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Silence is golden. Have you ever heard that phrase before? I believe it is a phrase that is mostly used in Eastern cultures, where in the Western Hemisphere, we are more inclined to think that noise is golden. I have attempted, many times, to take a vow of silence, but if you alert someone that you are taking a vow of silence for a day, a week, or even a month/year, then they will invariably do anything they can to break it, by asking you direct questions, bothering you until you can’t take it anymore, or a variety of other distractions. Taking a vow of silence, even if for just one day, can give you an insight of how much energy we waste on unnecessary speech. All the small talk and boring tirades about how miserable your life is take a backseat to your modesty and your ego nearly melts away. People don’t really get a feel for what is going on inside your head, even though body language speaks volumes about your mood.

I have gone without talking for hours on end, but something or someone always breaks my concentration in not talking. Talking is the primary way in which we communicate with other people. But everybody needs a break from constantly stressing that vocal chord until it gets hoarse with strain. It is more of a spiritual practice than a physcial one, however. I find it allows you to gain peace with your mind, as it is the only thing you have left to communicate to yourself.

I don’t attempt these vows with any sort of external approval from anyone. It is not what I seek. I attempt to do this for my own peace of mind, reflection, and awakening to how much I talk when I really don’t have anything meaningful to say. I hate it when people talk because they feel uncomfortable with silence. There’s always got to be something to fill the void. Why? Why can’t we just allow a little bit of silence into our lives? Just enough to gain perspective on the rest of our life.

Delve into the mind for a change, instead of delving in external circumstances. Allow yourself to be. Don’t place any expectations on a vow of silence because the experience you have will be worth it. As I’ve said, although I have not been able to do it for more than a day due to many distractions, I’ve done it for over six hours at a time and feel totally relaxed and energized at the same time. Quieting down quiets the mind.

I cannot forsee myself ever taking a very long vow of silence, for years or decades. This is unless I go into the woods somewhere for years and don’t come into contact with another human being, that is. If I were to go away for awhile, to the mountains or the forests, I could definitely go for a long, extended period of time. But in today’s terrible society, it is nearly an impossibility, unless I carried a dry erase board around my neck at all times. Or maybe a tape recording of sayings I believe will come up if I need them.

I try certain experiments involving nonverbal communication and find that it is more difficult to get the primary point across so the other party can understand. Sometimes it’s successful, like a wave or a smile, but other times, like explaining the theory of relativity, you may need some sort of visual aid, or some sort of writing to get the message through.

I find that the less I talk, the more I listen. This may seem obvious, but it also seems like people will talk to you more because they are desperately looking for something to fill the void of silence. If they held the belief that silence was golden, then they would also be silent and it would be a much less noisy world. Just now, I heard a child screaming from outside my window. It’s sort of ironic because I never har that sort of thing around here at this hour. Maybe it always occurs, but due to my writing this article as well as listening more, I am more in tune to hearing such things.

This brings me to arguments. I hate how some people think that if they state their point in a loud, rambunctious manner, showing anger and lack of command for the volume of their voice, that their point is more valid than someone who modestly says what is on their minds in a deadpan way of speaking. I don’t like it when things like that happen because the louder person will often interrupt the point of the quieter person by dismissing it completely. They don’t even take time to listen to the other’s point of view. This is key. When taking a vow of silence, you are more susceptible to hearing others’ points of view about whatever. This allows you to fully take in what the other person is saying and then question whether or not it is valid.

I’ll never forget my fourth grade teacher whose idea of “holding the spoon” forever changed my concept of the way arguments should be settled. She took out a wooden spoon and she allowed the person to talk who was holding the spoon. The other person was not allowed to talk until they were given the spoon. So this sort of thinking gave each person an uninterrupted time to give their point, and then have an equal amount of time to listen to the other person’s point. Very balanced and fair.

So through all of this, I hope you make it a priority in life to listen more and talk less. I find it to be very enlightening, as many people have great bits of wisdom to share with you. Nobody knows everything and it’s always good to get some new information in your head. So allow others to speak first, and then offer your point of view and see how they collaborate. You might be surprised.

So my new vow of silence will be modified. Don’t speak while others are speaking, and don’t let my ego get too centered in an argument that doesn’t really affect me that much. Also, to allow silence to come back into my life. Thank you.

I saw a very intersting documentary called America:  Freedom to Fascism, which covered a variety of topics.  http://www.mercola.com/2006/dec/12/america-freedom-to-fascism.htm  The most amazing part of the documentary had to do with how there is no actual law that forces us to pay income tax and that the government is now run by the Federal Reserve, a private bank, which is striving to control the world.  Aaron Russo, the director, editor, and main character in this film, goes from former commsisioner to acting commisioner to show him the law that says they have to pay income tax.  He never gets a law.  Then he visits a juror on a tax evasion case, who says they were going to charge this person as guilty, but then realized the judge would not let them see the law.  They asked for it several times, and the judge responded by saying, “You have all you need.” 

The documentary then goes into how the government granted the Federal Reserve Bank power to print money whenever they want, without anything to back it up, making money more worthless by the second.  One of the worst aspects on this documentary was how the IRS can just seize property without any rhyme or reason or without guilt of any crime.  This one family had all their assets taken away because of false allegations, and they were never even brought to court.  The whole scenerio seems unfair.  How can a government we’re supposed to trust enforce laws that don’t exist?  How is that even remotely possible?  I’ll tell you how.  They do it with brute force, using guns and arresting people who supposedly did not file a 10-40, which is not even a law, and then not allowing the 1913 Supreme Court decision into their defense, saying that Supreme Court decisions are irrelevant.  How sick is this?  Completely disgusting!

It doesn’t end there.  In 2008, the government is striving to come out with a government ID card that has fingerprints, social security numbers, retinal scans, and a list of everything that has to do with you.  Not only that, they are planning to implant every human being and product bought with a very small, miniscule chip, smaller than a grain of sand, so that they can track you, what you buy, where you are at all times, as well as the things you buy.  It even went over how badly the Patriot Act has taken away much of our freedom.  The narrator compared where this is heading to Nazi Germany.

If the banks are in control, we’re all in big trouble.  The government actually allowed this to happen and Congress has actually lost much of its power now that the banks are in control.  The people you see in power are pawns of the banking industry, who are looking to make a world government, so that they can control everything.  They call this a New World Order, which essentially means they are going to have control over the whole world.  And it all starts with these government ID cards, which will allow all of us to be tracked continuously, even moreso than today.

What many of you may or may not know is that the government is already tracking you with a variety of things.  Your credit card, your car, your supermarket club card, and a host of other media I’m not going to get into.  The documentary talked about how George Orwell got it almost completely right in his novel “1984.”  What we are becoming is the exact opposite of a democracy, and it all started with 9/11.  I remember watching a documentary that speculated convincingly that 9/11 was a fraud perpetrated by the government to gain control over the country and to exercise its new-found trust to go into Iraq and Afghanistan to have them become part of a new world order.  There are common threads in many of these documentaries. 

I will bring in one more piece of information I recently had seen on the popular health website:  Mercola.com.  It was just a small clip, but here is the gist of it.  Why are their poisons in our water supply, our food supply, that are not required to be listed on the food labels?  Why do they use constant pesitcides and herbicides that have neurotoxins in them?  Why is their fluoride in our toothpaste?  Here’s what’s going on.  All of these chemicals are waste products from chemical plants and instead of disposing of them properly, they pass them off as good for you and put them in products that people use on a daily basis.  Why?  Because they are attempting a process of dumbing down society.  By dumbing down society through these neurotoxins, they are making the majority of people heavily dependent on government.  Also, as they are dumbing down, they are not able to see these complex schemes in action and remain completely oblvious to our manipulation. 

So, what can we do to stop this?  We need to all band together, storm the White House and demand answers about income tax, poisoning water, and a host of other things.  Let us see the gold that backs up our money, for Christ’s sake!  I am totally pissed about all of this, but I am not surprised in the least bit.  Please, don’t believe everything the government and media feeds you.  It will ultimately lead to your death.  Thank you for listening.

 Sidenote:  I had already suspected some of this before watching these movies, but this only reaffirmed my belief in power being completely and utterly corrupt to the point of no return.  THis was not the country our founding fathers envisioned.  Look at how terrible our leaders have become, inhumane even.  I’m tempted to go off and live in the mountains somewhere just to get away from this incivility.  I now realize my money has no inherent value and that’s how I sort of felt like in the first place anyway.  I may, indeed, go off into the wilderness to live for awhile and grow my own food and drink my own water, but the world is so contaminated these days I’d have to find a totally untouched area.  Here’s to hoping. 

We are all the creators of our own life.  Nothing happens by chance.  Everything that has happened to us is a result of conscious or subconscious thoughts.  We create our own lives by perpetuating thoughts of wealth, health, greed, selfishness, selflessness, and many others.  We only experience things because we believe they are possible.  So if we have this sort of power, how do we unleash it to the fullest extent to create a life that fills us with joy and passion?  How can we get out of a scarcity mindset when we’re certain we won’t have enough money to pay this month’s mortgage payment?  How do you create the life you want without sabotaging yourself with limiting beliefs?

One useful tool, as discussed in the blog entry, Gratitude, states that being thankful for what you already have incorporates a definite higher vibrational intention in your mind.  If you spend your time worrying about what you don’t have, you’ll start a string of negative thoughts that will eventually manifest in your reality.  If you start to bethankful for your life, your family, what material possessions you do have, then you will start to realize that acknowledging what you already have and putting a positive emotion on that will allow you to attain more of what you want.  Here’s the logic behind this:  If you show you appreciate a gift from someone, it brings them joy, doesn’t it?  It will make them feel more inclined to do this again, correct?  He/she knows that if he/she gets you a gift, then you will appreciate it.  I believe the universe works the same way.  So, if you appreciate what the universe has already handed to you,then you open yourself up for new gifts.

I remember reading a book three or four years ago that, at the time, completely dissipated my residual cancer effects.  It was called Creating Power.  and it really showed me the power of positive thought, but I had already suspected this.  But one thing the book introduced to me was thanking the universe for something you want, even if you haven’t received it yet.  Show gratitude for the things you have not yet gotten, and it sort of guilt-trips the universe into giving it to you. 

Affirmations are another way to attract the things you want into your life, but they are time-consuming and repetitive, so if you don’t have that sort of time, I’d suggest just using visualization of what you want whnever you are doing nothing.  Think clearly about what you want and imagine that you already have this.  Then put out the intention to have what you just visualized and you will be on your way to receiving it.  It may take five minutes a day, but don’t sabotage yourself by thinking the opposite the rest of the day.  If you want financial abundance in your life, don’t spend five minutes concentrating on that and the rest of your time concentrating on how you never have enough money.  Your dominant thoughts will manifest.

This is why it is important to not focus on what you don’t have.  Focusing on what you don’t have will create more of not having.  Focusing on what you do have and the intention to expand what you do have, while being thankful for what you have and the opportunity to expand is what will allow you to create more.   But don’t deny what you are already getting.  Don’t do affirmations like, “I am a millionaire,” if you are not a millionaire, because doing that lowers your consciousness.  Say something like, “Every moment I am allowing one million dollars to come to me, as I am thankful for it.”  Something along those lines.  It’s a very intersting process as I have witnesses some truly bizarre ways for money to come into my life.  I may go over these in a future post. 

If you got everything you wanted, what would you do with it?  Would you end up wanting more and more and more, until you completely got out of whack with yourself?  Or would you remain thankful and be content with what you’re already getting?  Here’s what I have noticed:  It is a long process to get what you want completely, sometimes lasting an entire lifetime.  You may say it takes too long sometimes, but how boring would life be if the second you thought about something, it came to you?  And once you had everything, then what?  So, what I am saying is that even though it may take longer than you want to get what you want, allow it to come to you and be patient, even if nothing happens, because eventually, you’ll get what you deserve.  The key is knowing it is on its way, believing that you will attain the things you desire.

Well, I am happy to say I just checked my blog stats and I’m up over 3300 visitors total.  I am very impressed with the outreach I’ve created so far, but I believe it’s time to up the ante just a bit.  My main goal in all of this writing about whatever comes to mind is simply to connect with people who I otherwise would never get a chance to connect with.  This blog started out as a comedy-centered report, but it eventually evolved into something I cannot even explain right now, but I am enjoying this progression.

I am writing this post to sincerely thank all of you for reading and commenting on what I’ve written.  I enjoy writing, so getting feedback is important so I can find blind spots I’m overlooking and also become a better writer, philosopher, and thinker.  But I do want to reach a larger audience.  I just have to find a way to do it successfully.  I registered a domain name and I need to learn how to upload the wordpress software onto it and then I will start blogging from there as well.  It would be nice to have that kind of control, wouldn’t it?  I’m not saying Wordpress is overly restrictive, just that I would enjoy a larger amount of freedom on my own domain site. 

 I am pleased and thankful for how this blogging activity has gone so far, and I am most definitely going to keep it up.  I am helping others (I hope) as well as helping myself go through realizations that sometimes warp my whole perception of reality, but that’s all right.  We’re all here to find meaning and every day I write about this topic, I come closer and closer to finding this meaning.  I am reading more as well.  Television has become almost non-existent in my life, and reading/writing has filled that void of watching back-to-back-to-back episodes of Law and Order: SVU/CI, or whatever’s on Court TV.   I have been working on my speaking skills, not to mention the fact that my comedy is going along well, even though I do not tend to it quite as often as I should. 

I find I am in a very good place right now, on the cusp of inner peace and an almost complete dissipation of fear.  I’ve been through hell and back in the last four to five years and I am no longer going to let fear hold me back.  I am going to allow myself to go “all out,” do whatever it is I have to do in order to manifest my desires.  I want to make a difference, I really do.  I want to inspire people, show them the positive side of life.  Nothing else fulfills me the way that does.  It’s my “drug” of choice. 

 I notice many times that I could be doing more with this blog, posting pictures and links or whatever, but I find this may interfere with my writing goals, but maybe it won’t.  I find it’s pretty time-consuming to look up a variety of links or pictures, upload them onto the website, and then place it in an opportune place.  But maybe I should do that.  I could start a network of links all over the place.  I’ll have to weigh the pros and cons.

I believe the best thing I can do for this site is start linking articles together.  This will be a very good way to keep people reading longer and get more help.  I’ve just got to stay on my ass and do it, instead of reading or wasting time reading blogs I’ve already read a hundred times.  Well, it’s been good laying out the framework for the future.  Stay tuned for some interesting changes!

Rabid senior citizens. Everywhere.. This is what yesterday at my job was like. I work at a supermarket in Surfside Beach, SC and yesterday was what we call Senior Bonus Day, where all senior citizens with a Senior Bonus Card get five percent off of their total grocery purchase. I arrived at my job around two in the afternoon to see a store swamped with these elderly people, all there for one thing, to save a little bit of money while shopping for what they need.

I figured the holidays was a poignant time to bring up being grateful for what you already have. Be thankful for everything you have, your mind, your health (hopefully), your sense of being, your family, your friends, your favorite TV show, or whatever makes you happy or fulfilled. I find it rather odd how many people (I’ve observed this personally) go on and on about how their life sucks, but from another person’s perspective, it would be an amazing life, filled with rich experiences. Maybe it’s the whole concept of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” But I find many people would rather complain about the things in their life that are going bad than give praise for everything in their life that is wonderful.

Intuition is a tool everyone possesses but not everyone really uses it to it’s fullest extent. I believe it is something most people don’t usually trust very much, but it is something that can be very useful. It’s about trusting your intuition that is the key. Without trust, it will not work properly, just as a friend who you do not trust will not help you as much as someone who does trust you. Intuition is a guiding force, something that will get you on your life’s path. Something that will allow you to be at peace while passionately pursuing your purpose, whether or not you succeed by the “external world’s” standards.

Life is not time-bound or accomplishment-bound, but rather experience-bound.  Life is but a collection of experiences, and nothing more.  Some experiences are better than others, while some are just boring.  But it’s in enjoying these experiences where we begin to enjoy life.  It should not matter what the final destination is.  The path you are on, filled with rich experiences, is what you should be enjoying.  I could never do something I didn’t enjoy just to get to this fictitious destination, somewhere in the future where all my problems are supposedly solved.  But that kind of thinking sort of validates that our suffering is okay.

I’ll never forget a Buddhist saying a co-worker told me:  “We shrink from suffering, but love its causes.”  And this rings very true.  Some people will validate their suffering if it is for something they will eventually enjoy.  For example, actors and musicians often suffer deeply financially before making major money.  And they love the fact that they want to become a musician, but suffer before they can actually survive on this type of lifestyle.  And I almost wish that these people did not hold this framework of, “oh someday it will get better, it will happen in a few months.”  I wish that wasn’t the outlook these people had because it is essentially limitng, projecting happiness in the near future, always just out of your grasp.  It’s not the optimal way to live.

So, I bring another way of thinking into the mix.  Why can’t you be happy throughout the whole journey?  Why can’t you view all these experiences as an opportunity for growth and learning so that you immerse yourself in all of its glory, loving every second of your life, whether good or bad, not letting them conflict with your inner sense of peace and happiness.  I beleive this is what they call enlightenment.  Not being so attached to outcomes and relishing every experience.  I guess it is quite a different way of thinking than I was used to, but I rather do not like how people look at things very negatively because, in all essence, there is no real negativity, there is just existence. 

It’s all about perception.  I remember when I had a brain tumor, cancerous, and how debilitating it was, but I did not view this as something terrible, something that would force me to give up all hope, but I viewed it as a challenge, something I would have to tackle.  I rather liked the fact that life was giving me these challenges, these obstacles to overcome because without them, was life really worth living?  We have to up the ante sometimes to make life more vivid, more interesting.  I want to have good experiences and want to write about them.  And I want to do this with complete absence of fear or anxiety.  There’s a great Zen story about a fearless Zen master and it goes something like this:

During the civil wars in feudal Japan, an invading army would quickly sweep into a town and take control. In one particular village, everyone fled just before the army arrived - everyone except the Zen master. Curious about this old fellow, the general went to the temple to see for himself what kind of man this master was. When he wasn’t treated with the deference and submissiveness to which he was accustomed, the general burst into anger. “You fool,” he shouted as he reached for his sword, “don’t you realize you are standing before a man who could run you through without blinking an eye!” But despite the threat, the master seemed unmoved. “And do you realize,” the master replied calmly, “that you are standing before a man who can be run through without blinking an eye?”

When I read this Zen story, I started bursting out with laughter and understanding.  I completely understood it.  This was, in essence, one of the changing moments in my life.  I love how these stories sort of give a different persepctive on life and totally alter your way of thinking.  I love the fact that the master said what he did because it reinforces a point:  You have nothing to fear except fear itself.  I believe one variation of that story depicts the general walking away, frustrated.  Just some thoughts about how I interpereted it.

The external world governs us when we should be governing the external world.  We allow ourselves to be governed by fear, governed by our external reality, when all we really need is inner security. when you know what it is you want to do with your life or you love to live in peace and harmony, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  I believe the ultimate goal is to transcend fear.  There is really only one way to do this, become enlightened.  Enjoy the path as well as the desti