Rationing

        I was working my heart out (like I always do) and I was think of ways to budget my time so that I could get to all the tasks at hand and to keep my performance level up. While I was planning out my time I realized I was getting thirsty. I devised a plan to reward myself with a cup of water after I got to a certain stopping point. For a bit, the idea sounded genius. Then I thought about it for a bit...
       What was I thinking? I'm in the industrialized part of the planet, where water comes out clear from the tap, I work at a desk, we have bottled water shipped in, and I always get my work completed. But... I want to hold off getting water into my system so I can sort through accounts faster.  It just boggled my mind that that would be my thought process.
        I'm so very lucky to be living where I do, good at what I do, productive, hard working, dedicated, and think that a suitable reward could be water...
       Though it made me think of others who could not have have the option of clean water, it did come as a complete absurdity to ration my liquid intake so I could reward myself with quenched thirst later. Too many 1st world health issues can happen from dehydration that makes me thought process to not need retooling.

Literature

Book Love. 💙💘

        I adore books!  For me they have been the windows to many parts of my life.  There have been types, styles, and recordings of certain musicians that I would have never gotten to experience if it were not for a book the I read that opened my eyes to its exsistance.
         A very good case in point is Ray Manzarek's Light My Fire. I had listened to the Doors but I'd never taken in an entire album of their work.  It was not until I had read his autobiography that I was opened up to his amazing life.  It was knowing that he took many of his phrasings and melodic ideas from songs he learned taking piano lessons as a child that encouraged me to listen to these great works and virtuosic playing skills of the band.  Also his words told me of a band called the Grateful Dead.
          He hated this other great band of the late 60's.  He called them self-indulgent, over  intoxicated, out of tune, and sloppy when he wasn't speaking of how selfish their Keyboard player was.  Thus turning me off from listening to the group for years and years.  But one day I was on an extended road trip and stopped at a gas station to get some tunes for the tape deck to keep me awake. 
        I saw a tape of the Grateful Dead's American Beauty on sale and I grabbed it up.  I had read they were hard rock for their time and wanted stay awake for the rest of the drive.  What a mislabeling for my ears.  I though I'd hear something like Steppin Wolfe or something that would evolve into Stone Temple Pilots, instead I hear beautiful hippie jams of rebellion and intoxication.  Though beautiful, it wasn't the brutality I expected when I got into extreme metal like Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth years later.
        After falling head-first in love with this mellow group of recreational drug users I started reading the vast library of work on this group.  I found out they are the most written about music group in history and I fell in love with Jerry Garia's oral biography of his life Dark Star.
          This book captures his life in the exact words of those who were around him.  His family, friends, most of his co-workers, and partners would tell of this man's life as they were around the man living it.  Every detail from how he lost the finger on his right hand from a childhood game to his battles with cigarettes, heroine, and diabetes to how these effected the life of those around him and his art.
         Finding that the cigarettes did more damage to his body than all the hard drugs he used encouraged me to give up smoking and watch what I ate and try to stay away from the extreme amounts of candy I would eat.  No matter how much I respected his ability to play the guitar and preform music; what I took from that book was to not live a life of pure indulgence to the point of shortening the life I do posses.
          I still love and adore biographies and autobiographies to this day, but I have expanded my readings to religious books of all religious beliefs, formal philosophy, and science fiction past the types that were made into bock-buster movies.  I have learned so much reading how others succeeded or failed in their existences, or how their world view shaped who they were and the world it created for them. Being able to see their pit falls helped me watch for them or attempt to avoid them.
       None were more so than Voltaire.  The man wrote and spoke his mind just to be persecuted for it. He spend most of his life on house arrest.  But the joke was on his captures.  Voltaire lived in a beautiful castle and his lover was a gorgeous and brilliant woman that came to him.  He spent his many hours drunk, fucking, and writing works that we still love and learn from today.  He also avoided the plagues being locked in his own home and lived to be an ancient old man of the late 1700's.  His persecutions caused him to live a life we can be enriched by all while we have enjoyed the good fortune of knowing he was happy and blessed unlike Dostoevsky.
        Dostoevsky on the other hand angered those whom forced him into military service, torture, and starvation.  He turned to gambling and booze to try to calm himself and the world of torment he was forced to live.  When these did not work he turned to religion and writing.  His craft became some of the greatest novels ever written in any language.  We also know he died starving and alone.
        Voltaire was a giant influence upon the structures and beginnings of the United Sates. Ben Franklin met with Voltaire during the Revolutionary War for ideas while he and John Adams tried to get monetary funding from France. 
        I also can't help to think for all the influence that great French thinkers had for our country I see us heading the same direction as Russia of the late 1800's.  Any differing views or beliefs are silenced by prison, forced labor, military service, falsified criminal charges,  or a silencing of their communication abilities by censorship of all mediums they can use.  I don't think it is coincidence the Salinger had most of his life's work under lock and key till many years after his physical body's death.
         

Start Searching Police Vehicles With Out Warrants?

        I have thought of an idea for trueer accountability for police officers. Those who hold the cards use the guise that officers are there to protect the public; and this is a service paid for through our tax dollars. These "protectors" can search us at any time with out real probable cause because of their "duty".

        We as citizens should be allowed to search their vehicles at any time because they are bought by the public domain. This should help us as citizens know that these officers are being held accountable and not allowed to live above the law while on duty by the citizens so heavenly taxed for the service officers provide.

       This will be Homeland Security by those that live in the home land to hold those in power accountable! Sounds like winning all the way across the board.

Destruction & Sustainability Can Not Work Together

        Trying to believe in the world as a great & wholesome place has become tougher and tougher to do these days.  I'm not sure if it is because I'm older, or if it my lack frolicking free time.
        I have a much sunnier outlook on life than I have for most of the 3 decades I've been on this earth; I can not help but to feel the cycle of the ebb and flow of human exsistance is taking a turn for the worse.
        For all that time we were looking into prosperity  and a world of grand new experiences, I now see the ill effect of humanity balancing precariously back to a time of sadness and decay.  Where literacy was something everyone had, it has become common place to no longer have the ability to read and still go through life without literacy.  People spend hours on Twitter reading 140 character blips, but so few will spend that same amount of time reading a great full length work by a great published author.  We work too little to pay our bills or so much we don't enjoy the benefits of being employed. We have sex partners and fuck buddies but we distance ourselves from having a lover because they might get them too close to us.  People would rather watch the super rich fight with each other through a lens and a copper wire than have their mind expanded by something intellectual.
       I realize it is just a down turn and a lull after a long batch of wonderful creativity; advancements in the arts, sciences, and human dignity were everyday and revolutionary new break throughs came to us almost more rapidly than we could grow accustom to.  Sadly there were also advances in destruction, torment, harm and war.  We learned to turn "crime" into profit and make criminal prosecution lucrative.  We took the justice out of the justice system and made it about making money rather than protecting those who need the help of the the state.  Now the profiteers hold all the cards.
       It took great international and domestic shake ups to create change back when the world saw a total upheaval in its standards and practices in terms of human exsistance.  Democracy and sanctions against torture came to be the ruling way of life.  It took the bravery of those who were sick of the way things were and knew change had to take place for there to be a better world.  They took it upon themselves to bring to light the wrongs and to fight the tyranny when they know the odds were stacked far against them. They took to any means necessary to gain respect as a human race and be known as back bone of the empire they were apart of, and decided to break free from.
         But we have to watch out for needless and senseless loss of life in the changing paradigm. We must not see predation and stratification in society as natural and something that can continue at these gross disproportions. Unity and not conformity need to be our motto instead of letting them divide and conquer us.
       When we live in a time when we spend more money killing the poor than it would cost to feed them we need to realign our values live in this world of plenty to its fullest.  We can not joke about eating the poor when the food supply runs out.  We need to see where innovation will be rewarded over mass profit margins.  To sustain those that are brought into this world.  Where they can have a standard of living this world can sustain for them and t future generations we produce.  A disposable society is just that. Expendable and non enduring.
        We don't need a larger television when the lands that supply the food to our future generations shows signs of decay.  And the ability to create sustainably is only a scientific breakthrough away.
        And just like we saw the French of the 1700's killing and filling the streets with blood (only to do it all over again when nothing of real substance changed).  A revolution can not be centered in violence, it must be centered in change and progress for the whole of humanity and not a focus on the violent over throw of a political power that only has power when we give it control.   We need to have our eyes opened to that fact that war feeds those who are infinitely rich and steals the lives, minds, & souls of those who do the fighting while keeping those at home waving flags and rooting on the senselessness killing of the impoverished of the 3rd world for profit.  No one is a hero in war times.  Violence only begets more violence and this is something we must get away from to continue the move forward.  Destruction of the earth and our race through violence will not sustain us anymore.

The Crimminal

When one can commit horrible and vile acts of violence, but yet tells himself he's a hero; he is the worst type of criminal.

Systematic Control in School & A Look Back

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/wtf-wrong-america-public-schools-holding-disturbing-drills/
       I could only hope that these stories of systematic control are sensationalized and super exaggerated.  But then I though of my school experiences back when I was in the public school system.
       I was not a student that broke records in sports, made All-Star teams, preformed in All-State competitions,  or graduated at the very top of my class.  I was the type that did not think any of those things mattered.  I was the guy who did make it into all the top groups he tried out for; he did make top 15-10% of his class type of grades and was often asked to join military service or compete in more school sponsored competitions than he was was already a part of. But still never felt compelled (or was allowed to) do many of these activities.
       I was happy to give as much as I did and get the level of success that is did receive. But I did question a great amount of practices the school participated in:
       When police officers came to teach classes to elementary school children, why were they packing heat and wearing their bullet proof vests?  When asked they would claim it was because they could be called out to an emergency, but I'm sure that would look bad on criminal control of the populace if an officer was called away from teaching kids to stay off drugs to go on a call. Couldn't a more "on-duty" officer take care of that?
        I also questioned why the G.R.E.A.T. officer (Gang Resistance Education and Training at a school out in the country where there were always more red-necks and pick-up trucks than cars in the parking lots) would try to belittle and harass me  in front of the class when 2 years before I was my class's top student in D.A.R.E.; who went to that summer's D.A.R.E. Summer camp?  I wondered why he felt good about himself harassing an already quite, but smart-witted & well behaved student. Even the teach did not question his erroneous treatment of me in fear of losing his job.
        Why was there always a soldier or military recruiter in my school at all times (& sometimes in the classroom) trying to get us enlisted for a merchant-of-death-gig? Why did they think this working class demographic wanted to go into battle for those that had more than ţhe average student there could dream of accomplishing financially?  Why were they glorifying a middle classes pay scale as prosperity when they were asking us to potentially give our lives to a country  thirsty for war and blood shed. (I won't go into how I couldn't help feeling that the U.S. was heading for another war at the drop of a hat or bomb.) But it always made me question.  Always made me wonder what a world would be like as I grew older.
        Just 18 months after I left high school the US was pulled into a flag waving occupation of the Middle-East, few months after that I had a state trooper put a gun to my head for having a sticker on my car asking for peace (as I drove to visit my family for an Easter meal), and I saw the average college tuition triple forcing more and more underprivileged citizens into military service to be able to get a foothold on life after high school.  All this back in the Mid 90's through early 2000's.  N now we are a decade removed from that downward slide and it feels as if we will finally land in that mud-hole of a violent police state any moment.

Thoughts & Writing

       Notes for the taking.  I find it it always interesting when one gets to type and let their thoughts flow.  What a great place to type and let my thumbs speak for my mind.
        Some days I just miss writing.  I used to write for hours and hours on end, just letting anything and everything flow.  Usually I used a pen and paper and would fill entire volumes of journals.  It felt wonderful talking to myself (through a pen and paper) for hours on end and just letting myself study who I am and what made me tick.        
       There were days I had more time for that kind of thing than I do now. I was freer to just go out and take a pen and a notebook with me, drive my truck to a place that served coffee and just hang out for hours on end dressed in a suit but with nowhere important to go.  I'd just people watch, drink coffee, write, think, read and just take in a small amount of free time away from work and responsibility.
       Those exact days maybe gone, and have been removed for something with much greater meaning then self indulgence; but I would never trade those times or these.  They have just been different parts of a very busy life.  I thank you all for being a part of that life.
      

Wages & Traditions

       When did we change curency from the amount time involved to make purchases (like Biblical writings would describe) to the amount of money for each purchase?  It seems so much more poinent to speak of the time and labor involved in what it takes to scratch out a living than some abirtry number of commerce dictated by forces outside of our control.  We do have the choice to take jobs that are offered to us, or not to take them.  We can argue wages.  But in the end the range of wages for the common person aren't that extreme in their ranges.
         To claim that this product took 4 years of wages to gain ownership of means so much more than to say it cost $60,000 when one takes the time to think of what four years of labor really involves.  Do we do this because we live in a capitalist society? (Where dollars determine every move the individual makes.)
          Do those in other countries describe their purchasing piower in monetary numbers, or do they use the length of time they labored?  I'd love to find out.

I'll Be Posting Again

       Well, my phone finally croaked off officially, my iPad isn't formatted for good formatting of blogs, & I was working far too many work hours to have free time to write. 

       Those things have changed now. I will be back to posting and letting my feelings flow on here once again. It has been a. Freeing experience to, once again, spend time with family, read books, and take in inspiring movies to help get the creative flow going again.  It has been torture not getting to write with the voracity I used to.   

       After seeing I have been getting many views of my page lately; I hope those who have come by have enjoyed what they have read and will be getting to enjoy more quantity of content in the future.  

       Please feel free to leave comments and let me know how you felt. You can also email me @ PaffordTim@gmail.com.