Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 118

K is for KARMA

“How people treat you is their karma;  how you react is yours.” - Wayne F. Dyer
 ***
" It would be nice to think that there is such a thing as Karma,
that a louse is gonna come back as a fly and eat shit,
or as a politician and speak it."   - Groucho Marx
***
Is There Such A Thing As Karma?
Does what goes around, come around?
It would be nice to think so.  But how to prove it?
Some people seem to get away with murder, both figuratively and literally.
Seem being the important word there. 
How do we know their internal lives?  
What would bring us contentment might only fan the flames of their insatiable hunger for more. 

In the movie, KEY LARGO, Humphrey Bogart tells Rocco the crime lord, Edward G. Robinson,
that he knows what the criminal wants.
"You want more , Rocco."
"Yeah, that's what I want.  More!"
"Will you ever get enough, Rocco?"
"No. No, I don't think I will."
And that, my friends, is what I think is the definition of Hell ... always hungry for more. 

 We Are The Hollow People
Each selfish act scoops out a portion of our souls.

Each act made against the inertia of self-interest builds us up. 

Sadly, most people are only as good as their opportunities to be bad without witnesses.

Yet, each act sculpts us in ways we do not understand until years after the fact.

I believe Karma is something we do to ourselves.

What Do You Believe About Karma?    

J is for JACKALOPE

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Queen to Alice

Do You Believe in the Jackalope?
The Jackalope snickers at us from his burrow in North American folklore.
He is a jackrabbit with antelope horns ...
And even in this definition, the Jackalope snickers at us some more ...
for the jackrabbit is not even a rabbit but a hare,
 nor the pronghorn an antelope.
Some of the largest herds of wild pronghorns, which are found only in western North America,
are in Wyoming.
Fitting for that is where the legend of the modern Jackalope started.
In 1932, young Douglas Herrick of Douglas, Wyoming
returned from a hunting trip with his brother.
Herrick tossed a carcass into the taxidermy store, where it came to rest beside a pair of deer antlers.
The accidental combination of animal forms sparked Herrick's idea for a jackalope.
The two boys had studied taxidermy through mail order lessons and so ...
a mythical creature was born!
But is it mythical?
A 13th century Persian work depicts a rabbit with a single horn like a unicorn.
The horned rabbit appears in European artwork of Medieval and Renaissance times.

In Central America, the horned rabbit is mentioned in folklore and art of the Aztec period.
“If Quantum physics has taught us anything, it is that the impossible is probable.”  - Nikola Tesla
So my question might better be asked:
"Could The Impossible Actually Be Possible?"  

I is for IDEA

“If you want something new,  you have to stop doing something old” - Peter F. Drucker
What Was The First Idea?
History happens first in the mind.
History is driven by ideas.  Deeds follow ideas.
When we compare ourselves to animals, we see how changeable we are.
Animals' lives change very little compared to the convulsions and revolutions
that shape our history.
New ideas are destabilizing, even dangerous.
But what is the source of ideas?
Our minds.
Yet, our science has yet to understand how ideas generate in them.
Ideas have shaped the world as we know it now.
 They will sculpt it into the shape of the future.

But What Were The First Ideas?
The earliest ideas in many ways were the best.
No, the earliest idea was not writing.
We can infer ideas by the actions and tools born of them.
Flaking flint to make shelves and arrow heads bespeak of an idea to hoard and kill from afar.
And Man has been hoarding and killing from afar ever since.
One arrow may easily break but not so a bundle of ten.
And from that thought sprang the idea to band together for safety and to forage afar for food.
But to band together Man needed to be able to communicate ...
So sprang the idea of Symbols that grew into crude Language.
And from symbols and language grew the urge to express ourselves in Art...
as in the caves of Lascaux:
{Image Courtesy of Prof. Saxx}
What Do You Think  The First Idea Was?  

H is for HATE

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.” - Steve Martin

"Is Hate Ever Good?"
I have always thought that hating is like drinking rat poison and hoping the rat dies of it.
Doesn't the world seem to be drowning in a sea of hate sometimes?
Hate closes the curtains of the heart and mind, darkening the soul.
But can hate ever be a good thing?
Perhaps in terms of motivation ...
I hate to hurt others, so I practice compassion.
I hate to look in the mirror and see I have let myself go, so I exercise and eat less.
I hate grouchy people, so I strive not to be a grouch myself.
Swallowing Your Hate Leads to Indigestion of the Soul
 Some mothers unwisely scold their children for expressing anger.
Anger is a normal response to frustration.
It is how we deal with hate and anger that makes all the difference in the world.
Unresolved anger turns inward, 
and you see the consequences in the hopeless eyes of the depressed in this world.
Forgiving yourself leads to forgiving others ...
and that leads to less sparks with those around you. 
Hate can be a powerful motivator or a destructive force.
It all depends on how we deal with it.
Do You Think That Hate  Can Ever Be A Good Thing?

G is for GHOSTS

"An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself."  - Charles Dickens
Are Ghosts Real?

Well, there is as much evidence to support their existence 
as there exists evidence to support the existence of Black Holes.
Which is to say "Not Any."
People have claimed to have photographed, studied, and observed Black Holes ...
 but not under laboratory conditions ...
just like with ghosts.
It is very hard to prove something does NOT exist.
Beside, science is not gospel ... ah, aren't those two oxymorons?
I mean it was once science to bleed already weakened patients. 
 Science is basically just accepted opinion.
Experiments to prove a theory are prone to confirmation bias ... 
in that we see what tends to support our beliefs.
Then, there is Dr. Henry Stapp, a quantum physicist who worked with Heisenberg.
He postulated that the soul might be the quantum processing in our brains that produced consciousness ...
and after death, all that quantum processing was released into the world.
He thought it was possible that our consciousness could exist separately as a mental energy.
How might those "entities" exist in our physical world and could they manifest themselves under the right conditions?
Which leads to the "Stone Tape" theory ...
ghosts are merely echoes of those entities absorbed in the mason of walls 
by the mental energy created by traumatic events.
What do you think of all this?   Do you believe ghosts are real?   Could they possibly exist?

F is for FUN

"Frivolity is Mankind's refusal to suffer, hence refusal to learn wisdom." John Lahr
“A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys.”  Edith Wharton

Why Does Fun Get Such A Bad Rap?

Prolonged stress induces hormones made to prepare us to outrun or fight predators.
Few of us encounter raptors these days,
 so modern stressors just mess with our internal chemical balance.
Researchers have discovered that positive, humorous people tend 
to live 7.5 years longer than the pessimist.
I figure that to pessimists it seems their shorter lives feel longer (the root canal effect!)
Yet, our Puritanical roots still color our thinking.
If we are seen as having fun, 
then we must not be responsible, must not be productive members of our society. 
A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress,
 leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.  
Laughter boosts the immune system. 
Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, 
thus improving your resistance to disease.
So having fun is really good for you! 

"One of the most wonderful things in life is to wake up and enjoy a cuddle with somebody; unless you are in prison."  - Groucho Marx
"My new 1000 watt sound system is great!  I can control the volume of my apartment neighbor's banging on the wall."    - Me
"I hate it when I run out of toilet paper, and I have to make the trip to the grocery store in really small steps."   - George Carlin

WHY DO YOU THINK SO MANY FROWN ON OTHERS HAVING FUN?

E is for EFFORTLESS

"The price of excellence is discipline.  The cost of mediocrity is disappointment."  - William Arthur Ward

How EASY is EFFORTLESS?

My mother used to say:
"Practice makes perfect -- but only if it is perfect practice." 

Only one Olympic competition do I enjoy watching:

Women's Skating
It's a guy thing perhaps.

But there is such grace, poise, and effortlessness to those ladies.

Effortlessness?

It takes 20 years on the average 

for each of those competitors to reach the skill level to make it to the Olympics ...

starting in preschool!

In an average week, the typical elite figure skater trains six days.   

She spends the majority of each of those days focused on her craft.   

A typical day includes two or three training sessions on ice, one or two off-ice sessions, warm-ups, cool-downs, 

calculated nutrition, visualization and mental training.



Think of Concert Pianists
Besides Luck, a person needs  around 18 years of training to achieve the technical fluency 

and begin to to have some semblance of a repertoire. 

You need an impeccable musical memory:

most concert pianists that I know have at least 4 full programs of music 

that is ready or needs only the slightest polishing to be concert ready, and this is minimal. 

Sviatoslav Richter had a ridiculously large repertoire before he decided to stop playing concerts only by memory.


But This Is The MicroWave Culture
Frozen dinners taking 8 minutes are thought to take too long.

Hour Long Documentaries bore -- only sound bites attract attention.  

 Novels completed in 30 Days are applauded across the internet.


What do you think?
Do Short-cuts to Excellence  Lead Anywhere? 
Hibbs Says:  Never Give Up!
 

D is for DARKNESS and IWSG question

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted.”  - Emily Dickinson

Why Are We Afraid of the Dark?
It is a terrible thing to be surrounded by darkness and have no light within strong enough to resist it.
Is there a collective unconscious as Jung postulated 
that remembers a time when the dark masked predators waiting to pounce? 

Or do we know that it is only the feeble blanket of light that keeps modern predators at bay?
On the streets of New Orleans after Katrina, I found out my mother was wrong --
there are monsters that hide in the shadows.

In the dark you are never alone --  
at least that is what your fears tell you.  
It is a fear that is instinctual and illusive, impossible to grasp and throttle. 
Oddly enough, researchers have found that people were more scared 
when subjected to frightening noises and images at night than in the day - even if the room was light.
It's thought our bodies switch over to a more vigilant mode at night, which makes us more jumpy.
Apparently, we are hard-wired to be afraid of the NIGHT
when our ancestors were in more danger than in the day when they could see danger approaching.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Why do you think many are afraid of the dark?    


IWSG Question:

How Many Hoops Are Too Many?

How many of you stayed away from the A TO Z CHALLLENGE this year because of the extra Social Media demands? 
How are those of you who are participating in it this year enjoying the extra hoops? 
I am not much of a social media participator so the removal of the linky set-up is a bit of a bother.
Let me know, all right? 

C is for CHANGE

HOW MUCH CHANGE IS  TOO MUCH?
It is easy to be overwhelmed by a storm of changes isn't it?
Too much input all at once can threaten to swallow a person.
Every encounter we have with life changes us. 
In the midst of this ongoing change, what does it take to receive ourselves with an open heart?
The person we spend the most time with is ourself. 
What we wish for ourselves plays out in every moment of our lives, 24/7 awake and asleep. 
Too much change disrupts our internal balance.  Too little stagnates our spirit.
 At what point are people so saturated with change that they can absorb no more?  
The question of change saturation is very real, so when you start to feel overwhelmed,
take small steps ... but make them forward ones.

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, 
but anyone can start today and make a new ending. 

Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, 
frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you… 
yet, some of those people survived.
Strive to be the next survivor.
How well do you  deal with change?

B is for BREATHE

“It's all a matter of paying attention,  being awake in the present moment,  and not expecting a huge payoff.  The magic in this world seems to work  in whispers and small kindnesses.”  - Charles de Lint

Do you BREATHE life,  or do you snorkel  under its surface?
Your nose to the grindstone, a baby on your hip, and your butt in a crack is a terrible way to live, 
but many live that way every day.
All of us have tasks we must perform each day.  That is a fact.  
Yet it is also a fact that a moment taken to be aware of your surroundings is healing.
Psychologists have found that people are distracted from the task at hand nearly half the time, 
and this focusing on the past, future, or what if's  consistently makes them less happy.
Now, living for the moment is a recipe for disaster, but living IN the moment adds depth to each second.
Worry never solved one problem, but has blinded many to the beauty and love right before them.
We tend to spend so much time replaying past moments or planning too much for the future,
that we miss out on the great moments that are unveiling right before us.
 This is sad because we have no idea how many more moments we will be fortunate enough to experience.
How do you think each of us can become more in the moment?