2 0 0 8 T o a d R e p o r t
July 2009
Here we are, six months into 2009, and the world is becoming
more interesting by the minute. So it seemed like a good time to reflect on the past year.
This year's topics are:
My own existence has been brimming with interesting twists and turns, most notably on the writing front. For the last few years, a single question has woven itself through all of my doings: Here we all are, brilliant flashes of love and light blessed with an amazing and expansive consciousness; so what should we do with that consciousness? How can we best employ our allotment of sentience, passion and insight? I think my own journey to answering this question is what prods me forward in my research, meditation and writing. For a snapshot of the results from those efforts so far, you can search “T.Collins Logan” on Amazon.com, which should lead you to three books and a CD. There are two books on mysticism (The Vital Mystic and Essential Mysticism), a CD to help with meditation training (Deep Relaxation: One), and there is my latest book, True Love.
True Love is the
compelling story of a flea’s persistent efforts to woo a St. Bernard. The flea’s life is short, brutal, and full of
existential angst, and the St. Bernard does not even notice the passionate devotion
of the flea until it is too late to reciprocate. So this is a
tragedy, to be sure, but a tragedy full of the adventure and excitement that
only such an inter-species relationship can provide. Is this
story a metaphor for humanity’s
relationship with the Divine or the soul’s longing for mystical union? Or is it just a
fanciful contrivance of entertaining fiction?
It is more the latter, because the whole flea
and dog thing is something I made up for this year’s Toad Report. Actually, the full title is True Love:
Integral Lifework Theory & Practice, and it is instead a meaty overview
of the holistic counseling I’ve been practicing since
shortly after my arrival in
My own contribution to the propagation of the Integral Lifework meme will be classes, seminars and appearances on the David Letterman show. No, but seriously I do expect classes and seminars will generate more interest in the book, and I am already working on ideas for my next couple of publications. I know from feedback I’ve already receive on True Love that I will need a version that is more accessible for the general public. We shall see. I suppose I wouldn’t mind if Bill Moyers invited me for an interview to get these concepts out to a wider audience. In the meantime, feel free to buy a copy of True Love off of Amazon.com to further my chosen mission in life – as well as to generously inflate my sense of self-importance.
(Click on image for a link to the Amazon.com description
page)
As I’m sure you are aware,
- The
poor feel entitled to services and opportunities that they haven’t earned. Whether
it is a charitable handout, a job, medical care or
an education, thousands of people expect to be given something for nothing
because of their unfortunate circumstances. This is such a
pervasive presumption that even the poor from other countries sneak
into the
- The
wealthy feel entitled to keeping all of their wealth for themselves,
regardless of how they acquire it or use it. If their wealth supports illegal or shady
business dealings, or exploits the poor or the ignorant, or capitalizes on
opportunities created by the suffering of others, or is the result of someone
else’s hard work…they believe that none of this matters, and
that none
of this wealth should be taxed in any way.
Because, by god, it’s their money and they
should be able to do whatever the hell they want to with it.
- The
middle class feels entitled to a host of government services and endless
natural resources, but they don’t believe they should
have to pay for these services or resources. Garbage should collect itself, roads
should fix themselves, police and firefighters should volunteer for their
duties unpaid, everyone should be able to consume endless amounts of electricity,
gasoline, paper, plastic, land, water, etc., and public beaches, parks and
libraries should function flawlessly without the pesky
interference of government planning or staff. All
of these things are supposed to happen by magic, at no cost to anyone, with
no oversight and no foresight.
- Corporations feel entitled to use illegal labor, bribe government officials, pollute the environment, exploit and harm consumers, break other laws and generally wreak havoc on society because, well, they have to remain competitive. All the other corporations are doing it, so what’s wrong with any of this as long as the bottom line remains in the black…?
A pattern becomes obvious: nearly everyone in
I looked around for the dog’s human companion to find a middle-aged, well-dressed woman rushing to the scene, yelling frantically at her dog to calm him down. It wasn’t working (for obvious reasons). I offered frankly over the din: “If you’re dog is going to behave like that, you should probably keep it on a leash.” Of course, there are signs all over the park indicating that dogs should be kept on leashes at all times.
The woman responded angrily. “My dog never does this. He’s a good dog. You must have bad, negative energy.”
I was a bit surprised, being a dog-lover and generally in good standing with most canines, so I searched the woman’s face for some hint that she was joking. She wasn’t. “So it’s my fault,” I said blandly.
The woman strode purposefully past me as her dog bolted quickly up the trail and out of sight. After calling frantically after him, she yelled back over her shoulder, “Because you have negative energy bad things will happen to you!”
Admittedly without much thought, I responded, “Please remember to clean up after your dog. I imagine he’s just as full of shit as you are.” Needless to say, my heal really began to sting where her dog had bitten me. I’m sure it was because of that negative remark.
Despite my lack of skillfulness in illuminating the darkness
of this interaction at the time, the experience does shed light on the
epidemic of self-righteous megalomania in
The solution is, I believe, as obvious as the problem. We need to start caring again. About ourselves, about each other, about the places we live and work and the resources we utilize. Our skillful and compassionate affection for all facets of life must be reawakened. In essence, that is what my new book, True Love, is all about. In fact, there is a whole chapter on how to tell people they are full of shit in a sensitive, caring and compassionate way.
Meanwhile, back on the farm…the domestic scene isn’t much quieter.
Major industries collapsing, a banking system in disarray, health care
costs rocketing out-of-control, record highs in unemployment and home
foreclosures, etc. No matter how many upticks surface among economic indicators, decades of
overproduction, conspicuous consumption, aggressive profit taking, reckless
speculation and generally living beyond our means have finally caught up with America. I can’t
imagine what it must be like to become President of the
Well, let's take a look at the data from http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/:
The Obameter Scorecard
-
Promise Kept 31
-
Stalled 12
-
In the Works 65
-
No Action 392
According to these stats, President Obama
appears to be doing a pretty good job. If this trend continues, Barack
will have fulfilled the vast majority of his campaign promises by the end of
his first term. But
is this a reasonable expectation? Probably not. After all, what if more variables are added to the mix between now
and then? It seems inevitable
that…I don’t know...Venezuela
will invade Columbia,
aliens will land in
In any case, with our planet in such disarray it seems that
change is inevitable, whether we elect candidates for change or not. Maybe people
have known this instinctively for a while, and as a result gravitate towards their preferred ideological outcomes ever more strongly
with each passing year. Perhaps a growing awareness of
critical mass behind the forces of societal evolution and global
reorganization is what drives us into increasingly polarized positions.
On some level, all of us can feel the tide rising. As a result, those who are excited by the challenge rally to embrace it, while
those who are terrified cling to outmoded ways of being for an illusion of safety. Indeed, we live in
interesting times. The questions looming
before us seem to be: How much more interesting
will these times get?
Will we adapt as a species? Will
we thrive in the end, or will we suffer?
It seems that every choice we make each and every
day, as individuals and as a collective, will determine how these questions are
to be answered.
Improving other people’s homes is very satisfying. Whether I’m fixing a plumbing leak, building a staircase, supervising a team of contractors on an extensive remodel, or engineering creative solutions to homeowner challenges, I really enjoy the outcome of my efforts as well as the process itself. It’s fun to play with expensive power tools. It’s fun to use my muscles and my brain at the same time. It’s fun to take something that wasn’t functioning well and make it work smoothly. It’s fun to see a grin of excitement when a thorn in someone’s domestic bliss has been removed. So I have no complaints about this line of work, and often end my workday with a happily exhausted smile.
However, the more I labor to improve other people’s homes, the more I long to have my own to fiddle with. I have a vision that I project before me of some rural land, crowded with trees, upon which a small house awaits my affectionate ministrations. Nothing ostentatious, just a hearth to call my own – some rotting wood there, a rusted pipe here, a door that doesn’t quite keep out the breeze, the perfect space for an exterior deck…an endless list of things to repair or expand by my own hand. The only luxuries that are part of this vision are a living room large enough for a Steinway grand piano, a picture window with a view of distant mountains, and enough quiet solitude that the domestic strife of my neighbors won’t intrude. I have been holding this vision in my heart for some twenty-odd years. Now, with real estate prices dipping for the first time in decades and interest rates low, it is tempting to consider this moment as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But I have another vision that competes with the first, and that one seems equally close to fruition.
My other vision is living debt-free, with very low overhead and with as little impact as possible on the natural environment. Right now my level of debt and subsistence overhead are very low, allowing me time to pursue my research, writing and many other interests without undue financial strain. I can live simply and have energy and space in my world for the things I feel are most important – relationships, learning, creating, exploring and so much more that I could not experience or appreciate if I saddled myself with a mortgage. Someday, if I keep holding these two visions before me, perhaps they will reconcile themselves and find a synthesis. I look forward to that day, but I think it unwise to give up the hard-won freedoms I have now for the promise of a more pastoral lifestyle.
(some stairs I rebuilt)
My father has been regaling me with tales of his gaming
adventures for years. He’s
exhaustively played through just about everything written for the PC, including online
games like World of Warcraft, and for his sixty-eighth
birthday he bought himself an
An acquaintance of mine, sure that I would relish the opportunity to escape into a milieu of medieval fantasy, gave me his copy of the PC game Oblivion. I was very nervous at first, limiting myself to just an hour or so of play each day. But I quickly rationalized that there would be no harm in playing longer and more often, and began logging some serious gaming hours. It wasn’t until I began experiencing something like tendonitis in my wrists, a strange, pulsing pain in my mouse-finger, and general irritability whenever my game-play was interrupted that I recognized the signs of recurring addiction. So I stopped playing for a while and focused on other things. Instead, I updated the game with patches and add-ons, learned commands for the game's console interface, researched some quests that I hadn’t been able to complete, and otherwise liberated myself entirely from the obsessive clutches of Oblivion. Ahem.
But seriously, one of the things that makes Oblivion so compelling for me is the richness of the landscape and the freedom with which players are aloud to explore it. Here is a screenshot that captures some of the lovely art:
Like any responsible addict, I would encourage you to give Oblivion a try as well. I can’t wait for the on-line virtual reality version to become available (there are no plans for this that I know of, but a boy can dream…). And of course the Shivering Isles game expansion just arrived in the mail. I have no idea how that happened.
Reconnection &
German Translation
After years of half-hearted attempts to reconnect with some
of my cohorts at
One other interesting consequence of all this was my introduction to a local Schlaraffia chapter via my FAHS humanities teacher. This is kind of like a bohemian fraternity, where guys get together to speak German, discuss art and culture, and generally have a good time. It was fun to practice my German after decades of languishment, and at first I was a bit shy and hesitant. However, the five pillars of the Schlaraffia are humor, culture, art, friendship…and drinking. So after a few requisite glasses of cognac, I was delighted to discover my German-speaking faculties returning with confidence. Although I haven’t made formally joining my local Schlaraffe a high priority, it was still fun and inspiring to see this kind of fraternity has endured for over 150 years.
As a side note to German speaking, I actually did some translating in 2008. An acquaintance from the UU church I used to frequent asked if I could translate some correspondence to and from her relative, Albert Mosse. I didn’t know at the time that he is somewhat of a historical figure, nor did I know that most of his letters would be written in archaic legalese from the late 1800s. In fact, much of the substance of those letters pertains to his legal services to the Japanese government, which further abstracts his prose. However, once I had accepted the challenge, I dove in with vigor. Thankfully, he and many of those with whom he corresponded offered a dry but enduring sense of humor, as well as some personal advice and anecdotes, which relieved the tedium of my task. The real challenge, of course, was capturing each writer’s personality and the phrasing of period language without forsaking the underlying meaning. I have a new respect for people who can translate historical literature well.
“The honor, the validity of a person in society is substantially limited by their achievements in a profession.” – Albert Mosse
I am of course still shooting away with my
The diversity of styles and media now available in SoCal is astounding.
In terms of painting, there is a renaissance of
Chinese art that uses masterful traditional techniques in new, unconstrained
compositions. There is an
explosion of well-trained artists from
As for music, I was recently introduced to the Steinway grand of some friends who live nearby. After just ten minutes of plunking into the luscious harmonics of that noble instrument, some creative embers deep within were heated to a comforting glow. Around the same time, an acquaintance of mine invited me to a bluesy, folksy music fundraising gig, and those inner embers were fanned brighter still. Then I watched the fanciful film Copying Beethoven on DVD, and my embers began to crackle and sputter. It seems my circumstances are conspiring to reawaken my musical muse. I find myself composing melodies in the car, hearing harmonies in my head, and imagining myself at a keyboard working it all out. So…we shall see.
Some things I really enjoyed in 2008 and the first half of 2009:
- Destinations:
- Wines: Almost any Petite Sirah,
and Smoking Loon’s 2007 Syrah
- Tools: The fine Fein Multimaster
and all the nifty old tools I picked up at garage sales throughout the
year
- Fiction: Joe Haldeman’s
Forever War, Stephenie
Meyer’s
Breaking Dawn , Katherine Kerr's The Gold Falcon
- Non-Fiction: Jack Kornfield’s
A Path with Heart, Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father (Mollie gave
me a signed copy for Christmas!), and Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat & Crowded
- Movies: Doubt,
Wall-e and Copying Beethoven
- Gluten-Free Restaurant Options: Dino’s Gyros, PF Chang’s, Outback
- TV Shows: Battlestar Galactica, Legend of the Seeker, and Little Dorrit
(PBS)
- Cheese: Cave-Aged Gruyere
- Artist: Hu Jun
Di (check him out at http://www.hallmarkgallery.com/gal/artist/Hu-Jundi-16.html)
- Events: 2008 Presidential Election (follow
this link
for my personal observations and experiences on election night), American Idol finalist competition,
my brother Sam moving to L.A.
- Wheat-Free Foods: Quinoa pastas, flourless chocolate cake,
Amy’s chili, Henry's free range beef
- Song: Anything performed by Adam Lambert
- Radio Show: Wait
Wait Don’t Tell Me (NPR)
- Innovation: Verizon
Wireless’ VZ Navigator
- Website: Wolfram Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine
- Sports: The Federer/Nadal
2008
In parting, I’d like to leave you
with an advertisement Mollie found in a local newspaper. It pretty much sums up how
society is evolving here in
Wishing you all the best in the coming year....
- Todd