mweiss

In August of 2005, I shot my first wedding, professionally. My wife and I handled both a 3-camera video shoot of the ceremony, (2 cameras at the reception) and all the still photography. http://www.aamserver.dnsalias.com/mwcomms/..._Portfolio1.htm In perusing the web sites of local photographers, I see that most are charging $4,000 for a full day wedding shoot. They actually charge more than videographers do and don't have to worry about more than one camera, no dynamics or sound. Just getting the stills. I am thinking that this could be a lucrative business to be in. However, being the marketing flop that I've demonstrated time and again, I'm not sure if I'd be leading myself with hope, down a path to disappointment. What do Objectivists think of the composition of my shots?

It looks like you're in luck. I was archiving my open reel tape collection when I happened across a taped radio broadcast from 1974. Dr. Peikoff on WMCA in New York, was asked this very question. And I am attaching the audio of that portion of the broadcast so everyone can hear it from the source..

"Winter Dreams" is another oft overlooked work of his that is worth a listen. As for Also Sprach Zarathustra, I like it for one reason, and that's because it can do this: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value=" "></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src=" " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Frankly, I think that we would have a better shot at starting an Objectivist country, than changing this one. One drawback of the way Objectivists promote the philosophy is that its proponents frequently seem to approach world problems in a negative perspective, such as, "if America doesn't do Y, then Z will happen and it will be disastrous". We need to find a more constructive approach and not come across like a warning all the time.

If this is global warming, then bring it on! I love this weather! It's 64 degrees outside right now, where it normally would be -2 on a day like today. I haven't used a drop of heating oil so far this season. If this keeps up, I stand to save $1200 this season. My wife claims responsibility for this warm spell. She said she did not want to drive in snow this year, so she wished for a warm winter. Talk about primacy of consciousness, and mind over matter.

I’m watching a prerecorded interview of Ray Kurzweil, broadcast on C-SPAN2 from November of this year. So far, in this 2+ hour interview, he’s made some interesting assertions. One of these is that quantum mechanics involves consciousness. He essentially expressed the primacy of consciousness as a fundamental element of quantum mechanics (ie., the observer affects the behavior of particles.) Years ago, I had heard of the experiments with Schroedinger’s Cat, and had a hard time with the concept of the cat influencing external devices without physical contact. Ray Kurzweil is an extraordinarily fascinating individual. A look at his web site, http://www.kurzweilai.net, gives a small glimpse of the broad range of future technology that he is involved with. http://www.kurzweiltech.com actually encompasses all of the Kurzweil companies. It’s a vast world. With regard to the exponential progression of computer power and passing the Turing Test (the ability of a computer “being” to interact with humans at a level where humans can’t tell that it’s a computer that they’re interacting with), Kurzweil asserts that technology is already being used to perpetuate more advanced technology. By amplifying the power of the human brain, technology can make possible the development of even greater technology. Indeed, many of the large scale integrated circuits in use today were produced with enabling technology that removed some of the limitations of human engineering. Ray Kurzweil is working on life extention technology now. Apparently he considers death to be a tragedy in that the knowledge of a person—their experience over a lifetime—is lost when the person dies. He believes that the technology will extend life incrementally, where one particular problem will be solved, and it may gain us 5 years of life, and during those 5 years, more advances that will gain us 10 or 15 years of additional life will be developed. He predicts that in 20 years, we’ll have technology that will gain us one year of life per year of life lived. With regard to computers attaining self-awareness, I don’t know how this will happen. What we tend to ask is that question of existence that man has pondered since the dawn of the intellectual era, is what makes man “spiritual”—what gives man a “soul” a sense of self-awareness, values, desires, etc. Whether a computer of the future can attain some level of “consciousness” remains to be seen. Kurzweil’s predictions about future technology have been highly accurate so far. As such, I find his predictions fascinating.

I'll say this much: I know that a situation of hopelessness, such as being hounded by the tax man for much of your life, can bring on cancer. Many people who have cancer, as it turns out, have unresolvable problems--they are trapped and feel desparately unhappy. The prolonged sense of impending doom depresses the mind and the immune system and cancer takes over from there. I have personal experience with this.

I think there is another definition that hasn't been mentioned yet, so here it is: the Greek word, "Apistos", which means "with knowledge and courage, to act". This is the type of faith that the Stoics believed in and when the term 'faith' was used, it was 'apistos' that was their definition. Therefore, to use an example, one boards a commercial aircraft and has faith that the craft will get them to their destination safely. This is because they have the KNOWLEDGE that many aircraft routinely reach their destinations safely. This knowledge enables them to have COURAGE to ACT (board the aircraft). It is not a mystical faith, in the Greek definition. This of course differs from Christian faith, which is the blind belief in miracles.

Yes, I think I have. Back in 1984, when I was remodeling the studio area, the sound system was disconnected as the renovation of the space it was located in went on for 6 months. During that time, I sunk into the most dramatic depression, triggered by other events, but worsened by the fact that I did not have this outlet, which I had come to depend on wholely for my strongest pleasure in life. The musical experience had become a substitute for romantic love, since the first 40 years of my adult life were deprived of any romantic relationships. I theorize that I developed this weird habit of listening to music in this manner as an effective substitute for sex. In fact, it became like having an extended orgasm, one that could last for hours, rather than seconds. The simple fact is, nearly everything I do is either with the intent of preserving and guarding the mechanisms that enable me to achieve that state of nirvana. It is also my ego. Since I have next to zero self-esteem and efficacy as a human being, this is how I make myself noticed. To be thought of as an 'audio god' does kind of stroke my ego just a bit. How can I argue against the validity of something that has been a part of my life for more than 40 years? Other than the health risks, hearing loss and who knows what other risks involved, I cannot dispute that I have developed such a strong addiction to bass that I become very irritable when I don't get my listening session in a few times a week. And then there's the fact that I spend 95% of my personal time in this room, either tinkering and improving the beast, or just enjoying music. Since I can't get away with this kind of behavior in any other house, or in a neighborhood with other homes nearby, it is essential that I preserve this house, or become wealthy so that I can build a better house somewhere where I can own 100 acres of land and enjoy a buffer zone between me and other people. I know that was a rather muddled argument, but I'm through trying to pretend I'm such a perfect Objectivist--I am seeking answers and truth, and for that I must be bluntly honest about everything.

I have a friend who was a Mormon for a number of years. He claims that in a 1920s edition of The Book of Mormon, a chapter in it is a word-for-word copy of Shakespear's "To Be or Not to Be". That chapter has since been expunged from the Book, or so he claims. Just a curious tidbit I heard. Those folks over there in that forum referenced in this post speak in terms remeniscent of a primative people, like tribal cultures in the past. It's really odd to hear this kind of language being spoken in modern times.

I understand what you say, and I was just on the phone with a friend and read your post out loud to him. His comment was "if only he knew that you're a capable radio engineer and could earn much more than they (the forum) are aware." Here again is a situation where a friend overestimates my capabilities. Sure, I've made some money building radio stations, but there isn't one being built every month, where I can go from town to town and start a new project when the other is completed. In fact, that sort of construction has slowed down. Also, *I* have slowed down. It's getting very difficult for me to do any bending and reaching under countertops to do wiring. I realize I have to solve the tax problem. But I have too much invested in my house. The last four years, I have risked my health and my life single-handedly rebuilding the infrastructure of the roof and east/north walls. The house had forty years of water rot, carpenter ants and possibly termite damage, and when my wife first came here from the Philippines, the bathroom ceiling had already collapsed, the spare bedroom was closed off and no longer a part of the house because the walls had rotted out and the window glass had fallen out of their frames, which had rotted away. In 2003, I undertook rebuilding the bathroom roof, exterior wall and part of the floor joists that had rotted from the constant flow of water in the east wall. Squirrels were living in the ceiling and making holes in the joists. The whole thing was sagging and was held up by plastic sheets and 2x3's propped up. You would not believe it unless you saw it in person. I fixed that room in 2003. The dust from it gave me a permanent eye condition that I now suffer with. In 2004, I rebuilt the spare bedroom, so that my daughter would have a nice place to call her own. I had to rebuild the entire roof there too, the entire east wall and the north wall, and part of the flooring. That room had been in the outdoors for some years, as that corner of the house had rotted away, like a rustic barn that had already collapsed. Last spring, I started rebuilding the dining room, but I first had to knock down the east wall. I did that with two fingers and a little push, and the whole wall fell down. There was nothing left of the studs inside. I rebuilt that wall in the rain. I had to wrap my power tools in plastic so that the motors wouldn't short out from the water pouring down on my head as I worked to drill in screws to hold a new floor joist header in place. After the wall was done, I had to demolish the roof, little by little, and rebuild what I could and then demolish some more and rebuild. That took all summer. It was hell because it rained from April to end of July non-stop with very few exceptions this past year. My friends can't believe I did that work by myself. But I was driven to get it done. I never want to have to do something like that again. It was like going to war. I have too much invested in this house to just walk away. Also, I would go insane if I did not have my music. The other thing is that apartments are not cheap. It's cheaper to live in a paid-for house than to have to come up with rent every month. That puts a real constant stress on people. And rent is throwing money away. There is no equity. More importantly, the environment in a cheap apartment is the ghetto, and crime, drugs and other problems would irritate me to the point where I'd likely become involved in violence in short order. I really appreciate the pastoral peace and quiet of where we are. Giving that up would be a major setback. We live in a wealthy area, rural with forests overlooking a lake. Crime is nearly nonexistent. We don't have to worry about our few neighbors robbing us. The air is clean. The water is from a well and is better than any bottled water on earth. What I'm saying is that in some ways, I feel fortunate to be where I am. Sure, the house will need another four years of work to complete the repairs, if I maintain an aggressive schedule, but I know this house, as I've built every timber, put in every piece of plumbing and electrical, and therefore I know everything about it. One has to be well off to afford a decent rental in a good neighborhood. Our only hope would be a trailer in Arkansas, but you may know what kind of life that would be. Just look at any episode of COPS and that's life in those poor neighborhoods. So I'm struggling hard to save my three most important values: my music, my wife and my daughter, and the house is what supports these. Without it, I'd have none. Your idea about making the wife the breadwinner is not far from reality. She has a job. She wanted to go to work shortly after arriving here because she was so bored at home and being used to working all the time, and being closely-packed with neighbors and other people in the Philippines, she needed to be around people and have a social life. So she looked for work. It took her over a year to find the first job. She's on her second job now, but the pay is barely enough. Most of the money gets sent back to her family in the Philippines, mainly for her younger brother's education. She's been doing that for years. She put all her siblings through college. And her father earns the equivalent of about $150/month as a driver, bussing people along a government-prescribed route, so they need financial help constantly. The rest she spends on Amanda, our daughter, and paying the electric bills. She doesn't quite grasp the concept of taxes, because they didn't have taxes in the Philippines. There was no property tax there, so it's hard for her to comprehend why we have to pay this money to the town every year. So I've been paying what I could. Unfortunately, the annual tax is more than my gross income now. Spending April to October, 12 hours a day on the roof hasn't helped me financially. We spent our entire tax return on lumber last summer. And that wasn't my money either--it was my wife's tax money. I was actually pretty happy for a few years. My most miserable years were the years when I was an employee of various companies over the decades. Each job was not rewarding. The pay was barely subsistence. The work boring and insipid. I was losing my mind. No wonder I succumbed to "road rage" numerous times on my commutes. I really didn't want to be in that situation. I was glad in a way, when I was finally put out to pasture in 1985. But I wanted more out of life. While the taxes were fairly manageable, I was persuing my own business ventures, but being a naive idiot, consistently failed at everything I did. There are some that say "accept your fate. accept your lot in life." But I am stubbornly refusing to live like a pauper, always toiling for minimum wages. I can't live like that. And I refuse to die in a rest home. I want to actively persue my hobbies in my own home until I die. Is that so irrational to want that?

I understand and I agree that this is correct. However, in practice, I find that hard to do when I'm constantly being harassed by threatening certified letters from the town's attorney, regular visits by the sheriff and visits from the police. If I had the money to pay these sharks, I wouldn't have to deal with them and then I could blunt my awareness of the injustice of taxation. I wouldn't discuss the idiots and corrupt people if they weren't making my life a daily hell. I want them out of my life! The only way to do that is to speak one of their two languages: force or money. I know that the first is a lose-lose situation. Sure, I could build a huge network of propane tank bombs and blow everything to kingdom come when the come to evict me, but then I lose too. That's why I'm working on the money-making alternative, since money makes the government go away and stop bothering me. But alas, money eluded me for my whole life. I got what little I got through cheating and deception and inheritance. That's why making money is so hard for me now: because I have no track record of making wealth and thus no belief that it is possible for ME to create wealth.

I agree. There is something very deep, that has been part of my mental makeup for a long time, I suspect, since I was a child. I used to think I was also just lazy. But I think "laziness" stems from at least two things: lack of physical energy (I note that successful people seem to have boundless amounts of nervous energy and cannot remain still for any length of time), lack of belief that taking action will bring results for ME in particular. When I was a child of eight, I actually believed that I was a "test subject"--a model of human being that God had created for the purpose of testing to see how much pain the human species could bear. Pathetic, I know, but that was when I was eight. It seemed that I lived in relative bliss until I went to public schools. From first grade onward, life was nothing but problems. Schoolwork was boring and I didn't want to be in class. I used to enjoy those trips to the principal's office, because I could sit in a chair and daydream. But the curious part is that when I'm working on a project of my own creation, I seem to have more energy and ambition to complete it. I can't muster that level of ambition when the project is someone else's. As a corollary, I can't give my all when it's a job at an employer's company. It becomes just one of those activities I do under duress, to get the money I need to pay the property taxes on my home. Sure, there are things I love to do, but there is no money in those interests, and since I'm not the best in the world at any one of those things, I have no claim to money. Dr. Hurd sounds interesting. He has a forum, but access requires a payment. I wonder if he can be contacted so I can ask him some questions? I don't know what his rates are. E-mail alone probably wouldn't be effective, but a combination of realtime conversation, with e-mail for me to convey more detailed accounts of my recollections of personal events may work out. But nothing beats one-on-one in-person interaction as the most efficient form of communication. I'd write him an e-mail, if I could find an address or contact on his site, which I have not yet focused on seeking out because I am still studying the content and learning about how he works with clients. But this year I want to discover the cause of my problems and FIX them. That's my New Year's resolution.

Well this guy appears to be an Objectivist, based on what I could read from his web site. It also appears that he either got his PHd when he was like 8 years old, or he's discovered the fountain of youth--he sure doesn't look like a person in his forties! Even if I were to choose him as a therapist/coach, the matter of how would I get there (air fare is costly, and since 9/11 I no longer fly due to airport security's unacceptable violations of my privacy) has to be solved. I once had a 30 minute session with Dr. Allan Blumenthal (now retired) in NY and it took me months to pay off his fee. That was around 1970. I hold certain convictions about treatment: I don't believe narcotics are the solution--because I believe my problem is caused by my reaction to things like taxation, not chemical depression. If the taxes went away, so would my depression! But we are living in a world where that is not an option, so I have to increase my income, but I have a lousey personality--I make more enemies than friends. I can't tolerate religious people, and I find myself wanting to kill Socialists and Communists when I am in an argument with such people. Needless to say, I don't part ways with most people in an amicable manner for these reasons. Objectivism has made me accutely aware of the injustice of this world. Had I been naive, I'd probably have accepted a simple lot in life/existence and toiled away at my minium wage job feeling that this was the best I could expect and not to expect or want to dream big and desire real wealth. Objectivism lit the pathway for me to dream big. Unfortunately, my intellect seems to be inadequate for earning more than a day laborer. But at the same time, mundane work bores me to tears. What does a person do when presented with this dilemma?

I think the problem here is that I'm not the right personality type for this work. It's a legitimate business model (in fact it's the only way a company can sell inexpensive term life insurance and still make a profit) and though there is no salary, the commission and compensation structure is excellent for people who generate results. My RVP earns $68,000/month. Most of the people in my office are doing decent business volume each week. I'm the only person out of 203 people who hasn't done any business or recruited anyone yet. Yes, it's a hard business to succeed in, but the benefits of a successful business result in residual income. The larger one builds their base shop, the higher the residuals. But the people who are making a good living are dynamic, people-loving people, who are like these super successful people you see on infomercials. They're driven, goal-oriented and motivated. And they have what seems to be unlimted energy. Primerica is not only a business, but it's also a continuous self-improvement program. They're constantly having us read books written by successful businesspeople like Napolean Hill, Dale Carnagie, etc. If nothing else, it's been a tremendous educational experience. There is certainly nothing wrong with term life insurance and debt consolidation loans. I wouldn't call it 'snake oil'. I may be in error here in that I believed that I could CHANGE myself to ENJOY dealing with people and doing financial services. But I'll admit the thought of financial services turns me off. The more I learned, however, the less of a repulsion I feel about working in the field. But I'd still rather build speakers or tinker with 3D software applications, or creatively edit video. Problem is, there's no money in those fields. The lifestyle that I want is apparently pretty lavish by most people's standards. My dream home would be over 10,000 sq ft and $6-8M in cost probably. Doing what I enjoy isn't going to earn me that kind of money--ever. As for help, I would NEVER, EVER turn to a church or religious groups for support. How could I possibly seek truth from an organzation based upon lies?

One thing I am finding really frustrating, as has been so for the past 22 years, is my "sleepaholism"--my tendency to sleep 12-15 hours a day. I'm frustrated because each night I resolve to get up earlier, and the next morning, it is like a different consciousness inhabits my body--one that doesn't care about the goal I set the night before. Once in a while, when I do get up for an important reason, such as a client meeting or a project, I feel as if I am having a hangover all day long. I feel groggy, inattentive and sometimes that is accompanied by a headache. Even prior to 1985, this was a problem, as I had suffered from unusual difficulty awakening in the morning for work. This problem has caused me to be chronically late for work for the last 20 years of my working life. And now it's even worse. This fall, when the depression set in over my inability to achieve what the other people in my office at Primerica achieved, I started to sleep even more. It is not uncommon for me to awake in time to see the sun already set. I'm asking myself why that is, why I just let each day slip away like this.. part of the answer that keeps coming back is "what difference does it make--what can I do even if I was awake early? I'd just make 80 more telemarketing calls that lead nowhere and feel even more depressed." So I think that I am feeling that everything I do is futile, so why get up? This is a frightening realization. I once read that in psychology, the desire to sleep is the desire to die. So perhaps I have a deathwish. An associate of mine from Primerica was having a conversation with me last Thursday and we were discussing my research on how to get rich and my discovery of a bunch of news articles about how the majority of wealth is inherited or attained through criminal activity. To make a long story short, he summed up the attitude in so many words as follows: "The world is corrupt, the government is corrupt, people are corrupt, everyone's out to get you, so why don't we all just f'ing kill ourselves?" Little by little, I am reaching the conclusion that my brain is filled with so much negative information that it has become completely paralyzed and unable to process new information. I need to have my brain "rebooted". Tony Robbins talks about WANTING to change. He won't coach anyone who hasn't spent 30 minutes convincing him of their commitment to change. But how does one WANT to change? Besides saying that I don't like where I am at now, and experess a weak desire to change but not have a clue where to begin? Part of my problem is that this "change" is mysterious and alien to my understanding. It is something of a black box with unknown contents, the "how to" aspect of it anyway. Creating a lasting pattern of change is where so many people fail. Some can make a temporary change, but when things don't go their way, they revert to the same destructive behavior. All I can do now is read. But while there is some comfort in that I have suggested to myself that I am taking a step toward solving my problem, at the same time, with each chapter I complete, I am realizing that still nothing has changed in me. I am growing concerned that I may finish the book and still be in the same state I was in before. Perhaps I need a coach to help me with certain exercises, like discovering what my beliefs are, both empowering and disempowering. I've writen a partial list; the disempowering outnumbering the empowering by 5:1. But there are other questions in this book that I find difficult to even ponder. I am having a difficult time deciding what I really want. Difficult because the answer required is more specific than "happiness" or "to make a lot of money so the government can't hurt me anymore." I suspect Robbins wants people to get very specific about goals, both short-term and long-term. His pain-inducing question is "What will this cost me in the long run if I don't do it?" While that question brings me a vague sense of impending doom (something which I have been feeling for more than a decade), my mind seems too dull to contemplate it, or it wants to shut down as if it is experiencing a short circuit, like trying to contemplate nonexistence or what division by zero means. Finding a "lever" that works for me, to make it possible for me to move the immovable traits and get results eludes me. A lot of nice verbiage is in these books, but I wonder if I am in such a unique mental state that no one has written a book to deal with my particular problem?

I figured mine out this week: to find the root of all the bad premises that have kept me from achieving financial independence and self-esteem and to invalidate them and replace them with good premises. A major undertaking, especially since this has been a lifelong problem.

One of the things that's bothering me, as I read Robbins' book, is that I'm not sure if my brain is processing information, words that I read, in a meaninful way. Another problem is that when he gives an exercise to perform, like listing beliefs, I have an extremely hard time understanding what that means--I often draw a blank. I'm in fact somewhat concerned that I might have a learning disability, because when I was a child, I could not grasp realtime activities like sports. While my classmates could easily grasp the rules of Baseball, to this day, the rules elude my ability to understand them, as they did when I was a child. When I explained this to my wife, even she noted that she thought I was "slow" at grasping new ideas. Why is it that for some people, one can explain a simple principle and the person's behavior is changed from that day forward, while for others like myself, I hear the words, but they lack meaning in that they don't cause me to change my actions fundamentally? I suspect some of this could be solved by the use of coaching--having someone--a Neuro-Linguistic Programming expert, for example--work with me on each of these exercises. I have a friend, with whom I have somewhat intellectual conversations occasionally, and I find that when we're discussing business ideas, I find it much easier to come up with ideas with him acting as a sounding board. When I am finished with the conversation and we hang up, I find that I draw a blank on further idea development. It seems that this friend also has the ability to meet objections with the ability to meet those objections 'on the fly', while I am stopped cold dead, unless I have a memorized response to a specific objection. This all sounds silly, but am I just a stimulus response creature who has no ability to originate ideas? Is it possible that I am so used to a vegetative state that I have lost the ability to think? My mind feels dull, insipid and uninspired. I have no passion to achieve anything. It seems as if all major goals are unattainable for me. I may be desparately unhappy, but have been repressing the feeling for decades. This is one of the reasons why I was seeking out Dr. Allan Blumenthal, an Objectivist psychologist that I saw 35 years ago in New York. I was hoping that such a session would not be the waste of time that I have had with other practitioners I've been to since. Others just make you feel relaxed and temporarily good, but no real progress is made on the deeper root of the problems. I have the conviction that only an Objectivist can fix my brain. I am taking the holidays off from everything else, so that I can read books and get closer to discovering how to identify my core premises, so that I can identify the ones that are holding me back. If the books don't wake me up, I don't know what else I can do. I should know what to do, but I suspect that part of my problem is that the last Objectivist book I read was way back in 1976, with the exception of The Ominous Parallels around 1990. I have read nothing of meaning, philosophically, since. Mysticism has even crept into my life, after my mother passed away, because my father, formerly Objectivist, had begun to consider religious ideas. He talked about an afterlife and other such nonsense. He spent time watching Dr. Gene Scott (the horror of it!) on TV. Some of this nonsense was starting to rub off on me. Now, I am in the process of trying to reaffirm my understanding of Objectivism, which is, apparently, lacking, beyond political and moral thinking. I think I am weak in Epistomology and Metaphysics, so these are areas I want to brush up on. I need only consult the vast bookshelves of Rand's and Branden's publications, which are upstairs. I intend to do that in the coming month. This will be my New Year's Resolution: to solve my mental problems, discover if I have potential and unlock that potential. I am open to suggestions from Objectivists, on how best to go about this in the most expedient way possible.

This thread reminds me of a fiction story, entitled "The Humanoids", by Jack Williamson, which I read in the late 1950s. It was a futuristic society where robots pretty much dictated the law, a 'perfect' law, to men. It was like a Communist society, with the difference that the robots served the people, but also restricted what the people were allowed to do; it was the ultimate 'nanny state'.

I have read through each of these links, the second two in totality, the first still bouncing around and reading (your idea about Outlook and "Objectifying" sounded interesting, although it was a bit over my head in a casual read). Your validating Robbins' overall concepts is helpful to me, because I think I would not place belief in anything that was not verifiably congruent with Objectivism. I had an implicit sense about The Secret (you must have read my blog) and what you were saying about the primacy of consciousness. I think that I had applied the more objective version of Law of Attraction to get the physical objects that I wanted and eventually, to meet my wife and take that whole trip, which, for a homebody who never traveled before, was a giant leap. One could say that I had the Greek definition of 'faith' which they call Apistos, or, "with knowledge and Reason, to act." Overall, I have to "make real" the ideas that I'm reading. I find it disturbing that with all the Objectivism I have read over the years, that I am not a millionaire today. Instead, it has alienated me from society, caused me to express ideas that put me 'on the lunatic fringe'. I wrote about that somewhat in a post last year called "Poisioned by Objectivism?" What I need to do is formulate a series of steps, real, concrete actions, to take, which will steer me in a direction of reaching goals. I could pretend I'm a young person starting out again and take up a vocation with passion. Now I'm passionate about music, and I would love to play the piano like a master. I took lessons a lifetime ago, but had trouble with learning to read music. I'd preferred to doodle around and make up tunes as I went along, but now, I am nowhere near where I should be, if I had done my studies correctly. So I suppose I could go to school to learn music and really apply myself. Maybe if I drop everything else and focus on that one goal, I could become something by my 100th birthday. However, I don't think I can realize that goal because of the pressure to pay the property taxes on the place where I live. I need income and lots of it. So my desired goal seems to be unrealistic. If I persue it, I would most definately lose the house, and unless I were good enough to get some scholarship, I would not be able to even attend music school. I live in a tragic irony: on the one hand, I should be picking out my cemetary plot, but on the other, I have never begun to "live" my life! I suppose it's never too late to start. What's worse? Dying while doing nothing but vegetating, or dying while in school, learning a new concept or art form? I think I'd choose the latter. What really bums me out is that there's no afterlife. Because I really screwed up the one I have and once I finally fix things, my time will have run out. On the other hand, if I can enjoy vitality and good health to age 115, then I have enough time to make a correction of this magnitude and be able to enjoy of few good years in the enlightened state. Either way, expediency is the rule of the day for me. I have no time to dabble in ideas that are ineffective. I need to CHANGE--NOW.

I am reading a book entitled, “Awaken the Giant Within” by Anthony Robbins. This is a book that is getting dangerously close to “scratching where I itch,” to use a metaphor. I say so because there are some points he relates as intrinsic causes for our behavior. He talks about three distinctions that control your destiny: What to focus on What things mean to you What to do As some of you may be aware, I am grappling with some major issues. I went into these in detail in another forum, OL, but have gained no additional insight from doing so. Barbara Branden only suggested that I seek relief in prescription anti-depressants, but I never believed in drugs as a solution, when I feel that it is premises (Tony Robbins calls them “beliefs”) that have a profound effect on how one feels. Recently, I started to suspect that my firm grounding in “reality” and thus my rejection of anything remotely resembling mysticism, may have prevented me from experiencing the “miracles” in life that other gifted and fortunate people have benefited from. Robbins talks about belief systems and how ideas become beliefs. After reading this chapter, I can almost grasp how having destructive beliefs can have a paralyzing effect on one’s life. He mentions that beliefs that “empower” a person, whether completely true or not, are just as effective as long as the person holding them is confident that they are true for him. Beliefs have a profound effect on one’s body chemistry. This was demonstrated a number of times (he cites a situation at a sports stadium where some people were becoming ill because of a possible food poisioning, so it was announced that a certain conscession stand had been pinpointed as the source and not to patronize it. Moments later, hundreds of spectators began getting ill, vomiting and so on. Later on, when it was found there was no food poisioning, they miraculously recovered—almost instantly). I’ve heard about “miracles” in Babtist churches, too. I once dated a gal from a Baptist family, and had a long conversation with her father before the date. One of the stories I recall was about a churchgoer who had something wrong with their leg and could not walk, and maybe had never been able to walk. Then some spiritual event happened and that person was such a strong believer in God’s presence there at that moment, that their leg physically healed in a split second. The man told me that everyone in close proximity heard an audible “snap” as the bones of the afflicted’s leg were suddenly rearranged “by divine intervention.” The story goes that the person is now enjoying a healthy, normal pair of legs and the lifestyle that goes with said. I have always taken the story with a grain of salt, figuring it to be the exaggerated product of a raving lunatic of a minister and just wanted to get the date over with (she was 200lbs overweight, as was the rest of the family). But I sometimes wonder if my philosophy is limiting my potential ability to heal my body, and draw success toward me. I discard all the notions that one can have profound control over one’s health just by imagining one as healthy, or whatever state one desires. When the doctors finally told my father that he had Leukemia, he died three days later. I still wonder how much of that sudden death was due to his mental attitude of believing that his challenge (cancer) was too great for him to deal with at his age. There have been cases where a patient overhears a doctor speaking about another patient with a terminal illness, mistakes the discussion as being about him, and, despite being treated for a minor health issue, dies overnight, ostensibly, because he believes that he now has some deadly disease. And I myself am starting to experience increasingly debilitating memory losses in the past couple of years, with a drastic increase in memory loss since this past summer. I would be having a conversation with a friend and suddenly have my mind go blank in mid-sentence. Then there were the incidents where I’d be walking to another room to get some object and when I get there, I’d have no idea why I came in the room at all. Sometimes I’m driving and I suddenly forget why I’m in the car and where I am supposed to be going. Those incidents are particularly frightening when they occur. My wife wants me to see a doctor now, just to be on the safe side. But I sometimes wonder if the memory loss isn’t a symptom of some other state of mind issue that’s related to depression. Getting back to how this all relates to me, I have developed the idea that I hold some premises that are probably on a subconscious level and are very limiting, ie., destructive to my success. One thing that I’m disturbed by now is the realization that I’m reading a lot of self-help books and very little of it, if any, is having any MEANING for me. To have meaning, I define that as being relavent to me, personally, in a manner in which I can implement the ideas and make a CHANGE in my life. A lot of what I’ve been reading is just ‘feel good’ stuff and my life goes on with the same problems, only getting more desparate because I’m constantly aware that the sand in my “hourglass” is just about run down and I don’t have much time left to straighten out more than half a century of bad thinking, negativity and failure, to turn it around and develop financial and emotional success and be at peace with myself and the world. Now some of the stuff in the book I am reading now seems to get much closer to having such meaning and possible usefulness, but I am still grappling with what stops me from implementing it. He talks about uncertainty. That we all know how to use doorknobs, even if we encounter one of a style we haven’t seen before—we have such a long track record of experience using them that we are certain that we can open this next door and the doors that follow. The successful businessman has a strong belief that he will succeed in uncharted territory—this is the hallmark of the men of unborrowed vision. But many of these businessmen are capable of creating this certainty on their own, through imagination, since they aren’t relying upon the prior work of others in this uncharted territory or innovative new concept. I have come to the partial conclusion that my lack of success is my inability to choose one goal and commit to it. I dabble in everything instead. Robbins essentially confirmed my suspicion. So I asked myself why am I afraid to commit? Some of the answers I came back with included: What if it’s the wrong goal—what if I am not able to succeed at it? What if I become bored with it after a while? (I have always become bored with every new job I’ve had during my working years as a wage earner, within about 2-5 days of starting each new job). I’m not really sure of what I’m the MOST interested in. I am pretty convinced it’s media-related—ie., video, graphics, animation, sound, music. But I also like to build things with my hands. I somehow feel that I would be limiting myself if I focused only on 3D animation, for instance, and to go to school to become good at it. I fear that I might tire of it because the mechanics of it are overwhelming and too technical. Well there are just a few examples of why I think I did not commit to any one career. Sure, I was an electronic technician for many years, earning my $200/week and thinking “what a great job I have”, but it didn’t take me long to realize that if it was such a great job, why didn’t I have a place to live in that was decent? Another thing that bothered me for many years is the parallelism I drew to some instances in early childhood, where I felt jealousy of those who had more than I did. I was raised in a very poor family I went to school with kids that had much more than I did. I always felt cheated that I didn’t get what others had and throughout life, I think that I have always felt a sense of inferiority to others who possessed wealth. I am still trying to reconcile what this means, where the premise is coming from and how to identify and invalidate it. Then there is the fear of people. I have a terrible xenophobia. I’ve lived as a recluse for decades. My years in school were terrible. I’ll admit that I didn’t get the best end of the genetic stick, but people, especially children, can be so cruel about it and they made my life a living hell, right up to high school years. Being called “weirdo” or “elephant man” or a number of other unpleasant names throughout my formative years has ingrained a strong sense of injustice, to the point where I am so pent up with seething rage that I would take it out on anyone who violated my rights as an adult. (think firey death to tax people as they take my house, etc.) An obvious side effect is that to do business, one must be socially adept. Not being able to look in the mirror in the morning and accept the face that I see staring back at me, was not a good step in that direction. I wanted so badly to get rich enough so that I could have surgery to make me handsome and attractive to women and approachable and pleasant to be around. Unfortunately, the bad appearance begot a bad personality, and over the years of suffering, pain and rejection, I became socially more and more dysfunctional. I developed peculiar habits as a means of deriving intense pleasure normally associated with love and sex. Those habits and the objects of those behaviors became so ingrained in my life that they became values of a magnitude where I would do anything in my power to preserve them, up to and including putting my life on the line. I keep living with the reality that I have read nearly every book on Objectivism between 1962 and 1976, and should have nearly perfect premises. But the fact is, somewhere along the line, something went terribly wrong. I now cling to the political ideas of Objectivism the most, as they are the ones that I can consciously identify with on the surface because I see so much injustice in the world, politically. But I seem to have failed to grasp the concepts that embody a healthy mind. The ability to control my emotions, to feel self-esteem, efficacy and to live accordingly. This Primerica thing has really brought these problems to the surface, and it reminds me of the days when I was seeking romantic relationships and facing nothing but rejection. Now it’s with potential clients. I am failing to REACH them in a manner that is meaningful to them. I know the problem is NOT Primerica or it’s products. I see other people in my office doing very well. Their passion and their stories of saving families from some of the most deplorable economic ripoff situations are inspiring. But when I get on the telephone or go to the mall and call/talk to strangers, I seem to come across as some psychopathic idiot that everyone wants to run from. I also can’t get over the overwhelming feeling that I am accosting and bothering people by doing this. So I’ve been starting to wonder about the meaning of Life once again, and why I seem to be losing the little that I managed to expropriate from my predecessors over the years. I’ve watched my radio engineering business, which, in it’s glory days, earned my about $9,800/year in pre-tax profits, going down the drain from a scant few jobs to nothing at all, while I struggle to rebuild the superstructure of my house, which was fit to be condemned for demolition until a lot of my time was devoted to an all-out struggle to save the structure through me single-handedly rebuilding it all. So now, with no income whatsoever, and Primerica so far with no progress other than me earning a lot of credentials pertinent to the industry, I’m descending into depression again. In fact, I’ve been feeling so bad that it’s impossible to telemarket and prospect right now. So I’m taking time off to read self-help books and try to find the answers to what’s been holding me back for an entire lifetime. Why was I a marginal student in school? Why was I frequently expelled from school? Why, despite brutal beatings from my father, did I continue to do the same behavior that got me the beatings, as if I were not in control of my own actions? Why was I so miserable on every employment/job I’ve ever had that I became always known as the complainer of the department? Why did people’s chastizing me cause me to explode in front of other co-workers such that I did not care what they thought? Why had I become obsessed with hating the government and taxing authorities to the point where I devoted substantial amounts of time to researching ways to get out of paying taxes? Why did I find it easier to daydream about military standoff type scenarios, me rehearsing in my imagination, what tactics I would use to repell an invasion by paramilitary teams there to evict me from my home, or shut down my unlicensed radio broadcasts? Why I found it impossible to daydream about my success instead of my failure, or my conflict with the government? These are all issues that any sane person would consider incredulous. But one major issue that I’ve identified just recently is this: I believe that I have lost my passion for living. I lost it sometime in 1984, when a carrot that was dangled in front of me in a manner that allowed me to believe that a dream was possible, for just three weeks, was yanked away from me for what seemed at the time, no rational reason. That event led to a nervous breakdown, heavy drinking (as in suicidal binge drinking) and was the ultimate mid-life crisis. I’ll never forget it. March 15th 1984. Suddenly, it was as if the world had been vaporized in a nuclear war and I was the only survivor. All my personal belongings were intact, but somehow meaningless. My scope of life had been so greatly expanded in the three weeks prior, that when the carrot was yanked away from me, my world collapsed and the things that had previously been all that was my world now seemed so meaningless in the new context of life as of March 15th. Prior to that catastrophic event, I had the normal ambition and passion that people have when they still believe that dreams are attainable. After 1984, I was like a Halocaust survivor. A shell of the man I once could have been. The passion for living was gone. I was a zombie, existing and trudging through life mechanically, because I knew no other way to go on living. Even when I finally met my wife in the Philippines, decades later, the excitement and joy I derived was not quite up to the giddy and electrifying level of those teenage crushes, of which I had so many (one-side, of course—the feeling was NEVER mutual). But I thought we could live a somewhat happy life together and I considered myself extremely lucky to have married a younger woman who was fun to be with and who didn’t care about my appearance. It was interesting how even my friends kept warning me that I was taking a risk, because the only reason a girl from a 3rd world nation would marry me was to escape her situation. So much for the spiritual support of my friends! Well, I was evading things to a point, married, and just going on my merry way now. Tax burdens on our paid-for home were starting to become major albatrosses around my neck. Soon it became a real worry of how I would come up with each year’s taxes so that we could continue to enjoy the comfort of having a roof over our heads. By this time I was doing the radio engineering stint and had hopes that I would someday earn enough money to have a respectable life. The taxes got larger and larger until they became all I ever thought about. “How am I going to come up with all this money?” I would think. And then I would get angry about the fact that it was annually a sum many times that which we spent on all of our basic necessities for the entire year. I would dwell on the injustice of it all. And it would make me angry until I had chest pains. I would write letters to the editor of our local paper, condemning the tax increases and suggesting ways to keep the education costs under control. I was called a hater of children by school board officials. I am not liked at all by the town because of my political views on taxation. And the bills just got larger and larger, and further and further behind we got. The matter grows to a point where it becomes “hopeless” because the sums of money are several orders of magnitude larger than all of the money one has earned prior. As such, it seems too unbelieveable that I could earn enough money to pay the back tax and the current new tax bills. But maybe my premises are convincing me that I can’t earn that kind of money—that I’m not worth that kind of money. Which brings me to the next point: I’m coming to realize that I’m really not good at anything. I mean REALLY good. As in, best. Everything that I know how to do—there are 10,000 college kids who can do it better. Animators, web designers, graphic designers, musicians, etc. And lately I am oversleeping. In fact, I can sleep 15 hours a day, easily. When one reaches the point where one feels that there is nothing more one can do to improve a situation, one finds it easier to just stay in bed and dream. At least in the dream world, I have some control over things. But waking up to see the sunset upsets me. I go to bed each night believing that “this time” I’ll resist the urge to roll over and go back to sleep, but every morning, the same thing happens, and my state of mind is completely different from the night before. I had an uncle that died 34 years ago. He was an easy-going fellow, who dabbled in a lot of different fields of interest. He was obsessed with doing his own business, like I am. As things worked out, he ended up working in gas stations for a living. He’d made bad marriage choices and this was helping to bring him down. He had his second major heart attack which killed him at an earlier age than he should have lived to. But I always looked at his life as a warning. Yet I find that by default, I am living almost by the same unwritten rules as he did. And that scares me just a bit. I find myself frustrated by the fact that I have not been able to conceptualize ideas—that I seem to be unable to make certain philosophical connections—that join my thoughts to actions that are constructive. I am growing increasingly concerned that there may be something seriously wrong with either my brain, or my thought processes. It bothers me that the ideas that I am reading in books seem to have no effect on my actions. I read, but I keep on doing what I’ve always done. I follow the path of least resistance. Now I am experiencing the “Niagara syndrome” as Robbins calls it. I am five feet from the drop off of Niagara falls, in a rowboat with no oars, having just uttered the phrase, ”oh, shit!” So there is the problem that I am interested in something, but never able to commit to it. What have I missed? Where have I gone wrong? Why am I reluctant to commit to a path and consider no obstacles or alternatives in the way of my success? Now I’m just a grumpy old man, who feels that he got where he got through cheating, deceipt and being a second-hander. And having read and understood at least some Objectivism, I feel that I’ve possibly lead an immoral life, both immoral to myself and to those whom I used to prop my own incompetent self up. And now I am trying desparately to right all these wrongs, to find out where my thinking went wrong and to hopefully correct it. My hope is that somewhere I will have an ephiphany that will cause my actions to change and my outward personna to become glowing and vibrant, rather than bitter and malevolent. I think I may be close to a partial answer, with this book by Robbins, but I believe that it won’t be that easy. Since I’m so accepting of Objectivism, I believe that only it can provide the answers for me. I can’t turn to “God” for answers, like many people seem to, for obvious reasons. So I must find out how to uncover unconsciously-formed premises and learn how to invalidate the bad ones and effect a real change in my actions and persistent behavior patterns. The book by Robbins seems to make enough sense, and perhaps it could help me to solve this, if I believe in his ideas enough for my mind to accept them and work them into my thinking. Part of me says to look at successful people and believe what they believe, right or wrong, because obviously, their belief system led to their success. I may have misinterpreted some ideas in Objectivism, as well. Then again, there may have been a lot of problems with how my mind processed information, from childhood to the present, failing memory notwithstanding. But here’s the bottom line, as much as my disorganized brain can assemble it: I need to determine what my core values are and which ones are causing me to be stuck in the rut of financial failure, I need to discover why I have been unable to make decisions and commit to them, especially regarding a career, I need to overcome my malevolent attitude toward people in general, I need to identify if I have a ‘fear of success’ or possibly the consequences which mean filing complicated tax returns and other government obligations that may be keeping me below the poverty line just to avoid them, I also need to feel that the awake world of reality is once again more exciting than the sleep world of dreams. This has been a problem dating back to the mid 1980s and earlier. I’ve always found the threat of losing a job over tardiness to be less important than sleeping. It is a curse, for me. There’s probably a lot that I’ve missed, but perhaps I’ll think of it later. So what do you guys and gals think? Should I see Dr. Kevorkian and get it over with, or do you think I can succeed at finding and changing my premises and, for the first time in half a century, experience real joy through efficatiousness and real achievement?

This is a matter of practical difficulty for many who find Objectivist principles to be correct and appropriate to all matters of life and politics. For this reason, I find myself constantly getting into arguments with people I run into during the course of living. I feel like I'm living in an irrational world. What's worse is that many of these irrational people have guns and badges. I used to have a few friends who were interested in Objectivism and we attended lectures together. We also had discussion groups at my house. This was up to 1969. I'd say maybe two friends were true Objectivists; the others were somewhat interested but either followed the Branden route or Subjectivity and Hegelism later on. Those friends moved to the opposite coast in the following years, leaving me with neurotic, insane religious fanatics at work and in the health club. Relationships geared toward finding a lifetime mate were hopeless. I wasted over 40 years looking for such a person. I finally gave up looking in America and ended up stumbling across someone, though not Objectivist), was someone I could live with and shared enough moral values. Although she is a Catholic, but not practicing. The fact is, we are too few in numbers. Not even everyone on this forum is an Objectivist. Although some are. You can easily tell by the questions they ask. I think you have to selectively accept certain things and take the good and leave the shaff behind. A lot of people are generally okay, if you stay away from real issues of religion and politics. I know it's hard--you often want to discuss a moral injustice you heard about on the news, and find out that you are the only one holding a unique and unpopular opinion on the matter. I've been in that situation thousands of times. People think Objectivists are selfish, haters of humanity, in general. It's too bad that the public at-large gets that impression.

One of the problems inherent in the patent system is that the burden of protecting one's intellectual property is costly when another party violates it. A major semiconductor manufacturer built its business in the 1960s on a stolen patent. Since the inventor of the techology was an individual without the huge resources of a major industrial corporation, the suit against the manufacturer took 7 years to prosecute. He eventually won a judgement, but the company that commited the theft of his idea was so profitable as a result of that technology, that the award to the plaintiff was simply 'the cost of doing business'--it was a token amount and did no harm to the company's financial outlook. Today, it can cost $1.5M on average, to litigate a patent infringement. Many unscrupulous companies actually search patents for ideas that they can use. With minor modifications, they often can skirt the law. As a result, a number of inventors I spoke with have decided that patents were a liability, at least until they got their product into a manufacturing level of development. It really is a mixed bag, whether a patent is beneficial or a hinderance to technological development. As with many things, the originator has to exert huge energy to maintain and protect his rights.

One composer I have liked for a long time is Camille Saint-saens. Though not in the Classical period, his romanticism-era music is sensitive and powerfully-inspiring. The best rendition of his Organ Symphony Nr. 3 is the one that was done at Boston Symphony Hall in 1959, with Charles Munch conducting and Berj Zamkochian on the organ. No one to this day has performed it with more passion and expressiveness. Other works that have pleasing effects are the works of Tchaikovsky's "Winter Dreams", some of the French impressionists like Dupre produced some interesting music as well. Baroque was defined almost exclusively by J.S. Bach. His organ works are the standard in my collection. Logical, structured, measured and almost hypnotic. Virgil Fox used to say that Bach is like a jetsream--once you get on it, you soar. There is a lot of good treasure in the Classical/Romantic/Baroque music periods. There is also some good music being produced today, offshore, for film scores, mostly in Japan and Korea. Some of the finest music of today's era comes from a select few composers over there.

I'm surprised you didn't put in a fourth option: Get psychiatric help. :-) In all seriousness though, it's a relatively minor issue and if the neighborhood to the north of me is complaining, well I have never been told so. I'd love to buy up all the lots surrounding me, but since they are undevelopable wetlands, I don't have to worry about development there. Anyway, I can barly afford the taxes on my existing lot, much less adding to that burden with more lots, assuming they were given to me. I have absolutely no intention of moving. I've settled here in 1966 with the intent of this being my final home before they cart me off to the cemetary. Although, I had looked into selling, just as a plan B in case I can't catch up with the taxes here. Turned out that plan is riddled with costly problems and opens "pandora's box". Sometimes the best solution is to just keep doing what one is doing.