https://otter.ai/u/ZyNGtar-Ox6EIi9Ifs8sLNr4IzE

Okay, now here’s part two of the TJ bike story. I left the passenger center was recommended to go on the north side of Biwako, the largest lake in Japan. And I went to Amanohashidate that day, which, wow, that’s amazing that came out in the transcription that they said was like the third most beautiful place to see in Japan. I went as I am, it’s okay. I definitely wouldn’t have put it in the top three, but it stands out in the story because they had built it up so much as like, okay, it’s a hill overlooking the city, but then the dragons need to turn your head upside down and dragons tail maybe it’s good for kids, but I was like, Yeah, whatever. Maybe just so frickin tired. ride my bicycle all around.

Had I gone via train, maybe be different, but it was okay. The cool thing about this part of the country is there not many trains and while it was spread out I was again on my own free time do whatever I want. I had a train a train went by. It was only to train cars as I Oh, wow. I’m going to take a picture of that. So I waited until the next train and waited and waited and waited. And a woman was like what you’re doing because she went home and came back or whatever she went by you like “what you’re doing?”, like “waiting for the train.” She’s like, “the next train is not going to be for another 45 minutes.” I said, “Oh, really? hmmm, well, that’s okay. I’ll just wait.” And she’s like, “okay,” and so she went, apparently home,

She came back with some big ass strawberries. Like they were enormous like, like five strawberries had barely fit into a pint container. “Wow, thank you so much!” And I just like eat these strawberries with my hands. I’ll read from the juice everywhere is so so great. And delicious. thanked her never you know, exchange information with all over again. But nice little gift.

Thank you Ms Strawberry! And the train came by after loud I took a picture.

I have no idea where that picture is. Oh, I do know that picture is that’s interesting. That’s a different story. are a hard drive and magic smoke oh gosh that’s so frustrating. So you Yeah. Brain brain come back.

So dry riding my bicycle around to the topic of the coast and came back. Have no idea where I was except new kind of I know that city I just mentioned, and north of Biwako but again, we didn’t. I didn’t have Google phone or no GPS running around tracking me. And I don’t remember really writing much in my map book at that time. Thing and look for that. But I got down to I think Nagoya. Yeah, that’s right. And saw my friend Karen, who I had met on peace boat. And she basically, Karen put me up for a few days. But then, like, turns out she was like putting up with me for about a week and she’s like, “Yo, Rob, you gotta go.” And I was like, “holy shit. I’m sorry. You’re right.” I was just being in there and using the internet at the university a lot. But you know, she she didn’t know she was single and just want to travel in space and so i i left and from Nagoya I saw a city on the map called Toyota.

I think it was intrigued by the car company name and the city name and made my way down to Hakone and up and down some starting to get hilly again. Got to Hakone and there’s the next day was scheduled to eat lunch with now I just summarized like five days, I think in two seconds here.

The next day was scheduled to eat lunch with my friend whose name I forgotten in Odawara, and the map book said it was a straight shot from Hakone to Odawara. So cool. I want to get there quick because I’m tired. And the though the map said the road was straight. The road said the road was curvy. What a mean is the scale on the map couldn’t possibly show how curvy this road was. It just like basically straight but was hella curvy and reality. And I went on the first curve and bike bike TJ bike being overloaded brakes were tired. I was tired. I went off the road and kind of into the the soft mud embankment. And, you know, like, you’re kind of thrown into the soft dirt embankment. And was all “Oh, better be careful.” But apparently I wasn’t careful. And that in that moment, I mean, that was the new the guidance from from God being like, “Hey, man, don’t go down this hill.” But I persevered. I said “alright next time if it happens again. I’ll stop.” However, next time. It wasn’t a soft mud embankment; it was a car and I was on his side of the road. In Japan, traffic circulates on the left. The curves were so curvy and the bike was so overweighted that I went into the right hand side of the road and the car was coming up and I was like oh shit. And yeah, I pulled back toward the left but didn’t quite make it and I hit the very back edge of the car. It pushed me down sideways to the left. And like boom, onto the pavement or asphalt and that was it. I was like “huh, I had a wreck.” I lifted up my bike, put it on the side of the road. My heavy ass bike that I picked up. On the side of the road I sat down said “why does my shoulder hurt?” Putting my right hand on my left shoulder is like, “oh, that’s the wrong shape for my shoulder.” My left clavicle was broken. and I was like “welp…” And I looked up at the trees and looked up at the weather. I said “today is a beautiful day to break my shoulder.” Even though it had been like a couple of weeks, since I left the Vipassana meditation center. I still had the meditation vibe in my in my being and I was still meditating, like up to an hour each morning. And I can’t say that I did meditate that morning. I have no memory of that. But I but I remember telling the story is like because I had done Vipassana. Even though I broke my shoulder, I was aware of the situation around me. Say “huh today’s a nice day to break my shoulder.” Beautiful whether checking the rest of my body is like like nothing else is hurt. There is no pain anywhere else my there is no yours and nose or everything’s all working fine. It’s just my shoulder say okay. And

just so, so grateful for having done the meditative experience that allowed me to have this presence of mind just after experiencing a broken shoulder. The car stopped called 911 I free up the numbers here and 110 Maybe 119 That’s it. 110 is for police 119 is for is for ambulance. Ambulance came police came ambulance took me to the hospital. Police took my bicycle to the police station down in order water and hospital was just up the hill at a clinic. And the doctor was like well, you need surgery but we can’t do it here. We’re not outfit for the kind of surgery that you need. And a woman overheard the situation and me stumbling through the Japanese. She’s like, Do you need help? Yeah, that would be fantastic. She’s speaking in English her her mom was there at the clinic from I think she’d said she got like basically flush from too much heat and not enough water while running around Hakone. So once they got all sorted out, they drove me down to down the hill safely to the train station. And I don’t remember which back maybe I just took my laptop bag or something but I couldn’t have cared on both shoulders. I don’t I don’t I have no idea but I believe I would have kept my laptop. But they took me down to the train station. Made sure I got on the right train the romance car to Shinjuku. We had they took me to lunch at a like Jonathan’s or something I think some family restaurant is telling there or a cafe have no idea so long ago. And she this this bilingual woman and I met for lunch once later like a month. Later or something after had my surgery and everything and just like grateful to her like Yeah, so the angels appeared as I was in a time of time of need help me get onto the train to Shinjuku Station. My friend, Jesse’s roommate, Mike came and met me at the station and took me down to his place which was no no, we went to hospitals in the evening and everyone was like, nope, nope, nope, get out of here. And it was very frustrating, but ended up in the hospital near Sakura-shinmachi.
Yeah, so that was the end of my TJ bike trip. And I’ll talk about the surgery. After that. Short answer is that surgery went well, but just took a few days for the surgery to be scheduled.

https://otter.ai/u/953TbOXk8ocpyhDxCK1uXiMUzhI?utm_source=copy_url

How do you experience God’s guidance in your life? When I was younger this must be this definitely before I came to Japan so 2030 years ago at minimum, I 20 or 30 years ago at minimum. I had this idea for a movie concept that the movie camera would like be panning around the room from the perspective of the protagonist and things that could help the protagonist what very subtly like flicker or light up or there’d be a little hint of light pointing some direction and this would be a representation of God guiding the protagonist in the right direction. And as I’m describing this now, I might add some guidance in the wrong direction with a different color light, like yours also, this has been portrayed as like a little angel on each side shoulder the consciousness of an angel or a devil guiding one or attempting one, one way or another. And I just want to take this as to a very kind of literal sense I once had the experience of moving without really thinking doesn’t sound good enough. I’m not sure if I told the story yet here. about seeing a woman basically, B rating her lApi rating, seeing a woman who was yelling at her son, a couple few years old. She was he was crying and she was telling him not to cry. And that there was no one to help I my sense it was all in her she was speaking Japanese to him. My sense what she was saying in my memories mentally Been a while that there’s no one here to help and stop crying. I just got the idea that she had been recently divorced or left with a young child and there’s no one here to help her and just stop crying. And I was like that that eight right, the way she’s treating him and I I didn’t do it because it’s Japan and it’s an her her business and blah blah blah. Oh gosh, but when at one point I just found myself, like watching them but then I found myself moving toward her. And I can’t explain it. Well, I can explain saying in my mind as I Okay, I guess we’re doing this kind of thing. As I had just set my bag down, I walked over, gently walked over to her. And I put my arm in between her and the child. And I basically focused on her I ignored the baby the child for a bit and I said it’s I don’t My Japanese is not that good. I said something like no, I’ve said it in English but in simple English. I said he is so small. And I hope I didn’t say it that way. Gosh, no, I wish I have maybe find my journal entry. I’m sure I wrote a journal entry about this and I think it went rather well. This retelling is like not as good. But the point is, I believe God guided me to support her and I ended up like giving my my card as I call me anytime. At the same time thinking why the heck would she call someone who can’t speak Japanese but just the offer was there. She never ended up calling me but I hope that it helped her recognize the need to find a different way to express her anger and her sadness. I’m sure she was devastated. And yeah, it was it was really a powerful moment in my life to have the sense that I was being guided to do something that I truly believe was an overall positive effect. Even though I was breaking the Japanese mores of it’s not just Japan like the speaking to a stranger randomly, but I think it’s even more so in Japan to not get into other people’s business. But to the question I’m posing to you now. How do you hear God’s guidance? And do you even believe it’s possible to hear guidance from higher power God as you understand God? Do you believe there even is a god? I know I addressed this a couple chapters back, you’re trying to prove that there’s something and is there as something that you would like to tap into? Is there something that you can imagine tapping into so

allowing God’s guidance to flow in my life I tend to slow down. I tend to speak more gently, thoughtfully. If you were to listen to this recording, Even now my voice is slower. As if in a meditative state, facilitating a meditation

simply dropping into a quiet state. I believe I can hear insights, guidance. encouragement

and I imagine the same is true for anyone who chooses to allow God’s guidance into their life this is a simple point of like gonna go a little bit faster now. I tend to think that religions are inoculations against true spiritual connection by going to going by going to another human or a human, you know, an organization and looking at looking to another human or a book to get insights from God. It’s a reasonable starting point. It could be a good mentor. It could be a good book and say, Okay, fine. That is fine. Totally fine. However, once one has grown into an adult, and it’s like, put away the book for a moment. Sit down and meditate. For a moment, allow God to speak directly to you. And in this moment, I’m not speaking to those who would declare that blasphemy or what have you. I’m not sure if that’s actually last me in any religion. I hope not. But it’s it’s amazing to me to think that many religions saying Your God is infinite. And then to think Oh, but he can’t speak to me directly. He or she? It’s like, Huh, that’s interesting. So, being infinite, whatever for whatever version of infinity one chooses or omniscient or what have you. How the heck you saying God can’t speak to you directly. My friend Marty said that he leaves or how does he say it like God fiercely loves each of us uniquely and individually, something like that. I have to ask him to the exact quote and I yeah, I like that, you know, as infinity. You know, people talking about the infinite multiverse is of whatever and describing all kinds of different possible like every world exists. Including one where the, you know, all all the words are the same except for the word. You know. Yes and no are reversed. You know, just describing these different possibilities. And then, not necessarily the same people, but then to say that, Oh, God can’t talk to me directly. It’s like, yeah, that seems strange. So yeah, heck, I don’t know. I’m just blabbering at this point. But how could how might God speak to you in your life? Do you want that as a possibility? My sense is that meditation helps open the space so that I can hear more clearly more subtle energies more fine or divine or more. Not trying to rhyme, but guidance coming from a higher source. For more subtle energies. We’re here in this 3d world. And kind of limited to whatever videos probably seven or eight senses we can definitely add balance and proprioception to the list of the five so that seven right there and

emotion I feel my emotions. That’s gotta be a sense. And my sense is that emotions are this kind of interface between spirit and me. And tapping into the emotions. processing them, not just ignoring them who are suddenly have this whole giant conspiracy theory that by being taught to not feel or process our emotions, we’re being taught to not experience higher power taught to throw away the insights received from higher power. Emotions are literally just guidance for our lives and I know I’ve talked about that before. Anger is the emotion that comes up when it’s time to set a boundary or maintain a boundary or you know, protect, protect oneself. Sadness is an emotion that comes up when it’s time to grieve a loss or acknowledge a loss. Fear is an emotion that comes up when it’s time to get more information. Or to keep on alert, tread carefully. Joy is an emotion that comes up when I’m I’m on the right path, so to speak. I have what I want and I want when I have gratitude is an emotion that comes up when I’m recognize the receipt of something that I need or want or love that didn’t come from my direct control. Now this one I just know freestyled this sense of gratitude, I’ve been wondering for a long time, what is gratitude? And so I’ll try to define it here. It’s an acknowledgement of receiving something of benefit without having to do anything for it. So to speak. That last part, I’m not sure. But receipt of something positive receipt of something acknowledging receipt of something that I appreciate or supports me. And gratitude can arise slightly different than Joy. Joy, simply being here now. And enjoying the ride and gratitude the subtle difference being here now and acknowledging the greater world around me making this joy possible, perhaps In

this space and intentionally left blank

at my first TED X speech in what was it October 2021, I guess? September October. I included 30 seconds of silence in a TEDx speech. And it was recommended that I describe it as maybe a little bit unusual for TEDx, but I included it. Just as an encouragement for people to get present in the moment.

I believe, though, you might claim the inability to meditate or what have you. The mind is not easily going to give up its role of spitting out all kinds of stuff. So don’t think that quietening the mind will, is the goal of meditation. When you first start to meditate, that is kind of our here, here we go. So erase all those previous paragraphs, just here it is, when you sit down to meditate. The practice of sitting down to meditate is what’s most important. It’s not quietening the mind. That’s most important. That will happen over time and I’m talking like decades lifetimes of practice.

But it’s the practice that’s the part that I can control. That I take five minutes even 30 seconds is better than zero. Just take a moment to breathe. Just take a moment to be the mind Oh, keep on jumping around. That’s fine. Imagine that that’s not in your control. And when? What is in control of just sitting down and taking 30 seconds, eventually the mind will follow suit you’ll find moments of no thought you’ll find moments of quiet

then they’ll be gone and your brain will start thinking again and that’s natural and just sit just be there

and if you forget to meditate for a day or a week or a month or 15 years It’s cool man Just start again.

Just take 30 seconds.

Welcome to do it now. If you choose.

https://otter.ai/u/pAPYt35yrJ6mRAdprZJevHrWmEs

Today is Monday, January 30 2023. And I’m going to sing a little rap singers song new thing that I wrote. This is in quotes while riding my bicycle TJ bike from Tokyo to Kyoto and back to Tokyo.

When a little something according to my memory went a little something like this.

TJ Bike is the bike I like;
we don't cause trouble when we hike.
TJ bike, TJ bike, TJ bike, TJ bike.

TJ bike is the bike I like;
we don't cause trouble when we hike.
TJ bike TJ by TJ bike, TJ Bike.

See a river. we go through it.
We see a mountain go do it,
see a highway we go to it and just use it.

TJ Bike TJ Bike. etc

And so that was basically it, on repeat in my brain.

For hours and kilometers and miles of this ride. I made up this little rap for my bicycle it was like my my version of Dory singing Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming and Finding Nemo movie so yeah.

In approximately 2006 per my memory. After I finished my second voyage around the world with peace boat.

I was out of money. I had 20,000 yen to my name.

And I had a plan to go to Kyoto in order to do the 10 day Vipassana sit that was scheduled for like two weeks later or something.

And I was like, Alright, I need to be there in two weeks. I’ve got 20,000 yen.

So if I if I go there now I have to run out of money on the pay for the train. not have enough money to stay anywhere.

Okay, if I so I was like, you know, just stuck for how to deal with this situation. And then I was like, I have an idea. I’ll ride my bicycle to Kyoto, and sleep, you know, on the high along the highway on side of the road on the way there.

And I had just been on peace boat as I said. So a couple of people during the voyage were like yeah, come on. Over, you know, whenever you like. And so during the this very poorly planned trip.

I did stay with a couple of friends along the way.

Koji is a man who has I may still be alive. I don’t know.

This was what 12 years ago.

More than 12

He and his wife had like a woofing farm willing workers on organic farms. Set up down in me a spelled mi E and he was like yeah, come on over so i did i i got I’m skipping so much the story but I here’s the important parts. Forget about all the bicycle stuff.

I had this plan to ride my bicycle.

And this is going to be the point of this chapter.

I had this plan to ride my bicycle to Kyoto.

And there was nothing stopping me so to speak. I didn’t have a job. I had just gotten I just finished the peace boat voyage for like 100 day voyage back in Tokyo and had this plan and I was like kind of working out in my mind. You know what, you know how I could possibly do this bike trip. And I discovered I was like, essentially looking for permission to go.

And it’s it comes back to the like this thing of like wanting to be good. I think that if if someone says that, oh yeah, it’s okay for you to do it. Then or I want you to do you know something? Okay, perfect. I’ll do it. If you say I should do it, then I’ll do it.

But in this case, I didn’t have that. And it would, it would have taken too long to like, set up some fake. Like, it was a situation of like, okay, guys, it’s going to be I’m going to leave on this day. On Thursday. Come on out and wish me well. You know, not that that would be fake but that would take two weeks of Tokyo time because everyone’s busy and all of that and to schedule something in like that.

And the entire trip, I only had two weeks. So that was that didn’t even cross my mind that I could like make an official thing and get some buy in from people who would care which I did do it for my walk but not for this bicycle trip. And I because it was so curious. I was like, Huh, I’m waiting for permission and it’s like, dot dot dot, from whom?

Who is it should be free from him. Yeah, from her from whom? From whom? Who was going to give me permission. When I was literally free. I just could I could just go and I was like, Huh.

And so I just went very unceremoniously. I packed I had, I had already bought the bicycle T I had already bought TJ bike. I had purchased it with like saddlebag racks on the front and back, plus the saddle bags. And I just worked out a way to like, put my back. What was it I had a couple bags in the back. Basically it was quite overloaded with all the junk I had.

But I was like, huh, I can just go and I just went this at this time I was not living anywhere really where was my bicycle at that time.

But I keep thinking that I was in the place when Bo zaru which is the name of a place down near Socrata Shane mochi name of a building. I was staying with Jesse. But the main part of this the anyway, I’ll get to that in a second.

So I saw I just left I was like, okay, I can just go and I jumped on my bike.

I know I do know that.

90% Sure. I had ridden my bike or had my bicycle at the Peace boat office up in Takadanobaba.

And I remember one of the other teachers named Carl was like he was flabbergasted Are you serious? You’ve really fucking just gonna go without planning and anything. I was like, Yeah, I might as well you know.

And I had, as I said, 20,000 yen to my to my name and I had no map. So I needed to go to a book shop and I bought a map that was like the motorcycle touring guide of Japan. And as I speak this I’m turning around in my seat to grab this book.

Mapple three and it has a ratio. One to 140,000 is the size on this thing and it shows a motorcycle on the front.

publish date and obviously on the binding or anything but it was 1600 yen, apparently. And I I remember spending 4000 yen.

On the books maybe I bought two because I remember also that it didn’t cover the entire area I wanted to ride but yeah, so this map book is kind of has some water damage on it a little bit pages a little bit bent. Have a bunch of little tabs on the side and dirty edge because you know I was you know, I was basically camping. And I wrote a bunch of notes in the little little Little Book Notes. So this one says I didn’t write the year that’s amazing says like 10:25am May 28 Breakfast granola Megamart and there’s an arrow. This is written in the water and of the map and there’s an arrow pointing up to this little dot and I’ve got these little dots that are alone the road pointed to by arrows and then on the map here, this is like four centimeters away. 10:25am four centimeters away.

Unbelievable.

deal that’s 28th of May 27 of May Ah there it is a year 2006 Perfect.

So okay, this is going the other direction.

Anyway, the few centimeters away as a different night and then here’s a.by a river. This is on page two of this map.

And there’s a.by The river it says May 27 9:11pm Sleep 2006 And before that was 7:31pm so to an hour and what 40 minutes before I was 1234 centimeters away on the map.

As a dot that says, Say 7:31pm looks like just has it hold G or an O six.

I don’t know what that means.

And yeah, here’s another one says seven April 2006. So maybe Yeah, going the other direction or something. Anyway, it’s like little Discovery Zone of notes in this map that I’ve put together.

And to the point, I was looking for permission.

When I’ve realized suddenly, I was blocking myself it was up to me to give myself permission and just go and just do it. So I jumped on the bike and headed out and this is perfectly in line with the answer I got from Joe mcmoneagle This is way back in the night. 1995 or six I think

yeah, so I had asked him I was like, Hey Joe, I want to I want to travel around the new moon and just like do all this traveling as I how do I how do I start?

And his answer was perfect and beautiful. The the perfect kind of guidance that I needed.

He said just start planning.

He didn’t say it all dramatically like that. He’s like, well just just start planning.

And I was like, just start planning. That’s amazing. You know, and he didn’t have to get tied up in any details and he was empowering me to take care of myself and to to do this thing and the whole purpose of this chapter is to empower you to do what you need to do. Just start planning meal, put the thing together, ask for help as needed. Help will arrive and just do it. So

yeah, that’s the first bit of the chapter for two TJ Bike Adventure.

Let me click my notes again real quick here.

Ignore message Ah, okay, the notes I’ve written.

I haven’t even gotten that far in the trip. So let me I’ll just keep out just keep it rolling didn’t matter.

I can imagine this will be a paragraph break here.

In in my freedom, my my free time availability. I had nowhere to go or be or do or whatever. This was like basically headed toward Cody’s farm apparently had an address.

I had a who, how would this have worked? I guess I had a laptop laptop computer because I’ve always been a computer type type person. And he must have just been using free Wi Fi from McDonald’s or what have you.

And I could check email that way and stuff and I guess there must be yeah cuz I have photos and stuff from the trip.

It’s probably instead of blabbing all this stuff from memory to look up those stories but

writing to down into me a can from from Tokyo took me I think it was like eight days and just like basically alone the entire time. With just your superficial interactions at supermarkets to get granola or rarely one time I went to McDonald’s That’s how desperate I was for food.

And I remember there was a like a

some to one or two teenage teenagers had. Oh hey, we saw you writing before.

An hour ago. And now you’re here and they asked about my trip and bought me a hamburger or something. It’s just really a generous kind of interaction in my mind and at that time, though, I was craving connection.

And, you know, oh, thank you. Oh my god, you know, and thinking that we’re going to be friends and hogs and there’s like, Okay, here’s hamburger Bye. Good luck with your trip. But it was like the human connection I had received up to that point during the trip. And is it it was really nice. And how many years later that I’m still remembering it.

Can we do the math this time? Four plus two 610 So 16 years ago 17 Because we’re in 2003.

And yeah, so they, it first it was all fine with just basically flat flat flat and then got into a few hills and it was like a slog. Going up and down some hills and I got there was some something something roadway that I couldn’t go through and I had to go around the mountain I thought turns out it probably could have gone through the tunnel but I went a long way around. But I finally I got to Cochise house and it it had been like hour so along the way there. I just slept in parks basically to say oh, here’s a good Park. Crash out next to it not crash but like sleep next to a tree from 9am to five uh Sorry 9pm to four or 5am and then be like book jump on my bike. Zoom, zoom, zoom, keep it rollin. This is a I say bike. I mean bicycle. TJ bike was a bicycle. steel frame. Louis Garneau brand.

heavy as hell. Plus all the the the bags and and I don’t wanna say shit. This is not for kids. Anyway, all the bags and shit that I had on the bike. It was it was overloaded and heavy.

And yeah, but just stayed in parks and no one. No one bugged me. It was really great. The one thing that I don’t recommend about this kind of trip that I was riding along the roads listen to motorcycle touring map, which were roads and highways, not my like tollways but sometimes they didn’t have sidewalks or even really curbs on or what’s the pads on the side? And it was it was dangerous with big ass trucks going in June, June back and forth pass me.

But yeah, it was it was.

It was cool. One day on the way there.

I had

it’s, I don’t know I didn’t know the details but it started raining. And I went under a bridge. That was like, I have this sense that was like we had been going up a hill and it was raining is like Ah shit, I need to stop but there was nowhere to really stop. But we had the road was like going up this hill but there was like valleys and stuff underneath the road. And so I had found a way to get down under the road and there was a flat big flat concrete section that was holding the the pilings of the bridge.

And I just had a view out over this valley but the road itself the highway itself above me was the roof, no walls.

It was temperature was fine.

But it was just raining like you know, solid rain for a full day. So I had I had a day of rest at this location.

With without food. Well, I must say without food. I had food but without any other resources. I just always like sat there and slept or read or wrote for a day have no real memory of that.

Those details and probably a lot of sleeping.

And then the next day it had stopped raining so I jumped back on the bike kept on rolling because I was under the highway literally zero people except me knew I was there. And it just the road traffic just had some guy on the underneath the highway.

And yeah, it’s just a curious thing.

So I got to Cochise house after like seven eight days. And they already had another worker there.

Woman from Australia I want to say and it was the first her speaking to me in English was the first time I had her English in many days and it was like wow, English, you know, kind of thing and I was like, Oh my God, you know just so grateful again for the connection. And you’re wondering if we would become best friends and all that but again is just passing workers in the in the farm and she was actually on her way out that day.

And but I remember as well we were talking a bit and she was talking about and that she used to grow up grow up on a farm that they made yogurt and maybe she’s from New Zealand anyway.

I remember being so entertained by like with my joke that I made I was like you can make yogurt I thought it just magically appeared in the store.

But I I just have the sense that she didn’t get it cuz she’s like, Yeah You’re a big dummy. You make yogurt. Yeah, bacteria available. I know how it’s done, but at that point, it was anyways a funny joke.

What my brother and I call a location joke. You had to be there.

And I remember like taking a shower at Cody’s places the first shower I had had in seven or eight days after riding my proverbial butt off for all that one of those days. My the the thickness of dead skin on my skin was amazing. And it was just like my I would like scratch my arm with my fingernails and just had this like, glob of gray under each fingernail all these dead skin cells. It was a whole gross and like my I don’t even want to say how like I don’t have one I have a guest two millimeters thick it seemed.

I have no idea if that’s accurate or not. But it was just like holy crap. It was just so much and really interesting to have that experience of taking a shower after seven or eight days of writing.

And yeah, but then I was a if they showers and baths and in traditional homes like that in Japan are great who just have have a shower have a big big bathtub kind of thing.

Although I remember it wasn’t that big, but it’s just we have the bath space just to relax and chill. So that was nice.

Yeah, so I If this message ever gets back to koji and his wife somehow i I want to acknowledge now i i stayed too long while I was there because they there was very welcoming and, and was that I was uh, you know, working on the farm. But wasn’t that much work to do? I don’t think they really needed me. And after a while his wife was like, Yeah, so when are you leaving it? Like oh, I guess I’m leaving pretty soon.

And yet I remember staying one more day because she had asked in the afternoon. I didn’t want to start late in the afternoon. And plus, it was much nicer to sleep in their, you know, fluffy farm bed at their farm instead of on the road. But I left early the next morning and headed down to Kobe, where my friend Richard lived.

Now, Richard, was he I know kiwi. Sorry. I know Richard a much more than I know.

Koji or the groin that Richard is definitely a kiwi from New Zealand. He had been in Japan for quite a few years. quite fluent in Japanese like a million times more than I am even even now.

And he was working in like the some government office and also on the side doing work as a like a fake marriage, where they call it like, basically like officiating the marriage. But it doesn’t take much training. Just have to memorize all this very fancy, fancy Japanese stuff.

You can tell I’ve never done it. And so I he’s like, Yeah, meet me at this park or whatever. And so I I arrived there and and he took me out to dinner at whatever, you know, his favorite restaurant or something, and then went to his house for an evening the next day. I had a free day. Maybe I was there a couple of days. Had a free day or two in Kobe and went to the the the I forgot to like the coast but there’s a park on the on the bay there. People flying kites and all this stuff.

And he unfixing on the Saturday after he had finished his wedding to fishy ation, officiating stuff. We met again. And he’s like, You know what? You need this money more than I do. And he handed me 20,000 yen.

And I was like, Holy shit, you just double that my budget for this entire trip. And again, it was such a gift from you know from him that was in a way it was very simple and easy. And to me had a huge profound impact. I was like, Wow, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, you know, really, really beautiful blessing. And it was so so so so great. And with that money, if I recall correctly, I immediately went to get the bike, you know, TJ bike, tweaked and tweaked that’s the right word, but like one of the pedals was had gotten loose. So I got new pedals and probably, you know, that Titan new brakes or something and then you know, whatever, just get some maintenance done on the bike.

So that was good. And then the days had gotten a lot had gone through and I had the next day I had to be up in Kyoto for the 10 day Vipassana thing.

And I basically went straight north from Kobe, to the location and I up and down some hills and finally Okay, now we’re finally here and i i I remember the hills were like, like, big, you know, lazy turns and lazy hills. and down hills and just a nice little hill country.

But I got to the location turn left and go into their the property. I don’t know if they own it or renting it or whatever. But

I basically I arrived. And I recognize that I was looking for a grand welcome as i Wow, you rode all the way here from Tokyo.

And it’s a passenger train and so I mean, the whole point is to just, you know, to drop all of that.

And so there there was no ceremony or grand arrival and this kind of gave them my my buy bags and my computer and we didn’t have phones at that point had a phone but not like an iPhone.

And there’s handed everything over and they’re like, Alright, there’s your room. Go take a shower to go to your room. Kind of thing.

And yeah, it was. It was a good experience. So now I’ll pause this recording. It’s been 32 minutes. That’s that’s quite a bit.

And thanks for listening. If you ever do, again, this is January 30 2023. It’s now 7:46pm Japan time, and I’ll talk to you guys later. Bye

https://otter.ai/u/DvzDo594yDkvNZmMyRzepeXhMT4

I’m not sure if I can prove God exists but I have seen many signs that allow for me to believe it’s useful to believe in God and to be grateful to God for literally everything I have. Let me start by saying that I don’t mean the God who is the grumpy old god and the Old Testament. I think that was actually basically extraterrestrials who came down and pretend to be gone in order to like get power or whatever. But I’m talking about the basically consciousness that pervades the universe.

This will completely fly in the face of anyone who believes that the brain is producing consciousness. This concept starts with consciousness exists first, regardless of physicality, and that the brain is basically a receiver of consciousness and a processor of sorts. So that’s the one of the starting points of this little thing. So we’ve got this concept of the universe for example, and consciousness pervading the universe. And I’ve got this concept that about emotions.

Emotions seem to be like an interface from like, spirit down into physicality, a way to guide us. Now this is described as well by Esther Hicks via her entity Abraham and I’ve heard Teal Swan talking about this as well. I’m sure I’ve already written about the time that I determined as a teenager that emotions are important and that is the story about my granddad’s jacket that he had died a couple years previous and my brother and I were all stoic and didn’t cry. (*)

(*) Until they had to bust out amazing grace on the bagpipes. Yep, I was doing fine until they busted out Amazing Grace. So both my brother and I both cried at the funeral when they played amazing grace but apparently, I didn’t cry enough, because a couple of years later, I was basically in my dad’s closet, probably looking for pornography or something.

I came across granddad’s old army jacket, and I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. And for whatever reason, I smelled the jacket or maybe I just, I could smell it. And suddenly, the tears were like wow, your granddad is gone. He’s, he’s, he’s fucking he’s dead as a doornail. he’s gone. never see him again. And all of that, you know, impactful.

emotion of sadness just hit me and after I cried and cried and got it all out. I was like, Now, where was that sadness for the past two years? That I wasn’t aware of it. I couldn’t feel it. You know, not consciously. And I was like, That’s so interesting because you I could I could meet or talk to the cutest girl in the whole world. And two years later, I wouldn’t remember nothing about that interaction.

But the emotion stayed somewhere in full Technicolor feeling. perfectly preserved for the two some odd years. It’s like it’s as if the time component this simply didn’t exist. And the motion we’re just here from our my perspective, patiently waiting and was simply there when I accessed it. Then when I did access it, I cried. It went away. And it’s like, Huh, okay, that’s interesting. And I just like in that moment did determined that emotions are important. I didn’t know why. But that was proof to me. Now, let me describe another story that happened some time ago. I’ve often played with lucid dreaming and as even as I write this book,

Today is June 25 2023. As I write this book, I’m, I’m playing around with the idea of doing astral projection. And that’s thanks to a book called Beyond dreaming by Jean someone I don’t have the book in front of me. And more 20 years ago, I had this experience of being in a dream doing gymnastics, and in a, like a perfect Pike, you know, like my, my legs were straight. My My body was just kind of folded over so that my nose was touching my knees and in a dream, you know, weird things can be normal. But then I realized I was like, hang on. My body doesn’t fold this way. I am not this flexible. I must be dreaming. And yet, I could feel through the sense called proprioception that my nose was touching my knees. And it was like, Huh, that’s interesting. And I tried to like, guide me to move myself out of my body the rest of the way my legs were obviously out. And, or my top was, was out and my legs were in. But I was like, Okay, let’s fly up to the ceiling. And I did like a like a reverse handstand or a headstand. And my legs were up in the air. My body was up in the air, but my head was still stuck in my head. And I thought, hmm, maybe I’m clenching. My teeth. So I slightly like I moved my jaw to unclench my teeth, when I don’t know if it was actually clenched or not at that point, but that motion like ended the the experience of floating in the air and like, my, my body slowly, like, came down into my physical body. And I could feel the waves of I don’t know what the word might be, but like pulsation or waves happening that are very commonly reported by people who are out of body. You can check on Reddit like astral travel, the rational projection, I’ll put the subreddit in this thing. And yeah, so I had that experience. This is well before Reddit existed. And you know, I was like, Whoa, that was weird. You know, I was a very smooth transition of, you know, from that. Body, my me being my with my legs. pointing up at the ceiling and then transition smoothly down to being in my body and feeling those pulsations. And I was like, just kept my eyes closed. I memorized I memorized the situation in the sensation. And I have a little parenthetical phrase here. I’m just realizing that I have remembered this story for many, many years. And earlier in this thread, I was just saying, you know, how did the motion get memorized for two years? But this was a very conscious, intentional memorization. When I my body was out of my body whereas the emotional thing was completely automatic. I closed parenthesis, so anyway, I lay in bed for a bit and memorize the the experience. And it works express gratitude and was like your excitement. I’m not sure if I was doing gratitude in those days because I was really happy and I maybe wrote it down in my journal. And yeah, so it was a really cool little experience. That also some from that experience, I recognize that my consciousness is not inexorably tied to my physical body. There thereby I can I can surmise that they’re, they’re different. You know, my body isn’t producing my consciousness my consciousness exists independently of my physical body. So, you know, why not extrapolate that, you know consciousness exists? And the physical bodies are just like faux SCI for consciousness to roam around and hang out in this physical space.

And so then, I’ll just jump over to space time. Not that I can do any justice to explain in space time. All the recently I was watching a video of a guy with a tie, talking about how to visualize things in five dimensions, and I haven’t gotten to the whole video yet. I might put that link in here as well. So yeah, I my rough, rough understanding is that, like, gravity doesn’t exist as a force. And the dimensions of space and time can can be swapped in Maxwell’s equations about the speed of light or the speed of causality. And oh, that, depending if we have to non what’s the terminology, two events that are not causally related? There exists? A vantage point from which those two events occur at the same time. I think this is the right way to say it. This was this came up in Sabine hossenfelder talked about this recently, and what’s also a wasn’t Sabine, anyway, that so basically, it comes back to the block universe that the universe just exists, and time is a static dimension because everything happens, all things are at the same time. And so this points to we don’t know what the hell is going on. You know, it sure seems to me like time goes tick, tick, tick, through its thing. So I, I’m experiencing myself traveling through the dimension of time, but apparently, each thing that is non causally related, can have happened at the same time. From any perspective, we choose, and that’s also kind of weird, like so. I’m speaking into my microphone which is putting go into the phone going to a server on otter.ai and going to copy to the NSA, wherever else and whoever else is listening and then it’s sending words back to my phone. And you know, it’s all magically delicious and all causally related. So, I don’t know how I can actually apply it to some things that are not causally related, and is it the case that just that they have to be in separate light cones or can just be that my wife is talking downstairs, and I’m talking upstairs about different topics, and she can talk for an hour and I’ll talk, you know, I’ve been talking for 10 minutes. And so, are we causally unrelated? I don’t know this is going as well beyond my understanding of all this time. stuff. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

They say we like God is not conceivable, like, infinitely. And again, it’s not like the the Christian God or the or whatever God you want to think about but this concept of consciousness and I’ve just come to realize that by guiding my intention toward good or toward love or toward the selflessness and toward gratitude. My life has been better. And I’m not really sure how it works, but this has been written in many, many, many different books. Like think Think and Grow Rich is the same topic that I’m talking about. The what’s the other one? I can remember right now, that I said many, many, many I can only think of one and zero others. But it Oh, the the there’s a little red book that a woman read reads in about 20 minutes on YouTube. I’ll maybe put a link to that. It’s like, this stuff works and you can ignore it or not, or use it or not. It’s just really, really interesting that the like, like the basketball basketball players passing the basketball and there’s some white betting players wearing white jerseys and some players wearing black jerseys. And you’re meant to count how many passes the players wearing white jerseys make and I had an experience. When I was up in Oregon, i i My host gave me some marijuana cookies and I was like cool, and I won. He said if you don’t feel anything, you’d have here some more. He puts some more on the counter like six others and I ate all six other cookies. I had seven altogether as i Whoa, I can feel it now. And in that moment, I like I caught I realized that I was caught by Satan. That I had been duped into this situation whereby Satan had had created the whole universe so that I would have this experience of time running forwards and backwards at the same time, so that Satan could prove that he was powerful enough to run time in both directions at the same time. And I was trapped in this time loop and like oh no, what am I going to do you know, my life is over. And I don’t know how many minutes that experience went on. But the my host had a dog and the dog came up to me. Oh, and I realized that my host was Satan actually it turned out and so he had a dog and I said all right, the dogs not in on it. I you know, I I believe that dogs are pure love and goodness and they have best intentions in mind. So I like lean i the dog like sniffed my hand. Or something. I pet the dog and link leaned down as a balloon. You know, given the dog letting the dog lick my face, which I normally wouldn’t never do is like ooh, dog terms. But by doing that, I kind of broke the spell so to speak, I focused on loving on the dog, instead of like fearfully like, Oh, I’m trapped. And I had this like, just don’t have you have a good enough vocabulary word here. This incredible experience that focusing on love viscerally changed my experience for the good and focusing on fear viscerally changed my experience toward the negative toward feeling bad and feeling scared. And it was as if the like, I was like, like, if stand in between two mirrors. And you see him in like a bunch of versions of yourself in this like, Oh, wow. And you tilt one mirror a little bit, and then it just curves off toward infinity. And that’s kind of what it seemed like, you know, if I tilt my focus toward love just a little bit it’s just simply amplifies toward love. Like in toward infinity and like those mirrors and likewise if I focus my intention toward anger or hate or fear, just a little bit it gets amplified toward infinity and like an immediate sense. And as whoa do do such a visceral experience, and I felt so grateful to have had the experience it was very well worth a few minutes of fear thinking I’ve been trapped by Satan. In order to have this experience of realizing how bloody important it is to have a positive outlook or to like, focus on anything positive and this is the same my version of the same thing that Esther Hicks talks about all the freakin time. If you can’t change anything, just go along for the ride instead of fighting it. But if there’s I’m just begging if there’s any possible thing about what you can be grateful. express that gratitude. Recently, new paragraph recently, I have been offering up gratitude to daddy and in the you a program under earners anonymous, it’s a 12 step program they’ve saved you know, bring God as you understand God into your life kind of thing. And recently, I’ve been playing with this idea of like God is Daddy. Like the dad who will never get mad at me and who will always be there for me and Baba Baba blah. And I’m just saying thank you, daddy so many times every day that like go outside and just you know it’s chilly air, but the sun is beautiful. That clear sky was beautiful. And to say thank you, daddy. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy. Just on repeat. For all the blessings that I do experience in my life. Right now. I’m like literally sitting on this magical phone. I don’t have to use my fingers to type and it’s like, wow, thank you, daddy. This amazing device is available for me. And I also have the option to say well this phone is kind of old and it doesn’t take very good pictures. I could focus on all of that. And just like Louie CK has a you know a little segment skit. I don’t know what the word is like a little gag. He’s like your people just say oh, this phone sucks. How was your flight was okay, you know, he’s like you jumped into a magical tube and flew over the the into the air. is how it is and he simply says it. And we just downplay all the amazing stuff that’s in our lives. And through this, these words I’m just dude, just, if you can possibly up play the amazing things in your life. expressing the gratitude for the things that you have in your life that that are beautiful and an amazing and even not quite what you want but good enough, you know? And yeah, I’m I’m a you know, a white guy from America and all that. But what am I going to do? This is what I can do. And

I’m just grateful for the daily blessings that I have here. Like being able to, you know, have this fresh air being able to have support accountability with my with my buddy Leszek.

It’s just amazing that I can say these words and they’re being transcribed into into text and so just having that gratitude I’ve heard recently that the this this came from who Trevor Noah was talking about the the comedy of, of Corona. He’s like, talking about the the peoples in Africa are not having bad effects from Corona. They’re like what that finished ages ago. And it’s like yeah, because there’s so many blessings that are available in the natural world. So I can be like, you know, oh, wow, this computer is so great. Or I can focus on Oh, well, I have to worry about Corona. You know? And so I posit it does not matter where one is in the world. There’s always blessings to be found. And yeah, just have to look and be aware somehow, and the stories of people who who survived, you know, all different tragedies and stuff are the ones that just kept their mind. Positive somehow. I do think it’s a choice and I’m probably going to wrap this up because I’m rambling here but uh, all of this pointing to gratitude to the creator the you know, you can decide that there’s no God. And for a while I did when I was in new high school or whatever it was, but just not like looking around and oh would do the magic of DNA or whatever. You know, because I’m not a philosopher, but there’s just so many benefits that I’ve experienced by being willing to say thank you to the higher power for that which I experience in the world. And it’s, it’s making my life better. I’m really, really enjoying this, like, creating a relationship with my higher power. And it doesn’t have to be a specific brand of Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha or whoever. In my case, right now it’s Daddy. And I’m just like, Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Daddy. So much benefit and beauty beauty in the world around me. I’m so so grateful for that. So yeah. Let me pause this. I’m going to get it over into my actual journal, and then have another call with Leszek in 10 minutes. Okay, thanks a lot and see you well. Oops, see you later. Be well, bye

“Now what” can be taken to as fine detail as we like.
In any moment, we have choices. At each moment, how do we decide what to do?

personal mission

This could come from a personal mission. For example, I have a mission I developed for myself in ManKind Project.

I create a world of love and connection
by connecting and listening.

Actually this version just popped out of my mind. The second line of the previous one was like “by leading and facilitating”

Having a personal mission allows asking useful questions at any moment. e.g.

• “What action will move me toward my mission?”
• “Will this action move me toward or away from my mission?”

emotional body

Another way to choose what we do is by feeling our emotions. Generally I have found that my most effective actions are if I move toward excitement AND fear at the same time.

The excitement means it’s something I care about. The fear means I don’t know how it will turn out. Put those together and get go for it! I haven’t yet experienced times where this guided me poorly.

Oh, by the way, my broken shoulder wants me to mention that if the feeling body features tired or rushed or anxious, it may be good to SLOW DOWN.

SLOW DOWN

This would make a great title for a book! ;-) Allowing your mind to control things is a great way to get muddled up in some mind stuff. Allowing your awareness to open to subtler energies can be a way to sense insights coming from a more loving realm.

Again, I’m talking about God here, or higher power. Maybe I’ll introduce a term I made: EPP, or Every Present Present. I’m not sure it applies here, but it just came to me, so there ya go.

I created the term EPP (not the thing it points to) when I created my own religion. That was while reading the book Shaving the Inside of your Skull by Mel Ash, who apparently got it from Timothy Leary:

This is the advice from Timothy Leary in The Politics of Ecstasy. He says that in order to make your own religion work you should “write down and define your: Goals, Roles, Rituals, Rules, Vocabulary, Values, Space-time Locales, Mythic Context. Develop your own rituals and costumes . . . You will eventually find yourself engaged in a series of sacred moments which feel right to you…”

Dang I ain’t typing the rest now, but it’s on page 173 of Mel Ash’s book.

I pray for God’s guidance.

I learned this year: “God perfects nature.”

I take it to mean we all have a natural way of being.
I’m naturally barefoot, usually optimistic, and a few other good things.
Naturally, I’m also a few other “bad” things. Naturally.

At my request, God perfects my natural skills and gifts.
God lessons my less useful things.
I have to let God in; I have free will to keep God’s meddling Ass out of my life.
I also have free will to let God’s perfect Guidance guide me.

We have free will. Maybe that was the “fall” of Adam and Eve. (I’m no biblical scholar.)

We have free will to do what we like, including let God into our hearts and to kinda take over the wheel of life.

It’s Step 4 (?) of 12-step programs.

In Gene Hart’s new book, Beyond Dreaming on page 14 of the free PDF I just read:

It has always been a great challenge for any author to accurately describe
spiritual dimensions that exist beyond time, space and conventional wisdom;
spoken human language is all but a vain attempt to describe the indescribable.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AstralProjection/comments/yu3vx2/my_astral_projection_book_beyond_dreaming_is_now/ https://youtu.be/OkhPITA2pU8

https://otter.ai/u/rI2he1V1HFWCka0q6gu0c1VtCfg

One of my friends said God couldn’t have a personal interest in each of us.

I countered this claim by talking about integers versus the reals. There are a finite number of humans on the planet and ever in existence. However, the real numbers are infinitely greater than each and every integer.

If God is infinite, God’s not going to be the infinity of the Aleph Null integers. God’s going to be infinite like Aleph infinity infinity infinities plus one of any infinity that humans could ever imagine, much less articulate.

My friend is a mathematician. So he understood this description probably better than I do, and said it gave him something to think about.

In my mind, it is a simple proof that God, of course, can pay attention to each of us uniquely separately individually. Not like the small number of relationships that a human can form but a literal, infinite number of relationships, each in full Technicolor and care and attention

In addition to this, God can trivially have an infinite number of relationships per person, which has led me to addressing God as both daddy and mommy and brother and friend, and employer and mentor and allowing me to sink into all of these relationships, whether they be played out via humans, or played out in my heart.

They’ve been helping me stay more focused on moving in the right way. The most amazing thing for all of these is this sense of gratitude, which I’m still kind of playing with to see what it is or what it means, but somehow, gratitude seems to make things better. That’s as simply as I can articulate it at this point. It’s like the, you know, early days of discovering magnetism or something. It’s like “wow metal things are attracted to this lodestone” and you know, naming the the rock after the island where they were first discovered.

Now it’s like, “huh joy in my life is attracted to gratitude.” I recently had some experiences, a few synchronicities in a row related to my friend Jess who lives in Bondi Beach. When thinking of calling her, I looked up and saw Bondis Ocean Club cafe. And this cafe is near my station. But I had never seen it before.

Now, granted, I didn’t walk this particular route very often. I went a long way so I could have more privacy during another phone call. And yet, it’s just an amazing, interesting synchronicity. And I guarantee that I thought about calling Jess first before I saw the thing, and there’s been lots of physics, in science and different, whatever’s saying that time isn’t what we think it is. And space isn’t what we think it is and all this stuff.

So I’m just kind of like, poking at the edges of what anything might possibly be. And just seems the gratitude makes a difference in the physical world. The This has nothing to do with the synchronicity story, but like having the synchronicity I remind myself to have gratitude. And it’s just such an interesting cool thing. So I had this phone call with Jess in Bondi Beach and then later while having a conversation about her, she texted me. And I was like, oh, that’s also pretty cool. Now, granted, it’s not doesn’t mean anything. In particular, we had just been texting that days. So the odds are pretty high that we would text again, but it was just at the same time that actually someone else was talking about her so yeah, really, really interesting. synchronicities happening.

Is there a way to really tune in to a higher power at all times? Is that what enlightenment looks like? Or is that another description of enlightenment to simply be in tune with spirit all the time I’m just kind of blabbing about it. But it’s just so interesting that my life goes better when I’m feeling gratitude. And it’s easier to feel gratitude when my life goes better.

And so, taking this to an extreme, so to speak, like this feeling gratitude about everything I’ve heard phrases like imagine everything is happening for me, instead of to me like things are happening on my behalf including breaking my finger and I’m seeing all the accidents I’ve had in my life but like, stitches are on my hands or face or just whatever. And you’re breaking bones. Or my back or my head and your breakups being broken up by girlfriends or having to the fights with with my wife just somehow, staying present to this idea this is happening for me and expressing gratitude for the thing.

Now, I’m not always able to do that by any stretch, but when I can, it helps. It helps me stay present. For example, when Lin and I are having a fight helps me stay present. It helps me be able to recover, so to speak much more quickly. It helps me be able to stay calm and have it be able to help her stay calm as well. We went to a therapist who talked about my tendency to be quiet if I’m under any kind of duress, and Lin’s tendency to go under duress if she’s feeling isolated. So there would be this pattern happening that I would feel that she’s not listening to me or something to that would put me into a bad state. So I would just shut up and the why would I talk? Why should I talk if she’s not gonna listen? And so then Lin would feel like I’m running away from her so she would get more anxious and more talkative and are complaining and you know, and then therefore not able to hear me. So this is a second little vicious cycle. And having the awareness of that cycle, helps me a lot in recognizing how to let go of it.

By not engaging or just be it by being aware. But taking that a step further. Like having this cycle is for me, it’s a gift. It’s all for my benefit that this has been happening in my life. And so I can say, well, for example, you know, I get to know myself more or I get to have more joy with Lin, by getting out of that situation more quickly. And I recognize that that’s like saying that having the door locked allows me to unlock the door, which in itself maybe isn’t a gift but yeah, just this whole kind of sense of gratitude makes a big difference. Is very intriguing to me like what’s the metaphysics of gratitude? You know, why? Why would that be helpful and the YouTuber, Teal Swan said something like, “Don’t you like it when people express gratitude to you and it tend to want to do that thing for them more.” She say, well, Spirit is the same way. And it’s a funny way to anthropomorphize God, saying God is like a person which I just started this whole chapter by saying God’s not like a person but

Imagining that spirit likes to be given gratitude is a good way to, to think about spirit as a human. How actually correct is that? What does it mean? Perhaps it’s like, having gratitude vibrations around me attracts people who are also in gratitude and therefore more willing to engage with me in a good way. That kind of makes sense, you know, like, law of attraction kind of thing. And yet at the same time, I don’t need to figure it out. I can simply be grateful that I know the secret so to speak.

I can just use this knowledge or this this kind of skill, of being grateful for all the things happening in in my life. continually asking God to give me guidance and grateful for the guidance or, to me being grateful for the guidance. So yeah. Gratitude, ね。 That’s really really interesting.

What are fish good at? Swimming! Breathing under water!

Do fish know they are good at these things? Do they think about it? I imagine not; it’s just what they do!

What are you good at? ___________! __________________!

Do you know you are good at these things? Do you think about it? I imagine not; it’s just what you do!

In fish-world most everyone swims, which is where my analogy breaks down.

In human-world, each person has different innate talents. I won’t claim everyone is in a state to use their talents, but you’re spending time reading this book, so let’s explore the idea.

• What types of questions do people generally ask you?
• What problems do people come to you for help?

Exploring these questions for myself, I have learned I’m a good listener. I’m also grounded, for lack of a better term.

People have described me as “like a tree.”

Missy once had a dream where everything was in chaos, while I was standing in the middle, calmly holding space.

This chapter appeared after Jeremy Weikel reminded me

Another take-away from our talk: Keep an eye out for other parts of yourself
that you consider ordinary, normal, and unremarkable, but that you see other
people take note of. Hidden superpowers revealed = sacred gifts given to us,
to use to heal this world.

It’s been over a year since I walked. For ten days after my walk I was hella sad. Klaus explained it best, something like I had lost the identity of “walking across Japan” so needed to go through a grieving process.

Plus I was angry. Oh shit now I have to write a book??? Fuck that.

Robert Golden patiently encouraged me to write, saying correctly that the memories would fade. Heck I knew that as a 17 year old; that is how I started my handwritten journal.

I have learned a lot since my walk. I spoke at TEDx Ogikubo about the joys and benefits of barefoot walking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJzb5n9ldP8

While researching for the talk, I asked my physiotherapist friend Yuji who spoke for 30 minutes about the benefits of walking barefoot. Suddenly I realized I had to expand my number of barefoot walking events. It wasn’t just a feel-good thing; there are benefits beyond just “it feels good.”

Balance is improved; gait is improved; long term safety is improved; short term safety may go down slightly but can easily be mitigated with eyesight or walking in areas known to be safe for bare feet.

I had been doing monthly events, and now as of this writing, I’m leading 7 events per month. Seven! That’s great! That’s great except for one or more things.

Actually, in some cases, one or fewer things.

I am a chronic underearner. Of the Twelve Symptoms of UA on https://www.underearnersanonymous.org/, I often ticked about 9 of the proverbial boxes:

1. Time Indifference – We put off what must be done and do not use our time to support our own vision and further our own goals.

2. Idea Deflection – We compulsively reject ideas that could expand our lives or careers, and increase our profitability.

3. Compulsive Need to Prove – Although we have demonstrated competence in our jobs or business, we are driven by a need to re-prove our worth and value.

4. Clinging to Useless Possessions – We hold onto possessions that no longer serve our needs, such as threadbare clothing or broken appliances.

5. Giving Away Our Time – We compulsively volunteer for various causes, or give away our services without charge, when there is no clear benefit.

6. Undervaluing and Under-pricing – We undervalue our abilities and services and fear asking for increases in compensation or for what the market will bear.

7. Isolation – We choose to work alone when it might serve us much better to have co-workers, associates, or employees.

8. Misplaced Guilt or Shame – We feel uneasy when asking for or being given what we need or what we are owed.

9. Not Following Up – We do not follow up on opportunities, leads, or jobs that could be profitable. We begin many projects and tasks but often do not complete them.

See the full list of 12 here https://www.underearnersanonymous.org/about-ua/symptoms-of-underearning/

I’ve been spending a lot of time leading events, but not making enough money to live my life. I have a 1/4-time job that I do online and then 6 hours per month of other paid work. It’s not enough to do more than scrape by.

I love my free time and yet it’s sometimes too free. I have given a lot of my time away free and end up resenting people who I think should be paying me for my time. It’s my own dang fault, and I have the ability to do things differently.

I have been leading these events at an overall loss for a few months; my transportation costs and other expenses have not been covered by donations from the events.

I’ll probably increase the recommended donation from 500 yen to 1000 yen, especially after I get the custom bamboo barefoot thingies I plan to have designed and made soon. I’ve semi-started that process by asking Yoko if she can talk to her friend who makes things with bamboo.

24 May 2022

Just quickly to write your innate talents are the most valuable thing you undervalue because they are innate. You overlook them because they come so easily to you. What do people keep coming to you for? Continue to do those things more often. (see you’ve got talent)

Just today I got the entries sorted by Title. This was something I have wanted to do for a long time!

Now, when I visit https://www.robnugen.com/en/books/slow-down/ I can see the whole smattering of entries prettyyy much in the order that they happened.

It’s been a whole year since the midpoint of my walk. In fact, a year ago I was navigating with paper maps after my phone died.

Today it’s raining. How glorious is the timing that I didn’t need to use paper maps on a rainy day?

This entry will be committed to my website repo just after 32ac2a5028fbcd6d04735ceee5e66b15ea0c1c1f