I am often asked, what my opinion is, of the coming end of the world prediction of December 21, 2012 and whether, with all my knowledge, something will happen or if it will be a day like any other day. I want to give you the truth, the whole truth and the exact truth of exactly what is going to happen in the upcoming years.

I have long maintained that the has no significance in itself. If that day will come, as it soon will, and nothing happens, it will surprise me non-at-all. But it is not the date that is of significance, but the event.

People have been saying, for the last two thousand years, that the end of the world is at hand, and yet it has failed to occur, as is evident by you reading this. But how long will we maintain our lives as they are?

But the truth is that while the end of our society and everything we know is at hand, it will  not be done by Armageddon or an Apocalypse. It will not be a meteor or asteroid or planet Nibiru. It will not be a magnetic shift or the polar caps melting. It will not be by aliens or invaders.

The end of the world as we know it will be done at the hands of our greatest enemies of all- ourselves.

That is right, we are our own worst enemy, and you probably know this already.

What you don't know is that it won't be what you expect. No, global warming by our hands will not kill us off, neither will a nuclear winter or global warfare. Well, not exactly.

To understand how we are going to make the future happen, imagine the most powerful people on this planet, the people with the most influence, will power, courage and ability to make what they want happen. Now imagine one person who had unlimited power like that, a man with so much power could be a serious menace, couldn't he?

Now imagine a group of people with virtually unlimited power over this world, scary, no?

Now imagine a whole nation! Such a nation would be able to do untold acts both good and evil.

But now try to imagine an entire world where everyone in it had untold power over everything around them. While you are unable to imagine such a thing I assure you that is exactly the world we are headed towards.

The scariest thing in the world is the insanity that is every man having full freedom, and no one being able to stop us.

We humans possess a vast amount of power within each of us, but we are scared to let this power out. Imagine what the world would be like if we did?

But we can't hold the power in for much longer. Soon we will walk as gods and the earth itself shall tremble and weep. A world out of control, it is both scary and amazing to think of such a thing.

The great choice that we all must make, both as individuals and as a whole, is if we are going to use this immense power for good or evil? What, indeed, will we all choose to focus our powers on? And if we will use it to create a new world, or let it destroy ourselves?

This article is not going to be of the most politically correct that I've done, but then again, when was I ever politically correct? I'd like to rant about racism in the US.

To get the obvious point aside, Barack Obama, the first (half) black president of the US, will soon be completing his first year in office. Say what you want about him, the previous president has been more destructive then any other in our history.

Now aside from the American people electing a man of color as their leader, I'd like to also point out the spread of Hip Hop and R&B music among the American youth and it's dominance of popular radio.

With all due respect to the black and ethnic population in the US, WHAT IS YOUR FUCKIN PROBLEM?

Yes, the majority of the black population is in poverty. Yes there are still assholes who hold on to racial discrimination. Yes, people are still ridiculed, attacked and even murdered because of ethnicity. But SERIOUSLY, this is NOTHING compared to what it used to be, or how it still is across the ocean!

Just take a look at your relatives still living across the oceans. They are living in conditions that do not compare even to the worst off of the slums in the US. Indeed most families living in poverty in the US have a roof above their head and food on their plate EVERY DAY, not to mention public schools and medicare. This is better off than 55% of the worlds population! And here's a little secret you should know- these people living in deeper poverty than us in America aren't even half as violent as we tend to be towards each other! Don't take my word for it, research this yourself!

I've heard people whining and complaining about how hard it is living in the ghetto, and how terrible people behave their and how nasty the conditions are there. Well here's what you do- you clean it up! You live in a run down home? Fix it! You only have on computer? Use it!

The poorest and most poverty stricken ghettos in the US have more resources then some of the biggest cities in Africa! The potential hiding in the ghettos is exponentially powerful. Look at stories such as Obama's, Opera's and JZ's, these are people who grew up in bad conditions but resolved to pull themselves out and create a better life for themselves and those around them.

RISE UP, BE STRONG, BE POWERFUL, for THOU ART GOD!

You, who are living in poverty, who are waiting on the government or leadership or some organization to help you, don't you think you've waited long enough? Sure, someone might come through to help you up, but why don't you get up and rebuild yourself now instead of waiting around for them to do it?

What can I do to motivate you? What can anyone do? Motivation begins and end with you.

Now you are sitting there, reading this, questioning what I'm saying, wondering what I want and if what I say is true or not. But you should not be thinking of me, you know who you should be thinking about? You should be thinking about YOU!

That's right! You are sitting there, and now I'm putting the spot light on YOU! The spotlight is hot and uncomfortable, it is much easier to be the viewer than the one on stage. But I'm not going to let you slip away from the spotlight, oh no. I'm putting you right here where I'm standing and shining a bright light right on you.

It's much more comfortable sitting in the dark, no one to see you, no one to judge you. But there, in the dark where you sit, you can achieve anything, you have nothing to gain. Nothing to gain, but also nothing to loose, which is why you stay.

How do I move you from this place of useless comfort? Being too comfortable to move is not a good thing. Nothing good ever came out of it. Nothing bad either. Nothing comes out of it period. As Newton once stated, an object in motion will tend to stay in motion, and object not in motion will remain so until acted upon by outside forces.

So what outside forces can be used to motivate you to do what it is that YOU want?

I'll shine the light on you again, this time it is brighter and hotter then ever!

Just like when you turn over a walk and the icky slimy things suddenly are revealed to the light.

They go CRAZY! They want to get out of the light, anywhere but where they are now! Like they were dropped on a hot sizzling saucepan. They'd put they're life in danger to get away from where they are now. They swim through fire, walk through pain. Run anywhere their legs would take them.

That is how you need to feel!

I'm shining the big hot light on you, making you feel more uncomfortable then you ever felt before, and no matter what you do to try to push that light away it is too bright, and I am too mean and evil. You cannot ignore the bright light, it's too hot, and you can't make me turn it away, I'm too strong and evil. Your only option is to run, GO CRAZY!!! Thrash around and move your weight. Do everything you can to find that safe cold and quiet place of comfort.

But where did it go?

Find it quick!

It's sitting there, on the other side of gold and riches. It's sitting on the other side of success and your life's dreams! Run to it! Fight for it! Barge through fire and ice and cutting steel to get to it because you'll never find comfort until you do, I'm shining a light into every hole you might hide in. You have no safe place to hide on this side of the fence, you are helpless here, and you cannot ignore it.

Run fast, run away. Run from your laziness, run from your sorrow. Run from all your waiting in shadows. Run fast and run long, for I have come to shine a bright light into all the dark shadowy places of your soul, and there is nothing you can do to prevent me from bringing to light all the evil inside.

Run now towards success, because you have no more options left.

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

 

Kiva allows microfinance institutions around the world, called "Field Partners", to post profiles of qualified local entrepreneurs on its website, www.kiva.org. Lenders browse and choose an entrepreneur they wish to fund. Kiva aggregates loan capital from individual lenders and transfers it to the appropriate Field Partners to disburse to the entrepreneur chosen by the lender. As the entrepreneurs repay their loans, the Field Partners remit funds back to Kiva. As the loan is repaid, the Kiva lenders can withdraw their principal or re-loan it to another entrepreneur.

Lenders' funds are transferred to Kiva through PayPal, which does not collect its usual fees in this case. Kiva lenders do not receive any interest because Kiva is not registered with the US Government as a broker.

Kiva was founded in October 2005 by Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley. The couple's initial interest in microfinance was inspired by a 2003 lecture given by Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus at Stanford Business School. Jackley worked at the school and invited Flannery to attend the presentation; this was the first time Flannery had heard of microfinance, but it served as a "call to action" for Jackley. Soon after, Jackley began working as a consultant for the nonprofit Village Enterprise Fund, which worked to help start small businesses in East Africa. While visiting Jackley in Africa, Flannery spent time with Jackley interviewing entrepreneurs about the problems they faced in starting ventures and found the lack of access to start-up capital was a common theme. After returning from Africa, they began developing their plan for a microfinance project that would grow into Kiva, which means "unity" in Swahili or "nice" in Finnish. Kiva is run by a team with experience in business, microfinance, and technology.

In my personal opinion, this is a positive step into a better global economy, fueling local initiatives and sponsoring small business opportunity that will help the developing nations far more than any donation fund. Having said that, it is my personal opinion that small time donations are better than charity. You have direct control over what your contribution does and where it goes, there is minimal politics involved, little bureaucracy, none of the disgusting stickiness of most non-profit organizations.

It is my prediction and hope that Kiva's economy grow from $80,000,000 to a couple billion dollars.

How can you help? Pull out a couple hundreds out of your pocket, I know you can spare it, and hand it over to a cause you find worthy on Kiva.com then wait for your small impact to make waves and come back a thousandfold!

This is the pure essence of equal energy exchange!

When we channel, we think we are accepting the messages of higher spirits, angels or even god. SO many of our prophets have talked about spending 40 days and 40 nights in a desert, or closing themselves off from the world or going on so many soul searches and meditations so they can Channel the "higher" beings in the universe.. But in all actuality we are only channeling our inner selves.

I have been there. I have sought truth in it's deepest form and I have looked deep into the chasm within me, and eternal cavern going deeper and deeper into my soul, a place darkened by time and fear. I have seen through it as so many people before me have, and saw not some great Divine spirit lurking there, all I saw was myself. And I understood then that the spirit speaking to us from within us is not any form of deity or god, it is ourselves.

I saw god within me and let him speak through me and I understood that he is myself, and that I am him. And furthermore a came to understand the great truth that not only is god within each and every one of us, and does he speak through us and marvel at our actions, but that He is Us, and that We are Him.

Now it feels like we are channeling someone else, when we are channeling ourselves, for the simple reason that when channeling our true selves we get to see our true selves and our true faces. And our true selves and true faces are so beautiful that it will feel like we are channeling god himself.

Our true selves and true faces are so beautiful and so pure that we are scared to look at ourselves and will attempt to run away from ourselves at all costs and we’ll do whatever we can to hide it from the world.

But in all truth there is no hiding it- in our deeper inner selves we are good, beautiful and pure beings that wish to do amazing things for ourselves and for other people, and we must do what we can to return to these inner selves and bring them out to the surface to shine upon the world, for these inner selves are indeed God.

You see the last time it was pure was when you were born, only a few days old. The Light within us is most visible when we are young babies, as newborns we are as pure as we can get, untainted by the world, unbound by rules, undamaged by society and culture. In this state we can channel the light within us in it’s purest and deepest form possible. This is the very reason why newborn children seem to have a light around them, this is the pure innocence and purity that shines within all of us. We simply have learned to bury it within ourselves and cover it up with the darkness of our society.

This is innocence beyond anything we can imagine. In our true deeper selves we are more powerful and beautiful then any of us can imagine. This pure inner self knows best what is good, but it does not know what is evil. It alone knows what will make us happy and it does it's best to guide us to what we really want.

God is a child, God is innocent. God, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and all the rest were children trying to understand this strange world, and they were all no different than any of us. Every sacred text and beautiful story simply tells the story of ourselves and the journey we all go through in our lives seeking meaning and happiness.

We are far more powerful than what we know ourselves to be, and when we understand something to be right for us we have amazing powers to put forth and create that which we know we need to do, this is the power of ourselves, this is the power of god, channeled within all of us, channeled from within our inner child. And while we all play games and pretend to be other people and wear masks all the time to hide the world from ourselves, we cannot stop the inner God from shining through, and in the coming revolution we are going to have to let out this light to shine on the world.

That is each and every one of our mission, to find that beautiful inner light within all of us, and make sure that we are able to let that light out and shine it on the whole world. It is more than just a mission, it is our sacred duty, as servants of God, as beings who may call ourselves god. for THOU ART GOD!

Why do you wear that stupid human suit?

You wake up each morning
and put on your disguise.
Step into your human skin,
and adjust your mask -
Gotta be like all those other guys.

Always mourning,
for this wasted life.
I just want to see you
Alone, in your selfless charade.
you don't have to endure this strife.

But you won't change
You just won't understand,
To you,
it's not a masquerade.
To you,
it's real.
To you,
you can really feel.

You think your eyes are open
when they're really stapled shut.
The chains,
the locks,
the ties upon your being
are so obvious
and yet you're so oblivious
that the ropes remain uncut.

Who Will Jesus Damn?

(Copied from someone's signature, I don't even care who)

Here is a partial list from just a few scripture verses:

Hypocrites (Matthew 24:51), The Unforgiving (Mark 11:26), Homosexuals (Romans 1:26, 27), Fornicators (Romans 1:29), The Wicked (Romans 1:29), The Covetous (Romans 1:29), The Malicious (Romans 1:29), The Envious (Romans 1:29), Murderers (Romans 1:29), The Deceitful (Romans 1:29), Backbiters (Romans 1:30), Haters of God (Romans 1:30), The Despiteful (Romans 1:30), The Proud (Romans 1:30), Boasters (Romans 1:30), Inventors of evil (Romans 1:30), Disobedient to parents (Romans 1:30), Covenant breakers (Romans 1:31), The Unmerciful (Romans 1:31), The Implacable (Romans 1:31), The Unrighteous (1Corinthians 6:9), Idolaters (1Corinthians 6:9), Adulterers (1Corinthians 6:9), The Effeminate (1Corinthians 6:9), Thieves (1Corinthians 6:10), Drunkards (1Corinthians 6:10), Reviler (1Corinthians 6:10), Extortioners (1Corinthians 6:10), The Fearful (Revelation 21:8), The Unbelieving (Revelation 21:8), The Abominable (Revelation 21:8), Whoremongers (Revelation 21:8), Sorcerers (Revelation 21:8), All Liars (Revelation 21:8)


Now who is left?

Jesus damns you all to hell, that does not sound like love to me.

Thou Art God

Posted by: Goddess of Java

That pantheistic, mystical “Thou art God!” chorus that runs through the book is not offered as a creed, but as an existentialist assumption of personal responsibility, devoid of all godding. It says, “Don’t appeal for mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he’s not at home and never was at home, and couldn’t care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy–live or die–is strictly your business and the universe doesn’t care. In fact, you may be be the universe and the only cause for your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it — “Thou art God!”

– October 21, 1960 Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Grumbles from the Grave, Virginia G. Heinlein, ed.

 

It’s all your creation.

No, really, it is. Your entire life is what you made it.

No, don’t tell me how rotten your parents were to you, or tell me horror stories about bad partners. Not saying that what got done to you might not have sucked. It probably did. I’ve heard some horror stories in my time and I am genuinely sorry for anyone who has had a rough time. I ain’t trying to blow off the fact that things happen that really are terrible.

Thing is, no matter what got done to you, what you did with it is actually what makes your life.

And what makes your life is utterly, totally and completely up to you.

You’re free. Right now. In this very second, you are completely free to choose what you want to do with your life.  You might feel like this is not so, but I promise you that who you are, where you are and what you are is due to the choices you made.   If you do not like any of these things, you are free to make different choices to change them.

“Free to choose” does not mean that your choice will be easy, or the execution of a particular desire will be automatic. That’s where a lot of people trip up. They think if it ain’t easy, or if it’s got a heavy price, then they aren’t really free.  Many times, choices can have a heavy price, indeed.  But don’t think you can escape the price of your choices.

Friends, life doesn’t work that way.

“‘Thou art God.’ It’s not a message of cheer and hope, Jubal. It’s a defiance–and an unafraid unabashed assumption of personal responsibility… But I rarely put it over… The notion that the effort has to be their own… and that all the trouble they are in is of their own doing.. is one they can’t or won’t entertain.”

Thing is, even if you do accept this personal responsibility, there’s one more great nasty pitfall waiting for you.

Guilt.

God, what a horrid, poisonous little barb that can be. You can choose to be paralyzed by it. You have one more escape clause if you want to avoid taking responsibility for yourself. You can choose to hate yourself, and not act because you’re so rotten — because you made such bad and foolish and unloving and unworkable choices.  You can hate yourself down into your bones for how terrible you are, and then you can be paralyzed from acting and wave your bleeding wounds like a flag.

If you think I’m saying that self hatred is a form of procrastination and laziness, you’re very right. It is. Hating yourself is a block to change, or trying to weasel out of accepting what is. Think about it, if I want to be able to bench press 40 lbs, and I can only bench 12, hating myself is not going to help. Lifting that 12 lbs until it’s easy and then lifting something that’s heavier is what’s going to do the real good. The only thing self-hatred and guilt is going to do is give you a socially acceptable excuse not to try.  People pity those in pain, as they should, but sometimes it’s weaseling. It also lets you avoid confronting the idea that maybe you don’t particularly want to work on whatever it is you feel guilty about. Me? I say step up to the plate and admit you don’t want to work on whatever it is and let it go. You’re already dealing with the consequences of your choices, so what the hell?

It’s a very freeing feeling to realize that everything you do, you choose to do. It’s also a great way to get rid of the guilt monster.

Not too long ago, one of my kids was ill and up a lot in the night. I got very little sleep attending to the child. Now, I normally get up around 0500 so that I can be at the gym to work out when it opens¹. I chose not to go and swim that morning. Not “I was up with a sick child and could not go”. I chose not to go. Conscious. Decided. Understanding the consequences. <grin> I also chose to lose sleep to attend to the child². Because I knew these were conscious choices, I did spend my time frustrated at what was going on, but simply dealt with what was in front of me free from any anger or resentment at loss of sleep.

Tonight, I am choosing to have my favorite Appletini.  As a beginning bodybuilder, I know that alcohol adds excess calories that do nothing to help build muscles — indeed is catabolic to them, and suppresses the testosterone I need to build muscle, while preventing fat metabolism.  I accept this choice.  I will never look like a fitness model choosing this.  And I am choosing to enjoy my drink.  Because I am choosing it with open eyes, I have the opportunity to look at it free of guilt and self hatred and any of that foolishness.

Facing up to the fact that everything you do is something you’re choosing can be difficult. Sometimes you learn some not so flattering things about yourself³. Sometimes you take a good, hard look and realize you’ve been making some choices that are very pleasing to you, indeed.

But in all ways it is freeing. It frees you from resentment, because you accept that everything you do is a choice. How can you resent someone else if you’re the one choosing? It frees you to act with wisdom because you’re conscious that every minute you’re choosing your behavior, and constructing your future.

¹I’m not really all that fond of working out, but I want to get stronger. So I choose to go early and get it out of the way so I don’t wind up wasting time making excuses.

²Of course it was a choice. People do choose not to look after their children, after all. It’s not a choice I admire, but it’s a choice.

³And learning to face up to that without using the escape of self-hatred is quite the challenge!

Hanging out with some friends last night got me thinking about love and everything to do with it and especially why it is such a complicated subject. But most of all WHY DO WE FEAR IT SO MUCH?

 Now, unlike the title suggests, I'm not going to even try and describe the definition of Love, many better writers and philosophers then me have tried and failed.

Love, obviously is something that brings us together, yet so many of us are hurt by love, hurt by the people we love, hurt by the people that love us, and have very painful memories of everything in between. Why does love end up so often being so painful? Why do so many suffer for love? And does it truly have to be this way?

I am not speaking primarily of romantic love, but then what other kinds of love are there? There is friendship love, there is closeness love, there is tough love and soft love. For some reason when we all think of love we think of the pink fluffy love. Whenever people start talking about "sharing the love" and "make love not war" and other such Hippie ideas we get this pink bunnies and pink ruffles picture in out mind.

Obviously love is not just about oochy-coochie lovable fury animals and such mushy things that repulses the majority of us (aside from the first three dates) and is a great insult to us manly men. Indeed the idea of any kind of affection seems to scare the majority of us off! Why is this? Why do the words "I love you" make too many of us queez inside and make us hit the deck?

No, I do not have an answer. Maybe it makes us feel strange? Maybe we're afraid of change? Or perhaps it is a fear of it not being how we imagines it, or maybe it will be EXACTLY as we imagined it!

The ghosts and demons that haunt all of us are beyond my vision. I do know that we all have our reasons to fear love and many of these reasons are very good ones at that! But they will still keep us away from love, and at the end of it all we all want to feel loved and wanted by someone. And no, none of us can deny it.

Now something interesting to point out is that the different expressions of love are numerous beyond imagine. We might be afraid of it, but we cannot help but feel it (as we are all human) and we will also feel a need to expresses it, no matter what. How is this? The punch on the arm, the playful tackle, throwing snow or leaves (depending on the season). Remember pulling that girl's pigtails in fifth grade? So much that we do to other people is simple a show of affection in disguise. How often do you see real close bros tackle one another for no real reason? Just an excuse to touch each other, admit it.

We've been socially conditioned to hide love, out of fear and hate, to the point where it is almost horrific to tell another person that we love them. Admitting to trying to bring more love to New York is a strange and alien idea. But there is no love to bring, it is already there! We just need to learn not to fear it, allow ourselves to let it out and not get scared we will turn into fuzzy-wuzzy cuddle bunnies (no, love will note do that to you).

Spreading love is not just about knowing how to give it, but also knowing how to receive it! Because everyone expresses love differently, and we have to be ready to receive it just as much as we are ready to give it, and keep in mind that not everyone (not many, for that matter) know how to give OR receive love.

One small note on the subject of anger and hate, these are not opposite emotions to love, as many sources will pose. They are not on any kind of spectrum, indeed it is quite possible to feel all these emotions at the same time. Love, hate and anger are all different emotions and conflict with each other none at all.

Now to finish this article I'd like to share with you this video that comes to us from Another Gulliver Production. ENJOY!