Response to a question in Facebook "What should be legal?"

What is law?  A law must have a consequence (e.g. punishment).  In the case of natural law, gravity keeps us on the ground.  On earth, we measure the consequence of the law of gravity as a force (9.81 meters per second per second).  We can use this force to our benefit (e.g. cracking open a walnut by dropping a bowling ball on it) or to our detriment (jumping off a building).

 

For the purpose of this discussion I will confine my political ideas to the US constitution and laws created by its states. Politically speaking, the US creates laws in congress and we execute or enforce these laws through the administration of the executive branch.  To enable readers to follow my logic I submit the following sequence of events:  If I run a stop sign, I could get ticketed.  If I don't pay the fine and I am pulled over again, I could be arrested.  If I resist arrest, the cop could use force to detain me.  If I overcome the cop, take his gun, and run, I could be hunted down for assault and possibly shot at were I to use the weapon against the cops.  Ultimately, the political consequence of breaking the law is the loss of life to some degree or another.  It may seem a bit of a stretch to say that the reason that I pay a traffic ticket is to preserve my life, however this is my position and I welcome the reader to challenge it.

 

Establishing that laws must have consequences, justice is the enforcement of punishment equal to the degree of violation of another person's rights (an eye for an eye).  The authors of the constitution declared life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights and submitted that these rights were self-evident.  Using the rights as the basis for my arguments, my freedom stops where yours begins and this line is drawn through relationships.  To illustrate this point, consensual sex and rape are the same in performance however, the latter violates a person's right to pursue their own happiness.  On a smaller scale, if my brother grabbed a $10 bill without asking me while driving my car to buy himself some lunch it would not be the same as a stranger grabbing the $10 for themselves because of relationship.  To answer the question, "[W]hat is it that determines an action is legal or illegal?"  I submit to you that it is a mutual agreement between two parties. 

 

Consequently, what should be legal is ultimately determined by a contract or covenant.  Politically speaking, the contract that exists between us and our government is the constitution.  Just as the state constitution can not prescribe by law anything that violates federal law we can not legally make contracts with one another that violate the laws of our county and state, etc.

 

It should be noted that drugs, gambling, and prostitution are already legal to some degree and depending where you are.  The term legalization is interpreted as the expansion of what is already legal.  In light of the aforementioned, I will attempt to address the legalization of drugs.  However, there is one more level of depth I must add to the above.  In its attempt to protect the people whom it represents, the state must protect us from the social consequences of a behavior without creating a measure of correction that the enforcement thereof exceeds the cost of the unbridled behavior.

 

Should it be made popular by way of the democratic process, I advocate the controlled legalization of all drugs so long as the controls in place are equal to the degree of risk placed upon society.  If someone wants to experiment with a chemical it should be medically prescribed and supervised.  The cost of administration should be offset by the consumer and the drug should be taxed to offset the cost of government auditing (by the FDA perhaps).  Arguably, the cost of the drug could potentially be more than illegal methods of procurement however, the costs may out weigh the obvious risks (e.g. purity, theft, assault, etc).  Additionally, if the anticipated decrease in cost of waging war on drugs is realized (to include the cost of counseling and hospitalization), this savings could be applied to the cost of government monitoring and thus decrease the cost of the drug itself.  The drugs should be administered by a Psychiatrist who can offer counseling in conjunction with the drug and who would submit significant findings to peers for review and potentially advance the body of science itself.  I propose that the increase in the number of curious individuals who wanted to experiment with drugs would be greatly offset by a decrease in the number of drug abusers.  Abuse here, is defined as usage beyond a consumers ability to function in society.

 

Even without any monitoring at all, there are still some laws we can not escape.  The damage that drug abuse does to the body is based on irrevocable natural laws and this is the risk taken on by the consumer.  The political laws that exist today are an attempt to protect us from the social consequence of operating in a universe governed by natural law.  In other words, even in total anarchy Rousseau is correct in saying "Man is free, but everywhere he is in chains".  It would be a fun thought exercise to create a government based on the idea of being immortal.

God wants relationships, not religion.

Why was Christ was put to death? Why were there people who hated Him? Who were these people? Were they homosexuals? Were they pro choice? Were they people who preferred to stay home and watch football instead of go to church? No, in fact, they were the super religious, conservative, fundamentalists of their time. Over and over again the phrase, "Religion killed God," has played in my head for the last week or so. Science, Christianity, and the very belief in God is under attack and I attribute it all to the same evils that exist in religion.

I feel strongly that God hates religion. "Obedience in better than the fat of rams." Obedience to what? The spirit of God guides us to Christ who teaches us of the Father and it was Christ who taught that our Father's kingdom is within us. The Babylonians did not understand this, which is why they though they could build a tower so high it would enable them to reach heaven. That tower was one of the first "churches" built and men have been building them ever since.

I have watched quite a few YouTube videos lately. I have notice that theism (belief in God) is under attack by a series of successive videos created by various atheists. First let me state that every (without exception) atheist I have met in person, I judged to be a highly intelligent, kind, moral person. This is significant because I met many atheists as a missionary. The majority of atheists I see presenting arguments on YouTube however, have faulty premises, faulty logic, and sometimes both and seem to hold a contempt for theists in some cases, especially Christians. To be clear, this post is not a personal counterstrike on atheist but an attempt to bring logical, intelligent people to an awareness of the war that is ensuing about them.

Atheism seems to be gaining popularity in this country which is disturbing to me because this growth seems to be fueled by a religious and fervorous, dogmatic belief that their is no God. To prove that something exists is infinitely easier than proving that something does not exist which is why the assumption in science is that something does not exists unless it is observable. Not only is this fair but wise because otherwise we might as well believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny and all other creatures of imagination. So as far as science is concerned, there is no God. To be real it must be proven, but to be dogmatic about atheism is more foolish than the religious fanatic who is dogmatic about the earth being created in six days.

I can respect a person who says, "I do not believe in God because I have yet to see any evidence of such a being." Likewise, I would expect the same respect in return for my belief in God and my testimony that I have experienced His divine influence in my life. To witness the majesty of the universe and of life is, in my opinion, observable evidence, though not conclusive, which is why it is a belief.

I recently watched Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and Richard Dawkins in his interview with Ben Stein said that if you believe in evolution then you can not believe in God. Perhaps I do not fully understand evolution because I don't see why God could not have been the author of such a process if that is in fact the way it happened. However, what troubles me is that the process of evolution is still very fuzzy and Intelligent Design theorists have come along to challenge the paradigm. So what is the reaciton of the Darwinists? They treat evolutionary biology like a religion and act as though it is sacrilegious to challenge Darwin theory.

I think of Poor Charles Darwin, and the tremendous suffering and humiliation he went through as a scientist. To this day, religious fundamentalists think he was an evil man. The Vatican Church put so much pressure on Darwin that Charles renounced his Theory before he died. You would have thought that the Catholic church would have learned their lesson with Galileo but that's how incredibly ignorant religion is. Now here we are, centuries later, with all our knowledge, education and advanced marvels of civilization and now we witness a body within the scientific community acting like a bully? First we have the crusades and now we have terrorists dressed in lab coats flying their planes into the twin towers of science.

So I submit to you, that this is the very type of thinking that killed Christ. It is a spirit of pride and one of hostility towards any new way of thinking. If we are to to be Christian, we must shun any connotation of religiosity. We must be open to new ways of thinking, and if we find that we disagree with these new ways then we shall resist the ideas while loving our neighbors and the new ideas they share. Even if you do not belief in God at all, it would be wise to adopt this attitude. How many more must needlessly suffer or even die?

Text-Mail

Fire you voicemail box and replace it with text-mail.  I call you.  You don't answer.  I leave you message explaining to you how lame you are and bamsa!  You get a text message of my dissatisfaction line by line.  How cool is that?

Q: How do you get an elephant into a Safeway grocery store?

A: You take the "f"s out the words "Safe" and "way".

The Biggest Loser? How about the Biggest Gainer?

Not everyone can proudly call themselves a "Loser".  Fewer still, can call themselves the "Biggest Loser".  Their journey of shedding off the pounds was not an easy one.  If you're one of them, congratulations are in order.  But before you hold that garage sale to make room in closet for your brand new wardrobe would you consider gaining it all back?  I'm not talking about eating your way back into those sweat pants.  I'm talking about pumping Iron.  Ya, that's right my lean and loose-skinned friend, you've got some pounds to gain!  Now that you've ride yourself of all that flabby material, it's time to go back to the gym and put muscle where your rolls were.  And you know it's not enough to just get ripped, you've got to gain big too.  How big? Biggest Gainer Big!  Can you say MUSCLEMILK!!! Ya baby! Watch, as America's scrawny transform themselves into explosively brawny.  These contestants will have only six months to change their lives by competing in teams lead by personal trainers Hans and Franz, and the biggest gainer of them all will win $1,000,000.00!

Find out if you have what it takes to be a contestant on www.iwannabswo.com

Pure Milk Chocolate Covered Mint Oreo® Sandwich Cookies

This product recives Sammy T's Stamp of Approval.  Folks, this stuff surpasses The Chocolate Mint Girl Scout cookies!!!

I went to a Ninja Parade yesterday. I didn't see a thing! - J.B.

Accounting Haikus

Entering, tracking
Calling for updates; fixing
Not hard, but busy

By James Baker



Righting wrongs weekly
Meanwhile, wrongs wax daily
Look, here comes one now

By Samuel Tunes

Irreducible Complexity - Response to comments

Click to read original post w/ comments.

Determinist,

"Atoms are like soap bubbles..." - Clever

What are "vortices"?   I assume the word is in the plural form (of vortex?).  I tried to research the term and I did not get very far. L

I realize that when we are talking about a flagellum motor that we are way past the atomic level however, the reason why I suggest something at the sub-atomic level or beyond is because classical physics goes out the window when we start talking about point particles like electrons.  There is a complexity there that could very well lend itself to understanding self-organizing structures or even at even higher levels such how the brain functions and how people interact with one another.

Ensign,

"Consider this: an idea that I've had for the better part of 11 years is that all interactivity in the universe--from the subatomic level to the gravitational interactions between galactic clusters--is mirrored by human behavior. While nobody outside of the individual can explain a single persons motives, it is relatively easy to predict and explain how people (and subsequently friends, cliques, ethnic/religious groups, nations, etc...) will interact with each other. How do you feel about this?"

My first thought is Astrology reversely engineered to predict cosmic events based on what I eat for breakfast (haha).  Individuals are not as predictable as they are when observed in as system.  At higher levels of organization, statistically based predications can be made with increasing accuracy.  Does the universe mirror our behavior, or do we mirror the behavior of the universe?   Consider that we are not only part of the universe but made up of the very things we are attempting to observe.

For example, assuming that you have a normal body, if you measure the distance from the tip of your finger to the first joint-line and compare it to the distance from the first joint-line to your second join-line you will get the Golden ratio (or close to it).  If you continue to do this with the second joint-line to the third and so on and compare these measurements to the distances of the solar planets from the sun, you will notice that it is a very close match.  Is there any surprise then that the proportions of the Temple of Solomon also match that of the solar system if you consider that the means of measurement was the hand and cubit?  Perhaps not, but I still find it to be quite Divine.

Other thoughts:

-          I can post a more detailed explanation about the proportions if you’re interested.

-          Heisenberg uncertainty principle

-          “…our entire reality is based on relevant perception.”

Top 14 Superfoods

1. Beans: A great low-fat, low-calorie source of protein and an easy way to help control your weight and your blood sugar.
2. Blueberries: The best food on the planet to preserve a young brain as we mature.
3. Broccoli: The best food on the planet to prevent cancer.
4. Oats: A sure-fire way to lower your cholesterol.
5. Oranges: The most readily available source of vitamin C, which in turn lowers the rate of most causes of death in this country, for example, heart disease and cancer.
6. Pumpkin: Loaded with phyto-nutrients, which keep our skin young and help prevent damage from sunlight.
7. Wild salmon: A guaranteed way to lower your risk for cardiac-related death.
8. Soy: The only complete vegetarian source of protein.
9. Spinach: The best food on the planet to prevent cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, thus ensuring a lifetime of good vision.
10. Tea -- green or black: The easiest and cheapest no-calorie way to avoid heart disease and cancer.
11. Tomatoes: One of the easiest ways for men to avoid prostate cancer is the consumption of tomatoes and tomato-based products.
12. Skinless turkey breast: The leanest meat source of protein on the planet.
13. Walnuts: Consuming walnuts, is an easy, tasty way to lower your risk of cardiovascular disease.
14. Yogurt: A tasty, easy way to boost your immune system.  

We Can’t Say Crap Without PC.

How dare they wish us a Merry Christmas? Who do those people think they are, Christian? If they would only say, “Happy Holidays,” the world would be a better place. Unlike the Christians, the rest of us know that political correctness (PC) is a practice used to avoid offending others. If we had it our way, we would impose limits on every language, term, political ideology, public behavior, and viewpoint, in the public domain in order to avoid this offensive terminology. It is bad enough that they infect us with their flashing holiday lights and over-sized holiday trees! Ah yes, let us all take a moment to remember and feel that Holiday Spirit. This is the spirit of respecting marginalized groups by the avoidance of forms of expression or action that exclude, marginalize, or insult certain racial, cultural, and religious groups, to name a few.

Can respecting others go too far? In the modern age of political correctness, the sophistication of the practice has raised to ridiculous, and often, objectionable levels. Certain groups do not accept the labels put on them by this practice, and using “PC” terminology has more fittingly become the language of the Politically Craven. Political correctness involves censorship and social reform and it manipulates popular culture such as: music, film, literature, arts, and advertising, especially where money is involved. Far from better (Worse), it distracts attention from the real issues of intolerance, discrimination, and unequal treatment of others.

Political correctness is so prevalent today that it censors even the very manner in which we tell time. “BC” (Before Christ) and “AD” (Anno Domini, Latin meaning, in the year of our Lord) has changed to the Christian-neutral “BCE” (Before the Common Era) and “CE,” respectively. It is common for people in the United States to use the term “people of faith” when referring to people with religious beliefs parallel to the term “people of color.”

Commercials in the United States are replacing “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays” or “Season's Greetings,” and Corporate America has followed suit replacing “Christmas” itself on calendars with "Winter Holiday," "December Holiday," "Winter Break," or other secular and generic terminology. People can use whatever term that suits their fancy. I would gladly accept a brand new four-wheel drive, convertible Holiday Present any time of year! On December 27, 2005, the Washington Post printed an article criticizing George W. Bush for sending Christmas cards that wished a happy holiday season rather than amerry Christmas. However, in the US it might be appropriate to indulge in the expressions “Holiday tree” and “Holiday lights.” Terms aptly named for those who apathetically insist that these are permanent fixtures vis-à-vis seasonal decorations.

Finding religious harmony in the land of the free however, has met with some deferred success (failure). Which is why I think it is about time we declared Christianity as the State Religion. After all, Christmas, a Christian holiday, is a federal holiday. We could then exercise military force and put an end to those people who steal the baby Jesus from church Nativity Scenes. We could catch these “morally deficient” people and show them off in front of the CNN cameras. We would use them as public examples of intolerant behavior and justify our new federal religion, anything to keep the mass’ delusions going. I am sorry; did someone say, paradigm managing (crusade)? No, I thought we turned this management over to the terrorists. Besides, Christmas is a time when we pour our hearts out to the unaffiliated petitioners for private sector funding(panhandlers). We do not judge them because we could be them if we were involuntarily leisured (fired).

Yes, we went to great lengths to keep religions out of our government and to welcome and accept people of different creeds. That is why if someone whishes me a Happy Chanukah I thank them. If a good friend invites me over for Kwanzaa dinner, I come. If someone of another faith approaches me and asks if they could pray for me, I might politely decline, or if at a cross walk, I might say, “Sure, what the hell, pray for me,” at least until the light turns green!

When I was younger, I had a speech impe—impedim—I used to stutter, and I grew up convinced that only a sadist would insert an “s” in the word “lisp.” Through changes in diet and a myriad of oral exercises, to include rapping along with various Hip-Hop artists on the radio I was able to improve my condition to a subtle slur. However, I do not have it as bad as themorons do, that is the term Psychologists used to use. Chronologically, the moron or thee idiot became the mentally retarded, which in turn became the slow, then the mentally handicapped, to the mentally disabled, on to the mentally challenged, and now the developmentally disabled. Broader terms include special needs and learning difficulties. Not to worry though, thesemock modestly oppressed people catch on quick to their dynamically changing euphemisms.

The situation complicates itself further by the fact that members of identity groups sometimes embrace terms that others seek to change. For example, deaf culture has always considered the label “deaf” as an affirming statement of group membership and not insulting or disparaging in any way. The term now often substituted for the term “deaf,” hearing-impaired, developed to include people with hearing loss due to aging, accidents, and other causes. While more accurate for those uses, many deaf people consider the term “hearing-impaired” belittling.

When I was a young boy, it was cool to ride in the back (way back) of the bus, and therefore, I never really understood what all the fuss over Rosa Parks was about. I thought it was a matter of alphabetical order: Anglos, Blacks—Rosa must have woken up one morning and said, “Today I’m African American!” I find this term to be outrageous! I challenge any eye that claims to be expert enough to make such a distinction. Not all Black people come from Africa and not all Black people in America are American. I must admit I agree with Mrs. Parks, having more than one label does come in handy. I, for example, am an Italian descendent Caucasian Brazilian who can pass as an Afghani. When I apply for a job I am white. When I apply for a scholarship, I am Latino. When I pursue the women, I am Brazilian, and when my plane is hijacked—oh come on! Who would not do that?

Political correctness is all about telling people what they want to hear, right? Not to long ago I was on a plane when I heard the pilot announce that we would be making an unscheduled less-than-safe landing (crashing) and that all luggage would have to be purged to reduce the damage of the remaining cargo (passengers). As I returned to my seat and buckled in, afemale flight attendant (stewardess) announced that, we needed to purge more cargo and articulated how “the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few,” and asked for volunteers. Realizing our predicament, we convinced the unbiased flight attendant that it would be just to discriminate alphabetically. Cooperatively she announced, “Will all the African-American people please excuse them selves from the plane (jump off)?” We exchanged puzzled looks and remained seated. The flight attendant then asked, “Will all the Black people please excuse them selves from the plane?” Frustrated, the flight attendant went on to importune the people of color as a little girl in the back stood up and said, “Mommy, I thought we were Black?” To which the mother replied, “Sit down honey, today we are Negroes, and we are going after the Mexicans!”

Never let the truth to get in the way of a good joke, but let us not miss the point here. In all this, the real tragedy is that I had to say, “female flight attendant,” effectively doubling the required syllables! Many Actresses now prefer the term "actor" when defining their profession. Let us imagine the horror if casting agents followed suit (“Actor Needed”), chaos would ensue, as they turn away all Actresses from auditions wherein the part in question called for a male. The idea of using the terms “male actor” for men and “female actor” for women—using two words for an expression when previously one word was perfect—highlights the logical insufficiency (idiocy) of employing such a term! Forcing to qualify a term perceived as gender-neutral with a gender-specific term as “male” or “female” is regressive. If there is to be any equality, let us cut down on the number of Oscars given at the Academy Awards by awarding only the Best Actor and the Best Supporting Actor. With men and women competing for the same Oscar, this would provide greater incentive for an award winning performance, now that is progress!

To illustrate, I will speak in generalities based on personal experiences. Remember that experiences are subjective to perception and is by no means absolute. Nevertheless, if a purple man robbed a 7-11, then the next week another purple man robbed the same store, and so on. Rhetorically I must ask, how many robberies would it take for the owner of the 7-11 to pull a gun on the next purple man to enter his store?

Most people whom I have encountered in the U.S. think that anyone north of Mexico should speak English and any country south of the border translates to Spanish-speaking. Most of them do not know that the largest Latino country in the world, by area, is Canada with Brazil in second place. On several occasions, Chicanos or Boricuas have rebuked me when I called them Latin brothers with, “Shut-up gringo, you aren’t Latino!” Few things annoy me more than the intellectually impaired. Not only was I born in the second largest Latin country in the world, by which I have rights of citizenship, but also I exercise such right as an enlisted member in the Brazilian Armed forces. In addition, I have voted for the present President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Moreover, I am well versed in Brazilian culture and history, let alone that I also speak Spanish fluently and understand Italian and French. In the US, those who frequently challenge my Latin heritage generally cannot say the same of theirs.

However, I prefer to educate instead of discriminate and hate, as I am just as susceptible to being intellectually deficient as anyone else is. Call it what they will, ignorance is the blanket that the prince of insufficient light has enshrouded over our minds. It will be a long while before we pry this blanket from his frost bitten fingers so we might as well cuddle until then. Even so, we are to realize a Zen paradox; the less ignorant we become the more we realize the magnitude of our ignorance.

Desire: Origionally written 2006.05.16

From a young age, I have had a sincere desire to help humanity in a substantial way.  If I may, I would like to share with you something that I have dedicated much thought.  As a Christian, I have spent many years studying various books on the Christian faith to include both the old and new testament.  I have also studied extensively other major religions and philosophies of the world in order to gain a better understanding of humanity.  As the son of a physicist, I have grown up with the idea that God is the ultimate scientist and by virtue of this fact I have become very familiar with the scientific method.  In addition, Psychology is a field of study that greatly intrigues me and as such, I have dedicated a great deal of time trying to figure out what exactly makes people tick.  These are my "credentials," and I present them with the hope that you will listen with your heart what I am about to share.  I feel compelled to share this with you as I strongly sympathize with your cause and therefore desires.

 

The following is a model of how I believe the human soul operates:

 

Desire - Hope - Faith - Knowledge - Understanding - Wisdom - Joy

 

In this e-mail, I will explain my understanding of the first facet of this model: Desire.

 

The best way to present this is to ask the following:  If you had to create artificial life how would you go about doing it?  How would you program a computer to be aware of self, and so on?  This is what I have come up with

 

We as humans are not so different from computers.  We process things by "1s" and "0s.”  What a computer cannot process is the "maybe," the "1" and the "0" at the same time.  Without getting too technical, a photon can behave as a particle in one case, a wave in another, and in some cases as both at the sometime.  In short, if we were to create a computer that was capable of this type of processing it would outperform every computer today combined by 1000 times.  In essence, you would have the raw computing power of the human brain, a Quantum computer.  The theory of quantum processing is nothing new and in fact may be possible in the next 20 years or so.

 

All this is to illustrate the way in we process information.  That is, we seem to perceive a thing as good (one), evil (zero), or not sure (maybe, 1/0).  I define "good" in this case as that which accomplishes the objective.  I will use the cliché example of a bank robbery to illustrate this definition.  Since the objective is to acquire the money with minimal effort, a gun proves to be effective in accomplishing this.  In this case having a gun is good as it helps the robber accomplish the objective.  However, we moral and upright citizens judge this thing as "not good" or evil, as it obviously impedes others from obtaining their objectives of financial stability and so on.  As such, we achieve greatest good by obtaining the greatest objective, which is, joy for all.  This is objective is what I call the divine objective.  Of all the intelligences in the universe, the one most capable of achieving this objective in its perfection would be the supreme intelligence, which is God.  God seeks after the divine objective and therefore is the source of the divine good.

 

This of course, is not an attempt to out-think all the great philosophers of the past rather an effort to explain what I think "good" is.  However, many of the great philosophers have concluded that man bears within him some intrinsic knowledge that is not learned in the mortal realm.  Plato used the term, "recollection" to describe this knowledge.  Using the Socratic Method, Plato used the character of Socrates to ask a slave boy questions until the slave boy came to understand a square root without Socrates providing him with any information.  I believe that each of us has the knowledge of the divine good within us.  Therefore, when presented with a perception of the world around us we compare the perception to the "recollection" and determine whether the perception is good (one), evil (zero), or not sure (one/zero).  Our entire day is filled with millions, if not billions, of decisions like these.  To my understanding, this is the most basic processing that leads to the myriad of human emotions that we experience.

 

Humans experience only two types of desire: the charitable desire to share joy with others, and the selfish desire an attempt to protect the loss of joy.  This of course is a natural instinct; we are programmed to avoid death.  Death, of course, would be the ultimate loss of joy.

 

To better understand selfishness, we must examine the cardinal sins.  It is interesting to note that the cardinal sins correlate with what I will call, the seven "selfs", and their opposing virtues:

 

 

 

         Sin            Self              Virtue

 

      1. Sloth          Self-Conservation Prudence

 

      2. Anger/Wrath    Self-Defense      Justice

 

      3. Gluttony       Self-Nourishment  Temperance

 

      4. Vanity/Pride   Self-Esteem       Humility

 

      5. Greed          Self-Sufficiency  Faith

 

      6. Lust           Self-Indulgence    Chastity

 

      7. Envy           Self-Improvement  Gratitude

 

Your “It’s all about me” workshop addresses these, “selfs,” and helps us understand how to walk the path of avoiding the cardinal sin without overshooting the mark.  The mark is a principle known in Buddhism as the middle path, or in Taoism, the harmonious balance of the Ying and Yang.  Many times, we focus on only one particular virtue, because it is a weakness of ours, or because we felt inspired by a Sunday school sermon.  This focus, of course, diverts attention from the other virtues and inevitably leads to unhappiness.  However, when the attention is on being happy these virtues will naturally manifest themselves.

 

The advertising industry spends billions, if not trillions, of dollars a year convincing us that a particular product will bring us happiness.  This industry employs various techniques to get us to visualize the product in our lives and the promised fruits of joy that accompany that product.  One of the many tactics used is the drink-our-beer-and-you’ll-be-sexy technique.  The desire to be sexy itself is not wrong, but exploited in this particular instance.  If a man were to succumb to this ploy, he might find his beer belly less popular than his originally trim physique.  Of course, there are women out there who find a beer belly sexy but this is beside the point.

 

Conclusively, desire is the ultimate source of power.  To master one’s desires is to master one’s own destiny.  Again, the advertising industry knows this and does whatever it can to influence this power to their favor.  The “It’s all about me” workshop helps us recognize areas where our desires may be invested in the wrong things and redirect them to areas of our lives that are more fulfilling thereby increasing the overall joy of that individual.  This increase in joy naturally permeates to others which why I find your work to be a great benefit to humanity.  I wish you the very best in your work and personal life and thanks again for the compliment.