The simple minded machinations of a foolish man.
All of a sudden spammers are sending me thought provoking messages:
If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
The only possible form of exercise is to talk, not to walk.
Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd.
posted by Mitesh @ 3:26 PM
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The Tibetan book of the Dead provides a preliminary meditation for death. To always remember that death is imminent.
We all try to escape the inevitability of death or try to forget about it's presence. We try to cheat death or prolong it. Even on our deathbed we try not to feel the pain of death. Heidegger even notes in Being and Time (supplemental notes here) that even at a funeral, in the presence of a loved one's death, we don't even dare submit ourselves to it's power. Rather we find ourselves lulling about as if it almost did happen.
Facing death reveals your character and your character defines your story. Your story gives you a purpose for existing. It develops your character and refines you. When you truly have a purpose and humbly submit that to life, death and everything in between you give it your gold. And the Universe, your Soul will give you every single resource and challenge to help you complete that purpose. When you express and share it with everyone in a unique way (because everyone IS unique and infinite) without hesitation or fear you naturally attract those people who get it. They harmonize and resonate with your gift and presence. You become more than just a 'guy'. You are a man. A man of purpose. A man of true passion. And when you express it, you are truly radiant. Much, much more than the gold you gave.
I can go on and on about this. I can tell you about how women (truly beautiful women) are attract to this type of man. I can tell you have there have been a handful of men like this in the past. I can tell you about initiation rights in tribal societies designed to make you into a man. But more importantly I must tell you that you have to choose this. It is self initiation. No one else can tell you that you are ready. DON'T BE NEUTRAL! You might as well cut off your balls and throw then off a cliff if you plan on being neutral.
posted by Mitesh @ 3:30 PM
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After the turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, I attended a little family get together where this man sung several Bollywood hits.
I had absolutely no clue what any of these songs were as I've never liked Bollywood productions even though I've seen about a dozen of them. I can never quite understand what's going on, but I do know that there's a good guy, a bad guy, a woman, a fight scene and several dance scenes. That's the basic formula for any Bollywood movie.
But I digress. Several of these songs had some HI-LAR-IOUS moments in it. I was lucky enough to grab one such moment with my cell phone voice recorder. The glitch is, I don't know how to get it off the phone. But I promise I'll share the second I do.
posted by Mitesh @ 3:31 PM
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Today's Turkey Day. A day infamous for six hours of football, overeating and basic family tension. Thank God!
What I really love about Thanksgiving isn't the average culinary abominations or the drunken uncle visiting from his latest hobo adventure, but the start of the holiday shopping season. Yeah, yeah I know I saw X-mas advertisements on Halloween and the X-box 360 was launched earlier this week. But tomorrow is Black Friday. In it's customer-crowded infamy, I'm surprised so many people still make the trip to the malls, wait in line and buy, buy, buy!
Many people, egged on by Adbusters, have even reverted to taking passive protest actions deeming tomorrow Buy Nothing Day. What I really like that the average customer can re-empower themselves. Most people don't realize the constant and all pervasive messages we see probing us to buy the latest gadget, wear the newest, shiniest dress or flaunt that antique dodad.
So hooray for self-determination and empowerment of the people. I know that the average company doesn't really care about me beyond my checkbook. However, I give big props to companies that truly love their products: Google, American Apparel and Stormhoek. But how many people do you know define themselves through the products they use? Or better yet, how many people do you disqualify based upon the product they use? What you don't listen to LPs? Then you really don't appreciate music. Hey not wearing Campers? You're not old school. Never heard of Dale Chihuly? Well then you don't know art.
The complicated posturings we do never truly communicate our depth and our truth. Only through this do we ever show our strength, our innocence and our beauty. So dress well, enjoy your gadgets, have an ego, but don't forget, which is to say remember, we are eternal all this pain is an illusion.
Mitesh
posted by Mitesh @ 3:32 PM
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Today I flew into Austin Tejas... I haven't been back to Texas (as you Americans call it) in quite sometime. Austin is a lovely little town that is as vibrant as any city out there with out the pretension of NYC or GAP feel of Bean Town.
Any case, if you happen to make it down to Austin, check out the parks where you can pick up a game of Frisbee Golf with just about any hippie you want. Also stop by Barton Springs which is always 70 degrees! Means it's cool during the summer and warm during the winter. Today it's in the 70s so it perfect outdoors. I left NJ today where it was in the 40s. So to all those back on the east coast, neener-neener-neener!
At night time, go to just about any bar and you'll be pretty much guaranteed a pretty decent act. So I've gotta run, my sis and bro are bitching that we have to go shopping. Peace!
posted by Mitesh @ 3:36 PM
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Today I had Migas for the first time in about a two years. Migas is a wonderful multitasking meal that I've eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner and especially late night drunken food excursion.
Migas is not for the weak of stomach. Its a heavenly combination of tortilla chips. salsa and eggs scrambled together. Delicious. I like the eggs and chips smothered with green tomatillos salsa and a side of sausage.
If you make your way to Texas or the Southwest be sure to indulge your taste buds with this savory dish.
posted by Mitesh @ 3:34 PM
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This is one of the most interesting posts I've read in a long time. It's slightly ironic to read about a pimp being a gentlemen when most people I meet are trying to be pimp.
I had a long conversation with a friend of mine about how men and women interact. It's funny how so many people have forgotten the simplicity of sincerity. We want models, rock stars and so much more, but sometimes we just beg for sincere curiosity and some self-respect. We're always looking for lines or routines to run in order to meet some one, but a sincerely asked question with an honest pause after wards maybe plenty to meet a high caliber woman.
I hate how women assume I would only go after a woman because she's hot. But if she has no personality or, and this is far more important to me, doesn't have the capacity to trust me, then she's purely a waste of my time. And I've met plenty of nice women who just don't get me. And I've met plenty of bitches (and I use this term in the most loving way possible) who didn't even take a moment of their precious time to met me. That's cool with me because I can easily dust her off.
So what really makes a great woman? I'm trying to figure it out myself. Drop me a line if you know: 
mmaster.20005450@bloglines.com
posted by Mitesh @ 3:38 PM
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This is the MillionDollar Homepage. For $1 you can buy 1 pixel of space. They're sold in incriments of 10x10 pixels as a minimum. It has 10,000 squares available for purchase (100x100) making it a possible $1,000,000 homepage.
I would never click on any of these advertisements. Well, not when I'm at work. Or with anyone in the house. Or with my cat around. But I'm actually kind of curious to see if there's some funny sites on here.
Power to the marketplace!
posted by Mitesh @ 3:42 PM
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This is the MillionDollar Homepage. For $1 you can buy 1 pixel of space. They're sold in incriments of 10x10 pixels as a minimum. It has 10,000 squares available for purchase (100x100) making it a possible $1,000,000 homepage.
I would never click on any of these advertisements. Well, not when I'm at work. Or with anyone in the house. Or with my cat around. But I'm actually kind of curious to see if there's some funny sites on here.
Power to the marketplace!
posted by Mitesh @ 3:39 PM
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Despite all that, I still wanted to see what she had to say. So I clicked on over to the original blog post.
What really caught my eye were the sentences before Ramit's excerpt.
"...I've had to pay out-of-pocket for random-ass surgeries, medical equipment, car wrecks, and funerals, to name a few. Rich people don't think like me because they don't know this desperation - and that's why they get richer."
The Middle
Now I'm fully aware of this desperation. I've broken my foot while working at a just above minimum wage job. My health insurance hadn't kicked in yet. I had mortgage payments I couldn't afford and debt that piled up from both ignorance and negligence. Woe was me.
All that time though, I've been privy to the financial gifts of my parent or others around me. It's not easy to admit. But it's been there for me. In the past, I've sucked with money. I've had no sense of its worth, where it comes from and what it was for other than to give me some things I wanted. It was nice to be able to buy a 27" TV, but that doesn't really mean anything to me.
I've never cared for money, well not the way my parents did. Money was first and foremost because it served the family. Fair enough. But it stole them from me. And I hated it. I hate corporate America for that basic reason. Hell, I hate my parents for that reason. But they did what they felt was right. But it was their relationship with money that created my hatred for it. (Oddly enough, I'm fucking awesome at spending money.)
Because of that, I always saw rich people as cheats. Some see them as people who don't work hard or were give that fate or something else. But I saw them as polluters, thieves and charlatans. There's plenty of evidence to back that up. There's a saying that behind every fortune there's a crime. Hell, I worked for Enron.
The End
Recently, my whole relationship with money has changed. For the better. If you've been following along, you've seen me post what I feel is different between wealthy and rich.
Now's a new twist. What does it mean to be prosperous. For me, its intimately tied with your purpose in life which transcends your need for survival, procreation or fulfilling your ego. Rather, it is and always has been a service to something far greater than you.
Prosperity is the acknowledgement of the greater community, of life affirming your mission. It validates your purpose by giving you the resources you need. And why wouldn't it. Life said yes to you. Years ago. It chose you. It gave you awareness. It gave you self-awareness. One of our most cherished, and all to often forgotten human characteristics. Why would life want you to have poverty? Poverty is man made. Happiness is our birthright. Holiness and wealth, true riches are our birthright.
The Challenge
By no means has my new found relationship with money coalesced into something tangible. And you can doubt me all you want. And that's fine. I accept your doubt. I just hope you pray I see past it anyways.
But the real challenge is not to be that polluter or cheater or charlatan. I have to be so much more to be the man I need to be. I need to fill my world with gifts of adoration. I don't know if I will do this, but that I must.
This much I do know. I know I will not carry on a tradition of scarcity. I will not carry on a tradition of just scraping by. I will not, I will not, I will not. That is not my legacy. I would rather die than give up.
posted by Mitesh @ 3:43 PM
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posted by Mitesh @ 3:46 PM
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I came across Pandora which is a music service based upon the data compiled in the Music Genome Project. All boring stuff aside, Pandora asks you to enter a song you like, breaks it down based upon basic musical qualities and cross references that data with their database. What seems to emerge is a whole shit load of pure goodness.
I entered 46&2 a song by Tool and the inspiration for the title of this blog. After several minutes (yeah... way too long!) they returned one selection. The selection wasn't what inspired me as they explicitly stated they were going to play a song from Tool to start me off. Rather it was the in depth description provided that blew me away. Read on dear reader:
"Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features hard rock roots, mild rhythmic syncopation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, minor key tonality and demanding instrumental part writing."
I've used several other referential services like Rhapsody and eMusic to help me gain a sense of what I'd like. Needless to say if I entered Tool, I'd always get something like A Perfect Circle or the Deftones. No problem with that, but they don't necessarily share the same musical components.
So then came the real test. What songs will play next? The Ritual by Testament came on next. Never really heard of it even though I've heard of Testament even though I've never really explored their catalog. It's pretty decent. What I'm hoping for was a little more base and drumming which is something I love about Tool. So at this point I could vote it down or up. Let's find out what happens when I vote it down.
So it moved me right on to the next song by Anthrax. Pretty good. A little more hard pounding than Tool, but still classic metal.
All in all, I'm very hopeful and looking forward to being able to test this service.
Disclaimer: I have always had and always will have better taste in music. This is a fact. There are no opinions here. Your ability to differentiate complex sounds make you tonal peon and you deserve a fate worse than death. May the dark lords of Ragnarök hunt your morbid soul till the ends of the earth and feast upon your flesh. So it is written.
I feel almost morally obliged to reference you to my source for Pandora. While it doesn't really talk to much about the service, it does talk about the creator and his past business. Very intriguing if you like to hear how persistence is one of the keys to success.
Update: Apparently the service is getting pounded and crashes on occasion. Not exactly best selling point. I definitely won't be paying any money for this till they get that fixed.
There is one feature I wish I could work with. What if they categorized all their attributes (from above we have the attribute subtle use of vocal harmony from the vocal category) and let me pick which ones I wanted. Then it would return a list of groups that met this criteria. I couldn't imagine picking more than 4 or 5 attributes for a song unless I was trying to break the system.
posted by Mitesh @ 12:37 PM
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I was reading a blog this morning, trying to decide if it's for me. While exploring the archives, I came across this post.
Now I don't normally give up on something just because it happens to have a topic I don't care for... But for Christ's sake! This is Hanson. I thought they were dead or sent to the moon.
Hanson happened to play in a local mall about an eternity ago. I was high school at the time. So a few of my friends decided they'd try to cause some sort of ruckus. The audience was relegated to the first floor with Hanson looking from on high on the second floor. All access to the second floor was closed off. Which is great because you don't want to fuck with Hanson. Conveniently placed for my friends was a little indoor water fall. So before the show started they scaled that mutha.
I don't know how they got away with it. But they were up there and all proud of themselves. They really stuck it to the man. After their five minutes alone with Hanson they remembered that Hanson sucked so they were getting ready to leave. But Hanson was already on stage and there was earthly escape. They beckoned their hellish demise resulting the dreadful machinations of the harpies known as Hanson. Sorry... you wanted that in English. HA! They suck! They had to listen to HANSON for over an hour! Suckers!
posted by Mitesh @ 12:41 AM
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I was reading a bit about Social Security and came across this wonderful graph.
Can anyone find what's wrong with it? This is just one of the worst graphs I've ever seen. Well other than this one.
Alright... I just wanted a kitty picture.
posted by Mitesh @ 12:41 PM
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On the way into work today I saw a sign that said "TRUCK VS. BRIDGE"
All I could think of was...
"SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!!! SEE TRUCK VS. BRIDGE! In an all out battle royal. come for the devastation. Stay for the mayhem!"
I think the bridge won.
posted by Mitesh @ 12:42 AM
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I was reading one man's description of a hurricane:
Finally by daybreak the noise was so deafening even I couldn’t sleep.Wow! My entire body shuddered in awe as I read about the sheer power of a hurricane.
I think there's something admirable about people who are able to be swept away by something powerful. It's so emancipating. I'd imagine death is just like that.
posted by Mitesh @ 12:43 PM
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I was listening to the local alternative radio station in NYC and they raised an interesting question.
"Would you rather lose a hand or be impotent?"
C'mon guys? It's only a hand... right? Easy enough. This was also with the little caveat of successful raising of the flag, so to speak, every one in five chances.
Then the next question.
"Be impotent or... lose a leg."
No just to the knee but all the way up to the hip.
This raised some eyebrows. Most of the men would still lose a leg and all the women thought it was kind of weird.
And then the best question. The one that divided the men.
"Would you rather be impotent or blind?"
The whimsical circumstances went flying about with no stop in sight. How will I manage to get around the city? What does it matter if I can't see the chick? What's the point of living?!?!?!
But it got me thinking. (God forbid I actually do that!) It's really interesting how we connect our potency to our value, which all men do and the limits to which we relate our potency to our world around us.
Hear me out! Guys have such a limited view of beauty in general. Imagine not being able to see how hot the chick is. That's cool. I'm like every other man out there and really enjoy a well dressed women. But a woman who holds her self with grace and radiates with love is extremely rare! Now that's fuckin' beautiful.
And of course my potency, my ability to be a man, is very important to me. And it is very much so connected to my genitals. And personally, I'd rather not be alive without them. But the depth through which we channel our potency is limited. "Look, look hunny! I got it up!" But that's only 6" and I'm 6' of man. My potency travels through all my entire body. With each breath, I try to breathe it in and exhale it out. The Taoist call it a bubble spring. Indian Yogis have all sorts of techniques to channel it up the spine. But we're still in awe of just having genitals.
I wonder if they would ever ask "Would you rather be impotent or let go of your heart?" I guess most people think we're only here to procreate. And maybe we are. But it sounds kind of viral. And some of my greatest moments have been really relating to my heart. Personally, I'd rather be dead than let go of either. I would never be me again. And death is a welcomed alternative because at least I would die with a little dignity and grace.
posted by Mitesh @ 12:44 PM
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Today at work I needed a file list. What I got was a screen capture printed out spanning several minutes and numerous trips to the printer.
How disappointing. I don't know when we forgot the power of a line command but a simple dir command with the appropriate slashes would out put it to a text file. Boo hoo.
posted by Mitesh @ 12:45 PM
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If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll notice I talk quite a bit about wealth and how it's different from being rich.
When I was younger, my dad always said I should have been born into a rich family. I always thought that was obliquely condescending. I don't see it that way anymore. I've recently accepted my subconscious tendencies towards kingliness, I've even been told by a young women that I have the worst God complex she'd ever seen. I've decided that I'd rather not be like average kings of past.
Kings tended to get caught up in the daily forays of "being with money". We have Louis XIV whose extravagance was the talk of Europe during the 16th century in the mean while there was a great poverty festering beneath the surface. Many politicians of the day don't realize their duties to the people and further aggravate the divide by pretending to understand the proletariat plight.
On the other hand, my dad comes from a distinctly peasant's background. This doesn't in anyway mean he's not a hard working, smart man. But the way he relates to money is very much so the some one who has money. Yes, people with money are able to manage it, but they are also able to simplify the daily nuisances of existence. Now, according to Maslov's theory, once these basic needs are met, we are beckoned to higher callings. But that's for you to decide.
Anyone who thinks they deserve money and have money owe it to their hard work, their ingenuity and most importantly the people they leverage to create that fortune. It seems so often that people cheat their network that they HAVE to forget their network to retain a seed of conscience.
Oddly enough, I could argue that my father instilled these kingly tendancies at a young age when he showered up with fine dining, again relatively fine dining, travel and other luxuaries. Other luxuaries.... I never owned a Nintendo which is rare for a 10 year old growing up in suburbia in the 80s. Regardless, all these are totally irrelavent to the obvious disconnect.
I DON'T HAVE A LOT OF MONEY. Quite the contrary. Well not relative to the average American, but to my peer group and the way I was raised. AND I HAVE KINGLY TENDANCIES. Through my college and early professional years, I tried to manage and tie down my kingly nature: keep reciepts, limit my buying, watch interest rates... all in all very frugal activities. But I'd rather focus on my passions in life which are far more imporant to me. They are the root of who I am. It's because of my kingly nature that I was able to relate to other in a compassionate way. I feel everyone deserves abundance. How do I share abundance if I don't have it myself?
My calling is to step myself up to a level of true kingliness. I have an image of what a man ought to be and it never involved Inboxes, Quicken or suburbia. My vision had yearnings for a sense of peace, community and destiny. Where we are all kings, queens, magicians, warriors and artists. And I fill myself with this everyday and when I start to finally burst at the seams, my vision, my heart, my abundance pours out without any restraint for all to drink.
Who says I have a God complex? It's complicated enough to have this yearning.
posted by Mitesh @ 12:46 PM
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I've never really been able to fit myself into a single thought. I'm just a little curious, adventerous and a bit of a dreamer. With time, discipline and great luck, I hope to become a great man.
