Maya

I've been thinking about this word a lot over the last few weeks.  The sense of the word that I am thinking about has nothing to do with an ancient people who lived in South America.  The meaning that I have been thinking about is the Hindi definition - the concept of illusion.  It's full meaning is in essence that the physical world is all fake and that the real spiritual world behind it is the truth.

Pretty deep I know, but what I have noticed is that people who I come into contact with in my day to day life all have different opinions about things.  In particular the new health care bill that is being debated.  I have not met one person who likes all of it.  For one reason or other no one seems to be all that thrilled about it.  It seems to me that no one knows the whole truth about it.  One side claims that it will save us billions of money, the other side the opposite.  One side says the government will do a poor job running the whole system and the other the opposite.  So on and so forth to infinity.

Who is right, who is wrong or is it all just an illusion?

The same is true of another subject I was reading about ADHD - what is the real cause of this disorder.  Is it a disease, behavioral problem, the lack of good parenting, or something completely unrelated and unknown.

Illusion.

Behind all of the arguing and possibilities that are "right" according to those people who give the opinion.  Due to the circumstances that have lead me to the point in my life that I find myself at now I have been extremely disillusioned.  This has probably been the most important thing to happen to me.  I don't know how to explain in the proper words how these negative events have been a driving force in my life, but that is how it has worked out.

If the world had not turned on me I would have never been able to see what I do when I examine something and never been lead down the path I am on.

So back to the illusion side of things.  I was recently asked why I didn't share more of my insights and spiritual   thoughts and discoveries.  Well to some point I think to get to the point of understanding you have to seek it out for yourself.  It's something that can't be just given to you without effort and if you aren't ready to hear it, then it's probably not something that will be helpful or even make much sense.

So bottom line start looking at things around you and question even the things you hold most dear.  What is most concerning to me is those things that tend to divide people, like health care, politics, global warming or gay marriage just to name a few.  Is one side more right than another or is there truth in what both sides say?  Do the things people say resonate down to your very soul or do they just cause emotions to well up inside you?  Emotions like anger or fear tend to solidify the illusion that you are seeing even more.  At least they do for me, the calmer and more serene I am able to keep myself the more I am able to see all of this.

I would be a fool if I walked around this world looking at things and saying this is all illusion and it doesn't matter.  That would not be responsible either - after all I still need to earn money, put bread on the table and keep a roof over my head!  What I am trying to say through all of this is that your life can be a lot more enjoyable if you remember that much of what consumes your day is illusion and that for the most part it really doesn't matter.  I'm speaking here more of the things that cause distress because even though at the time they may seem like big problems it is highly unlikely that you will even care about them a month from now.

Try to look beneath the surface of what you experience in this world and if you look at things in the right way many times you will find as I have found more and more that much of life is illusion and the reality that lies beneath the surface illusion is more interesting and makes a whole lot more sense than what you first see.

Sorry again to those who thought this was going to be about the Maya people, 2012 or something like that.  Perhaps that will be a subject for future writing...

Stop the insanity!

I'm moving ever closer to the solution to my chronic problem of mediocrity that stems from my adeptness of biting off more than I can chew. Today I was able to work through a situation that in the past would have likely led me down a path I didn't want to go down.


I have been working doing a little bit of teaching a the University of MN and one of the students in my class asked me if he could something called IPPE, which I'm not going to explain because I myself am not 100% sure I could explain fully. Anyway this would involve me getting registered with the board of pharmacy as a preceptor and with the college to have him come and work at my pharmacy for a couple weeks next spring. Sounds simple enough...

Little did I know that I would soon feel like my two boys who are deep in a snow cave - wondering if it's going to collapse on top of me. It turns out that the amount of work I would have to do would have taken probably about 8 hours if I wanted to do it right. Eight hours of time I really don't have when I have my boys. Then it wouldn't be just him, I would be an official site for many students from now until I die. Students every month, students calling, students asking questions, students saying stupid things to my customers, students thinking they are smarter than me, you get the picture. There also is no pay for any of this work. On top of that it would have to be done by Tuesday - yes that's right 3 days from now. Between now and then I have to work 12 hours, take care of two boys, try to be a good husband, package popcorn, prepare a lecture I've never given before and write 20 test questions for a final that is one week from tomorrow and find sometime to sleep during this time.

So I thought about all of this and I remembered what I had written not that long ago and the light came on. Why was I doing this to myself, why on earth do I need more things to do, I had just written this huge rambling blog on how busy I am and how I want to cut things out of my life. Shortly after this happened my phone rang - it was the student who asked me to do this for him. I didn't want to talk to him right at that moment. Turns out he was calling with bee hive related questions. I finished thinking about all this and called him back after a few hours and told him that I was sorry, but I just didn't have the time or energy to do what I needed to do to get everything done. The professor in charge of the program is not someone I am really fond of either so I wrote her an email and told her the same.

After doing all this I felt relieved, but I also felt like I was standing on top of a mountain. That I had begun to conquer my problem of always having more to do than I have time for. I don't know if this will be the last time I start something I will never be able to keep up with, but I feel like I accomplished something that I am at least moving in the right direction.


(All the above pictures were taken last year - there isn't that much snow here yet in MN!)

The Federal Reserve

The following is an exerpt from (what I am 95% sure of) a pamphlet written by Francis Shoemaker a congressman from Minnesota who served. He was actually born about 30 miles from where I live and had a pretty interesting past. What he wrote is of more importance though. I am working on finding a copy of the text he wrote which is titled "The Federal Reserve Bank (The Greatest Steal In American History)" so that I can confirm the source. What is written below was something I came across and through my powers of deduction and google's help I was able to find out what I think is the source.

What makes me interested and disgusted in this is that right now there is a movement - well one person to audit the federal reserve. It is not being met with much positive talk and after reading the following you may begin to understand why. So when you hear the Federal Reserve Chairman and others who deal publicly with this body you can begin to understand a little better how and why our government runs the way it does.


"Few Americans know of the betrayal that was plotted on Jekyll Island, Georgia, which was destined to defraud Americans of their wealth and opportunity, and would eventually lead to the subjugation of our great democratic experiment to a centralized global dictatorship.

"In November of 1910, after having consulted with the Rothschild banks in England, France, and Germany, Senator Nelson Aldrich boarded a private train in Hoboken, N.J. His destination was a hunting club owned by JP Morgan.

"Aboard the train were six other men: Benjamin Strong, President of Morgan's Bankers Trust Co., Charles Norton, President of Morgan First National Bank of New York, Henry Davidson, senior partner of JP Morgan, Frank Vanderlip, President of Kuhn Loeb's National City Bank of New York, A. Platt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and Paul Warburg. The secret meeting, as described by one of its architects, Frank Vanderlip, went as follows.

"There was an occasion near the close of 1910 when I was as secretive, indeed as furtive, as any conspirator. I do not feel it is any exaggeration to speak of our secret expedition to Jekyll Island as the occasion of the actual conception of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System.

"We were told to leave our last names behind us. We were told further that we should avoid dining together on the night of our departure. We were instructed one at a time....where Senator Aldrich's private car would be in readiness, attached to the rear end of the train for the South. Once aboard the private car, we began to observe the taboo that had been fixed on last names. Discovery, we knew, simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would be wasted.

"The goal was to establish a private bank that would control the national currency. The challenge was to slip the scheme to the representatives of the American people. Earlier, it had been called the Aldrich Bill and received effective opposition.

"The planners of the revised bill titled it "The Federal Reserve Act" to mask its real nature. It would create a system controlled by private individuals who would control the nation's issue of money. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve Board, composed of twelve districts and one director (the Federal Reserve Chairman) would control the nation's financial resources by controlling the money supply and available credit, all by mortgaging the government through borrowing.

"The plan worked. The Federal Reserve Bill was held until December 23 (two days before Christmas) before it was presented to the House and Senate. Only those senators and congressmen who had not gone home for the holidays -- those who owed favors to, or were on the payroll of, the bankers were present to sign the legislation.

"The name 'Federal Reserve Bank' was designed to deceive, and it still does. It is not federal, nor is it owned by the government. It is privately owned. It pays its own postage like any other corporation. Its employees are not civil service. Its physical property is held under private deeds and is subject to local taxation (government property is not)."

The more things change the more they stay the same.

The way out

I mentioned in my last blog that when I have a problem staring me in the face and I feel hopeless that it will never be solved most of the time I will fuss about it and then after a while - sometimes after at least a few months a solution will present itself.

I generally have to take a big step back from it and look at it as a big picture. The problem I spoke about was in my last blog was one that I had to deal with about 4 years ago. I wasn't very happy with my life, my job, just my situation. I felt like every aspect of it was controlled by someone other than me. I felt hopelessly trapped and didn't see any way out of it.

It really bothered me for quite some time. This again was something that overall I never thought I could solve. It's a little fuzzy now, but what I do remember is that somewhere along the way I began to realize that even though in the present moment I don't have a lot I can do to change what is happening I could do two things. The first and most difficult was to accept things the way they were at that very moment in time. If there was any aspect of my life that I didn't like I had to get it through my head that I was the problem, not the situation that I disliked.

The other part of the solution had to do with this, but with one minor albeit important difference. That I had the choice on how to act towards these situations. That there were parts of my life that no one else could control - that being what goes on in my head. Even thought at the time I wanted to have more visitiation with my children I could let the limited time I did have them make me miserable. I had to make the best of the time and try to do the most enjoyable things I could think of with them. I could arrange my schedule so that I didn't have anything when I did have them. Once I was able to do this I began to notice that my life wasn't all that bad. That even though things were not the way I wanted them to be at the present moment that they would more than likely change.

The big picture showed me that massive changes in my life put me in the present unlikable situation I was in and that more than likely there would be more unforseable massive changes lurking on the horizion.

Am I perfect at this? Not by a long shot, but I have more happy days than sad days now and if there is something in my life that I don't like I know that if I can accpet it for what it is and then decide if it is really that bad or if there is something that I can do to change it.

So will a solution to my busy problems surface like the one I had to my choices problem. I don't know, but today I am able to sit back and wait for it to happen. Why did I title my blog the way out. The solution that I discovered - living in the moment is the way out of suffering for me and will be for the rest of my life. What will the solution to being overinterested in life be? Time holds the secret.

Busy

I almost feel bad at times that I don't get to write more.  This fact sort of got me going and made me start thinking again.  Why do I do all that I do?  Why do I do anything?  Why do I feel I need to cram as much as I possibly can in to each and every day at the expense of sleep and eating properly.

I can break things down a little into different categories, work, family, farm stuff, teaching, cleaning, eating, reading, hobbies, and so on into inifinity.  Some things get pushed out, like watching TV.  I will watch movies or TV shows on DVD, but that is pretty much my limit.  Most of the time due to my erratic work schedule I am not able to commit a particular time and day of the week to watch a show and I am too cheap to buy a TIVO or pay for satellite TV.  I was asked to join the local Lions club in town.  I told them I would go to a meeting and then never showed up.  Then I feel bad because I said I would.

On top of all of this there I things I would like to learn to do.  I would like to learn spanish, I want to learn how to make brooms out of broom corn, to be more organized, to just be a better person.

It tends to drive me crazy at times, then when I do have things I know need to be done that can be put off I do things that I really don't need to do.  For example tonight I am writing and should have gone to bed because I have to get up early in the morning.  I worked for an hour and a half at cleaning out my shed instead of writing test questions for the final in the class I teach.  I just find countless ways to do nothing when I have things that need to get done.  I procrastinate until the last minute and then rush through.

I have tried to set priorities, to make some things more important than others.  What I want to spend more time doing I end up losing interest in and then don't want to finish it.  I end up putting most of my effort into my job because I make money doing it.  I enjoy parts of it, probably the people part of it and not the mundane details that have to get done each day. 

I look at motivation to do things, I've accomplished many things in my life that had nothing to do with anything but my own motivation to do them.  I don't think that is the issue either.  The same is true of just about everything, I tend to seek out different things or activities and then when I've mastered them I get bored with them and drift to something else.

I don't know what drives this tendency towards mediocaty.  I suppose it's fear to some point.  I imagine some has to do with having a bizzare work schedule, trying to be more things to too many people.  I sometimes feel that if I could just quit doing one thing or another it would free up time to do all the other activities that I do.  For example I used to golf on a somewhat regular basis.  The last time I golfed was six years ago.

Someday I'll sort this all out and find a way to feel less busy and still be active in many things.  It's one of those things that I sit and stew about and about six months or a year later some sort of idea pops into my head that sort of solves the problem.  If only there was some way days could be made longer...