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Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
iamom
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3:43p
Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne
Okay, I'm sorry, but WHAT the hell is all the hype about for this album? Has anybody here heard it? It has been hyped as Lil Wayne's best album and as one of 2009's greatest rap albums, but really, I think it's mostly crap. By my rating system, out of 25 tracks in total, I've got seven 3-star tracks (which means it's listenable, but not very good) and two 4-star tracks (which means it's quite good). The remaining 16 tracks are all pure garbage. I don't see the appeal. I think rap music might be dying on the vine. At least the mainstream stuff. A new album from a band called The Knux is much, much better. It's called Remind Me In Three Days... and I've got one 5-star and two 4-star tracks rated out of the first four tracks. A world of difference, but it got like no notice aside from a mention in Rolling Stone's top 50 albums of 2009. (Or was it 2008? I can't remember now.)
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iamom
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12:47p
wanted words, sort of
Another goofy but pretty funny joke e-mail from my father-in-law, purportedly from the Washington Post's "Mensa Invitational" which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. My favourite is probably "ignoranus." I could actually imagine using that word in a sentence.
1. Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7.. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon: The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit: The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor: The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
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(comment on this) Monday, December 28th, 2009
iamom
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2:57p
What's happening is just what's happening
Mark Otter included a nice quote from the excellent Shambhala Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön in yesterday's edition of the Nondual Highlights (Sun-27-Dec-2009). In this quote, Pema outlines one of her favourite topics and one of the topics on meditation and daily life that I have found the most resonant for me personally in the past weeks and months. Namely, that the world goes on just as it is regardless of whether or not we attach our own judgment to it, so why not just drop the judgment and end the suffering inherent in our wishing that the world was other than how it is in this moment?
Fellow ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) nonduality reader ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) confliction took some issue with me about this topic recently and held my feet to the fire about how this concept might actually condone a willful and blissful ignorance towards real suffering that occurs in the world. From the perspective of radical nonduality, this is actually a non-issue: it is purely an academic talking point that doesn't have much bearing from a truly nondual outlook. Having said that, the reason why I keep returning to these themes personally is because I find that they're helpful for me in getting through the stress of my day. Invariably, I find that it's my emotional reactions and self-righteousness that gets me into the most "trouble" when I encounter stressful events in my day. The more that I let go of my expectations of "the way things should be," the more quickly I can get over perceived slights against me or what I perceive as situations that require "fixing;" in this way, I can bring a sort of lightness to apparently negative situations that defuses their negativity really quickly and lets me move on after just a few moments.
In my own personal life, this comes in super helpful in the rearing of my two young toddler boys (their 7-year-old sister is not nearly as challenging as they are in this regard). Unwittingly, my sons are fantastic adepts at pushing my buttons, and whenever I can harbour an attitude of acceptance towards their natural, childish foibles, this helps our relationship immensely. I can cultivate feelings of acceptance towards them for who they are at the age at which they are, instead of getting angry with them for not acting more maturely than their given calendar age. They certainly provide many opportunities each day for me to get frustrated by them throwing toys, fighting over toys, climbing up to the counter to reach breakable items, and all that kind of stuff. But if I deal with them from a position of acceptance instead of wishing that they'd act differently, it really helps my own frustration levels a lot. In short, it serves as a reminder to me that they're just sweet little young people who haven't yet developed a sense of logic or consequence to their actions yet. And who, except someone enmeshed in overly high expectations for a 3-year-old, could take serious issue with that fact?
Even though I've found myself in a myriad of inordinately stressful work situations related to my former profession in IT project management and software development, I can safely say that parenting has thrown up the most intense challenges yet for my own personal and spiritual growth. Some day I'd like to write a book about the lessons I've learned from my kids. (Not that that's ever been done before!)Then you begin to realize that what's happening is just what's happening. Whether it's outside or what's being triggered in you, it's just what's happening. And all this other stuff is laid on top of it by the thoughts: the good and the bad, and the right and the wrong, and the should and the shouldn't.
So, what Dale [Asrael] said yesterday is, "When you break the identification with the thoughts, suddenly there's space." And I wrote that down because that has been my experience.
That's a hard one, but it's helpful to know it as something that you just know, that when you label thinking and go back to the present moment, being with the breath or the body sensations or sounds, whatever – coming back to the immediacy of your experience – there's the possibility of the very real, that moment has the potential of connecting with space, or opening up the space. Choosing a fresh alternative.
When you don't choose the same old way, the same old stale story line, then there's the opportunity for something new and fresh to present itself to you. The world can open up in an unprecedented way.
– Pema Chödrön (x-posted here to nonduality)
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