Minutes before 11:11 am, I realized the significant one-second moment was coming up; 11:11:11 a.m. on 11/11/11. I waited, watched, secretly relished it by myself. Then it was over. Immediately I noticed my loud open-mouthed breathing, cleared my throat, and languidly got out my clothes for work.

I spent some time today looking over digg.com and found a lot of articles about world events regarding 11/11/11, mostly relating to people’s superstition of the date (labeled as examples of apophenia and/or pareidolia). Today the Egyptian Pyramids were closed to the public because of the rumors that a bunch of hoo-ha new-agers were going to perform rituals with intentions of opening a portal that would allow in all the positive energy we’d need to accelerate the enlightenment of the entire human race. Unfortunately security guards kept all of them out, as well as the potential widespread nirvana because of it. Better luck next century.

The crazy stuff I read is that a high number of pregnant mothers around the world purposely scheduled C-sections today to cut their babies out early, all so the beloved date would be printed on their birth certificate, therefore enhancing their child’s numerology-based destiny. I also read that a bunch of people decided to schedule marriages today, some in extremely lavish golden cathedrals with 11 total bride/groom combos. The same thing also happened at Disneyworld (the possibility is assumed the each groom must be required to bang 11 times within 11 hours, or he be punished by twin mantis-gods of the skies who stand wrathfully together, skinny as 1′s).

Among the same news topic, a movie came out called 11-11-11 where some kind of portal to hell is opened up and dark forces wreak havoc on all humanity. I think today is also National Metal Day… and I’m pretty sure that you can get a car at a discount somewhere, all because it’s 11/11/11.

(A beer Kevin bought today, released only on 11/11/11)

There hasn’t really been a surge of synchronicities for me, just the usual… such as seeing hexagons everywhere, noting it, and discovering this bee (or wasp) hive while Josh and I bashed holes in walls and ceilings while remodeling a bathroom.

As this date passes, and/or any other Mayan-related dates, I wonder what’s going to happen to the people who actually make a living off of it.

Shortly after coming out of the maze, I woke up in my bed.

Both photos are a micro-image of the mycellium structure of a mushroom.

I went to Will’s birthday party last night, and he had a book called “Cosmos” lying out in the open on the kitchen table. We talked about the images in there, real and computer-generated pictures of some of the billions of galaxies in our observable universe. I’ve seen this image before, but it always sparks something wild in me every time I look at it.

Will suggested the irony that the mycellium of a mushroom looks strangely similar to the interconnected web of galaxies in the universe. I’d never thought of that but have definitely considered that the image looked strangely similar to a membrane, or even neurons in the brain.

Lots of eastern thought and even advocates of psychedelics have nearly made it a cliché that the universe is contained within its parts, much like a fractal. It makes you wonder why so many people claim that they’ve had perceptions of one-ness or “awakening” after consuming psychedelic mushrooms.

Because of the parallel, I tried to find the rant Joe Rogan does in his stand-up about the possibility of the human experience looking like this: being within a galaxy of a universe inside the ball of a guy whos in a galaxy of a universe within the ball of a guy who’s in a universe…

…but instead, I found this.

It may surprise you or not that modern churches are still hinging their ideology on the concept that Hell really exists. There are less and less details provided as to what Hell is, (especially in mega-churches that try to appeal to western pop-culture with rock praise bands, fog machines, and front-flipping preachers) but it’s still pretty well-understood that Hell is a place where souls are cast into by an omniscient celestial authority (A.K.A. God) for eternal torture (burning forever) if they do not abide by God’s rule(s). It is a concept that is widespread like a disease, helping produce an overwhelming number of Christians by use of fear and guilt rather than spiritual enrichment.

A bunch of Churches devote one sermon per month to the importance of “tithing,” donating 10% of your earnings to “God,” or rather, to the accounting office of the church. These days, such donations will be used to buy new flat-screens, projection systems, or PA systems to make their church more appealing to the community and improve join-rates. The direct and implied urgings to keep God happy lest ye be cast away from His love is significant, while God is simultaneously presented as an unconditionally loving paternal-like figure.

The impossibility of combining these two preached characteristics of a divine authority is obvious, especially considering at a more basic level that God has a preference to things or people and their behaviors. Essentially, the idea presents that God has an ego, and God is so humanized to the point where “He” is as insane and as moody as a step-dad who once pretended to like you just to get with your divorced Mom. God is so paternalized in Church, intentionally or not, that all dad-issues a person may have risks manifesting the shadow concept of what your dad was like towards you, combined with what you wish he was like, and things you actually did like about your dad.

Art, psychology, and history is mostly dismissed within the church so long as it isn’t actively supporting the ideology of the group, or is often a creative regurgitation (rock music praise bands, pastor jokes and emotional anecdotes), used to bring outsiders into the church. The last church experience I had was visiting a local aspiring mega-church during a Christmas Eve service where the praise band played metal versions of Christmas Carols and then blatantly ripped off that Coldplay single from Viva La Vida and changed the words to be more worship-oriented.

Towards the end of my trying to make church work for me, all the questions started with the concept of Hell and how it didn’t make any sense to me that 99.9% of the population were soon to be banished to eternal torment. Our existence on Earth would only be a blink in the scope of universal existence, a test that existed only to see which humans were fit to please God (egotistically) for all eternity. Eventually I began to fall in love with books and ideas that expanded and enhanced my curiosity towards life and the nature of humans, and slowly the division between “me” (Christian) and “them” (non-Christian) began to fade, and meaningful relationships could finally form outside of a church circle.

I went to church for almost 2 more years after I mentally checked out because of appreciation for my roots and family upbringing. Eventually “teachings” and vibes became unbearable, solidifying one day when a “guest pastor” showed up with a leather jacket, hipster glasses, and perfectly pruned faux-hawk and proceeded to bash the Dalai Lama for receiving the congressional medal of honor.

“They gave the Dalai Lama the Congressional Medal of Honor… They gave some little guy in an orange suit the congressional medal of honor…”

A comparison-mentality is inevitable when believing in the concept of Hell, “I’m saved, they’re not.” It’s not unusual that Christians think they’re “more Christian” than others, also. All the problems with black-and-white ideologies seem so simple to explore and see, but when you look at the masses, there are A TON of people who still commit to the Hell idea. The simple reason is fear. If you believe you will be severed completely from your “Father’s” love by thinking a certain thought, there is no way you can even allow a new conflicting thought or insight come into/out of your head. Any idea that causes division among humans is not based on love, and can’t possibly be linked with an ideology of genuine unconditional love, a claim made by sermon-makers all the time. Where there’s division, there is violence, and where there’s violence on a mass scale, there’s war, and where there is a belief in Hell, there is a conceptual God of a psychotic and egotistical, paternal nature. When a mass population believes in all of it, there are many who don’t mind supporting a president who declares war for a stupid reason so long as he prays about it first.

Hell is a touchy subject. It’s hardly mentioned in church anymore because it’s an incredibly retarded idea and a lot of people squeeze off insight to protect the concept. There are still a bunch of people who don’t want to touch the funny feelings they have about Hell, and why everyone can be so cool with the fact that 99.9% are going there is still mind blowing. “Hell” is a translation from the Greek word “Gehenna”, an actual place where trash and dead bodies were burned in Jerusalem, used as a metaphor by the Biblical Jesus himself, not really a flaming void at the bottom of the universe where demons and the damned remain forever.

It doesn’t take much digging to discover this. So why, after centuries, is Hell still taught to young minds as real and existing with only one way to escape it? What else are “authority figures” teaching to all age groups that could possibly be complete bunky bullshit, claiming that it is ordained by the Ultimate?

Fear is something you don’t want as a mental structure in your psyche. Fear makes you hand over money to people who don’t really care about you. It’s used by advertising and marketing companies all the time. Fear makes it easy for other people to control you and your decisions. Fear makes you vote for people you wouldn’t vote for otherwise. Fear is exploited by institutions like school and government all the time. To commit to an idea that creates and perpetuates fear in you is insane. We are living on Earth, a round rock that is constantly threatening planetary upheaval while flying through space amongst solar winds and asteroids, surrounded by billions of galaxies. We’re tied into a banking system and economy that adds and subtracts imagined value, digits from a computer screen. There is no ultimate security in life. There is no ultimate safety. Lust for comfort suffocates the soul. It’s all illusory and chasing it in fear will eat and cripple you from the inside. Fear can’t exist in contentment. Neither can contentment or creativity exist in the constant grasping for security, whether from God, preachers, teachers, jobs, parents, kids, or even your country.

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” -Ben Franklin

Liberation was the name of the game for the guys who started this country, not so much for the guys running it today. Unlike you’ll hear today at school, church, or on the news, the “Founding Fathers” didn’t believe in the fear-based concepts that churches teach today or even back then. If anything, there is enough hell to deal with here on Earth and the possibility remains that there are higher energetic spectrums and dimensions that may exist simultaneously outside of our everyday sensory range… hopefully dimensions that are free of such thick division and worry of damnation, and also worries about how bleached your faux-hawk tips are, or whether your low-cut church blouse and skirt will garner glances of bored husbands.

One more word of wisdom from Ben:

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Thanks to first impressions of him on The Man Show and Fear Factor, I had my prejudgments of Joe Rogan until half-way through his stand-up comedy DVD that my friend Anthony showed me one night while drinking White Russians at his parents’ house. That was some time in 2008. After Joe Rogan’s routine made the transition from dick-jokes-and-boning over to the general stupidity of humans, dependence on technology, and how it relates to egyptian pyramids, I was into it.

Later, I watched a ton of youtube videos with him, and followed his blog for a while. I once blogged about his youtube rant on isolation tanks, which eventually convinced me to drive up to Santa Fe to try it a couple of times.

An isolation tank is a huge enclosed tub of water, heated to the external skin temperature (somewhere around 91 degrees) filled with 800 pounds of epsom salt to keep your body buoyant. Your ears are submerged. You’re nearly deprived of all senses (also called a sensory deprivation tank), allowing nothing external to distract you from your own mind. The deeper you relax and sink into the experience, the more significant it can be. The first time I did it, I had an image of myself free of gravity, floating vertically through outer space.  I didn’t quite float through the geometric patterns Joe talks about, though. During the tank experience, the imagination volume knob is turned up, song melodies, internal conversations, dream-like visuals — all intensified.

Supposedly, one hour in the tank can equate to the benefits of having 4 hours of sleep. I don’t know how somebody came up with this, but I felt like a completely revived human coming out of it, with much more internal clarity and sharper senses than before. For a while I was looking for a way to own one, or even make my own. If I had a basement and a tank, I’m pretty sure I would take time to do it everyday.

Anyway, I read this post on Joe Rogan’s blog today, and I thought it was pretty cool.

I never gave much thought to this beyond the scope of what the mass media now presents to the public, versus when I was a kid. Maybe I was lucky enough to not have cable as a kid. At one point I really wanted cable TV (even to the point of tears), but that was only because I was missing out when nickelodeon would play hours of Looney Tunes every single day.

Endless Cartoons. That’s what I wanted. What worries me now can mostly be found in the encapsulated life of kids who ingest extreme doses of spongebob and sugar, left alone with blinders attached, until the only real human interaction that occurs involves rage-fits followed with being spoiled with parental-quenchings to their every impulse.

Ouroboros? Maybe. That may be the best metaphor of that situation, if I ever fully understood this symbol.

Allow me to be cliché and say that modern TV is bullshite for kids. When I was younger I recognized the trashiness of Barney and Teletubbies. When I was a kid it was Mister Rogers and Sesame Street (still weird for me), but those are pure gold compared to what’s aired today. I don’t know why I invest so much thought into the importance of child development with TV/Cartoons, but kids today are still soaking up 5 hours/day of television, and it still blows my mind that I did the same up until high school. For every 5 hours of television, there’s an hour and 15 minutes of commercials absorbed into a person’s brain. I’ve still retained multiple jingles from beer commercials, commercials for McDonald’s, and the catch phrases for the same, cereals my mom would never let me eat, the previews for baywatch (the best boob a kid could get pre-internet), learning new words like “constipated” and “douche” which quickly became a sources of amusement for my siblings and friends at school.

Humanity is presented in a way on TV, magazines, and newspapers that is still intertwined with self-dissatisfaction and shame. Shamefulness is taught to us early because of TV and then is reflected in our “authority figures” and peers at school. Reebok Pumps were a fad when I was in 4th grade, and to encounter the select few elite 9-year-olds who owned them struck a jealousy-chord in me, while my soul simultaneously told me that a child with divorced parents may have been wearing $100+ dollar shoes probably for other reasons.

Pull harder, mum!

It’s a memory like this that quickly helps me remember that the capacity for intelligence and understanding in a child should never be underestimated by the fear-ridden adults who spend their lives trying to tell kids who to be and how to live their lives, usually by a series of standards that are acquired within random institutions and lapped up by a de-volving demographic of human-beings. We can only pump our fists in the air and root for the few said “9-year-olds” who remain on their natural track towards genius and progress.

I never enjoyed how the majority of teachers looked at me throughout my school experience as a child. You can, no matter what phase of life, recognize when somebody sees the light in you or they don’t. Those who don’t see it in you (or your kid) are those you should be weary of. The greatest gift a person can give to a child is to offer an attention which brightens that light/brilliance within them in a way that makes their inner-intelligence feel acknowledged so they know that this intelligence is something real within them, something that can be embraced, and then can grow, expand and shine brighter into the world.

The natural creativity of a child is, and can be, the scariest thing for an adult to acknowledge when it has long been out of touch within themselves. It is, in my opinion, the duty of adults to feel it and recognize it again within ourselves, unleash our “inner-child” and inner brilliance, so that we may continue to evolve as a race, progress, and grow towards our potential as a whole.  This inner brilliance and inner intelligence, I believe, is what is naturally intertwined in love, kindness, and compassion, and when activated can bring out the natural morality and good will within a child.

The mass media is on a path of de-evolution, quickly becoming a more pertinent source of the suffocation of human creativity, progress, and self-knowledge. Ceaseless cravings, consumption, and an accompanying sense of lack is a result of a block in humanity’s inherent light, intelligence, brilliance, genius, creativity, spirituality, whatever you want to call it. A source of information that is rooted in insecurity can do nothing more to help the progress of humanity but to eventually awaken a person to the overall ridiculousness of an over-dramatized induction of a sense of lack. It is my hope that those who have or have not remained rooted in themselves (their real selves) can be humble enough to learn from children, allow them to contribute to unlocking our inherent intelligence and creativity, and we return the favor to them through nothing more than developing the skill of intense, pure, conscious attention.

I may or may not have just blacked out.

The glory of being an artist; a creative soul who commits to something that only leads to a stronger sense of separation… conversations that require alcohol, and nothing is remembered of its most intriguing peaks.

Sometimes I think that a business mind is ideal. The business mind makes money and it never appears to be lost. If it isn’t successful, its on its way.

Feeling is all we have. We can only share it in what we create. But the luck is in if anybody connects to it.

Art is too accessible. It’s unappreciated now. We want information. No, we want entertainment still. I entertain myself with inspirational anecdotes. Most entertain themselves with jack-off humor, pop-culture, or conspiracy theories on youtube. We’re all consumers anymore. We measure our intellect with the quality of genres that our minds devour. We’re all doing the same thing unless we’re creating. Why not create every day? Why not every hour?

This is our destiny, every action we take. This is our life. And we’re facebooking it away with status updates. We’re wishing for trashy ego-supporting connections. We’re wanting to buy stuff that supports our fake identities. We want love, not for love’s sake, but so something/someone will approve of the bullshit we’ve “added” to ourselves… and hopefully they’ll support us for life, so we get married.

And, when everyone else has made that choice, you start to wonder if you’re the only one left who needs to sign up just to see what’s missing.

Or not.

Lots of contemplation happening these days. Life-long friends seem to be asking the same questions and running into similar confusions, experiencing similar epiphanies.

If there really is something dramatic happening in the collective, it’s not enough for anybody to freely talk about. I also doubt the importance of advertising it here. Then I often question whether I am a victim of my own subjectivity, taking my mental filter of reality too seriously.

TV and movies are talking about the similar subject matter… secrets revealed, the mayans exposed, what 2012 means, the paranormal, the unexplainable, doomsday.

Does nobody else think this is strange?

Does anybody else think this should have been on the news more than Tiger Woods?

It blows my mind what the media brushes aside, what they fixate on, and what the mass is okay with absorbing every single night on the tube.

It also blows my mind that we still play the game of following or voting for politicians, pastors, or school faculty who often make a valiant effort to hide anything human about themselves.

Why don’t we think rituals like church communion or even the opening ceremonies for the Olympics are a little strange (i.e., people in white robes zombie-flocking to the speech-master)? Do we ignore original ideas or questions in our mind relating to why we do things the way we do?

Why do priests wear conical hats and peculiar robes, and carry that staff around? Why does the clergy stick to the same structure that breeds child molesters? What is psychological reason for it, despite its self-declared connection to God? What if God doesn’t like religion? What if God doesn’t “like”?

Why does a graduating class wear a square hat at graduation, move the tassel to the side, and throw it up in the air? Why do we agree to participate in rituals without asking or knowing what it all means?

Why does the newspaper blatantly insist that we drink fluoridated water? Is it really good for us? If so, why did the Nazis immediately add fluoride to their prisoners’ water supply?

Why do so many relationships end with break-up lines from movies or t.v. shows? Why does anybody think “The Bachelor” is reality/real? Why are extremo-masculine and extremo-feminine themes in movies something enjoyed and sought after in real life? See: The Transporter or The Time Travelers Wife.

Why are we okay with repeating empty catch-phrases when giving somebody advice?

Why Bill O’Reilly? Why not Marilyn Manson?

Why are we okay with presidents hiring speech-writers instead of saying their own words?

Why do we try to find security or salvation in other people or things?

Why do sunsets make sense?

I decided to re-watch Zeitgeist The Movie last night, mainly because it is the new remastered version, and has a little bit extra added to it.

Zeitgeist is not for the feeble, or even strong set-in-stone minded people. It challenges the biggest things relating to the conditioned mind of humanity, and most likely, even you have some of it.

It confronts what many Americans think we know about religion and government. So if you feel offended or irritated by those kinds of things, you probably won’t want to watch it.

I came around to watching Zeitgeist years ago because a friend of mine posted a link to it on myspace. I had a long phase of reading about religion and “the worlds biggest secrets”, and this came at an interesting time.

Whether or not you buy into this stuff, there is a clear sign of insanity in the way things are run in this world.

I feel like I’ve always known it, and have been fascinated by it in a way. Unfortunately, sometimes I’m so repulsed by human behavior that it causes problems of their own and doesn’t really help anything. My theory is that the ego’s problems can’t be solved by the ego. There has to be a new way of thinking, or even no thinking at all; that is, settling down the compulsive conversations we carry in our heads.

If the planet were small enough to study under a microscope, humans would look like little cells. We move about, build things, are drawn to other humans, repelled by others, and we reproduce. Our actions may even be recognized similar as the behavior of cancer cells, because, like cancer, humans are not working in harmony with life around it.

Ego appears to be the problem, because we’re so invested in it’s beliefs and self-image. We could still have egos and function fine, but without keeping the ego in check, or even recognizing its behavior, we are owned by its fears and limitations. A false sense of identity is steering the human vehicle. We are not free, but at the mercy of our ego-based neural wiring to make decisions. That includes all of the conditioning of our past, and preoccupations about our future. If you don’t think you’re a prisoner of your conditioning, try to notice when you get angry or defensive about something you believe, and see if it makes any sense to you.

Then there’s affirmations, the attempt at re-conditioning the mind to something of a more positive nature. “I love myself,” or “Everyday, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” Those hypnotic phrases might help you become productive for a while. The problem is, there’s nothing integrative about affirmations. You can pump your mind with positive reinforcement all day long, but you still have the polar opposite lingering around somewhere in the shadows. And when it rears it’s ugly head, you’re like the Patrick Swayze character on Donnie Darko; a self-help guru catatonically rocking back and forth, crying in his bedroom.

There’s an intelligence that is completely unique to our mammal-hood; one where new ideas are formed, intuition is developed, and flow is experienced. And it’s been proven that it only arrives when the mind enters small windows of silence amongst the internal conversational mind-chatter.

In my own rare experience, it’s those times of clarity when a new perception arises, and nothing more is needed. People on the outside even react to your state. It’s almost like the exaggerated portrayal of a monk walking amongst the forest with birds and squirrels perching on his shoulder, displaying an auric sheen. If a person can hold this state long enough, included that past and future are no longer a concern, then new experiences unfold. There is a whole new respect and appreciation for life, nature, animals, even for the squarish assholes on T.V.

I once read something where a guy had an epiphany. He suddenly considered that if he experienced life through another human being, from birth to death, same physiology and life-events, he would BE that person. He would act, look, dress just like them, and completely 100% be them, inside and out. It was a sudden paradigm shift from judgment to compassion. It was Joe Rogan who wrote that on his blog.

What is the part of you that could possibly experience the life of another person? It’s essentially what is experiencing your own life now. The part of you that is aware of what you see, touch, feel, taste, etc. It is what every single human, animal, and plant have. It is awareness capable of observing. It’s the lingering “something” that’s under the mind-chatter, and what steers your cells into the proper places for your body to even exist.

Then there is the trick of becoming aware of awareness. This awareness can expand or we can confine it within our own little mind-based world. But if it expands enough, that’s when we get a sense of being plugged in to the whole, and we start living in harmony with our surroundings. It can only happen when the mind is immersed in the present moment. The same idea is in the beginning of Zeitgeist.

I’m not a big fan of getting entangled in worrying about petty things, or getting involved with human micro-dramas. A lot of people experience a strange pleasure in living dysfunctional lives. I can’t say co-dependency and power-struggles have had lasting positive results for me. Human insanity is starting to rear it’s ugly head at this point in time, I think to the point where humanity might be forced into a major shift in direction before we all destroy ourselves.

Weird times.

So the solution to human crazy-ness is always a foggy one. But I think we can have confidence enough in ourselves to remember an experience or state of mind that may have once harmonized on a much deeper level than any words can ever describe. If we’re lucky enough, we may find it again hidden in our present experience. Then, life may be so kind to bestow the next little piece of the puzzle.

Birthdays seem to have multiple celebrations in my family, so they’re more like birthweeks.

Today Erin threw a surprise party for Josh and a group of us played pool at a cool-people bar, where the prime selection of women and men appear to be manifestations of an MTV reality show cast. It’s always better for me to leave these types of bars before coming down from a beer buzz. Otherwise a part of me buys into the illusion that I don’t belong on this planet.

What I found particularly interesting is how the server girl came to our table multiple times through the night, and would ask everybody individually if they needed anything, skipping me each time; no eye contact, not even a glance. I traded seats with somebody, same result. I thought maybe it could be that she liked me or something, but then I remembered that male/female interactions don’t really work that way after elementary school.

I spent the entire day recovering from my stay in Roswell for the last week, then went to work tonight for some local hip-hop R&B show.

It’s been a long time since I’ve absolutely dreaded being at work. Tonight was one of those nights. I’ve reflected on the times where I’ve felt similar, and it usually relates to a sense of losing hope in the future of the human race.

There was no reason for me to work tonight; there were almost more performers than there were audience members. Despite the small turn-out, a guy from security told me how everyone was treating themselves like VIPs, exchanging passes to get access back stage, free drinks, etc. It was like neanderthals parading self-glorification, making sure to have poop readily available in hand if chucking became necessary. The music was like plugging headphones into excrement. The lyrics were 99% about pride in being 100% worthless. The bloated confidence behind it is what made the experience unbelievable.

I watched two girls get in a fight, one standing at a lower level behind a handrail, the other facing in the opposite direction at a table. The one standing below grabbed a handful of the other girl’s hair and tried to pull her over a railing by her head. Her neck was surprisingly bendable, as the other girl was yanking, as if tugging a rope in tug-o-war.

Cops were everywhere and security was doubled because of the potential for gang violence. If the venue made any money at all, it would only be because of the excessive purchases of Corona and Bud Light.

My thoughts fed on the atmosphere of negativity. I slammed down a mallet of judgment like never before. Most of the time I can laugh it off, but tonight, a part of me was considering that maybe it’d be good for a portion of humanity to become extinct.