LandMinds

After reading the following articlehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3701748.stm I I was motivated to pause and reflect upon the following.

Whatever we do in life is often the result of a combination of circumstances jolted slightly askew by decisionary patterns inherited from our background. Simply said, we end up places that we never knew we would visit.

Where I am, where you are today in your life, career, hobbies is not as important as where you wish to be. Indeed, if you are reading these words and are a 16 hour day accountant for a powerful Manhattan firm and are delighted with your job and life, this is where you are meant to be until further notice from your persona. On the other hand, if you fit the same profile yet come home every night just to swallow a combo of anti depressant and bourbon, maybe it is time to change your life. It all comes to a matter of awareness. While it is perfectly acceptable to live in the ‘system’, it is crucial to be aware of it.

One’s life path runs parallel to one’s aspiration and destiny. I use the word destiny as in ‘The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined’. Aspiration here is the keyword due to the fact that destiny is unknown until it is accomplished, making it as useful as a bottle of steak sauce at a vegan party. SO ask yourself ‘What do I want to do with my life?’ ‘What am I good at?’ ‘Do I like what I am presently doing?’. I any of the answers to these questions emphasizes a discrepancy between what is going on and what you wish for, it is time to act upon it. Now, don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that life is supposed to be perfect. In a sense that would make it boring. What I am insinuating is that your life is too valuable to be wasted in doing something you are not particularly good at and that does not bring you satisfaction.

It is often useful to ask yourself what the impact of your life will be upon the world. Will you leave a positive, negative or neutral impact? I tend to think that the worst of all three is the neutral one, for it denotes passivity and lack of engagement. The negative impact can be corrected more easily, in my humble opinion, for it only encompasses redirecting energy. In a neutral state of being, energy is not present and has to be generated first. Generally, the more human-oriented your activity, the more impact you will leave. Indeed, humans remember, testify, emulate and thus act as the vessels, the continuation of your impulse, just as you may be someone else’s.

Please, as you wrap up this read, take a few minutes to consider where you are, where you want to be, and if these two places differ, get up and start walking…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3701748.stm

Posted by Pierre at 06:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mood: Melow
Listening to: DJ Krush
Drinking: Camomille tea

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: ‘we are one and the same’. I am not talking about you and I, or even you and your neighbor, or significant other (more on that later). I am talking about you, me and everyone else. At the simplest, yet deepest level, we are one. ‘Impossible’ says you ‘I am me and I know it. See, I can look at my image, touch my body. And I think, I think therefore I am like this dude said a long time ago (that was Descartes – NFTB)’. True enough superficially, however, when you examine what makes you, maybe will you notice that it is what you think, what you do, what you like, dislike, wear, choose. This ego that the media cajole in hope that it will do what is expected, buy what is manufactured and fear for itself so much that it will not stick its head out, ever. This ego is but a perspective and a reliquary of the self centered societies that have presided over the human race for thousands of years.

Well, the truth is that the rawest level, there is no difference between you, me, the passing beauty you linger to watch, the bird on the balcony or even the coffee table that sits so faithfully in your living room. Want some proof? Ever walked in a room just to see your mood dive or elevate instantly, ever fell in love, ever cried with a friend. Some call it empathy, some call it sensitivity. All it is really is the manifestation that we are one with all that is around us and thus are able to ‘feel’ what others feel as it is us who is feeling. Because it is…

By the way, as promised a few paragraphs ago, let’s concentrate on the ‘significant other’ concept. What makes this person significant? Probably that others are insignificant, as we are driven by our ego to ignore what is not directly relevant to our life. The significance of the relation lies in the fact that we (sometimes) feel this unity between this particular person and ourselves, and become one, as we should be with all things. Maybe is this a vestige of our natural sense of order, of our lost meaning of life.

Do me a favor and next time you are amongst other living beings, stop your ego for a few minutes. Stop your self centered mind, source of want, need, resentment and fear. Stop the mind train and just be. Contemplate the life around you and feel what it feels. Be a blade of grass wavering in the wind, be the bird calling others from its branch, be the baby in the stroller. You are them and they are you, we are one.

When you polute your mind with thoughts of hate, revenge and other toxic products of our everyday life, remember that others feel what you feel and that you thus leave the world a worse place. Love, laugh, help, grow. You are the secret.

Pierre out…

Posted by Pierre at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mood: Elated
Listening: Eminem, Crystal Method
Drinking: ‘Eight O’Clock’ freshly ground and brewed.

Ever felt you were at a turning point? Ever felt that whatever you were going to do next, minute, hour, days, weeks is going to shape your life to a greater extent than the last 5 years or so? Ever felt is about time to wake up and smell the winds of change? Well, I have, just about 5:12am this morning. The last few weeks, I have hesitated to post some thoughts on this blog by fear that someone would read them, by fear that someone who knows me would decide to mess up my life because their little mind would not accept divergent ideas, by fear that what the media bombards us with comes true and my life spiral into some kind of Kafkaian nightmare from which only desolate and lonely death would deliver me. And this morning I woke up from another bad dream and thought ‘F@*# that’.

Have you realized that all around you an atmosphere of paranoia has been woven so as to engulf your mind into a complex cocoon of apathy, comfort and fear on a background of patriotism? After some bastards took down the towers in NYC (‘Two towers down but still in the game’ Beastie Boys – The 5 Boroughs), it was all about terrorism and how our nation was under physical threat of destruction and mayhem. This gave us a war and a Patriot Act that erodes our constitutional rights to a point where ‘A Brave New World’ has become not a work of fiction but an alternative possibility. Then came the fear of SARS, the bird flu and whatever world catastrophe comes next to decimate the population. Whatever the extremists would have left alive, the pandemic was going to destroy. Be afraid! Be very afraid! But whatever you do, do not stop being plugged into the media! After all, how else could you be fed your daily dose of fear? Lately, private media providers have been under attack by the FCC and ‘well thinking’ politicians. Soon the attack was extended to bloggers, who started getting fired right and left for expressing themselves about work, their environment and politics (check http:www.eff.org for bloggers’ rights resources). Now that we are well on our way to being scared to death about our future, our freedom of speech is under attack. After all, the concerted effort to dumb down the population has not completely succeeded, and some dangerous thinkers remain that have to be suppressed, least they contaminate individuals around them. Government entities and organizations are being ‘briefed’ around the country regarding the danger and consequences of blogging. Frivolous law suits strike at bloggers in the hope that the financial burden and stress will convince them to stop expressing themselves. Bloggers are told that they were not hired because of what they expressed on their site, etc, etc… FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS INHERENT TO OUR COUNTRY AND IS AT THE FOUNDATION OF IDEAS FLOW AND CULTURAL PROGRESS.

Time to stop the madness, time to check the fear at the door, time to speak. Any one who reads these lines, please start a blog today, express yourself, explode on the page, change your world by colliding ideas, spread the love, spread the frustration, initiate change. IT ALL STARTS WITH YOU. GO…

Pierre out…

Posted by Pierre at 06:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have hesitated to post any game related stories on Land Minds because I was hesitant to bore the readers. But then I thought ‘Who am I kidding? I am a gamer and this is my corner of the Grid and as I try to come out as genuine to this elusive self as I can , I must share this interest of mine.

Let us start loud and ‘fresh’ with ‘Midnight Club – Dub Edition’ for the Xbox. While this is not a new product, it is well worth your interest if
- You like racing games
- You do not necessarily care for realistic action
- Long games are important to you
- You like to drive like a maniac through traffic (while evading the law).

The game allows you to purchase/win and mod many vehicles and present a variety of cities to race in, most races taking place at or near night (hence the name in case you don’t follow). The driving is anything but realistic but I admit to liking this flavor better than the Grand Tourismo type. If you played Burnout, you will feel right at home, sans the capacity to explode the crap out your opponents (I keep on trying wall takeout on the drivers). I like the capacity to modify your rides, even though I hit the auto upgrade more often than not, being far from a grease monkey myself (a web monkey, yessss). Also of note if the fact that you cannot run over pedestrians, all of them being adept acrobats who jump out of the way while admonishing you. I never like to hurt innocents so thanks to the designer for taking care of it for me.

San Diego is my current home base and I am finishing up the local races before heading to Atlanta (Detroit is still locked). BTW, make sure to get several types of rides (tuner/muscle/sedan/truck/bike) to be able to race in ALL the events. Some are restricted to one vehicle type.

I’ll get back with you as I discover more about the game. In the meantime, go buy it, Taochi told you so.

Vroom Vroom Vroom Vroooooooom.

Posted by Pierre at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mood: Awful
Listening to: The hum of my 9 computer fans.
Color: Greenish yellow.

Well folks, after a few days of silence, here I am back on track on a Sunday night, hungry, nauseous and vacillating on the brink of yet another visit to the toilet. If you guessed ‘hang over’ you were wrong, we’ll see you next time for another game of ‘Guess What Makes Pierre Sick?”. Seriously, I swallowed some ‘bowel cleanser’ a few hours ago in prevision of a nice coloscopy exam tomorrow morning and after doubting the liquid for a litle while, I am a convert. So I will keep this blog brief.

The reason I decided to share this with you dear reader is because there are too many individuals outside who would rather die a painful death of rot gut than having a long tube inserted up their anal passage. They are just not ‘into that’. Time for a reality check: ‘If you were told that your life could be saved by a 40 minute exam during which a professional insert a tube-mounted camera up your ass, would you do it?’. How much do you devalue your life that discomfort, a day of eating jello and hard candy and the ‘shame’ of having medical staff explore your ‘poop chute’ is worse than death? So for you out there who are still hesitating, get an education at http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/screenforlife/ and talk to your doctor. He/she will tell you if you should get checked. Just do it, a pain in the but weekend in exchange for more life spent laughing your ass off… Where do I sign?

Pierre out ...

PS: I really hate Jello, no matter what 'flavor'. What kind of sick F did call that 'flavors' anyway.

Posted by Pierre at 09:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)