January 2008 - Stress Alive

I have read so many books that will help me improve, find my path, create my path, love, and in general empower me to become more effective and ‘all that I can be.’ Because, I detect, highly effective people (HEP) are what we all aspire to be. Yes?

I wonder, though, if we don’t leave something behind while investing time, energy, and focus on becoming as on top of our game as we can possibly become. In the spirit of that sense of wondering, I hope to ‘lower the bar’ by identifying seven primal values and principles of marginally effective people. Seven is the number often used, say the success gurus, because that is the number that will not bore us but will not over-stimulate us.

1. Other people are objects. Thusly, they are either a barrier to or a vehicle toward an identified goal.

2. Goals are constructs that we create to a)move us from point A to point B, or b)make us feel bad because we have not lived up to our expectations.

3. Expectations are things that make it more difficult to have heart to heart relationships and communication with other people.

4. Communication is often expressed more genuinely through the way that we are than in the things that we say.

5. Flatulence is not usually communication. Some people, though, become extremely offended when such air is passed. As if it is a personal communication.

6. Air is important, individually and collectively.

7. We may be social creatures, but when we disallow solitude in our lives we then increase the likelihood of other people being mere objects to us (see principle #1).

With this awareness, may your attitudes be adjusted and your actions render you at least marginally effective. 2008 can only be way cool!

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Posted By: Deorre - Category: No Category

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Bush Traumatic Stress Disorder

January 2nd 2008 01:56

After nearly eight years of Mr. George Bush as President of the United States, I find I have changed. For better or for worse, I have lost my youthful naiveté. I find it more and more difficult to see the wonder in every moment through the eyes of an innocent child. I no longer believe that people are inherently good.

Instead, I trust fewer and fewer people. I have seen that if they are not out right liars, then they will spin words and phrases into faux meaning that seems in service to unfinished psycho-issues and overt greed. I am told that this is the price to be paid to be safe from all the terror that is in the world.

I no longer seem to see life through a lens of optimism and hope. It seems like only yesterday, for instance, that I would look forward to meeting and communing with people from other places and cultures. This was an exciting, fulfilling, and optimistic prospect. Diversity, uniqueness, and the marvel of so many different ways to be in the world. But alas, all these people that are different and alien are something to be feared, avoided, reported, and generally disdained. I am told that this is the price to be paid to be safe from all the terror that is in the world.

I remember when I truly believed it when I was told that my country took the moral high ground. Treating others with respect and subjecting even enemies to fair and reasonable practices. Protecting civil liberties as if they were something of value, and caring from the collective heart and consciousness for those in need. Regardless of how they looked, what language they spoke, or even which religion or spiritual practice they embraced. I now know better. Amassing of power and money are far more significant values, and the moral high ground is nothing more than a ‘spin’ and ‘talking point’ meant to divert thoughtful reflection from a time once revered and now past. No longer is it about how the game is played, but whether you win or lose. I am told that this is necessary because it will protect me from all the terror that is in the world.

I do find myself wondering when it was that Jesus became a Republican, Democrat, or any other sort of political figure. Though never a routine church-goer and better defined as a spiritual naturalist, I did once take heart in the messages of peace, love, caring for those in need, and ‘doing unto others as you would have done unto you’. Now, though, I see those who claim to value the message of Jesus acting in a way quite contrary to what the proclaimed son of God preached. Intolerance, greed, revenge, violence, and all such attributes, performed in the name of God, seem problematic to me. I suppose it must be this way because we must be protected from all the terror in the world.

I think the primary symptoms of Bush-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (BTSD) are free-floating confusion, fear, social anomie, hopelessness, distrust of others, and a desire to be a part of something that once was but seems now lost. Remarkably, my hope has not been squashed. I believe the cure to BTSD may be a large turn-out in the coming elections by a well-informed electorate.

deorre