Doing it instead of thinking about it...

Writing has taken a backseat to doing these days, hence the layoff..

" You cannot get to the next phase of a project without a grander mind-set, more acceleration and extra horsepower."  Grant Cardone



When you get yourself back in the game of life and you are physically and mentally healthy enough to get a job, keep it and contribute to an RRSP , it is amazing how your focus moving forward seems much easier to deal with.
When I was sitting around everyday contemplating the metaphysical and the meaning of the aging process, it was absolutely exhausting. Am I a Pantheist or a Nebulist?... really? We are a very small planet in a very large galaxy and we all seem to be struggling on different pages, so where do you go from there....exhausting.


I am working with a fantastic company in Honda and they offer a great product that was just voted the most trusted Brand in North America. However, positions in Sales ultimately come down to the individual. It's a kind of stylistic dance focused on  producing your best character for a particular situation or individual, Strong Communication can ultimately bring you wealth. Your ability to communicate value will be either your bankable talent or your demise. 

Some days are very exciting and I can feel the "flow" or I can feel that I am in the communication "zone" while other days feel like I am walking back and forth in a dungeon of doubt and negativity.

I am back in the game, and the only way I would be able to make a large contribution to this world was by putting myself into a position where I can afford the time to believe and create the personal vision that may impact this world for the better. Or I may ultimately just be another guy that desperately wanted to make a difference on a grand scale, but instead, made a small difference to certain individuals on a very small scale. That is alright. Just smiling at the right individual at the right time can  produce a huge impact in itself, or so they say..

In this case, it all starts with a word, an action, and a belief..


I read that Human Beings are only capable of dealing with one reality at a time, which means as you languish in your reality of the moment, there are Billions of other simultaneous realities happening around the world at the same time, that you are not experiencing. I personally want to transcend this, but that will have to take a back seat to my reality of selling new cars right now..


Rick

The meaning we fail to see...

I read this paragraph today that resonated...

Stop Hoping For A Completion Of Anything In Life

Most men make the error of thinking that one day it will be done.  They think, "If I can work enough,
then one day I could rest."  Or, "One day my woman will understand something and then she will stop complaining." Or, "I'm only doing this now so that one day I can do what I really want with my life."
The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way.  They won't.
It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift.

The Archetype And The Man

2013....Very cool. (we made it to this far out future)  It better be, there are no substitutes.



We are the architects of our own futures....

In terms of what I am concentrating my efforts on right now, it is all about this book project that I am working on and doing research for right now.  Without saying too much, it involves the language of  communications between men and woman. 

Through this porthole I have stumbled on alot of information on what it really means to be a man in Society these days. I have been looking at Iron John by Robert Bly and Wild at Heart by John Elderidge. How do the classical male archetypes fit into the ever involving relationships between the sexes.  There is alot there. Also Feel the Fear and Do It Anyways is a great read.

 I have been studying the fairly clandestine world of pick-up artists, including Ross Jefferies, Neil Strauss (The Game) and David Deangelo. I had no idea that this type of community existed and that the members were so very hard core about there secrets and techniques.

 To be honest, it has been a very long time since I was in a real life situation where I was trying to get a number from a female with hopes of something more. I didn't ever use a script and things came fairly naturally, but these guys have things down to a very deep science.  As Tom Cruise said to Neil Strauss when he was interviewing him for Rolling Stone..."If you guys used this type of energy and technique for bettering the world instead of for personal pleasure, you would really be on to something big."

One of the men that is thought of as an expert in Spirituality and Sexuality for men is David Deida.

Here is an excerpt from his book "The way to the superior man".....Interesting stuff.  Talking about a mans true journey and how it relates to his partner.





Stop Hoping For Your Woman To Get Easier

A woman often seems to test her man's capacity to remain unperturbed in his truth and purpose.
She tests him to feel his freedom and depth of love, to know that he is trustable.  Her tests may come in the form of complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him, or even undermining his purpose in a subtle or not so subtle way. A man should never think his woman's testing is going to end and his life will get easier.  Rather, he should appreciate that she does these things to feel his strength, integrity, and openness.  Her desire is for his deepest truth and love.  As he grows, so will her testing.

Every moment of your life is either a test or a celebration.  The same is true about every moment with your woman, only doubly so.  Not only is her simple existence a test for you, but one of her deepest pleasures in intimacy is testing you, and then feeling you are not moved off course by her challenge.
The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are Shiva, the divine masculine:  imperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all pervading.  She cannot move you, because you already are what you are, with or without her.

She cannot scare you away, because you already penetrate her in fearless love, pervading her heart and body. She cannot distract you, because your one-pointed commitment  to truth will not bend to her wiles.  Feeling the hugeness of love and freedom in you, she can trust you, utterly and surrender her testing in celebration of love.



I am looking forward to continued good health, integrity and inspiration for myself and for everybody out there this year.



Rick

STRUCTURE AS RHETORIC

Writing a good solid FILM SCRIPT has kept my mind churning for a number of years now.  A few courses later and a few dozen books on SCREENWRITING later, I am still trying to come up with something that would be considered, solid, unique and sell able. I do love the process and the constant challenge.  Apparently they say that there are really no new ideas left.  Everything is simply derivative and apart from a very few classic stories being regurgitated in new ways, it's tough to impress the readers and get an idea in the studios hands. I am working on something now which might be the one. On the other hand, maybe I should simply write this and have another piece of my girlfriends marvelous homemade cheesecake instead. Here is a paragraph I just came across that turned my crank.

STRUCTURE AS RHETORIC

Make no mistake.: While a story's inspiration may be a dream and its final effect aesthetic emotion, a work moves from an open premise to a fulfilling climax only when the writer is possessed by serious thought. For an artist must have not only ideas to express, but ideas to prove. Expressing an idea, in the sense of exposing it, it never enough. The audience must not just understand; it must believe. You want the world to leave your story convinced that yours is a truthful metaphor for life. And the means by which you bring the audience to your point of view resides in the very design you give your telling ..As you create your story, you create your proof; idea and structure intertwine in rhetorical relationship.

STORYTELLING is the creative demonstration of truth. A story is the living proof of an idea, the conversation of idea to action. A story's event structure is the means by which you first express, then prove your idea...without explanation.

SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP

I have been reading this former punk rocker turned Buddhist Priest...Brad Warner.  Really fascinating stuff he writes about.  Mostly he is talking about Zazen meditation which he has done now morning and night for
20+ years. That to me alone is really amazing.

His book "Sit Down And Shut Up..Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death & Dogen's Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye" beyond being the longest title in history...is a powerful book.

He continues to quote from this epic book called The Shobogenzo which was translated by this guy Dogen.
This work is simply colossal. I downloaded a copy and it is the deepest thing I have ever attempted to understand.  One idea that Brad keeps trying to get across in varying ways is that there is no separation from body and soul. There is no separation between reality and perspective, or between anything that is concealed..it is all one, everything..This idea is complex but one that matters. (sorry about the play on the word matter which is used constantly)

I find that meditation is slowly becoming easier for me to see the benefits of.  I know that I should drop the expectations all together and just be there.

Here is a great meditation I was reading about today in a separate place.

Within us is an energy that is life-giving and has the wisdom to cause us to thrive and evolve. A corpse has every organ, every bone, every part that we have, but doesn't have this energy and thus doesn't have life as we know it. In Japan a few years ago, scientists did an experiment with a dying man. They put him in a room that was a 100% totally controlled environment. They weighed the man and everything else in the room. They knew how much moisture and oxygen were in it and had every possible variable accounted for. When the moment of death came, they found that there were 28 grams missing that they couldn't account for. That ounce is the energy of life that right now is keeping you alive.

There really is an energy filling you now. This energy has a consciousness, a wisdom. It is smart enough to send its life-giving power into every cell of your body and cause the cells to absorb the energy, use it, and perfuse it and other gasses, perspiration, snot, phlegm, feces, urine, shedded skin, exhaled matter and other liquids and solids.

Visualize your body filled with life-giving light. Witness your body energized. Each of the billions of cells that make up your body displays its own wisdom. Some join together to form your skin, some your bones, some your organs, and some your nervous system. Each knows how to do its own functions and has its own characteristics. Each cell unique yet the same insofar as each is powered and empowered by the same energy. Visualize each cell in your body filled with life-giving light. Witness your cells energized. Your cells are composed of billions of molecules that have their own game plan of life and are powered and directed by this same energy. The molecules combine in multitudes of ways. These combinations allow the chemical, material, and electrical properties that cause the cellular interactions that lead to organic life processes that include emotionality and intellectuality, as well as physical activity. Visualize each molecule in every cell filled with live-giving light. Witness your molecules energized.

Within each molecule, uncountable atoms interact with a purpose that transcends human understanding and yet gives the ability to ponder. As the electrons, protons, and neutrons swirl and dance, the structure of all molecules are actualized and the energy that activates them directs their actions and interactions and the functions of life are initiated. Visualize each atom in every molecule filled with life giving light. Visualize your atoms energized.

Within the atoms there is subatomic energy that has the brilliance of combining to form the quarks that form and direct the atoms that form the molecules that form the cells that form us. This same energy is within every living thing -- within all things that walk the earth, that swim in the waters, that fly through the air. It is within all that grows and all that lives. And it has a wisdom that directs all activity. Visualize the infiniteness of this life-giving light. This process of energy change and exchange has been going on forever and proceeds within you and without you now. Merge with it and live happily ever after. 

Does this mean that I am suddenly MR MEDITATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT....DEFINITELY NOT..

RICK

ALVY SINGER AND ME

Just downloaded a high definition version of the new WOODY ALLEN documentary made last year for the PBS series American Masters.  In one word. Phenomenal.
I was just saying to my girlfriend that if you really want to know who I am and where I formed my values from..Watch Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and her Sisters.

I remember as a youth being fairly limited in my vocabulary and in my knowledge base. Then I saw Annie Hall and I just felt like someone was teaching me about life and how it wasn't insanely unusual to fear death and to masturbate and to have romantic notions about woman that seem to take over your life. I owe so very much to his films and his blunt but beautiful vision of life.  Oh and his love for foreign films.




I recently made a short film that shows some struggles I have had with Alcohol in the past 10 years. It has a fairly honest message but it has that amateurish look to it which was not my intention. That part makes me cringe a little bit but....  Here is the link to Message In My Bottle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXe_D1R7zTI


Rick

LEAVING MY CHAIR FOR LIVE AID

• 

Recently I was getting two teeth rooted at my dentist. It was a grim afternoon. The pain was so intense that my sweet dentist decided to give me a combination of the gas and much freezing which included many fun needles.

The assisstant put some glasses on me and suggested an ipod with some kind of pre programmed nonsense on it...but I thankfully accepted.

Before I knew it , laying right back into oblivion, this healthy sober balanced guy was transported to the LIVE AID LED ZEPPELIN  SET from 1985. OMG, this was insane..

 As I was feeling like I was being swallowed by a large beautiful warm pulsing light I realized that the beginning of the next song was so intense, I might start flying from my seat...

You need coolin', baby, I'm not foolin',
I'm gonna send you back to schoolin',
Way down inside honey, you need it,
I'm gonna give you my love,
I'm gonna give you my love.


"Gotta whole lotta love. Jimmy Pages guitar sounded like it was sweetly sawing my heart in half. No amputating it."

Surely this dentist can see that I have left the building, but yet she doesn't seem to care. She looks like she is talking to her assistant about Wagjags or something. 

Is this what Anthony Keidas was describing in his book Scar Tissue.....this was the experience.  Like Heroin he said, you just want it to continue for ever.  Time certainly doesn't exist , and you bloody hope that it doesn't come popping right back, not now for gods sake.

Long after the freezing wore off and I was back to my reality, I started thinking about how easily somebody could get to love getting high.  Reality is very linear and fraught with responsibility, suffering and boredom. This type of experience was a 4 dimensional hammer to your inner being.

I had been reading a book where the Author was disputing the idea that one has to sit still and meditate and breathe and let go in order to experience the field of pure potential and of being whole.

She said that she found that her experiences that brought her closest to the divine...didn't take place when she was still with her eyes closed but when she was doing what she loved...playing music , cooking, skiing down some mountain. When she was in the zone and being creative. Makes sense I thought. 

I think that inspiring moments give you this unimaginable insight into the world beyond our 5 senses.  Some kind of dimension that is so powerful and genuine, that time absolutely doesn't exist.  You can reshape time in that place. I want to live in that fucking place.

Now, you don't have to get there via the Dentist chair,  via laughing gas... boys and impressionable girls, but when you arrive and you are there, you might want to remember to slide the roadmap slowly and methodically into the back of your mind. 

I love this quote I read the other day:

"Pure consciousness is our spiritual essence. Being infinite and unbounded, it is also pure joy. Other attributes of consciousness are pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, invincibility, simplicity and bliss. This is our essential nature. Our essential nature is one of pure potentiality."

Oh so great. I also might want to bring a little Zeppelin along with me for the ride before I get too old to remember.  Which reminds me, maybe I should download the movie "Woodstock" just in case.

Rick