T-Minus 7 Days

Yeehaw! The countdown is on: I go to China in one week! It's going to be a long trip (2 hours to LA, 8 hours sitting around in LA bored out of my mind, 13+ hour flight to Beijing, then another flight to Changsha...) but it should be a blast. It doesn't seem real yet, but once the tires leave the runway in LA I'm sure that will change.

While I'm out there, I should be able to check my e-mail every day, so that's the best way to keep in touch with me if you have my address. I'll also be posting here on my blog when possible, and I should be able to get my photos up on Flickr without much trouble. I'll link to that from here if there's no problems getting my pictures out there. Hopefully they were being truthful when they said we'd have internet access from our rooms!

More updates and blogfoolery will be coming up, especially once I'm on my way. Stay tuned!

Ghost Town

Remember when people actually shopped at malls? Probably about 50% of my childhood was spent in one or the other of two malls in California, since our house did not have air conditioning and the mall did. Plus I was fascinated with gawking at stuff in KB Toys, even if it usually was overpriced. The mall was a family deal, an escape, and a fun place to just go and hang out. When visiting my sister in Davis, CA, we'd often meet her and her kids at the mall. Us kids would rampage around while the adults did their thing and caught up on recent happenings.

Nowadays, the mall is pretty much a thing of the past. People do their one-stop shopping in Wal-Mart, and I even know people who hang out in Wal-Mart (is that pathetic or what?). It's cheaper to go there, or even Target, and you can often get nicer stuff. We have three malls here, one of which is essentially dead, surviving only because of a very successful Borders bookstore and Dillards clothing store.

I went to that mall today, and it was like visiting a ghost town. It felt like something out of a sci-fi movie, where almost everyone is dead, and the handful of survivors visit the once populated areas. The formerly bustling mall now consists of a half dozen assorted stores (including the aforementioned Borders and Dillards). The food court has been reduced to a single restaurant manned by two or three people, who probably spend more time in the back watching the World Cup than they do serving customers. The restroom at the center of the mall gets more traffic than anywhere else, and the second story of the mall has been cordoned off with fairly permanent looking walls erected around the escalator entrances.

It was pretty eerie. I sat there eating my overpriced food from that lonely restaurant, watching the two or three people who would walk past the multitude of empty storefronts. Some 20 or 30 feet away, which seemed like a vast, yawning expanse of space, sat the other sole occupant of the food court, a girl who had probably been sitting there a long time, reading and sipping her drink. The mall's music (which you never would have been able to hear over the bustling crowds in the past) echoed up and down the empty corridors, adding to the surreal atmosphere.

Remember when people actually shopped at malls?

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Limber Kitty

Summer Thriller

Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday, Carrie!
June 22nd

A fine photo by iam4ranny

Wow

Wow. I don't know if this particular news story is true, but it brought to my attention that Jenna Elfman is a Scientologist. My formerly-great respect for her just dropped a whole bunch. If she indeed did go nuts because of an anti-Scientology shirt, then that respect just dropped to all the way to zero.

Roecker says Jenna repeatedly said "What crimes have you committed?" and began screaming at Roecker, "Have you raped a baby?" as motorists on Los Feliz Boulevard drove by in snarled traffic.

When Elfmans Explode - TMZ.com

Now don't get me wrong – I'm not a fan of anti-religious sentiment or violent attacks on religious people, but you have to admit that something fishy goes on with the huge tantrums thrown by people like Tom Cruise (and now Jenna?), along with all the other weirdness surrounding Scientology. If they are so secure in their beliefs, why do they have to go berzerk when people joke about them? I'm a Taoist, with some Buddhist stuff sprinkled in, and South Park managed to make fun of both religions in one episode. I thought it was hilarious! I loved it. I won't follow any religion that won't let me laugh at t-shirts and South Park episodes.

Perhaps if Scientologists wish to have a better name and counter the insane levels of disrespect they get, maybe they should stop acting like crazy mofos. Just a thought... Of course, since most of them are celebrities, and they get huge press coverage for outbursts like this, I suppose the ridiculousness of Scientology benefits their careers more than it harms them. They probably all go to their secret meetings, sip some champagne, and laugh about how their fake religion gets them so much press and money. Hmm... Maybe I should join?

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On the Way

Skånsk Allé, another fine photo by Kaja Lund.

No principle or rule can be given to guide behavior: Every rule or principle is one-sided and faulty. Tao is the only possible guide, before rules and words, at peace, the supreme rule.
- C. Alexander Simpkins, Simple Taoism

Sway

Aratiatia rapids in full flow, Taupo
Another fine photo by No One Nels

A friend gives me news, and it is apparently good news. Some other time, someone gives me news, and things have apparently taken a turn for the worst. My friends wonder why these happenings, whether in my life or theirs, often do not sway me to great joy or great sorrow. Especially when these friends themselves are thrashing about helplessly in those very emotional currents.

Why? Because what others call good news or bad news is often only an illusion, fabricated by their minds and hearts, and by society. How can I be swayed by an illusion? How can the phantoms of our minds bring about any lasting effect, any more than the projected actors on a movie screen can reach out and touch your hand?

Sure, we'd all like to believe in love-at-first-sight that lasts a lifetime (or beyond). Or the Hollywood stories of life doing a 180, as if by magic, bringing the low (us) up high and the high ("them," which we despise) down low. This is nothing new. Go read The Canterbury Tales, and see how even in medieval times this was a prized ideal for stories and life. These kinds of happenings, entertaining as they are, are not the stuff of real life. Dramatic things happen, but so often the drama is only in our minds and the minds of those around us.

I have a hard time being swayed by the sudden. Such drastic change, even when cast in the bright light of happiness, love, and peace, rarely lasts. So it is little joy to me to see people I care about get swept up in the currents of false and traitorous joy, knowing that the rug will shortly be pulled out from under them as it often is.

True happiness comes from within, and from understanding. Not from people, job offers, birthdays, or the illusions we fool ourselves with. I will be happy for you when you have truly gained, through clear sight and not delusion. I will be happy when you are happy in a genuine way, rather than the hollow, habitual way you are programmed to feel. I'm not a downer, I simply aim to live my life above the swirling currents of ridiculous highs and heart-shattering lows. I feel compassion, I feel joy and pain, but why must I play the game of feeding the fires of passion and expectation, when so often there is little substance and only a setup for disappointment?

"But the realism of one awakened is... that of an old man running his finger through his flowing beard, and speaking in a soothingly low voice. Such a dreamer loves peace, for no one can fight hard for a dream. He will be more intent to live reasonably and well with his fellow dreamers. Thus is the high tension of life lowered."
- Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

Consumating

Yesterday, TechCrunch mentioned a site called Consumating.com. At first I thought it was just another MySpace wannabe, but it's actually something much cooler (not that it's hard to be cooler than MySpace, but that's beside the point). No high school kiddie crap with blinking pink text on yellow backgrounds. Just people, conversations, and fun stuff thrown into the mix.

The basic idea is simple: you sign up for a profile, and join in conversations. People can give you a thumbs up or thumbs down on your profile, and you can host conversations on your profile page. You can also answer the weekly question that's presented to everybody (such as "What wonderful personality traits will compensate for the many obvious personality flaws you exhibit on a daily basis?"). People can rate your answers, and you can rate theirs, as well.

You can go further and tag yourself with descriptive words (geek, skater, OCD, and so on). Other people can tag you, if that amuses you. For the most part, Consumating amuses the hell out of me. The conversations are very random, there's lots of wacky and cool people, and it's just so simple. You dive in, start typing stuff, start clicking thumbs up or down, etc.

Go check out my profile and then sign up for your own. Start voting on stuff and speak your mind. This is not for people who want to sit around and tinker with the crappy HTML and CSS on their glitzy profile page all damn day long. This is for people who want to discuss random [insert expletive here] in short bursts, and meet some interesting people while doing so.

Now and Zen

A few years back, I was just beginning my initial forays into spiritual matters... Specifically, I was very interested in Buddhism. As is often the case, my interest was piqued by The Simpsons. I had the good fortune to be feeling rather spiritually devoid (a first in my previously happy agnostic life) at the time I saw the episode where Lisa converted to Buddhism.

Silly introduction aside, I dived in and started exploring. I mostly poked around in Tibetan Buddhism and Zen, the two branches that are best known here in the West. Of course, they are both well known, but hardly anyone here understands them in any meaningful way. Years later, there is still much I don't understand. At any rate, Zen mystified me right from the beginning.

Zen made sense in a cold, calculating manner. "Be here, now. Whoever you are, whenever you are, wherever you are, just be." Simple enough in words, and logical. Not easy to put into practice, of course. Most Zen texts I encountered were no help either, usually being translations of very cryptic Eastern texts. Even if I did understand parts of them conceptually, I could shed no light on how to apply Zen to my life while still living my life. No matter how many times you are told of the "gateless gate" or the "goalless goal," it won't change your (lack of) understanding of it.

In a roundabout way, I've come to have a better feel for Zen lately. These recent years have laid the foundation for it. It is ironic how I've come to my improved (but by no means complete) understanding. One of the keys of Zen, though I did not understand this early on, is awareness. You cannot forcefully change anything, least of all yourself. If you strive to change something, especially an aspect of yourself, you will fail in the end. You may succeed in some shallow sense, but you will end up sowing the seeds for more problems, and deepening the already troublesome uneasiness you already have with your life.

Forceful change does not work, but simply paying attention does. To paraphrase a student's insight from Suffering is Optional, if you just pay attention, you can catch glimpses of "me" stomping around and yelling "WHAT ABOUT ME?!" Your "me" stomps around in other people's lives, in your workplace, in your marriage, in your parenting. Hell, you will come to see "me" stamping its feet and flapping its arms to get attention even during the most mundane of daily activities — reading the newspaper and seeing some political story that rubs you the wrong way, for example. How terrible that the world is not thinking of ME! Wah, wah, wah.

More than that, though, I've come to see how my little "me ego" (mego?) likes to pervert even my best intentions to screw things up. As I've said, forceful control rarely produces good results — and you assume you even know what "good" results are going to be. I have a number of friendships that are, from society's perspective, rather ridiculous. My friends tell me that because Friend X didn't do such-and-such, I should be angry. I even find myself agreeing, or coming to that conclusion on my own! My little mego starts stomping around and shouting "HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?! I DESERVE BETTER! I DEMAND BETTER!"

The mego even tries to pervert Zen awareness to its purposes of maintaining the illusion of control. "Well," the mego says, "your astute Zen insights show you that this person does not treat you well. It would be counter to your vast wisdom to allow this to continue. Like a doctor removing a tumor, you must remove this foul infestation from your life!" But why? Why should I screw up a great friendship (or whatever the case may be), even if it is a flawed one?

Where is the perfect friendship? I've not had one, except in my own head. That bubble gets burst quickly, and I quite enjoy my perfectly imperfect friendships from time-to-time. In fact, the only time I don't enjoy them is when that little voice pipes up, and the ego temper tantrum begins its mantra, "WHAT ABOUT ME?" I'm not the world's doormat of course, but the ego is notorious for "fixing" things that are not broken in any substantial way... And these fixes usually result in a great deal of regret later. I know this from experience.

That's all there is... Awareness, experience. Can you open your eyes, and find the Way?
(Photo courtesy of Ed Ng, used with permission)

Birfday

Birthday (a fine photo by frozeout)

Happy Birthday to me! Well, it's tomorrow. But close enough! If anyone wants to donate to my China trip fund, please let me know. ;-)

Viva la Gemini! Shengri kuaile!

All your cake are belong to us!
Someone set up us the candles!

Dear Google

Dear Google,

Why are you so afraid of tagging? It's amazingly powerful to be able to apply little tags to my data. I tag my del.icio.us bookmarks, and I tag my photos. Sure, it's great to arrange things into sets (like photo albums), but tags offer additional functionality without getting in the way of traditional means of grouping things. Why, after so readily embracing tagging (under the guise of "labels") in Google Mail, do you ignore it elsewhere? Gmail is clearly a runaway success, due in no small part to the ability to tag—err, label one's e-mail.

Google, why can I not tag my notes in Google Notebook? Why can't I tag my events in Google Calendar? And after all this time, why can I not tag my friggin' blog posts here at Blogger? I realize you're a search company that prides itself on indexing, but sometimes I really don't want to craft clever search terms to find the specific things I'm looking for. I certainly don't want to try to get my grandmother to string together search syntax, when it would be so simple to give her a link to my information under a given tag (or combination of tags). Tags are great for drilling down into your data in a non-hierarchical fashion.

So, my dear Google whom I love so much, why are you so averse to tagging? It does not undermine your powerful search algorithms. It can be combined with them, and it can enhance your data mining for advertising and whatnot. Please take some Claritin and cure your allergy to tags. Us loyal fanboys will love you all the more!

Sincerely,
Google Fanboy #178,445,309