June 30, 2020

Constant Interruption.

Why do you think kids cannot focus these days?
We may want to see something but then, there is an interruption.
Ad, after Ad, after Ad.
As if consumerism isn't enough to invade our material world, it now invades our mental world.

We may want to focus on something, but then someone interrupts the quiet.

GQ's interview with Brad Pitt in October 2019 addresses the inability for people to focus.
"He said these days he felt like he was sometimes watching the movies he loved just vanish from the consciousness. “I love a slow, contemplative film—I grew up on the drive-in and whatever movies we could see, and that's where we had three television channels. So I look at youth today, and they absorb so much information and seem to like it more in quick bursts and don't have necessarily the palate to sit two hours for a film. They would rather watch a series for a quick bit, and then they can follow another one if they want to or move on to something else. So I'm very curious. I'm no longer shocked now when I ask a 20-year-old, ‘Have you seen The Godfather?’ And they say no. ‘Have you seen Cuckoo's Nest?’ No. And I wonder if they ever will. So that's where I go, ‘Ooh, is there a future to film? What will survive?’ ”

Brad Pitt, Steven Hall (me), pencil/graphite on A4, 2020 : Art

Were you distracted?



The Beast.


Fast Forward 2 more years…

Sometimes it feels like I am in the Upside Down. 

The Upside Down is an alternate dimension existing in parallel to the human world. Most, if not all, flora and fauna present in the dimension are linked together in a hive mind controlled by the Mind Flayer, essentially forming an enormous superorganism.

I could feel, I could feel the Beast.

“Time is just an invisible light” – Grace Potter

African Lion Painting Painting by Rachel Stribbling

The Lion the Beast the Beat

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

Steady now, steady now
Don't fear what you can't see
Ready now, ready now
I'll hold on to you, you hold on to me
 

Ooh

I found the heart of a lion
In the belly of the beast
And I held it in my hand, and I could feel
I could feel, feel the beat

Gas up the easy rider
And head out for Nevada
Can somebody let the beast out, baby
 

It's time to meet your maker
Make the road your undertaker
Can somebody let the beast out, baby

Can't stop the beat, can't stop the beat
Run, but you can't hide from the heat
Life is a record, playing on repeat
I'm running wild, with The Lion The Beast The Beat

So don't you try to tame the lion
Just to ride on the horizon
Can somebody let the beast out, baby

Yeah, we all hide our desire
And then we feel the beat like fire
Will somebody let the beast out, baby

Oh

Can't stop the beat, can't stop the beat
Run, but you can't hide from the heat
When life is a record, playing on repeat
I'm running wild with The Lion The Beast The Beat

Oh

Can't stop the beat, can't stop the beat
Run, but you can't hide from the heat
When life is a record, playing on repeat
I'm running wild with The Lion The Beast The Beat

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Grace Potter

The Lion the Beast the Beat lyrics © O/B/O Apra Amcos



April 19, 2018

Emigrate


Straya...

Farewell to the West now
Welcome to the East

Farewell to the East
Welcome to Down Under

After 4 years in America, I quit a job I loved, and sold a condo I loved, and moved to Sydney Australia with my significant other.  It is about time I found him.

Welcome to the next adventure.

Arrived in Melbourne, Australia in August 2017.
Drove from Melbourne to Sydney which was the best thing we have ever done, Australia has a beautiful countryside, amazing food, and kick ass wildlife.
Once in Sydney I got the apartment set up, got the dogs settled, and started looking for jobs.

Sydney is a first world city, even with it's somewhat poor construction and lack of comprehensive and helpful websites.  It is still beautiful even with it's slow connection, lengthier response time, and passive social behaviors. After 6 months in with a few vacations, I am not ready to dismiss it.

The beauty will reveal itself in time.

"This earth, I never damage. I look after. Fire is nothing, just clean up. When you burn, new grass coming up. That means good animal soon, Might be goanna, possum, wallaby. Burn him off, new grass coming up, new life all over. "
-Bill Neidjie






2016. End.

"It's that moment of dawning comprehension I live for". I search for it but sometimes I lose my way.
Paulo Ceolho stated "if you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal" Your everyday life will completely kill that moment of dawning comprehension. I want an "every-last-day"life and I do not want to be afraid of failure for that is the only thing that will encourage me to learn and grow even more.








January 17, 2016

The Sound of Silence

Jim Carrey's Message

I want to find out who you are without saying a word.

Choose love~ (not the "in love" kind of love, but the universal love for one another that forces us to make a leap of faith and rely on a person)

This is the message I try to communicate with whoever I meet. I am 100% open, but I am afraid it may be misunderstood due to expectations or previous encounters of a person's life. I am curious and expect more, I am never satisfied and always want to know more.  This should be a flattering feeling - someone is taking the time to listen and remember and meet you. Not just for a second, or base their opinion about you upon that brief encounter, but being dependable enough to give you the opportunity to grace them with your presence.  People are impatient and get distracted from what is in front of them easily.  When lacking the ability to discover who a human being is, then a true connection can never be met. Only true connections take time and reliability is the facilitator of this connection.

"I'm afraid of many things, but loneliness is not among them, and it’s actually quite depressing to have to witness the lengths most people are willing to go just to avoid being alone.”

To be open to loneliness is to be open to others. Because it is the mindset where you do not need to chase the social life, or seek attention from it but graciously accept it when it is there and appreciate it when it is not.

"Within each of us, there is a silence, a silence as vast as the universe. And when we experience that silence we remember who we are" - Gunilla Norris

When that silence is explored by each individual the level of your relationship with other excels to the next level. The way a conductor leads an orchestra. Without a sound. 
"The conductor does not make a sound, he depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful" - Benjamin Zander
This is what makes a person powerful, influential, memorable, effective in what they do. What leaders need most is an unspoken understanding through trust and respect.

If I need to say it - you are not reading between the lines.
 I can understand how this can cause confusion - but there is a sense that we all have but most ignore.

 Why are these individuals:
David Bowie
Alan Rickman
Robin Williams
and many other artists able to create this universal sadness? They have appreciated that silence and gift that Jim Carrey speaks of in his message and have been able to share and deliver it to the public.

Respect comes from within.

January 16, 2016

Update 2016

It is the beginning of 2016.

In April 2013 I had just returned home from abroad and started working at a local organic farm. I applied to some classes at the community college as prerequisites for the Masters program I recently finished.

Masters of Agribusiness from KSU via their Global Campus. I began the master's program while working part-time at a snack food headquarters in KC. First semester was rough, but met good friends and fun professors and decided to stick it out. Job went full-time, passing my classes and learning about the people I work with and developing these relationships.

Be an asset to your company, and if the company/organization/department is too big, find a way to do so. There is always a way.

Challenge yourself. Always.

Welcome back~

April 7, 2013

Reflections and Home

I'm back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again

Ridin' the range once more
Totin' my old .44
Where you sleep out every night
And the only law is right
Back in the saddle again...


Reflections
Many people tell me that it is a good thing I came home. Obviously I agree or I wouldn't have done so. But I believe their reasoning is different and for a media frenzied population I can understand why.  It still amazes me that people do not look beyond their own boundaries to discover that a place not be what you are told it is or how the media says it is.  No worries guys!  I'm okay!...no big deal...but I can say this and yet if Kim Jun Un does blow up something, I would not know what I was talking about even if I had lived in the South and experienced the culture.

If anybody has the time and interest enough to do so, please read Daniel Tudor's book Korea: The Impossible Country.  Because it is impossible to imagine, so you need to educate yourself.  North and South Korea are brothers.  However the alliance the South has with the US hurts its relationship with its brother.

What were North and South Korea but conquered countries dependent upon another superpower?  Did they really have any say in their own history? And not long before these wars, the Japanese were their Imperialists...and they would say the same thing English teachers in the classrooms are saying... "No Korean!"


Also check out what the students think...

Today Seoul is ALIVE, but to restate the high schooler in the previous link, "I  don't wish Korea to be the wealthiest country in the world.  I would rather it be a country where its people's right to be happy is secured" - Love & Peace.  Korea is not happy (anymore) and it shows through the distrust, shallow status flaunts, and customer service.  Just because there are billions of people does not mean they cannot treat each other with respect: Review THIS!


Culture, language, respect for your own country takes a lot more effort when you are being bullied into thinking like the bigger guy. However, many Koreans are still proud of the sadness and struggle their country went to to become an economic force in the world today.  But an economic force is about all they have become.  Korea produces many products and provides what is most important -  cheap labor.  Minimum wage is $4/hour. Who in the US would work for that?!  Most 20 year olds there do, and it is a 'part-time' job done while studying or supposedly doing something else. So what is the cost of this economic force?  And why do English teachers, who are the same age with the same degree, get paid $27/hour, part-time as well.

How can people respect you, if you do not respect yourself?  Is respecting your country the same thing as respecting it's citizens? Think about it from a Korean, Asian, social, communal, perspective.  Respecting yourself above your country is selfish. In America the well-being of Americans is what makes the US respectable. That is why when you are obese, lazy, welfare-fed, the respect goes out the window.

The comparison of the two countries is almost ridiculous because of the major differences involving geography, culture, and history.  But the relationship South Korea and the US have together today and in the past is unavoidable. US influences the division between the North and South.  We think democratization is good for everyone.  When in fact people who have been living a life of servitude of the state for most of their history think that democracy/capitalism is different and perhaps selfish, making people themselves selfish.  Countries were created for a reason. Nations were built differently because of the different people who built them.  We are the same as a species, meaning we are born and then we die, but not as a race, and I mean human race.

Are democracies built upon capitalism only? Lions for Lambs is a movie that restates the birth of democracy, or the American dream, when they discuss in a classroom when has a big house with high walls not been the American dream? The answers the presenters gave was "1775, 2001, etc"...so the answer I believe is no.  And can Korea really be a democracy with a different kind of history? Or is the effort through capitalism just creating a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots?

I believed in democracy to my core in college, and now I am not quite sure it is for everyone.  Asia is on its own standard now. And what comes next might blow democracy out of the water.  Things change, as do people, whether you like it or not. And the big footprint US left in North and South Korea is still there.  Koreans are like elephants, they never forget.  And when you can't forget, it is often impossible to forgive.

                                                                     Home

Full time job 7 days/week doesn't seem like such  a big deal after meeting a friend's boyfriend who works the fields in western Kansas, or after meeting bankers in Korea who work 8am to 11pm then are expected to go out and drink until they puke afterwards, and do it all over again in the morning. Work can be a life, or a living. Where is the time to consider the questions asked above.  Who cares about anything else besides putting food on your table and a roof over your head?  Who cares?....

The value of your life is dependent upon how you see it, not how others see it.

Investment in relationships, in businesses, in hobbies, in having a social life all comes at various risk levels. But not doing them is the greatest risk of all. There is a difference between hoarding and investing, usually you are always thinking about yourself, but when you invest you are also thinking of your connection with others.  It creates a financial tie (usually most important) that you want to take care of.  So if you do not care, you make just enough for you and nobody else matters.  When in fact everything you do involves someone else whether you like it or not. You cannot go out in the woods and expect to wing it on your own, there is not only the natural world but the obvious encounters with other unpredictable living things that will happen.  Your well-being depends on the well-being of others.  One job requires another job.  Like taking care of the fields..is it more efficient to have a piece of equipment for tilling, planting, spraying and irrigating and YOU do all the work?  When in God's name would you ever get that done?!  Or should one person be assigned to working each piece of equipment separately and follow each other down the line, saving time and money.

If you do not care, you will not hold up your end of the bargain and no one will trust you to work with them.  In Korea, each person has a job, creating more pointless employment for the massive amounts of people living in Seoul.  However pointless each person's job depends on the job done by the next person.  And even though there are many jobs, there are even more people without jobs. The unemployment rate is insane. And besides that they still spend! Like typical  capitalists...you could call it greed, selfishness, but in Korea it is a necessity..socially.  Korea racks up credit debt faster than the 50s 60s and 70s 80s in the US combined. "If thrift is an Asian virtue, then it is one that South Koreans are notably lacking: each adult has almost five credit cards on average, and the household debt burden exceeds that of the United States before the subprime crisis".

How is capitalism helping this situation? When the rule of law in Korea is anything but respected and the people who will suffer from this debt will be the have-nots.  Trust is impossible in this country when dealing with money.  There are few well-to-do people who are honest, because of the cutthroat environment South Korea has created for itself.  It's dream to succeed in the international world has abandoned its domestic labor force. Forced retirement at 50 and what Daniel Tudor calls the "angry 30-40 year olds". And there is a LOT of middle class, normal people who are not creating this debt but will suffer from it because of the selfish consumerism by the rich.  Wake up South Korea!  You have great people in your country!





Relationships are important and how you treat the ones you work with is a major indicator in how successful you will be in the long run, which, in the end, your relationships with those people are all that matter.