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From the mind of critic: “When we’re pulling onto a busy freeway, do we adjust our speed accordingly, or do we go balls to the wall? Do we speed up to wedge into one of the many busy lanes, and then slow so we’re going with the flow of traffic? Or do we continously speed up and slow down as we weave in and out, because the flow of traffic itself is slowing us down, whether it’s flowing above the speed limit or not? Do we try to find our place and our purpose? Or do we carve our own path by creating what we think is our place, and then vis a vie our purpose? These are questions we ask ourselves all the time whether we’re rich or poor, old or young, live in the city or the country, religous or non believer, are poltical or oblivious. Life is basically chaos, and we do our best to navigate. Many people will try getting us to slow down or speed up, while attempting to squeeze us into a perfect little box that they’ve designed. Once we realize that it’s not about fitting into our own box let alone somebody else’s, we’ll see there’s no black and white answer to anything. It’s not about only slowing, speeding, or staying, it’s about doing all three at the same time. It’s about fitting in, finding our place and then making our way, which on the super highway of life is great training. This is how we find our purpose. We have to think to find it, and find it to be joyfully content. And isn’t that the only true goal in life?” 🙂

From the mind of critic: “If we have foglights on our car, do they actually help us navigate through the fog? Do we appreciatte any help that’s provided to go through the fog, by bolting or straping anything to our car to make our path easier, whether or not is actually works in practice? Or are we skeptical of what anybody says will help us, because we’ve seen how hard it is to drive through fog with or without fog lights, and know the best way is not with some device that people tell us works, but instead moving forward but at a slower pace? Sometimes progress moves at a snails pace, and sometimes a snails pace would be like a top fuel dragster compared to how slow it goes. Progress can move quicker depending on the thickness of the fog, but moving forward is always the answer. We might try waiting the fog out, hoping it dissapates to allow safe travel. However, the fog might condense and become worse, simply because of our inaction. Once we realize that fog lights only give us the hope of moving through the fog, we’ll see that hope without action actually devolves progress because of our desperate attempt at something difficult. This doesn’t necessarily mean difficult isn’t worth it, it juist means it will take more effort, and not just looking for the easy way out, but looking for a way that works, period. People will give us advice all day long, but they’re only suggestions, not orders. The only true orders come from our soul, we just have to make sure we’re listening” 🙂

From the mind of critic: “If we’re against illegal immigration but love cheap labor, are we tring not only to possess the cake, but devour it as well? If we believe people are pouring over the border to take our jobs, are we willing to work for the rate of pay they get? If we aren’t willing to work for that low rate of pay with no benefits, if we don’t want products to be expensive but aren’t willing to ask why, if we want to state an opinion that’s not based anywhere in fact, do we understand the consequential endgame that protrudes out our mouthhole? Do we treat each other as less human, so we can be treated as more human? Or do we simply not have one critically thinking bone in our body? When we talk out of both sides of our mouth, we’re still talking, but we’re not thinking. We can’t have cheap food without cheap labor. We can’t have cheap labor without illegal immigrants. We can’t have illegal immigrants if we weren’t always wanting more, and other people weren’t either. People come here to try making a better life, we should be making that easier by shortening the citizenship process. People will try to do us harm that’s true, but they come from every country around the world, not just the brown one to our south. If we love cheap labor but hate the illegal immigrants who provide that cheap labor, do we understand the magnitude of hypocrisy we’re projecting? If we don’t, maybe we should start treating ourselves like we treat others and see how far we get ahead” 🙂

From the mind of critic: “If we couldn’t reach the pedals on our first tricycle when we were a toddler, do we give up on ever riding a bike? Or do we believe that bikes were designed for other people to ride so they could enjoy successfully overcoming a challenge? Do we believe they weren’t designed for us, relegating us to permanent serfdom, where the only challeneges we overcome are the ones the bike deigners allow us to overcome? Or do we believe that although these bikes were designed for others it’s not going to stop us from riding, we’ll just adjust it and tweak it to fit our needs, because nobody is gonna tell us what we can and cannot do? We all get discouraged when something doesn’t work out like it’s suppossed to, or is made for somebody else entirely. Like how the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Once we realize that our neighbors grass might be greener, we’ll see that we can make ours green too, but with a little more effort. We must ask ourselves if we care more about the amount of effort we have to put in, or the results. If we care more about the effort we have to put in, why does it even matter what the results are if we’re so locked into jealousy and trying to one up our neighbor? Our tricycle might not be designed for us, but the only way we aren’t gonna ride, is if we refuse to tape blocks of wood to the pedals so we can reach them. We can ride, when we allow ourselves to move forward”

From the mind of critic: “If we’re all just bricks in the wall, who or what is the mortar that keeps those bricks together? Are some of us bricks that make up the wall, while some us are glue that holds it all together? Or do all of us make up the wall with the rich tapestries of our cultures, indentities and experiences? Do each of us contain the glue to hold us together, with some of us just being stickier than others? All of us humans have some level of d…etachment anxiety, as we pull ourselves away and out of the wall, ie. nature. The more we seperate from the natural state we ALL come from whether we admit it or not, the angrier we become with ourselves and our situation. If we don’t deal with this anger in a timely fasion, will trend our attention away from self reflection, and toward others. We can become hostile with other indviduals, thinking the only reason we have problems, is because they messed everything up. Once we get used to blaming others for our shortcomings, we’ll start picking out others who don’t look like us, don’t believe like us, and are from some place we’ve never heard of. As the battle between our tribal group and their tribal group heats up, we become more and more blinded to the beauty of the natural world we’ve neglected for to long. We forget that all of us make up that nature, and our collective inherent purpose is to take care of that nature. Once we see not only how we make up the wall, but how if we didn’t all serve our purpose the wall would fail, we’ll see how maortar is contained within all of us. Surprising ourselves doesn’t have to be scary, It can be what saves us. We just have to get out of our own way”

From the mind of critic: “If we take the same road day in and day out toward our intended destination, have we ever thought of a different road to get to that same intended destination? Do we think this different road will have unknown hazards and detours that will steer us 180degrees away from our intended destination? Or do we think this different road is just that, different, and it will lead to our intended destination simply from a different direction, just like many other roads would that we havent yet thought of? Sometimes we see life as all interconnected, and sometimes we see it as completely seperate, all part of life’s rich tapestry. Sometimes we see the route we’re going, as the solitary route to get where we want to go. Sometimes we see alternate routes to get to the place we want, but have never taken it, so we take the same old route we always have because it’s comfortable. Sometimes we struggle with this decision making process, thinking we’re the only soul on earth trying to decipher it. Sometimes we struggle with this decision, knowing full well many others are going through it also. Sometimes we see ourselves and others struggling, but think our destinations are completely seperate, which makes us further segregated and entrenched. Sometimes when we’re truly connected, we’ll see all our struggles as different, but realize they’re all headed in the same basic direction, ending up at the same basic place. We all may take different roads, but we’re all headed to the same basic place. We must remember that as we find our unique path to get where we’re going, we can’t borrow sombody else’s, and we can’t degredate or downplay a path that is different and with which we don’t agree, because it opens up our path to degredation. Once we see we’re all in this together, we’ll realize that none of us will get to that same basic place, unless we all do” 🙂

From the mind of critic: “If we believe flag burning should be illegal because it’s a symbol of America, and burning a flag is like burning America itself, do we care more about the symbol than the country? Do we care about the aura of rights, dignity and liberty of all people more than the actual practice when it’s put to the test? Or do we believe rights, dignity and liberty can only exist if it exists for all of us, especially the downtrodden and those we disagree with? Flag burning has been a controversial issue for a long time, and will continue to be for the forseeable future. We must ask ourselves if a symbol is more important than the meaning behind it. Do we care more about the illusion of freedom, then the practice of it? Do we want to feel safer, or do we actually want to be safer? There is a reason that free speech is not only in the bill of rights as the first ammendment, but also the first of five parts of that first ammendment. Without free speech, our democracy, our democratic republic, our great American experiement or whatever else we want to call it, would cease to exist. There is a reason dictators, despots, strongmen, warlords, facists and oligarchs all want to give their people a symbol, the illusion of freedom. That they can stand up and speak out for what they believe in, and get a token response from the government that they’re acting in support, all the while preventing big changes from happening. Further entrenching their power and influence through bread and circuses. When free speech starts getting trampled, the slippery slope toward facist dictatorship is not far behind. Do we believe in America enough to know that without dissent and protest, we would probably still be part of England? We might not believe that flag burning is an acceptable form of protest, but I’ll believe dollars to doughnuts that we believe in dictatorships even less. Free speech never has and never will mean only things we agree with” 🙂

From the mind of critic: “If projection is how we win in politics, and consciousness is how we win in real life, is it any wonder politicians tell us what we want to hear? Is it a sign of how messed up our political system is, that politicians hold one set of beliefs, but feel feel they have to publicize a different set of beliefs for fear of being rejected? Or is it a sign of how messed up our real life is, that we hold one set of beliefs, but display a different set for fear of being rejected? I had a political science teacher tell me way back, that the way the system is structured, there’s no way somebody could make it to a senior position without being a little crooked. Is it the same with life? Since our poltical system doesn’t make us, we make our political system, do we feel like we have to be crooked to succeed in life? Once we realize that listening to ourselves, and being honest with our thoughts and feelings, is how we can get over generationally ingrained issues, we’ll see projection dissappear because it’s simply seen as a means for covering up the truth. To fix our political system, we must fix our personal system. And to do that, we must realize that the more we tell people what they need to hear as opposed to what they want to hear, or what we think they want to hear, we’ll see that a perfect system doesn’t exist. But, if we’re trying to make our current system more authentic, we’re already halfway there. If we blame somebody else for what we’ve done, we can’t expect them to not blame us for something they’ve done. Responsibility, accountability and humanism will fix problems, as long as we start by looking in the mirror” 🙂

From the mind of critic: “If we drive the same road to work everyday, but then drive the same road on our day off, do we travel at the same speed? Do we drive with less urgency and more appreciation for our surroundings, when we’re not racing to punch a clock? Do we drive with more urgency and less appreciation of our surroundings, when we’re not racing to punch a clock? Do we ever realize that we’re traveling down the same road? So many of us fall into the same rut, organized by the same routine we follow day after day. Granted, life is basically chaos and we have to explain it in a way that makes sense to us, or we’ll be forever chasing the dragon. These routines allow us to go through life in a liveable way, but also fogs up our consciousness of the here and now when we do something outside of that routine. However, the best way to unfog our consciousness, is to never allow our routines to define who we are, just like we should never let our spontaneaity define who we are.This is where finding balance helps, because it ensures we have both routine and spontaneity, and not more or less of one or the other. How does this balance play out? Instead of driving to work on the same road day after day, we can find a different route. Instead of going with the flow of the wind everytime we’re not working, we should try planning out what we actually want to do. Then when we get used to switching things up, we’ll see that we don’t always have to switch up physical activity, sometimes we just have to switch up our mindset. We could do the same thing but look at it differently, or the same thing just on a different day. It’s all about staying conscious and how we feel, how we’re doing and what we’re thinking. We could drive down the same road a million times, but if we slow down to look, and think about what’s around us, the road will seem completely different. Life is all about the journey of discovery of joy, not about the destination of illusion we’ve built up. There might not be any there there, but having atleast a rough outline of a destination, allows our journey to thrive. A balanced journey does a body good” 🙂

From the mind of critic: “If we’re playing a board game whether we want to or not, do we roll the dice to see how many squares we move forward? Are we scared to move at all, for fear that our move won’t turn out the way we wanted? Do we choose not to roll because although we won’t move forward, we’re guaranteed to not move backward? Or do we roll the dice with fear, but since excitement overshadows that fear, we roll with gusto because although we may lose, we know we can’t win if we don’t play the game? Life is a game now and has always been a game, whether we want to admit it or not. This game involves risks that we can choose to take or not, and consequences that follow. Sometimes we even have goals, hopes and dreams that will make our life brighter if acheived. Once we realize that they can only be acheived if we take risks by getting out of our comfort zone, and reminding our soul we still have the ability to surprise ourselves, we’ll see that until we take that risk, that until we take that step into the dark tunnel specifiically so we can reach the light on the other side, we’ll be forever be staring down a dark hole with no way out. Life might be a game or a gamble, but if we don’t roll the dice to move forward, we’ll never move anywhere” 🙂