LEARN FROM THE PAST!
Understand Society and you can better understand yourself, the universe and everything in between!
This period of global unrest presents a great opportunity to reflect on the adversity humanity has faced and overcome before.
In this episode we also consider the horror the occasional Dental procedure and the ominous events which transpired, but often go unspoken, in the “childhood” classic Pinocchio.
Laughter is the best medicine.
Think about the things you are passionate about and actively pursue. Now, think about the things you are passionate about yet make no time for at all. Finally, think about the fleeting feeling you had as you considered each of those scenarios, and how infinitely different they were.
Modern society seems to applaud the ‘busy little beaver’ approach to a productive day… but maybe with a subtle change or two, we can have a more rewarding life.
Maybe it’s time to pursue a little more investment of time in YOU!!
Great hobbies are forever, and thankfully… circumcisions do not make the cut!
‘GOTTA HEAR ITS’!
“Someone would open the door and I would hide my G.I. Joes like I was scurrying to cover up a crime scene!”“When you convince yourself something is a hobby that isn’t a hobby, you’ve made a hobby out of manipulating yourself.”
“‘Imagine circumcision at this age, four guys come in like ‘Stitch, we’re going to cut part of your penis off…’
You, or someone you know
…’It would take four guys to get that foreskin!'”
As the elation of free candy and sugar-highs fade, a bitter aftertaste of social confusion and fear ensues… Is there another holiday which conjures up a stronger emotional dichotomy than Halloween?!
Conjure up the kid in you and unpack these memories with us, as Stitch’s son Jax (also famously known as “Steve”) joins his favorite podcast for the first time!
Learn first hand from an eight year old:
‘GOTTA HEAR ITS’!
“I like talking… but not too much. Dad always frustrates me!”
You, or someone you know!
“Focus on your finger and making the world a better place.”
As the rhythmic wheels of our first-world routines lullaby our heads and hearts to sleep, it escapes us once more. A great truth, cowering behind the shield of a green curtain and slithering yet deeper into figment of imagination.
Most lives are restlessly lived in the mist of this slumber… However, if you are lucky and brave enough, you can follow it. And if you follow it long enough, you can hear it… From beyond a well-traveled path to the lesser-known curtain, you can identify that alluring whisper which has begged, bartered, and bet against your better judgement for your entire life.
Join Stan, Stitch, and Mike as they travel down that familiar road, bricked and yellowed, together. It has been too long since someone confronted this ‘so-called’ wizard face-to-face!
‘GOTTA HEAR ITS’!
“They’re gambling against the gamblers, but the gamblers are the sheep and Vegas is the shepherd.”
“Cereal deserves at least 1%, otherwise just use faucet water.”
“Obscure movie references, wine, Cleveland sports… Mike might be in the running for my new best friend.”
You, or someone you know!
…“Tune in next week to the Mike and Stan Podcast!”
Do you recall THAT day, my friends!?!
THAT day, unfolding so seamlessly and flawlessly hour by hour that your smart phone can only project “magic” in the forecast?
THAT day, that ‘trending toward perfect’ one, where the sequential events tend to naturally build momentum into a domino fall of happiness. A pattern of statistically significant goodness, raising expectations and a smile.
How about THIS DAY? Deceitfully mirroring the same image of “THAT day”, yet fated to be the ‘Bizarro’ of Cinderella stories.
Have you ever had a day of good things leading up to a dinner of FREE Old Fashions and Premium Steak at a fine New York Establishment — hosted by your best friend………. which ended with plantar fasciitis and shin splints?
No News is Good News…
…but No New York Travel is even better!!
On this episode you will hear one of the great New York day trips turn into a nightmare; a nightmare turn into awkward work colleague travel; and awkward work colleague travel turn into heroism and lasting lower-limb problems.
You’ll also learn how to flag down a cab as a New York visitor
trying to catch a night flight, and why we should
have a healthy distrust of the News and Uber.
Tonight, at 11:00p!
‘GOTTA HEAR ITS’!
>> “”and i start my run. and I run. and I run. I start sprinting. and I’m spinning in and out of people with my bags, picking my obstacles, choosing escalators with people or static stairs with none. I was like a ninja warrior.””
You, or, Someone You Know!
>> “That’s substantially cooler than me ordering “Mean Girls” on demand.”
>> “cortisol? is that what makes me horny?”“
High-five for mediocrity! Each confident clasp we reward ourselves with today hauntingly echoes the dreams and memories of our tomorrows. Yet, for now, we triumphantly march together in the lemming line.
In an age where success is defined by ensuring the social norms remain undisturbed, Stitch and Stan challenge the protocol!
In this episode, discover the single most important attribute you need to break the lemming line, be yourself, and thusly, the best version of you that you can possibly be!
‘GOTTA HEAR ITS’!
>> “is a lemming a real thing, like an animal?”
You, or, Someone You Know!
>> “i also love that you’re the albert einstein of the toilet seat!”
>> “i know women that skip entire days, or so they say.” — “just women? like it’s such a dirty secret that we sometimes pooh.”
>> “i’d rather use a leaf from the backyard.”
>> “i come with my homeruns, then miss a game or two.”
If you only have 3 minutes today, listen to this song and consider what it means to you. If you have 5 minutes – listen to the song, and then read on.
It’s not about the song – or even ‘their’ message – it’s about the message behind the message, which is both abundantly clear and logical… IF ‘we think’ about it.
If your goal was to “rule the modern world” — how would you go about it?
In age of globalization and technology enables near real-time communication across the masses — if you’re goal was to rule the world, how would you do so?
Do you believe that “empires” do not exist today? Do you believe that at some point, folks “in control” stopped caring about securing MORE CONTROL?
While technological advancements ‘appear’ to have fundamentally changed the world around us — it merely changes how we ‘execute’ certain things, but it does NOT fundamentally change what motivates us — what drives us as human beings.
Empires still exist. And behind EVERY empire, there is a desire to expand it. Whether in politics or in business, it is a natural inclination — it is human. The goals have not changed — but what HAS changed is how ‘borders’ are defined, and how empires expand.
Conquering another country via “brute force” just does not fly these days, in the traditional sense. As much ‘bad’ as there in the world today, there is still something within most of us, which makes up the overwhelming majority — which DOES PREFER RIGHT OVER WRONG.
We are not perfect all the time, perhaps we are not even ‘good’ most of the time. But at the core, we want the world to be better — and if anything, hope that our ‘leaders’ are more altruistic than we are on a day-to-day basis.
To expand and maintain an empire, while ‘brute force’ may have been efficient back in the day — the most effective plan is by ‘training the minds you’re leading to put value in the things within your control as a leader’… as a royal.
Empires are being expanded, and controlled, TODAY – far beyond the boundaries of those we learned about in History class. The technology is in place to grow them bigger than the Ming Dynasty and faster than the Roman Empire… and the systems are in place to maintain them.
The “ruling class” does so today through age-old tactics which are more effective than ever — a tactic well studied and executed by one of the cruelest and ‘brute force’ examples, in Nazi Germany…. SOCIAL MANIPULATION.
The TV shows we watch…. The songs we listen to — over, and over, and OVER again. They shape the minds of the populous, slowly, but exponentially, and ever so surely. The minds of those ruled are shaped to align in favor of those ruling. If we are exposed to “money, money, money” on a consistent basis – eventually even the most humble of us will be hard-pressed to NOT have ‘money on our minds’… That is not ‘conspiracy theory’, my friends, that is frickin’ logic!!!
And yes, even those of us acutely aware of this tactic for mass-control, are at risk. In fact, those of us “truly” aware of it, understand that there is no reason to “fear” — it is, again, a logical means to an age old end. This does not mean we need to avoid all ‘pop-culture’ songs which do not have a positive message — and it does not mean we cannot enjoy a particular show which is somewhat violent — it just means that we SHOULD be aware, and remember “all things in moderation”….
So how did a mere song in pop-culture today pique my interest? BECAUSE, using the same medium used to shape our minds — this song “Royals” STRIKES BACK with a different message.
“Royals” by Lordes: THE MESSAGE BEHIND THE MESSAGE
This song is a strong counter to the steady stream of “money, drugs, & violence” we are exposed to today.
If one were set to the rule the world, cough, royals, it would be logical to shape the minds of those you’re ruling via pop-culture. After all, if one controlled the ‘financial system’, they’d like to increase the value of it – and the best way to increase the value of a dollar is to increase our love of money.
All things in moderation – but if you’re going to listen to one song on “repeat” for a minute – choose wisely — because no matter how strong willed you are, or how cognatively disciplined you are — all things in our environment eventually “get through to us”, and once it gets through, it eventually shapes who we are today and who we will be in the future!
Continue reading ““Royals” by Lorde – A Counter-Strike on Pop Culture”
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN,
This letter came to you from the place you’ll soon find timelessness;
We hope you get the message… before there’s a need for writing it.
Hope… a redeeming quality which you had deemed too childish;
We were born to bring revival, but grown to be survivalists.
Saw you playing “Simon Says”; so we did as Simon did…
Only shown how to rock a boat, never how to right the ship.
Since innocence seemed ignorant, we sought our bliss from sciences;
Our character’s best measured by the depth of our one-sidedness.
Taught to win at any cost…. But when we lost, our fight would end.
So this time when you teach us, can you please try “try again”?
We have the drive of motorized rides equipped with nitrogen;
While working just as tireless as the hovercrafts we’re flying in.
And we were taught to dream, but not to sleep until retirement…
There’s no peace in counting sheep, while lyin in a lion’s den!
A pill for that, a pill for this; a pill so both will strike more quick;
A pill to help us swallow all the truth of our reliances…
Now we’re living even longer – thanks to stronger vitamins;
Our ignorance was thinking it’d bring incremental life with it!
A device for that, a device for this; a device to make devices quick;
So desensitized by devices, we don’t even see the vice in it…
Now we’re obnoxiously robotic, a product of our environment…
Great at catching breaks we’ll never make the time to fix.
A fight for that, a fight for this; a fight so that the fight exists;
Standing by our right for peace, we’ll never cease the fight for it!
What goes around comes around; we found the reason spite exists.
So you can pay the piper, and in time we’ll pay the piper’s kid….
Pride for that, pride for this; pride for pride we might omit;
Pride which is tightly clinched in a fist too mighty to be pried of it.
With a sense of entitlement stemming from senseless mindfulness;
You could find us in the darkest age, describing it as enlightenment.
Until one day: a device ended the fight, a pill killed off the viruses.
Loved winning; but having won – we didn’t take much pride in it.
Then suddenly, we were blinded by a liquid leaking out our irises!
Perplexed, we entered the question in our engine: “Why is this?”
Across every generation, the gap is bridged by righteousness.
It was the first message off the presses when Gutenberg provided his.
The trend reflects the plight of men, who rise then fall to rise again;
But the cycle can recycle; there’s no wound that time won’t mend.
SO TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Too few were too concerned…
But there’s still time to change your lesson plan, before our lesson’s learned.
Yours Truly,
GENERATION ALPHA, EST 2010
Your future is our present, help us change it today.
What if you had the chance to play a game of 20 questions… with someone you knew, for certain, had all the answers?
“First question first: what’s the meaning of life?”
For you to keep on asking until you get it right.
“Gee, great insight… what on earth does it mean??”
What it means on earth is the same as in your dreams.
“Um, elaborate please! Where do I find what I seek?
You’ll find it in the hiding place which only you perceive.
“That’s three questions for you – still no answers for me?”
Or maybe just not the ones that you think you need?
“Why answer with more questions?” To show you what they mean.
“How am I to interpret that??” That’ll be the key.
“Clearly understanding’s key, yet I’m trapped in ambiguity!”
The key’s to find yourself; the truth’s to set you free.
“Can you spell it out by chance?” In no language that you read.
“Please extend an olive branch!” Please accept the olive seed.
“I know less than when I started.” You’ll know more once you cease.
“How long can I ask the same question?” Until you answer it for me.
“HERE WE GO AGAIN!!” Here you go again.
“Why would ‘I’ go here again?” To hear it all again.
“Well this time, can you say it clear?” That depends on how you hear.
“You’re confusing with your words!” You confuse them with your ears.
“This is all one big cycle.” I’m glad you’re seeing it show.
“I think we’re digressing.” I think you’re beginning to grow.
“I think ya don’t know what I think.” You think you think all that you know.
“Your answers breed more questions” Your questions breed both.
“AND HERE WE GO AGAIN‼” And here you go again.
“I don’t see where this is going,” you don’t see where this has been.
“I’ve become a better person, and I never looked back…
But I looked forward for the answers”…And you never looked back.
“How many questions do I have?” Since you ask, you’re down to nine.
“Not surprised you counted that!” Those with less, use more wise.
“Where will this end??” That would be a start.
“I’m getting lost again…” Try following your heart.
“Just enlighten me; please, all I need’s a little spark!”
If you want to see the light, you need to start out in the dark.
“Can’t you just point me to the grail or philosophers stone?”
I can, and I have, and I will, by pointing you back home.
“I don’t see how you’re helping!” That doesn’t mean you won’t.
“I just REALLY wanna know!” Are you really sure you don’t?
“Well if you’re the source of truth, why do you keep me guessin?”
Because it isn’t learned until discerned by the source of the question.
“I turn to you once more, and get turned away again!”
You turned to me, and as before, I’m turning you within.
“So why does he who helps himself even need you in the end?”
The conclusion can’t be reached until he sees where to begin.
Before you’d only seek externally when conquering your doubt.
The outward helped you inward, now going in will help you out.
With no thoughts but their own, one can hear what’s hardly heard.
You will find the key alone… and then see you never were.
“So discernment is the truth?” No, that’ll be the key.
“and with the key, I’ll see the truth?” You’ll perceive the tree.
“and what’s the tree lead to?” Truth. Living in all you see & do.
As the creative root branches through all you’ve created too.
“Why didn’t you just say so?” It’s the cost of being free.
Those who don’t find it for themselves, find it harder to believe.
“Well, that’s 19! I got more than I could ask in a 20 question game,
so for my final one: how can I help others do the same?”
JUST GIVE THEM 20 QUESTIONS! Then listen to them speak!
How you learned how to learn is how I’d teach you how to teach.
For every soul speaks differently, each language is unique.
But each one has a key; tailor-made for them by me.
And forcing the key will more often lead to broken locks and pride.
But fortunately, the doors made to be opened from inside.
So note this, as you notice folks roaming off the road:
Sharing where ya been does more than showing where to go!
They won’t believe what you know ’til they perceive it on their own;
They’ll care little how big you are, but they’ll respond to how you’ve grown.
For while there are many different paths, there’s only one summit.
And the key to life is love…
…but that’s not what it’d be if I took the choice from it.
an optimist?! NEGATIVE! just positively positive
the secret of the universe relies upon the opposites
for context in our populous, how competent are colleges?
took a lot of ignorance to comprehend what knowledge is
it’s a problem which is relative, its apparent we adopted it
it’s extremely unique, so commonly it’s moderate.
see the glass as half full with a modest bit of cockiness;
but if ya never topped it off, the cup would still be bottomless.
without a winter would a summer even be a thing?
if I never had a fall, would ya ever see me spring?
it’s sink or swim; but what’s a swim without a sink?
I think that I know – therefore I am, I think.
we peak then plateau, and we gradually shrink
no matter how far ya go, ya always on the brink.
Do you have the opposite problem? it’s likely it’s so:
answer with yes, or no – it’s residing in both.
a friend, or foe, above, below – in binary code
the ebbs and flows, they come and go, a high and a low
we want yes without no, wanna know without lessons
never had the answer, but want it without question
seek some direction: east ‘n a south; north ‘n a west
from chaos there is order, we’re an organized mess
it’s simply complex, we want a grade without a test
wanna win, no contest; wanna host? be my guest!
every notion we protect, all the motions we object;
are all perpetual at worst, and immoveable at best.
beauty is skin deep… but how shallow is sight?
when beauty’s best seen by the beholder who’s blind
can ya find an absent mind present in a moment of time?
in some cases ya capitalize; others, lower than swine.
but it takes both to take off – a case where all the pigs fly
and its the lowest swine who go most high, hoggin the sky‼
Do you have the opposite problem? answer it wise:
the answers black and white but may range from day to night
no wrong or right, narrow or wide, just a demand to supply
the secret’s too revealed to hide, so expect a surprise.
find depth in our shallowness, fulfillment in our hollowness
our future leaders will rise from those who can follow this.
Problem Solved.
Some things in life can have a dramatic effect, even when the cause is unknown….
This is a real-life, and real-time, story of discipline, tradition, & resilience.
As Hurricane Sandy wages her wrath across the eastern coast of the US, a handful of America’s finest stare right back into the deep, cold, and dark eye of the storm. Continue reading “An Unknown Soldier; A Well-known Stand!”
“Is there a God?”, “Was he an ‘invented’ by humanity”, “If he exists, what is he like?”
To play ‘devil’s advocate’ (pun intended) riddle me this:
If you knew the answer what, if anything, would you change about yourself?
So you’re looking for the answer to the “God Question”, huh? Lucky for you, the answer is readily available in the place you least suspect. Continue reading “The God Question”
11 years ago marks the date of one of the most tragic events to fall upon American soil.
Many hard-fought debates and questions emerged from the wreckage, “Does the action justify declaration for war?”, “Who is truly responsible?”, “Was it an inside job?”.
The questions are to be expected, but the truth is that, in a life of “cause and effect”, the real conspiracy we were slowly trained to accept is:
Continue reading ““9/11, was it a conspiracy?” Trendy Question”
