Education and Sorrow

When I graduated high school, I swore off school. But not education. I continued on my own, as I'd always been a voracious reader. I was "grounded" to my room a lot as a kid and books saved me. Locked in my room, I was out in the universe having adventures, or learning occult knowledge. Things unknown to my contemporaries and my family.

My K-12 years were a misery, getting easier toward the end in high school, even though I worked nights since tenth grade. My ADD certainly made my first nine years of school difficult. Though, in my own way, at my own pace, I could excel. That seldom was allowed to happen. Not unusual for any child, to be sure.

But that had little to do with how our national cookie-cutter, 19th century industrial age school system worked. One that we mostly still have today.

"Assembly line them out to get factory jobs!" Time and resources and not enough teachers meant you do it how you are asked, or you walk. More accurately? You're tossed out. I'm sure ethnic minorities had it worse. I was lucky. I was white, lower middle class. But the lower your economic class was, the worse you had it. Ethnic distinctions or not.

I never knew there was a method. Not until I took "Study Skills" in college. Then things got a bit easier. I saw it listed and thought what a great idea! Why did n't they teach us this in K-12? Apparently, you're just supposed to learn it through osmosis. Well? Some of us didn't. Couldn't.

After the Air Force at twenty-five, I floundered for a while. Until I sunk into being nothing. Though I started to acquire a greater love of life. Shrooms, weed, and LSD aided that sojourn.

One day my older brother talked to me in his backyard, where I was living for a year in his outbuilding, in a loft I had refurbished. I was a minimalist then, but it was a freeing, enjoyable experience. Knowing all the while that I was not living to my potential and had effectively lost all I had gained while in the Service. At least materially. Well, I lost a marriage too. But that was on me, in marrying too young.

My brother convinced me to use my VA benefits. And so I started college. For the fourth time. Though this time being my only real effort toward a degree.

“Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.” Lord Byron

But before I made my decision to start college and get an actual degree of some kind, I decided to take two weeks to ruminate and consider my situation, and my future.

I felt life had been somewhat painful up to that point. Though, I was making the best of it. At least, emotionally. Which was overshadowing my existence at the time. I had trouble finding a job after years in the military where I had great respect and responsibility. People's lives actually depended on me.

Now? No one seemed to want to trust me at all. Other than a few shady jobs I'd had. More than one of which had taken great advantage of me.

Over those two weeks, I considered what a degree, what higher education would offer me. More knowledge? Sure. A sharper mind. Hopefully. A greater understanding of both the world around me and the universe? To be sure.

I was quite aware of how, with greater knowledge, comes greater pain. I was very focused on that for that first week or so, not much interested in renewing my experience of being abused by a school system once again. But there was something I did not know yet about the difference between college and K-12.

During that second week, however, I started to consider how, with greater knowledge, also comes a greater appreciation of things. A better understanding of art, cinema, science, people, and living in general. There was an upside to it.

In the end, I decided I would give education one last try. After all, if I could survive the nonsense the military put me through, I could certainly deal with school of my peers. Though I would be older now, and returning to school after time away. I would have to get back to where I had been nine years ago when I graduated at seventeen. And that was a little unnerving.

Still, there would surely be wine, women, and song. This was not K-12, but an assemblage of adults. Or near adults anyway.

Once I got into college, took the study skills class along with my other first-quarter classes that first year. I settled in. People, other students this time, were different. People were there because... for a change, they actually wanted to be there. They paid to be there. Not like before where most of us wanted to be elsewhere and were working out issues about authority and our parents. Though, to bs sure some still were. But my K-12 years? Or parents did that to us. The government did that to us.

As one prof put it, he loved teaching college because the kids actually wanted to be there. They had made a choice. Most of them, A choice to be there. They wanted to learn.

And that was what I saw in my fellow classmates. It was addictive and invigorating. A bit shocking at first. Others in my classes would join in. It wasn't just the smart girl, speaking up, or the wise-ass clever guy joining in, all as the rest of us just sat there ignorant or annoyed. Or worse, bored.

People joined in the discussions. The learning invoked great attitudes and we all wanted to be there. I too wanted to be there. It was kind of amazing and rewarding, and after a quarter or two of classes, I was fully invested. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn more. But also, the more I learned, the less I knew I knew of the ever-expanding awareness of the vastness of all knowledge. 

This was better than partying all the time or doing drugs. It was also giving me something back for my efforts. Something that would remain with me for the rest of my life.

However, there was indeed a downside. 

Deep into the last part of the Fall quarter in my final year, I wandered into the Career Center at Western Washington University. I thought, maybe they could offer me some help, as soon, I would graduate. And...then what?

I sat with a counselor and explained my situation. She looked at me shocked and said, "You're late." I asked what she meant. I had months until I graduated. I believe, about three left. "See these other students in here?" She said. I looked around. A few students were studiously reading various things and filling out forms. "Yes?" What she said next disturbed and shocked me.

"They've been coming here for months, some for a year already. You should have been here sooner."

And sure enough, she was right. I never did find a job for after graduation. I graduated and moved back home, to Tacoma. And... ended up at the same job I had when I started college, and at the same hourly rate. I was crushed. Happy to have a job. But despondent. 

It was a letdown to be sure. Why didn't ANYONE tell me to prepare for leaving college? Eventually, I transferred up to Seattle to another store with the same company, MTS Incorporated. Tower Records. It was a fun place to work, not much money, and not the potential for advancement.

IF you weren't interested in getting your own store to manage. Which I wasn't. Reason there being, I'd been in retail sales since tenth grade at the Drive-In Theater where I worked nights all through high school. I'd started there cleaning the field the night after shows played. It was back-breaking work for a ninth-grader.

Someone once told me that to make money in life, you can't be the employee who physically touches any of the money made. You have to get away from that. Which surely managing the store would do. But I wanted more, yet.

I tried to get a job in Seattle as a starting psychologist and got hit with the hard reality that I was already getting paid more where I was. I was stunned. It wasn't much more but after money, time, blood, sweat, and tears to get a university degree, I'd make the same money? 

I had found before graduating at the career center at WWU that many students were already volunteering for unpaid jobs. Then later after graduation, many got hired. I couldn't afford to do that any longer now that I was working for a living. I'd blown that opportunity.

When I found that out while still in college, I asked a friend and fellow psych student about that and she said, oh yeah, sure. I've been volunteering with special needs kids for a while now. Years later she was a counselor at a K-12 school. 

And so, I found myself stuck in my job for a while longer.

Eventually, I was able to find my first computer job which began my life in IT work. Which eventually paid very well as I worked my way up. I shocked coworkers on my IT team, all of who had computer science degrees. While I had a degree in psychology. 

Regarding that. You'd be surprised how many skills are similar between understanding people as a psychologist and debugging computers, systems, networks, and programs. I did quite well at it.

But I've gotten off track here.

My original point remains. With greater knowledge comes greater awareness...and greater responsibility.

The same is true in the opposite direction for those who remain uneducated and bluster their way through, wanting to be treated as if they deserve the respect some of us have put so much time and effort into achieving. 

Then they start to talk authoritatively about sophisticated issues. Like medicine, or sociological issues. Or politics. Some to be sure are self-educated and deserve our respect. But they are the few.

Certainly, few, who can do it properly. Which is why higher education and structured learning was developed in the first place. Without it, it's too easier to miss entire areas of relevancy.

Too many think they can and have achieved that proper coverage of knowledge on their own, and surely, as most of us have seen...that is simply not the case. And we all have to suffer them and their ignorance as wisdom. There's one at least on every job in every career who thinks they know more than they do. It is a costly thing for them to be employed, until they are found out, and removed. 

In ending, I'll just say this.

More education is almost always better than less. To assume the opposite is dangerous... and abusive. Abusive to the country, to our fellow citizens and to ourselves, our family, friends, and our loved ones.

Whenever you are faced with a problem, an issue, a concern? Take the time to learn more about it. But also and just as importantly, about the surrounding issues. Even some that seem completely unrelated. Because too often, they are related in unseen, and unforeseen ways. 

Because everything is connected and should be seen that way.

Otherwise one day you find yourself poor in so many ways. You find an unnecessary global pandemic staring you down as you die and you wonder... "How did this happen?"

How? It is because with great knowledge comes greater responsibility and greater sorrow. And if you allow it, greater joy too.

But if you don't handle it properly, you will suffer. And others will suffer. We, will suffer. And we do not appreciate it. Especially if WE did do the work.

  

Just as we're all seeing happen today. All around us. All the internet armchair quarterbacks. Political pundits, not worth their weight in...swamp mud. 

Yet, it does not have to be like this. We CAN handle things right. To see our responsibilities. To act to address them properly. To find our job in life that will give you the best life. 

It doesn't have to be this way. We can do better. It just takes effort. It just doesn't have to be like this. 

It really doesn't. 

Home Schooling, a personal decision or a court decision?

Is it best to allow homeschooling? Or is it a dangerous thing to allow at least, unrestrained?

A mother is told she's too religious to home-school her daughter. The child has been ordered to attend public school. Watch the video, read the article here:
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/01/27/too-religious-to-home-school/

From that article:

"Voydatch had home-schooled Amanda between 1st and 4th grades. Then came the judge’s order in 2009 which sent the then-9 year-old to public school. Voydatch has been fighting the ruling and Simmons argued the case in front of the New Hampshire Supreme court in early January.

But not everyone sees it as a Constitutional case, including the attorney for Brenda’s ex-husband.

“It’s not really about religion,” says Joshua Gordon. It’s simply about two parents who differ about child-rearing philosophy. He says the two parents disagree about what’s best for Amanda:

“One wants the child very isolated and cloistered and the other wants the child to be worldly and be exposed to all the experiences one ought to have as an adolescent.” "

This is a tough one.

If there wasn't one of the parents who disagreed with the other (the mother), it would be far more insidious. I've always had trouble with the concept of homeschooling. It's good for when the only alternative is really poor educational institutions, I would agree. But that is a quagmire on many levels.

The good thing about public education is that we end up with a commonality among the citizenry, a community. We've seen where too much religion can lead; it can be a good thing, it can also and more typically be a bad thing and at times, a very bad thing.

The argument about charter schools is another misguided mostly right wing concept. Ludicrous at times when we really need to pour money into making public schools work. Rather than give a special group of Americans a charter school system to use to escape. To siphon off even more money to give those special people the option of protecting their children while aiding the abandonment of the children of those who cannot help themselves or their own children out of a bad situation.

It was an idea that originally started as a seemingly intriguing and potentially good idea. But it has devolved into an elitist program leaving too many others in the trenches who do not have the freedom or choice for their own children.

We have abandoned our children, their teachers and education system far too much and for far too long in a one sided effort to dumb down America to support one continually defective conservative Republican party.

If the parent is teaching the child poor religious views, let's face it, that is bad. Though admittedly that may even be a moot point.

The parents can and are still welcome to teach and raise their kids involved with public education, their views on their religion. Is getting a balanced view bad for a kid? Is getting an intensely one sided view bad?

We homeschooled our daughter in first grade. Then we put her into public school for second grade. They tested her and said she could skip two grades. We (mostly myself, as I have a university degree in psychology) were worried about her emotional maturity and ability to merge with older kids. I couldn't have been more correct.

I didn't really notice the issues until she was of driving age and all the other kids were getting their licenses an entire year before she did. It caused her a great deal of difficulty and I would have felt the same had I been her. A car isn't just a car. It's freedom, from parents, from home.. It's experiencing. It's community with friends.

Still, we homeschooled her, raised her and our son in an open minded way. He was not homeschooled, his ADD made it difficult either way. In our case without religious training, which they absorbed before graduating K-12 on their own, and with our (mostly my) guidance. Neither of us were religions. My wife would say she was Christian oriented but not religious. I was raised very Catholic, but after a several decades long search and survey of religions and mental disciplines, I ended mostly on Buddhism, but my own hopefully more enlightened sense of it.

I had noticed my grade school foundation in Okinawan Martial Arts brought with it an Asian orientation on philosophy which gave me a more grounded view of my religion (I had even been head altar boy in our small Slovak church as my mother was Czech and dad was Irish). When I discovered Buddhism it felt familiar (obviously) until I realized that the basis of Catholicism, in it's rejection of Judaism was based in Buddhism.

When I studied psychology and philosophy in college and at university, I then discovered how familiar still various schools of psychology were to Buddhism, which is not a religion at all. Though many who were born into it in their Buddhist country, might think it is. Humans are somewhat OCD by nature, it's a protection, built in, and functional...until it's not. Therefore, humans tend to want to turn anything they get deeply involved in, into a dogma or a religion.

There are uses for homeschooling, many reasons for it to be used, to be sure, But it needs to be used, not abused. We need our public schools for community, for Americans all being Americans and to retain that among us. And our children are only as good as their parents homeschooling them. Not every parent should be homeschooling for some have no ability to take on the task and it can harm the child. It can also harm our society, our country. Even our ideals. There are some pretty weird parents out there, some pretty destructive subcultures. Antithetical to American ideals and society.

We, I myself, have always been into our freedoms. Into our individuality of thought and action. But as we've found recently, there is a downside. This was originally a reaction against a 1950s and before mentality of group cohesion. Through the Beat generation and on, once we began to really think about it, we could wear what we want, have our hair whatever length we wanted. To have alternative views to living. But that was a strong reaction to break out from an anachronistic mindset.

Once that was broken in the 60s and 70s and beyond as we continue to evolve and mature as a nation, we have to slow down, lighten up and realize we have made strides. We no longer need to be so adamant about our uniqueness. Some tried and true methods of living have been there, because they work.

We have to realize if we each and all diverge too much from one another we begin to lose our cohesive threads of commonality. In our over striving for our uniqueness, our individuality at some point we all lose what it is to be an American. Individuals of a like mind, able to live our uniqueness ... separately together. As we're seeing today in this polarized America, it can work against our own best interests.

What this comes down to, and it depends on the parenting plan if both parents have equal decision on the child's education, is what the parents work out on subjects. So the mother really shouldn't have the final say. If the mother is primary parent,and has the majority decisions granted for educational and religious issues, then Dad needs to shut up and it becomes a moot point.

Then again, I'm biased as I've seen my share of unbalanced mothers raising kids in a much less than reasonable way. That being said, the education the child gets in homeschooling depends entirely upon the parents doing the teaching. Children need socializing outside the home. With other children, with other adults, with other ways of thinking, and how to deal with foreign forms of thought. Not in a narrow minded way, but in an open minded and critical thinking way.

My primary concern is in those who are ignorant, teaching their young and propagating and increasing their ignorance. I never considered that before recent times when I've seen those who obviously espouse ignorance and foolishness with pride. Who have organized and become a voice evoking changes in far too many of the wrong directions. While all the time thinking they were doing what is right and good. Perhaps doing "God's job."

What is "right and good" is an argument for another time, but the primary concern remains, a concern.

In the end continuing on with our original direction (and I am for the most part a believer in freedom of thought myself) may be the only thing to do. But it leaves me greatly concerned for our future. It then becomes a numbers game. Will we have more ignorant, or more educated in future American voting pools?

Consider as I understand it, that the uneducated tend to be the ones who have more kids, which the more educated have less. Same traditionally for the religious, to overwhelm by numbers if not reason. We see this too in the Republican party in pushing to eliminate birth control, abortions, to increase their numbers if by nothing else, by overwhelming their ranks through birthrates.

I had always thought that Truth in the end would win out, just because it is more, and most functional.

But perhaps I should have considered that Truth, like Good, may not win out in the end as I had originally been raised to believe, because the other side breaks rules, in order to win at any and all costs. Because they believe themselves divinely inspired and even protected.

I was raised by parents who believed mostly only what their parents had taught them. Which in many cases was simply wrong. In my mother's case, this was at times judged even by her own Parish Priest. I do try to judge by people's own logic or paradigms whenever possible and reasonable. And so frequently I find even that enlightened view failing them. For the break with knowledge and logic not infrequently from without but as well from within their understanding of the world,.

What direction will this take us?

I guess that begs the question. Do we try to direct our path or, do we simply throw caution to the wind? For it seems we do need to allow people to do what they want, for the most part and when reasonable and possible. This still IS America.

 I just have to acknowledge that this is not at times unlike closing your eyes while driving. Or perhaps more so like closing your eyes while riding a horse. Which would be better I think as at least the horse doesn't want to ride into something dangerous.

But either way, driving or riding with one's eyes open is always the far better plan.

Contained Weapons and the state of the Ignorance of Intellectual Knowledge

I've been thinking for years that we need more non-lethal weapons for police... and military. I couldn't figure out why that hasn't happened yet. I also noticed there are ways of thinking being demonstrated in public, rationales, agendas and ideologies that feel very foreign to me as an intellectual and an american, and that frankly are, stupid.

I think we've gotten to a point when it may be more necessary than desirable to examine these things.

Regarding weaponry, for police TASERs are great but we still need something better. The new sound devices that make your skin feel hot and can be used in order to disperse crowds is one interesting solution to a problem usually made worse by police and government officials.

For the military, we really need to stop the majority of these drone attacks. We may also need to start giving consideration to building contained weaponry.

What I mean by that is... take for instance, the missiles that drone carry. A drone fires a missile (OK, a drone pilot fires it, whatever), the missile tracks it's target, strikes it and detonates destroying the target. As well as unintended collateral targets. That's innocent people, usually.

Too frequently this ends in overkill.

But what if when a bomb explodes, rather than an uncontained explosion, it sets off a fragmentation weapon where the pieces remain attached to the center of the device? In that way there'd be shrapnel all of which would remain a part of the original central part of the device.

It still shoots through any people or metal within the length of the chains or wires that maintains connection to the primary piece, but they would stop within the length of that constraint. We are developing materials, new concepts, new ways of thinking, that just might be conducive to this type of technology.

Here is one example: ‘Impossible’ Quantum Space Engine Actually Works – NASA Test Suggests. We're on the crux of many new things, some of those we need to start carrying over into more practical applications.

There are many other examples out there today that could lend themselves well to visualizing my point. The more you look for them, the more you find.

Maybe the missile hits the center of a truck. It explodes, individual fragments shoot out from the source, punching holes all through the truck, killing all in the vehicle, but anyone who is say, fifteen feet from the missile, is safe (OK, safer anyway), excepts perhaps for some flying truck debris.

There be the possibility of the odd case of the loss of an eye or some minor burns or pelleting, but very much more possibly, there could be no unintended deaths.

This is the kind of thinking we need to start using. To think within the box as well as without, not allowing as in this case, for the shrapnel or explosive power to extend beyond the containment of the area surrounding the blast.

We also need more contained devices allowing for temporary disablement or minor destruction. We need to knock a crowd out, rather than killing if not dissipating everyone within range. We need to stop thinking in terms of attrition by way of destruction and start thinking of attrition by way of disablement or temporary disablement.

Benign war over the horrors of war.

We have entered into the age of  the "Ignorance of Intellectual Knowledge".

So much of our knowledge now is limited and offering us only a flat effect. Book learning limited in scope.. Information that shows us superficial meanings, with limited definitions or explorations of topics. Information in two dimensions when we need as a minimum four, maybe more.

Our ability to acquire knowledge needs to be expanded as our bandwidth permits. Which is another issue. We need faster speeds in order to access knowledge more comprehensively on the internet and more information needs to be made available, world wide, along with functional AIs that are compartmentalized to protect their user, but which can also be honed to give 4D examples of what knowledge is actually needed.

We are currently enhancing our knowledge into stupidity and we need to enhance it into wisdom.

Why do you think there is so much detriment going on around the world as opposed to enlightenment? People are remaining ignorant at a far greater rate than ever before. In the past, we didn't lean that much and so our ignorance to knowledge ratio was low.

Now however we are learning vast amounts about many varied topics and yet, we are still remaining ignorant to many integral issues about and related to these topics. We don't just need to know more facts about each issue, we need more quality information about them and more quality ways of disseminating wisdom.

Which brings us back to contained weaponry. Weapons that exert control without destruction.

We are surrounded by a rapidly changing world that we mostly aren't even aware of. If we are, it is only superficially. We need to raise the knowledge of each and every person on this planet, we need to wipe out ignorance and magical thinking styles of compartmentalized thinking and agendas (think religious terrorism).

We need people to better understand why those they have voted into office to protect and enhance their lives are only exerting controls to enhance their own lives and that of the ideologues (and oligarchs) who protect them. We need people invested in humanity and not just their small concerns, their tribe, their tiny areas of control.

There is much going on all around us and in many cases it would seem that most of us really have no clue about it all. We find people with vastly different interests and concerns and so generally speaking, as tends to happen we then find a reason or need to kill them.

I would argue that war is not our most powerful weapon. Proper and appropriate knowledge is.

Contained weaponry may just be the beginning and thinking appropriately in order to devise these types of things, to then create and use such things, could all lead us along the path that is much more useful and productive than merely breaking social contracts and then killing those on the other side of those broken contracts.

We need new ways of thinking about our world, about our actions, and about our concerns. America's priorities have been screwed up for years. We have tried hard to see what they should be, and to put plans into action to bring those things to fruition.

We have also had those in power, many of those who are rich and getting richer all the time, who control those in power, all of which have obfuscated things through a fog of too much information or not enough quality information, who have fed us mis and disinformation, and have abused their rights as human beings.

They need to be called to be accounted for, or to have their power (money) stripped from them. There is truly no reason for any human being on this planet to have over a billion dollars in a limited and closed economic system such as we have on this planet. Nations should have billions, people, and that include corporations, should not. Most especially if corporations are ridiculously to be considered people!

The first step to all that is to see what is really happening all around us. The second is to stop allowing power and money brokers abusing the systems in place, the tools they have to abuse against us and which in the end are against all people and not just our state or nation.

The first step of all that which may just be our first destination is to enhance the quality of knowledge available to us. And perhaps the first step to that is to change our ways of thinking in order to see what we cannot seem to see now.

NOTE Friday 2/20/2015: Oddly enough the fact that this article this week so far has gotten far fewer hits than most of my articles do, actually proves my point about what I'm saying here. No one cares. No one is really considering or looking into much of this. We are lazy on a point that is so prevalent as to seem unreasonable to even consider, to talk about openly, or to try to change our current path and way of thinking on. And we have to. We really, really have to.

UPDATE  Friday 2/20/2015: Here's another consideration....

I know they've done studies of prayer, and belief in God helping people to excel beyond their norm. I saw research where they proved that it doesn't take a belief in God but a belief in a considered source of power outside of oneself, which seems to be key. So you can believe in God, or Rock, or Dog, for that matter, it's all the same. But I wonder if anyone has yet done a study showing which is more effective the belief in God, or the belief in a properly considered source of power out there beyond one self.

Which basically is like saying, "I've been hiking for 20 miles and I can't go another, so I'll select that tree in the distance and make it there. Then when you make it there, select another road map up ahead and repeat. That method has gotten me through long hikes, forced marches and efforts all through my life (I'll just write one more page before quitting for the day, now another....).

Considering prayer usually fails in requests, it's counterproductive at least to some degree, which is inherent in the process. But if you are directed to consider that which is a source of power outside of yourself in the right way it won't fail, or at least less often.

That, is the study I'd like to see done. It's all about new ways, more effective ways, of thinking. We have the knowledge, we just need to get it to the right processes, apply it, get the right people (most people) using it and I suspect, all of our lives would go in a much better direction.

Wisdom in Business, and in Life

There is a lot of knowledge already known out in the world and through history. There is great wisdom available, you just have to look for it. Mostly you will have to find translated versions if you don't read in the original language and who translates sometimes is very important. Just translating is one thing, understanding a language in the period in which it was written is important as well as an understanding of accurate history during that period.

That being said, it's all in what you are looking to find and what you find, which may not be what is there, or may be an epiphany that others who read the same words, do not "see". One of my favorite sayings is, "Even the village idiot has his story." It means that you can find wisdom anywhere, if you pay attention. Staring at a blank wall can give you great insight, if you are prepared to "hear" it.

I've been told that knowledge with experience, is wisdom. Acquiring information, as in book learning, simply isn't enough. Experience, isn't enough either, but extremely valuable. Still, in adding to experience, book learning, you can go leaps beyond by utilizing other's experience, who have mostly likely tried the wrong ways. That being said, sometimes revisiting those wrong ways can lead you in the right direction because those others missed something. But you don't want to haphazardly just waste your time on that, either.

Wisdom is a tricky things sometimes.

When I was starting high school I asked a lot of questions. Until one day a teacher, frustrated with my constant questions finally told me I was holding back the class from moving forward and I could question him after class. He said I was asking good and relevant questions but I should give others a chance to ask them. Except that I wasn't seeing that anyone else was asking these questions. Still, I got his point.

He also said, if I would just wait and listen, to pay attention closely, I would most likely hear the answer at some point in the class, or someone else would as the question. Or, I would simply find the answer within myself before the end of the class period. He told me that I may already know they answer (to paraphrase him) if I just listened to my own interior dialog.

That may have been the greatest single piece of advice I had ever been given.

People suggest reading Art of War for business awareness and I fully agree. It gives you a template you can hone to your understanding of a compassionate way, but you do have to read it first.

Another book that I found perhaps more useful is The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli Written c. 1505, published 1515, in business endeavors. Many read his book as a very dark book but I found it useful in warning me, making me aware of things, more than how I should act toward others, and if you read it for that you are ahead of the game for those reading it to find how to abuse people in order to maintain power and rise above them.

There is another book I like on this type of book, a few really and there's others, but to be brief here's a few I'm fond of:

The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Balthasar Gracian

In a different vein and perhaps a bit more obscure but still useful, a few others....

The Art of Peace by O'Sensei Morihei Ueshiba
The Book of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho) by Miyamoto Musashi

And the more esoteric....

Zen Essence The Science of Freedom Translated by Thomas Cleary
[Another is Rational Zen The Mind of Dogen Zenji by the same]
I Ching The Book of Change Translated by Thomas Cleary

The Tibetan Book of the Dead 

Where's all the information on the internet?

I wonder.

I've been trying to research something that happened years ago back in 1974, in Tacoma, Washington, and I'm having a lot of trouble with it. Like, is someone locking down all the online info? Sure there is still a lot out there, but it seems to me like there was more out a while back. Maybe there even is more out there now, but I used to be able to access more types than I can now.

All this talk about security and hackers, who are indeed out there but, how much is it a selling point to lock things down so we can be charged for it, for security reasons, for access, for info, for knowledge, for power?

He who holds the information holds the power. Is this a trend? Should we be worried? Is it too late?

I've been involved in many levels of security and technology in my life. I've been in the military, had a secret clearance, worked in keeping systems secure, learning about it, networking, I've been in rooms with people, talked to them, asked them questions, people who most of you will only ever see on TV. I see this from a variety of perspectives. Information should be free to people to better humanity. We need secrecy in some cases for purposes of national security. These both are true.

There is an old saying in the IT (information technologies or internet technologies if you like) world that you can have complete business or you can have complete security, but you can't fully have both. It's a continuing balancing act that by necessity slides from one end to the other, hopefully never being too far to one side or the other that in the end, that is dangerous for both endeavors.

Back in the 80s I was on newsgroups (remember those, pre WWW? before the "graphical internet"). I was one of those screaming that information should be free, the internet should remain free and open, knowledge should be free for the masses around the world. Well, to some respect, I've come around. Artists should be paid, obviously. So should writers, musicians, programmers, even software companies and certainly retail businesses but that's a bit different and not at all what I'm talking about today. Though that's all gotten a bit out of hand in some ways, too.

They started charging in the beginning for access to the internet (AOL, Compuserve, etc.). The web started up and took over and then ecommerce started up, which we were very against.

"Free the Internet", we cried. "Keep the internet free." Or more correctly, make it free. No someone has to pay for it, obviously, but free to just sit and use. As free as our roads and highways. Paid by most, used by all.

The internet should be free, as it was at the universities where we originally were accessing it from.

Well, we finally lost that battle, but then we saw the cool things coming up from it. There's some good stuff out there, buying online, saving our infrastructure (roads, gas, working from home, etc.), though now they don't want to support our digital infrastructure and make access to the internet free, or fast, or even, consistent. Or safe, but that's another matter.

And what about this "singularity" that could spring up, a sentient AI (artificial intelligence) that could one day come into being? We would have no control whatsoever over it. And it could do a lot, to everyone. Culled from so much of the nasty out there, what if it found God? God help us.

Fantasy? Thirty years ago, the internet was fantasy.

Now I’m starting to think that after all, we may have been right to start with. "Keep the internet free, information should be free." Certainly public information should be free, but not only free, but free to access. And, it's not. Now a days the term "free" has come to be relative. "Free" as long as you pay for it.

My brother had this to say recently:

Searches are getting weird. Things I used to be able to do easily are now almost impossible. Google used to put forth thousands of responses now I'm often getting just one or two. And some of these are of known info. Also, it's suddenly gotten stupid when it comes to simple misspelled words. For instance, before if I put in the phrase "Sitiacum Puyalup Indian Tribe", it would easily pick up on what I was looking for by associating the words. I could get everything wrong and it would still figure it out. Now it's barely picking these up at all. Sometimes not at all. Hopefully this is some oversight that will be corrected soon. I can't believe that they will let their system slide backwards like this. It creeps me out that I'm thinking about having to talk to actual humans to get info. What is this the 1980's?!

That last part was obviously in jest, but he has a point. Lately, and with my current situation where I'm trying to research something and can't find any useful info unless I pay for it, pay for a service that may turn up nothing and yet, they will still charge me; it's really making me wonder if we weren't right after all.

Knowledge does need to be free, for whoever wants it. Maybe though, we do still need to mature a bit more, maybe. Maybe not.

I just keep remembering "1984" and "Brave New World", and others.

As concepts remain, history and technology progress. That is, as we have an ideal remaining constant ("information should be free"), the world changes around that, and what that originally meant may change with it, and so we need to keep up. Our government, our elected officials need to keep up. Not to ground us down under history, or grind us under status quo, blinding us with Zeitgeist, but to maintain our ideals by evolving our processes to keep us at a qualitative level and to advance that, to progress us to where we never thought we could go.

We  should be getting smarter, with more leisure time but we are getting dumber, with less time for ourselves and more time devoted to the God Corporation, or Money. We don't need money so much, as we need our resources, clean and well thought of. Barring that we do need our money so we can do for ourselves. But we've been cut off from both.

We need apparently now, to justify and indemnify those who should remain or be responsible to see, that what should be, should be. And will be.

Decide where you should be in life and wonder why you aren't there. And vote with your ballots, your mouths, words, thoughts and actions. Be good to one another but strive for better. Set an ideal and try to achieve it in any small or big way you deem fit.

"Of peace on earth, good will to men (and women)." - "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" lyrics
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), 1867)

Remember too, good will to yourself.

Peace.

Knowledge is....

What is, knowledge?

It is not just a set of facts. It is not just a wisdom set. Not just a lexicon, a data set or a knowledge-base. It is for all intents and purposes, a quandary. A state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation. And life is a difficult situation. We need to have accurate information in order to live properly and function appropriately in life. We need, knowledge. And knowledge is not just information, not just experience, and not just wisdom. But a blending of the two.

It is also a process. It is how we get there and how we reroute when we get off track. It is also who we are. We need not only to be right and succeed, we need to make mistakes, to disagree, to debate. But it is also important for us to allow others to view this process and when possible, while it is still in process.

I've tried to do this. I've also had people accuse me of ego for it. It is not ego to share process. It is education, "enhanced information". And education leads (can lead) to knowledge. 

My ex-wife thought we should never show ignorance to our children. I heartily disagreed. To always look perfect is to teach imperfection. To show imperfection and how to deal with it is to teach how to strive toward perfection (an unattainable goal but something to shoot for), while not concerning oneself with never being perfect. Or a fear of simply not being perfect.

Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism has at its core, debate, for a reason. Without debate at the core of our knowledge we can find ourselves stuck in that horror of horrors religion finds itself in, time and again. That of being static to the point of not seeing reality for our beliefs. Missing the "forest for the trees."

So go forward and make mistakes. Disagree. Not for the sake of simply being contrary, but for the sake of seeking the Truth in its various shades. Be proud of your ignorance for it is a noble condition everyone everywhere has been in and will always remain in.

We all start there, but hopefully will not end up there. Although one might realize as one learns, that the more one learns the less one knows, in the end if you have worked hard, listened, debated, analyzed, experienced, you may well end up more ignorant than where you started. 

But you will still not be ignorant in the same way as when you began.

It is in holding Truth as our destination and our path that we become our most alive in this world. In this Universe. But do not let Truth be your only goal, or the pursuit of Truth will make you rigid. It is for that reason that the Buddhist Koan exists: 

"If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”– Linji

Please feel free to enjoy the quandary. Cheers! Sláinte!