https://otter.ai/u/DmZwfg4ZUQgQkUPoMAJupAhccdc

How did this book get its name? I came to Japan in 2003 On leaving Texas on Collins birthday and

before I came to Japan, though I decided I should see my own country first and drove I think 5000 miles from Texas basically through Arkansas, Louisiana. Can turkey or watches First Tennessee, Kentucky for Jigna West Virginia. Up and over Ohio, Illinois Missouri, Oklahoma, back down in Texas. And then from Texas to out west to New Mexico, Arizona, California. Or again and then back down same same country or same states, California, Arizona, New Mexico and back. I was in a huge rush and I had no money and so it didn’t really get my Santa self a chance to chill out. I saw hot springs in Arkansas and it was okay. But I for example did not go to Sandusky, Ohio. Park I drove right by Cedar Point and didn’t go it was closed. But why didn’t I chill out for a day? Why didn’t I just park at the gate you know I I didn’t really have the resources or hadn’t really planned and it was all kind of go by you trying to get to the next location I did stay a few places and you know keep it PG here. And

those were just things that happen to be possible places that that we’re welcoming people who are welcoming and I’m forever grateful

I wasn’t welcoming to myself. I didn’t have my I didn’t have enough resources. I stopped by Maggie’s mom’s house just because I know Maggie, my best friend from university. I knew her very well. I knew of her mom. Very well, had never met her mom. And I basically showed up and had to borrow money from her to fix my bicycle, which had been damaged with a car bumping me from behind bent the wheel vent the disc brake was like $100 worth of damage because a disc brake itself was like 80 bucks or something to replace it her mom called the bike shop and say how much is it to fix a wheel and they said $20 She didn’t know to ask about the disc brake as well. So she called her daughter like, Hey, this guy stole money from me just letting you know. Hard you know he was so I don’t know what she said. But yeah, it’s really something that troubles well. I felt bad when I realized what had happened. And foolish they hadn’t. There’s so many different ways to look at it. I didn’t have the money. And here’s the point kind of I assumed she would have the money and that was a poor assumption. Out of poor not but it was potentially not correct. A presumptuous assumption.

So I want to expand this chapter a bit more. But ironically, I have a call in a few minutes and

yeah, I’d like to have a copy of the call coming up because we’re gonna share some stories. I wonder if we can use Zoom

so there you have it. This time the book is titled slow down because I was in a rush to drive around the US. And then when I got into Japan peace boat was amazing, but like kind of rushing around again. Not enough money. And that’s my fault, not piece boats fault. And then I rode my bicycle around Japan slowed down a little bit. But still it was fast and furious and broke my shoulder

then I walked across Japan

depends on who you talk to but like bicycling or walking. Those are about the right speed. Human speeds these human powered speeds and yeah, maybe this chapter is about that. Not using resources to go faster. But using your own inner power to go the speed that is best for you. I’m guessing it’s a lot slower than driving car or airplane rocket ship. It allows me to control my data shy

mom say goodbye to her daughter. Yeah, so

having the control or insight or the ability to stop in a moment’s notice when God speaks to me, maybe that’s the point here. To be able to slow down and hear higher power. Take time to look at a flower or pet my cat Jenny whose little bell I hear right now. Just really being really being present in the moment. That’s the meaning of this book title. Thank you for reading. Talk to you soon. Have a great day. Be well

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.

Standing in two boats, you go nowhere.

I’ve got about five important projects going now:

MT3, MKP, barefooting, confidential listening, and AB.

Oh, and writing this book.

None of them are coming along particularly quickly, but all of them are coming along.

I recently decided to focus more on the ones that I would do for free: walking barefoot and confidential listening.

Walking barefoot is well within my genius zone. Confidential listening is my expertise and passion, but probably not my genius zone, at least not completely.

Alan Watts said at least once and maybe multiple times that when we send children to school they are being raised by children and they tend to want childish things like fashionable clothes or what have you.

I’m writing now to recommend that you listen to the inner voice more often than the outer voices.

That is the quiet inner voice not the loud ruminating voices.

The prerequisite of mental work is the ability
to retain silence of self at a steady state
when required by the self.
The mind must be opened like a door.
The key is silence.

- Ra

https://www.llresearch.org/channeling/ra-contact/5

In a recent Vitamin JR meeting, my friend Jeremy Weikel said

Instead of the rush of "gotta get it done now"
Slow down and let it percolate.  
"maybe a little of this.    maybe a little of that"

A month later, he said,

Thank you for reminding me of the importance of
slowing down and feeling how I'm feeling everything

Q. How do you clean water?

A. Pour it on top of a mountain.

It takes time to process each molecule as they filter down through the layers of earth and emerge as a spring.

From UA fellow Jon:

Paradoxically, slowing down is the fastest way
for me to get to my destination.

When I'm mad at someone, I'm actually mad at myself.

When I finally listen to myself and allow life to take time,
I feel calmer and succeed more easily.

From UA fellow Alin M

Don't just do something, sit there.

Creation is messy

It’s easy to be happy when things are going well

It’s also ready to get bored and complacent, complain, and fall off the happy vibes.

Happy Birthday to you, age 26 is the perfect time to switch back to celebrate days.

Hold up. I’m an adult, but I don’t feel like an adult. I feel young but I’m in an old body.

Navel gazing is the perfect way to realize something is wrong. Or fall into a hole and not realize we can do anything about it.

After a certain age, if you don’t care about yourself, no one else will. Everyone is too busy worrying about themselves.

Thing is: there is no self in the individual sense.

If you are in a situation where you can afford to pick up this book and have a read, you have time to focus on your focus. Where are you spending your energy? That’s where you will find yourself.

Creation is messy beautiful R and D for the individual.

What is art? A copy of a copy of is not born of inner inspiration. You have to take a moment to peek inside, nay to feel inside. All that stuff that feels messy includes the good stuff. Thing is, it’s difficult to distinguish what’s good in terms of what will move you toward the way you want to go and what will not.

Focus on creativity 80% of the time and feel lucky if you get to create 50% of the time.

Not “stamp widgets” create, create: hearing inside and putting pen to paper or steps to dance or fingers to strings. Yes, you were hurt by doing it before. Yes, keep going. You will get hurt again. Keep going.

The thread of creativity used to be seen as an entity. I read that in Eat Pray Love. Author Elizabeth Gilbert apparently took a leap and the universe caught her. Where is she now? I don’t know. Is she leaping faithfully again? I hope so. It doesn’t have to be in a public way, but in a you way. Unique to your predilections. God manifest through you. God dwells in you as you. God dwells in me as me.

We can choose at any given moment how to focus. Focus on X and get more X. This is really how I saw it works.

The dog is not in on it.

marijuana makes you produce from the heart because it puts the present moment in full detail. Time stands still like a roller coaster coming to a full stop before you get back into the station to get outl. Just like shhhzzzzzzzzxxx. Silence. Wow what happened? Where am I now?

I fell into a hole for a while, approximately infinity lifetimes until the dog came up to me, living in the moment and offering some licks.

Choosing an optimal action in each moment seems like the best way to go and there are multiple optimal options at any given point. The thing is that all options are optimal for the universe and some options give us different experiences and we can choose our experience based on the options that we choose or choose our experience with the options that we choose and they’re all equally good in the eyes of the universe because we learn something and any case ignoring karma we don’t affect the universe directly. It just adds to our karma and that’s fine.

IMPACT

On 30 August 2022, around 6:51 in the morning, I wrote to my friend, _____.

Good morning _____!
On May 11th of this year I discovered an organization called underearners anonymous
It's a 12-step program for people who are addicted to under-earning and under-being
When reading through their symptoms I thought "oh wow that's me" for a lot of them.
The solution to all of my woes is to put my life into the hands of higher power.

((etc etc more normal conversation))

_____ replied a few days later:

Hey Rob,

It's good to hear from you.  Your message is just slightly weird,
like it's trying to sell me something, but then it really sounds
like Rob, so I guess your account has NOT been hacked.

As you know, I am VERY direct and straight.  I was pissed that I
contributed to your walk and you were meant to send me a postcard
or something, but you did not keep to your side of the deal.

Basic ethics, and keeping promises is VERY important.  It's not
cool or interesting, but it's the foundation for all (any) of the
funky stuff.

Feel free to call me on Whatsapp or on FB Messenger.  Please call
me mornings, as I work hard and I get very tired.

Love to you and Lin.

Oh shit. I fucked that up didn’t I? See, _____ had sent me $100 for my book, so I wrote their name on the list for my book, (not a postcard.) The book is still under construction.

I took on a larger project than I knew how to handle. It’s been over a year.

Thank You, higher power, for the kick in the ass!

I have not achieved enlightenment. I haven’t experienced Samadi (sp)

This book cannot get you there, but it can get you started. And you can use your mind along the way.

“A change on one level simultaneously affects all levels.”

Samadhi Movie, 2018 - Part 2 (It's Not What You Think)

1. Allow easy sorting of files (by title, not date) (finished 26 April 2022)
2. Write about perfectionism and procrastination

In some ways of thinking, the walk hasn’t had any effect on my life whatsoever. And just yesterday, two of my close friends, or Nakama talked about how the walk had a big impact on them. So that has helped inspire me to continue the quest and continue writing my book. In some ways, I think I am a perfectionist, and have this idea that the book must be perfect or not at all. But as my good friend, Mark says, done is better than perfect. So with that in mind, let’s write this book.

Today, I am 18,762 days old. So in some ways of thinking, that is the day number of this journey. I numbered the days of the walk, and struggle a lot with getting that system to fit in with the system of days counted in the outer world. For example, I call the hotel and ask them about my reservation on the 20th. And they said, the reservation was for a different date. And I realized the date I was using was the day number of my walk, not the calendar date that I would arrive.

So that’s an example of the difficulty I had. Linking my world with the real world. writing this book, in a way is another difficulty. Because in my world, I don’t have time to write the book. And in the real world, I have stated that I would write the book. In my mind, there are people waiting for the book, but also in my mind, there are people getting along with their lives and have written me off or written off the book. So which is it?

Step by step, we move forward. So let’s see if we can do this thing.

My friend Michael calls this navel gazing. I think, as I’m wondering aloud about my life and the choices. I intend to make this book available free on my website at this URL https://www.robnugen.com/books/slow-down/, and you can even watch its creation if you watch one of these other URLs

• https://github.com/thunderrabbit/barefoot_rob/
• https://bitbucket.org/thunderrabbit/barefoot_rob/
• https://gitlab.bmemc.com/thunderrabbit/barefoot_rob

So with that, let’s get started.

I have often said it makes no difference what you do. And then again it makes a huge difference.

3. Write about spirit and just do it

Humans were made in the image of God. So this doesn’t mean that God is shaped like a human, or vice versa. It means that humans are creative. We have freewill, and can create. According to our free will, within the limits of karma and physicality, we can create and do whatever we want. So, going on a walk across to him, might seem pretty ridiculous, but there’s literally no reason not to do it

from the point of view. We can do whatever we want to do. So,

All we have to do is start planning. And for me the biggest concern was getting the time off work, and then getting support from my wife to be away for that long. She tends to worry about things more than I do. And

it took some long discussions to assure her that I would remain safe during the trip. At the end, my head, I have two eyes. And I like my feet intact. So, all my body parts intact. So my definite intent intention to remain intact for as long as possible, including the duration of this walk. So, she finally agreed. Having the support was invaluable.

As we shall soon see.

Do whatever you want. Nothing matters. No one cares.

Do whatever you want. It makes all the difference in the world.

4. Let’s talk about the Ever Present Present, or EPP. Alan Watts pointed out that we use the thinnest of hands on our clocks and watches to trace the transition of Future into Past, as if the present moment is actually simply a sliver of Time.

As best I can tell, the present is actually all that is.
In The Power of Now Eckhart Tolle talks about it.

I heard his work was based on The Course of Miracles.

My chapter here is based on my cursory glance at those books on my bookshelf, waiting patiently for me to read them or toss them or anything else. Or nothing else.

So, in short, I should not be writing this book. As Frederick Marx said at length in the intro for his book Initiations, it falls to each generation to teach the new generation. I burst into tears when I read that. Oh fuck. I can’t do it.
I must do it. Aaaggggghhh and that was…. (checks email) August 7th, 2021.
I sent him a photo of myself crying.

• add photo
• maybe add emails, inc his reply

And now it’s April 27th, 2022. (8 months later!) Life happens. Things go off the rails.
Just come back to the project and put a few words together. It can be no other way. Life takes time as we go through successive snapshots of living all taking place in the EPP.

Breathe with me. Be here now.

5. I am fascinated by time. I love taking pictures of long(?) construction projects like houses being built in my neighborhood, or sidewalks being repaired, or a street being narrowed(!) to make more room for sidewalks on each side.

One of my favorite projects in my world is what I call Marble Track 3. In a way, I started in in early 1980s when my brother and I would build marble tracks with Legos.

I tried to slow the marbles down by making the slopes less sloped; I eventually realized Legos simply couldn’t do it. I turned to Craftsticks, which were just popsicle sticks bought from Michael’s, a craft/hobby store.

I built my marble track over a period of years spanning high school and university. It mostly got put on hold after that when I started working full time (thanks to my best friend Maggie’s referral) and then really got put on hold when I put my entire life (*) on hold to travel.

I asked Maggie if she could hold the marble track for me while I spent a year or two in Japan. That was in 2003.

In early 2007, I realized it had been a while. I decided to make a new marble track, dubbed Marble Track 2, as a gift for Maggie.

I gave Marble Track 2 to Maggie as a gift for keeping (the previously unnamed) Marble Track 1. And to make things make sense, gave her Marble Track 1 as well.

Meanwhile, I posted Marble Track 2 basically finished (NSFW language) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlUqu6QE7bw http://mt2.robnugen.com on Youtube and it got attracted lots of comments. 1,289,076 views as of 27 April 2022.

Most interesting comments for me were basically: “How did you make that?”

“Well, I just glued sticks onto wood and more sticks onto those…”

Then a whole slew of other comments were deriding my art! “6 months wasted” etc.

So now I am creating Marble Track 3. While doing so, I am creating a stop motion animation of characters creating Marble Track 3.

It’s taking ages! My response to those trolls: “you think I wasted 6 months? Well watch this”

And my response to those who wanted to know how I made it, “watch this” which shows every stick being brought into place step by step.

I try to work on it a couple hours every week, and the final video slowly accumulates frames. I estimate the final will be two hours long.

Still need to add audio and CGI background, but I’ll let Future Rob figure that out.

So yeah, playing with time: taking years to spend hours (creating approximately 6 to 10 photos per hour), which when viewed at 12 frames per second create a coherent story, which itself lasts hours!

(*) Wende, engagement, Spot, Scott, house, and more! It was hard.

6. Technology is a weird new shiny thing for us.

Each time we come into a human body (yes I’m talking reincarnation here) we have to start from scratch.

Even if you scratch the reincarnation part and just say we’re born, we have to start from scratch.

Chaotic sensations eventually get resolved into lights and sounds, which eventually get identified and faces and voices.. plus this funny body with “arms” and “legs” “fingers” and “toes” “head, shoulders, knees, and toes” We have to learn all this. From scratch.

But technology just keeps on marching.
I watched a video on Youtube via Reddit via my “phone” which is actually like a portable TV and radio on which I can see, hear, communicate, etc.. Really wild…

Oh sorry, so I watched a video that showed some guys making a rope… out of plants. Basically out of wheat or straw or something.

Making a rope!

Now, rope just magically squirts out of a rope machine, apparently at a Factory on the other end of my mailman’s route.

Now we’ve got not just rope, but cars, airplanes, ball point pens, and all kinds of stuff. Plus Bitcoin, NFTs, contact lenses, James Webb Space Telescope orbiting Lagrange Point 3 or whatever, checking out infrared radiation so it can see further away than we have in recent memory.

Okay, so the point is don’t get completely swept away by technology.
You’ve got a physical body, full of blood, nerves, emotions, chakras, ideas, inspirations, desires…

Once you’ve figured out enough of the chaotic sensations that come into your body, feel free to listen internally and decide what to do based on your inner guidance.

Toss this book down or close the computer or turn off your EyeVisor 3000 and just breathe.

Notice this moment.

Who this book is for

In a real sense, this book is for me and people like me. If you have been around for a bit, got some experience and such for others to hear, let this book be a reminder that you have enough to write a book. I am literally just littering the page with a bunch of old stuff I heard or words I know and somehow gonna shape it all together, invisible to most people, but in visible show for those who know where to look. The first version of this text is and so long as GitHub exists, will be available at

https://github.com/thunderrabbit/barefoot_rob/commit/119599158840936cd9910f9945eea9def0bb710a

And by the nature of how git works, you can see every time I saved changes.

Okay anyway, Mel Ashe suggested “Start Your Own Religion” so I created R.O.B.O.T. an acronym for Rob’s Own Brand Of Thinking, and you’re only allowed to join if you share my name, birthdate, and birth city.

So I am suggesting you write your own book. If you have a book in you, write it! Stop reading this one.

This book is for people who want to hear that little voice in their head saying “you can do it,” for, you can do it.

Even if you have to do butterfly in diving bell style write with glances, or with morse code twitches, do it. That your book wants to come out is proof someone wants to read it. And as I am writing this utter garbage now, which I presume will get cleaned up, I am getting to the good stuff.

Just write.

I thought I was writing about who the book is for, not how to write a book!

I need to Slow Down.

(five minutes please)

This book is for those who have too many projects, too much going on, too many fucking things scratching at the eyes of attention, trying to get the precious nectar of time.

Time does not work the way we think.

Time transcends time. When I smoked pot, time slowed wayyy the fuck down. When I ate 7 pot brownies, time flowed backwards. In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, time just is, and can be perceived in any direction or orientation.

I love playing with time. My friend Kyoko routinely goes for 10 day meditation retreats (Vipassana). Right now she is on a 40 day retreat. Last time we talked she mentioned that now she consciously plays with time during her meditations. A second can feel like an hour and an hour can feel like a second.

I don’t know what all this means except that western science doesn’t know wtf time is. We don’t even know what gravity is, really.

Oh, so I love playing with time. I am making a stop motion animation of characters making a rolling ball track.

Just now I glued another piece onto the sample Outer Spiral. I took a picture of it and four months later posted on the page https://www.marbletrack3.com/p/os

Thank you!

Slow Down

And get moving

Freedom

Allow your mind the freedom to play. Allow yourself the freedom to play. Explore ideas, go wild. Emulate Dr Seuss and ride a flying blueberry pancake hat to the moon and back each night in your imagination

Kick Start

My project stalled out and went on to the proverbial back burner for 2+ years until it was completely forgotten even though I had t-shirts printed in my lower drawer, one of which was unopened to keep it pristine and ready to go.

This can happen to your projects and it doesn’t mean they are doomed to failure. In my case my friend Robert Golden asked me if I had any wild dreams and I pulled this one out of the proverbial closet and mentioned it to him.

“I want to walk barefoot from here to Niigata”

Plan or Not

Depending on the size of the project and the support you may or may not want from others it might be valuable to do some planning.

As Joe McMoneagle suggested to me in 1996 after I asked him how I could travel around the world, he said “just start planning.'

I think this is a great example of mentoring or coaching or something. This advice works without knowing any of the details and without getting immersed into micromanaging someone else’s project.

In our example of a flying blueberry pancake hat to the Moon, it’s pretty easy to get started: just buy some pancake mix and grow some blueberries…

Dive into the details. And talk over it with your friends getting some suggestions along the way.. For my walk across Japan I originally planned to do a camping version, but I figured being Barefoot might mean I want some place to clean injuries and camping wouldn’t make it very easy.

go

According to my friend Jason Hancock, there are four stages of adapting to any situation:

Honeymoon, hatred, humor, homecoming

Starting your project here in the honeymoon stage. Any problems are just curiosities and puzzles to be solved, and everything in general is fresh and new. Life is great and the new project is underway. Congratulations, and hip hip hooray!

For me, the Honeymoon portion lasted about three or four days of my walk. Everything was basically fine and had lots of road ahead of me and lots of convenience stores around me so I could relax and walk and eat and talk and everything was just fine.

The first day was the best and easiest by far, 21 km walking with my wife Lin, the first five or seven kilometers with our mutual friend Shraddhan, and the first almost one kilometer with Clare and Yumi offering smiles, photos, encouragement, and best of luck.

Go

It was on the third day or so I got my first bloody injury. Very small piece of glass in the ball of one of my feet. I don’t even recall which one as I write this now (over a year later). I wondered if I could have predicted it or avoided it, but there was nothing to do but keep on walking.

Stop?

During my walk, there were times that I had to have compassion on myself. And while the desire was there to fulfill my promise to walk barefoot across the country. There were points, that it was literally

dangerous to do so. I recognized I should put on sandals after walking once it had gotten so dark, I literally couldn’t see where I was putting my feet.

And so I could get a light. It was in the moment of pain that I just had to put on sandals. And as soon as it got to be into a lighted area again, I took them off.

I walked barefoot and injured my feet and injured my feet again walking on a sidewalk that hadn’t previously seen a bare foot since its inception, I’m sure,

covered in gravel and grass and glass. And I just wondered how I was going to make it. And then I realized that I could put on sandals. my sandals.

Stop!

Oh no! Something really unexpected happened. This is the curse and the beauty of adventure! OH no, much harder than I expected.

Let’s just retreat and curl up at home with a nice book and pretend nothing happened.

You have this option! I won’t stop you from doing it; I am all about self care.

Here are some questions to consider:

1.

“How will you feel after this moment passes?”

This is the question Shraddhan asked me the morning of Day Ten(?) of my walk. I was hella ready to quit. I literally couldn’t stand without pain. My feet felt so swollen that it was like agony just to put my foot down on carpet. How the heck could I handle gravely streets?

I thought about his question, playing through my mind what I would do if I quit now.

I could go home and be home in like 2 hours from now, crying and sleeping for a day and then slumped in front of my work computer thinking “ah man why the fuck did I quit?”

I told Shraddhan something like, “I’ll feel like shit if I quit now. I gotta do this.”

2.

“Are you actually unsafe to move forward?”

If so, is there a way around it, or will it pass if you wait?

There was a non-venomous snake green rat snake who crossed the sidewalk right in front of me during my walk. I knew it was fine, and rat snake knew I was fine when I paused, watching, my heart full of joy.

Snake moved on and so did I. (After taking photos and video with Francois)

3.

“Is it temporary pain or difficulty?”

Take a moment to notice the present moment. Just breathe.

Now that you are settled with your breathing, allow your awareness to expand to include the big picture. Allow yourself to see the original impetus for this plan, and your imagined completion. Are you reasonably on the path between those two? What can you do to get back on path?

In other words, this is the chance for you to look at the big picture and see if you can make course corrections that will keep you in line with your original goal.

GO!

So now that you’ve made your decision, continue to go for it! You have the option of going home and you have the option of continuing your path either way is okay and your loved ones will support you in either case.

Success?

It’s over. You did it. Did you do it? Who’s there to notice it? Do you celebrate? Are you alive?

Now WTF?

Now what do you do?

My friend Klaus mentioned that the completion of the project necessitates the death of an identity. There’s a grieving process required because there was so much energy put into this project that is now completed so now there’s no role for that identity anymore.

Take your time to grieve. After my walk across Japan, it took me fully 10 days before I could figure out how to even really get out of bed. I mean I went to work and stuff but I was a proverbial shell of my former self unless I was specifically talking about the walk.

I was shocked at how difficult it was to come back.