JMBERMAN.COM :. Mews Archives .:

September 29, 2013

I improvised a new song today for a girl I used to know, we grew up together, went through a lot together, left home and stayed with her when I was 15, always wondered what happened to her, Lee Denton, Irish girl, maybe she got married, anyway, I improvised this song for the memory of the last time we met around 1991, U2's Achtung Baby had just come out on CD. Anyway, I call this song, Bookend Memory

I haven't even listened to it, so... ya. Enjoy, maybe ;)

http://www.jmberman.com/mp3/bonus/Bookend_Memory.mp3

September 28, 2013

There is perhaps a learned prerogative that lends to mankind's speculation towards the negative. Why is it curiosity killed the cat, why did it not enlighten the cat? I imagine both scenarios can be cultivated, why then do we embrace so generously the more pessimistic view? In scientific discovery, technological advancement, all walks of life, we control and are controlled by fear. Caution is wise, but confidence and abundancy opens the path towards something transcendent... perhaps it is time for a new paradigm, a new year of harmonic convergence...

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I gave up on news, I figure they've got some work to do before they get my attention, my time is too valuable to waste on issues I figured out years ago like abortion and gay marriage. This is how taxation should work... you get none of my money until you start focusing on substantive issues again and stop boring me with the cosmetic ones.

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It's not a scientific argument to call someone an idiot when they don't believe you simply because you tell them they're wrong. Unless your name is Gregory House... and you're a character on TV.

September 27, 2013

Pro tip: No matter what you say there will be someone to criticize it. Say thank you and move on. You've got better things to do, and there will be better people to do them with.

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I went into the guestroom... my black cat, my baby girl Luna, followed me in... when I went out, I called to her turning out the light in the process... I couldn't see a thing... I called to her again, and a recognizable black shadow appeared, somewhat hidden behind the nearby bookshelf, stretching out with familiarity... I called to her again... Luna then appeared from the other direction, at the stairs where she'd snuck by long before I'd turned out the light and not noticed... I turned back to where the shadow had been, that had come when I called... what was it? What had come to me in the darkness?

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For what it's worth, we do have time machines... it's called music.

September 26, 2013

Emotionally polarizing topics stop learning at the wall of our own fears.

September 25, 2013

What is up with all these hamstering injuries in football games? I hope animal protection is involved because this is unacceptable!!! I love all animals, and abuse towards innocent little hamsters should not be allowed at any sporting event!!!! And what are hamsters doing on a football field anyway?! I cannot believe it!!! This is an outrage!! An absolute!.... oh, hamstring injuries... never mind.

I dedicate this bit to Gilda Radner, wherever you are. RIP.

September 24, 2013

I figured out why my roommate might think I'm crazy... it's because I walk around the house singing songs like this: "Luna is a crazy cat, she's a Republican, she voted for Bush." Then from the around the corner, Mike says, "She wasn't born." Oh, you heard that?

Whenever I see a woman post only pictures of herself all day, I think what if my cats were able to post their own pictures instead of me posting them for them? I think it would be a similar result. And then you'd have that rare artist cat like Neptune posting photos of trees, Jupiter would probably post pictures of leaves... it'd be a very interesting world... I think we need to figure out how to let cats post their own photos to facebook... hmmm, there might be a way...

I think if we're going to consider Boxing a sport we have to consider Pornography a sport as well.

September 22, 2013

There's a scene in the 1931 Charlie Chaplin film "City Lights" which is incredibly beautiful... when the blind woman that Chaplin has been anonymously helping get on her feet to help her father, after getting her eyesight back through his kindness, realizes he is the man when she takes his hand trying to give him a flower and a quarter when he is penniless... this simple moment of returned kindness and the resulting epiphany is what redeems every aspect of the human condition, and makes this movie such a masterpiece.

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Life is a slippery salamander. You may not catch what you're after, but the splashing water will feel nice in the heat.

September 19, 2013

Omg a person who admits a fault? I didn't know you good people existed anymore! Seriously, online it seems everyone is right, and looking for a fight. So thank you for renewing my faith in humanity, somewhat! Even a modicum of decency and kindness goes a long way.

We do tend to judge ourselves harshly, perspective and objectivity are hard to come by commodities, but perhaps when we look at ourselves the way we hope God or the perfect parent looks at their children, we begin to understand a little of what empathy is and how its seed sprouts true compassion in the heart, flowering into all perception.

God is the clear mirror beyond all things, which shines through them, including us. Meditation allows us to find the stillness, unclutter our minds by becoming aware of our thoughts and attachments and illusions, to let go of them and more allow the light to shine through us, truth is emptiness, prayer is part asking for clarity but also asking for God to take responsibility of clearing us or our path or making something happen, and I don't believe God works this way, that is why we have free will, to personally empower ourselves to learn and to grow, for if prayer = God fixing things, then we have learned nothing, and no growth is possible. Embrace, be embraced by the moment, for it never comes again and it is the gem we seek, it cannot be grasped, or slowed, only appreciated with as much of our being as we are capable in each moment. That's what I think any way.

September 18, 2013

The difference between friendship and whatever this is lies in the difference between idea and execution. People who collect friends like statistics to make themselves feel better are in love with the idea of caring and being a part of something, but when given the chance suddenly don't have the means, the time or the attention to do so. We make time for that which is important to us.

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God gave us free will, a neocortex and capacity to question all things, to build on them, to improve them, to become independent and creatively abundant creatures... the ultimate challenge is death, will we overcome this challenge as well? And what then? What if someday we finally understand that the greatest riches we seek are waiting on the other side, and we have forgotten how to die?

September 17, 2013

I have to teach my cats to get along, because someday I might not be around to take care of them, and it's going to take real teamwork to figure out that can opener.

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Everything you place should not merely fill space, but adorn the room with beauty, like a cat. If you look around your bedroom, and are not so moved by the krazy glue on the desk, or the remote on the counter, take it away, there is nothing less sexy in a bedroom than a utilitarian priority.

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Cats are the subtitles of my life.

September 16, 2013

People say awards don't matter, but it's simply not true. Look at what awards did for Argo? A movie that really wasn't that great, but only is marketed as so great because of its undeserved awards, given it for being pro government and pro media, and Affleck's marketability, and all that extra marketing from the awards means big money and influence.

This is why it's upsetting that masterpiece films like Brokeback Mountain and The Wrestler, ambitious, daring and meaningful films lost to cliched mediocrity like Crash and Hurt Locker.

Movies that truly challenge people have consistently been ignored by the Academy, just look at the more recent Cloud Atlas, that whether you loved or hated had to be recognized for some amazing story writing, acting, cinematography and music, and yet was completely ignored by the Academy, because it questions everything they hold dear, religion, government and media.

September 15, 2013

Whenever I see someone on Facebook post how they're tired their football team keep losing I think, it's just football. I'm more tired of teachers getting paid 1/2000 a football player's salary.

September 12, 2013

One should not seek to convert to a religion, one should take it one step further, convert from corporation to human, and once you're there convert to humanity, which is that effortless love which embraces all things in mutual accord.

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I wish people would stop saying to close the border, that's like trying to sell windows to the sky.

September 11, 2013

If I ever have a baby, instead of irritating crying, I'm going to download a relaxing ringtone which will allow my firmware upgradeable baby to lull itself back to sleep with its own cries...

September 7, 2013

Here's a thought I just came up with...

It's really easy to freak yourself out while seeing a scary movie, here's how... if you are looking out a window, and worried you'll see someone standing there looking at you, it's just because the feeling of someone in front of you is actually a empathic reflection of what has been standing behind you the whole time.

September 6, 2013

I think it would be wise, since we humans are utterly outnumbered by ants, that we should designate a birthday for all ants, and celebrate it, starting right away... just pick a day, and on that day put out a little mini cake for the ants and say and broadcast with your heart and mind, a little love to our tiny neighbors... who knows what could happen? You might actually feel that love returned, imagine that? It'd knock, you on your ass.

September 5, 2013

Calling for prayer to clean up radiation is like spilling milk in your kitchen and joining in a circle of prayer to clean it up... someone still has to go get the sponge.

And I'm not an unspiritual person, I've had remarkable experiences in my life I will never be able to explain. I've met God, Jesus, in spirit and in the flesh, I understand the unusual nature of reality, and of the mind, but what we're talking about here flies in the face of free will, one of the cornerstones of religion, so let me ask you, how does faith and free will co-exist? They seem to contradict one another. One demands personal responsibility so we might learn and grow, the other asks God to handle things for us... How do you reconcile this?

Which begs the question, does God rescue people? Robert Anton Wilson may have put it best when he talks about the parts of the mind, the thinker and the prover...

The thinker thinks, the prover proves. This is awareness reflecting.

At the beginning of Robert Anton Wilson's book Prometheus Rising he juxtaposes this idea with concepts derived from Alfred Korzybski's educational discipline of General Semantics ( " the map is not the territory " ) noting that by nature we are capable only of modeling reality and never of actually knowing it.. ever. Or knowing anything for that matter. All knowledge is not only arbitrary ( just think of the extreme chaos involved in your indoctrination with knowledge, the infinite web of possibilities, how easily what "they" told you could have been completely different ) but simply an abstraction. It is best to gauge things as possibilities and in percentages of truth; even things you believe "absolutely", that aliens exist or don't, evolution, the theory of gravity, classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, that gods live on the top of Mt. Olympus, that there is or is not something directing the chaos, that that thing is sentient, that the world exists when your not looking, can only truly be gauged in terms of chance.

http://howlinmagic.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-thinker-thinks-prover-proves.html

Also, I could not possibly reccomend highly enough Robert Anton Wilson's book Prometheus Rising. It has permanently altered my reality for the better. Far, far better. Containing a systhesis of " Timothy Leary's 8-circuit model of consciousness, Gurdjieff's self-observation exercises, Alfred Korzybski's general semantics, Aleister Crowley's magical theorems, Sociobiology, Yoga, Christian Science, relativity, and quantum mechanics amongst other approaches to understanding the world around us" Mr. Wilson continually impresses with his wit, humour, knowlede, intelligence and insight. It is the greatest book I have ever read, not for it's prose ( though he is an excellent writer ) but for it's effect on my mind and how I view my existence. Amazing.

Also check out the excellent dvd on Robert Anton Wilson, Maybe Logic. It's a well edited selection of lectures interviews and was also very touching and transformative.

The Bible is full of contradictions, it's truly staggering, and there's no way to reconcile them without liquefying the rules into "faith", something abstract, amorphous, and malleable... which incidentally coincides with the nature of the universe as an ebb and flow of ever changing, ever present infinite realities, creating a Samasaric mask over Nirvana.... this is why I sometimes ponder if the Bible were not writ by God, but by the Devil, or perhaps like the Book of Job, it is a combination of the two, a play written in dichotomous acts.

For all things a grain of salt, there is no fixed reality but the one that exists once we stop thinking about it.