Month: July 2012

Dropping some science (and more!)

As the title suggests, I’m getting nerdy in this post. You’ve been warned….

First I want to say that I’m not an expert in science or anything of the sort. I’ve taken general Chem and various Biology courses for my degree, but I’m by no means a scientist in the academic sense. However, that is not to say that I don’t ask questions of the world around me, test out theories and act accordingly upon getting results… but I think that’s called learning from your mistakes. By that token, we should all be considered scientists.

Anyway, I’m in the process of reading 4 books, actively. I switch between them, depending on my mood. (As a small aside, I don’t have a television, on purpose, any longer so I have a lot more time to devote to reading… as if to say I watched much tv, because I really didn’t)

One of them was written in the early 1900’s and was pretty controversial, and so far, I can see why it’s likely to still be controversial if the masses actually cared. It’s written by Aleister Crowley and for those that may have read his books, it’s not an easy read. It’s very scientific, spritual and also happens to be written in “Old” English. One of the other books is a book on happiness, called The Happiness Myth. This book is also a tough read because the writer uses historical writings from the world’s great thinkers, scientists and spiritual leaders to make the point that happiness isn’t some unattainable, romanticized thing, but a real, tangible, attainable experience that we can have as often as we want. Pretty heavy stuff.

So the Crowley book and the Happiness book have similar general ideas about you, the individual, and your relation to the world around you. At a very basic level, they both assert that each person is a star, a unique, orbiting, free, entity by which all other things are equal and equally independent. They both also state that while each star is independent, we are all part of a greater symphony of stars, part of a galaxy of stars, where we must learn to maintain our own orbit, but also interact with those around us.

Here’s where I drop some actual science: Those of you that have taken Chem, you’ll know exactly what this is.

http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/eens211/crystal_chemistry.htm

This is an electron map for an atom. It’s a generic one, so if you’re feeling super scientific, I’m sure you can figure out what element it is, I just don’t have the time. The point is this: The atoms orbit the nucleus of an atom based on charge, and strength of the charges between the nucleus and the electron itself. Now, this is just the “best guess” of where the electrons for this particular atom will be at any given time. However, every single electron can be ANYWHERE at any time. Anywhere. In all of space. It boils down, again, to charges and strength. Am I losing you?

Ok, so if you take out the word nucleus and put in the word Sun, this is a generic model of a solar system. Not ours, of course because we have different planets… but again, it’s all based on charges and strength. Small, weak planets are closer to the sun because it’s SUPER attractive, right? The big planets that are strong in themselves, further away.

Back to electrons: They are the attractive and detractive (is that even a word?) forces in everything. If you feel calm, it’s often because your electrons are not “excited”, which means they’re not spinning quickly or vibrating within their orbit very fast. (Note: every electron vibrates and spins within it’s space, how quickly depends on it’s nature and the interactions with other electrons)

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/hexaginal-electrons-shannon-weinhold.html
(Beautiful, right?)

Electrons also want to, generally, be as far away from everything as possible. They are negatively charged remember. So, they can leave their expected orbit because other electrons are invading their space. However, there are certain reactions where electrons are shared, swapped, and all together lost between entities, all for the sake of harmony and balance. Now here’s where I bring it back to happiness: Surrounding yourself (and all your tiny electrical pulses: electrons) with other entities (people, objects, animals, etc) that create balance and harmony is the fundamental laws of nature. Working within your own orbit, satisfying your own goals, so long as you’re not screwing up someone else’s orbit, and getting excited while seeking harmony and balance…. THAT is what we are all striving for, on a truly basic, elemental level. All this humanity crap just gets in the way.

I really like that idea… that we are independent, yet interconnected in a greater sense, seeking a life of balance and harmony (stability) with others that excite our electrons, but not so much that we are repelled by one another. (Again, negatively charged… repelling)

I’m sorry if I lost you, my nerd escaped for a minute. Back to your regularly scheduled programming. :)

http://www.askamathematician.com/2012/01/q-is-it-possible-for-an-atomic-orbital-to-exist-beyond-the-s-p-f-and-d-orbitals-they-taught-about-in-school-like-could-there-be-a-other-letter-orbital-beyond-that/
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Intentions

Live the way I want to live, walk the walk, harmoniously
Temper, temper: whenever I get angry, meditate instead
Let it go, it’s not personal, and even if it is, it’s temporary: karma isn’t always yours
Live in the now, but think of the future: find sources of joy and memories

So here we are, July is almost coming to a close, and man, it’s been a toasty one throughout most of the country. We’ve had some very strange weather here… so much rain. That’s the cycle of things though, some years it’s dry, drought ridden and combustible. Other years, it’s unseasonably abundant with growth, change and during these storms, there’s often considerable destruction, but when the clouds clear, the flowers bloom.

c/o Daddy Skittles Photography

Life is that way, I think. Last year was tremendously hard for me. There were very few things that I had to be happy about, but this year, while also tremendously hard, there are finally flowers along the way. I am doing exactly what I set out to do for the first time in ages. I am growing as a person, learning new things, sharing experiences with really amazing people… what more can I ask for?

I have not only set out goals for myself that I’m keeping, but my intentions are right and there are visible and invisible payoffs. I feel amazing. I’ve had only a few, relatively speaking, encounters with my temper. This isn’t to say that I’ve not been furious over the past few weeks, because I’ve been quite mad in certain situations. However, I allow myself to be mad for a minute and collect myself so I can move on to more constructive things. Not only is this allowing me to overcome being really upset, but it’s also allowing me to let go of things more readily. I have other things to worry about and more still to enjoy. Being pissed isn’t conducive to my goals.

The last goal on the list, for some reason is often difficult for my planning, type A, over-thinking self to accomplish. I’m used to delaying fun in the hopes that there will be a larger payoff in the end. But that thinking is just silly to me now. I don’t want to wait until “the end” of whatever, to enjoy my life. I want to experience every single minute of it in ways that bring me and other people joy. Just this weekend I spent time with my closest friends, swam with my rapidly growing nephew and family for hours, and read several books about happiness and philosophy, amongst other things. Hell, I even took a nap for the first time in easily a year.

c/o Daddy Skittles Photography

None of my goals or ways of achieving them are terribly “hard”, nor are they riddled with extravagance. They are simple and small goals because that is how I see attaining true and lasting happiness, through a series of small goals, victories and experiences. Hopefully they will all lead to a larger end, but in the meantime, I am having a blast, and a cup of very strong coffee… joyful living, doing what I want and enjoying myself has taken away some of my sleep, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m never going back to where I was before. Not in this lifetime.

Happy Monday!

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When it rains, it pours

I’m sure most people have heard this saying, “When it rains, it pours”. My grandma used to say it a lot when I was a kid. She had a bunch of other sayings too, but this one has always stuck with me.

Quite literally it’s been raining like crazy in Phoenix, where I live. For about two weeks we’ve seen close to our annual levels of rain. Some days it just sprinkles, but others, it’s torrential downpour. Since I live in downtown Phoenix, we almost never see real rain because of the “heat island” effect. Without getting political, the concrete traps so much heat that basically the water vapor that would become rain, evaporates and therefore cannot become rain. It becomes mostly humidity and that’s lame. Hot I can do, humid, ok… but 115 degrees AND humidity? Forget it.

http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/125058089.html

The common archetype for rain, that is, the historical and common wisdom explanations and reasons for rain often surround destruction and rebirth or renewal. If you think about it, after terrible storms that destroy property or end lives, there is often a period of rebuilding, tremendous growth and change. Structures may be washed away, but the resilience of human, animal and plant life is to continue to exist.

We are engrained with the concept that we MUST continue on. That is why in the face of extreme adversity, we don’t just jump off a cliff. It’s not in our collective wiring. Yes, we all know that suicide is possible and all too common, however, it takes an unbelievable amount of strength to overcome that natural survival instinct. Many people see it as weakness, but while there may be an element of weakness but at the time of leaving this world, that person has demonstrated the ability to literally override thousands of years of genetic conditioning. Quite a demonstration of strength if you ask me. I’m not in ANY way condoning or encouraging suicides. I’m simply pointing out that it’s very difficult to accomplish.

http://www.sitka.com/contest-0608/entry9.html

Anyway, the same thing goes for wildfires. They are an insanely destructive force that takes the lives of acres of trees, displaces possibly thousands of people and animals, as well as causing massive upheaval. However, without them, many forests would die within a few seasons. The forests need to be thinned, the charred remains of the trees then become fertilizer for the new generation of forest and those that survive end up becoming much stronger and able to withstand more and more. Again, nature provides a hugely destructive catalyst to amazing growth and change.

What we call life does the same things to each of us. It can manifest in countless ways, but nevertheless, we are often face to face with destruction. Relationships end, forcing the people involved to start over and rebuild their lives. Careers end, forcing the worker to find a new job or learn new skills to make themselves more marketable. Someone passes away, forcing the friends and family to bond together and find comfort, solace and the strength to continue forward. All of the things the universe throws at you or I can be seen as death, destruction, the end…. but they can also be seen as lessons, opportunities and rebirth. You can roll over and let the fire or flood take you, or you can weather the storm and rebuild. Those are really the only choices. But trust me, by not making a “choice”, you’re making a choice and the universe will only play nice for so long, until it forces your hand and makes the choice for you. At which point, you’re at the mercy of Nature.

I tend to want to have a say in my life. Often this makes things much harder for me. But I also have the opportunity to learn more lessons in a shorter time span. There’s a reason I’ve got more life experience than several people much older than me. It’s not because I’ve been sitting around on my duff all these years. It’s because I’m constantly making changes, both destructive and constructive. However, there’s a few things that I’ve learned along the way: 1) Always love. If you do things out of malice, spite or being reactionary, you will regret it. 2) Honesty is the best policy. This begins with being true to yourself and understanding your true nature. If you cannot be honest with yourself, you cannot be honest with others. 3) Strive for perfection, but accept that you are human. It’s unreasonable to think that you will understand everything, learn everything and life will be easy. That’s just not true. But if you set the bar high and strive to meet it in everything you do, you will still have great results. In that strive for excellence, you must also remember that you’re only human and you will make mistakes. 4) Acceptance- you must accept that you’re human and that sometimes crap happens. Bad stuff does happen to good people, but you can dwell or you can accept that it’s an obstacle and dust off, so you can move on and 5) MOVE ON. When things haven’t worked out doing something a certain way, try a different way. If that doesn’t work, try another. But at some point, you have to know when to stop spinning your wheels and just let it go. It does no good to you to go crazy over details or mulling over the same one thing all the time. You have to be able to move on and let things go.

These are just some things that I’ve learned recently and I hope that you, my loyal readers, find your way through life and learn from adversity as I have and continue to. Until next time!

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Truth be told OR… Brutal honesty, either way.

I first want to say that under no circumstances am I the pinnacle of morality, nor am I the “high and mighty” type. In the spirit, of well, honesty, I can’t say that I’ve always been truthful either. When I was a kid I’d fib pretty regularly to “not get in trouble”, but somehow I managed to get into more trouble by lying. As a young adult, I was not the pinnacle of honesty by any stretch. I did and said many things that I’m not proud of, but they have made me who I am today.

Saying that, I have a very good friend that often gives me advice about issues I’ve had over the past several years. Many of these topics revolved around “shady” morality, generally on one hand was the truth and it’s consequences and on the other, any varieties of non-truths or omissions of the truth with their respective consequences. But somewhere in the middle of these two hands was what I wanted to happen, clouding everything, as well as the variables of humanity and human reactions/ actions.

Now, I have learned that if I can evade, I will… I’m sure that other people do it too. Because of this, I adopted a “only direct questions yield direct answers policy”, which means that if the person doing the questioning does not ask the appropriate question to get a direct answer, they don’t get one. Only in certain situations does this A) work out the way you want it to, B) have a positive outcome at all and C) happen often in my life anymore simply because it’s too unpredictable.

http://www.careerattraction.com/the-truth-about-the-hidden-job-market/

However, there is one sure fire way to get, at the very least, out of the stress of lying. Lying is freaking HARD work. As we all know, lies compound and we all too often get buried in them if they get out of hand. So, yeah, the truth. It’s a good idea. I’m not in any way saying that the truth is always a good idea, because if your significant other says “do I look fat?”, you may want to take evasive measures. That or invest in sound protective gear. You may get beat up.

But I think that telling the truth in regular life situations leads to telling the truth in the big situations too. For instance, if you accidentally send an incriminating text to the WRONG person, it’s best to tell your friend that yes, you were talking about them behind their back, you’re a total asshat and you meant to send it to someone else rather than letting the chips fall. Not only should you tell the truth, but you should also maybe be proactive with the apologies.

Doing things unprovoked, like telling the truth, will free up so much of your mind space, heart space and let you not worry that somehow the truth will “come out” in a way you hadn’t intended. By doing things like telling the guy you like that you’d like to see him this week, or complementing someone on their shirt choice today will bring positivity into your life. It’ll attract people who like you, people that can share honesty, and appreciate your openness. YES, it’s incredibly difficult to be proactive and put yourself out there, and yes you will screw it up and end up occasionally bludgeoned. But, it’s all a learning experience, this life, isn’t it? Learn to dust yourself off and get back on the path. You’ll be surprised what comes to you.

http://knowledgemaven.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/convenient-lies-and-misplaced-truths/

As my closing statement about this whole honesty thing, don’t be a jerk. If your version of honesty is harsh, brutal to anyone but your ego, hurtful, malicious and all that negative stuff, it’s truly best to just keep a lid on it. Nobody needs you to add to their stress and they certainly don’t need to you drag them through the mud. The universe is good enough at that without your help. Cultivate kindness with those whom you are blessed to be around. Even the negative ones are a blessing. They teach you things the kind ones cannot.

Thanks for reading!

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Happiness by the kilowatt

Live the way I want to live, walk the walk, harmoniously
Temper, temper: whenever I get angry, meditate instead
Let it go, it’s not personal, and even if it is, it’s temporary: karma isn’t always yours
Live in the now, but think of the future: find sources of joy and memories

This has been a really strange week. There was a holiday right in the middle of it and it’s hard to know what day it is, though, I know it’s Saturday. I spent half the work week thinking that it was Monday. Anyway, happiness has seemed pretty elusive for those around me. It appears to be a time of great change for several people (including myself). Some of these people are going through physical changes, others it’s geographical, still others it’s purely financial. Nevertheless, each of my friends are experiencing levels of hardship, sacrifice, or upheaval. Many of them are facing significant challenges to their lifestyle or quality of life because of the changes that are happening.

The question I’ve been thinking about in the past few days is, how can someone remain “happy” during extremely difficult situations? I know that I’m experiencing moments of pure joy during incredible struggle. From moment to moment, I can’t say for sure that I’m happy, but I am feeling the most positive about my life, my future and myself as I have in several years. This is a totally foreign feeling, simply because I’m often too focused on other things to enjoy this feeling of happiness in the moment.

At the very same time, as I’ve been told, I appear to be maintaining my composure and nobody would ever know that I was stressed, struggling or experiencing real difficulties. That, to me, is a small success. I am often quite reserved and don’t allow the whole world to see my inner workings. Once you’re within my sphere of close companions, my “tells” are much easier to read, since my guard isn’t nearly as strong. I know that a few of my friends have a similar ability, but I’m pretty good at reading them. Shout out to Peaches. ;)

Shake it Out- Florence and the Machine

I am pleased to say that while I’ve got personal struggles happening, I’ve also got personal successes happening too. I think that’s why maintaining is relatively “easy”, there seems to be a greater sense of balance between good and bad. As for the goals of Right Intention, I’ve really made it a point to cultivate the right mindset and a clear path to internal happiness.

In a conversation yesterday, a friend and I were talking about our parents not listening to our opinions, even when backed by true facts. We decided it was based on our “status” in relation to our parents. They don’t want to learn something from their kids. I know I’ve been going on about nutrition and health with my mother for years and then out of the blue she shares some information that she heard from elsewhere, that I’ve said a million times, like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. But this conversation ended with the notion that sharing information must be effective to be worthwhile. If the audience isn’t ready, they will not absorb it. This applies to me and the happiness project in that rather than beating everyone over the head with information, I just live it. Walking the walk, and allowing that to be my method of persuasion seem to be most effective in most cases. I am open to sharing information, but wasting my time preaching helps no one.

Pictures of Success- Rilo Kiley

The other aspect of my goals that I’ve been working on primarily is finding sources of joy in my life and trying to get as much out of those experiences as I can. This has been a little bit of a struggle because I’m used to MAKING things happen, rather than enjoying them as they are. I’ve truly had to change my way of thinking, almost over night, because I was going nowhere good thinking I could control every detail of everything. So, while certain situations might not be “perfect” they’re pretty damn good as they are and I should embrace them as the wonderful experiences they are instead of being upset that they aren’t “my” way.

Collect Call- Metric

And finally, to bring this blog full circle with it’s title, music. Music has been a huge source of support, strength, courage and joy for me and several of my friends lately. We’ve been listening to a lot of music and sharing it with one another. It’s been really great getting back to music. My whole life has had an internal soundtrack and reigniting my passion for music has made every minute of my days more bright. I cannot express how amazing that feeling is, the feeling that someone has taken your struggles, heartbreaks, joys, gratitude and put them to music and shared them with you. It makes people feel less alone to know that others share their experiences and put them out in the world. I know I feel that way.

Thanks for reading this very long blog. I appreciate those of you that read it and those that also read and comment. :)

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