November 30, 2013

It is through the witnessing of selfless acts of kindness that we remember our humility and our humanity, rekindling the simple gratitude that fires the light on the coldest of nights.

We have to walk our own path, personally, I like my negative posts, I am a man of positives and negatives, it seems most people are so afraid of embracing their dark side, they have to fight off mine as well when they see it. But that's okay, together we can draw down the moon and rejoice in the sun. Grace is not a battle to be won.

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People are always complaining about evil pesticides from Monsanto getting into the water table, but what they don't want you to know, those damn hippies, is that trees pee directly into the water table. I'll probably have to go into hiding now after giving away this well kept secret, but I thought the world deserved to know the truth.

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ADHD, because we had to find a way to make not being interested in bullshit a disorder.

November 29, 2013

Facebook, where everyone is insanely happy with everything going on in their lives, except Jonathan who thinks deep conversations commence here, oh and the political junkies, can't forget them, other than that it's pretty much all kittens, all regurgitated news stories, all self help quotations put to pretty pictures all the time.

And now back to your regularly scheduled idyllic day, where you know everything, your life is a party, and everybody is your friend.

November 28, 2013

A friend is someone who lets you help. So often someone makes a suggestion and yes, we've thought of it already, right? But, we go with it, we share the moment with them and the thoughtfulness behind it because the sharing of a good gesture is more important than having to be the smartest person in the room. Thankful for those who put thought towards kindness and compassion in the spirit of goodwill.

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Black Friday never meant anything to me, I find it offensive just the idea of letting consumerism control my schedule. I don't even let a TV show do that! Well, unless it's a new episode of Mad Men, and I bet if I were alive when Get Smart first aired I'd have scheduled around it, but that's not the point!

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Just a thought...

The reason technology grows so much faster than spirit in our culture is because we have dedicated traditions surrounded by technology... think about it, so many of our holidays we associate with some television event, a parade, a football game, a cartoon special even... if we go back to our childhoods... we so often associate holidays with television, ergo, techology becomes part of our values, and hence we believe deeply, emotionally, a connection to it, and strive to improve it... but perhaps the wise thing would be to reprogam our culture for an absence of technology, and thus evolve our emotional nature, the spirit of these holidays, and like a hobbit against a big dragon, we fell the mighty beast of consumerism, technological disconnection, and regain our footing on a path of spirit, of beauty, and of love.

November 27, 2013

Attitudes are so important. Example: I make banana pumpkin bread, I tell my roommate it's a little spongey, and I ask him if there's anyway to save it, his answer simply is "no". I taste it, and think, I could save this with a little butter or coolwhip. Now I don't think my roommate wants me to feel bad, I just think he's attached to ways of doing things, and that limits his perspective. But if we can just let go of these demands on how things should be, everything opens up to us with infinite possibilities!

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I dont need holidays to remind me how precious life is, I don't forget.

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Catnip and Cannabis, because God made us stoners to stick together...

November 26, 2013

You know ahtletes are making too much money when they all wear 5 ct diamond earrings during the game and shrug off $50,000 penalties. I won't be happy until all elementary school teachers wear 5 ct diamond earrings and shrug off $50,000 fines for yelling at a kid.

November 24, 2013

I don't believe in faith. The trust in things unseen, oh I believe there is much we don't detect with our limited senses and technologies, but nothing I can hang my hat on... hey, there could be a hat rack out there, but even if there is I wouldn't know where to throw my hat to hit it! So, I don't see how faith is helpful except as some kind of comfort lie like lightning never strikes you twice, and God will never give you more than you can handle, we know they're simply not true... stories told to children because they can't handle reality

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Currently in a sick of people mood. Giving, in hopes that somehow things will work out, everyone takes and takes some more, your family is self-absorbed emotion cannibals who run from honesty. I sold 70 albums, which is amazing, and asked everyone to write a review because it's the most important thing to get featured on Etsy, Amazon and iTunes, and 3 people wrote reviews, three out of 70. Life can be so disheartening sometimes, no matter how much you don't want to complain or feel sorry for yourself, it's as if the whole world is conspiring against you, so I think I am going to unplug from the social networking, the reaching out to idiots who cluelessly imbibe the next movie, the next book, the next news story... take a break from it, I need some time alone. I'll see ya when I see ya. Happy Thanksgiving, save a turkey, Merry Extreme Tree Makeover Day, Happy New Years, arbitrary day to close a chapter and start another one... every day is another one, I leave you with these words by Cat Stevens, I've said enough of my own.

"It's not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to go through.

If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them They know not me.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away."

Peace,

~JMB

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No one is called, it is only our ego that makes it appear so. Desperate for meaning, for reason, for something more than this shifting sand we call reality. It is all illusion. We live, we wander, we squander, we believe we are collecting something, memories or learning... for what? It's all pointless, it's all smoke and mirrors, there is no God, only the deluded and disassociated self we cannot accept, empty reflections of our hopes and fears, masquerading as something behind it all that sets things right, it can't set it right for me. I have seen the vacuum beyond time and space, the true face of reality, and it is waking and we are running from it's breaking through our layers of comfort lies. the beliefs of our ancestors and all they hold dear, ignorant little lovers we dream.... so we give compassion, empathy, ourselves because ourselves are illusions, kites in the current and we know the wind blows hard against the rocks, we vow for all others a little grace, our last breath's wish to grant them, after all, what else is there?

Silent wisdom gives of itself for a love token.

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You can't really blame people for choosing to defund space programs, schools, and science, after all, our culture encourages magical thinking in almost every milieu. Whether it's religions, gods, angels, demons, saying bless you, superstition, jinxs, we are creating an OCD, fear-based culture who embrace magical thinking like hugging on a beach to clean oil spills, and prayer to clean up nuclear disasters... I think magical thinking has its place, preferably in the subjective zone of attitude adjustment, but not in our schools, and not in our ability to effect the world for the better... we have to be able to approach real problems with real solutions.

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Pittsburgh Steelers are playing chess and Cleveland Browns are playing checkers, and incidentally they both think they're playing football.

November 23, 2013

What the world needs more than science or religion, is empathy.

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The fact is we're wasting our breath talking reason to the unreasonable, they're not listening, they've made up their mind, they're certain... and certainty is the end of all learning. It makes you wonder why religion and science aren't best friends, after all, they both worship the same God. Certainty.

November 21, 2013

There's something relaxing about putting on a record, in this age where everyone is online like a raging river of progress and expectation... I find it beneficial to let it all go... and just listen to the music.

November 20, 2013

A blues song I wrote today...

Some Things Don't Mean A Thing

C E7 Ami C7
F A Dmi G7

Some look for differences, some look for common things,
Some look for answers, that the truth never brings
Some look right through you, to the silent bird who sings
Some things mean everything and some just don't
mean a thing...

Some see the truth in clouds, malleable little dreams
Some see the dreams of truth flowing in the streams
But I've seen them all and yet I know nothing
Somethings mean everything and some just don't
mean a thing...

C7

F Dmi
I see a universe carved into the sand

E7 Ami
All the days of my youth

But for all the unexplained moments

I can't give you proof

Some embrace the smell of things, some hide behind perfume
I just love the smell of you when you walk in the room
Some look to the stars above for a single grain of truth
I see the whole beach shining in you

November 19, 2013

I'm tired of being the most unimportant person in people's lives. It's time for me to change the direction of my life. If you want me, I'll be over here looking for something real.

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The one thing people excel at most is being discouraging. They can find something incorrect faster than something interesting, they criticize grammar over content, they think a post is too long, they think no matter what you do something about it is wrong. But they never think how quickly these little discouragements can add up and effect someone. You might be the last little criticism that breaks someone's will. Everyone is so self-important and concerned with how they see the world, we push each other further and further away, create a community concluded in solitude, and justifiably so... we are only commodities, independent businesses, no longer people, no longer valid, barcodes on the product, placement in the ego aisle.

November 17, 2013

Neitzche said God is dead, but that's not true, he's killing people still. Jesus said, "God, why hast thou forsaken me?", so how can Jesus be God? Is he talking to himself? In the end, Jesus was just a human being, like you or I. Fallible, limited by the limitations of sense data, but Jesus like us have glimpses of transcendence to those shackles we call senses, when we are detached from the post that ties us to the shore, and we see everything as it truly is, connected, divine, alive. Neitzche said God is dead, perhaps he meant some ideology, some philosophy, some attachment to definitions that strait-jacket tragicomedy that holds us down, the gravity of consciousness and the profound.

November 16, 2013

I'm always wary of giveaways because they're really takeaways of your absence of things, which creates more attachments, more worry about something happening to something else. Most of the time, I'm trying to create an absence of things and not get rid of one.

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They say cats find high pitched tones most pleasing, so I've been speaking to my cat in random robot noise sequences all morning...remember, you can't spell scat singing without catsing.

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Checkers is to Chess what guitar is to the violin.

November 14, 2013

Our love of our pets is without prejudice. Our love does not wane as they grow heavier. We don't exhibit discriminating behavior if we think our pet is fat. Why then do we do so with each other? Perhaps this is just one more thing the animal kingdom has to teach us about love. We can learn from them how to be a kindler, gentler human being. Again I say, unto thee... God did not put them here to be eaten, they put God here to save themselves.

November 12, 2013

Football suggestion: Players need to stop backseat ref'ing, seriously, let the referees do their job, there's nothing more annoying than players pointing to where they think the opponent went out of bounds, or if the TD is good, or whose ball it is... just stop, you're the football player, you already get paid way too much money to play a game I played for fun as a kid on the street for free on cement with no padding... let the referees do their job.

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Chess opens the doors that lead to all kinds of self improvement and light... at least for me it does... it inspires every aspect of my life, inspiring the way I think, the quality of my thoughts, my motivation towards personal projects as well... and I give credit to my grandfather who is no longer with us, but taught me chess at a very young age, making it not just a cerebral game, but a joyous one.

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Been busy working, getting things together, vowed not to shave until I get my bonus songs re-recorded for the website to replace the poor quality versions currently up. Enjoying the 2013 Chess Championship, Etsy store is doing well, been working out a lot lately too, feeling good, haven't bit my fingernails in a week, am letting go of bad habits, to focus my energy into the directions I want my life to flow toward, one-pointedly, positively, and all that so, it's been a pretty enlightening two weeks.

Oh right, recording a new answering machine message today too.

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I'd listen to Democrats more if they listened to fringe Republicans less.

November 11, 2013

Most won't remember this but yes, there was a very short window when Steven Tyler of Aerosmith had the voice of an angel... Dream On.

November 10, 2013

It is our responsibility not to teach people what to think but HOW to think. To question and verify critically, unpolarized by emotion, and it's increasingly difficult with so much manipulation is out there, pressing any button you have.

It is difficult to get across the idea of what a credible source is. Especially with the amount of credible looking sites out there.

We see students using Yahoo Answers as resources in college, politicians plagiarizing movie reviews from Wikipedia.

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My 15 minutes of fame was all had in the womb, singing... the acoustics were amazing in there!

November 9, 2013

I don't believe God put animals on Earth to be eaten. I believe animals put God in our minds to save themselves.

November 7, 2013

Have you ever seen the movie, Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? The lesson is that and what I have learned is that though I may suffer from the things I am not at peace with, and the struggles I have endured either from the hand of others or myself, they have made me a stronger, more compassionate, feeling person, and this in turn has helped me in my creativity, in how I feel about others, and in every aspect of my life... and it can be this for you as well... I wish you clarity, and love, and a bright future.

I'm going through a lot as well, sometimes I just stop, put my hands together and meditate, close my eyes, breathe slowly, and just appreciate that I am alive, I am a thinking, feeling being on an amazing world... and I ask myself... what can I do now? What can I not change now?

One thing that's been helping me lately is this thought: "Don't just be against something, be for something."

Helping others really helps me too! So don't for a second think this is a one way street, you're no charity case, you're me, yet also you, and yes, I am a Buddhist, and I think you're wonderful.

November 4, 2013

I'm very skeptical of conspiracy theories. I've met too many theorists who feel things to be true rather than research facts and science to prove them to be, and so many theorists who believe one conspiracy tend to believe them all or many, it seems to be a mentality that is drawn to them from my experience. I am simply more skeptical than most, and very wary of bandwagons. Guilt, manipulation and fear tactics do not work on me. I think for myself, and for me to believe a conspiracy the evidence has got to be extraordinary, like Sagan said... extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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Truth is like string theory, everyone has their own, dependent of anyone else's no matter how contradicting. The trick is not to conform everyone else's to yours or yours to anyone else's but to see the tapestry woven by them all as a grand illusion. This is the magic carpet upon which the dreamer rides, until he awakens on the other side of belief, a gentle storm.

November 3, 2013

Going from Orthodox Christianity to Orthodox Judaism is trading one brainwashing for another, the only difference being one aligns with a person's sense of self while the other does not, but ultimately they are the same... two small boats.

November 2, 2013

If humanity has wandered from a true path it is only because there was a true path for them to stray from... that is proof of humankind's potential to learn from mistakes, to grow, to find our way back. Remember, if you expect the world to change, you only chase ghosts, you must BE the change you wish to see in the world. If you know a better way, teach it. If you want people to be more loving to one another, you must be more loving. There is a way, it starts with people like yourself who wish deeply for it to be so.

November 1, 2013

I am born a Jew, but I do not believe in obligatory religion by birth, rather once born we make our own choices and my relationship with God is one in which that is fundamental to living the life I was meant to, one in which I do what is right for me, in my heart and mind, and not in accord with others expectations or ideologies.

Thus I was born a seed of Judaism, and I grew with the experience and spiritual awakenings of many cultures and wisdoms as my life afforded me... but I came into full understanding through meditation and my Buddhist principles and practices... thus I am a Jew, but I am also a Buddhist. And Above all that, I am much more than that.

My universe is too vast to fit into your ideologies.

Judaism like all religions consist of ideologies. Ideologies which people believe rather demand apply to others, as some kind of all pervasive truth, some static, fixed, reality...
I do not believe in such a dogmatic view of the universe.

Most people, both Jewish and gentile, would instinctively say that Judaism is a religion. And yet, there are militant atheists who insist that they are Jews! Is Judaism a race? If you were to say so, most Jews would think you were an antisemite! So what is Judaism?

In the 1980s, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Jews are a race, at least for purposes of certain anti-discrimination laws. Their reasoning: at the time these laws were passed, people routinely spoke of the "Jewish race" or the "Italian race" as well as the "Negro race," so that is what the legislators intended to protect.

But many Jews were deeply offended by that decision, offended by any hint that Jews could be considered a race. The idea of Jews as a race brings to mind nightmarish visions of Nazi Germany, where Jews were declared to be not just a race, but an inferior race that had to be rounded up into ghettos and exterminated like vermin.

But setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race.

Race is a genetic distinction, and refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic traits. You can't change your race; it's in your DNA. I could never become black or Asian no matter how much I might want to.

Common ancestry is not required to be a Jew.

I am not a Jew, I am a human being who was born into a family who practiced well, sort of practiced Judaism and identified with the Jewish faith... a faith passed down along the female ancestral line, but that is a relationship of people, of flesh, and not concerned with my personal relationship with God.

"Any religion that decries an open mind in favor of conformity of thought should be questioned. If the 'true' god is that nihilistic, then i fear for those faithful to 'him' more than those who are not." -Joel Hallmark