From Out Of Nowhere

Sometimes, while you are frantically typing, dumping your personal thoughts all over the page, you come up with an idea, or quote that is more profound then you expected.  It sort of flows out of you, and then you pause, evaluate it, and end up liking it even more.

I've been having a very good time writing blogs over the past months.  Here are some of my favorite quotes from the 2011 material.  We'll check in at the end of next year, to see how far we've come.  All the quotes below are JBangin' originals.  Hopefully 2012 will hold even deeper insights.

Photo By Kyle McCulloch

November 25, 2011 "Are You A Believer?"

"Naturally I judge people like all humans do, but I question where those pre-concieved notions come from, and adjust my thinking accordingly."

December 9th, 2011 "The Contemporary Dating Game"

"Women all want the same thing, though with all the terrible decision making, it's really hard to tell.  Women want to be in love.  Not the bogus love, born out of circumstance, and mental factors, the real, "fuck me right now before I explode" type love."

Dec. 13th, 2011 "We Are All Stars"

"The unknown creates our daily excitement, and the multitude of answers to these fundamental questions, create unique people, with unique perspectives."

"You don't see monkeys, and dolphins, building satellites, and spaceships."

Dec. 30th, 2011 "The Race Disgrace"

"Everything you do, everything you think, has consequences.  Consequences that quite possibly could echo through time, long after you are gone."

Please take time to browse my older posts if you haven't already.  All your reading, and sharing is really starting to help getting this blog noticed.  How can you help us grow in 2012?  First of all keep reading.  Second, share any post you like with your friends, via email, Facebook, or Twitter.  Third, if you do buy products on Amazon, do so through the links provided on this Website.  Purchasing directly benefits the Author, and encourages him to keep the content coming for you all.

I plan to take this blog to the next level in 2012.  Any comments, suggestions or critiques, are always welcome.  Also if there's another quote of mine you enjoy, please leave it in the comments section below.  Thanks for taking the time to read, I really appreciate it.

Visionaries Vanish

Standing up for what you believe in, could cost you your life.  It's a sad, and scary statement; history proves it true.  Many great thinkers, leave this planet far too quickly.  Visionaries like JFK, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, to name a very small few.  100's of political leaders around the world.  You speak your mind, and start moving masses, you better watch your back.

We cannot afford to lose our greatest talents.  Life is a battle between good and evil after all, and in the war, these are our strongest Generals.  These freethinkers not only have incredible insight, they weren't afraid to voice it.  It's everybody's job to protect them.  At least if you're fighting for the good team.

Photo from Kel Trustnoone

The first step, is at least acknowledging the fact, that if your ideas are intelligent, radical, and you have influence, you will be targeted.  Who is doing the targeting?  People who fear change.

The change they fear, could cost them power, money, or a change in lifestyle.  It could cost them a lot of things.  Always keep in mind though, that what these people want, is to be selfish.  They are willing to sacrifice the greater good of humanity, in favour of bettering themselves.  Over the years, Visionaries have succumb to psychos, religious zealots, hired guns, and political agendas.  Whether they knew it or not, they were all fighting for the "dark side".

Visionaries have traits that can't be denied.  They're honest.  You can see it in their expressions, and hear it in their voice tone.  When they speak, you're compelled to listen.  They inspire you.  When you combine all this, you realize, for the most part their thinking is correct.  They have a vision with pure intent, it's sole purpose to better humanity.   It's rare that we get to really talk about what's important to us.  These leaders could stand up on a stage, and change people's minds.  Power is okay, as long as your message is sincere, and your actions are true.

Photo from SodaHead

People minds are incredibly hard to change in one regard, and very easy in the other.  All of us normal folk, want a better life for all of us.  We realize that we are lucky to even have what we do.  That doesn't mean however, we forget our quality of life could be much better, by an order of magnitude.  We have vision of a greater tomorrow.  I see a world where we can use as much power as we want, without the environmental repurcussions.  Where nearly everyone is happy, and non-judgemental, and is free to live the way they want.  That's what I'm working towards.  What about you?

Many of these Visionaries changed the course of humanity, and did so for the better.  They influenced not only the generations on this planet, but all the future ones to come.  You can change humanity forever.  Only a select few ever have.   Is there anything more important than that?

This Biased Universe

Like every kid my age at the time, I grew up playing with action figures.  He-Man, Transformers, X-Men all ruled my world back then.  I remember spending hours in the basement, finding new ways to torture the "evil doers" for causing my Hero agony, and in general, leaning towards the dark side.  In every good hero story, there is a triumph over good vs. evil, and I learned this at a very early age.  Evil tries everything it can to win, but in the end, envitably suffers defeat.

Photo By Kyle McCulloch

If you asked the average person, "Does the Universe mostly help you, or mostly hurt you?" What do you think they would say?

There would be a ton of people that would conclude the Universe is great, and wants to see them succeed.  Others may view life more pessimistically, concluding that the Universe is actually out to get them, impeding their path to success.  Still, another section of the population might conclude that the Universe is indifferent.  That it has no view, or bias, that it is simply "balanced".

I've come to the conclusion that the world has a positivity bias of some sort, yet I have no idea where it stems from.  It surely doesn't make scientific sense, or at least I can't prove it.  To keep balance, the world actually needs to lean slightly toward optimistic values, in order to function properly.  My guess is an even balance of good and evil, would actually result in chaos.

Good needs an edge because it's not always easy.  It's not always sexy.  It doesn't always feel great, doing the "right thing".  There has to be a slight bias, or we'd all just chose the easy route.  If you had no bias, would you care if you threw a piece of garbage out the window?  Or help an old lady across the street?  Instead of a "conscience" you'd be indifferent, unable to really determine, right from wrong, or good from bad.

That's why I think there has to be a optimistic bias.  Instead of Yin and Yang, think Yin plus, and Yang minus.  This is why optimism feels good, and pessimism doesn't.  It's the reason, people have are innately great in disasters, bonding, and coming to the aid of their fellow man in crisis.  Surviving sometimes, against incredible odds.   It explains, our thirst to not only do the status quo well, but exceed it.

Photo By Kyle McCulloch

Good can't win over evil all the time, but it wins slightly more, and in more ways.  As they say in the Casino business, good has an "Edge".  Good gets to have the odds slightly in it's favour.  You are welcome to play from the other side, but understand, that you are going "against the house", and being risky.  I like that.  If you play against the odds, stepping on people to success, living too fast, being selfish, stealing, it should be risky.  It should come with consequences.  That keeps people in check.

Just like the Casino, when you make bets, not in your favour, but win in the short-term, you fool yourself into believing that it can last forever.  Pushing your bets even further, until one day you realize that you were never winning at all.  There may have been momentary "wins", but in the end, the odds were never once in your favour.  You may believe there is a path to success, playing from the "dark" side, yet it is an illusion.  The chances were never in your favour.  When you achieve what you thought to be success, what you thought to be "winning", it actually wasn't.  That "win" never gave you the feeling you were looking for.

These folks that take the easy route, will never own the Casino. In the end, the Casino will own them.

Action Builds Confidence

We highlighted some of Norman Vincent Peale's work in "The Power Of Positive Thinking".  Please go back and read that entry if you haven't yet, as it will have relevant information discuss in this blog post.  I'd like to share with you, one of my favorite, Norman Vincent Peale Quotes:

"Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all."  - Norman Vincent Peale

Photo by graur razvan ionut

Not only is Mr. Peale saying that you shouldn't procrastinate, he saying that procrastination is causing your fears.  The world progresses with, or without you.  Time is passing, and each day you are getting older.  Procrastinating, or hiding from life, cannot be done without repercussions.

Don't we all know this feeling?  You procrastinate, and the list of things you feel you need to do, grows.  A feeling of uneasiness follows, that you really don't understand.  That is a form of fear. 

Confidence speaks in the positive, while fear speaks in the negative.  When you are riding high, you'll use words like can, will, and could.  When you're fearful, you'll use words like can't, don't, shouldn't or couldn't. 

Picture from Lunch

When you are on top of your life, life feels easier, and it is.  You can focus all your energy on each new problem that comes up.  You'll feel unencumbered, rather than weighed down, by your list of things to do, or problems in life that you haven't dealt with.  Problems are minimized by confidence, rather than magnified by fear.

Staying on top of life is very important, and feels really good.  The next time you feel bogged down by life, write a list of all the things that you "need" to do, or fix.  Then just start doing them.  Complete a task, and scratch it off.  You will find a weight coming off your shoulders as you do.   That action, will build confidence just like Mr. Peale said it would.  Having that real confidence, will allow you to stay objective when a new problem does arise.