A Bit of the Old Ultraviolence.

Posted on September 3, 2013 by joegergen

A Bit of the Old Ultraviolence.

This cannot be good. I had this going through my head when I woke up this morning:

“This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.”

(Check here for original sound bite http://www.hark.com/clips/hpnzwyblll-a-bit-of-the-old-ultra-violence)

Now granted this is my own fault for watching “A Clockwork Orange” recently. But of all the things to get stuck in one’s Gulliver, as Alex would say.

Hopefully it doesn’t mean someone is in store for a bit of the old ultraviolence. That would be awful. I will say in my own defense that I did try to rinse the clockwork from my system with a good viewing of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” I was hoping maybe a thoughtful examination of the mental health system would bring some healthful vibes to my mind. But the DVD was too scratched to perform that service.

So now I am stuck with an ultraviolent earworm, which I suppose is less aggravating than having earwigs.

They say one way to get rid of annoying earworm is to replace it with another.  I could try the radio. The danger there is that the radio is so often so bad that I might exhibit a bit of the old ultraviolence towards it before I discovered a new earworm.

Another supposed solution is to engage oneself in some moderate (almost said mild) cognitive thinking. The idea is to not leave any space for the earworm to play around in. Meh, that sounds too much like work.

You know, they should label stuff that does this to you. Just like nutritional labels, or GMO labeling.

“May cause an earworm” would be useful to know. Or for more dangerous things like reality TV: “May cause loss of IQ.”

But the government label makers would screw it all up because they would be afraid to say “May cause loss of IQ” and would modify it to say  “Side effects may include cerebral disadvantages, absence of sustained memories and heightened belief in one’s own capacities not based on sufficient documented evidence.”

Maybe I should create a site like Rotten Tomatoes but instead of ranking the quality of entertainment I would provide psychological labeling so you know what your psyche is actually being bombarded with.

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Choices are like Kindling

Posted on August 28, 2013 by joegergen

Choices are everywhere.

You can have such fun with choices. They have such power. I have a penchant for the little choices that chip away at your goal until it crumbles before you.

Aristotle is credited with saying “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

“We are what we repeatedly choose” would be my adaptation. Since the world around us is affected by the choices we make, can we perhaps find strength in that?

For example, I see a lot of articles and conversations around GMO in our food supply and GMO labeling. The articles are usually filled with frustration at the impudence of large corporations and the futility (or collusion) of the FDA. I understand the frustration.

I personally don’t have the resources or skills to wage a crusade against these monoliths. Most people don’t.

But we have choices. We can choose to buy products we know (or as reasonably certain as possible) do not contain GMO.

Yes, I know these products are often more expensive (perhaps a truer reflection of real market value, hmm, but that’s a whole other can of worms).

This is not a new argument. But we sometimes feel that we have to be all in or we won’t make a difference or that somehow our integrity is compromised if we are not all in.

That’s crap. You don’t need to win every battle to win a war. You make the choice when you can. You change the world one interaction at a time.

It’s the collection of choices by more and more people that begins to make an impact. A movement occurs one choice at a time. And with some luck some seminal moment will appear and things will begin to change.

For example, enough people buy enough non-GMO tomatoes so that the local farm can expand operations and become more efficient. And the farm down the road switches to GMO to take advantage of demand.

Now there are plenty who will call this all naive because it’s not sustainable because if everything is organic we won’t be able to produce high enough yields to feed everyone and so on. But I certainly question their powers of prediction being any better than mine. And I certainl

We will latch on to that one moment as the spark that lit the fire. But without the thousands of choices that occurred before serving as kindling the fire would not have spread.

You can apply this concept to many things. What will you apply it to?

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Is it Luck?

Posted on August 27, 2013 by joegergen

I quit my job a few weeks ago to do, well, do things like this.

“You sure are lucky to be able to do that,” some person informed me.

Lucky? Hmm. I don’t recall winning any lottery. Didn’t cash in any outlandish stock options. Definitely no unexpected inheritance. Nope, can’t find anything lucky about it. Though I would surely take any of these occurrences if they came along.

And it’s not because I’m brilliant. If I was so brilliant, I wouldn’t have been working at a job I wanted to get out of. It was a good job, with good people.

I don’t even have a plan for world domination: no product or invention that will make a million. Well, maybe I do have some thoughts about world domination, just no plan. But that is a different post.

For me world domination is about fulfillment, my fulfillment. I know, I know. That’s pretty selfish. But in my defense, I will be able to bring much more positivity to the world if I also have positivity in me.

But back to the question of being lucky, or how I quit my job in two easy steps. OK, so there aren’t two EASY steps. But there are two distinct activities that occurred.

First, the envisioning. I envisioned getting out and doing something. It doesn’t matter what. Just a goal. Nothing too detailed since it ultimately won’t be exactly what you think it will be anyway (no use in mapping sand dunes).

Second, the little choices. The thousands of little choices that will take you there, some will be bigger than others for sure. There is no big decision  though (except for the envisioning), no cataclysmic event.  Well, there will be a cataclysmic event. You just don’t know what it will be and when it will occur. And that’s OK.

So you ask, what are these little choices? Well, that is a matter for another post. Perhaps your next little choice will be to come back and find out.

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I am alone with…

Posted on August 27, 2013 by joegergen

I am alone with my thoughts. That is and always shall be a perilous moment.

So now we have a place to share some thoughts.  Are you hep to my jive?

Follow along if you dare.

 

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