"It was only life that pained." - Jack London

This excerpt really grabbed my attention. 

We are all on death's door given the right perspective. Life does hurt, yes. That's part of the hand we're dealt. Whether it's acute pain such as a disease, physical violence, or some other unfortunate malady; or if it's the dull, weary pain of overwork and other social stressors, the statement still applies.

Therefore, why not think of death more positively? The absence of pain. Is that not pleasure?

Too often we project, often subconsciously (even more sinister), that the pain of life will endure till infinity. London points out that this is inherently false. He implies that the trick to life is being ever aware that it ends, and in that way of thinking, one can truly live. One can truly love life.

Later in the story, he describes the ragged and weak protagonist, basically crawling through the Alaskan wild, starving with a mind full of near-death hallucinations, as a man whose life is outside of his body, clinging to the man by nothing more than a thread. The man had left hunger behind. He had dropped his gold to save weight, dropped his gun, too. All that remained were a tattered blanket and his precious matches -- purveyors of warmth and light, bringers and keepers of life.

Life itself is then what is important, not the material pleasures that we are able to find along the way (if we are so fortunate). So in the end, yes, death is the absence of pain, and it very well may be synonymous with pleasure, but life will soldier on, and that is a fact, a fact so concrete that we owe it to ourselves to suck the marrow out of life, just like London's protagonist sucked the marrow out of caribou bones (another item that he chose to carry over gold). We owe it to ourselves to live and love life!

Read London's books here.

Wu Wei Is Not Doing Society's Opposite

In this clip, Alan Watts says that practicing Wu Wei, commonly known as going with the flow, "the art of sailing as opposed to the art of rowing," as Watts describes it, is not doing the opposite of what society orders us to do. That, in effect, is running along the same groove of society's train, just in the other direction (its mirror image, as Watts calls it).

A lot of people in the world are affected by unemployment and discrimination at the moment due to coronavirus and the George Floyd protests (which I and many believe are intrinsically linked). Therefore, many of us are confronting ourselves, our life choices, the roads that we choose to head down on this journey called life. When we find that we are dissatisfied with some of our choices, choices that are part of the identity that we carve out for ourselves on a daily basis (because, let's be honest, identity is slowly molded, not spontaneously called into existence), we should remember Alan's words and choose a novel existence that flows with nature, with universal truths, and not with societal constructs, mere trinkets by the roadside that will one day be unwanted dusty relics, forgotten.

At the very end he asks, "What do you truly, honestly hear? Don't name it. Just as if it were music... classical music." But tap into it! Let it become a part of you, for that is the truth that is being broadcast to you from the void. That is the wave you are meant to ride so freely and joyously.

Find books by Alan Watts here.

Closer to the Birds

On Tangentially Speaking episode 393, Jeff Shipiro talks about hang gliding and jump suiting, and how they bring him closer to the birds, how he can feel a kinship with them as they fly together.

Chris then goes on to wonder why we dream of flying, what this connection to that experience really means. Some are drawn to the air, others to the desert, others still to water. Which are you drawn to?

Despite being drawn to differing environs, the constant that can be determined is the resetting of the soul. Arriving back at nature, like arriving back at your grandmother's kitchen table after years under the vise of societal life, is a meeting with our ancestors, a form of communication. It can refresh us and remind us what it truly means to be human.

This is what the surfer is chasing, not the endless summer nor the perfect wave, for both are impossibilities, unattainable perfections. This is what a runner cruising at high tempo has found: the place where mind, body, and soul merge and are given permission from which to be born again.

Chris's books:

- Sex at Dawn
- Civilized to Death

Bernardo Kastrup - The Universe Is A Brain

Are the stars the external, second-person image of god (lowercase here so as not to personify). Us people are appendages of god, inside of it, a conscious cell of it, an aware probe so that it may keep tabs on itself.

Support:
AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page
Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Duncan Trussell - Everyone's Got Their Own Little Tar Pit

It's that dark place I go back to from time to time, hopefully less often as I get older, but I still find myself there, especially during the grindiest of grindiest work grinds. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? When colleagues are all on edge, fed up with one another, fed up with the monotony, the routine, acting on their spite, their envy, usually passive aggressively, but acting on it nevertheless. A feeding frenzy of civilized adults occurs. We become sharks with cold, dark hearts, dead eyes. Get out of the tar pit and bask in the spring sun. Feel the warmth. Radiate. Glow.

Support:
AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page
Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Chris Ryan - Hypersensitivity and Hippies

Authenticity comes in many forms. Part of fascism is blindly subscribing to uniformity, including choice of fashion (ahem...uniforms), music, and social opinions. Many hippies do just this. Part of this, in my opinion, is youth, and it's not something to hold too strongly against a young person who is trying to figure out who he really is deep down under the the skin color, the gender, the society, the conditioning, etc... People grow, but they need their community (now wider and ever more connected than ever) to nurture them and trim off the dead leaves and unfruitful branches taking up valuable energy.

Support:
AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page
Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Terence McKenna - The Third Eye Sees Time, Not Space

Are there two ways of looking at reality? More? Terence breaks it down from his perspective and makes some profound points. Whatever your opinion may be, McKenna does a good job of opening the doors of possibility. More highlights from this podcast on the way.

Download Audio

Third Eye - Terence McKenna

Support:
Order a Terence McKenna Book
AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page
Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Whatever Happened To The Occupy Movement?

Well-said answer by @sonicyouth to the title's question (from the DTFH Forum):

Source: Inspirationfeed.com

Boring self-absorbed citizens able to still easily lap hedonism from the bowl of capitalism aren't really prone to genuine protest. They/I/we have too much to lose by the value we place: on the things that we have, the life that we've built, friendships we have grown and the persona we have cultivated. Real dissent can put all aspects of your life at risk and when push comes to shove most people are too cowardly or apathetic to commit to action.

Support:
AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page
Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Joe Rogan & Aubrey Marcus - Discipline, Focus, and Fatherhood

Download Audio

Source: Huffington Post

Support:
AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page
Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Two Minds

Click to Enlarge

Two minds coexist. One is the illuminating sun while the other is the obscuring clouds. Mindfulness is the best weatherman, the conjurer of clear skies and defender of the one orb that is at the center of you, me, and everything in existence.

Source: Zen Master Class

AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page

Lesson From Bankei

"Stay in the unborn for 30 days. Those who [do so] will realize that such a life is a necessity."

Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, 1622-1693

Psychedelic Without Drugs... Not An Oxymoron

Living in Japan has its plusses: an interesting, refined culture, mountains, seas, kind and generous people, safety, low unemployment, generous social services, and a physically healthy lifestyle. It has its minuses too: a rigid, maladaptive culture, overworking citizens, ethnocentrism, and harsh drug laws.

In a nation that encourages overindulgence of alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, it is unwittingly draconian in its punishments of illicit drugs which include marijuana and non-addictive psychedelics such as psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA. Hemp, like in many places around the world, was widely used until post-war Japan. Magic Mushrooms were legal until just after the year 2000. They could be bought in vending machines. Currently, in a reaction to the strict laws, there is a surge in the popularity of designer, synthetic drugs known as "legal herb" in Japanese, or Spice in the U.S. Unregulated and unpredictable in effect, I now stay away from these loophole drugs.

Tobacco's been out for years now.

And alcohol feels more and more like a death curse as Father Time does his worst to me.

All of that said, I'm not particularly mad about the conditions of my life in Japan, but with a family and a career, I don't take my chances with illegal substances in Japan.

I still identify with the ethos of psychedelia, however. Transcendence, the soup of consciousness, lifting the veil, brushing away the mist, these metaphors grip me strongly. I see them as stepping stones across the river of man's evolution, though we keep slipping and getting our feet wet, forced to dry off and try again (often without proper reflection, making the same mistakes over and over and over again).

This gets me to my main point: the English language needs a term for this. We need a word to describe those of us who are psychedelic/transcendent, but who do not want the pharmacological or religious labels and connotations that come along with those aforementioned monikers.

If you have any good ideas, please let me know in the comments section.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Gabor Mate in Seeing the Truth

The truth is that we are all in this thing together. We suffer, rejoice, trip and fall, and stand in awe as one. Not only are we responsible for our species, but we're responsible for life itself. This does not put us on a pedestal at the top of a hierarch. On the contrary, it demands of us humility. We have the know-how and the wherewithall to describe the energy of life through all the beautiful mediums of art -- prose, poetry, film, painting, animation, athletics, dance -- and science, but we also have the responsibility to preserve and extend life, to transport it to faraway planets, to record it accurately as historians, to remember how to cherish it like our ancestors did and all the living indigenous peoples do so well still.

Save the nihilism and live instead. Turn down the dial of depression. Run down the clock of scarcity. Laugh in the face of fear. Be full now. Be rich knowing that we are alive. Gabor Mate gets this. Most of us get this. Spread the word and don't forget to act.


There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

The Bandwidth That Powers Mandkind

I heard an interesting quote on the radio recently. I'd love to know who the author of the quote is, so if you know, get in touch. The man said, "As we expand bandwidth between each other, we dissolve our differences."

What he meant by "bandwidth" is up for interpretation, but I think he meant a combination of a few things. If he simply meant "communication" or "empathy" he would have said as much. He chose the bandwidth analogy because bandwidth is dependent on a few factors in order for it to be dispersed at a high rate. A few of the key factors are as follows:

1. High-technology, which is a product of generations of teaching, learning, and application of knowledge.

2. A peaceful environment. In order for education and its application to go on unfettered, there need be a scarcity of conflict and danger.

3. Freedom to experiment. Culture needs to be elastic enough to allow innovative thinkers and risk-takers.

Therefore, the right environment, education, and infrastructure need to be in place in order for humans to expand the bandwidth between each other, dissolve our differences, and march forward in our social evolution. Technologies like the Occulus Rift or the Kinect (the internet 2.0 as people have been calling them) are
a good start. Empathy-building tools in the form of Big Education platforms like Khan Academy or TED are also steps in the right direction.

But something is missing. The next step remains to be seen.

What do you see in our future? The "re-wilding" of our species, an "archaic revival" of sorts, is a piece that I see fitting into the puzzle somewhere. A human is changed when she walks in the woods. She recalls bits of her essence, her true self, when she connects with nature. If, on some esoteric level, artificiality is embodied with an intelligence, then it would serve that entity well to reduce us organic entities down to mere slaves of the inorganic, to men and women locked into screens all day, to children in the same room as their parents, but also light years away, lost in a game or a video or the next best App.

This has all been said before, but we need to be more self-critical with our use of technology. We need to use our gadgets as human enhancers: for learning, for storytelling, for empathy, for self-realization.

Reflection is lost in the developed world, for it is moving too fast to stop and look back, and it is too judgmental to allow us to pause and be here, now.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Giving Birth Is A Psychedelic, Boundary-Dissolving Experience

Women, apart from the myriad ways you are discriminated against -- in the workplace, at home, in politics, in the media, in schools, in religious institutions, and on and on -- you do have one thing good going on in this war-on-drugs day and age, this 21st Century of repression where plants are illegal by the dozens.

 

"Several times in your life you're going to be melted down into this situation. And it's a very deep imprinting."

As long as everything is healthy with the old plumbing, you ladies have a psychedelic birthright, which is, uh, giving birth! According to old Terence (and from what I have been lucky enough to have witnessed once, and hope to once more) the childbearing experience is a boundary-dissolving as experiences come. I saw my wife enter the hospital a vastly different person than the woman who walked out five days later (no, it didn't take that long to give birth -- this is Japan where mothers aren't shoved back through the revolving door from which they came).

All Seeing Eye/Creative Commons

"In the absence of psychedelic plants or drugs, a male can go from birth to the grave and never have this experience."

So, in this seemingly male-dominated sub-genre of life that is psychedelic culture (authors, speakers, musicians, and figureheads of all varieties tend to be men), let the male psychonauts out there remember that they are outnumbered by all of the mothers of the world, and let the men influencing this culture also remember that the mothers and sisters of the world deserve a little more time voicing their interpretation and understanding of the state of being of Gaia and the signals she sends us. Be our interpreters, dear women of earth. Lead the way. Connect us all back to our one true mother.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Duncan Trussell, Anti-Consumerist

This part of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast was just too funny to not edit together into a Youtube video. If I haven't mentioned it very much lately, I'm one who practices fairly extreme frugality, not spending money, aside from housing, internet, phone and basic utilities, commuting and groceries, on much more each month than a meal or two out and a couple cases of beer for the house. It's a goal of mine to experience life as purely as possibly, to find happiness through intrinsic simplicity of being, creative expression, and human interaction rather than extrinsic striving. Sounds simple enough, I guess. Hope Duncan inspires someone else to live in a similar fashion. Peace.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Life Remedy: Add One Hour of Good Habits to Your Day

Photo: Adrian Alvarez (Creative Commons)

Life is a series of routines, a repetition of patterns that come to define who we are. For most of us who are tied to a job or to school, does one week really look all that different from the next. Sure, there are crunch times, times when we are really expected to rev up our engines and perform, but those periods come and go like storms. The day-to-day for many of us, is about cruise control and stability, about becoming one the rhythm of the waves, nothing more. If that's the day-to-day, then would it be outrageous to define those patterns, that adapting, with such grandiose vocabulary as "identity" or "worth"?

For us creative types it is common to fight the urge to be systematic, to kick and scream against formulas for living, against timelines and trajectories, against recipes for vitality. We know that a rich life lies within us all. We know that fulfillment occurs outside the box and from within the kindled spirit. We know that too much lulling with the tide makes us soft, stale. It is vividly clear to us that a choppy dose of salt and foam right to the kisser is an experience that can jut us off the rails and onto a newly discovered path.

We know these things, so why would we want to develop more habits, more ways of cruising down a nerfed bike path, destination death?

Why? Because some habits can break us away from thought patterns that are linked to the parts of our identity that may be bland, tired, and in need of an upgrade. Why? Because some routines may jolt our bodies awake, grounding us to the present moment a bit more consistently, tapping that vein that mainlines to the Spirit itself.

I propose a re-examination of our behavior patterns.

How many hours of your day are spent mindlessly scanning through the internet like a Roomba over a vast floor of graham cracker crumbs? How many hours have you heard the same podcaster ramble on about the same drawn-out points, but offering no solutions? How many hours have you turned off completely only to dwell on the past or the future, in turn shooting your self in the foot for not taking ownership of your own personal growth, a growth that can impact the lives of the people around you?

These are the questions that I've grappled with over the past few years, and for the longest time I was searching for a giant answer, a course of action akin to the elixir of life. Little did I know how much of a left turn I had taken when I first started searching. And although I have a long way to go, I am beginning to steer my vessel in the right direction, to alter my course to seas that are rough, yes, but manageable, and good teachers to boot.

Let's Get Practical.

One way to steer your life off into more aware and present-minded waters is to determine the routines that you have which are thoughtless and scrub them off the graffiti wall of your life, replacing them with habit that are thoughtful and present. For me, I found two times of day to attend to. First, I was sleeping longer than necessary. I now wake up at 5:15 every day and do 20 minutes of floor exercises or yoga (I can send you some great Youtube links if you're interested) followed by 10 minutes of breath meditation. Second, I found that the podcasts I listened to each morning were becoming harder and harder to focus on. If anything, they were more a way to block out the commuters around me than a way to learn and be inspired. So, for the 30 minute commute I decided to start reading a book instead, which has turned into about 100 pages per week that I wasn't reading before (that's 1 to 2 more books per month than before, 12 to 24 more per year, so much fuel to fuel the Muse's fire!). Third, instead of complaining abou
t the lack of time to edit part 2 of my novel, I spend the train ride home editing by hand.

Sorry Duncan, Joe, Jad and Robert, Ira, Chris, Danielli, and Lorenzo. I have less time for your shows, but life is better than, well, maybe ever.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Why Aren't More of Us Choosing Alternative/Intentional Living?

A student of mine gave an anti-skin cancer presentation today. The motivation behind the assignment was rooted in our study of the the French Enlightenment. They were to start a movement based on the ideas of either Rousseau (man is born free in nature and it is civilization corrupts him), Locke (man can thrive in society as long as he is granted the right to life, liberty and property), or Hobbes (man is inherently bad and needs to form a social contract with government in order to keep him in check).

Although it's my philosophy as a teacher to try to let kids make up their own minds, in this instance I couldn't help but let my bias steer the students to either a Rousseauian or Lockeian perspective. Many did.

The student who presented on anti-skin cancer shared this anti-smoking ad as an example of how his movement's ad campaign might look. I thought it was very moving and a symbol of how idyllic we can be in mind, but how hypocritical we can be in body, action or practice.

This led me to ask a few questions: "What happens to us as we grow up that makes us change into people so far from our childhood ideals?" followed by "Is this change gradual, unnoticeable?" then "Is this change a product of the grind our institutions put us through?" and "If so, then what would a world with another path to choose from look like?"

I can see in my mind's eye a world that still has cities for rat racers and career climbers, yes, but also for artists and intellectuals, spaces dedicated to progress and the exchange of ideas. But I can also see spaces with sustainable forest villages of 150 people or less. I can see houseboat harbors filled with fishing families. I can see more mountain cabins and man-made desert caves that run on the sun.

I can't see why these alternative/intentional communities aren't taking off more than they already are. In general, people seem to be more aware of the ills of the world around them: consumerism as a value structure, superficiality, and a plethora of distractions that add little or no value to our lives. So, does anyone have any clue why more people aren't putting their feet down, shouting "I'm made as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" from the rooftops, and dropping out?

My theory is that unless you get involved in one such communities from a very young age, say late teens to early 20s, your social base, significant other, and family will already be imbedded in a much more established, larger community. And it's hard for many to leave the people they love (and just as hard to convince them to leave with you). I'd love to hear your thoughts on alternative/intentional living, as well as on the change that happens upon reaching adulthood.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

The Seasonal Metaphor

Somewhere in late spring to early summer is when we are meant to achieve greatness. Sometime when the sun is hot but the nights still offer respite, separation, and a time for reflection. It's no big conspiracy that the holidays of hope for better fall around the winter solstice, a time when the light, in that magical reversal, outweighs the dark for the very first time, but we often fail to point out that the holidays of social achievement -- the Fourth of July, Bastille Day, Golden Week, May Day, Juneteenth, Youth Day -- occur when the sky is a crisp blue and the sweat wipes away clean and accompanied with pride, unlike the whimpers heard during the dog days.

So, as a global society, where are we on the metaphorical calendar? Could be in clear-headed fall, full of relief that we made it through the grueling hot summer of recession and war against immovable foes called Terror, Drugs, and Communism -- a brief moment of rest after the harvesting of knowledge and wisdom and the error of our ways. Or is it dreary winter, still before the season of hope? Grey and immobilizing, our only defenses stoicism and willful ignorance as we accept that those in power -- Presidents, Prime Ministers, CEOs -- have our best interests and our freedom in mind. Or maybe we're in our own August, slow to action, full of emotion-laden decisions, absent of logic. Heated and in danger of an irreconcilable decision.

We should make it late spring. After the rains. When all is possible. Time to get things situated just right before the scorch arrives. Right before the flies decide to bite at our hides.

Will we prepared to quell their attacks one measly buzz at a time? Or will be unprepared and wait for them to swarm, only to flail violently and inaccurately? To shoot at and trip over our own feet. To bring the innocents around us down too.

When it's all said and done, it's up to us to decide the season, and to flavor it accordingly. Each day is a new world. Each moment a chance to make that world perfect, to storm the castle, to flip the coin, to sand the edges, to spike the DNA with medicine of rich compassion as if it were the punch at an 1st Estate ball.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Silence is a Mirror: In Defense of Meditation

Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the reflection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it, and if ever its duplicating surface is temporarily wiped clean of modern life's ubiquitous hubbub, they will hasten to fog it over with such desperate personal noise devices as polite conversation, humming, whistling, imaginary dialogue, schizophrenic babble, etc...

This is how Tom Robbins praises meditation in his novel Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. A recent Mindrolling podcast with guest Joseph Goldstein emphasizes this point by saying that the only way to know the mind is turn inward and observe it, and that it takes not effort but courage to do so. It's all semantics really, as words mean different things to different people, but to many of us effort implies striving for me, myself and I, while courage implies encountering the unknown with an open mind and an open heart, being reborn in every passing moment, opening one's metaphoric doors to let the rush of beauty that is existence come flowing in like long overdue deluge. Challenging for all of us, yes, but worth a try.

Robbins continues:

Only in sleep is silence tolerated, and even there, most dreams have soundtracks. Since meditation is a deliberate descent into deep internal hush, a muted stare into the ultimate looking glass, it is regarded with suspicion by the nattering masses; with hostility by business interests (people sitting in silent serenity are seldom consuming goods); and with spite by a clergy whose windy authority it is seen to undermine and whose bombastic livelihood it is perceived to threaten.

In short, meditation slows us all down and allows us to understand each other better. In a society that is largely still built on a hierarchy, bureaucracy, and an individual mindset that pits itself against 7 billion others along with Mother Earth herself, it easy to see how meditation gets shot down in social circles as wishy-washy or escapist. That said, it will take courage to defend it, to stand up to the nay sayers and refuse to allow others to remove this revolutionary practice from the intricate puzzle that is social evolution. Make it a corner piece. Make it obvious for all to see its value. This take courage. I think that Bertrand Russell said it best on how to have the courage to stand up to those that point fingers, to defend life's best practices against those holding us all back with a snide remark and a belly laugh. The following are his Ten Commandments of teaching. Pay particularly close attention to numbers 7 and 8, though all can really apply to this cause:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ