The Path to a Good Life

To my religious friends.

Do you want to know how to live a good life? The answer is in your Bible, but it's damn tough to find in all of the wordy nonsense. I know, I know, your religion(s) have taught you that athiests and agnostics are worse than rapists and murderers, that we never look at a Bible or think about God, we don't know what religion can do to save us, and we are probably out stealing neighborhood pets and children for Satanic sacrifices. Well, just like 99.9999999% of everything else religion has told people over the millenia, that's another lie. There is some truth in the Bible, but it is perverted and buried amid mounds of stinking religious self-servance and interminably conflicting stories and parables. Not to mention tons of questionable history. In reality, the Bible does not need to be a big book with which religious people can bash others, the whole thing could be condensed to an index card.

The way to live a good life can be found in your ten commandments. Not all of them, though, You have to discount and throw away all of the religious threats and nonsense that was added by religious leaders to better enslave their flocks with fear. It is found in the other commandments. I don't even know why they had to have ten. If you look at all of the other commandments, they all distill around three simple rules. The rules for how to live a good life. Want to know what they are?

(1) Love, respect and honor your family
(2) Love, respect and honor others as though they were your family
(3) Live peacefully. Do not cause others any intentional harm whether physical or emotional.

That's it folks. Nothing difficult about that or any need to shroud it in threats of eternal damnation and other religious hullabaloo. Don't need special buildings for it full of people in strange clothes who make you feel guilty and inadequate. Don't need to bleed people of every dime they make so you can fill those buildings with gold and silver statues and huge pipe organs. Don't have to dress up for it so you can try to impress others. No special songs or ceremonies. No hats. No cups. No special wine or wafers. No reason or need to denegrate and condemn others. No reason for crusades, or to burn anyone at the stake. No need to invoke mass murder in anyone's name. Just simple and efficient rules for a good life.

Put this on a card, have it laminated, and look at it every day so you don't forget and you will live a good life.
Enjoy.

True Confessions

I hate visiting my mother. Not because I don't care, but because I do. I go because I should and (at least for now) she still knows me. But this is not really my mother. This is not the woman I grew up with and it is painful to watch this deterioration. The woman I grew up with had a quick wit and a great memory and a humorous inclination. This woman is not her and I don't particularly care to see her. If I would stop, of course, my relatives would once again turn against me as a heartless fiend as they did when my sister spread her lies. Not that this would really hurt me. I generally have stopped caring years ago what my relatives feel about me. But the bullshit would slosh over to my family since most of them are so judgemental, and that would make me angry and probably start some things I can do without for now. So I do my duty periodically by seeing this woman who looks like my mom, but isn't really anymore.

Lettin the Mind Wander

So many people spend so much time turning into liars and idiots because they have decided that they will do whatever they need to do, no matter how bad, because they feel they want to be known as a certain type of person or belong to a certain group. They mold themselves into an image so that others will think of them and accept them in that image. But deep down, they know it's a lie. They know that this is not them, that it's wrong, and even in some cases evil. No matter how they revel in their carefully crafted image, there is always a little part of them that whispers that it's wrong and this gnaws at them throughout their whole lives.

They have failed to learn that the only person you can be, is yourself. The only person you should be trying to impress, and compete against, is yourself. The only person who can improve you is yourself. And the only person who can love you for who you are, is a person who gets to see the real you, not your carefully crafted image.

Personal integrity. Personal responsibility. Personal honor. Those are the only things that can make you a good person and a good citizen. All the rest of the junk like money, power, influence, control, may make you believe you are making your life better or are making you a more important person, but it's just a trap. It makes you the worst kind of shallow, thoughtless, self-deluded clown. A clown who will stop at nothing, hurt anyone, break any law or contract, just to feed their own selfishness. And that makes you the worst person you can be, not the best.

Want to be the best you can be? Be yourself.

Lookin For the Silver Lining in Every Dark Cloud

A couple of short traveling stories.

During my first trip to Arizona in the 70's I decided to cross the Navajo reservation on my way to Window Rock. I was behind time as I drove across the reservation and decided to spend the night in a rest area along the road. As I was getting dinner ready, the tribal police pulled in with their four-wheeler to see if I was ok. They were probably just checking on me anyways, but, they told me it was because they wanted to make sure I wasn't broken down or anything since it was fairly far from civilization. We talked a little and they liked my van and said they'd stop by again on the return trip from their rounds. Sure enough, a few hours later they pulled back in and we sat around the fire for a while talking about my trip and they told me a lot about the Navajo people and gave me some great pointers for things to look for and see. Really nice people and I had an wonderful time.

A few years later, on another trip, I was stopping in Latimer County Oklahoma as a representative of our family. My grandfather did a little land speculation and when he died he still had a 20 acre site in OK. No one in the family knew anything about it and my grandmother never sold it. When she died my aunt and uncle wanted to know about it because an oil company wanted to buy it. So I stopped and checked it out. On the way out of the area, there was road construction and they routed us through an ungodly old back-country road. The van was in dire need of gas and there was nothing around. Suddenly I came across a little mom and pop store with two old crappy looking gas pumps). I pulled my hippie van in to the pump and waited with my long hair as a classic stereotype hick came out of the store towards the van. Half toothless, white t-shirt with cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve, flat top, and a couple of bad tatoos on some skinny arms. I'd seen Easy Rider. I knew I was in trouble.

Well, this guy came out, looked at the van and smiled. Asked if he could look inside and we had a great conversation for about a half-hour while he gassed up the truck and did all of the manual maintenance that gas stations generally stopped doing in the 60's. We had a good time, shook hands, and he wished me well as I left. I smacked myself for letting my fears and misconceptions run loose. Just another wonderful encounter with good people while traveling. I've had many and hope to have many more.

Catching Up

I am still working out. At the beginning of this year (2011) I started doing P90X. I now do two workouts a day and I have lost a NET 65 pounds since I started in January of 2010. I feel really good, at least physically, and am becoming much stronger. I really recommend P90X. Tony Horton has a good attitude about the program, is realistic in how people should approach it, and he's pretty funny to watch.

My daughter has just recently started P90X too and I hope she continues so that she can improve her health too. My son got me interested in this and he is continuing the program also.

My mother's Alzheimer's is getting much worse and she has had to move to a new rest home because the old one couldn't handle patients with her level of severity. The issue now is that her behavioral problems are increasing and she's becoming a problem child in the new facility. This is, of course, stressing out my sister and I and it's very sad to see our mother going downhill so fast, and so far. We'll have to see what happens.

Social Nutworking - Final Grade

After a little more than a year on Facebook, I give social networking a D+. It would have gotten an F but I did reconnect with some "lost" friends and family which was a positive experience. However, I also had to cut off and disconnect from many people. I have come to realize that the "promises" of social networking are just empty buzz in most cases. People really don't want real conversation and discourse. All they want is a forum so they can spout and feel superior to others. If you actually post contrary arguments or question them they turn into angry bullies and try to denegrate and humiliate you to put themselves back up on their imagined throne. There are a lot of people out there who fall into the category of social networker that I feared all along, the "neurotic with no self image" who only feels alive when they can post every little thing they do in their entire pathetic lives and wait for people to respond to validate them. The worst of these is the "unknown questioner." These are people who post stupid bits like "this is horrible," with no other information, in an attempt to see how many people respond in order to feel important because "X" number of people are apparently waiting by their computers for any word from these conceited neurotics. The other big annoyance are the people who post crap and then INSIST everyone repost it. Who .... bloody .... cares. If you really want to make a difference, get out of your house, away from your computer, and volunteer and help. Posting some shit on Facebook doesn't change or help anything. But for those few who actually want to keep in touch with each other and want real conversation, the medium is a very nice way to do it .... as long as you can get over the fact that Facebook itself considers you, and everything about you, and everything about anyone you know or have contact with, as sources of revenue and don't give a crap whether they spread your information from here to the spammers of Russia. So ..... that's my final grade. I will keep using Facebook to keep in touch wit ha handful of good friends and family. For everyone else. You can have each other. Why aren't most of these people in therapy?

Praise God and Pass the Ammunition

A few thoughts about religion.

If God loves me and I am his child, why does he subscribe to cruel and inhuman punishment?

The big threat from every religion is that if you are not good, you will go to Hell "FOREVER." Let's look at this as a punishment. If we decide that "forever" means the life of the universe as we know it, and we are currently in the middle of the universes' life span of 30 billion years, that means that forever, currently, is about 15 billion years.

So ..... religion tells me God loves me and cares for me and wants the best for me, but, if I somehow screw up during my measly 80+ year life span, God will sentence me to at LEAST 15 BILLION YEARS of pain, torture and anguish. That seems to be quite an overreaction and quite a punishment for someone you "love." The whole concept is rediculous.

Plus, isn't God supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful? Isn't Heaven supposed to be the place where you will go to earn your "perfect" reward if you are good?

Yet, Satan and his followers were angels in Heaven. They turned against God (because he gave Man free will and angels didn't have that - wait a minute - if angels didn't have free will, how could Satan have turned evil and decided to challenge God? Oh that's right, I'm not supposed to question that). They started a WAR IN HEAVEN and tried to take over. If God is all-powerful, why would Satan have even tried to challenge him? Why didn't God just make them all disappear? If God is all-knowing, why didn't he see this coming and just prevent it? (God seems to be surprised and angered quite frequently for an all-knowing being) And notice that God didn't actually defeat Satan. They actually came to an agreement to stop the war where Satan and his followers got their own country. And they were then allowed to torture mankind. Doesnt sound like a crushing victory for an all-powerful being.

If you subscribe to the idea that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then nearly every story in the Bible makes no sense. If you believe the stories in the Bible, then you have to accept that God is, at best, maybe just "slightly" superior. But certainly not all-knowing and all-powerful.

This is why religion makes no sense and is bunk. The stories and the rules are completely contradictory.

The purpose of religion is to pretend you are doing good for others so you can convinve your religious leaders to tell God you are good to save your own ass from going to hell. In the meantime, religion fosters intolerance, hatred, elitism, and the persecution of anyone not "of the faith." Thou Shalt Not Kill .... this is a COMMANDMENT .... unless your religious leaders tell you God said it was ok to kill "this time."

Rediculous.

Friendship Tied to the Tracks

I felt badly for many years because I just kind of abandoned my friend Dale when he got into drugs and alcohol. I wasn't sure how to deal with it, he scared the crud out of me, so I just avoided him. Over the last 9 months, we discovered each other and re-opened our friendship on Facebook. I knew he had cleaned himself up and that he was now a religious nut, but, I felt we could still be friends. However, over the last couple of months he went through a personal scare and operation for prostate cancer. The result was that he suddenly went DEEP into his religious fervor. That's what religious people do when faced with the thought of death. They start being more religious in the hopes that they can convinve everyone (including God) they are good people so they can make sure to get their asses into Heaven. That's all religion is about. It's not about helping others to be good. It's about doing good works (as defined by your religious leaders) so you can save your own ass and not go to Hell. He began posting between 5 and 10 different religious messages to Facebook almost on a daily basis. I do not believe in religion. God may exist, I think that question may be open, but the absolute bullshit that people created that they call religion is nonsense and I don't subscribe to any of it. I challenged Dale on several occasions, pointing out the discrepancies and inconsistencies with what he was writing. At first he tried to be a little understanding of me and my position (I was doing it mainly to try to get him to tone it down a bit) but he became more increasingly fundamentalist. He became intolerant, angry, and started suggesting that I should not be allowed to post anti-religious stuff while he was allowed to post as much religious stuff as he wanted. I subscribe to the Freedom from Religion Foundation and he even created posts calling them a CULT. What utter nonsense. He said he felt "sorry" for me and became convinced that "something" was controlling my life. The implication was that I was somehow under Satan's control. This was the last straw. This time I walked away voluntarily. Sick or not, friend or not, I do not have to be abused by any religious nuts just because they feel morally superior to me and decide I need to be suppressed. I asked him when they were going to tie me to a stake and burn me, or call me a heretic and kill me. What's the difference? The same arrogant attitudes and religious hate that has fueled religious murder for centuries will not put any of those freaks into "heaven." If I am going to hell, I expect to see a lot of those persecuting murderers there with me. So this friendship, as screwy as it has been, is now over. I live my life just fine without religious oppression, fear, and arrogant hatred of others. If you don't believe the same things, that's fine, I believe you have that right. But don't you try to deprive me of MY rights.

Social Nutworking - The Results (kinda)

I've just spent six months on Facebook and I'm ready to give my interim grades. Right now I give it a C-. Is it nice to find all of my old friends and family and have a handy vehicle to talk with them and keep up with them .... yes. But it does not take long for the distasteful side of this to appear, and that really taints the entire experience for me.

First, you must understand that, dispite all of the sales pitches about how great social networking is, the primary reason it exists is so that the social networking providers can gather and sell information to advertisers and vendors so they can all make money off of you. You, and especially your information, are vital commodities to be bought and sold. I am not comfotable in this role as "information bitch." I am a private person and I feel my life is my business and "IF" I decide to let you in on any of it I will. The idea that everything I say, do, write, and contribute to the provider becomes their "property" to sell as they wish just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Second, many people have no actual lives and social networking quickly becomes an addiction that billows into the rediculous. It gives the average person an incredibly overblown sense of self-importance because they can publish something and they feel that (for some unknown reason) the entire world is reading their stuff, and it makes them feel important. They then become convinced that they need to keep the world informed and start posting every stupid little thing they see, think, or do to the networking site(s). People actually spend their entire day posting shit like "I woke up," "I'm having breakfast now. I like pancakes," "ate something yesterday that is not agreeing with me today," "time for my shower," "going to sleep." When I read stuff like that my response (to myself - of course) is STFU! Who cares? This is just drivel and helps dilute the good parts of social networking. Facebook has a lot of this, but the WORST offender is Twitter. This was designed for, and it overused by, two kinds of people, those with exceptionally overblown senses of self-importance who truly believe the world really DOES need to know everything they think and do, and those with no lives at all, who actually subscribe to the twitter pages of the arrogant assholes in order to have lives, and, in so doing, further feed the imagined self-importance of the posters. It is a psychological experiment in self-reinforcing delusion.

Third, just like in real life there are assholes and bullies who feel like really big people when they can shout down or rip apart someone else. In real-life you can often see those people coming and just avoid them. In cyberspace, because you are often at the mercy of the privacy settings of people you talk to, these shitheads just pop up out of nowhere and try to take over. They try to crush your opinion, they are insulting, they are denigrating, and there is almost nothing you can do about them, unlike real-life. This is a very discouraging and disheartening thing.

Lastly, this just becomes another consumer of your life and time. You begin to feel obligated to check your page multiple times a day "just in case" someone has sent you a message. So instead of possibly relaxing, or doing something constructive with your time, you end up spending even more lost lifetime sitting behind your computer (or phone) anxiously waiting for someone else to acknowledge you. This is also distasteful.

So what am I going to do? I will continue to stay with Facebook for another six months and give it a full year. But, based on my experiences and the way I like to live my life, I am making some changes to my usage. I am going to cull my friends list. I have allowed people in as my friends because I used to work with them, even though we were not really close friends then. I want my friends list to be people I really care something about, not everyone on the globe, so I will start cutting off some of the bit players. I am going to do a LOT more of my correspondence with friends by PRIVATE MESSAGES so that the assholes can't interrupt and disturb me. If I don't feed their stupidity, maybe they will die and fall away. I am going to only post publicly if I think I have anything to post that may be of interest. I am going to avoid giving public opinion (don't feed the dickheads) and avoid responding to other people's stupid public opinions (don't feed the dickheads). I think I'm going to print a big sign and tape it up by my computer that says DON'T FEED THE DICKHEADS !!!! This should help remind me to hold my tongue.

So, the first six months was mixed, but, I am going to change the way I use the product and see if my experience improves. The only thing that is for sure is that it is good for advertising. I created pages for the two websites I manage and within days the hit rates began to climb after being very steady for years. I guess this all goes back to the first point. We are all just commodities anymore.

Final grade and decision on whether to continue in six months.

A Little Travelin' Music

Here is another short story I wrote about my hobo friends. On a day which is synonymous with American history, it only seems right to post about an important part of that history.

I Know the Hobo

Originally written May, 1983
Revised April 14, 2002

The United States is a democratic republic, and every hobo is a king unto himself. Yet, every year, an event happens which is designed to rock the republic to its’ core.

Every year, all the vagabonds, hoboes, and travelers all meet in Britt, Iowa and elect a “king” who rules the nation. I know this because I have attended the event several times and have personally seen it happen.

I first heard of this remarkable event from hobo king “Steamtrain” Maury Graham
himself. I met Maury at a crafts festival in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. He
invited me to come to Britt in order to see how a hobo king is elected. How could I, a devout wanderer and traveler, possibly have turned down an invitation like that?

Unlike the majority of the true hoboes who come in to Britt “on the rails”, my
arrival has always been by conventional truck or motorcycle. I have always wanted to
make a grand entrance by hopping off a freight; however, the old-timers have told me of the dangers and discouraged me from trying. They have explained how riding the rails is a survival art of much skill which is best left to those who have extensive experience at it. I trust them so I listen to them.

The town of Britt has acted as host to this annual hobo convention for over a
hundred years now. It would be hard to find a better host. The people of Britt love the hoboes. I have seen people buy groceries, clothing, blankets, and other goods for their hobo friends. Many residents, who have gotten to know the old ‘bos over the years, will come out to the “jungle” and invite their friends to their homes for food and to stay over. Everyone else just seems to get caught up in the festive atmosphere. There are events and a carnival all week leading up to the election and coronation of a king and queen of hoboes.

As a friend of “Steamtrain” Maury, I have had the privilege and fun of
participating in many of the activities, and I have been allowed to live in the jungle with the ‘bos. I have helped in the preparation and serving of “mulligan stew” and have been trusted to guard the jungle during the coronation festivities.
I have vivid memories of the smells and tastes of the stew as all of the ingredients
cooked for hours in the pots. I have tasted “hobo pickles” which are very tasty and can be made in only a few hours. I have tasted a hobo candy made by an old ‘bo named “Frypan Jack.” It is so sweet and delicious that people will wait in line for hours to get some. I have no idea what the ingredients are, nor do I care.

I have slept under a clear Iowa sky, inside an open boxcar, and in a small tent with no other protection as a tornado passed overhead during the night. The roar and whistle inside the funnel did no justice to the feeble attempts at description that others have made who have had contact with these monsters. I have even met Mr. Nobody. Mr. Nobody is the hobo candidate for President of the United States. When you ask someone who they are going to vote for, and they reply “nobody,” you now know who they were talking about. Most importantly, I have met many new people, made many new friends, and heard many good stories and much history.

That is the purpose of a true hobo; to make friends. Not just acquaintances, but
friends whom you will keep in touch with throughout your life. I have done this and I
correspond regularly with many of my new friends. In 1980, in appreciation of the help and friendship I put forth to my hobo friends, I was officially dubbed a “Grand Duke of Hoboes” for life. I have the paperwork to prove it. I cherish the honor, and, like everything else connected to the hoboes, I laugh about it at the same time. Irreverence is a hallmark of hobo life. I was even given a hobo name, “Black River Blondie,” to identify me and increase my “status” among the brotherhood. I have since shortened it to “Black River” out of laziness, but I will never drop the name I was given.

So, every year I sit down and try to see if I can find the time to return to the
festivities. Since I have settled down with a wife and family it has been difficult. I read the hobo web sites to see who did or didn’t make it to the convention. Whether those who didn’t were just ill, or whether they “caught the Westbound” and will not return again.

It is a sad irony that I have discovered the honor and friendship of the
“brotherhood of the road” just as it is entering its twilight years. The heyday of the hobos rested on the steam locomotive. As the steamers faded into oblivion and the economy improved the job prospects of the millions out of work during the depression, the ability of the old ‘bos to travel freely was severely restricted. Few young men took up train hopping and the existing population has now become quite aged. Soon there will be no “real” hoboes left. I have wished many times that I could have discovered it when it was young so that I would not have to watch it die.

But there is hope. Maybe not for the train hoppers, but for the traveling spirit and
the vagabond lifestyle. Every year more and more young vagabonds show up to be a part
of the convention. Hitchhikers, bikers, and campers are well represented along with the original vagabonds who never die, the tramps. So maybe the reign of the American Hobo is not quite over yet. Perhaps I can still be a part of some of the festivities over the next 100 years of coronations in Britt, Iowa, the home of the “American King in Rags.