The Blog - Revolutionary Misfit

9-11: A Day that Went from Bad to Worse

September 11, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

This post first appeared in the CRG blog on September 11, 2010…

I was in Hawaii on September 11, 2001. The time there is 6 hours behind that of the east coast of the U.S. So I groggily answer a call around 4:00 am from an employee of Live Oak Capital (my former company) that informed me that the U.S was under terrorist attack. “Huh,” was my foggy brained response. And right after that (as I began to awaken, perturbed by the call), “is this some kind of a joke” (or something to that effect). Flipping on the tube I found out quickly that no it was definitely not a joke.

I always get mesmerized by these 9-11 anniversaries when we relive each and every second of that fateful morning. Surely there has never been an event in world history that was as carefully documented and broadcasted live as 9-11. And each and every videotape serves as a precious reminder of just how vulnerable even the greatest superpower can be.

What is always most inspiring on these days of remembrance and what always tends to make one a little prouder to be from the U.S., is the level of courage and selflessness on display that day. Political, ideological, ethnic, religious, or economic differences ceased to matter. For a brief moment, what mattered most was preserving life. And many lost theirs in the attempt.

The decision by those courageous “average joes” (who in reality were anything but) on flight 93, who in an instant, as soon as they figured out exactly what the five hi-jackers were really up to, decided to put an end to their plot, is heroic beyond words that I am capable of expressing. Likewise the courage of N.Y.C. police and firefighters who stormed into those burning buildings and then up those stairwells to hell, is also hard to describe with mere words. And then there were the ordinary citizens, caught up in something they certainly hadn’t planned for that morning, who simply helped one another.

I heard a quote today that came close to offering up at least semi-adequate words.

That the 9-11 tragedy showed us the worst of our enemies and the best of ourselves.

Some would use the event of 9-11 to provoke hatred. I would rather remember it to inspire love, love of country, but also love of humanity. That is what will conquer evil.

Yes, 9-11 was a day that went from bad to worse, but on that day a country went from great to greater.

MikeJonesPhoto via Compfight cc

The Public Flogging of Ray Rice

September 10, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

OK, you know sometimes these public floggings of celebs caught red-handed (these days routinely exposed by Youtube video) can get almost as ugly as the events that precipitate them.

Yes, I am appalled and disgusted by the video of Ray Rice punching out his fiance in an elevator. I don’t want to see it again…ever.

I would like a show of hands…

How many have endured familial episodes of domestic violence (by the way, my own hand is raised right now)?

Violence in any form is despicable. Violence against women and children, even more-so.

And it occurs in millions of homes and situations across the land every moment of every day.

Should it be roundly condemned?

Of course it should.

Should one man be singled out for selective judgment against every episode of domestic abuse?

No, in my opinion he shouldn’t.

According to the predominant religion of the land, we’ve already had someone sacrificed for “our” sins.

Oh for sure, the natural reaction to a video like that is to seek vengeance.

It seems every guy out there wants to punch Ray out…probably a few who are just as guilty as he is.

And every woman would surely like to see him subjected to an even worse and more permanent fate.

But vengeance won’t solve the bigger problem.

Violence against violence usually begets more of the same.

Scapegoating one guy who happens to be a pro football star, who was caught in the act, is not going to solve this issue.

It’s kinda like capital punishment. Sure it makes us feel better that “justice” has been administered…

but the crime still goes on, wholly undeterred.

My views should in no way be taken as excusing the behaviour of Ray Rice. He should be punished and he will be (in fact, he’s already been pretty severely “clocked”).

Should his life be completely and utterly destroyed?

No, I don’t think so…not if he’s truly repentant about the act.

And it appears that he is.

So, why not get away from publicly crucifying one man and place our focus on the much bigger issue…

Violence, specifically in this case, domestic violence…

but maybe its a good excuse to attack the whole issue of violence in our society…in general…

because, in my opinion, there’s way too much of it.

How often do domestic violence incidents, as well as violent acts in general, take place on our TV sets and in our movie theatres…as well as the stands of National Football League games?

Speaking as one who endured the horror of domestic violence as a child…

(you see, the victims aren’t just the ones that get battered.)

I will say that the sort of violence that occurred on that video is deplorable, but in reality it’s something that we humans do to one another all too often.

How about we just stop that altogether?

That’s the point of this post.

You see, the issue is really not Ray Rice…

It’s us.

image credit: zwartevis via Compfight cc

Matter Matters

September 9, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

Sometimes I run across things I’ve written years ago that still seem quite relevant today…

Like this matter-full post from way back when…actually the reference to my age gives it away, since I’m now 53 (well, almost 54)…

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that there’s something different about the world these days.

People seem to be a bit more edgy and fearful now than any time since I was born 48 years ago.

Of course, I didn’t live through the two great world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, or other seminal world events of the past.

Maybe this same eery and unpleasant feeling was lingering in the air back then as well.

But something strange is in our air, or “airwaves”, since everything now is media driven…

sometimes I believe to the point of being “driven” right off a cliff.

I can hear it in my mother’s voice when I talk with her.

People are fearful about stuff, or maybe I should say fearful about losing their “stuff.”

And that brings me to the topic of today’s post, matter.

In my simplistic and wholly unscientific view the universe is divided into two categories of matter.

You have the things that are natural, such as all forms of life, the earth itself, the atmosphere, oceans, land, and everything else natural that the universe contains.

Then you have the things that are man-made.

One exists by the hand and will of god (or perhaps the “god particle”) and the other by the hand and will of, well, us.

It seems that most of the problems we pay attention to in the world today are those that pose threats to all the man-made stuff.

Protecting the natural world at the expense of our laser-like focus on the man-made shit is scoffed at by too many of us.

But doesn’t it all matter…really?

Now I’m not advocating that we all go back to living in caves and hunting and gathering.

But I am advocating that there be some balance restored in our approach to what matters…

because it all does.

We have gone so far in creating a world of comfort for ourselves at the expense of the natural that we are at the tipping point where our actions are having a profound and negative effect on the natural world.

In short, we’re pissing off Mother Nature.

This obsessive focus on man-made material comfort, a focus that says only “we” matter, is getting us in a lot of trouble these days.

The climate is changing because of it.

Organisms are disappearing.

The order of nature is being upset.

Greed is now good.

And we are literally consuming ourselves out of existence.

And everyone wants to blame everyone else.

It’s the Republicans fault. No, it’s the Democrats that did it. No, the Muslims! The Christians! No, says Trump, it’s those damn Chinese…

and so it goes without end.

The truth is we’re all at fault, every single one of us.

Because we, the human organism, are the only form of matter that has the ability to destroy this planet…well, short of a wayward asteroid, or an unstable Higgs Boson particle.

And we are doing a pretty darn good job of it.

The jaguar can’t do that. They just live according to their god-given instincts. They can’t decide to build an atomic bomb, or kidnap other animals for ransom, or commit any of the millions of dastardly deeds that humans inflict upon themselves.

They don’t burn or chop down the forest, or go to war with other animals.

They just live according to the plan that was laid out for them.

So, what’s the plan for us?

Are we living according to the right plan, or have we gotten off track?

I think what needs to occur is that we stop making every argument a political one, especially those that concern our planet and the health of it.

That we start taking action to correct the errors that have brought us to where we are now.

That doesn’t mean that we lose our comforts of life, our homes and cars, cities, planes, railroads and all those other things that make us feel better, or superior.

It just means that we start recognizing that it is not just all the man-made stuff that matters…because it all does.

Costa Rica is a country that is pretty low on the totem pole in terms of its rate of consumption compared with the developed countries of the world.

And it’s a place where folks do seem to get it when it comes to the idea that the natural world does matter.

I guess it’s easier to have a deep respect for nature when you’re surrounded by so much of it.

Maybe Costa Rica and other biodiversity hot spots around the world (the few that are left) can serve as giant classrooms to teach us humans that the natural world does matter.

That would be a pretty cool thing to see happen.

Maybe then we humans could come to realize that matter matters, whatever form it might take.

That realization is at the heart of impact mindfulness.

I hope we’re not too late.

image credit: Tambako the Jaguar via Compfight cc

The Race Card

September 4, 2014 by costaricaguy 2 Comments

You know, it’s funny how the use of “the race card” is decried as being foul-play by some…

as if racism no longer mattered, or even existed…

Oh noooo, racism shouldn’t even be considered a factor…

When a white cop on a police force that is 95% white shoots and kills an unarmed black teenager in a community that is 67% black…

When our nation’s first black President can’t do anything (repeat NOT ANY ONE SINGLE SOLITARY THING) to please or appease the Tea Party crowd, which happens to be 90% white…

When unemployment among black Americans almost always doubles that of white…

When black Americans account for about 40% of the total prison population in the U.S., despite being only 14% of the total population…

When racist comments from celebrities and business moguls bubble to the public surface, routinely…

When virulent racism can easily be detected simply by reviewing the millions of Facebook comments and Twitter posts about “our” President…

When more than a third of impoverished Americans are black, as opposed to about 13% who are white…

When churches throughout the U.S., especially in the south, are still predominantly divided along racial lines…

When communities throughout the U.S., especially in the south, are still predominantly divided along racial lines…

When in my own experience, friends and acquaintances who would never admit to harboring one iota of racism in public, will readily admit their secret desire to get that [expletive] out of the “white” house…

There’s a lot of talk out there about truth, usually in the form of opinion masquerading as such.

In my opinion, the facts speak for themselves and disclose the real truth…

That the race card is still in the deck and as long as it is, it will and should be legitimately played.

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The Modern Rimbaud

September 2, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

Il faut être absolument moderne (One must be absolutely modern).

Arthur Rimbaud, from Adieu (Farewell), A Season in Hell

I am intrigued by Rimbaud’s admonition.

He, the wild poet seer, who abandoned the verse at the ripe old age of 20, to become…

“modern?”

I guess what he’s really saying is that after all the existentialist poetic poppycock, one must get down to the brass tacks of becoming…

“industrious.”

Which is exactly what Rimbaud did, until he died of cancer at age 37.

After writing the above line in his parting Farewell, he never wrote another verse…

but he did make some money…

a feat he never seemed to get around to accomplishing beforehand.

I seem to have lived my life in the opposite trajectory…

passing through the industrial stage to come out the other side, some sort of existential idealist.

Even though that hasn’t aided me in the least economically, I’m thankful that my life is unfolding (so far) in this absurd reverse chronological order.

For, in my opinion, to become a modern man-sized industrialist is to lose one’s general lust for a poetic and artful life…

Our quest for physical comfort supersedes and eclipses any hint of idealism that might have once been a motivational flame to our backsides.

In fact, the world is dominated by men (and women, albeit, perhaps to a lesser extent) who have modernized.

These are practical and hard-nosed types who quickly abandon the ideal for the real.

For that real world that we actually live in…that we face head-on day in and day out in the epic battle to simply exceed survival.

In such a quest, how can anyone be anything but self-interested…

when there are saber-toothed tigers roaming the asphalt jungles of our daily treading?

Men who have become modern have no time nor need for trivial ideals that spur actions undertaken for the collective good.

What is that, they ask, some sort of bleeding heart notion that there’s a purpose for my life grander than me?

Rubbish!

The capitalistic machinery of our society demands modernity. It demands industrial square cogs that fit into square holes…

not amorphous shapes that serve only to muck up the works.

That we serve our individual identities best when we refrain from activities that don’t blend well with the rest…

don’t stand out…don’t color outside the lines…

and for god’s sake, don’t spend your precious and limited industrious time thinking idealistic thoughts of how you might be here to enhance the life experience of another.

Hmm…interesting…

I believe I prefer the pre-modern Rimbaud.

The one whose skin was corroded by dirt and disease, hair and armpits crawling with worms, with still larger ones crawling inside his heart.

The seer who brought a vision of the world to us with combinations of words never heard before.

The idealist who shunned bourgeois industrial modernity for a bohemian rhapsodic experience of life.

If you think about the life of this young and remarkable poet, he is most remembered by his surprisingly short pre-modern existence…

That’s when and where he made his impact.

Perhaps the same could hold true for you and me.

image credit: Philippe Gillotte via Compfight cc

From Belief to Ideology

August 31, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

If you got nothing new to say, re-say something old. And, fortunately, there’s a lot out there that I’ve said that I can choose from.

Some of it embarrassing, but some of it, actually quite illuminating, in my not-so-humble opinion…

Here’s one on moving from belief to ideology.

I remember some self-help guru (I believe it was Tony Robbins) said that it really doesn’t matter if your beliefs are true or not, as long as they’re useful.

While that seems to be a slightly cynical statement, it does have a tinge of truth.

Where do our beliefs come from?

Well, they come from our experiences, traditions, parents, culture, etc.

If you grow up in a christian home, you’ll be inclined to adopt similar beliefs. Whereas if you grow up in, say, a muslim home, you’ll be more likely to adopt a quite different set.

If you grow up in communist China or Russia, you might not hold fast to the idea that western capitalism is the path to prosperity.

Does that make one belief right and the other wrong?

No, because the truth is that no matter what you “believe,” you cannot prove empirically that an opposing or different belief is wrong or untrue.

Believing is different than knowing. I know the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening. I don’t “believe” it to be true.

Beliefs are based on a certain degree of faith. The stronger that faith, the stronger the belief.

They’re not all religious. You can have beliefs about many things…politics, business, personal development, and so on.

In the previous 173 posts (referring to the old CRG blog) I’ve provided a smattering of my own beliefs. I know that they probably seem to be uncentered and disorganized. Some liberal, others conservative. Some religious, others secular.

But you see one thing I don’t believe in is “labels.” I’m not going to try and organize my beliefs in such a way that folks would label me conservative or liberal, religious or secular, right or left-wing.

We tend to get far too concerned that our beliefs have to be consistent with a given ideology. That’s never a good thing.

Why?

Because it limits what you allow yourself to believe in.

Beliefs are the product of our search for truth.

There was a time when believing that the earth was anything but flat would get you labeled a heretic…maybe even executed.

Today, if you grow up in the bible-belt southern U.S.A., believing anything but the conservative or fundamentalist christian line may not get you executed, but it will get you exiled from membership in the club.

So we disallow ourselves from believing anything outside of the confines of the accepted ideology.

When beliefs get bolstered by community…that is, when what you believe is shared by all those you associate with…you run the risk of becoming someone who thinks he or she knows the truth…an ideologue.

And once you begin to think that your belief is absolute, empirical truth, it must mean that what everyone else believes is a lie (in short, heresy).

And that naturally leads to the idea that other “untrue” beliefs should be suppressed, quelled, or vanquished.

But I “know” that the human race’s search for truth is never served by suppression.

If it weren’t for the brave-hearted souls who dared to believe differently, in the face of the threat of condemnation or expulsion by the community of shared beliefs, then we would still think the world is flat.

In short, we would never know real truth.

Isn’t it curious how we tend to destroy ourselves over ideologies as opposed to scientifically knowable truth?

Defying Gravity

August 28, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

Why is gravity necessary?

Why does all matter have to be under the glaring rule of this brutal taskmaster?

Could gravity be the impetus that ignites the cycle of life?

Up, or out, we go, until that certain point, where gravity overtakes us and back down we fall, until we’re pushing up again…daisies, that is.

Gravity can be a real “fun thief.”

Perhaps if I were the one to have authored the masterpiece that’s our universe, I might have left gravity off the canvas.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

Things would be so much easier.

We would never have to fear looking down.

Yet, thankfully to us all, I didn’t have that privilege, so I guess we’ll just have to be satisfied living under the rules of the one that did…

He, she or it thought gravity was a good idea, so who am I to argue?

I guess when you step back and look at the big picture, it’s a necessary component of a matter-full life.

Defying gravity becomes our life-ly chore.

Because of gravity we have to remind ourselves, while ascending to higher levels of human experience, not to look down.

If you do, you might just find yourself hurling wildly and uncontrollably back to the place from whence you began…and the impact can be devastating!

We vow not to allow gravity to detain or derail us.

We strain and strive for that illusive summit, even if it’s only a foggy illusion on the present rocky crag of our mediocre life.

Watch out because from up there things fall!

Is there someone or thing up there that doesn’t want me to reach my goal?

Is this all a big joke to the one hurling rocks down upon my dreary head?

Or are they reminders that I need to be cautious as I climb?

And isn’t it generally true that the more difficult the climb, the sweeter the finish?

Yet the end looks so much like the beginning…

So goes the cycle of life…

Forever ready to greet the next climber.

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The Impact Mindfulness Worldview

August 27, 2014 by costaricaguy 3 Comments

When you first hear or read the phrase impact mindfulness, what comes to mind?

Probably some sort of save the world kinda of a thing, no?

And it is that, but much more.

In this post I want to explain in more detail what the impact mindfulness worldview really means.

You see, the normal way of thinking about personal impact is to put the cart before the horse…

That the best way for me to have an impact on the world is to first focus in a self-interested way on my economic success…and from that firmly established and comfortable platform, I can have my greater impact.

Sounds perfectly legitimate…doesn’t it?

Here’s the problem with it.

If you’re Donald Trump and you make sure that a certain percentage of your success is funnelled towards some type of image-driven impact, a certain very small percentage…

It doesn’t detract from the fact that the other 90+% of your daily energy and focus is purely self-interested, group interested, consumption oriented and certainly not People and Planet interested.

The impact mindfulness worldview suggests that a larger percentage of your interest be impact focused. In fact, all of it…

Yea, you heard that right, 100%!

It must permeate every aspect of your life.

It must become who you are and what you’re about.

Because only when enough people do that will we begin to solve the problems we have in this world…

Problems that have been exponentially growing to uncontrollable proportions…

right before our very eyes in just the last generation.

Problems like religious fanatics that unleash genocidal rage on unbelievers, global warming that’s already wreaking havoc on the planet’s weather systems, a growing income gap that threatens social unrest around the globe, developed nations that are literally consuming the world out of existence, etc., etc…

We have a killer virus on the loose in Africa and it seems the worldwide response is to seal borders and leave those inside them to their fate…rather than find a real (but non-marketable) solution.

To solve these problems impact can’t be sequestered in that small slice of our lives we label as charitable.

It must pervade every waking moment of your conscious existence.

That’s the “mindset” of impact mindfulness.

It’s not simply donating time or money to this or that worthy cause…even though doing so is a very good and impact worthy activity.

It’s adopting a mindset that sees the world and our place in it in terms of the three foundational pillars of Impact Mindfulness…

Prioritizing Impact Over Interest – that is, making sure our daily choices or activities, especially those consumptive and economically focused ones, are impact mindful…

Embracing the Concept of The Big US – that is, seeing the entire world and its inhabitants as fellow crew members on a planetary ship…the only ship we have…so that it becomes of utmost priority that we take care of it and each other…

Removing Impact Blinders – that is, being mindful of status quo ways of thinking that serve to trap us into doing “it” (life) in the same old destructive ways…you might even call that “wilful blindness.”

The world, our world, needs people who are thinking and acting according to the impact mindfulness worldview.

These are the people that can save us…

and they are YOU and ME.

Please join us at Revolutionary Misfit and be a part of the change!

On Painting Masterpieces

August 26, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

This morning I reach way back into the CRG archives once again…

Bob Dylan once sang that…

Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody…when I paint my masterpiece.

I believe Dylan was being facetious with that line, maybe with the entire song.

And then I also remember Big Tony (Robbins) once proclaiming that…

The road to someday leads to the town called nowhere.

I tend to draw inspiration from eclectic sources, don’t I?

I think Tony’s right because in my experience that mythical “someday” just doesn’t exist at all.

Waiting for some “day” to arrive at your doorstep in all its glorious perfection is like “waiting for Godot.”

But, as in the play, Godot just never seems to show.

I have often said that someday I will, or someday I won’t anymore.

Aspirations built upon the shoddy foundations of forlorn hope and recalcitrant expectation.

But life never gets smooth enough, the rough edges never hewn enough, the fog never lifts to be clear enough, and life just…goes on…

and my masterpiece in waiting…

waits.

Hold on…here’s a novel idea…

Maybe joy can be found in the painting, whatever form my metaphorical brush might take on.

In splashing on the colors like Jackson Pollock on an acid trip.

Chaotic? At best.

But one can find joy in chaos, no?

I often like to describe the music of the Grateful Dead, my favorite band of bands, as “organized chaos.”

I guess a painting that would be a truthful representation of my life, all 53 years into it, would indeed be rather…chaotic.

A “Masterpiece?”

Now that’s really not for me to say and, in all truthfulness, I won’t be around to judge, will I?

The point of this post on painting masterpieces?

Try to enjoy the damn painting for god’s sake!

We Think We Know Until We Know

August 22, 2014 by costaricaguy Leave a Comment

Here are 10 things I could’ve sworn I knew…

until reality up and bit me.

1. I could’ve sworn I was a perfect specimen of physical health, until one night when my heart took off like Mario Andretti in the Indy 500…

2. I could’ve sworn I was destined for fame and fortune until age 50 found me alone and destitute…

3. I could’ve sworn I’d found the love of my life until I was served with papers seeking a pension alimentaria (a Costa Rican “no-fault” alimony, to which any undeserving woman is entitled…just by leaving and filing)…

4. I could’ve sworn that my country was exceptionally exceptional until I discovered the truth about what went on in Latin America at its behest…

5. I could’ve sworn to my talent for the written word until I spent over 6 years writing with no one giving the slightest shit about anything I had to say…

6. I could’ve sworn that I was a good person whose karma would pay off, eventually, until life (or, better said, my choices) handed me a lemon that almost seems damn near impossible to squeeze (still trying to squeeze that sucker though!)…

7. I could’ve sworn family ties were iron-clad until I realized, as Bob Dylan once said (Grammy acceptance speech 1991), “you know it’s possible to become so defiled in this world that your own father will abandon you and if that happens god will always believe in your own ability to mend your ways.”…

8. I could’ve sworn that my eternal (perhaps stupid) optimism would lead me to a brighter world, or experience of it, until events of late have all but convinced me that man is, for the most part, hell-bent towards self-destruction…

9. I could’ve sworn that my christian concept of god and salvation was the correct one, until it dawned upon me that it was actually only a select one, among many others…none of which could possibly be 100% true…

And after scraping all that “dogma” off my shoes, why in god’s name would I want to step in it again?

10. I could’ve sworn that life was about maximizing my income until one day I woke up to realize it was really about maximizing my impact…I hope for me, it’s not too late…

You know, it’s funny how we think we know until we know…that we were dead wrong.

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