Heaven or hell... same place, same people... the difference is your conversation

The opposite of Life is a conversation is you living in a world of object, being an object. An object. Ugh. I don"t want to be an object. But if you look, you ARE treated as an object, by nearly everyone nearly all the time.

People don"t look at YOU, they look at your body, your clothes, your hair... but not YOU.

I participated in a week long training some years ago, and the slogan of the training was "I see you". And I remember people getting teared up from hearing that.

That is the human condition: people tearing up when they are seen as a person, as an individual... as opposed to the norm: seen as an object to use, to abuse, to blame, to push around.

I remember when I lived with a guy: I didn"t love him, I didn"t like him, he was no longer a him for me: he was this thing that came home and started to find faults with me, wanted to talk and be listened to... a bother, a nuisance, a thing I would have been better off without.

Yeah. He outlived his usefulness... as a thing.

But if you look, really look, without going to the memes in your mind, you"ll see that you are a thing for yourself, and not a person.

You treat yourself that way. You beautify it. You try to change it. You present it as a thing. And of course, you neglect it, you talk about it as if it were a thing. Or you try to define it. You abuse it. You neglect it as if it had no feelings, no preferences, no dignity.

For a period in my life I spent a lot of time in gentlemen"s clubs, meaning clubs with stripper entertainment. I talked to the girls, interviewed them, watched the patrons, talked to the staff... I had a go-go magazine to write for, take pictures, organize parties, sometimes even get on stage myself... fully clothed, for contrast.

The most notable thing I noticed is that both girls and patrons considered themselves objects.

At the time I thought it was a defense mechanism, defending the self from experiencing a moral false step... but I realized that it was more than that: they lived their lives craving being treated as a person... while they acted and therefore treated as a thing.

I invented myself and my magazine as the possibility, the conversation of being "authenticity and dignity in an area of life where it is missing". I only found out later that it is missing everywhere.

And here is a third story, also mine. Back in 1987 I participated and assisted a lot around a course, called Communication Course. The course leader, a woman, was around a lot, training us, managing us assistants.

I noticed that whenever she was around I became uncoordinated, and stupid. I am neither, so I started to pay attention. Other than first dates, I never felt like that anywhere. So I decided that she somehow caused it.

I had already learned this "life is a conversation" bit, and "I am a conversation" the extension of that bit. I could see that the conversation she had about me (opinion?) was that I was a foreigner, a greenhorn, less than an American, a thing. Stupid and not belonging.

So I approached her and requested that she treated me like a person I was, brilliant and a contribution.

Because she was deeply immersed in that kind of world view, she could instantly turn around, turn around on a dime, and comply. I was, thereafter, able to be my "brilliant and a contribution" self... which was my own created conversation about myself.

So, you can see, taking "life is a conversation" to its full circle extent, you can live as a conversation. And you can surround yourself, instead of knuckleheads, with people who are also a conversation: you grant them beingness. Personness.

In my work with people, this is one of the hardest things they ever attempt. Especially if and when the person"s, the other person"s behavior somehow reflects on them.

Mothers, especially, have a hard time stepping out of the role of mother, and stepping into the role of "person", and thus consider their offspring a person, who does things they don"t like, don"t agree with.

That stepping in and out of a role is actually a mental shift that I can track in you or in myself... I even teach, or better said, used to teach in my drill classes. Step forward and up, step backwards and down, without anything moving in the eyes of the observer: you move your Self back and forth. That movement is real.

Of course, if you live fully in the mind, you"ll imagine it... and imagining it doesn"t work.

There was this famous experiment I have read about where three groups of people, basketball players, were assigned three different approaches to basketball. Group 1 did nothing. Group 2 threw baskets for an hour. Group 3 practiced throwing baskets in their "head"... they said mind, but I dare to differ.

Group 1 didn"t get better, group 2 got a little better, and group 3 got a lot better.

We are interested in group 3: they actually experienced their muscles get engaged in the exercise... I do too when I do the step forward and up. And the precision of the movements carries over to "real" life, therefor the improvement in basketball.

By the way: the same inner activity happens when you step onto the vertical plane, or when you fall off... and move over to the horizontal plane, the plane of hell on earth... where you are an object among other bothersome objects, that irritate you, threaten you, compete with you, etc.

So why is this relevant to you?

It is relevant to you if you want to raise your vibration, if you want to live on the vertical plane.

Life is easy and light on the vertical plane.

But the passage to it is very difficult, judging from my experience of teaching it.

It is the crab bucket, the chicken coop effect: you need to dare to be different, you need to dare to walk to your own drummer, to fall in step with Life. And object can"t and won"t do it...

I have dug out a series of workshops I did teaching this back in 2014, for a few months.

The first part of every workshop was to see what was already there, displacing the person. The mechanical, predictable, thoughtless behavior and attitude.

Without thoroughly mapping the "default" self, the default conversation that the self is, stingy, argumentative, don"t tell me what to do, I already know, I am trying, I can"t, etc. it is not possible to create something that will have a shelf-life.

In the construct that a human is, run by invisible dynamics, we call a machine, the default is supported by everything, while invented is supported by only your integrity.

If you pay attention, your level of integrity is very low, you can"t keep your word to yourself for very long, and very consistently.

Your level of self-love is measure of your integrity.

I am not talking about the narcissistic self love... no, the real self love where your one self treats the other self as a person, with respect, regard, and benevolence, compassion, and acceptance.

You have no idea what that would feel like, because you have probably never experienced it. The moment you experienced the separation in your world, where you became separate from the world, from the mother, you became dependent on that "love" from the outside, and you lost it for yourself.

Yesterday I listened to a Playground partner call where two participants talked. What is special about these two participants? They both talk to each other, and one other participants, every week. So they double up, or triple up on the learning and practice opportunities, and it shows.

They are deeper in the distinctions, deeper in self-awareness, deeper in getting to know their machines, and it is starting to bring up relevant questions: so how do you create a life inside the machine that you could love.

The machine is not your friend. It blocks you from experiencing much pleasure, much fulfillment, or even taking the actions in a way that could cause you to enjoy life.

So finding a way to work with the machine is mandatory if you want to enjoy life.

• I am reading a series of novels where one of the characters is an ex marine sniper. Can be fully relaxed, and focused at the same time, patient, not being hasty, or in a hurry. He brings this same beingness to other areas of life, like relationships, and now he has covered a lot bigger part of life where he can be happy, and himself fully.


• A student of mine has that same beingness when she does anything for horses: an expanded, relaxed, unhurried self... mucking out the stall, training a horse. She has been experimenting in bringing that same self to other activities, so far sporadically, but I can see, that eventually she"ll succeed, unless she forgets that that is what she was shooting for.


• A character in a novel is a detective, a brilliant interrogator. She bring that skill, that beingness to areas of life where she would be normally hasty, impulsive, or forceful.

I think everyone has an activity where they are their best.

I used to give massages to people, and learned there to be fully present to the person. And then I managed to bring the same skill, the same beingness, to coaching and teaching. Seeing the person while I see them. Tracking how much pressure they can take, how they respond, and adjust my actions accordingly.

I even write my articles that way: I don"t push through when it becomes difficult, I release the pressure, and wait for the "muscle" to settle and accept more.

I even read books, or watch Netflix that way... treating my own reactions the same way: treating myself a person.

That is not how I used to be. I used to be merciless with others and myself. I didn"t know when to stop, I didn"t know when to let go and let god.

That is, obviously, my soul correction, which I work on in everything I do. Everything.

Fall in love with yourself

You can learn a whole lot from just listening to the calls of the workshops. They are called "Instant Coherence" or alternatively "Fall in love with yourself".

You can get one call for $25, and all four of them for $40. Each call is a gem by itself. You can answer the questions I ask each person for yourself, and get yourself to a place where you can invent an inspiring conversation about yourself that will bring about you living on the vertical plane.

The original participants paid $25 for each call. And that was seriously underpriced.

But I want you to have it. I want you to be able to have the kinds of conversations where you can grow, where you pay attention to what matters. Without that guidance you"ll find in these videos you"ll remain in your tiny cave of the mind, and never grow.

You can go to get more information, or you can buy it right here.


Get your Fall in love with yourself video

Can you be a creator and live in the machine? Yes, if you live life like a conversation

Life is a conversation... or in fact, a lot of conversations

When I say "conversation", I don"t mean a dialog. I mean something I can"t find a word for: I mean: what do you say about something BEFOREHAND... OR AFTERWARD.

You could say: oh, I see, you mean context... and meaning... and maybe I do. But context doesn"t exactly say what I mean either.

Life is a conversation.

Life is a conversation that begins the moment you"re conceived, and as soon as you"re conceived the world sends information your way. The nature of that information, how it"s delivered, how you receive it, how you interpret it, and how you respond – that"s your life.

So life is a conversation. We tend not to perceive life that way; we tend to think that life just happens to us, when really it"s a responsive, interactive process which we create. But we don"t realize that we create it; we don"t realize that we"re the source.

There"s a good reason that we don"t realize it. We don"t realize it because how we create it, what we create it from, is determined by so many influences that predate our conception, so it"s much more natural to conceive of ourselves as being an effect of the world, rather than as creators of the world.

But there is some reason that the spiritual teachers all tell us that we"re gods, or that we"re created in the image of God. The difference between us and God is that God, however you conceive of it/her/him – nothing created it; it was the original source, therefore any thought that God had became reality.

I don"t believe in God, so you don"t have to worry about it; I"m not trying to convince you of anything. But if there is a God, he/she/it was uncreated; unformed. It was original; it had no source. It is its own source. We"re created in the image of God, which means we"re also our own source. The big difference is that we"re not uncreated. In other words, the place where we create from has origins before our creation, so it"s hard for us to see that we"re actually creating our lives.

It takes a lot of consciousness, a lot of conscious effort, to get to the point of realization that we"re a source. Most of us never get there, or we get there only very partially.

In essence, the expression: life is a conversation, is trying to say, that you are authoring life with every word you say. With recounting old pains. With complaining. With bitching and moaning. With every word.

Here is an example where unless the conversation is designed... the result is now what you would want.

In business there are several "conversations" that unless they are defined, kept separate, and are effective, a business will not stay in business too long.

In fact, most businesses I know are not clear about these different conversation... I think Seth Godin calls these stories, in his All marketers are liars book.

One conversation/story is the owner has with themselves. The context of the business, any business, is to turn a profit. It is foundational. But it is also important that the business fulfills a person"s expectation of themselves, that it creates something that doing the business will make them like themselves. It can be big, it can be small, but it"s mandatory.

Another conversation is with clients/customers and potentials. Lots of promises. "Who I am for you" promises.

Another conversation is with employees, yet another with suppliers, and the last conversation is with the general public.

If you never took the time to design these conversations, your business will be less than satisfactory, or will fail.

Now, why am I telling you all this, after all you don"t care, do you?

But if you are reading this article, you are doing some kind of business with me... even if you don"t pay money: you paid me with your attention, and I thank you for it.

If you are a client, student of mine, you are paying with both.

And if you are a potential customer, client, student... we shall see...

Whatever I am going to say here, the purpose of this article, is for actual and potential clients to hear.

Because I am an energy practitioner, most people come to me for what other energy practitioners promise: something instant.

We, collectively, have this illusion about energies, that they do something instantly. End even if the energy occasionally does, the effect is not lasting, no matter what anyone says.

Here are a few examples:

1. I know a woman, an Indian guru, who has events where she cranks herself up, and cranks the audience up. I have measured, her vibration rises to 400 during the event, and drops to under 200 after the event, and stays there, until the next event.

It is worse for the participants. It"s like an orgasm... yesterday"s orgasm is... meh, a memory at best.

2. Electricity... It is energy. It needs an equipment to work through, and it works as long as the equipment is plugged in, and is working.

In human terms, as long as you are plugged in and you consciously don"t block the energy, the energy may do something in you: I have yet to find a person who can sustain being plugged in and not block the energy.

Even I can"t do it.

I have some student who are honest and tell me that they are with me because they want the energies to raise their vibration.

I didn"t raise my vibration to where it is with the energies. I raised it with the self-awareness, the learning, the practice, not with the energies. They are very useful when I need them, but they are a tool.

I have the courses, the programs, so you can raise your vibration by realizing what made it so low, and eliminate it.

It is the strait and narrow process: we take away what didn"t work, and replace it with something that works.

• We replace unreality with reality.


• We replace with self-righteous anger with taking responsibility.


• We replace with casual relationship to our word with integrity

And we learn how our particular machine can be used to give us a life we can enjoy, a life where we can be productive, have healthy relationships, be well, and be fulfilled.

Soul Correction Workshop

One of the programs is the Soul Correction Workshop: where you find out what to pay attention to so the machine doesn"t use your life and grind you out... or it does... always, no exceptions.

It"s a workshop I haven"t done in some six years, but I recorded every session, and it is almost as good as being there, even though I don"t work on you personally, I work on some 20 other participants, much like you.

20+ videos, custom activators, very useful.

If enough people buy it, I"ll add the downloadable audios: it takes quite a few hours to convert videos to audios... But if enough people buy it, it"s worth it.


More info

Knowledge is not enough...

• Unless it"s accurate knowledge... i.e. true, tested, from an accurate source.


• Unless you know what you learned... unless you know what you know... you didn"t learn anything.


• And unless what you leaned changes your behavior, inside or outside, nothing will change.

All learning is behavior modification, modifying behavior to become more fit to life, to play the game of life better, for yourself and for the human race. ((As a coach, unless I modified your behavior, I didn"t do anything.))

So how do you modify behavior?

The process starts with an insight. The more energy is in the insight, the more energy you can or are willing to bring to the insight, the easier it will be to make the modification.

• Disgust, hate are strong energies, and can fuel fundamental change. This is my favorite energy source. I hate ugly, I hate inefficiency, and this hate gives me the courage, the incentive, the TLB to face the tiger and make the change that is necessary.


• Desire, love, niceness are weak energies and fizzle out as fast as in a day or two.


• Enthusiasm, dedication, and other positive energies are somewhere in the middle... may last a week.


• Commitment, accountability and planning are probably the most reliable allies if you really want to change some behavior. Especially commitment you base on another strong energy: idea sex!

The most important missing, after having witnessed thousands of fizzled attempt at lasting change, is "existence." as in "staying in existence"...

Existence of an idea, existence of a conversation... aka shelf-life of an idea...

Existence is a weird invented phenomenon... unless you create it a staying power for what you want to do, the only thing that will exist and keep on existing is the same old, same old. Same people, same triggers, same thoughts, same attitudes. The same miserable life, the same results... The valley of the shadow of death.

What you want to create existence around is the new commitment and the new attitude.

The powerful why and a new trigger will create staying power for your new commitment to cause change, lasting change.

Because positive ideas disappear while you sleep... insights are a dime a dozen. And the beautiful why"s you coupled with them...

By the next day all beautiful plans become chores... Because...

No one wants to be told what to do...

so putting the kind of reminders around, or being reminded by others in a "do this" way is counter productive. ((

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pSdJJPMbUE

))

I have had a note on my reminder system for about two years to do something... it comes up every day, and I refuse to do it.

On the other hand, I do dozens of things I am reminded with questions, or requests, or some other way that trigger my "I want to do this" reflex and I do it. No resistance.

No reminders, or "do this" reminders, and the project will disappear from view, remaining just a nagging bad feeling in the back or my mind.

OK, what is an insight?

You get a glimpse of some higher truth than what you have been considered the truth.

We could also say: once you have an insight, your job is to make it an upsight... Allow the insight to alter your world view.

What is an upsight? An insight turned into a behavior modifying, world view modifying practice.

In an insight you see that reality is not the way you had been seeing it... How it"s different? You saw one way it"s different...

For example, my first insight, 33 years ago, was that things weren"t happening to me, I was an active participant in them, by virtue of what I said about what was happening.

That is an insight that people normally refuse to get, because people like to be victims, and they hate even the idea of them having anything to do with their misery.

But I got lucky... that was my first insight.

My job with that insight was to take that "co-creative" mindset to every memory I had, to every relationship I had, to every happening in my life.

That I always had a part in what was happening by virtue of what I said about it.

I teach this in my Playground program. It"s the most transformative program ever...

The trick is to not have this practice as an event that passes, but a continuous practice... practice it until it becomes like muscle memory, until it truly alters your world view. I am still practicing it, and have been for 33 years. When I forget about it, life turns into sh*t.

The practice is to pay attention to what you say about things, and learn how to say something different.

NOT like positive thinking. More like getting out of the automatic judgment of things.

The automatic judgment is almost always a systemic judgment. A systemic judgment is a two-pronged judgment: something and its opposite.

Reducing reality to the simplistic, pedestrian, primitive and unintelligent, unseeing children"s drawing summary.

It is good... it is bad... it is right... it is true... it is this and it is that.

And then you are done. Your world is reduced to its manageable format: as simplistic as you are... Two dimensional. No person there. No complexity. No human or not really.

And you judge everything, everyone, including yourself... And what gets lost is the complexity, the beauty, the magnificence, the myriad of facets of everything.

You declared yourself the judge and by gosh you"ll judge.

And unless you learn to look at things differently, from different vantage points, I have nothing to offer you. Not a thing. You"ll remain a thing, a two-pronged switch, and I promise you"ll never find fulfillment, love, passion, compassion, beauty, adventure, or anything that is worth being alive for.

You are a robot, a simplistic robot without a soul, without a spark.

Now, there are several exercises that you can employ to loosen this machine-like behavior...

Don"t kid yourself, this is not a task for little children who cry when they drop their ice cream...

Unless you toughen up, this is not going to work for you, so you might as well resign to remaining a simplistic robot.

Really.

I am not interested in pretending with you that you are going to become a person... pretending is YOUR world... I am interested in real tangible measurable results... and that requires some toughness, diligence, consistency, and some energy.

I use hate as my motive power. I hate mediocrity. I have victimhood. I hate desire for the self alone. I hate apple-polishing. I hate pretense.

Why hate? It works for me. When I choose something inspiring to give me energy, I wake up every morning, and the inspiration is gone... it needs to be re-created. Too much work just to get the energy source to work. ((I just understood why all that fancy software I buy is never used. I bought from inspiration, seeing a glorious future. But by next day INSPIRATION disappeared. Had I looked for what I have a burning hate for, I bet I either would not have bought the software or I would be using it. Hah... that is brilliant. lol.))

But hate is always ready for me...

Today I woke up blah... ready to say: I am done.

I HATE THAT!

But had I thought for myself: I want a life I love... that is as wimpy as it can be... I wanna... baaah... gimme...

Not mentioning the fact that when you have a "positive" energy source, you can go a thousand different ways.

Hate is clear: go away from it.

That is the definition of strait and narrow... outside of that narrow path everything is a no.

They are teaching you hogwash... and that hogwash makes you a wimp.

I am not saying: hate people. Hate ideas. Hate ways. Hate what you don"t want to be like.

I know I am now talking to one out of 100,000... the rest have left the scene. The want nice-nice...

But if you are still here... there is still hope for you. Make the hate burning hot for yourself.

And ask for a practice that addresses that hate.

If you want to become someone who is not judgmental... then have burning hate for judgment, for primitive, for a life of good and evil. Ugh.

By the way, unless you can have tens, hundreds of interpretations of most things that happen, choices you make, you are a simpleton, and you need to start using that brain of yours.

You are intellectually slothful... and the only way to change that is to start becoming diligent... intellectually diligent...

One of my students is using the idea-machine model, and is becoming brilliant in the process, after decades of being dull: intellectually slothful.

He hated being dull...

And believe it or not, he is enjoying the process. And now I actually enjoy talking to him, ask his advice, and we have become a co-creative system in his coaching.

He still needs some nudging, but it"s a process... He still doesn"t do it automatically... he still needs assignments... but with time it will become who he is... a brilliant idea machine.

If you are plodding, then using something like the idea-machine practice will slowly re-activate your slothful brain.

Another sticky point for most people is lack of humility.

We don"t know what humble is... or not really. But a definition I now use in my Starting Point Measurements is as good as any:

Humility is not thinking yourself less, it is thinking of yourself less

If and when everything has a self-referential aspect, if everything seems having something to do with you, then your humility score is low. And when your humility score is low, then you cannot change because you cannot learn.

And you remain worthless... for yourself and for the world.

This is a tendency that needs to be fought with all the energy you can muster, all the energy you can summon. Because it is a total misery maker.

The exercise I gave in the comments section of yesterday"s article is a great little exercise for this... will not eliminate self-centeredness, but at least will start this process.

The world view underneath is that you are an object in a world of objects, and the world is about you. About your interactions with the other objects and about what you think.

It is a world view that won"t allow you to be a person...

Everyone says: you are a spiritual being having a human experience.

This is a total b.s.

There is no spiritual being present in the world view of "I am an object in the world of objects"...

The spiritual is only possible if you become a "conversation", meaning a product of all the stuff you say, and all the stuff in your backdrop: the statements you have said, accepted, or resisted.

And then look at life, look at events, and consider them a conversation as well.

You are a conversation in a world of conversations.

Then you can start having some power over your life, because conversations can be altered, objects can"t.

I will stop here... because this article is getting too long...

If you have questions, the comments section is for that.

Knowledge is not power... unless

Unless you know what you learned... you didn"t learn anything.
And unless what you leaned changes your behavior, inside or outside, nothing will change.

All learning is behavior modification, to become more fit to life, to play the game of life better, for yourself and for the human race.

So how do you modify behavior?

The process starts with an insight. The more energy is in the insight, the more energy you can bring to the insight, the easier it will be to make the modification.

• Disgust, hate are strong energies, and can fuel fundamental change.


• Desire, love, niceness are weak energies and fizzle out as fast as in a day or two.


• Enthusiasm, dedication, and other positive energies are somewhere in the middle... may last a week.


• Commitment, accountability and planning are probably the most reliable allies if you really want to change some behavior.

The most important missing, after having witnessed thousands of fizzled attempt at lasting change, is "existence." as in "staying in existence"...

Existence of an idea, existence of a conversation

Existence is a weird invented phenomenon... unless you create it a staying power for what you want to do, the only thing that will exist and keep on existing is the same old, same old. Same people, same triggers, same thoughts, same attitudes. The same miserable life, the same results... The valley of the shadow of death.

What you want to create existence around is the new commitment and the new attitude.

The powerful why and a new trigger will create staying power for your new commitment to cause change, lasting change.

Because positive ideas disappear while you sleep... insights are a dime a dozen. And the beautiful why"s you coupled with them...

By the next day all beautiful plans become chores... Because...

No one wants to be told what to do...

so putting the kind of reminders around, or being reminded by others in a "do this" way is counter productive. ((

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pSdJJPMbUE

))

I have had a note on my reminder system for about two years to do something... it comes up every day, and I refuse to do it.

On the other hand, I do dozens of things I am reminded with questions, or requests, or some other way that trigger my "I want to do this" reflex and I do it. No resistance.

No reminders, or "do this" reminders, and the project will disappear from view, remaining just a nagging bad feeling in the back or my mind.

OK, what is an insight?

You get a glimpse of some higher truth than what you have been considered the truth.

We could also say: once you have an insight, your job is to make it an upsight... Allow the insight to alter your world view.

What is an upsight? An insight turned into a behavior modifying, world view modifying practice.

In an insight you see that reality is not the way you had been seeing it... How it"s different? You saw one way it"s different...

For example, my first insight, 33 years ago, was that things weren"t happening to me, I was an active participant in them, by virtue of what I said about what was happening.

That is an insight that people normally refuse to get, because people like to be victims, and they hate even the idea of them having anything to do with their misery.

But I got lucky... that was my first insight.

My job with that insight was to take that "co-creative" mindset to every memory I had, to every relationship I had, to every happening in my life.

That I always had a part in what was happening by virtue of what I said about it.

I teach this in my Playground program. It"s the most transformative program ever...

The trick is to not have this practice as an event that passes, but a continuous practice... practice it until it becomes like muscle memory, until it truly alters your world view. I am still practicing it, and have been for 33 years. When I forget about it, life turns into sh*t.

The practice is to pay attention to what you say about things, and learn how to say something different.

NOT like positive thinking. More like getting out of the automatic judgment of things.

The automatic judgment is almost always a systemic judgment. A systemic judgment is a two-pronged judgment: something and its opposite.

Reducing reality to the simplistic, pedestrian, primitive and unintelligent, unseeing children"s drawing summary.

It is good... it is bad... it is right... it is true... it is this and it is that.

And then you are done. Your world is reduced to its manageable format: as simplistic as you are... Two dimensional. No person there. No complexity. No human or not really.

And you judge everything, everyone, including yourself... And what gets lost is the complexity, the beauty, the magnificence, the myriad of facets of everything.

You declared yourself the judge and by gosh you"ll judge.

And unless you learn to look at things differently, from different vantage points, I have nothing to offer you. Not a thing. You"ll remain a thing, a two-pronged switch, and I promise you"ll never find fulfillment, love, passion, compassion, beauty, adventure, or anything that is worth being alive for.

You are a robot, a simplistic robot without a soul, without a spark.

Now, there are several exercises that you can employ to loosen this machine-like behavior...

Don"t kid yourself, this is not a task for little children who cry when they drop their ice cream...

Unless you toughen up, this is not going to work for you, so you might as well resign to remaining a simplistic robot.

Really.

I am not interested in pretending with you that you are going to become a person... pretending is your world... I am interested in real tangible measurable results... and that requires some toughness, diligence, consistency, and some energy.

I use hate as my motive power. I hate mediocrity. I have victimhood. I hate desire for the self alone. I hate apple-polishing. I hate pretense.

Why hate? It works for me. When I choose something inspiring to give me energy, I wake up every morning, and the inspiration is gone... it needs to be re-created. Too much work just to get the energy source to work. ((I just understood why all that fancy software I buy is never used. I bought from inspiration, seeing a glorious future. But by next day it disappeared. Had I looked for what I have a burning hate for, I bet I either would not have bought the software or I would be using it. Hah... that is brilliant. lol.))

But hate is always ready for me...

Today I woke up blah... ready to say: I am done.

I HATE THAT!

But had I thought for myself: I want a life I love... that is as wimpy as it can be... I wanna... baaah... gimme...

Not mentioning the fact that when you have a "positive" energy source, you can go a thousand different ways.

Hate is clear: go away from it.

That is the definition of strait and narrow... outside of that narrow path everything is a no.

They are teaching you hogwash... and that hogwash makes you a wimp.

I am not saying: hate people. Hate ideas. Hate ways. Hate what you don"t want to be like.

I know I am now talking to one out of 100,000... the rest have left the scene. The want nice-nice...

But if you are still here... there is still hope for you. Make the hate burning hot for yourself.

And ask for a practice that addresses that hate.

If you want to become someone who is not judgmental... then have burning hate for judgment, for primitive, for a life of good and evil. Ugh.

By the way, unless you can have tens, hundreds of interpretations of most things that happen, choices you make, you are a simpleton, and you need to start using that brain of yours.

You are intellectually slothful... and the only way to change that is to start becoming diligent... intellectually diligent...

One of my students is using the idea-machine model, and is becoming brilliant in the process, after decades of being dull: intellectually slothful.

He hated being dull...

And believe it or not, he is enjoying the process. And now I actually enjoy talking to him, ask his advice, and we have become a co-creative system in his coaching.

He still needs some nudging, but it"s a process... He still doesn"t do it automatically... he still needs assignments... but with time it will become who he is... a brilliant idea machine.

If you are plodding, then using something like the idea-machine practice will slowly re-activate your slothful brain.

Another sticky point for most people is lack of humility.

We don"t know what humble is... or not really. But a definition I now use in my Starting Point Measurements is as good as any:

Humility is not thinking yourself less, it is thinking of yourself less

If and when everything has a self-referential aspect, if everything seems having something to do with you, then your humility score is low. And when your humility score is low, then you cannot change because you cannot learn.

And you remain worthless... for yourself and for the world.

This is a tendency that needs to be fought with all the energy you can muster, all the energy you can summon. Because it is a total misery maker.

The exercise I gave in the comments section of yesterday"s article is a great little exercise for this... will not eliminate self-centeredness, but at least will start this process.

The world view underneath is that you are an object in a world of objects, and the world is about you. About your interactions with the other objects and about what you think.

It is a world view that won"t allow you to be a person...

Everyone says: you are a spiritual being having a human experience.

This is a total b.s.

There is no spiritual being present in the world view of "I am an object in the world of objects"...

The spiritual is only possible if you become a "conversation", meaning a product of all the stuff you say, and all the stuff in your backdrop: the statements you have said, accepted, or resisted.

And then look at life, look at events, and consider them a conversation as well.

You are a conversation in a world of conversations.

Then you can start having some power over your life, because conversations can be altered, objects can"t.

I will stop here... because this article is getting too long...

If you have questions, the comments section is for that.