Saturday, December 28, 2013

Choices



Choices

Ever since I studied the martial art Tae Kwon Do with my daughters way back when, I have pondered creating a simple graphic to model the choices we, as humans, face every day. I regard making choices with positive outcomes to be a skill just like every other, and I often wondered why some people seem to automatically, on balance, make beneficial choices, while others seem to complicate their lives with choices that generally result in negative outcomes for themselves and others around them.

Why do some people wind up alone, sick, alcoholic and living in a cardboard box? Yes, I agree that some folks are born into affluence while some are disadvantaged by poverty. But, conversely, some wealthy people make choices that render them on the skids, while some poor kids wind up being successful adults with many choices to make, most of them good choices.

So, I think I’ve finally “cracked the code” with this iconic, minimalistic chart I came up with yesterday. I purposefully decided not to use words on the chart since I’m a visual kind of bloke and I think icons are more universal in that they are not so connected to more parochial interpretations colored by nationality, religion, gender, etc. My chart does, however, require some explanation since it reduces common experience and the choices life presents to each person to a bare minimum usually not associated with issues of human behavior and psychology.

The upper left-hand box represents what other people want or expect you to do. Into this category we can put school, work, family responsibilities, civil laws, etc. Basically things that you might not choose to do but you must.

The upper right-hand corner box represents what your ego does for self gratification, like hobbies, who we choose to befriend, choosing what we wear, eat and are entertained by - the list goes on and on. When you choose to do what you want, it fits here.

The lower left box includes those actions or occurrences in the universe that “work”. The yin and yang symbol connotes balance and harmony. I put things like love, respect, laughter, nature, pleasure, compassion, giving, etc. in this category because to me it means that life is good, and is what most sane people strive for.

The lower right-hand box symbolizes what doesn’t work in the universe as we experience it, like hate, war, violence, pain, greed, insanity, stealing, bullying or what most folks detest and shun - outcomes that don’t work for most people.

The active operating factor in my chart is found in the arrows between each box because they represent the conscious choices we humans make hundreds of times every day and the directions, intentional or unintentional, our resulting actions can take.

For example, we typically choose to work for others (upper left hand box) so that we can make income to eat and clothe ourselves and our loved ones, and have money to spend to provide “what works” (in the lower left-hand box). But also on the chart you can see that there is an arrow from the upper left hand box to the upper right-hand box because in this case we WANT to work for someone else who will tell us what to do so we can get what it is that we REALLY WANT - thus the arrow between the upper right-hand box to the lower left-hand box.

As I hope you can see, there are also connections from the same boxes to the unwanted lower right - hand box because sometimes, even though we think we are choosing some action to result in one positive outcome, it can result in unexpected and unwanted negative outcomes.

I think what is so revealing about my chart is that life’s choices are not very complicated since you do get to choose most of what happens to you, but you can never predict 100% what the outcome will be.

I conclude from this that the trick to making good choices most of the time is to know that this is mainly how choices work and to look as far ahead as you can while realizing that the arrow of the actions you are taking run in two directions and can change direction at any time.

So, choose wisely and expect the unexpected. 

If you have faith, as many do, that there is such a thing as fate, or the will of God, or that things are pre-ordained by nature and that your personal choices really don’t matter in the long run, then my chart might mean nothing to you.

But, if you live in the moment, and take responsibility for your own actions, this chart may have some relevance to you if only as a reminder of whom is responsible for your life - YOU! Please feel free to copy the chart with this link and put it on your desk or refrigerator. It might spark some interesting conversations.


Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Between Always and Never


Livin’ between always and never

walking down the line

always doing somethin’ but never

lookin’ to seize the rhyme.

I can’t get me none

'cause I already got one.

And, I can’t give away

what I really don’t own.

Gotta get me some

in the middle of the road back.

Can’t find my way alone

'cause I never left home.

Me, myself and I,

we just, bye ‘n bye,

come around again

to the middle of the pie.

Billy Radd
Asheville

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Seeing


See? I told you so.

Don’t you see?

Did you see that?

I see.

I don’t see.

Seeing is believing.

I don’t see why.

I don’t see why not.

You just don’t see, do you.

I see it, but I don’t believe it.

I see what you mean.

I don’t see what you mean.

Come and see.

See the light.

See in the dark.

I see it all now.

Let’s see what happens.

See for yourself.

We shall see.

That’s the way I see it.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Only Now


I occupy the center of a point in my mind where no one else can be.

My eyes face one direction only, so I must imagine what exactly goes on all around me.

Only perceiving certain colors, I am blind to all the other hues scattering around me.

My two ears hear vibrations of the air around me, an ambiance of mixed frequencies,

but not nearly all the existing tones around me.


Likewise, my senses of smell, taste, and touch are severely limited

in their ability to discern and differentiate aspects of any environment I occupy.

I can never, ever sense everything all at once since my perception of the world is 

always severely limited and edited by the discretly focused directionality of my senses.


My memory of all experience is further limited by the “outline form” of my brain

in its organizing and storing of these edited versions of my existence, 

and, like a documentary film, not nearly reality

but pointing to it from a prejudiced point-of-view.

So, I must rely on others around me to give me clues about my reality

since I can never experience it from outside my own senses with me as a part of it.

Like looking out of a slightly fogged window, I am separated from everything else

by the wall of my own physical senses and perceptions.

That is as close as I can ever get to what really happens 

within my mind, within my body, and within the world.


Now is the only reality.

The moment, the present, immediate being, that is reality.

Past and future reside in my imagination and are as accurate a representation of the world, 

bygone or to come, as a pencil sketch, an audio recording of a song,

a photograph, or words on a page - symbols of what is truly real.

They manifest as grain, as texture, a particular point-of-view, or an artistic treatment, 

just like the recollection of my memories or my visions of the future,

and thus, embody unreality (not reality).


As human animals, our best “trick” seems to be remembering the past

and projecting our ideas into the future through creating stories within our present minds,

with symbols structured by the literary device of a beginning, a middle, and an end.

But, we tend to confuse the useful symbol/story with what is real.

So, stories are useful fabrications

for remembering personal occurrences

or communicating abstract ideas to each other.

Otherwise, in reality, there is no beginning nor end.

Only now.


Billy Radd
Asheville

Friday, October 18, 2013

The Pliable Life




Look to the light.

It allows us to see

the beautiful construction

of the world as it is.

There is a reason we can’t see 

in the blackness of a cave.

We belong among waving trees and rushing streams

where we can climb, swim, and play in the dirt.

Stones are not our enemy, the mountains are our family.

The sky is not only above us but below our feet

as we hurtle along 

contemplating the wonders at our fingertips.

Existence funnels through us where and how we live

leaving its mark like a reflection on a bubble

in the rushing surf

of the pulsing sea.


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Color Wheel




Color Wheel

Warm colors touching the heart
glowing with meaning beyond words,
a palette of sunlight dancing in a concert of vibration.
Prints on a raccoon's path, snow blowing across the way,
the old, the new, the in-between,
both living and dead
touching the sky, running over rocks, feeling the ground.
Simple, but not.
Cooler, but hot.
Tasting life with my eyes
I feel the beauty of sight, 
touching a rainbow,
smelling bricks, 
hearing the heat
of the day, 
embracing the sweep of lazy time.


Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Unity

Unity

A community of one,
a majority of none
I fell from a tree
I am humanity

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Taking Aim



Taking Aim

Sometimes we sit at the center of the ego we have constructed
but visibility can be our downfall
What we have is not what we are
What we do is what we become

The edge of our actions cuts like a razor
and rends the cosmos, divided

Aim carefully

Saturday, July 27, 2013