Steven Barnes's Blog, page 60

Heal Yourself First

I receive notes all the time from people who want to help their friends, or to “fix” something broken they see in the world. Invariably, I offer the same advice: first, fix yourself.

I know people who are horribly depressed about the state of the nation. Or who have terrible, bigoted attitudes about the opposition political party, or racial group, or gender.

Always, invariably, these people are seriously blown out in one of the three major arenas. Their bodies are a mess, their careers are jo...

Escaping the Matrix: The war between head and heart

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It is interesting to see people who claim to believe in equality between human groups actually making statements or accepting logic chains that lead in the opposite direction.  I suspect it is a conflict between the head and the heart: between intelligence/knowledge and wisdom.

 

The trick is this: what you are taught in childhood nestles in deeply, is set in stone.  Your intelligence sorts information but rarely goes deeper than your basic sense of reality.  If these basic beliefs are inc...

Care for yourself first

(from 2006)

I’ll say this again: your ability to succeed in life will be in direct proportion to your ability to maintain flow state under pressure. Last week on “Commander In chief” there was a bit about how potential contributors to a presidential campaign wanted to watch the President dealing with an emergency. This week on “24” a weasel of a president claimed that he had acted under “duress” in an emergency, excusing felonious behavior.

One often hears that grand excuse: “I was under stre...

“Passengers” (2016)

 

Not really a review. There’ve been a lot of comments, mostly negative.  Many refused to actually see it, based on its perceived disturbingly sexist aspects.  O.K.– Chris Pratt on a generation starship accidentally awakens. After a year of loneliness, he weakens and awakens Jennifer Lawrence.   Tananarive and I watched it together and more or less agree on the following thoughts–so this ain’t just a male perspective.

 

SPOILERS GALORE AHEAD.  DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE AND MIG...

What are the Lifewriting “Principles”?

I was asked what the rules of the Lifewriting “Tribe” are.  Darned good question, and I’ve never formulated them.  They are all, I think, suggested by a couple of principles but never formalized.   I still can’t do it, but can begin the exploration.  I jotted down ten principles this morning, and will formalize and extend and refine them later.  But with the caveat that these are just VERY rough draft, here they are, with some quick thoughts.

 

Do not think dishonetly.  If its good enough fo...

Putting it all together, giving it all away

 

Wow.  So I finally put it all out there.  About 80% of everything I know about the body-mind thingie.

The Chakra model of human evolution The Hero’s journey, which details the road from one level to another The Power of balance (career, fitness, relationships)  to keep “safety rails” on your process as well as teach you about your own issues, increasing intuition about the behaviors of others. Heartbeat Meditation and “The Ancient Child” for emotional healing Lining up goals and emotions,...

The Last Major ZNT piece: Intermittent Fasting

The last major chunk of the ZNT (Zero Net Time) system puts it all together.  This is how you SAVE time every week, rather than spending it.  It involves nutrition, and is so powerful it is damned near cheating.

 

It is called Intermittent Fasting, and there is a vast amount of research on it, more than I have time or inclination to go through.    It is a broad term for caloric “waving”, the most basic form to be fasting on alternate days.   To varying degrees, I’ve used it for almost a decad...

Don’t be afraid of the questions

Many people are afraid of hard questions if they cannot already see the answers. This can lead to a “head-in-the-sand” attitude that destroys your life and dreams. Here’s a core belief system that empowers me:

1) The truth is always better.

2) There is always an answer.

3) A clearly stated problem is half-way to a solution.

4) Resolve the dualities. The problem is never in “others”. It is always found within the shadowed caverns of the human heart.

5) A clearly stated problem/solution pair br...

Ten Thoughts on “Whitewashing”

The whitewashing controversy is pretty simple at its core:

 

 if a character’s race is changed toward yours, you will tend to be sanguine with it. If it is changed away from yours, you will tend to object. If you have control of the property, you will choose changes toward you, on average. To this end, if you are group X, you will put X’s into makeup to resemble Y’s so you can control the image systems and keep the money circulating in your own communities. When that stops working, you’ll ch...

Triangles I’ve never spoken of

There’s something I’ve noticed in my meditations that I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned before, and am a little uncomfortable to speak of, because it sounds “woo woo.”   “The Secret”, which you know gives me a pain, by allowing people to disconnect effort from results.

 

Meditation usually starts in the morning, right after waking up. Listening to/feeling my heartbeat.   The, I see light floating inside myself, and try a series of different structures: overlapping or concentric circles, lookin...