Adam’s Peace

Here’s a thought that I’ve been mulling over the past few days. It deals with art and with living, and is an analogy that started with my grandpa, and was completed today as I was contemplating some of the art in Ester’s blog. Ester, thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart. You have been the unknowing catalyst that helped me piece together a clue that my grandfather left me a long time ago.

Well, this post is dedicated to my grandpa, Alan Alexander, who was born in 1932, and died three years ago to this day. It is some of the wisdom that he passed on to me through his artwork that I want to share now.

A Line

Lines mark boundaries. They are a good for showing where one object or event ends, and where another begins. A line can be curved or straight. The human mind automatically creates lines to separate different objects.

Most importantly of all, a line does not exist. At least, they don’t exist in nature.

When we look at an object, and imagine a line at its edges, we are forgetting that the object has sides that are hidden from our view, sides that wrap around and only give us the illusion of a line. If we rotated that object, we’ll find that what we thought was a line was only there because of our perspective. Even corners are not true lines. On close inspection, corners are rounded off, and even sharp razor edges have multiple dimensions, opposite sides that (thanks to having two eyes) can both be seen at the same time.

Most importantly, when we concentrate on the lines, we miss the space between. (more…)

This one goes out to all my homiez down at the forumz. Special mad propz to Stevie P. and Erin.

Alright, so that introductory sentence just reminded me of Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy.” (That song can be played through the link, for those unfamiliar with it.) Yeah, I’m no “gansta”… And I do know JavaScript and a couple of words in Klingon.

Hey, I’m starting out off topic. I guess this means that this is going to be another long, hopefully insightful post. I have had a couple of people comment, either directly or indirectly, in the past couple of days, so my motivation has gone through the roof. This weekend, {edit at time of posting, last weekend} I have started not just one, but three different topics. What are they? Well, if you look up at the title of this one, you’ll see one third of the answer… The other two, though, will have to wait until they’re ready, just in case I change the title around to fit what I’ve written.

As of finishing this post, the expected wait on the other two is a week for each.

PD & IM: How they fit together

Just a quick note, before I’m fully on-topic. PD is short for Personal Development, and IM is short for Intention Manifestation. Personal Development is all about getting your life in shape so that you are happy with it. Intention Manifestation is about using phrases and imagery (Intentions) to cause events to happen (Manifestation).

So, why am I writing this? Well, it seems that a lot of people who are involved in PD are also heavily involved in IM, and to an outside observer, it can almost seem like a cult. In fact, there have been a few certain individuals who have attacked Steve Pavlina’s character based on their religious beliefs… A cult needs to be persecuted, right? (more…)

Well, here’s a nice little introduction. This is another one of my longer posts, which hopefully shouldn’t take as much time to finish as my previous ones. The good thing about these introductions is that I can put anything that I want up here, and besides giving some context that I might be an actual person, they really don’t have much to do with the topic of the blog. Here’s a hint on how to tell if I’m writing a longer post or not: If I start out saying something that has nothing to do with the topic, go ahead and get comfortable, because I have a lot to say.

Alright, enough of the introduction. On with the post:

Practice = Perfect

We have all heard the phrase “practice makes perfect.” If you haven’t heard it by now, well, you just read it, so you have been told. That’s a pretty insightful little saying, actually. In order to attain excellence, we simply have to practice a whole bunch, right? It certainly makes sense. If I practice doing push-ups, my arms will get stronger, so it will be easier for me. If I practice changing my beliefs, I’ll find it much easier to adopt new beliefs. If I practice jumping off of cliffs, well… okay, so that’s a bad example… I can’t exactly get much better at falling, since I’m not the one doing the work. Throwing a ball can be improved with practice, though. (more…)