Music Production, DJ, Live PA and Random Ramblings
Psychology, Politics, Society and Lifestyle
Well not quite
Jul 24th
It’s interesting what is and what isn’t, what could and what couldn’t, what should and what shouldn’t. What friends are friendly about and what they aren’t. Where the conversation goes and where it shouldn’t. What we should do and what we shouldn’t. What we need to do yet can’t.
It’s very interesting because we are all very interesting, full of our own agendas and mind games which seem to hurt us when they backfire and deflate our sense of self.
Not that we know how to change nor desire to. If we did, what would there be without all the mind games, strategies and innuendos. Well, maybe not much. Would it be more whole though, more complete or would the desire to win come through regardless.
Can we win without aiming to win? Can we fight without ever fighting? Should we bother trying?
Why am I talking about this and why does it matter to me? Well, for no other reason than it does.
Why does home ground advantage mean so much? How does this affect our mindset? Its the same field isn’t it?
What is this post about, is there a point? I have absolutely no idea. Is there a point in this for you? Does something resonate with you?
Is the downer worth the upper? Is my upper, your downer and vice versa?
Would life be simpler if these questions didn’t matter at all to me? Probably….
Is there ever truly a right way or a wrong way? Surely it’s all relative?
Is the colour that you were told to recognise as red, the same as the colour that I was told to recognise as red? Couldn’t we ever know?
Is there something that matters more than the people we share the moments with? Are the people more important than the moments? If you took the people away, would the moment still exist? Would you want it to exist if you were experiencing it on your own?
Are you a tourist or a traveller? Is there a difference for you?
How did I learn to read and write and do basic maths? I can’t really figure it out yet I seem to be able to do it.
If we only aim for things we understand, will we ever achieve anything? Doesn’t stepping outside of your boundaries require you to master things you don’t understand or so you already understand them and need them to be brought to the surface?
How does something move from short term to long term memory?
What happens when we are gone? Are we still omnipresent? I believe so…
Is this post getting longer than it needs to be? Define how long something is. Define how long a piece of string is. Is it as long as this post?
If people don’t consider these questions, are they stupid? If people do consider these questions, are they stupid?
Stupid is relative isn’t it?
I guess I must be stupid.
Seeing is believing
Jul 6th
The most ironic thing about only wanting to believe what one sees, is that what we see is primarily tarnished by what we already believe.
The most basic error is the belief that you are seeing the truth and you know the truth because you see it. Seeing is a sense, like other senses, its hard wired through the mind and therefore influenced by the mind. Seeing, as we are talking about here, is not the action of sight but rather the interpretation of the sight.
Let me give you an amusing example. For those you watch rugby in South Africa, you will know that we have a variety of magazine shows each week where they analyse the weekend’s games and discuss the upcoming fixtures. On top of this, our tri-nations rivals, Australia and New Zealand have similar shows and we see theirs and they see ours. Now if there happens to be a big moment in a particular game from the weekend, such as a controversial referee decision, try or yellow card, all the shows will discuss it. The most laughable thing is how all the rugby experts will look at the exact same evidence, they will replay it over and over and nine times out of ten, each side of the pond will see the identical events in completely opposite ways. If a South African player got the yellow card, the South African rugby experts will say that the ref was being tough and unfair and it should not have been a yellow. The New Zealand rugby experts will say that it should have been an immediate red card and the player should be banned for life.
So why do you think this occurs? Do you think it is because one or both sides are not experienced enough to know the rules or know what is happening? Of course not, the panels that make up these magazine shows are usually famous ex-players, couches and the like so of course they know the rules, far better than any of us.
The issue, of course, is that even in the action of watching some piece of live footage and actually “seeing” it unfold in front of you, we are still unable to remove various bits of conditioning, bias and even patriotism when looking at a situation. It is neither a good nor a bad thing, it just is.
I see it every day, in almost every conversation around me, at work, at home, with friends, with colleagues, with parents, with everyone.
We like to believe that we are somehow objective and impartial but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Being genuinely objective about any situation is truly a rare feat and if was able to it, I would tell you how but since I am human, it is probably impossible to remove all the shackles of societal, cultural, religious and financial conditioning.
To a certain extent, it does in part, aid to defining who we are and makes us unique. It is part of having a definable opinion. After all, if we all saw things from an objective standpoint, we would all see things exactly the same and life would be pretty dull.
The important thing here is to try be aware of when an opinion is designed to hurt/diminish/see the failure of/degrade others or prove others wrong for the sake of making yourself look right. What is needed is more genuine, albeit different, opinion, whose value is measured by each others success.
Image of Love
Apr 8th
A few years ago, my wife and I went on this amazing weekend course called IMAGO, which means Image of Love. It was an intense and fascinating 2 day, 7am-7pm kind of thing which had a massive effect on us and our relationship.
IMAGO is an area of psychology which deals with our perception of what love means, as passed to us by our parents primarily but also influenced by our environment…the whole nature and nurture thing.
At the time, we were both about 24 years old and the youngest there by at least 15 years. If fact, most couples that were there were either divorced, separated or pretty close to it and so we did feel pretty uncomfortable initially because unlike everyone else, we were coming there very happy in our relationship, but looking for further ways to enhance our lives together. All of the other couples, seemed to be there as a last resort to somehow get that spark going again.
I’ll start with the results first, at the end of the weekend, all the couples that were separated and even divorced actually got back together. Nuff said!
So what makes the course so amazing and why would doing it bring you closer together? Well, it all has to do with your parents….Whether we like it or not, our perceptual image of love, money, sex, men, women, religion and other racial groups are heavily controlled by the way we were raised. Ever read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki? It’s the same idea but with reference to money and how the rich stay rich because of how they think about money and how the poor stay poor, as well, due to how they think about money.
Now the image that our parents give us about love and what it means in this world has an enormous bearing on not just the rest of our lives, but also every aspect of our lives. Much more so than anything else. Why? It’s because for the first 18-25 (or sometimes even longer) years of our life, our entire mental picture of what it means for two people to be in love is entirely contained by the way that our parents love or don’t love each other. Above this though, the way they act towards each other in terms of how they speak and behave and under which scenarios and contexts also shapes everything we think and believe about love.
Have you ever found it interesting that:
- The child who was beaten, often beats his own children.
- The person who always picks the bad boy/girl, continues to do so and never gets why they keep getting hurt.
- The child whose parents got divorced when they were young, has serious commitment issues as an adult.
- The child whose parents were known adulterers, often becomes one as an adult.
- The child whose parents were together forever, often has no trouble committing to one person for life.
Now if these examples seem stereotypical or even clichéd, then we need to ask ourselves, why are they stereotypical? Is there some truth to them that makes them so common in society? I know people from each of these example and the amazing thing is that every single one of them conforms to the cliché. It’s not really a hard mental step to grasp really, what you see as a child, you believe as an adult. Whether you believe it or not.
So how this specific IMAGO course tackles this is by making you confront each and every issue that you have with your parents in a manner of highly engaging role playing and powerful psychological tools. It forces you to bring up, acknowledge and discuss things from the trivial to the most serious. The role playing is difficult but powerful. To give you an example of how it works…At one point, my wife and I had to sit on the floor together facing each other, we had to look straight into each other’s eyes and remain that way for the entire duration of the exercise. We took turns being the others parent and in doing so we had to give answers to concerns around a specific issue that the “child” was asking.
The whole idea behind this is to firstly get answers for and then have closure on why something is as it was. If you think you have no issues with your parents, wait till you do this. Let me assure you that every person ends up in tears, it is very traumatic and very healing.
There are many different psychological exercises that you will do with your partner to unearth everything related to how love was represented to you by your parents.
Over the course of the weekend you begin to really, truly understands who your partner is and why they do what they do, from leaving their clothes on the floor to the need for a boys/girls night out to issues such as cheating, children and life.
The reason why those couples got back together at the end of everything is that for the first time in their lives, they understood each other and why they do things. In most cases as well, if one partner was continually doing something that was unintentionally sabotaging their relationship, they also realised, probably for the first time, what they were doing and why they were doing it. In realising all of that, they now know how to stop doing it.
This makes all the difference.
My Life Changing Book List
Mar 9th
If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you will have realised that I am someone who has been on a transformational journey for the last 5 years. This journey has led me out of the manic aggression, wrought with interesting episodes (which ultimately ended up in me hurting someone I didn’t know) into someone who is seeking enlightenment.
My journey has brought me to a place where I believe most will never reach due to their obsession with money, greed, fame, lust, desire for power and all the other symptoms of the ego.
I have had many helpers along the way and as I continue to grow to become a better, more caring, more genuine person I wanted to acknowledge those helpers who have played a cardinal role in what has become a life worth treasuring.
Now besides from my wife, who is obviously the most influential force and person I have ever had on my life and who, over the last 10 years, has made me into a man that I respect and love, I have some secondary influences in the form of pieces of literature.
Now you might be thinking, what can a book do to change your life, well, you need to read these books and then you will understand. These books will help you understand how poisonous you are to yourself. If you are not so obtuse and ignorant that you cannot look deep into yourself, then these books will change the rest of your life for the better. Without further ado my top 5:
1. A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle
This is the most life changing book I have ever read. This is the source of dissolving your ego. Your ego, which you may or may not realise is the everything and anything upon which your apparent life is created. It is why you say and do practically everything and you have no idea how much it has polluted your life.
It creates that niggling little voice which is making you insane, every second of every day (though you may not realise your insanity until it’s gone). Every conversation you have, every thought, every thing you do, is affected by your ego’s desire to attain more.
Those who think they have no ego, are some of the most egotistical people alive by virtue of the fact that they use their apparent higher plain of consciousness to perceive themselves as better than everyone else. This of course, is the ego. It is only we you can be truly non-judgemental that you will understand this fully.
One day, although I suspect it will take a lifetime, I hope to be non-judgemental and ego-less from a purely genuine place.
If you think you do not need to read this, then you are precisely the person who needs to read it. Everyone on earth needs to read this, simple.
Does the following mean anything to you:
When I do well, it is because of my intelligence, but when others do well, it is because of their environment.
When I do badly, it is because of my environment but when others do badly, it is because of their intelligence.
You know what your answer is to this, that is why you need to read this book.
2. The Power Of Now – Eckhart Tolle
This book is by the same author as above and although written first, I believe should be read after you have read and absorbed the first book. This book conveys another side to the ego that we all struggle with every single day and most importantly how you overcome it.
For most people, the future will always be better, brighter and greater. We will achieve all our goals in the future and we will be happy, fulfilled and successful in the future. On top of this, most feel defined by their past. Their past shapes their abilities, their reactions, their lifestyle and their ambitions.
The problem with this, is that if this is how you define you life, you will spend the rest of you life blaming the past and wishing for the believed to be better, but never attainable, future.
Again, this is the ego’s desire to be better and in the same way as described previously, it completely poisons you out of your own future. This book provides the same solution as the first one, because it is the only solution to the same underlying problem.
You need to understand that the message in both above books takes years to understand and digest and it is not something that you just read. It is something you need to live. But after merely reading, the transformation will have already begun. You will be staggered at how much happier you are and how much more comes into your life.
3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven Covey
Possibly the most famous, “self-help” book in the world. The definition of effectiveness. An absolute master-class of how to create everything you want, practically.
7 life-long habits that will take you a life time to embrace. These habits make you believe that anything is possible and if you are naive like me, then you will certainly welcome this way of thinking. If you are a glass is half-empty kind of pessimist, then you need to read this in order to not spend a life wishing for what you can only blame yourself for not attaining.
4. Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman
Emotional Intelligence has nothing to do with how well you handle pressure or stress at work or how nervous you get in a job interview. This is what MBA students are taught to understand it as, but that is not it.
EQ is related to everything spoken about already and it is all of the above. This book discusses both the physiological and psychological aspects of EQ and if you love science like me, then you will find the biological aspects of the brain and mind discussed in this book, incredibly interesting.
This is the authoritative work on the subject by the man who first understood it and while it is a challenging read, you will feel incredibly awakened by the notions of how pointless and meaningless things like IQ really are. If you love the fact that you are clever and all you think of is shallow financial success, then you need to read this because you need to understand that clever has nothing to do with getting you the materialistic props that you seek so badly.
5. Gut Feelings – Gerd Gigerenzer
Superb. If you want to trust every decision you ever make and know that it comes from a place of depth so far beyond what the primitive, conscious, logical mind can fathom, then you need to read this. I think we all know, intuitively that all the best decisions, that we all make, are not those that come to use by way of logic and deep analytical thinking.
I have tried to live my life avoiding logical thinking for as long as I can remember and I have always made the right decisions for better or for worse. Note, that your gut may not always lead you along the path of least resistance. It may not even lead you on a pleasurable journey, but, it will lead you where you need to go, because there is a message and life-lesson for you in that journey.
This book is fascinating in that the author actually shows you how, though a multitude of verbal and thought experiments, just how powerful and correct your intuition is. It is staggering and provoking. It will make you understand that life is not as serious as we all wish it to be. Life is as fun as we make it and life is everything that we think it is. If you think it is bad, it will be bad.
So how have these 5 books (amongst many others) changed me? Well, everyday I am living the life I want, I am happy, I have all sorts of amazing opportunities coming to me, money always seems to make itself available to me when I need it and most importantly, I have a soul mate to share it all with.
Couldn’t ask for anything better really!
My favourite, your favourite
Feb 9th
Been thinking a bit about favourites, specifically those relating to the parent-child relationship. Parents get a pretty hard deal having to always confirm that “I don’t have any favourites, I love you all equally”.
Why shouldn’t they have favourites is my question? I mean we all have favourites regarding almost anything and everything, right? A favourite cat, a favourite music genre, a favourite food, a favourite colleague, a favourite friend and definitely a favourite extended family member….so why not a favourite kid?
Why do we assume or even expect that the laws of society and human dynamics don’t apply when we talk about kids and their relationships to their parents?
I am not saying that it makes being the less favourite any easier. All I am saying is that it is what it is and it is what makes us human, we have a tendency to like and dislike.
Anyways, my brain fart for the day 
