Halloween Musing

Some spooky thoughts follow - excerpts from a talk presented on Halloween (Full text here.)

Stop Ear Pollution!

Many people are comfortable taking up a cause, something they feel good about. Fine. Let me suggest joining the movement to end Ear Pollution. Let’s define Ear Pollution as the amount of complaints and complaining spoken around the world. Do the math. Wow! Actually, this really is pollution and detrimental to a joy filled life. Don't worry about your "carbon footprint," become more aware of your "complaining footprint."

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you end Ear Pollution? One complaint at a time.

Important difference between a statement of fact and complaining:

• A complaint is NOT a statement of a fact

• A complaint is NOT an observation of someone’s behavior

• A complaint IS personalizing the observation or fact.

Facts are neutral, complaints are charged with negative energy.

It is said that behind every illness lies a complaint. The physical body responds to the thinking, or dominant thought patterns. In a real sense, chronic complaining, and the mind-set it creates, affects health. In a sense it's the question: Does a sick person complain because he/she is ill? Or is a person sick because he/she complains? You don't find people who are happy complain, certainly chronically. I think that gives us a big clue. All you have to do is survey people you know, and yourself as well, and you will see the strong connection between dis-ease and chronic complaining.

Happy Halloween!

Twick or Tweet?

"I wrote 2 U B 4" he twittered. Er, he text messaged. Uh, how about a line in a poem written in 1867? It seems cryptic English is nothing new.

So reports Discover Magazine in its "Good News" section in the November 2010 issue noting an upcoming exhibit at the British Museum - Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices .

Twitter, texting, discrete shorthand - nothing new about that. Indeed, as Alphonse Karr noted a generation before the "2UB4", plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Indeed, the more that changes, the more it's the same thing. That's why the header for this blog includes the admonition from the Oracle at Delphi to "know thyself" as the road to all wisdom.

Evolving English. Perhaps in another generation some wag will blog (twick, or tweet, or merely think, a bundle of thought without need of words) a more succinct manner to engage another. "IMthe1, U2."

You Know It's Fall When...

...somebody makes apple pie..

It's The Little Things

Decades ago I sought to compress my general philosophy into three expressions:

• It's all Good
• Everything I think, say, and do is Important
• Treat every thing as if it were self-aware

It made sense to me, but elaborating on the concepts proved to be quite an adventure. Adventure is defined as "an exciting or remarkable experience". Here follows the update on those three points.

 Whether viewed externally as the Big Bang or other description, such as "And God said..." there appears to be some measure of acceptance that All That Is sprang from a common point/source of energy. I call it Consciousness. A lot of folks aren't ready for that leap, however.

 Whatever exists now is connected to that first cause (conscious or not.) Therefore, in a fit of poetry (see A Gnome, A Candle, And Me) came the following:

IT is all connected

It IS all connected
It is ALL connected
It is all CONNECTED

 That's got to be Good.

 Yet why on Earth would I conclude that everything I thought, said, or did was important? What's the alternative, based on the first premise? We, you, and I are a part of Creation. We exist and we are aware of that. Consciousness. Debates can discuss the "I think, therefore I am" versus "I am, therefore I think" conundrum.

 Perhaps you've had a moment where someone, perhaps a stranger, smiled at you. Maybe they wavedYou know how you felt. And, I suspect, you've also smiled, waved, or thoughtfully appreciated someone. They felt your gesture as surely as you felt theirs. I'd call that Good - an extension of the source Good. In essence, we're all a part of this creative Universe, and by doing our "little things" in every moment we add to that "tide that lifts all boats." Even those boats that don't know they're in the water.

 Treating every thing as if it is self-aware comes easily. Got a name for your car? Love your pet? Chat now and then with your plants? Enjoy a sun rise, sun set, moon, clear sky, etc.? There is a long list of things we appreciate.

 If IT is all connected, then appreciation for every thing makes for a more joy-filled moment. And, like you and me, you feel good when you appreciate something. Appreciation may prove to be the closest thing we have to the elusive concept of Love. In the "all is connected" scheme, appreciation/love may be the creative experience we have with gravity, whatever that universal force may be. Newton described it, Einstein wanted to explain it, but to date gravity remains perplexing.

 The Universe is expanding, confounding many. Gravity should have reached its limit from the Big Bang and begun contracting. It would. Unless, of course, a multitude of little things energize it into another direction.

 What an adventure! So, why not smile, wave, wink, and delight in every one and every thing? It certainly couldn't hurt anything. Who knows, such activity may propel our wonderful Creation forward. Now that's Good!