harold_maude's journal

Over the last week I've read more news articles than I can remember doing in a very long time.
It's pretty much swallowed every single day up. Maybe not the best thing to do with a week, but it happens.

What I've following are the protests and their connected stories. There are a lot of those.
The main one I've been following is the occupation of wall street which from what I can tell, is about a variety of wants due to frustration brought on as the aftermath of the bail out of wall street by the us government which ended up being billed to the rest of the American citizens.
It was a crappy deal that didn't need to happen.

That became evident when it was reported that all these CEO's got these huge bonuses, that's actually where the majority of the money went to.
The people were pissed, and rightly so and have demanded that the government get answers, do something, fix the economy, help we need help your drowning us now with debt that congress decided to say yes to. So the occupation of wall street has genuine validity to it.

The problem has been that there wasn't some sort of one single demand made and it's just been a series of marches and camping out for almost a week now by mostly over educated under paid college students, who are showing the world this interesting process of giving everyone a voice.
The general assembly meetings they have are interesting to listen to. One person will speak and everybody repeats what they say. That's to ensure that every body has heard what has been said.

There have been arrests. For stupid things, one of which is a very old law that basicly says that in New York wearing a mask is only lawful if your going to a masked ball or costume party.
Doing it outside of that is only allowed one person at a time.

The cops have been looking for ways to incite people to violence so that they can respond. It hasn't worked so far.
Finally yesterday they came up with a list of demands. It's kind of long, but there are valid demands.

I've been reading about the protests going on else where in the world at the same time, and about a man named Troy Davis who was executed by the state of Georgia in spite of the huge amount of reasonable doubt about whether or not he killed a cop several years ago. He was a black man by the way which figures into the bottom line of all of this.
Georgia is one of the states in this country that is still highly racially dominated in pretty much everything.
There were thousands of petitions and thousands of letters written to the governor and even the president of the us. The pleas were ignored and they went ahead with the execution.
The very next day a white guy who was slated to die has his sentence commuted to life because he said he was guilty but really, really sorry for his crimes.
Troy Davis never stopped saying he didn't do what he was accused of, and there was enough evidence to show that he didn't shoot the cop.
So in the end this was clearly the modern form of execution due to race.

Since the main stream media here is owned by big business it's very hard to get any real news stories about most of the protesting that's happening here and around the world.
This has provided opportunity for small independent news media to actually get heard.
Which is good actually. It's part of the change that has been taking place since 2008. All of this whole mess that has reverberated from the bail out, has begun to make people start to realize that dependence on government and large corporations is a really dead end.
The realization that we are the people we've been crying out for to rescue us from the mess is starting to actually hit home.
It's good.

It's been a long week. I've decided to take a few days break from all of it because it's been an over load of information.
I need time to digest it all and get some things done that have been neglected because I've gotten so caught up in all of it.
I hope everyone has a peaceful and fun weekend.

Not that it means much at this point, but it is Friday. The feeling of being wandering and lost hasn't left the building in so long now that I'm thinking I should just start charging rent to the thing.

I finally got access to a good hi def camera and took pictures of all the art I have left which numbers in the neighborhood of about 300 pieces.
It's all the stuff from over the last 11 years of study. I decided to do an anthology of it because I seriously needed to see something concrete from the last 11 years of trying and hitting walls.
I got the normal and very few remarks of how it was liked.
I stopped believing that years ago when people would say that and then never buy anything.
I came to the conclusion that saying the word like in reference to someone's art is just bullshit.
I've repeated myself that I hate compliments that are given out of fear that I will be offended.
I've also said very clearly, if you hate it, say so..don't hand me a fake compliment because it's believed that all artists have thin skins and can't handle the truth about their work.
But alas no one listens.

This repeating thing has made me rather cynical about what people say to my face about my work. I know for sure that people like something I've made when they buy it.
That's something tangable and real.
I have stopped complimenting the work of other artists if I can't buy something that I actually like from them.
If that crap bothers me, why do that to another artist.
So I tend to look a lot and admire other people's work, but since I don't have the money to buy it, I tend not to say much of anything at all.
But that's just me I think. I think most artists love compliments as it gives some kind of excitement and generates energy to keep doing the art. Not me. I'm a screwed up weirdo I guess.

My sister told me about this guy who is a friend of hers who is really big in the art world (he has connections) and this guy has money. She told him about my work and directed him in my direction.
I told her I didn't expect him to say anything about my art because that's the way it goes.
She kept trying to tell me other wise. So now we get to see if she is right about this guy or I am.
My gut feeling says that he isn't going to say a single word.
But as always I could be wrong.

I've been putting applications and getting the same answer back that I've gotten from so many others. We are taking our time picking here and it will be a while before we make our decision...fuckers, don't waste my time. That answer they give me says to me that they are trying to be nice but don't want to just flat out tell me I'm not what they are looking for...it makes me feel like I meet more liars than honest people.
And what it does to my trust of people is shatter it more and more.
I seriously have thought about just walking off out into some off place that has no people so I can at least enjoy nature with out someone saying something that is nothing but a lie in a nice suit.

anyway, I'm not in the best frame of mind. Funny thing is I don't care anymore that I'm not. Go figure.

It's Sunday morning and all is quite and still. It's still too early for the morning birds to start singing.
It feels like I'm the only one in the world awake at this moment.
Because it's Sunday the traffic won't start for a little while.
So I will enjoy the feeling for a little while.

The job ended yesterday. I joined a long list of people who have exited the place. I was in the group of the last 4 that got fired in the last two weeks.

Out of all the people who have gotten fired from the place over the last 6 months, only one person got fired for any kind of real reason. The one person who got fired for the right reason was a head cook in one of the kitchens because of sexual harrassment directed at one of the kitchen managers.
At the time I remember being impressed by this. A woman actually getting supported by a boss.

As the months passed what ever impressed I was with the boss quickly faded to frustrating disgust with the realization that the boss was nothing more than a self serving greedy pig.
Over the months the people he liked the best started changing and becoming more accomidating to his wants.
It's a hard thing to watch people become ugly. One girl in particular, a 20 something young woman has changed into this lying monster.
Maybe it was there already inside her. It just needed a good asshole to bring it out to the surface. Her last target of garbage was directed at the marketing director over something really trivial and childish.

Her male counter part in this weird and very twisted place has changed as well. When the place started last December he had a sense of honor and seemed like a strong choice for the role of general manager. Over the months he's become this arrogant dog of the boss. His latest victim was an older guy who some how was a threat to the younger guy.
I'm very sure he was the only one in the place to feel that in the whole place.
Another trivial thing was blown up into this massive violation and the older guy got fired.

In all the things I saw while I was there the one that has me the most puzzled is why this one boss has been allowed to do so much damage. He's one of 4 owners, 3 of which are seasoned business owners. Out of all of them, the one with no experience in running a business is the one who was put in charge of running the business.
It has occured to me that this business was set up by a group who have too much money and needed a really good tax write off.
This possiblity for some who have considered this is too far fetched because one of the owners is a high ranking member of the Mormon Church. A bishop isn't suppose to be looking for ways around paying taxes. They are suppose to be honorable sorts of people who lead by example.
I've been to one of his other businesses and have read what they hold up for the world to see.
They do charity work and this and that and on top of that the prices for their food is pretty much the same as every other place in that class of trough houses in this town.
On top of that he's a nice guy.

That's the glitch, the fact that he's a nice guy. But I've seen another nice guy do things business wise that were completely anti nice. This other nice guy let a whole flock of sheep die from wet tail. That nice guy refused to buy medicine to cure the problem. There were lots of lambs that died needlessly. I remember thinking how could a nice guy do something so ugly and needless? The answer was that he and his partner needed a tax write off because there was way too much money that needed protecting.

If I hadn't known about the sheep and what happened it would have been too unbelievable to be true. The lesson is that even nice can be nothing more than a surface illusion.

To possibly act as a cover for this failed business scheme the business was started last year. It was started the last month of December making it as close to the start of the new year as possible to avoid being started for the ultimate purpose of making a business fail. Which would provide a way to keep more of the money that they each have.

While I know it's impossible to know the reasons for all the things that are so obviously idiot about the business I just got fired from, the conclusion is either one of two things. Either they are all really morons who happened to have dumb luck with other businesses and decided to help another person have the same sucess or they are all rather under handed guys who cook up schemes to make lots and lots of money.

In looking at the players in this weird nightmearish drama the business in the worst case of the two choices, the business on the surface looks very much like the what was going on at the farm where the sheep died.
To the right people the farm looked like a shining example of what an organic research farm is suppose to look like.
Under that surface however anything goes to accomplish the goal.
It's all really ugly and twisted. Inspite of the fact that I have to do the job hunt again, I am glad to be free of the place. The people who have not become what the one owner wants are the people I feel the worst for. As long as they remain there they will suffer at what appears to be madness unleashed on something really good, on the surface.

This post was edited by harold_maude on Jun 05, 2011.

The last few years have been this crazy ride. All over, everywhere things are happening at an amazing pace. Life in various displays are being laid out for the world to see.
Thanks to the internet we have access to more information than is held in any library anywhere.
Unless you count the internet as one huge fluid library.

I've begun to think of it that way. A moving library of shadows of all of us.
Information about anything is floating around out there. We have painted a picture of life in the last part of the 20th and the first part of the 21st centuries.
We have painted this picture for the universe to see.

I've been involved as of late in several discussions about life, about choices among other things.
I have watched the people here and have listened to them. There are more people here who have very little clue as to any bigger picture that is not only encroaching but sitting on top of them as I write this.

The unnammed discomfort that exists, the unhappiness that exists, and all the things that go wrong in any given day is a common thing here.
I've watched illnesses travel through this area and yet there are some of us who rarely experience illness.
Why?

Why as in what makes this possible? I've come to understand over the last several years that I am in partnership with this body and it is to my benefit to listen to what my body is saying and pay attention rather than listen to someone or someones who have no clue as to who I am, let alone that I exist.
They don't know me. Even though we are connected, there is a lack of understanding that when people do things that don't benefit anyone, except themselves.
This is a direct result of the very first time people made the move to expand and move away from the group or family.

There is a move that has been going on for some number of years to bring the family back while at the same time the move to disconnect and be individual has been being played out.
When the mobile phone became a mainstream part of daily life, the process became easier.
Now it is not uncommon for family and group to be scattered all over the world and still be able to talk to and see each other via this technology.

In these discussions there has been the subject of thought and words and the effect they have.
It has been suggested that we make life as we go along. I tend to agree with this. The question of what is life is not just a simple question anymore.
It is a rather big and very complex question. The reason this is so is because the question affects everything.

It affects and is effected upon by our choices, our traditions,even down to how we interact with others of the human race.

This coupled with this place that I work at has made for an interesting time.
I have been challenged to live in the present and decide how each day will be.
I've been further challenged to see this making of life in single moments.
That's a rather large order.

It's a large order because it requires discipline. It's frustrating at times because I don't think life should be such a hard struggle.
What I mean by that is that it should not be a needed thing to have to make a choice every day to have a good day no matter what other people are doing or not doing.

I have to though because what I see going on around me makes me angry most of the time because it lacks so much common sense.
If I allow the anger to be what makes my life for this day, life for this day is going to be miserable and that opens the way for hard feelings.
It makes living life harder in that it makes life more work than it should ever be.

Circumstances are what they are. How we live is what it is and when the choice is made to have a good life no matter what the circumstances are is the goal.
There is so much information traffic going on right now that in order to get through the day in a good state of mind, the choice of deciding to have a good day is required.
It makes me angry. But trying to tell people that this should have to be this way has proved to be difficult. There are many people who are not listening and don't want to listen.
Another deep frustration to deal with.

I finally realized not very long ago that I had to live and make life good for myself. I also learned that doing that had to be good enough.
I've spent years wanting to make a difference. I've lived life to that end. I never needed to be thanked for doing that.
After running into so many people who are more interested in taking from others so that they can stay in the mode of self destruction than in changing behaviors and in doing so make a better life for themselves, that I have come to the conclusion that I can only make a real difference in my own life.
Knowing how energy moves from and event of choice, I can be sure that it will have an effect.
I have to be content with that. It has to be enough. It has to be what it is.
I want to have a good life.

In the different fields of energy moving around everywhere, there are times when I have become suddenly aware of a small change.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one feeling it when it happens. Then I remember how many people there are on the planet and I think "with that many people on the planet, there has to be others who felt this too".
That is unless I've completely lost my mind, in which case, what I feel and even think really doesn't matter to what is going on in the world.

This process happens every single time I feel an awareness of something happeing around me. When I feel it internally, my first thoughts are ok so what do I need to do now that I'm feeling this inside. I've had to learn how not to take on what's out there and try to make it change to suit my particular flavor of how the world should run. Because I love wisdom so much, my flavor of how the world should run is the want to see people live and act with wisdom as their guide through life. It would be lovely to see common sense become the normal way things are approached and adressed.
I want these things for all of humanity. I know I can't force anyone to look at what they do and figure out if what they are doing is healthy for them or not.

That doesn't mean that I don't want to try to make a difference. The understanding about making a difference is that there is a possiblity of being part of making change happen with out being rude or pushy about it.

This is on my mind this morning because since the first of this year I have been noticing lots and lots of things happening and none of them seem to be comming from us people. They seem to be happening in the energy fields that we co-exist with.
The other day I was minding my own business when I felt this faint grinding and shifting, like the gears on a clock that all of a sudden, after years of not moving, suddenly move forward a couple of notches.
It was strong enough for me to feel it and be surprised by it.
This morning I felt another tiny shift. This one gave me the feel of something being scrambled up.
Because they happened so close together, I am now on the look out for it to happen again. If it doesn't, then those two things were just random.

If another one of these thing happen I will look at all three and compare notes of each of them and look for similar patterns.
If there is, that's a clue of something that is important in some way. Then next step is to try to figure out what it's important to.

If it keeps happening, that tells me that it's part of what is happening in terms of everyone and everything on the planet.
It's a process that I go through that does help keep me from running off somewhere and hiding in a cave because the world is too big and crazy right now.
Some days the world feels like this giant blender going haywire complete with sparks flying everywhere and I'm standing there looking up at what's happening.

Most days anymore are a mixture of relief that humanity hasn't blown it self up with all the explosive tinker toys that we have laying around the planet, and wonderment at watching people go completely sideways. It's like watching a circus go bad.
I keep waiting for the good to take over for a while so that balance can happen. I've learned by watching nature and the seasons that there is always a balance in nature.
We arn't exempt from the same requirements. We live here and are apart of nature too, so somewhere and at some time, good has to become the dominate way of living. When nature brings balance it's done in this flow that just works.
The move and push to good will happen on it's own, in people all over.

Knowing how people tend to be when something starts leading them, I'll look for an increase in the number of gurus, teachers, guides, and wanna be leaders. More than there are all ready.
There's been a rise in those kinds of people steadily over the years, however, the push to bring the balance, will be more in a clustered fashion, they will show up on the scene all pretty much at the same time. It will be alot like watching a great talent compition.
The real ones of those people will have no need of trying to get people to listen to them. The evidence of the move will be that people will actually listen to what is being said and will take the good and change their lives with that knowledge, simply because it means a better quality of life for themselves and every one else that they know or meet.

Well, now that I've drained my mind some, I've got a day to get on with. It's sunny and the sky is blue. Here's hoping that today is warmer than than yesterday.

They come every box of garbage bags. They arn't long enough to really do much besides try to keep the bag together on the way to the trash.
I quit trying to use them because tying the bag works better.
So what to do with the sheets of those twist ties that have found a home in a box? I could speak of them in hushed tones, as though they were worth more than being an extra in a box with garbage bags. I could speak of them as though they were the most priceless object of art.
That might not be a far off idea when I think about the art that Damien Herst creates. Sharks in formaldehyde. He just put the two things he didn't create inside a very large tank, and wa bam! We got art!
Or how about the bananna this other guy injected with his urin and they put the thing on a window sill in a dutch museum. The article said they were asking 15 thousand pounds. Go figure.
I could never understand the politics of art galleries.
Being an artist it puzzles me to no end.

I should do something down right strange. Like let a bowl of oatmeal rot and take pictures of the daily demise of said oatmeal and send the lot of dying oatmeal pictures to some gallery. It wouldn't surpise me at all if people went nuts over it and called it something stupid like "real genius".

Ah well, back to the growing collection of twisty ties.
They have paper on wire and that's suppose to be something useful.
I'll figure out something to do with them. After all if a feminist group can make a chandilere out of tampax, I should be able to come up with something crazy out of twist ties...

I think it's been winter for too long..