1. There are no general rules to being happy and successful

2. When you get advice from others, mentally subtract all of that person from the words they are speaking or have written.

3. If what you end up with is nothing, stop listening to or reading anything by that person.

4. Empirically validate the things you believe about yourself, your family, friends and the world around you.

5. Immediately eliminate any idea, feeling, concept, description or image that resists validation.

6. Do not continue to remake past decisions, it was the only decision you could make based on the knowledge and experience you had at that point in time.

7. Do not wish for the future to be different without actually having to change yourself…hope is not a strategy.

8. Accept yourself without reservation as being the best “you” that you can be…at this moment.

9. Know that you inherently have the power and can change anything about yourself.

10. Pick a direction, idea or dream, focus on the goals and objectives required to succeed, take the first step forward and kick it’s fucking ass.

~TrevorZen

OK, I’m an agitator, a miscreant, I get that, I like that about me so don’t expect it to stop anytime soon. On that note, I don’t actually think this is agitprop per se, just a little Imagineering…but these 10 commandments are what I think our politicians should stand for and do. Um, and no, I don’t really think that there are any politicians who have the balls to really follow this.

1. Do not let the government spend more money than we have coming in from taxes…peg the spend rate at 90% (maximum) of projected income. Use the remaining 10% to pay down total US debt.

2. Tax everyone at the same rate; 10% of their total earnings per year, regardless the income source. That is the total tax code right there…no deductions, no credits, no carve outs or kickbacks.

3. Do not make any laws that you or any other politician are not subject to as well.

4. Do not “invest” in anything (i.e. green energy, sugar subsidies, biofuels, high speed rail, etc.), you are the government, you have an unfair advantage therefore anything you invest in, you are dooming the competition and making things more expensive for us citizens.

5. Trust your citizens to do the right thing themselves so get out of the morality business. Repeal current laws and make no new laws that govern people’s choices for what they do or don’t do with or to their own bodies as long as those choices do not intrude or infringe upon the rights of others. This means abortion, same sex marriage, marijuana, guns, etc. If citizens make mistakes or bad choices then so be it…we actually don’t need idiots in the gene pool.

6. Strengthen the military to equal current and future threats to the safety of America and pull all US troops from foreign bases and countries. If other countries ask for our help and protection, charge them a reasonable amount for the service (i.e. cost plus a risk premium).

7. Outlaw public unions. If unions can convince the private sector that they are a good investment, that is fine but public unions are destroying our cities and making it increasingly difficult for our government to perform basic services.

8. Reorganize education by mandating a minimum wage for all K-12 teachers of 50% of the area’s median income plus 20% (and allow merit based bonuses for outstanding teachers).

9. Disallow tenure programs in state colleges and mandate a minimum wage for all professors of 50% of the area’s median income plus 30% (and allow merit based bonuses for outstanding teachers). Make state college education tuition free for all in-state students and index the total cost of running each institution to a per “passing grade” student.

10. Make the basis of any proposed law the actual harm to an individual or class of individuals in relation to their constitutional rights. Nothing else qualifies as a law.

I’m interested to hear responses on this…

I’ve been skateboarding since 1975 when I bought a mail order banana yellow fiberglass board (Gordon & Smith and yellow Yo-Yo wheels with Tracker trucks) from the back of a skateboarding magazine when I was 13 in Michigan. I think I was the only one in my small town that had one at the time. I used that thing everywhere and eventually wore it out but one of the things I distinctly remember was the combined feeling of freedom, excitement and fear that engulfed me every time I tried something new, something big or different.

I still skateboard (it’s a Chris Cole Zero model with Victory trucks and Bones wheels) and when I do (as well as when I look back at skating as a kid), I typically create a 3D visual model of what I’m doing, or what I did. Everything is related to that model…the sounds, the feel of the board underneath, the sway of inertia, the pull of gravity…everything follows from what I have envisioned. The street or the park contours, the drops, the stairs…everything is modeled and there to reference in my head, behind my eyes.

It’s the measure I use to get better, to improve…to keep myself safe, to avoid danger…but what if that model didn’t exist?

http://www.wimp.com/blindskateboarder/

This kid, the one in the video, who’s been blind since very soon after birth, doesn’t have the ability to reference that visual model yet he’s been skateboarding since 10. Before I watched this, it never even occurred to me that a blind kid could skate in a skate park let alone on the street. WTF I thought, because I am so beholden, so dependent upon that visual model that I could not fathom skating (or doing much or anything) without it.

But then, I thought, I am dependent upon that model because that is what I grew up with…it was the best adapted and available capability model that I could took advantage of, but…it wasn’t the only one. I can’t imagine, literally I cannot physically imagine, the model that this kid uses to manage the spatial relationship between himself and the outside world but I know that it’s not vision based…and I know that somehow using it he perceives the world in 3 dimensions. He has to and, in fact, I would argue that he has the added dimension of time as well.

We all grow up with what we consider to be the best adapted and available capability model with which we control our lives in this 3D space we call life and we assume that everyone else is using the same model. Why shouldn’t we? It is just natural that we do but, there are other models out there and they are just as capable however different they seem to us. They allow people to control their lives in the same 3D space as us. With the same success and failure rates as us…with the same fallibilities and superiorities as us.

Think about that the next time you’re faced with someone who is different than you, someone who hasn’t had the opportunity to use the same capability model…

…and think how they perceive you. After all, you suck according to their model.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

Who writes poetry about governments? Said
the sad and angry man, sitting on a grey beach
his hands dug deep in the sand…pulling up
handfuls that slide away into nothing.

It is like this, he muses, it feels solid to grab
like there is something there but when you look
gravity and physics rob it of its permanence
you are left holding nothing but the idea.

Politics in my country, the one I was born and
raised, taught and tethered to my whole life
It is not what it was, it will never be what it is
it is on a trajectory of failure while we watch

My country is not the same, it changes, it evolves
it becomes less and more, more and less until
it is not what it was, until what it was is nothing
compared to what it might have been.

A shift is happening where the people who do
are being overcome by the people who don’t,
who vote for their interests, not the interests
of all…until the inevitable happens

The inevitable is that in our benevolence, in our
compassion, in our want/need/desire to save
to help we shift resources towards the negative
flow, toward building bigger to help more

More hope, more programs, more compassion
we think, we build, we enlarge, we extend
until the government is all because we believe in
helping, in reaching out, in love for people

And the inevitable…the bill for this largesse, for
this compassion, for this help we so desperately
want to spread…this bill we deliver to our children
as we put the yoke on their shoulders

The inevitable is a nation of old people being
served by another nation of young slaves, it is
another nation because they do not live/work
together, they can’t, they fight, they war

Guarded compounds of old people, union retirees
guns and barbed wire, built by a compassionate
far reaching government that just wanted to
help, fueled by the tattered dreams of youth

It is happening and seemingly can’t be stopped
because we are compassionate and stupid
deeply sorrowful and broadly unaware…of the
idea that there is nothing for free

Who writes poetry about governments? It is always
people who look back on what once was…and the
sad and angry man stands up and walks away
sand falling from his open hands.

Certainty is an “is or isn’t” proposition; black or white, yes or no. People want certainty. We want to be completely clear about what is going on or what something is. Without that certainty, we feel…unsure, confused, and a little upset. In most cases we don’t even realize why we are upset, just that we are and that too, that lack of certainty about the cause of our discomfort, increases our discomfort level. The proverbial vicious cycle. But there are very few truly certain things in our universe—and with the rapid rate of change we are subjected to, the amount of uncertainty is only going up—so it is no wonder that the level of confusion and ill will is also rising.

Just look at any debate online…you’ll see it. You’ll see people trying to push others into very clear and certain roles, into specific categories. We want people to be defined by very specific criteria; Republican or Democrat, black or white, liberal or conservative, us or them.

We feel better that way.

But why? What is uncertainty and why do we fear it? It has been argued that it is evolutionary…that our DNA urges us to try to answer questions about our environment and the people around us because unanswered questions have, or they did thousands of years ago, the very real danger of hurting us…even killing us. Nature urges us to protect ourselves and uncertainty breaches that protection. While I would never say that we live in a society that is completely free of danger, I am pretty sure I can say with some authority that there is unlikely to be a large predator stalking me on my way to work this morning. Or that I have to think about the edibility of the sandwich I packed for my lunch.

However certain those things are, there are still millions of others that aren’t, that are neither side of the spectrum…or both sides at once, or none at all. There are millions of things that defy us to categorize them into neat little piles, into specific classes and categories.

Like people…we can’t categorize them—as hard as we want to and try—and that pisses us off.

So, the question is, in this universe of uncertainty that we live in, do we charge head first into it and try to force it to answer anyway…knowing full well that we can’t ever really make things certain…and continue to be upset and allow that to escalate and ultimately stand between us and happiness? Or do we embrace uncertainty—celebrate it even—and simply accept the answers; unfinished, unclear, imprecise…but already here?

One choice is easy, the other quite hard.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

In your mind, in your imagination, you have no limitations so you are easily able to reach the greatest heights, surmount the greatest obstacles…be the person who you believe, truly believe yourself to be. Concert pianist, mountain climber, Nobel laureate, skydiver, captain of industry, singer of songs…and actor on the worlds stage…these ARE your accomplishments within your imagination.

There is a wall, however, between your imagination and the real world. A wall you’ve built and rebuilt over the years. When you do not love and accept yourself for all of who you are; each failure, each disappointment in yourself, each and every small cut and tear of your confidence is a brick, a bolt, a reinforcement of that wall.

When you look at your life and it does not match the one that you have imagined, you don’t have a “insufficient motivation”, “failure to believe” or “lack of imagination” problem…you have a wall problem. The dreams and ideas o…f who you want to be—who you believe you should be—are held hostage behind that wall.

On one side of the wall you know you can, on the other side you know you can’t.

Both are right. Decide which side to live on.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

We cry at night in the dark
of our hearts, we listen to
the sobs—the rolling shaking
sobs—a generation lost, of
a misguided awareness, a
motion toward a future neither
seen, known or understood…
we drift on the currents of
the social dilemmas that are
our own making, a proudness
that we have no right to
own up to we want what we
want and need little of that
yet we do and do and do…
always seeking the single
when surrounded by the plural
we gather as ourselves looking
over fences at the others
seeking to blame to shame
when we only have what we
have, no more, no less, we
continue to hurt the least able
the least willing, we spread
our gratuity in small and minor
ways, we hold dear only that
which we hold dear, dismissing
what is outside that realm, that
instance of forgiveness, a stain
we will never have the need
to wash…we try to balance but
there is never balancing, we want
too much we give too little…
until we remove ourselves from
our sight, we will never see why.

People want simple solutions to complex problems but those answers just don’t exist. It’s not that the simple solutions don’t exist, they do and in fact there are literally billions of them, it’s that people look at their problems and they make them complex because they cannot believe that what they feel could come from something simple.

People are told that all problems are masses of complexity that need to be broken down into individual components and then each component broken down into constituent parts…and on and on…until they arrive at something that is reasonably sized for them to handle. The actual answer, however, is on the other end of that spectrum.

Start with the feeling; the hurt, the sorrow, the remorse, whatever is the product of the problem—the “bad” outcome—and solve that. Done.

Haaa ha, OK, you’re mouth is open, you’re thinking “WTF?” and you have a right to that incredulity but it really is that simple. Whatever complexity occurred on the creation end of the problem will always end up with an output (the “bad” stuff) that is not complex at all. In fact it is very simple. You feel like shit.

Solve that.

You have the power now. You own all the super-secret, industrial-strength problem solving capabilities already…just use them.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

The point is not about gun control, a diaphanous concept at best, it is about gun removal and, more to the point, it is about the elimination of what many consider to be a hallmark of our society. As I’ve said before, gun ownership is different from any other issue we face today not because of the actual facts of the danger to citizens, and believe me there are many, but that the ownership of guns is inextricably woven into the single most important document that binds us together as a country; the constitution. The fear, as I understand it, is that once we start down the path of restricting what many, many consider a personal right—not a privilege, not a favor, not something arbitrarily bestowed by a benign dictatorship—then there is no end to that path until the total right is removed. Until all guns are removed from all citizens.

The United States of America is not the United Kingdom, it is not Australia, it is not the European Union and the thing (some say the only thing) that sets us apart from them is that we are a constitutional republic based on the principles of democracy as described and represented by the constitution of the United States and the bill of rights. Our is the only country on this planet that is based, first and foremost, on the idea that people have inalienable rights—regardless what the government does or doesn’t think—that cannot be taken away from us. In every other country, to varying degrees , the citizens are granted rights and privileges by their government…rights and privileges that can be taken away at any time.

This is one reason why we are who we are.

Advocates of gun ownership—even the batshit crazy ones (and there seem to be more and more)—aren’t really saying that they want to own bazookas and grenade launchers but that they don’t want further restrictions placed on what they believe is an inalienable right. The fact is that we did not restrict assault type weapons as soon as possible, before they became readily available and are now owned by a significant percent of the population. We did restrict ownership of machine guns, we did for grenade launchers, we did for tanks, etc.….and because we didn’t then, if we do so now, then we have to take them away from people.

Yes, I just said that if we ban and make illegal all assault type weapons and/or high capacity magazines then we will have to tell the population to give the government their guns—the ones affected by the ban—when that segment of the population believes that the government, as described in the constitution, does not have the legal power to do that.

All of the ranting and raving, as crazy and literally insane as it sounds really has nothing to do with owning a metal tube affixed to a piece of wood or plastic that hurls a small chunk of metal at incredible speeds…but has everything to do with the idea that people, the citizens of the United States, have specific rights above and beyond what is “given” to us by our government and that many believe that if you invalidate one aspect of the constitution, there is not much that is going to stop you from invalidating other aspects of it, or, in fact, the entire document.

And that is the point.

So imagine that Quentin Tarantino is at a swag Hollywood party where he meets up with David Lynch. They start to drink straight bourbon and telling war stories about the movies they’ve made. This goes on to the wee hours and they both get so blotto that they end up in bed and have wild passionate sex. It’s found out later that David is the first male to get pregnant (figures, huh?) and it’s all over the news and he’s back, way back in the spotlight again (I mean, do YOU remember Twin Peaks?)

A baby boy–lets call him Benicio for laughs–is the progeny and for some reason, maybe gamma rays, his growth is meteoric and in a couple months the kid is roughly a physical 23 year old. The world is astounded, he goes on international tour and ends up Cannes during the film festival…where he meets and falls in love with Shannen Doherty (who’s playing a walk-on roll in a Clint Eastwood masterpiece). They get married in a whirlwind romance and within a month it’s announced that she is pregnant and expecting twins!

All goes according to plan, or at least what the PR flak has written for them, but when the babies are born it’s found that there has been some DNA contamination, possible alien, as the children, identival twins, are both born as Italian American hermaphrodites. Grand pop Tarantino is pleased but David Lynch is a bit peeved. Again the physical growth is amazing and soon the kids–Krillie and Krillo–are making the rounds of Oprah and Leno telling their life stories. One day, Krillie, the more feminine of the two spots Roberto Rodriguez in the audience and is immediately attracted to him. They make plans to meet later.

Krillo, jealous of the favors being bestowed by Krillie on Roberto, locks Krillie in the bacon smoker and goes off to meet with Roberto. In a fit of rage, Krillo, pretending to be Krillie, rapes and murders Roberto. It’s soon found out that Krillo is pregnant and hearing the news, Krillie commits suicide. A despondent Krillo goes into seclusion where amazingly enough just 5 months later gives birth to a healthy and normal looking boy.

The boy, tested to be a genius but bathed in the gene pool of his parents, his grandparents and all the fucked up shit in Hollywood, grows rapidly and starts writing scripts until finally one day, he writes and directs “The 7 Psychopaths” which I just saw and thought was fucking brilliant.

Definitely a movie you should see sober first, stoned second and possibly in a coma each time thereafter.

3 thumbs up!