'You will be what you will to be'

Yesterday's excursion into Earl Nightingale led to today's excursion into James Allen and As A Man Thinketh, as nice a summary of basic truths as I've found in a long time.

Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts. For out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.

Read it all.

Earl Nightingale's 'Strangest Secret'

An oldie but goodie to share today — because it's brand-new to me. Dan Miller mentioned on his podcast that "The Strangest Secret" by Earl Nightingale is one of the most influential pieces of writing he's ever encountered. I did a quick search and found it, and it's as good as Dan made it sound. The article sums up well a simple truth we've all heard thousands of times — that we become what we think about.

A sample:

A person who is thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal is going to reach it, because that's what he's thinking about. Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety, fear, and worry will thereby create a life of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing ... he becomes nothing.

Simple advice — so why is it so hard to follow? Nightingale has some insights into that, too, in this article worth reading.

Living in all dimensions

The news brought word of a man from Belgium who was injured so severely doctors concluded he was in a vegetative state. His family and their new doctor say he really has been in a "locked-in" state for 23 years, able to perceive his surroundings and communicate — which he now does using what little movement his condition permits.

Some question whether Rom Houbens is actually "locked in" and communicating, and you can find that argument out there. It's not why I'm writing this morning.

In the ABC story where I found this news were some quotes from neurologists who explained the difference between being in a "vegetative" coma and being here.

For example, a person who is in a vegetative state and a person who is "locked-in" would both be paralyzed to some degree. Both patients would likely open their eyes and look around.

But, as Dr. James L. Bernat of the American Academy of Neurology explained, these two individuals would be considered to have two different definitions of "consciousness."

"One is called wakefulness; eyes open, eyes moving -- that element is conducted primarily by the brainstem," Bernat said. "The second dimension of consciousness requires self-awareness -- they're aware of what's going on, they can feel, they can think.

"People in the vegetative state have only the wakeful dimension," he said.

A coma would be a state of full paralysis and full unconsciousness similar to the experience of going under anesthesia. Neurologists even define a third state in people with brain injuries as "minimally conscious," which is a state of semi-wakefulness and limited self-awareness.

So ... Consider whether these descriptions apply to those of us who have not been physically paralyzed. How much of life do we spend in mere wakefulness, and how much do we spend in self-awareness? How often are we just looking around and functioning, and how often are we aware, feeling and thinking?

A few years ago I visited an optometrist because my once-20/20 vision now required reading glasses. During the course of the examination, he discovered one eye was doing most of the work for me. As a result my depth perception was very limited. He gave me a pair of glasses with a prism that forces my eyes to work together.

After a few days of adjustment, my world opened up. My eyes still regularly fall into their old habits, and often it takes a bit of concentration to see the world as it is. In my most self-aware moments, the depth perception kicks in on its own. If you have always seen in three dimensions, you may not realize how incredible it is to see from here to there, front to back, not just left to right. My left eye is the lazy one, content to let me live in two dimensions. When it's fallen back into old habits nowadays, all I have to do is say to myself, "Left eye," and the world opens up again. It just takes a pause to reorient myself.

Not long ago I felt paralyzed sitting in the day-job office, staring at a computer screen with several writing projects waiting for my attention. The office is not far from a mighty river, so I took a walk and sat down on a park bench along the water with a pen and pad. On that calm day I absorbed a peace that surpasses understanding. My mind and soul unwound and woke up.

In 45 minutes I wrote two days worth of notes and the genesis of this essay. That's the power of simply being self-aware, a power within each of us if we simply pause to look for it.

Everyday life can beat us into a state of simple wakefulness. We turn off our consciousness as we drive the same route twice a day; we surf aimlessly around Web sites; we park in front of an entertainment center to watch people play games or act out stories for us.

Self-awareness is a little daunting — you get in touch with realities like your own mortality — but you reach out for a sense of purpose. When you find that purpose and that passion, you cling to it and work toward fulfilling that purpose, often to slip back into wakefulness, which so reseumbles self-awareness but is so much less.

Assuming the doctor's claims are true, what was it like to be Rom Houbens, wanting to jump up and say "I am here! I have a life! I have purpose!" The same struggle occurs inside our minds as the merely wakeful entity wanders about, looks around, walks and talks but does not notice the sentient, paralyzed soul inside.

Sitting on that park bench, I resolved that one purpose in my life will be to stay awake and aware, to awaken and empower others. This walking-about, zombie-like existence does not have to be as good as it gets. Each of us has the spark to be more, and the spark contains the seed of true freedom, authentic liberty.

The world is an astonishing place when we focus our senses. How much more astonishing are our minds when we do the same.

5 step plan to help America's youth deal with the real world

1. Go to the medicine cabinet.
2. Grab the Ritalin and any other mood-altering medicine.
3. Dump pills into toilet.
4. Flush.
5. Deal.

Resolving a contradiction that isn’t

An old friend perusing these thoughts the other day admitted to some confusion about what appear to be some contradictions in my recent writings about consciousness.

On the one hand, I wrote about keeping your mind focused in the moment, because you certainly can’t control what happened yesterday and tomorrow literally doesn’t exist and never will. At any given moment there’s only now.

Then a few days later I wrote about asking what you would do if you knew you could not fail, and then I added guess what, you can’t fail — move on accordingly.

If we should live in the moment with no thought of a future goal, he asked, what’s the point of a to-do list or dreams or goals or the other stuff I’ve been writing about lately?

Good question; the hiccup is in coupling “live in the moment” with “no thought of a future goal.” (P.S. I think he grokked this, as his e-mail was titled “I’m confused...not really.”) Making a conscious attempt to stay in the moment is not the same as “going willynilly all over the place,” as he colorfully put it elsewhere.

In fact, staying in the moment can be a cure for willynilly syndrome. Often the moment has several demands — a conscious, constant attention to priorities can keep the mind focused. This electronic toy full of bells and whistles, on which I’m typing these thoughts, is a great example.

While I’ve been composing, it’s been playing the great album John B. Sebastian, and my mind has wandered to a variety of places that could have sent me to the search engine. (Whatever happened to the young lady who shared my passion for Sebastian and accompanied me to a couple of his concerts when we both were in high school? What was the story again of how the album was released on both MGM and Reprise records? Where did I put my Woodstock album anyway?) Meanwhile, my e-mail dinged; there’s a new message waiting.

But the current goal is to finish these thoughts. The needs of the moment were for me to stay on this page, typing. Staying in the moment is not incompatible with having a goal. I have started developing specific goals for where I hope to be in six months, a year, five years — but life is still what happens to you, moment by moment, while you’re busy making other plans.

My friend concluded with some great advice: “... if you are consciously trying to live in the moment, it is taking your mind away from its natural course, wandering, picking up, sorting and filing other ethereal information it meets in its travels.”

I agree that a little mind-wandering is necessary to maintain one’s sanity. A sense of direction helps prevent the wandering from being out-of-control willynilly; a sense of the moment helps the goals from being so rigid that we miss a sudden or subtle shift in priorities.

All of this navel-gazing boils down to this, however: I am here in this place now, and I control only my actions and reactions now. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I just heard a sound coming from the puppy’s direction that may need my attention ...

Dream: You cannot fail

"Self-help" is an entire category of book; an industry has grown around materials that give people advice about how to live a more successful life. I think the reason more people don't find success is that they spend more time studying the principles than putting the principles into action.

One question I find frequently in such materials is: What would you do today, right here and right now, if you knew you could not fail? A corollary of the question: What would you do today, right here and right now, if money was no object?

The point of posing these questions is to remove obstacles to your thinking process. Too often creativity is held back by fear of failure or by the perception that a great deal of money is required to launch whatever endeavor you may be considering.

Therefore it's a liberating and exciting exercise to set your mind free by imagining you can't fail and/or that you can afford everything you need to succeed. But one more step is necessary to pop your dream over the top and into reality.

Imagine this: You're not imagining things.

You cannot fail. Money is no object.

I need you to ponder that carefully, I need that to sink in, so I'm going to repeat it.

You cannot fail. Money is no object.

When you set your mind on a vision that fires up your dreams, it's as if the forces of the universe align to make it happen. Try not to think too hard about why that's true, but understand it is true. Maybe it's simply that people sense your enthusiasm and are drawn to help. Maybe it's that catching the fire of your inner passion generates an energy that makes you do what's necessary. Maybe it's God; yep, that's how I envision it, but if you have issues with the idea of supernatural power, don't dwell on it. The important thing is overcoming the illusion that you might fail.

Just know that dreams are contagious. When you set your mind on a vision that fires up your dreams, something makes it begin to happen. Understanding that you cannot fail ignites the dreams.

Most people — if they even bother to go through the exercise and answer a question like "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" — feel a burst of creative energy, get in touch with their dreams and inner passion, and then step back and think, "Well, that was an interesting exercise. Too bad for all the reasons why I can't do that stuff."

The people who succeed find a way to stay in touch with that inner passion. They discover that it wasn't just a mental exercise.

What would you do today, right now and right here, if you knew you could not fail? Hang onto that thought, because here comes the kicker: It's true. You cannot fail. So you may as well get started.

The power of the to-do list

Not long ago I put myself on a daily schedule, more or less. Frustrated by the frequency with which I allowed myself to divert from the routine ("Holy cow, I forgot to clean the kitty litter" and even "Doh! I was going to make myself breakfast"), I made myself a checklist of the things I want or need to get done every day.

I also availed myself of the calendar that came with my computer, mapping out my day in increments of time. I print out these two lists and keep them on a clipboard with me at all times.

Job one is to stay in the moment and keep focused on what the needs of Now are, and so I don't begin to panic when something distracts me from the task I set for, say, 8:30. But because that 8:30 task is on the list, I have a reminder in front of me to ensure my distracted mind is brought back to that particular thing to do. Except for those times when I'm scheduled to meet with someone else, the numbers are simply numbers anyway. As I write this and the clock says 6:09, 8:30 does not exist. The times I attach to the tasks are not as important as the reminder of the tasks themselves.

Yep, it's nothing but a daily to-do list, but checking off a list does add to a positive attitude. Making the list, and conquering it on a daily basis, puts me in control of the quotidian, not the opposite.

Modern conveniences, especially our powerful computers, do a marvelous job of fissioning our attention span. The ability to multitask is considered an admirable trait; indeed, we even invented that word, multitask. Sinking one's full attention into a single task, devoting all of the mind and soul and heart to one thing even for a little while, seems to be a lost art.

Keeping a list of the day's required tasks helps to screen out the unnecessary and bring the mind back to the important — especially when the important is not always the urgent. I have written down reading, prayer and meditation at the start of the day simply because my awakening mind cannot always remember exactly how I wanted to start every day, even when I have been doing it daily for some period of time. There are tasks that ought to be tended daily at the office, but I left them untended in favor of tasks that had to be done — and the less urgent but still important tasks piled up until they became urgent.

The list is a tool, a guide to focus my mind. Each check is a little success, a little mission accomplished, a little bit of the quotidian conquered. I am not a slave to the list, but neither am I free to ignore it. The mind needs a clear vision to keep moving forward, onward and upward, and the day so assails the senses that it's easy to get off the path. The list is a little roadmap made when the vision was foremost in my mind, and regular consultation with those two pieces of paper keeps the vision clear.

And I prefer the paper list to having it in electronic form. When I'm reviewing the list, it won't beep and remind me of something else that needs tending. Sometimes you need to pay attention. In fact, let me revise that thought: At all times, you need to pay attention. For me, for now, the list keeps me in the Now. You may find a tool that works better for you — but my humble advice is to find that tool.

Action and reaction

This week is the anniversary of perhaps the most horrific moment of my professional career. I was working for a small family operation that fought for years against a competing firm owned by a huge corporation. The owner of my company passed along to us his deep distrust and perhaps even hatred of our big competitor. I believe I was a good soldier in his little army; in many ways I still consider that huge corporation a blight.

This week a few years ago, the owner drew us all together to tell us he had given it all he had and it was time to sell the company — to the huge corporation.

What they say about fight-or-flight is true. It did feel like the room was spinning. I was torn between fleeing the room in anger and disillusionment or staying to defend the remnants of the family company that was my home-away-from-home until, it turns out, a few hours earlier when the sale was finalized.

As I stood along the wall, I glanced down at a woman who was taking notes: At the top of her pad were the words, "In 100 years, none of this will matter."

The words settled me down dramatically. I didn't exactly laugh, although the moment suddenly felt more humorous, but I did grasp that although I had no control over the action that had just been announced, my reaction was entirely under my control. The situation still seemed untenable, but calm reason started to flow back into a corner of my heart.

Courage to change the things I can; the serenity to accept the things I can't; the wisdom to know the difference. At least I had the serenity down. Mustering the courage is always the dicey part of that equation.

Looking back over developments since then, I have mixed feelings. I could have and perhaps should have mustered the courage to turn over a few money-changing tables in the temple. If I had indeed fled, I would have worked through the consequences of that action by now. But again, those moments are past and today presents its own challenges.

From the news of the world to our own backyard, we will be presented today with actions that no doubt will challenge our core — on the grand scale, tyranny is afoot in the world and nation; on the smallest of scales, no matter how we plan to spend the day, something unexpected will divert us from that course. For the most part you can't control those actions, only your reactions.

A practical example: My coffeemaker malfunctioned and the day began with brown liquid all over the kitchen counter instead of in the pot where it belonged. As I sopped coffee off the floor, I found the seeds of this little essay. Now, let me see if I can find a way to tackle that tyranny ...

Tend to this moment; it's all we have

Sitting by a window at this house in a small woods on a cool summer morning, naturally the main sound outside is the call of a bird — several birds, of course. Sinking into the moment, one is suddenly struck by the realization that the moment is all there is.

There is no time. Yesterday is a collection of moments like this. They cannot be retrieved; what's done is done. Tomorrow will be another such collection; it cannot be accessed, not yet, not ever.

A joke I heard from Barry McGuire, who tonight (according to his Web page) plans to be across the country in Port Townsend, Washington, home of Liberty magazine and a town I would like to see someday:

Guy walks into a bar (as so many guys do in jokes) and sees a sign: "Free beer, noon tomorrow." All right, sez he, I'm coming back to this little gin joint.

The next day right before noon, he walks in, plants his hands on the counter and says, "Line 'em up. I'm ready for the free beer." Bartender looks at him as if he's nuts. "What are you talkin' about? There's no free beer today." To emphasis their arguments, they both point at the sign: "Free beer, noon tomorrow."

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow doesn't exist. Only this moment is real.

What does this moment require? Consider the needs of the moment, and act.

When Barry talked about this, it reminded me of the cover of a book, years ago when I lived in the 1960s (oddly, I now see it was published in 1971): Be Here Now. It has always sounded like as good a good philosophy of life as can be summarized in three words. He talked about encountering the idea in The Sacrament of the Present Moment, written 350 years ago by a priest named Jean-Pierre de Caussade. I ran out and found the priest's book; it is slow going but it is amazing if a person is so inclined.

Here's the gist of it: Only this moment is real. You have control only over your actions of this moment. What do you need to do? Do it. Do you have a task that appears too much for you? Do you think you can handle it just for this moment?

Barry spoke in the context of a man who was trying to stay sober. He asked the man, Do you think you can keep from drinking just for this moment? "Sure, that's not so hard." OK, How about this moment, now? "Yeah, I can do that." And now this moment, can you keep from drinking for this moment? Great. You're doing it.

Each day is a collection of moments. Stay in the moment at hand, do what the moment requires. Don't fret over past moments; you cannot change what happened then. Don't fret over tomorrow; tomorrow doesn't exist yet — and if you tend to the moment, the needs of future moments will become self-evident. Stay in the present moment.

Preserve the embers; stoke the fire

The beginning of the wage-slave week often brings a fresh fire and a sense of resolve. The past two days have been filled with quiet moments, away-from-the-quotidian moments, active moments, refreshment of personal goals, and thoughts of reinvention and renewal. Then one enters the quotidian pace, and the clock must be tended. ("Or must it?" your soul cries from its rapidly diminishing quiet place.)

The trick, often not accomplished, is to maintain a hold on that fresh resolve. Too often it's abandoned by noon Monday. There are deadlines to make, papers to push, soil to be turned, clock hands to turn. During the course of the day, the resolution becomes a quaint memory; what began as a confident shout of joy becomes a faint, desperate whisper. Morning triumph leads to evening defeat. No wonder so many medicate themselves to sleep.

Essential to success in living, then, must be finding that Monday morning optimism and drive on Tuesday morning. I find mild success by posting little reminders on the face of my computer, brief sayings from two of my favorite outlaws.

One is a resolution I have written about before: "Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: I shall not fear anyone on Earth. I shall fear only God. I shall not bear ill will toward anyone. I shall not submit to injustice from anyone. I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering."

The other is from an outlaw I haven't quoted often because I don't claim or desire to be an evangelist and don't want to be confused with one; however, it's foolish for me to pretend I am not influenced by these words, so take them simply as an explanation of my motivations: "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

Renewal is an everyday task. Stoking the fire requires a constant vigil. Life is an endless struggle against forces that will beat you down, but only if you let them. Your greatest power is control over your own personal actions and reactions.

These two writers spent their share of time in prison cells for holding beliefs that transcended the politics of the day, and for putting those beliefs into action. Perhaps the memory of those cells helped them maintain that Monday-morning confidence; no doubt it also left them sometimes in despair. But they maintained long enough to make a difference for the ages.

Preserve the embers of resolutions you made when you had a clear vision of your dreams. Some nights the embers are all that's left, but they contain the seeds of an ongoing fire.

B.W.'s Book Report: This Perfect Day

Ira Levin wrote a little book called Rosemary's Baby that made a bit of a stir during the 1960s. Then he wrote This Perfect Day, which isn't in print anymore. I never heard of it until a couple years ago, when my liberty-loving agorist friend Wally mentioned it a time or two (or three or four), always including it among "freedom classics." I figured I had to check it out.

I knew something was up when I had to bid $13 to get a battered paperback copy of the novel on eBay. "Must be pretty good stuff if somebody besides me wants it that badly," I said to myself.

I had no idea.

It's a couple of hundred years from now (or maybe, with some of the petty details changed, it's last week), and peace has settled over the world. Everyone's contented and there's no conflict in the world - well, almost none - because a central computer (UniComp, nicknamed Uni) controls our lives, picks our jobs and mates, and arranges for us all to have regular drug treatments that keep us well. It's a brave new world where everyday life, as we denizens of 2007 know it, is a sorry and violent forgotten memory.

We meet Li RM35M4419 - you may call him Chip - when he is 6 years old and hearing for the first time the legend of the incurables, strange creatures that "catch animals and eat them and wear their skins" and do something called fighting, which means they deliberately hurt each other. Chip is troubled by what he hears, but it's all cleared up when he gets an extra treatment. Well, it's cleared up for the moment.

As he grows older, Chip learns a few more details about the difference between a healthy lifestyle and the sickness that in extreme cases is evidenced by the incurables. And then one day he receives an invitation ...

I think I know why This Perfect Day isn't in print anymore. If too many people read this book, we might wake up.

If you have never read this book, you owe it to yourself to track down a copy. I am too selfish to loan mine out; I do not want to this book to be out of my possession ever again. If you have read this book, you know what I'm talking about.

B.W.'s Book Report: Mindscan

In John Scalzi's Old Man's War, people's consciousness is transferred into new, artificial bodies. The process presumably leaves the person's original body an empty, dead shell.

Robert J. Sawyer had a similar idea with an important difference. In his near-future, technology can copy a person's consciousness into a new, artificial body - but the person's original body lives on, complete with its original consciousness. Because the original body has not long to live, each person who undergoes this process agrees to transfer all of his/her identity and accompanying rights to the person inside the new body, whose memories and mind are identical - at least as of the moment of transfer. The "shed skins" get to live out the rest of their lives at a luxury resort on the far side of the moon, while the copy gets to continue the original person's life indefinitely.

Two problems: Our hero, who undergoes the process in his 40s because he is doomed to die early from a congenital problem, is unexpectedly made well by a newly discovered cure. And his new girlfriend, a transferred multimillionaire novelist, is sued by her son, who considers his mother dead and wants the inheritance.

In Mindscan, Sawyer has crafted an intriguing tale that tackles the big questions. What makes us human? What is the nature of consciousness? When does life begin? When does life end? When does a developing fetus become a person? When does a human being cease to be a person?

The story is set in a time when the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision has been overturned, much to the dismay of our two protaganists, but the questions about personhood raised by that case come back to haunt them as they fight for the right to be considered persons themselves. Sawyer, to my mind, manages to be fair to both sides of this emotionally charged subject in crafting a realistic scenario as the story plays out.

I picked this book up more or less at random from a pile of books that had accumulated in the eight months since last I finished a book. It was a terrific way to dive back into the habit. I'm not going to go into much more detail about the plot, because watching it unfold is a lot of fun. Sawyer has already won the Hugo and Nebula awards for previous works - this one deserves that level of recognition, too.