What I Think

There is a BIG difference between what I think and what I say.

Breakthroughs require Breakdowns

Breakthroughs require breakdowns.

Philip K. Dick “How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later”

It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question “What is reality?”, to someday get an answer. This was the hope of most of my readers, too. Years passed. I wrote over thirty novels and over a hundred stories, and still I could not figure out what was real. One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven’t been able to define reality any more lucidly.

But the problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. . . . So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later.

As soon as you begin to ask what is ultimately real, you right away begin talk nonsense. Zeno proved that motion was impossible (actually he only imagined that he had proved this; what he lacked was what technically is called the “theory of limits”). David Hume, the greatest skeptic of them all, once remarked that after a gathering of skeptics met to proclaim the veracity of skepticism as a philosophy, all of the members of the gathering nonetheless left by the door rather than the window. I see Hume’s point. It was all just talk. The solemn philosophers weren’t taking what they said seriously.

But I consider that the matter of defining what is real — that is a serious topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans — as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.

Philip K. Dick, in a 1978 speech titled “How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later,” found in the altogether mind-bending 1995 anthology The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings 

Forever

Happiness is a choice

Happiness is a choice.

Unfortunately we complicate our lives to the point of being unable to recognize happiness when it appears before our eyes.

So what should we do?   Here are 10 things you’ll need to give up in exchange for your happiness.

1.  Give up caring what other people think of you. I know it seems counter intuitive as we humans are primal pack animals that don’t want to be cast from the village, but spending time worrying what others think, is a waste of energy. You’ll never please everyone and it’s none of your business what others think of you.

2. Give up trying to please everyone.  Unless you’re living life to the beat of your own drum, your tribe won’t be able to find you. Be the best version of you you can be, and you’ll naturally attract in the people that are supposed to surround you.

3. Give up participating in gossip. 100 percent of the time, those sharing gossip with you will gossip about you. Believing gossip is like gambling everything on a horse sight unseen. It’s naive.

4. Quit worrying. Where thoughts go, energy flows. Worry is investing time and energy in something you don’t want to have happen. Learn to let go and trust.

5. Let go of insecurity. When we take ourselves too seriously, we think everyone else does too. There is one version of you on the planet. Be it, own it and quit worrying about it. No one really cares or watches you that closely.

6. Stop taking everything personally. Truth is, most people are too consumed with their own life to really consider what you’re doing. As my first boss said so well: “The world doesn't revolve around you. Most people’s reactions have nothing to do with you, so let it go.”

7. Give up the past. We have all been hurt, we all had parents that made mistakes and we've all been through hell. You didn't  listen to your parents when you were younger, so why are you still listening to their voices in your head now? Every experience in life has taught you something or made you stronger.

8. Give up spending money on what you don’t need in effort to buy happiness. Living simply allows the space for life to flow. We complicate our lives by spending too much money and filling our home with “things.” Less is truly more.

9. Give up anger. Anger burns a hole in the hand of the person still holding on to it. Move it out once and for all.

10. Give up control. Control is an illusion.  We live in an out of control world.  Learn to embrace the new and welcome change; otherwise you’ll grow old through your own rigidity. Learn to let go.

Photo at Mirror Lakes, Central Oregon. photo by Keith

Nelson Mandela and Invictus

He truly lived his life by the poem that got him through prison:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.

Shel Silverstein -Zebra Question

Hakim Bey "Chaos"

CHAOS NEVER DIED. Primordial uncarved block, sole worshipful monster, inert & spontaneous, more ultraviolet than any mythology (like the shadows before Babylon), the original undifferentiated oneness-of-being still radiates serene as the black pennants of Assassins, random & perpetually intoxicated.

Chaos comes before all principles of order & entropy, it’s neither a god nor a maggot, its idiotic desires encompass & define every possible choreography, all meaningless aethers & phlogistons: its masks are crystallizations of its own facelessness, like clouds.

Everything in nature is perfectly real including consciousness, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only have the chains of the Law been broken, they never existed; demons never guarded the stars, the Empire never got started, Eros never grew a beard.

No, listen, what happened was this: they lied to you, sold you ideas of good & evil, gave you distrust of your body & shame for your prophethood of chaos, invented words of disgust for your molecular love, mesmerized you with inattention, bored you with civilization & all its usurious emotions.

There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you’re the monarch of your own skin–your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.

To shed all the illusory rights & hesitations of history demands the economy of some legendary Stone Age–shamans not priests, bards not lords, hunters not police, gatherers of paleolithic laziness, gentle as blood, going naked for a sign or painted as birds, poised on the wave of explicit presence, the clockless nowever.

Agents of chaos cast burning glances at anything or anyone capable of bearing witness to their condition, their fever of lux et voluptas. I am awake only in what I love & desire to the point of terror–everything else is just shrouded furniture, quotidian anaesthesia, shit-for-brains, sub-reptilian ennui of totalitarian regimes, banal censorship & useless pain.

Avatars of chaos act as spies, saboteurs, criminals of amour fou, neither selfless nor selfish, accessible as children, mannered as barbarians, chafed with obsessions, unemployed, sensually deranged, wolfangels, mirrors for contemplation, eyes like flowers, pirates of all signs & meanings.

Here we are crawling the cracks between walls of church state school & factory, all the paranoid monoliths. Cut off from the tribe by feral nostalgia we tunnel after lost words, imaginary bombs.

The last possible deed is that which defines perception itself, an invisible golden cord that connects us: illegal dancing in the courthouse corridors. If I were to kiss you here they’d call it an act of terrorism–so let’s take our pistols to bed & wake up the city at midnight like drunken bandits celebrating with a fusillade, the message of the taste of chaos.

text by Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson)
Painting is "Atomic Kill Threads" by Shane Hope

20 Things we should say more often

This video made me smile. I'm still smiling. I hope it makes you smile too.

Dancing Colors

 “Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.”

 -Wassily Kandinsky
 Photo by Fabian Oeffner

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

 This video fills me up with hope. The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 from a record distance, showing it against the vastness of space. By request of Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission and now leaving the solar system, to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth. It was subsequently used by Sagan as the title of his 1994 book of the same name.

Kiyohiko Senba and the Haniwa All-Stars "Taiikusai" 体育祭

Kiyohiko Senba and the Haniwa All-Stars will blow your mind.
There are about one hundred people in this band.  A huge drum section and sound.  A big horn section. A large section of traditional Japanese instrumentalists. A dozen vocalists. All dressed in pajamas and nurses uniforms. Kiyohiko Senba is the writer-arranger-conductor. ENJOY!

Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli play J'Attendra

Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli - J'Attendrai - Newsreel 'Jazz Hot' from Stoney Lane on Vimeo.

A short film of the great gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, violinist Stephane Grappelli and their band the Quintette du Hot Club de France performing on a movie set in 1938.  The Django Section begins around 2:30.  His two finger fretting technique (he lost most of his left hand in a fire) is amazing.

Watch Picasso Create Entire Paintings in Magnificent Time-Lapse Film (1956)

How did Picasso create?  In the video above you can see the process; filmed in 1956 by Georges Clouzot.

The Greatest Contributing Factor to Happiness

 It's so Easy

America's Great Spaces Time-Lapse by Shane Black

This video makes me want to spend the rest of my life traveling to beautiful places to watch  sunrises, sunsets and all the spaces in between.  What incredible beauty.

Guano Apes "Open Your Eyes"

Sandra Nasic and the Guano Apes from Germany to get your blood pumping today.

Hide your face forever
dream and search forever

Have you ever been for sale ?
when your isms get smart
oh so selfish and mindless
with that comment in your eye

Do you think that you are hard ?
really harder than the other
man you're acting cold
if you are not in charge

Don't split your mentality
without thinking twice
your voice has got no reason
now is the time to face your lies

Open your eyes, open your mind
proud like a god don't pretend to be blind
trapped in yourself, break out instead
beat the machine that works in your head

Will you offer me some tricks
if I ever need them
would you go into that room
if I call 'em

Do you think that you are better
really better than the rest
realize there's a problem
I know that you can give your best

Have you ever had a dream?
or is life just a trip?
a trip without chances
a chance to grow up quick

Open your eyes, open your mind ...

Hide your face forever
dream and search forever
night and night you feel nothing
there's no way outside of my land

Open your eyes, open your mind ...

Ukulele Ike "Hang on to Me"

Cliff Edwards (a.k.a. "Ukulele Ike", and later well-known as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's Pinocchio) sings "Hang on to me" in "Starlit Days at the Lido", filmed in 1935 in Technicolor. Great uke strumming technique and the "trumpet" solo is fab.

Patti Smith's Advice on Life

Patti Smith: Advice to the young from Louisiana Channel on Vimeo.

In this short video from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Patti Smith serves up a slice from her life’s wisdom pie.

Janis Joplin Interview......."You are what you Settle For"

On September 30, 1970, four days before her death, Janis Joplin gave her final interview, a profound conversation about creativity and rejection with Howard Smith of the Village Voice

How to Get Flat Abs and Have Amazing Sex

Kate Bartolotta

Owner and founder, Be You Media Group

The covers of most men's and women's magazines have similar headlines: "Get Great Abs" and "Have Amazing Sex."

From the looks of it, these two issues have been recycled over and over (with some other stereotypically gender-relevant articles thrown in) on every Men's Health, Maxim, Cosmopolitan and Glamour cover since the dawn of time. In fact, I'd bet that if we could get a better translation of cave drawings, they would read something like "Grok get flat belly. Make girl Grok moan with joy."

And we keep buying them. We keep buying this lie that these things will make us happy. I've had washboard abs (past tense) and I've had some pretty phenomenal sex. Neither one made me a better person. Neither one completed me or made my life more fulfilling.

We chase this idea of "I will be happy when... "

I will be happy when I have a new car. I will be happy when I get married. I will be happy when I get a better job. I will be happy when I lose five pounds. What if instead we choose to be happy -- right now?

If you can read this, your life is pretty awesome.

Setting aside our first-world problems and pettiness, if you are online reading this, you have both electricity and WiFi or access to them. Odds are you are in a shelter of some sort, or on a smart phone (and then kudos to you for reading this on the go). Life might bump and bruise us, it may not always go the way we plan and I know I get frustrated with mine, but here's the thing: You are alive.

Because you are alive, everything is possible. So about those eight tips...

1. Stop believing your bullshit.

All that stuff you tell yourself about how you are a commitment phobe or a coward or lazy or not creative or unlucky? Stop it. It's bullshit, and deep down you know it. We are all insecure 14 year olds at heart. We're all scared. We all have dreams inside of us that we've tucked away because somewhere along the line we tacked on those ideas about who we are that buried that essential brilliant, childlike sense of wonder. The more we stick to these scripts about who we are, the longer we live a fraction of the life we could be living. Let it go. Be who you are beneath the bullshit.

2. Be happy now.

Not because The Secret says so. Not because of some shiny happy Oprah crap. But because we can choose to appreciate what is in our lives instead of being angry or regretful about what we lack. It's a small, significant shift in perspective. It's easier to look at what's wrong or missing in our lives and believe that is the big picture -- but it isn't. We can choose to let the beautiful parts set the tone.

3. Look at the stars.

It won't fix the economy. It won't stop wars. It won't give you flat abs, or better sex or even help you figure out your relationship and what you want to do with your life. But it's important. It helps you remember that you and your problems are both infinitesimally small and conversely, that you are a piece of an amazing and vast universe. I do it daily -- it helps.

4. Let people in.

Truly. Tell people that you trust when you need help, or you're depressed -- or you're happy and you want to share it with them. Acknowledge that you care about them and let yourself feel it. Instead of doing that other thing we sometimes do, which is to play it cool and pretend we only care as much as the other person has admitted to caring, and only open up half way. Go all in -- it's worth it.

5. Stop with the crazy making.

I got to a friend's doorstep the other day, slightly breathless and nearly in tears after getting a little lost, physically and existentially. She asked what was wrong and I started to explain and then stopped myself and admitted, "I'm being stupid and have decided to invent lots of problems in my head." Life is full of obstacles; we don't need to create extra ones. A great corollary to this one is from The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz: Don't take things personally. Most of the time, other people's choices and attitudes have absolutely nothing to do with you. Unless you've been behaving like a jerk, in which case...

6. Learn to apologize.

Not the ridiculous, self-deprecating apologizing for who you are and for existing that some people seem to do (what's up with that, anyway?). The ability to sincerely apologize -- without ever interjecting the word "but" -- is an essential skill for living around other human beings. If you are going to be around other people, eventually you will need to apologize. It's an important practice.

7. Practice gratitude.

Practice it out loud to the people around you. Practice it silently when you bless your food. Practice it often. Gratitude is not a first world only virtue. I saw a photo recently, of a girl in abject poverty, surrounded by filth and destruction. Her face was completely lit up with joy and gratitude as she played with a hula hoop she'd been given. Gratitude is what makes what we have enough. Gratitude is the most basic way to connect with that sense of being an integral part of the vastness of the universe; as I mentioned with looking up at the stars, it's that sense of wonder and humility, contrasted with celebrating our connection to all of life.

8. Be kind.

Kurt Vonnegut said it best (though admittedly, and somewhat ashamedly -- I am not a Vonnegut fan): "There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.'"

Kindness costs us nothing and pays exponential dividends. I can't save the whole world. I can't bring peace to Syria. I can't fix the environment or the health care system, and from the looks of it, I may end up burning my dinner.

But I can be kind.

If the biggest thing we do in life is to extend love and kindness to even one other human being, we have changed the world for the better.

That's a hell of a lot more important than flat abs in my book.

John Green "Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?"

John Green is kind of amazing. He knows his facts way better than you or me. And they are mind-blowing and/or horrifying.

Octopus: Masters of Optical Illusion

The world is much more amazing than we can begin to imagine.

General Smedley Butler On War And Capitalism

 “War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909 -1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives… In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows… Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill… And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations… …a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men. Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well. Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays high dividends… The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let’s get it… Of course, it isn’t put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and “we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,” but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed.” “TO HELL WITH WAR!”
 -Major General Smedley Butler USMC “War Is A Racket”
 

NightVision

NIGHTVISION from Luke Shepard on Vimeo.

Nightvision is a celebration of the brilliance and diversity of architecture found across Europe. 

Deanne Smith "Nerdy Love Song"

Deanne Smith on Youtube

NERDY LOVE SONG

C Am F G

I wanna be your abacus baby
you can count on me
and I won't say that I love you or I heart you,
but I will say less than 3, I less than 3 you

Your molecules must be moving really quickly
'cause girl, you're hot.
Are you igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary?
All I know is, baby, you rock.

if god existed, I'd thank him for you
but I'm rational and i read (a lot of) Sam Harris
you're beautiful like the font of Garamond
but I wanna see you sans serif.
(take your pants off)

I wanna be your abacus baby
you can count on me
I observe your quarks oscillating,
and I'm formulating a g-string theory

I'm an archaeologist and I'm gonna compute your age,
yeah, I'm wanna absolutely date you
you make me feel like a male giraffe
I wanna nudge your rump, make you urinate, and mate you (that's what they do)

the value of my love for you
cannot be expressed exactly
it's more irrational than pi
hey "Fuck" is a legitimate word in Scrabble, just FYI

I wanna be your abacus baby
you can count on me
you can suck me into the supermassive black hole
at the center of your galaxy (I'm talking vagina)

I may not be the biggest or strongest
but my knowledge of grammar shines
I know how to use the words further and farther correctly
every freaking time

farther indicates physical distance
and further a depth or degree
example: the moon is getting farther from the earth
about 4 centimeters annually (true fact)

example: you just keep getting further into my heart
wait: you just keep getting farther into my heart
no, wait: you just keep getting further into my heart
hang on: you just keep getting farther into my heart

I wanna be your abacus baby
you can count on me
if the situation is ambiguous
further and farther can be used interchangably (that's a rule! I knew that all along)

I wanna be your abacus baby
you can count on me
and I won't say that I love you or I heart you
but I will say, I less than 3 you
(please take off your pants)

The Denali Experiment

The Denali Experiment from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

Free-ride skier Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and big mountain snowboarder Lucas Debari step out of their elements and make an attempt to climb, ski and snowboard Denali. Sage and Lucas get a helping hand from a huge cast of seasoned and professional climbers and ski mountaineers from the North Face Athlete Team, including Hilaree O’Neill, Conrad Anker, Ingrid Backstrom, Jim Zellers, Emilio Previtali and Giulia Monego, as the two embark on the hardest expedition of their lives.
------------------------------------------------------------
a camp4collective production
Director : Jimmy Chin
Cinematographers : Jimmy Chin, Matt Irving, Adam Clark
Editor: Renan Ozturk
Motion Graphics: Barry Thompson, Eric Bucy, Marty Blumen
Additional Media: Teton Gravity Research, Absinthe Films, Colby Coombs, Renan, Sage and Lucas
Color: Anson Fogel
Shot with the 5D and TM900

Kyle Dempster "The Road from Karakol"

Kyota "For The Fallen" (Cloudriver Remix)

Saul Williams "Fck the Beliefs"

FCK THE BELIEFS - Saul Williams from Saul Williams on Vimeo.

What is your Mind's immigration policy? Beliefs are the Police of the Mind.

Walt Whitman “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”

Frank Zappa And Shuggie Otis Acoustic

Frank Zappa And Shuggie Otis - Rare Acoustic Jam, 1970

KimiWaza 2013 Winner

This video is also a good test for technology-induced ADHD. A spectacular feat of concentration.

Become A Lake

~ Become a Lake ~

An aging master grew tired of his apprentice’s complaints. One morning, he sent him to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it.
“How does it taste?” the master asked.
“Bitter,” said the apprentice.
The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”
As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?”
“Fresh,” remarked the apprentice.
“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.
“No,” said the young man. At this the master sat beside this serious young man, and explained softly,
“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”