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Invisible Profile Picture

I have a pet peeve of when people don’t have a profile picture. When I see this, I will either directly contact the person. Or else I will use the “Suggest a profile Picture” button on Facebook. And I won’t just pick any picture either. I will seriously spend time and look through the tagged photos and see if there is one that captures the sincerity and overall-good-nature of the person. I try and find a nice picture that people will enjoy. I can’t help myself. I remember there was a friend who didn’t even have an invisible profile picture, but it was a very long and vertical picture. And the picture didn’t show up as anything but a grey box because it was an outdoor pic. So I contacted the man and said that there was a problem with his profile picture and that it was a grey box. He said he did that on purpose and he liked it. That was cool and I respected him for his profile picture shape uniqueness and he’s an artist so that makes sense.

The profile picture suggestion feature when you see someone has an invisible profile picture reminds me of living in a small town. Everybody is watching everyone else and if there is one thing out of the ordinary…YOU’RE GOONA HEAR ABOUT IT.

-Tyler

Well, I totally backslid on Monday. And I got sick because of it. I’m only starting to feel better today. Literally I have no idea how my nose is creating so much slime. Now I know how my friend who doesn’t eat vegetables must feel. This is nasal torture. At least this morning some of the pressure above my left eye is begging to calm down. I literally haven’t felt this much sinus pressure in over a year.

Why did I backslide? I think it is because I was frustrated about my computer not working. I was attempting to extract subliminals from a film and my DVD player got all messed up. But some good came out of it. Not only did I extract the information and archive it for later use, but I also learned a thing about screen resolution, which I discussed the other day.

In a lot of movies and television shows, the idea of sacrifice is big in order to do what one wants to do. So I was seriously bummed because the last thing I wanted to sacrifice was my DVD player in my computer. I use that to gain insight via modern media, especially science fiction films and TV Shows. So after a few days of literally spending hours on trying to fix the choppy playback on my DVD player, I got the ingenious idea to actually call my friend at Device Repair and straight up, “ask for help.” As a man, I sometimes forget that this is even an option.

So I called him and he gave me a suggestion and my computer was back to 100% with full DVD playback in a couple hours.

Well, after thinking about how easily I get sick and congested when backsliding, one thing has been overtly apparent. Energy Cultivation requires complete effort. I can’t just dip my toes into this.

I’ve finally made some progress into the music video and that’s the whole reason why I’m doing this in the first place. (at this current time, not in the long term) And the results were good, I think working on the video even though I’ve been feeling sick actually helped me feel better today. Sometimes waiting for all the pieces to land perfectly on the table before assembling the machine is not good enough.

Also, I was reluctant to talk about how I backslid. How ridiculous is that? Writing a log of Energy Cultivation and not even making notes of the failures and setbacks…foolish. I can easily say that Master Sheng Yen played a big part in helping me look at the situation with at least one tired eye. It’s also funny that going back to Church encouraged me to read more on Eastern Philosophy. All of it is complimentary if one takes the time to have fun during the process.

What I really liked is how Master Sheng Yen discusses how to not get overly intrigued by subconscious thoughts and realizations. Being able to actually breathe is superior to the greatest epiphanies I’ve experienced so far. Although I was able to breathe very clearly during my most serious moments so that doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense.

-Tyler

Sushi

I love sushi. I love the flavor, the texture, even the way the wasabi burns my sinuses when I use too much. But in the wake of this Nuclear Reactor problem in Japan, I’m officially taking a break from Sushi for the next 1 Million Years. I don’t really care what official news sources have to say about this issue. Water is a very simple. If you dump stuff in it, the stuff gets pretty much EVERYWHERE. Honestly, I already knew sushi had tons of parasites in it from being uncooked. Even the cleanest and most skilled sushi chef can’t get rid of the tiny parasites in sushi. I understand that, and I used to eat it anyway because I simply didn’t mind being a portable home to more critter friends. But the idea of eating uncooked fish that is loaded with parasites AND radiation is a little too much of a mouthful. Here’s the best part, imagine going to a sushi bar and asking the chef if his fish was from waters that were near Japanese radiation. Can you guess what he will say? I’m guessing he is going to say whatever he needs to say to get you ordering that Maguro.

So the next time I go to a sushi bar with friends or family, I’m sticking to the Teriyaki Kobe Beef Steaks, or the Chicken. But when I order the beef, I’m going to make sure it is the substitute Angus Style Kobe Beef that is made in America. No way am I going to eat some irradiated cow fat.

Now you may be reading this and be thinking, “This guy is a total jerk!” And that’s partially true. But I would be a much bigger jerk if I did not eat the Sushi for this very reason and DID NOT call my shots. So no one will able to complain years down the line, when sushi lovers’ parasites have mutated via radiation to turn them into the villains from Stargate SG-1.

Do you want to know what showed up when I searched: “Is sushi from Japan after the tsunami and radiation safe to eat?” As of one minute ago, (10:24 PM, March 17th, 2011) the searches on google served zero convincing articles that answered that question.

Let’s talk a bit more about how water works. When there is an ocean with currents and temperature changes, people tend to think that the ocean currents are very slow. But ocean currents are capable of traveling very fast, sometimes as fast or faster than a cruise ship. It all really depends on the specific ocean current and the time of year, and whether or not it is El-Nino.

Also, this doesn’t even factor in the life-cycle and eating habits of fish and sea mammals. If you have ever studied bio-contagion or pollution transmission through the food chain, you’d know that pollutants build up to dangerous levels the larger the fish is, or the larger the mammal is on the food chain. So a big fish that eats a lot of smaller fish that are polluted with radiation is going to have even more radiation in it. HERE’s a link that talks about pollution, but I don’t think it takes a huge stretch of the imagination to apply this to radiation.

One way to look at the situation is that if scientists still have a hard time figuring out where to put radioactive material in order to “dispose” or “recycle” the stuff. And if quite literally, the material is supposed to sealed away and burying underground for thousands of years, then it is a safe bet that the radiation is going to stay in the bio-organisms that are around the Nuclear Disaster site of Japan. Unfortunately, fish and plants are all interconnected, so I seriously doubt that there is anything anyone can do to stop the spread of these pollutants around the ocean.

Honestly, I doubt anyone will be able to avoid the radiation completely. This is because radioactive material is being doused in ocean water in order to cool the stuff down. So the sea-water is turning into steam that is at least partially filled with radiation.

So I’m just trying to avoid eating food that I don’t want to regret.

-Tyler

Genetic Modification

I was browsing around using my new, Stumbleupon.c0m account, and I found a very interesting webpage by NPR. This page was what appeared to be a mildly-interactive Flash movie of the Buddha’s wheel of Life. The wheel was intriguing but what really blew my mind and set me on a good track of thinking was the part on Humans. In this section the narrator, Robert Thurman discusses that Human form is a preferable form of existence because of several reasons. But what really stood out for me what that he said that humans have the ability to change their behavior and affect their genetic information. This line of thinking is slightly non-intuitive and intuitive at the same time. It is almost an extension of the old, “You are what you eat” kind of thinking, but it goes much further.

I first heard this type of hypothesis when I saw the movie, “What the Bleep Do we Know?” Now I know there are a lot of people who disagree with the things said in that movie and I’m not a quantum physicist (yet) so I’m not going to argue. But one thing in that movie that I read about in College Level biology was about how cells are controlled by the instructions in the genetic information. And different receptors on the cells and how many of them there are is worth study.

For example, there are receptors on cells for different chemicals. And different emotions that people experience trigger chemical responses in the organs and that can lead to chemicals being introduced into the blood stream. But if cells get used to receiving certain chemicals, they can adapt and they change and they may actually grow more receptors for that specific chemical. That’s where chemical dependency gets into the mix.

So this is where pleasure based habits are tricky. They don’t just affect how you feel, they affect how the cells grow also. But what my interpretation of the narrator’s words are in the video is that someone who is on the path of enlightenment can overtime confront their desires and addictions and modify his or her behavior. And by changing the behavior the cells produce different receptors, quite simply, because they aren’t being bombarded by the chemicals they are used to anymore. So the cells create new receptors for different life functions.

This is an important thing to think about, because there is only so much surface area on a human cell. So when it is covered in receptors that are focused on some sort of addictive habitual behavior, the cells are missing out on receptors that are useful for vital life functions. This may make one think for a second, when they say, “I’ve been feeling sluggish lately.”

Honestly, I’m just as skeptical of this mind-over-matter stuff myself. I love “Q” and “Adria” and all those guys but I think it is easy to get a few steps ahead of ourselves with wishful thinking.

All I know is what I can remember from what I’ve directly experienced. And I’ve directly experienced physical, emotional, and energy level changes. Unfortunately the positive changes usually came from sacrificing and extreme moderation. It really is not fun at first but there is definitely a trade-off.

Let’s take Venti Whole Milk Lattes for example. I used to love those. They would give me a burst of energy, I would blog like crazy with them. It was fun getting them and talking with the Baristas about current events or TV shows or whatever. The whole process was fun. But what would happen is that after having them almost every day, I would feel cloudy and muddled. And after a couple months I would get sick and need to de-tox from lattes.

What was happening is that, like usual, I would take a fun treat and turn it into a ritualistic habit. I have a real vulnerability for this. So what I think was going on, was that after a few months, my cells were reproducing with more receptors for the sugar in the milk…and more receptors for the caffeine from the espresso.

How is this possible? Well, I’m guessing that the cells don’t actually “GROW” new receptors. What I think happens is that the cell realizes that there is an abundance of caffeine floating around in the bloodstream, so it reprograms the Genetic Information so that when it splits up and reproduces, the new cells are created with more receptors to take advantage of the available abundant chemicals.

But the tough part is when I try to kick the latte habit, I feel even worse. This is because the cells hypothetically have many receptors and are trained to absorb the caffeine and sugar are perplexed by the change in blood chemistry. So they release information back to the brain of how the cells aren’t satisfied with the blood chemistry. And this gets interpreted by the brain as a craving.

The sad part is that cravings are actually essential parts of human experience. They aren’t good or bad, they are part of how humans survived when there were less abundant times. If you lived many hundreds of years ago, in a different society, you may crave salt, which is a neural transmitter. Because if you don’t get enough salt your brain and nerves have trouble functioning. But today salt is so abundant in most restaurant foods, we get overloaded and bloated.

But it is very difficult to combat these hard-wired cravings that have helped humanity survive trying times. But it is the struggle and eventual attainment of different tiers of self-behavioral modification that can lead to seriously positive things. And I think that is what the narrator in the video is touching on, albeit very briefly.

-Tyler