Gaia Community: goodsoul's Blog

Are you a morning person or a night person?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:32:30 GMT

I am timeless.... :)

Tags: QaR, morning, night, day, energy, awake, alive, living

Busted Knee Blues

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:59:15 GMT

- Busted Knee Blues -

My woman, she done left me,
My wife, she may go too.
I shake my head and wonder
What am I going to do?
I got the busted knee blues.
Yea, the busted knee blues.
I'd get down on my knees and pray.
But that I can not do.
I limp around the house at night
I limp into my bed.
My wife say she don't like no limp;
And that is all she said.
It's the busted knee blues,
Yea, damn busted knee blues!
I'd get down on my knees and pray.
But that I can not do.
I shook my cane at God on high!
But God was not amused:
He lit my cane wit lightning
And now I'm all confused!
I got the busted knee blues.
Yea man, the busted knee blues.
I'd get down on my knees and pray.
But that I can not do.
I'd get down on my knees and pray
But you know Lord, that I can not do.
Copyright 2007 by Charles L. Johnson, All Rights Reserved
P.S. It's a blues song. Everything is cool with my bride, there is no other woman. I do limp, but am not otherwise, and the cane is temporary. Sheesh. :)

Tags: lyrics, blues, busted, knees, goodsoul

What do you believe about love?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:08:33 GMT

O.E. lufu "love, affection, friendliness," from P.Gmc. *lubo (cf. O.Fris. liaf, Ger. lieb, Goth. liufs "dear, beloved;" not found elsewhere as a noun, except O.H.G. luba, Ger. Liebe), from PIE *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (cf. L. lubet, later libet "pleases;" Skt. lubhyati "desires;" O.C.S. l'ubu "dear, beloved;" http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=love&searchmode=none

It is not that there are so many different kinds of love, but that there are necessarily differences in how love might be expressed in one kind of relationship over another. I love my GTO, but I don't kiss it.

In human relationships I believe love implies a degree of trust and vulnerability mutually shared to whatever degree the love is mutual.

Unlike physical attraction, or seeking to attain satisfaction of physical desire i.e. socially acceptable "lust" - love might be thought of as that which preserves the shared values and aspiratons of people that love one another.

I believe that putting love at the center of a relationship is symptomatic of confused thinking.

Love should protect and promote the harmony of the relationship.

We must see love as the highest form of trust - trust that calms the heart and frees the spirit to be ourselves fully within a relationship without fear of recrimination.

I tell young people contemplating marriage to imagine marriage as the framework that contains their shared dreams and values. And that those contents are at the center of their marriage that their love protects. Love insures that no one may disregard or introduce or otherwise alter the shared dreams and values without the full knowledge and consent of the other. It is not that people get married and become immune to personal growth. Deception, failure to communicate and selfish obfuscation of intentions contrary to the shared values and aspirations of the relationship cause the most harm and ultimately, the most guilt.

An analogy may help demonstrate what love is not:

When love is thought to be at the center of a relationship, it is as though two people are planets revolving about their imaginary sun on fixed orbits, never growing closer nor drifting apart, light and dark sides showing one to the other along the ever changing course of the eliptical path they each must follow. Such relationships become rather easy to predict over time. And it becomes increasingly apparent that love and nothing more sustains the relationship. Some may stay the course, usually for quite obvious reasons. Others may say their love was extinguished. Or they may insist that one or both planets changed in size and their orbits were altered. For an analogy, it's not bad at representing the common reasons for falling out of orbit, err, I mean, falling out of love....

Surely, the analogy is ultimately no more valid then the idea that love binds two people, or is at the center of their relationship.

I suspect that if people, especially young people, spent more time grappling with the reality of shared values and aspirations, rather than imagining that love implies that such values and aspirations are shared, they would enjoy longer, more meaningful relationships.

Blezzings to all from the Most Comical Ambazzador Goodsoul

Tags: QaR, loving, love, meaning

How did you learn to think for yourself?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:18:35 GMT

I learned to think for myself by observing the example set by others, especially those who demonstrated unequivically, that thinking was its own reward, and not something to engage in only to outsmart, undermine, oppose or otherwise compete with others. One especially memorable example is Dick Feynman, whose zeal while thinking was not only entertaining, but amazing - he was truely someone you could observe thinking - his clarity remains for those who study him and his work, a great inspiration to think for the sheer joy of it.

Tags: QaR, thinking, imagination, freedom, self

Free Will

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:54:21 GMT

Free will is limited by our lack of understanding of what free will actually implies.

A computer program that relies upon any heuristic other than randomness is predictable, and therefore, not free to assert its own will, but forever relies upon the will of the program's designer.

Similarly, In our own lives, to rely on pure randomness is not to say that we live, as Charles Pierce might assert, in a Universe of Chance. Indeed, in all of nature, randomness is a function of scale: what appears, and serves functionally as random occurrence at one scale may prove quite orderly at a different scale. The theory of chaos is replete with such examples.

It is certain that our own behaviors are influenced by many things, and to assert that we behave without regard to those influences is to assume that objects which cause turbulence within a river do not over time affect its course, its boundaries and the speed at which it flows.

How much more freely might we act upon our will, if we become aware of our behaviors, study them intently, and trace our personal turbulence to its source?

But that is a challenge - akin to knowing both the velocity and the position of a photon in flight - our observation alone alters our behavior as surely as it alters the course of the photon.

If we can not predict our behavior, can we be said to assert any control over it? Is an act of free will an unconscious intention resuliting in action that we subsequently call taken by choice only by the light of reason found in hindsight?

If we care to invoke the Law of Attraction, understand human potential, envision our ideal lives and our ideal world and in a quest to have fun, focus on what makes us feel alive while supporting each other with our own individual visions, would it be helpful to understand how we might begin to observe our own behavior - to awaken as it were from the torpid illusion of our egos, and focus first on how we might discover our purpose in life, while we celebrate?

Tags: celebrate, free will, human potential, randomness, behavior

I KNOW

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:03:59 GMT

I know I can do as I please. At least I can always refuse. Hence I know that I am responsible for my actions. I will accept this responsibility and play the man. I will not be ever seeking excuses for my weakness.

I know I do not understand all the secret springs of the acts of others, hence I will be charitable in my judgments.

I know that what I know is to what I do not know as one is to infinity, hence I will try always to be teachable.

I know that the past cannot be changed, hence I will make the best of it; and that I cannot control the future, hence I will not worry about it.

I know that happiness depends more upon my thoughts than upon what happens to me, hence I will strive to control and adjust myself, instead of complaining of circumstances.

I know that the world is managed by a power and a will not of myself and greater than myself; hence I will try to understand and conform to it.

I know I cannot cheat nor evade the laws of nature; hence I will seek to find out what they are and obey them.

I know I have limitations, and that it is quite as important to understand them, as it is to know my capacity.

I know that life is sweet to the healthy-minded, and therefore I will reject summarily any creed or opinion that degrades or mocks at life.

I know what love is. I do not always know what is right or wrong, or what is wise or unwise. Therefore I can safely love everybody, and safely regulate nobody.

I know that suspicion is a disease of faith, jealousy is a disease of egotism, and envy is a disease of small natures; these I will avoid.

I know I can control and shape my tastes, my desires, and my thoughts, and I will not allow myself to be dominated by these.

I know that no sentiment, no feeling, is of value unless it enters into the will and is expressed in action.

I know that I will get from this world the equivalent only of what I give to it.

I know that, whatever God may be, a constant effort to do right is the only way to secure His approval. Whatever wrong I have committed, He becomes my friend when I begin to do right.

By Dr. Frank Crane

Tags: Frank Crane, know, ethics, morals

What determines a good education?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:45:42 GMT

The typical educational environment consists of those who want to learn and those who hope to be taught. Those who want to learn concern themselves with the subject matter and rely on teachers to demonstrate only how they think, and learn from teachers only by the examples set and observation. Those who want to be taught rely on getting grades, regardless of what they might learn in the process.

So, what determines a good education? Someone who wants to learn.

Blezzings to all from the Most Comical Ambazzador,

Goodsoul

Tags: QaR, education, learning, educating, school, system, teaching

What was the last thing you made from scratch?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:20:54 GMT

An itch stop.

Okay, okay. I am the most comical ambazzador. Sheesh.

Tags: QaR, crafting, building, backing, cooking, meal, hands

What's the easiest way to become happy?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 08:46:14 GMT

Smile at someone in a way that allows them to feel welcome in your presence.

Tags: QaR, happiness, happy, expectations, gratitude, appreciation, future, smile

The Image of a Woman Stuns Me

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:29:20 GMT

ImageofaWoman 480w

Tags: woman, poem, image, stun, delight, daughter, mother

To Tomlinson From King Supers

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:00:16 GMT

Tomlinson 480w

Tags: peaches, marshmellows, rolling, poem, letter poem, list poem, humorous, silly

The Bay at Yakutat

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:39:45 GMT

The Bay at Yakutat

By one hand the knife made ready,
By the other flips a fish,
Suddenly the two are steady
In the rhythm of the slish.

And worthy men and worthy craft
Rebuke the jarring waves that lash
Each man starboard, port and aft,
With bitter wet and violent crash.

And carcass after carcass tossed
Lifeless to the bloody hold
Shimmers, though the light is lost,
And the dreary day grows cold.

And vagrants in the troller’s wake
Bobbing back atop the swells,
Flutter up, then swoop to take
The sacrament of fish entrails.

Here, wind and rain and haze dilute.
Yellow, green, red, brown converge.
And the gray is absolute,
And time and mind and sense diverge.

Moments roll as waves uncounted.
Thoughts are scattered as debris
On pebbles of perception rounded
By the endless surge of sea.

And rivers rise and passion flows
Inward channeled by belief.
Images drift by then go
To certainty, or doubt so brief.

And certain as the sand concedes
To the wash and swirl and spray
So the tide and time recede
Shaping yet another day.

Charles L. Johnson
Copyright 1984 - All Rights Reserved

Tags: belief, passion, poem, fish, Yakutat, sacrament, yellow, green, red, brown, moments

What is your relationship to your life story?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:09:02 GMT

It hard to say what my relationship is to my life story. My story isn't finished. It's a complex "who-done-it" and I haven't yet revealed if the story's principal protagonist, "God" or the hero, me, will prevail.

My sense as an author is that I must kill off the hero and leave the reader guessing as to who killed the hero ie. did the hero take his own life, did someone else do it, or did God do it.

Since God is all-powerful and omniscient, most people will conclude that while he didn't pull the trigger, he was the mastermind behind the conspiracy to have the hero killed.

Since the hero is the hero, and everyone loves a hero, it will be hard for people to imagine that someone else pulled the trigger.

Thus, everyone will be forced to conclude that the hero killed himself, which will be an unsavory, but highly dramatic dénouement that transforms the hero into a victim of his own making, thus diminishing his hero status, which will ultimately explain why God conspired, yes, but with the hero, to rid the planet of one so dismal.

This surpise ending, which transmutes God into the actual hero will have Western and Middle Eastern audiences applauding and Hindus and Bhuddhists anxiously awaiting the sequal.

But there has been an unexpected development over the past few years. I discovered another book entitled "Me" that I seem to not be writing, but is more about me than the life story I had previously been writing. So, I abandoned my own manuscript and now prefer to read the "Me" book.

I don't know how I relate to the "Me" book, but it's a pretty good read. A real page turner. Can't seem to put it down.

Blezzings to all!

The Most Comical Ambazzador Goodsoul

Tags: QaR, life, story, narrative, living, stories

I've Given Away 21 Seeds

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:54:51 GMT

Yep. A few folks here I've known for a while. Went to their profile page. Big Love. Thanks! Good Stuff. Seeds disappearing fast. Guess I better blog about it before I run out.

Blezzings to all!

The Most Comical (and somewhat seedless) Ambazzador Goodsoul

Tags: seedless, seeds, giving

Empowering the community or encouraging censorship?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:06:28 GMT

For those few who follow my blog, but don't follow the Zaadz Team's Blog, there's a new device causing quite a stir: to the Zaadz team, it is delivered as a means to empower the community, to others, it is seens as encourgaging community censorship.

Here's my take:

I think flamers and spammers are easily quashed - flamers are rebuked by the community and can (or should be able to) be blocked from personal blogs, pods, etc. and spammer accounts are so obvious and overt that I trust Zaadz admins to continue their removal without the community involvement.

Beyond that, the seed thing seems to logically lead to a rather circular contrivance: we might also receive a personal store of full watering-cans and full containers of some rather indiscriminate plant killing poison, with which we might indicate our approval or disapproval of seed givers by distributing one or the other on individual profiles?

We could “sprinkle” one or more watering cans on the profiles of those who we feel distribute seeds wisely. We could spray one of more containers of weed killer on the profiles of those we feel distribute seeds arrogantly or vindictively. This information would serve to cause the seeds distributed by any individual to sprout and bloom or fade into the dirt. In this we way, we would applaud or denounce the good and bad Johnnies wandering about Zaadz. :)

I am one of the original Ambazzadors at Zaadz. My Pod, Spiritual Equilbrium, has always been based on attraction, rather than promotion. It has not been a highly popular pod, as it does not resonate well with many of the mainstream philosophical perspectives here at Zaadz; but then, it is an original (as original as anything might be) inquiry into spiritual matters and does not rely on doctrine or indoctrination. It may be that my ideas strike others as absurd, heretical, or simply dumb. Or it may be that my own writing skills are lacking. I seem to have few, if any, detractors, but I also have few, if any followers.

My point is that bad seeds die a natural death, and good seeds thrive, unless of course your definition of good and bad seeds is contingent, not upon what flourishes; but rather, what kind of garden you prefer. On that point, I will add a line from a poem I wrote many, many years ago: “You are a weed my friend. I would not disgrace you in a vase.”

Seona says I have “a nice little pile of seeds (based on your activity and the length of time you've been on the site).” It might be interesting to see how that formula specifically worked i.e. how many seeds did I get, and how many seeds did someone else get?

In, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert asserts something like, “All acts of communication are an attempt by one person to conform the mental landscape of the listener to their own.” He explains further that that is true whether we are explaining how to get from 4th and Main to the nearest post-office, or whether we are promoting one presidential nominee over the next. We are offering what we claim to be first-hand knowledge to what will be to someone else, second-hand knowledge. I guess the protection of freedom of speech took that into account?

I am also a photographer and post frequently on Flickr as PhotoSensate. I frequently prune images with little activity. For promotion, I “add” them to groups created by other members (some moderated, some not). Pods are more like elegant forums. Maybe groups, to which blogs, images, videos, etc. might be added would be a nice feature here at Zaadz. In any case, ranking at Flickr is based on Views, Comments, Favorites all of which go into Flickr's formula for Interestingness.

If seeds were used as a way of denoting a Favorite contribution I might be more willing to applaud. But there are no limits to the number of Favorites I might add at Flickr. True, I have one fan that Favorites everything I post indiscriminately. Why? I have no idea. But if you go look at his collection of Favorites, you see I am not the only one - and mine, like everyone else's, are lost in the forest of images he favorites. Anyway, his favorites mean little to me or anyone else. All of which is to say, bad seeds will use seeds, good or bad, badly, and goods seeds encourage others through interaction and will use their seeds in a goodly way - and in the final analysis, seeds will be a rather ineffectual, inarticulate cluttering of the Zaadzosphere.

Blezzings to all,

The Most Comical Ambazzador Goodsoul

Tags: empowering censorship, Zaadz Team Blog, poison, ineffectual

What gets in the way of peace?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 09:20:04 GMT

At the global level, mankind remains a world of nation-states, each soverign, each territorial. George Bush Sr. understood that the democratic ideal is meaningless if America is unwilling to abide by a democratic world leadership. Unfortunately, his son, fails still to grasp that concept. The problem is not a lack of communication or a general failure to understand basic human rights or the need to protect them. The problem is the failure of the world's nations to unite meaningfully, and provide coherent standards against which all nations may be held accountable. When the United States refutes accountability to the same principals upon which our country was founded, we dare not hope others might follow our lead. Corruption is as corruption does. I believe corruption, more than any other cause, stands first in the way of peace.

Tags: QaR, peace, world peace, harmony, challenge

How do spiritual and environmental awareness relate?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:32:55 GMT

There are easy answers and difficult answers to most questions. The easy answer here is to rely on effusive generalities. The more difficult answer is to probe how our consciousness arises from envionment, both our internal biological environment and our external world environment.

No one would likely read a detailed account of something based on supposition only , and I don't have the neural-biological training to treat the subject in a scientific manner. So call this a speculation, or theory, that current science supports in general, but which is not yet, and may never be mainstream. And suffice that it is cursory only, intended to be suggestive, not difinitive.

The primary supposition is that our neurological capacity for encoding sensory information is far more expansive and precise than is generally understood and that this encoding involves the creation of neurological patterns, the nature of which, in construct, are the same fundamental patterns found in all of nature.

As our understanding, or rather, our recognition of these fundamental patterns expands, so expands our "scientific" awareness or knowledge. To the extent that we intuit patterns in our environment, but have not yet connected the dots cognitively, we relegate such intuitions to the spiritual, or metaphysical relms of our awareness.

Yes, superficially, we can say that as we become more aware of our environment, the more we realize we depend upon it for more than its provision of life sustaining "stuff." We appreciate our environment, protect it and find ourselves within it, rather than apart from it. We may proclaim the spiritual oneness of all, and realize we are but a part of something greater, and that something includes all that we might find in our environment.

But as we unravel the mysteries of our environment, as science progresses, surely we must acknowledge that as biological beings, our grasp of the sublime can be no more sublime than the nature of our ablitiy to comprehend. It is in this conjecture, that science and spirtuality truely integrate, as arising from the same elementary organizing principals.

While risking triviality, I offer a subtle play on words: if we agree to call all that is, a more or less mysterious "cognition" then we might also agree that all we might perceive, or know, is re-cognition.

Blezzings to All,

The Most Comical Abazzador Goodsoul

Tags: QaR, spirituality, spirit, awareness, consciousness, environmental

My prior profile entry, altered this day.

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:27:55 GMT

In my youth, truth was as limber as my limbs and terribly important to speak or conceal. Pushing 50, truth is stiff and difficult to bend after just two hours of sitting; but, it also doesn't mean much. I am a cacophony of good and bad, right and wrong, certainty and doubt, passion and disdain. "I cast a shadow most clearly in the light. Better though, this shadow, then hiding in the night." I am happily intense, always at least amused at my ecentricities. I have too many interests and aspirations still. But, for this passage into the final third of my life (I hope that's right) my passion for achievement has shifted from accumulating worth to being worthwhile. To mentor, rather than manage; to play my harmonica with joy and gusto, while sitting on the john; to hug a friend one extra second so they know it's for real; to take the true risk of faith and thus relenquish expectation (God doesn't barter faith for favor), that is the scope of my ambition. I love the title line of Dylan Thomas' poem, "Do not go gentle into that good night. I'm going to post it on the blog. Work hard, do good work and have faith. Blessings to all who visit from the Most Comical Ambazzador Goodsoul.

Tags: profile, renewal

"Depression is an Opportunity for Reflection"

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:51:18 GMT

The above is a quote from a favorite book. I was reminded of it reading Brian's blog. If you find in it a bit of surprising wisdom, read my comment on Brian's blog here.

Tags: depression, reflection, opportunity, Sheldo Kopp, Brian's blog

What's been your path in life?

http://goodsoul.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:28:57 GMT

I thought it wise to pay special attention to the Q&R for October 15 - It's my birthday and I am now 50. Assuming a life expectancy of 75, two-thirds of my life has been lived. What will I do with the time that remains? Interesting question, especially with how it intersects with "What's been my path in life?"

Somewhere back in my teens I imagined my mind to be an Etch-a-sketch and someone else's hands were on the knobs. Who I was depended on what image others made of me. My behavior was to seek approval. If I didn't like the image you created, I would hand my mind over to someone else. It's not a bad analogy actually. If I don't like your image of me, I shake myself free and turn myself over to another artist. But, always, deep down, I knew better.

I wrote in my late teens,

I am not your picture of me.
I admit I admire your style, but
I will be the artist.

But even with that, I simply transferred responsibility for me from individuals to society at large. I followed the path of success which ultimately ended in failure. Well, not failure as society would measure it, but failure in my own mind to be the kind of person I wanted to be - knowledgeable, creative and of service to others - without sacrificing my soul for approval in any form.

I made a decision in 2003 to stop being arrogant, demanding and insensitive. I told the owner of the company I managed my displeasure at the way we ran things. He asked me, "How do you expect to run this company without being arrogant, demanding and insensitive?" He was quite serious. In 2005 I quit that job, that was paying me $200K plus a year, because I was failing to be as arrogant, demanding and insensitive as the corporate culture I helped create expected of me.

It's been a long couple of years - a painful transition at best. I had no idea how much my identity as a big fish in a little pond had insinuated itself in my character and my soul. But, the journey I had begun in 2003, a journey I call the path toward Spiritual Equilibrium, had prepared me for the dismantling of my prior identity. In fact, it demanded abandoning the search for self altogether.

I laugh when I tell people, "I don't know who I am, and don't care to find out."

The question, "Who am I?" is a particularly ego-centric investigation, yes? It can not be answered without creating an illusion of what I would call "relational identity" - who we are relative to others.

So, my journey has brought me to understand my purpose as a human being, not my identity. And my purpose, it turns out, can only be discovered, one awareness at a time, where reality unfolds independent of fear.

My path in life has been to free myself of expectation, which is the breeding ground for free-will run riot. My path is without destination. In fact, I'm certain that any place I would have sought to go would have been far less satisfying than where I have been these past few years.

Is my path without purpose? Not any more. Do I know what that my purpose is? For the current moment, yes. For the next moment, no. In a way, I have arrived, and will arrive, over and over and over to where ever my purpose leads. That's pretty cool.

Blezzings to all from the most comical Ambazzador Goodsoul

Tags: QaR, life, journey, path, living, destiny, future, past