A Lively Discussion

Eugene and I are having a lively discussion about child protective work on his Blog, see my links if you are interested. I stumbled on the blog by mistake after looking for Opera Singer Ramon Vargas. I got CPM Vargas instead. I posted a rant there that was not well thought through and got lambasted a bit for it, my apologies. Hopefully my later comments both here and there clarified my position and we can continue our talk. I think we both need to get a little clarity about effective parenting and I will start on my end. First I need to say that I have immense respect for parents and I think that raising kids is the most difficult thing you can do bar none. To me, the tasks of becoming a millionaire, ascending Everest, running the marathon and writing the Great American Novel pale by comparison to the challenges a parent faces. I think that parenthood is a condition that a person should aspire to and carefully plan. Becoming educated and becoming successful I firmly believe are far easier than parenting and absolutely crucial to achieve before conception. I think that a prospective parent should bring a lot to the table in terms of willpower, education, health, intelligence, common sense and financial resources. A little luck would help too. People should have respect for the state of parenthood, enough to get themselves and their life together before attempting this massive responsibility. It shouldn’t happen by ‘accident’. Parenthood should be a state that is earned, and I am not being elitist, it is just COMMON SENSE. If you are having trouble with school, if you are struggling with substance abuse, if you don’t have a decent job, PLEASE DON”T REPRODUCE. HANDLE YOUR BUSINESS FIRST. Bring something to the table and don’t crank out more hungry mouths dependent on your struggling self. Bad decisions pretty much speak for themselves, and the results of that speak for themselves. I want to support stacking the deck for parents and children. Finish school. Get a good job. Maybe buy a house so they have a yard to play in and some college tuition money tucked away. I refuse to believe that this is a eugenic perspective or ‘anti-poor.’ I refuse to believe that I am off-base on this. Welfare and public housing are a despicable disgrace, and I for one want to stop paying taxes to support the irresponsible ”parents” making babies they can’t pay for. The consequences of not using a condom are not the government’s responsibility to care for. It is not the function of government to provide food and housing. I want my share of  that tax money returned to me so I can create jobs with it. Kids need 2 (employed, educated, married) parents, a home, ideally 4 grandparents, a church community, and any aunts, uncles and cousins willing to help AT A MINIMUM! I’ll stop here before I go even farther, I am sticking to my guns on this. Any other perspective on this is going to be honestly difficult to back up or explain, but go ahead and try if you want.

Letting Go

My wife and I were watching a movie about the history of New York, and one of the former Mayors was saying that you can come to New York and reinvent yourself. You can come to New York and achieve as much success as you could desire in your chosen profession, change professions, in short, be what you want to become. I am about to take advantage of this most prized of human privileges! Let the angel of death eat my past entirely- it’s time for me to put it absolutely to rest and embark on a new adventure. I am completely convinced at this point that my decisions are correct, and even if they aren’t, there is no going back. I am an adult and can handle all consequences of my actions. So, even if I am proven wrong in the future and I take up singing again when I am more successful, that still does not affect my decision. My singing career will likely come to end with the completion of my last project: the Bel Sogno sessions. All of my efforts (mostly in my spare time) to achieve an International Opera career will come to fruition in a single album. Now, this work is strictly for pleasure and education, it will have a very limited distribution and is completely non-profit. Some readers may be surprised by this, that I had this part-time career as a professional singer for over a decade. I turned pro in 1992, becoming a union member, and have been paid to sing (with a few justified exceptions) ever since. The Bel Sogno recording sessions will begin this week and I expect to complete them within September before my classwork heats up. I am looking forward to completing this work, crossing it off the bucket list and moving on to new realms of growth, knowledge and success. I owe it to myself and I will not ever regret it.

Start of Class, Patience

I am excited that I start class Tuesday. I was lucky as a kid and looked forward to school starting up until about sophomore year in High School. Since I haven’t been in University since 1994, I have had a chance to recover from anything negative, recall and build on the positive and move forward. When I graduated with my bachelor’s in 1994, I never thought I would go back. At the time I was a little burnt out from school plus actively pursuing music, doing concerts, auditioning, study and practice plus the regular academic load. I was ready to move on.

So basically, I am looking forward to it as it seems to counterbalance work. It puts a real finite timeframe on the temp thing and lets me say – here, this is what I am moving toward, this is what I am being trained to do- I belong in the library. And, although I am sure it will work out for me to be productive and successful there, the finances will be in excellent shape by then and we will not be all that dependent on it. Without that pressure, I feel some degree of freedom to innovate and experiment, to maybe ask forgiveness instead of permission if I ever need to in terms of taking initiative. Of course, the first year or two I will still be learning the ropes and fully coming up to speed, figuring out what it takes to not only keep the check coming, but also to be great. I feel confident that during that time, I’ll be able to supplement my active income with passive, then just ratchet that number up as quickly as possible. I have a real vision of the future I want, it is really clear and I can see the way to it. Now I just need to be patient, maintain, stay the course. Discipline + Focus + Persistence = BANK.

Some clarity on the path

I have been doing a little more research into Buddhism with the aim of deepening my practice and I seem to be getting some additional clarity. I am still having some troubles with understanding the relationship between Karma and the Lokas, it still seems a bit extreme to me. Yet so far, I see no conflicts between anything I have read in the Toltec system and all that I have read so far in the Buddhist writings, both directly from Gautama and the commentary by the Sangha. Basically, if you keep the Toltec 4 agreements, you are on the Eightfold Path. If you are on the Eightfold path, you are keeping the 4 Agreements. The Toltec Dream work is meditation while unconscious, meditation is Toltec Dreaming while conscious, with the observation of thought having a Stalking element to it. Toltec Inventory may also be a helpful tool for Buddhist practice, as some schools I shall not name seem to be very egotistical and focused on material gain. Still, to make a long story short, there really is no conflict between the Four Agreements and the Eightfold Path. Also, I have emailed a Bhikku and asked for input regarding my issues with the Lokas and taking refuge, maybe he can illuminate the writings further.  Admittedly, I have been following my friend’s spiritual practice and he has reached the point of getting a practice tattoo, I am kind of sold on that as an idea. Although there is a risk of spiritual materialism there, I like the idea of a visible reminder of my chosen path, permanently etched into my skin with some pain. There is a quality of incontrovertible reality to it, an investment, an aspect of seriousness about it that appeals to me. I see a lot of Christians with practice tattoos, I have a lot of respect for that as a gesture. I also like the look of the tribal tattoos from an art standpoint, that is a valid reason by itself. We shall see how it goes.

Housekeeping

So, I wanted to double-check my spam queue to see what was getting caught and it seems some legitimate comments were getting screened out. When I get a chance, I will tweak it so that the filter is a little more permissive. Until then, don’t take it personally if my writing is kind of one-way. I think when I have more time to put into it, I will make this site a little more interactive and try to get a separate domain, until then it may be a little bit self-indulgent. Thanks for understanding.

Thankful, etc.

Even when things are going just normally, I am still thankful for my life. I am thankful that I live in New York City, thankful to be healthy, married and not too old just yet. I am thankful for my friends, family and all the experiences I have had in the past. This is a good milestone for me because in the past I have been very depressive, very negative, very down on myself. That doesn’t really work for me anymore.

One day about 3 or 4 months ago, I was standing in a long line to apply for work at the Port Authority, and had a good conversation with the gentleman in front of me. The basic idea I took away from the conversation, his view of life was that we seek personal growth constantly, through school, career, relationships. It was reassuring to hear this, I felt less alone, less crazy. It was unusual for me to hear a stranger basically touch on these type of matters in an informal way- it gave me hope for the future. I can never make any snap judgements about people, I can never really know their interior life without talking to them at length about what matters to them. It seems obvious, but it is good to remind myself, especially in New York City of 10 million stories. It would be cool if we could talk to each other more about what really matters, what is important, what civilization is about. It speaks to our future as a community and the evolution of our culture, it is not just the domain of Graduate Students studying philosophy.

Tattoos – More

So, a friend of mine is getting some serious ink done, it seems to be a ‘practice’ tattoo, and has to do with his spiritual practice. I have several friends that have tattoos, ranging from the somewhat “low-rent” variety of swords, skulls, cartoon characters, etc., on up to what would be considered serious commissioned art. This tattoo falls into the art category and has really stuck a little in my mental filters. After thinking about all things tattoo and exploring same on the internet, I have come to some conclusions about where the value of them seems to lie. If I consider it as a communications phenomenon from a sociological standpoint, there are two aspects of the art form I am concerned with. 1) In the case of high art, the tattoo wearer seems to go through a process of design, and in this process, determines a symbol or combination of symbols that is important or meaningful to him or her. This process cannot help but be beneficial for personal growth, focus and clarity.  2) In the event that this logogram becomes a part of them, it can be a communications device, when exposed, it catches people’s attention and can serve to attract people of a similar mindset or belief. A pagan tattoo of say, a rune, green man or pentacle will attract the attention of other Neo-Pagans and maybe start a conversation. Likewise military tattoos, etc. It would also seem to have the property of repulsing people of a very different mindset. All this may seem obvious, but I have been interested lately in tattoos as an experience, being a bucketlister. Tattoos seem to be an experience that comes up frequently in my past conversations with people about bucketlisting. Tattooing is not one of the items on my list, but I can see why it comes up for consideration. I consider that the pain factor of it makes it incontrovertibly real, and in the case of a practice tattoo I can see the value of it. Every time the tattoo is seen, every time it is exposed- its tiny voice whispers to the wearer about the infinite, about Godhead in all its forms, about mortality and all things cosmological. It calls on the wearer to be mindful about what is most important to them, their spiritual growth and the potential of having to account to a higher power or deal with karma. All of us could benefit from a small but frequent nudge like that.

Internet Presence

Today I discovered that my current favorite singer, Jonas Kaufmann, is on MySpace. I have been fighting the idea of being on MySpace, though several of my friends are on it, due to concerns about privacy. I really like WordPress, because I can preserve a degree of privacy and still take advantage of the positive aspects of being accessible to the public. MySpace may end up getting me yet, although I don’t necessarily have a need for the publicity element of it. The bigger the artist, the less they have time to post and interact on the site, with the exception of course of Jonathan Coulton, who seems to have built a career off their space by creating a community of fans. It’s good for bands, but doesn’t seem to help the classical musicians that much. The people I know who use it seem to have fun with it and it appears to be a good way to keep in touch with people.  I am not that interested in posting my recordings and their blogging tool is really limited, so when it comes down to it, it may for me be more about what content I want to post and not so much about the connection element. I can’t shake the feeling that when I get my Real Estate investments up and running that I would see more value in being web-dead. If I am pulling in 3-5K per month in passive income, I have a feeling that I would be very averse to publicity that is not necessary to my company’s profile. Plus, I am the type of person that has very deep friendships with a small number of people, and I can always reach them. I would say that there are about 4, maybe 5 people that I am close to and invest time and energy into the relationship. I would like to add about 4 more, but due to distance, time and money constraints I have not been able to put as much energy into the relationships as I want. It makes me a little sad to think of it, but that is just part of where I am in life at this point.

Taking Refuge

I have been exploring the Wisdom Literature for some time now and came close to settling on a particular path and ‘taking refuge’ in it, which is a ritual of committing to that particular path. I have set aside some of my other influences that seem to distract from it although they are also good and helpful to me. To cut to the chase, the question in my mind is to commit to the single path, use its indications to the fullest extent, OR, continue to forge my own way, picking up practice here and there as I see fit. One of the problems is that a lot of what I find is self-contradictory when I look at one path, even in one case, the concept of taking refuge. Here I find the indications for a beautiful and helpful ritual, then when I look in the scripture, it says there is nothing to take refuge, no refuge anyway, (Anatta?) and all ritual itself is bad (a fetter!). Then I also find a detailed description of many Hell-Realms (Loka) which I have trouble with as a concept for several reasons. For example, lets take a criminal, a sociopath. Let’s make this person abused, violent, doing drugs, cruel as they can possibly get. They do the usual delinquent things, do not succeed in school and do serious time, the whole nine yards, rape, robbery, gangs, murder, America’s Got Talent (really rock-bottom). Seriously, say they finally wind up in the electric chair at the end of this miserable journey. Now, according to one path, due to karma and the need to expiate it, they spend millions of years (apparently) journeying through the hell-realms, suffering some amazingly creative torments for many thousands of lifetimes, (well, the spiritual equivalents for torment and time) which, as a prospect does not seem to come remotely close to fitting the crime. It doesn’t seem like justice on a proper cosmic scale, just the worst sort of vengeance gone way overboard. It also smacks of faulty cosmological design potentially unworthy of my belief or worship. Hell realms seem like more of a Christian’s gleeful dream of their enemies roasting while they gloat from across the void. I think it would be better justice for souls to live through the other side of their deeds with knowledge of it in order to clear the karma. It’s less time-consuming, it’s more efficient, gets the point across and the soul can evolve to the next incarnation.  It may be that if the Hell-realms exist and Karma is a M**F**r, then I would just need to deal with it if I take up this path. The main attraction to it is that after inventory, my Karma doesn’t seem too bad, basically I wouldn’t trade it. Also I am not keen on the idea of asking someone else for guidance, when does that process end? I strongly suspect I am at a point where I can continue the D.I.Y. approach, which seems to be what the biggies did, the historical pathbreaking enlightened people did. For example, Jesus apparently began his own ministry fairly early on, I don’t think he required too much guidance from the Rabbis of his time. Just the basics and then he rolled out to start his own, it seems. It appears to be the same for Siddhartha: the basics, then D.I.Y. under the tree after wandering. However there is another path where one of its leaders served a lot of apprenticeship before starting his own teaching, so I may not assume with complete certainty that D.I.Y. is going to be the fastest route. That path also has the drawback of one particular aspect being bizarre, and a somewhat bloody history of human sacrifice and sorcery. Since doing some of their indications, I have had some strange dreams, in one of which I was doing surgery on my own right eye with some type of handheld device. Disturbing. The path I was looking at recently as refuge has none of this. Yet, D.I.Y. may be what is right for me,  particularly if what Dan Millman says is correct: the school is everyday life, class is how we interact with each other, reality gives the grades.  I like the mindset, the warrior approach of D.I.Y., we fix it as we go, ready-FIRE-aim. If Christianity has wisdom, should I not internalize and use what I find? If Wicca has wisdom, their reverence for the Earth, should I not drink deeply and keep going? The Buddhist,  Sikh, Arican, Asatruar, Toltec,  Taoist, Erisian  – likewise should I not learn what truth they have discovered, make it my own and go? The unconditional, sacrificial love of Christ, the 4 Agreements of the Toltecs, the meditation techniques of the Buddhists and Aricans, the love of nature of the Wiccan and the humor of the Erisian…why not put these together with the self-reliant conviction of the Sikh? If I want to stand to pray like an Asatruar before their Holiest, accountable on the spot for my actions, why can’t I? Why couldn’t we all, the kneeling thing may be played out. ;-}  The only caveat to D.I.Y. is that I would have only myself responsible for my results. I wouldn’t be able to blame this monk or that priest or whoever spiked my ceremonial drink. Maybe that is as it should be, there is a lot of integrity there. It is my soul, my karma, my mystery to unfold. Buddha himself gave the instruction: work out your own salvation with diligence. I am ready for that kind of responsibility, let it go how it goes.

Recent Concerns

Do not feed the trolls! I just read an article in the Times about Internet Trolls, it really seems to me that these folks are a sad, pathetic waste of both time and flesh. However, they do have a point to the extent that we take the internet seriously. I strongly believe that the internet is basically a tool and is about 70% for entertainment, 20% for research and 10% social networking. I have WordPress, Mapquest, Google, iTunes, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Wall Street Journal, and the occasional game, maybe one other useful site and the rest is not particularly vital. Maybe others out there get more use out of it than me, but my life still is mostly to do with MeatSpace. I think it is possible to take the Internet too seriously and take what other people think too seriously. Kids get really caught up in this. I can’t seem to get into the whole MySpace or Facebook thing. As a society, I feel we are all too concerned with what other people think, its really not that important. This Blog, for example, is a tool for my own personal use and benefit, I am not really concerned if anyone reads it. The idea that people can is just something that makes me focus more on what I am saying and how I say it for the sake of clarity and integrity. I do get helpful feedback when people read it. I think if I ran into a troll here and their stupid, childish comments, I would not waste any time with engaging them. In MeatSpace, some of what they do and say would get them an instant hardcore bitchslapping, so I am sure their behavior away from the computer is very different than on it. Read the article if you need detail or JFGI.