Landmark Education transformed my life in a way that no self-help book, therapy, religion, or philosophy ever has. I don’t want to devalue any of the personal inner work I have done in my life. But compared to the work I have been doing since the Landmark Forum, I think I was just entertaining a lot of neat philosophies that had no lasting impact on my life.

My friend Deborah told me about the Forum last year and I will admit I was highly skeptical about the things she was telling me. Not that they weren’t real, but just not real for me. I already knew about the concepts she was telling me. I had done lots of work on myself already. I was beyond such programs. She offered something that seemed too outrageous to be real and I didn’t believe it. And I was completely, utterly wrong.

I finally attended the Forum here in Austin. I went into it very jaded about what was possible, but at the same time optimistic. I really did want transformation in my life. I really did want to live as an optimal human being. But I wanted it on my own terms and in my own context. And that is not what the Forum is about.

People talked about the Forum like it was The Matrix: no one could tell you what it was really like; you had to experience it for yourself. I thought, “This is bullshit.” But now, on the other side of things, I know exactly what they meant. The experience is highly subjective. I have seen, read and considered many mind-blowing things, but nothing as miraculous as what I experienced during the Forum. It really did feel like I had been unplugged from the Matrix and witnessed a completely different plane of reality.

People will talk about Landmark in this weird, mystical way. What I saw there was the most hyper-rational, scientifically rigorous examination of reality I had ever known.

Tags: Be Part of the Solution, Landmark, Life

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine on the GeeksOn forums posted a link to another 9/11 conspiracy theory. My comment turned into a little rant that I will re-post here:

Though I am a little tired of 9/11 conspiracy theories as they just make me depressed, I will comment.

Do I think the government would senselessly kill thousands of people to start a war that would be profitable for them? Yes. If they are okay with sending off thousands of soldiers to die and they are okay with senseless Iraqi deaths (soldiers and civilians), then a few more are no problem. A single death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic, right?

Do I think the government would use television shows or other popular media to advance a particular doctrine? Yes. This should not be a surprise. Superman was employed for all kinds of anti-Nazi propaganda. Today we don’t use Superman, we use Jack Bauer.

The reality is that we live in a world where horrible things happen every day, some of it committed by national governments. Having the greatest number of iPods and grande lattes has not purchased a moral high ground for the United States. Our government is corrupt because it is populated by the same corrupt human beings that live on this planet. Laying blame elsewhere has replaced responsibility. DIGGing up conspiracy theories has become the poor man’s activism. We are numbed into complacency by the constant CNN news ticker of tragedy because if we stopped for long enough to actually let the headlines into our hearts, our interstates would clog up with weeping, shattered people.

It would not matter if the government made a formal announcement that they had assassinated JFK using mind-control rays broadcast by reverse-engineered alien technology and that they penciled in the order for the towers to crumble in between a meeting with the Bavarian Illuminati and the Secret Cthulhu Fan Club. We would just be outraged that the baseball game was interrupted and we’d make brave, impotent proclamations in forums and call for heads to roll. We would point and point and point, standing in a forest of mirrors and still wondering why no one was doing anything to make the world softer so we could get back to our nap.

There is no “Them.” There is only “Us.” There’s just you and me. The guy who cut you off in traffic? It was me. I had to get to work as soon as possible so that my job could kill me quicker. The guy that shit on you in the forum because you actually liked Matrix 2 & 3? That was me. It’s easier to ignore my own hatefulness when I’m making you feel small. The person that is eating up your blue sky and blue ocean and blue tomorrow? Me. I need the SUV and plastic bags and aerosol to protect me from ever encountering your dirty human soul.

But I still want you to love me. I still want you to hold me and say “there, there.” I still want your forgiveness. So let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about “Them” and “They.” Those guys are fucking everything up. Not you and me. We’re going to clean up this town.

Right after we watch this awesome YouTube video.

Tags: Be Part of the Solution, New World Order

Aaron Russo’s documentary, America: Freedom to Fascism is now available on DVD at his website: FreedomToFascism.com. You can also watch it for free on Google video.

While the first half, having to do with the income tax law, is debateable, the second half has very important info about the national ID card and RFID tags.

Tags: Be Part of the Solution, movies, New World Order

TerraPass is an organization which balances out the pollution you cause when you drive a car or fly in a plane. For example, tell them how much you drive and they will calculate how much eco-friendly energy needs to be sponsored somewhere else in order to balance it out. You buy a pass that covers you for a year. The pass is really cheap. I got one for my car and for each time I get on a plane.

Go to www.terrapass.com/friends and use the word FRIENDS at checkout to get 10% off.

Tags: Be Part of the Solution

It’s a new world. The one where you didn’t die. But you still can’t see me. You can’t know who I am while you are alive. But it’s me that’s moving. The river can wash me away if I stand in the right place. I don’t have to do any of this any more. I can go. I thought that *I* was almost done, that *I* could go away. Now everything has changed. The world is still heading towards the grim meathook future, but its because everyone wants it to. There is no They who are getting away with it. It’s everyone who is in love with despair and complaining and worry. They are the ones taking this world away. Because it can change if you want it badly enough. I’ve seen it. It doesn’t have to be this way, but all the despair has such a strong gravitational pull, more and more paths are pulled through that one tunnel. I wish they could see it, the strands circling, the nodes where moments intersect, the path breaking away from the car crash, the path where the finger slides off the button.

Tags: Be Part of the Solution, Jess, New World Order