Excuses Me Pleases

Is anyone in the mood for reasoning, how's about an excuse?

It's very simple to give reasons for one's short comings, to justify one's folly, to find a loop hole for laziness.

However, these probably cause more harm than good. Evidence? Look at the world economy. Instead of taking up the mantle of responsibility, big business execs preferred to blame their greed on the non educated , the equally greedy, the misinformed, and probably the poor and desperate. I am certain that these "money lenders" and "financial advisers" knew fully well the consequences of certain decisions and the actions of their customers but I suppose they wanted to see how much they could squeeze before it reached a critical point. Critical, it seems, came sooner than they thought.

So what about you my friend. How many excuses have you made today, yesterday, going to have to make tomorrow? I can't blame you though there are many rights to be wrong, and are twice as many words, phrases, quotes and statements that generate enough sympathy (stupidity), so that people will believe, attempt to understand, try to empathise, or simply accept your failure.

Failure is not a bad thing here, it shouldn't be a habit though...but it's not a bad thing. It's as the Dali Lama says: "When you lose, don't lose the lesson". We, however, tend to gain the excuse rather than the lesson.

What about mistakes, I'm sure you've never gotten up and said "hey i'm gonna make a mistake today". I may have mentioned this in my other posts but certainly not this... In the modern world our experience is just another word for our mistakes, and sadly our justifications are just our excuses.

The solution: Take responsibility... It's that simple. An excuse harms no one but yourself. What are you trying to protect? Your good name, your reputation, or your pride and facade. Image is everything in this life I agree, but in the end it's nothing. every time you use an excuse you sentence yourself to live by the same fate you claim. I say (inspired by the bible) by the power of the tongue shall you manifest.

Be reasonable if not with other with yourself, and being truly reasonable with yourself you will come to notice the benefits you give to others.

Impact of/Resistance to - I

As a human being's brain develops (provided all of the brain's functions are in tact) we come to understand the world around us by means of feelings and sensations. However, below our level of understanding, our minds and sub-conscious are already formulating or mental state via our external environment. It is the sensations and feelings interpreted by the above mentioned formulators, that possibly dictate our very means of living.

There is a common belief that children "soak up" everything, that their external environment affects their very well being; in terms of their attitude, mannerisms and disposition. It is constantly within my wonders as to how a baby moves towards items of interest. How does he/she know if the item is hazardous or not, is it useful or useless, is it a discovery or a complete waste of time. Whatever the case it doesn't matter. The baby would still move towards the object until his/her interest moves towards another object.


If the baby does not yet even posses the ability to speak... How does it reason or rationalise his/her attraction to the object. Is is purely feeling, impulse, the vibrations of their senses or do babies have more complex senses that are lost during the introduction to what is "REAL", "POSSIBLE", and what is "TRUTH".

It is said that without our external environment we would be not fully cognisant of our very own existence and not aware of the presence and pressure of the "not self". In other words he will have nothing to compare himself to. To think that our senses, feelings and sensations dictate our very state of consciousness is not so much of a far-fetched idea now is it? Our five senses relay the vibrations of colour, sound, chemical reactions, and physical stimuli all to the brain, dictating the way we interact with objects...whether it be a gross sight or a pleasant smell.

But it brings me to the thought of urges and our sense of desire. What exactly is it that causes our external environment to affect us beyond our senses, all the way towards our feelings and urges. That causes us to make stupid decisions, fall in love at first sight, believe that it's love when it's lust, that causes us to be selfless. It's probably the product of our conscious formula that has been brewing ever since our early years of existence, or maybe our perceptions or our own ignorance. Happily (or sadly) the circumstances into which we are born are beyond our control (Although some philosophers will argue that the "I" self is already omniscient of this). Our parents may have had major influence in our lives, our neighbours may have had input as well.

Maybe it does take a village to raise a child, but as an individual...What is it that dictates you to follow a trend, what causes you to oppress your true self. Fear of rejection?
The true meaning of this post was to see where it all starts, through the development, trials and errors and ending. It's time to go back to the beginning.
This is just a random thought... I thought would share...

And it develops
To be Continued...

The High-Level Diagram

In the world of Information Technology, specifically Systems Analysis, there is a particular topic where we would emulate an organisation's flow of data with a DFD or Data Flow Diagram. In the rudimentary stages of the diagram's development we would start with a simple "Level 1" diagram or a high level diagram. This high level diagram (HLD from here on after) just gave a very basic yet vague idea of the process involved with the flow of data.

The most amount of understanding you may get from a HLD is - in the case of a business that sells computers- Customer places order, business provides product. That doesn't say much now does it? That does not say much of the process, or any of the internal workings on the part of the Computer Business. Heck it doesn't even speak about suppliers that the computer business may rely on.

Now the reason I drew this example is that on life's journey there are things that come to your attention. It seems that people are easily willing to accept their own ignorances as the absolute answer. For example, In conversation with a girl she happened notice my beads that I wear around my arm. These beads are of Chinese origin so she asked,

"Are those Buddhist beads"
"Well I wouldn't call it that but they do have the Chinese symbol for prosperity on it" I replied
"So are you like Buddhist?"
"I follow the doctrine and I base my statements on the noble eightfold path, and Dao de Jing (by Lao Tsu), but it's not like I go around saying 'Buddha bless you' or anything"
"Oh well do you do the mantras or meditation things" said the girl with a slightly scornful look
"What's a mantra, a chant not? You do that everyday of your life"
"What do you mean?"
"Well..." I now turn to another girl involved in the conversation "as a Catholic don't you say hail mary like 12 times?"
"Well like ten but yes"
"And even when you tell youself something everyday constantly that is a mantra, and it will come to pass"

Eventually the girl who asked the questions originally, understood what I said but also said that she cannot go "that deep".

I wondered though how deep is it to understand that a mantra is no different from a sentence uttered many times. When we constantly recite lyrics from a song, that too becomes a mantra. The only difference is the WORD... "Prayer" - "Mantra" the meaning is the same. This is an example of the HLD or what I call it the "Level 1 Theory", where people only look and the surface area of a scenario and arrive at their discrimination from it. Of course the Words "prayer" and "mantra" are physically different but if you delve deeper you would know that their meanings are the same.

This problem goes across the board from Religion to our Speech patterns, all the way back to our perceptions of people. We tend to look at the surface area of the person and pass our judgments from there. No? Of course you do - "He looks like a nerd", "Wow she must be an idiot if she's wearing that... it's so old fashioned" - No harm done right... or so you think.

Let's consider the inverse on the subject of appearance. People use this idea to portray an image (well that's stating the obvious not?). But now you're a bit more aware. The thing is though...The joke's on you, because the people who wear the clothing in question actually expect that you apply this form of judgement to get the attention they desire. The guy who dresses in the all black with the mass amounts of gold obviously is trying to inject some sort of fear in his male observers and a sense of ruggedness and the "rude boy/good sex" idea into his female observes.

These situations have occurred countless times, yeah it's now called a stereotype.

Now away from the clothing issue... What about the ever sensitive "Religion" issue or the "Race" issue. Aren't we simply judging from a surface point of view. My belief system is based on Tibetan principles and yours is based on Roman catholic beliefs. Yes we have our differences on the surface but at the deepest levels aren't we both supposed to be on a path to finding heaven on earth for us and others? What about skin colour? Sure races have their physical differences but ironically, we all function the same physically! Mentally every human is different, but fundamentally all brains perform a function not?

My friend, accepting the diversities in all people and finding connections is the key to happiness. We must love all and only fight for the preservation of this love, a genuine love, unbiased, unrestricted, UNLIMITED!