A blog on human interaction and growth.

I wake up in the morning, its 7:02 AM and sunny outside, I haven’t said a word yet on this new day and the world around me begins to pour into my brain, filling my sensory receptors with little to do tasks and beginning to slowly tarnish all clarity.

So many ideas and thoughts are going to accumulate in my brain, like little cancers, leeching on and trying to suck the energy out. Which ones do I pay attention to? And which ones do I peel off in order to see my way back to that clear blue morning sky.

Usually the thought of having an endless abundance of new ideas is positive and sought after, not today, today I woke up and felt overwhelmed. A good 80% of them are just distractions keeping my focus from the small 20% that could actually manifest as something worthwhile.

This is where I have positioned the miniature commander in my brain, on a tall outlook post, where he can see all the ideas stretching across like an ocean, instead of trying to swim out of the mess, there he is, strongly positioned, machine gunning all the crap that’s in the way. It takes a war-like mindset in order to clear the clutter.

Strong, swift, gut instincts always prevail over long drawn out tinkering when trying to get something accomplished. A strong gut instinct flushing mental waste out through the ears just as quickly as it came in, keeps the best ideas healthy and nourished.

Practice is always more difficult than theory, today I am trying to remember all of this, and apply it. So many good ideas are sucking off the nipple that none of them are actually being adequately fed. Great ideas are lying on the beach like a fish out of water, dehydrated, while the nonsense spits and wastes its water, laughing and getting lost, and killed.

Investing time and money into weak links will never strengthen the chain.

Today, I am removing weak leaks and reattaching the chain, using the ones which are strong, trying to control the flow, because I have too many ideas.

What Hendrix knew about what it takes to be confident.

Hendrix popped out of nowhere in 1966 with his cover of “Hey Joe” and followed up with his first self written single “Purple Haze”. With his wild appearance, and an energy level that could sometimes resemble a monkey on cocaine, Hendrix pushed the envelope of rock music to a place it had never been before, and may never be reached again.

The base of it all was in the way he carried himself. He did what he wanted, what he believed, and looked at life straight in the face, especially through times of adversity. Knocking down amplifiers, taking every drug in the book, sometimes at the same time, and lighting guitars on fire aren’t all necessary to get that I can do anything type of personality flowing, but by observing these few basic human traits which Jimi carried so predominantly, you too can have your chance to kiss the sky.

You have your own unique story, tell it!

No matter how insignificant you think your life is, it is not, you have experienced this world in a way that no other person ever has, and no other person ever will. Embrace your experiences and show your view to the world.

Jimi Hendrix was just “some poor black kid” growing up in a time period in America where this type of person was not so easy to be. But he was his own person, with his own story and views. He expressed these views in a raw, unadulterated way and millions of people related to him.

Just because you feel inferior to the Brad Pitt’s, and the Angelina Jolie’s, does not mean that it is true. You are unique and your story is just as important as anyone’s.

Be the person that you really are.

Don’t try and be someone you are not just to gain popularity or to seem cool. You already are cool the way you are. If you act like someone your not, you will never be able to feel 100% confident when your out in public and meeting new people.

People can pick up on fakes, if you are not congruent in your style, and not inline with yourself. People notice! You cannot play tricks on the world and be someone you are not. In the same sense, when you are being yourself, it is also known, and admired!

Dont be afraid to show the truth even when it is not impressive.

This is an easy one to identify with Hendrix, in his honest lyrics. Always use honesty and don’t be afraid to look like an idiot or like someone who is weaker than others. We all have our issues in life and there is no need to hide from them and act like we are invincible.

The more truthful you are, and the more you wear your heart on your sleeve, the more receptive people will be towards you and your willingness to relate on a HUMAN level. People who are “down to earth” are confident in themselves.

Trust your gut.

Your instincts are your most powerful weapon. I am sure that when Jimi was starting out people around him never would have guessed that he would turn out the way he did. If he listened to these people he never would have gotten to where he was. Logic alone would have clearly depicted the feats he accomplished impossible, however, his gut instincts told him otherwise, and he listened, he had confidence.

Jimi Hendrix is a timeless icon and a hero to many, he is a hero for going against the grain and accomplishing what others deem impossible. Do the same in your life, believe in yourself, and always put your best foot forward.

Here is a short blog for the end of the week. My first “How to” type of post which seems to be the cool way to blog these days. One of the best things a person can do to grow as an individual is to know who they are, be aware of what they have done, and know where they are going.

Here are five ways to start becoming more aware of yourself and the patterns which continue to keep you in the ruts that you need to get out of.

1. Find new friends – This is a big one. The people around you are your most accurate mirror. After being together with your close friends for so long you get very comfortable with each other. They will not point out things that you can improve upon because just as yourself, they don’t even notice it. Find a few new friends who are complete strangers and study the way they react to the things you do. Even ask them what they think about you and what you can improve on. Strangers are likely to be more honest about this than your close friends because there isn’t a big risk involved. After all, you haven’t really created any history with them so what is there to keep them from being honest when there really isn’t anything to loose.

2. Create a journal – Write down some of your thoughts and date them. These notes don’t need to be some fairy tale drama stories, or they can be if you want them to, but most importantly be honest. track a random day where nothing very important actually happened. Today I went to the store and bought eggs, there was a man in a red coat acting strange in the parking lot, I thought this about it at this time, blah blah, etc, etc. Once you have a good amount of dates filled, take the time and look back at what your thoughts were. You can learn a lot about how much you have changed by reading old judgments you might have made which you wouldn’t make today.

3. Read an autobiography or biography – Learn about someones life. Not through some fake movie, and not just a story from one of your friends. People writing these type of books include an incredible amount of detail and can really suck you into the persons life. The little details, habits, and mannerisms, can act as reference points. Maybe a habit or silly belief you have is the same as someone else. Maybe they have a different point of view on something and can explain it in a way where you get to see it in a way you have not have seen before.

4. Track the physicals – This is everything from money to food. There is too much going on in our fast paced world to accurately track what you are putting into your body and how you are managing your resources. Don’t kid yourself and start writing it down. It isn’t all about keeping yourself out of debt, or making sure that you are eating healthy all the time, although these are also good things, it is also about gaining control and testing yourself. By testing your mental strength to stay in control of your life, you can learn where your thresholds are. You can learn that you actually have some things down better than you thought, which will make you feel good about yourself. You can also find weak points, and identify areas of your life which you need to work on and hadn’t noticed it before.

5. Meditation – The pinnacle of self improvement and coming more aware of the self. There is no way to actually see and know who you are while your busy mind is clogging up all the lines. There are many forms of meditation and people get bogged down in the specifics of it when it is actually quite simple. Practice a simple breathing mediation. The point of focusing on the breath coming in and out of your body had nothing to do with your breath, it is about gaining focus so that you can shut off all the clatter going on and began to discover what is actually going on underneath. Dedicate at least 30 minutes to doing this as often as possible. you are not signing a contract, if you mess up and miss a few days its not the end of the world. Just pick up where you left off, and eventually you will find the gained clarity seeping into your daily waking life.

To know yourself is one, if not, the greatest achievement a human can attain. I have heard countless times from young people that they need to find them-self, that they don’t know what they want, that they don’t know where they are going in life and what they are going to do. There will come a point when you may realize the answers to all of these questions never actually become materialized…..but to know yourself in the process, you will be able to tackle the adventure, with clarity, and purpose.

There is an element of human interaction that is almost invisible. Sometimes when we are talking, and interacting, it is not for a specific point, it is not always to decide something, how to increase company sales, what shall we have for dinner? Humans like to interact at times just for the sake of socializing, humans want to enjoy “vibing”.

Vibing is a sub-communicated energy loop bouncing back and forth from one person to another. This energy keeps bouncing around and sometimes even becomes more intensified. When someone is not vibing, they are not generating, or passing back this energy, they are a thick foam of deadness sucking the life out of this fun energy, killing it in its tracks, making conversation and interaction not only loose its enjoyment, but making it uncomfortable.

There is a certain awareness of this energy in order to be a person that other people like to be around. The more aware of it you are, the more positive interaction you will experience between yourself and the people around you. Some who are less aware of this energy, and how to direct it, are shooting themselves in the foot. There are many people who I see that do not know how to accurately direct this energy who are also great people!

If you think of meeting a person on the street, if they can’t vibe, you will probably not consider them to be a great candidate for a new friend. However, if you were working a new job, and met this same person, spending day after day with them, being forced to get to know them, you will probably eventually find out that they are actually pretty cool.

An example of how people vibe, and how they, “kill the vibe”.

PERSON A- Hey I just got back from vacation guess where I was!
PERSON B- Where??
PERSON A- Africa it was so interesting! I didn’t want to leave!
PERSON B- Wow that’s really great! I hope I can go there someday!

These are two people positively “vibing”. The conversation is comfortable, and the person is supporting the other while recognizing that it is THEIR turn to have the light on THEM.

Same situation:

PERSON A- Hey I just got back from vacation guess where I was!
PERSON B- Where?
PERSON A- Africa it was so interesting! I didn’t want to leave!
PERSON B- I’ve been there before, I just got back from Asia, you should go there next time, its a lot more fun than Africa.

In this example you can see PERSON B kill the vibe, instead of appreciating, and sending back the positive excitement to PERSON A, they instead ignore this energy, and use the conversation as an opportunity to talk about them-self instead.

The point was not to debate whether or not there are better places to visit, the point was to socially vibe. A person who is aware of this will understand when it is NOT THEIR TURN to hold the court. Everyone gets their spot in the light, if someone else is talking to you about something they enjoyed, try not to turn it into a debate and instead appreciate it. Even if you have a fact that you would like to add to the conversation, when recognizing that someone is merely trying to vibe with you, you can also recognize that the happiness of having a good conversation will outweigh the pride you may get from feeling smarter.

A different example:

When you have finished something, written a new song, painted a picture, finished a school paper, and you show it to someone. Imagine this someone being one of your good friends, they usually vibe well with you, they will encourage you and tell you how awesome it is, how proud they are, and maybe how they wish they could be more like you.

People who are insecure, and do not understand how to vibe well, will throw little comments at you instead, “that’s cool but I would have done it this way”, instead of just saying “really cool man” they have to give their advice on what they don’t really like about it or what they could have done better.

In general, within human interaction, a good vibe will be present when the main reason for being together is to simply ENJOY EACH OTHERS COMPANY, when it goes beyond this, while one or more people are trying to just HAVE A GOOD TIME, and someone else is trying to logically nudge their three cents into every open hole, the vibe will be killed.

The more aware of this you are, the more chance for positive relationships between you and your friends, and strangers….don’t kill the vibe.

So, now that I have the page setup, I have been pondering how to start off my first post. Do I introduce myself? Hmm…. I think I will leave that to my “About” page which you can find in the navigation window on your left, and instead, dive right into something I have been dwelling on this past weekend.

Hope.

Hope, or faith, the thought of something coming to you without involving your effort to pursue it. When is the point where you are trying to hard to make something happen which truly is out of your control? And when is the point where you may not be trying hard enough?

Some things I believe are ultimately out of our control, obviously our emotional perception is in our control, but some things we cannot physically manifest. You can not bring your loved one back from the dead, you cannot make someone that you love, love you back the same. There is always the element, and power, of fate. Where is this line? And can it be seen?

I met a young girl last night at a local bar in town, I was being sarcastic towards her incredibly dry sense of, not only humor, but personality. I said, “wow you really have this crazy save the world type of attitude about you”. I do not think she got that I was being sarcastic, took it seriously, and shot it down with:

“I do not believe there is anything I could do to save this world, or my life, it is too much work, it is not possible, and is out of my control.”

I asked her about the absence in faith that I sensed in her from this statement. She said. “I have faith”. I asked her, “In what?”, she then listed the things she had faith in:

Her Friends
Snicker Bars
Alcohol

Fairly stated, and I can say that the friends part is definitely a worthy candidate for the list, but why this attitude that there is no power to do anything on ones own? That “fate” is completely out of our hands? And is it true?

Hope seems to be something that is used, something that is taken advantage of. Hope should be something additional to the effort that you are already putting in. If the object of your dreams is in this world right now, at the same time as you, obtainable…..looking at it as a one in an infinite chance, should you go after it? Or should you just sit around and hope that it will come to you? After all, if you really were meant to attain it, it should just pop up on your doorstep someday right?

I do not believe this to be true, I believe hope is the supercharger added to an already powerful engine, not a shot of steroids into a dead rat.

Hope is a real thing, it is powerful, but not independent, it is a set of wings that will help you fly when in points of doubt, but not the muscles making them move.

If you want to use this tool, believe in it, and create a catalyst where it can thrive. Do as much as you can, as a human, max yourself out to the point where you have done as much as you possibly can, and be honest with yourself about weather or not you are actually reaching this point.

At this point, have hope, have faith, believe that what you dream to happen, can happen, and it will.