The Value of Passion

I will never forget a lesson I learned when I was young.

“Doing what is popular is not always right, and doing what is right is not always popular.”

and reminded:

But, what is “RIGHT” when there is endless debate in politics and social media about everything from:

*The right for LGBT marriage,

*A woman’s right for full health care coverage (or denial of such coverage until a government mandated invasive procedure is done) ,

*The #Occupy movement or the

*#Kony2012 awareness campaign.

Everyone has their own opinions, judgements, ideas and passionate displays. Each are controversial, each with passion supporters and detractors.

Is there a ‘right’ way?

We, as a society, need to stop criticizing each other for our passions, and start doing something productive. Something WE (as individuals) are passionate about. Something more than just sitting down and watching TV at the end of the night. There is so much going on the world, it is a shame to NOT get involved.

I believe:

*Deep down, each person wants to make their world a better place to be.

*Change starts small. It could be one small voice on a school yard that stands up to a bully.

*Everyone has the ability to be great catalyst for change and part of a solution.

My point:
Never stop learning.
Never stop being part of a solution.
Never stop pursuing your passion, dreams or desires.
Never stop doing what you love.
No matter what.

Courage comes in many forms.

Courage.
One word can evoke a thousand images in the mind.
One word. Whose connotation evokes the ideals and ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation. To act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal or discouragement.
Courage.

When I was in grade-school, we put on a performance of the Wizard of Oz and I had a starring role as the Cowardly Lion. Perhaps it was that moment of being cast, or the lines, or perhaps the dozens of shows we did over the school year. But there was something I took away from that experience that has shaped me.

I have never thought of myself as particularly courageous. Adventurous? Yes. Brave? No. Yet, as I get older I find that just taking a small step outside of one’s comfort zone takes courage. Courage whispers in your ear when you are busy paying attention to other things in ‘life’.

It takes courage to live. It takes courage to stand up for what is right. It takes courage.
Every day is an opportunity to start a new adventure, to live with courage.

Thus the reason for my blog name: Begin an Adventure.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men
as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer
in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
–Helen Keller

What is your adventure?
Muster the courage to take one small baby step outside your comfort zone and begin it today.

(Here is a very long winded but good article on the Courage to Live Consciously)

I’ve been triggered with ….. Get a JOB!

So, apparently one of the latest trends is to tell ‘people’ to ‘Get a job’. The’People’ I refer to are people such as: Occupy Protestors, People on unemployment/welfare/food stamps, recent college grads and …. ME!

You see, I have this friend. A friend I have had for the last 20+ years. This particular friend and I have been through a lot. Our lives, friendship and love for each other has ebbed and flowed. I have known this person since I was 8 years old. Over the years we have stayed in touch and I have watched this friend accumulate the ‘perfect’ life. Which includes the perfect career, the perfect house, the perfect spouse, the perfect car, with the perfect 2.5 kids.

And we had lunch not too long ago, to catch up. I will skip the boring part of the ‘catching up’ and head straight to the meat.

As we were chatting about life, and I stated that money had been tight, they said:
“You should just get a job”
I responded with, “you could hire me” to which they backpedaled…. quickly. I quickly followed up with:
‘You know I have been writing and currently have 6 books published, right?’ and
‘Money is tight, self-publishing is expensive and book sales have been slow, I am undeterred. I love what I do and I’m going to just keep working as hard as I have been and things will turn around.’

Their response:
“You could be so awesome if….”
My. Jaw. Dropped. I didn’t hear anything after that.
I was silently raging.
I had nothing else to say.
I kindly finished my meal and said my good-byes.
Still shocked.
After 20 years of knowing this person, of being friends for so long…. I was stunned. It took me a while and a very long walk home to come to the following conclusion.
My value, and the value of my brothers and sisters with college degrees and no ‘job’ isn’t based on some arbitrary idea of:
‘what I can do for someone else’ or ‘what someone will pay for me.’
My value is ME.
Just living, breathing and existing has value.
Not to mention my ideas, passions, educated opinions and connections. I am not going to just go out on the job market to pimp myself out to the highest bidder. I am worth more than that and refuse to de-value myself.

Take note: You are worth more than that, do not devalue yourself. EVER.

I say NEVER get a JOB!

p.s. For those of you that love numbers as much as I do, HERE is a great report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and US Department of Labor about the status of the ‘job’ market in the USA today.

Pigtails, A Word of the Day and Zombies.

First, for fun, I put this on my twitter account on Sunday for the Win.

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Second, learned a new word…. Inveigles – To persuade someone to do something by means of deception or flattery.
“Casey’s voice is pained and passionate, playful and poignant, permissive and provocative. She sings to the soft little hidden spot inside your soul which holds all your secrets. She innocently inveigles and melts your heart like a handful of M&M’s, leaving you desperately licking yourself to savor each divine drop.”. Check it out and help support an artist living her dream.

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And guess what, the Zombies are waking up.

In the Senate.
In Colorado.
and
In the Classroom.

… and I thought that I was done posting….

I thought I was done posting about the Occupy movement. I thought that somehow the conversations would start and the police brutality would end. By some magical wave of the ‘Scott Olson‘ wand, I mistakenly thought that unprovoked beatings would end.
They haven’t.

An abridged version:

Raw Footage:

This sickens me.

Will it have to come to a ‘Kent State moment’ before the world wakes up to the heavy hand that is unfairly being placed upon our country’s citizens? I thought we already had this moment? Didn’t the events in Oakland teach us anything?

The police in this video are repeatedly beating students, students who are standing there. Students who are not throwing anything, punching anyone, defacing property or putting anyone else at risk. It is during daylight, they are unmasked and unarmed. These students are … wait for it….
STANDING.
They are expressing their First Amendment right of Freedom of Speech and Assembly. And yet, it is students who are trapped between the solid wood baton of police and an immovable bush.

What happened to protecting the citizens of this great land who pay taxes which pay the police salaries?

Call the fucking Marines, at least they have taken an oath to protect this country from all enemies, foreign AND domestic.

P.S. A very Happy Birthday to the Marine Corp today!

This is your brother.

Look at this man.

Here he is again, in uniform (with an helmet on).
In Iraq.

Look at him.
Look at his eyes, his face, his body. Look at his courage to not only join the military but go to war in Iraq TWICE in defense of this country.

This is your brother, my brother. He is my uncle, cousin, son, father and beloved.
Look at him again.

I have never met him. My introduction to this man, was this picture.

This man, my brother/father/lover, was shot in the head with a tear gas canister by the Oakland Police Department while marching PEACEFULLY with the #Occupy protests.

He is now laying in a hospital in critical condition with a fractured skull and brain swelling.

Cards, flowers and well wishes can be sent to:
USMC Scott Olsen
Highland Hospital
1411 East 31st Street
Oakland, CA 94602

UPDATE!
Scott Olsen has Brain Damage.
See Here:

First seen as reported on my Twitter feed from @UncleRush

…By the people, For the people…

‎
“The first rays of light have broken upon the night sky heralding a new dawn after the darkest of hours. A song of change has been heard. A chant of hope, a group of people who speak of a better tomorrow, a brighter future and a more effective (and efficient) form of ‘government’…. Ruled by the people, for the people. A new era of democracy is upon us. The kind our founding fathers could only dream of.”

Educate yourself.

It has occupied my mind…

I have blogged about this, I have posted about this, and I am consumed by this. An idea, a spark that has ignited in the hearts and minds of thousands of Americans.

“An idea. Resilient, highly contajous. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to iradicate.”

A revolution is beginning to stir in the heart of the American youth. The youth who grew up with computers and laptops in front of us, the youth who made this world small with our social networking creations and online infomation sharing capabilities.
We are the children of the internet.
Children of the information age and we will never rely on mass or corporate media to share the message we want heard. The era has arrived, and never before has there been such a movment from our generation. Never before has the power of our ‘social media’ been felt, never before has anyone seen what this generation is capable of. Never before have we flexed our intellectual and creative muscles on how we can change our world. We are masters of information, conductors of thought, and this movement will be downloaded, our thoughts will be documented, every person’s action will be streamed and circulated and spread without direction.

The Whole World will be watching.

Despite the limited coverage the Occupy Wall Street protest has had from the US media, despite the dismissal on the claim that protesters ‘lack a clear objective’, dispite the ridicule from every major news organization on everything from ‘lack of organization’ to accusing the protestors of being ‘just a bunch of hippies smelling like patchouli and weed and beating on drums’, and dispite the dismissive quality Corporate Media is not so sarcastically suggesting.
The truth is: We are highly organized, we are highly diverse, we are highly educated and we are invested in our future.
Do not be so arrogant to think that our slow and careful pace can be mistaken for ineptitude.

At this point, so-called ‘Third-World’ news organizations have better more accuate news reporting skills than we have seen thus far.

From India, the Hindustan Times gets to the crux:
“There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous, unforgivable debt. Most were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now being humiliated – faced with a life as deadbeats, moral reprobates.
Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?
What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. Everything we’d been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid – money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence if governments or central banks required it.
It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; to ask what an ‘economy’ is actually for. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they’d been before.
We don’t know precisely what will come out of this round. But if the occupiers manage to break the 30-year stranglehold on the human imagination, they will have done us the greatest favour anyone possibly can.”

Find more information
http://www.occupytogether.com

Opinion on #occupywallstreet – UPDATED + Again

I’ve heard many of the critiques of the movement, saying everything from:
“They need a unified message”
to
“They need a list of demands”

But, I see those critiques and requests as nothing more than a way to figure out how to pacify the people and make this movement just ‘go away’.

#OccupyWallStreet will never “Go Away”, I guarantee you that.

Well, then, what is this about?
Everything.
That’s the thing about the movement, it includes everyone, regardless of race, gender, age, political orientation, sexual orientation or what-have-you. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a grievance, and everyone has a reason for their voice to be heard.
EVERYONE has one demand.

Who is everyone?
Everyone is the 99% of people who have received the short end of the stick. The people who pay too much in taxes, people whose homes have been foreclosed, people who have lost their retirement in Ponzi schemes and Enron scandals, people who have no food to put on the table for their kids, people who work 60 hours a week for minimum wage with no health insurance and people who are just plain sick and tired of not being heard. We are the 99% who have to split a very small amount of monetary pie. It includes everyone from
Grannies for peace

to Pilot Unions, Teachers Unions, and Mass Transit Unions.

To even our most recent Middle-East war Vet’s

(on a side-note, my sister is being deployed to Afghanistan in the next two weeks. God-speed sis, I love you. Come back safe.)

and…
Where are you?

Facts are:
There isn’t just one demand – that is what makes this beautiful.
There isn’t just one person – that is what makes this powerful.
There isn’t just one place – it is spreading.
This is why the movement is growing. This is why the movement will not go away.
The power is the people.

United We Stand!

It is not longer about race, gender, position, age or sexual orientation. It is about all of us. It is about humanity.
It is about existence.
It is about democracy.

An un-defined, un-leadered, un-organized, beautiful, organically growing movement that is history in the making.

Are you going to be a part of it?

UPDATE:
I found this great article on Inequality in America (p.s. it is greater than Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen).
And another great article published in Vanity Fair.

A great article in Huffington Post
“Occupy Wall Street may expose the Achilles’ heel of many other civil protests. Occupy Wall Street has no repeated cheer to stop coal mining, or to grant civil rights, or even to end a war. This protest cannot be boiled down to a simple soundbite because this protest is ambitiously seeking a complex, fundamental, philosophical change in the social, political, and economic infrastructure of our country. (Try feeding that line to Katie Couric before she goes on the air and see what kind of terrified, vacuous stare you get in return.)”

“Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.” ~ Kofi Annan