Learning Forever?

So I was hanging out with my brother yesterday and he asked if we would ever stop learning?  The reason being is that we’ve been for the last couple years learning lots of stuff about ourselves as well as the world around us.  I know why he and I think that.  Its because one thinks there is no way one can continue at a break neck speed learning life changing things like we have been.  Well I beg to differ and I shared as much with him yesterday. 

            My logic for this reasoning is that once I break off the shackles of indoctrination that I experienced for 16 years during my schooling years I am free to see the world anew without bias and opinion.  Also, and this is something I need to learn more about as the founding fathers had it on lock, if I can learn to use the trivium then I’ll learn endlessly and efficiently.  I’ve awaken to many things recently because I’m learning/have learned to accept at least the possibility of something being true.  My mom responded to the blog post I did on realizing I was eating cause I bored saying she was impressed with my growing self-awareness.  I told her I think I’ll have more of those type of moments because I’m not as indoctrinated anymore and realize I had been.  I told her, and I still think this is true, that I’ve learned more applicable and important things that personally effect me in the last three years that I’ve been graduated from school than the previous 16 years combined.  This includes things that affect my health, family relationships, wealth, and my job.

            Another reason for me thinking I’ll keep getting blessed with more and more knowledge is because I’m following the word of wisdom.  In it it has a specific promise for those that follow it.  Verse 19 reads….”And shall ^afind ^bwisdom and great ^ctreasures of ^dknowledge, even hidden treasures”

            SO!  I fully expect to keep learning awesome things going forward that have a big impact on my life and the lives of those around me.  There.  Said it.

Internet Indoctrination

            My wife is recovering from the flu currently.  Last weekend it started.  She missed our church party because of it.  One of the leaders in my ward asked why she wasn’t there and I told her.  She and her husband, also a leader in our church, came over to our house afterwards to see how she was doing.  The wife then offered to bring my wife a home remedy of herbal and natural sources that she found online and that, according to her, worked miracles.  She did make it and did bring it over.  Wife drank it and said it burned her throat.

            The next morning she was feeling better, but didn’t quite kick the flu that day.  Well that next day was Sunday and the husband of the wife who brought over the remedy asked how my wife was doing.  I told him she was still recovering.  Then what happened next kinda surprised me.  Before I continue this guy is awesome.  Super nice, thoughtful, service oriented, and pleasant to be around.  What happened was he started to ridicule the internet solution cause the flu has been around forever and he just didn’t think that some random remedy for the flu could magically appear all of a sudden.  Especially considering all the modern day medicines that have been tested, developed, and distributed without conquering the common flu in a matter of a short period of time.

            So my thoughts were first two things.  Ok its kinda weird he’s bashing his wife’s remedy, but whatever.  Second it is weird that he automatically denounces something being useful off of the internet.  

            Later I started thinking more about the experience.  I thought on the fact that this guy is getting his masters.  Nothing wrong with a masters, but for me I find it interesting that he had this point of view after being in the schooling system for going on 18 years now.  I then thought on how in school, and either this is genius planning for right when the internet came out on the part of the subject masters at the top of the department of education (again with my conspiracy theory, but not so much if you watch the video I recommend later) or just plain old coincidence, but I thought on how when one is tasked with writing a paper that cited sources are best.  Peer reviewed journals and magazines are best.  Then books.  Then cited articles.  Then cited internet sources, but that when anytime you can avoid the internet that that is a good thing.  The internet is like a bad dirty step child in the education realm.  Don’t believe.  Go write a paper and only cite the internet and see if your teacher doesn’t freak/have an aneurism. 

            So here I am talking to a smart guy getting his masters and he is bashing an internet solution to the common cold. It amazed me.  My brother coined the term and I’ve loved it ever since, but the term for the internet he used is the printing press 2.0.  Basically it is the next thing that showers freedom, knowledge, and truth on the populace.  It isn’t controlled or edited or censored by anyone as major publishers do, yet, and anyone can write anything they want.  Imagine this beautiful network being shared with Albert Einstein.  Would he have closed off his mind to other people stating what they thought about the theory of relativity and how it might be improved or how to finish e=mc2?  I bet you didn’t know that that equation isn’t actually complete.  How do I know that or where did I learn it?  On the internet.  But its true and I’m right the most famous equation ever isn’t complete.

            My point is that it is amazing that the powers that be have so subtley convinced this guy that anything off the internet is absolute bunk.  He probably doesn’t even realize it and probably wouldn’t even accept that hypothesis.  Crazy huh?  Maybe he would.  I hope he would actually.

If you haven’t already watched the video on youtube called “Your Indoctrination” on the youtube channel Greatest Truth Never Told I highly recommend it.  I want to home school my kids after watching that. 

Silver

Silver

 

            So I’m kind of what some might call a nut, whack job, conspiracy theorist.  That’s ok with me.  I know it.  My family knows it.  The government knows it (and stores it, it = info about this type of stuff…see more conspiracy.  Well kinda… http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/).  Anywho so if you’re a whack job eventually you run through the cool, interesting, confrontational, uncomfortable, and far out conspiracies like 9/11, gmo’s, landing on the moon, mind control, etc.  Then you start in to perhaps more mainstream conspiracy like the petro dollar and the federal reserve system and JFK and why he was really assassinated, etc. 

 

So that is all good and dandy and I’ve gladly shifted my assets around after learning about those mainstream conspiracies and have a small amount of precious metals…or do I?  J  Who are we kidding though lol see previous website…  Anways I’ve mentioned previously that I’m reading a book called Less is More.  It has got some really interesting and powerful points about wealth.  A couple of which that stick out to me are as follows.

 

Basically everything that man needs to subsist and survive is near at hand and pretty much easy to access like food, fuel, and certain metals.  The things he doesn’t need like wealth and lots of it, and in its historical representation of it for 5000 years, i.e. gold and silver, is buried deep in the ground underneath tons and tons and literally tons of dirt and rock.  Now I don’t wanna hear complaining and arguments about how gold and silver are necessary cause that is another topic for another day.  The point is Heavenly Father buried it deep in the ground whereas the things we do need are, again, readily at hand.  If you’re religious this should cause you some thought.  If you’re mormon, even more considering all the many references of gold and silver in the book of mormon and how many lives were lost both spiritually and physically over those two metals.

 

Now for the second thought.  In Less is More it talks about the blood, sweat, and tears put into digging up those two metals and the seriousness of holding them yourself.  It warned one to basically not be careless with holding them, but to also not hoard it and covet it, which I’m not sure I’ve done the best as with them both being currently severely undervalued it is hard for me to not want and covet them.  It warned that one must by mature in holding those two metals.  Why?  Because of the massive MASSIVE wars that have been fought over those two metals.  When I read that it kind of took me back and surprised me.  I hadn’t really thought I needed to be responsible with them as up to that point I had only been excited in the prospect of owning them, but it did wake me to how potentially dangerous and life threatening both spiritually, but perhaps even more so physically for the safety of me and my family having those metals in our possession would be.  I say physically is more an issue cause I think I have a pretty safe handle on coveting although I’m still not perfect at avoiding it.

 

Anywho those are my thoughts on the matter and I’m sticking to it…for now…until something better comes along.

Less is More

So over the past year or so I’ve gone through somewhat of a drastic awakening process.  I guess then I could not say it was somewhat of one.  First I admitted I had some addictive behavioral issues that I had to work through.  Then with that I started working on bettering myself and replacing bad habits with new healthy habits.  That step is what launched me into my awakening process….I think. 

Somehow with that step I naturally or perhaps subconsciously started looking for truth.  I read many books and blogs and website articles on many different subjects.  I went to seminars and night classes.  From weight lifting to finance to chemtrails to real estate investing to math and grammar to space travel to food to agriculture and horticulture to warfare to baby birthing to oil to politics in no particular order.  Right now what I’m learning about is Less is More.

I’m lucky to have some stellar smart people around me that I trust and are smarter than I am.  One of them, and the one who turned me onto this concept/book, is my older brother.  I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through life, and I have to laugh cause apparently I do this all the time if you look at my list of things above, but have you ever gone through life thinking, “Oh ya I got this.  I know all about what is truly right/good/true/factual/healthy about…fill in the blank.  I could comfortably talk to somebody about this or that subject.”?  Only to find out you were wrong two seconds after coming onto a book or magazine or blog post or documentary or an individual who has actually spent their whole life enveloped in the subject you so brashly thought you knew everything about?  Well…I have.  More than once.  My question then, and the reason for my blog post is, why?  Why, and maybe I’m just the only dope who has this happen to, but I don’t think that is possible, but why does that seem to happen…a lot?  And on a broad scale?  All the time people?  This question has kinda been hounding me for the last year or so during my “awakening” process if I can even call it that as I might very well find another third or fourth point of view here in two seconds to contradict my newly “awakened/enlightened” knowledge that I claim to have.  To claim I’m enlightened and know NOW the truth about schtuff would be pretty idiotic of me when I just admitted I hadn’t known the truth, full or otherwise, of many things previously.  Anywho back to the question and I don’t think there is one answer to the question as there are clearly many factors to why I had been blind, and subsequently why others might be blinded.  So I’m reading Less is More…page 101 at the bottom and Srimad Bhagavatam XI says…

By attributing worth to tangible objects, man becomes attracted to them; attraction to them brings desire for them; desire leads to competition and dispute amongst men.  These rouse violent anger, and the result is delusion.  Delusion completely overcomes man’s sense of right and wrong.

SO!....back to my addictive behaviors.  When a human being experiences pain the brain immediately kicks in the warp drive from stars and races to find a thing or thought or whatever to ease the pain.  That system in your brain is called the limbic system.  I think that I experienced things growing up that were traumatic to me.  I think, and this is my theory for this blog post of course and the above quote, but I think a small part of me way back when somewhere attributed worth to tangible objects.  I don’t know of any one event/thing right now, but could surely lump in playing video games, or having sports shoes to play sports with the rest of the kids, or whatever other things I liked growing up that were things that I thought were tangible and hence valuable.  Ok so what? 

Well if I assign worth to tangible things and those things give me ease from my pain then I’m going to want more things.  It doesn’t even matter what the thing is, which is the crazy part.  My brain can think of anything as a necessary tangible thing.  I’m looking in my room right now and see blinds.  Ohhhh I need those cause if not then I can’t sleep at night cause the street light would be too bright.  False.  I could sleep.  What about when I’m changing?  False.  I could go in another room or the bathroom to change.  What about they match the décor in the room and they add value to my house?  False.  Drapes would be just fine and my house could burn down tomorrow and so what value do the blinds have then?  None.  I’ll answer my own question, thank you.  Objection!  Overrulled…YOUcan’t HANDLE THE TRUTH!1~!!1 

So what does this have to do with the quote?  Well somewhere along the line I got d.u.p.e.d.  Subconsciously I knew I was being suckered all along.  Somewhere someone adequately sold me the dream, the American dream, of owning my own home.  Why is that important for this blog post?  Well there are only so many homes…that leads to about the halfway point of the quote referencing competition and dispute among men (I can’t tell you how many houses I put offers on, disputed with other men on, to try and win and compete and get the house).  I can’t necessarily say I got angry at any point, maybe my family can attest otherwise, but I do know that if I fulfilled about all the quote that I probably had some anger somewhere.  Actually thinking right now I had anger about the financing process so yes I was angry at one point.  And finally, cause you know in grammar class they tell you always to start a sentence with ‘And’, when you’re angry it leads to delusion.  And when you’re delusional you are lost as to what is right and wrong.

My hypothesis is thus.  When a humanoid desires something and gets it, no matter if it is a house on post street or the sandbox shovel from mom and dad, somehow one automatically progresses through the steps and wants things it does not need and from that needless want the limbic system is programmed to want more to ease pain and want more and more and more.  Well what is one of the biggest sinkholes of wants there are?  A house.  So if as a society we are all taught to want the American dream from when we were little nino’s and that thing is so life engulfing so as to warrant a fourth to a third of your working life and time and you get it/win it then you’re “right” in a huge way, right?  Well if you’re right then you can’t be wrong and so if people, advertising, or ideas appear right to you even though they’re wrong then you’re wrong.  And if people and schools and advertising and mainstream media (lame stream) are good at what they do, i.e. convincing you that what is true is not, then you’ll be wrong about a lot of things though you thought otherwise.  And if they can just get you to buy into a house, a huge WANT, and it is a want people don’t kid yourselves.  Seriously.  I’m not kidding.  How do I know this?  Just ask Jesus.  Ask Ghandi if houses are needs or wants. 

So when we want something and get it one could then assume eventually you become just that much more delusional.  Delusional about, and I quote, “weight lifting to finance to chemtrails to real estate investing to math and grammar to space travel to food to agriculture and horticulture to warfare to baby birthing to oil to politics”. 

So the cure to being delusional?  Don’t want anything.  Be content with what you have. 

Mission

I served an lds mission once upon a time.  My mother so graciously reminded (shocked) me of this the other day when she asked what I was doing that day, but eight years earlier.  I thought for a second and realized it was going into the missionary training center.  Son of a buttermilk biscuit I thought.  Can’t be that long could it?  Yes.  Yes young padawan it had been.  I’m getting old and time is flying by.  I had the missionaries visit the other day and they just looked…young.  I remember thinking growing up how old they looked.  Weird.

Doh!

Have you ever lost control of what you were gonna say even before you were going to say it and before you said it you knew you had already lost control and you even recognized in your head that you were about to say something that you knew you didn’t want to say, but you did anyways?  Ya me neither.

Juuust kidding.  So again I’m reading this less is more book.  I come across this story and one, it is sad, and two it is funny and similar to my first paragraph above.  It also has some brain science that I’ll expound upon.  It goes like this. 

A Ch’I individual stole some money at a crowded bazaar.  He was walking away with it when the police asked him why it was that he stole the money in the market.  The thief replied that the sight of the money filled his mind to the exclusion of the policeman.  So his desires made him forgetful of the nature of his act.

~Huai-nan Tzu, d. 122 B.C.

People know the difference, generally, between right and wrong.  Some call that a conscious.  In my religion we call that the Light of Christ.  If this story was told to the Ch’I individual in the story at a later time and this individual had the opportunity to step into time to tell the story individual something, what would that person probably say?  They’d probably say something to the effect of, “Stealing is bad.  Don’t do it.” And they’d be right.  So why did he (us) do it anyway?  Seemingly without any control whatsoever?  Trauma and drama and the limbic system. 

We all do it.  Whether you think you do or not you naturally let yourself go to this wonder world of pain escaping.  With my counseling I’ve been able to better pinpoint when it is happening and change course appropriately, but I’m not perfect yet.  The last time I remember it happening and me calling it out out loud with my wife present was a single adult dinner. 

I’m 27.  I like video games and books and finance and sleep and sports.  My wife serves at our local church and I went with her as support for an event she was helping at.  Well they served dinner there and once dinner was done they had a choir come out and sing to the 90 year old men and women of our area.  Christmas songs.  Nothing new or catchy really so…I did what I knew best to do in that situation with my boredom.  I started eating like a champ. 

Before I’d even sat down to the table there was some all natural, freshly picked, peeled, pureed, green jello gob on a plate.  I ate a bit to most of that out the gate.  Then came potatoes and rolls and more potatoes, funeral potatoes.  Then they brought out little chocolate santas with caramel in the middle.  I bit santa’s head off like a lion during mating season lol.  Then they passed out chocolate cake.  And more rolls.  Mind you I could’ve stopped eating after like 5 minutes.  But because I was bored out of my freaking mind I just ate.  I didn’t realize what I was doing until my mouth started to feel like it was forming some sort of sore due to all the sugar intake I had just had.  I then turned to my wife and said, “I’m eating cause I’m bored.”  I don’t think I stopped immediately eating after my realization…I scraped up some more frosting and drank a lil more water and then stopped. 

So my point is this.  Our brains are so efficient at easing pain that they just go into auto pilot even though the rational brain knows that what is being done is doing waaaaay more damage than good and if that same brain/person was apprised of what was actually going on in a normal setting it/they would revolt and turn away immediately.  This is the explanation for why the guy in the market only saw the money and not the police.  This is why the drug, alcohol, sex, work addict only sees those substances and not the damage that they’re doing.  They only see that cause the brain, the limbic subsystem specifically, blocks out everything else and focuses only on the pleasure/relief of the preferred activity.  In the market case, the relief was stealing and money and what that money would do for the relief of pain of the thief.

Food for thought.

1 Against(?) 26

So if you had to make a bet and your odds of winning were one in 26 what would you do?  If you had to arm wrestle 26 people combined against you would you feel confident you’d win?  Say you’re walking down the alley after a movie by yourself and 26 people came up against you to beat you up would you feel confident in your ability to defend yourself and that you would actually win?  Well…instead of using 1 against 26, switch it out for the U.S. Military versus the next 26 countries in military spending.

This is a little known fact among the world and especially among Americans, but the U.S. military outspends the next 26 countries in military spending…COMBINED!!!!  I'm not pulling your leg.  Check it out.

 

In the words of Yahoo’s famous song/phrase.  YAAAHOOOoooOOOooooo!  That’s a lot of green amigos!  For a good example on green and grasping it woo buddy you ought to check this site out.  Since I'm discussing military stuff and just did a post on the war on terrorism check this link out.  http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/cost_of_war/cost_of_war.html

 

So the next 26 countries…many of them are allies.  If you found out your friend, neighbor, or family member bought not only enough…hmm…socks 

 or guns 

 or buses

or pencils

or swimming pools

 for themselves but just extra/beyond their actual needs what would you think?  Paranoid?  A freak?  Wasteful?  I mean really what would you think?

 

NOW.  We've got the fiscal cliff coming.

 

The cliff is simple really.  President Bush cut taxes.  Some of you remember getting checks in the mail from the government.  I remember my parents opening up their check in the kitchen one evening and it was $600 bucks or so if I remember correctly.  Well the tax cuts are set to expire. 

I've done a little research and in the United States the average paycheck is going to go down 20 bucks a check.  That is 80 bucks a month or 960 a year.  Just for my wife and I that is just under $2000 a year. 

At the same time they're going to raise taxes we also have obamacare to deal with which will make your paychecks just a little less since your premium is going to go up a little.  On top of that with last years debt ceiling fiasco they're going to cut government spending, which is good and bad depending on how you look at it.  You could look at it this way... http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/food_stamps/food_stamp_nation-SNAP.html or this way... http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_government_budget/us_govt_budget.html. 

 

Ultimately we make too little and spend too much.  Now immediately for my little world I understand losing out on $2000 bucks.  I also understand that the fiscal cliff will result in approximately $500 billion for the government and now for my ah-ha moment. 

 

Where could we get an extra $500 billion, not lose out on things we actually need or want, and not raise taxes????  Do you remember the first of this blog post 20 years ago?  I do.  We could cut military spending to the level of China, the next biggest spender and get the $500 billion w/o a tax increase.  AND...and and and we'd still have a pretty damn good military considering we're STILL spending  three times the amount we ought to if we do rough math and china has a billion people and the US has a third of that and yet we spend the same amount as China. 

 

Lightning vs Terrorism...Who wins???

Fun fact.  You’re more likely to die from a lightning strike

 

 

 

then from terrorism.

 

 

 

 

  Let that sink if for a second.  You’re more likely to die from a lightning strike then from terrorism.  Some people would say, “oh…that’s interesting”.  In light of spending during this ‘fiscal cliff’ season I’d like to ask this question.  If AMERICANS are more likely to die from lightning then from terrorism, by the way this is 5 MILLION times more likely, why aren’t we spending the type of money we have on terrorism to stop lightning deaths and prevent them?   

 

$1,391,247,700,196.00 

 

That is 1.3 TRILLION dollars, almost 1.4 trillion.  That is how much we’ve spent so far on the war on terror.  We’ve spent that much on preventing something that kills fewer Americans than lightning strikes.  Go figure. 

 

One question I’ve learned to ask recently and it is ancient roman cause I’m a badass and know how to speak ancient roman is…duh duh duhnnn Cui Bono? 

 

 

Who benefits?

 

Think about private contractors for military defense (Blackwater anyone???) and military production companies.  Not too mention the….OILLLLLL.  If you haven’t already watched Faranheit 9/11…you should.  If not to get the oil side of the story, but for the absolute corruptness/riggedness of the political process when bush jr. first got elected.  Anywho check it out yallllll.