Blue Earth, Red Shoes

It Really IS a Wonderful Life

2009-11-30T12:25:00.006-05:00

It's that time of the year again. Black Friday is past and now we move forward to the rest of the hectic shopping and Holiday season. I'm opting out this year. I've done enough of that for several life times, and I have learned that, in the end, the most important gifts in life do not come in fancy packages. It might be different if we had small children, but it's just me and Hubby. We've agreed to just enjoy the meaning of the holiday, rather than the hype. Not that there is anything wrong with the hype, really. The garland, the decorations, the merriment, they are all good things. If they help to enhance the enjoyment of the season, and they do not become a burden, then they are very good things.

All the same, these are tough times for many people around the world. It seems, to Hubby and I, that we need to go back to basics. We have chosen to keep it simple. When you have your health, and your loved ones around, then everything and anything over and above that is a blessing, a gift and a miracle.

This was a dark year for me, in far too many ways. I might go into why at some future date when the sting is less pronounced, when I can be open about it, but it really doesn't matter. Suffice it to say, whatever my story is, it is no different from many stories of many good people around the world. No matter how bad it has been, I am humbled and eternally grateful to know that we were spared a far worse fate. My heart goes out daily to fine people around the world, who have not been as fortunate.

I've always loved the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." For those of you who have read my previous posts, and who know about my Frank Capra adoration, this will come as no surprise. It has always held special meaning, but this year, it means the world.

I share this excerpt with you as my gift of Joy for the Holidays and for the year to come. Let's make it a good season, and let's make it a better year for everyone in 2010.

Please enjoy!

Giving Thanks Spreads - Me: Smiling!

2009-11-13T19:32:00.002-05:00

So, why? Why not? That is my only answer. That is my only reason. As I watch the Tweet flow, it makes my stomach tingle and my inner light glow. That is it. And there ain't nothing small about that.

People are positive if they are allowed to be. My influence for this is Frank Kapra, who affected my development heavily, and programmed my brain for hope. Others too, but I want to keep this post short and sweet (for a change). Great smart people who simply believed that the world might be a dirty nasty place at times, but we could clean it up, if we just picked up the broom.

So, if you like this line of thinking and you realize that you are better off when others are better off, then #givethanks. Spread the Tweet. Spread the Love. Spread the Good.

Remember, it's all I want for Christmas, so basically my sock will be full the minute the Trend Hits the Top and Stays there! Momentum is a powerful thing. Push Gratitude, for a Change.

By the way, yes, I am a hopefull idealist. (And I ain't changin!)

Oh and if this doesn't make sense, you need to see the original post..The Power of Gratitude..in this blog.

History: Why it matters.

2009-11-11T07:21:00.001-05:00

If On the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month, you can remember that in order to reach such repetitive set of figures, the people arranging the end to 'the War to End all Wars' allowed thousands more men to die in battle on those last hours, those last minutes, until the three elevens finally aligned; remember that, from when the Peace was committed to paper, to when the clock was allowed to free the thousands of souls mired in the mud of the trenches, the numbers rising to heaven had escalated beyond all reason without a reason, then you understand the futility of allowing for repetition.

Arbitrary as the deaths on the battlefields that night and that morning were, they pale by comparison to the deaths of WWI as a whole. Arbitrary as the deaths were for the entirety of WWI, they pale by comparison to the many who have died since, in the many wars, declared and undeclared, which we have fought against each other long after the hardest peace ever achieved was so repetitively achieved.

If we can know these things, and still believe that we should focus on any learning before learning History, then all the repetition in the world will do us no good.

If we are no more than software code stuck in an endless bloody loop of repeating numbers, then existence is futile.

History is Humanity for better or worse. We are born from it. We are married to it. As Humans, we must learn from it. Ignoring History negates our very Humanity.

It is good to know a great many things. It is good to learn a great many things.

To be great, we need learn only one thing: History. We must learn not to be so damned repetitious.

The Power of Gratitude

2009-11-04T12:56:00.002-05:00

I owe everything good I have ever had in life, and everything positive that has ever happened to me, to one simple thing: gratitude. In fact, I can say honestly that gratitude has saved my life.

Thanksgiving has always been a special holiday for me. I first arrived to the United States on Thanksgiving, and that was the first time I ever saw a group of people gather together just to be grateful for what they had.

I'm not blind to the story behind the story of Thanksgiving. I'm not blind to what happened in the Americas to the Native American People, but that has never detracted from the importance of the holiday, for me, because the message behind Thanksgiving is so pure, so true, that it defies any cynicism, at least in my view.

I've had some hard moments in my life, just as everyone else has, but the number one habit of endurance, which I fell into early in life and have carried throughout, is to focus especially on being grateful for what I do have, even as the world appears to be collapsing around me, falling apart, or coming undone.

This is the challenge our Western Culture faces. We have been uniquely privileged, uniquely gifted. In many ways, we have become uniquely complacent. As we watch our markets collapse, our traditions challenged by those who would see them undone, our beliefs twisted by those who would exploit or destroy us, it is far too easy to grow bitter. During times like these, it is far too easy to be angry, too easy to be resentful and defensive, too easy to pity ourselves.

Except if we stop for a moment and reason. If we consider the facts, we are still further ahead and better off than many perfectly wonderful and decent human beings, who were simply not born onto as much opportunity and comfort as we take for granted.

I don't wish to be preachy. I only wish to share an insight that has helped me to focus on facts whenever I have felt particularly slighted or hurt by the whims of chance or the actions of corrupt individuals.

Taking a moment, to see how much worse things could be, and how much worse they really are for people who deserve far better, has made me always realize that I have no business in this life except to be grateful for every single little thing going my way.

That has been liberating. When dark days have come, of course I have wept, of course I have raged, of course I have felt pain, but recovery was always no more than one Thank You away.

So, during the month of Remembrance, during the month of Thanksgiving, let us all be thankful for so many who have done so much to give us what we take for granted. Let us stop taking it for granted and give earnest thanks.

Whenever I think of gratitude, of Thanksgiving, I always hear the Shaker song of Elder Joseph Bracket, first put to music by Mary Hazzard, and made unforgettable by Aaron Copeland:

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'Tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

Help me keep this thought on the trends in Twitter. If you, like me, believe that many people thinking as one, sharing one powerful positive thought can change the world for the better, then join me in flooding the Trends with #givethanks. Let's help remind each other, and the world, that we have always far more for which to be grateful than any other culture in the history of humanity.

The Meaning of Life

2009-10-28T19:29:00.001-04:00

In my never ending quest to find the meaning of life I've sought the wisdom of the greatest philosophers humanity has produced. I will post what I've found here occasionally, in case the insights I find can serve you in your own quest for meaning. One of the greats has provided me with a way to find meaning in life that is sublimely simple. I thought I'd share it with you here.

"The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution - this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths."
-Groucho Marx

All I can say to that is: Yep.

Balloon Boy and the Red Balloon

2009-10-16T11:10:00.000-04:00

It caught my eye by accident this morning while working on something completely different. Balloon Boy. I had no idea what this was all about, busy with everyday things, but an image in my mind, an association from childhood made me click the link.

The association was something I have cherished for years, the memory of the time we saw The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse on the clicking projector of Mrs. W's 5th grade class. Movie time was a treat, a chance to stop working on revisions, readings tests, and note-taking; a chance to sit back and have the full theater experience (minus the popcorn) in class.

By the time the film ran out and the loose tail was flap-flapping on the projector wheel, I was in love. The boy with the Red Balloon had topped the movie about the boy at the donut shop (I don't think I'm the last person alive who remembers that other classic too) .

For those unfamiliar with this 1956 film classic it is the story of a young boy who has a beautiful red balloon that either irritates or incites envy in others. This balloon represents his innocence his untainted soul. Because he is so fond of it, he protects the balloon and takes it everywhere including school, which gets him into trouble. Ultimately the jealousy that the balloon provokes incites a gang of bullies to destroy it, and the little boy is left defeated and saddened by the base meanness of life, but is finally saved by a gigantic cluster of balloons that appear miraculously and help him float far away from all the evil ugly things of this world.

What I found when I clicked the link on Yahoo! had nothing on the surface to do with this old recollection of mine, but as I read on I discovered that it had everything to do with the sad little boy with the red balloon.

Heene may deny that he had anything to do with his son's false disappearance on the weather balloon that floated out and sent everyone chasing after his six year old son, and certainly an investigation has only begun, but the court of public opinion seems far more interested in the six-year old's own testimony, and I think rightfully so.

His parents may be just very poor parents; any father who says 'Maybe I just yell to much' like it's something he's going to consider but not necessarily abandon is clearly more interested in his own feelings than on the impact his expressions have on his children. But what on Earth compels these people to take the boy on the Media Circuit so he can be exploited? If it was all a big misunderstanding, you give the boy a hug, tell him you're glad he's OK, and get back to an ordinary life. You do not book interviews on Larry King, and the Today Show.

No wonder the poor boy is throwing up. I want to as well.

What Balloon Boy needs is a bunch of us other balloons coming to his rescue. But what do we do? If we remove him from the custody of his parents, construing these actions as child abuse, we will be turning the child over to the questionably named government child protective services, where they may be exposed to greater neglect and greater abuse.

We need to protect children from exploitation, and we need a new method by which to do it. But one simple step might be to make Reality Shows involving minors illegal. I have more on this point on my blog Persistence of Perception.

We need to give importance to protecting innocence. Red Balloons are valuable things. The longer we each hold on to them, the better society we become. If in 2009 you can't get older than six today before your own father blows your Red Balloon to smitherenes, then I fear for 2029.

Welcome the Russet and Gold

2009-10-15T11:49:00.000-04:00

It is a beautiful autumn's day and I will be out taking it all in between today and Tuesday of next week. We are blessed that we are both self employed, so we can set our own times to do things, or to not do them. We awoke to find nature making the decision for us today. It said, "Hey, you, get yourself off that chair can come out here to play!" Once we took a little ride to run some errands, we discovered that it was probably going to be one of the best weekends of autumn for us and we decided to make it a long beautiful one enjoying the best of what nature has to offer this time of year.

Drives through the country to commune with the beauty of the simple are core to our joy and peace of mind. That doesn't mean I am not working. In fact, thanks to the nice crisp breeze my mind is racing and my imagination is on fire. The next short story to be posted on this Blog is coming along well and will be up over the next few days. In the meantime, if you are cooped up in an office, we recommend making a plan to spend the weekend picking apples, drinking cider, and finding your pumpkin for Halloween. Or just do whatever you find most enjoyable outside while the days of sunlight remain. Soon it will be winter and we will be suffering from chronic cabin fever.

For those living in the tropics this is not so much of a concern, of course, and for those on the southern hemisphere it is just starting to heat up. You're all making plans for the beach probably. We are Northern Hemisphere denizens and we plan to make the most the blue skies and the sunlight while the getting is good. Long winter nights are coming and you can bet I will be catching up with writing during the long dark nights to come.

Whatever you do, and wherever you are, enjoy it. Get outside and look at the wonders of nature. Once you take in the fresh air, and get away from the computer screen everything seems much better, and problems seem to disolve in the breeze.

The Birth of Persistence of Perception

2009-10-14T08:35:00.000-04:00

As I consider various topics of interest to write about, I find the media frequently on my mind. It is not surprising. I am a former marketer and an avid television watcher. In fact, I believe it is important for me to watch what is happening on TV and on-line. Both provide me with insights and understanding of our condition that shape my work. With respect to Harlan Ellison, whom I respect and admire, I agree that the Glass Teats are a menace, but they are here and they must be observed and monitored.

I have found that I have so much to say about the impact of the media on society that I should dedicate a separate Blog to that alone, leaving space on Blue Earth, Red Shoes for a mixture of the Philosophic and the Creative. In other words, more general thoughts and short stories.

I've just completed my first post to the new Blog, entitled 'Columbus, Houdini and Tyra Banks', and I welcome your visits to this post and your comments.

Why Persistence of Perception? If persistence of vision is the result of mirror on a mirror, magnifying the image to infinity, then persistence of perception is the result of eyes on a screen, magnifying the images to infinity. And that is what we have, millions of eyes on millions of screens, infinitely viewing and guiding reality from what is seen.

Vision is our lost resource. The ability to imagine something that is not on screen is decreasing, and more and more the generations of the screen, are measuring themselves against a ruler that is of questionable accuracy.

In my former life, I had a painful but funny revelation when one of my Engineers kept insisting the specs on their drawing were right and the supplier was insisting that they had used the same measures as specified but the pieces were arriving to the factory off-tolerance every time. An intern I had at the factory went back and forth between our engineering team, receiving warehouse, and the supplier's production and engineering offices and kept measuring the same 1/4 inch every where he went, but the parts did not fit.

He was frustrated when he saw with his own eyes that the supplier was not lying and that the ruler at the supplier showed the tolerance was at exactly 1/4 inch. Confidently of what his eyes had seen, he walked the sample to the Engineer on site. He was again perplexed when our engineer was able to demonstrate that it was not 1/4 inch by measuring it in house. It was a Twilight Zone moment for the intern. He had seen the measurement at the supplier, had walked the same sample back to our factory and directly watched as it was measured and changed dimensions. Was the material really different? Had it stretched, shrunk, been modified? No.

Eventually the Intern did something elementary. He checked the ruler our Engineer used against his own. The markings and measures on the Engineer's ruler were wrong, it had been based on false dimensions. When questioned, the Engineer explained that she'd been given it as a "goodie" by a supplier whose corporate name was embossed on the ruler. It was a give-away that almost gave away the integrity of our product.

The media is that ruler. It is a promotional device given to us (even sold to us at times) by a party interested in pushing a product, an agenda, a lifestyle. We often don't stop to check the accuracy of its measures, and as a result end up with ill-fitting, and potentially damaging tolerances.

Persistence of Perception will work to calibrate that ruler, to check it for integrity, and to point out where its measurements are off.

Shotting Star

2009-10-13T12:06:00.001-04:00

Carrie Cognac was a notably forgettable person. When she had been just a little girl her mother had taken her to meet her great aunt Selma and then forgotten her there. Selma often forgot Carrie was in the house. She forgot to buy Carrie clothing, so she just ended up wearing ill fitting clothes she'd found left behind, forgotten like her in the attic of the house. Aunt Selma also often forgot to feed her, and Carrie kept herself fed by rifling through whatever was left in the cupboards and fridge, which generally wasn't much.

These were the dark years, when she was still Caridad Enriquez Lee. Not that it mattered, no one ever called her Caridad Enriquez Lee or anything else for that matter. Aunt Selma called her 'girl,' because she had forgotten her name as soon as Carrie stepped through her door, and for a long time Carrie didn't really get to talk to anybody else.

Since aunt Selma didn't always remember Carrie existed, she forgot to enroll her in school. Carrie's education consisted of what she could gleam from watching endless television programs, and reading the fashion magazines and tattler pages that her aunt bought almost daily.

Television was a revelation for Carrie. By watching it constantly she began to understand what it took to be noticed, to be remembered. The gossip sheets and magazines were helpful too, teaching Carrie about values, and morals, and what people defined as bad and good.

Carrie desperately wanted to be like those beautiful people on TV, whom everyone seemed to respect and admire, but Carrie knew it was practically impossible. She was plain, ugly really, and very, very forgettable. She had drippy black hair that didn't do much other than get in her way and give her something to brush. She was very short and very thin, her diet having stunted her growth, and she had bad teeth and oddly shaped features because of her mixed origins.

Carrie knew deep inside that she had to do something radical if she was ever going to be remembered. But what or how she did not know.

Eventually, aunt Selma started noticing Carrie more often. Aunt Selma noticed that she was in the way and eating more food. She was even starting to pester Aunt Selma about buying her things like barrettes and shoes that fit and maxi-pads.

"You gotta get a job or you gotta go, girl." Aunt Selma said plainly. Aunt Selma did not believe in mincing her words.

So Carrie got the job and the Stop N Shop, and it made a little difference. They didn't remember her there much either, usually calling her "Hey You!" although Carrie was embroidered on her uniform. After a while people did start to call her Carrie, but only in the context of jokes about pig's blood at her expense.

One day, Carrie discovered that there was something even better than television to cling to. Carrie saved for months to buy her first computer from a second-hand shop. It became her link to an outside world, her lifeline.

She found it easy to learn, and to her surprise found she had quite a knack for the world that was beginning to form on the other side of the phone line. On-line you weren't forgotten. What you did, what you said was there everyday for people to read later. An on-line you could pretend to be anything you wanted.

Carrie started slowly building her reputation in the chat-rooms, watching, participating, going along with anything. Carrie learned that people wanted people to agree with them, to tell them they were right, that they were special, they also wanted extreme, they wanted outrageous, they remembered shocking.

And so Carrie Cognac was born and raised in this new virtual world, and though it was a hostile place, and full of strange people and stranger things, Carrie learned that she was not just a survivor, but a thriver.

Her rise to the top of the pile was legendary. She had developed millions of friends and followers around the world. She had figured out how to earn money, lots of money, by being on display by playing her pretend part until she herself believed it. She used that money well, on operations and treatments to fix the errors that Nature had made when she was born, and on treating herself to all the things that mattered. She had the right shoes, the right clothes, the right bling, and an edge that no one could match, because Carrie Cognac knew no bounds.

She eventually became so famous that she earned herself her own TV show, making her childhood dream a reality. It was a heady and addictive feeling to be known, remembered, recognized, loved, and Carrie couldn't get enough.

But just when Carrie had everything she'd dreamed of, things started to feel wrong. Carrie had dealt with her 'haters' well. They had been as important to her as her friends and lovers. They had helped her rise.

Whenever her friends and lovers were starting to forget about her, the haters did their thing and brought her back to the warm spotlight. But suddenly her haters were questioning her causes and this hurt Carrie very much.

Carrie had a lot of causes that she supported and used her weighty image to bring to the attention of her fan base. She supported gay rights, of course, being a committed bisexual she felt very strongly about the rights of gays. She Twittered constantly about it. She also had the words, "Heavenly HermAphrodite" tattooed on her very lower abdomen, just above her signature waxed arrow pointing down, intended for any lovers to were too drunk or too stoned to find the spot themselves.

Her tattoo had been featured, both in her blog and on her MySpace page, but as the theme of a particularly popular episode of the reality TV show 'Ink, Inc.' The tattooing process had yielded high ratings and both the show's tattoo artists had a lot of fun with Carrie, as did her fan base.

On her Blog, Carrie explained the significance of Heavenly HermAphrodite as the Greek Goddess, twin sister of Aphrodite, who represented the rights of gays and lesbians and bisexuals and transsexuals, and even the bi-curious, proving that the ancient world had celebrated what modern society was only beginning to accept. Carrie really believed that she had been brought to this world to prove that sex was good and life was a party and that the best way to honor God's creation was to make love to all of it. Not animals, naturally. Carrie pointed out repeatedly that she wasn't one of those pervs.

Carrie was really, really, committed to animals, as shown by her famous T-Shirt line, which she herself had designed, and which she wore on her show emblazoned with inspiring messages in support of animals. One particularly popular one was Carrie's 'Save a Fish, eat me Instead,' shirt.

But people didn't always get what Carrie was about, how very much she cared about the things she cared about. Certain respected gay-rights activists wrote Carrie's publicist to protest Carrie's association with their cause. The representative had even said that she was no more than 'a sexually confused poser,' and that she should not be considered a spokesperson for the tolerance and equal rights that they were fighting so seriously to gain for the community. Carrie lashed back on her Blog, stating that they were just a bunch of haters, and that anyone who chose to turn their backs on having anyone as a lover, just because they happened to be a man or a woman, as the case may be, was just really prejudiced inside and that, as a Latino-Asian-African-American Minority Bi-Sexual woman, she really resented prejudice and sexism in every form.

Certain animal rights groups also said that her T-Shirts were in poor taste and detracted from their serious message. Rather than helping the cause, they were alienating key donors. Carrie ranted against this very publicly on her You Tube page, questioning if every one involved in the World Wildlife Fund could prove they were Vegan, because if they were not Vegan they were just as bad as Whale Hunters as far as Carrie was concerned.

Some geeky haters, had even made a big fuss about her tattoo, pointing out that hermaphrodite was a biological phenomenon, not an actual Greek Goddess, and that she had not, as Carrie claimed in her Blog, lived on Mt. Olympus with her sister Aphrodite where they celebrated life by having many orgies.

"I mean, so what?" Carrie complained to her agent, "The Greek Gods are all stories, right? If I say that HermAphrodite was a goddess too, then it's my story, nothing wrong with that."

Carrie's agent did not try to explain, she never contradicted the goose with the golden egg. She just fed her ego and kept it nice and fat. She told her to keep being herself.

"Because you are you and you are wonderful," the agent said with a smile,"and let's face it, sweetie, it's your world, we just live in it."

That was the challenge for Carrie. Of course, she knew who she was by what she loved and what loved her. She knew what she didn't want to be by what other people loved and other people hated. But Carrie wasn't sure what "herself" was deep inside.

She decided to explore this gap in her character and find her spiritual nature. Carrie wrote many famous Blog entries and Twitter entries about her journey to find herself, her inner Carrie. One time she pointed out that her bisexual nature brought her closer to God because no one was sure if God was a man or a woman, 'but either way I could totally do them.' This was a very hotly discussed and controversial statement, that raised the same kind of rage as when John Lennon said the Beatles were greater than God, and Carrie's recognition levels and fan base and hater base skyrocketed.

She experimented with Cabala to bring her closer to Madonna, who was listed on Carrie's My Space page at the very top of her 'People I'd like to do it with before I die' list.

She tried Buddhism for a while, in Honor of her part-Asian heritage, but learned that she couldn't get very far in reading the Dalai Lama's work before she was reaching for a Dictionary and lost interest quickly. She posted daily her I Ching results from her psychic page instead, and how she felt about them.

She looked into Scientology, but then dropped out because Tom Cruise was really judgmental and mean Brooke Shields on Oprah, and that was just not cool.

She tried Catholicism, and various forms of Christianity, but they were really judgmental and all about saying "no" to things. Carrie was all about saying "yes" to things.

That is when Carrie started seeing the Angel in her house, and hearing the voices in her head.

The Angel was called Charlie, which was really cool as far as Carrie was concerned, because Charlie could have been either a man or a woman.

Charlie's Angels re-runs had been a favorite of Carrie's growing-up. Charlie was also the brand of perfume that Carrie had first bought herself when she was just getting started with money she had saved up from her Stop N Shop paycheck. Even later, she was getting lots of freebies and could afford any perfume she wanted, the smell of Charlie stirred warm memories of the beginning of Carrie's good times.

Charlie, the Angel, seemed to really understand Carrie.

"You are so sad," Charlie said the first time he/she appeared in Carrie's room.

"Dude, how did you get in my room?" Carrie protested, "Breaking in is soooo uncool."

"I am here to save you." Charlie said softly.

Carrie was fascinated by Charlie's beautiful eyes, which seemed to change color from black to brown to green to blue, and whose hair also mutated from dark to like, from short to long, from sleekest straight hair to curliest afro. But it was Charlie's skin that most intrigued Carrie. Charlie's skin was entirely opalescent, almost transparent, and illuminated from within. Charlie glowed.

"I'm stoned. I'm hallucinating again." Carrie said sadly.

"I am real, Carrie." Charlie insisted, "I've come to help you." Charlie's voice was melodic and soothing. Carrie wanted to listen.

Things got more difficult for Carrie after Charlie arrived. The voices in her head said, "That's it you've lost it. You are a loser. You are a nobody. People already forgot about you," and similarly hurtful things. She was observed by her maid more than once screaming "Stop It! Shut up! Shut up!" and she was being very rude and irritable with people which was really not her vibe at all.

Charlie worked with Carrie, calmed her down, and eventually she reached a balance. That is when she decided that everyone in the world should benefit from the special insights that she was receiving from Charlie. She Blogged and updated her Twitter about everything that Charlie said to her. She wrote endlessly about how very special she felt that God loved her enough to send her her own very personal spiritual Angel-guide. But people just laughed.

She even took a picture of Charlie sitting next to her, and posted it on her MySpace page and FaceBook page, but Charlie's glowing skin was problematic for the digital camera and it just looked like she had taken the picture with the flash on the wrong setting and a big glob of light was to her right.

Carrie was nothing if she wasn't resourceful, so she tried to do a little web-cam video of her conversations with Charlie to post on her You Tube page. But the same bright light problem on the video camera was made worse by the irritating high screeching, like microphone feedback, that sounded every time Charlie spoke. Some people put up with the noise just to be able to laugh hysterically as Carrie talked to herself, taking herself very seriously, and discussing her innermost fears. On the video she confessed things she had not ever even Blogged about but which with Charlie's encouragement she was starting to admit.

"I don't want to be forgotten," she painfully admitted between sobs that were transmitted and replayed around the world.

No one heard or understood when Charlie answered, "No one is ever forgotten Carrie, eternity's memory has infinite capacity."

Overall, the appearance of Charlie in Carrie's life had mixed results. Her manager loved it. The advertising revenue on all of Charlie's various media sources continued to flow. Big Hits are Big Hits. Where one advertiser pulled out cringing, another strode in to take their place.

Her agent was a bit more concerned, "I think Carrie is reaching a maximum burn rate," she explained to the manager, "she is peaking now on the whole 'freak' angle, but soon she's going to isolate fans and her light will go out."

"It's a phase," her manager countered, "She'll get over it. I'll get her doctor to check her medication just in case, balance her out."

They deliberated on this point repeatedly. Privately they both increased their fees and padded their expenses to be sure their lifeboats were securely in place when the Carrie boat sunk.

Charlie continued to patiently work on Carrie's enlightenment, but no matter how kindly Charlie's message was delivered, it was not always easy for Carrie to follow.

"You need to forget about superficial and temporary things, Carrie. There's a big world out there and a lot of important things happening on it, that you need to be aware of. True eternal love abounds, and wealth, real wealth, is intellectual and spiritual, not material."

"Dude. I don't even understand the words you use sometimes." Carrie protested, "You are really bumming me out. Listen, if you are just here to bring me down, if you can't bring a good vibe, then you are like the voices say, and I shouldn't listen to you anyway."

"OK," Charlie would smile with a sigh, "We'll try to make it simpler. But Charlie, those voices in your head, they are not your friends."

"Maybe you're here because its time for me to go." Carrie said, voicing a conjecture that she'd already put on her Twitter page, that Heaven needed her up there, "Maybe I could teach you guys how to lighten up and party."

"Heaven is just fine as it is, Carrie." Charlie said, "This isn't about Heaven, it's about you. You have power, but you are misusing it. You are sad, unfulfilled and confused, but if you make a few small changes, you'll be great. Only you can choose to make them, though."

As the manager had planned the doctor changed Carrie's medications and Carrie stopped seeing Charlie for a week. She spent the week catching up on her previous life style, getting back to the Carrie Cognac people knew and either loved or hated. But Carrie could still hear the voices, and their message had changed.

"It's all about you girl!" the voices exclaimed cheering, "You and your wonderfulness. You are sexy and fine and fun and you think things about things. You need to remind people of that. Let them see you are cool and hip and totally tuned-in to everything."

Carrie thought about it and decided the voices were right. After all, would a girl like her ever have had the house she lived in, the bling she wore, the staff that waited on her hand and foot, the entourage that followed her around, or the gorgeous pink Porsche she had gotten herself for her birthday, if she wasn't totally the center of the universe? You bet not.

Carrie celebrated this epiphany with a totally awesome birthday party for her dog Precious, who had his own websites and fan base and made his own little fortune on from pet supplies and services, and who like his owner, mated with any dog or any bitch in town.

All of Carrie's friends and current lovers came to the party and the event was played live via web-cam to her fan base. An exclusive video of the orgy that followed in her room was sold separately by Carrie's agent to a discriminating web-site that was willing to pay the high asked-for price. Carrie drank to a stupor and was wild and crazy and outrageous, everything that made her a star.

But in the morning, she awoke on a block of ice floating at sea, in the middle of nowhere.

"What the Hell?" she shouted, "What kind of sick joke is this?"

Whichever of her staff had planned this was TOTALLY fired, she thought.

It was chilly and she was getting colder. Her teeth began to chatter and her body began to shiver out of control. This was it, she was going to die.

But just as she was going to succumb to the cold, Charlie came out of nowhere, took a seat next to her on the block of ice, putting his arm around her and instantly warming her up.

"I want to go back." she said.

"Of course you will," Charlie assured her, "and you'll do it even better when you get back. But first we need to have a good long talk."

Brave New World

2009-10-12T15:02:00.001-04:00

Today is Columbus Day, a day that marks the discovery of the Americas by a man convinced he had reached India. Columbus was flawed, as all of us are. But Columbus took an important leap of faith, the day he set sail with the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He believed the world was round and not flat. He felt he had good reason to believe it. The majority of people in his time thought he was wrong.

He could see a benefit to humanity of proving he was right. He chose to go. He chose to risk falling off the edges of the earth into an abyss in order to follow his dream. And so it was that Columbus changed the course of human history.

You can say all you want about what followed. It was not Columbus' doing alone. It was the blame of all of those driven by baser goals, who dragged the problems of the Old Word into the New World. That does not take any merit from a man with a dream.

This is a day to contemplate what we would do in a new world, today. How would we apply the lessons learned from Columbus' exploration. How we would keep from changing our new world into the same old world. It can happen. It can be done. But not if we plan to just go there without changing ourselves, our motivations and our methods first.

Imagine a new world based on a focus of what we have in common rather than how we differ. A world based on making the most of what we have, rather than wishing to acquire and consume more than what we need. A world based on aiming to reach common enlightenment, education and understanding, rather than delusions of power and a selfish imposition of our will.

I don't believe perfection happens overnight. I believe we will have trouble. I believe we will fail, and rise and try again. But I believe that we must try to approximate such a world, and we must certainly commit ourselves not to behave in a manner contrary to this vision. We have to evolve from the 'me' generation to the 'we' generation, if we are to see the future happen in a truly New World.

Dream a Little Dream of Us

2009-10-12T14:42:00.000-04:00

Over the past few months, I have had an opportunity to ponder more than usual.

Why is human nature so creative and yet so destructive?
Why are people capable of lofty thoughts and base actions?
Where does all this duality come from and how do we get past it?
In other words, why are we, sometimes, such lousy human beings?

We have been on Earth for thousands of years. We have had high points and low. But we have yet to evolve. Our collective minds have remained infantile. We are billions of Id's, plenty of Ego's, scant Super-Ego's. We have created impressive machines, developed surprising technologies, why can't we also improve our own minds, our perceptions, our drives?

We may be modern, but our behavior is ancient. The same problems that plagued our ancestors plague us today: War, Hunger, Pestilence, Hatred, Betrayal, Jealousy, Ignorance, Xenophobia..the list goes on. Generation after generation, we carry these flaws around like a petulant child clinging onto a dingy and torn security blanket; well past the age to have found something better to hold onto. We pass them on from parent to child like a disease.

But that isn't all I see. I see beauty, art, compassion, charity, courage, noblesse.

That is the Yin and Yang of it.
That is the irony of it.
We are beautiful horrible creatures or horrible beautiful creatures, as you like it.

So why do I bother to write this down? Because I have lived a life full of visions of other worlds, often better worlds, sometimes scarier worlds.

I have been postponing writing as a career decades, for practical reasons, or so I always claimed. But I recently received a swift kick in the tush saying, "get on with it!" And so I am.

This Blog is part of my toolkit as a writer. An obligation to keep up the thinking and writing everyday. An opportunity to get feedback, and to hear alternate views.

Why Blue Earth, Red Shoes

2009-10-12T14:33:00.000-04:00

Blue Earth, Red Shoes means...

A productive, flourishing healthy planet enhanced by Humanity's presence on it. Feet firmly planted on the ground, but dressed in hope, beauty and the promise of magic. There is no place like home, Earth is ours, we should make the best of it.

I believe that whatever humanity believes as a majority, materializes in our existence. Whether the reasons for that are metaphysical or merely part mass psyche dynamics, is a longer discussion. But do the majority of us even believe it in it?

I have posted a Poll on this issue, check it out, and if you have an opinion, please complete it.