since splinder took over from motime, all of the best bloggers have left.

i was lazy and hung on for awhile, but then they forced us to change address the URL to our blogs and i lost readers.

then screwed with the code and none of my readers could access my site.

after 5 years of blogging here, i give up.

i have a new blog i host myself using wordpress. please visit it...

http://alt-media.com/wordpress/

thanks,

tim

posted by bluematrix at 11/01/09 20:45 | link | comments

reading some cool stuff in eckhart tolle's book - a new earth - where he talks about complaining. i try to do as little of it as possible, but hell, we all complain, some more than others. he makes a compelling case in tracing complaining back to the ego.

our ego is that voice in our head, the incessant stream of involuntary chatter and compulsive thinking. unless you are really far along the path to enlightenment, it makes up the core of who you are with its persistent thoughts, emotions and reactions...it's 'me' and 'my story'. the though the content of the ego, the possesions and concepts we retain about ourselves and others, vary from person to person, the structure of all egos is the same. egos live on identification and separation and constantly struggle to protect and enlarge themselves. the conceptual 'me' cannot survive without the conceptual 'other'. and the 'others' are most other when we see them as enemies.

so when can find fault in others and complain about them, we stroke our egos, and a big ego can really get in the way of becoming more spiritually grounded. jesus asked 'why do you see the speck that is in your brothers eye, but do notice the log that is in your own'? because it makes us feel superior when i criticize and condemn others...it's one of the egos favorite strategies for making itself bigger.

every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that we completely believe in, even if it's just in our thoughts. many times we don't even recognize we are complaining. we put a negative label on people, calling them names, and this allows the ego to triumph over them. but not complaining doesn't mean that we can't inform someone of a mistake or an injustice, its just that we should not take personal offense to it and get all high and mighty about it.

the emotion that goes along with complaining is resentment and a good resentment can really make your ego feel good. you resent someones lack of integrity or honesty, or something that they did to piss you off, and this allows you to feel better than they are and the ego loves this. sometimes the fault is legitimate but by focusing on it, you can amplify out of proportion. many times the 'fault' is just a misperception, a projection of a mind that is conditioned to see enemies.

non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways of going beyond our egos. to get there, we have to recognize that our behavior (and others) comes from our dysfunctional egos. by not complaining or resenting we can often bring out the sanity in others. you may have to protect yourself from them, but you do not have to make them enemies. and the best way to protect yourself is to be conscious of their ego, to forgive them their dysfunction and over look, or rather see through their ego centered behavior and see that the essence of every human being is the same. we all have the same basic needs and wants.

next time you go to complain, examine your thoughts, your motives. become aware of your egos little voice in your head wanting to be stroked. and what's really cool when you do this...when you notice the voice, you notice that you are not that voice, but one who is aware of it. this is huge. 'you' are really the awareness that is aware of the little voice. 'you' are not your ego. and this is a big step down the path.

posted by bluematrix at 09/27/09 19:34 | link | comments

as my posts drop off, so does my readership. not too surprising of a correlation there. oh well.

been reading a good book - the molecules of emotion by one of the scientists in the very cool movie 'what the bleep do we know?". so far its mostly about her groundbreaking discovery of the opiate receptors in the brain that trigger a release of our bodies pleasure chemicals. the ones that mimic the natural chemical compounds found in the derivatives of opium like codeine, morphine and heroin. our body makes versions of these when we get into situations like injuries, or runners high, or orgasms.

much of the book so far has been an insight into the behind the scenes political maneuvering of big time science institutions and how the author got shafted on a big discovery she made and how she fought back. but the promise of the book is how we can learn to make life more pleasurable naturally. and since i'm on this big 'what is happiness' kick right now, it should be interesting.

another book i almost finished before i started this one, is called 'happier' by a harvard professor of 'positive psychology'. 1 out of every 5 harvard students take his class on how to be happier where he looks the question as a scientist and cites professional studies rather than as a pop psychologist like dr. phil (whose book i also picked up at the library recently too and has a few tidbits of no nonsense advice).

i'm starting to form some of my own ideas, and once i can start carving out more time (yea i know) these ideas will be incorporated into the book i hope to have done by spring. its taken quite awhile, as this year has kinda sucked so far, but i'm starting to get a feel back for the flow of life, starting to open myself to the flow of chi, and get a handle on this whole happiness thing. a very long process indeed and one that is never ending.

posted by bluematrix at 09/14/09 06:33 | link | comments

when someone squeezes you, what comes out? i don't mean physically, like your bones and organs, but your mental state of mind. wayne dyer has this really interesting metaphor of visualizing squeezing an orange to illustrate that we can only give off what we have inside. when you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out. doesn't matter when you squeeze it or who is doing the squeezing, what comes out is what's inside.

so again, when someone squeezes you, by criticizing you for instance, what comes out? anxiety, anger, depression? if so, that is what's inside of you. you are choosing (perhaps unconsciously) to store these energies/feelings inside of you. if you were in a really good state of mind, lets say you just won the lottery, and someone squeezed you, for instance cut you off in traffic and gave you the finger, your reaction would probably be slight if any...hell you just won the lottery, who cares what that guy thinks!

wouldn't it be cool to have the feeling that we just won the lottery all the time? life's little inconveniences would be like so much water off a ducks back - just flowing right off with little or no effect. well no one can make you feel bad without your permission. unless you have a medical condition (which so many seem to today) you have to choose to feel angry or hurt or sad. you could also choose to walk around feeling like you won the lottery too.

and if you always feel bad, then you should probably see a professional because you should not have to feel that way all the time - life is too damn short and precious.

sometimes i feel anxiety gripping me and one thing that helps is to use my imagination and visualize something that gives me strength. i read in a yoga magazine that author suggested for people who avoid conflict (like me) to visualize the hindu goddess Kali, who is associated with warriors standing behind you giving you a little push to show some more backbone. i tried it in a situation recently and was surprised it actually worked. since then i have morphed the Kali figure into something that reflects my irish heritage and am experimenting with drawing strength from that. my older sister jacquie used to visualize a bat. for you it may be take the form of a famous person or perhaps a relative you admire for their strength.

your imagination is a powerful thing and is capable of helping you in ways you may find difficult to believe. it might even be able to help you change what comes out when you get squeezed.

 

posted by bluematrix at 08/23/09 19:12 | link | comments (1)

do you take things for granted? when you do, you can quickly forget that it's even there. in fact if you take something for granted long enough, it may not be there the next time you look for it. friendship comes to mind. if you take someone's friendship for granted long enough without putting any effort in to sustain or build that relationship, you may be surprised. sure some friends are friends for life and can go years at a time without much contact, but most friendships need at least some effort to stay viable.

our health is another thing that we often take for granted, or our cars. it is important to feel gratitude because it keeps us connected with the good things in our life. take time to remember, to celebrate and be grateful for the all of the things you have...or they may wander away from neglect. you have so much to be thankful for, if you would only take the time to look and to understand the beauty in your life right now.

steve pavlina talks about two levels of gratitude. level 1 is gratitude for you possesions and immediate circumstances and this is the gratitude most of feel. gratitude for our jobs, family, friends, holidays, health, etc., and is good to get some positive momentum going. it often starts off with, "at least" as in at least i have my health, or at least i have a roof over my head. it can often turn around a negative situation and as such is very useful.

but then he goes on to talk about level 2 gratitude that includes everything in level 1 but is more long lasting, powerful and aligns you with the laws of attraction. at level 2 you become grateful for the adventure that is life. it often starts off with "wow". he makes the analogy of a state of the art, kick ass video game. you're so amazed by the graphics, the music, the characters that winning or losing doesn't matter - you're so fascinated by just the experience. if you can stay in that state of wonder you'll probably get a lot better at the game, but the skills and things you acquire during the game is just a result of your enjoyment, not the cause of it.

life really is like a video game in that we have finite amounts of health, there are definite rules, and most importantly the purpose of both is...to enjoy the experience.

most of the time i'm lucky to hang out in level 1 gratitude, but sometimes i make it to level 2. it is often characterized by being grateful things you normally wouldn't be. wow, that sunset is killer. wow, it's good to be alive today.

if you were to be living the life of your dreams you would be in a constant state of wow. wealth equals gratitude. we can start to cultivate that today by focusing on being grateful for the things we have.

thank you for reading!

posted by bluematrix at 07/27/09 20:06 | link | comments (1)

so, i'm thinking that goals are closely tied to hope. ours is a race of problem solvers. we define specific problems (goals) for ourselves and then we go about solving them.

for our early ancestors our goals were straightforward but difficult...get enough to eat and not get eaten. after awhile, we did not have to worry quite as much about those goals anymore, so we became quite ingenious at defining new problems to solve. after all what good was this ginourmous brain we carried around if we couldn't put it to good use doing what it does best?

we posed ourselves problems like 'how can i kill this big critter with sharp teeth and claws using only what i can find lying around. hey, i just cut my hand on this sharp rock...i bet if i tie it to a stick it will make that buffalo bleed too'.

humans became better and better at identifying and solving physical, real-world goals - so much so that we turned our blossoming intellects on more abstract ones, like writing music and poetry and creating art. now the goal was not survival but simply to impress ourselves, our friends and the opposite sex.

but a million years of hardwiring to find better ways to bring home the bacon, and to prove our worthiness to our kin does not just simply disappear after a mere 8 or 9000 years of civilization. even if we don't have to 'work' to stay alive, we still have a deep need to find better and more satisfying ways to occupy our time. our ancestors job used to be to succeed at staying alive. and while our jobs still perform that primary function of providing food and shelter, we now have a lot of time not being spent on staying alive. today we can choose what we wish to succeed at.

yes, i can still survive on nuts and berries i gather, but if i decide that i have a goal of killing and eating a buffalo, i can derive great pleasure and sense of self worth figuring out how to do so. if i can be rewarded and recognized for it - even better.

so while hope is belief in a positive outcome, we require goals to determine which positive outcomes we want. and here is the key point - we need goals that challenge us. we need to pose a sufficiently challenging problem for our brain to solve, one that we have to work towards, remembering its the journey we spend most of our time on and that joy of reaching the destination is short lived. that destination (goal) we set for ourselves needs to be big enough for us because it gives our lives meaning, a sense of purpose, a reason for getting out of bed. we need our brains to yearn to solve a really juicy problem so we can experience the joy we get as we make progress towards that goal. this progress will sustain us. it will give us hope as we move thru our days.

posted by bluematrix at 07/13/09 05:53 | link | comments (1)

hope. i've written about it before, but i keep coming back to it. when things are going good, we tend not to think about it as much, maybe a brief thought hoping good times continue.

but for those more challenging times, without hope, it's damn hard to get out of bed in the morning. when you are suffering from pain, whether physical or emotional, you want it to stop, to know that you can get through it. you hope that the in coming days or weeks, the pain will ease and life will improve. with no hope, life during these times are bleak.

the essence of hope is trust - trust in postive things unseen. i wear a necklace that has a rune on it that means 'joy from unexpected places'. it helps me remember that sources of joy (and hope) can often come when we least expect and from sources we had not anticipated. but many of us have trust issues. benjamin franklin once said that he tends to expect the worst and when it doesn't happen he is pleasantly surprised. i'm surprised that his negative outlook allowed him as much success as he had - the universe tends to reflect back what we send out over time. garbage out, garbage in.

wikipedia tells us hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. it says hope is somewhat different from optimism in that hope is an emotional state, whereas optimism is a conclusion reached through a deliberate thought pattern that leads to a positive attitude. they seem pretty closely related to me.

in greek mythology, when pandora opened her box, she let out all of her evils except one: hope. apparently the greeks considered hope to be as dangerous as all of the worlds other evils, which seems a bit surprising to me. but not to our pessimistic friend nietzche though who said it was the worst of the evils because it prolongs man's torment. sorry but i think freddy and ben's attitudes make them 'shit-magnets' which draw negative experiences towards them.

for me hope is so damn important, because i want to trust, i want to hope, i have to believe that things will get better - or face thoughts of darkness that lead to despair, and, well, hopelessness. which is the really the worst of all evils.

posted by bluematrix at 06/22/09 13:23 | link | comments (1)

so last weekend i made another short film. this is my fourth straight year to lead a team in the 48 hour film fest here. the festival is up to 80 cities now and st. louis had the most entries again this year with 74 teams competing. i almost did not do it this year for two reasons - first my whiney mantra all year 'i'm too busy'. yea i know i'm getting sick of it too. the second was that my film buddies all had gigs this year...all except calvin flash, who's been in 3 of my 4 entries.

a few weeks ago i had my bike out and since he lives near this park i like to ride thru, i stopped by out of the blue (i hadn't seen him in months) and he talked me into entering again this year. never mind we did not have the use of any of the 3 professional cameras i've used before, nor editors, nor actresses, not even jeffe's studio i've used every time. but calvin is the king of what-the-hell, shoot-from-the-hip, and an eternal optimist and i sent in my $150. i was nervous as the weekend grew near that i had wasted my money.

but, as happens so often in my life, once i actually commit to a course of action and pony up some faith, things began to fall into place.

some friends of mine had just moved out of this really cool house downtown and let me use their place as home base. i got online and found some volunteers and what they lacked in experience they made up for in enthusiasm and we gelled really well. jeffe gave me a light kit and a decent mic and i grabbed my old camera and my workstation from home and loaded the car.

the rules of the festival state that all movies must use the genre we pick at the 7:00 pm kick off event and we picked science fiction. would not have been my first choice but it turned out well anyways, imagine that. by midnight we were writing the script with calvin playing a guy with a split personality who finds a website that will cure him.

once again, i only slept a few hours the whole weekend. once again i was caught up in the process of telling a story in this magical medium, collaborating with friendly strangers who share a common interest that i brought together for a few days. once again i found myself driving to the drop off point sunday night with a warm fuzzy feeling of having accomplished something cool.

but this year was a little different. having mostly dropped out of the creative scene to work for the man, it was nice to become fully immersed back into it. this has been a difficult year so far for me but in the past few weeks work has become much improved, and i am actually getting a social life again...and am realizing how much i missed it. and lastly it was different because i have found much of my soul, much of my creative energy, my chi, has been blocked this year - but these past few weeks of getting out on the bike, hangin with friends, spending some time working out or doing tai chi, of letting myself be creative again, has really unblocked the flow of life, of chi, inside of me. and i like it.

don't expect too much, but you can view the video here  vids.myspace.com/index.cfm

posted by bluematrix at 06/10/09 06:13 | link | comments (3)

so.

funny, i always want to begin every post with 'so'. i'm not sure why. hell i'm usually not even sure why i post entries here either. probably some deep seated need for acceptance, kinda like mom putting my drawings up on the fridge door when i was growing up (which she did often, thanks mom).

so, i'm here at brandts, my old outdoor cafe hangout where, previous to taking my 9-5 job a year and a half ago, i used to come often to have a light dinner, try out new wines, watch people walk by, and write prose. and haven't been here in awhile, hell i haven't even gone out much this year...too friggn busy. yes, i like the stability of the steady paycheck, but miss the freedom of setting my own work schedule - and not having anyone look over my shoulder. c'est la vie, life is about compromising, oui?

but not tonight. its one of the first warm evenings of the year, and I just finished a nice motorcycle ride on some picturesque roads that led me back to my fave cafe. i borrowed a pen from the waitress and am writing this in the margins of the alternative newspaper here. my cell phone vibrates in my pocket and its my friend dan calling me from out of the blue - we haven't gone out in ages. says he knows its last minute and knows that i don't get out much anymore, but for some reason he just decided to see if i wanted to ride with him and derek out to derek's new boat that he just dropped a huge wad of cash on.

i tell him it just so happens i'm on my bike tonight and have no set plans yet. he's surprised and pleased and we agree to meet on a freeway onramp about 5 miles from here. i finish my pinot gris, pay my check, overtipping the waitress, and in 15 minutes pull up next to him and derek waiting for me near their bikes on the side of the road. it is a perfect night to ride. they pull their helmets on and derek sets the tone by zipping out onto the highway doing 90mph . dan and i quickly catch up, zig zagging in light traffic traffic for awhile until we turn off onto the back road that will take us to the marina on the river. another 7 or 8 miles under a darkening orange sky with the occasional  farm house lights in the distance, and we reach dereks boat (try googling 2007 28' SeaRay).

the river is flooding and we can't take it out, but its nice just to sit and have a drink and relax and listen to music on the water with friends. it makes me miss my sailboat, but a friend with a boat is almost better than owning one. an i still have the bike.

man, it's been too long since the last time i did this.

posted by bluematrix at 05/25/09 14:55 | link | comments (1)

it is hard to live in the ‘now’. my mind constantly wanders to the back to things in the past like my tongue repeatedly going over a place where a wisdom tooth was. but living in the past is a dull and lonely business. looking back all the time strains the neck and causes you to bump into people not going your way.

for all practical purposes, the past doesn’t exist, only the ‘now’, so beating yourself up for things you should have done differently or wishing the present could be more like the good times of the past is not a very productive endeavor.

it is constant battle for me to stay in the moment, especially when things are not going very well (lately I really suck at it). but I am aware of my suckiness, and I know it really is something i should try to do and i have some tricks that help pull me back to the present. one of my favorites is to ride my motorcycle, which i did yesterday for the first time in long while. thrill seekers get the benefit of living in the now along with their adrenalin fix. athletic and artistic activities work pretty well too. all of these can get your mind out of the past and into the present.

until you make peace with who you are in this moment, you'll never be content.

“There is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness
but there is the discovery of joy
And silence like a poultice, comes to heal the blows of sound
Peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes by
Grace is when the Universe gives us what we don't deserve;
Mercy is when it doesn't give us what we do deserve.”

posted by bluematrix at 05/10/09 21:05 | link | comments (3)