Thankfulness

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

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November 23rd, Wednesday, 2016

“Life is good, bad, beautiful and ugly – but it is all experience, so drink it up and guzzle it down my friends, for it is all that we are given!” EB

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” Joseph Campbell

Well – I would like to wish everyone in the world Happy Thanksgiving. This has been a really interesting year to say the least. Crazy at the worst. Whoever coined the term “reality is stranger than fiction” really hit it on the head. Britain leaves the EU and we elect DT as our next president. Who would have thought? Well that is life. And I am thankful for all of it – if things always went our way…well it would get pretty boring. Take social media for instance, i.e. Facebook. In the last couple of months there have been some pretty strong opinions expressed. At one point, I felt that it might be better to get off Facebook all together. But as I looked at all these different opinions I realized that this is important. We are creatures of comfort and habit. It takes a concerted effort to get ourselves in a state of discomfort and to break old habits. Growth only occurs when things fail or don’t go our way. So in this vein of thought, I try to remind myself each day that I need to surround myself with people, both physically and virtually who don’t have the same view that I do. And this is where Facebook becomes an incredible tool – you now have the ability to access the opinions and knowledge of thousands of other individuals, sometimes millions. And what do you find? That not everyone has your same view!! This is a good thing. This puts us in a state of discomfort. And from this discomfort growth will occur and old habits might get broken. So enjoy the banter on Facebook and if it makes you a little uncomfortable – well so much the better!

The picture below is from my daughter in Steamboat Springs this week. Beautiful.

Psychology

Monday 15th, February 2016

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A beautiful Colorado sunset from my place of work – Feb 3rd, 2016

PERSPECTIVE AND FEAR

It is all perspective. No matter what happens to you good or bad – it is all a matter of perspective. I have truly come to believe that. As much as I would like to be able to “control” what happens to me – it is not possible. Let me say that again – You cannot control what happens to you. Sometimes you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the right time. Once I accepted this reality – life got better.

Something that really helped me with this this idea of “Perspective” was a quote from Joan Tollifson:

“Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor or employee, every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the Guru.”

No matter what happens to me, if I am truly in the moment and see it as an opportunity to learn, there is a lessening of what I call the “FEAR.” The fear of saying the wrong thing, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of looking foolish or stupid, the fear of showing vulnerability, the fear of sickness, injury and even death, etc.… Every moment of your existence while awake is an opportunity to see past the “FEAR.” One of the best movie quotes that relates to this idea of “FEAR” is from the movie “After Earth.” It is when the character (Cypher Raige) played by Will Smith is talking his son about fear.

Cypher is telling is son to be in the moment. Not to be thinking about what happened in the past or what might happen in the future but to be in the moment. The danger to his son is very real but creating and amplifying the fear is a choice or a perspective. And that perspective is something that is made up and formed in our minds. Being in the moment, seeing it as a learning opportunity, and it can all be a learning opportunity, lessens that fear.

Ok, ok, ok enough of this already. One last quote about this and I will go. This one is from the Book Dune by Frank Herbert – spoken by the character Paul Atreides:

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that bring total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

You can lessen the fear but you never totally get rid of it. It is a part of you – it is why as a species we are here or our ancestors would have been eaten on the Plains of Africa millions of years ago. It kept us out of trouble. So to take it one more step, you invite the “FEAR” in – facing the fear. As if you are serving it coffee or tea. Find out what it wants, what it is about, learn all you can from it, and be kind to it. Learning about the fear is really learning about yourself and in doing so you minimize it.

That is all that I have for this week – see ya at the next post. Be safe and have fun living life to the fullest!!

Life and Meaning, Psychology

FRIDAY 5TH, JUNE 2015

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“LIFE HAS NO MEANING. EACH OF US HAS MEANING AND WE BRING IT TO LIFE. IT IS A WASTE TO BE ASKING THE QUESTION WHEN YOU ARE THE ANSWER” – Joseph Campbell

 

“I DON’T BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE AS MUCH AS THEY ARE LOOKING FOR THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING ALIVE” – Joseph Campbell

 

“PARTICIPATE JOYFULLY IN THE SORROWS OF THE WORLD. WE CANNOT CURE THE WORLD OF SORROWS, BUT WE CAN CHOOSE TO LIVE IN JOY” – Joseph Campbell

 


I have waited to the end of the week to get busy on this and I was really not sure what to put down. I was drawing a blank and having trouble getting motivated when I saw this quote while reading Friday afternoon and decided to look it up. It seemed familiar and sure enough it was by a favorite author of mine – Joseph Campbell. In the process of rereading some of his quotes I found a few more that I like. I guess I can start here to see where this might go? I am familiar with JC’s books called “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” and the “Hero’s Journey.” Excellent reading by the way if you want to explore some deep thought provoking concepts. So when I saw the first quote about life not having any meaning my curiosity was stirred. What was Joseph Campbell talking about? What did he mean “Life has no meaning.” That is a good question. I guess it means that life just is. But as humans we want to add control and meaning by a higher power. We want to think that there is some grand plan to it all. To explain the bad things. The fantastic and fortuitous things. The terrible things. But in reality there is no control, there is no meaning outside of us. We bring the meaning to life. As individuals and in mass, we create it. We give it meaning, we create the control. Because outside of that there is nothing.

Thinking about this strikes a chord with me. I am sure that there are people in the world that have their lives turn out just like they had planned. But I am not one of those. If I could go back in time and know what I know now. Wow, there would be so many things that I would change or do differently. But that is not how it works. When I was a lot younger I thought that there was a grand plan for me and I just needed to discover it, work harder, do better? But what I have come to realize is that there is no grand plan. It was just made up as I went along and continues to be. Choose this path and not that one, turn right and not left, work at this job, not that one, etc.… I so wanted to believe that there was some higher authority that in all the cosmos, had my best interest in mind. That what happened to me or did not happen to me was all part of a game plan. Wow, writing this down I cannot believe how naïve I was. To think this. Could it have been a fear of taking control and responsibility for my own life? Could it all relate back to fear, fear of failure, fear of death, fear of making the wrong decisions in life? Just fear? Maybe none of this matters? Is it all random out there in the cosmos? This thing that we call “life” has no meaning – we bring the meaning, we bring the control, we bring the experience.

The pictures this week are from Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Park. The rain had let up a little bit and it was a great day to get out on the trails. The top two pictures show the wide valley area between Lory and Horsetooth. As you can tell the sun was out at this time and everything was verdant green. Just beautiful. The top picture was looking south towards Horsetooth and the middle picture was looking north towards Lory. The bottom picture is from the top of Towers Road in Horsetooth. I think I have posted a similar picture before. But I am always awed when I get to the top to look west and see Meeker and Longs Peak. As you can tell there is still a lot of snow for the first week of June. Well I think that is going to be it for me this week. Take care and hope to see you out on the trails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art, Meditations, Psychology

FRIDAY 22ND, MAY 2015

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I have been writing a personal journal consistently for almost 4 years now. And what I mean by consistently is “every day.” If I miss a day I do not feel right. Some days it is only a half of a page, on other days it is more than three pages. I used to think that I would run out of stuff to write about, but that has not been the case. If anything the list of things to write about has gotten longer. My journal is one that I know will never be read except by me so all topics are fair game. Nothing is held sacred. Nothing is held back. It is a writing that is mainly exploration of the “self.” Good things as well as the bad things. I have learned more about myself in the last four years than I ever knew was possible. Somethings were really difficult to write about. And other topics that I thought I had covered in great detail still had more layers to them. I do not see a day that I ever stop journaling. Socrates was right: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Over time one of the things that has evolved out of the journaling is a list that I review every day and I mean every day. They are just small saying and quotes but they help me to live life as best I can. As the exploration continues so will the personal and spiritual growth therefore the list is not written in stone. It will change and that’s as it should be. I would like to share this list with you. My hope is that you will find something helpful in your life as I did.

THE LIST

 

1. You have all that you need. When you get right down to it most of us have all that we need. Really we have all that we need. Especially in the USA. I remind myself of this while watching TV and I get that feeling of “wanting” something new. The question becomes is this a need or is it a want? And what do I feel comfortable giving up for a want. I am not finically independent and for me it means how much time do I want to spend at work in order to afford the “new want.” Just thinking about spending more time at work usually kills it right there.

 

2. What would you attempt if you knew that you could not fail? This is a good one. What would we attempt if you really knew that you could not fail? The possibilities are endless when you starting thinking about it. Or I like this one even better. If we knew “failure” was Ok what worthwhile goal would you set for yourself? This is the trick to this one. The idea that failure is not usually final. Matter a fact it is part of the process and without it we would not have much success at all.

 

3. The things that we fear the most are the things that we most need to do. I like this. How many times do we not try something because we fear it? Obviously you may fear jumping off a cliff, but that does not mean you need to jump off the cliff. It just means you need to think it through a little more. Maybe with the right equipment like a parachute. Or ropes so that you can repel down, etc… Just think of all the things that would be possible if fear was not an issue. I like the quote by Susan Jeffers: “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

 

4. You must renew the climb of the mountain each and every day! I like to think that this one I invented, but the truth of the matter is that I have heard a lot of people say this. Each day is new and we have to go out and start the metaphorical climb of the mountain each day. The idea here is to realize that you may not get to the top of the mountain everyday but that is OK. Sometimes the climb is harder today than it was yesterday or tomorrow. It just means that you have to start. That is the trick – just start, just show up, just be present.

 

5. LET GO AND WALK ON! I really like this phrase – I think that it another way to sum up Buddhism. The phrase is from Alan Watts. It is the idea that life is in a constant state of change, there is nothing that is permanent, everything changes. If you try to hold on to something, whatever it is, we miss the rest of life flowing by us. So “Let Go! AND Walk On!”

6. Linger in the moment. This one is from Pema Chodron. It is a way to help remind myself to stay in the moment. All of life happens in the present moment. The past is past, the future has not happened yet. All of life is right now, right here, right in this very moment while you are reading these words.

 

7. Embrace life. This is just a quote that I like. It reminds me that life is not fair, terrible things happen, good people and loved ones die. And most of the time there is nothing that you can do about it. This is life but you have a choice of whether to embrace it or reject it. I like to think that I have chosen to embrace it. To make a positive difference where ever I can.

 

8. Slip off the cloak and shackles of shame. Let vulnerability rein! Ah – SHAME – the hidden emotion! We wear shame like a cloak and it becomes so much a part of us that we do not realize we have it on. Like a well-worn leather jacket. It becomes very comfortable and colors all of our actions and decisions without us even knowing. A big THANK YOU to Brene Brown and her book called “Daring Greatly.” If you would have asked me last year if I had “shame” or if “shame” had ever influenced a decision I made, I would have thought you were crazy. But I now know that for the last 50 years of my life I have worn this cloak and it has colored everything in my life. And not in a good way.

 

9. YOU ARE OK JUST AS YOU ARE. YOU ARE ENOUGH. This is part of the above Quote. It goes with the idea of shame. The ideas that society tells you: you are never enough, never smart enough, never big enough, never good enough, never beautiful enough, never rich enough, never skinny enough, etc…. But YOU ARE ENOUGH. YOU ARE OK JUST AS YOU ARE.

 

10. All of life is distraction. This is just to remind me that life is made up of distractions. There is no rhyme or reason to it. We would like to say that we can control it but in reality we have no control except how we react to it. Good things happen, bad things happen, but there is no overseeing god or omnipresent being that controls it. Life just is and what you make of it, good or bad.

 

11. We do not see life as it really is, we see life as we are. This famous quote come from the writer Anais Nin. She was a remarkable woman who kept a journal for over 40 years. This quote is so true. I have to remind myself of this every day. Yes I will admit that sometimes I have a very “jaded” view of the world and that my jaded view is not how the world really is. When I am angry or sad or happy my view of the world changes and this is how it should be. But the trick is the realization that your view changes with your current state of mind.

Well this is the list that has evolved over 4 years of writing a journal. I know that it will continue to evolve as I write, but this is OK. Life is not static, it is movement and flow. Always in a state of change. My hope is that you found something helpful or interesting for further exploration.

It has again been a rainy week this past 7 days. And I have been working a lot at my day job. So I do not have many pictures to share with you this week of running. Instead I would like to share a few pictures of what I call my “Yard Art Faces.” The top one, the large sun face (about 5 to 6 feet in diameter) is the oldest being about 16 years old. I have had to repaint it twice in that time. But it still looks pretty good for its age and exposure to the elements. The middle one was my first step into making what I call functional art. The nose of the face is used as outdoor lighting. I had planned to paint in more details but after finishing the lips and teeth, it just felt that doing any more to it would take away from the shapes. The bottom one was made using plywood and old bicycle parts. This one is in a protected location but still outdoors and has held up pretty well.

Well that is it for me this week. I am hoping for sunnier and drier Colorado weather next week. Until then take care and see you out there!!

 

 

 

 

Truth and Perception

FRIDAY 15TH, MAY 2015

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“THERE ARE THINGS KNOWN AND THERE ARE THINGS UNKNOWN, AND IN BETWEEN ARE THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION”
– Aldous Huxley

 

“PERCEPTION IS REALITY UNTIL IT IS CHANGED”

 

“THE FOOLISH REJECT WHAT THEY SEE, NOT WHAT THEY THINK. THE WISE REJECT WHAT THEY THINK, NOT WHAT THEY SEE” – Huang Po

 

Perception, perception and perception – it is all about “conceived perception.” In the last year I have come to believe that what we experience, what we feel, what we like or dislike, etc… are all related to our imagined perceptions. And if we can change our perceptions of what we think, feel or experience then we can change our thinking and in turn our world. It is all up to us. I came to this current conclusion partly by journaling almost every day for the last 4 years. It brought me to the deduction that most of what we think of as “truth” is just made up. It is our perceptions and the perceptions of others that we come to live by. Those conceived perceptions are just made up in the mind and are subject to all the same mistakes, errors, faults and blunders that humans make every day. This is not to say that if you keep a very positive outlook on life that nothing will happen to you that is bad. Terrible, awful things happen in life, and on the flip side wonderful, incredibly beautiful and joyous things happen too. Those events happen and there is nothing we can do about it, except to remember that perception is the means we use for the interpretation of those events. Good or bad. It is a relative truth. The day to day things and events that we talk about, gossip about, Facebook about, sell, buy, etc…those things are all conceptual. Just made up and always in a state of change from person to person, culture to culture, year to year – ephemeral as a Mojave Desert steam in summer.

Ultimate Truth – the “direct and immediate experience” of an event – this is something different. It is perception but not “conceived perception” which is cluttered by all the day to day matters in your life. Instead this is direct experience, direct perception. You cannot hold this type of perception in your mind – you can only experience it, as it is happening, right then, right now, right in the moment. The pain or joy that I feel in doing an Ultramarathon is a way for me to experience that direct perception. When I am lucky enough and can clear my mind having no other thoughts in place except on breathing or the discomfort in my legs, I experience what is known as an ultimate truth. No preconceived notions, no worries about yesterday or tomorrow, no concerns about work, family or friends, just experiencing the moment as it unfolds, good or bad, makes no difference. It can be a way to experience nirvana.

Some people might call this Buddhism, I just call it two kinds of perception. Conceived perception (Relative Truth) and direct perception (Ultimate Truth). They are neither good nor bad – they just are and both are needed to survive in the world. As humans we all have the tendency to ignore what we see in favor of what we would like to imagine. The challenge is to realize this. To examine the world around you in a clear and cautious fashion, testing all ideas, all concepts and all agendas. Remembering that nothing is sacred. That everything is suspect. To comprehend what is real and what is just made up but seems real.

Wow not sure where that all came from, but these are my opinions and I am sticking to them at the moment. Of course all is suspect and might change by next week!

Well on a different note, it has been very wet on the Front Range of Colorado for the last 7 to 10 days. But this past Tuesday turned out to be a beautiful spring day in the Fort Collins area. The high only reached about 60 degree with very light winds. A perfect day for running or biking. Since my middle daughter was in town for a visit and wanted to go running and hiking that is what I did. The above two pictures were taken in Horsetooth Mountain Park. The top one is looking west towards Longs Peak. Still looks like there is a lot of snow in the high country. The next one is looking south towards Loveland. It was taken while running on Tower’s Road trail. The bottom two pictures were from Wednesday. Of course what a difference a day makes. Clouds, mist and the chance of rain back in the forecast. The second from bottom picture is looking north from the Shore Line Trail at Horsetooth Reservoir. The very bottom picture is also taken from the Shore Line Trail but looking south.

Well that is it for me this week – take care and see you out there!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exercise, Quad Rock 50

FRIDAY 8TH, MAY 2015

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INTO EACH LIFE SOME RAIN MUST FALL
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

SOME PEOPLE JUST WALK IN THE RAIN, OTHERS JUST GET WET
– Roger Miller

Well darn they canceled the Quad Rock due to weather. The park managers decided that there would be way too much damage to the trails if they allowed the race to proceed. I guess that is always a potential for any urban trail race. Horsetooth and Lory State Park are very close to Fort Collins and Loveland. So close that they could be considered part of the Fort Collins / Loveland urban corridor. Not only did the park managers close the race to the event, they have closed both parks to everyone this weekend. My guess is that part of this closure is not just related to trail damage but also to potential liability and safety. You get a group of people out running a 25 or 50 mile race in rugged terrain with a lot of climbing, 5500 feet for the 25 miler and 11,000 feet for the 50, and add in the potential for snow and dropping temperatures in the afternoon on Saturday, well there could be some issues. I am writing on Friday afternoon and the temp in Lory State Park at the moment is 44 degree Fahrenheit. This could really lead to some hypothermic situations on Saturday.

I know how I feel after doing a 50 miler in good weather, not sure how I would feel after doing the same distance in challenging weather. It could become an issue of evacuation or rescue? I recall some friends that I made at last year’s Leadville Training Camp, talking about the previous year’s Silver Rush 50 trail race. According to them the race started off in good weather but towards the very end a large thunderstorm rolled in and preceded to drop what appeared to be “Biblical” amounts of rain, falling temperatures and small hail for the last hours of the race. They talked about how it became more of a rescue than a race for a lot of contestants. Or the time talking with a Steamboat Spring resident about the weather issues at the 2012 Run Rabbit Run 50 miler. Again it was during the last part of the race when a weather front moved in and dropped rain, snow, high winds and falling temperatures. Per this individual “the snow was falling sideways” and people were not prepared. Getting everyone off the mountain and accounted for was a huge struggle for race officials. A lot of participants needed to be rescued.

So what do you do when you have all the training in place, you have rested, you got off work, rearranged schedules, and you have put all the pieces in place to get ready for this one big day. And then it gets canceled!! Aggghhhhhhh!! Good question and I do not have the answer at the moment. It is like getting ready for a big wedding but then the bride or the groom backs out? Then what? Have your own party? I think that most trail races go off rain or shine, especially if the weather is good to start with. But when it starts with marginal weather to begin with, and the forecast is for it to get worse? Well then I cannot blame the park and race managers. Looking at the big picture I would make the same decision. I think tomorrow I will have my own party so to speak in Fort Collins. Maybe a 12 or 24 hour run in the city just to see how far I can go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well on a different note. I bit the bullet so to speak. Told myself that I would not pay that much for a sports watch, but what can I say? When my old Garmin Forerunner 101 gave up the ghost I needed a new GPS for training. My first thought was to just replace it with another Garmin which would have been the cheapest thing to do. But after thinking about it for a while I found what I WANTED, not what I needed, I wanted a better sport watch and that is what I got!  Wow I am glad that I did this.  I was currently using a Suunto Vector for elevation gain/loss measurements, a Polar FT4 for heart rate and the old Garmin for distance. After looking at different reviews I decided on a Suunto Ambit 3 Peak. The nice part is that it replaced all three of the above units. I get elevation gain/loss measurements, heart rate and GPS. I have been using it for about 2 weeks with running and biking and so far I am very happy with it. But this was not the best part, during the research part of this purchase, I discovered the Movescount App, the Strava App and the App called “Lose It!” All three of these are amazing apps in and of themselves, but what really makes this cool is that the Apps all connect. The watch with the Movescount, the Movescount with the Strava and the Strava with the Lose It App. I feel that I get the same kind of feedback that I would get with a personnel trainer. Pretty cool. I am guessing that in the next 5 to 10 years, all watches will be App enable and the Apps themselves will be able to communicate with each other. It will probably not be too long before we all have our own personnel trainer so to speak but it will be an AI of some kind. This gives me a weird, scary, cool feeling all wrapped up in one. Only time will tell.

Well that is it for me this week. Stay safe, but play in the rain a little. See ya out there!!

Just a quick note the Quad Rock was reschedule for Sunday June 14th!!  Yea!!

 

 

Anais Nin, Psychology

FRIDAY 1ST, MAY 2015

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“LIFE SHRINKS OR EXPANDS IN PROPORTION TO ONE’S COURAGE”
– Anais Nin

There are times that I feel like I have made decisions that are not in hindsight the best. Have you ever felt this way? The above quote is attributed to the Author Anais Nin. She was famous for her diaries or journals that span almost 60 years. Supposedly she started keeping a diary at the age of 11 and continued to write until shortly before her death when she was in her 70s. Amazing. Talk about the “examined life.” If you have developed the habit of keeping a journal or diary and have done this for a length of time, greater than a year or longer, I think you probably understand to some degree the quote attributed to Socrates. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” My guess is that after writing a journal for so long Nin understood this concept well. And at some point came to the conclusion that we make our decisions or we see life not as it really is, but who we are at that moment, what we are feeling, whether we have had an argument with our significant other, if someone cut us off in traffic, were mean to us at work, etc…. All our preconceived notions and emotions at that time, in that moment, determine the decisions that we make – good or bad.

Thinking about this, I have to wonder when in the moment of making a decision which would affect my life in a big way, where was I mentally? What was going on at the time in my life? And then to take this another step further I have to wonder when decisions were made for me or I was given advice, that in hindsight might not have been the best advice, where was that person mentally. What was going on in their life? Is it a wonder that any of us really end up doing the “right” thing so to speak. Maybe this is where part of the idea of “forgiveness” comes from. There are those of us that can and do egregious and appalling acts in their lives, but does that mean they should never be forgiven. Taken to the extreme, is life in prison more compassionate as opposed to the death penalty? Should there even be a death penalty? How can any of us truly be held fully and I mean fully accountable for our actions? When all of our actions are really dependent on our state of mind at the time that we committed the crime or error in judgement. We have all experienced temporary insanity at some point in our lives. It is another thing that makes us human.

Moving on to other thoughts, this was the last week of training for the Quad Rock. And I have to think about the above quote by Nin. I am hopeful that I will be able to do the 50 miles next Saturday. But I have to ask myself if I am truly ready to do that distance. Am I seeing my training and physical conditioning as it really is, or is it just wishful thinking? It is still early for me in what I call the running season. So it will be interesting to see how well I do on the course next weekend.

The above pictures are all from this past week. We had the usually sun in the AM and rain in the afternoon. The first picture is from Horsetooth Lake on Monday the 27th. It is looking South West from one of the damns. As you can see the lake is already full this year with spring runoff from the mountains. The second picture is from the Cathy Fromme Prairie Natural Area in Fort Collins. This was looking west towards the Foothills behind the city. This picture was taken on Tuesday. What a difference a day makes. Cool and rainy on Monday, dry and sunny on Tuesday. The bottom picture was taken in the Pineridge Open space behind Fort Collins. I have posted pictures from this area before but usually from one of the ridges. The picture was taken Thursday just before a small thunderstorm rolled through.

Now, after writing this blog for a few months I am reminded of how fortunate I am to live in Fort Collins with all the Open Space and Natural areas and interconnected trail system. You could not ask for a better place to work out. Well that is about it for me this week – wish me luck at the Quad Rock and that the weather holds. Last year towards the end of the 50 mile race a late spring snow storm rolled in and caused a few issues. Crazy. See you out there!!

 

 

Religion

FRIDAY 24TH, APRIL 2015

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“Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going?” – Anonymous

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” – Seneca the Younger

“All thinking men are atheist.” – Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms)

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quite. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“The cultivation of loving-kindness and compassion is not intrinsically a religious endeavor. It has really a much more general pertinence and general applicability. You don’t have to be religious or buy into a religious doctrine to do it. This is why I think it is important to develop techniques that are secular and not simply religious in orientation.” – The Dalai Lama

 

I am no longer a Christian or have any religious affiliation. I am an atheist. Freedom, freedom and saying it again, freedom from the old religious quicksand that engulfs so many others. How fortunate I am. My God – if there was a god – that felt so good to say! Wow! I am an atheist. I am an atheist and I am free. What a relief. That took me a very long time to say. 53 years to be closer to the mark. I AM AN ATHEIST. Wow!

Growing up in Wichita Falls Texas I was exposed to the Southern Baptist way of religion. And until I was 20 years old I still believed in it. The bible was the word of God. And anyone that goes against it would be struck down and sent to hell. Literally – no ands, if or buts, you would go to hell. I literally believed this until College. Damn College it opened my eyes. The study of Geology and Biology – specifically the age of the earth, fossils that are millions of year’s old, and comparative anatomy started me down the road to that freedom. What I was learning could not be reconciled with what the scriptures and the “man” on Sunday championed. Just could not do it.

The field of study that completed the liberation was, of all things, Art History. Really – it was Art History – it helped me finally come to the understanding that all of what we take for granted in our religious iconography – has just been made up, copied, changed and adulterated in some form or another since time immortal. This includes paintings, drawings, decoration and ritual, architecture and most importantly writing (ex – the Bible, Quran, etc…). All of it has just been made up. Nothing in religion as in art is sacred.

Now this is not to say that I am not a spiritual person – you can be spiritual and not believe in any kind of religion or god. In fact, any meaningful activity or experience can be considered spiritual. Your work can be spiritual to you. Sex can spiritual to you. Painting can be spiritual to you. Hell even mowing the lawn has been described as a spiritual experience for some people. Long distance running is spiritual to me. It is a subjective experience in the pursuit of psychological growth.

So what is my philosophy on life? That is a good question and it took me 50 years to formulate an answer and I am not done yet. At the moment I would have to consider myself closer in Buddhist thought than anything else. But not Buddhist thought in the traditional sense with all the robes, rituals and religious dogma that has been placed on it over time. I am secular in Buddhist thought. Again, no robes, no rituals and most of all no religion. There is no consideration for the supernatural or reincarnation and karma is considered only in this life – your intentions, actions and their results. Some have called it a return to the original teachings of the Buddha – the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path. Whatever you say about it – I believe that it lays a frame work to build and live a more meaningful and compassionate life. A frame work that allows for the unique differences of others without the discrimination and judgement of others. Religion in contrast is about control and domination of the masses, disguised as kindness and compassion, but really more about control.

A philosophy or way of life that does not allow this will not appeal to some that are in charge or think that they are. Maybe this is the next step in human psychological evolution – the end of all religion and an adoption of a more compassionate and loving human experience?

The above opinions are mine and I am sticking to them for the moment. The bottom two pictures are from bike riding this past week. The middle one is from the Pine Ridge Open Space looking South towards Denver and the bottom one with the large Bull Snake is from the Redtail Grove Open Space, both of which are in Fort Collins. The day I came across the snake it had been a cool morning and my guess is that it just needed some warmth. The sun was directly overhead and the concrete of the bike path was quite warm. Ahhhh – the simple pleasures of just lying in the sun, even for a snake. Well that is enough for this week. Take care and hope to see you Out There!

 

Time Travel

FRIDAY 17TH, APRIL 2015

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Time’s the king of all men,

He is their parent, and he is their grave,

And gives them what he will, not what they crave.

-William Shakespeare, Pericles

Time travel – now that would be something?! To be able to go back and change a single mistake, take the road less traveled, turn left instead of right, to relive your life with all the knowledge and power that you know now. This scenario if used in the right way could end wars before they start, stop environmental destruction before it occurs, and even stop cancer before it spreads to the rest of your body. How fantastic, how wonderful this would be. Right? There are some physicist that think this might be possible at some point in the future. And to me that is a very scary thought. Humans in all our glory are still flawed. That’s what makes us human – Too emotional, too independent and even when we have the best of intentions there will be times that we are wrong. No, time travel, as in going back in time, is not for the human race.

But what if you could go forward in time, so to speak? Not to actually jump forward in time but to live a much longer life? Indefinite even. No expiration date? An open ended life span – immortality? I must admit that I become giddy at the thought. I cannot begin to imagine the amount of acquired knowledge that would be gained by living more than one life time. Start in one field of study, work on it for 25 to 30 years and then switch to another, and then repeat it. Work as a social worker, become a doctor, an engineer, an artist, then maybe an architect, and on and on indefinitely. The combining of knowledge from multi-fields of study in one individual would make issues and problems that seemed unsolvable a thing of the past. Solutions would be put forth that we cannot even think of now. We learn by making mistakes and we would have an infinite amount of time to make them.

Change the human life span to an open ended one and you change all of society. The question of whether or not there is a heaven or hell would be settled. If you never die of old age, well, the only heaven or hell is the one that you create yourself while living. The power of religion over the masses would dwindle. Over population would become a problem very quickly but this would cause a huge uptick in funding for the space program. Time to get us off the planet and eventually to the stars. In the mean time we would be forced to become much better stewards of the environment. The excesses and abuses of the past would not be tolerated. The Supreme Court’s old adage of appointed for life would become a thing of the past. Serve 10 years and then someone else is appointed? Having and raising children would no longer be the all-consuming life draining event that it can be now. You could have your kids and cake too so to speak. Eventually there would be a downturn in all military spending. When you realize that you could live a thousand years or more, then getting killed in some corporate military debacle does not become as appealing, as if it ever was. I could go on and on but you get the idea. And for those naysayers out there, yes there would be problems, some very serious, but to use a quote that has been attributed to multi different authors, including Plato, “Necessity is the mother of Invention.” We would find a way.

Well that is about all for me this week. It has been a little cold and snowy the last couple of days but that is Colorado in spring. The top picture is one I borrowed from the internet and the bottom two pictures are of the Poudre River as it flows through Fort Collins. Take care and see you out there.

 

 

 

 

 

Alien Life, Religion

FRIDAY 10TH, APRIL 2015

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Signs of Alien Life Will Be Found by 2025, NASA’s Chief Scientist Predicts

“I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years,” NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said Tuesday (April 7) during a panel discussion that focused on the space agency’s effort to search for habitable worlds and alien life. By Mike Wall YAHOO! News

What? Alien life somewhere out there beyond our own biosphere? Really? Just because there are 200 billion or more stars in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. And that current research shows there might be tens of billions of solar systems (stars with planets). Why should there be life somewhere else besides earth? It causes me to stop and wonder. Are we so egocentric in our thinking that a lot of us cannot even envision life beyond earth – even if it is just a single celled organism? That in the entire Universe we are it? That no other sentient beings exist? What a colossal waste of space this would be if it were true.

Of course I do not believe this. I think that it is no different when Europeans were afraid to sail too far from the shore. That the ocean just dropped away at the horizon, that there were sea monsters, that the sun boiled oceans, etc… Of course part of the problem was their technology – squared sailed ships, inaccurate clocks and maps, etc…. But as it got better, most of those fears and worries vanished. That is what is happening now – the technology is getting better. And I firmly believe as the NASA scientist believe we will find extraterrestrial life, even if it is just a single cell organism. This discovery when it comes will be a game changer.

Some people have argued that if there is intelligent life out there why have they not contacted us? And that is a good question. My thought is that the distances between stars are enormous, really hard to get your head around and we are in a backwater so to speak of the Milky Way Galaxy. Also our planet may not be as “special” among other planets in the MWG. Only special to us of course. Or maybe Carl Sagan had it right. If you are an advanced species in the galaxy with the capability to travel to other stars and you came across Earth and humanity with all its issues: wars over religion and race, poverty, environmental destruction and generally man’s inhumanity to man. Why would you stop? I mean really why would you stop? Would you want to visit Syria, or the border between Israel and Palestine, or maybe you would be better to go to the Baltics or Ukraine? Oh I know: listening to the debate in this country and others over whether it is OK to be Gay or not? And if you were an advanced star traveling species why would you want to miss out on the “Superstitious dogma that is Religious belief.” No – I do not think that you would stop. I think that Dr. Sagan got it right.

Maybe, just maybe the discovery of Alien life in the Universe will help with the egocentric nature religion has given to people. The discovery of even a single celled organism outside of our own planet’s biosphere throws the whole idea of “we are the center of the universe” off balance. This egocentric view that religion has helped to instill will be a thing of the past. And in turn this will be the end of religious belief for most people on earth. Of course there will still be diehards that will try and keep the faith so to speak but over time as new discoveries are made their numbers will become fewer and fewer.

The other exciting possibility is the uniting of all countries, nations and people on earth. We will now be a world among other possible worlds. Exobiology will become a real science and not just a theoretical one. The human race will unite like never before in the face of real alien life. It might be the catalysis to push humanity out of the quagmires of religious belief and into a new and higher state of human development. Well this is my opinion and I am sticking to it.

The pictures are all from a trail called Towers Road in Horsetooth Mountain Park. HMP is just behind Fort Collins and is an incredible recreational resource for the surrounding area. Towers Road Trail is fantastic hill training. It gains about 1600 feet of elevation in about 3.4 miles and is very runnable all year long. When I took these pictures on Wednesday April the 8th it was a somewhat hazy day on the Front Range of Colorado. A cold front had pushed through the night before and we were getting a little upslope from the east. Enough to give haze and clouds but not enough for rain and thunderstorms. Temps were about 50 to 55 degrees at the time. The top picture is looking Northeast over part of Horsetooth Lake. The second picture is looking South towards Denver. The third picture is looking due East out over the lake and Fort Collins. The forth picture shows what the trail is named for. The road winds its way up to the towers at the top of the ridge, elevation about 7,100 feet. The fifth and final picture shows Horsetooth Rock and this landmark is what the park is named for. Early settlers to the area thought the rock looked like a giant horse’s tooth with a rough chewing surface and groove. But according to local Native American legend, Horsetooth Rock is the remains of an evil giant’s heart cut in two by the powerful Chief Maununmoku, thus protecting his people from the giant’s wrath. This last part was from the Department of Natural Resources Larimer County.

Well this is it for me this week. Have a great weekend and see you out there!!

Life is good, bad, beautiful and ugly – but it is all experience, so drink it up and guzzle it down my friend, for it is all that we are given!!