The strip in Las Vegas isn't very much fun. Of course, I was there on a Sunday night. There was a bunch of construction, and the obligatory day labor folk handing out porn cards for escorts. Must be a better use for workers than this!

East End of London

I was doing some browsing and came across a couple of interesting web pages about London and the East End. One is about cemeteries in London, pretty creepy. After you read it, it seems like all of London must be over top of one. Consider this a belated Halloween post. The miseries of the poor Londoners of the East End.

http://eastlondonhistory.com/


http://www.londonburials.co.uk/

Bad management screwing the American Worker

Productivity by the American worker has had massive gains in recent years, yet incomes have not kept pace with inflation. More and more American workers do not even receive healthcare from their employers, instead burdening taxpayer funded government insurance plans.

Jobs have been offshored, this is old-hat, to finance an increase in the middle classes (or creation of) in places like China and India.

Where have the benefits of these reduced labor costs gone? Have median incomes in the USA gone up? No. Have shareholders been reaping the benefits of the cost savings through increased returns, ie Dividends? No.

Billions have been lost through the subprime debacle, and although the blame could be fairly widely spread on this - CEOs walk away with million dollar parachutes for running their companies into the ground. Who cares if you're taking on bad loans like a ship taking on water, if you have a golden yacht alongside waiting for you to depart?

Companies do not pay dividends anymore. Finally, after carnage in the stock market lately, dividend rates are up from the jokes they had been 1-3% (not outpacing inflation).

Governments and businesses are top-heavy, the American worker does the real work and will likely be shouldering the burden of cuts and lay-offs to come due to the economy.

Employees and investors are too busy pulling off incredible feats of productivity to call management on the carpet. To go to their union and complain about wages, to complain to management about the dividend policies. The time has come. The managerial revolution is over.

The American citizen should have been turned into a business owner of sorts during the offshoring of jobs (opportunities). Companies that offshored jobs should have faced taxes and/or tarrifs for so doing, and these should have been passed along to US citizens. Not as welfare, a government handout, but as a reward for making a good deal on unit labor costs. Work sucks - I'd rather be a business owner than an employee anyway.

What about employee owned companies? Eliminate management altogether. There would be an incentive to run things properly as everyone would have a stake in the success of operations.

If you don't work then you don't eat is what I say. The American worker works harder and better than any labor force in the world, and guess what? We're hungry.

Thinking for yourself

I really respect the type of knowledge that results from an intelligent person looking at the world around them, drawing from their reservoir of experiences and learning and coming to their own conclusions vs "going with the flow."

Culture comes with presuppositions, the languages we speak condition our thought. We slowly begin to be molded into a society, losing our ability to think for ourselves. We hardly know that there is anything missing. Until the electricity doesn't work, or our car breaks down, and we realize what boobs we've been for not having a flashlight, or a tire iron, cellphone, or 25 cents or whatever.

That's why I respect the hard-fought knowledge of folks like Howard Ruff. He has a new updated version of his classic from the 70s - How to Survive and Prosper in the Coming Bad Years. Folks like Ruff will prosper - because they do their own analysis. If you base your decisions off of CNBC you're screwed - you are the "Sheeple."

Same thing applies to any subject. The modern, cognitive-behavioral psychologies treat people like stimulus-response animals. Very pragmatic, but a poor excuse for a philosophy of man. Concepts like "empathy" are virtual trash to me, instead I prefer the insights of Heidegger and Medard Boss. Once again, we are not ghosts in the machine of a body. We do not need science to tell us that we communicate with others, that we use empathy.

Single family homes and Profiteering

I know one of the things that makes capitalism work, market economies, in the Grand old land of opportunity is the profit motive.

I am ok with people speculating, flipping, and causing chaos in downtown markets, in areas like Hawaii, San Diego, NYC etc. I draw the line with profiteering single family homes in the suburbs, where the thankless workers who fuel the whole system of wealth for others, are forced to reside in the few hours they have away from the ball and chain they call their job.

In the most recent article in Barrons, an article gets into detail about the workings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, well, how they used to work anyway, before the US government took them over in conservatorship.

Well, apparently in an effort to realize huge gains for shareholders, and increase their market share, they took on a lot of crappy paper that they shouldn't have. This means loans that wouldn't be paid back.

Fannie and Freddie buy mortgages to take them off the banks books so they can make new loans, and sold some of them away as securities - apparently guaranteeing them against default at least part of the time.

The article makes an interesting comparison. Utility companies are regulated, and I happen to know, from reading Security Analysis by the father of value investing, Benjamin Graham, that the oversight (ie Corporation Commission) sets limits on rate increases, and generally limits the companies/investor return to what is deemed reasonable - typically around 6% return on investment.

Why should scalpers be let loose in residential real estate, in the suburbs, to inflate home values to 2-3-4 times what median incomes can support? Why should our State, City governments depend upon nothing but the continual increase of housing values and employment from housing related acitivities for income?

This country needs Economic leadership - we need a national vision - we need to have a common goal. I think it could be something like a united effort to lead the way in curing diseases and alleviating human suffering. Something, for God's sake, more meaningfull than ever-expanding suburbs, with ever increasing values (not really), needing cheap, exploitable immigrant labor (funny how the immigrant labor managed to swarm in when it was needed, even in this post 9/11 world - can you say border security?)

Stop playing roulette with housing, you political jerks. Get a vision.

The Housing Bubble

Reviewing some real estate listings recently, I was surprised at just how many were short sale or lender owned properties. Then again, I usually had a hunch that they were when looking through the pictures you see pictures of a fully-furnished home, often with little chairs, toys and obvious miscellania showing that young children live(d) there.

We are a country of hard workers, there can be no doubt about that. The American work ethic is legendary. Most of us don't want handouts, we work for what we get.

When the stock market went crazy back in 2000 and then finally collapsed, some investors lost money. When Greenspan and the US government brought interest rates down near zero and spurred the housing bubble to inflate, they planted the seed for much chaos and suffering down the road.

Without so much as even giving an eye to the consequences, for who among us did not realize that prices were way out of hand? Does anyone actually smoke enough dope to think that prices can be maintained at a level 2-3 times more than average monthly incomes? Guess what, when the rate resets from the teaser rate, people get screwed every time.

The list goes on and on. Stated income loans.

What has been allowed to happen - the huge rise and fall in housing prices, has dealt a serious blow to many American households. As far as I know, there has been no scrambling efforts by the government to take care of the citizens who have been disenfranchised by this debacle. The scrambling efforts to save companies, Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, continues.

The sheer stupidity, I mean, to even think that the US government and regulators did not see this coming...well that sheer stupidity has caused some people to think the government has let this happen on purpose for some secret reason.

My point is, they have fouled the American Dream, have dealt an unwelcome blow, a slap in the face to the middle class. People who do nothing but go to work every day and try to scratch out a living and a better life for themselves and their children. Now they're taking away their homes. Disrupting lives. Causing divorces, suicides, murders, abuse, mental breakdowns.

Blame my silence on Windows XP

Had a major screw up with my computer - spent probably 16 hours this weekend between re-installing everything, running Virus scan and spyware searches (found nothing).

I've done a complete overhaul and even upgraded my memory and installed backups. I have the feeling there are some nasty malware circulating, probably exploiting Windows vulnerabilities. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not the only one having a computer meltdown.

One way to look at it: It certainly forces one to spend some money at the old computer store doesn't it?

Makes you think...maybe Norton and McAfee create viruses, maybe new startup spyware programs create terrible spyware. Maybe someone crashes Windows so you'll buy Apple.

Tightening the Screws on us

Here's a bonus post of some rants I've come up with through the years.

Lie #1: We must globalize or get left behind. Eventually, globalization will be complete and we will have the benefit of lower priced goods etc. Any arguments to this concept (and the offshoring of jobs) and we will label you as a dirty protectionist. You are interfering with the free market, and basically socialist.

Truth: We have surrendered our quality of life - that was earned on the backs of hardworking American labor and the service men and women since the birth of the nation. We have simply handed our quality of life over to other countries, to allow them to industrialize and gain rates of consumption which have already been shown to be unsustainable globally. (Think about the price of oil lately).

If the government wanted to globalize and take away all of our jobs, I say fine. Jobs suck anyway. Take a page from Kyosaki and turn us all into business owners. Charge a tariff for all the goods and services that are no longer produced here, and then send every United States citizen a monthly check. No this would not be entitlement, buddy. This would be smart business, earned income. Let someone else do all the dirty manufacturing, I'll sit around and write my blog all day and go cash the check that I earned by moving the production to a place where the unit labor costs are dirt cheap.

Lie #2: Technology will lead to massive productivity gains. The future is limitless. Every man, woman, and child, will eventually have so much free time on their hands that this may well cause its own crisis - therefore we must be prepared to create recreation plans for this coming wave of ennui.

Truth: Like regular productivity, gains from which are supposed to allow business to increase wages without causing inflation, productivity gains from technology have been skimmed like fat off the surface of a crock pot. The American worker sees no significant wage gain - definitely not enough to keep their hard-earned pennies in the bank or in their wallet from shrinking in purchasing power due to inflation of the money supply by the US Treasury.

If anything, this globalization and increase in technology has actually made our lives far less worth living. We are forced to buy ever cheaper (and more dangerous) products, and household goods from third world countries. Look at the country of origin on the next "USA" t-shirt you buy. Mine was made in El Salvador. The toothpaste will kill you, if the tomatoes and the jalapenos don't do the trick first.

Electronics are made on assembly lines, and it is pretty well known that a good portion of them will be lemons - that is - will be defective shortly after you bring them home. Most of the products we buy are significantly lower quality than they used to be when they were made in the USA and providing jobs to Americans. This is yet another way that we are screwed by inflation (as if this transfer tax had not taken enough of a bite out of our savings and earnings).

And to really smear our faces in our own...the US government has the gaul to use our tax dollars to bail out the banks and finance industry, who they were supposed to be overseeing, after they did absolutely nothing to stop the gigantic real estate bubble now busted, which is ruining the lives of countless people. Goldman Sachs runs this country. Paulson just got permission to basically use a blank check to bailout Fannie and Freddie, even to buy their common stock. Then they decide to start enforcing laws against naked short selling on certain financial companies.

*I wish the government would compensate me for my stock losses in the Tech bust.
*I wish the government would step in when a stock I own was going down the tubes.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, if this isn't protectionism, then I guess I don't know what the hell is. Haven' t had much of a chance to look into this new housing relief bill, but the concept that was floated around before of trying to make the lenders refinance underwater mortgages would invalidate contract law and be very bad for business.

But, I guess it doesn't matter. There will be plenty of jobs for us and our children serving coffee to our land barons in the future.

Profluence, Synchronicity

Two words I'm hard pressed to find exact definitions for. Profluence, I've lifted from the novelist and teacher John Gardner, used to describe the unfolding-in-time, causal chain of events that needs to be demonstrated in good fiction.

Synchronicity, I've lifted from Carl Jung. It ties in with Wayne Dyer's philosophy as well.
And, I assume it is fairly self-evident what it means, so I won't even attempt to define it.

I had just completed reading the first novel I've read by John Gardner, Nickel Mountain, after having completed Gardner's Becoming a Novelist, and being halfway-through his The Art of Fiction. All of these comments by Gardner regarding fiction, and what makes for interesting fiction (maintaining the "vivid and continuous dream" in the reader's mind), had got me thinking about fiction and life.

So many things, big and small, in my life have made their appearance at the exact right time. As if we are prepared for things to come. Probably everyone has had the experience of learning something new, and then days, or seconds later, coming across an example of what they just learned about. Part of this, no doubt, can be explained by the fact that we do not notice what we do not know.

But then again, there is a deeper sense of strangeness, that often attends these events. Perhaps a Heideggerian spirit of the times moves over a period, or a place and things congregate. At any rate, here is one of the small Synchronous stories that happened to me this afternoon.


Having taken pictures of an old Mission in San Diego, I had decided to send them via US mail to my Aunt. After digging around
for a proper envelope to send the CD and some papers in, I resigned myself to not having what I needed. Then, going into my room, on the top of my trash can, was an shipping envelope, of just the right size. It was padded like I needed, and then I noticed that it had two uncancelled stamps on it. Lo and behold, the postage scale in my house confirmed it had the exact postage. Synchronicity.

...but back to the idea of profluence in fiction. Is this a case of life imitating fiction, or fiction imitating life? Often the events in my life are lived out like a novel. We are prepared beforehand for events later to come, as if the author was preparing the reader for events in a later chapter.

And a vague, dreamlike idea on this note as well - if life is novel-like, I had the distinct sense that life is like free-falling from a great height - in the sense that you probably do not know the answers, cannot fully plumb the depths of meaning - until the last few moments before impacting the ground. Like reviewing one's life upon a deathbed, looking back, weighing it in the scales. You cannot judge a book by its cover, but you have to read clear through the last chapter before closing the cover and contemplating the meaning.

Even though witnessing strange events like I describe can make one see that things are meaningful - that is - not by chance, they cannot reveal what their meaning is at this point in time.

(For anyone interested in for more explanation of profluence in fiction, read more here. A webpage from some unknown (to me), fellow blogger.

California Fires - Big Sur

I've been reading stories that some of the fires in California are threatening Big Sur. This is very sad. There are many priceless historical cabins and buildings there, not to mention the beautiful landscape. Let's all keep the residents and firefighters in our prayers.

Here is a link to a webpage providing updates on the fires in the Big Sur area:
Big Sur Fire Status


And a link to the Henry Miller Library (which was apparently threatened by fire)Webpage: Henry Miller Library, Big Sur

Excuse my absence

[insert obligatory on summer vacation excuse for not posting here]

Jack London's concluding notes from Abyss

"If Civilization has increased the producing power of the average man, why has it not bettered the lot of the average man? There can be one answer only -- MISMANAGEMENT. Civilization has made possible all manner of creature comforts and heart's delights. In these the average Englishman does not participate. If he shall be forever unable to participate, then Civilization falls. There is no reason for the continued existence of an artifice so avowed a failure. But it is impossible that men should have reared this tremendous artifice in vain. It stuns the intellect. To acknowledge so crushing a defeat is to give the death-blow to striving and progress. One other alternative, and one other only, presents itself. Civilization must be compelled to better the lot of the average man." (London, 314).

Once again we are up against this lie of progress.

Also in this vein, here is a link to George Orwell's essay on Henry Miller, entitled Inside the Whale,
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/insidewhale_1.html

More from London's East End...

MORE FROM Jack London's The People of the Abyss

"The unfit and the unneeded! The miserable and despised and forgotten, dying in the social shambles. The progeny of prostitution -- of the prostitution of men and women and children, of flesh and blood, and sparkle and spirit; in brief, the prostitution of labor. If this is the best that civilization can do for the human, then give us howling and naked savagery. Far better to be a people of the wilderness and desert, of the cave and the squatting-place, than to be a people of the machine and the Abyss." (London, 288).

Is London's "howling and naked savagery" a sly comment on
Thomas Hobbes who comments in his book Leviathan (to paraphrase) that life without government is "nasty, brutish and short?"

I also came across a couple of poems by the English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold, and one specifically about the East End.

After skimming through a fairly comprehensive Wikipedia article on The East End of London, I believe my next purchase will be a book by the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, entitled In Darkest England and the Way Out.

More from The People of The Abyss...

"The application of the Golden Rule determines that East London is an unfit place in which to live. Where you would not have your own babe live, and develop, and gather to itself knowledge of life and the things of life, is not a fit place for the babes of other men to live, and develop, and gather to themselves knowledge of life and the things of life. It is a simple thing, this Golden Rule, and all that is required. Political economy and the survival of the fittest can go hang if they say otherwise. What is not good enough for you is not good enough for other men, and there's no more to be said." (London, 212-213).

Here is a link to the full text of the book, including pictures, online:
http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/

London's East End of the 1900s

I'm currently reading The People of the Abyss by Jack London. I came across this book after having previously stumbled upon George Orwell's book Down and Out in Paris and London, and then having found out from a friend that Orwell was inspired to write the book by having read this book by Jack London growing up.

Surprising how persistent and identical the problems of poverty have been, perhaps unchanged since the start of industrial capitalism. The book has the tone of a documentary, but a sad and heartbreaking one at that. London effectively relates the tales of the "vast and malodorous sea" which he encounters upon submersing himself in the East End of London. I'd like to quote the following from the book, regarding the "efficiency," or lack thereof of workers, and the effect this inefficiency has on people falling into "The Abyss":

"It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers themselves, but is determined by the demand for labor. If three men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The other two, no matter how capable they may be, will none the less be inefficients. If Germany, Japan, and the United States should capture the entire world market for iron, coal and textiles, at once the English workers would be thrown idle by hundreds of thousands. Some would emigrate, but the rest would rush their labor into the remaining industries. A general shaking up of the workers from top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium had been restored, the number of the inefficients at the bottom of the Abyss would have been increased by hundreds of thousands. On the other hand, conditions remaining constant and all the workers doubling their efficiency, there would still be as many inefficients, though each inefficient were twice as capable as he had been and more capable than many of the efficients had previously been.

When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do, just as many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and as inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful destruction. It shall be the aim of future chapters to show, by their work and manner of living, not only how the inefficients are weeded out and destroyed, but to show how inefficients are being constantly and wantonly created by the forces of industrial society as it exists to-day." (London 200-201).

It's still the same sham being pulled on us today. No one realizes it because they don't bother to look beneath the surface, to turn off the television set and the biased flow of brainwash they feed us through the media. Question government statistics.


London, Jack. The People of the Abyss. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993.

Chinese Medicine

Here is a NY Times article regarding Heparin, a blood thinner, and its contamination, which allegedly caused 81 deaths. The article identifies a Chinese subsidiary as the source of the contaminant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/health/policy/30heparin.html?ref=health

We can deal with outsourced jobs, buying $0.99 flip-flops from Walmart that were made in China and shipped across the ocean to us, but when it comes to poisons in our medicine, will we finally draw the line?

I'm not so sure any of it will matter anyway, in several years when the only jobs we have are walking around pouring coffee for each other.

I'm Damned Aggravated and Howlin Wolf

So Aggravated...

For starters my POS computer CPU light is on all the time and can't seem to handle doing anything more than Microsoft Calculator before it's starts acting like a complete POS.

They make better comptuers, and then Microsoft, RealPlayer, Spysweeper, Norton, McAfee, Winzip, and every other vendor juices up there software so we're back at square one in terms of efficiency and speed.

Sorry, that was just the last straw.

*******************

Some times the only thing that keeps me sane is the Bluesman Howlin' Wolf.

I just bought another CD at the used CD store. I can tell you that in my part of the country Blues is not really popular.

So I am listening to the Wolf minister to me with lyrics like:

"I have had my fun if I never get well no more,"

and

"I didn't mean to do you no harm."

Wolf, you never did me no harm.

The best buy I ever made was a Howlin Wolf Remastered Gold CD (which I bought for about $8, now they go for around $100). Some of the tunes on this, loaded with harmonica, guitar, bass, and of course, the Wolf, are in such perfect synchrony that, to me, I smile and suddenly I feel like I am somewhere in the sweltering Southern Delta listening to this band, which has now melded into a set of lungs pumping air through the vocal chord of SOUL. The guitar groans and I feel like I can feel the years of senseless toil, heartbreak, discontent, weariness, untiring weariness. But more than just the expression of these, it is a catharsis - a release of all these things that drag a man down, letting them roll off of your nose like a drop of sweat.

Sing it Wolf

In the World with Others

The following is a quote that a friend gave me:


"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music--the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

~Henry Miller

One of the things I admire the most about the philosophy of Heidegger, is the notion of this Being or Dasein, the idea that we are always and from the start already with the people, places, times and objects of our shared world. This is Mitsein, Being-with.

There is no Cartesian impasse; we are not ghosts in the machines of a body, we are not prisoners to our subjective (and rational) consciousness. Res Cogitans and Res Extensa, Descartes Ontological categories are mistaken.
(see http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/r9.htm)

There is no need to create an intellectual, rational bridge from us to the world, to others. We don't need to kick and worry how to escape from a cocoon.

Although I admire them, psychologists and authors such as Rollo May, Carl Rogers, and Binswanger are simply on the way towards Being. Binswanger felt he needed to supplement Heidegger's notion of Care with one of love. Medard Boss understood Heidegger perfectly.

Oak Creek Canyon

Spent some time at Oak Creek Canyon this weekend. It was beautiful, as always. I couldn't find any trout, however, and after I got back to my hotel I read in the guide that the ranger station puts out, that it is stocked with fish in the summer months.

I don't know the life cycles of trout and such, but it seems to me there were none to be had.

Modern Medicine

Another trip to a doctor's office today. While I'm hoping this one will bear some fruit, or help me improve my quality of life, I couldn't help but feel frustrated once again. I get the impression that doctors these days are another part of the machinery.

The mass-production, distribution machinery to get us well enough to go back to work and that's it. I know I shouldn't saddle individual doctors with the burden of healing the world, but I don't get the feeling that they have much curiosity anymore.

With all of our technological advances and the increased communication made possible by the internet, I would expect an increase in revolutionary drugs, cures for diseases, and every other sort of miracle. I don't see it happening, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

It's scary to think that what drives innovation is simply profit, that companies decide what gets studied and what sits on the shelf.

With the Social Security and Medicare programs set to be bleeding our government dry, I'm worried about the prospects for even maintaining our current levels of health care.

Maybe we go back to leaving the sick and old out on the hillsides to perish.

Wouldn't it be nice if we spent all the time, money, lives, and energy that we spend on war on curing all the diseases and ills that plague us?

Forgive my ramblings.

Big Sur - Hurricane Point

"In grappling with the mystery of 'chance' we may be unable to render suitable explanation but we cannot deny that we are made aware of laws beyond the reach of human understanding. The more aware we become the more we perceive that there is a relation between right living and good fortune. If we probe deep enough we come to realize that fortune is neither good nor bad, that what matters is the way we take our (good or bad) fortune. The common saying runs: 'To make the most of one's lot.' Implicit in this adage is the idea that we are not equally favored or disfavored by the gods.

The point I wish to stress is that in accepting our fate we are not to think that things were destined thus or that we were singled out for special attention, but that by responding to the best in ourselves we may put ourselves in rythm with higher laws, the inscrutable laws of the universe, which have nothing to do with good or bad, you and me.

This was the test which the great Jehova put to Job." (Miller 226-227).

Miller, Henry. Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1957.

Big Sur

I just finished reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which I enjoyed even though I was a bit surprised at its lack of polishing.

Now I've started a book by Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. So far it looks promising, more so than Miller's Air Conditioned Nightmare, which was pretty much just blah for me. But having visited Big Sur myself recently, and having read Air Conditioned Nightmare which precedes this book, I think I might enjoy this one. Here is an excerpt I just read:

"Some will say they do not wish to dream their lives away. As if life itself were not a dream, a very real dream from which there is no awakening! We pass from one state of dream to another: from the dream of sleep to the dream of waking, from the dream of life to the dream of death. Whoever has enjoyed a good dream never complains of having wasted his time. On the contrary, he is delighted to have partaken of a reality which serves to heighten and enhance the reality of everyday."

From reading the first 28 pages, I think that Miller makes very accurate observations of Big Sur. I was surprised, when, coming back from my trip there, I read Kerouac's book by the same title and realized that it was apparently not just me who saw the overpowering and in a way frightening force of Big Sur. I think Big Sur, by Miller, will be an enjoyable read.

Harmony

I'm currently reading from Paul Tillich's The Meaning of Health, and it has pulled together some various ideas I've had floating around in my head over the years. First of all, the introduction, by Paul Lee, draws the comparison between immunology and the mental. To me, the immune system is a clear area where the "mental" and the "physical" interact. Not to say that I believe these respective categories are even valid, but given our scientific medical times, I would venture a guess that this will be the most vital and interesting area of study in the next 50 years or so.

As regards the title of this post, Harmony, I would like to leave you with a few points. (Also related to Tillich's book). Viewing health in terms of a wholeness, we can see that it is of vital importance to have harmony in our existence, in our lives. I think of this in terms of "vectors," like in physics. We can multiply the power of our efforts if they are harmonius, or we can negate our own efforts if they are conflicting.

The point is, to align our energies; align our "will" and the even more inclusive term "Intention."

The same energies that are vital to mankind; the energies (some have called libido) that push us out into the world to live our lives, can propel us toward fulfillment, or consume us if turned against each other. Are we able to live our lives under the Sun in one consistent arrow --> ?

If so, it is a life of integrity.

Attunement

One of the more important ideas I discovered from the existential philosopher Heidegger, an idea more fully flushed out in its significance by the Psychologist Medard Boss, who used Heidegger's philosophy, is that of Attunement.

For example:
A man who is starving can only see in the world all those things which correspond to his hunger, to the extent that the things in his environment reveal themselves to him, they are likely to reveal only their edible qualities, for instance. For his existence is attuned to hunger, and this is the way his Da-sein (Being) is open to the world.

Medard Boss puts these ideas to excellent use to explain the meaning of dreams, in contrast to Freudian theory which involves completely hypothetical and unrealistic assumptions - such as creating a dream censor that decides what content to "filter out." (so is there a little man in our heads, then, deciding for us? The paradox of an "unaware awareness.")

I will leave you with a few of my own reflections along this line of thought, which has been fruitful to me: It is impossible to remain in a state (attunement) of anxiety when you make efforts to be in a state of love, or Care (another fundamental concept itself for Heidegger).

If I have found anything to be the polar opposite of anxiety, it is Care and Love.

It is along the lines of this notion of "Attunement," that I relate Wayne Dyer's Power of Intention to Heidegger's existential philosophy. From Dyer;
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

Dyer immediately makes the leap to suggest that our attunement (he does not use the term himself) has an effect of drawing certain things closer or farther from us, and therefore advises things such as remaining in a state of constant gratitude. I see the reasoning behind his thinking, and in a sense it is well-known and common; ie "What you fear finds you." However, I have not quite yet arrived at the conclusion myself from the standpoint of Understanding, e.g. the process by which our existence can repel or attract things that are usually viewed as being quite separate from our "thoughts," such as money, being in a certain place etc.

If we can bring what we desire into our lives simply by the way we exist, more specifically by paying attention to the way we exist, the way we choose to live in and see the world, the potential is unlimited for attracting all the good things we want into our lives.

Spread too thin


In the time we live in we are pulled in many different directions. The technology that was supposed to make our lives simpler, and better has instead betrayed us. We find ourselves slaves to cell phones, computers, television, i-pods and all manner of time wasting devices. Yet we still have less vacation time than any other industrialized nation.

(Not to mention the fact that as this technology becomes cheaper and cheaper as newer and newer devices and technology come out, it provides a perfect disguise for the transfer tax, the robbing and fleecing of savers, [especially including the ever dependable backbone of the country, the middle class] better known as Inflation. This is the money illusion hard at work, although this is a topic for another blog. The bottom line is that inflation benefits borrowers and penalizes lenders. It hurts savers and encourages taking on debt.)

I find that our Being is likewise over-extended, pulled in too many different directions. Our sense of presence has evaporated until being becomes nothing but a vapor, a gas. There are too many things placing a claim on our existence, which is virtually a Heideggerian definition of what Stress is. (A much superior definition of stress, overcoming all of the inherent absurdity, juggling, and inconsistency of the cartesian subject-objects, and hence modern medical and psychological views of stress)

Is there a way to cause this evaporating, ever expanding, center of ourselves to condense? Or must we always live in the manic, ever-expanding-without-limit razor's edge of the universe? Hurtling at light speed towards the nothing, or as someone may call it, Running to Stand Still.

It seems to me that the best moments in life occur not while we sprint ahead in a manic fog of confusion, chasing some illusion of progress (which may or may not be tied to a now defunct idea of the American Dream), but in those rare, quiet moments when we can afford to offer ourselves to others in a meaningful exchange, take the time to actively listen, to cultivate & grow as persons.

Promising new study results regarding ulcerative colitis:

"Experts claim bowel disease cure

Experts at one of the country's leading scientific research centres

believe

they have discovered a cure for the chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
A team from University College Dublin's Conway Institute successfully used a new class of drugs to treat the debilitating illness which affects 15,000 people in Ireland.
Researchers are now teaming up with experts at University of Colorado to develop a safe way for people to use the drugs. Current therapy and treatment options are very limited and surgery to remove sections of the intestine is often the only option. Professor Cormac Taylor, from the Conway Institute, said the treatment has the potential to completely reverse the symptoms of IBD."

Here's a link to the article

I stayed home from work today sick and caught a movie on AMC called "Awakenings" with Robert Deniro and Robin Williams. It's about patients with some form of encephalitis, who were basically comatose and catatonic, until treated with some form of Dopamine. This led to some temporary "awakening," in the case of Deniro's character, after 30 years. I don't know the story behind the movie, but I may look into it. I highly recommend it, I don't know why I never heard of this one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/

Recommended Reading

The following is a book list that I'm working on. Forgive me for slapping it right here in the midst of my blog. When I get time I will make it look better.


Recommended Book List (work in progress)

Fiction
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Interesting book by Orwell detailing hand-to-mouth existence in Paris, where he works in the kitchens of Paris hotels and in London, where he lives the life of a "tramp" (apparently an outdated English word for homeless). Things get so bad he has to pawn clothes to purchase bread! Trust me when I say this book makes 8 hour work days not seem so bad after all.

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
This book gets by basically for being in Paris and being "existential."

The People of the Abyss by Jack London
Details London's trip to the East End of London in the early 1900s. Much more like a documentary than the above book by Orwell, London brings up many important points regarding the hardships and dilemmas imposed on the peoples he is among - a "vast and malodorous sea." Highly recommended.

The Iron Heel by Jack London
Yeah, I probably don't want to give links to Amazon when I recommend anti-plutocracy overtures like "The Iron Heel."
[I will post comments after I finish the book - I had never known London wrote a book like this - As Orwell followed London, even into the slums of the East End, this is undoubtedly a strong influence on Orwell to write 1984...very exciting!]

Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World
I found out about this book from my studies of analyzing stocks. Specifically, after having read the "Bible of value investing," Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham. I have also not read this yet, but have purchased it and cannot wait!! I have not verified it, but a comment on the review on Amazon.com mentions that this book was also an influence on Orwell to write 1984. I have a lot of synchronicity going on right now with my reading...

Ask the Dust by John Fante
Written in the 1930s, still a pretty decent modern book. Trials of a starving writer in LA.

Non-Fiction

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
True story of Christopher McCandless, who goes on a series of adventures, ultimately perishes tragically in the "Fairbanks 142" bus in Alaska.

Everett Ruess-A Vagabond for Beauty by Vicky Burgess, W.L. Rusho and John Nichols
Another true story, though Everett begins his adventures at a much younger age than Christopher McCandless. Travels through California, Big Sur, Carmel, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Navajo lands. Disappeared and never found in 1934 in Utah. Amazing story.

Thirty-Seven Days of Peril by Truman Everts
Amazing book (more of a short story) about a man stranded and on death's doorstep in Yosemite in the 1800s. Incredible.
*Available for free at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30924

Existential Philosophy
Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger
Pre-dating Heidegger's Being & Time, originally given as a lecture course. Heidegger discusses "Being" (Da-Sein), including frequent references to pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy, such as Parmenides.

Zollikon Seminars: Protocols - Conversations - Letters by Martin Heidegger (author) Franz Mayr (Translator)
Documenting a series of meetings and lectures between Heidegger and Medard Boss and medical students.


Existential Psychology *some of these titles are out of print

Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis by Medard BossMedard Boss, a follower of the German Philosopher Martin Heidegger, compares his psychology of Daseinsanalysis to Freudian Psychoanalysis and finds there are some worthwhile contents in Freudian therapy as opposed to Freudian theory. This is not the best text to read for an introduction to Medard Boss.

Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology by Medard Boss
Boss explains the Daseinsanalytical view of the true basis of medicine in contrast to the physicalistic, reductionist, and deterministic medical model. This book offers a decent overview of Boss' psychological adaption of Heidegger's Philosophy, however, Boss' books on dreams offer a clearer entry point into daseinsanalytical insight, especially if you are interested in dreams.

Analysis of Dreams by Medard Boss
The older of Boss' two books in English regarding Dreams. This one is more about the Daseinsanalytic insights applied to dreams - in other words theory - than his later book, which contains more examples of patient's dreams.

I Dreamt Last Night by Medard Boss and Stephen Conway
The later book by Boss, which provides more examples of patients dreams and their daseinsanalytical explanations.

Existential Psychology by Rollo May
The Discovery of Being: Writings in Existential Psychology by Rollo May

Psychoanalysis and Existential Philosophy Edited by Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek
(A compilation of many great existential writings, including Medard Boss)

Readings in Existential Psychology and Psychiatry (Studies in Existential Psychology and Psychiatry) Edited by Keith Hoeller
This book is a treasure - the essay on the will be Farber and on anxiety by Boss have the potential to be life-changing. This is a must read if you can find it.

Theistic Existentialism / Theology

The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
A master work by a master thinker.

Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition of Edification & Awakening by Anti-Climacus (Penguin Classics)-Kierkegaard
This book regards despair and the self...
~anthropological in nature, instructive (subtitled 'Psychological Exposition')

Fear and Trembling (Penguin Classics)-Kierkegaard
This book regards faith
~anthropological in nature, instructive

The Concept of Anxiety : Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol 8 -Kierkegaard
~A Psychological Exposition
This book regard hereditary sin and anxiety (aka The Concept of Dread)

Why is it that when we encounter someone who appears to be anxious, we generally have a negative reaction, or ourselves become uncomfortable?

Viewing anxiety in terms of the fear of "being thrown back on oneself," this reaction seems to be a mystery. In living with chronic illness, I often feel my anxiety as the storehouse of energy that I have, but am unable to translate into use for various reasons. So, if anxiety was a sign of stores of unactualized possibilties for living, why would it have a negative connotation? What survival value does this impart?