admin March 28th, 2009
[reprinted, with permission, from Shyguy's How To Get A Girlfriend Blog.]
All too often, in our lives we find ourselves being manipulated or influenced by other men, by women, and sometimes even by the damned television.
Of course, as a kid against a schoolyard bully, perhaps the only options are the Charles Atlas course, karate classes, or a tactful withdrawal. But in later life usually we’re not influenced by physical threat.
HOW DO ‘THEY’ MANIPULATE US?
It’s done with worths, with images, and with social pressure.
If you’re being influenced this way … what that tells you is that you DO NOT actually understand how it’s happening. Oh, you may have theories and opinions about those bad people.
But if you’re still being manipulated, either “having” to go along, or even resisting but feeling upset or angry about it .. then you DO NOT fully understand how it works.
But here’s how to change that …
admin January 9th, 2009
Mobius Megatar ToneWeaver Guitar.
I make and sell guitars. Unusual guitars that you can play without strumming or picking, and this lets you play strings with both hands, so you can play bass strings and guitar strings at the same time. The name of this instrument is the Mobius Megatar.
Recently, a college student had inquired because he wanted to get one of our instruments. We wrote back and forth, and he was all set to go, but then he sent me this email –
“I’m sorry but the Megatar is not in the picture any more. I was coerced into buying a 2700 dollar classical guitar from a company that gives referral bonuses to the teacher who I was coerced by, so I’m left broke and on crappy terms with my main teacher for the next 3 years.
“I really wish I had the cash and time to delve into a tapstyle instrument right now, and if I could, it’d be a Mobius with Bartolini pickups, but it seems like that won’t be available for a while. With student loans and a no emergency funds (thanks to the aforementioned jerk of a teacher) I’ll be lucky if my car makes it without scheduled servicing for the next 6 months.”
What is really odd is that I got another email from another college student, in a similar situation who told me something of a similar story, that he’d been required (or perhaps urged) to get a nylon-string guitar for some upcoming course work. However, the second student seemed much less bitter.
And it got me to thinking. I can understand the disappointment he must feel.
And actually, it does sound kind of crappy behavior for the college music instructor, to push the student toward an instrument that pays the instructor a commission.
On the other hand …
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admin August 17th, 2008
What is it about taking a shower that causes new ideas to pop into your head?
Is it the invigorating ions that are caused by splitting water droplets?
Or is it a simple as Murphy’s law triggered because you will never have pencil and paper in the shower?
I don’t know the answer to this time-proven rule, but as of this morning’s shower, I do know a super-simple way to look at mental health, a simple way to be happier and more productive.
It’s simply this –
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- conscious , consciousness , enjoying life , habit , happiness , health , making changes , meditation , mental health , mind , prosperity , reprogramming , unconscious
admin May 4th, 2007
Everybody’s talking about the cult-hit movie, “The Secret,” and no wonder. The method promises to give you anything you want.
The movie has a focus on “getting stuff,” which is probably a good thing, because this focus that anyone can understand is probably one of the reasons the movie has been wildfire word-of-mouth and rapidly making its way into mainstream culture. And after all, if you’re just too darned spiritual to want some stuff for yourself, you could always manifest a bunch of stuff and give it to the poor!
For the rest of us, getting some stuff sounds just swell. And just a tiny bit of reflection brings us to the realization that we could use the same method to be, do, or have more of the things that interest and inspire us. Nothing wrong with that.
But what about lazy people?
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admin May 2nd, 2007
A blog that I enjoy is called “Evolving Times,” and recently the writer described the situation of being “spare-changed,” on the street.
People in my parents generation used the word “beggers” to describe people who beg on the street. Or sometimes “moochers,” “panhandlers,” or “bums.” Of course, in tiny Henrietta, Texas, where I grew up, the town was too small to have an official panhandler, so the town drunk filled in part time.
Friends of mine as I grew up didn’t seem to like the word “Begger,” though it would seem to be accurate. And I guess the phrase, “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” from that older time had mutated into “Spare change?” by the hippie period in the 1960’s.
THE SPARE-CHANGER
The writer in “Evolving Times” was describing what we’ve all felt in that situation. You’re walking along and you are suddenly asked, “Spare change?” Which as we all know, means “Do you have any spare change, that you could give to me?” (I guess those beggers are either very lazy, or they are astonishingly efficient.)
And then what happened?
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admin May 1st, 2007
In one of the last scenes in the fun movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the heroine makes a statement about the leading man. She says, lovingly, “He’s a pirate.”
As you may recall from the movie, that young man started out hating the pirates, and yet, in the course of his adventures, he’s become bolder and he has dared great things, and by golly he has become a pirate. And that’s a good thing.
And so … why is it a good thing to be a pirate?
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admin May 1st, 2007
The ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can regulate your body in a thousand ways (all normally below your consciousness), and the ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can automatically serve up learned actions like a tennis-serve or automatically serve up your opinion of the President or automatically make you feel anxious on a date. Some of this is swell, and some of this is occasionally awful, but the Non-Conscious mind is looking out for you as best it can, and everything it does is automatic.
Think of the President. There’s your opinion … automatically.
Go out on a date. There’s your usual feeling … automatically.
Decide to tie your shoe. There go your hands … automatically tying your shoe.
But what if you’d like to do something … different … for a change?
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admin April 28th, 2007
If you listen to Sigmund Freud or some Psychology 101 textbooks, you may quickly form the idea that there is something called either the ‘Unconscious Mind,’ or maybe called the ‘Subconscious Mind.’
Now right there is a poser, because you might think, “Well, if it’s unconscious, then how can it be a mind?”
And if you read up on this, and if you watch dramatic movies about people who have disturbed the ‘Subconscious’ mind, you could easily get the idea that the Subconscious mind is a kind of lunatic stalker which lives inside of us, and given the right situation, it might burst out and *make* you do something … bad.
Scary, huh.
Well, it’s not like that. It’s something far simpler and less mysterious, and you’ve seen it all your life, but you didn’t think about it. Here’s what it is …
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