12:34:56 on 07/08/09

Posted on July 12, 2009 by Craig

A friend of mine recently pointed out the following:

On August 7, 2009, at 12hr 34 minutes and 56 seconds, the time and date will be 12:34:56 07/08/09
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
This will never happen in our life again??!!!!
What does this mean?

She asked for my opinion, so I gave it to her in a poem. I’m sharing it with you because I liked the poem that resulted.

“1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9”
by Craig Martin
(*ahem*)

A child will be born
A man will die
Someone will laugh
Another will cry

Twenty-four time zones
Of life will go on
As dear Mother Earth
Continues her song

One chooses to dance
Another to hide
She speaks her Truth
He holds it inside

We look for meaning
In calendar dates
But there is no number
Controlling our fates

Crying or laughing
It’s up to me
I live in the Present
And choose to be free

At half-past noon
On 7-8-9
It will be Friday
And I’ll be fine.

Posted in fun | 1 Comment

Fast Lane

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Craig

I got a speeding ticket today. In the mail. I was baffled at first as to why I would be getting an envelope from the Calgary Police Service. Had I performed some act of heroism for which I would be rewarded? Perhaps a thank-you note recognizing my many years of law-abiding behavior and helpful attitude? One can always hope. But inside was a picture of my car with an accusation attached: I had been driving at an obscene speed of 45 km/h, for which they wanted a ransom of $89.

It was in one of Calgary’s many 30 km/h zones. You know, those playground zones where children have not been seen playing since Ralph Klein was mayor and parking cost less than $10 a day. I checked the address of the crime scene, and after consulting a map, remembered it was one of those places where there was indeed a playground in the vicinity, about half a block from the street, protected by a 10-foot wire mesh fence just in case some pedestrian or child got the notion of venturing anywhere near traffic. But if some crazy pedestrian managed to vault the fence and make a Seabiscuit dash for the curb, City Hall wanted to make sure that all the cars were going slow enough to avoid a potential suicide leap on the part of said crazy pedestrian. At 45 km/h, I had no hope at all of being able to stop in time.

Don’t get me wrong: I always slow down if there are children playing or walking anywhere near the street, especially if they are walking a dog. It’s just that they don’t do it in designated playground zones. Kids tend to hang out close to home. They play street hockey in front of their houses, or walk the dog around the block. They’re not allowed to take their dogs into playground zones anyway.

Anyway, all that aside, having recently studied such topics as Zen and personal accountability, I tried to stop my mental firing squad long enough to think of ways that I can learn from this experience. I asked myself how a speeding ticket could benefit my life. Perhaps I could even find something to be grateful for in all this.

I thought of a couple things, but I don’t really want to tell you because it might take away some of my reasons for staying angry. You might even agree with me that there was some good to the experience, and then you will be less motivated to join my insurrection against City Hall.

Aw heck, you can’t fight City Hall. So here goes.

1. Anger is a good motivator to take action. Traffic tickets (and other traffic woes) are motivating me to find another place to live, away from Calgary’s insanity. City Hall has been trying very hard to make Calgary an unattractive place to live, by dumping toxins in the water supply, keeping transit service well under demand, and designing neighbourhoods to create maximum congestion. These are all very good motivators to leave the city and find some place warmer, safer and more beautiful to live. It was my choice to live here, my choice to buy a house here, and now it is my choice as to where I want to go next. I have the power.

2. It reminded me to slow down, even if I think I’m going slow enough as it is. After all, I don’t really have anything to rush off to. As I was thinking about this one, I was swimming lengths in the pool. I am just getting back up to 20 lengths now. I was sharing a double-lane with a 60-ish woman who was going so slowly that I almost thought she was treading water. I didn’t think very highly of her swimming skills. But as I breathlessly finished length #16, she turned to me with a smile, and announced she was done her 40 lengths for the day.

“That’s a lot more than I can do,” I replied.

“Well, when you’re my age, you’ll be able to do it,” she said encouragingly.

I guess, when I’m too old to move fast, I’ll be so slow that I can do all the laps I want.

3. For all my complaints about City Hall, we still live in one of the safest places on Earth. My infraction got me an $89 ticket. I didn’t get shot, beat up or thrown in jail. I don’t live in a war zone, and I’m not starving to death. And despite the toxins in our water, it’s still some of the safest drinking water in the world.

Well, that’s about it for now. You can probably tell I’m still pissed off, but I’m trying to change. I’m trying to see the world in a more positive light. I’m trying to let go of limiting beliefs and be full of gratitude and love. It’s just that sometimes stuff happens and I don’t like it, because I’m only human. For now, anyway.

Posted in accountability, consciousness | 3 Comments

Hollywood has no soul

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Craig

Confession time: I watched an episode of a TV show yesterday, on the web. (My TV is only for watching movies.) It was the first episode of Battlestar Galactica (the remake), which I only watched because my roommate raved about it so much. “The greatest TV show ever made.” Hm.

The premise of the show (in case any of you have not seen it yet) is similar to The Matrix and Terminator: Man makes Machines; Machines get so smart they become self-aware and decide to take over; Machines get a hate-on for humanity and try to kill us all.

This idea works only if you live in a world where self-awareness and emotions originate entirely from intelligent molecules linked together in complex systems (such as our brains). So, if our humanity (emotion, desire, fear, faith, creativity etc.) is purely a product of brain matter communicating with chemicals and electricity, then, we are basically just complex computers. And if any complex computer (like us) can learn to love, hate, and bake cookies, then surely any robot can do the same.

Now, all the materialists out there are probably thinking, This guy finally gets it, and the possibilities are endless! Yay!

Except that I believe we humans are far more than just bags of molecules bumping into each other. I believe that the matter we see around us is only a small part of what makes up the universe. I believe we have souls, spirits, the breath of God – whatever you want to call it – and that our souls are the only reason we have self-awareness, faith, fear and the ability to bake cookies. And if robots do not have souls, then they cannot ever come close to having the real emotions (and cookies, etc, etc) that we have.

Simple difference of opinion between spiritual people and materialists? I feel like it’s more than that.

Materialists have been making movies and telling stories for centuries on the basis that we have no souls, and that all our humanity originates in the grey matter between our ears. The stories can be very compelling. Religion, on the other hand, which used to be the sole bastion of spirituality, has become a lot less compelling. In fact, Religion has all but made itself irrelevant to our society. And now, materialism has taken over and given us a world devoid of spirit.

Do I want religion? No. But I do greatly value the gifts of the spirit: creativity, joy, faith, imagination, desire, learning and growth. And to reduce these to a bunch of electrons and chemicals is to devalue humanity to the same level as last year’s laptop.

So I am a very spiritual person – not religious, and not materialistic – and I see that a lot of people out there are waking up and realizing the strength of their spirits as well (despite the best efforts of the robotic script-writers out there). If enough people wake up, then we can have a world where we do not have to enslave ourselves to the robots (or to our bank accounts) – we can be fully creative and fully human.

Cookies, anyone?

–

Posted in consciousness | 2 Comments

Re-learning the Lessons of 1929

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Craig

Here is an interesting book excerpt talking about how the 1929 Depression came about. After 80 years of experience, we may need to learn the same lessons again. These words were written in 1937, after the Depression had taught a few lessons. Excerpt follows:

“Courtesy” and “Service” are the watch-words of merchandising today [1937]… because, in the final analysis, both the employer and his employee are EMPLOYED BY THE PUBLIC THEY SERVE. If they fail to serve well, they pay by the loss of their privilege of serving.

During the depression, I spent several months in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, studying conditions which all but destroyed the coal industry. Among several very significant discoveries, was the fact that greed on the part of operators and their employees was the chief cause of the loss of business for the operators, and loss of jobs for the miners.

Through the pressure of a group of overzealous labor leaders, representing the employees, and the greed for profits on the part of the operators, the anthracite business suddenly dwindled. The coal operators and their employees drove sharp bargains with one another, adding the cost of the “bargaining” to the price of the coal, until, finally, they discovered they had BUILT UP A WONDERFUL BUSINESS FOR THE MANUFACTURERS OF OIL BURNING OUTFITS AND THE PRODUCERS OF CRUDE OIL.

[And now, in 2009, the greed of the oil companies has paved the way for “green” businesses to take over. -CM]

“The wages of sin is death!” Many have read this in the Bible, but few have discovered its meaning. Now, and for several years, the entire world has been listening BY FORCE, to a sermon which might well be called “WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP.”
Nothing as widespread and effective as the depression could possibly be “just a coincidence.” Behind the depression was a CAUSE. Nothing ever happens without a CAUSE. In the main, the cause of the depression is traceable directly to the worldwide habit of trying to REAP without SOWING.

This should not be mistaken to mean that the depression represents a crop which the world is being FORCED to reap without having SOWN. The trouble is that the world sowed the wrong sort of seed. Any farmer knows he cannot sow the seed of thistles, and reap a harvest of grain. Beginning at the outbreak of the [first] world war, the people of the world began to sow the seed of service inadequate in both quality and quantity. Nearly everyone was engaged in the pastime of trying to GET WITHOUT GIVING.

These illustrations are brought to the attention of those who have personal services to market, to show that we are where we are, and what we are, because of our own conduct! If there is a principle of cause and effect, which controls business, finance, and transportation, this same principle controls individuals and determines their economic status.

Napolean Hill: THINK AND GROW RICH (1937)

Posted in service | 1 Comment

Taking Action… or not

Posted on February 22, 2009 by Craig

One of my pet peeves is when lobby groups say they are “taking action” to deal with the issues – while they sit in plush offices making phone calls and writing letters. “Take action today: write a letter to your member of congress / member of parliament.” That’s not action – that’s just sitting around complaining. Who is supposed to take action here? Congress? Are the suits in Congress supposed to get on a boat and haul food and clothing to the poor? Not likely. Then who?

I read an article in the paper today about a Washington-based group that is allegedly taking the lead on providing microfinance to 100 million of the world’s poorest families. Their version of “action” in this case is to watch what everyone else is doing, tabulate it and publish the results. Their mission statement is that they are a “grassroots advocacy organization committed to creating the political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty.” That sounds really nice, except where is the action? Advocacy is about asking other people to do stuff. Why not just do it yourself? Waiting for the government or the World Bank to do anything is like waiting for Antarctica to melt – barring a global catastrophe, it will take thousands of years to see any results at all.

If you really want to end poverty, don’t just send a letter asking someone else to spend someone else’s money – send money to one of the many organizations in the world that is actually doing something. Or loan money through Kiva – that way the money will circulate several times, helping a few people.

Talk is cheap (except in Washington, where it costs a lot of money). If you want something done, either support the cause yourself, or shut up and go peel potatoes. Either way, make yourself useful.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment