Do Things Exist When The Are Not Perceived?

Money, it's a hit

Time is not money nor is money time, but often we sacrifice one to enjoy the other. They are in a word resources.

Cocktales

The funniest sales call I ever received was from a lady in India (I assume by the accent and broken English) who started the call by saying,

" Hello Mr. Baker. I am calling from Cox Communications... That's  C - O - X."

It confused her but I literally laughed out loud.

I had to wonder what sort of hilarity must have taken place previously to make her feel like she'd better start spelling it out.

But I could probably guess...

I Say Captain

Listening is not simply waiting your turn to reply.

Listening is learning and you cannot listen to the thoughts of others while you are preoccupied by your own.

Listen with your heart as well as your mind. Hear what is between the words, what is behind the words.

Listen as though it will never be your turn to speak and then you can truly listen.

Under the Sun

At a certain point in my life I found that of the important lessons in life there are essentially very few to be learned. What I've also found is that those few lessons seem to have a very broad range of applications so I wind up learning them over and over just in new ways.

To the Servants I Say Thank You

The most important work in the world isn't dramatic or entertaining for the most part.

It doesn't come to completion in the span of a movie or a mini series. If it's done correctly it's never actually done, for there will always be a need unfilled.

There is no monetary gain to be had or expected from it.

The people who do this work do it quietly without fuss because they know it's simply what must be done and so they do it.

They do it because they see what's on the line if it doesn't get done.

It's often messy, ugly, tiring and thankless. Hardly anyone notices it until it isn't being done.

The benefits we all gain from these people's work cannot be quantified in terms of money fort money it's not three objective off it.

It it's not measured in time measured by time. Whether it is done well or done poorly it's effects will play out for lifetimes to come.

These people take care of people.

Your life and this world is better because of them. That's all they want.

You may know some of these people.
Thank them. It's the least you could do.

Smile, Nod and Move on

When unsolicited advice with great certainty and no follow through is given to me, I know this is someone with little to no experience in the subject at hand.

When I am asked about my thoughts and led in a direction, I know this is a person with first hand experience.

It is the difference between the law and love.

If you love something, hang on to it

I've heard that if you love something you should set it free. That if it returns to you it's yours and it doesn't it never was.

This of a farce.

I loved something once and so I set it free. Turns out it didn't return to me... it wasn't mine.

In fact I wound up destroying it by doing so. The object of my affection was irreparably shattered.

It simply fell to the ground and broke.

Now I've also heard it said that love is all you need. That too is untrue, since the store owner demanded that I pay for it.

The moral here?

Don't fall in love with material objects, especially crystal unicorns.

View Askew

Throughout history and even today, everybody wants to love a hero and hate a villain, but that's just not how humans work. The fact of the matter is our priorities are so out of whack that we confuse which one is which, and probably wouldn't recognize either of them except in retrospect... and maybe not even then.

Increasing the Volume: 101513

Andrew Bird "Imitosis"
http://youtu.be/4kbMnzarBO8

He's keeping busy, yeah, he's bleeding stones
With his machinations and his palindromes
It was anything but hear the voice
Anything but hear the voice
It was anything but hear the voice that says that we're all basically alone

Poor Professor Pynchon had only good intentions when he
Put his Bunsen burners all away
And turning to a playground in a Petri dish
Where single cells would swing their fists at anything that looks like easy prey

In this nature show that rages every day
It was then he heard his intuition say
We were all basically alone

And despite what all his studies had shown
That what's mistaken for closeness is just a case of mitosis
And why do some show no mercy while others are painfully shy?
Tell me doctor, can you quantify?
He just wants to know the reason why
The reason why

Why do they congregate in groups of four,
Scatter like a billion spores and let the wind just carry them away?
How can kids be so mean?
Our famous doctor tried to glean as he went home at the end of the day

In this nature show that rages every day
It was then he heard his intuition say
We were all basically alone

Despite what all his studies had shown
That what's mistaken for closeness is just a case of mitosis
Sure fatal doses of malcontent through osmosis
And why do some show no mercy while others are painfully shy?
Tell me doctor, can you quantify

Everything Costs Something

There are many things in life that we do not desire until we see the need for them.
Even then we put them off until we can no longer afford not to.
Often times though the longer we wait the more costly they become to attain.
Even of we can bear the cost of them who's to say that at that point even they will even be available to be had anymore.

You have all that you really need

... but do you really need all that you have?

Of whom much has been forgiven

They say that karma's a bitch but most often I find that grace seems to be the bigger bitch.
Of you don't believe just watch the spite boil to the surface when someone does (or doesn't) get whatever it is that everyone around them believes they deserve.
Life isn't fair and let's be real, most of us should be pretty fucking happy that it isn't.
Start appreciating the grace you've received, stop bitching about it in lives of others, and maybe we could go so far as to be the source of it as often as we can not just when it's convenient.
Just a thought.

Truth

Over the course of my life I've probably been to strip malls hundreds of times, so you can believe me when I tell you everyone is always clothed.

There is a Difference

There are times when I feel like I'm doing good, and times that I feel I'm doing well and occasionally there are rate times that I feel I'm doing good and doing it well.

Good Intentions

Good Intentions are the air freshener that only masks the scent for the one that's doing the shitting. Everyone else still smells it a mile away.

Blowing in the Wind

There is this strange ever shifting rationalization that I hear people refer to often when they examine their own lives.

The standard of "better than" and "worse than" in contrast to others. It's a dangerously slippery slope to travel. One that is based in judgment of the situation of others known and unknown. One that leads to both  unwarranted and unmerited content or discontent because we assume that we are somehow different than they. It is a shallow premise for the mere rationalization of our perceived conditions.

Whatever it leaves us feeling it is fleeting at best and based only in our own imaginations. It also seems seductively deceitful in a sense to comfort ourselves about our own well being or suffering based on the perception of the opposing condition we might imagine in the lives of others.

Our standards should instead be based in absolutes that can provide us with either a mark to know when we have arrived or a measure of how much further we have to go. In either event it is a far more accurate gage of our progress. You cannot judge your speed by the surrounding traffic.

We may never arrive, but it is the journey not arriving that is the point. It is a process, not a product, something we forget all too often sacrificing processes for products.

Aim for the unattainable and you may find life to be better than you ever imagined possible.

Solo Cristo Salva
db

Truth

Salvation is not a pyramid scheme

I have no desire to bludgeon people with my faith. I have never seen the purpose of it nor have I seen any long term positive effect as a result of it.

I don't think that it is as important for you to know what I believe, as it is for you to know what it is you believe. That is the path of your choosing.

What I have come to believe is based within my own understanding and experience so I will not pridefully or foolishly believe that any amount of logic that I might impart will somehow convict or sway you, at least not into faith.

That is God's job, not mine. I do not sell God, he sells himself.

I'll gladly share with you what I believe and how I came to believe it, to the best of my recollection. But even if we came to the same conclusions about certain things we would not understand them in the same way, not all of them at least. This is good.

So, I feel no obligation or even desire to make you believe as I do, for I am as flawed as you, if not more so. Consequently I would hope better for you than the simple grasp of truth that I have come to in the course of my own life.

You must work out your own salvation and it will have its own story as you do.

I will say this however, that my hope is that you would seek and find the truth. That you would find a faith in God that is so convicting that you cannot resist living out.

If somehow I am a part of that process, glory be to God then. It has been said that "men may change minds, but only God changes hearts", I do not believe that God is content to settle for men's minds for his desire is their hearts.

He is everywhere, you only have to look.

Solo Cristo Salva

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