Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
I never followed his content, but I’m sure I’ve come across an article or two from him – especially on Buzzfeed.
Thoughts go out to Michael Hastings who died yesterday. Prayers to family, friends, enemies and readers of his.
One journalist down.
Stay Positive & Of Course, Part Of Him Will Always Remain
Do one thing a day that if you died the next day, you would have been happy you did.
Most will tell you to do one thing a day that scares you. Others will suggest to play it safe. Many ignore both and just don’t care. These are hard to do, extremely hard. The amount of effort that goes into failure is insubstantial.
But, living… living is easy.
If I may add one note coming from the journalist inside me, if there is one thing I have learned from watching and reading news, it is that people die. Every single day. For different reasons, in different ways, procuring different impacts. People die.
Life can be cruel, but only if it has the first move. That’s where you come in.
Make that first move, every day.
Stay Positive & Live, That’s All You Have To Do In This World
Garth E. Beyer
We all have our battles, our wars.
In some, people die. In others, ideas do. Hope, inspiration, and most unfortunately, art dies too.
But war has changed – universally and metaphorically.
No one can retreat anymore. An email that will destroy your career can be sent from one end of the world to the other. There’s no disconnecting yourself from the web or what gets shared on it.
Same goes for an actual missile that can literally destroy you. The only option on the battlefield is to fight, you can be pushed backward, you can even run backward, but it’s not retreating.
Does the inability to retreat stop us from fighting wars in the East? Does it stop civil wars? Does the fact people can’t retreat stop them from killing each other? Obviously not.
So why are so many people not creating more art? Not writing more articles? Not showing people their knick knacks, their obsessions, their creations?
Are you saying that risking your comfort is worse than risking your life?
Stay Positive & More Of A Reality Check On Ourselves And Our Art, Isn’t It
Garth E. Beyer
Death is meant to be superfluous, but it’s not. It’s important, it’s vital, I may even go so far as to say that it’s the meat-and-potatoes of your mom’s cooking – no meal is complete without meat-and-potatoes.
Death is an angel in disguise, a miracle worker’s shadow, god’s secret power, the greatest treasure in all the world, it is a stronger truth bearer than the greek mythological messenger, Iris.
Death has a message of its own. This message is one that should never need to be delivered but must. This message, once delivered, forces you to challenge every theory you have, it makes analyze your worldview, and it eliminates your perception of risk which is made by the amygdala.
Hundreds of thousands of cancer patients get this message every week. The message is that they only have three months to live. Or six weeks. Or twenty days. And just like that, life begins for them. Honestly. Passionately. Truthfully begins.
Jim Rohn says the following in his book The Seasons Of Life,
“It’s when a human, with sufficient disgust, desire, and determination to change his life finally steps up to the bar of human justice and shouts for all the world to hear, ‘I have had it with defeat and humiliation, and I will tolerate it not longer.’ That is when time, fate and circumstances call a hasty conference, and all three wearily agree, ‘We had best step aside, because we are powerless to stop that kind of resolve.'”
Must you die early on to live a full life? A life which uses your muse, passion, and creativity as the foundation. A life absent of fear, regret, self-degradation and hate. A life that remains intolerant to failure, set-backs, or humiliation. Must we die early on to live that life?
This is not a rhetorical question. The answer is yes. We really must die early on to live a full life.
Contrary to belief, terminal cancer patients are not the only ones who are lucky enough to die early on and live a full life. A rare headcount of people are lucky enough to die early. For some people it takes half of their lives to die and that only leaves half a life left to live, really live. For most, people never die until they are much too old to live. That is the death of death.
You’re likely confused, so let me elaborate. The death in which I write about is the death of the ego. When a person is diagnosed with terminal cancer, or hits rock bottom in life from drugs and alcohol, or gives so much love to one person and then that person leaves them, there is a shift in the psyche of that person. That shift is the death of their ego.
Upon their death, they question everything: tradition, their fears, their relationships, their work, their ethic, their personality… to discover what truly matters and to live a full passionate life.
The only thing I don’t know then is whether the miracle is being told you will die soon or the fact that after you are told, the cancer goes into remission, the addict never touches a drug again, the alcoholic never drinks, and the lover begins to love themself as much as they loved the other?
Stay Positive & Diagnose Yourself
Garth E. Beyer
In 4th grade, I wanted to be a History teacher. That is, until I got a C in my social studies class. Not that great of a start. Although I either Aced or got a B in all History related classes since then, I never enjoyed it for two reasons.
The first is that all the history school teaches is memorization of dates, places, names. That’s it.
The second is that as I grew I thought, why are we so focused on finding out who the step-brother of a churchgoer was and what they ate each day? Why aren’t we focusing on the future? Sure you can learn a lot from the past that can help in the present and future but is that what we are teaching and focusing on when it comes to history? What happens when we find out everything from history and pre-history (no longer making there such a thing as pre-history)? Will we then finally focus on the future, or wont there be one by then?
Nevertheless, this book was given to me and I’ve been on a reading spell to read all the books on my shelf before I move. So with that, let’s start this book regurgitation!
– I know this is sort of trivia, but I never actually knew how each day of the week was named. You will find the answer in this book. (or Google)
– Gombrich explains the difference between history and pre-history. I think pre-history is hilarious. All we can do is “act” like we know what happened. But we don’t and I’m unsure if we ever will. Afterall, nor am I sure that we should be enlightened with that information.
– I had a good laugh when I finally made the connection of why the language teaching software, Rosetta Stone, is called that. *sigh*
– What was also mentally stimulating was understanding where the original alphabet, reading and writing was created. The Phoenicians are the ones who established them and the place in which they expanded was in the marketplace. The Phoenicians were merchants and marketers!
– What I loved about the Greeks and Athenians was that they came up with something new every year, they were always creating and everything was always changing. If you think you have trouble keeping up with the technological advancements now, try living back then!
– And guess where all this change was brought and transferred at? The marketplace! Makes you wonder if in this consumerism world that is so badly reputed, is actually benefiting us. Afterall, it’s in the marketplace that ideas, painting, sculpture, architecture, plays, poetry, inventions, experiments, discussions and arguments took place.
– “While the Spartans only ever thought about fighting fit, ready to crush any who created an uprise and protect themselves so that they may stay liberated. The Athenians took a similar hard strategy to life. They weren’t looking for an easy, comfortable life, but one which had meaning. A life of which something remained after one’s death. Something of benefit to those who came after.” (Pg 46)
This is powerful, the change and improvements in life were just that because of the previous generations efforts to make it so. Something we need to consider and take more seriously? I think so.
– The Greeks conquered everything. Then, of course – just like every other culture – they were eventually defeated. But in this defeat, they decided to conquer people in a different way, the alternative to war: knowledge.
A similar transition we must take. We have tried to conquer everything and rule through politics but war has shifted what politics means. A rebirth of education can change this and we can again begin to think of politics as a trustworthy answer like the Greeks once had.
Note: If you haven’t noticed my point. I’m relaying history in the way it should be taught, with the theme of improving the now, the present and quite possibly even the future. So far, no names, no dates and no places. Cool huh?
– I never heard of this term: Pyrrhic Victory. But I’m going to find a way to use it. It means that you won but at too great of a cost.
– The Americans fight to the bottom was a Pyrrhic Victory. (Find a way to use Pyrrhic Victory, Check.)
– Another awesome piece of “trivia”. Vandals were a tribe that ravaged Rome and insisted in the downfall of any and every other tribe. They were terrible. That is where we get the term Vandalism, which is actually charity work when compared to the type of destruction the Vandals actually implemented.
– “When people take sides they are usually unfair” (Pg 134)
– Paris has so much more history than I imagined and more than any movie or book can relate! Especially in the time of enlightenment. No matter what anyone says, and I know it, and I haven’t even been to Paris, but there’s something thought-provikingly radiant about the city. It’s as if the historic fumes of the enlightened still travel through the air to inspire artists of all kinds from all over the world who go to visit Paris. I can just imagine…
– “Citizens were excluded from politics, which suited many of them very well.” (Pg 240)
– “The history of all the inventions that followed is not as simple as you might think. In most cases they began with an idea. This idea led to experiments and trials, after which it was often abandoned, only to be picked up again later, perhaps by somebody else. it was only when a person came along who had the determination and persistence to carry the idea through to its conclusion, and make it generally useful, that that person became known as the ‘inventor'” (Pg 241)
The way I see the world, is that every idea is truly unfinished. There isn’t a tower in the world that you can’t put one more block onto and there’s not one single idea that you can’t find a way to add to. That is all creativity is: playing off a million other ideas and inventions to create something new. It’s the alchemy of the world.
– I’m going to be socialist for a moment. In the factory days people had the opportunity to declare that they wanted to work no more than 11 hours a day and get 2 loaves of bread for them and 2 for their family. If no one was willing to work for cheap or give up bread, then they would have been treated equal. Instead they raced to the bottom.
We have the chance yet again to unite and say we want a school that matters and will not accept anything less. If you agree, I hope you come back at the beginning of August to get your copy of my eBook Start Schooling Dreams.
– Now, I like to spoil movies. I love it actually. I always ever say that “Everybody dies”. Of course that doesn’t actually happen because it would make one extremely pointless movie.
Well, I’m going to spoil the truth of this book, of history. Everybody dies. Truly, they do. In between everything I regurgitated here, there was death. Sorry.
– What I admire about Gombrich is that he ended this book with the simple action to “hope for a better future.”
Stay Positive & Act On That Hope
Garth E. Beyer
