When was the last time you were really afraid?

And by afraid I mean OOGA-BOOGA afraid, not just your run of the mill high anxiety, heart attacking fear of death, taxes, and regular terror afraid.

For many folks, I bet their answer would be the dread they recall experiencing at a recent horror movie or maybe a wild ride on a death defying amusement park attraction.

But whether its movies, rides or mountain climbing, anyone attempting to scare themselves to a greater degree than the skilled strangers operating said endeavors would have to work very hard indeed to manage their own emotions more efficiently than the curious dudes to whom they relegate their precious lives.

Fear On Demand

Perhaps we are witnessing the last vestiges of a trait that started dying out long ago and is now needed so little that we feel compelled to stand in line and pay dearly to have our fear wrenched from us in some of the most mind bending and creative manners possible.

Of course, fear isn’t the only emotion being conjured by the civil engineers of human agitation and society. Nope, sentiments from raucous pride to profound grief are being capitalized upon through sports, nationalism and religion and once those emotions are generated they are vacuumed out of every producer via purchasing – as if the human spirit was endless in supply.

And just like fear has a home in culturally acceptable methods of release, human exultation is being constantly siphoned off in strategically placed community centers called Greeting Card Shops, where the gravest of mind robbing quietly occurs day in and day out.

Real Scary Only Works Once

Take a moment to consider these points as they illuminate the lack of control we experience with of our own minds and emotions:

1. Scary rides become less scary the more they are ridden. Habituation describes how our emotions unconsciously respond to repetitive impingement.
   
2. In the same manner, each greeting card verse you send which is authored by someone else slightly cripples your ability to compose the same sentiment in the future. Before long you have neither the will nor the ability to produce your own written greetings and the very talent which only slightly separates you from the animals silently slips away.

Proof:

• Exercising Creativity – Try sending out 20 purchased greeting cards to friends versus making up the same number of personalized cards and see if originating those messages doesn’t knock you unconscious. (or make you drunk ) Like a muscle being worked, your brain is better off for having flexed its creative ability.
• Put Your Words In My Mouth – The more slobbering mass produced examples of sentiment you willingly receive from well wishers, the more credence you lend to the mockery of personalized expression of sentiment. The squeaking wheels of our lost ability to assemble words which reflect our truest feelings soon need a lot more than grease to get moving.
• Adding Insult to Injury – Sadly, when we do hit the ditch, the very folks who care most about us will likely send more greeting cards, crippling us both more in the process.
  

Prostitutes Make Money Not Love

The emotions and minds of almost everyone in our culture is being manipulated without approval by the likes of movie producers, greeting card authors and carnival ride operators who profess to truly understand what is best for mankind.

I get the feeling that our mind master’s stultifying antics are affecting us much more than anyone recognizes and I fear that their repetitive brain numbing is having far reaching implications on our ability to experience and convey our individual emotions.

And even though everything looks calm in the excercise yard of society, I’m wondering if a few of us shouldn’t tunnel out anyway. Just in case…

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.

Mysteries will not uncover themselves. They need us.

I am so wishy-washy.

But fortunately for me,  I am not alone.

Anyone in my culture who changes their mind a little “too often” whether due to new findings, epiphanies or collected data will be painted with the same brush.

Being wishy-washy is not a good thing – just in case you don’t know – because the confusion and complacency that surely results from constant mind changing will eventually cause the sufferer to never be able to make clear choices about anything ever again.

Nope, everybody knows that nothing good can come of continuous and contagious mind changing, even if it is called something silly like learning or adapting…

We Can’t Get Better by Staying The Same

The vast majority of folks want better lives and will automatically volunteer that their main purpose for existing is to make the world a better place for themselves and others. (usually in that order, too )

But just HOW do things get better unless we get better? And how do we get better if we aren’t able to accept a new reality where things are almost imperceptibly different?

We can’t. Its that simple.

Open Up Your Mind, See What You Find

Each and every adjustment we make to our minds today will definitely modify our world-view tomorrow and that newly recognized reality cannot help but present new circumstances which we can then act upon.

Before long, new and beneficent patterns of reality begin to emerge which automatically shift our world view and alter the effect of every evolutionary step on our stairway to the heavenly future which awaits us.

And all this happens just by us being willing to change our minds. This is really far out, really.

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.

Eight days ago I was fishing in shit swamp, a little hole in my home’s basement which connects me to the world wide sewer. A tree had choked the life out of my foulish liquified exhaust pipe, creating all manner of distasteful blow-back.

As I stared gratefully catch-less for several hours into the ploppy abyss, fruitlessly operating a wind em up snake snag snuffer my mind wandered on such things which will  amaze you, as they alarmed me. In future posts I shall allude to said thoughts in order to trigger your own shooting finger.

Ambitious evolution, lets call it.

Then, to top everything off, word came this morning that my father was checking out.

He needs witnesses and apparently I am qualified.

I’ll be off the grid for a while but thinking of you, none-the-less.

Until then, friend.

Barry out.

Original ideas are a dime a dozen.

Here is my formula for faking new perspectives:

1. I think of something: for example (cars) and ask my mom and dad: (wikipedia and google) about it.
2. They tell me lots of stuff no one should ever have to know about automobiles.
3. I look for the most frightening or absurd concept about vehicles, get my crayons out and start pretending.

Where I get my ideas:

1. This thing plus one. Cars are dangerous and people more preoccupied. Add phone worms in people’s ears. Hmm. I wonder where this is headed and I don’t mean figuratively…
2. Reading between the lines. Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird, a plane, what is it? Its an idea hiding right there between those two obvious ones!
3. What Did You Just Call Me?! I visit my dad’s girlfriend (thesaurus.com) whom I am infatuated with to get her side of my story.
4. Dis-inhibitors: Wine and Lysergic Acid Diethylamide seem to help me (you’ve got to watch your levels, though). If you can produce something worthwhile reading from the same mindset as your reader, puh-leease let me know how you do it.
5. Cesarean Section a Title – I know this is important and I screw up here all the time. But once you have a name for your country, a flag and national anthem are right behind.

Creating The Article

I have limited talent in this field but this whole process is imaginary so I pretend that I do have at least rudimentary writing skills and begin typing things which often resemble words.

Initially, I just write down any ideas and proprietary evidence (no one is an expert on what I think but me!) that come into my awareness. The concept which I have developed to this point is at best normal and at worst stupid. (I call this framing) - hard to improve on nothing.

Then, I refine the story by using more appropriate words to clarify the new thoughts I am having. I also try to chop out unnecessary language at this point. (patching & painting)

Next, I attempt to shine up those ideas by putting my special distortion on them and hopefully have enough made up original stuff to override a few of the smarter arguments which might carelessly attempt to disprove my opinion. (Tom Foolery)

Other than posting your now original threats and then occasionally checking / updating the post as your worldview shifts over the next few days, your job as a budding cadet author is well underway!

Atten – Hut!

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.

PS. In 96 hrs I updated this post 12 times as my mind changed about how to try and tell you the story properly.

Dude was going to back right over my wife and I.

Only anticipatory evasive action avoided a nasty collision between ourselves and the reversing auto but what intrigued me was the perfectly coordinated occurrence of the situation.

There Definitely Is a Right Time & Place But Where Is It & When?

Normally, this would be no cause for alarm but this was the second time that day and fifth time in the same week that we had perfectly intersected with vehicles entering or leaving their driveways. Over a three week period, this unnerving experience occurred eleven times and then something even weirder happened.

The effect stopped completely.

Walking now felt very strange – after several perfectly timed intersections between ourselves and driveway automobiles for weeks, we were now encountering  vehicles two to three seconds before or after we passed. Something had changed and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was…

Everybody Look What’s Going Down

These incidents caused me to ponder whether there is an underlying time-line structure to reality, perhaps something similar to lunar tides but revealing itself only through coincidental events. To me, it felt like this impinging synchronistic force was acting upon our minds through an Emotional Grid that somehow allowed us to tune in to space and time and recognize unconnected yet meaningful coincidences.

My research on this subject turned up Professor J.E. Littlewood who totally disagrees with me. He says unlikely events are actually quite normal occurrences.

In fact, he has developed a theory called Littlewood’s Law which suggests that miracles happen regularly, its just that we don’t recognize them as being extraordinary so they do not register in our consciousness.

Its JE’s view is that exceptional events occur with a frequency of one in a million so if we imagine that humans experience one event per second for eight hours a day, Littlewood’s Law predicts it will take approximately 35 days to realize one miracle. That equals about 11 miracles per year and is quite a bit less than the pile of improbable events my wife and I encountered in our daily walks.

What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks

My hypothesis is similar with another more famous believer’s concept of the possibility of an underlying structure of space / time, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who eighty years ago championed his concept of an similarly experiential force he called synchronicity.

Carl postulated that his mysterious organizing principle revealed accusal yet meaningful coincidences which might be indicators of a overarching structure which governs human consciousness. Today, quantum physics proves that observers definitely effect whatever they view so perhaps old Carl was onto something.

The Emotional Grid I am imagining resembles a steadily beating universal drum to which we can entrain ourselves  and “go with the flow” or conversely, as in our vehicle intersecting example, can step “out of time” with. Maybe this is what we are talking about when we say “being in the right place at the right time”.

It is my contention that this force exists in the same manner of several other powerful and invisible forces we have discovered. For example:

1. Move The World? Okay, Watch This - the discovery of leverage to multiply the force applied to another object has enabled mankind to perform feats of strength that previously would have been determined impossible.
2. Y-Y-Y You Got The Beat - music exists as an invisible time based motivating force, more of which is discovered daily.
3. Covert Killers Dropping Deadly Deeds - although bacteria were discovered in 1676 by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that our understanding of them progressed to the point where we could counteract their effects on our bodies.
4. They See Right Through You – X-rays were originally discovered by Fernando Sanford in 1891 and Nicolas Tesla warned against prolonged exposure to these new rays so that folks could live to understand how dangerously beneficial they could be.

There’s no doubt history has proven that we are surrounded by mysterious and unseen forces which, once discovered, can dramatically raise both our level of awareness of the true nature of reality and our enjoyment of life.

The Invisible Is Where Most Forces Reside

Bat Signal On Cloud Nine

Some folks who seem to be favored by evolution appear more attuned to existence which allows them to take advantage of cycles while successfully interpreting hints from from unfolding events. Without understanding what may actually be happening, we call these people lucky or blessed to describe their uncanny good fortune.

Regardless of the names we pin on it, I intend to explore the force I call The Emotional Grid because I get the feeling there is really something there worth understanding.

And maybe, when we are able to comprehend the power I have described, it will help us stay out of our own way.

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.

PS. Learn more about synchronicity and some of the other topics discussed in this story by clicking the links below. And get ready for stuff to start happening!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_%28physics%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littlewood%27s_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray#History

Dr. John – Right Place Wrong Time Lyrics

I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
I’d of said the right thing
But I must have used the wrong line
I been in the right trip
But I must have used the wrong car
My head was in a bad place
And I’m wondering what it’s good for

I been the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
My head was in a place
But I’m having such a good time
I been running trying to get hung up in my mind
Got to give myself a little talking to this time

Just need a little brain salad surgery
Got to cure this insecurity
I been in the wrong place
But it must have been the right time
I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong song
I been in the right vein
But it seems like the wrong arm
I been in the right world
But it seems wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

Slipping, dodging ,sneaking
Creeping hiding out down the street
See me life shaking with every who I meet
Refried confusion is making itself clear
Wonder which way do I go to get on out of here

I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong time
I’d have said the right thing
But I must have used the wrong line
I’d a took the right road
But I must have took a wrong turn
Would have made the right move
But I made it at the wrong time
I been on the right road
But I must have used the wrong car
My head was in a good place
And I wonder what it’s bad for

This is a Picture of my Soul

My dear reader, how I love thee.

Unless, of course, you are a guy – then its only like…

I must apologize to you right up front for this Inside Post which will not be very interesting to you unless you are an author or interested in learning how not to become one by following what I do.

If you are not in my masterclass of online newbies but are considering developing an on line business – please contact me through the comment button below this post. I will put you in touch with one of the internet’s leading successful imperfect gurus. You won’t be disappointed, I assure you.

For MasterClass or Author-type Friends:

I intend on publishing my personal stats for articles on a regular basis to keep track myself and to show other new writers what the reality of putting together an online presence entails. Any of my classmates have permission to use this information and images, if you wish.

Here is what happened over the past eight days with me and EZ articles:

1 - number of articles added (1 waiting to be approved)

132 – article views added

12 – url clicks added (click rate now 6.7 from 6.4)

1 – ezine article published (from 7 to 8 articles published)

3 – number of new articles which I have found to be ripped off this week by blogs who do not give me credit. In the beggining I would write these nincompoops and even threaten them with a harsh followup email. Now I spend that time making new, and as yet, unripped off articles.

Most Surprising Thing – how many views and url clicks my duct tape wallet articles are getting. More folks are interested in duct tape than intelligence. Hmmm.

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.

I used to be afraid of being written up, now I want to be!

Howdy friends.

The stuff I describe below got me into a lot of trouble.

It even got my boss into trouble. His boss’s boss phoned me to stop what I was doing from spreading to other area properties under their management.  It worked – I only lasted 4 months with this company.

I wrote these words in 2006 about my discovery of STP and the initial application of its powerful ability to alter reality. I realize now that the story is a bit windy but like wisdom, brevity for me is coming with age.

Thank you to Cornell University School of Hotel Administration for originally publishing this work for me.

Barry

http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/news/newsroom/item-details.html?id=4026219

Yahoo! I’m back in the saddle again!

I’ve scored a job managing a group of cleaners for our local airport and am practicing some hospitality voodoo science on them that I want to share with you. I’m going way out on a limb here and will tell you all about my nefarious contrivances and whether or not I get fired for attempting this…

First – the set up.

The previous cleaning contractor for our fine airport was of your typical flavor; ride the employees hard, pay them nuttin’ and treat them regularly to a dirt sandwich. You know – kinda like the way they’re considered in most places…with indifference.

So, when my new body lords unwittingly hired me, I thought I’d try to mix things up a little bit and use some wacky management principles on my unsuspecting flock of soil organizers. Please understand, this here’s an ongoing interpersonal study and my missive today is just an initial report to you, my esteemed colleagues.

Knowing everything there is to know about double blind experiments (I’ve been married twice), I chose to keep any of the old staff that would be brave enough to cross over to the unstable side of the road and join my band of merry char persons. I then took the 50 applications that had been sent in for this mundane charade and set up appointments for interviews. (And phoned the people whom I didn’t hire or interview…;-)

Our Small City Supports An Awesome Airport

Employing all the human resources tricks I learned in my own recent adventure of applying for jobs, I interviewed 15 applicants in 4 hours. I avoided using the standard opaque screen which real HR people use to hide interviewee’s physical traits so’s they don’t accidentally discriminate against folks who apply for their plumbest of positions.

I wound up with 20 trusting humans, all looking to me like I give a squat about their well being. (Fortunately for them, I really do care.)

I adorned them with uniforms that make them look and feel like professionals. I sponsored an orientation about customer service and told them that each person was hired because of who they are – not what they’ve done in the past. (I’m doing something really “way out” here – employing people based on their desired futures.)

I promised that they would be treated with dignity and respect and asked each of them to treat our customers the same way. I also told everyone that if I did my job right, they would become better people AND outstanding cleaners. They listened in muted silence.

If You’re Happy and You Know It Bend Your Mouth!

The first day of work (I’m into day 4 now) I told these trusting people the story of Management By Numbers. You know how this works. Some manager thinks he’s the wisest keener on the planet and judges himself to be an eight (bordering on nine) on the one to ten scale. He purposely hires workers who rate a tad bit less than himself (which is nearly everybody) on the old scale-aroosky. Maybe 7′s or 6′s.

Some of those loyal employees stay on with the corp. and following their hero’s lead, they hire 6′s and 5′s. Pretty soon the company is being run by 3′s and everybody wonders why the goods and services are so lousy. And the three’s don’t give a dang.

I told my people that they’re better than me – and they are. (Or soon will be) I confessed that there’s plenty I don’t know and said that they should learn everything they can about their jobs and then tell me all about it. I admitted that I’m likely to make some mistakes and that it’s OK if they do, too. We’ll learn together – they’re the leaders now.

Yeah, they were a bit bewildered, but they got over it in one day.

Day 2 I told them who was managing them – themselves. I explained to each person that they had to exercise self discipline and that my job was to set the parameters for our tasks. I’ll keep them out of the ditches and congratulate them for staying on the road. Again, some confusion and deer in the headlights looks with some smirks from the “old” company people.

Day 3 I described Kaizen – continuous improvement and what it looked like in this job. I also had to verbally warn a “previous” supervisor for coming in late.

Watch Out – This Stuff Spreads!

Day 4 (today) I had to warn another “cross over” person about being late for their shift.

I also implemented a contest – STP (you know airports, they LOVE acronyms…) which stands for “Smile Transfer Protocol”. One lucky cleaner will win a dinner for two next Sunday (Feb 12) for creating the most smiles from our customers – the people who use the airport. All my people have to do is smile and say hello while counting the number of people that smile back. The person generating the most smiles in one week wins.

Today was a practice day for the contest and I personally caused eleven people to smile on one round trip from my office to the restaurant. I felt pretty dang proud because I’m the only person who will be posting my smile count; everyone else must keep theirs secret until next Sunday. It’s the honor system.

I was blown away by what I saw as I made my way back to my office. One of the “cleaners” was encouraging a group of approximately 100 Japanese tourists to “SMILE” as she mischievously took the group photo she had offered to snap for them. She had them laughing and smiling all over the place! I wondered if that was cheating…

You should have heard her bragging about her “smile tally” at break time… incredible!

More than 900,000 people a year use this airport and the way my people have cleaned it up over the past 4 days is nothing short of amazing. I can see that they’re taking ownership of their responsibilities and winning complements from everyone who works in the place. And now they’re actively seeking ways to create happiness. I am truly humbled.

Smile Transfer Protocol – it’s a science you can use.

I think it’s gonna be a fun week.

Stay tuned, my friends.

Barry out.

Any Idea If This Is A Friendly Motel?

Relax, it is finally official. Money CAN NOT buy happiness.

The blissful news arrived in a ruling handed down against WalMart in early 2008 by Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. in Atlanta.

The learned adjudicator found that even with the support of two hundred thousand dollars worth of pseudo scientific arguments from an actual smiley face consultant (similar to an elf translator), the retail behemoth could not claim ownership rights to the ubiquitous happy face.

Whew! Chock one up for The courageous Judge B senior and all mankind …

Mutual Life, Harvey Ball and Yellow Circles Off The Hook

No doubt about it, the smiley face is a formidable force to be reckoned with. Little wonder WalMart tried to own it.

Like all religious icons, the happy face’s origin is a bit fuzzy but most bets favor the fable that modern day smiley was cesarean sectioned by a mild mannered and humble dude named Harvey Ball.

And like many great creators before him, Harvey attracted a benefactor who commissioned his purposefully emotive work and in this instance it was the very forward thinking Mutual Life Assurance Company. They were seeking a simple graphic to remind company phone reps to smile when they talked with potential clients and for that thinking we are greatly indebted to you, Mutual.

Thanks also to Mr. Ball’s genius and flat out generosity, millions of happy faces will ride emails around the globe today and the totality of those “smile reminders ” will be generating the very same force that WalMart would love to manage.

Simple Signs Send a Signal

Incredible power is wielded by images like the Nazi swastika, a symbol representing such evil for some folks today that recent history overrides its beneficial application for hundreds of years before Hitler and the boys claimed it. Of course, being even more cunning than WalMart, the nasty Nazis chose the swastika to represent their group for the very reason that it already contained substantial religious power for them to employ.

Power Resides In Symbols, Not Political Parties

Symbols have great influence on our society in all walks of life. See if you agree that awesome power resides in these cultural cues:

1. By The Left, Quick, March! – Flags of Nations are simple, enduring symbols of unity and uniqueness which have rallied more cries for improving the human condition than any other symbol. The innate power in these cloth icons is so great that just disrespecting them has caused much conflict costing many lives.
   
2. Winners IF Only For One Day - Sports Teams logos create loyalty, excitement, shame and devastation. The degree to which fanatical fans follow their teams through emulation in clothing, flags, culture and winning / losing is interesting indeed.
3. One Finger Bad, Two Fingers Brotherhood – Hand signals and slight physical gestures convey instant disdain or peace and harmony to total strangers. Be careful which fingers you display …
   
4. Just Say No and Just Do It - Ideological phrases and anthems represent struggles and cultural philosophies that, like brands and logos, eventually develop loyalty, class distinction and societal values which are unquestioningly enacted by each participant.
   
5. Trade Colored Paper For Stuff – Currency is a powerful symbol of value which requires total acceptance of a positive perception of national economies. Kinda like walking on a cliff edge blindfolded.
   

Even criminal organizations see value in controlling their symbols and logos. In the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, for example, not dropping colors or patches as requested will lead to paralysis and quite likely death for the ex-member given to challenging any zero tolerance cultural icons.

Yeah, Some Lines And A Triangle Works

Smiley Face Packs A Punch

Humans think in pictures and evidence abounds that our lives are directed by the images of brands, logos and symbols.

I think it stands to reason that if one of the most successful companies in the world considered corralling the power of the smiley face, we should definitely be paying cultural icons more attention.

And now that we know that our main symbol of happiness can not be sold, it is imperative we put that gelded graphic to work freely, everywhere.

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.

PS. I have told you little about this great icon called Smiley Face. You can learn more about this important topic by clicking on the links below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Ball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiley

WalMart Loses Court Case For Smiley Ownership

The Lowdown on Smiley Face History from The Straight Dope

I am writing an article on employing humor in business today and like every story I’ve ever written, I find it hard to do.

Many times I’ve read that some authors feel the hand of the almighty moving them. All I feel is a touch of panic mixed with a smidgen of confusion and expectation.

Anyway, I will have a new story out tomorrow that is the second in my series on employing fun in the workplace.

This fable is about everybody’s favorite evil empire – WalMart – and how they tried to own the smiley face.

How dare they!

More tomorrow.

Thank you, friend.

Barry out

Can You Tell A Child Is Writing My Articles?

I have been submitting articles to ezinearticles for over four months now and I am proud to say that they have only refused two stories out of thirty six I subjected to their approval.

Not bad for living in a country where democracy and free speech rule! (one was refused for the constant use of the proper adjective arsehole and the other because it applauds intelligent employment of hazing)

I would be interested to hear your suggestions for improvement. Especially if they mix well with beer.

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.

PS. Please click on the image to be connected to a size you can read.