A prejudice that I have

I have noticed within myself a certain prejudice that sometimes prevents me from fully enjoying otherwise great experiences. When I tell you what it is, you may not think it is important. But, it does have an impact on my life. When reading a book or watching a movie I strongly dislike it when that part of the story ends on a cliffhanger.

In my mind, each individual component (book or movie) should be a complete story on its own with a satisfying climax and resolution to all the important story points. I understand that due to timing constraints it is not realistic to have everything the author intends to say done in such a fashion and I do not mind that longer story arcs are broken down into smaller segments.

It just bothers me when the main focus of the story is not completed within one book or when a movie ends in the middle of a tense scene. Take the Matrix series, for example. Taken individually, each movie is great. There's plenty of eye candy everywhere, explosions and other special effects, attractive people and martial arts galore. The music is great. The plot is engaging and the philosophical aspects are just wow. But the second movie ends right in the middle of a tense scene and I hated it. All my friends love all three movies. But I just have not been able to get past the ramping up that the movie does only to end with a ...to be continued.

When the second movie came out, I knew it was part of a trilogy. I knew the whole story would not be told by the end of the second movie. But, a part of me always expects to have a complete tale told in each movie and to have all the movies tie together to tell a bigger complete story altogether.

Now in contrast let's look at the Lord of the Rings movies. Each one has all of the same things that make the Matrix series great. They have dazzling special effects,gorgeous scenery, attractive charismatic characters, great plot and music. Each series tells two totally different stories, but the formula for their success is very similar. There is a ...to be continued in the Lord of the Rings as well. But it is right after a major battle and there is a natural breaking point where there is nothing "important" going on.

When I was a teenager I had a habit of going to the library and checking out two or three dozen sword and sorcery novels at a time. Many of them were books that were part of a series. Sometimes I ended up reading them out of order because I was unable to find book one or book three. I disliked not knowing what was going on because important elements to understanding what was going on in the book I was reading were in a previous book. I think this is where my idea that a single book or movie should be a complete story and that further books in the series should just be a continuation of said story. I have almost always been dissatisfied when a story is not self contained so to speak. 

One problem that I have with looking at things this way, is that expecting things to be a specific way is another way of saying that you assume they will be that way. One of the main rules that I run my life by is to not make assumptions. Invariably, once one makes assumptions and begins acting on them negative things follow.

The other problem with seeing things this way is that there is a preconceived notion that is stealing my enjoyment of otherwise great content.

It is my intention to enjoy every movie I watch and every book I read. If I am not going to enjoy a movie or book, then the time, energy and money that went into making that viewing or reading happen are all wasted. I do not enjoy wasting my time. So I will instead put energy into removing this prejudice as it does not serve me in any useful fashion.

Judgement

Yesterday, I sent a very empowering non-fiction book titled "The Science of Getting Rich" to a friend of mine. I was thinking to myself that I hope that he truly sees value in the book, that he really gets it so to speak.

Many such books, including this one, have a chapter at the end that sum up the book.  And even some of the ones that do not, have either a jacket or a first or last page that sum up what the book is about. Often, people will skip ahead to such summaries and decide whether or not they agree with the statements made therein. Thankfully, my friend is not the sort of person that tends to do these things. If he were, then both his time and mine would be completely wasted by my sending it to him.

The problem with people that do act this way is that they will judge the book based solely upon their previous knowledge of the world without actually reading it. The purpose of reading books with "new" information in them is learn about new things not to judge them based on things you already know.

In my personal life, there have been dozens of books that I did not agree with the overall summary at the time, before I read them. But, by following along and reading the guiding principles that made up the unfamiliar philosophies, testing each of the parts individually and finding them to be true, by the end I was entirely in agreement with what was being presented to me. I have become a better stronger person as a result, both physically and mentally.

All of the knowledge within a two hundred page book cannot be imparted in two or three pages. So "judging a book by its cover" just leads to one remaining in ignorance and no new growth can occur as a result.

Now what happens when you judge a person the same way?Quite often one person will be judged by others even before they speak. The way a person dresses and their general posture(the artwork on their cover) will be enough for other people to get a preconceived notion of what that person is about and how they think.  Then they open their mouth and say something and we continue judge them based on what they just said. We use a few chance brief words(the summary of the book) that come out as a way of deciding for ourselves whether or not this person has value.

Since those words are not likely to be that person actually, intentionally summing up their philosophy and  beliefs, it is even more unfair to treat a person this way than a book. The sum total of useful knowledge in any given person would likely fill dozens if not hundred of volumes, if we were to listen to everything that person could actually tell us about their life and experiences.

I believe that if people are not being openly hostile or aggressive there is no reason to discard them simply because we do not agree with the first couple of paragraphs that they speak. When people say something that you feel you may disagree with, ask deep probing questions so that once they have finished answering you have a complete understanding of what exactly it is that they are saying and why they feel that it is true. Then armed with this knowledge make a decision about whether or not you agree with them. But if you do not agree with them, discard the information as being without value, not the person.

Do not make snap decisions based on very little input. You can not make an accurate assessment of the facts until you have them all. Never judge a book by its cover and always give each man enough rope to hang (or free) himself.

Legend status

I am in the process of listening to an audio book by Paulo Coehlo called The Alchemist. In that book a concept is mentioned that I have heard elsewhere but it has been a few years. It is called personal legend. A great deal of the book is about a person discovering his personal legend.

In the beginning it seems as if it is about this person finding a great treasure during his lifetime. And while it is about that, that is only a small part of it, I think.  My reasoning for this is, if  you really think about a legend, it's a story, often one of huge proportions with many amazing details. So a personal legend would be this amazing story about a specific person.

To obtain the treasure in your personal legend requires a journey. It makes no difference if the treasure is gold, true love, enlightenment or some combination of all of them. A journey has both a beginning and an ending and a path way that bridges the two. All of life is a journey and adventure even if we never leave our hometown. We begin from wherever we are and we walk down many different paths, seeking the one that will bring us to the treasure at the end.

But our personal legend, that is the whole story from beginning to end.  On every step of the trip is the opportunity for us to learn and grow. While the treasure we are seeking may only be found at the end, an infinite variety of other treasures lay all about us on our way to that final goal.  Who we are at the end is often vastly different than who we were at the start.

And if you think about it, a legend is something that lives on long after the person is gone. So your personal legend is also the story that people who knew you will tell once you are no longer around.  Close your eyes and imagine for a moment. IF you died right this very second, what would the story that people told about you sound like? Would you be described as a poor miserly miscreant who never had a kind word to say about anyone? Would you be described as a mature, responsible, great leader who was a shining example for others to follow? Would the story fall somewhere in between? If you don't know and would like to, try asking a few people that know you.

If you are not happy with how your story would be explained by those that know you best then, you are not properly living your personal legend. Discover what it is that bothers you about the story others would tell and re-align your life. If you truly are living your personal legend, you will know in your heart that you are doing the right things and making the right choices. And while no sane man seeks death, you can be content when it comes knowing that you are doing and have done your best.

A bit about me

Welcome to a great new wonderful today!

It occurs to me, that if you are going to be following along on this blog it might be good to tell you a few things about myself.

Let's see. Where to start? I was born on Christmas day, around lunch time, in 1974 . My wife and I have a 2 year old son, who is literally the light of my life. Every time I see him or think about him I start smiling.

While I prefer heavy metal, classical music and hard rock(in that order)  my tastes are pretty eclectic. My favorites are by Iron Maiden and Iced Earth. But, I will listen to pretty much anything that has a beat and is relatively positive. None of that emo goth crap. And while southern rock is awesome, that suicide inducing garbage that a lot of people call country needs to go somewhere far far away from here.

When reading, I prefer sword and sorcery type fantasy fiction over just about anything else. I can't help but think that I was born in the wrong era. The days of chivalry and dragon slaying appeal to me more than any other. I think the Wheel of Time series by the late Robert Jordan, is the best fiction story ever written. If I can't get my hands on fantasy fiction, I have also been known to read a bit of sci-fi from time to time.  When I was a kid I spent quite a bit of time, by myself, reading all the books in my grandmother's study?den? spare room? There was Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke and many more.  Truth be told though, if there is nothing else to do, I will read just about anything that is available. Whether it is an instruction manual, trivia on cocktail coasters or posters on a wall it just does not matter. I love to read which probably stems from my slightly  ridiculous desire to learn everything.

As for work, I have done a great many things over the past couple of decades. Most of my experience has been either in management or technical support. I have been the general manager of a Charley's Steakery. And at  different points have managed several collectible card gaming and hobby shops. I have done telephone technical support for Gateway, which was a whole lot of fun. It is simply thrilling to me, to be able to talk a little old lady through opening up her computer and having her swap out a defective part for a new one and then having her computer work again like new. Unfortunately though I have been out of work for the past several years. Hopefully that will be changing here sometime soon. Regardless of circumstance I have a never give up never say die attitude.

If you can't tell by now I am very into role-playing games. I play traditional tabletop games  like Dungeons & Dragons and the  Marvel Heroes System. And I enjoy online role-playing games like DDO, Marvel Heroes, Wizardry, World of Warcraft, Neverwinter. I do my best to try out any new Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying games (MMORPG's) that come out. It is awesome to be fully immersed in a different world, to be able to explore different aspects of your own personality. It's also good to be able to make new and different choices and to see how you could have been and even to be able to better understand choices that you could never make but that others do all the time. I see role-playing as a fun and strategic tool for exploring psychology.

And last for now, but certainly not least, I am into something called restructuring. It is also known as seeking enlightenment.Until we become adults we do not get to choose who we are. We are constantly being bombarded by parents and teachers and everyone older than us that "knows" the right way to be. But we don't really get to choose how to be. We just do what they tell us. But, what we do not realize is that each one of those people has their own idea of how a person should be. We try to do as we are told but it is impossible because many of the ideas conflict and cannot co-exist. But we try to make it work anyways and this leads to confusion, irritation, sadness and yes sometimes even psychoses. It does not have to be that way though. We can reprogram our minds and take back our happiness. For more information about such reprogramming, go to your local bookstore and find a book by Don Miguel Ruiz. It is called The Four Agreements. It isn't a large book and it is not the only one on this topic, but it is the most powerful tool that I have ever seen for re-empowering yourself.

If you have any questions or comments shoot an email over to darkg0d@hotmail.com and I will do my best to either email you back right away or blog my answer to your question someday soon. Have a great day and I'll cya tomorrow.