Hi.

Sorry for not posting for a week. I’ve been hit with a really bad case of the flu, and have been unable to post with any frequency. Will be posting real soon, and thanks for all your support!

There is an old saying in debating circles that if someone doesn’t have an argument they employ Nazis or Hitler in their defense. Things like, “Hitler was a vegetarian” and “Hitler wasn’t a Christian” (he was) have been used more often than not.

I bring this up thanks to the North Iowa Tea Party and their billboard. As you may have read, they erected a billboard comparing Barack Obama to Hitler and Russian communist leader Lenin with the headline “Radical leaders prey on the fearful and the naive”. This is ironic on so many levels.

Let’s start with the idea of Obama being a radical. The fact is every single one of Obama’s initiatives, whether you agree with him or not, is not radical by western country standards. In fact, if Obama was an elected official in, say, England or Germany his policies would be considered either middle of the road or conservative. So the North Iowa Tea Party is making up its own definition of “radical”.

Second, and I will fully admit being hypocritical here, the Tea Party has more in common with fascism and communism than their opposition. Why?

• The Tea Party wants everyone to think alike (not to mention look alike.) Watch any Tea Party rally or video and notice how many non-white attendees there are

• The Tea Party offers no room for dissension

• The Tea Party does not want an educated voter base (as evidenced by Sarah Palin’s rewriting of Ronald Reagan’s biography featuring a college that never existed and thus he never attended)

• The Tea party only relies on emotion & anger to make its point

Not surprisingly the billboard company, Waitt Outdoor, washes its hands of the issue claiming it believes in freedom of speech “even if it does not reflect our own views”. HMMMMM, wonder if they would say the same thing if the billboard showed two men kissing promoting gay marriage or a message from Planned Parenthood? Of course not, because they like the North Iowa Tea Party have their own definition of “freedom of speech”.

This, again, is where understanding flow is so crucial. Knowing the issues from a full 360 degrees and understanding what the reality is. Of course, such logic won’t do much come November elections. The Tea Party, and Republicans in general, will win a lot of seats because the voting public is “angry”. Then, after two years of gridlock, come 2012 these same voters will blame the Republicans for the nation’s problems.

I’m not a Democrat as I’ve said many times, but simply claiming elected officials are like Hitler is not an answer. If the Tea Party was serious about actually helping America they would offer solutions, not emotion. That would be flow, or at least close to it.

Every morning I get online and check the news from a few sources, starting with Yahoo! I find Yahoo! extremely interesting as it dawned on me that it is 100% representative of the “Old Guard”, the world without flow and with flow blockages.

Their “news” is heavily weighted towards “look how amazing celebrities and the rich are”. Through Yahoo! you can learn fascinating things like how Khloe Kardashian bought her boyfriend Lamar Odom a $450K Rolls Royce to celebrate his NBA championship and why Lebron James was booed at a wedding he attended.

To balance that out, and I use the term loosely, they include some real news mixed in with news about “losers” just to make you feel better about yourself since that isn’t you. The “loser” news revolves around things like the latest unemployment figures or how many people are having their homes foreclosed this week.

All of which leaves you worse off than before you clicked on the page. Why? Because such news will ultimately make you feel either incredibly inferior (why can’t you buy your significant other a $450K car on a whim?) or simply bad about the world. But Yahoo! knows that misery makes news, and celebrities making you feel miserable makes news even more. As a side note, keep in mind the majority of celebrity news is generated by publicists working for the celebrities. Khloe Kardashian could have secretly given the car to her boyfriend, but obviously choose a different route since it was the #1 news story on Yahoo! for a few days.

This is where understanding your flow is so crucial. Media outlets like Yahoo! are detrimental to you finding your true success. Yes, get the news but do not be a slave to it. Yahoo! represents an unrealistic world that has little or no bearing on your life. But too many people think it does represent their life, the way things should be for them. And this creates flow blockages that lead to a downward spiral.

The most interesting part about Yahoo! “news” is that it’s even unrealistic for those in the spotlight. On average, 80% of NFL players are broke within two years of their contracts expiring. 60% of NBA players face the same fate within five years. Lamar Odom better keep that Rolls as it may be his only residence!

When discussing flow, your true life’s purpose, an inevitable question is whether you have free will. After all, if you are “forced” into following a certain way of life (flow) doesn’t it mean you have no free will of your own?

The answer is not what you’d expect. Let me explain. What is the purpose of free will? You hear that all the time in movies, television, politics, and religion. And the answers are conflicting. When it comes to politics and patriotism, Americans have the freedom of free will, not to be suppressed by a communist regime or evil dictator. Yet when it comes to religion it is always you have the “free will” to follow the devil, but to be happy you must suppress your free will and “find God”. Mixed messages to say the least.

The reality is you always have free will, and it is not the free will described by others. Free will in flow means you have the free will to either be successful or not be successful. You have the free will to do drugs, get drunk, have unprotected sex, and any number of detrimental acts. But do those gain you anything? You also have the free will to listen to others tell you how to live your life and to blindly follow them. That also gets you nothing.

Free will in flow is about you being able to discriminate between what adds to your success and what is impeding it. You can choose to go down the wrong path, but why? Just like you can choose to smash your hand with a hammer or stick a needle in your eye. But why?

If, in “free will”, you choose a path that impedes your success (like marrying someone you don’t love or doing cocaine to forget your problems) it means there are blockages somewhere — something or a series of things is standing in your way of success. In flow free will is 100% natural. In fact, the question of free will is really irrelevant. If you are doing what makes you your most successful why would you do anything else?

I do try to make some semblance of impartiality when it comes to politics. Yes, I’m not a Republican, but I’m certainly not a Democrat either. Yet the recent activities of Sarah Palin and her crew are just too good to pass up as a lesson in flow.

Reading from a prepared speech before a crowd at California State University, Palin told a cheering crowd, “This is Reagan country, and perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California’s Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked with the Golden State.” The crowd cheered. Oh, note the word prepared, as in “I or my staff did research prior to giving a speech that will be analyzed by the media.”

So what does this have to do with flow? Flow, again, is about knowledge and knowledge is key to finding success in life and not being led down the wrong path by people seeking to control you via emotion. And that’s exactly what Palin did with the crowd. Here’s why:

• Ronald Reagan, as anyone with a remote connection with him knows (Palin cites Reagan as her personal hero and inspiration), attended Eureka College in Illinois. This was part of his “small town roots” the Republicans were fond to bring up during campaigns.

• There has never been an institute of higher learning called “Eureka College” in the state of California. In fact, Eureka, California (a real place unlike Palin’s made-up college) is associated with College of the Redwoods.

• This is even more shocking since there was an entire ad campaign in the 1980’s/1990’s sponsored by America’s small colleges. It’s main focus was Ronald Reagan and the small college in Illinois he went to. Unless Palin lived under a rock she would have been aware of this campaign, or at least Reagan’s history give her die-hard Republican nature.

When you are in flow you are actively seeking knowledge, and in this case you would question the entire integrity of a speech that has such obvious flaws as its central core. After all, does Palin’s homage to Reagan include different colleges depending on the state she is speaking at?

Yes, speakers make mistakes all the time, especially those who are on heavy tour schedules and forget which town they are in. But this is simply not the case.

Makes you wonder why Palin made $12 million last year selling her brand of “flow”.

You may have heard that Bill & Melinda Gates (together the richest people in the world) have combined efforts with Warren Buffett (the second richest person in the world) to create a $600 billion challenge. Basically, they are asking the world’s super rich (even Oprah!) to contribute 50% or more of their net worth to charity.

Well, the media has had a field day with this and it is the cover story in this week’s Fortune magazine. The basic message is, “Isn’t this great that the rich are going to do this when there is so much need in the world?”

And my answer is yes . . . but.

Now let me be clear. I have no problem with people making money, and flow itself is not about financial suffering. But I do find it ironic that a lot of these billionaires who are suddenly so charitable made their money in very uncharitable ways. Take Warren Buffett. His has made himself and many others very rich by wisely investing in companies that are both solid and growing. That’s great, and he should be commended.

Yet one of his big investments is in Wal-Mart, a company notorious for things like “dead peasant” insurance policies (Wal-Mart takes life insurance policies out on employees and lists only itself as beneficiary,) endless abuse of worker rights, significant (and illegal!) racial and gender discrimination, and so on. Yes, Wal-Mart has been cleaning up its act as of late, but it is too little, too late.

As a major investor Warren Buffett had ample time and power to demand Wal-Mart treat employees fairly and as human beings, not disposable cogs in a machine. But he did nothing and never has.

Which brings me back to my original question. What is the point of giving away all your money if you have made it by hurting the very people you now want to help? I see this as hypocrisy of the highest order. There are many, many, many successful companies that treat workers with respect and make a decent profit. Yes, no company is perfect, but Wal-Mart’s abuses are known to all and should never have emerged to begin with.

Maybe Buffett will find a conscience and devote some of his charity to all the lives Wal-Mart has ruined along the way. That would be a start, one in flow.

I stumbled upon this interesting movie called Fido the other day. It’s a satirical comedy about 1950’s America with one twist — people turn into zombies after they die.

I encourage you to watch the movie from a flow perspective. Why? It is a fantastic example of how friends, family and society can create flow blockages and “set the tone” for your purpose, whether it fits you or not. As you know, such blockages can stunt your success, seriously impeding you ability to accomplish anything in life.

In the movie’s case, the rules set down by friends, family and society were as follows:

-       All people must be collared (turning zombies into harmless creatures) immediately after someone dies

-       The elderly were seen as being a bad thing since they were most like to turn into zombies. In other words, don’t get too attached to grandma

-       Zombies who aren’t collared must be killed immediately

-       Zombies who are collared are turned into slaves

-       Killing/mutilating a zombie was considered a right of passage for men

-       A corporation called Zomcon is allowed to administer any laws it sees fit, including martial law and illegal search & seizure

Of course, if you don’t agree with any of the above you are considered a bad citizen or worse, a rebel that must be locked away. Various characters in the movie struggle with their flow, their true life’s purpose, versus what society is telling them it is.

Yes, it all sounds far fetched, but is it really? What’s the difference between society setting bizarre rules about zombies and real American society setting bizarre rules about gays, immigrants, capital punishment, what God approves of or doesn’t approve of, and so on.

This is why understanding your flow is so crucial to success. Trying to map your life to the world around you is a futile game. In fact, by the end of the movie (and I’m not giving anything away), many of the characters find their flow even though it conflicts with society.

You’ve probably heard that here in California there is a huge legal battle over Proposition 8, the now-law that states marriage is only between a man and a woman. The interesting thing about this legal battle is the ongoing legal maneuvering the proponents of Prop. 8 are going through. This has included everything from there is no legal precedent (funny, there was no precedent for giving blacks and other minorities equal rights) to gay people just don’t “deserve” marriage rights because they “choose” to be gay — if they want to get married they just have to be straight.

The latest argument, and the one that has become the focus of the trial, is that marriage = parenting and “every child must be raised by two different sex adults”. This is where flow comes in. Flow is about knowledge, not sound bites or emotion. Using flow, the entire argument for Proposition 8 falls flat, and I mean it falls flat using the supporters’ own argument.

If marriage is to be legally defined as being between a man and a woman for the sole purpose of parenting children then the following must also legally be enforced:

• Any and all infertile couples cannot be legally married

• Any and all incarcerated prisoners cannot be legally married

• Any single parent, whether through divorce or death, can no longer be allowed to have or care for children

• Once couples become “empty nesters” (children leave the home) they can no longer be legally married

Yet the above groups can all be legally married, and as many times as they want.

Now if you take the argument to its original premise — that gay people should not be allowed to marry because they cannot “naturally” conceive children — then the following must also apply:

• Infertile couples cannot legally be married

• Couples that try “non-biological” methods of conceiving children (in vitro fertilization, surrogates, etc.) cannot be legally married

• Any couple that does not conceive children cannot legally be married

• Once a woman reaches menopause/is no longer capable of having children the couple can no longer be legally married

• Adoption is not a valid reason for allowing legal marriage since the parents did not biologically create the child/children

• No elderly persons can legally be married

The most ironic part of this whole debate, and one that I have not read about being part of the testimony, involves a recent study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Ends up lesbian parents raise more healthy and stable children than any other group (gay men, straight traditional couples, single parents of either sex, etc.) Having two mommies is the best way to guarantee a healthy, well-adjusted child. Even if this study was a fluke (doubtful since it was one of the most thorough studies of its kind ever), it still conflicts with the claim that ONLY straight couples can raise healthy children.

Of course, none of this logic matters when you have prejudice as your driving force. That’s why understanding flow is so important. It’s easy to be swept away with passion and hatred without grasping what is said. In fact, that’s the reason Proposition 8 barely passed at all — voters were fed lies and half truths about what the law was about. Research and polls showed conclusively that once voters understood the law was denying equal legal rights to a minority group they were against the proposition.

You see, in America marriage is a legal definition and nothing more. That’s why rapists, serial killers, and people like Britney Spears (famous for her 55-minute marriage to an old friend) can get married, and get married as many times as they want. It has nothing to do with so-called morality or ability to procreate. It’s all about basic human rights as defined by law.

You’ve heard the phrase before, or others like “that was the golden age” or “those best years of my life”. You’ve probably said them yourself in one form or another.

People generally use these phrases when they are unhappy in their current circumstances or they are uncomfortable with change, whether real or perceived. I always laugh when I watch Turner Classic Movies as movies from every era, and we’re talking from the early 1900’s to recent times, always have some character talking about golden ages and when things were so much better. If you take this literally all the golden ages must have existed prior to the invention of motion pictures . . . until you start reading literature and realize even ancient Sumerian text (written more than 5,000 years ago) contains references to what could be termed “a golden age”.

The fact is there is no golden age and never has been. Yes, you probably remember when things seemed simpler or you were allegedly much happier. For me it was the 1980’s, mainly my college years. I had a blast and really liked that time. But looking at it realistically I was also in a very dark place on many levels. In fact, if I approached life the way I do now my college years would have been phenomenal, instead of this mix of some good times with lots of bad times.

The point is that if what you are doing and how you living right now isn’t your “golden age” you need to ask yourself why. Yes, these are trying times but flow is about constant success. If you do look back on a golden age why was it golden and why can’t you recapture that now? Flow is about YOU and you alone, so you really can’t say things like “my house was doubling in value every year” since that is fleeting — did you really think your house would double every year until you retire?

When you find your flow you are one with yourself, and the outside world becomes less important. That means you are always living in a golden age. Sounds like a fantasy but it does work!

Here is an issue that brings flow to the forefront, as hard as it is to fathom.

On December 3, 1984 at Union Carbide pesticide plant released 40 tons of toxic gas that killed 4,000 instantly and 15,000 over time. To date it ranks as the worst industrial disaster in history. Today, June 7, 2010, an Indian court just sentenced seven people from Union Carbide to two-year jail terms and fines of 100,000 rupees ($2,175). The defendants, all in their 70’s, will appeal and the final verdict may not come for decades. Needless to say most if not all will probably die of natural causes before they see a minute of jail time or even have to pay.

It’s easy to look at this and say, “where is God?” or “there is no justice” or “this proves there is evil in the world”. Especially when you look at countries like America where an elderly woman can spill hot McDonald’s coffee on herself and win over $2 million in damages. (To be fair, Union Carbide did financially settle with the Indian government in 1989 for $470 million.)

So is there evil? Is God absent? Understanding flow gives the answers. The fact is humans are responsible for the accident (or sabotage by a disgruntled employee as Union Carbide claims). The fact is Indian laws allowed such a huge population of people to live so close to such a toxic plant. The fact is Indian justice is anything but swift — something even Law Minister Veerappa Moily admitted upon hearing the verdict. And so on. These are examples with “human roots”, not some outside force like the devil or God.

Let’s be clear. I am NOT excusing anything that happened in any way, shape or form. What I AM saying is that humans created this scenario, from the crushing poverty of the Bhopal community to the fact the plant was built at all. This had nothing to do with God or evil or any other force. The society and its population made conscious decisions, often bad, that led to this tragedy.

Of course, India is far from alone in this. Recent polls indicate the majority of Americans favor offshore drilling even though the BP disaster will ruin entire industries, not to mention animal habitats, for decades. So offshore drilling will probably continue. Americans continue to complain about politicians yet continue to elect them. Americans still prefer gas-guzzler vehicles even though the oil used to power them is controlled by countries that sponsor terrorism. (All 9/11 terrorists were linked to Saudi Arabia.)

This is not a blame game but a study in flow. Yes, there are millions of things you cannot control in this world, and you’re not going to change society overnight. But by following your own flow, your success, you are able to bring success to everyone around you. And that perpetuates itself. As more people, especially the younger generations who will lead the world, get into their flow you will see a dramatic decrease in things like the Bhopal disaster. People will look at things from all angles, and will make choices with outcomes based on success, not greed or ignorance or any other factor. THAT is how the world will change.