Category: blog (Page 5 of 5)

To Kill A Mockingbird

Monday, February 19th, 2018

Background Music Press Play for Added Atmosphere

I like animals but there’s this mockingbird that wakes me up in the middle of the night, just going nonstop with a strange amount of chirps, it sounds psychotic. The other birds, even grackles, are less annoying because they pause between chirps and there is plenty of quiet between their chirping sessions. This mockingbird just goes on for hours and hours.

There are even other parts of my neighborhood that I’ve seen and heard mockingbirds that don’t have this bizarre frantic energy that the mockingbirds in front of my townhomes have. Perhaps the electromagnetic energy from the electrical devices nearby affects them crazy? Maybe the street lamps outside throw off their natural sense of day and night and this also…somehow…makes them psychotic chirpers?

It’s strange how aggressively they go at it. So I decided, fuck this, I have to do something about it. I bought a wrist rocket sling shot on eBay.

It reminds me of my Dennis the Menace days as a rebellious youth, or memories of watching the Sandlot movie. I started shooting rocks at the mockingbirds to get them to go away.

But it didn’t work. No matter how close I get to hitting them, no matter how many times I sling rocks at these loud non stop noise making birds, they keep flying back to the same places on the telephone wires, stop signs, and trees in the front parkinglot, where my townhome is.

The irony is there is a whole neighborhood with creeks and plush trees to fly to that is so much more of a suitable habitat than a parkinglot made of concrete -yet these little bastards keep coming back. I’m a vegetarian, supporter of animal rights (though not PETA they go too far hurting animals in their videos to try to gain attention), an environmentalist, love me some sustainable permaculture versus a forced agriculture approach. But these mockingbirds won’t shut up!

It bears mentioning that I work from home, as a tech for Facebook, so I spend a lot of time at home. This leads to a lot of times I have to hear these mockingbirds. I think they are kind of pretty with the patterned design on their wings, but they are also aggressive af.

Before I bought the wrist rocket slingshot I ended up running outside in my boxers, in the parkinglot, throwing bottled water into the trees, brooms, anything I could find to get them to STFU at 3am in the morning when I was trying to sleep. There’s no cause for that. 3am? WTF!! I found an article from 1987 on the Los Angeles Times website where the biologist who wrote the piece suffered as I do from the nonstop night noise:

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-25/magazine/tm-5613_1_mockingbird-sings

I found it interesting that I wasn’t alone in experiencing this (even back in the 80s these mofos were interrupting sleep with their racket). Also, I found it interesting that mockingbirds don’t sing like other birds, for joy, often they chirp because they are pissed off little shit heads and chirping isn’t a song as it is a filibuster of complaints in bird language. Somehow, I’m not surprised.

Now, I sometimes go out into the parkinglot shooting up at the trees, trying to scare the mockingbirds away. What the hell happened to a sense of survival??? I’m trying to establish a perimeter, to keep them away from the front of the parkinglot since they have an entire neighborhood, including several parks. But the loud bastards won’t take a hint.

Fast forward 6 months, I drove most of the mockingbirds off, and they don’t wake me up at 3am anymore, sitting outside my 2nd story window with their wretched chirping. For the past 3 months or so I’ve had relative peace and quiet from the mockingbirds who moved on to somewhere else.

I spoke too soon! Now there are THREE mockingbirds that have come back to harass me. I think my aim is getting better now. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. Why come back to a place where you’re going to get shot at? The mailman yesterday saw me trying to shoot the mockingbirds out of the tree and stopped to ask me if I’d had much luck. I explained my reasons why I was trying to drive them off and we had a good laugh. Even if it sucks to have to deal with it’s still a funny story.

To be continued…

Wax On Wax Off

Sometimes I question the good things in my life, and get anxious that something is going to take them away soon. My life has been consistently sprinkled with so many boom-bust cycles that I’m trained to feel like good, isn’t normal. Pain, regret, forgiveness, tentative hopefulness, and success is the ugze.

Rinse and repeat. This went on for years, my soul kept getting battered with one self destructive cycle after another. But to younger, less aware Trevor, it just seemed like I was being tossed about in this gigantic storm I had no control over. Everyone else was to blame.

As I grew past my own arrogance and gained more self awareness of what I was doing to contribute to losing a job, which led to less money, housing instability, and questionable decisions on how to make money.

I started to see the world as something I could control. At least, my own world. The small piece of heaven that I strut my stuff on, wasn’t just going to blow away with a whimsical fancy.

Things evened out. College helped a lot, seeing professors who had healthy social skills and a good heart. I was able to lessen the anxiety, often irrational, but other times with just cause if I was acting like an asshole, that somehow all the good things in my life would abruptly slip away.

I realize that for everyone happiness has a sort of transitory nature. We feel like, really happy and then the other shoe drops. Whether or not we were waiting for it, sometimes shit happens. But, I think the qualitative difference is that, how you handle your shit, when shit happens, determines whether you are shit faced drunk the next day to not have to feel shit, or…have your shit together. Shit, I’ve probably over used certain phrases.

If life was a lesson from Mister Miyagi, then, instead of waxing a car to show karate moves, I think the movements of life, the ebb and flow in the flux of circumstance, teaches us the graceful path towards cultivating our own wu shu of serendipity. Adversity is merely the tool through which we develop our neijia, the internal martial arts of those on the path.

The way I learned to handle the unexpected bullshit that may drop in my lap, that wasn’t actually self created, assisted in bouncing back quicker. Getting my footwork right, doing the Ali Shuffle in the ring, bobbing and weaving when life threw a left hook.

The funny thing is, bad shit started to happen less and less to me. I don’t think there was a day where I suddenly said, “Wow, I’ve reversed the polarity of magnetism and no longer attract bad stuff!?” It was more of a gradual adjustment to a new attitude, that:

“You know what? Yeah, everything will be ok.”

And not in some cliched platitude that has been said so much that it doesn’t have meaning anymore But in a sincere meaningful “I am the captain of my fate I am the master of my soul” sort of way. It was a transition through environments as smooth as the gradient of horizon line of light faded blue to the deeper purple of the post sunset skies.

As gratifying as that is, we all need reminders. Habits are a bitch, and creep up on you when you’re not looking. We get comfortable with what other people so graciously allow us to do, and don’t always pay attention to when we cross a line. There are no lines in the sand, but there are moments when we need to check ourselves and ask, “Am I taking advantage of a situation and half assing who I am capable of being? Or am I actually doing the best I can?”

That’s the only protective layer I can think to play the odds in your favor against the unexpected. And be gracious. Accept a windfall, not as a portent of some bad shit that will eventually happen, but just as what it is, a really awesome experience. Thank the heavens, thank your mom, the world, whomever, for being there for you and allowing you a chance to be more of yourself.

We sometimes have to teach ourselves the basics all over again.

But I promise you, it’s ok.

Everything is going to be ok.

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Glistening Panther Infinity Pool

August 14th, 2017

I Will Not Be Treated Like An Animal,

Unless It’s A Glistening Panther

Emerging From An Infinity Pool

It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times

Most people right now are going nuts emotionally about what’s going on in national politics. I expect to turn this political disillusionment into spiritual action, for ultimately it is the hearts of humankind we need to change.

Politics is mostly the practice of managing and regulating the limitations of humans. But if we were living up to our potential, and we should be, government could be a positive force that guides our priorities rather than doling out punishment and rewards in a futile attempt at creating equality from the outside in.

When we learn to accept the elements of existence moving with the flow of what IS and our place in it we can begin to grow as beings rather than be lost in a whirlpool of anger and frustration because of unrealistic expectations. It’s a good idea to…still GIVE a damn, but not become TOO emotionally invested.

What Should We Do?

Collectively each and every one of us shares this task and in the individual is where the task begins. No one is superior to another. Not the politician or CEO because of their greater responsibility or large sums of money. Nor the political activist because they tout noble ideals such as purity and justice.

We all share in the destruction or creation of this world and so respect must be given to all, by all as a starting point or no progress will be made. Mercy and understanding is the only path to a unified, stronger human race.

A government can punish those who have transgressed but unless we can understand what made them relinquish their good for bad, shining a light on the darkness, more bad will fester and grow from that darkness.

Revolution

A revolution in how we organize ourselves as social equitable beings relies on shared values inherent in how we live our lives. It’s a challenge when religion, and class amongst other things divide human beings from realizing that we must all compassionately build this world together as sustainably as possible.

If everyone in the world had these shared values, we would not have war, poverty, homelessness, starvation etc. As much as it may seem self evident not to kill what keeps us alive (ie the planet, plants and animals, natural resources, eachother etc) this is a truth often rationalized into irrelevance by many in and out of positions of power, as they service only themselves instead of understanding even they would benefit from this kind of honesty.

Simple Cause & Effect

Choosing to try a little harder as opposed to giving up, does not mean you don’t accept you are human, it is integral in realizing ourselves fully as a means to evolve perception and better our own capabilities to improve and enhance the quality of life we experience.

Applying a generic label to just finding positivity in everything, is much different than consciously shifting our inner attention and energy towards overcoming the easy way out, which will always be the negative self talk, and thoughts of helplessness. When you push past your comfort zone, and ask more of yourself; it is a worthy investment that yields a much greater return than justifying staying the same.

Be also careful about attachment, when you become so strongly attached to a goal or even your own perspective, it limits the sight, inner and outter sight, as well as potential for growth. It is good to recharge, by pausing, stepping outside of emotional habits, and tuning in to the intuition inside, and letting go. Sometimes to have something we have to let it go first.

We are always in the process of waking up to the next level of awareness.

What Kind of Awareness Is Good?

The self awareness to take a candid look at one’s perspective, without becoming so attached to it that growth atrophies, and see how one’s self can grow, evolve and have the humility to see beyond false attachments and appreciate the people in our lives not for the purpose they serve us, but for being themselves.

To not be confined to a rigid set of ideas or concepts, the consistency of compassion regardless of another person’s skin color, or political beliefs, to recognize eachother’s humanity not as a convenient tool of self congradulations, but as a method to bring peace to the world through leading by example. Just being a good person for the sake of being good.

Closing Thoughts To Open Minds

What if…we can draw from this infinite knowledge like a data base through wordless frequencies that we perceive unconsciously through light strands permeating our dna and by using our thoughts we can spur an exponential growth of awareness that both reunites us with the infinite perception of the all of everything while still maintaining individual receptors to function as gateways thru microscopic wormholes for others to #levelup to a new frequency capable of perpetual sustainability by virtue of intention ?