknowledgement and acceptance was what I needed to try and better myself.

     Yes, I internalize everything in my life.  Someone tells me I'm wrong or tells me I'm stupid for this, that or the other will drag me down so fast.  I will stew on it for days or weeks.  Hell, some things from my childhood will come up in memory and I will flood with shame and embarrassment.  I always kept it to myself.  I have always been to ashamed of myself to allow anyone else in.  I always thought (and still do) 'I am strong enough to handle my own shit!'.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered I was wrong.  I'm…  Wrong…  That is even a tough one for me to sit on.  For most people I assume, it passes through them like wind.  There one second, gone the next.  But I hold on to it.  I don't like to be "wrong".  I fear it.  So I hold it in and beat myself up mentally with it.  People will ask "What's wrong?"  and my response is nothing.  Let the mental self flogging begin.

     I have tried keeping a journal to bleed off the feelings and emotions into the book.  My thought was along the lines of "I will put them all in the book and that will be that!".  That did not work so well.  It helped me work my way through my feelings but I would always get stuck trying to explain some complex feeling or emotion that I did not have the vocabulary to explain.  That can be a downward spiral for me.  My dad got me an 80 lb heavy bag when I was in high school and that was a helpful for the angry feelings.  15 years later in an apartment, not so practical.

     I came to a realization last night.  If I stopped trying to find the absolute description of what I am feeling and just use the base description, I can acknowledge what I am feeling.  Once I have done that I can think a little more clearly to move to the next step.  What I did was, I stopped and sat down.  I had an idea and I wanted to do this scientifically, so controlled environment.  I thought about my problem.  Could be people pissing you off, pretty girls/guys or something you overheard.  It doesn't matter what it is as long as it is something that will weigh on your mind.  I attached the base description to the subject, anger, attraction, fear…  Then to do something which was impossible before.  I had to accept it.

'I am angry, and I am OK with that.'

'That person is beautiful, and I am OK with that.'

'I am afraid of upcoming events, I am OK with that.'

     I did not just have to accept it.  I had to accept it in my mind and my heart.  And when I came out of that, I really was OK with it.  I have found something that works for me for now.  Maybe it can help someone else, that is why I am sharing this with all of you.

     I don't have answers, only ideas.  Things change, and with change comes new ideas and new choices.

On Mindfulness and Haste

    When one eats these days, one does so in haste.  It is difficult to remain mindful when you are in haste.  These days our lives move so fast around us that we are not/ cannot be mindful of what is around us or what is going on.
     Every thing that is in our lives these days has to do with haste.  And all we want is to reach our retirement.  So basically we are hurrying up to wait.  LOL.  In not being mindful and patient, are we teaching ourselves "bad habits"?  Its hard to think about since everything in our lives that we think of is NOW, even though were not thinking NOW, were thinking about whats next.  And if your thinking about whats next then your not being mindful.
     Example!!  I grabbed a little bag of Fruit Snacks.  I love those darn things.  So I put one in my mouth,  chewed about three times and then swallowed the bite.  Then I thought,  "Wow!  That was quick!"  I looked down to see the bag open in my left hand and the next snack ready in my right.  When I was chewing the first snack I was not thinking about the tasty snack as I chewed it or exploring its flavor, no I was thinking about the next snack in my right hand and past that I was thinking about the rest of the snacks in the bag.  I was not in the NOW.  I was thinking ahead.  I was living in haste.  I was not being mindful.
     I notice this elsewhere too.  When I am at work, my bosses want everything done as fast as possible.  And when that happens the quality of our work suffers greatly.  This bothers me because "I see it".  The bosses don't see it until there is a bottom line or a complaint.  Then we have to do the work again.  Could we not get more done if we did the job right the first time with mindfulness?  The best that I can do in that situation is to be as mindful as I can of my job and hope to be able to show that "Haste makes Waste" to put a corny ring to it.
     So with that said.  I leave you with this.  Slow down and be mindful of our life.  Learn the difference between NOW, NEXT and THEN and understand why mindfulness should come first.  Be patient and take the time to think about what you are doing, what you are experiencing and how you feel about it.

Getting Sick

So a couple of days ago I noticed that I was getting sick. 'Goddammit!' I thought to myself, 'I cant afford to get sick again.' it all started with a sore back. Not the whole back mind you. Just about where your heart is suppose to be and in the back, one sore spot about the size of my fist.

I had spent the weekend in a Mine Craft binge. 'Jesus Christ!' When I go on a gaming binge, I go all out. 12-16 hours? No problem. Sitting in my computer chair with horrible gaming posture, ya I was fucked from the get go. I started with a hole in a hill, and when I quit I had a vicious mine, A perfect farming technique, an awesome home with plenty of storage and room to grow. When I finally went to bed I was tired. I stayed up on Sierra Mist, cheese quesadillas and the pure drive to have some fun.

I woke the next day with a back so sore that it all most hurt too much to breathe deep. I am not a fan of this! I dealt with it with 2 Ibuprofen. It was still there the next day so I dealt with it now with 4 ibuprofen. I was going to knock this son of a bitch out. I got to work and my friend told me “Its from sitting at your computer like this.” He slumped his body like a hunchback at a computer. My thought of someone entering troll-mode. “You need to stretch.” he said. But of-course! He was right goddammit. I got home and stretched that fucker right out. It felt instantly better after that. I sat down at my computer and I started to feel something in my back. I thought 'Not this time you son of a bitch' and wrenched my self in-to better posture.

The next day I woke with a slight sore throat. 'I must have slept with my mouth wide the fuck open again. I should take some Zycam just in case... Fuck-it, I don't need no Zycam!' I went along with my day. I noticed that it did not go away so I took yet again more ibuprofen. 'fuck you sore throat!' I thought. The next day I woke with a worse sore thought and a voice that was working the lower register. 'If only my voice could stay deep like this, I wouldn't sound like a little fucking nerd.'

I went to work and my voice got worse and worse. 'Jesus! If I lost my voice entirely! What a joy that would be. My mind is expressed with my hands and my heart with my voice. I am too fucking lazy to type all the time so if someone asked me something they would have to submit it through email. I would get to it at my leisure. I would not learn sign language. Fuck that. I could just imagine walking up to some one signing my intentions and them thinking 'What the fuck is this guys problem? His hands! He has lost control of his fucking hands, a donkey raping an owl... WTF!' I would get shot. I would just carry business cards that said “I am mute”.

I got home and I realized I should have taken the fucking Zycam. 'Dammit! Well it's too late now and there is no use in bitching about it.' I went to my den and crashed on my couch so I would not infect my family. 'Fat chance!' I woke up the next morning and felt like shit. I was hacking up shit that should be clear to a healthy person. 'Well Asshole your officially sick! You should call in to work and tell them you ain't coming in.' “What the fuck man” I tried to say. What came out was something like “ hhhhhhhht the fuuuuuu aaaaaaaaa” My voice was mostly gone. 'There better be fuckin coffee' I thought. I went to the kitchen and sure enough there was 6 cups of freshly brewed Colombian Supremo. I poured my self a cup, sat down and thought.

'Well I'm sick again, time to start the routine of vicious hand washing and purging the lungs of crap.' Luckily I could feel that this would be a relatively easy one to pass, but I still was not a fan. 'Son of a bitch.' I thought, 'here we go!' I took another sip of my coffee and looked forward...

Duck, duck, duck GOOSE!!!

I got an idea. The next time we have someone we need to kill, lets destroy our selves in the process AND stretch the fight out for 10 years. Oh wait! We just did! America spent over a trillion dollars trying to bring Bin Laden to so called (Justice). Now a terrorist act against the american people will rally them for a short time, and the amount of time is justified. It stops when the expense out weighs the gain. The problem was that no-one could get through to tell them to stop. And this is what you (the American Voter) votes for. A government that blows your tax dollars on the head hunting of one man. Now granted they caught and killed many followers and his officers, but we're talking about the primary target, Bin Laden. We are supposedly an example to the world of Democracy... Ok look at it this way, you have an old Mustang or Camero that you want to restore. How much is that restoration worth to you. thats right I said it! If you caught it, its a material thing that in all actuality will not pay you back. So if you dump a million bucks, a marriage and an alienated family into the car, you mean to tel me that the car is now replacing those things in your life. I think not.

iPad and ebook readers - what journalist don't get.

The Amazon Kindle started the paperless book (with out eye burning screen). What is the Kindle? An Electronic book reader. And a great job they did too. Being able to download your books with out having to connect your Kindle to your PC was a great selling point. Electronic ink makes for a very comfortable read.

Now Apple has come out with there iPad. Some call it the iPhone on steroids. Others are saying it is the death of the Kindle. What is the iPad? The iPad is an "ultra mobile PC". Taking mobile devices to new levels, Apple had started the next chapter of computers.

So if your comparing the Kindle to the iPad, your comparing a book reader to a PC. Its like comparing a book to your home theater system. One has a couple of uses, the other has many!

The OS War

I have been doing a fair bit of research lately that has caused me to look at many things differently regarding MS, Mac, and GNU-Linux. I came to this.

When looking at the different operating systems on and off the market today, its not really "which one is better?" because there all great. The question becomes, "What is your knowledge "level" so to say with a computer?".

Mac OSX and Snow Leopard - Level 0-1
Built from the ground up with hardware specifically designed to "Just Work" Apple builds there computers and there operating system.

Microsoft Windows - Level 1-2
Built for a bit more customization of your systems hardware, "slowly going away now" but is only an operating system designed to run just about any hardware. And don't forget most games on the market are ported for this operating system.

GNU-Linux Level 3>
Granted being made easier and easier to use with every release of a distribution. Allowing the user "complete" if not maximum control over there system.

SIDE NOTE---
Many people “Bash” these operating system's labeling them as crap, hard to use, not user friendly, etc...
The simple truth is that these people have a few things working against them

A. Inability to accept a new idea or way of doing things
B. Indoctrination
C. If it dose not work the same way as what there use to then it is crap.
Ok these are all the same but do you get the point?

With any operating system there is a learning curve involved and one must understand when switching over to "something different" that "hey, this was written by someone else and may work differently then what I am use to!". If you see advertisements saying “Intuitive” or something like that, it is only a personal opinion rather then a selling point.

The Operating System Wars are NOT carried out by company's like Apple Inc. or Microsoft Inc. Infact the war is fought by the user's of computers like you and me. If fact Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have a working relationship. They have worked together on there various projects together for some time. Anybody wonder why iTunes is available for download on a PC and Microsoft Office is available for Mac's?

To wrap this up the OS wars is just history repeating it's self yet again. We as people did the same thing to black folk and women. Just let it go. Use what your comfortable with and dont hate just because your neighbor dose things “differently”.

More so today that the war has spread to the phone market now with Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone and the various Linux phones on the market. The phone market in my opinion has really heated up the war! But what do you think. What are your opinions?

The Meaning of life

The Meaning of life
More garbage and mindless babble
TR Wells

There are millions of questions that get asked everyday. One such question is “What is the meaning of life?”. This question has floated around civilization since who knows when. Every one has there own opinion on the question and we all know what opinions are like... I will share mine with who ever was unfortunate enough to read my garbage. To answer that we could (or I would) ask “What is the drive that pushes us through life?” or something like that. To me it seems to be Choice. Every thing we do is based on what we choose. Every thing we have done and every segment of our future is base on choices. We choose to get out of bed in the morning, not because we have to. We could tell our boss to goto hell, and some of us do! Or we can choose not to. John can choose to buy the lady a drink, he might get lucky! Or he can choose to make her buy her own damn drink, he might get lucky and she might buy him a drink! Who knows, I don't.
You and I are not the only ones that make choices! Its everything living thing from the birds to the singe cells in our body's. Birds choose where to forage for there food. And the cells in our body's choose to mutate. If there is a higher celestial being that Planted life on this planet or whatever, then they have on hell of a sense of humor. If life is here just because perfect scientific conditions, then it is a product of being alive. “IT'S ALIVE!!! IT'S ALIIIIIVVEE!”