Prepare - Economic House of Cards ( Robert Kiyosaki video 8m8s)

video source: http://youtu.be/ZEvcI0ePt6Q

"Shooting the Sacred Cows of Money" by Robert Kiyosaki at http://www.shootingthesacredcows.com

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Monday Myth Busters [Blue Mondays]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Just days after the shooting tragedy in Arizona, New York's Mayor Bloomberg ordered an investigation on gun sales and this is what he found... yes in Arizona as well:

It's Monday, the day I sometimes deconstruct popular myths!

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-=[ Monday, Monday ]=-

It's common folk wisdom that Monday is the most depressing day of the week. Seems like many popular songs get a lot of mileage out of the accepted notion that Mondays are uniquely depressing. On the surface, it would appear logical enough that if we enjoy the freedom and activities of the weekend more than weekday work, then it should follow that Mondays suck.

In fact, some studies found that more suicides take place in the United States than on any other day of the week. However, when we focus on how the average person feels, we see a different story unfolding. A group of researchers at SUNY at Stony Brook, foe example, decided that if a blue Monday syndrome really existed, they would have to do more than ask people whether they believed their moods were foul on Mondays. And in fact, when asked, most people do say this (duh?!). However, what people often say about their emotional state may be more about their internalized assumptions than about what really happens.

Without revealing what they were looking for, the SUNY researchers asked forty-six married men to answer some questions about their moods every day for three months. Then they did the same thing with another fifty-eight men -- this time simultaneously getting the men's wives to report on how their husbands were feeling. All the results pointed in the same direction: The men were most cheerful during the weekend, but Mondays didn't depress them more than any other day of the week.

Taking on yet another approach, the researchers asked more than 600 men to fill out a questionnaire designed to measure, or be sensitive to, depression. Each subject filled out the form only once, but different people got it at different times of the week. It turned out that Monday's subjects didn't feel any worse, on average, than those who received the measure on other days. It would seem then that -- at least for men -- Mondays are really no more depressing than the rest of the week.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization

The Friday Sex Blog [The Happiness Cock]

¡Hola! Everybody...

I was going to write a full-fledged exploration in the rape-culture mindset of those defending the football players in the Ines Sainz incident, but --really, people -- if you’re excusing sexually predatory behavior, where does it stop? Are we going back to saying rape victims ‘asked for it”? For the men who fail to see this, I just don’t have any words... However, you definitely won’t be hanging with me anytime soon!

OK! Normally, I ignore most of what evolutionary psychology has to say because they are utter pan-adaptationists. Some have even used this proclivity to “rationalize” rape and other seriously fucked up behaviors. However, I couldn’t let this one go... you have my dear friend (genius cum hot cougar) Nina, to blame for this shit!

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-=[ My Semen can Cure Your Depression ]=-

Or: Why Swallowers are Happier

Most of my female readers are probably familiar with the “McClintock effect,” also known as the “dormitory effect.” It’s the discovery of the phenomenon wherein the menstrual cycles of women living in close quarters tend to synchronize. This phenomenon has been observed in women living together. It has been found in roommates, close friends, and most strongly between mothers and daughters. It has also been noted in mice, hamsters, and rats. It as suggested that ovulation (process of releasing egg from ovary) is socially regulated and this leads to what is called menstrual synchronicity. In other words, women who live together will have their periods at the same time (there's even a FB page dedicated to this effect)..

It’s a remarkable finding. And this is where my post today starts. The story is connected to a whole chain of events, all of which I will not attempt to duplicate here. If you’re interested in a much more in-depth look at the research I cite in this post, take a look at this article (click here), or if you’re able, download the cited paper (click here).

A couple of researchers developed an interest in the psychological properties of semen as a result in their exploration of menstrual synchrony. Gordon Gallup and Rebecca Burch, evolutionary psychologists from the State University of New York, had stumbled onto data showing that, unlike heterosexually active women residing together, sexually involved lesbians failed to show evidence of the “McClintock effect.” Since olfactory signals (called pheromones) are known to mediate menstrual synchrony, the authors found this peculiar.

They wanted to know what it was about heterosexual females that promoted menstrual synchrony, or conversely what is it about lesbians that prevented menstrual synchrony. It occurred to them that one feature that distinguishes heterosexual women from lesbians is the presence or absence of semen in the female reproductive tract. Lesbians have semen-free sex.

Some of you know I have written about a phenomenon I call the Squeaky Vagina Syndrome. Of course, we all know vaginas don’t actually squeak, but my post, while an attempt at humor, was founded on the research showing that there is muscle atrophy in women who aren’t sexually active. It’s a riff off the old adage: if you don’t use it, you lose it (BTW, if your kitty is squeaking, run, don’t walk, to the nearest hospital!).

Back to my story... Gallup and Burch hypothesized that chemicals in human semen affect female biology in such a way that women who have condomless sex literally start to smell different from those women who do not -- or at least, their bodies emit the pheromones that neurologically imprint menstrual cycles among cohabitating women. Gallup and Burch quickly discovered that although much was known about basic semen chemistry, virtually nothing was known about how these chemicals might influence female biology, behavior, and psychology

It has been known for a very long time that the vagina is an ideal route for drug delivery. An impressive vascular network surrounds the vagina: arteries, blood vessels, and lymphatic vessels abound, and -- unlike some other routes of drug administration -- chemicals that are absorbed through the vaginal walls have an almost direct line to the body’s circulatory system. Taking this into consideration, Gallup and Burch surmised that, as with any artificially derived chemical substance, semen might also have certain chemical properties that affect female biology.

Bear in mind that although they are often erroneously mistaken in everyday language, “semen” is not the same thing as “sperm.” In fact, only about 1 to 5 percent of the average human ejaculate consists of sperm cells. The rest of the ejaculate is referred to as “seminal plasma.” So in discussing the chemical composition of semen, it is the plasma itself, not the spermatozoa, that is at issue. It turns out that, in fact, that semen has a very complicated chemical profile, containing over 50 different compounds (including hormones, neurotransmitters, endorphins, and immunosupressants) each with a special function and occurring in different concentrations within the seminal plasma. The most conspicuous of these compounds is the bundle of mood-enhancing chemicals in semen. There is much good in my jism, it seems. These include, but are by no means limited to, cortisol (known to increase affection), estrone (which elevates mood), prolactin (a natural antidepressant), oxytocin (also known as the “love chemical” which elevates mood), thyrotropin-releasing hormone (another antidepressant), melatonin (a sleep-inducing agent) and even serotonin (perhaps the most well-known antidepressant neurotransmitter).

Given the composition of semen, and this is just a small sample of the mind-altering drugs found in human semen, Gallup and Burch, along with psychologist Steven Platek, hypothesized that women having unprotected sex should be less depressed than suitable control participants. To investigate whether semen has antidepressant effects, the authors rounded up 293 college females from the SUNY-Albany campus, who agreed to fill out an anonymous, written questionnaire about various aspects of their sexual behavior. Recent sexual activity without condoms was used as an indirect measure of seminal plasma circulating in the woman’s body. Each participant also completed the Beck Depression Inventory, a commonly used clinical measure of depressive symptoms.

Now, I think you know where I’m going with this, right? LOL

The most significant findings from this 2002 study were that even after controlling for frequency of sexual intercourse, women who engaged in sex and “never” used condoms showed significantly fewer depressive symptoms than did those who “usually” or “always” used condoms. Significantly, sexually active (non-condom-using) women also showed fewer depressive symptoms than did those who abstained from sex altogether. By contrast, sexually active women, even really promiscuous ones, who used condoms were just as depressed as those practicing total abstinence. In other words, it’s not just that women who are having sex are simply happier, but instead happiness appears to be a function of the ambient seminal fluid pulsing through one’s veins.

My cock, dear ladies, is a happiness drug dispenser! LOL I’m kidding! Let me add that similar studies looking into oral and anal sex (heterosexual and homosexual) resulted in similar findings. This lends credence to my assertion that “spitters are quitters.”

Sorry, I just can’t help myself.

So! What do we get from all this (aside from the realization that you can call me for some serotonin)? Well, that in addition to getting "squeaky” you might also experience some depressive episodes if you’re getting your fair measure of semen. Don’t you just love it?!!

Of course, much of this literature is rightfully framed from the perspective of safe sex practices. It doesn’t follow that just because Joe Knechbone’s cock might be an anti-depressant faucet, that you should engage in the exchange of bodily fluids within a non-monogamous relationship.

Well, that’s it for today, boys and girls! Remember: sex is good for you!

Love,

Eddie

References

Bering, J. (2010 September 22). An ode to the many evolved virtues of human semen. Scientific American, 31, 289-293.

Gallup, G. G., Jr., Burch, R. L., & Platek, S. M. (2002). Does Semen Have Antidepressant Properties? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 31(3), 289-293.

Losing touch

Well not hard to tell I did nothing but chill today - how many posts? Too many.

I had a mini heart attack too. My mother is leaving for another province to celebrate Christmas and we are celebrating as a family on the 13th. I'm so out of touch that I thought for about two minutes early this am (12:30 am) that I'd missed it If this really had happened I would need to lock myself into a mental facility - it would point out how far I've lost site of the real world.

I'm off to bed.

Where it's at - in the meantime

I don't believe my recent malaise is Christmas related after examining my current state of emotional affairs. I wish I could write about exciting emotional/romantic affairs rather than my somewhat overwhelming depression.

I've come down sick again (is 'come down' an expression?). I have a debilitating headache caused I believe by a sinus infection. I have had a lingering infection since my H1N1 diagnosis but it took up with a vengeance after my difficult week at work which included one gruelling 19-hour day followed by two hours sleep and a 12-hour day (followed by another 12-hour day and preceded by 22 hours the earlier two days). whaaa whaaa whaaaa. I'm not fond of whiners but these are the facts.

Sickness, mental stress, fatigue and loneliness are all contributing factors to how I'm feeling. Today I woke at 5 am, my mind full of the weeks' events. I don't remember a time when I've felt so alone. I cried hard and wondered what I should do with my life. Do I quit? Do I enter school full time? Do I feel valued for my tremendous efforts (at work)? My mind could not rest on any one course. I realize financially I will have to sell my home if I leave this job, for starters. That alone is an overwhelming thought. *I'm always solution oriented which can make it difficult for me to just experience emotion as I'm always trying to solve it.

The company I run is the largest employer in my County with the exception of the hospital. It's owned by an entrepreneur who has ownership of other unrelated companies. I run the show and am responsible ultimately for whatever good or bad results. It is a huge responsibility. I don't say this to boast, it just is. This responsibility has taken a terrible toll on me, certainly at present. The question is whether or not I'll determine if this is worthwhile for my future physical and mental health.

My sense of duty and loyalty to the company owner is such that I will find it extremely difficult, not to mention humbling, to tell him how much I'm struggling under this intense burden. I vacillate between anger and shame. I'm angry that he's not asking me how I'm doing or offering encouragement. I feel shame that I require this. I wonder if it's my lack of significant other which makes me have this need for support and that if I had a sounding board in my life I'd be able to suck this up as just doing business. I wonder if it's because I'm a woman.

Is the fact that I'm a woman making it too difficult for me to manage? I've certainly seen widespread belief that women are incapable of this at Roissy and The Spearhead. I've honestly never given much credence to it because since the age of 22I've been given increasing management responsibilities. I've worked in several sectors and have never failed to be promoted. I'm somewhat charismatic, bright, intuitive and honest, all characteristics that offer business owners trust. I have never believed that it was gender that made a manager, more it was character, logic, emotional and social IQ. Certainly in this particular moment in my life I feel overly emotional, which bothers me, and I wonder if this is a female trait. Does this stop me from being able to handle this level of responsibility?

My current position is the largest one I've held to date. To many I'm seen as tough, anal, distant, busy, boring, uppity, and too far removed from the front-line. I'm very aware of these perceptions and I would be lying if I didn't say they bug me. For starters I'm anything but tough, boring or uppity. I'm not at all removed from the front-line in terms of understanding but the fact I don't do or haven't done what they do makes them see me as un-informed. I could defend myself here but I won't simply because I know their perception is off. I am distant, I am busy and I am anal, those portrayals are accurate. My distance isn't in my lack of availability or warmth, it's in my decision not to have a social life with any of them. Many workers even some managers meet after work hours and 'party', sometimes professional boundaries are blurred. I've made this easy for me and don't allow the boundaries to cross. I'm very friendly and have an open door - but for work only. This makes me both boring and distant. I'll live with it. My attention to detail which result in excellence comes with a label - analness. I've never begrudged this characteristic. I know it's irritating and heck I even understand why it is but it doesn't change the fact that if I wasn't I wouldn't be doing what I do. I find it funny that this characteristic is mostly work related as in life I'm pretty much the easiest going gal of the group and love spontaneity and don't mind imperfection.

I'm very good at what I do, I'm even recognized Provincially for my work. I have brought this company from a place of obscurity to a place of significant prominence in the five years I've been employed. This company has a significant future due to a project I started five months ago. In fact the project is unique to the Province is garnering a huge amount of attention and support. I'm proud of this. But...

It's coming with a huge personal price. I have become so busy that my friends have nearly dropped off the radar. My work is bound by confidentiality and legalities (such as the Freedom of Information & Privacy Act - FOIP). I can't talk specifics anywhere let alone the Internet. I'm desperately lonely it would seem. This I was unaware of until the 'shit hit the fan' and I realized I have no one to talk to. It snuck up on me this place I'm in.

The life direction I will take remains to be seen. In the meantime I have a planned strategy for dealing with matters at work and am satisfied I'm on the right path . I plan to stay in bed today and hopefully being repair to my immune system. I can't magically become less lonely, but I'll make plans to connect with friends over the holidays and restore connections. I have decided to take a week off prior to Christmas and I'm hopeful this downtime will restore my faith in myself, others and in life in general.

Thanks for listening.

Thoughts Without a Thinker

¡Hola! Everybody...
Decisions, decisions... what to give to the girl who gave me the most BJs this past year...

Kidding!

I’ll be sooo busy today.

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-=[ Thoughts on Thinking ]=-

“Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find -- nothing.”

-- Aesop (620–560 BC) The Goose with the Golden Eggs

“Just as we can walk without thinking, we can also think without thinking.”

Marvin Minsky, cognitive scientist

I once met a lovely woman, highly intelligent, beautiful writer. In her early 40s, she had a body that made women half her age envious. I used to joke that she looked as if she lived on a Stairmaster. She was also extremely horny, which was a good thing, though she struggled with that. In short, here was a woman I felt I could enjoy knowing better, maybe even --who knows -- explore the “C” word with her. She had one major drawback, however...

She thought too much.

She was ruled by her thoughts and she wasn’t satisfied with torturing herself with her thinking, she insisted I join in also. I’ll give you an example, we would plan a meet-up (she lived in Boston and I live in NYC) and initially we would talk excitedly about what we would do together, but as the date would draw nearer, all her thoughts stemming from her insecurities would predominate our conversations. At first I was more than happy to help her dispel some of these thoughts. I mean, she would have one thought (“Eddie doesn’t like me, so he won’t come”) and then another thought connected to that thought would appear (“Eddie is just coming because he wants a piece of ass”), which would be connected to another thought (“I’m such a loser”). This would go on until her whole thought process and beliefs around our meet-up would be so totally screwed up, so totally disassociated from reality, that I would have a hard time addressing all of it.

Eventually, I would have to tell her that I didn’t need to hear all her thought processes and she was so offended that she broke off meeting with me. She was so hurt because, according to her, her thoughts were her and I shouldn’t have been so insensitive to her thoughts (or something along those lines). I don’t “do” therapy in my personal life, though friends constantly ask me questions that essentially are invites to “analyze” them. I don’t even adhere to that type of theoretical orientation! LOL

You might judge my ex’s thinking, but I see people do that kind of thing all the time. We like to call it “analyzing,” but it resembles mental masturbation. We create scenarios out of nothing but a tangled web of thought constellations and ingrained belief systems we take as ultimate truth. I will add that my friend’s thinking brought her a lot of misery in the form of clinical depression.

We live in a society in which we’re encouraged to live from the “neck up” at the expense of our bodies and the rest of reality -- we live disembodied lives. I see it all the time in my work. Ask someone how he or she feels and they will quickly proceed to tell you how they’re thinking about their feeling.

Whew!

I often tell my female friends that they shouldn’t think around me because it makes my dick hard. (It doesn’t work, telling someone not to think, makes them think even more intensely.)

Let me be clear: thinking is not bad in itself. In fact, thinking is an essential tool for our well-being and survival. Indeed, our distinguishing feature as a species is the ability to create complex symbols, agree on their meaning, and use them to encode our knowledge and describe our plans. The ability to think allows us to compute, reason, and create, and, most importantly, to share our understanding with each other in the form of speech or writing. We can even record our thinking (on blogs! LOL!) for others!

The issue here is that as a species we have grown to value thinking to the exclusion of other aspects of our being. We have become more identified with our thoughts and the more we become lost in our personal soap operas, the more disconnected we have become from what we have in common with other human beings and our planet. We have surrendered or sense of self to our thinking mind, becoming “lost in thought.”

I should know, because I too was addicted to the non-stop ruminations of my thought-stream. After years of meditation practice, the most significant change ion my life has been my relationship to my mind. We’re still together, my monkey and I, but we’re no longer in a codependent relationship. Slowly, but surely I am gaining my liberation from the tyranny of thinking.

The change was precipitated by the acknowledgment that my mind had a thinking problem. It was a heavy thinker, often engaging in about 70,000 to 150,000 thoughts a day! I got up in the morning and -- bam! -- I was thinking 2-3 thoughts per minute, continuing through the day until night when I thought myself to sleep.

I tried everything from analysis (which made me more attached to my thinking) to screaming and flailing about, which only temporarily diminished the flow of thinking. Eventually, I would turn to drugs in an attempt to “blow my mind” by short-circuiting the neural wiring and I have to say -- one time I even forgot who I was (literally).

Later, I would practice a form of meditation in which the goal was not to stop thinking, but rather expose my mind to itself. Before my meditation practice I was completely absorbed on the content of thoughts, how to manipulate them and extract meaning from them. That is what we’re taught and graded on in school and what our culture values.

But no one had taught me how to look at my thoughts. Ordinarily, we go through life with what psychologists call a pre-conscious stream of thoughts coursing through our minds. Barely noticeable, this thought stream exerts an enormous amount of influence in our lives. We do this mindlessly without awareness. In fact, modern science shows that our thoughts aren’t the dominant player in our lives. Brain research finds that most of our interpretations of the world as well as our decision-making process takes place on what evolutionary psychologists call the “sub-personal” level, without a rational thinking self directing the process.

When I first sat down to meditate, I was almost overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the thought stream. Eventually, I learned the simple task of watching the stream without making judgments, or running around to analyze them. A resentment thought pops up, I acknowledge it gently and then let it go. Sure enough, some time will pass and another thought will present itself and I do the same thing -- I see it, acknowledge it and let it go. Eventually, this has a stabilizing effect -- you’re not stuck on the thoughts that seem to come from nowhere. You are not stuck on the content of your thoughts but engaged in the process of the thought-stream.

Eventually, with lots of practice, I was able to observe the “gap” between the thoughts. This is pure consciousness, pure awareness -- the most powerful healing force I’ve ever encountered... but that’s for another blog for another time.

It may not sound like a lot, but it’s a huge thing for me to say that the main difference between my experiences today and those of 18 years ago is that I catch myself quicker these days. Essentially, today I’m less prone to be carried away by every thought that comes along -- I don’t get caught up in my delusional personal soap opera as often as I used to. This is especially true in the area of resentments and personal relationships -- the thought-stream is ruling my responses or filtering my reality as much as it once did.

Today a thought can come up in my mind and I can say, “thanks for sharing, but I’m not engaging that today, I’m too busy doing something more important.”

Love,

Eddie

Beyond Help Series, pt. III

¡Hola! Everybody,
It's amazing the turn-out I observed yesterday here in The City. people were coming out in droves. especially noticeable were young people from all demographics. This is good.

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-=[ Beyond Help, pt. III ]=-

“We all know sometimes life’s hates and troubles/ Can make you wish you were born in another time and space/ But you can bet you life times that and twice its double/ That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed/ so make sure when you say you're in it but not of it/ You’re not helping to make this earth a place sometimes called Hell/ Change your words into truth and then change that truth into love/ And maybe our children’s grandchildren/ And their great-great grandchildren will tell”
-- Stevie Wonder, As

It’s the beginning of February and most of the people who made New Years resolutions have stopped trying completely.

Let’s start from a different assumption today. To live is to know suffering. Let’s drop for the moment the assumption that left to their own devices, normal human beings are happy and that it's only the "abnormals" that experience disruption of peace. Let’s assume instead that suffering is normal and it is the rare person who learns how to create peace of mind. If you’re wondering why this is so, the following is an attempt to uncover this puzzle.

First let's think of how many problems human beings have that non human beings can’t even imagine. Consider suicide. It occurs in every human population, and serious struggles with suicide are shocking in their persistence. Throughout your lifetime, you have about a fifty-fifty chance of struggling with suicidal thoughts at some level for at least two weeks. Almost 100 percent of all the people on the planet will at some point in their life contemplate killing themselves. Even very young, newly verbal childre3n occasionally do. Yet we have very little reason to believe that any nonhuman animals deliberately kill themselves.

That basic behavior pattern repeats itself in problem area after problem area. The fact is that most human beings struggle, even in the midst of seemingly successful lives. If you doubt me, ask yourself this question: How many people do you know really well who don’t experience periods in which they struggle with serious psychological or social problems, relationship issues, problems at work, anxiety, depression, anger, self control issues, sexual problems, fear of death, etc.? If you’re like most people, a list of such acquaintances will probably empty.

Research into the scientific data on human problems confirms this assumption. Let me throw out a few random facts. About 30 percent of all adults have a major psychiatric disorder at any given point in time, about 50 percent will have such a disorder at some point in their lives, and nearly 8o percent of these will have more than one serious psychological problem. Americans spend huge sums of money in their efforts to alleviate psychological pain.

For example, even though their impact on depression is only 20 percent better than a placebo (too small to be clinically significant), antidepressants are a ten-billion dollar industry . It’s shocking but our consumption of antidepressants is so high that our rivers and streams have become polluted with them, contaminating the fish we eat (Streater, 2003). But even these statistic, sad as they appear, underestimate the extent of the problem. When people are given open access to mental health care, only about half of those who seek help are diagnosed with a serious mental-health disorder. The other half are having problems at work, or in their marriages, or with their children, or they suffer from a lack of purpose in their lives, what philosophers call “existential angst,” a strong persistent feeling of apprehension and anxiety.

Marriages, probably the most important voluntary adult relationship most humans enter into, yet about 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce and remarriages (who says people aren’t optimistic? LOL) are no better. The statistics on fidelity, abuse, and marital unhappiness show that the majority of marriages that do stay intact are based on unhealthy relationships.

I could go for a long time – easily. Suffice it to say that by the time that all of the major behavioral problems human beings face are added together, the fact is that it is “abnormal” not to experience significant psychological struggles.

Thought you were unique, huh? Nope!

And yet, how can this be? I guess we all heard the admonition to eat all our food because some poor child was starving In Africa. We could probably empathize with such a child experiencing horrendous conditions. But for most of us reading this, war, hunger, and deprivation is not a fact of life. Yet, in many areas, people who are more fortunate, intelligent, and capable are not necessarily happier than their less fortunate counterparts in other parts of the world. People who live in countries that have abundance are not necessarily happier than those living in less affluent societies. Again, how can this be?

Apply this question to your own life. Isn’t it true that the things you are struggling with and trying to change tend to persist, even though you’re competent in other areas of your life? Isn’t it true that you’ve tried to solve your problems, but have yet to come to find a real solution?

Indeed, I’m willing to bet that you may have already tried many solutions, and yet here you are where you started.

I’m asking you to keep these questions in mind as you read my rants. Why is human suffering so endemic, why is yours so difficult to change, and what can you do about it? Many o my posts explore these questions in detail. I think I can help some arrive to their own answers.

I’m not asking these questions from an arrogant or critical stance. I’m not going to blame you for your troubles, sending the message that your life would be fine if only you tried harder and got your shit together. That’s bullshit. You would be surprised how many people like to hear that shit. Moreover, you know why people like to hear that shit? Because they’re already beating up on themselves, that’s part of the reason why suffering persists. I’m coming from a perspective of compassion and identification; what you read hear comes from my own struggles and those of the people I work with. These questions are those I’ve asked myself, sometimes from the depths of despair. I believe that there is a way that provides an answer; and it is one that can be directly helpful to you.

Love,

Eddie

References:

Streater, S. (2003, October 17). Drug found in fish stir area concerns. Fort Worth Star-Telegram.