12 Dec

Posted at 10:23h in Observations

"Formal [college] education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune." A college education reduces the risk of winding up with a low paying job. Those who are self-educated are precluded from most well paying jobs; hence, they can take a low paying job or try their luck with self-employment where there's a chance they make it big or lose whatever they had. Clearly, the self-education route is risky. Risk taking is a key to making a fortune. A formal education is a reactive process as students strive to come up with what their teachers have determined are the conventionally "right" answers. Essentially, successful students excel at conformity of thought, not at creative thinking, which limits their ability to create exceptional value in the confines of a large organization. Self-education is proactive, motivated by having more questions than answers and characterized by independent thinking which ultimately can lead to discovering new, better or cheaper ways of doing things. Buddha and Christ had no gurus....

08 Dec

Posted at 10:15h in Observations

"Tragedy is just comedy that hasn't come to fruition. One day we will laugh at this. We will laugh at everything." "Everyone is a comedy. If people are laughing at you they just don't understand the joke that is themselves." Life is a play, "Terrific." The play is our journey in life. It starts as a tragedy and ends as a farce. When we get scripted out of the play, we join the gods in the audience for whom the play of human follies provides entertainment. Those who realize this truth have a wonderful journey; forever, whether on stage or in the audience. For those who don't, life is a mix of good and bad roles in the play and eventually they die....

07 Dec

Posted at 10:17h in Observations

"A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money." A funny line because we have mental associations and make generalizations about the rich which bear little truth regarding an individual who happens to be rich. The undoubtable truth is that the rich man is simply a man who has money. When the truth is revealed and we realize our mental constructs are illusionary is the essence of something funny. Being rich is a matter of money, but otherwise it's meaningless. Any inferences made based on someone having money is poor judgement. Good judgement is more valuable than money. Money comes and goes. Good judgement doesn't necessarily assure money coming, but it's helpful in keeping it from going. Poor judgement and good luck can bring great wealth, as in heavily playing the lottery and winning. Good judgement, unlike poor judgement, more likely assures our basic needs of food, shelter, security and health. Once our basic needs are met, we are absolutely rich. Realizing this truth is good judgement. When we are absolutely rich but perceive ourselves as poor relative to others, we will always be poor because we have poor judgement....

04 Dec

Posted at 10:15h in Observations

Some years back, when one of my children passed puberty, one day they called me "Victor." It sounded odd, but that's a way some children assert themselves. I laughed at what some might take as disrespectful and said: "You can call me whatever you wish but if you cease calling me "father" I might forget I'm your father and you might not like the consequences of having our relationship like that I have with others whom I equally love but who aren't in my will." They never again called me "Victor," but that might be because I would not have recognized them if they had....

24 Nov

Posted at 02:05h in Observations

"Blindness cuts us off from things, but deafness cuts us off from people." As we make our way in this world, we are seemingly more vulnerable and less likely to survive without the ability to see than without the ability to hear. Hence, it would seem better to be deaf than blind. Yet, when we connect with others by hearing and talking, we can see through their perspectives which is the essence of wisdom. Moreover, connecting with others is fundamental to love. Wisdom and love (compassion) transform this world into heaven. There is little point trying to make our way in this world by seeing if we can't arrive at its ultimate destination, heaven. Hence, it is better to be blind than deaf as deaf is death. Seeing allows us to connect (experience) things. However, seeing confirms that we are apart and separate from things. Hearing allows us to connect with and as such be one with others. Better to be able to hear which has us one with everyone, than to see which confirms our separateness. When we are one with everyone, we are in heaven. Most people would rather be deaf than blind; implying that most people feel vulnerable, apart and separate from others. For them, there is no heaven....

17 Nov

Posted at 01:22h in Observations

"Life is a dream; some have a good one, some have a bad one." Dreams are dynamic, changing from good to bad and good again. Hoping our dream gets better keeps us dreaming. However, when we awaken, everything is neither good nor bad. There is no good nor bad. All that is is just beautiful. Frieda Teicher is my grandmother. When Victor was 6, she sparked his curiosity to wonder what happens when we wake up from our dream....

11 Nov

Posted at 09:07h in Observations

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create for the moment the illusion that we're not alone." Orson Welles was an actor, director, producer and screenwriter; an innovator in film, radio and theatre; considered among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. He was also a master illusionist or magician. When our identity is our finite self in time and space (which we perceive as apart and separate from everything that is not our self), ipso facto we are alone regardless of how we might delude ourselves otherwise. When we come to realize that every-thing is not a separate thing but a temporary facet of one thing, the everything; we are not alone as we do not have an independent existence. It is then that the eternal light dispels all illusions as we are one with the light which has no beginning and no end. We are God which is that which is beyond our mind's descriptions as descriptions imply that something is one thing and not another. We are no longer a piece but at peace, beyond our mind's comprehension for the mind has deluded us to identifying ourselves as apart and separate from the everything....

03 Nov

Posted at 00:11h in Observations

My arms and legs work well together but I wonder whether they know each other exists. With little self-awareness, each likely feels it has an independent existence. If they knew who they were they would quickly realize that they are not independent things; they are interdependent as they couldn't exit without everything else to which they're part of and connected. Maybe when I think of who I am I'm thinking the way my arms and legs are thinking, with little self-awareness. Upon awakening, it's clear I only exist as one with everything....