Nineteen Out of One Hundred

I don't have the time to draw it right now, but I'm imagining this cartoon where a confused character is scratching his head whilst looking at a picture of President Obama and muttering, "But I thought Jimmy Carter was president."  What's behind this cartoon?

Thirty six years ago things were so much like they are today (with the exception of who was president) that one of the most often quoted lines in movie history (ranking 19 out of 100) was first heard in the 1976 film Network.  In it, news anchor Howard Beale states:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad, They're crazy!" 

At the end of his tirade, Beale tells his television viewing audience he isn't going to recommend they riot, or call their congressman, and he admits he doesn't know how to fix any of the problems.  Instead, he tells them they have to value their life and get mad as hell.  He tells them to get up out of their chairs, go to their windows, open them and shout: 

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"   

Believe it or not, that's not what started the idea for the cartoon, but it works. The point is nothing ever changes except us.  In truth, nothing really exists except the ability to perceive.  How we look at things determines if the world is hopelessly dismal or as Howard Beale offers the only hope we have to effect real change in the world.

In addition to the presidential primaries and race this year, there are plenty of ways our attention may be hooked out of the power of the present moment, and diverted to fuel the planetary dream of loss, lack and limitation.

Like the vote, it may seem like a right or a responsibility to get hooked up in the world.  There are many who would say it's as "mad as hell" (read: insane) to consider doing otherwise, but that's what I'm suggesting based on my own long, long history of not being able to make anything better by focusing on how bad it is.

Lets all get mad as hell: smile inside, keep our outlook open, and to all that is dark and negative, happily shout out, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"  Forget what 'everybody knows', let's choose instead to create heaven in as many moments as we can.

links:   A great clip from the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew  full text at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Network_(film) (Two good reasons SOPA shouldn't go through as written.)

With gratitude to mom and dad for helping me see what's really important. 

Celebrating New Cycle's Eve

Got plans for next Christmas? Some folks think you might want to move your holiday celebrations up to December 19 or sooner to beat the end of the Mayan calendar.  It's been almost 5,125 years since the count went into effect and there are plenty of ideas about what this means to those of us who have shown up for the finale.

There are some who point to various natural, man-made, and unseen changes in the world and say it portends the end of the world...a better world...or nothing new in the world. Since what happens in the world is subject to perception, at the end of the year there will be a lot of people claiming their predictions were right -- whatever they were.

This year more than any other year since Y2K, people are asking what to expect so they can be prepared, a strategy I hope will end with this cycle. For thousands of years this cycle has been filled with fearful anticipation. Expectations are the tools which have been leveraged to ensure personal safety, financial solvency and spiritual salvation, with rather poor results one of which is making life a matter of prevention. In this new cycle (and yes, there will be another cycle) we have the opportunity to live with intention as our way of life. This is the message shouted by so many from the wilderness to the modern times of the closing cycle -- wake up!

Unfortunately, those who are attached to any doomsday or nay-say 2012 story may well be missing the whole point of having a cycle that has an ending.  Closing cycles provide the opportunity (daily, monthly, annually or every 5000 years or so) to see how things are going, determine what works and what needs to change. The old cycle promoted an intention of inattentiveness which is being thrown off and overthrown around the globe.  Much of humanity is no longer willing to trade in freedom for fear.

The trick now is to release attachment to the past so the new cycle of intention may unfold.  Unlike the old cycle, the new cycle will not be about the bottom-line. The mastery of Intention is to live effortlessly, free of expectations and fear. The closing cycle would say that's irresponsible, even dangerous.  In the new cycle it will be recognized as unconditional -- like love, liberation and our true potential.

Instead of dwelling on the end of the old cycle, wondering what, if anything, will happen on December 21, Let's treat 2012 as one big giant New Cycle's Eve. Celebrating for a year is a far smaller fraction of the more than 1.8 million days in the ending cycle than one of our holiday weekends is to our 365 day year. So this is not overdoing it.  Forget shopping, we should have started celebrating decades ago!
 
Happy New Cycle's Eve!