“Birth of a Nation” (2016)

 

Birth of A Nation (2016)

 

The story of America’s largest slave uprising, the Nat Turner rebellion, comes to the screen in a scathing film that is as controversial as a movie can be.   It doesn’t just “touch” what used to be the third rail of American cinema.  It embraces it with both arms and wraps its legs around the sucker until it smokes.  Prior to “12 Years A Slave” I’m not sure how long it had been since there was a serious major studio theatrical film on the subject of slavery that actually depicted slaves as human beings with “inwardness”.  Former slaves (“Beloved”, “Glory”), people on their way to being slaves (“Amastad”) and white folks talking about slavery (“Lincoln”).  But the thing itself?  What, “Mandingo”?   Please.  Maybe…”Skin Game” (1971) forty-five years ago?  With James Garner and Lou Gossett Jr.? Terrific movie, and it had to frame itself as a comedy to even be able to discuss or depict the issue.

 

Not an accident: the entire subject, 250 years which, depending upon perspective was either a glorious lost moment of American aristocracy (“Gone with the Wind”), or total crawling horror, the “original sin” of the American experiment.

 

So there is literally no way to make a film that would make both sides happy. Can’t do it.  People are welcome to believe that it was a benign institution “no worse than Irish indentured servitude” or that it was something of unique and pervasive destructive force, flensing millions of people of humanity while pretending they were born that way.  

I have no interest in arguing: you know which camp you’re in, and you know the implications of either path of reasoning.

 

“Birth of A Nation” is a single film in a sub-genre people were saying we’d seen “too much” of when it was a category contained almost nothing at all.  It is THAT painful a subject.   If you aren’t prepared to deal with real, crawling human horror, stay away.

 

That said, it is a flawed, wonderful, painful, and gloriously courageous movie in my humble opinion, hugely important and as much a litmus test for unconscious attitudes as one can imagine.  I cannot recommend it generally, as the story of a man who is brutalized to the breaking point (Remember Lonnie Athens rules to create a violent criminal?  Start with brutalization or “violent horrification”.  Bake for 250 years.  Serve hot) and the actions that result.  My own reactions spanned a wide range, but ultimately I walked out both crying and feeling happy that we are finally, after all this time, beginning to discuss this aspect of the past as we always should have.  

How many such movies should there be?  When there are as many hours of them as there have been of Civil War films, I will consider that discussion can validly begin. Until then, it is a distraction.

Nate Parker has made an important, scathing, difficult film, and I won’t rate it except to say it is both brutal and beautiful.   I didn’t want to discuss it until someone finally, on my FB stream, made a comment I knew was coming…

And it happened today.

At last!    Someone finally brought up the killing in “Birth of A Nation”, and whether the screen images matched the historical slaughter of slave owners (described in the post as “plantation owners”) and school children.   No, of course the filmed images weren’t as ghastly as the historical reality–but then that’s been true of 99% of the images of slavery as well.  Or the conquest of the Western frontier, or any number of other mythology-makers.   

One has two choices, basically: to ask what is different about the individuals that they would commit such acts, or ask what level of brutalization and dehumanization would create enough fear to create so much anger that it strips away social programming to manifests in such unspeakable horror.    I have no interest in arguing about it: the reader will sort themselves into their appropriate category based on how they react.

Those are the two basic positions:

Either we are different, and the different actions are expressions of some innate evil or good, or we are basically the same, and when you see differences in behavior across groups, it is wisest to assume that there is something different about the environmental conditions.  

To ask “how much pain would I have to suffer to strip away that much of my humanity?” is IMO the better path, and a path to wisdom and the resolution of apparent duality.

But the cost of that would be then asking of the slave owners: “what would have to happen to me that I would be willing and capable of applying or supporting the application of so much fear, pain, and horror to people to extract their labor to my benefit?  And to then support a cultural lie that they were born broken?”

The exact same willingness to see the basic nature of humanity, to go beyond the surface and ask: “why do we do what we do?” until we see that these actions are rooted in basic human fear and need…that exact same willingness is necessary to understand both.

 

To stop at the surface is to devolve into racism and bigotry: Nat Turner was a monster, as were his murderous followers who were sub-human beasts.  

Or: every non-Abolitionist white was a monster, and the entire fabric of white society was peopled by terroristic, murderous, raping, brain-washing, kidnapping and self-righteous sub-human beasts, deserving of what happened to them.

Or: we as flawed human beings are driven by fear and guilt, remain unconscious whenever it is convenient for us, consider ourselves so much better than those we need to hurt that it justifies whatever we do.  That this ability to reduce others to objects for our use or disposal can be seen in the behavior of almost any group who has ever stolen power from others.    There is no “terrible them.”  There is only “terrible us” when we fail to extend our humanity to others.

In other words: the harder it is for you to see how BOTH sides are behaving as humans do when they are unconscious to the spiritual reality of human Oneness…the more likely you would have been to do as they did.

That’s all it takes: to believe “they” are different.  That is the road to hell.   That is another tribe.   I won’t go that way, and neither will my brothers and sisters.

 

Namaste,

Steve

http://www.createthenarrative.com

Finding Your Tribe

 

Thursday is “Find Your Tribe” day.

 

The full reference is to find those who see the world the way you see it, not bothering to try to “wake up” the sleeping children, but also to avoid Smiling Monsters and snakes.  If pressed, I supposed I’d apply the Paredo Principle: spend 80% of your time simply building your tribe, and NO MORE than 20% of your time attempting to “wake people up” or arguing with internet trolls.  For instance.

 

Why?  Because they will wear you out, use you up. There are a thousand of them for every one of you, and will just tag-team you to death.  I’ve engaged with them at length, mostly to test different forms of argumentation, or to see what  early signs of Snakehood I can detect.

 

Racially, I discovered that people who cannot easily and swiftly answer the question: “given the same historical situation, would white people have suffered as much from slavery and complained about it as loudly” with an affirmative are harboring the belief that the different groups have different innate genetic capacity.  These people have a different belief system, and are not necessarily “bad” people, even though I strongly disagree with them. Some are quite intelligent, and simply see the map differently.  Others are clouded by values and beliefs programmed from childhood.  Most are good, many are “asleep”: have never really examined their attitudes and the implications thereof.

If they cannot answer the question quickly and clearly, they have either not examined their attitudes sufficiently, or are dishonest and don’t want to admit what they really think.  In the first case, they are sleeping: let them sleep until they awaken. In the second, at the least, they are snakes.

Snakes attempt to conceal their true beliefs, insinuate their way into your conversations and snipe.  Trust me: people who believe in genetic superiority will have different views of history, social issues, where taxes should be expended, what is happening in law enforcement, and on and on. They may be decent folks, but THEY ARE NOT ALLIES in this arena. They CAN be allies in another arena (say, “should our road infrastructure be strengthened?”) but not in the arena of race relations. They see the “playing field” as relatively even, but the players uneven. Therefore they will see any attempt to even that field as “special considerations” and even bigotry toward white people.   Avoid them.

Some are Smiling Monsters, the extreme. These thrive on the chaos. They may or may not believe ANYTHING they will say publicly. They take pleasure in your pain.   These will often not allow you to “avoid” them. They will come after you, and for those, you must ultimately gird your loins and prepare for war.

 

I don’t care what your issue is: women’s rights, Libertarian economics, LGBT rights, American Exceptionalism…it doesn’t matter.  If you are willing to discuss them honestly and openly, laying out your arguments while maintaining a respect for others, you are part of the great American experiment, part of what I see as a rising tide of communication worldwide, where we express ourselves in a marketplace of ideas and see which ones are in alignment with the largest number of hearts and minds.

 

Because I believe the ultimate reality is Spirit, and that the human behaviors which lead to survival and pleasure, the avoidance of pain and fear, over time, tend to be those we call “good”, I’m not afraid of this process, and support ANY ideas expressed courteously and with respect for the rights and “inwardness” of others.   We need fear only lies and cruelty.

 

This approach (“find your tribe, avoid the sleepers and Smiling Monsters”) works in business, love relationships, politics and friendships.    You don’t need everyone to agree with you.  In love, you need ONE person.  Why are you wasting your time with people who aren’t attracted to you, and won’t nurture you?   Friendships, perhaps five.   Why are you wasting your time with people who don’t enjoy you and won’t support you?   Business, from one to a  few thousand, depending on the per-unit value of the product or service you provide.  Politics?  A few thousand to few million, depending on the size of the group you are trying to influence.  In NO instance do you need “everybody.”

 

My own goal: to nurture one million awake, aware, adult human beings.  The strategy is to nurture a thousand awake, aware adult writers.    To that end, I’m using writing (www.createthenarrative.com) and Physical Motion/the Morning Ritual (www.firedancetaichi.com) to reach the minds, emotions, and physicality of those who see the world as I do, and are interested in that path.  There is nothing I enjoy more than working with these people, sharing perspectives and skills and companionship.  

 

It is fulfilling in a way it is difficult to communicate in words, and no matter how hard…its worth the fight.

 

Namaste,

Steve

The Fish Tank of your soul

This is another “classic” post.  Its interesting to look back at my thinking a few years ago.

###

The complete process I’m suggesting:
1) Write your life story, from today until the day you die. Make certain to be specific about your goals in body, mind (career), and spirit (relationship).
2) Find one person to represent each arena. Begin to learn all you can about them.
3) Clarify your three major goals (one in each arena) and write them down where you can see them morning and night.
4) Resolve to move toward your goals at a rate of no more than 1% per week.
5) Share your goals with at least one other person who agrees to be your committed listener. If you don’t have such a person, use the discussion board here to create community.
6) Five times a day (9am, 12 noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm) stop and breathe deeply for 60 seconds. Use the 5MM’s “Be Breathed” technique.
7) Morning and night, listen to your heartbeat for five minutes minimum.
8) Keep a dream diary. A good idea is to keep a small tape recorder at your bedside and dictate your dreams.

Point #8 is worth slowing down to discuss, especially if you have weight issues. If you are carrying more than about 50 pounds of extra weight, your body is an emotional toxic waste dump–you are storing all of your pain and fear in that extra flesh. You literally will NOT be able to lose that weight until your subconscious is convinced you will not suffer if you do. Where will you put all of that pain, all of that fear? Well, if you can put it on paper, you might not need to carry it on your bones. WRITE DOWN YOUR DREAMS as you begin to lose weight. Meditate regularly. This is what I’ve referred to as “running the aquarium filter on the fish tank of your soul.” Skip this step, and you’ll yo-yo between weight gain and loss until you are exhausted, and no longer believe.

These are major components. Here’s a key question: how many of you can see that every one of these suggestions is a different version of the same idea? You have to read between the lines, but if you look beneath the surface, you’ll catch it…

-Steve Barnes

Handling the pressure, passing the gift

 

Heat and pressure can create diamonds. Irritation can create pearls. Learning how to handle stress so that it strengthens you rather than destroys or corrupts you is one of the core teachings of the world’s religions and philosophies.

That was my first post today, in response to a post by the great Andrew Vachss concerning the fact that some abused children become abusers…while others become protectors.

 

Almost immediately, one of my readers, teacher Salina Gray, posted:

 

Ok. I was LITERALLY writing a post about this and how it impacts young people. And I just tagged you in it. This is a SERIOUS concern… I’m seeing children who have zero strategy to manage even the most minor emotional skirmish. Who don’t take `no’ lightly. Who see even a glance as a major offense. And who are willing to fight and hurt at even the most minor instance.”

 

Wednesday is: “Understand Human History without guilt, blame or shame” day.   To move through the “‘Five Fold Path” that means:

 

  1. Love yourself enough to be willing to look deeply into your own flaws without guilt, so that you may understand and heal them.
  2. Extend that understanding to at least one other person to find a mate or intimate partner.

 

Then begin to extend that same understanding to include your neighbors, family, community, nation, and the entire world.  It is possible to  see all of human history as an unfolding of basic principles of sociology rooted in psychology rooted in survival biology rooted in physical reality rooted in ultimate spiritual reality.  You must find your own way, but I implore you to root it so directly that no one can shake you from your belief in love and goodness, no one can disrupt your faith in self, Mankind, or life itself.  Such faith can be attained, I promise you.

 

The first two “Chakras” or levels of human reality are survival and sex, and you can find one or the other (personal survival and group/genetic survival) at the core of most human action.  The “Sex Transmutation” chapter of Think and Grow Rich touches on this: sex is more powerful than anything other than the immediate urge to breathe or stay alive. Therefore it can be used to “step up” the vibrations of thought to a higher level of focus and commitment.  Think of the fact that, in the seconds leading up to orgasm the entire world vanishes, everything but the driving body rhythms or, if combined with love, the spiritual connection with the beloved.  It is a glimpse, available to anyone, of the power of focus enjoyed by the greatest geniuses Mankind has ever known.

 

But the same forces, unguided by the experience of the village elders and loving parents and mentors, can tear you apart.  Let’s look at Salina’s paragraph again:

 

Ok. I was LITERALLY writing a post about this and how it impacts young people.” And i just tagged you in it. This is a SERIOUS concern…”

Yes, it is.  They have all the seed of adulthood within them, with little of the wisdom and experience they will need to navigate the territory.  They are terrified by the question: “what will it take for me to become an adult?   To support myself by creating goods and services I can legally exchange with my community?  To feel safe?  To satisfy my sexual urges with integrity, find love without losing myself, and care for the children that sexuality may create?”  These are questions universal to human beings all over the planet, through all of time, and the similarity of social rules explicit and implicit throughout history state this pretty clearly.   Consciously or unconsciously, this is what about 99% of human beings want and need, and the doubt about our capacity to do it creates FEAR.

Fear is at the base of anger.  Anger births violence.   

Let’s continue:

“I’m seeing children who have zero strategy to manage even the most minor emotional skirmish. Who don’t take `no’ lightly. Who see even a glance as a major offense. And who are willing to fight and hurt at even the most minor instance.”

 

Yep.  Because they don’t understand themselves as beings of light.  If not raised in safety, with love, they absorb the   rules of the society around them, designed to produce mere Survival and simple pleasures, rather than to guide these drives to create power and safety, open the heart, produce the capacity to speak and share truth, develop a valid map of reality, and open the door to spiritual truth: All are One.

 

Any disruption of this growth path sends you crashing back down into the basic survival drives, and the simple pleasures of sex, food, and power.  You can see this in individuals who have been damaged, and social structures disrupted by oppression and poverty.  It’s terrible.

 

Children have zero strategy?   Hell, of COURSE they don’t.  Children are programmed with very basic things like love, fear, and anger.  They react to loud noises and the sensation of falling, and pain. These and a few more very basic programmings become the root of everything else we learn and feel and think in life.  Strategy is either gained by experience or learning from those who have traveled the road before us.  If your parents didn’t solve the puzzle, they will pass on whatever tools they do have to you, hoping you will learn enough to at least survive long enough to reproduce: genetic survival is the production of grandchildren.  

 

“Babies having babies” anyone?  

 

Seeing “a glance” as a major offense?  An “insult,” a word which implies injury?   Under what circumstances can eye contact represent challenge or threat?  To a VERY scared, vulnerable, fragile ego.  Someone who exists in a world where you fight for every inch of turf, and your life or status can be challenged at any moment.  Constant
“Condition Orange.”  Horrendous stress.   Based on a dog-eat-dog view of the world, because that’s all you’ve ever known, and it is better to survive, even with your fists clinched, than to be open-hearted and get slaughtered.

 

Remember the path to the creation of a violent criminal?   Step One is “Brutalization or violent Horrification.”  Either YOU are hurt, or you witness people you EMPATHIZE WITH being hurt.    This leads to rebellion, (“this system doesn’t work”) which leads to “kicking over the table” (a perfectly  rational response to perceived injustice), finding a group of people who agree with you and support you…and then internalizing their voices and values.

 

If you cannot draw a line from individual kids in disadvantaged communities going feral and violent to political movements around the world and in our news today, you aren’t paying attention.  If you cannot see how fear, mobilized with violence, results from insecurity and fragile self-identity, the destruction of reality maps or the sense of “free-fall” that accompanies future shock or perception of massive unfairness…you aren’t paying attention.

 

See this in your own life, and the life of someone you adore, so that you can forgive humanity for doing what we have done, just to try to stay alive.  

 

But…once you have this awareness, WHAT DO YOU DO?  Damned good question.

 

  1. Love yourself.   This means to want the very best, and be willing to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to live a healthy life (remember?  This is really the question under all the anger: “how do I live a happy life?”  If you aren’t doing it, how can you help someone else?)  This means you will need to find ways to survive the inevitable stresses in life.  You CANNOT just “think” your way through this. The mind is too small. But you can FEEL your way through it.  Connect to your heart: Love and Faith conquer fear.  There are thousands of meditative practices that are designed for this.

 

And the other thing you can do is go through the doorway of the body.  Remember that violence stems from anger (most times) and anger is fear.  Remove the reason to fear, and most anger will dissolve. Most fear is basic body stuff: power, sex, survival.  Threats to this level trigger the sympathetic nervous system (“fight or flight”).  There are a wide range of physiological responses affecting breathing, heartbeat, skin temperature and conductivity, adrenal dump and so forth.    IF THESE THINGS DO NOT TRIGGER, YOU WILL NOT EXPERIENCE “FEAR” IN THE SAME WAY.  And more importantly, “stress” (external/internal pressure) will not become “strain” (distortion and degradation of function and capacity).   

 

This is one of the most important lessons of transformational disciplines like martial arts and yoga.  Hatha Yoga places your body under stress (Asana) and then teaches you to relax (slow breathing, relax muscles and face) even under that physiological pressure.  This begins to teach you to relax under emotional stress (boss screaming at you, kids disobeying/challenging you, spouse screaming and angry) which allows you to see options and potential solutions more clearly. Beautiful stuff.

 

Martial arts creates the additional stress of…well, frankly, getting hit in the face. Humiliated on the mat.  Dealing with the terror of actually being attacked on the street. Can you relax under THAT stress?  If so, you are, once again, developing “unconscious competence” at triggering the Parasympathetic Nervous system (the “calm-down” circuitry that allows you to go to sleep, or relax) even under stress.

 

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are visualized as male and female forces, two serpents “winding up the spine” through the different “chakras”, called “Ida and Pingala”.  When balanced, they trigger the true potential of the human mind and body and spirit, the “Kundalini” force. That’s another topic (and one of my favorites!)

 

In other words, when Napoleon Hill said that “every problem contains within it the seed of an equivalent benefit” this is what he means: learn to cope with it, and you jump up another level, just as when you learn to lift a weight, your body grows stronger–IF and ONLY IF you also nurture and rest that body so that it can grow.

 

Children are born with an ‘average’ amount of this survival/adaptation capacity.  Place them in extraordinary circumstances, and most of them will perform below “average” in response. A few will operate in an extraordinary level, and the maps of their responses become the philosophies that allow the others to traverse the territory with power and purpose.

But…back to “how to help?”

Either emotionally (tools like The Ancient Child, Heartbeat Meditation, journaling, prayer, etc) or physically (learning to maintain breathing, relaxation and proper posture under stress).  I love martial arts for this not merely because of the practical (“fighting”) skills, but because the postures encode within them emotional states of authority and courage.  You can discover this for yourself merely by shifting between emotions of security and fear, and noting the way your posture changes…or shifting postures, note the way your emotions change.

 

The FASTEST way I know of shifting your emotions is to combine the Morning Ritual (a daily practice of motion, emotion, and focus lasting 10-20 minutes EVERY DAY) with the “Five Minute Miracle” (every three hours, stop and breathe deeply and fully and slowly, a “mini” version of the Morning Ritual).  Try both for just thirty days, and you’ll be shocked and delighted: you can literally re-wire your reaction to stress so that it doesn’t become strain.

A simplified version of this: get the kids to show you their “power stance”: stand and breathe and hold their faces as if they are centered, powerful, confident. Then every hour or so, get them to stand and actually take that position for one minute.

It breaks the cycle of stress like a miracle.  Heck, just get them to stand and BREATHE!  Or close their eyes and feel their heartbeat.  MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. Get that habit in there!

 

And when that happens?  So long as you get proper rest and nutrients? The only way the system can respond is to become stronger.  

 

Heat and Pressure make diamonds–IF you can maintain balance and poise under that stress.  Few people spontaneously learn this at anything other than an ordinary level. If you would function in extraordinary circumstances, you will probably need to follow the teachings of a Jesus, a Ghandi, a Socrates, an MLK, a Usheiba, a Muhammad.

 

Find a physical discipline with such encodings within it, and dive deep. You will begin to carry yourself differently, deal with life differently, express both love and confidence. And the fearful children with SEE it in you. They will test you, but if you pass those tests, they will gather around and beg you to tell them how you do it.

 

And you will throw your arms around them and draw them close, and whisper in their ear:

First, love yourself

 

Namaste,

Steve

 

P.S.:

November 5th we are holding the next Firedance Tai Chi body-mind workshop in Los Angeles.   Tai Chi has the physical lessons needed to encode these teachings, and we have “hacked” it to extract the physical benefits without years of study, and scaled it to provide benefits to those at any fitness level (at the last workshop we had a student in a wheelchair!).   We’ll create a “Morning Ritual” for every participant, so that you can perform your own thirty-day experiment to test whether what we’re saying is true.   Get out of your head: get into your heart, and your body IN ONE DAY.  The road awaits.   WWW.FIREDANCETAICHI.COM

You deserve love

 

Tuesday is “Love Somebody” day

 

The greatest external joy in life may well be loving another human being.  And most clearly, that means another adult, in a committed, passionate, bonded relationship.  The benefits are vast, from support, to personal insight, to sexuality, companionship, master-mind partnering (two or more people aligned toward a worthy goal), security, and more.

 

The principle “we are attracted to people at our level and above. We attract people at our level and below” is sometimes troubling.     What is meant by “level”?   Intelligence, attractiveness, energy, integration…there are an entire flock of factors, and no two people will choose the same ones, or value them in the same order, or evaluate the quality or quantity of those attributes similarly.   But if you can get out of your needy wounded abandoned child and stop pretending that you don’t evaluate potential partners according to some set of standards (everyone does), you can use this concept to see yourself as few other approaches will.

 

I’m not one of these “she’s better than me” people, and find the attitude  disingenuous.  Really?  Your partner is really too good for you?  In which case they are too stupid to realize it, right?  Way to bring ‘em back down to earth, friend.  Sneaky of you.

Here’s another way to put it that tweaks people:  The person you’re with is the best you can do.

If you have a negative history, your mind might tell you I’m saying “this is the best you’ll ever do” or “abuse is what you deserve.”

No, no, no.   If you were in an abusive relationship, the chances that you loved yourself at that time are pretty minimal.  Go back to step #1: ‘Love yourself” and ask: “If I had a child I loved with all my heart, would I want him/her to be in relationship with this person?”  If the answer is “hell, no!” then what are you doing there?

Usually fear.  Fear that this is the best you can do, that disaster would befall you if you made a change. That “disaster” ranges from financial failure to sexual loneliness to actual fear of being stalked and hurt.   Some of these fears are illusions. Some are unfortunate realities.  Your only means of coping with them healthfully is to be willing to step up and love yourself enough to be willing to have the very best in life, to be willing to defend yourself.

And what of someone who stays in a bad relationship because of children?  You know, there are life situations that get so bad there is almost no way to work your way out of them any more.   In which case, step #1 (“love yourself”) might lead you to creating an inner world where you can be happy despite the externals.  You may have made your bed, and have to lie in it.  But you would still have the responsibility to find a way to happiness, and also to pass on healthy patterns to your children–help them escape the mistakes that you made.   Doing this can be very difficult, seem near-impossible.

This is where FAITH comes in.  Loving yourself can motivate you to create a “Daily Ritual” to raise your emotions.  When the emotions are high and positive (which you can create by shifting your body, focus, and language) this is the time to lay your plans for action–the higher mood may not last long.  If you have a clinical issue, the problem will likely be inability to make yourself stay on such a program, which might be considered a good clue that you need medical assistance.

But if you are “high” emotionally, you will feel more faith.  That can lead you to researching, Googling subjects about abuse, leaving bad relationships, and support groups. Your best bet is to FIND PEOPLE WHO HAVE SURVIVED THE KIND OF RELATIONSHIP YOU ARE IN.  In a world of seven billion people I PROMISE you there is nothing so unique about your situation that someone hasn’t had it worse and worked their way out.  In fact…I’ll bet there are people who have had it worse, and found a way to happiness.

(Did that trigger guilt?  Anger that I would suggest you aren’t doing all you can?  That emotion is not your friend.  If I add that “you are doing the best you can with the resources you have.  If you want to do better, you must have new resources” does that help?  If not, I would suggest that the part of you that is angry at me, or blames yourself, IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.  In fact, I suggest that it is not “you” at all. It is part of the very programming that has damaged you so much you accepted into your heart and bed a person who fosters the worst in you, in whose interest it is to drag you down and beat hell out of your self image. That part will attack a potential ally more readily than the actual person damaging you.  Ask yourself “why”.)

Once you get the habit of “riding” your positive “peak” moods (waiting for the moments you are “up” and doubling down on positive actions, research and planning during those times) you begin to accumulate the attitudes, actions, strategies of those who have moved from damage to health in the arena of relationships.  Found love and passion despite early disasters.  SOMEONE HAS.  FIND THEM.

Believe that you deserve success here.  Love. Passion. Connection.  If you START by loving yourself, you will not doubt this. If you doubt this, you have not taken Step #1.  

I would estimate that about 99% of people want this sense of love, passion, connection.  If you are not one of them, I suspect you’ll grasp my intent and feel no resentment. If you have a negative emotional reaction to what is written here, use that as another indication that this natural human/animal drive has been twisted and perverted by someone outside you.  

You have a right to more.  It can be hard, terribly hard to believe this, and make it happen. But…its worth the struggle.

Namaste,

Steve
(the Morning Ritual is a core tool in creating a clear mind, healthy energy and positive emotions.  If you are willing to try a 30-day experiment to see if it works for you, JOIN us in the Firedance Tai Chi workshop November 5th.   WWW.FIREDANCETAICHI.COM)

The deepest reality is love

 

Monday is LOVE YOURSELF day

 

Selfishness is only a problem if your definition of “Self” stops at your skin.  Most people who try to tell you different are trying to get you on-board with THEIR agenda. In other words: “Don’t be selfish.  If you are, it will be harder to manipulate you into doing what I want.”

 

The trick is that you have to go into your core, connect your sense of love and worth and protectiveness with your essence until you don’t “need” other people’s approval to feel complete.   All you NEED is to connect to your deepest Self–which is indistinguishable from the Divine, the Universal Force, the Truth…however you choose to express it.

 

All that is necessary to never, ever be intimidated by another human being again is to give up all need for others to be intimidated by you.   That sense of self-pride, self-love, self-worth is NEVER at the expense of others.  Every moment you spend worrying about how someone else is doing is a moment you are not connected to your own essence.

 

The “Flow” is the state you must enter to achieve true excellence, access to your deepest being. In this state, you are “doing” but not always aware of “doing” in the precise way that, as you enter orgasm, you are no longer “observing” yourself having sex, but simply part of a larger, deeper energetic coupling.  Name and job and external life circumstances, all labels and politics and identity factors melt away, and you and the beloved simply “are.”   This is the same phenomenon that exists in art and intellectual activities of all kinds.

 

While this is usually found between yourself and an external factor (a lover, a book, driving on the freeway) it is also available in the inner world.

 

The reality is love, and connection.  All fear, all pain, all anger, hate, sense of loss or lack is produced by the illusions that separate us from this love and connection.

 

All you have ever wanted in your life is to be happy.  Feel loved and connected.  When we BEGIN our days with this sense, we are giving ourselves the greatest gift imaginable. The illusion is that be must motivate ourselves with pain and fear. True, these are powerful motivations, but not the only ones, by any means.   

 

The Morning Ritual taught in Firedance Tai Chi is designed to anchor this sense of love and connection DEEP into your neurology, start every day with peace and passion, and in thirty days you can see the truth of what I’m saying for yourself.  Our next workshop is November 5th in Los Angeles, and we want to extend a heartfelt invitation for you to join us in an all-day transformative experience.  If you are traveling from a distance, let us know, and we’ll try to work with you on finances–while I love making money, this isn’t ABOUT money.  It is about nurturing one million awake, aware, adult human beings on this planet.

 

Please, join us!

 

Namaste,

Steven Barnes

www.firedancetaichi.com

Hit and run for fun and profit

 

Two weeks ago, on the Writing Excuses Cruise, I devised an analogy to help explain how I feel about people who deny the impact of ugly history on current conditions.  When people responded well, I decided to share it more widely. The statement included the reality that we must all do our own work to heal.  This goes for both individuals and communities.  But I have no tolerance for people who pretend that history didn’t happen, or that they/their group would have done better:

 

If I’m hit by a car, I must do all the work of rehabilitation. Every painful step. If it was hit-and-run, I might even have to pay for it myself. If I want to walk again, I have to pay that freight. But don’t you DARE tell me there was no car. Or that if you had been similarly hit, you wouldn’t limp.

And if you do, and you kinda look like the person who was driving..?

Friend, you and I have problems.”

 

Not a terribly subtle analogy, and I’m asked why I talk about these things so frequently. Surely (one side says) no one really thinks or speaks that way any more..?

It is to laugh.   In full honesty, in ONE recent conversation all the following were offered in response to this analogy, modified for the sake of Friday Fun:

  1. But an Irishman was once hit by a car.. He’s not still limping. (He was hit at the same speed?  By a similar vehicle transferring as much energy to the same parts of his body?  Did they speed away or back up over him a few times?  You don’t know? Then what was the precise intent of your statement?)
  2. Why should I pay for your hit and run?  (I’m not asking you to. Just stop lying about the fact that it happened)
  3. That happened last week. Why are you still limping? (On what planet do people recover from broken bones overnight?)
  4. I wouldn’t complain as much as you if it happened to me. (You complain about just HEARING about it. Don’t make me laugh.  You’d squeal like a pig.)
  5. I never had any advantages.  (And fish don’t see water.  You certainly didn’t have the disadvantage of being hit by a car, and then have spectators deny it ever happened.  Gaslighting in not nice.)
  6. I see militant hit and run victims demanding I compensate them for their injuries.   I therefore reject all conversations about this.   So you believe it valid to reject truth because of the misbehavior of some who speak it?   I could damn any group, discount any reality using that technique.  Bravo.  You have just achieved perfect self-serving ignorance and dishonesty, masquerading as ethics.
  7. It was your grandfather who was hit, not you.  Why are you complaining?  Because he was hit in his youth, impacting his life-long capacity to earn, finish school, or defend himself, which damaged my father, which damaged me.  
  8. The event happened in one second. Why are you still damaged months later?   What has duration to do with damage?   How long does it take for a bullet to kill you?  In general, it ALWAYS takes longer for a wound to heal than it took to inflict.
  9. How much longer will I have to hear about this?   Gee, if it tweaks you to HEAR about it, you would never have survived having it actually happen to you.  
  10. I didn’t hit you!  I didn’t say you did.  I just said stop pretending I wasn’t hit, or that if you’d been hit, you wouldn’t have been damaged as badly, and screaming as loudly from the pain. And if you DO believe that?   Don’t tell me you aren’t saying you’re better than me.   Be honest about your elitism.
  11. What do you want me to do?  Just tell the truth. Then, do whatever your conscience dictates, including simply go about your business.
  12. But there are some accident victims who want to spend money on emergency rooms and rehabilitation clinics!  Yeah, that happens in a democracy.  And my tax dollars have gone for killing hundreds of thousands of strangers.   If helping people heal is the worst thing you’re made complicit in, I’d thank my lucky stars.   

 

Every single one of these (or, ahem, their analogues, if you know what I mean)  was said or implied IN A SINGLE CONVERSATION within the last month. Trust me, one way or another I’ve dealt with some form of these statements continuously, almost every day, over my entire life.  

 

I’m simply not silent about it any more.

Isn’t it fun?  

 

Namaste,

Steve

http://www.createthenarrative.com

The Path to Magic…in 100 Days

Friday is SUCCESS day

 

That’s right: if you love yourself, expand “self” to include another, understand human history without guilt, blame, or shame, and find your tribe, it is time to express yourself to the maximum amount of joy in your life.

 

Personally, I believe everyone wants bountiful health and fitness, ecstatic love and passion, and to have so much money you never have to deny yourself anything you really need/want on the basis of finances.  But how to achieve these things?

 

The wonderful THINK AND GROW RICH has thousands of ideas about this, and a lifetime of study wouldn’t get you to the end of it.  The M.A.G.I.C. formula (Magic  equals Action times Gratitude times Intention times Conviction)  is my humble attempt to boil this and its companion teachings down into a simple form. Not “complete” or “infallable”–nothing can promise you that.  But damned good, and when practiced regularly, DAILY in the form of the “Morning Ritual” will bring you success and luck in unexpected ways. It is the Arthur C. Clarke definition of magic: a sufficiently advanced technology.

 

The trick is found in the ancient addage: “a watched pot never boils”.  Reverse that: “the pot will boil over while you aren’t watching it.”

 

Or, the thing you are dreaming of will happen when your attention is on something else.  Whether this is literally true, or just FEELS that way, any technique that utilizes this principle will either increase your “luck” or help keep you from going insane from anxiety.  

 

So lets say that “luck” happens in your peripheral vision, while “action” is happening in your direct, or foveal vision.  Or to put it another way, you have to design your days so that you are doing, every day, all you can do to move your goals forward, such that if you had 100 such perfect days in a row, you would reach your initial goal.

 

There are other iterations of this: 30-day goals, 1000-day goals, etc.  But 100 days is a nice number, and long enough for that “magic” to appear IF YOU DO YOUR PART.

 

  1. Create goals in all four major categories.  I say these categories are body, emotions, career, finances.   If I got all I needed in these, I think I’ve got a foundation to create anything else. But love without health, or career success while going broke, or financial success while lonely are not desirable combinations.  
  2. Define 100 day goals.  In 100 days, you can implant a new savings goal (save 10% of your income, check your Mint numbers daily), new physical goal (daily yoga and walking, Intermittent Fasting), emotional goal (self-love through heartbeat meditation or Ancient Child daily work, internal alignment through Morning Ritual, etc.) and career goal (one daily page of writing, an hour of marketing study, etc.)
  3. Check: IF you did these things every day, would you in 100 days be happy with your progress?  Yes?   Is there any rational reason you cannot do them?  Choose carefully, and you can do all of these basics in an hour a day total.  Reduce the work load until you have an amount you know you CAN do.  Whether you will or not…is another matter of course.
  4. Begin to do your daily work.  I suggest that the Daily Ritual be used, as it combines goal setting, emotional work, and physical work all in the same package.  Huge “bang for your buck”.   Just doing this for 100 days will create “Magic”: the conscious attention is on just doing this one thing for 10-20 minutes.  The unconscious will begin to create the circumstances that will make it happen.
  5. Watch your resistance rise up!  Every demon in your life, every distraction in your environment, will try to stop you.  COUNT ON IT.   Double down on your gratitude and conviction that you CAN and SHOULD do these 100 days.

 

I’ll bet you a dollar that if you do this, for 100 days, something unexpected and delightful will happen.  You wil accomplish with joy and ease, finish that project, learn new things about yourself. But…you will also get calls from people you’ve not heard from in years, offering support and opportunity.  Find lost resources, remember old insights, produce new creative breakthroughs.   “Luck” will begin to increase.

 

When it happens, notice it but do NOT dwell upon it. You will also get “more attractive” to people.  Will receive temptations to stop and party.   You must NOT fall victim to them.  You will probably be offered money, sex, or other treats out of alignment with your morals and values.

 

Do NOT fall prey to them.   They are the result of “siddhis”, powers developed as you progress.  Temptations that indicate you are progressing.  Step “off the path” to pursue them and they will immediately evaporate. Fool’s Gold.  Stay on the path. Create your dreams.

 

And when people ask you how you did it?  Draw them close and whisper in their ear:   “First…love yourself.”

 

Namaste,

Steve

Inner and Outer worlds

There are two worlds: that of our internal experience, and that of our external, sensory experience. And in many ways, all communication, political activism, creative work, sales and commerce is an attempt to reconcile the two.

What is sales, but a communication of enthusiasm between one person and another? What is writing or acting but the attempt to create an emotional change in the viewer or reader, by channeling our own experience and imagination? What is any relationship other than a daily attempt to communicate our needs, and to fulfill the needs of others? What, in fact, is any religion other than an attempt to grow in the image of the divine?

This very human struggle, which manifests in so many different fashions, both mundane and sacred, can be impossibly complex—or devastatingly simple.

If we are to be successful salesmen, artists, leaders, teachers, or simply human beings, we must have a world view. But we must also understand the way we gather information, and our method to determine if our ideas are accurate. How can we address our customers’ needs if we don’t really understand human strength and frailty? How can a novelist create realistic characters if he indulges in massive self-deception? How can a parent or teacher raise a child to maturity without actually maturing herself?

How, in other words, can we be certain that we actually know what we think we know?

Consider the possibility that we can increase the accuracy of our perceptions by examining our interactions with the three major aspects of our own lives: our physical vitality, our career/contribution, and our relationships—whether to a single individual or a vibrant Tribe.

1) Body. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we lose the spark of physical joy. We lose the simple pleasure of play, and settle for “fitness” at best, and the negative spiral of obesity, fatigue, and disease at worst. To reclaim our aliveness we must remember what we have forgotten, and begin the process of re-awakening. We must learn once again to stretch fully, to sweat joyously, to learn new dance steps, to challenge our limits, to find delicious the body we see in the mirror. To begin this process is to open our eyes to the possibility we felt as children. A good goal? Doubling your physical energy.

2) Career. Our money flow is based upon many things, including the degree of service we provide for our communities, the self-respect that motivates us to demand what we are worth, and the intelligence and discipline with which we manage our finances. Creativity, empathy, determination, energy, honesty, risk-taking…all of these things factor in. One can either make more money, or develop the ability to find greater satisfaction within the current financial level. But without the ability to find peace and satisfaction here, much of the joy of life will elude you. A good goal? Sufficient resources and financial discipline to support yourself and two others.

3) Relationships. Some crave monogamous love, others wish the comfort of a community of like-minded individuals. Still others wish simply to be at peace with their inner world, to find the sense of wholeness available only to those who walk a sacred path. Whatever your bliss, it must begin with the connection between your deepest self, and the way you live your life. However you conceptualize your “male” and “female” aspects, they must be balanced. However you conceptualize your “child,” “adult,” and “elder” aspects, they must be in balance as well. The interplay between these five aspects determines a gigantic amount of our emotional health. A good goal? The ability to face yourself in the mirror and say “I love you” with all your heart—and mean it.

There is an entire creative writing theory (“Dramatica”) that states that stories are merely conversations between the different aspects of a single personality. There is a healing hypnotic modality (the “Parts Party”) that asks us to divide our psyche into different distinct personalities, and then have them talk to each other. The possibility of effective advertising or sales only exists when we can actually understand the drives and needs of people other than our gender, cultural or age group. And relationships, of whatever intimacy level, are only possible if we can see through the masks of gender or individuality to see the universal truths of human beauty, spirit, and need.

Chose your goals in balance (one in each of the three arenas: physical vitality, career/contribution, and relationship/tribe) and as you progress toward them, you’ll learn things about yourself, and your life, that cannot be put into words. And to get this effect they MUST be in balance: your demons will hide in the corner illuminated least frequently.

At the center of this triangle is the invisible factor: your actual being. Failure upon initial effort is an absolutely unavoidable part of the process of growth. Note how you deal with failure, and listen to the internal demons as they whisper defeat. It is in watching this “being” interact with these different aspects: failure and success, depression and exaltation, that you begin to understand who you really are. This is the beginning of mastery–the acceptance of life as it is, and the seeking of appropriately excellent performance at every moment of your life. When driving, drive. When reading, read. When exercising, exercise. When fighting, fight. When selling, sell. When loving, love. When sleeping, sleep. Children know this. Adults forget it. It is the heart of every evolved discipline in history.

There are no easy answers. But there is greater and lesser clarity, greater and lesser balance. There is joy, and surrender to the process of work. There is chopping wood, and carrying water, knowing that a hot bath awaits at the end of the day.

-Steve Barnes

Today is “Find Your Tribe” day!

Thursday is Find Your Tribe Day.

 

Even if your ambitions are modest, every dollar you ever earn will be given by another human being.   You MUST understand their needs, hopes, and desires to be able to communicate with them, find what you have of value, refine it, and offer it to those hungriest for the meal you’re cooking.   1000 people willing to invest 50 dollars a year will support most people very nicely.  Facebook allows you to have 5000 friends: do the math.

But you must provide honest value, friendship, support.  Something REAL.  And this is the POINT of the first three steps: Love Yourself.  Love another.  Understand humanity.   Which requires and leads to you healing yourself,  learning how to love, deepening your understanding of the world, you will develop a unique point of view.

 

 

YOU DON’T NEED EVERYONE TO AGREE WITH YOU.  You need only find those who already see the world you see, or are awakening to its reality.  And then speak truth to them, a truth you cultivate daily.

 

That might be 1% of the population. But in America, that’s three million people.  .1%? Three hundred thousand.   .01%? Thirty  thousand.

 

Do you really think you are so different that not .0003% of the population can empathize with you?  If so, you are lying to yourself. You are so enmeshed in your pain and fear and loneliness to grasp that everyone hurts, fears, and feels alone.  

EVERYONE FEELS ALONE AND AFRAID.  

The only question is: what are you going to do with your loneliness and fear?

Go deeper.  Join the world.   Dare to open your eyes more widely, and share the truth you see.


I’ve lost friends because I refuse to demonize either white or black people.  Refuse to close my ears to the cries of the frightened and lonely.   Refuse to allow manipulators to hide their intentions behind politicized 
labels, or demonize the damaged.  So be it.   Anyone who wants me to do any of those things is simply not my tribe.

 

I believe we are all one, all contain all potentials for both good or evil, and that most of what we are depends on how we were conditioned to seek pleasure and pain, our beliefs about what we can or cannot achieve in life, what we believe society thinks about us, and how we are taught to navigate our reality maps. So far, I see no broad swath of human actions, no matter how positive or negative, that does not rest in universal tendencies.  Until someone points out one that cannot be thus explained, I refuse to accept “they’re essentially different” as an answer.

If you believe this is the answer behind our social ills, my position is that you are asleep. That is fine: I have no interest in waking you up until you are ready.  Rest well.

 

A tiny percentage of people, say .1%, are what I call Smiling Monsters.  Not just asleep and having a nightmare that makes them combative, but one who actively seeks chaos.

And you know what?  Just between us, I think that even most of THESE are merely dealing with deep programming that warps their pleasure and pain sensors, their love and fear sensors, see and experience a world so twisted from reality that they simply cannot be reasoned with under ordinary circumstances.  But…I hold the faith that given sufficient wisdom and love even THOSE could be reached.  I may not have the wisdom and love to reach them, but that is my failing, ultimately.  I ask God to give me a heart so strong.   But also remember that they will try to hurt me, out of their fear and confusion, and so must know to defend myself.  I’m ready, but know that if I ever have to do that again in this life, I have failed. There is no righteous joy in hurting another human being.  EVER.

 

Find your tribe.  Love them with all your heart, as you love yourself. And your world will change.

Find your tribe.  Love them with all your heart, as you love yourself. And your world will change.

 

Namaste,

Steve

###

 

This Saturday, we’re conducting the first REVOLUTIONARY WRITING class, designed to teach the way to express a social viewpoint in entertaining works of fiction.  It isn’t for everyone, but there are no limits on politics, for instance: Libertarians who believe the world would be better if Government kept the @#$$ out of our affairs have written novels expressing their perspective, as have Communists.   Racists as well as BLM activists, Liberals and Conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, Sexists and Women’s Rights advocates, Gay Rights supporters and Homophobes.

 

The fact is that I don’t care about your politics so much as your philosophies.  And I don’t care about your philosophies as much as your actions: are you kind? Honest?  Try to be useful to the world?

 

 A democracy cannot survive if people are incapable of expressing their honest opinions.  That said, those opinions should optimally be expressed peacefully and honestly, with compassion for all, and a desire for justice rather than personal gain at the expense of others.

The arena of art is one such battleground, a way to create worlds that express your beliefs about “what is true?” and “who are we?”  And as I’ve spent my entire life in this arena, it is hardly surprising if I consider it to be a critical one.

Join us, won’t you?

http://www.createthenarrative.com