Future Music

I spent a couple of months back in small town Oklahoma this year, and I had a vision. I'm guessing that due to the freedoms resulting from being a really small town, they have a kickass radio station. Being a small station affords them a level of interaction with the community that larger stations just don't have the freedom to enjoy. Probably because the money in radio is relative to the size of your audience, but it's not good enough to pay for the manpower required for low ratio staff to consumer style interactions.

At any rate, America is full of these small towns, and these small towns are full of kids with big dreams. In a materialistic society, they're worse off than those in urban areas to the extent of in person activities and entertainment. They're the kids raised by people trying to find a nice place to raise kids.

So, with local radio stations, local bands, and youtube - we don't really need record labels anymore. Everyone has the technology, or could with a little new-industry teamwork. Your plusses and shares are how you'll pay for future music. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd - people sharing the stuff to which only they have access and is of high quality is valuable to the network.

1. GO TO LOCAL MUSIC EVENTS
2. Find the good ones.
3. Pimp their youtube videos on the your social network.
Share what's good.

There's nothing you like about paying for music unless you're deriving your pleasure from your purchasing power. No one likes having to sell out to make money. We have the technology to get rid of the parasitic middleman between creator-content-consumer.

The Benefits of a Slippery Mind

Firmly held beliefs have no power over a slippery mind.

What you see is what you get 

So choose very carefully what you see

You can slip into believing anything

Some people slip into paranoia - that's a fun ride

If you don't want to enjoy the roller coaster

That's a choice

You can be bored, scared, or having the time of your life.

All valid options based on your subjective perspective.

A slippery mind can ride emotions, then slide upwards and watch itself enjoying the ride. 

It can surf the emotional chaos and put the board where it wants it.

Being mindful that your subjective perspective is subjective - you can change your perspective to one that sees your current situation as a gift, not a curse. But it's not easy.

What's the best way to #endthedrugwar ?

By Grizwald Grim

No matter which side of the issue you're on - the evidence says that the drug war has been a complete failure.

So, hopefully we can all agree that it needs to end, and we need to try something else. I mean, if you actually care about your fellow countrymen struggling with addiction.

Here's the best way I could come up with to end the drug war:
You take all the money spent on jailing your fellow countrymen on solely drug-related charges (excluding violent and fatal related charges) and make rehab centers.

Then, you completely decriminalize all drugs, and pay people struggling with addiction to go to the rehab centers. Do we have statistics on the number of working people that are functional addicts seeking help? How do you support a family and go to rehab? How can you afford the freedom to get the help you need.

The tax dollars are paying for the addicts room and board sooner or later. Why not sooner?

Would it work?
I'd have to see the numbers crunched (tax dollars currently spent on arresting, charging, trying (sp), convicting, sentencing, incarcerating, housing, feeding, 'healing' addicts during the course of the incarceration vs. the projected cost of the 'pay addicts to get help' program.

Just don't forget to factor in that every addict incarcerated not only costs X tax dollars - and also however much they would be paying in taxes if they had been able to get the help they need before the situation got that bad/(the government needed to meet its quota)

and I know it's not the case that everyone incarcerated on drug related charges is an addict - but I think it will pitch better to the right if it's worded like this - possible change in next draft.

Unabashedly You

"Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is.." - John Milton

I was first exposed to this via The Crow. It turned out to be one of my Sticky Things.

As of now, I'm coming around to the idea that the way I want to live is Unabashedly. I already know I'm a product. That's how Google and Facebook work. They get my data, apparently give it to the government, and sell it to advertisers.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
That's a trick question. Being 'something' is playing a role. There will always be someone better a playing a given role than you. Roles are masks we wear, trying to be something to someone. Pull the mask off. Be yourself. That's the one thing no one will ever be better at than you.

Quantum Entanglement and Mental Illness

Through the network, I'm connected to some brilliant minds. I may just plus-tag them in so they hear the compliment. Here, see for yourself: https://plus.google.com/communities/109257599738414342408/members

+John Kellden has assembled the most inspiring group of people I've ever encountered in my 35+ years of life. This is my network. Somehow, I got in, and now we exchange thoughts on the regular. We also exchange them on the irregular and just flat out weird. There's a special category for 'deep stuff'. Today's post there by +Bruce Marko
https://plus.google.com/115590411932376027038/posts/BR5qE5gSWuy
..covers the fundamentals for where I'm going with this.

Here's an anecdote from my outer network, but I'm not naming names as it came from a heated debate. The debate took place in my reshare of _this_ video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eOScYBwMyAA

"There is no such thing as mental illness" is a direct challenge to a held belief. Thanks to cognitive dissonance, that means the debates about such things can get pretty heated. Someone new someone who's life had imploded and 'mental illness' was the culprit. To challenge that belief, about the thing that hurt someone very close to them, understandably was pretty upsetting. In the initial response she plainly stated there was NO WAY she could be convinced by someone citing statistics.

Her friend could see and talk to angels and demons, and was tormented by that ability to the extent that rendered her unable to function in our society. So, maybe she had mental illness. Maybe she didn't.

I bring this up because, quite frankly, I don't believe most crazy people are crazy. Actually, I think our definition of crazy is just... crazy broad. Of course, I'm intentionally excluding cases that result from traumatic brain injury. However, you should see this case of traumatic brain injury if you haven't already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU
(if you have any I should see, please let me know in the comments)

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy,frequency and vibration. - Nikola Tesla

So, let's talk frequency. A good deal of the channeled material (see: http://www.tuninginmovie.com/ 'Spirit Channelers in America') talks about our conscious experience in terms of tuning in a frequency. Increasing our vibration.

I see no reason that our minds aren't similar. Bipolar? Maybe that just means that your wave is of greater amplitude than most. You have higher highs and lower lows, but everyone is on a wave.

In that conversation I stated the following, and this belief continues unshaken:

I believe your friend has extrasensory input, true input, that most of us have learned to filter. Her understanding of this input is based on growing up in a society that doesn't receive this input. Therefore, this input is translated by her mind in potentially incorrect and harmful ways. She doesn't have the mental tools necessary to integrate these perceptions in a meaningful fashion. 

Until we accept the possibility that some forms of mental illness are from inputs we aren't taught to recognize, the data from those perceptions will always manifest in ways considered by society to be 'mental illness'. 

If you think you can shake it, by all means try. I'm trying to build a scientifically sound belief structure, after all. There's just so much _beyond_ what we know about the universe that to assume it's null requires too much faith for me.

Maybe we should quit treating crazy people like crazy people. Maybe they're just quantum entangled with information that can't process given their life experiences. Maybe they're just tuning in on a frequency we haven't learned to recognize as a species...yet.