Archive for the ‘General’ Category

It really is easy to see the worst in people. It doesn’t take any talent or discipline. Just look and the darkest part of humanity is played out plainly in front of our earthly senses. From the tone of our voices, to the clothes we wear or even the smell of our skin, we draw mental conclusions about one another. One has only to be aware of their own self to see others at surface value. And like thinking that ice bergs float upon the water, we only get a small part of the entire individual. Every single “sensing” of another person casts an unfair judgment upon them and in sliding scales of personal and silent criticism. Mostly we see each other through the lens of our own set of preferences, no matter how smart or spiritual we become. We do this through our senses and we relate with our surroundings through the mirror of memory. For instance, my sister thinks I am a saint and my Mom thinks I’m still a kid. One friend thinks I’m a wild rocker while another thinks I’m some computer guru. Some people know that Brooks and Dunn is my favorite group but others would say KISS or Motley Crue. Some clients called me genius, others called me useless. True? Or just partially true?

The fact is that life, (consciousness) does not just happen. The stuff that makes up the cosmos and the billions of stars of the universe does not just become aware of itself without some real God-like love occurring somewhere beyond our ability to sense things. And in this way everyone is truly sacred! Every time a judgment about another person arises in my mind (good or bad), I have to remind myself that I am just like them, we come from the same stuff. Hell, I might even be them if any of the Copenhagen Interpretation holds a drop of accuracy as to what is going on in the unseen world of physics. Everyone is scared. Every single person, no matter where they came from, what they did or what they have achieved, is sacred and valuable to someone (or something) who loves them enough to make them aware of creation.

Every human is a potential miracle for amazing goodness in this world and is a living, breathing monument of the miracle of life. Every human is a earthly product of our environment, social conditioning and merely an image trapped in time (Dio, anyone?). We are the fleshy puppets of fear in some corner of the human genome trying to come to grips with the cycle of life and death. Call it the “Golden Rule”, “Karma”, “What Goes Around, Comes Around” or “Reaping What You Sow”, it appears that the earth and all of us on it, are subject to perception. Let us deem everyone sacred and look for the very best in one another.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” – Martin Muther King, Jr.

If cash in the pocket or our people is any indication of prosperity, our country is in a pretty sorry state. While good, common people burn through savings, lose investments and face foreclosure, our Government continues to focus the extent of its attention on Wall Street. While bankers fund our ruin by way of the Federal Reserve to the tune of Billions of dollars in profit, social security and medicare wither away like dusty promissory notes in an empty vault. Young people are coming out of higher education with no place “higher” to go unless it is with the Government or its contractors. If fact, if it is not government funded and run , its a risky endeavor. Government just can not get Americans to act right towards the corporations that they keep helping so Government gets bigger and the dollar gets weaker. Wall Street has become the measure of the economy.

America was NEVER Wall Street. It used to be Main Street, filled with people that had belief. The belief that they could do anything, have anything and accomplish anything. America was once a place run not by entertainers and personalities, but a place of workers and problem solvers of necessity. Many great men stood in the way of greed and the human tendency to be fat and happy over our history. Mostly dead and their words forgotten, like Kennedy and King. Gradually, our leaders forgot that it was America’s people that was her greatest asset, not Cadillacs. They forgot that families made a country great, not financing. The American people were exploited to buy things and we did. We went from human beings in the minds of our leaders with a Bill of Rights to being merely consumers represented on a projection grid somewhere on Madison Avenue. When we could no longer buy another thing or pay the interest that climbed higher than the original loan, our Government’s allegiance crept from serving the people to serving the products.

There used to be Mom and Pop dreams standing on Main Street but not anymore. There isn’t even a Main Street anymore. There is a Wal-mart or two in every town. There used to be family run drugstores and service stations. Gone. There are Walgreens on every corner because we are all on drugs we can’t afford. There are energy company run conglomerates where we can get gas but no service. Look around or better yet, look back twenty years. You do not even see flags on houses anymore unless things blow up somewhere. No flags but wi-fi in every house and 500 HD channels. Today, we can not find a human answering a phone to assist with any of the things for which we have to pay. Why should they talk to people that have to pay? If you are going to make a purchase though, talking to someone and being treated well is almost guaranteed. Kindness is easy to find when we are paying, harder to find when we can not. For most of America an e-mail address is only a means to sell something to a faceless consumer.

But we did this. We let this become the norm. We had to go faster, be more efficient, mulit-task and automate so we could get more (fill in the blank). The American dream used to be something we did together but it became a contest of how high we could climb stepping on heads and breaking each others back. We played the game and the corporate sponsors cashed in on the show. All this is SO ironic considering communism, so long fought as an evil force on the earth, wins a long and silent war without firing a single shot. Hong Kong is boom town and Main Street is a freaking ghost town. I wonder if the dead veterans would like the idea of dying for our “chicken fried” and consumer slavery.

I always knew I would live to see the end of America. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, America often seemed like the fat, spoiled kid down the street. He was big enough to kick your ass and would if you crossed him but mostly he was content filling his face and looking at his Dad’s Playboys. The rules were easy on the block and at the bus stop, don’t mess with “his”. And if “his” was “yours”, so be it. If you were his “friend”, life was good even if he was a bully. Not only was he a bit of a thug, he was scared. Scared of everything. You could see it on his face. He was afraid people were not doing right, living right or agreeing with him. He would fight you just for thinking wrong. If history is any teacher at all, I knew that kind of control could not last for long. One day someone would beat his ass or he would be too stupid to change and just fade away. America, at least in my lifetime has been like that guy, fighting wars in he smallest, poorest places on the globe and scare to death. Fear like that has produced little over the past twenty years but eating disorders, new illnesses, lots of prescriptions and addictions to everything.

Somehow America never got big enough to exist without fear. This is the story of the end of our country. We are watching it happening right now nearly powerless in our fear that we may not be able to afford a latte one day. Perhaps we will live to see society evolve yet again. Maybe the cup of human want will be filled to the extent that humans will want for something else. Like the use of all that humanity has to offer, to serve all of humanity. A single brotherhood, without fear.

In 2002, Seth Godin’s, The Purple Cow was a marketing sensation. We learned why some businesses thrive over others and it made sense. A Purple Cow is something phenomenal, counter-intuitive and flat-out amazing. A Purple Cow gets noticed simply because consumers come across so much boring stuff (brown cows) that the Purple Cow becomes nearly unforgettable. A recession in late 2008 then began to shrink up our cash flow and many people’s aspiration to be purple. “Getting by”, for many of us is the biggest objective. So what now?

As a freelancer, I have discovered that many businesses (brown and purple), are finding it hard to believe there is enough money out there for their efforts to make a difference. I hear them say things like, “…when this recession thing is over”. There is a prevailing belief that it does not matter to do something great because “…no one has any money”. This view is not entirely true.

In addition to having an exceptional product, dish, experience or service, we have to be willing to do two things; endure inevitable change and fill needs in the lives of others. Without those abilities, it may not matter how good you are or what color your cow might be.

Honestly, I do not know why this cool little place closed two locations. I do know they offered a wonderful experience with great folks behind the counter and on the floor. I will miss your purple shakes, but we have been making them at home. They’re just not purple.

That is what they told us growing up. Work hard, make money and THEN enjoy life. We watched our parents age, crack and splinter under the strain of working to get a Buick and a clothes dryer. They worked hard to make money so they could one day enjoy life but the enjoyment never came for many. Why? Because having gone so long without, they were trained that happiness is a new home, a new car, a diamond ring and to keep up with the Jone’s was healthy. They never told us the Jone’s might be crazy broke and miserable. We inherited a twisted belief that enjoyment comes from work and money.

Money has nothing to do at all with the enjoyment of life. NOTHING. Americans have learned the hard way that the time to enjoy life is right now, regardless of what is going on. The enjoyment of life will be short-lived once we move in, drive away, dial in, bite into or stick it in whatever we think is going to make us happy. We have had it all wrong for so long and never knew it until we had it up to our eyeballs in possessions and bills. Then with the tears in our eyes and prescription bottles in the cabinet we try to fend off the truth that none of this makes us happy at all. There is no wonder we have ailments only found in this country that are related to stress. Let us and future generations learn to enjoy life first, whatever that means for each of us. And may we all find things we love doing and share those things with others!

Old thinking is still around and enjoyment of this wonderful phenomenon called life is being sold for the pursuit of possessions offered to us at interest. This sign which resides at the corner of a busy intersection in Virginia Beach is a recruiting call for automobile salespersons. Where once stood the newest models of vehicles are just empty slabs of gravel and dark spotlights. I guess enough people aren’t working hard enough to “buy” right now.

Enjoy life, do what you love and the money will come. This sign could have read “Enjoy Life? Have Fresh Ideas? Help Us Put Cars Back On These Slabs!”