Chimeric Fire

This is a tough topic, many people have trouble falling asleep. In fact, most of the people I know have trouble falling asleep. I’ve found that this is particularly true of people who are constantly thinking. For whatever reason, they just can’t get their brains to shut off at night. It could be that they are running through their day in their minds, thinking about what tomorrow might be like, stressing out over an argument they’ve had or will have or just musing over a puzzle they haven’t been able to solve. Whatever the reason may be, it is tormenting. It’s a shame the brain doesn’t have an appropriate off switch.

This is actually the problem that I face most in trying to get to sleep. Most often I’m either musing over some philosophical question or I’m imagining some conversation I have had or might have. Even when that is not the case, I am plagued by phantom sounds. Often I’ll hear thumps, thuds, whistles, music and even my name being called. My sanity aside, one could imagine that this makes it quite difficult to fall asleep. As I’ve always been plagued by this condition, I’ve developed many methods to make my mind shut up so I can sleep. As I’m sure it might also help you, I’ll lay out the most successful method I’ve found thus far.

First, You must relax your body. Start by laying yourself in a relaxing position. You should be laying on your back with none of your limbs touching each other. Do not cross your legs or arms as this will interfere with the later steps. You also want your head supported fairly well and perhaps a pillow under your knees. The idea is to lay in a position that doesn’t put any stress on any one particular part of your body. While I realize this isn’t an ideal position to sleep in, you’ll probably move into a more comfortable pose when you’re asleep anyhow so don’t worry about it.

In order to get my body to relax, I find that it helps to first let it know what tension is. Tense up all your muscles as you inhale. Then, as you exhale, relax all those muscles completely. At this point, it helps to do some breathing exercises. You’ll want to breath in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, then breath out for seven seconds. With every time you exhale, you should try to relax your muscles further as if you were trying to be a rag doll. Do this as long as you feel it’s necessary; five to ten breaths are usually enough.

Now comes the fun stuff, we can start visualization. An important thing to note here is that when I say “visualize” I don’t mean that you should just see it, you should feel it as well. Engage as many of your senses as you can in these exercises, it will make it much more effective. It is also important that you not move during any of this. Physical movement will make it more difficult to fall asleep, you should stay as still as possible. It should also go without saying that you should have your eyes closed throughout all of this.

Imagine that your body is full of liquid. This liquid represents all your tension, stress and anxiety that is stored up in your muscles. Starting with your feet, visualize this water flowing out, draining from you. Feel it running out of you. You should feel some sort of sensation, perhaps a tingling, perhaps your feet will feel heavier. Whatever this sensation may be, hold onto it and let is spread. From your feet to your calves, this stress-liquid continues to flow. You should focus on every section of your body piece by piece from your feet and working your way up. It helps that once you get to your hips, you should start with your hands and “drain” your arms completely before moving on to your torso. Your head should be last in this process.

Next, you will want to give your mind something to do that is both mindless and engaging. Some count, but I find that this is too engaging and is far from mindless. What works best for me is to simply “stare” at the green and purple blobs that seem to flit across my vision when my eyes are closed. These are the result of random nerve signals propagating either across my retina or my brain… I’m not sure which one, but they’re kind of like a lava lamp. Focus hard on these blobs. They will grow, shrink, move and change color. At first, they will not look like much but eventually they should begin to take on more complex shapes. Usually they’ll start transforming into simple geometric shapes, then faces, then common objects like cars and buildings. What you’ll want to try to do is explore this pseudo-dream-world. What you’re doing here is entering a hypnogogic state. This is something like half-asleep dreaming as you’re trying to fall asleep. Chances are, if you can enter this state, you will quickly fall asleep.

This works for me like a charm, but you may find that other techniques work better for you. The importance is the structure of these techniques, not the techniques themselves. The order you should do them in is as follows:

• Get into a relaxing position
• Slow your breathing
• Relax your body
• Relax your mind

What you’re essentially doing here is taking the relaxation techniques from meditation and the induction visualizations from self-hypnosis to quiet your conscious mind and allow you to fall asleep. There are many other techniques out there, if this doesn’t work for you, there are many other visualizations you can try.

Other examples you might try instead of staring at the blobs in your vision would be imagining you are walking down a never-ending staircase with each step putting you deeper into sleep. This works pretty well, except for when you enter the hypnogogic state. I’ve found that this most often results in the stairs collapsing and my waking with a jolt. Another is to try imagining you are sinking into your bed as if you are leaving a hole shaped like your body as your bedsheets lower you into the ground, the further you go, the further you fall asleep. You might also try imagining yourself floating out of bed and to the ceiling. From there, you can explore the house or leave it to explore the world.

Hopefully, this can be of some use to you. If it is, I would certainly like to know. Also, if you have other techniques you use to quiet your mind and fall asleep fast, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Who knows, they might prove more effective for me than what I’m already doing.

I am no stranger to strange dreams. It seems like every dream I have is strange. Ironically, it would be quite strange indeed if I were to have a dream that was not strange. That being said, I had a strange dream last night. The basic premise of the dream was not much different from many of my others. This one happened to be zombie-themed. It was pretty much your standard zombie dream except for one thing, there was a cult of undeath. Essentially there were people who were alive, but obsessed with death and undeath. It was mostly made up of those from the gothic subculture, but was not limited to just them. They saw undeath as the ideal state and attempted to spread undeath as best as they could, essentially converting the living infidels. They did this by more or less herding the zombies and breaking into the strongholds of the living. They found ways to draw large numbers of undead by stomping/clapping in unison such that it sounded like a giant beating heart, which attracted the undead in droves. Their purpose of their lives became spreading undeath to the living. If they could not fulfill this purpose any longer, then they would become undead themselves.

It seemed strange at the time that any living person would want to do this. However, upon further reflection, I’m fairly certain that should a zombie apocalypse occur, there would indeed be cults of undeath just as I’ve described. They might not last long, but I am certain that there would be those who would seek to spread undeath to as many people as possible in an attempt to realize the zombie apocalypse to its fullest potential. I would not such a person, but I assure you, I will keep their existence in mind should I ever be confronted by the walking dead.

Not long ago, I had money to spend and there were things that I had wanted for a while which I figured I deserved after all I had been through. My life had been rather hectic and stressful up until then and I had just managed a modest amount of financial security. After a few large purchases and several medium and small purchases, however, I found myself MORE depressed and dissatisfied than I was previously. This caused me to rethink everything I had been taught about “stuff.”

The thing is, here in the USA we’re taught that stuff will make you happy. In fact, the TV is plastered with ads for this that and the other newest and best bit or bob that will somehow fill that undefined yearning that we all seem to feel. We’re told that a new X will bring us happiness, but the truth of the matter is that it rarely does. So what actually does make us happy? I gave this considerable thought and decided to make a list of the happiest moments of my life, a top ten if you will. What I found was that very few of the memories had ANYTHING to do with stuff.

So, what did they include? Experiences and the people I had them with. You see, owning a computer doesn’t make me happy. The experiences I can have with/through my computer (staying in contact with friends, artwork, writing, blogging, etc…) are what makes me happy. Owning my first car didn’t make me happy. Experiencing the freedom that owning a car allowed DID make me happy, not to mention the memories I have of experiences with me and my friends/family that were had in said car. The happiest times of my life often didn’t even include any stuff at all, there were 100% experience, many of which cost me little to no money at all.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I still like to own stuff. I’m not about to sell everything I own and go roam the streets preaching anti-materialism. However, it has changed the way I view stuff in general. Now, I don’t care much for the thing at all, I think to myself “what can I experience with x?” and if I don’t like the answer, I don’t get x. It’s as simple as that. Obviously, anything which is a necessity is covered by such logic. For example if you replace x with food, it is obvious that I couldn’t experience much if I starved to death.

Another thing worth pointing out is that these experiences are rarely solitary. Despite the fact that I’m not just antisocial but social-phobic, my fondest memories are those which I share with someone else. Usually part of the experience includes a strengthening of social bonds (friendship/romance).

It’s not just me either. I’ve asked several people this same question and they’ve all completely agreed with me. We all have very few happy memories which include stuff and of those that do, it’s not the stuff that makes us happy, it’s the experiences we had because of the stuff and the people we had those experiences with. Don’t expect that new car, house, computer, etc… to make you happy because you’ll just be disappointed. What seems that if we really want to be happy we should just go have some fun with our friends.

This was an interesting dream. It involved an entire alternate universe… or at least that this one was more than we currently know. In the dream, some people could separate their spirits from their bodies at will. Their body was left almost lifeless while their spirit could roam about. With enough training, their spirit could become visible to others and manipulate objects within the world around them. As a spirit, one could walk through walls, fly, jump long distances, and do several other interesting things.

I was at a part that was taking place in a large mansion. I noticed that a door seemed odd to me and realized that it could only be opened by a spirit. When I separated from my body to investigate further, I was aware of both my body and my spirit and could still control them both. This was apparently something that was out of the ordinary, but I didn’t think much of it because apparently I had trained to do so. In any case, I opened the door and immediately realized that if I closed the door, that my spirit would become trapped inside the room. I had my body hold the door open for me while I investigated.

Inside the room was an alter and various trinkets. There were also odd little spells scribbled onto strips of paper that lined the walls. It was obviously a room put together by the girl who lived there and it was designed to trap spirits so that she could use them as her play things. It was at that moment, that the door swung closed, flinging my body away from it. I knew I was trapped. I saw, however, a portion of the barrier preventing my escape was missing from a small area in the ceiling. I jumped up towards it, reaching through the ceiling to grab a cross beam to pull myself up.

The girl was apparently alerted whenever someone entered the room and immediately began pursuit. She realized that I had escaped, was astounded, and followed after me through the ceiling. I ran along various beams, trying to get away, but she was fairly quick. For some reason, I could see through the walls. I suppose the spirit senses are different from the senses of the body. I saw my father doing masonry in one of the rooms and decided to take refuge with him, perhaps she wouldn’t try to attack or detain me if there was a witness. I fell through the ceiling, landing next to my father. I became visible and immediately started helping him lay the masonry.

We were having a trivial conversation that I can’t remember when she fell through the ceiling and also became visible. I pointed her out to my father, saying “you see that gorgeous blonde girl over there? Well, she’s absolutely head over heals for me because I was able to break through some barriers of hers. The only problem is that she’s completely bat-shit crazy.” My father replied with “Nathaniel, you need to stay away from the crazy ones, but you are right, she is good looking.” She didn’t hear any of this. She then approached us and said “Hey, keep in mind that we’ve got that thing going on in thirty minuets, so you better get ready.” I winked at her and she strode off. I then followed after her.

She cornered me and attempted to do bind me with a spirit rope. The rope passed through me. I told her “There is nothing you can do to effect me in this form.” She seemed annoyed an interested at the same time. As we turned a corner, we were confronted by a large man, at least eight foot tall and built like a line backer. He wore a suit and looked very serious. It was her father. He looked down at us and realized that we were holding hands.

He saw me and my slight frame, decided that I was weak and asked his daughter while looking straight at me “Who is this weakling? Are you now taken to picking up strays?” I responded to him, “There is nothing you can do to affect me in this form, we’ll see who is weak.” This apparently enraged him, so he attempted to punch me. It was as if he were punching a force field around me. Green light rippled from were he struck the field. His spirit separated from his arm such that his spirit could not breach the shield and his arm only breached the shield a few inches before coming to a stop. He pulled back in shock, looking at me with contempt and disbelief.

I then noticed something out of the corner of my perception and rushed forward at him. With my left hand I seized what was flying straight at him, a flaming arrow made of shadow. All he saw was that I rushed him, and that my left hand appeared to burst into flames. He thought I was threatening him. He looked at me with contempt, and a hint of fear, then strode off quite angrily. He didn’t notice the arrow in my hand, or the note that was attached to it. As he walked off, I woke up.

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I think this has potential to become a series of books/games/movies. Such abilities could produce some interesting dynamics as well as cool fight scenes. On another note, I’ll be looking out for cute blondes just in case. @.@

I know I haven’t posted in a long time. Life has a funny way of taking up my time lately. However, I found this humerus enough to warrant at least a small post. You see, I put up several quotes on www.gaia.com a while back. I occasionally come up with some rather deep and philosophical sayings and I enjoy sharing them. I heard once that philosophy was the art of pointing out the obvious but making it sound fantastic. Of course I’m paraphrasing.

In any case, it seems as if one of my quotes has been picked up by a coach somewhere and he ran with it. Here’s the link. He credits me of course, but undoubtedly has no idea who I am. The quote reads “The strength of a person is often weighed by how they deal with their weaknesses.” and I firmly believe this. He took this and applied it to sports, which is awesome, I’m glad this saying has enough mutability to apply to a wide range of topics.

I am amused, however, that a quote from a hardcore nerd and anti-sport-ist is being used in this context. Also, it amuses me that I’m being quoted as if I’m someone with any degree of importance. Sure Nathaniel sounds like the name of someone who is important… and not like someone who is working a 9-5 while living with his in-laws and taking online art courses. Perhaps I’m selling myself short… but I prefer to think of it as being humble :P

In case anyone else is interested, here are some of my other quotes:
“I’m not lazy, I’m efficient.”
“Carnivores do not understand herbivores, they eat them.”
“If you can’t laugh at it, you’re taking it too seriously.”
“I trust so few that it is much easier to simply keep no secrets.”
“If all my enemies and all my allies have the same information, none can use it against me.”
“Clothing is a form of deception.”
“Your political stance is completely dependant upon whose lies you believe the most.”
“The strength of a person is often weighed by how they deal with their weaknesses.”
“A life without direction goes nowhere.”
“Once inspired one seeks to inspire. In this it is obvious that inspiration is rather infectious and we are little more than vectors through which it spreads.”
“Sacrifice is the deductible when insuring peace.”
“If someone does not see you as beautiful, this does not mean that you are not beautiful, but rather that they simply do not see you.”
“If truth is beauty and beauty truth, then as long as you are true to yourself you will never be anything less than beautiful.”

I just had an amazingly vivid and detailed dream. In the dream I went to some sort of gryphon tour. Monks in an old abbey nestled in a cliff that overlooked a lake raised gryphons. They would hold gryphon rides around the cliffs and a little ways over the lake for a few gold pieces. All proceeds went to the care of these amazing creatures and any excess went to maintaining the abbey.

When saddling up, I was told that my gryphon liked to fly high and fast and didn’t particularly like staying in the line. I was told that it was alright because he was the best flyer of the bunch and no harm would befall me. He needed a strong rider, however, to keep him from wandering. We where also told that the lake was full of magical creatures and that it was also part of a vast strip of troll warring ground. If we where to see a troll, we should alert the entire group so that we could return to the safety of the abbey quickly.

I remember flying next to the cliff face with craggy rocks below and a large shallow lake to my right. As promised my mount preferred to soar higher than the rest, who maintained a set distance from the surface of the water for safety reasons. I decided to enjoy it. It really was a spectacular experience.

My gryphon soared higher, riding an updraft, but we fell back from the rest of the group. The riders that where behind me passed below and began to fill the gap in the line that my absence created. After climbing some distance into the air, my mount decided to dive. We didn’t go straight down, but at a steep angle back towards the group whose heads we would then fly over at more than twice their speed.

I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye towards the center of the lake. Amongst some trees that grew in a particularly shallow area of the lake was a white flash of light, as if someone had pointed a mirror towards me. I decided to investigate.

I turned the reins and my mount and I began to approach the trees. We had to fly very low in order to get under the sparse canopy of these trees. As we rounded the largest of these trees I saw something amazing, a unicorn! It looked me directly in the eyes but as we rounded the tree and a trunk blocked it from view, it seemed to vanish. All this time my attention was to right, not in front of me. As a turned forward again I saw a low hanging branch and immediately ducked.

I remember this so vividly, I could feel the feathers of the gryphon pressing against my face, the smell of dust, straw… and a bit of manure that such stable animals tend to smell of. My mount dove and turned slightly to dodge the branch. We had to go so low that the gryphons legs and portions of its right wing went under the water. I even remember feeling the water splash over my right shoulder and the cold created by the wind that was passing through my clothing as we flew higher once again, returning to the group.

A few of my fellow riders had apparently thought it seemed like a good idea to ride out above the lake as I had. Two women glided over the surface of the lake laughing as they coaxed their mounts into skimming the surface with their feet. I was flying over to join them as I passed what looked to be a small grey moss covered boulder to my left. However, I realized that it was no boulder the moment it began to move, raising from the water to reveal a massive 50ft tall troll. It saw the two women, bellowed a deep and angry cry and bounded straight for them with a large wooden club, which it had obviously dredged from the bottom of the lake, brandished wildly above its head.

I snapped the reigns and my mount dove quickly by the trolls head, whipping around its face. This diverted the troll’s attention to me and the women where free to fly back towards the abbey screaming to alert the others. They didn’t really need any warning, however, as the troll was more than big enough for everyone to see.

The massive beast took a wild swing at me, which only glanced my right shoulder. The force behind it was still amazingly powerful and a large splinter of the club had broken off and pierced the skin, embedding in my shoulder parallel to the surface. The troll thought he had done me in and was now off again after the women and the rest of the group. I folded my right arm into my lap and took on steering with my left hand as blood trickled down my elbow. I directed my mount to once again dive at the head of the troll.

This time we immediately rose high into the air after the dive. The troll crouched down into the water to about shoulder level and then jumped high into the air, flailing this massive tree trunk like it was a twig and we where mere flies. This time he missed and we continued the strategy. We would fly down by his head and immediately soar upwards. The troll couldn’t jump up fast or high enough to catch us and he was sufficiently distracted to allow the rest of the group to fly to safety.

We continued this process several times until the troll apparently came down upon some submerged trees. One pierced his foot and calf which immediately stained the water black with his blood as he fell into the lake. He did not resurface while I watched and I supposed that he swam away towards the shore. I didn’t much care, now that my adrenaline was waning, I could feel my arm throbbing with pain and my eyes becoming blurry from the loss of blood which had now stained the gryphons feathers crimson in a trail from its wing down its right flank.

As I approached the abbey, everyone was cheering until they saw my ashen face and the trail of blood on my mount. When we landed the gryphon lie down and thrust his wings out to allow me to dismount easily. I still found it difficult to remove myself from the saddle because I was quite week. From there I stumbled through the abbey, seeing all the horrified faces was worse than the injury itself.

I finally collapsed on a wooden bench when a fat friar approached me. He took my wet jacket and folded back my clothes to reveal the wound on my shoulder. The piece of wood from the trolls club had completely submerged into the skin, leaving a long bulge along my shoulder at least two inches wide and four inches long. A few splinters remained lodged in my clothing and I remember smelling them to see what they where.

I recognized the odor at once as Yliewh-Yliewh, or BaneShot (of course that’s something the dream just made up). This particular tree, when submerged in a swampy environment harbors moss and algae growth that somehow petrifies the tree, hardening it. It also imparts powerful antiseptic qualities into the wood. Actually, it just about killed everything, including people in large doses. In small doses, however, the toxins worked quite well at fighting infection. The trolls often used these petrified trees as weapons due to their amazing strength, not realizing that they could heal as well as harm. Generally speaking, if you could survive the toxic effects of the stuff, you could survive the injury.

I asked the friar to fetch me some clean linen, some gray moss, boiled water and two bottles of brandy. Luckily, they where about to make some soup and a large pot of boiling water was brought out to me quickly, as where the linen and brandy. They sent a young monk down to the cliffs to gather some moss which hung thick from the trees that grew along the cliff side paths.

I took several large gulps of the brandy. I could feel it stinging my throat as it warmed by cold body. I ripped my right sleeve completely off, then wrapped it around my shoulder above the wound, pulling it tight with my teeth. The friar looked at me in horror, I knew he thought I was as good as dead. I remember him saying “the swamp water has gotten into the wound, you’ve lost too much blood, and the fever is already setting in. Whatever you’re planning will just hasten your end.” I yelled at him to leave me and not disturb me unless it was to give me the moss.

I awkwardly poured the steaming hot water over my shoulder, which quickly washed away the blood and muck from the area. I then took several more gulps of the brandy before pouring it over my shoulder which burned much worse than the stinging in my throat.

I then loosened my belt and wrapped that around my shoulder as well, right over the torn sleeve. This would make a tourniquet that I would tighten with my teeth. The leather belt in my mouth also served a dual purpose, I would have something to clench my teeth on for the next part. I pulled a dagger from my boot, dunked it in the hot water then took several more gulps of brandy before pouring the spirit over it as well. I then took the belt in my mouth, pulled it tight and after a few sharp breaths I made a clean cut just above the entry wound and at least twice as big. I then took the blade and inserted it into this wound to push the splinter deeper, then prying it so that the tip would now come out of the incision I had made. With the butt of the dagger, I pushed the top of the splinter until I had enough to grab with my hand. I then slowly pulled it from my shoulder, my teeth straining under the force of my bite. I could feel every last bit of it, as I often do in my dreams. Even as I write this, my arm still aches.

Just then the young monk arrived with the moss, saw all the blood that was now quite profuse and immediately passed out. I gathered up the moss, placed it over my shoulder, and then wrapped the whole thing up tightly with the linen. I also used some of the linen as a sling to keep my arm in place. The Baneshot fragments that where surely still in my arm would hopefully help stave off any infection from inside and the moss should help prevent infection from the outside. I then took the splinter that I had just removed from my arm, rinsed it in the hot water and cut a small piece of it off to crush into powder against the stone floor. I mixed the powder with the remaining brandy, swirled it around and drank the rest. The remaining unopened bottle I would save for later. I then propped myself up against a wall, closed my eyes and immediately fell unconscious. When I opened my eyes, I was awake in my own bed, my arm aching from such a realistic and vivid dream.

A few things fascinate me about this dream.

1. I was able to ride a gryphon, that was pretty cool.
2. I saw a unicorn!
3. I fought a troll.
4. I was actually able to think clearly enough in the dream to at least seem to know what I was doing when tending to the wound.
5. I was able to stay asleep through being splashed with water, attacked by a troll, and the pain of cutting a large chunk of wood out of my shoulder.
6. I can’t believe that I was able to deal with all of that blood. I’m hemophobic (afraid of blood) in waking life and normally wake up from dreams of blood because it manages to access a deep and primal part of my brain that screams for action. Not this time.

All in all, a very cool dream, and an interesting story. It might make a good part of a larger novel… perhaps if the gryphon flight wasn’t for tourism… although I’m not sure what else it might be for.

With the elections coming up, everyone is thinking about taxes. Will they raise? Will they fall? Will they get more complex? Will they fix all the crazy loopholes? Will they put in a carbon tax?

Well, I’ve got a few ideas about how the system “should” be set up. I’m no economist, but I do support a few interesting policies that I think are worth noting.

First, I think that the current tax system is WAY to complex. With increased complexity, you increase the likelihood that large corporations will use that complexity to their advantage and benefit from the system more than the lower income brackets. This complexity also requires a lot of government employees review all of that mess and requires the need to enforce it as well. The more complex the tax system, the more resources are required to regulate it. In effect, complex taxes are a mess.

Progressive Taxes can also stunt economic growth. I remember when my mother and father got better jobs, which bumped them up into the next tax bracket (but only just barely). They actually ended up making a slightly higher amount for a disproportionately greater amount of work. I am convinced that the current system discourages economic growth by “punishing” people for earning more.

My solution is not a new one… but I am going to put a twist on it. I am a firm believer in the flat tax. Basically, a flat tax system is a very simple and easy to understand tax. It is a tax on income that is the same percentage no matter how much you earn. Likewise businesses will all be subject to the same taxation of profit. Every company, no matter how much they earn, or how big or small they are will pay the same percentage of their profits to the government. Up to this point, this is just like any other flat tax system. However, I don’t believe that there should be caps for the poor. I think EVERYONE should have to pay.

However, there is the twist I mentioned. I believe that an alternative to making the system more complex by adding exemptions and allowances for dependents and so on… would be to simply have a rebate system that is designed to redistribute a percentage of the nations wealth. Basically, if everyone payed 20% on their income taxes (no matter how much they made or how big their family is), it would make it all very simple to understand. Then the government takes 30% of the total taxes collected, divides that money up evenly, then give it back to everyone as a tax rebate. If we exclude the taxes paid by businesses (for simplicity’s and demonstration’s sake), you can estimate that the average income for an American household is around $45,000. This means that the average tax rebate would be $2,700 (which is equal to the amount payed for those making $13,500 per year). Basically, What this does is encourage growth from those making less than a third of the national average without punishing people for making more money. Because there are no “brackets”, there is no way that making more money could result in you actually earning less because of extra taxes.

The only problem produced is that it might encourage moochers, or poor people who intentionally earn less because they’re getting paid to be citizens anyway. The good news is that the tax refund will be paid yearly and they will likely need more than the average of $2,700 per year in order to survive. Also, if people do decide to mooch, they will bring down the national average income which will then reduce the amount they earn every year.

This little twist simplifies the system and has a few other benefits. It will help close the gap between the rich and the poor instead of widening it. It will not encourage or discourage people from getting married for tax reasons. It will not encourage the poor to have more kids for tax reasons. The last one is very important because the ever-increasing population is a huge burden on this planet and personally, I would rather see a progression towards the middle class rather than a progression towards the poor. Essentially an increase population of the rich (because they can afford to have more kids than the poor) would cause their wealth to spread out, causing them to move towards the middle class. All while the poor are discouraged from having large households while providing them the economic assistance they need to move into the middle class.

The other cool effect is that it will boost the economy. Small businesses will have the same opportunity as the big guys. This will increase an individuals opportunity to compete and prosper. Also, because the refund checks will be issued yearly, it actually encourages people to go out and spend it fairly quickly, injecting money back into the market and ultimately benefiting both the consumers (because they get more stuff) and the producers (because they’ll sell more stuff).

The only problem then is the issue of “Marginal Utility”. Basically this means that the more money you have, the less it effects your survival. If a retail worker earning $15,000 had to give up $3,000 in taxes, it would be a very big deal and would certainly effect their livelihood. However, if a CEO of a major corporation earning 10 million had to pay 2 million in taxes, they’ve still got 8 million to live comfortably on. Also by removing deductions, you can discourage the small businessman from working because a large percentage of his profits might be spent on items necessary for his business (which are deductible). Granted, the big businesses will have the same issues but they’ll have much more money to throw around. Graduated tax rates are supposed to compensate for this by taxing the rich more. However, the result is that the rich hire professionals to figure out how they can pay the smallest amount possible (something the poor cannot afford). The end result is often that the rich pay a smaller percentage of their wealth than the poor because they can use the complexities of the system to weasel out of paying what they owe. A flat tax would make it impossible for these big businesses to get out of paying. Additionally, using the money gained from the flat tax to fund programs to help provide relief from poverty would offset this major issue.

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Besides the flat tax, I also support a carbon tax. This is basically a tax that forces companies to pay for polluting. In its most basic form, it is a tax on oil and coal. Companies will have to pay more for these products and would be rebated if they manage to reclaim/capture carbon or otherwise do not release it into the air. For instance, plastic is made from petroleum products, but much of the carbon from these products is stored in the resulting plastic. These companies would get money back from the taxes they paid on the petroleum they used based on the amount of carbon that is fixed in the end result.

The cap and trade system is just too complex and would cause the market to become extremely volatile. It is also far too complex and will encourage big polluters to find loopholes and cheat the system. I really don’t want my power bills or my gas prices to be going all over the place just because they managed to complicate the market. I want things to be simple and easy to understand. I want the system to result in stability and sustainability. The cap and trade system just doesn’t seem like it could do that.

It is suggested that the carbon tax would put an increased burden on the poor. If it became more expensive to drive our cars or power our homes, this could indeed cause much more hardships in lower income homes. However, the more affluent rich tend to spend more on carbon emitting products such as gas and power. If you use a percentage of that tax to help lower other taxes, then the benefits will be felt most by the poor, especially if in a flat-tax system. If 50% of the carbon tax went to lowering other taxes or was added to the yearly tax rebate (as discussed earlier), it would significantly lower the impact of the carbon tax on the poor. If you put the remaining 50% aside specifically into incentives, grants, and compensations for producing or using zero carbon energy sources, you could drastically increase the rate at which we shift to green energy. Imagine that more green energy research could be performed because more government grants will be available to them. Imagine that installing solar cells on your roof will be cheaper because the government will refund a percentage of their cost.

The carbon tax will have several effects. It will begin reducing carbon emissions immediately. It is simple and easy to implement. It will encourage energy companies to research less carbon expensive methods of energy production. And it would encourage the general public to be more carbon conscious, because carbon emitting products will be more expensive.

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The system I’m propsing is simple and easy to understand. It may be flawed (simply because I’m not economist). However, I think it would work fairly well. All I know is that the current system is broken and current efforts to fix it are like putting duct tape on a crack in the Hoover Dam. Something drastic needs to be done soon before the entire economy collapses.

Read more about the flat tax by clicking here.
Read more about the carbon tax by clicking here.

Make money, lose weight, or kill yourself! Google makes suggestions for what you might be searching for based on trends. The image below shows Google’s suggestions when “top 10 best ways to” is typed in.

Google Suggests Suicide

Now, I know that Google isn’t actually suggesting that I should kill myself. What it really means is just that there just happen to be a large number (379,000+) pages that are about the “top 10 ways to kill yourself”. Likewise there are a similar number of pages (360,000+) that are about the “top ten ways to commit suicide”.

I am encouraged by the fact that there are about 82 times more pages on the “top 10 ways to go green”. Although this is somewhat balanced out by the fact that apparently more people want to destroy the Earth than want to commit suicide (about 163,000 more)… although I suppose you could consider the destruction of the planet as a form of suicide… unless the plan also involves an escape strategy so that they could survive on another planet.

It seems, however, that the majority of people simply want to make money. This is not surprising when you consider the distribution of wealth in a world where 1% of the world’s population controls 99% of the world’s wealth. Perhaps the poor are just depressed by their financial standing. I know I am. That’s why I dabble in internet marketing and work as hard as I do while going to school full time. At some point, reality sinks in and you realize “none of my dreams can come true because I just can’t fund them.” That is rather depressing isn’t it?

A friend of mine was trying to do a search for “top 10 best ways to make money” and when he did it, the very first suggestion was “kill yourself”…. immediately followed by “kill someone”. Seems like the results change fairly frequently, but it’s still very illuminating. Seems like a lot of people are angry and depressed, likely over money problems or social problems. Admittedly, I have a word document that I add to occasionally that details my many plains for the destruction of the planet (evil super-villian style). But it’s more of a cathartic stress-relief and an exercise in creativity, than an actual blueprint. Who knows, I may want to create a cartoon series, or a game that involves such elements in their story-line.

Based on these results,I think people are angry and depressed mostly because they feel poor, unattractive, unimportant, unwanted, or otherwise disadvantaged. I know Google is just trying to be helpful, but should it really be putting this kind of ammunition in someone’s hands? Especially the young children who might be searching for “top 10 ways to ruin the first day of school”. I suppose when it comes right down to it, it’s not Google’s fault. People are angry and depressed, so they create content that relates to that. In fact, they are probably less likely to commit an act of violence (against themselves or others) if they are capable of releasing such emotions by creating such content.

I think the burden lies with us as a society. We need to step up and address the issue of suicide. It is up to us to recognize the early warning signs that someone might be or become suicidal and to help try to prevent suicides. As for myself and my wife, we both use a very powerful strategy for quelling suicidal thoughts. We live for other people. In other words, my life is not just mine, it is shared by all of those around me. My friends and family are invested in my life, the loss of which will cause them harm. Additionally, you top it off with a promise to such individuals “I will not kill myself because I know it would hurt you.” This method does have one flaw, however… what if they have nobody to make such promises to? Go out and get some friends, that’s my suggestion. We are social creatures and we require some degree of social interaction. you may find that you feel better just by gaining a friend.

This Article, gives great advice for the recoginizing the early signs of depression and suicidal thoughts as well as ways to help somone through their troubles. It also urges people not to assume full responsibility for the suicidal person’s emotion support. They need professional help. The thoughts may go away, they may get worse. The depression could be caused by something as simple as a vitamin deficiency, but you won’t know unless you get checked out by a doctor. The Samaritans are also a great resource for those who just need someone to talk to. They offer completely confidential and non-judgmental emotional support 24/7/365. I have personally used them to work through some of my own depressions.

Additonally, the causes of this anger and depression need to be addressed… such as money making methods that actually work and ways to increase social equality without destroying capitalism. Pipe dreams, I know. But one can still dream, even if it is idealistic hippie-dippy commy garbage.

I remember hearing stories when I was young about cars that ran entirely on water and I was fascinated by the idea. However, after a lot of thought and learning about thermodynamics I realized that it had to be a load of hogwash. There are a lot of people trying to make claims that simply are not possible and a lot of other people who are quick to claim things are impossible when they have no clue what they’re talking about.

First, you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in without losing something. In other words if you use electricity to break water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burn it, then you’re putting in energy from the batter and producing power from the engine. Not only that but the engine loses quite a bit of that energy as heat. Because the battery is charged by the alternator (which is run by the engine… which in this case is run by the battery), the battery will run down. It’s basically like trying to recharge an electric car by running it. It simply won’t work. This might work if the water was broken outside of the vehicle and the gas was burned in the vehicle. Basically a station would make the fuel and your car would consume it. That might be thermodynamically possible, but it’s still not very practical.

Now there are kits you can purchase that claim to increase your fuel efficiency by using this process as an additive to your air intake. The battery is now used to break water into hydrogen and hydro-oxygen, but instead of being used purely as a fuel, it is used to increase efficiency. This works by piping these highly flamable gasses through the air intake. Some claim that this can drastically increase your fuel efficiency, with some claiming to reduce your fuel consumption by 60%. I find that to be highly unlikely but I do think it is possibly to increase fuel economy in this way.

What is happening is actually very simple. You’re just making a chemical battery. Yep, that’s it. Your alternator uses energy from your engine to recharge the battery. When the battery is fully charged this energy is completely wasted, it goes nowhere. Alternators are designed to provide much more than enough energy to recharge the battery so this can be quite a bit of lost energy. In these systems, it simply takes that extra energy to break water. You’ve then stored that energy, which would have otherwise been wasted, in these gasses. Those gasses are then fed into the fuel system and burned. All the energy is still coming from the gas. You’re just recapturing otherwise lost energy and feeding it back into the engine.

I’ve also heard of engines that use water directly for combustion and work in combination with gasoline. Basically, they combust fuel in the engine and use the residual heat to combust water in the next stroke. It hits the hot cylinder and simply turns to steam. This reduces the temperature of the engine, making it run more efficiently and reclaims some of that heat energy to produce power for the engine. This has shown a lot of promise, but I’m concerned that the water will damage the engine. Also, if the water and steam isn’t completely ejected from the cylinder, it will make the combustion of the gas less efficient and cause the engine to chug and knock.

All in all, this has led me to believe that water can indeed be used as a fuel if it is produced outside of the car, it can be used to increase the efficiency of your gas by reclaiming otherwise wasted energy from your alternator, and it might be useful for generating steam power alongside gasoline. It’s possible. But I don’t know if all the scam artists out there selling kits are really telling the truth. This might be something worth looking into though.

Just me musing some stuff over. What are your thoughts?
Type to you later,
~Nathaniel

… if I have any control over it. That is, if I can protect my wife, I will do so if it within my power. I just had a dream that I wanted to record because of the strange things that where in it, one of which was an extremely cinematic way of protecting my wife. I know this is my first post in a long time, but I assure you, it’s a good one.

As far back in the dream as I can remember, my wife and I were doing detective work somewhat like the TV show Psych. We where investigating something having to do with a movie and had been given free run of the set. So in order to get where we needed to go, we basically stole a car from the set, a big Hummer. I don’t think we where going anywhere in particular, just trying to find out what was down this one highway. While driving up the road we came up on odd cloth screens, suspended by thin metal frames, that blocked the road. However, you could drive straight through them because they where only connected to the metal frame at the top. I specifically remember them being red, but reflecting orange as they ruffled in the wind, almost as if they where made out of velvet.

Then from the other side of the highway, we saw one of those screens moving in our direction. It was connected to a small vehicle that had a camera on the other side, filming cars from straight ahead as they moved down the road. I said to my wife, who was driving “Crap! We’re running onto a closed set for a movie, in a stolen car! And it’s their car!” We also happened to pass several police officers who seemed to be talking about the movie. Luckily, they didn’t seem to notice that we where really out of place. I suppose a lot of strange things where happening in the town with the movie being shot there.

We passed through another one of those screens immediately turned off onto a side road and ditched the car. We began walking as casually as we could so as not to draw attention to ourselves or our stolen vehicle. As we walked we passed by several strange shops on our right. One of these shops happened to be a pet shop specializing in snakes, specifically pythons. Looking through the window, we could see large clear plastic tubs that contained bright green and yellow pythons that just sat there lazily, sometimes shifting positions slightly almost like a person who is asleep would shift to get more comfortable.

The next shop was a rattle snake shop. I remember having a discussion with my wife about the snakes. She didn’t like them and mentioned something about them laying eggs inside you like in the movie aliens. I plainly told her that they didn’t lay eggs in people and even if they did, the eggs don’t eat anything… but the snakes might, once they hatch. We then went into the rattle snake shop, which I suppose was what we where looking for. It was rather dark and dusty inside with a concrete floor and wood paneled walls. Sunlight streamed through a few sparse windows showing the sheer amount of dust in the air.

Upon entering the store, we saw the store owner, a plainly dressed guy with dirty blonde mullet, sat on an old wooden chair, handling a very thin, but long, rattle snake (it was about as big around as a little finger, but about four feet long). To his right, was a dark green tub full of adult rattle snakes and in front of him was a tub which I knew contained baby rattle snakes. However, they looked like just the adult snake rattle and pure white. They just sat in the tub rattling occasionally and writing around like very large maggots.

I jokingly asked my wife if she where afraid of snakes, knowing full well that she was. In a somewhat defiant move, she grabbed the snake from the shop keeper. We where both very surprised by this, myself and the shopkeeper, and he was about to say a few words when the snake writhed around and leaped down to the ground, slithering away. The shop keep ran after it with a pole (the kind with the funny bent end for catching snakes) and a net. However, he only managed to chase it back to me. The snake ran around my leg and climbed up me. It went around my neck and then down inside the collar of my shirt. After running around my stomach area for a few seconds it turned back upward, opened its mouth to put its fangs against my throat right at my jugular (but it didn’t puncture the skin). The shopkeeper asked me if I had anything to eat. I asked why. He said that she could smell that I had low blood sugar and that she didn’t like it. If I didn’t eat something, she might bite me. None of us had anything, so the shop keeper had to slowly sneak up on the snake and snatch it away.

I then turned to leave but my wife pointed out that I had something on my face and neck. The snake had left venom on my face and neck like ink splotches from an exploded pen. In fact, they looked exactly like that, large black splats on my neck and a few streaks on the side of my face. The area where they touched my skin felt numb and tingly. My wife produced some napkins from her purse and handed them to me to wipe myself off. It was while I was wiping myself off that the snake leaped from the mans arms, turning into a cat before it landed. The cat had a medium length gray coat with brown diamond spots on it’s back and bright red eyes. The shopkeeper was a little afraid, because it was coming towards me again. Although, this time, it merely rubbed against my leg. The cat looked up at me and mewed, revealing two long and thin fangs amongst it’s regular cat teeth. The shopkeeper told us that the snake was magic. He wasn’t sure why she was able to transform or what she really was, but she did have those two forms and could change at will. I rubbed the cat’s head and scratched under it’s chin before we left the shop.

My wife wanted to go back to the car, but I reminded her that we couldn’t and that it was probably swarming with police officers by now. As we walked past the shopkeeper’s two cars that where parked out front a black sedan drove slowly down the road, rolled down its windows and a man with a machine gun began firing at us from the moving vehicle. I crouched down and immediately began to chant (as I often do in my dreams to stop an advancing threat), my right arm outstretched, my left arm around my wife, who I had forced to the ground. I now realized that the scene, which had been a desert scene before was now covered with snow. I only noticed this because the bullets kicked up snow in front and to the sides of us as I whispered to my wife “not a single bullet with touch you.”

I remember thinking that we where on the right track if someone was trying to kill us. The car began to drive away but as we stood up, unharmed they noticed and backed up to try again. The man with the machine gun produced a rocket launcher now. My wife was rather flustered and didn’t notice that they had come back with bigger weapons. She mumbled something like “you’re right, I wasn’t hit. How did you do that?” I really only had enough time to tell her to stay down as I began the chant again, in the same protective pose as earlier. The rocket was shot directly at my head and I swatted it away with my right hand, my left never leaving my wife. There was an explosion off in the distance behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I remember thinking “at least it was far enough away that it didn’t hit the shop”. My gaze was locked on the man with the weapons. He threw the launcher down and picked up another one.

This time, several men stepped out of the car, some with rocket launchers, some with machine guns, all aimed at us. They all began to fire their weapons at us, bullets and rockets coming at us faster than I could think. I dug deep to find the energy to pull this next stunt off. This part I saw from third person, as if I where watching a movie. all the rockets and bullets were diverted upwards, their paths curving as they neared what seemed like a protective shield around us. The men attacking us looked up in astonishment, seemingly bewildered by their new direction, some dropped their weapons. My right hand, this whole time was moving as if it was directing this flock of deadly projectiles. As they moved upwards, so did my hand extend towards the sky. Then, I moved my hand down sharply and their path curved to changed course again, this time coming straight down, right towards the bewildered attackers.

They didn’t have enough time to react, the projectiles hit their car and the surrounding area with lighting speed and explosive force. There was no trace of the men, just the charred wreckage of what used to be their car. The rest of the dream is really fuzzy. I remember talking with the snake hander again. He had been bitten by one of his snakes on the neck. His skin was flushed red from his head to about halfway down his chest and he couldn’t feel anything but the searing pain. But he assured us that he was immune to the venom because of the number of times he had been bitten and he would be alright. He was staying with my wife and I because he was sure those same men would go after him as well. It wasn’t long before I woke up.

The things that I thought where particularly interesting where as follows:

1. There was a lot of color in this dream. Apparently color dreams are rare and I never thought about it until recently, but I dream in full color all the time and can specifically remember the colors therein. I made a point of mentioning the various colors for this reason.
2. The transforming snake was really cool and an interesting idea.
3. The way I deflected all those deadly projectiles as if they where nothing was really cool. I would love to see something like that in a movie. All I knew was that they were going to kill me and my wife and I wasn’t going to allow that. I didn’t want to kill them either, but they didn’t seem like they where going to stop until either we where dead, or they were. Such cool abilities aren’t anything new to me, however, as I can do stuff like this all the time. Although, usually not as cool and cinematic. That was my “Knight in shining armor” complex showing through. I have control over my dreams, so of course I would control them such that my wife wasn’t harmed in them… and that means deflecting bullets, swatting away missiles and blowing up a car full full of mobsters.
4. The most surprising thing however was that my wife handled a snake! Never, in a million years would Mary EVER handle a snake like that, let alone a poisonous one!

I hope you enjoyed that, I know I sure did. I’ll try to at least post my dreams more often. Even if I can’t come up with substantial posts, I still have dreams almost every night. They’re usually fairly strange and at least entertaining.