Incentives...that don't

What changed?  In early childhood I learned how to learn through play with doses of structure and ciriculum, but without intention to learn.  The more I grew the less I played.  The more I grew the less I looked forward to school.  So knowledge was not a good incentive.  Interestingly sports became a larger part of my life.  It was how playing was integrated into school.  It was the incentive that motivated me to learn.

I once herd a man describe a metaphor about sport.  He describes sport as an analogy to war.  I never realized how directed I was.  My desire to play and have fun was exploited by a country designed for and gearing up a war culture.  When I describe war I don't necessarily mean military, I include corporate strategy and capitalist mentalities.  

If I wanted to play I had to have good grades.  Here lies the incentive.  I was lured into knowledge versus immersed through a passion.  I haven't thought about what could have been different but I feel like I joined a flow of people that never really learned for liberated reasons.  I was never in group of kids that were curious for knowledge.  I was in a group of kids curious about winning, popularity, and status.  The incentives created from athletics put in the path of education but it did not teach me think critically.  

I accept that society kept me in school and that might have satisfied thier need to educate me, but I am still wondering how I might have been inspired to think critically.  I think my adolescence and family lifestyle have a greater influence on advanced learning and it now seems unfair for me to be so critical of a system that is providing a service versus a solution.

Incentives...that work

In a conversation with a man, who I am learning to trust and value beyond his reputation, a question was posed, what gets our children up and want to learn?  What a beautiful question.  And of course like the analytic I can be, I started to grip the question.  But only for a little while.  I let the unknown go into the cold afternoon, into one our final days of summer.  I imagine it flew away like a falcon in search of pray.

What it brought back was another question.  I woke this morning to the first brisk morning of the year.  I had in my head, at the feet of my conscious, the question, what incentives are societies providing to learn?  An obvious way to answer was to remember my reasons why I woke each morning to go to school.  

I got up early in life because I didn't have a choice.  I remember school being a traumatic place.  I remember early on it being the place my mom would leave me.  I have vivid memories of the emptiness and fear of watching her walk away.  I remember the longing and worry that flooded my day.  

As I got older I understood that school was a way of life.  It was what was done, without alternative.  If I wasn't in school, I wouldn't be like other kids.  There were aspects to school that I began to enjoy.  The incentives began to come.  The first was art.  I loved drawing, colors, and crafts.  The second was friends.  I disappeared into recess.  The fun we had left deep memories, so much I can still picture some faces and places.

Around the 3rd grade I was introduced to competitive sports.  At this time, I was in a modest catholic school and it had sports teams.  I played basketball.  This is was what woke me up in the fall mornings.  This also sprouted twitterpation.  I remember trying to impress girls with my athleticism during these years.  If I was a winner she would notice me.  It is endearing to reflect on now.  I see it as the naive mating ritual for what was to come. 

That's it for now. 

I find it hard to realize that while I was in elementary school I never really wanted to learn .  I was wanting to play and learning to love.  I went to school because it had kids who could imagine with me that we were being attacked by Dark Vader and his drones (the other 1st grade class), and they need me to protect the Millenuim Falcon (tractor tire).  I see that what I was doing was learning what interested me.  What got me up and going to school was obligation first and friendship most.  I see that intellect was a by product.

Inspiration

Inspiration is something I chase because I think its necessary for growth.  What I have recently acknowledged is that inspiration can leave a bitter aftertaste.  The aftertaste is a metaphor for my realization that I get jealous.  Seeing someone be great is sprinkled with disheartening toxins.

The variety of emotions that are created when I am inspired are mostly encouraging, but there is a shadow cast.  In the shadows I can make out the profile of jealousy.  The jealousy provides an opportunity for me to recognize my deficits because I can notice cynicism sparkling.  Paying more attention to this I can recognize the judgement.  The judgement is my ingrained competitor invoked by my ego.

My ego recalls my lost expectations and my failed intentions.  Then it asks my false self to torment my creativity with guilt and shame, holding it accountable for the dreams put aside. The stronger and more stable my false becomes I am allowed to observe the delinquency of my ego at work.  I have had the opportunity to see the manufacturing of sadness being pushed out the door into my conscious packaged as cynicism.  I am tapping into the sadness that lurks under the comparison and inadequacy that is part of the brew when feeling inspired.

I have a competitive catalyst in my constitution.  I have an idea that it lives in my ego.  It has motivated, punished, and misguided me.  It has a craving for inspiration and cannot digest the judgments that result from interpreting them.  I have not learned to take the packages of cynicism and repurpose them as something productive.  The consequence is my suffering.  I am flushing the filters that help me see sources of suffering to reduce the seepage of disappointment into my happiness.  I have found a way to collected and sprout these sadness packages.

 The awareness is helping me sprout the toxic packages into forgiveness, grief, and anxiety.  The toxicity of my disappointment is positively correlated to the synthesis or coagulation of my sadness.  Whether or not the production is useful depends on the toxicity.  Regardless it can now be better managed by my improving wellness systems that are alive and thriving.  As I am able to metabolize my suffering, I can profit joy.

Thank you!

Federal government and state government, I am writing you to thank you for being there for our flooded and washed away communities.  I often complain and hear complaints about how shitty of a job you do.  I often mark the injustices that you participate in.  Today I realized how caring and supportive you can be.  Thank you for being there in the recovery.  Thank you for the people, resources, and work you put into hardships that are brought on unexpectedly.  America you are great for this.  I don't believe there is a best country, but you are thoughtful. 

God bless the people who made the choices necessary for recovery to begin in Colorado. 

A Reflection on Scripture

Matthew 7:3-5
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

 

The United States is responsible for its own September 11th.  Holding the 9/11 for American grief is not fair.  It interesting to discover that America has many Al Qaeda like episodes in our history.  We may not have conspired in caves but we did conspire.  We may not have believed in democracy that looked or functioned like ours.  We may have encourage dictatorship.  It appears to be likely that Chileans are saddened by America's role in the overthrow of their elected government.  They also might be grieving the death of thousands at the hand of Pinochet, the dictator inserted to lead.  Being a global leader for freedom should not come at the expense of other creative peoples.

I say we, but I really mean is more likely a small group of American business men hoping to keep leverage.  I cannot help but recognize the hypocrisy that my country seems to display.  As more of our past becomes declassified we will recognize our shortcomings. Americans who, like Bin Laden, manipulate with violence to get their way need to be held with compassion.  What kind of life have they lived.  What traumatic experiences have they lived.  What could build a conscience with so much greed, lust, disregard, and disrespect for others and their countries.

We have got to stop fearing communism, socialism, and equality and start learning about it.  We have got to trust that China has and is functioning as a communist state.  Some might argue that it is successfully adapting to modern economics favorably.  So much so that it is the refuge for American corporations.  With a majority of products being made in China, a communist country, how fearful are we of it.  Our dollars do not seem to fear China's communism.  This is not to say that communism is any better or worse than democracy, it is to talk to the fear some American's have for seeing socially oriented governments becoming one.

The speculation that our leaders believe as truth, the belief that socialism is absolutely a gateway to communism is minimizing to the human capacity to change.  It is disrespectful to social innovation and the idea of democratic socialism.  We have tendencies but we do adapt, adjust, and evolve for the greater good.  We have got to be the country that we want to see other countries be.  We are being the country that we fear will be created if we don't threaten every country that governs with risk.  We need to work with countries that we fear versus threatening their individuality and power.  We have to advocate for healthy governments by participating in international laws.  We have to remain seated when discussions are confrontational.  We have got to let dysfunctional countries find their way with guidance and intervention, not violence and punishment.  We have to learn while teaching.

America's fear for what might happen and what profits could be lost seems to motivate our delinquent tendencies.  We have our own September 11th to reconcile, we have our own tyrannical behaviors to correct.  We have our own apologies to make.  We have our own debt to grieving families to carry.  So in recognition of  September 11th for those we attacked and our lost lives, I hope to take the spec from my own eye, before asking my government to remove theirs.

God is imperfect.....and its perfect

What if God did not have perfect in Her vocabulary.  What if God looked at perfection as the death of curiosity.  What if God designed everything perfectly to have imperfections in order to create the friction that would put into motion processes, systems, and mechanisms that are designed to teach the principles of divinity.

I like to think how we are designed in the image of our creator and yet we be believe that the creator designed everything.  So when I see the spider I see God, or at least God's idea.  It isn't hard.  God in my own understanding is spirit, human, and divinity.   I am asked to see three persons as one God.  If God Himself can be three persons, and we are made in God's image then why not wonder if we are misunderstanding heterogeneity.

I like to think, we are everything, but with reason, as in often in spirit and rarely in living expression.  Like the boundaries that we put on our states.  There are no boundaries just imagined lines that we obey and trust serve a purpose.  My body is a boundary serving its purpose but imaginary when approached.

What can be labeled as blemished is often where I find the spiritual part of God.  When I see deformity, I see God.  There is a uniqueness about the flawed, in some cases it is valued beyond others.  We have misprints that are cherished for their mistake.  When I see the disparity in cultures I see God.  When I see one set of people despise another I see God.  God has a discriminant aspect too.  Some understand it as yin and yang, heaven or hell, or maybe good and evil.  I see it as God struggling with God's reflection, just like I do when I stand in front of the mirror.  I wonder if God has had that same struggle at times.  I know many would think it is foolish to consider that God may be insecure like me.  But I am told I am flesh of the creator's flesh.

God might be a tad insecure too.  Maybe God is still wondering weather it is better to be wild or civilized.  Maybe God is wondering about being humble when it is equally as joyful to be praised.  I like to think that God is trying to tell us that there are no incorrect answers, there is no flawed life, or that our perceptions are similar to the infinite dilemmas that have been mulled over by Herself.

God could very well be expressing sadness about having to be seen as Masculine but wondering about the Feminine.  What if God found a problem that is still troubling and unsolved.  Maybe we are God's latest invention in Beta mode, with several memory leaks, and a short battery life.  Maybe we are beautifully orchestrating the synthesis of God's troubles.  It may be that God is diagramming personal struggles on a dark board, magically filled with planets and stars, for the sake of dangling problems to be reasoned and worked through.

We like to think that we got it wrong and we are living in sin, but if there is innocent life being labeled as lesser, than God created imperfect beings that are in the image of Itself.  Even the lesser is an expression of God.  It is not hard for me to consider God being the misunderstood criminal, the impatient parent, or the passionate tycoon.  Each of these is design to be their best and at some point in existence there was an imperfection that led to friction.  In friction I can see God, or it is when I am most looking for Her.  God is love, and I have yet to know love in the context of anything other than perfect, but not as humans use the word perfect.

Next Destination...Burning Man

Since the majority of burning man principles are based on radical community and liberated from profits, it seems contradictory in spirit for this film to be sold. It seems to violate the principles of Burning Man. I cannot seem to find the gifted copy. Maybe Steve needs to return home and remember to bring burning man to the world in a context that is truly representative of the culture. Typical colonial mindset...find a culture, immerse, and then capitalize. Maybe I'm naive to this project or cynical because I don't want to spend money watching it.
Anyway, I hope to have a chance at tickets to next year!

Educated America, but not so much informed

Americans can tend to be an educated culture, but it is still interesting to me how uninformed we are of topics that are outside of making more money, looking better, or creating conveniences. A little cynical but it is my lens.

Syria is a complicated set of circumstances.  If you find that globalization is not just a narcissistic convenience for commerce, then let us share in the concern for diplomacy. 

Watch The Regime Responds on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

This woman is what patriotism should sound like. 

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Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy