Just woke up from a dream knowing I’d had it before. This dream stars the house that I grew up in being possessed by a very dark entity that can simply smother my existence. I always end up having a scary showdown with this big, evil, black, oppressive mass (much like the ‘monster’ in the TV show Lost, but instead of just black smoke, like condensed evil that is very formidable).

I’ve read that recurring dreams gives insights into oneself. Many philosophers and scientist have studied their meanings and purpose or even given them insights into the future or past of the dreamer. Sigmund Feud found that dreams could be analyzed to understand how the unconscious worked and found dreams often showed the mind dealing with or repressing feelings. The sleeping prophet, Edgar Cayce was able to read dreams to help people understand their spiritual, mental, and physical being, giving guidance on the ‘correct’ course to continue on.

Recurring dreams repeatedly point out something you need to fix. I believe the message in my particular dream in that I need to stop letting the negativity of others affect my self. Not only do I need to deny the negativity entry so that it cannot overtake me, but I need to stand up to it with impenetrably positive core that allows me to do what I need to do.

I think it is wise for anyone that knows they had the same dream more than once, to think about what is negatively affecting them in their life that the dream is pointing out, and address it. Especially if your repeating dream is a nightmare like mine!

Actually, fascinated once again.  I read my first George Saunders story in The New Yorker in about 2000. It’s difficult to describe how I was affected–I laughed out loud, but was also pierced.  Today in the New York Times magazine there is a piece examining Saunders and his work. It reminded me how exciting his work is, and revealed how wonderful he is as a human being.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magazine/george-saunders-just-wrote-the-best-book-youll-read-this-year.html?pagewanted=all

Saunders teaches writing at Syracuse, along with Mary Karr, a fellow Texan whose books I’ve read and loved. (They were both contemporaries and acquaintances of David Foster Wallace, another writer I admire a great deal). I looked at The New Yorker to see what Saunders has written lately that I’ve missed. Happily, there are a number of things.

This is the only one I read today:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2012/10/i-was-ayn-rands-lover.html

I’ve been alive about 33 years and have been extremely lucky to exist during the awakening and domination of the computer age.

Thanks to a brother who realized the potential of computers early, my family had his computer-hand-me-downs and I was playing Doom with the fastest computer and the fastest connection on the block (a severe advantage in modem deathmatch regardless of how well you play). I’ve been computer-centric ever since.

Last week I came across the Automator on my mac. It’s an application that allows the automation of repetitive tasks. In fact, it actually can control pre-defined tasks from other applications.

For those of us who do not know programming, cannot write a piece of code, or figure out a program’s API to pull data, it brings automation into the hands of us instead of it being restricted to programmers.

The moment I understood the Automator’s powers, I wanted every piece of software to have defined tasks that I could manipulate with Automator. Instead of actually having to do computer grunt work… I’d just have to set it up once, and press play from then on. It should be the new standard for programs!

Here is the Wikipedia page on it if you want a better explaination – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automator_(software)

Its author is Edwin A. Abbott, who published it in 1884.  It is primarily set in a two-dimensional world whose inhabitants cannot conceive of depth or height, and grow defiantly angry from fear if the concepts occasionally arise.  (Abbott was satirizing the Victorians.)  His main character is A. Square (a square), a lawyer and mathematician who lives in Flatland, but in the course of the book visits Lineland and Spaceland.  Women in Flatland are…just lines.

I’m headed out to the King Tut exhibit today and thought I’d do a little pre-visit research on King Tutankhamun. I found a pretty comprehensive site on King Tut and as I was exploring his life, curse, and various info on the Valley of the Kings, I was really surprised to come across the following in their History of Ancient Tombs section:

“The Ancient Egyptian religion held the belief that each person was thought to have three souls:

• The “Ka” – “soul” or “vital energy” – a “double” of a living person. The heart was considered to be the seat of the Ka
• The “Ba” – said to emerge from the body at death, similar to a ghost who could visit previous haunts of the mortal world”

First, I was interested that they didn’t list the third one, but then it came to me, it must be Mer, as in Mer-Ka-Ba.

One of the books that began my fascination with metaphysics was the Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life volumes by Drunvalo Melchizedek. The merkaba is a central topic and is well worth the mind exploration that ensues. Be careful if you are on a search for life meaning though, as it could alter your whole life course.

If you are now intrigued, here is a good intro to Merkaba. I also suggest reading the books by Melchizedek (especially volume 2).

I was watching “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” last night and was blown away (again)… yes, not the first time I’ve watched it but definitely needed to be taken to a different place.

I thought I’d see who was the director and it turns out it was Ken Burns… also turns out Ken Burns will be featuring his new film at MountainFilm in Telluride!

Maybe I need to take a trip to the Rockies .

I watched a TED talk (so many inspiring speakers that make me extremely happy to be alive today) concerning the moral roots of liberals and conservatives. At the end, the presenter, Jonathan Haidt, drove home the concept of moral humility and the act of removing oneself from being for or against anything.

He referenced Seng-Ts’an, a zen master who died in 609 AD. Here are some transcriptions of his work Hsin Hsin Ming. I’ve copied a piece of it below to make it easier to read, but the words in total are worth reading.

Hsin Hsin Ming (The Mind of Absolute Trust)

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

It is a fascinating concept to be able to remove yourself from all the concepts you hold dear and have a true open mind.

There is plenty to be said about Occupy Wallstreet and Occupy Main Street and Occupy Austin and Occupy Seattle and… and the opportunities for real change that it presents.

I am proud of this movement simply for the conversations that it creates. For those camping and maintaining the movement… for the noble motives of representing democracy in the face of communities that have a great deal of extreme members including radicals and homeless… for the media coverage engaging the world and the opinions of Yea! or Nay! that come from it.

As a person that has been mostly a bystander, I will say the idea that draws me more than any other is the potential for this movement to create a new political party… one that is not left or right, but one of moral humility, that instead of being in a haste to represent a side, represents a middle and retains its total awareness, in the face of opportunities to be bought, or sell out, or compromise humanity.

I hate giving my phone number out and I am sure most people do… especially to strangers (digital and physical). I have a Google Voice account that I use sometimes since I can be more in control in how that number is routed… but it still doesn’t solve my issue of wanting to not give my number out!

I was checking into it, and it appears that there are actually numbers created just for this… the 555 numbers. I don’t know how accurate the Wikipedia page is on it, but it says “only 555-0100 through 555-0199 are now specifically reserved for fictional use – except for the 800 area code where only 800-555-0199 is reserved” which is AWESOME.

There is NO LOITERING ALLOWED on this planet, move along please!

Wake-up, brush teeth, get in car, listen to NPR, arrive at work, attend meetings, go to lunch at corner cafe, have an afternoon cup of coffee, watch the clock, walk by the same folks on the way to the car, sit in traffic, listen to NPR, pull in the driveway, put your briefcase on the ottoman, hope someone made dinner, decline other activities because work wore you out, stay up too late fooling around on the web, crawl into bed wondering were the last three years went.

I have goals and dreams; I have to make them happen…but instead I am a functioning cog and it seems like I am encouraged to be just that —> have a good job, nice things, great credit, kept appearance —> an all-around non-loitering, functioning member of society… and I do not know how to break free to follow my dreams.

The problem is, I have to loiter if I’m going to make my very worthwhile dreams come true. I have to sit and think, I have to have time to sit and think, and I have to have my necessities taken care of so I can think and perform the tasks that it takes to achieve my dreams.  As a thirty-year-old, I can move into my parent’s shed for the next six months and actually make my dreams come true… but my parents would not understand the value in their child living in the shed and most everyone else wouldn’t see it either. But it doesn’t matter, even if I had a place to exist without having to pay for basics, I have to pay back loans for an education and I have to insure everything I own in case of accident or malfunction… got to make the cold, hard cash.

So, I can save up so that I can handle my “idling” expenses while I pursue my dreams, I can double up on work so that I  can make progress on my dreams at night (which would make 16 hours of computer staring), I can loose everything I own and go into default and bum off of soon-to-be-ex-friends, I could find a higher paying job and pay someone to make my dreams materialize, or I could just give up and go to work, come home, have a beer, sleep and do it again, all the while feeling like all I really need to do is be more productive than I already am.

Dear person, you are the only one who will make your dreams come true; here is some happiness advice.

Watching “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.” It is a pretty awesome series… and Stephen Hawking is a pretty amazing mind. Quite frankly, we are all amazing, imperfect creations, and we are all screwed (if we don’t get us, or a comet doesn’t get us, or a gamma ray burst doesn’t get us, the sun will definitely get us!). I’m not sure we can even relax enough to say, “at least in our lifetime the earth will not be destroyed how we know it.” I will say, that I think cutting NASA funding was a mistake.

The video talked of a planet “like” earth named Gliese 581g that I have since been slightly fascinated with… since potentially, in thousands of years, we might possibly inhabit it… who knows.

Have you noticed that bands are now seemingly required to do musical encores after there main set?

Why do them if they are not really an encore… because it is expected? It used to be an uncontrollable display of desire by the audience to just get one more taste of a performance!!!, now just a regiment, lackadaisical clapping will do.