I was irritated by Mitt Romney's craven politically motivated comments regarding the attacks on our embassy and our president. So I wrote a song. It's to the tune of "Wake Up Little Suzy" by the Everly Brothers. It's called "Shut Up Mitt Romney." Here it is;
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
You're completely full of shit!
You're such a stupid git!
You opened your mouth!
And the bull came out!
And that bull is full of shit!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
You're such a stupid ass!
You really have no class!
You're campaign went south!
So you opened your mouth!
And you really showed your ass!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
Shut up, Mitt Romney, Shut Up!
Why don't you just shut up?!
Russell
Sheep
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
My Dharma
I've been trying to enlarge my spiritual life. Some times I am not even sure what that means. Here is the deal, I have found that I sometimes act like a jerk. Actually it may not be an act! Whatever! is the reality I want to change it. I want to be a much better person than I am. I have tried on my own for years but never really seemed to get anywhere. A lot of people have suggested asking a god of my understanding (they said God as if it was somebody's name but I know it's not) for help. This is tough to do when you have no god of your understanding. I have always figured any god I could understand wouldn't really be anything like a real god. If I understand it, it is not God, in other words. So you see that makes me pretty much an agnostic. It sucks, I want to be a better person, but consistently fail on my own. I can ask a god I understand to help me but I do not have one. And I know that if I did have one it would not really be God! So there!
I used to say I was an atheist. That was based on the fact that I have no theology. I thought atheist was short for a-theological you know, without a theology an a-theist. I am definitely not a theist. Apparently being non theist is not being atheist, who knew? I sure as hell didn't! Oh that's something else I do not believe in either, hell. Hell, from my infidel viewpoint, seems more important to most true believers than heaven. They seem to dwell on it more. The Devil seems pretty popular with the true believers too. (That's probably not a nice thing to say but, damn it it's true!) I have to admit I do admire Lucifer as portrayed in Milton's "Paradise Lost." God has devastated the rebel angels and Lucifer is literally flat on his back in a lake of fire (I hate it when that happens!) but instead of whining and crying he defiantly states, "better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven!" Man what a stud! I digress, enough sympathy for the Devil, that's not the main thing. The thing is how theology gets so complicated. A lot of these Christians (maybe Jews too) are not monotheists they really have two gods, God and the Devil, and they believe in both. I definitely do not believe in the Devil. I am iffy about God.
I turned non believer as a child. I asked for evidence and of course there is none so I quit believing in God. I got interested in spiritual matters after trying LSD. I had a buddy who was into Alan Watts (a translator of eastern spiritual traditions for westerners) and I read "The Book" by Alan Watts, it was awesome! I really got turned on to Zen concepts. (Zen practice not so much!) These eastern traditions seemed more organic, they have spirituality inhabiting everything. Western traditions seem to posit two planes one is the sacred plane, the other one, this plane we live on, is profane. Eastern traditions seem to posit only one plane, this one, which is either sacred or profane depending on your level of awareness. I like the eastern (as I see it) paradigm. The thing is this viewpoint does not include the supernatural. There is no separate reality where God the creator lives. There is just reality and it's either holy or not depending on how you see it. Sometimes I see it holy and those times God is everything, a lot of the time I don't, and these times God is nothing.
It must be so comforting to "know" that the almighty creator has your back 24, seven and that he loves you and all that sort of stuff. I tell you though and it is true, there is no act of faith more profound than praying to a god you doubt even exists! I am not bragging! I think really believing is a mental luxury I will never get to experience and in a way, I am kind of jealous I guess.
The reason I decided to expand my spiritual life was not the pursuit of mental luxury. It is because it seems to help me act like a better person than I naturally am. So I started attending and reading "A Course In Miracles." Now I won't even touch the premise of the course, it's quite bizarre. I don't care about that since I just want the karma not the dogma. Let the karma run over the dogma as they say. So there I was reading the text which is written in very dense logical extrapolations which are deliberate mind benders and I start wondering if the authors were on LSD when they wrote it. The sentences sounded like the stuff people say when they are using psychedelics for philosophical purposes and they're tripping their brains out! Spirituality is tough for guys like me.
Russell
I used to say I was an atheist. That was based on the fact that I have no theology. I thought atheist was short for a-theological you know, without a theology an a-theist. I am definitely not a theist. Apparently being non theist is not being atheist, who knew? I sure as hell didn't! Oh that's something else I do not believe in either, hell. Hell, from my infidel viewpoint, seems more important to most true believers than heaven. They seem to dwell on it more. The Devil seems pretty popular with the true believers too. (That's probably not a nice thing to say but, damn it it's true!) I have to admit I do admire Lucifer as portrayed in Milton's "Paradise Lost." God has devastated the rebel angels and Lucifer is literally flat on his back in a lake of fire (I hate it when that happens!) but instead of whining and crying he defiantly states, "better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven!" Man what a stud! I digress, enough sympathy for the Devil, that's not the main thing. The thing is how theology gets so complicated. A lot of these Christians (maybe Jews too) are not monotheists they really have two gods, God and the Devil, and they believe in both. I definitely do not believe in the Devil. I am iffy about God.
I turned non believer as a child. I asked for evidence and of course there is none so I quit believing in God. I got interested in spiritual matters after trying LSD. I had a buddy who was into Alan Watts (a translator of eastern spiritual traditions for westerners) and I read "The Book" by Alan Watts, it was awesome! I really got turned on to Zen concepts. (Zen practice not so much!) These eastern traditions seemed more organic, they have spirituality inhabiting everything. Western traditions seem to posit two planes one is the sacred plane, the other one, this plane we live on, is profane. Eastern traditions seem to posit only one plane, this one, which is either sacred or profane depending on your level of awareness. I like the eastern (as I see it) paradigm. The thing is this viewpoint does not include the supernatural. There is no separate reality where God the creator lives. There is just reality and it's either holy or not depending on how you see it. Sometimes I see it holy and those times God is everything, a lot of the time I don't, and these times God is nothing.
It must be so comforting to "know" that the almighty creator has your back 24, seven and that he loves you and all that sort of stuff. I tell you though and it is true, there is no act of faith more profound than praying to a god you doubt even exists! I am not bragging! I think really believing is a mental luxury I will never get to experience and in a way, I am kind of jealous I guess.
The reason I decided to expand my spiritual life was not the pursuit of mental luxury. It is because it seems to help me act like a better person than I naturally am. So I started attending and reading "A Course In Miracles." Now I won't even touch the premise of the course, it's quite bizarre. I don't care about that since I just want the karma not the dogma. Let the karma run over the dogma as they say. So there I was reading the text which is written in very dense logical extrapolations which are deliberate mind benders and I start wondering if the authors were on LSD when they wrote it. The sentences sounded like the stuff people say when they are using psychedelics for philosophical purposes and they're tripping their brains out! Spirituality is tough for guys like me.
Russell
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Quit Being A Loser
The stuff that we think is important isn't and the stuff we take for granted or even ignore is all that actually matters. If I just listed these it might come off as insipid or sanctimonious and I hate insipid and sanctimonious so I won't do that. A bunch of years ago we used to play cards with friends. This was back when I was married. I tend toward competitiveness and I always wanted to win. Actually I got obsessed with winning. I understand simple games and can make myself recall which cards have been played. I would concentrate on who had played which cards and did my best to be a fierce competitor. When my partner made an error in play or things just went wrong due to erratic play by another I got pissed! To me the point of playing was to win and the seeming incompetence of others ruined the game. The truth of course was that I ruined the game!
I thought the point of the game was to win! I was wrong of course. The point of the game was to enjoy the company of my ex and our friends! When I was a kid I got really upset when my older sister beat me at Monopoly! I was sure she cheated (I was probably right!) and it was totally frustrating to play against her, as I, being honest, had no chance. At age six I probably couldn't understand that the real objective of the game was not bankrupting my cheating sister but enjoying her company. I cannot blame my six-year-old self for this sort of confusion. The same sort of confusion is not limited to games. It seems to me this sort of confusion is pervasive and shows up in most areas of our lives. At one time it may have been mostly an American phenomenon but nowadays the rat race has gone global.
There is a certain cynical satisfaction in seeing billions of people worldwide exchanging any prospect of true happiness for the pursuit of happiness. I remember as a teen my dad once telling me that he earned a salary and owned a house in order to give us a good life. He said he would be fine living in a cabin and fishing all day. My response of course was we should do that, live in a cabin and fish all day. He told me I needed to grow up. The truth is circumstances whether they be a suburban tract house or a cabin in the woods are ultimately irrelevant! Now I do like clean sheets and comfortable shoes. I don't want to be exploited or mistreated. The point is, mistreaters and exploiters do that shit in order to win! They are bad sports, they are cheating at Monopoly or throwing the board in the air and accusing others of cheating, they are counting cards and missing the point of playing in the first place. The only real joy comes from how well you play with others.
Does this mean we should be insipid and sanctimonious? Hell no! Who enjoys any game that doesn't involve any challenge at all? Adults don't play Candy Land with other adults, it's a game for small children and no adult dreams of beating the shit out of their kid at Candy Land. Competition is good when it's fair and friendly but the win at any cost credo is really for losers. Fair play on a level playing field with the goal of appreciating and enjoying other players is the only way to win at life, in other words to be happy. Until we come around to realizing this simple truth we will remain victims and bullies, neither of whom is happy, both of whom are losers.
The good news is, all we need to do in order to bring about true happiness, is recognize what we really want and need. Nobody can prevent you from finding happiness in the pleasure of others and working toward that end.
Russell
I thought the point of the game was to win! I was wrong of course. The point of the game was to enjoy the company of my ex and our friends! When I was a kid I got really upset when my older sister beat me at Monopoly! I was sure she cheated (I was probably right!) and it was totally frustrating to play against her, as I, being honest, had no chance. At age six I probably couldn't understand that the real objective of the game was not bankrupting my cheating sister but enjoying her company. I cannot blame my six-year-old self for this sort of confusion. The same sort of confusion is not limited to games. It seems to me this sort of confusion is pervasive and shows up in most areas of our lives. At one time it may have been mostly an American phenomenon but nowadays the rat race has gone global.
There is a certain cynical satisfaction in seeing billions of people worldwide exchanging any prospect of true happiness for the pursuit of happiness. I remember as a teen my dad once telling me that he earned a salary and owned a house in order to give us a good life. He said he would be fine living in a cabin and fishing all day. My response of course was we should do that, live in a cabin and fish all day. He told me I needed to grow up. The truth is circumstances whether they be a suburban tract house or a cabin in the woods are ultimately irrelevant! Now I do like clean sheets and comfortable shoes. I don't want to be exploited or mistreated. The point is, mistreaters and exploiters do that shit in order to win! They are bad sports, they are cheating at Monopoly or throwing the board in the air and accusing others of cheating, they are counting cards and missing the point of playing in the first place. The only real joy comes from how well you play with others.
Does this mean we should be insipid and sanctimonious? Hell no! Who enjoys any game that doesn't involve any challenge at all? Adults don't play Candy Land with other adults, it's a game for small children and no adult dreams of beating the shit out of their kid at Candy Land. Competition is good when it's fair and friendly but the win at any cost credo is really for losers. Fair play on a level playing field with the goal of appreciating and enjoying other players is the only way to win at life, in other words to be happy. Until we come around to realizing this simple truth we will remain victims and bullies, neither of whom is happy, both of whom are losers.
The good news is, all we need to do in order to bring about true happiness, is recognize what we really want and need. Nobody can prevent you from finding happiness in the pleasure of others and working toward that end.
Russell
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