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"I won the lottery". because as Bruce
Springsteen says, "I was born in the USA". |
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| We Speak English Or People Die |
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| Underwrote my foreign travels with these blue-chip gigs |
Cnn Verses The Alphabet
There are some similiarities between Afghanastan and Myanmar-Drugs, long civil wars and emerging economies... but I digress...actually reminisce, harking back to SE Asia and 3 days in Yangoon:
Yangoon's analog eyes don’t see our digital world. But does it matter. Internet or InterNOT? Traveling in places with out
electricity with TCN's, Third Country Nationals, are not voyages of discovery, but rituals of reassurance- So with,curiosity, vulnerability and vocabulary, I will articulate t.e Myanmar sound bite.
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| Warrior Ethos |
These ppl in Burma, aka Golden land, are so sweet, Yet they are the digital homeless, who couldn’t tell you the difference between google and facebook, a laptop or an ipad. The largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had is not the internet, it's Mynmar. My conscious, however, permits me to love them.
How To Buy Nothing----DetermiNATION Mynmar.
No TV. No Logos. No Mc Donalds's. No McDonnell Douglas. Few cell phones. A sim card costs $500 and the phone system is broken. Few cars. There is no CNN, 24 hour news cycle, no tivoization to time shift your day, no napsterization or digital downloads-this is the "axis of evil" the millions of ppl who make less than $2 bucks a day. Countries, like ppl however, are loved for their failures. It's a shame I can't spend any money in this place and help the dam economy. I am unable to buy anything for 72 hours.
What Happened to Downtime? Deep Thinking & Sacred Space in the United States of Uncoinsciousness is extinct verses the real deal--- Living in a quasi “airplane mode.”For the uninitiated, and digital homeless- setting their lives to “airplane mode” disables phone calls, text messaging, wi-fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. It is distinct. It's their blisscipline.
Traveling is a Life Sentence--We yearn for journeys like prisoners dream of rooms without bars. And we all want time off for good behavior.
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| Be Brave And Shave! Me No Hair |
Raman Noodles 2.0
Choosing between the digital and the analog is like arguing against the laws of gravity or is it?
If Ramen noodles are a dish of effortless purity than Yangoon's outdoor market of fresh produce, the egg or tea, gives you oodles and oodles of these ubiquitous states of grace with a marriage of nothing more than hot water. .
I visited today one of the seven wonders of a shrinking planet-Google, and came up with this comment, I wrote on my 1995 trip to Cambodia, where I made the astute comment--Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day-Give him Raman noodles and you don't have to teach him anything!
The fact that there is no refrigeration and everybody is hustling to eat someting for the day, Yangoon will stick with you like gum in your hair until you get it out with peanut butter.Or better yet, just shave all your hair off. Hair is ego anyway.
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| Eat Your Colors |
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| Cuteness |
What is the most powerful drug known to mankind? American English. I used to have a "drug" problem but now I make enough money, and found my voice.
Tune in Turn on Drop Out! and Be Here Now.
Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you. As I said, I was born in the USA, and being born there-my life has to be my message-Star-spangled happiness,: because love is a responsibility and I love America, and its A list language, American.
The messianic metaphor of the American Dream becomes the lottery and game show mentality – that outside chance that the planets will line up to liberate us from financial worries once and for all. Yet we were all born(in America) having winning tickets as a mere circumstance of birth – and cashing them in is a simple matter of choice.
Hugs and Drugs
The joke goes, you call a person who speaks 3 languages trilingual, 2, bilingual, 1, American. What is the most powerful drug known to mankind? American English. I used to have a "drug" problem but now I make enough money, and found my voice.
Write? Right.
Blogging is literature in a hurry. People climb mountain because they are there. In blogging there is no there there. Why do bloggers blog ? Because it isn't there. It's always shifting and changing and the searching that makes it fun.
When your future version of you gets involved in the present version of you to get to better decisions...your life takes on a new optimal perspective. You "release your emergency brake" and when you land things start to Take Off. When you truly feel the emotions of the future, add gratitude, and it is as if you have already signed for it.
A bet: a decision about an uncertain future. The implications of treating decisions as bets made it possible for me to find learning opportunities in uncertain environments. Treating decisions as bets, I discovered, helped me avoid common decision traps, learn from results in a more rational way, and keep emotions out of the process as much as possible.
The actual cruise might be four days or a week, the anticipation of Norwegian Fjords cruise, for instance was months and the memory will probably last for years or forever. So, while I focus on the joy of the doing the cruise there is joy or anticipation and the joy of THE memory of it all the time.
The digital convergence and celestial jukeboxes (Cell Phones, TV's, Computer Screens) are the sound track and sound bytes of our lives- But the content is somebody elses point of view. What is deeply personal is universal yet what gives our lives meaning and gravitas is our own Autobiography.
I think that the majority of time we never get inside our own lives. That is the difference between living mythically ( The American Dream) and living autobiographically (The YOUniverse) where your wishbone becomes your backbone.
