The European Spring

This post is a prediction of a coming social revoluton that has recently become identifiable.

Its the European equivalent of the Arab Spring.

In the Arab Spring, the people stood up to brutal political dictatorships, which maintained power by taking it from the people.

The European Spring will also become a popular movement, spreading from country to country.

European and other western countries are characterised by politically Democratic financial dictatorships. Those with money, dictate the operation of countries. Financial crises, caused within the financial establishment, result in wealth being increasingly stolen from citizens. Citizens are forced to pay for the errors of the rich, time and time again. It is theft, pure and simple, on the most massive scale.

In Greece, many citizens have rejected the imposition of financial punishment, named “Austerity” – the theft of wealth from citizens to protect the incompetent financial dictatorship of the few.

The success of this revolution in Greece will inspire citizens in other European countries. They will use elections to reject the political establishment that has long been controlled by the financial establishment, the rich.

But it will not reach further. Other western nations will experience a revolution later on, based not on the issue of austerity, but on the disgust of massive betrayal which will become impossible to hide.

Until you get good at it

The game of life has levels. You must get good at each level before you can level up. You must develop skills, wisdom and talent at each level, so you can do well enough to stay at this level.

I’m referring to the souls development. Each level represents an increase in the complexity of life.

To get to the level of human, your soul had to pass many previous levels.

For example, lets look at the level of dog.

A spirit, upon satisfactorily completing a lower level, has its first go at being a dog. Yet, being unfamiliar with this host body, its not very good at it. It has no dog talent, because talent is the result of practice.

Clumsy, not good at getting food, not able to rise far in the pack heirarchy, trying to have sex with the same gender, or even other species, etc.

After some lives as a dog, skill and wisdom are developed. By the time this spirit nears the end of its series of dog lives, it is able to do dog pretty well. It can be a responsible and wise pack leader, live long and well, be a good teacher to less experienced dog spirits, etc.

Its the same for humans. Inexperienced spirits dont do human very well. They have no talent and don’t live well. Yet, after some lives, they will get it together and raise the level of their experience.

Everyone of us started out as an enexperienced player, and once we have developed out human skills, it is our responsibility to assist those less experienced that come our way. To engage in dialogue and teach better ways.

Ya gotta be bad to get real good

In the journey of spirit, or soul, there must be growth. This requires attachments, which are the result of many things such as doing bad things, experiencing love, feeling at home, having sex, etc. Making attachments adds physical mass to your soul, but it also restricts its freedom.

Ultimately, the soul no longer requires body after body for its growth, like the caterpillar no longer requires pieces of leaf to eat.

For the soul to move on to the next phase of its development, it must relinquish the attachments that both allowed it to grow and ties it down to repeating biological lives. To do this, a spirit must repay karma, endure misfortune, be kind and unselfish, not do those many things that create attachments, and finally let go of the attachments to the basic pleasures of being hosted by a human body.

When the time is right, every human will successfully make this transition, regardless of the evil deeds that spirit did for the purpose of creating attachments.

The transition from making attachments to relinquishing them is both natural and inevitable. The impersonal consciousness that steers your spirit chooses the timing of each phase. There’s no need to fret about not being there yet, or never getting there. You cannot hasten or stop it any more than you can the earth’s rotation.

Post-beer dissatisfaction

Now I’m enjoying post-beer dissatisfaction, where I look at random aspects of my life with amplified dissatisfaction and disgust.

I criticise myself for even being human, for my very nature. I find inadequacy where I usually have tolerance and peace. I desire changes where I usually accept stability.

I want this state of mind. I want my life to change. I’ve had enough of life as it is. I drank beer to get this state of mind above any other.

I’m not happy with my situation. I want to sabotage that which holds me back. I want out! I want whatever comes next. I don’t even care if it’s better. I cannot continue as I am.

When I awake in the morning, I will be a little different.

Tobacco smokers are like heroin addicts

Decades of observing the bahavior of tobacco junkies … prolonged close encounters with heroin and speed junkies … They all have a lot in common.

Nicotine and heroin …

•are among the most addictive drugs and are extremely hard to give up
•repress all emotions, good and bad
•have a culture of romantic defeatism associated with its addiction
•cause users to lack awareness of the consequences of their actions
•prevent thoughtfulness
•encourage intolerance
•precipitate self destructive habits, inconsiderate behavior
•stimulate irresponsible behavior

These effects stem from reduced emotional awareness. Heroin turns off emotions, nicotine gets rid of most of it.

Avoiding emotion is a mental strategy for getting through tough situations. Its suitable only for the short term.

Prolonged or indefinite emotion supression through chemical or other traditional psychological means, leads to mental illness and an increased level of dissatisfaction with life, along with an increased level of denial that things are not as desired.

Weaker than nicotine or heroin, but similar in its effects, is processed sugar.
Together, these three emotional suppressing agents are used by the vast majority of humans not living in poverty.
Almost everyone that can afford it is a junkie of some kind.

Evil eyebrows

This is a generalization about people with drawn-on eyebrows.

Some women remove their natural eyebrows and carefully draw fake eyebrows.

With a small percentage I have had no problem. When I meet someone with fake eyebrows I’m open to them being normal.

However, the bulk of my experience is that these women are totally dishonest, as fake as their eyebrows. They are the extreme of fake. Their words and deeds are quite inconsistent.

There’s just one more thing I want to say about fake eyebrows.

Ugly.

I forgot what I wanted to write about

It happens a lot.
I’m thinking away.
I like an idea.
I decide I will write about it.
But I want to keep thinking.
Not stop to make a note.
Sometimes I remember.
Sometimes I forget.
But I dont worry.
If it is meant to be written, someone will write it.
It doesn’t have to be me.
:-)

Local market harassment

I went for a walk to the local market near CoopMart in Buon Ma Thuot. Lots of fruit and vegetables, raw meat at both sides on the ground, tables or in carts. A motorbike traffic jam in the middle. I weaved through the chaos.

At one point I decided to take a picture. As I was about to shoot, an old guy came up, put his hand over my camera and pushed it down, aggressively telling me something in Vietnamese. Clearly he didn’t want me to take a photo. People nearby quickly and calmly stepped in to lead him away, assuring me that its ok to take a photo and that he is just a little crazy.

I continued on my way, and as I returned along the street, near the first incident, an old-ish woman approached me with a scowl and unfriendly sounding vietnamese. She held out her hand for money. I responded by shaking my head and walking off. She followed and cut me off, blocking my way by shoving me with her body toward a roadside cart – continuing with her scowling rhetoric. I said honestly that I didn’t understand and walked around her. She punched me in the back of my shoulder as I walked away.

Other than those two old crazy people, people were friendly as usual. I often go alone to local markets and out of the way places. I get a lot of raised eyebrows, stares and hello’s. I rarely get any kind of aggression and I have never felt unsafe.

Vietnam’s roadside vomit bags

Cycling in country Vietnam, Thailand and Laos is remarkably similar. Rough roads and rougher edges, dust, a lane of trash either side of the road, uncountable hello’s and stares.

One thing stands out in Vietnam as different. Vomit bags thrown from bus windows. Every few hundred meters. And always small black plastic bags with beige vomit.

Having been on the buses, I have seen the source of these bags, then I got to dodge them.

Copyright, piracy, cultural precedence and property rights

Digital technology has allowed the widespread copying of media.

Those upset by this, call it piracy. Those who obtain the media for free do so for many reasons – most superficially, to enjoy performances they cant afford to buy. However, they feel justified in accessing this media for free because artistic performance is not perceived as property in the usual sense.

The cause of this different interpretation of property is the global cultural precedent regarding artistic performance – that it is freely performed and enjoyed by all. It’s a prehistoric precedent. It is traditionally a community activity and social adhesive. It is also a psychological need.

The performance industry has chosen to profit from controlling access to artistic performances. It uses ownership to charge for access.
The artists have chosen (NOT independently or freely) to give up the ownership rights of their work to companies that control access to recorded performances.

The industry actively prevents outsiders from distributing and selling recorded performances through media sales outlets. It’s a monopoly.

In return for this restrictive industry monopoly, humans get a restricted selection of entertainment that includes a very small percentage of high quality performances. To access this selection, they must pay or steal.

Most choose to steal. Yet, by doing this, you are doing something wrong. The artist has chosen to make their work a piece of property, available through an industry – not through the traditional cultural networks – in order to achieve success as defined by that industry. To be a star and get rich.

Perhaps it is wrong for the artists and recorded music industry to demand so much profit for these performances. In any other industry, you would simply refuse to buy the product.

I respect the artist’s wishes, although I don’t agree with their manipulated choice. I don’t want to pay to possess recorded performances, so I just don’t have them.
This doesn’t stop me from enjoying recorded performances, but it means I largely forego the ability to choose exactly when and what I listen to. I’m quite satisfied with that.