impact over interest Archives - Revolutionary Misfit

My Life is Like the Grateful Dead

September 26, 2017 by costaricaguy 2 Comments

I’ll readily admit it…I’m a deadhead.

Have been for a very long time…and I don’t believe it’s something I’ll ever “grow out of.”

At least, I hope not.

I woke early this morning with some weird Dead tune playing in my head…

I reflected for a moment and realized it was from the album Blues for Allah.

Actually, Blues for Allah was my introduction to the Dead, back in the late 70’s.

The tune in my head was one called The Music Never Stopped.

Blues for Allah is one of the Dead’s most esoteric and weird studio recordings…it’s a mixture of hard psychedelic jam infused with jazz and other genres.

The title track for the album is a eulogy to former Saudi Arabia King Faisal, a fan of the Grateful Dead who was murdered in the year the album was released.

You can get the album in its entirely here.

One of my most memorable live Dead shows was in Charlotte, N.C. I guess it must have been like 1985. I went with a couple deadhead buddies…driving an old VW van, of course.

I remember being molested harshly by the Charlotte police on the way in…for no reason other than we looked “hippie”, I guess.

We had dropped some really good acid (you could always get that at Dead shows) and I was tripping pretty heavily throughout the show. Towards the end, the band was playing a Dylan tune and either projecting, or I, along with the entire audience, was hallucinating, some grand image on the stadium ceiling.

It was, well, just plain weird and exuberant fun.

Our plan was to move on to the next show in Norfolk. We hooked up with some deadhead chicks heading in the same direction. However, I got sidetracked and ended up staying in Greensboro, N.C. with some girl I knew there. The others continued on.

And that’s how it was back in those days, when Jerry was still around.

Flash forward about a lifetime later and I remember my last Dead show, while I was a practicing lawyer, again in Charlotte…with my ex-wife.

No acid this time!

Jerry died that same year.

And suddenly the Dead were no more…at least not in the pure form that I had come to know and love over so many years.

So, why do I say that my life is like the Grateful Dead?

Well, if the members of the Dead were anything they were nonconformists.

Some people really hated the Dead, but did they care? No, because they knew who they were and what they were about. And that was all that really mattered to them…and the legions who abandoned normal conformists lives to follow them.

And if I’m anything, it’s nonconformist. That’s why I find myself sitting here in the jungles of Costa Rica, typing out this post…rather than in Charlotte, being an elevator jockey.

The Dead was an eclectic mix, both in terms of the members of the band itself, and the music they played.

There has never been anything like the Dead. They played everything from heavy duty psychedelic, to folk, blues, bluegrass, R&B and country. One of my favorite Dead country covers is Merle Haggard’s Mama Tried.

In essence, with the Dead, there just weren’t any boundaries.

I believe that idea also captures the essence of this Revolutionary Misfit. I don’t believe in boundaries, borders or anything else that limits our experience of this life…that limits our potential for impact.

The Dead were musical scientists. They experimented with different mixes of sounds and genres. I’ve heard some crazy stories about their studio sessions. They liked to throw things together to see what might “work.” They weren’t afraid to take risks.

And, boy, do I ever do that. This blog is an experiment. My life in Latin America has been a continuous “risk.” Some aspects of my life here have proven disastrous for sure. But it has been worth it.

The Dead never thought of selling out, for any reason, especially not for money. I respect that and desire to emulate their example in what I do for the remaining days I have here.

I sincerely believe in what I’m doing right now. And I will continue to throw things out there into the world to see what might resonate…all consistent with my worldview, of course.

The Dead had a great impact on their fans. They influenced world-views with music and that’s not an easy accomplishment.

They were financially successful only because they attracted a loyal fan base, a tribe, who followed them to the ends of the earth.

I will readily admit that my world-view, the one this blog is all about, is heavily shaped by music, especially that of the Grateful Dead.

And I am sure they will continue to be an influence until the day I leave this Brokedown Palace.

They were Revolutionary Misfits for sure…

Long live the Dead!

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For Mom

November 3, 2016 by costaricaguy 2 Comments

Here’s another post from the distant past, inspired, in part, as was yesterday’s, by the book…The Road Less Traveled…

OK, I’ll admit…at the time I wrote it, I was having some “love” issues…

I seem to be writing a lot on this topic of love, relationships, and, you know, really yucky stuff. I promise I’ll move on soon, but humor me, please, for a moment, whilst I soothe my sore ego.

In Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled (which I recommend for anyone with problems upstairs, which pretty much means everyone, including YOU), he dispels some myths about the nature of true love.

For Peck, it all comes down to extending oneself emotionally, physically, financially and in all others ways, for the spiritual growth of another human being.

I’ve always thought of true love as being unconditional. In other words, if you claim to love someone, but only extend that love if they behave in certain ways, that’s just not love.

Love in return for performance?

Does that really sound correct to you?

I will love you as long as you buy me things, take me places, and please me in the ways I demand. The emphasis always remaining me, me, me…

Doesn’t that sound more like…self-love?

However, I’m afraid many people have that kind of idea about love. As soon as the performance wains, probably due to exhaustion, their “love” for the other dries up…

and they move on to the next ego-feeding source.

Now, there are some good models of unconditional love, in real life, as well as in religious mythology.

However, the best example that I can think of is a mother’s love, specifically my mother’s love.

And trust me on this, it ain’t easy being my mother! Tweet it Out!

Granted, that’s a different kind of love than the romantic type. But only in certain respects.

In keeping with Peck’s definition, we should love our partners with that same brand of unconditional love.

We should extend ourselves even when nothing flows back our way in return.

My mother does that on a consistent basis. And not just for me, but for most everyone.

Sometimes I believe she feels a bit exhausted. I can see it in her face, or hear it in her voice, but she keeps on extending nonetheless.

Why?

Because she has real love in her heart. She doesn’t expect, nor demand, a certain level of performance in return.

Now, I’m sure she’d prefer to see a bit of it, i.e., performance, if she had her druthers, but disappointment in regards to such wishful thinking is never a condition to her extending.

I tend to take for granted how fortunate I am to have someone who loves me in this way. You ever do that? Don’t!

Hence this post is for mom, and dedicated to her shining example of unconditional love.

Save for my children, no human being has ever loved me like that…

not even close.

I never have to worry that if I mess up, really bad, she will stop loving me. If that were the case, well, I don’t believe she’d still be answering my phone calls.

But she does and she’s there for me when I need her, always.

I know she reads my drivel from time to time, so, mom, if you happen to catch this one…

thanks and I love you.

post update: my mom passed away October 31, 2016…she will forever be the greatest model of unconditional love that I’ve known...

Thinking with A Big Head

October 29, 2016 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

This is a three year old post that, due to recent events, I thought I’d resurrect…

Are you a “successful” person?

I’ve had a few successes in my life. I guess the fact that I’m still here after 53 years is, in many respects, a success.

But I’ve also experienced this phenomenon throughout my life that generally arises on the heels of success…

Failure!

Be it moral, financial, colossally stupid-ital, or otherwise.

Why is that?

And it doesn’t seem to be an occurrence unique to me.

Can you identify?

Here are a few notable for instances…

The iconic music diva. She may have come out of nowhere to achieve fame and fortune. But once it arrives she morphs into a super-sized bitch of epic proportions.

The child star. A ironic example because even though the head hasn’t developed enough to handle the success (so they pay others to do that for them), they tend to implode from big-headed-ness.

The rock-star politician. Need I name names? They may have gotten into it as a champion of the people, but once they achieve talk-show celebrity fame…it all tends to become about something different…about them. “The people” just don’t matter that much anymore.

The tele-evangelist. They engage in fiery rhetoric encouraging us to be like Jesus, but behind the scenes their actions are better characterized by Satan than the Son of God.

Success is like air to the ego…it inflates.

Sometimes to the point of a spectacular and very public bursting.

All too often an inflated ego gives rise to this elitist mindset that somehow we are different. That we have been touched with greatness.

Well, “being touched” has a more negative connotation that might better explain the reality of the situation.

That is, success can indeed lead to a state of temporary insanity.

And, if you’re not careful, that can lead to a more permanent condition of derangement.

It happens again and again with so-called celebrities. But it also happens on a smaller scale with you and with me.

I know I’ve experienced it. In fact, I recently posted about a notable success I once had that landed a big payday.

And you know what? Almost immediately thereafter I blew it…my life literally imploded from my own big-headed-ness.

I made virtually every mistake in the book and failed from almost every perspective possible.

The truth of the matter is that success does not regenerate or transform who we are into something greater and grander.

We remain the same potential putz of infinite negative possibility.

That is, success never makes us immune from following it with something really dumb.

In fact, it often dramatically enhances the probability of that occurring.

If we’re not careful.

From an observational standpoint, it appears that those driven towards success for self-centered reasons tend to be more susceptible to the phenomenon.

While those who are driven by the potential for impact tend to stay more ego deflated.

It’s kind of like the difference between a Blake Mycoskie (maker/giver of shoes, billions of them) and a Donald Trump (billionaire/real estate mogul/loud-mouthed celebrity clown).

Who would you rather emulate?

It really comes down to motive…your why.

And that’s in large part what this blog is all about.

The moral of the story…

don’t let success go to your head…

because in reality, it’s still just a stupid head.

Thinking with the big head is better than its opposite. Thinking with A Big Head can get you into even more trouble. Tweet it Out!

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A Thanksgiving Memoir

November 25, 2015 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

My most vivid Thanksgiving memories are those at grandma’s. The trumpet call that marked time to fill the chow line was the opening prayer. I remember when I was allowed to actually offer that prayer up myself, which I did with fearful trepidation. There’s nothing one can self-judge more critically than a flat Thanksgiving Day prayer with your entire extended family in captive audience.

The spread was always immaculate. This was country style, which means not much “style” at all…just a whole lot of intensely fat-flavored food for which every stomach present would audibly beckon. “Stuffing” would not only be an item on the menu that day, but also a mild description of what we did to our stomachs with reckless abandon.

That thought leads me to the after dinner thing that I was truly most grateful for…grandma’s insanely comfortable recliner…which had my name on it for the after dinner nap…with at least one eye slightly opened to catch anything interesting that might be going on in the Macy’s Day Parade, or between the Packers and the Lions. If anyone else tried to sneak in there, I would quickly remind him or her, in Sheldon Cooper-like fashion, that “you’re in my spot.”

The after-nap activities usually consisted of gathering in the front yard to chat, looking for arrow heads in the adjacent tobacco field that always lay fallow at this time of the year, or maybe even trying your hand at some target practice with a real live firearm.

Yes, Thanksgiving Days at grandma’s will remain burned in my memory banks for as long as they remain with some degree of functionality.

Thanksgiving…a day we don’t even celebrate down here in Costa Rica. A day of thanks and gratitude. No one can argue with the utility of that exercise. It all started back in 1621 when the first such feast was held, by historical accounts attended by almost twice as many Native Americans as there were Pilgrims present. That sure didn’t last for long.

I read a very provocative Seth Godin piece this Thanksgiving morning entitled “Culture and Selfishness.” The last line seemed correct until I reflected a little more deeply upon it…Seth writes…

One of the greatest things to be thankful for is the fact that we live in a culture that pushes each of us to be thankful and generous. It didn’t have to turn out that way, and I’m glad it did.

Okay, maybe so, but thankful for what?

It’s often said that you should be careful what you wish for…because you just might get it!

Well, perhaps we should be careful what we’re thankful for as well…because we just might get more of it.

Really, what we’re generally thankful for at first blush is stuff. Grateful for the roof, the rags and the riches of living in a country that grants us the blessed freedom to accumulate.

But are those things really what the world needs more of?

I remember back in primary school when we would draw pictures to represent that first Thanksgiving. We would even dress up like Pilgrims and Indians. The childish thought of Thanksgiving was one of a world in harmony…without division and where everyone had exactly what they needed…not more. Maybe that world existed for those three days back in 1621, but it quickly evaporated thereafter.

Godin goes on to say…

In the U.S., today some people will give thanks for what they personally have. Others will focus more on what has gone right for family and friends. And others will dig deeper and think hard about what they can do to take an even longer view, and to create a platform where even more people will be thankful a year or a decade from now.

I believe that last sentence really provides something to be thankful, as well as wishful, for today, November 26, 2015…

the opportunity to have (and leave) a positive impact upon our deeply troubled world.

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The Case for a Moral Universe

June 21, 2015 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

My last post was an evil one…er, about evil.

If you happened to have caught it, you might remember my five quintessential evil acts…

Exclusion
Hatred
Greed
Indifference
Cruelty

Wait, I can hear someone thinking, those aren’t evil. They aren’t even illegal.

True.

But all the criminals locked up these days aren’t necessarily evil. True that they did some bad stuff to end up in there…but in my mind evil is just another thing altogether.

And plenty of folks with evil intentions are walking around outside of prison walls…some are even the ones with the decision-making power to send the rest of us to that place.

You might also recall that the common thread running through this evil-ness is self-interest…

it is at the core of evil…in my opinion.

That is, self-interest elevated too far above impact, or the antithesis of impact over interest, as you might read somewhere else in this blog.

I ran across a video of the South African civil rights activist and Anglican bishop, Desmond Tutu. In it he makes the case for a moral universe.

His words made me ponder once again the nature of good versus evil.

Isn’t it true that our initial word view, if you can call it that, fresh from the womb, is one of complete and utter self-interest?

In fact, at that infantile stage of thinking, we can’t even distinguish a world apart from ourselves. It’s all connected to us…we are at the center.

Later on we graduate from that level of thinking…

well, sort of.

We gradually begin to recognize that a world indeed exists separate and apart from ourselves. And it’s a dog-eat-dog world indeed…a real jungle out there.

So much so that we fight to separate from it even further and create our own private universes…complete with the two-story house, two-car garage and white picket fence…that once again revolve around us.

You see, we can’t quite shed that need to be at the center, can we?

But the truth that Bishop Tutu is getting at, I believe, is that we are NOT at the center…

it is.

The universe is.

And we are all connected to it…not the other way around.

And by virtue of that connection, we are all connected to each other.

The universe is the glue that binds us…like it or not.

And that very idea means that there is no place in the universe for this obsession with self-interest. It is open rebellion against the universe.

That’s what makes it…and the five evil acts that so often accompany it…evil.

They are contra-connection.

But the universe is larger, stronger and truer than it (self-interest) or they (the five evil acts) are…

and as Bishop Tutu proclaims…the universe will ALWAYS prevail.

The universe is full of light and light is stronger than darkness.

Those whom we look up to as champions of light, or beacons of universal hope, were entirely un-self-interested.

The ones Tutu mentions…

Ghandi

Dalai Lama

Mother Teresa

and others I have mentioned in the past…

Mandela

ML King

They lived their lives in a way that recognized our universal connection.

They were stalwarts against the evils of self-interest run amok, which leads to oppression and unnecessary suffering.

They were good. They were moral.

And their very existence proves the case for the moral universe…as Tutu proclaims.

Their light shone in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.

You know how our lights shine in the darkness?

How we can win against it…against the evils of self-interest?

By our impact.

Just like they did.

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Who are You?

June 16, 2015 by costaricaguy 1 Comment

Here’s a very old post from CRG that I always liked.

Should a human being be defined by one particular trait that tends to “stand out” in the mind of another, or in his or her own mind?

If other people see you as being fat, then do you tell yourself…

I am fat.

Is that who you are, fat?

Or, a father, a husband, a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker?

Or, an idiot…an idea of which I frequently remind myself.

But the question “who are you” really goes much deeper than surface-level characterizations, doesn’t it?

In fact, when you really think about it, it is a difficult question to answer. I mean sitting here pondering it, I really don’t have a quick answer.

I am Scott Bowers (or is it Costa Rica Guy?).

But that doesn’t answer the question.

Scott Bowers is a name that I inherited. I didn’t choose it. I don’t even like it that much. I would prefer to be Guillermo, or something similarly mysterious and Latin. But my parents saw fit to give me the name Scott, or David Scott to be 100% accurate. I guess I’ve just learned to live with it.

When I was young folks had the habit of calling me Scotty, as in “beam me up Mr. Scotty.” I really didn’t appreciate that so much.

Living in Costa Rica, the name Scott Bowers often poses difficulties. First of all, for most ticos, the name “Scott” is readily associated with papel higienico, or toilet paper. Not a very flattering association, huh? I am reminded of it often here.

And my Germanic last name, Bowers, is virtually impossible to pronounce for most Latinos.

But is that who I am…Scott Bowers?

No, the name in and of itself is meaningless and I hope that I am not, at least not entirely, meaningless. There are a few people in this world that find meaning in my existence.

But the real answer to the riddle of “who are you” cannot be found by looking to names, or character traits, and certainly not to the perspectives of other people. It has to be found in yourself and your unique position in the universe.

When you break it down to the lowest common denominator, who, or better, what, you are, is an “energy force.” An energy force with an ability to direct that energy to your choosing.

You are also an intrinsic component of this universe and when you direct your energy toward a determined end, the universe must follow suit as it is connected to you.

So maybe the answer to the question of who are you depends on where, or how, your energy is being directed at any given point along the space-time continuum.

Wow, I am beginning to sound a bit like Mr. Scotty from Star Trek.

I believe we too easily allow people and perspectives to define our place in this universe. When in reality, we have been gifted with the power to define that for ourselves and to re-define it as often as we see fit.

Of course, you can direct your energy in ways that are destructive, or to ways that are constructive. Or we can just do nothing at all and then our energy will slowly stagnate and dissipate and sooner or later our flame will begin to flicker until it is finally extinguished.

Haven’t you noticed that the more proactive you are, the more energy you seem to have? And the less proactive you are, the more depressed and non-energetic you feel?

So for me the answer to the question is that I am energy. Not a “hey that is an energetic fellow” kind of an answer, but really, when you get right down to it, that is what I am…

energy.

The “who I am” is part and parcel of how I direct my energy…positively, or negatively. I can direct it negatively and be an SOB, or positively and be a saint.

The crazy thing to think about is that this universe to which we are connected is comprised of an infinite number of “energy forces.” However, they have no will…their energy is directed according to physical laws. I mean Saturn can’t up one day and decide to change the rotational direction of its rings, now can it?

The only force that can be self-directed in a manner of the energy force’s own choosing is your energy, my energy, human energy. Hitler’s energy was self-directed, as was Gandhi’s and Mother Teresa’s, just towards different ends.

Does that mean that the “universe” is indifferent as to how I direct my energy?

Hmm, that is an even more difficult question best reserved for another post, another day.

The moral of this story?

Don’t let faulty answers to the question of who are you influence and thereby misdirect the focus of your energy.

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