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I feel odd, but not odd.  Or rather I don’t want to feel odd because I have no reason to feel odd.  How odd is that?  I haven’t done anything physical today.  Perhaps that’s why I feel odd.  I finished reading The Dharma Bums for the second time.  And for the second time, I enjoyed the read.

I read the West Point Way of Leadership by Colonel Larry Donnithorne.  There were only a few useful nuggets in the book.  Most of it was a pep rally advocacy for West Point.  I am a West Pointer, so on the one hand the pep rally stuff is OK for an insider, but for useful leadership material to an outsider, it’s pretty weak.  I can’t believe the publishers tried to equate the book with the same level of importance as Sun Tzu.

I did like the prayer the other mentioned that one of classmates carries around in his wallet:

Care more than others think is wise
Risk more than others think is safe
Dream more than others think is practical
Expect more than others think is possible

All this reading on leadership has made me re-realise the importance of leadership in every day life or even leadership as a lifestyle and that even in my role as father I am a leader and need to act accordingly. I am the pack leader.

There’s a symposium tomorrow at the local Catholic college and the question on the table is: “Are morals a thing of the past?”

I can guess what the Catholic school is going to say, what’s your view?

I like to climb a mountain at the start of the year.  Yesterday, my friend Will and I climbed Mount Snowdon in North Wales. It is a mountain that I am intimately familiar with.
Snowdon is my temple and I go there to contemplate life, love, and the universe.  It was a perfect day to climb a mountain.  The weather was dry.  The sun was out.  The wind was cold and the mountain was covered with a light flooring of snow.

We talked about a great many things and the mountain, as high priest, listened with great patience to our confessions, our fears, our worries, and our dreams.  When we reached the top, the mountain baptized us with fierce wind and snow.  I felt my sins absolved.  And then the mountain sent us on our way with its blessings.

I am now ready to embrace the continuing adventure of life in 2008.

Amen.

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“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.â€? – Apple Computers

A samurai, a very proud warrior, came to see a Zen Master one day. The samurai was
very famous, but looking at the beauty of the Master and the Grace of the moment, he
suddenly felt inferior.

He said to the Master, “Why am I feeling inferior? Just a moment ago everything was
okay. As I entered your court suddenly I felt inferior. I have never felt like that before. I have faced death many times, and I have never felt any fear — why am I now feeling
frightened?”

The Master said, “Wait. When everyone else has gone, I will answer. ”

People continued the whole day to come and see the Master, and the samurai was getting
more and more tired waiting. By evening the room was empty, and the samurai said,

“Now, can you answer me?”

The Master said, “Come outside.”

It was a full moon night, the moon was just rising on the horizen. And he said, “Look at
these trees. This tree is high in the sky and this small one beside it. They both have
existed beside my window for years, and there has never been any problem. The smaller
tree has never said to the big tree, ‘Why do I feel inferior before you?’ This tree is small,
and that tree is big — why have I never heard a whisper of it?”
The samurai said, “Because they can’t compare.”
The Master replied, “Then you need not ask me. You know the answer.”

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

In keeping with the tradition to review the passing year, here are my 10 favorite posts of 2007:

1.  pursue your passion

2.  top five health benefits of regular sex

3.  reason is a whore

4.  pleasure is good

5.  life is a mind game

6.  smart girls do like sex

7.  who is this guy?

8.  and the dead poets go

9.  my talented torturess

10.  puddles

I got a call from the tree whisperer asking me if wanted to go spend some time in the forest with him and his sister.  One of the things I miss about the U.S. is being able to hike in the woods for days without ever seeing a road or clearing for miles.  In the UK, this is a rarity.

So when the tree whisperer asked me if I wanted to go to the Forest of Dean, I said yes, of course.

The tree whisperer was on a quest.  He was using the Christmas holiday to explore the few forests that remain in England.  He wanted to see what he could learn from the trees.

Trees remind of the Druids who were a class of Celtic priest who believed in the sacredness of trees.  They conducted their religious ceremonies in the open-air oak groves.  The word druid is said to be derived from the Celtic words for oak and truth du and druidh.

Of course the Romans painted the Druids as a nefarious group of long robe wearing men who sacrificed humans for the sake of trees.

We didn’t have a plan, or a map when we arrived at Parkend, which is situated at the southern end of the Forest.  There’s only one thing to do in those circumstances and that’s to pick a cardinal direction and start walking, but not before feasting on a couple of jam sandwiches.

We started north up a hardball road and then took the first cut in the woods we found.  After 10 minutes the rush of the road faded and was replaced with the soft quietness of damp woods.  Childhood memories of me wandering in the woods near our house drifted in and out of the smell of pine needles.

It’s been a few years since I’ve been in a woods this deep.  We walked for a few hours, stopping and playing along the way. When I was a kid, I used to wander in the woods and marvel at the abundance of flora and fauna.  I was pleasantly surprised to find the magic of the woods still alive.

Sadly, the shortness of winter days limited us to a few hours of frolicking in the trees.  When the spring comes, I plan to revisit the Forest and explore some more.

I’m in that inevitable twilight zone between Christmas and New Year. Mentally I am finished with 2007, but not quite yet ready for 2008, which leaves me in limbo.

I went for a short hike today, up into the hills to see the White Horse. In the afternoon I had some lovely haggis and then packed my truck up like the gypsy that I am and headed back to Bristol.

I’m contemplating going to the Forest of Dean tomorrow to hang out in the trees and see what they have to say.

Merry Christmas to everyone out there who celebrates Christmas as Christian holiday.  Happy holidays to everyone else whatever your religious or non-religious persuasion happens to be.  I’m celebrating the day with family and friends in Westbury.  There will be plenty of good cheer, plenty of eating, and plenty of gift giving.

As I am actually writing this on the 24th of December, I can’t tell you yet what presents I may or may not have gotten.  Plus I don’t know which list of Santa’s I made it onto in 2007.  I’d like to think I made it onto the nice list.  Hey but what’s nice to some people might be down right naughty to others.

Anyway, my friends, have a fantastic day whatever you’re doing.

Peace,

Clay

I’m officially on holiday. I initially thought I would take a break from blogging, but I have since decided that I will continue even on me hols because as I wrote in post 114 every day is a holiday.  I’m not a big Christmas fan, but I do use the time to just hang out with family, reflect on the past year, and decide where I want to go in the new year.

I picked this little gem from an email I received:

When the student is ready the teacher appears.
When the thinker is ready the idea appears.
When the artist is ready the inspiration appears.
When the servant is ready the purpose appears.
When the athlete is ready the performance appears.
When the leader is ready the vision appears.
When the lover is ready the partner appears.
When the disciple is ready God appears.
When the teacher is ready the student appears.
– Robert Holden

I finished reading The Average American Male and I thought what a grim commentary on the American Male psyche. What is even more scary is that Chad Kultgen isn’t far off the mark in describing what men think about most of the day, which I am sure you have already guessed, is sex, videogames and more sex.

I remember one hard-ass, male-hating female lieutenant colonel who started one of her presentation to a group of cadets with the startling statistic that the average male thinks about sex every 7 seconds. Is this true guys? Do we really think about sex that much?

Chad Kultgen’s main characters certainly lays bare this static. In every single chapter he is having sex, thinking about sex, watching porno, jerking off, or fantasizing about sex with every single female he sees. He tells his friend Todd that he would fuck 98% of the women he sees. You get the impression that the other 2% must be invalid or near-death in order to not warrant being considered for any kind of sexual intercourse.

The Average American Male is like a triple X-rated version of John Gray’s book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. In fact, I wish one of you ladies out there would write the female version of The Average American Male. I would welcome a read of The Average American Female. I would love to know what women really think about?

Chad Kultgen paints women as Venus Flytraps. The women in his book basically do what ever it takes to lure men in (re fuck them every way imaginable multiple times a day), make them feel all funny inside (re love), and then, when the guy is sedated with thoughts of endless blissful sex, suck the soul out of them with marriage and leave them bumbling, porn watching, jerking off husks of men.

I would like to believe this is not true, but history tells me different, biology proves it, and psychology shows all the crazy things a guy will do for those inevitable last few seconds of mind-blowing orgasmic sex.

Women were designed to attract and keep men. Men were designed to make babies. This is how the species of man survives.

Ok. I am digressing into my own psychotic shit. Back to the book. The Average American Male is as brilliant as it is vulgar. As Toby Young put it, “I can’t figure out if this book is a heartfelt dispatch from the front line in the battle of the sexes, or a brilliant send-up of the way the male point of view has been misrepresented by militant feminists.”

I enjoyed reading about myself however painful it is to admit that all I think about is sex, sex, and more sex. Fuck the videogames!

If I thought that I were making
Answer to one that might return to view
The world, this flame should evermore cease shaking.

But since from this abyss, if I hear true,
None ever came alive, I have no fear
Of infamy, but give thee answer due.

Dante’s Inferno (Canto XXVII, lines 61 – 66)

1. Pursuit of Flesh

The monsoon rain fell heavy upon the jungle canopy, pounding relentlessly until he thought the rain would destroy the jungle. The rain had cooled the air so that now a dense fog lingered amongst the heavy vegetation and the darkness, making it nearly impossible for him to see where he was going. The night was never this dark in the civilised world – the world of men and cities.

He stood, pressed against a tree, hugging it like a long lost friend. The wet moss soothed his battered face. Fresh blood dripped from his swollen lower lip and mingled with the rain water coursing through the scattered trench lines in the bark. He wore no shirt and no shoes, only a tattered pair of U.S. Army jungle fatigues. Around his neck hung a pair of stainless steel dog tags that read, ‘Holis King, 255-09-3421, O Positive, Christian.’

Holis closed his blackened eyes and slipped his tongue out to catch the rain. He was tired and wary and needed to rest, but he also needed to run, for he knew that they would be coming for him soon. Already he could hear the baying of the hounds echoing through the jungle; their muffled cry competed against the pounding rain, making it hard for him to judge whether the hounds were near or far. At least the rain would mask his scent.

His tormentors would not be so easily deceived by the rain; they were excellent trackers, and the wet ground would more likely betray him. Besides, they knew the condition of his feet would not let him get very far, very fast. He could do nothing now but keep moving and pray the jungle would hide him like a frightened woman whose husband had come home to soon while her lover lie in her bed.

As punishment for his first attempt to escape, his tormentors had taking his combat boots and his shirt. His failed second attempt ended in a session with Phan Trong Chinh, the Doctor, as he was known amongst the inmates. They feared and loathed Phan Trong Chinh, but the mere whisper of his name by the camp guards was enough to make them compliant to their tormentor’s will. An appointment with the Doctor could last a few hours or a few days and never ended with the patient feeling better, but the memories cured any future thoughts of disobedience.

Holis had spent four hours with the Doctor. Four hours he spent crying like a newborn baby, four hours cursing the day he had been drafted in to the army, four hours denouncing the country he loved, four hours wishing he had never been born, and four hours wishing he could die.

Phan Trong Chinh had beat the bottoms of feet repeatedly with a bamboo stick rendering them into a mangled pulp of blood and shredded flesh. The Doctor, his eyes alight with sardonic laughter, had delivered each blow with orgasmic intensity, sweating and panting at each yelp of pain that escaped Holis’ quivering lips.

For his recovery, they shoved him in a metal box that afforded him only enough room to lie curled in the foetal position. The cell had no light; it’s only air hole doubled as the drainage hole for his excrement. He laid in the darkness of his cell until time became no time; his past, present, and future mixed with the acrid smell of blood, sweat, and urine. His only comfort was the Code of Conduct he whispered over and over to himself:

I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape.

I will never forget that I am an American fighting man, responsible for my actions and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and the United States of America.

When his tormentors had deemed he had learned his lesson, they released him from his box. He could not stand on his feet for weeks and was reduced to having his fellow inmates carry him around the camp on a stretcher.

Holis did not try to escape again – until now.

That his tormentors had had not found him yet was a miracle, and if he wanted to remain free, he needed to keep moving under the darkness and cover of the rain and fog. He knew that if he headed south, he would eventually reach friendly lines and the salvation of his own troops.

To be continued…

I was bored out of my mind at a presentation when I drew this:

(Click the image for a larger view)

From what I have read, I like the guy.  He seems to be a person with vision.  People, who know what they are about, inspire me.  The fact that he has come from a modest background and worked his way to be in a position to run for the Presidency of the United States as a serious contender.  And he is only 46.  That to me is impressive.  I am impressed because he picked a path and followed it.  When I look through his CV, his books, his speeches, his career, they all seem to be aligned with getting to where he ultimately wants to be – the President of the United States.

I know we are not meant to compare ourselves with others, but when I look at myself at age 39, just 7 years younger than Obama, I have to wonder, could I run for president of the U.S. in 7 years?  The odds are probably not.  Would I want to? Again probably not.  My point is I have not done the things that would be necessary for me to be a viable contender.

I have not paid much attention to U.S. politics for a long time.  I was in a I want to do something that I normally don’t do kind of mode this morning, so I bought a copy of Time magazine because it had a full picture of Barack Obama with the words ‘The Contender� super imposed across him.

The article’s focus was on his recent change in tactics and tried over-emphasize that he was using old school tactics, which he said he would not do.  The writer argues that it is Obama’s freshness that has captured people’s attention and this latest turn in tactics might tarnish that freshness.

Despite the writer’s attempt to raise doubt, I actually found myself admiring Obama and being the information junkie that I am, I immediately started searching the Internet for my information o Obama.  I like the guy. And though I have mainly been a republican supporter since my army days, I would consider voting for Obama.

Ah…I’m back from the land of the sick.  I’m rarely ever ill.  But when I am, I have found that the best way for me to get back on my feet quickly is to hibernate for 24-48 hours.  I eat very little and I sleep loads.

And now, like the bear waking up from hibernation, I am hungry as hell for EVERYTHING!

“People say that we’re searching for the meaning of life.  I don’t think that’s it at all.  I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences in the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.â€?  – Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Nike had a brilliant ad campaign to inspire people to action.  The commercials asked the question:  why ask why. Just do it.

Why do we search for meaning in our being here?  Why do we question what our lives are for?  Why can’t we be happy just to be?  The ancients tried to make sense of the world by finding out how things worked rationally.

So in the beginning man worshiped the sun and the moon and mother earth and all these things were gods to them.  They used the gods to explain why things happened the way they did.

And then something happened.

People decided to test the system.  What would happen if I didn’t sacrifice my goat to appease the thunder god?  When nothing happened man said ah.  So what makes thunder happen then?

We began our search for how our world really worked.

In the 17th century, the age of reason, we went in search how things worked using reason to understand how our world worked.  In the 18th century, the age of exploration, we went in search of where we were on the planet.  We went in search of the physical space in our geography.  In the 19th century, the industrial revolution, we went into what to do what with the knowledge we had gained and built big factories and machines to harness what we had learned.  The 20th century became the age of me.  People went in search of a better lifestyle through brokering information and gaining personal power through material wealth.  In the 21st century, we find ourselves searching for meaning again.  Why am I here?  There is sense of lack of spirituality.  The 21st century has become the age of self-help.

The search for meaning is gnawing at our minds.  It is the splinter in our mind’s eye that is sending us in search of the question.  It’s the question that drives us as Trinity reminded Neo.  A lot of the people I coach seem to be searching for something – something more out of life.  They look around at where they are now and in terms of material well being they have the things they need to survive and for the most part to live comfortably.

But being comfortable is no longer a comfort.  They want more.  They are tired of being comfortably numb.

In the Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac describes a scene where all the middle-class people are sitting at home plugged into the same television shows, being pumped full of nothing, while characters like Jaffry prowl the wilderness, embracing life.

We don’t want to be comfortably numb anymore.  We want to live on purpose.  What is the point of life?  We marvel at what we have and what we have created yet we cannot understand why we are here.

A growing discontent is out there.  We have books springing up like the Celestine Prophecy that gnaw at the edges of the societal angst that consumes us.  It’s about a lack of spirituality – a lack of understanding of who we are, and why we are here.  We long to find our place and purpose in the universe.

Our comfort zones have become prisons that hold us in place and keep us from reaching our full potential.  I can image the faces pressed against the plastic bubble of our comfort zones as we look out beyond the edge and wonder what our my lives could be like on the other side of this wall?

Echoing Morpheus’ words, we are slave; guarded by walls that we cannot see, or touch, or taste – a prison for our minds

And so I find myself sitting in a dingy café that lured me in with the offer of free Internet access.  Only the access is not really free.  You have to buy their coffee, of course.  But also the only ‘free’ Internet access is their website!  I could have just as well stayed in my hotel room had I known such was the case.  And to top it all off, it’s been 20 minutes and I still don’t have my cup of coffee yet.

It’s a Monday evening.  I’ve been up since 4 am.  I flew up to Scotland on the red eye and went straight into work with my client until 17.30.  Egats man! I’m tired, but I feel obligated to get some words on the page and post on the blog.

This whole writer’s journey thing has been a crazy up and down ride.  Every time I think I have it sussed, I get side tracked by something else.  And then I get back on the Path after a sabbatical of how ever long.  Only to notice that more time has passed.

But I recon, I am reaching the perfect age to start reflecting on and sharing my experiences over the last 39 years.

My areas of passion are philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and religion and being a fallible human being.  More specifically, how these disciplines and fallibility help us to understand ourselves in order that we can fully realise our potential.

I am an everyday man.  A scholar I am not.  So I don’t see myself approaching these topics from an academic perspective.  I see myself approaching them as a naked philosopher and poet trying to make sense of the world I live in.

I don’t know where this is going to lead me.  But at this point, I think it is irrelevant.  What matters is I want to pursue an idea – a dream – I have long harboured for many years.