Poker, Zen, and Dirty Martinis

An Inversion

2009-10-12T22:27:00.002-05:00

When I play poker to win, I lose.

When I play poker not to lose, I win.

What does this say about my "default" strategies?

(Rhetorical question, answer is "Besides that I am about 900% too aggressive?")

Teh Vanishing

2009-10-05T21:04:00.001-05:00

Sorry! I'm here, I'll be back soon!

Zen: A Story

2009-09-14T21:02:00.004-05:00

I recently mentioned that for me to show myself and others that I'm playing poker in a truly new way, I can show this by accomplishing something I haven't done previously. Specifically, I mentioned turning $250 into not $1250, but $3000 or $10,000.

So, I burned my $18 bankroll (after withdrawing most) and deposited $250. It just eclipsed $1,250, at the beginning of the weekend, after a dozen consecutive winning sessions. I closed the last table Thursday with $1,253.

Then, (as if) on cue, I started giving it back. I felt like I was playing the same, I felt like I was making good or decent table selection, and doing all the right things. But it was lose or break-even, and it wasn't like I was getting the short end of the stick all the time. Yet obviously, something was different. I knew better than to blame it all on "bad luck" vs. "good luck".

This is what a story will look like when you first see it. Vague, indefinable around the edges. Hard to wrap your brain around or even your arms around. This is the moment of truth. Real-live red pill/blue pill stuff. You have 2 choices:

1. Explain the story. Justify the story, come up with reasons why it's not you, not your story. Make sure the case for acting out this story is airtight, in case this comes up again next time.

2. Go into the story. Identify it, become aware of it, drop it. Never think about it ever again.

They will be anything but obvious, especially as you are first learning to spot them. Let me finish the example of mine, so that you can see the resolution, the transformation.

As I see myself "giving it back", hovering between $1,250 and $1,000, I do start to see some patterns emerging.

Bigger cash tables:

Dismissed because the players aren't any better. Often, more ATM-ey.

More aggressive play:

An expectation to win all the time. "Why haven't I already won all the money?"

Related, I think back, and I can even remember times when I was trying to quit for the night, and I was, for instance, up $399. I set a goal of $400 and I'm out. And yet, almost invariably, I lost. Often, a lot. So, what is the story of me continuing to win?

I know it now. Do you? If not, it's not surprising. Often it will only be apparent to the owner of the story. Only they have the context to jump to the end. (Ironically, if you learn to do this in a group, you find often everyone in the room knows the story EXCEPT the owner.) This story, for me, it can be summed up in two words:

Game Over.

I am a pure gamer, I've been playing games my entire life. I found a Commodore Pet at age 4 and never looked back. And when I win a game, specifically winning over and over, it means no more getting to play.

Game night: I win, time for bed.

I win the same game 5 consecutive: Nobody wants to play with me.

I beat my younger brother all the time. He never wants to play with me.

This formed the pattern of me learning to play games. Play them well, but play them so well I can control the outcome. So I CAN LOSE ON PURPOSE ENOUGH FOR PEOPLE TO KEEP PLAYING WITH ME. So I CAN KEEP PLAYING FUN GAMES.

It fits across the board. When I got my first $10 ever online (free), I turned it into $1,000. In a week. Then, I lost it all, until I had but $44 left. I then won 2 $44 SNG's and back to $350.

If I lose at low bankroll, it means I don't get to play anymore. So that's why I always have managed to rescue fallen bankrolls. But, look at the larger, more sinister, less obvious half of this story:

I lost on purpose when I won a lot, in the past. I was following a pattern, set for maximum enjoyment, as measured by approval of other players and more importantly, ability to play more. And more and more and more. Anything to play more.

This is why stories, once identified, require no effort at all to transform into awareness. Once I see the silliness that was my old pattern, I stop acting it out. Applying effort is universally a mistake. If you are making an effort to drop a story, you're masking it, hiding it, justifying it. Own it and it's gone forever.

I see that whatever the reason, however subtly I do it, I sabotage winning too much. This time when I defined a level of "too much", I even hit it on the nose. So, I've ignored whatever compulsions I feel or don't feel, to lose at poker because my bankroll is so large. I commit to its health, I will not sabotage it for a stupid story that is already dropped.

This time it is different.

So, what was the specific story? Well, the specifics aren't important, they're simply the ways in which I was acting it out. They will all show up in time, as old habits that I now ignore (i.e. raising more vs aggressive players). Sometimes the story has a simple answer, sometimes you never identify it directly. There is no need, you know this once it's gone.

Context, with No Judgement

2009-09-09T20:22:00.004-05:00

When I'm winning at poker:

I expect to win every pot.

If I'm playing H/L, I win half or all of almost every pot I play.

I smirk when I massively brick and have to fold.

I remember that I don't HAVE to play every "playable on 3rd" scenario.

I remember that folding for no reason is one of the best ways to honor my intuition.

I trust my intuition.

I don't second guess my choices, whether they were right or wrong.

Stud H/L is one big, happy, freeroll.

I can fold 2 aces.

I can fold KKK on the river when they obviously hit their flush they were chasing.

I get paid for my winning hands.

I REFUSE to pay people off.

When I'm losing at poker:

I expect to win every pot.

If I'm playing H/L, I win half or all of 20%-40% of pots I play.

I feel mad, angry, when I get screwed on the river.

I struggle to break even.

I instacall when the odds are close enough.

Poker Zen: Investigating a Story

2009-09-07T19:05:00.004-05:00

In the past, I would be starting a strategy post today. Why?

I have been having success on the tables. More specifically and importantly, I can see the roots of my understandings, growing, evolving into cash profits. And I see with a high degree of clarity. I can now share my visions of the truth about "winning at poker" with confidence that I know of what I speak.

But I'm not going to launch into that post, not today. Why not? That's the post I AM going to put up today.

I have noticed a pattern in my life. When I have a lot of success at the tables, whether cash or in tournaments, either I know I'm playing well, or I know I'm running hot. I think I have a solid ability to assess my results on this level. But yet, both come and go. And there is simply NO logical reason why I should start playing worse, instead of continually, continuously, better.

So, let's go into this. Instead of repeating the old pattern, telling the old story, I choose to continually play better, now and continously. Let's identify the cause(s) of playing worse, and in awareness, drop them.

Possibility #1: Secrets in the Open

Hypothesis: The revealing of strategies helps my opponents. Not only am I teaching them correct, fundamentally sound poker, but I am also showing them how I interpret my own strategies, and any secret tricks. Is this a plausible cause for my inevitable decline?

Answer: TBD. (Hint: "No.")

Well, I wish I had time to finish now, but no such luck. So, I will sit with this and see what answer comes back as "Yes."

One obvious part of the answer: make this streak unique. Like, for instance, 3 times as long as any before. Or, turn $250 into $3000, or $10,000, not just $1,250. Then, write about what I obviously DO know.

The Cross

2009-09-02T22:03:00.002-05:00

If you are waiting until you can leave your job, so that you can go home and start having fun, you are moving horizontally.

If you are thinking about what you will say at the party, on the way to the party, you are moving horizontally.

If you base your self-worth on your personal appearance, or your monthly paycheck, you are living horizontally.

If you justify your mistakes, you are living horizontally. If you defend your mistakes, you are living horizontally. If you brag about your successes, you are living horizontally.

If you aspire to something you are not, you live horizontally. If you regret the worst choice you ever made, you live horizontally.

Think of everything you do from birth until death. Think about how much of this journey you are in charge of, and how much time controls. 0% vs 100%.

Moving horizontally is agreeing with the passage of time. Imagine if you could resist the flow of time, or stop it all together. Stop for a breath, and truly imagine that you have this ability.

Moving horizontally is "helping" time. Helping it move you from birth through life to death like patrons at Disneyland. It will move you from the entrance of the park to the exit and it's dark and you will wonder where it all went.

Now it's important to remember in this story, time has no motive. It has no power you don't give it. So if anything happens with you through time, remember it is all you.

Now, it's not only because you think about tomorrow, that tomorrow comes. We are flowing in a river, a river that flows horizontally. But while you are here, why spend the time marching?Looking downstream, looking back upstream, looking horizontally?

There is another fundamental direction. If it helps, think about drawing a stick-figure on a piece of paper. Now place that paper on a flat table, and explain to him what direction "up" is. He can only see, only think in 4 directions. But this is where the analogy ends.

Moving vertically is not transversing a new spatial dimension. It's encompassing space and time itself. If I had to give it a direction, I would say, "inwards".

You can't move vertically by doing more, by walking around and seeing more. Not by giving more money, getting more money, or getting promoted.

To move vertically, you simply must be more. You already know how, you know you do. I am not going to tell you how, or where, or why. You already know these things.

You move vertically by being THAT person. More and more each day.

Drop It All

2009-08-29T20:05:00.002-05:00

Everything that has been given to you.

Increasing awareness has many "side effects". To me, they are fascinating signposts, showing me that I'm on the right path.

For example, the more awareness I gain, the more I realize I DON'T know. As Denis Leary's father put it, "most of the people older than you are smarter than you." And yes, more years on Earth playing the game of life generally leads to more mastery.

Meanwhile, I have continually encountered more patterns and habits internally, things I did but I didn't really know why. With awareness, often I drop the pattern or habit entirely. In that moment, I gain a new space in my life. The enormous size of that space both awes and inspires me. The things I'm capable of, given such a fresh new freedom.

What do I do with this? I really think I have the ability to teach poker. That I can write a column about poker that is both informative and reasonably correct. Yet, I struggle to put this knowledge into play. I know it's somewhat unrelated, but I refuse to wave my hands at it and say, "those who can't do, teach." That's teaching for the flocks, not teaching by revealing mastery. Or, maybe it's just that I refuse to teach something I am unable to implement. The real answer, I suspect, is that I know the really important game isn't poker, it's the one that contains poker. The games I play with my Mind will always be there, no matter how proficient I get at poker. So my scholarly poker studies are waiting for now. What good is having a treasure map if you can't sail?

For me, to teach what I know, is not yet about "how to play poker". There is plenty available out there for that. I wouldn't flinch if someone said 90% is better than the stuff I write. I don't claim to be able to judge the quality of my own poker writings.

What I know, is about getting from playing "bad poker" to "good poker". I think the threshold that remains for most poker players is this awareness. We can all spot amateurs by their basic lack of probabilities and game mechanics. But after this first initial learning curve, the river straightens out and dumps players in the ocean. And from there, they get to choose how, and where, to sink or swim.

10,000 hours is the magic number for mastery, according to Malcom Gladwell, and I think he has found some fascinating, and accurate results. Bill Gates, The Beatles, Bill Joy. Even the "geniuses." But this is training, programming. Doing something so many times that it becomes second-nature. Surely even some people will take more than 10,000 hours, for given skill sets.

But 10,000 hours is not necessary. I submit that awareness alone short-circuits this. Learning becomes active, enjoyment and passion become universal. This is where there is a massive shortage of existing written material. How to take the lessons of Zen and apply them to our actual worlds. How to take the short-cut to the "10,000 hours" mastery level, in poker, or in anything.

I'll do what I can to record my journey here, and I think that best sums up the first two years I've written here. But how do I teach, the more I realize I really know nothing?

Traditionally in the West, teaching requires:

a) learning, acquiring knowledge, and

b) imparting that knowledge onto others

This is not going to happen for me, at least anytime soon, and likely never. I have dropped the burden of "the past", and I don't plan on making an exception for this. Think about your favorite movie, how many times you've seen it and how well you know the story. Now imagine a genie visits you and offers you this gift: the ability to experience everything as new, watch this movie and every movie for the first time, over and over. Do you accept? I did, this is what life is like when you stop building your personality, basing your current life on your previous life up until now.

Everything in this reality is flowing, nothing is static. Any illusion of stasis exists only because you choose to see something as so. So, I will teach, but about how to swim. The things I as masterful about are:

learning

learning curves

evolution of process

evolution of societies

problem solving

chaos vs. order

turning inwards

silence

It occurs to me, as a random place to end this post, that I am playing Zen like I'm playing poker. I know all of the "right actions", but I find myself doing alternative ones anyways. Then getting mad about it. Creating conflict, quite literally out of nothing.

I recommit I play Zen.

Blogger's Block (or 'Blok' for short)

2009-08-19T23:11:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting down to write this in an interesting space. For weeks, I've had a gazillion things to say about anything and everything. Yet, when I sit down to write them, I hate every single sentence that I type. Individually. So here I am today, posting for the sake of posting, posting with editing, but posting guaranteed. So, I may as well start by talking about why I am struggling to post anything.

Paralyzed Will
I have so much to say, but speaking into the vacuum creates an interesting dilemma. Who else is reading (if anyone), and does that matter? I guess I always end up realizing at this point, if anyone truly wishes assistance in walking the path, they would speak up. Until someone is willing to stick their neck out and actually do something, ignore them as participants. So, I am still really writing this blog for me. Same as from day 1.

So, while I would enjoy this to be a discussion, I accept the fact that it's one-sided.

Many times I would like to post about something Zen, something I've newly discovered. For instance, today I've been contemplating about Mind, and whether it creates time, and solidity. From my singular perspective, this is pretty deep stuff, and I have no read on whether I'm leaving people behind or boring them to death. Alternatively, I've had some great thoughts about “Zen for Beginners” posts, but wonder if I would be teaching 5th grade math to college students. So again, I see that it's my own fear, fear of being judged.

I'll add one more, then I'll explain the term 'paralyzed will'. I sometimes start a post, and (although not recently) actually like the content. But, as I continue writing, I'm aware that I am not willing to put in the effort to put the usual polish on the writing before posting. And I let that prevent me from posting. Well, to be honest, I chose this conflict for myself, and now that I'm aware of it, I have dropped it. So be it, if a post is unpolished. See first paragraph above.

Paralyzed will is doing nothing in the face of everything. Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning, and your entire to-do list has 50 things on it. You accept the fact that you can only get 20 done this weekend, although really you can only get 10 done. And you would love to get 2 done by noon, but in the face of all of this you just cannot get started. You're not lazy, you're, well, afraid. That's why I couldn't post, I was afraid of a bunch of imaginary consequences.

As I've come to this conclusion, I really am done writing about it already. So can we move on?

Meditation for Beginners
To some this may seem like blasphemy. I have only recently truly started to meditate. But, I bet some of you know exactly why it took me this long to get to this place.

True meditation never seemed necessary to me. I figured anything I can do while meditating, I could learn to do while I'm still doing other stuff. I am an excellent multi-tasker, have a very quick mind. But I was missing the entire point. It is clear, clear, obvious, and cosmically quite funny how far off I was.

I am still fighting to get to the pillow. And I commit to asking why, so that I can drop it and continue meditating. It's easily the most magical thing I've discovered and I choose to explore further.

Full disclosure: it's scary. You are going to encounter things you may not like, and you can either quit, run away, or forge ahead. Trust me, this is something much easier handled when you commit going in. Expect to be frightened, because Mind is the one in charge of pushing your fear button. And it's not afraid to use it.

I commit to being courageous in the face of whatever I might encounter. I go to the pillow, knowing fully many things will impel me to leave the pillow. I used to have animosity for Mind, but now I realize there is no malice. Mind is Mind, just like society is society. Accept it, and immediately it is clear what a gift it is when allied with it.

It's sort of like the saying, “you always find things in the last place you look”. It may seem like there is some reason you need to leave the pillow, such as a scary image, a sudden fear, a sudden hunger, whatever it is. I invite you to see this for the “Mind” that it is. More than that, see it not as a ploy by your Mind to get you off of the pillow, see it as just “the last thing you happened to think about.” It's the one thing that worked this time, but it needn't get you off the pillow ever again. Don't make it into something it's not, just accept the progress you made, and sit back down. Today, tomorrow, whenever, just do it.

There are zillions of reasons not to meditate. I don't personally have any valid ones, maybe you can think of one that holds. But short of literal serfdom, I think I could afford to watch a little less Netflix and play a little less online poker to create the time.

Language, The Printing Press, The World Wide Web
Incrementally, the evolution of communication in our history. Invention, then the ability to communicate on a global scale, then the ability to do it for free. You know how the scariest villains in the sci-fi movies are often “hive-minds”. Well the Web is more appropriately named than you might have imagined. We now have the ability to act as a whole, and despite trivial bickering, global action is inevitable. The human race is now a hive mind.
I bring this up because I didn't go looking for Zen, I promise you that. Some author hid it in a quantum physics book, chapter 8 I think. But it was like being shown a burst of light, no matter how tiny, I couldn't ignore it. But take away the WWW, pretend I'm 15 again, and how would I possibly pursue this spark?

A. Dedicate my life to getting to Tibet, spend years there, and hope they have the answer. (?)
B. Forget about it and go back to trying to procure a fake.

We have more and more freely available every day. Google is doing everything they can to get books and other human history online, to be available to everyone for free. (Yes, there is a non-zero cost to getting online, let's call it negligible for this discussion.) I have the resources to talk to family, read book after book, and now search and discuss immediately with the entire human race. So, inevitably, we will talk about things that are true.

My intuition tells me that Zen Buddhism doesn't have it all right. But it's really close, closer than other organized religions. Ironically, I feel that the very places they miss are so transparent. To see so much of the truth, but then cling to tradition, human legacy in some fundamental ways. (For more examples of this clinging to tradition, see “The Bible”, pages 1-end.)

I will admit that I know so little, that maybe Zen Masters have found the truth in these things and I am as yet unable to see it. But I will find that out myself.

I am personally stunned that the elections in Iran ended the way that they did. Sure it's not denying the Holocaust happened, but it's still a draconian denial of truth. And our new transparency should guarantee that doesn't happen anymore. I mean, they truly thought they could pretend that the opposition leader lost HIS HOMETOWN, and no one would take notice? Now, the government went strong-armed, and the people had a choice to escalate or back off, and they made their choice. I actually find it quite wise. There is no need to stand in front of a tank these days, just chill out, be patient. How do you think the next election will go down in Iran?

Judgement
One more topic today. Wow, I really understand why some Zen authors just go all over the place. When I write about Zen, there is no “crafting” involved, which is what is usually involved in writing. If I were to put out a book, I know I would simply have to start writing, and go back later and arrange it according to some thread or scheme. To think of writing a Zen book based on a preexisting outline makes me laugh.

It occurred to me lately on a whole new level, how much the entire human race is blameless for their actions. It would be like punishing a 5-year-old for bad manners. We can talk about why this is, but for now let's just start as if this is true.

If humanity really is clueless, then what good is judgment? Let me give you some examples:
A church I drive by on my way to work has a sign with removable letters, and posts these ridiculous sayings like, “Jesus will board your sinking ship” and “Pray and let God do the worrying” and “Many books inform but only The Bible transforms”. Someone picks these out, and he or she is obviously an idiot. But then thinking about their path, what life they have lived up until now, I realize that they just have had no chance to escape this particular set of delusions. Society, Christianity programmed this man/woman to the core.

A recent poll highlights the continuum of ignorance in the US. Only 62% of people think Obama was born in the US for sure. The next layers illustrate further levels, as more think he was Indonesian than Kenyan, and 6% even think he's Hawaiian and that HAWAII IS NOT A U.S. STATE. 38% of people think the current US president is not an American-born citizen?

What, they didn't check? Hoped no one would notice? Giant conspiracy (involving robots)?

Stepping back for a minute, I can just see them, as if they're on the local news. Telling the camera “what they think is true”. 10% think Obama is Indonesian, that's hilarious. They took the rumor of the “birth-certificate thing”, then made up their own guess about where he came from.

So, I accept the fact that the masses are just that, the masses. Programmable, programmed. To judge them is to judge a dog for not knowing Keats.

Zen is denying this programming and denying your history and your legacy and your accomplishment and your morality. It is dropping the need to take credit for anything, and your belief that things from the past are somehow relevant and important.

It's committing to living your own life.

Imagine you are floating down a stream. You know you can get to the river's end by floating for the rest of your life. And you are welcome to do just that, society will encourage it in more ways than you may first suspect. Finding Zen is like making that first stroke, starting to swim. Anywhere. I've been given this life, in whatever form it exists, and I choose to explore everything I can while I'm here.

Commit to finding the truth, living the truth, and the rest comes of its own. Drop everything you have been given, stop living other people's lives. Truth is readily and freely available, as much as you can handle, open the faucet as narrow or as wide as you choose. If you meditate, you will unleash a torrent. I've only recently discovered the joy of letting it flow over me. Whatever you do, I invite you to find these things for yourself.

I've discovered so many fascinating things in just a few minutes of meditation. How the act of thinking a thought can validate it, how emotions flow through my body and influence my choices, how many times I can count to one and forget to count to two. I choose to be writing about them soon.

Monitor As Zen Garden (With Directions)

2009-08-06T21:48:00.003-05:00

I recently did two things:

Replace my broken 22" LCD monitor with a new 28" monitor.

Move the computer into the main area of the house.

So now that it's in the living room, I would like to show something beautiful, and peaceful, on the monitor when I'm not using it. Google Photos Screensaver is the obvious choice, but where to get free, maintenance-free content? Well, golly, I'll tell ya how!

First, I signed up for my free account, and created an channel on framechannel.com. I then searched through my account, and found the RSS-feed for my channel, and added it to Google Photos Screensaver. I will give you mine, it's filled with National Geographic feeds and other beautiful scenery, more on that later. Finally, I added my other favorite picture feed, courtesy of EarthShots.org.

Now I have beautiful, amazing pictures as my screen saver. It's so nice I've backed off the sleep setting on my monitor to 2 hours. Here's how:

1. Download and install Google Photos Screensaver, or any screensaver that supports RSS feeds. To get Google Photos Screensaver, use Google Pack.

2. Configure Google Photos Screensaver. It's in your Start Menu now.

3. Locate feeds of pictures. More on this in a bit. I'll give you two to start:

http://www.earthshots.org/screensaver.php
http://rss.framechannel.com/user=punkval/pin=9118

4. To add an RSS feed, click on "Settings...".

Here are the options for configuring the photos you see. Check the box for "Photos from public sites", and click "Configure..." directly to the right of that.

Copy-paste the RSS text into the textbox, and click Add.

Here you go again, for your copy-paste delight:

http://rss.framechannel.com/user=punkval/pin=9118

http://www.earthshots.org/screensaver.php

Now that you've added some, you can click OK or optionally find some more. There are two great starting points at the bottom of this window.

That's it, you're good to go!

I would LOVE to make this a forum for readers to contribute their favorite feeds. If you leave them in the comments I will promote them to right here:

(be the first one!)

The Musings of a Hermit

2009-07-24T19:54:00.004-05:00

Is it me?

I am notoriously difficult to get ahold of. I screen calls, I don't return calls. It reminds me of a dialogue from Big Bang Theory (I'm paraphrasing):

Sheldon: "Sorry I'm late."

Penny (or Leonard): "Oh, did something happen?"

Sheldon: "No, I just really didn't want to come."

Recently, even the more-enlightened members of my family have been suggesting that "I get out more." If not socially, they claimed, then professionally. It may be helpful to have lunch with the work gang, and harmful to miss it.

As for that, I say bah. That assumes, desire, ambition, in the traditional sense. That I need to change the world by changing the people around me. Since I no longer play that game, I feel no need to go to these lunches. Now, I may CHOOSE to go to some lunches, but I will pick my highest choice, not do something I feel I should. I will continue to go home for lunch if I choose. Which brings me to my second point.

I'm not spending my forever alone, I'm spending it with my wife who I have known for 6 years who I adore more every day. I know that before I met her, I spent 90% of my waking hours (low estimate) looking for her. Does that just mean I'm codependent instead of a loner?

The real question:

Is there anything wrong with that?

I wonder if it's a generational thing. My parents' generation cannot understand how I could have such a small social circle, yet feel connected to my world. But they are not of the internet generation.

It's a different world. Now, I can't see myself ever Twittering, but that's because it's basically the opposite of Zen. Create a persona, use it to win an imaginary popularity contest. It all stems from a fundamental confusion, equating love and attention. Once you realize that those two things are different, the world is a different place.

Seriously, just for your benefit, the two most-universal conflict-creating confusions:

1. Pleasure = happiness

2. Attention = love

I've gone into this a lot recently, and I think #2 specifically stems from "Forced-boredom" as a kid. Maybe it's the time when you had to stay an extra week (out of summer vacation) at the farm in the middle of nowhere with your grandparents, simply because your brother was too much for them to handle alone. Maybe it's the hours you spent in class "not learning", going through the public school system. How much of the time in school were you actively spending learning? I think mine started at 50%, and then spiraled off starting in high school. Regardless, it leads to a subconscious story of "feeling trapped", unable to affect one's environment.

So as an adult, someone will act out this "story" by doing something that has a large of an impact as possible. In the past, they felt loved when they were actually receiving attention. So, now, subconsciously, attention = love, and, more attention = more love. The internet doesn't change that, it just makes the attention more accessible.

Nevertheless, I AM the internet generation. I can massively affect my world, or even make a living without leaving my house (although I have yet to attempt the latter). And do so, meeting exponentially more people in the process, than my father's father ever could.

I came of age with the internet, in my 1995 freshman year at college. I brought my shiny new computer (that I bought) to my dorm room, where I had a substantially fast 19200 baud "direct-connection". A fresh mind, straight out of high school, and all of a sudden, the entire world at my availability. Sure, there was internet before 1994, and Mozilla and Netscape, but not really...that's like saying that radio is an equivalent to TV.

So I'm happy in my huge little world for right now, despite all the worries of everyone who knows me. I ask you all this, if you are worried for me, check in and ask why. Is it society pushing that button through you? I bet it is. If not, I will be happy to listen to why I "should get out more."

Seriously, to all my friends and family, none of whom will ever read this, I do care about you, I am happy, and I think my lifestyle is wonderfully healthy. Please assume that my lengthy silences are evidence that I still feel the same way about you. And that I continue to get happier each and every single day. And if you're feeling that way, I'd love to chat about it.

Give me a call. I might even answer.

****

(Highly) Recommended watching:

The IT Crowd (unless you're "proper normal")

Head Case (ditto)

30 Rock

(Highly) Recommended Reading/listening:

"Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell (life-changing)

"The Pleasure of My Company", Steve Martin (he is a brilliant novelist)

Zen: Compromise

2009-06-27T20:11:00.004-05:00

I haven't blogged in weeks and weeks, after 3-4 posts/week for almost 2 years.

I haven't played online poker for weeks and weeks. After playing nearly DAILY for 5 years.

What's that about?

It all started with the arrival of a long-awaited week-off from work, after months and months of 7-day workweeks. I made solid plans to do exactly nothing during that week, and by the evening of the first night, I was transformed. Silence, emptiness, and timelessness all converged and allowed me to take one giant step inwards.

The single largest schism in my life up until then could be described as "attempting to do everything all at the same time." Instead of being a gourmet burger joint, carefully tending to the few most special customers in my life, I had become McDonald's. I was capable of giving 125% to anything, but was instead allocating that across 25 things, and giving them each 5%. Believe me, no one was satisfied, especially not me, and it wasn't because of the lack of effort on my part.

But, you may say, with the world we live in, and the technologies and social connections available to us, are we not capable of doing 25 things simultaneously, and doing them at 125% each?

It is possible, it is easy. The difference is in the choosing. How you choose your path in each moment.

There are two "flavors" of choosing, let me see if I can contrast them.

Abstract ('Mind') choices

1. Choosing to maintain grass in the front and back yard

2. Choosing to give one's child a good/great education

3. Loving one's wife

Specific ('Moment') choices

1. Choosing to cut the grass and water the shrubs now, or hire help to do it

2. Reading to one's child, tonight, and each night before bed

3. Writing a small note to one's wife and putting it in their wallet

Do you see that these are both sets of what we consider "good choices". Both may appear to lead us to the same conclusions, same destinations over time.

Let's look again at the first set. When I ask you how long it takes to do #1, or #2, or #3, in hours per week, you have no answer. When I ask you for the exact cost of #1 or #2 or #3, you have no answer. Any such question about the second set is easily answered.

Living life guided by abstract choices leads to compromise. By not choosing in each moment what to do, it's a subtle version of 'turning it over to a higher power'. And your time, your resources, your essence, you, will be divided up among the abstract choices and the commitments you have based on those choices. And if you are reading my blog, without ever meeting you, I can guess that you have over-allocated your time, energy, money and resources. Hey, it's the American way! It's something we poker players do best!

Choosing a set of abstract choices leads to an uneven amount of "choosing" to do in a given day, in a given moment. What to do if the lawn needs mowed AND the cat got sick AND the car needs an oil change? What to do when the next day none of these happen? To truly fulfill all your commitments and choices, does it take most or all of your waking hours? Do you still fall short? You see how every choice, every moment in this reality is choosing one compromise after another. Every time you choose to act in accordance with one "idea", you are neglecting the rest. And when nothing is pressing, you are bored. How can you possibly be bored, with the life that you live and the commitments you make and honor?

So, enough said, you're ready to make the change, ready to upgrade to the new view, the new way of choosing with me. Do you see the transformation you require making? Please feel free to pause here and answer this one for yourself. It's a skill you can develop, recognizing stories and their roots simply by going into them. When you are ready, proceed to the next paragraph.

It is about having your courage, your trust. You will have to trust that by doing each of your individual acts, it will lead towards the abstract goals that you are aiming for. Instead of starting from a destination and walking blindly towards it, you are looking at the step in front of you in each moment.

Trust that you will choose to read to your child, help him with his homework when he needs it. The courage to be present with him when necessary. Trust that by acting this way in each moment, his long-term education will meet all of your "abstract requirements" you may have set up at the beginning.

Do you see how living life by the abstractions is like a security blanket? It's creating process where none exists, and getting to the point in the most backward way possible. Deflecting the responsibility, and the blame, by allowing you external universe to make your choices for you.

You can start with a combination of your moral values, combined with your life experiences, to make a general judgement about how some "thing should be". "Should" is crap, believe me. "Should" could be defined as an antonym for "Zen". Anyways, so you've chosen that a certain thing should be a certain way. "My child should have a good education." Great.

Now you combine it with your own personal experiences, whether lived personally, or taken on from someone else through stories or parents or TV or other programming. So you come up with a basic set of ways to evaluate how this concept might be "accomplished". But, see already we don't have any tangible way to define whether it was actually "accomplished" or "not accomplished". Ignoring that and moving on, we take the "history", mix it with our "should", and out come the rules by which we can live our own lives. Take the kid to school every day, encourage extra-curricular activities, pay for soccer cleats, etc.

Rules? RULES you say? Why should we live our life by rules, even if they're supposedly our own? (They're not.)

Trust that you are aware, and capable of making the best choice in each moment. In this example, trust that your child is capable of handling his own education if he seems to be doing just that. By being aware in the moment, you will be there to help in the exact moments he needs it, which we all know will lead to the aforementioned "good education".

By making these choices, you are transcending the compromise that you had previously agreed with. It allows you to be complete in the activity you are doing, complete in each moment. If you are reading to your kid, you can be there fully while doing it. If you are instead "caring for his education", and "providing an income", and "figuring out that 'work thing' in your head" you will be complete in nothing. Never alone in one task, always spread out. Never complete in anything, never present in the true moment.

Courage, and trust. That if you act with completeness, in each moment, that your life will be exactly "as it should be". This is the Path of Zen, the ability to walk with courage one step at a time.

***

What does this mean for me personally? Blogging and poker were obviously two components of the giant compromise I was living. In my new reality, I do them when I choose to, instead of when I feel I "should", or when I was in the habit of doing it. I still enjoy both of them tremendously, and I will say that I am greatly transformed since taking the extended vacation from the tables. But I was tired of "5%" poker, I had proven time and again that I can be downright mediocre at poker without trying very hard. I would have had a tough time answering the "why are you playing poker, then?" question.

My energy flows outward now.

I feel joyful in each moment, because I am present with my choice to do whatever I happen to be doing. Incidentally, I am cooking more, and better than ever. I've started gardening a bit. I am excelling at work, and it's now fun while I do it. And while I've dipped my toe in poker a bit, I'm still mostly absent. Let's call that 'Expert Mode' for this new game, and I will upgrade that part when I am ready.

For now, I'm finding supreme pleasures in the simplest things.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Part I

2009-05-02T21:48:00.002-05:00

(ed. Note) In the interest of getting this posted, I have broken this into two parts. Part II coming soon.

"Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth"
by T. Harv Eker

This is not a book review. It is not a book report. To do so would be ignoring the value of this book. Instead, imagine that this is a mini-seminar, teaching you the book. Yes, it's that important. The reason is simple, he could have named the book differently, Secrets of the Mind. He chose money, because that's what he chose to have first. Believe me, I get it. And the book is really about understanding Mind, recognizing how it has held you back in the past, and upgrading, allying with it to create your highest choices.

Financial Blueprint

The first concept addressed, in Part One of the book, is a person's "financial blueprint". This is the combined sum of everything you know, have heard, have learned, and have experienced about money in your lifetime. And there are several tools to help the reader discover his own blueprint. Some sources for this? Chime in if these apply to you, I've included if they apply to me in parentheses.

Phrases you've heard (yes)
Parental influences (yes)
Societal influences, such as church and school (yes)
Personal experiences (yes)

What else?

"Money is the root of all evil."
"More money, more problems."
"Money can buy you happiness."
"Money can't buy you happiness."

Money is a necessary part of a large society. It facilitates trade, by allowing the easy movement of goods, so nobody has to figure out how many goats are worth how many cows. Now, stop. Money is nothing else, certainly none of those things above. That is programming, specifically your programming, and I will get to that in a bit.

Everything in your life up until now can be combined to create a basic "blueprint" for your relationship with money. Now this is one place to be completely Zen. It makes no difference what your past is. What your previous experiences and influences were. In fact, remember this one thing: all of these things got you exactly here. If your blueprint is small, your finances are currently small. If your financial blueprint leads to financial abundance, your abundance has already happened.

Your financial blueprint is the exact blueprint that creates your current scenario. How clearly you see this is up to you. When you sit down to think about/draw up your financial blueprint, I invite you to leave any mental baggage at home. The more honest and accurate your assessment is, the more you will be able to change it.

Following is the first of several "warning flags", which I am giving you to help you understand when you are you, and when you are your Mind. In most cases, they will help you to notice and discern when your Mind is likely deceiving you, and how.

Warning flag: if you find yourself saying, "that's not me", "that doesn't apply to me", I invite you to redouble your efforts on that exact point. The fact that your Mind is so quick to dismiss something often means that it is shielding a delusion. Delusions fade in the light of truth, and your Mind knows that dismissing the idea quickly is the only way you can keep the delusion it has substituted for the truth. So really check in, especially on the points that seem to be "not you".

So, you have a financial blueprint. Does the fact that your parents handled their finances badly mean anything to you right now? Yes and no. Yes, it likely affected every choice you've made about money since you started getting an allowance and before. No, it need not affect a single choice you make starting right now. And here is where I leave it to you to drop everything "you know". If you bring any "knowledge", or "truths" to this discussion, you are probably shielding delusions, or programming at the very least. Drop everything that was given to you, you already have every answer you require.

Enough preaching for now. You are ready, willing, and excited to discover your own financial blueprint, and see it clearly and accurately, so that you can upgrade it with full effectiveness. How do you go about doing this? Well, here I will defer to T. Harv. This is one of the major exercises of this book, and it will be different for everyone. I've given you the basic idea, which is to honestly assess your programming and stories about money, and how they affect your views of money, and choices about money. If you would like more specific help, read (and reread as necessary) Part One of the book.

The Wealth Files

The second concept (Part Two) details how you can upgrade your blueprint. For example, your Mom made you get money from Dad when you were a child, so now you have a blueprint about how men are providers, and women are spenders. And simply by naming it, you can see that it's patently false. What now? How do you move forward, how can you upgrade that?

The answer? SURPRISE! Enlightenment, awareness, self-honesty, consciousness. Who was surprised? Raise your hand, then remember your coat on the way out. Of course it all comes down to awareness. Which begs the first obvious question. If awareness is all it takes, what else is there to do? With your fully accurate financial blueprint, you have a road map of awareness on the subject. But your roadmap can only help you navigate where you've been. In Part Two, T Harv describes how we can upgrade our existing road map, replacing it with the maps that are used by the wealthy.

This process can easily be separated into two stages:

One, take the advice and suggestions offered, whether you believe them, understand them, or even despise them. If you resist, remember again where you are, and exactly how you got here. Are you really going to cling to those things?

Two, move past the idea that you need programming to help make choices. Realize that you need neither the old stories or the new ones. That you can write your own rules, and that rules are an unnecessary crutch, which are only ever partially correct. Be careful here, and really check in. This is the whole enchilada, and you need to make sure you are fully present before attempting to move into this space.

Warning Flag: If you are inclined to skip from Step One to Step Two, you are most likely still coming from a place of "knowing". You may think you are moving from Mind into enlightenment, but in this case it's likely your Mind choosing NOT to reevaluate the things it "knows". Again, if you've never been a millionaire, how can your Mind know what it means to "know being a millionaire"? It's not just "wanting", or "imagining" that makes it all happen, or how many zillionaires would be wandering the Earth? If you resist the ideas he puts forward, then you are clinging to the past, "already knowing" the very thing you choose to clearly see. It's not important that you accept these ideas as gospel, ultimate truths. As I mentioned, no matter which outcome you choose, these concepts can be extremely useful landmarks, to help you understand the terrain. Once you can see the terrain, understand how you can move from one place to another, only then do I advise you to toss the map and move like an eagle, flying directly to your new choices.

Yes I'm Still Here

2009-04-23T16:17:00.002-05:00

(He says, as he sets (shatters) the record for the longest time without posting). I've been busy, I'll leave it at that :)

I'm sure you've noticed the change in content from poker into more Zen. This is intentional, but not set in stone.

The larger picture is this:

Zen is something huge, true, universal, pervasive, useful, fun. It's the method through which I learned to truly celebrate my life, ALL PARTS of it. I intend to illuminate the sources, the reasons, the paths, the whole effing point of Zen.

Zen is not the whole answer, of course. But consider it the Algebra, the context from which we can graduate to Calculus. Now if that doesn't make Zen sound fun...

If you are interested in getting started on your own, email me and I'll gladly point you at some resources you can check out. In the meantime, please chime in and let me know what you enjoy reading the most, what you've been hoping I would write about. I love when that happens!

*******

Next post will be a full review of "Secrets of The Millionaire Mind" by T. Harv Eker. It's $11 and a truly revolutionary book, I will explain fully. Do yourself a favor, just order it from Amazon and start reading it right now. Seriously.

Seriously.

Quantum Physics: An Example

2009-04-05T20:59:00.004-05:00

Family Guy this week was awesome. For once, it was more than just a clever story with jokes, it actually had a theme. AND the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I mean, come on, obvious Emmy.

As I watched the Christians throwing books on the fire, I laughed when one was Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time". Because that was arguably the first book I read that opened my eyes to existence. I devoured it and anything else I could find after that. I would (and still do) check the "Science" section at Borders every time I went in the store, for anything new. Why? Because Quantum Physics reads like an entire volume of "The Truth-Is-Stranger-Than-Fiction Files". Let me give you some examples, and if I butcher the content I apologize.

It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand [quantum physics]. You see my physics students don't understand it. ... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.
(Feynman, Richard P. Nobel Lecture, 1966, 1918-1988, QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter)

Quantum Electrodynamics (QED):

Straight from the horse's mouth at Wikipedia:

In classical optics, light travels over all allowed paths and their interference results in Fermat's principle. Similarly, in QED, light (or any other particle like an electron or a proton) passes over every possible path allowed by apertures or lenses. The observer (at a particular location) simply detects the mathematical result of all wave functions added up, as a sum of all line integrals.

Allow me to explain. :D When you turn over a CD/DVD to look at the recordable surface, you will see rainbow, or prismatic, lighting. Now, what you are actually looking at is a set of very tightly packed concentric circles. Like an old LP, but with grooves so small that it uses a laser to read/write data. When you see the prism effects, you'll notice that they aren't related to what is recorded on the disc. That is because they are caused by the physical shape of the disc, with its millions of concentric circles. They are actually effects explained by QED.

Light can be thought of as behaving as both a particle and a wave, as known from the most famous QM experiment, the double-slit experiment. In this case, think of it as a wave. Now, think about a beam of light, as it travels from a light source to your eye. It's oscillating along, like a slalom skiier, when it bounces off of the surface of the optical disc and is reflected towards your eye.

Since the data on the DVD is written in the visible-light spectrum, the following aspect of Quantum Physics becomes visibly apparent:

When light travels from point A to point B, it does not take the shortest path, or in fact any ONE path. It simultaneously takes all of the possible paths.

The evidence? The prisms you see when reflecting the light. The colors come from the fact that light takes on multiple paths. Some are directly reflected to your eye, some take a more roundabout way to get there, and interfere with nearby lightwaves which are also bouncing off the surface. What you end up seeing is a wave-addition of ALL the beams traveling ALL of the possible paths to get from the source to your eye.

It may seem like something simple is happening here, but trust me, it's far weirder than it first appears. It's not just that a bunch of light beams get blended to form constructive/destructive interference. If you take it down to one light particle or "photon", and fire one singular photon at an optical disc, it alone will travel ALL possible paths to get to your eye.

Now this is including the paths that take it to Mars and back, although those paths are of the "less likely" sort. Why does that matter? Because the light that reaches your eye isn't a sum of all of the paths of light treated equally, but rather, each path is weighted according to how likely it is. The most likely path in this case IS the shortest path. Paths very close to the shortest are the next most likely candidates. Very quickly as you get further from the shortest path, they become astronomically unlikely, and contribute virtually nothing to the end result.

But the close ones, the REALLY close ones, do count in the final result. And some of those really close ones bump into the adjacent walls of the grooves of the optical disc, causing them to take slightly altered paths, creating the prismatic intereference that we see.

*****

Quantum Physics is like that up-and-down. When Newtonian physics describes an object (apple) falling towards another object (the earth), it talks about some strange force that draws all bodies together. Einstein saw that instead, the universe, space itself is bent by gravity, so that "the apple falling" is actually just, if you'll excuse the hyperbole, "the universe settling into a more comfortable position." It's not that the apple and the ground are separate objects attracted to each other, but rather one giant mesh that shifts around. And did I mention that space and time are also the same thing? Think about it, you've heard of "space-time" before, but have you considered the ramifications? Space = time = space? Interchangable like currencies? The ramifications are huge, but I'll discuss those another day.

If you're looking for good reading choices to get started on your own, "A Brief History of Time" is a wonderfully accessible introduction to quantum physics and cosmology, by the guy who predicted the existence of black holes. Another great author, and the "discoverer" of QED, is quoted above, Richard Feynmann. He has a famous series of lectures among other materials, and is both brilliant and delightfully entertaining, especially for all of the non-physicists in the world.

Zen: Path (An Important Part of My Journey)

2009-03-28T23:24:00.003-05:00

I have mentioned in the past my pseudo-Christian upbringing. And while I will never condone that as acceptable parenting, I forgive my parents for doing what they thought was in my best interest. I recently realized my gift from that, a starting point on my road of spirituality. Christianity is history, just like US History, it's a set of knowledge about a specific subset of Man. So when I started exploring sprituality on my own, I had a base reference to start from.

I went simply to what I knew to be true, reality. Specifically finding books like A Brief History of Time and Chaos. I went to read about cosmology, the history (and future) of the universe as we know it. And I went to the quantum physics world, to find out what we know about the physical universe in the present. There was no one epiphany, no one moment where I said, "AHA! It's Quantum Chromodynamics!" It just happens that some of these things interested me greatly.

I spent several years reading about the mind-bending world of quantum physics, reveling in the counterintuitive features, the mysteries, and its inherent confirmation of free will. So I reached the edges, where they explained string theory to me, but said it was neither consistent nor provable which, if any, of its solutions are correct. So they're sort of stumped there. Therefore, there isn't much more to read about on the subject, at the moment.

My progress took a few years' pause, coincidentally correlating to a time in my life when I was in a dead-end relationship. I was really in a place where I felt stuck with what life was dealing me. And that it was my burden to carry. At least I could feel like a martyr, fueling my own sadness, getting me through each day. And I loved sad music, and skipping class, and knowing my girlfriend was likely cheating on me, but just choosing to be delusional instead.

Again I'm just spitballing on the timing. But to be fair, those who know me best, know I think causality is a bit fishy, anyways. Regardless, I found this book titled The Physics of Consciousness. I guess I had progressed far enough into Physics to be looking for the Physics of Life, of Whatever This Is. And this book has a very unexpected thread holding the entire book together. The author lost a childhood love at 16. And he's been haunted by the question his entire life, "Does she still exist in some form?" So, and I will fully admit, that at the time it was in spite of this, I kept reading. (Gushy love story? Did I buy the wrong book?)

Chapter 8 (or 6, one of the middle ones) is Zen. Out of nowhere, put on the brakes after 7 chapters of physics, Zen. Why he found it. His best attempt at explaining it to you. And one way he does this is by taking an example, a good one, and pointing out why his teacher thought it meant one thing, and he thinks it means something different. His is not a very good example of Zen, but you can see what there is to work with. Mind, language, all that. Everything you encounter in your life is identified and understood by comparing it to things. Things in the present, things from your past, things you have and haven't yet imagined. So he's trying to compare Zen to something. Or one explanation of Zen to another explanation, to point out the contrast. And through this small window, the light of existence came pouring in on me.

Sometime later, I remember feeling very clearly "behind my eyes" for the first time. It was noon, I was on an offramp of a cross-town freeway in Des Moines, "the hole", Iowa. Maybe you've had a similar experience. I was staring out my car window, but really I was watching myself stare out of a car window. If you haven't yet, feel free to give it a try. But back to the book, for now.

This book was so groundbreaking for me that it was like reading two trilogies. Every new idea was astoundingly different, simple, far-reaching, historic. And maybe even true. He doesn't claim to know the truth, but when he says "I wonder" it's truly amazing stuff. Stuff about how the brain makes choices, whether there is a random element. Whether (and I'm obviously oversimplifying here) space is the infinite set of all possibilities, and time is chosen set of possibilities. Again, you see the dilemma, that didn't sound profound at all coming from me, really. But there is something there, trust me.

What I know about Quantum Physics: it is not the final generation of physics. There was Classical physics, Newton stuff. And while that's still "true", it's incomplete, and incorrect in some ways of viewing entire concepts. There will be a day, and within a couple decades, when they realize that quantum physics is well, quaint. It explains things very well, but it's just a big contrivance, created by the minds of men to explain further and further parts of the galaxy, and the cosmos. It works for now, but I think we will at some point soon say, "Duh."

It's also one of the fundamental mysteries of quantum physics that two particles can be "connected" over a distance too large for information to be traveling between them (at the speed of light, the current cosmic speed limit). So as they try to divide into smaller and smaller pieces, they find that these small pieces interact in new and unexpected, even undetectable ways. Just this year, someone probably sealed an eventual win the Nobel in Physics for discovering evidence of "dark energy." They are finding water, mud, on Mars. Possibly, increasingly probably, life exists in some form there, underground, RIGHT NOW. So, what does that do to your Garden of Eden?

Space and time are connected. Matter and energy are connected. These are not features of a monotheistic, omnipotent, omniscient God. These suggest a cosmic unity.

My Zen is truly different than organized religion. It's origins are in Zen Buddhism, but Buddhism is organized religion, and is polluted as such. We could go on all day about the details, but let me give you one quick example. Buddhism teaches that we are here on multiple lives, and that once we can break free of the cycle, we can live our last life and be at peace. And while the methods and teachings that lead to enlightenment are often valuable and good, they are not set in the right intent.

You are not here to live your current life for any other purpose. If you allow past lives, future lives, prospects of heaven and hell, or any "higher power" to influence your life, your choices, then you are not really here.

Be here, now. What else is there?

Full Tilt Withdrawal Woes

2009-03-24T23:25:00.002-05:00

I am a profitable player. Lifetime, I am up a significant amount. Yet, even so, I have made significantly more deposits than withdrawals. I have made very few withdrawals, because it seems like every time I dare, I get boned.

Best case scenario, my money is nowhere for 3 weeks. Exactly where I need it.

So this time, I withdraw into a bank account. The exact same one I used to deposit before. A major bank, national.

3 weeks. Nothing. I email Full Tilt, they say they will check into it. "It could take a week, or more" just to complete their investigation.

1 more week passes. Nothing from anyone. Not FT, obviously not the money.

I make 3 withdrawals a year, I quit playing on Bodog because they did the same thing to me. Now as I take out some from Full Tilt, I'm starting to feel the same way.

Is this the standard, "jerk the player around", am I expecting too much to be able to withdraw some cash?

Zen: Projections

2009-03-22T13:48:00.007-05:00

I would honestly love to write about this stuff every day. It's just so much "fun" to write about Zen because it's such an ethereal thing. And language is a product of Mind, but not just a small manufacturing. Language is the very thing that enabled us to move from primates to humans, to communicate and grow into a different type of animal. A society. But Zen is something altogether separate, transcendent to Mind, and therefore language. Using language to describe no-mind is kind of like describing "black" as "the color inside a black hole".

So, while I sit here bubbling with ideas about how to share with you, I'm often staring at my keyboard in dismay. And as you can tell from reading, I generally am not stuck for verbage. But to say these things correctly, language is often insufficient. And I choose to give you the full impression, and not give you a small filtered version.

Projections refer to your very existence. To borrow an extremely useful metaphor from Osho, when you go to the movies, everyone looks at the screen. But the movie doesn't come from there, it's a blank white sheet. But nobody is looking back at the projector.

Your Mind is the projector. If you let it, it will show you infinite tales, of mystery, intrigue, dualities and drama like you've never seen before. But, there are as many worlds as there are minds. You can choose to live in any of them, including the real one. But it requires being separate from the projector. Stepping outside the movie, to see it from the outside.

Are you your thoughts? Are you what your senses tell you? Do you have a soul?

Remember this. Let's say you're on a vast, futuristic Star-Trek type ship, staring out into the gorgeous vastness of the galaxies. Picture it, the wonder of it all. Now, remember that while you feel like you're looking out a giant window pane, you're probably staring a viewscreen that has been specially designed to simulate the feel and appearance of the real window. But the picture is elsewhere, it's been processed by a computer, chewed up and spit out repeatedly. And maybe nothing happened to change it. Or maybe it's entirely fabricated.

You may feel like you're behind your eyes. It's possible, it happens, it's a choice you can make. I'll lay odds the size of Canada though you're looking at a viewscreen in your brain.

It's the natural condition that man has become used to. Your Mind is still the best movie software ever. The movie is always played on your eyes, and it seamlessly integrates into any imagined dream instantly. It's the ultimate in seamlessness, can you even catch the transitions? It's the ultimate episode of "Mr. Show", where you're watching the next skit before you realize, "Hey, what happened to that other thing they were doing?"

So, this is just true. So, we have the ultimate XBox360,000,000 for our movie projector. Well, that explains whey we are always using it. I mean, when Jean Luc Picard looks out the window, the captain of the ship, he chooses the fancy viewscreen. It's like a window, but with extra features, enhancements.

Your Mind is still the ultimate eye-candy tool on the planet. So use it! Enjoy it! Now that you are standing here, looking at the projector, do you see magic that it can do? Great, I love it. Love it.

Back to the original point.

If you've given control of the projector over to your mind, you are watching what it chooses for you. It is picking out your viewing selections 24-7 all week. :D So, you have great programming to watch. Hmmm...programming...where have I heard that word?

But by relinquishing control, you've also signed a hidden, implied contract with your Mind. You've given it free reign to smudge or straight-up invent "reality". Think about how different someone can look to you, based purely on your feelings for that person. Do you have an ex, that was gorgeous to you when you were together, but is now repellent to your eyes? That's your mind, adding it's special effects to your movie. To give you, let's face it, a more thorough experience of the events. In Futurama, they invented the "smelloscope", to smell the regions of deep space. In this case, you are getting sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, but your brain is taking all of those and mixing it up with emotions, memories, hormones, and presenting you with the best concoction it can produce. In real-time.

I invite you simply to join me at the window sometimes. To watch your movie, and remember the projector.

Online Poker: Goodies!

2009-03-12T17:37:00.005-05:00

Let's face it. From day 1, online poker can feel like a carnival.

"Give us your money, and you get some credits."

"First deposit, we'll give you 100% bonus on your credits. But you can't have the bonus credits now, you get them over time."

(from a different internet "tube") "Hey, leave them, come over here! We'll give you 10% bonus. It's not 100%, but you get it right away!"

"Here! You've earned some reward points, some Iron Man points, some Frequent-Flier miles, and a free car wash! (with 10-gallon purchase)"

"Withdrawing money? Sure! You'll have it before your kids graduate high school! Probably!"

Let's walk through the finer points of all of the bells and whistles.

1. Rakeback

Rakeback is the first thing you should know about when starting an account. There are different places you can go for rakeback, but if you plan on playing any cash games at all, you simply must get rakeback. Here's how it works.

The price of rakeback is your referral bonus. This is why you need to get rakeback at the very beginning. So, for instance, at Full Tilt they currently give $100 to the referrer, and $25 to the new player. Total bonus $125.

So, to continue the example, instead, you sign up for rakeback at Full Tilt Poker. Sign up, and instead of a referral bonus you will get 27% back of every dollar (with rare exceptions) you drop into the rake. If this doesn't sound like much, I invite you to play a little cash and see how much you contribute to the rake. This is enough money that it could easily double (or more) the profits of a small stakes player.

Is it worth your referral bonus? Yes. If you win a $3 raked pot, you get 80 cents back. Every time. Do you plan on winning at least 150 pots, lifetime?

2. Deposit Bonus

On your first deposit, sites will give you a matching bonus of some sort. Sometimes, bonuses like this (and others) require "clearing" before you actually get your money. What is clearing?

Clearing means you have to earn your bonus. You do this by playing raked hands, and literally putting money into the rake. They wrap it in "points" and other fancy names, but it all comes down to this. They can afford to pay such a large bonus to every player because you help them earn it back. By playing raked hands.

So, you have to work off a bonus, within a reasonably-long timeframe. However, if you were going to play those hands anyways, this becomes free money.

Warning!

This warning is from personal experience. I used to play at a site that offered redeposit bonuses, which basically meant I could withdraw my money, deposit it again, and get a new bonus, usually 20-30%. Then I would clear those bonuses. Now, at the time, I wasn't good enough to make a profit, and often deposited $500, got a $200 bonus, and by the time I cleared the bonus I had $350, not the $700 I could have had if I was playing "rake-even" (break-even plus the rake).

Don't let the allure of deposit bonuses change your game. If, worst-case scenario, you don't get it all cleared in time, that's okay, you get what you were able to clear. Don't hurry, don't play extra hands, just do what you do and enjoy the free money.

3. Rewards Points

Rewards points are a lot like frequent-flier miles. You receive a certain number of points for investing some money. You can get them on slot machines when you sign up with the casino. Live casinos will give you some comps for playing a certain number of hours, or just value on your frequent-player card.

So, the online equivalent is RPs, ARPs, FTPs, something like that. And since it's online and easy to track, you'll find most sites give points in an EXACT proportion to the rake paid in. They often count these points as a criteria to clear bonuses, as in #2 above.

So, you probably will notice that these are small. As a specific example on Full Tilt, 600 FTP will get you into a satellite, which pays 1 $26 token. So, at this exchange rate (this is a good rate, they do vary), it works out to about 200 FTP = $1. So, receive your points, and translate them into a bit of money or a bonus satellite tourney.

4. Iron Man (Full Tilt, other sites may have an equivalent program)

On Full Tilt, they have a program called Iron Man for players who play a lot. And by that, I mean a lot of cash games, since the rakes for tourneys are usually not enough to earn any significant points. However, by earning a certain number of points, a certain number of days in a given month, you can qualify for medals and bonus freerolls. Medals, which are like fancy points, can be exchanged for stuff or bonuses. And freerolls, if that's your style, allow you to win some moneys, by playing against a large field. One thing of note -- these players are mostly limit, cash players, because that's the easiest route to becoming an Iron Man. So, if you are better than the average cash player at tourneys (90% of you are), this might be a very +EV opportunity for you.

Summary:

I know it's a lot of bells and whistles, but there is some real value to be had in the "perks". Let's say you have a 4% profitability (ROI) over time, and rakeback and bonuses can get you a combined 4% more. It sounds like a small amount, but do you see that you just doubled your profits?

Most of these things require very little effort on your part, so make sure you don't miss out on all the free money that is available to you.

Pitfalls of Poker #2: Cross-Contamination

2009-03-07T20:11:00.003-06:00

If you play more than one table at a time, good for you. I truly think that poker is 70-90% dead air. Sure, there is much to be learned from your opponents, but let's say your hourly rate is actually higher when you are in 2 games, as opposed to 1. So much for traditional, casino poker, eh? I'm sure some make a max rate when they play 4 tables, or 10. So, this is truly a great option for some of us geeks to have.

Now, I have some specific things to look for when you're multi-tabling, what I call "cross-contamination." What do I mean by this? I mean letting one game you're in affect the others. There are obvious ways, and subtler ones after that:

Pressed for time. If you make a hurried choice because the other game was pressing for time in one way or another. If you accidentally time out when it's detrimental.
Confused. Any 2 different games will do, and if playing tourneys then maybe the blinds are different. Maybe your tourney situation is different. Or maybe you're so bored, you're simul-tabling HORSE. Now that can get fun.
Table mood, feel, flow. If you end up raising light into a table of maniacs, or show up late and not know what exactly a 3-bet and 4-bet mean. Is this the circus? Or is that actual strength?
YOUR mood, feel, flow. I think this is one you might easily overlook. Are you carrying your mood, your good and bad results, from table to table? Let's say you play 2 SNG's at once. Have you ever felt yourself jamming A5s on one table, purely because you just got sucked out on, or even just lost a coin flip, at the other table? Oh, only about a thousand times, you say?

As we choose to play our absolute best poker over time, we always start by recognizing something, by increasing our awareness. So look for these things, recognize them, and simply avoid letting them affect your play. Then make the right choice (FOLD ACE RAG) in each moment.

Pitfalls of Poker #1: "Streaks"

2009-03-06T15:42:00.003-06:00

When we're not playing poker, we LOVE to talk about poker. We all know a bad-beat story (or two), usually our own. But even most amateurs know that one really horrid 2-out river does not reflect on their ability to play poker correctly, profitably.

So what else do poker players talk about? Results. Their day, their session, their last 3-sessions, their month. The week they had last month. The current heater. So, in the light of using our Mind to play our best poker, is this beneficial content? Does the information discussed here have a positive effect on our future ability to play our best poker?

The answer is, no. Let's start by identifying these conversations for what they really are. They are the Mind, serving itself. The Mind is concerned with your statistics over a given length of time, and likes to make neat packages. So it might pick a day you started winning until a day you stopped winning, and think of that as a "good streak". It might see that you were up X$ this week, up Y$ for the month, and take those amounts and arbirtrary boundaries, and give them significance they just don't have.

So what are poker results, really? Am I really saying:

You shouldn't just look at the results of one hand

You shouldn't just look at the results of a string of hands

You shouldn't just look at the results of a week or a month

Yes.

True poker is not about ANY collection of results of hands, or tourneys, or cash game sessions. It's about the collection of individual poker choices you make, for your entire lifetime. Or in any arbitrary timeframe. The important distinction is that you are graded (and rewarded) based on your choices, not on your results.

An Iowa analogy for our Midwesternites:

If you were evaluating a hybrid of corn to plant, which method would you choose:

Plant some of each kind, and pick the best looking plant that grows.

Plant some of each kind, over several harvests, and take the one that shows the best overall results.

Now, before we move forward, it's possible your mind has caught and jumped on the fact that I just suggested to you to evaluate based on a length of time ("over several harvests"). Let it go, it's not the point of this illustration. Don't let your Mind use it to cloud the truth about what I'm really saying.

What AM I really saying? I'm illustrating that individual results can vary, and that we all know to look for overall performance to evaluate something's true quality. But also, no matter what your method of selection, it's always about the seed. The seed is what is upgraded, the seed is what can be changed. Better seed, better yield.

What lessons do I draw from this?

I don't alter my play based on the result of a session, a week, whatever. I transcend the "streak", and I am aware of your quality of play over that period of time. If I played poorly, then I alter/upgrade my play. If I just fared poorly, I trust and move on.

I see the "streaks" for what they really are. They are stories, created by the Mind. Why? Sometimes for entertainment, but mostly because that's what Mind does. Lots of raw information available, so it takes it and sorts it, packages it, labels it, processes it, reprocesses it, repackages it, etc. And while it's doing this, it makes selections and groupings based on "what I want to see", "how I feel about poker at this time", "how I feel about life at this time", "how I feel about that thing you just ate", and so on. I see the unreliability of this packaged information, and I treat it as such.

Now that I know how to evaluate your play, I am proactive. I go get real numbers (not remembered stuff), I cooperate with my Mind to help you understand what my play has really manifested.

I identify areas of strategic weakness, and upgrade them.

I identify missing knowledge, and find ways to fill the holes. And while I am at it, I enhance and expand upon the knowledge I do have.

I use my Mind to help recognize times of subpar play and their reasons. Are they emotional, physical, Mind, money-situation, ... Now that I recognize them, I can understand their sources, and prevent/avoid/deal with them, such that I am always playing at my full ability.

Please feel free to add to my list here, in the comments if you dare.

The not-so-secret ending here, is that the game of poker will invariably, inevitably reward good play over time. The more you play, the more inevitable it is. Maybe you "knew" this too. Now you can take it to the next level. Make it a point not to have a profitable week, but to plant the best seeds you can in every possible moment. Trust that your profitable weeks will follow.

Playing Poorly

2009-03-05T10:53:00.002-06:00

So, last night, I turned in a complete, thorough, sub-par performance. And we've all been there, so let's look at this unpopular situation. How do we accept it, learn from it, ~~avoid repeating~~ upgrade it? Well, first, let's look at the scorecard for the evening. For reasons that will be explained later, I am grading out of 125, not 100.

Let's look at the "scoring categories" for the evening:

Focus
70/125
I played multiple tables, and chatted with multiple people. I had 2 tables open, and instead of choosing to play those to the best of my abilities, I opened a 3rd table. I closed it soon after, for partial credit.

Intensity
90/125
One of the better qualities of my play last night. I was paying attention to most hands, and I was fully present for a majority of my (mostly bad) decisions.

without focus, intensity can only be sporadic and isolated. So, at best, I was playing some isolated hands well.

Creativity
80/125
Again, marginal. I made weak calls, weak folds, calls when I knew I was crushed. My bluffs were often emotionally-timed, instead of situationally-timed. I dared to play a couple of hands differently, but didn't actually do this with any gameplan. I just went "Opposite George" for one bet/raise/call, and then waited to see what happened. I guess I assumed they would just ship me the pot after such an unexpected play.

Intuition
40/125
Blurgh. I trusted some reads, ignored others. Mostly I just pushed a button before I could actually get to the point where I had a read.

In the past, my mind used to be in charge of making ALL choices for me. And, I find myself listening to my intuition more, speaking from my heart more, and acting from my center more. This has made three things apparent to me:

Mind is:
1. Self-emergent.
2. Self-serving.
3. Self-preserving.
This is not a criticism. It's just a statement of some inherent qualities of Mind. So, now I notice it is making subtler attempts to regain control of my entire day-to-day life. It can seem devious, deceptive, almost like it's an enemy. But that's just Mind's nature. It's basically alive.

A good metaphor for this is society. While not actually consisting of anything tangible, "society" is nevertheless involved in almost everything we do on a given day. It started as a self-emergent property of individuals, and has evolved into having a life of its own. It is very self-preserving. If you chose to wander off, to go have your own individual life, how many different forces would attempt to pull you back?

Ok, so my Mind is here to stay, and very powerful, and the best thing I can do is teach it how intuition can help improve my poker playing. So, Mind...this is for you.

Intuition is my friend. It helps me (us) make the best possible decisions.

I recommit to listening to my intuition.

Positivity
80/125
Decent. I did tilt one time, based on a not-that-bad "beat", which felt worse at the time. In the next hand I proceeded to ruin my table image AND dump 1/3 of my stack. One huge lapse, some other minor ones.

Two nights ago, I watched How To Lose Your Lover (US Title). First, off-topic, I can easily say I probably never would see this movie if not for Netflix Instant-Play and my new XBox360. Ignoring everything else cool about the XBox360, I can now say, this alone justifies its purchase.

Back to the movie. A biographer decides to "break up with his life", and L.A. (his city) as well. He feels he's a New Englander at heart, and after seven years of a crappy life in L.A., he wakes up and realizes that he chooses so much more. He chooses to start telling the WHOLE TRUTH, about his opinions, his history, and everything else. Society, in the form of his friends and acquaintances, of course doesn't encourage/support/allow this. In fact, they hate him for telling them things they don't want to hear.

To get to the point without ruining the movie for you, he finds that his new commitment to honesty, combined with committing to his own actual highest choices, has changed much more than his own day-to-day humdrum life. He is reborn, in-place, in that exact moment. The only time his transformation takes is the time it takes him to realize it.

I invite you to upgrade your self-awareness, specifically self-honesty. If you can, and are willing to regularly evaluate your own play in this context, you have opened the door to your improvement.

"News"

2009-03-03T12:40:00.002-06:00

ABC "News" update:

Upper-Income Taxpayers Look for Ways to Sidestep Obama Tax-Hike Plan

Okay, if you haven't caught it yet, here's the catch. Income Taxes are taxes that are paid as a percentage of income. But to get a story, ABCNews managed to find a reporter who doesn't understand that, to ask a bunch of questions of people who don't get that either. It's like having Jessica Simpson do a story on Buffalo Wings, then printing it on the front page because she found some people who say "they're hard to catch" because "they fly away".

Let's say the plan goes into effect. If a taxpayer makes $249,999 he'll pay X dollars in taxes. If he makes another $2 that year, how much tax will he pay?

$X + $0.66. Whereas if the threshold wasn't there, he might pay $X + $0.62. Only the dollars ABOVE $250 get taxed at a higher rate.

Here, The New Republic puts it better:

Wealthy Idiots Meet Idiot Reporter

Now, the obvious objection here is that the tax code doesn't work that way. A tax increase affects the marginal dollar that a person gains. That's [sic] means only every dollar over $250,000 is taxed at a higher rate. Obama is not proposing a tax system whereby somebody who goes from $249,999 to $250,000 suddenly becomes poorer. Nobody has ever enacted a tax hike like that in the history of the United States.

Here's to months of informed, intelligent, productive and progressive debate about tax policy!

New Bloggers

2009-03-02T21:56:00.004-06:00

OhCaptain
OhCaptian is a cool cat -- and not a new blogger, just new to my blogroll. I got to meet him in Vegas, and he's a fellow Midwesternite. Of course, I've upgraded since then, but MinneIoCanada isn't such a bad locale. For me to poop on!

He's a veteran blogger and fearsome player. A friendly Twins fan, who knew?

A Really Big Fish
I present you some actual poker from A Really Big Fish. If you get tired of all of my touchy/feely/lovey poker, this should provide a nice antidote. Serious poker, but excellently written, so that we can all enjoy, and yet still be entertained. I may have to try that one.

DrawFlush
High Stakes Blog
Here are two relatively new blogs. DrawFlush started blogging just recently, but is writing like a kid with a new box of crayons. Meanwhile, High Stakes Blog has been around for a while, but has recently dared to post about poker. Welcome to a One-Way street. Poker is now your master, no longer your mistress.

Come on. You know you have been "thinking" about starting a blog. It need not be about poker, god knows we have plenty of those. But there's always room for more in this New Order. (Yes, I do mean the 80's band.)

Think about this: we all "just started blogging" one day. And have been creating something out of nothing ever since.

Ask any blogger. It's like TiVo or an iPhone, you don't quite get how awesome it is until you are IN it. So make that leap.

And if that's STILL not enough....

BBT4 is here! (started 2 days ago actually...)

Now, I have your interest...

I Have a Boy Crush on Google

2009-02-25T21:39:00.009-06:00

For me, an occasional trip to Google is what most people experience from an occasional trip to Sharper Image. Yes, I'm a total geek. By the way, Google Chrome is quickly becoming my only browser. OMG Ponies!!!!!!

Now, they have an installer, Google Pack. It's officially in Labs, which is sort of means pre-release/"beta", but their betas are better than ~~many~~ most finished software. Anyways, it gives you a list of about a dozen popular Google Apps, a few popular non-Google apps, and takes over downloading & installing & updating & maintaining & uninstalling them. By giving you a pretty menu instead.

Look, how pretty, it even includes Adobe Reader (not even their software). Check it out, and while you're there, look at all the things Google enables you to do / play with / economize / collect / create. For free. Here, please take it. Enjoy. For FREE.

Here's the Main page with all their stuff (I recommend starting with Pack and adding anything it didn't include). Don't forget the Labs page.

I'm off to play with Google Sites now, to create a webpage. I think it's time I grew up and bought a domain and a residence on the www.interweb. Can somebody please fax me an application?

*******

EDIT:

Not 5 minutes after I post, I'm off to read the news whilst I donk around the 4K.

Google Geniuses at Work on Free Goodies

A bit on-the-nose, especially for them to put this up so soon after my post, but whatever. I'm sure they'll claim it's a coincidence. :P

Zen: Mind

2009-02-21T19:02:00.005-06:00

One of the most fundamental tenets of Zen is that life is meant to be experienced moment-to-moment. Some aspects of this are probably not new. ("Live every week like it's Shark Week!" -- Tracy Jordan). So let's move beyond the basic level, the level of "Enjoy your life!". What am I really talking about?

1. Time is Indistinguishable to Mind

Think about your mind for a minute, and the images you see:

1. As you walk through your world every day
2. As you remember what happened yesterday
3. As you imagine what might happen in the future

Think about the quality of the images, the content, and how they might appear differently to your brain/mind/mindgrapes. Is there any difference at all? Or are they indistinguishable? Or are they are the same? Do you only know the difference because other parts of the brain provide context? Is your mind is time-agnostic?

Current view =(is the same as) Halloween as a kid = Me as homeless bum = Me as Pro Hockey Player! = Me walking down the hall = Me not walking down the hall

Do you feel happy thinking of a past relationship? Do you feel excitement thinking about winning a poker tournament? In both cases, you would experience real feelings now, based on something that doesn't actually exist. I just thought about my first girlfriend, and I feel very warm, nostalgic, blissful. But she isn't here, in fact nothing happened at all, except "I" steered my Mind's thought patterns. And yet I feel my body chemistry change to reflect that feeling.

The big question: If your mind can't distinguish between past, present, future/never happened, do you trust your mind to make choices for you? Is it possible you (as your Mind) have made choices because of some imagined, generated feeling? Because of some false memory?

2. Your Mind IS The Past

What parts of your Mind are based in the present? Zero. It's impossible to think about the present, because you can only think about things selected from your memories. Which are by definition, in the past.

When you "think about the future", you are really thinking about "some re-imagining of the past". Your brain can "invent new scenarios", but you'll find that they're still an altered version of some combination of past experiences. You are pretending to be in some recombination of your past (even if you change ALL the facts), instead of existing, now, in your present.

Go ahead, take a second, and think of something new. Not random (i.e. A flour-covered lion on a bicycle), but truly new. Personally, I'm playing along, and I'm finding it to be very significant to truly have a new thought.

Still thinking...("A coffee-warmer that tells time!")

Okay, so I'm unable to do it this time on command. I certainly think that new, creative things come from people, but true moments of inspiration are currently rare, because most people cannot distinguish them from the other crap that our minds try ("Duck-flavored ice cream!") to pretend ("A man with red STOP sign pants!") is "new".

In Zen terms:

Creation comes from Source, and flows through you. Anything that comes from your mind is just a recombination of the past, based on your life experiences (aka 'programming').

3. Forming an Alliance With Your Mind

I'm going to take a minute and explain what this whole "Mind" thing is. It's the part of your brain that's in charge of your body. Everything in your brain that's not "you", in whatever form that may take. "Soul", "consciousness", "will", whatever that might be, your Mind is the rest.

So, when you read me talking about Zen, it may seem like often it's "Zen = GOOD, Mind = BAD". This is for a specific reason. Unconsciousness IS letting your Mind run your life. So when I'm saying "Mind is like X,Y,Z", I'm pointing this out to add it to your awareness. Once it's in your awareness, you can choose whether or not to let your Mind continue to control that. Or, more likely, realize that YOU CHOOSE to control that instead.

A personal example:

When I think "I already know this" when reading or hearing something, I first think about what my Mind is doing. It's telling me that any memories I have are sufficient for this situation, and that my Mind would prefer to think about something else.

For me, revelations like this can be pinholes, letting in light, allowing me to make my new choice. Now, if I "already know" something, I check in to see if that's really true. Sometimes it is "yes", because I have this information already. But sometimes it's "no", and the reasons continue to surprise me:

it's too much work,
it's too hard,
it doesn't agree with my worldview,
it sounds lame,
it's later so I can just forget it now,
etc.

Notice that none of these "reasons" have anything to do with (in this case) "already knowing the material". But I let my Mind answer the question, and when it did that, it based its answer on a separate list of criteria. Such as the list above and thousands of others.

So, the difference is, now:
- when I "already know something", it's because I truly already know it.
- when my Mind "already knows something", I recognize that it could actually telling me anything (even as simple as "I have to pee, so I don't need to be here for this part of class").

Awareness and clarity are recongnizing this. Being present means checking in ("do I know this?") and hearing the specific answer ("I have to pee"), and CHOOSING, not letting your mind decide because it ran down some arbitrary list.

You create your life, you choose your destiny, you are the will that runs the body you currently inhabit. Love this, cherish this, respect this. YOU be your life, don't delegate it to your mind.

Getting back to "Forming an Alliance". Yes, it seems that Mind does a lot of bad stuff, but that's only because we let it. And on the flipside, we require our minds to live, to breathe, to communicate, to evolve, to be conscious in the first place.

So, in true Zen fashion:

Love your Mind. Forgive your Mind. And find how you can team up with your Mind to help you live your highest choices each day. Because obviously some of the things it does for you are great, like breathing and pumping your blood. It's ironically our human, societal experience that both enriches and sculpts our minds over time, such that most people today find themselves stuck in their own heads, persistently, indefinitely. It's the very process of learning that teaches our mind to "shut off" to other ideas, because we teach it exclusion.

As you become aware of the multitudes of ways in which your Mind used to run your life, you might experience some anger, some regret, some sadness. That's good, feel it, use it. Empower yourself with it to increase your awareness and clarity.

Then remember to forgive your Mind. It was only running that particular part of the show because you told it to.

In the past, you used to delegate some or all of your life to your Mind, letting it make some or all of the choices in a given circumstance. Living moment-to-moment? That's your new choice. To always be present and aware in your life, to live each moment as new.