Revolutionary Misfit

Dare to be Inspirational

The Misguided Message of Tony Robbins

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The Misguided Message of Tony Robbins

I can remember it almost like it was yesterday…

It must’ve been 1996 and I was getting ready to go to work at the law firm in Charlotte, N.C.

The TV was on and this infomercial appeared on screen with this dude with sculptured hair, big, brilliant white teeth and a deep, booming voice…

it was Tony Robbins.

He was raving about his CD audio program, Personal Power, which he claimed was guaranteed to transform your life.

He captured my attention, as Tony is an expert at doing, and I ended up ordering the program.

I was about to finish the executive MBA program at the University of S.C. and I’d been offered a management position with a company in Myrtle Beach.

It was a bold move to step outside of the career I’d studied so hard for and spent the last 7 years working in…

and I knew, once you leave the legal profession, it can be hard to ever come back.

So, I felt I could use exactly the type of motivational kick in the pants that Tony was offering.

That was the start of a relationship with Tony that bordered on cultish obsession.

After that initial experience walking the beach with my walkman blasting Robbins’ distinctive voice against my eardrums and into the cerebral cortex…

I embarked on an all-out Tony Robbins immersion phase that lasted the better part of a decade.

I attended his one day business seminar, twice to be exact. One of those was his last event, for which I chartered a private plane, so that my entire Live Oak staff could attend the event in New York City.

I did his signature Unleash the Power Within event, a three day affair that includes the famous fire walk experience.

During that event I signed up for Date with Destiny, which is the first of a series of three events that Tony calls, Mastery University.

I did all three.

I was at the famous last Life Mastery event on the big island of Hawaii when the planes hit the twin towers on 9-11.

All in all, I guess I spent around $25,000 during this Tony Robbins life phase…including extensive travel expenses, as Tony’s events were always held at the swankiest and most expensive hotels.

So, I believe I speak with some level of experience when I write this morning about the misguided message of Tony Robbins…misguided, at least, in my opinion, holding the worldview that I do today.

Now, granted, my worldview has shifted…dramatically.

Back when I was doing my Robbins thing I was a devout fundamentalist Christian. I never really had trouble reconciling that fact with what Robbins taught.

After all, God wanted me to succeed, right?

I do remember often praying for Tony’s salvation.

Did I ever actually meet him? Actually I did, a couple times, but only to briefly shake his hand and tell him how much his life had meant to mine.

And it did…Tony’s teaching did change me. It released me from many of the doubts about myself that had held me back.

But it also caused me to fixate on that aspect of life that Tony claims we all must deal with…

becoming financially free.

That means having enough money to do what you want, when you want, where you want…etc., etc.

I see now that Tony has written a new book about, take a guess,…

money.

I caught him on Maria Forleo this morning being interviewed about the book.

One of the events in Mastery University was called Wealth Mastery. In it Tony divulged investing secrets of the mega-rich. Seems now Tony has decided all those “secrets” are a bunch of hooey and the best thing to do is put your money in low cost market index funds…yawn!

So, in what manner do I believe Tony to be misguided?

You see, I don’t believe a focus on attaining financial freedom is a sustainable concept, not on personal, nor planetary, levels.

Tony taught me, or so I interpreted his teaching, that I had to fix myself, especially from a financial perspective, before I could fix the world.

I just no longer believe that’s true.

I believe a focus on fixing the world is what fixes the self.

That is, a life where impact is the motivation, rather than self-interest (especially rather than economic self-interest), is what will give our lives meaning and fulfilment.

Tony tells us there is nothing wrong with money, with having things.

Oh, but I believe that there definitely is.

You see, the world can no longer sustain the wealth of a whole bunch of Tony Robbins wannabes.

Tony is an entertainer and in our society entertainers make a lot of money. And Tony has indeed made a lot of money…some of it off of me!

And his message basically is, hey, if I can do it, so can you.

That might be true, but it doesn’t make it a good thing…not on a personal or a planetary level.

This world simply doesn’t need more rich people…it needs more impact minded people.

People who couldn’t give a flip about absolute financial freedom, but who care passionately about absolute human freedom.

That is, the freedom that comes when all people on this planet can live lives of health and dignity.

Right now, we’re far from that and as the rich keep getting richer and the poor poorer…with many of those rich taking the very advice Tony is peddling…

that level of human freedom is becoming more and more elusive for millions upon millions that inhabit this planet.

I admire Tony Robbins. He has done a lot of good for a lot of people.

He always ends his books and seminars with a call to impact and that’s a good thing.

But, you see, I believe rather than leave that for the end…

it should come at the beginning.

 

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A System that Breeds Apathy

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A System that Breeds Apathy

Our society is currently based on a system that breeds apathy and complacency.

How?

I can best use myself as an example.

For the longest time I was convinced that money was the answer for everything.

If I could just make enough of it, well, then everything would go right with my world…the world.

How much was enough?

That’s a question I could never seem to answer to my satisfaction.

I did make some money…by some standards, a lot of it.

Did everything go right?

No, it didn’t.

And then something happened to me.

The realization began to dawn that money wasn’t the answer.

That money could not bring happiness…

to me, or…

to the world.

The indigenous cultures that our western capitalistic-minded ancestors displaced…

in their insatiable quest for land, gold and slaves…

knew very well that money wasn’t the answer. In fact, they didn’t even use it.

They knew that happiness comes from being part of a tribe consisting of individuals who don’t frantically seek their own well-being…

but the well-being of the tribe.

But we dismissed them as savages and just, well, kinda brushed them out of the way of our development.

Now we’ve reached a point in that development where it’s becoming apparent that something’s wrong with this system.

That something’s wrong when your life is reduced to a constant need to produce just enough of those little green papers adorned with pictures of dead notables…

to barely eek out a living.

The thought of taking care of a tribe,

well, that becomes a preposterous idea.

I’ve got to take care of me…and I’ve got my hands full just doing that!

Leave the taking care of others to people who have the whereabouts to concern themselves with that sort of a thing.

Leave that to the 1%’ers who we often see trumpeted in the media for giving back…

when in reality only a handful give a tiny fraction back in order to salve their aching consciences….

aching because of the gross luxury of their existence…

while some have nothing but a hole to shit in.

I saw a bunch of right-winger Facebook posts the other day admiring Donald Trump for giving 25 grand to the marine who was held in Mexico.

Trump giving $25,000 to that guy is like me giving 25 cents to a beggar on the street.

While both acts are laudable, they’re not worth going viral about.

We need more compassion than that to save this world.

After this dawning of my impact consciousness I began to feel the pains of the problem we all face when considering a life of impact…

How do I make a living?

Ah, the paradox of our system.

The answer to that question can be so daunting that we just give up on the notion.

We become apathetic once again…

We’ve got to fight against that inclination.

We, the 99%, are the ones who are going to change things for the better.

I can assure you that we cannot afford to leave it to the Donald Trumps of this world. The system works too well for them.

We can’t be apathetic and kid ourselves that we can leave it to the ones who are the very source of the problem.

The time to act is now.

Let’s get busy!

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Against the Grain

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against the grain

Here’s a post I wrote back in 2009 that sheds some light on things I’ve said regarding the racial tensions that our nation has experienced recently…

I guess it must’ve been 1975. I’d have been in the 10th grade, a sophomore at West Brunswick High School.

My father had moved our family to Holden Beach, North Carolina, a small “barrier island” on the extreme southern North Carolina coast, only a stone’s throw from South Carolina.

While North Carolina is usually not considered the “deep South”, Holden Beach was close enough. When we moved there in 1965 or 1966 (not sure about the exact date), the schools were still segregated.

For those of you not old enough to know what that means, the whites had their school, and the blacks another.

When desegregation took place in my third year of primary school, a few white families banded together to form a private school where their children could escape the unimaginable horror of attending school with black children.

However, that idea for some reason didn’t last too long, and after two years of attending Lockwood Academy I was thrust into the world of desegregated public school.

It’s not entirely clear to me why, but for some reason I just never took to the idea of racial intolerance.

It may have had something to do with a black gym instructor I had beginning in the 5th grade. His name was Moe Stanley and he became a great influence on my life in those formative years. I became very interested in sports, especially basketball and Moe Stanley helped to fuel that passion. Also our neighbor and close family friend was the head coach of the West Brunswick varsity basketball team, which had a very successful run back in those days.

Now most of the guys who were interested in basketball back then were black. I spent a good amount of time honing my skills on the playground courts with the black kids. I befriended many of them, which served to alienate me from white kids who didn’t think too much of my social inclinations. There were many physical threats, although I don’t remember any coming to fruition.

My dream was to be a varsity star at West Brunswick and when I entered that school in 1975 I tried out for the junior varsity team and made the squad, being the only white player on the team.

About that time I was also beginning to take notice of members of the opposite sex. Given that basketball was mainly an African American activity at West Brunswick, the cheer-leading squad also happened to be color consistent.

One girl on the varsity squad really caught my eye. She was older than me, being a junior. However, my infatuation with her quickly became known by my pals on the team and the word spread to her. We began a quite innocent relationship, which mostly just involved talking on the phone and occasionally hand-holding after games. I might’ve even stolen a kiss, I don’t really remember.

But what I do remember and what has marked me deeply for life is the reaction amongst the white crowd, young and old. My actions were, to put it mildly, scandalous and an abomination. I became an outcast, shunned by white society and threatened even with grave physical harm.

Later, after I “came to my senses” and began to date a white girl, it sent shock waves through me and I would turn pale as a ghost whenever someone would mention the topic. I was reminded often, even by my own family.

Despite the fact that I grew up in an environment where this malady of thought, this cancer of the conscience, affected so many of my peers, I have always gone against the grain. That hasn’t always made things easy for me.

I don’t know exactly from where my rebellion, or nonconformity, originates, but I am thankful that despite the pressures I felt from all sides to succumb to racial intolerance, for the most part I did not.

For the truth is, there is nothing so illogical, or plain downright ignorant, stupid and backwards, than to hate someone, or judge someone, or even think poorly of someone, because of the color of their skin.

I have a great deal of inner rage at the people who judged me so harshly for “siding with the blacks.” And actually, that wasn’t the case at all, I just hated white racial bigotry and would have taken any side opposing that.

While the U.S. has come a long way from the days of ugly racial intolerance and bigotry that I experienced during my high school years, I believe it still has a long way to go.

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Imagine a World Without Race

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Imagine a World Without Race

I’m going to suggest an odd thing on the heels of all this pent up racial strife that’s exploding, once again, on our TV screens and even in some of our neighborhoods…

And that is…

to be thankful…

that the underlying thing…

behind all this…

in fact…

exists.

Not racism, dummy!

Race…

Or, the simple fact of life that some of us…look…and do…different.

Imagine, for a moment with me, a world without race.

Without that difference.

Without the color, or the culture, or the creative rhythms that they give birth to.

There would be no…

Michael Jordan, or

Michael Jackson,

or even The Rolling Stones (inspired by Muddy Waters).

Perhaps The King himself would never have shaken nor shimmied his way into the living rooms of shocked white parents.

There would be no…

Morgan Freeman, or

Denzel, or

Maya Angelou.

Break dancing perhaps wouldn’t exist.

No one would’ve ever hipped or hopped.

or, bebop’ed.

We’d never have had the chance to, “say hey, Willie.”

There never would’ve been an Ali…

to float like a butterfly…

and sting like a bee.

There’d never even have been that man,

who had a dream.

What a tragedy the world would be…

without race.

So, let’s be thankful for race…

Because, being thankful for what is…

can help us get rid of what should not be…

Racial inequality…

and racial hatred.

Imagine a world without race…it would look a whole lot different, wouldn’t it?

Race without the ism…well, it’s a wonderful thing.

Imagine a world without race…

and then be thankful that we don’t live in it.

 

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Answers for the Worldviews Class

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world-views

I was asked by my youngest daughter, a senior in high school, a series of questions for her “worldviews” class.

Of course, I thought I would answer in a blog post.

Here are the questions…

  1. Where do we come from?
  2. What went wrong with the world?
  3. Where do you go when you die?
  4. What’s the point?

I’ll take them in turn.

Question #1: Where do we come from?

The hardest one would have to come first.

On this one I don’t believe anyone has a really good and complete answer.

Sounds like a cop out, but a truthful one, no less.

Religion tries to answer this question, but in ways that just don’t hold up very well to scientific scrutiny.

But then again, science itself falls short.

So, I guess my worldview is that there really isn’t an answer, yet.

Maybe the premise of the question is faulty.

Maybe we don’t “come from” anything.

I mean surely there was a start to it all. But what was the start to the start?

Pondering this question intensely will make your mind feel like the dog who chased his tale to the point of exhaustion.

There may in fact be an answer to this somewhere out there, or in here.

But so far, no one knows.

And I don’t really think making stuff up to explain it away is a very useful exercise.

Question #2: What went wrong with the world?

Okay, now this one’s a little easier for me…

Nothing, that’s what.

Now, something did in fact go wrong with its inhabitants…more specifically, those of the homo sapiens variety.

And what was that?

Well, among other things, we invented this convenience called money, which led to this phenomenon called greed, and to the further insidious and dis-harmonizing state called accepted gross inequality.

We just kind of shrug our shoulders and say to ourselves…well…that’s just the way it is, or is supposed to be.

Not the kind of inequality that wins foot races, mind you.

Here we’re talking about races where life itself is at stake.

Some of us were motivated to figure out how to manipulate and oppress others, usually on the basis of economic power.

And we did a damn good job of it.

Actually a lot of things went right with the world…evolutionarily speaking.

I mean, we no longer live in caves and we don’t hunt and gather anymore…so I guess we can be thankful for progress on many fronts.

But when progress leads to enrichment of some at the expense of others…well, that’s when things begin to go wrong.

You can try to pin an evolutionary label on it, such as “survival of the fittest.”

I just call it evil.

Yes, in my worldview there is a thing called evil and it most often manifests in the form of greed and oppression of this group by that one.

So, where does this evil come from? Well now, that wasn’t one of the questions.

But more often than not, it stems from really whacked out worldviews. You see, the evolutionary benefits we’ve reaped, like exiting the aforementioned caves, have also enabled us to do some pretty serious harm to ourselves, often at the impetus of a worldview.

Question #3: Where do you go when you die?

The idea of a “life” that survives the end of our conscious existence is purely a religious one.

There is no scientific basis whatsoever for believing that one exists.

Now there is a scientific basis for the fact that we are all made up of pretty much the same thing…matter.

And matter is made of molecules. And atoms. And other things that are kinda, well, just weird.

And that stuff is in a constant state of flux. Meaning, so are we…

So, maybe the truth is that we don’t really die…we just change.

I mean if you plant me, when permanent lack of consciousness sets in, a tree may very well grow in that same spot.

We’re all connected. It’s all connected.

And I believe it’s high time we stop worrying about what’s next and began to pay more attention to what is.

Where do we go when we die?

Perhaps, everywhere!

Question #4: What’s the point?

I saved this one for last because, well, it kinda points in the direction of what my blog is all about.

I believe there is in fact a point.

I believe our lives do have meaning.

But it’s not about how big of a slice of the pie we can lop off in an individualistic quest for meaning…

It’s about how much we contribute to making that pie larger and tastier for the whole sum of life.

It’s about how much impact we can have on helping things “go right” with the world.

This one…the one we’re living in and the one those who come after us will perhaps get the privilege of living in…

hopefully.

I was so happy to see my daughter asking these questions and her school, a Christian one, allowing her the liberty of getting diverse opinions on these issues.

Worldviews are vitally important things.

They tend to galvanize action that actually works to shape the world we live in, for the better, or the worse.

They are therefore more than just views…

They are vehicles that can transport humanity to a more fulfilling future realization of our world.

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Seeking a Better Bottom

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Seeking a Better Bottom

Hitting bottom has bad connotations.

After all, that’s what junkies and alcoholics do…

right before rehab.

Well, I’m not a junkie and I’m not headed for rehab.

Well, maybe, if there’s one that could cure my addiction to nonconformity. But then again, I like my addictions…especially that one.

I do enjoy more than an occasional drink, but I don’t really see myself as an habitual drinker…

Well, okay maybe habitual, but it’s a habit I seem to be in control of…

most of the time.

Any-fugin-how…

Recently I’ve been feeling around for some semblance of bottom-ness.

But rather than looking at that as a bad thing, I believe there’s a better, maybe even more realistic, perspective.

Let’s call it seeking a better bottom.

Because “bottoms” can actually be “beginnings.”

There are times in our lives, “seasons” as the song goes, when we need to turn, turn, turn…

Turn around and start anew, or start something new.

Now’s one of those times for me.

A little over a month ago I got this crazy notion to move out of my comfortable digs in Perez Zeledon, shove the few possessions I still cling to into a tiny storage room, park my car for the foreseeable future in a semi-secure location, and catch a plane to the future.

That plane, along with a cross country train ride, has landed me in what might well become my new home…

at least until the next bottom, er, uh, beginning.

It’s a place, no, better, a state of mind, called

Portland…

Oregon.

Portland is the perfect place for a would-be writer-blogger-misfit to hang his or her hat.

There’s an infinite supply of hip little cafes where you can steal away to write and not feel the least bit self-conscious about it.

It’s home to the world’s largest bookstore.

And there’s abject weirdness around you 24/7.

It’s sorta surreal…

and I love it!

Will I return to my beloved Costa Rica?

Well, yea, in two weeks in order to prepare for the big move.

I’m also doing the unthinkable…seeking employment…

Something I haven’t done in, what, over 20 years?

I put in an application this morning to work in a little sustainability-minded cooperative grocery.

I guess I better hurry to the tattoo and piercing parlor to prepare myself to look the part.

It’s all good.

Change is good.

Bottoms aren’t really all that bad, or at least they don’t have to be.

It’s that little man (or woman) that keeps whispering in your ear from behind your eyeballs that makes them seem so.

But I’ll tell you a secret you might already know…he/she lies!

Because both ends and beginnings (and vice versa) are necessary to the evolutionary process.

No use in fighting them.

Complaining about them.

Seeking therapy in order to avoid them.

Or lamenting their inevitable arrivals.

Best to realize they’re just another life-event-experience floating by on that stream called consciousness.

Life’s not a bitch, despite the saying…

It’s a transient…

ride.

And those of us fortunate enough to have beaten those astronomical odds to win the lottery of life…and to enjoy the experience of “the ride”…well, we should be pretty darn happy about that.

Definitely better than the alternative, isn’t it?

The Impact Point

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The Point is Impact

Would it surprise you to know that there is, in fact, a point to this blog?

The home page reads…

The Revolutionary Misfit site is a forum for thought, conversation and inspiration on the topic of impact mindfulness.

So, if you kinda get an inkling about that vague word, impact, you’d at least be getting really warm, as you’re struggling to grasp the impact point.

Because the fact is, we all have one…

It’s hard to get away from it, really.

Remember when grocery store check-out clerks always would ask, “paper or plastic?”

Seems like an innocuous choice, but an impactful one nonetheless.

If you stop to consider that plastic is made of the same substance that when burned releases dreaded carbon into the atmosphere.

And if you consider that normal plastic basically never breaks down, environmentally.

And then there’s the matter of so much plastic waste ending up as floating garbage dumps in our oceans, or in the bellies of fish and sea mammals.

Of course, there’s a problem with paper too…it can get confusing.

So, the decision, as small and insignificant as it might at first blush seem, has impact…

As does the stupid act of giving us that choice to begin with.

Whenever you use a public restroom facility, do you leave the light on, or do you flip it off?

Again, a choice with impact.

When you shop for groceries, do you buy locally grown stuff, or manufactured food, filled with chemicals, and that has to be shipped in from afar?

Impact-full choice, once again.

And then there’s the bigger impacts…

Like what we choose to do with the vast majority of our life time allotment in exchange for those little green pieces of paper adorned with images of dead notables.

Who we vote for.

What we consume, physically, or mentally.

How we use our “free” time.

What we contribute towards enhancing the well-being of others, including the less fortunate.

How we simply treat other people.

What we think of them if they happen to have been borne different from us.

So, you see, there probably isn’t a more point-full topic to blog about than impact.

This blog is simply an attempt to get people to pay more attention to the impacts they have on a moment to moment basis.

You know, like to leave the earth (and its inhabitants)  better than the way we found it (and them).

And I believe that there are three things that generally impede our being mindful of impacts…

  1. Self-interest (especially the economic variety)
  2. Small us thinking
  3. Impact blinders

If you desire to know more, there is a plethora of posts regarding each of these impediments.

But, in our westernized world, it’s private property that gets the lion’s share of our mindfulness.

We work hard to acquire it, maintain and grow it, protect it and ultimately pass it on in some form or another (sale, inheritance, etc.).

We only ask of others that they refrain from impacting our shit in any negative way.

What they do with everything else…who cares!

That pretty much sums up the narrow spectrum of popular thought regarding impact.

“Don’t tread on me”, becomes our battle-cry as we engage in grave struggles in the name of private property protection (we call it freedom, since that provides better motivation)…

We even coin a new phrase for the acquisition of stuff and immortalize that in our most cherished freedom document…

We call it…

The pursuit of happiness.

But then the reality finally hits that this is a non-sustainable notion.

As we just witnessed in 2008, when the excesses of Wall Street’s great decade of capital sequestration ended up impacting Main Street in a negative way as the value of everyone’s stuff plummeted…

Except for those that didn’t have any to begin with…

In that case, the people themselves were devalued.

Impact is simply hard to get away from…it’s sort of built in, like a physical law.

Now, granted, hedging against all hell breaking loose may not be the most laudable reason to be impact mindful.

But, hey, at least it’s a reason.

Working to enhance the enjoyment of all life forms on this planet helps assure that they won’t try just as hard to rob me of mine.

I Am a Lumberjack

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I Am a Lumberjack

Is 53 too old to begin thinking about what you want to be in life?

I want to grow up to be a ________________.

Doesn’t sound like a very mature statement for a man of my age to be making, does it?

Yesterday, I took a trip with some old friends to the Oregon coast, about 1.5 hours from Portland.

I’ve alluded to the fact of my possible near future relocation to Portland…if you’ve been paying attention.

The problem is deciding what I would do there?

So, I thought about maybe giving lumberjack-ing a try?

I’ve heard the pay’s good. The breakfasts are hearty. The work exhilarating. You’re in nature all the time…albeit with the purpose of tearing it down.

And wouldn’t it be super cool to answer the question of “what do you do” with…

“Well, to be honest, I am a lumberjack.”

Of course, I’m kidding.

I probably wouldn’t last very long in the lumberjack business.

Perhaps not even as long as I lasted in the lawyering business.

So, that leaves me with the lingering question…what in the Sam Hill am I going to do in Portland?

But, then again, viciously pondering that question to the point of delirium, perhaps is not the best use of my brain cells.

What’ll I do?

I’ll do something, that’s what!

I mean, there’s a thousand ways to skin a cat, or make a buck…right?

Hey, if you can make a mint selling mediocre quality doughnuts in the shape of voodoo dolls, cocks and balls, then there’s probably something I could sell to these suckers out here as well…

And if they pass Measure 91, my ties to Latin America may become even more lucrative!

Portlanders are a hearty lot, like the pioneers who saw those tall timbers and decided to bring them down and make something with them.

They aren’t content with the regular beers that the rest of the world drinks…no sir, they want to brew their own brands, with names like Poop Deck Porter, or Bitter Bitch Pale Ale.

They’re really fairly nuts, and that convenient fact dovetails nicely with my plans for financial security…if there even is such a thing.

So, you know what, I think I’ll stop the incessant worry about what I’m going to do and just do…

something.

After all, what we do is not who we are, even though that’s generally how we answer the question of our existence, for purposes of communication facilitation.

“Hi, how are you?”

“Fine and you?”

“So, what do you do?”

“I am a lumberjack.”

“REALLY, my cousin Pauly, he’s a lumberjack too…”

and just like that, another meaningless conversation is borne.

From now on, I’m going to be answering that question with a simple four letter word…

L – I – F – E.

Because, I don’t want mine to be defined nor illustrated by what “I do” in exchange for those little green pieces of paper adorned with the faces of dead notables.

How about you?

On Being a non-Political Spiritual Person

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On Being an NPSP (non-Political, Spiritual Person)

A while back I wrote a post about being an NRSP (non-Religious, Spiritual Person).

This morning, I want to expand that a little, to the realm of politics.

For some, politics and religion are basically one and the same. So, in that sense, this post may risk redundancy.

But, in my mind, there is at least a subtle difference in the real world, if not the one inhabited by habitual watchers of the Fox News channel.

When I say non-political, I don’t mean abstaining from involvement in causes that have political impact. Many great changes in our society came about as a result of that…the Civil Rights Act of 1964 immediately comes to mind.

No, on the contrary, activism is a good, even spiritual, thing to get involved in…it’s a vehicle for impact, for sure.

What I’m getting at is this “game” of politics that we enjoy playing perhaps a bit too much. The one that presupposes winners and losers, like any typical sporting event. Except, in this case, people and planet are at stake, not championship trophies, or rings.

The game that pits the blues against the reds. The one that’s the frequent source of vitriol seen in Facebook comments and Twitter feeds. The one that propels the status quo. The one that assures nothing ever gets done in the nation’s capital, or in the capital of your state.

The one of political ads claiming that the Ebola virus is the greatest threat civilization has ever faced, while continuing to deny the scientifically proven planetary threat of climate change.

I tend to stay out of political arguments. Now, is that always the case? No, I sometimes wade in gently, if I feel that things are being said that defy logic and common sense.

But it usually only results in getting called names, like libtard. Not sure where that one originated, but you see it a lot lately.

The heat of hateful political discourse has been turned up to unbearable levels since the election of Barack Obama as the first black President of the U.S.A.

Why is that?

No, I’m not about to play the race card. So, please read on…

Obama has been a politically polarizing figure like no other. There are some who think he can do no wrong…others that he can do no right…and a few in the middle.

I believe the middle is the safest place to be, unless you feel the need for gang affiliation. Because it’s those on the fringes who always seem ready to rumble and rip each others throats out.

And it’s those fringes that represent the zones of political discourse experiencing the most rapid growth.

That’s too bad and actually quite threatening because we need change in our society, now like no other time in my lifetime.

But if all we can do is disagree, sometimes solely for the sake of disagreeing and feeling that euphoric high of rightness (which some equate to right-eous-ness), then we shouldn’t be too optimistic about positive change happening.

The rich will keep getting richer and the poor poorer and more alienated from the idea of the American Dream…

The “too big to fail” Corporatocracy will continue to control the economic and political system for their selfish benefit in the name of capitalistic freedom…

And the weather will keep getting hotter and weirder, species will continue to disappear, oceans will rise, storms will rage and the human race will rapidly head towards the next great event of planetary extinction.

I don’t believe the answer to our problems will be found in any political argument.

I rather believe that it lies within a shift in the paradigm of thought.

To one that recognizes that we’re all in this boat together…

the reds and the blues…

the us and the them…

And really the last thing that matters is what your voter registration card might say.

And, no, this is not an admonition against voting, ala Russell Brand. After all, we can’t just sit back and blame the politicians…they’re just puppets and we hold the strings that pull them via that important constitutionally granted power.

It’s an encouragement not to participate in the game of polarizing political discourse.

To be a non-Political Spiritual Person.

To take the politics out of discourse and turn all that into discussions of mutual benefit.

image credit: Truthout.org via Compfight cc

Portland Rains

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Portland Rains

There are some things I love about Portland. I love the coffee houses. I love the craft beer. I love the art. I love all the hippies and weirdos. Yesterday, I got a little taste of the natural side of Portland…loved it.

But, you know what?

These Portland rains don’t show up anywhere on that lovely list.

I tend to take pride in being a nature lover, but my reluctance to even step outside today is revealing me a bit of a fraud.

After all, what’s more natural than rain?

I finally did make it out to the coffee house where I snapped the photo above and where I sit writing this fine piece of predominantly pointless prose.

I don’t normally allow myself to be hermitized by rain. It does fall in Costa Rica quite frequently.

Maybe it’s because I’m here with virtually no money, relying on the good graces of couch surfing hosts to keep me dry at night…and coffee houses like this one to do the daily trick.

It’s hard to feel affectionate toward “the elements” when circumstances of your own choosing force you to be exposed to them.

Damn it, I got things I want to do, places I want to go, stuff I want to see, and the rain, well, it just interferes.

If you let it.

We allow a lot of things to interfere, now don’t we?

The natural phenomenon that’s rain doesn’t pay a hipster’s heed to our plans. It just falls squarely upon them…without the slightest tinge of remorse.

We live in a harsh and cruel world like that. In fact, nothing really pays heed to our plans, if you think about it…

Maybe that’s why Steinbeck once wrote that…

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Well, he actually stole that line from the poem To a Mouse, by Robert Burns of Scotland.

Whether it’s the weather, time, circumstances, happenstances, people, problems, or our own peculiarities…

it seems the making of a plan is part in parcel of the perpetuation of a failure.

I’m here on a mission. My mission is to hatch my plan of moving, repatriating, to this fine city of Portland, Oregon.

This place of hippies and hipsters, voodoo doughnut dolls and wads of weirdness lurking around every corner.

And the rain…lots of rain.

I’ve already had at least one Portlander give me that cockeyed, are you freaking nuts look, as soon as I mentioned that I wanted to move from there to here.

That’s OK. I’ve learned to plan to prepare for failure. And I’ve had a ton of practice.

I know nothing about this move will be easy.

And this rain has me waffling from absurd confidence to flashes of abject fear, as I consider how to do relatively simple things like find a place to live and a way to pay for it.

I keep having these visions of ending up a lowly part of the homeless subculture that openly exists here.

Portland might be the most liberal city in the U.S.

But it still has a harsh climate, as I’m sure any of those guys would attest.

And it’ll chew this Costa Rica Guy up and spit him out faster than you can say…

revolutionary misfit.

Plans are an inconvenience we humans just have to put up with. It’s hard to get very far in this life without them. And there’s a never ending supply of them.

I guess, in that sense, they could be considered a renewable resource…

like Portland rains.

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