The State of Humanity

The State of Humanity

As a society here in 2013, why do we seem to be filled with so much hate towards one another?

As we drive down the road and another person cuts in front of us going half the speed limit we shake our fist and scream “get out of the way asshole” instead of making sure that driving instructors for our youth are focused on teaching students to avoid this.

We find it more important to poke our phones and text our invisible friends without investing more time to engage in things face to face.  We judge another person by who they know, what they type, and post on their online social hangout but rarely do we offer them any true comfort.

Have we advanced with technology or has it become a placeholder for true friendship forcing us more into isolation in the world?  Hate Hate Hate....  Why?   If you don’t measure up then I’m taught to hate you.  Why??  

And “what’s in it for me...?” seems to be the law of the land these days..  Rarely do you hear “here, let me show you how to do that...” instead it’s replaced with “What are ya, stupid? You never learned how to do that and you’re 30 years old?” Then we accuse others of being full of baggage.  

Why do Christians brag about how much they love Jesus and their God but the moment they walk out of the church they find more interest in the shortcomings of others and making themselves look artificially superior even though they know it’s fake. This is a loving person from a so-called ‘loving’ God??   Did I miss something?  

We plaster our social profiles with sexy photos of ourselves thinking it will lure more people into liking us till they find out how horrible and benign we really are. And then we judge others for their lack of ‘Truth’ never realizing how twisted our own morals are.   Wow, we’ve certainly come a long way in the new millennium but my question is when it comes to interacting with others, did we get closer or repel further away from the humans around us.

Why do the rich hate the poor and vice versa?  The poor see the rich as scam artists who don’t know what the word “work’ really means... and the rich see the poor as lazy and good for nothing with no interest in growth or learning.   Did the rich forget that they were blessed with abundance while their friends were blessed with challenges and poverty? They both went to the same kindergarten so what went wrong?  But did outsiders ever put them in a room together to determine which of them grew up with the most wisdom and humanity? Or even hate for that matter?

Have smartphones become the dumb weapon that shot us in the proverbial foot?  Have we turned into the 1970’s movie “Logan’s Run” with our need to dial-an-orgasm but with no true friendships with one another?  Some reading this, especially the youth, may think of this conversation as a ‘downer’ but the fact remains that social violence has grown over the past three decades. We even show reality stuff on television to further humiliate and applaud others and we call it “progress”.  Why?  Are there less sad and lonely people in the world compared to three decades ago?  Do we focus more on helping the needy and less fortunate or do we focus on hoarding as much as we can for ourselves?

Over the years I have been founder of several social groups but it seems that trying to get people with common interests together in the same room more than once is like praying for a miracle.  “Did you see the clothes on that bitch, who the fuck does she think she is?  I would never invite that thang to my house and mess up my white sofa and carpeting...  I don’t care how juicy Miss Lucy thinks she is, that thing better stay the hell away from me..... blah blah blah...”  We think talk like this is funny but, is it really?  Or, does it hide an invisible insecurity by the person who just said it?  Does the reader of this even know what the word “insecurity” means?  

I can’t help wondering if INSECURITY is the real thing going on here.  If others are so worried about fitting have they forgotten who the hell they really are themselves?  When someone asks them to say something about themselves, they offer a laundry list of bullshit that the other person wants to hear like a resume but never really connects to it with true emotion.

SO WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND WHY SHOULD I SHARE MY TIME WITH YOU?

I’m learning that there’s a lot of people right here in this busy city who can’t answer this and it seems scary.  They can whine about their privacy, or the cost of gas, or the bitch next door but, when it comes to their own identity they are clueless.

The bible says “The meek shall inherit the earth.” I don’t recall it saying anything about the insecure or the clueless.  Even though the one with the most toys wins, what exactly is it that they win?  How to be an asshole to others?  Is this what get’s you into heaven or moved into the next astral life?

Why do we murder one another over different beliefs? Is a belief more important than a human life? Are all humans supposed to act the same, dress the same, talk the same and if they’re different they need to be extinguished?  Does this behavior also extinguish growth and enlightenment as well?  How can you ever learn something new if you killed those who could teach different things to you?

Sorry, but I like learning. It doesn’t mean I agree with everything I learn but it gives me the chance to envision and adapt to change easier.  In 2002 my life completely changed after being hit by a drunk 19 year old on my motorcycle. I went through anger, hate, loss, depression, acceptance, adaptation, love, loneliness, and lots of retrospection. Ya know what? Back then, I was a selfish person filled with judgements, dislikes, and always focused on hoarding as much knowledge as I could collect for myself and assuming the stupidity in others was by their own choice not mine. Boy was I ever wrong. Some of those people were incapable of growth because everyone else always ignored them on their own life quest.

I had to learn the painful balance of life and learn that there is a very fine line between good and evil.  There is no absolute regardless what other religious whack-jobs may say. Trying to live on that fine line is nice but you can’t be in that mode forever because you’ll never grow or be able to adapt to life changes.  

No, I don’t give a crap about power, or wealth, or being supreme cuz if we were all climbing the emotional mountain of life, the dude at the top is the loneliest person around. Nobody else up there on his level. Nobody at all. Think about it!  So what is the top dude’s great reward and accomplishment if he’s the only one?  It would seem that we teach our kids to “be the best..” at all times without ever seeing the brick walls of their little box at the top.  Nobody else measures up so why give a shit about them?   So how come they seem happier than I am even though they’re more stupid?  Could it be that they have companionship with others and I get to sit here all alone each day, every day?  Being the best is good? YEAH RIGHT!  BUZZZ, NOT!  Being the best is good only if you take the time to share it with others willing to grow too.  No, not force it on them, but give them the chance to seek more if they choose.

Knowledge is true power even more than money or material goods but only when it’s also shared with others seeking growth. Then it becomes the definition of WISDOM earning appreciation and respect in the return.  

Chew on this!   If life is all about learning, experiencing, and accumulating things and then we finally croak, we already know that none of the wealth or toys can go with us. Suppose that wonderful stuff in our mind can?  Now where’s the real power?  Now suppose that knowledge is going to be required to live and fulfill requirements in the next life?  Freaky huh?  What do you suppose will happen to the hateful, selfish minds after they croak?

Made it through another year

Wow,  and now it's 2013 and I made it through another year... BFD right?  for those of you not in the know, BFD means (Big Fucking Deal)... :-) Anyhow, I think it was a pretty good year compared to all the horror and trama I had to deal with last year... 

Sure the Huz has health issues, and so do I but we manage to adapt to all the changes so I guess that's good. 

Our rental tenant moved out and got his own place...  Sadly though his behavior really took a toll on our friendship and it left us more like acquaintances rather than friends. At first I was a mentor but later on I was accused of "picking on him" all the time so maybe it was meant to be.  I just didn't want to see the dude suffer some of the same negative things that I did in my past but oh well, now he'll just have to figure it out on his own.

I also had a snit with a couple House of Light members and it resulted in resigning from the group but later the founder told me that she wouldn't accept it because of all the great stuff I do to help and keep things running.  So instead I just blocked the offending individuals from my Facebook postings and reading and as far as I'm concerned they don't exist.

Ohh yeah, I did that with my Aunt Pam Hydeck too after she coplained about "being forced to read my rhetoric" when I politely asked republic Romney supports to please un-friend me.   Ahhh fuck'em!  They live in Penn. and never bother behave like a family anyhow so why the fuck should I care.   My mom was a bit shocked when I read off Pam's message to me realizing that this bitch has some serious issues.

I guess maybe one thing I learned throughout 2012 is not to waste my time trying to fix other people's baggage... Instead, just treat it like a broken light switch and shot the friggin thing off and walk away.. No muss, no fuss... just off and gone!   Buhhh bye...   If I was so fucking important to them then they would have done something to repair things themselves. 

I think the most fun I've had was hanging out with our friend Tom Walker during the holidays and doing absolutely nothing but watching the fireplace, noshing on a light meal and relaxing. No deadlines, no worries, and no disappointments..   Sure would be nice if I could remember to write more stuff on here in the future but as usual, I'm sure I'll have some excuse or another to say why I didn't...  Blah Blah Blah...  yeah yeah yeah...     If any of the readers here really gave a shit they would comment more telling me that my thoughts matter (uhh huh like that's gonna happen anytime soon.)  Still it's so cool not having to engage in other people's drama and just fiddlin' with my huz and my goofy cat and dog...  

Technology sure is sweet sometimes!!

My iPhone weather report said yesterday was 104F and today was going to be 75F and sure as shit, it was a welcome weather cool down here in Texas.  104F on September 7, 2012? Must have been all that hot air from the Republican National Convention or something.

Earlier this week, my Huz bought me a new solid state MacBook Pro with the new retina display and I just copied my entire music library form my Lacie 2TB thunderbolt drive over to it in about 2.5 minutes..

This kinda shit used to take hours not minutes!!

I thought I was going to have to blow most of my day sitting around and wasting time on it.. 

My goal is to make a computer that will hold my entire world, be portable, run OS-X and Windows-7, store my photo library of 60,000, my music library of 12,806 (all legally owned) including my 208 videos. Be capable of running for more than a skinkin' 2 hours on a charge and be completely solid state with no moving parts to crap out three years from now. 

The MacBook Pro was ok, but it only had a couple hundred gig and I had to invest in the LaCie external drive to schlep around or leave behind when moving around. Not cool if you're working on a project that needs access to the external stuff.  Oh and don't drop or bang it too much cuz you don't wanna wind up with a drive crash.

Yes, Thunderbolt is truly amazing, awesomely fast and soon it will be on Windows computers too.  Yes, the components are a bit pricey but there's a lot of circuit brains in the controllers that are capable of moving the data as fast as an SSD. You really do get what you pay for in this case. If you're a web hosting company that's focused on moving terabytes of data during a backup, then you should seriously consider this tiny and portable solution.

Two other things that really helped me in the past three days was my account at DropBox.com and also my premium account with EverNote.com systems.  Why? Because when I buy software and get those silly email's with the registration codes, I've used Evernote to capture them instead of printing out in a huge paper folder or entering each one into 1Password making it time consuming to say the least.  Best of all I can get to the data years later with my phone, my iPad, Macs, Pc's and not skip a beat.

When I'm working on a project, say something like writing my Biography Book, or even my Pagan Survival Guide I've done for several years.. I don't like having to schlep around a flash drive, or "sneaker net" the changed files among different computers.  So, I store it on my DropBox in a folder and can instantly work on them from anywhere so long as I have a network connection.  Can you can "Proper Use of the Cloud Services"

Same things with iTunes MATCH...  I can get to my music (no, not movies... just the tunes) from *all* of my puppies that can run iTunes be it my phone, my pad, my PC or my MACs.... Sweet Huh?

Sometimes when I think how hard I used to work to add a new 1.2 Gigabyte Hard Drive to the DIVANET servers I built and how I had to book off 1/2 a day to do it I'm truly amazed.  If I made one more fucking trip to Fry's Electronics for weekend parts to fix something that crapped out, I would scream!!  Now, just push a button, pull out the old USB or Thunderbolt cable and plug in a new one..  Geez!   No more fucked up mounting brackets, missing screws, twisted ribbon cables and hour long partitioning and formatting.

And the Breeders create these children who eventually own miniature Mainframes in their bedroom with more power than the computers in the pentagon just to play their skanky games or show off their girlfriend's junk or titties.  With Dynamic DNS abilities they can set up this computer to share stuff with people all over the world right from the privacy of their bedroom and mommy and daddy have no idea what they're "really" doing.   Ahhh but one thing they never learned along the way is that as much as they think they're anonymous to the world  *EVERY* network card has a unique thing called a MAC address.. no two of them are alike.  And *EVERY* CPU chip has a unique traceable serial number.  Those of us 'geeky wonks' who know this also know about the unseen tools we can use to trace this from point A to point B leaving the little monsters shocked when authorities knock on their door in the middle of the night and drag them off to some kind of detention.

Those who think they're so Evil and Sly only have to make a few wrong moves and their ass is toast.  What? Don't believe me? No Worries!  Just remember this the next time you screw with someone's stuff and really piss off the wrong tech savy dude like me.  The hard drive I format MAY BE YOUR OWN!!    Repeat after me, "Technology is Sweet Sometimes, and V is for Vengeance"  ---LOL

So this is what we call fun...

Well, fixed the toilet and now it's even better than ever... Instead of doing a plastic handle I did one with brass so this puppy is going to be around for awhile..  As for the plug/stopper thingy, I got one that doesn't have a stupid chain to keep getting caught trying to close after a flush.. Instead it's got a rubber like ribbon and works every time.  Woo Hooo..   Guess it makes sense to use the noggin sometimes when fixing things.

We traded in the '09 80k Corvette sitting in the garage with a dead battery for two years cuz Wynn couldn't drive it anymore with his neuropathy and also the nissan truck and got a Chevy VOLT and man this puppy is truly a luxury car for people with geek DNA.  Wow...  turns on a dime, quick acceleration, lots of bluetooth and geeky shit. I just learned that it's a true EV and not a hybrid car.. This means the engine in it only runs to charge back the battery with no acceleration or deceleration.  Quiet and not a peep or a rattle and handles all the crappy Dallas pothole streets even better than the damn truck.

To think all of these other little-dick buttholes who spent so much money on their gas pigs as they cry at the gas pump each week and we don't have to fuck with that anymore.  Wow...  Sure the car was pricey at 42k but Chevy had to pay us 10k back with the Corvette and Truck trade-in.  And the damn thing is paid off in full. Fini... over and out..  

Wow..   Just plug the fucker in and you're good to go later.  For me, it's handling reminds me of a Triumph Spitfire me and my ex. Kenny had years ago.  Very very fun to drive and quickly maneuver around the assholes that always seem to cut in front and go slow in front of you while in the fast lane. (still don't know why they do this but...)  I can whip around them in seconds with no worries.

I don't know if I'd use the things for a cross-country trek but for here in this screwed up city of Dallas it sure makes driving a pleasure especially when you need something at the spur of the moment. It might even encourage me and Wynn to go out more and romp around to places like the Dallas Aquarium or more social things.

Well, no, I wouldn't count on social stuff to much. For years here in the gay dallas community I've been the one to plan and arrange all kinds of social stuff but today, in a group of 40 or more queers, you can't even get 5 of them to show up for a weenie or burger roast in the back yard.  Let alone never get invited over to one of the multitude folk who have pools.  Guess they have to work too hard all the time just to make the mortgage payments or something. Or they're just not much of a friend to being with in the first place.  Ahh well, don't care, no worries... their loss.

Meanwhile, I got a shitload of stuff done on MysticWays... I even put up some YouTube videos on how use things like Pendulums, Candles, and so on... The Godaddy company deliberately changed the admin password on our account because the credit card we used expired and I didn't update it.  Wow, only a week's time and they were sure to cut us off.  Funny, I called the support line and asked for information on how to download the 1,700 product images from their system following a compute crash and I was told that there was no way to do it.  So let's see, you pay them $80 bucks a month for a shopping card system that you spend years uploading, tweaking and refining product images and then learn that if you ever have a crash, there's no way you can download all your stuff???  WTF??  What college kid came up with this method? So I politely told the support dude to kiss my ass and then hung up after informing him that I have no intention of renewing my payment method.

Nope, I love BigCommerce.com and these guys truly rock.  Yes there is somewhat of a learning curve, but their help system will walk you though most things item by item unless the piece of shit Godaddy system which is nothing but pretty fluff and (nope, can't do that from here) remarks.

I think the really cool thing about the new store is that I can arrange things the way I want and not have to kiss ass or fuck with hidden HTML code to make it happen. Hell, I've stopped using the stupid QuickBooks merchant account to process credit cards and go full throttle with PayPal instead.  This holds the sale money for ransom for a month to protect against charge-offs etc. But heaven help the scam artist that tries to do that on one of our sales.   I've got the FedEx shipping log to prove delivery of everything we send out and if they lie saying they never got it, I have proof they did and in return PayPal is going to reverse the charge-off fee back to them instead. How's that for a nice "Fuck You Very Much" end to their scam?  And bitch all you want... you want that $1.98 product? Maybe you should buy a few of them if you're gonna pay the base rate of $7.00 for shipping.  Don't ya think? None the less, I know you got it and there's no way you're gonna screw me out of it.

This is why expensive essential oils and fragrances over an ounce are shrink wrapped so they can't replace the bottles with water and mail them back..  (yup, they did the in the past too!)   No shrink wrap, no refund...  Would you ilke me to re-sell an oil you're going to use in food that your aunt Martha  returned after opening the bottle with her germy fingers she just cleaned the cat littler box with? Didn't think so.

My next hobby project is my dinky little microwave glass fusing kiln that I bought a year ago on sale and still haven't had enough free time to play with.  Been doing lots of research on youtube and around on the net and learned that I can fuse a piece of jewelry in about 3 minutes instead of 25-30 using my paragon quick fire and I'm looking forward to fusing some of my witchcraft pagan decals to them for unique one of a kind pendants.

Right now I have a table full of Sculpy/Fimo/Primo pendants I'm finishing in the kitchen (which looks like a bad nightmare at the moment) to get online of reasonable prices. The Key to MysticWays stuff is to be UNIQUE or LIMITED or RARE. The kind of shit you don't just walk into a store and buy off a shelf from a multitude of competitors. I also learned about www.Etsy.com and have made friends with several of the artisans there too doing the same.  Who knows, I might even put a few things up there myself in the future.

In a heated discussion with Bob, ( Robert Evans ) who called my stuff kitchy, it really hit me hard but I politely remind him that I've sold tons of my stuff over the past 10 years to very appreciative buyers vs. the small handful of his so-called art. That seems to be more of a message in itself no?

In the past, I always had dreams about meeting other crafty people and having glaze painting parties, or polymer clay fiddling events, or even some of the other cool things I've done but not have to be the "only one, or the head daddy, or lead artist" that everyone followed and relied on. You mean I'm the only person in Dallas who has a fucking serger or sewing machine?  The only one who has a microwave and a $100 fusing kiln?   or a 5 gallon bucket of busted stained glass in his shed? Puhlease

Gosh, back in the day, I used to love being around mentors like myself trying to learn as much as I could about the hobbies I did.  It seems like that kind of mindset has pretty much vanished.  Even the music industry is a pile of high school graduates screaming "Uhh Huh..Yo Yo Yo, That's right" instead of telling a true emotional message.  (Is this what my grandfather experienced before he died? Don't know...)  today you hear a song that's nothing more than a copy of one made 25 years ago or a pile of gibberish about someones junk, in a trunk, and how juicy is that coochie.  Most can't play a real instrument but they know how to use Garage Band on their Apple and program electronic looping riffs.  (Yawn... boring.. it's been done.. move on.)  Even Boy George couldn't play an instrument but at least the dude hooked up with a bunch of people who could but maybe that's a thing of the past. Even Rock music is so full of negative depression (you did me wrong, you're such a bitch, I hate your guts, can't get outta this.. blah blah blah..)   Does anyone write songs about impossible love, or being thankful etc? No, I'm not talking about bible thumping shit either.

Well, I'm done jabbering here... nobody reads or comments on this shit anyhow but it makes me feel good to vent to myself. I'm truly one of a kind and I like that. I don't have to impress others or kiss someone's ass for a job.   I'm good at what I do and I've earned everything I have from hard work and focus. I always dreamed of connecting with others seeking similar things but I guess that was just a fantasy. I've got a wealth of wisdom to share with those who seek but when they're too chicken to ask honestly, then they just don't deserve to learn from me.  Guess 'silence is golden' after all.

My Life Lessons have made me who I am today and I'm thankful for them. As horrible as some may have been they taught me to understand others and prepare for the unknown without negative feelings or judgement.  All the twisted brain screw-ups, all the wonderful things I got to finish always bitching about never having enough time in the day and all the people I came in contact with throughout my life.  Nope, I don't want to reverse or change them. I don't have a problem saying I'm sorry for something I did a decade ago unlike so many other people. I don't want to be the best, I don't want to be the king or the focal point in other people's conversations.  Here today gone tomorrow.. no thanks..  I just want to be loved, I want to love back in return and have a way to experience new things all the time offering to share it back in return.

Wise men don't seek students... the students seek the wise men.  Wise men aren't better than you, they just have more hands on experience in what you seek.  Sharing = Growth for us all.  You don't get a medal or door prize for being the best when you die.  Instead, you're judged by how much you shared with the human race along the way.  Yup, I'm good... That's me..  all the assholes in the world can't steal what's in my head no matter how hard they try and they'll never possess it if they don't bother to ask either cuz I have no intention of forcing it on them either.  Funny how these were the kind of Mentors I always respected throughout my life and I've become one myself.   Buhhh Bye...

Well, after all this time I finally got my Dragon NaturallySpeaking to work on my MacBook air.

I have all the stuff sitting around in a pile and just never put aside enough time to hook up the headphone and do all the voice training.

Now, as you're reading this, I'm typing this message with my voice not with my keyboard. Originally, I was planning on doing some story writing the things become so busy around here that the free time  seemed to be nonexistent.

Today, the flushing thing for the toilet in my bathroom broke. So now I have to make a trip to Home Depot to buy parts.  So off I go.

New Day and My New Home Page

I found this awesome upgrade to a web designer I used to like using when I had my old PowerPC mac. The problem was when I upgraded to the Intel based ones these guys were slow to adapt and I was kinda forced to use something else.  Well, I took a chance and I was totally blown away at all the hard work they did.  The program is called SandVox and it's very similar to the iWeb program that Apple made and later discontinued.  So I spend the work porting all my junk over and so far I'm really impressed at how well it came out...

I was clever enough to build a test area to make sure I was good with it and just did the final publish to my active site...

http://www.OaklawnRick.com

Why is fitting in so important?

Why are people always so worried about "fitting in" with others?  Doesn't it make more sense to embrace the things that make us unique and share those abilities with others willing to learn more about them?

Imagine for a second if we all looked the same, we all dressed the same, we all had the same profession, we all ate the same food and spoke the same language with the same customs.  What would this do to the concept of Art? How could we strive to be 'better' or 'superior' if we were all the same like a bunch of carbon copied robots?

Instead, society teaches us to hate that which we don't understand or that which is different. Why? Doesn't it make more sense to embrace those differences in the 'other' and try to enlighten ourselves more learning and respecting this unique being? Is it better to vanquish them instead as not to corrupt or cloud the robotic gene pool?

And what about the one who's 'too fabulous' to fit in? They're left to face a world of lonliness, hatred, scorn, and ridicule just because they don't meet the status quo?  If the Christian God created us all in his own image then which of the two beings is or is not the element to build friendship with and why? Technically they're all god's creatures right? Don't they have a right to be happy too so long as they're not harming others?

So what is the harm of two male doves falling in love and spending the rest of their lives together? You know this happens in real life right now as we speak right? Should we shoot and kill them because they don't fit the norm? Are they harming the other doves?  Last I checked they were supposed to be the symbol of peace so why should we care about their gender? Do they molest other baby doves and can't be trusted at a baby sitter? If a neighbor parent dies, would the other doves prevent those males from nurturing and raising the dead parent's children regardless of who they choose to love?

How many of you reading this know the true difference between SEX and LOVE? SEX is something you do with the shit between your legs. LOVE is something you do with your mind and your heart!

So what's the difference between the words "PLAY" and "INTIMACY" when it comes to the Gay Bear community? Which of them is more likely to lead to a future spending the rest of their lives with one another?  Do you play or do you get intimate?

Next, if you were going to have a picnic would you only invite your Gay friends? Your Str8 friends? or Both? And WHY?

Yes, these are truly things that make ya go hummmm with wonderment huh?