“WOKE” what’s your status?

 ARE YOU WOKE?

AN INNOVATIVE TO DETERMINE YUOUR CURRENT STATUS

“WOKE” is certainly a term that has made a cultural splash these days.  Unfortunately, very few experts have shared the primary principles or characteristics a person must possess or exhibit to fit this category.  In a recent scanning of various news stations I heard the term enough to do some personal reflections related to the question: Am I woke?” Here are my ponderings.  First, I’m not certain that any one set of individuals and certainly omit one individual is authorized or wise enough to provide a definitive  standard for being woke and allowing others to bring some flexibility to the definition might be a requisite for being woke. So the first indicator of being woke may be avoiding unilaterally labeling someone as being woke.  

Having said this  I thought about what woke could mean in general and in seeking peace and joy.  Here are three sets of things I am placing forward for consideration.  1. To be Woke you  are;

Wrapping

Others in 

Kindness Everywhere

To be woke. Is to be looking to be tolerant and forgiving in many ways and almost at all times in all places.  

To  be Woke you are: 

Working 

On 

Knowing 

Everything. 

Okay that’s impossible, howeveracception that the effort to gain knowledge must be on-going. If you are not willing to learn then the contexts and meaning of your experiences and those of others are going to escape you and thus being aware or woke will be ultimately beyond reach —you won’t get into the same area code.  To be woke you must let: 

Wisdom

Overflow and

Kindle Empathy

You  can only be woke when you make it a point to share the wisdom from your experiences  with many others and support all efforts people use to express empathy.  

Wow given these definitions my Woke  score probably indicates that I am outside the mean on this standardized test and yet again I don’t have a standardized mind or spirit so we will soldier on. I’d just finish by saying don’t  worry about  how to prove you are woke....Try more to “I’m”prove your awareness of your own experiences and how to help others share the good parts of them....woke will take care of itself.  

Don’t cancel your culture but revisit revising?

 REVISITING REVISIONS ON THE PATH TO SEEKING PEACE AND JOY

So it was on this date in 1743 that one of our most notable founding fathers was born.  You may know him as the man who purchased Louisiana-and a few other states.  You may know him as the owner of the largest library in America and the driving force behind this country’s first public university.  You may also know him as a hypocritical slave owner who had no intention of freeing slaves but figured making babies with them was really just fine.  Oh and you may know him as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence .  If you don’t him by now...let me introduce to you the third president of the United States of America....Thomas (movin’on up) Jefferson.  

Well this entry will not pass judgment  on the great or dreadful deeds of TJ,  that is not the task intended here.  This entry is  more interested in saying...”hey look how many times we have revisited the life and story attached to Tommy Boy.”  

So it is with seeking peace and joy and the experiences we will revisit and revise meanings for.  Oh and just as we revise meanings for the experiences of others...other people often revise assumptions about our experiences.  The thing is...one of the most interesting aspects of seeking peace and joy is  creating a balance between what others tell us about our experiences and what we think and feel about them.  We will revisit our processes. For seeking peace and joy and our meanings attached to experiences often so it seems.  That is how failures become lessons and lessons turn into actions and how actions turn into  experiences and how experiences turn into  meanings and how choices about meanings  express our values.  

We hear a lot of talk these days regarding what our founding fathers intended....and it is reasonable to use documents like the declaration and the constitution as substantial guideposts.  It is also wise to understand that we are creating contexts that may have changed the meanings of certain things for the founding fathers.  After all haven’t we all done something of consequence and then in the future said to ourselves or others...”if I had known then what I know now...” or maybe  we take the Bob Sefer stance and wish we didn’t know now what we didn’t know then.”  

To summarize.... seeking peace and joy will often mean revisiting  meanings and revising your story and even if you don’t  others might attempt to do it for you.... Sometimes the wisest way to survive change is to think of it as an experiment in revising meaning.  That is start by “trying on” a different perspective for a while—look most of us wore those ‘elephant bells”—what you don’t. Know what elephant bells are—then you’ve never tried them or pulled them out of your bicycle chain.  Experience the world from a different perspective for a bit and revise if needed.  

Happy Birthday Thomas...you were a bad man who did good things or a good man who did some rotten things...it’s a big club—anybody else have a membership card in it?  

Buddha birthday time for an epic fail?

 THREE CHEERS FOR FAILURE. REALLY?

SO earlier  this week it was the birthday of Buddha.  Now...I don’t claim to fully understand  all the teachings of Buddha nor the various “branches” of the philosophy.  I do practice meditation and believe that each soul contains  an inspired inner light or spirit that is connected to the great light and love of the universe no matter what label you may choose to give it.  This belief seems to be congruent with pretty much all major spiritual teachings when push comes to shove.  When push comes to shove?  What kind of saying is that?  Is push something you do and a shove is something that happens to you?  Anyway  I tried to compose an entry about the birthday, yet my creative juices kept taking me to a strange place and I couldn’t gently bring my focus back to my breath or writing.  Why?- I think my mind kept drifting to exploring what a birthday party  might be like...for Buddha that is....

There would be a lot of sitting around and heavy breathing and when it was time to sing happy birthday most people would just  hummmmmmm ohmmmm. How would you get to or leave the party/. You would have to follow the eight fold path but be sure to look both ways before crossing the street.  

Okay you see I just couldn’t succeed at this task and that prompted my so think/meditate on failure.  Most of the time when I write there is a feeling of success and inspiration....not that time and my focus sort of moved to other failures in life as of the past few years (ago many years...who’s counting)...and then I started sorting my failures into the things I did wrong and the things I had failed to do or try.  It didn’t take long to  realize the things I hadn’t tried bothered me more than the times. Things did n’t work out just right.  Were there exceptions to this?  Yes..but there are more lessons. In things you try.  You know the average infant learning to walk falls at a minimum of 17 times a day?   I started to think these babbies aren’t walking wrong so much as they are learning to walk and that leads to my conclusion that “if you won’t risk learning to fail you most certainly will guarantee failing to learn.” 

This “failing” also reminded me of a take your brain with you but follow your heart”song lyric that I once cobbled together.   “Know you’ll rarely finish but you’ll often restart—

So in the realm of seeking peace and joy there will be failure and maybe from time to time it. Will be welcomed.  It takes a lot of energy to sort out the thoughts you control from the thoughts that control you unless you don’t fret so much about  failure and thinking again and starting. Anew.  And having  said this... as tomorrow starts a new week...get out there and screw something up!

Becoming: adapters transformers and chargers

 ADAPTORS AND TRANSFORMERS?

Sometime today a package will magically appear around my front door and in it there will be a new pair of headphones with a “lightning” connector or adapter  and also an additional little adapter to be used with a chord so that sounds from one device can be recorded to another device.  Thinking about this brought to mind some thoughts about the need to order a new transformer and charger for a chord less drill because the original one has gone missing.  Now I have several transformers and connectors and charging devices scattered  around my office and in locations where I use my “smart” stuff, however none of them fit the drill.  Now I can buy a whole new identical drill that comes with this charger/adapter for just about twice the cost  of the charger alone and if I did so I would have a spare and that might be a good idea.  I did this very same thing to get a new transformer and adapter for a small Bluetooth speaker I own but then the chord started to fray because the transformer  and the  cord are poorly constructed.  These sorts of things can be discouraging and prompt some seeking peace and joy thoughts.  

It seems in order to seek peace and joy even in the process of getting  all our electronics to work we have to do a lot of adapting.   It also seems that one experience/device/challenge will require  one particular adapting and another challenge will require yet a completely unique set of changes and it is hard to know just what one needs prior to the time it is needed.  However, all is not lost.  You can  begin to understand that you will need to adapt often and to be at peace with that.  You can expect to need to change your input and sometimes even the end of the cord you plug in will need to transform the energy offered by the environment.  If you expect it then when it is needed you aren’t as anxious about it and sometimes can even find it humorous as you might imagine some engineers someplace being told “make our connection a semi-circle with a ridge and a bump so that we can sell the only charger for it and don’t worry about the flimsy materials because it’s not our fault if someone steps on this and smashes it just enough so it won’t fit.”  

It also seems  like when seeking peace and joy it’s pretty valuable to become a human adapter ready when possible to help others recharge and connect.  If you can be a connector the energy of others flows through you and the folks you are connected with are given the opportunity to pursue their purposes.  You can often share in and learn from the experiences you make possible for others and this can lead to some peace and joy.  

So... maybe all these cords and funny shaped endings aren’t so much burdens  and frustrations made especially for me.... maybe they can serve as reminders of the value of attempting to be a transformer, an adapter, and a connector of sorts and that seeking peace and joy may require these things on a fairly regular basis.  

Well that’s my thought bundle for today—I have to find my lightning to usb converter so I can connect my wireless keyboard and because it’s a lightning device I have to have the power disconnected which means I need to make sure my battery is charged before adapting...oh that might also apply to seeking race and joy?   I will end with this... I’ll always wonder why this thing is called a lightning  connector -is it really a good idea for you to encourage a lightning strike around your valuable tech? —Oh well....

How the Easter Bunny Won the West

 HOW THE EASTER BUNNY WON THE WEST

Well this past weekend marked three days of significant events which merit commentary.  And are Karmically related.,  

On Friday late in the afternoon...like at six thirty (when our mail gets delivered) our “stimulus” check arrived just about a week after it had been sent.  Now I’m only going to offer an anemic  complaint because it’s nice to get the resources yet we could hop in the car and hit a plane  and be where the check came from in just a hair under three and a half hours unless somebody was trying to smuggle an elephant wearing explosive sneakers and carrying an aK47 through security.  So why did it take a week to get here—it’s a mystery....unsolved and soonforgotten. Yet.... here’s the next link in the weekend chain..

That mail got here by plane, and truck but merely 161 years ago on Saturday the latest in speedy mail service was launched.  Yes the legendary Pony Express made it’s initial run headed west out of St. Joeseph Mo.  It should be noted that the lightning fast rider and his noble steed. We’re poised and ready to fly at 4:30 PM however they were held up waiting on the mail train so they didn’t gallop away until  around half past seven.  That was when the first stimulus checks or tax refunds were traveling  by pony I guess.  

Now let’s explore the Pony Express and dare to do so in the light of what was fable be what was fact.  

First, the legend of the pony express was far greater than  the service ever became.  This service only lasted for about  a year and a half.  Some of the legendary riders on the pony express did include Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hicock.  Well 

Buffalo Bill may not have actually ridden more than a substitute route or two and Wild 

Bill rode only two months.  Oh and Wild “Bill’s” name wasn’t  even Bill.  His given name  was James.   I suspect that Jittery Jimmy probably wouldn’t haves suited the rough and tumble teenage kid that rode  carrying a pistol and a pouch of mail.  His father  had been William  and had passed when Jimbo was only about 10.  The Pony Express was able to get mail from Missouri to California in a blazing time of 10 days instead of the two to three months that it took by steamship.  Trains were not linked from coast to coast until well after the horses and the Telegraph spanned  the country.  In fact from 1850 to 1855 train service ended in that Wild West outlaw town known as Iowa city. And in 1860 it had reached the exotic western environs nestling  up to the Missouri River.  So the first two links of the weekend chain were the slow current. Mail and the mythical fast and hero studded Pony Express which leads us to Sunday where a another  mythical character is the star of delivery to our homes....

Yes all over the U.S. of a.  The EASTER BUNNY brings all kinds of candy and small toys  into our homes.  Some how year after year the bunny convinces  multinational candy manufactures  to crank out egg-shaped sweets such as cream-filled eggs, cosmic colored marshmallow chicks, and oval peanut butter cups.  This mythical rabbit scampers to and fro depositing baskets weaved on a high speed conveyor belt somewhere in the orient and filled with the world’s best vacuum cleaner clogging  green celluloid  strips.  

Now in this “rational” is valuable world it becomes pretty  hard to reconcile the events of the weekend so maybe I’ll jump on a zoom call with Santa, the Tooth Fairy, Cupid, and an honest politician to gain an enhanced understanding of it all.  

So what does this have to do with seeking peace and joy today?  Well grasshopper...that’s simple...

We still live in a world where one of our neighbors walks around bringing messages from near and far to tell us about  who we owe  and who is having a wedding and stuff.  We have  invested  a lot in getting information to each other faster and faster and faster in hopes that we make wiser decisions...sometimes it pays off sometimes all that’s left is horse shit and a cloud of dust.  Sometimes we can’t rely on the same chicken to give us the same old eggs and have to welcome creatures that look different to bring us a variety of notions and materials.  Finally although some stories are not congruent with our thoughts they might offer a little creative magic or imagination that might remove  a mental block or two.  Seeking peace and joy sometimes  means believing what could happen is only  loosely linked with what did happen or is happening and we shouldn’t be afraid of entertaining stories and meanings that suggest a wide range of possibilities.  

Now who ate the ears off my chocolate  bunny?  

I think therefore? Batter up?

 BATTER UP MR. DES CARTES

Today is the birthdate. Of one of the most famous of the semi-post Renaissance pre-Enlightenment (you know neither  a Gen X or Millennial) western philosophers.  Rene Des CARTES.  If you took  any advanced math especially linear algebra or linear geometry you undoubtedly experience his “coordinates slyly named “Cartesian”  by the way.   

Well if you know the coordinates for any two points on a straight line you can determine  the slope of that line and if life were a straight line then we could figure out a bunch of stuff like that we might be going straight to hel?  On the other hand...seeking peace and joy is not  a straight line and therefore, we should turn to Mr. DC’s other contribution to our modern life.  Their is this quote...”I think therefore I am.  Now this whole discourse has to do with the mind versus the soul and how we know we exist.  That’s pretty heavy stuffSo the notion is this....simplified...If you have thoughts and you are aware of them it is reasonable to know you do exist because  if you having thoughts is a reality then knowing you have them is a reality and thus your existence is true.  Conversely if either you doubt your thoughts or you cannot verify them then the idea that your doubts are valid is true and therefore you can know that and that means you exist too.  In short you are aware either way and thus your conscious self is real.  Isn’t hat nice/. 

Now thinking about this and becoming aware of my feelings regarding these thoughts it occurs to me that Des CARTES  might have also stated “I feel or I’m aware, therefore I am..... 

It’s hard not to wonder what impact  making emotions the basis. For saying  “i am” might have been or might be if we could adopt that stance.  How much  more would we have reward for the emotions of others and how much more would we value empathy above  labeling people with factoids?  Just think about that for a minute and how does it make you feel....Or do your feelings dictate your thoughts..hmmmm?  

Come on you logical positivist step to the plate—and speaking of that—

Tomorrow is opening day of a new baseball season and when the first batter steps in and first pitch whistles toward the plate a new story of that at bat begins and a new story of that season begins and new stats get cranking and the story of a season filled with hopes starts to unwind and if the batter  hits the ball all the physics of a round ball traveling at a high rate hitting a round bat come into play and the flight of the ball is influenced by the force of contact and the movement of th wind and the shape of the ballpark.  If the batter doesn’t swing the umpire defines the pitch as a strike or a ball and the rest of the story of that at bat is tainted by a slightly tilted count.  

So maybe seeking peace and joy is a bit like baseball with a lot of variables and infinite numbers of contexts and yet in the end some things are experienced and meanings of those  experiences are understood by many who are present in the moment they happen.  

To sum that up..... When we wake up tomorrow step up to the plate and be ready to start  a new set of circumstances and while life may throw a high hard one right  at your head chances are you will get another swing  pretty soon so take a whack and go from there.   You don’t have to homer every time and you and your teammates will make errors but so will those who might not encourage. You— I hear your “walk-up” music....

Batter. Up...