Spiritualism and truths in life

I imagine those of you who read this often get those precious Powerpoint presentations (you can read them legally and for free with [Open Office], but thats meat for another entry) full of those secrets of life and beautiful images.

The problem is that however good the intentios are, they often visit common sins such as self-complacency and traditionalisms and they lead to a thought path that guarantees depression, which is the opposite of what they want to accomplis.

So, yesterday I was thinking about spiritualism and how people see it and I decided to share some truths I've found about reality. But before I list them, today, a conversation with [Oshita] took me to something that's been on my mind for some time and it is how people often confuse spiritualism with religion, often negating the former in the process.

They entrust themselves to God to ask him and demand explanations and help. They charge him with the responsability of catastrophies, with what they don't understand and what they can't see how to change. They often say "God willing" without a thought of the spiritual and religious calling that is, asking of the spiritual what is lacking in the terrenal.

It seems that now a days, being conscious of the inherent part of reality that belongs to the spiritual terrein instantly tags you as a hippie and being a little "like that". But it's not necessary to be surrounded by incense, candles and images of Buda or the godess of the fall solstice in order to be in touch with your spiritual side.

"Funny, I was just thinking of you just before you called"; "My life is so unlucky"; "You seem to have an angel guarding you" and thousands of other similar phrases and thoughts are often relegated to chance and anecdote weakening our ever thinner contact with the spiritual. How often can you feel the feelings of a person close to you "just by looking into his/her eyes"? How much of that analisys of the facial expression is something much deeper? How many "chances" are the product of a friendly spirit that "protects us" or simply walks with us?

I could go on, but I'd rather "open the mikes" and let you think aloud for a while. These are the truths I've found so far:

- You cannot reach happiness. You can only see it when it's there and you have to enjoy it while it lasts. (Derived from the wise thought "Be happy knowing when you are").

- Pain is never forgotten, you just stop thinking about it.

- There is nothing you can't do if you set your mind to it... with all the consequences.

- That God exists or not is irrelevant to understand what is Good and what is Evil.

- The person you love will be as close to you as much as your doors are open.

- And, relating the last one with the next one, don't be so stupid as to think you are the only person he/she loves. The sooner you accept that, the easier you'll make it to be loved. Do you love just one person?

- There is always someone smarter, more intelligent, more successful, wiser, ritcher, more powerful, stroger, sexier, etc. but that doesn't make you any less unless you deny it.

- There is always a point in any negotiation in which you have all the power. Be watchful.

- You will never understand politics (nor politicians) by what is said about them in the news. Didn't you know there is a whole career dedicated to Politics?

- Whenever the best idea (melody, verse, concept, project, invention, etc.) comes to mind, there will be nothing around to write it down.

- Everybody at some stage will forget something of critical importance. Take that moment to think of those of us with memory problems and how we feel every day.

I have many others, but I'll leave them for another entry.

... The day I see any of these in a presentation I get by email, I'll crack up...

The dangers of Internet

Now that information is so readily available to everyone, it often happens what has always happened to the human being: someone invents a new weapon and someone else comes along and uses it for evil purposes (since the very first pre-human being who decided it was a better idea to throw the rock to a fellow pre-human's head rather than using it to hunt prey).

Now-a-days the same kind of things happen, though in other situations, but it happens..

This is the case of stories about [Google Maps] and the subject of provacy. You only have to do a little searching to find plenty of stories about it. As an example, someone today threw [THIS ONE] my way (sorry, no translation. Basically, employers are using people's Facebook pages to decide wether or not to hire someone). Someone may consider this unethical or an invasion of privacy, but employers only use the gun. It's the Facebook users who shoot themselves in the head with it.

People don't seem to realise just how easy it is to find the traces each one can leave behing in blogs, social networks, etc. and the kind of image that may leave for employers, friends, family, etc. Also, there are many tools easily available to, for example, trace the source of blog comments to specific IP's, companies, towns and with the use of very little logic deduction, people can easily be identified.

So, boys and girls, beware when you have a loaded weapon in your hand and treat it with respect, lest you shoot yourself in the foot and make a boo-boo!!

Quotes at midnight

Masclism and feminism are the same language spoken in two confronted countries.

Obituary for a hidden star

Yesterday I found out, through a friend with similar musical taste to my own, of a very sad piece of news. Rick Wright, keyboard player for Pink Floyd, co-founder of the band, innovator of sounds, melancholic soul of their melodies and main base for the musicality of their tunes died on the 15th by the hand of a furious and quick cancer.

This news item, to my understanding, as important as the death of other renouned stars of the musical world, almost made no sound. Even requiems in Rolling Stone weren't big enough for his talent and career, but mostly just a small resume of his musical career.

To understand the profoundness of his talent, you have to carefully listen to the Pink Floyd tracks in which he played pianos, hammonds and other synths and keys which simply flow like a river of sound upon which Dave Gilmour did his guitar acrobatics, as well as that spectacular Clare Torry (mother of Sam Brown whom we remember for tracks like that single "Stop" and who also made her mother the honour of repeating her feat in Earl's Court's concert)'s blues solo in "The Great Gig in the Sky" (I've alwasy wanted that piece played in my funeral).

Little has also been heard his career in solitary, with just two albums (Wet dream and Broken China) and another team-up, but in my opinion his talent was "one of those" that achieves full potential when interacting with the other members of the band.

All the info on his life is out there on the net. What talent he has left us will allways be too little. When an artist dies, the loss cannot be measured.

Rick, you will live forever. Rest in peace.

New acquisition

¿Veis como sí se puede?

Proselytism

Lately, some of my friends have been moving towards the world of the engine and the two wheels. Whith this crisis and all there is a certain increase in the amount of bikes in the streets. With this and seing that people could actually attain the license without spending much in driving schools (hence not reinvesting in the taxman) so they've decided to reinvent the wheel (pun intended) and complicate matters so once more the owners of driving schools can reep to their heart's content.

I do agree that many "bikers" should be taken down from their rider's seat with a gentle smack on the head with a crash-helmet, but most of this could be solved by abolishing the loop-hole that allows car drivers to ride bikes up to 125cc and raising the insurance prices on those bikes (and leave the rest of us the hell alone). Sorry, driving a car for 25 years does NOT make you a good scooter rider.

[HERE] (sorry, link in spanish) you can find information on the details of the matter. But since an image is worth a thousand words, this is more or less where the Ministry of Transportation (is it still called that?) is trying to go. Notice, also, that examinations will be taken in group. It is unclear, though, if all will fail when just one bollocks up... We'll have to wait and see...

A question of motivation

This simple sentence which sprung to mind at the beginning of the year in a moment that... well, be that as it may, it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. The fact is that a simple sentence that came out in a moment of almost humour is actually becoming a way to find meaning to things, a way to explain stuff many times. It's becoming my sentence of the year.

For example, I have a friend which has some doubts about how to confront certain issues in her relationship. That sentence was useful whilst trying to explain, to help her see that relationships are maintained through motivation in both partnerts, be it children, love, family, tradition, mortgage, sex or whatever. The thing is that when there is no motivation the relationship usually won't last that long. Of course there are other factors and this is a simplified view of the matter, but it served to illustrate the point.

Also, in a discussion with a different friend I tried to expose the fact that children are more a question of motivation than money, In this occasion, though, I have a feeling I didn't quite get across, but this is actually common with this particular person ;-) . The thing is that she insisted she wasn't earning enough money to raise a child and I insisted that her motivation to have the child was not strong enough. I tried to support this line of thought with the sentence and went on to explain how there are whole families that can live on what she said she earned. The motivation of raising a child would make her sacrifice other "commodities" in life. It's not an extravagant thought but more of a law in nature (though some *pejorative* may twist that).

... Sadly, as I say, I think I didn't get across.

Again, today, I had the need to use that sentence a couple of times. I have a friend who is in a bit of a pickle at work. It seems the crisis in her line of work is forcing her company to sack people like there is no tomorrow. I tried to reason that if she is so worried she should do something about it, try to move, etc. (please take into account that these are all shortened versions!) but if the worse came to the worse (without diminishing anybody's job), there's always jobs like store cashiers and so on which won't make you rich but will surely get you food.

It seems that ever more often, the average spaniard is not willing to take that kind of job (not something I've come up with but I totally agree) but we are ready to complain about these immigrants "coming here and taking our jobs". But this line of thought probably belongs in a very different blog entry...

I hope to have illustrated a very simple concept with these words: there is a large percentage of our lives in which It's all a matter of motivation. I have a good motivation every day.

Inverted economy

This morning, whilst watching the news, I was once again surprised at the magnitude of human stupidity, or my own ignorance over the Big Picture. I'll ellaborate...

In two >apparently< unconnected articles, they announced economic measures consciously put into place. The first article spoke of those controlling the price of petrol and how they've decided to hold petrol production in order to stop the decrease of petrol prices. I still hadn't recovered from my amazement when the second article, (immediately after the first though relation was ever mentioned) several car manufacture corporations have decided to reduce production of their vehicles (hence reducing their staff and the routers) to combat the loss in sales and keep the price tag.

A good friend of mine was explaining to me how she thinks she remembers how a theory was explained to her by which under a very specific set of circumstances (which are not the current ones) this may actually work positively. This is what they call Inverted economy. I've searched but I've been unable to find almost anything on this.

I must be really dim on this subject (I've never studied any economy) but there's a few points in which are completely illogical. The first is on the law of supply and demand with respect to the manufacture of cars in today's economy.

The main reason why people are not buying cars is that there is an economical crisis (we'll argue that some other day), that is, the people who are supposed to buy these cars doesn't have the money they cost. The reasonable thing to do would be to lower the cost of cars to promote their sale. There are thousands of ways to do this, of course, from cheaper materials, cutting down profits, manufacturing optimizations, etc. But, of course, How could we possibly cut down our profit? yells the horrified CEO. Since they don't actually share the profits when the going is good, why do they share the debt by killing thousands of jobs, hence making the crisis worse? More jobless people means less money to buy cars. Remember that the pricetag has been mainained but we've ended up with a worse economy state. Sirs, I don't get it. How does that help sell more cars?

But the one about holding fuel production to stop the prices going down is a real cracker for me. Last time I filled my tank I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the price per litre. I saved almost 3 euros! 3 euros is not much, but multiply it for the amount of people getting gas! One would think that lowering the price promotes sales. More sales, more profit, right? So now the prices are dropping, lets hold production, we generate mass panic by making people think they will run out of petrol, queues on petrol stations of people filling up, we create an energy deficit and so we raise the prices. It is true sales go through the roof for a couple of days with those panic attacks (I usually just park my bike and wait for it to blow over... it allways does), but people are choosing to use the car less because of fuel prices. Just look at the numbers of dead people on the roads!

Oh! That's right, they've gone down because we're more consientious drivers and we are fearfull of fines... riiiiight...

Come on, dude!!!