Posts tagged ‘Go Thunk Yourself’

My Religion – your personal Freedom is up to you

lifestyle choice My Religion   your personal Freedom is up to you

Just to make this all official: I have a religion.

Of course it’s taken over 50 years to nail it down. And only through blogging and suffering through several scams, as well as writing books about them – only then have I recently had it all come clear.

Here’s the key points. I call them my Freedoms:

1. I believe what I believe. And my freedom to do so doesn’t depend on anyone or anything around me.

2. Governments are optional. My choice to participate in their programs and policies – or not – is my own freedom. And any government “body” or organization has no authority over me except what I grant them. This is my freedom.

3. My faith and beliefs require me to pray/meditate constantly. Everywhere I am, everything I use around me, all that I create – these are all part of my own religious belief-system. Anything a government might claim I “own” is used to further my own personal salvation/redemption/enlightenment. The world is my church. I am free to pray and meditate as I want. This is my freedom.

4. I am free to act or say as I want. The effects I create with these actions are the mutual responsibility of myself and those who are on the effect-end of those actions or statements. I give no authority to anyone to tell me what I can or can’t say or do. This is my freedom.

5. My redemption/salvation/enlightenment is my own to choose. No one else is going to redeem me, save me, or enlighten me. Only I can do this and only for myself. How I choose to do this is my freedom.

6. And I have the freedom to alter these beliefs anytime I want to, for any “reason”. I don’t have to tell anyone about any personal change I make. I owe no one any of my freedoms, as they are created, maintained, and supported by me and me alone. I am free.

- – - -

Why I bring these to you at this time is my way of being polite. Thought you might be able to use something like this in your life. As we are all connected in some way, how I help you with your freedom helps me with mine.

These principles, these beliefs, are older than all the hills, mountains, and valleys on this planet. Older than this universe, in fact. You can find them in any philosophy on this planet that still exists in some format or another. If you doubt this, ask any real Master or Sage and see if they don’t tell you that these exist.

A real Master or Sage will ask you why you are even bringing this up. They are that obvious. Writing this is even redundant.

But I’m sure some dedicated soul can find someone with some “authority” somewhere who disagrees with what I say above. This is their choice. This is their freedom.

I’ve found personally that your freedoms are created by you as a natural occurrence. You can only limit or give away your freedoms yourself. Governments and other people have no authority except what you give them. Perhaps they have a purpose, perhaps not. Your choice, your freedom.

Can you affect someone else’s freedom? Only with their permission.

People can be as free as they want, however they decide to be. Some decide to live with incredible amounts of “money” in their lives. Others decide to live in “poverty”. Any person can have any amount of freedom or happiness or peace that they want. And while you can look for confirmation of this in our oldest philosophies (such as Huna, or newer Masters such as Alan Watts and Lester Levenson), you really only have to look within your Self to see what you choose to believe, and what “works” for you.

And in looking through these various older teachings, you might even get your Self free from the illusion of death. Maybe. Up to you.

To my understanding at this moment, this universe is just a sham, an illusion, a scam. And it still exists only to the exact degree we believe there is still a purpose for it.

So I invite you to laugh at everything around you. Realize, just perhaps, that all this is simply a very good (or very bad) joke you are playing on yourself – for whatever reason that comes to mind.

And even this essay is a joke you created – or a path to enlightenment, salvation, or redemption. Your choice.

Your freedom.

Go Thunk Yourself. ;)

Living with the world isn’t nearly as hard as living for the world.

lifestyle choice Living with the world isnt nearly as hard as living for the world.

The trick in living is to live.

Lester Levenson pointed out many things when he developed his Sedona Method, chief of these is that we are working to get security, approval, or control with almost everything we think or feel or strive for.

Once you get beyond (or while you work at getting beyond) these three, then life gets a lot easier. Levenson said that the next point so conquer was any fear of death.

And you’ll see when you look up the saints, prophets, and true seers for our planet’s history, this is always true. (Of course we are dealing with direct quotes here, writings we know they actually authored.) The legends of these people can amplify what they covered, how they acted, but it’s the same basic concepts. Even if you read biographies of the successful, you’ll find these same points.

They don’t need approval, they aren’t worried about their security, they aren’t escaping control or trying to control something – they just are. And they live in personal peace and with a very calm joy. They embody personal freedom.  They have everything they need or want, but spend most of what they acquire or accomplish on helping others with their lives.

Levenson said that one of the routes to enlightenment, to real personal freedom, was to live your life as a Master would. “Master” in this case are any of the myriad people we historically look up to. Because if you seek to live as a saint, all manner of stuff would come up for you to release. But as you continued to release, then all these would drop away and eventually, your inner Master would show through in everything you do or say, in all your beingness.

Funny that all of our hate, jealousy, bitterness – all this is simply made up. It’s not real. Any problems you are having out in the world are the result of your simply setting up these thought processes long ago. All life is really easy – if you are releasing as you go through it.

- – - -

I’m planning to do a full study of all this entails and to blog it here. Essentially, this will be the last version of “Go Thunk Yourself!” which need be written and published. Because Levenson is down to the bedrock of self help and we need nothing else.

This ties into Intuitional Living quite nicely.

And as my world becomes more peaceful, I hope to share this with you. It’s hard to beat living in the country on a farm and growing living things. Long walks while checking fence almost never fail to give inspiration – if I’m listening. And that, as I said, has long been the problem – learning how to listen.

My dreams often inspire me to blog, as this early am before breakfast and first coffee. But telling you what I’ve been discovering has been a way to improve the world and to help. You can see why the title of this piece. Quit living for the approval, security, or to get control (or escape control) of this world.

Start living with it and you’ll see it goes much, much easier.

Sedona Method: Most of this Universe is over-thought

Photo: Gutter

Photo: Gutter

Most of this universe is overthought – including this statement.

Similar to that old Star Trek show, where he lies to the computer in order to get it to blow up. Tells it everything he says is a lie, including what he just said.

Was just introduced to the Sedona Method and can see that this revises a great deal of what I’ve covered up to this point. And it also means a substantial revision to “Go Thunk Yourself” book series.

Because the world and universe are much, much simpler than we have been thinking. In fact, this is the first serious exception I’ve taken with Earl Nightingale’s “Strangest Secret” recording. He started this off with quoting Albert Schweitzer, stating the biggest problem in the world is that people simply don’t think.

My conclusion is the opposite: that people think too much – they over-think their solutions to things.

A great deal of money is spent on meditation classes where they teach you to calm the mind and don’t think. For most, this is impossible – and the reason is in that phrase “don’t think.” This actually invites you to think, to think about thinking, think about why you’re thinking about thinking, thinking about how to stop thinking about thinking…. It just is one long rabbit hole.

Wayne Dyer probably had the best solution to this – simply accept the thoughts which show up and let them go. But that resolution is straight out of what is taught in Sedona.

Sedona simply teaches you to just let go of various feelings and mental noise which has been cluttering up your life. That’s really all there is to it. Now, there are many, many applications for this – and they have ongoing classes and seminars which you can attend to simply learn this. Mostly they push a 20-some CD series with all the data you need.

But the free download you can get by signing up with their site actually teaches you the basics and you can work out the rest for yourself if you want.

Most of this stuff on government, taxes, corporate interests, everything in this world it seems – are all over-thought and complicated beyond belief.

The route to unlimited inspiration lies through letting all the noise of this universe drop away and simply listen to the ideas the Universe is bringing you all the time. This means that you can actually attain and have anything you want in life. And the Sedona Method is used by more than half of the original 24 teachers in “The Secret” – so if you recall that phrase from that movie, this is the bottom line to it.

But until you are at peace with yourself, you won’t be able to really find what your passion is in life and what you should be doing with it. And until you can follow your passion (follow your bliss) in life, then the real rewards  you’ve been looking for will continue to slip through your fingers.

Simply – quit over-thinking your own life.

Get the free MP3 download by signing up with the Sedona Method and find out for yourself. You can always delete them if you don’t like them, and unsubscribe from their newsletter. And they only cost you download bandwidth.

I don’t recommend very many products – but this is one of them. It’s working for me. So you deserve to know.

If you have a different account of this, or think I’m full of it – just let me know below. Or contact me.

Get whatever you really want in life – and world peace to boot.

inspirational Get whatever you really want in life   and world peace to boot.
How to make your dreams become real – and finish the last steps to world peace.

Your dreams become more real every day. Whatever you think tends to become reality around you. And there’s a reason for this.

Through years of studying things that work, I’ve discovered that there is an underlying system that keeps things working.

And this system is bigger than all of us, yet requires every individual to play their part in order to keep the whole thing running.

What is practical and observable is that we can work with our thoughts to produce the here and now. Every building has to be planned before it can be built. Any big ship is based on the observation of physical laws (like a china bowl can float, but a piece of china can’t float like a piece of wood.) Building big metal ships which can transport goods across water requires a lot of thought – and a lot of action.

You see, the world is what you think it is. As you change your thoughts, you change the world.

The world doesn’t run you – you create your own world.

As many authors point out, what you see around you is what you are constantly creating. There are pure metaphysical applications to this which take us into incredible realms. That one idea can take us far afield. But we are here to discuss solutions, pragmatic and practical solutions to your life and mine.

A problem is, of course, what we consider it to be. There is a field of study into problems which defines them by type. Yet the common solution to these is to take responsiblity for their existence and then they tend to vanish. You simply confront them head on and find the optimal solutions for the resources to hand. Once you do this, you find yourself at peace with what is happening and the changes that need to happen – in your estimation.

And that is the odd and interesting thing about that underlying system mentioned above. It runs on Harmony. It actually has Peace as its goal. That doesn’t mean a boring monochromatic world where everything is the same. Rather this system thrives on diversity. Like any great choir – it is composed of individual voices, all different in their ranges and qualities. But the result is to sing with one voice. And any great choir is capable of singing many, various songs.

While the metaphor is limited, it serves the point that we are all in this together to create a new world, to participate in singing a new song.

For any problem we are facing personally or globally is really just one which we aren’t confronting.

You will find lots of agreement on ideas like everyone having a liveable quality of life. That no one person should hold any individual or group of people hostage. That people should have their own individual and personal right to think whatever they want. And they should have the opportunity to express that thought – to create their life the way they want it. What people object to is when someone considers that they have the right to change others’ thoughts by force.

In that statement above, you’ll see the complete struggle in Politics. Classes of thought striving for control over law-making bodies – so that they can determine how best to forward their particular class of thought.

But the funny punchline is that people in general don’t want government telling them what to do with their lives. Sure, they will do what they have to in order to “get along” with people around them. And there has to be ways in our modern society to get the garbage picked up, and keeping the streets cleaned, and keeping the roads repaired, and keeping all our modern improvements like telephone and Internet running when we want to use them. We all participate in keeping these services running, either by working at repairing these directly, or paying a fee to someone else to do so.

That’s mostly the basis of taxes and government.

My divergence with all these classes of thought is that I know for a fact you can’t require anyone to think any particular way. That no way of thought is “better” than any other. That all classes of thoughts are necessary.

But the best government is the one which interferes with individual lives the least. It facilitates environments where free thought can generate new ideas and new creations. But once you get past keeping the roads open and ensuring that no one is blowing our trade ships out of the water or our airplanes (transporting goods and people) out of the sky, then most people think that government should give them little more and require as few fees as possible.

And Politics is a fascinating study in and of itself. But I’ll leave that to people who study that stuff for a living – or a hobby.

My job is to tell people about this great natural system which makes politics and government and anarchy all possible at the same time.

If you study Nature, you’ll find all the points of the above present – except one: thought. And that is the universal solvent to all of Nature, which people have said “sets humankind apart” from the rest of the species. But does it?

All we have is the capability to examine our own thoughts – or so we think. Practically, there have been a great deal of studies into “Animism” and all sorts of beliefs we use to hold from ages past. What you make of these ideas is entirely what you believe – what you think.

Because if you believe that our species is alone on this one ball of water, dirt, mud, and rock – then that is what you will always find. If you open your mind to the possibility of other life “out there”, then you find ideas of UFO’s and Atlantis all very possible and real. Evidence starts being dropped in your lap to support whatever you believe.

This brings up “The Secret”. Not everyone believes in that that DVD said. And yet, it was really only quoting our own texts from across history. Everything those people said who were in that movie – all these things can be found in much older texts – our Bibles, our ancient legends, all these sources of information just came forward and were produced into a modern version we can all experience. And it was translated into many languages so that many various peoples besides our Western, English-speaking culture could have this data.

I like to point people to an earlier best seller, Earl Nighingale’s “Strangest Secret”. There he points out other authors and historical figures who have stated the same point over and over and over.

That point: “We become what we think about.” All through written history, people have this same concept – and they all agree on it completely. They may not agree on anything else completely, but this they all held in common.

And when you go down that road, you’ll probably see some system build up along these lines. That is, if you’re looking for this system to show up. If you are only looking to get your own team into the play-offs and then win the world title – well that is what is going to happen for you, as long as you take some action to make it happen.

That is the great second part to this: you have to take some action to help your thought take place. That’s the difference between daydreams and what is good-naturedly called “reality”. People think up goals and then work out a plan, and then carry out that plan to achieve those goals.

You can have this big, beautiful world in your mind – and it will stay there. Big, beautiful, and shining – until you take some steps to make it happen. It may just be writing down your descriptions of all this – most, if not all of our great novels and fantasies stem from this. Or you might tell enough people about it and allow them to co-create your thoughts so that they also create your vision. Our United States developed from that – several ideas from Locke and Smith and others which said that a person could think independently and that we were “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights”, among these being “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

That one concept, of individual freedom to think and act on those thoughts, is what is revolutionizing this world. While not everyone (even in this country) wants the Western culture – they mostly all want to have their own thoughts, to think whatever they want, and to be able to act on those thoughts and make their dreams become reality.

And while we’ve covered a great deal of ground today, what we are really saying is that there is one principle common to all humankind: You can think for yourself, and that thought can create your reality.

Beyond that the idea: If you think and act in terms of harmonious interaction, your world and all the worlds around you will be better places to live in.

From those two points, you can probably work out that all our laws and rules have been working in that direction for eons.

And right now, we are living in a true Golden Age, which can be improved and made more golden and shiny – as we continue to work at it and help others around us to create their dream. Because, if you think about it, some 90% of our planet is working together in peace. We’re almost there. (Just quit listening to what passes for modern News and start observing for yourself and it’s easy to see this.)

Think about it – we’re almost all the way to world peace. Sure, we have some minor conflicts. And we have some rather dense-thinking people in charge of various areas. And yes, there are some weapons around which can make that peace look rather fragile. But lets start talking with each other, in person, by letter or email, by chats and twitter across this planet. Let’s get some agreement on the idea of everyone working together so that individually people can make their dreams come true. Let’s get this idea out that people have a right to live their own lives and not be interfered with – so people can live long, prosperous lives in mutual action with the people around them.

We don’t all want the same thing. And that is what makes this idea possible. Anyone who wants to be a sports star can. Anyone who wants to be elected to a high office can be. Those of us who want to run a small farm successfully can. Not everyone wants to be a Luther Burbank or a George Washington Carver and create all sorts of new possilibities from plants. We each have our own dreams. Some simply want to raise a fine bunch of kids and live a quiet life. Others long to be movie stars, or just build sets for movies to be filmed on.

But the lesson here – we can each live our own dreams and make them into reality. And the more we tell people this, the more we help others achieve their dreams, the more our own dreams can take shape.

That’s the second basic law which is observable and also written throughout history – you can’t get without giving. Or, more positively – help others and that help returns to you from others. Also: spread over many shoulders any burden becomes light.

So that’s my gift to you: share the peace you are living with others so we can spread peace to everyone on this small planet. Help people with their dreams as you work at living your own – and living your own will become easier.

Thank you – and the very best to you.

12 step program for a Recovering Scientologist

lifestyle choice 12 step program for a Recovering Scientologist

Offered in compassion and understanding for all that every Scientologist has been through:

0. Realize that Scientology is only workable in that tight, little belief-system. It isn’t all that workable outside in the real world. What you find workable depends on much larger and more powerful truths that have been around a much longer time – before this planet’s written history, actually. What you personally find workable in Scientology is true for you – and resonates with you based on these larger truths which operate this universe we live in.

1. Get over any hostility or upset you feel toward Scientology or any Scientologist. You can control your attitudes – this was known by William James and even Aristotle, but is older that the Greeks. Hatred only burns you out inside. Learn to smile and change how you feel about things. Learn how to relax when stress hits your lines.

2. Clean up your room, your car, your home, your immediate living spaces. Get rid of anything that reminds you of Scientology. Throw it away or sell it. Replace it with something positive and aesthetic.

3. Where you can, disconnect or limit your contact with any active Scientologists for at least one month (or more if necessary). This will allow your new personal surroundings to help you cool off and re-center on more positive attitudes. To those you still have to deal with on a regular basis, be charitable and upbeat with them. (Smile and nod if you can’t think of anything polite to say…)

4. Develop an open-minded attitude toward anything related to Scientology. Try to look at everything from as many possible viewpoints as possible. Seek the truth – which is something personal to you. Work to question and understand all your beliefs so you know why you believe that way and how it actually works for you, personally.

5. Surround yourself with inspirational and supportive material from many diverse authors. Listen to recordings during your commute and when you can during the day. Turn off the TV and any source which upsets you. Seek to live a peaceful life, in harmony with your surroundings. Learn from many sages and distill their wisdom into your own.

6. Write up your own experiences in a journal, a diary, or online. This is how you can learn from your decisions and actions. This allows you to get closure from any mistakes or lapses in judgment you may have experienced. Be charitable with yourself and seek to discover your own personal truths.

7. Discover your own purpose for your life. Find out what things make you happy and work to get these happening more often in your life. Let your purpose discover you – and act on what you find to get on-purpose in your life.

8. Stay positive. Those negatives of Scientology and life in general don’t have to affect you unless you want to let them. Again, you can control your own attitude. Work to help others control theirs.

9. Realize that people are basically good and are trying to help themselves and everyone around them to improve their survival. As you work with people to acknowledge and strengthen that basic goodness, you’ll find more of this showing up in your and their lives.

10. Invest some of your time, if you can, in working for an actual charity or good-works organization in your city or neighborhood. Give of yourself freely, without expectation of reward or repayment.

11. Help others recover from their time in and around Scientology. Don’t force the issue, let them originate. Meanwhile, be cheerful and supportive of the good that they are and do.

12. Get on with your life. Find a project that fits your purpose and devote yourself to it. Start living for yourself and those around you with a zest.

- – - -

There are two principle points to these steps:

First, you are always going to get back what you give. If you are critical, antagonistic toward anything or anyone – you will get back that amount or more criticism or antagonism. By being charitable and understanding, supportive, you then get more understanding and help coming back to you. The more you help others, the more you receive help. Never expect the help to come back from where you invested it – that’s not necessarily the way this universe operates. But acknowledge help when it arrives and know that there’s more there – if you continue to give completely openhanded help freely around you.

Second, only compassion and understanding will allow those people in Scientology to discover the wide, wonderful world their cult has separated them from. Allow them to transition gradually. Help them as you can to live peaceful, tolerant lives – in harmony with everyone around them, not separate.

As you treat all your experiences in Scientology as learning ones, you can get the lessons and move on. Life has many, many lessons to be learned. Often, you are reminded about various situations you’ve encountered several times – because there are many different lessons to be learned from a single experience.

This world is not a perfect place, but perhaps we can make it more livable and joyous if we seek to live in peace with everyone – and help them to live peacefully as best we can. When you see someone trying to be different, separate from those around them, realize that this doesn’t make you or them wrong. They have a difference of opinion about how to live life. But you can know in your heart that what you put out into this universe is what you are going to get back.

So, be at peace, live at peace – and help others toward this goal. And then – if we get the bulk of this planet working toward that aim – we can make real progress toward a permanent peace on earth.

Online World Peace Plan – lecture, video, site, everything but a book…

Can you think of a nicer way to say “Online World Peace Plan” than in Web 2.0?

Had a brainstorm last week to get a lecture out so I could hit the radio interview circuits. So I created one (free MP3 Online World Peace Plan download), made a video out of it, made an optimized Online World Peace Plan mini-web for the transcript, created a PDF (in order to make that video) and have the whole thing up and running now.

So, here I blog about the whole thing and so “Jiggle the web” to use Michael Campbell’s phrase.

Let me tell you the sequence of it:

  1. Bright idea. Came from my “day job” telling me I had the weekend “off” (meaning: without pay). Needed to create some income. Already had been working up some Web 2.0 examples of my speaking ability so that I could send reporters that way. So I decided to just let it all hang out with a lecture that told everyone about my latest results. (These philosophic breakthroughs tend to make you a big edgy until you vent them creatively – muses are an insistent bunch…)

  2. Wrote a rough outline and then cranked out nearly 6K words in an afternoon. Polished it up a bit.
  3. Sent this to TTS to make a cheap-and-easy MP3. Wasn’t happy with the results. Sounded stilty and the emphasis was unreal.
  4. Scraped out a proper outline and practiced giving this speech a few times. Then recorded it using one program and another to edit some of the odd-ball mistakes out of it. This took a couple-three days.
  5. Made a PowerPoint (actually OpenOffice Impress presentation) from that outline. Converted this to a PDF and then to individual images. Meanwhile, started adding in notes for a second PDF (still needing completion).
  6. Imported those PowerPoint PDF images and the edited speech (MP3) into Camtasia. Boring. Opened up Picassa to look through all the clip art and stock art I have on my machine. Where I was missing any particular image, I searched the web – quick and dirty, plus I’m using it for free advertising, so shouldn’t be a particular problem. With all this stuff in there, I then created the video – a version to send up on YouTube and another I can set up on-site (though I prefer to host the bandwidth otherwise). Started the video uploading.
  7. Using Dr. Andy William’s SEO Website Builder, I took that original 6K words and split it up into several pages – then optimized these for a mini-web. Once I had tweaked all the keywords, theme words, and so on, then I uploaded this mini-web to my main site – in it’s own directory (which matched the link at the tail end of the video). By now the YouTube has finished loading, and when the processing is complete, I’ll have the links ready for updating, etc. Meanwhile, I tried uploading to Blogger, but just got an error (not the first time).
  8. Went back and finished the PowerPoint Notes PDF, and tweaked the mini-web to include the video embed, plus the PDF link, and ensured the Online World Peace Lecture MP3 was linked. So the home page is all tricked out with all the Web 2.0 stuff. Updated the other menus to have a live link to YouTube as well (just in case). FTP’ed all these to my server and tested them.
  9. Now, as I get this blog done, and when I test the site – I social bookmark it. Onlywire, Digg, De.licio.us, whatever.
  10. Get out that press release I’d earlier laid out – post it to as many free press release sites as I can find/have collected.
  11. Now I go and create a Squidoo lens for this video, it’s MP3, the site and everything. Social bookmark that lens as well. Link to everything and it’s brother here.

So now you see the whole scene unfold. Web 2.0 meets organic SEO.

Next up? I’ve got some choices, like videos of commentaries on my books. But I plan to do up a children’s book based on that same lecture. It has a plot – but each chapter is illustrated and can be a video on it’s own (search for the whole set…)

But really, I need to get some emails out to some radio producers who need good talent. That is the key analysis point of how to improve my book sales.

You can see, however, that the childrens’ books would fly down this line quite nicely. The video’s all link to a mini web for each chapter (some wild keyword work here), making a mini-net for the book. Those mini-webs/net all link to the Lulu.com book – which would then be shipped off to Amazon. And I’d start another round of radio interviews. Not to mention the point that I can actually blook this one, with the ability to put images up with the text. Now THAT would make some interesting radio angle – first childrens’ book to be blooked and videoed before it went to hardcopy press. (Not to mention that every chapter will have a puzzle – which could be an online Flash game, possibly. But that is really getting the cart before the horse…)

Now, all of this still points back to my original Go Thunk Yourself Self Help Library and the Personal Development Library of the same name.

Because that’s the name of the game – promotion. Not just enough to write great books if people don’t know about them, is it?

- – - -

Update: Took me close to 1 1/2 weeks to get a lecture outline, written and recorded (3 times until I was happy with it!), video produced, powerpoint produced (and exported to PDF), all these uploaded, linked, etc. Then the whole thing Squidoo‘d – while I still have the social bookmarking to do, plus getting out the press releases.

And then we’ll check the Google rankings…

- – - -

Yes, within minutes, I had #1 and #10 spots! I know on a blog search, it said I had submitted this blog 44 minutes ago – and it had the #1 spot. But I was busy on the Squidoo lens on Online World Peace… So it takes some time. What was #10? My Online World Peace Lecture video

Now, if I can get it to get me some sales…

(Reminder: do this technique for your other videos, like the one on New Business Ideas – Genius.)

- – - -
Update: next day – (2/14/08)

Today searched for Online World Peace, with and without quotes. Fascinating. My Digg story on Squidoo showed up tops or in the top five both ways. Have to do more testing with this.

When you look for something in quotes, you are narrowing the competition immensely – and so skewering your results. People don’t look with quotes, unless they know a certain phrase is in that site or page they are looking for. So don’t kid yourself. Luckily, I wound up on top because I used Digg – which linked to Squidoo. Two social sites together. We’ll see how long they last. But this particular post – even searched as “online world peace plan”? Nope.

Problem is that “world peace” has too many competitors. So I get buried even with the exact wording when looking for an online plan. “Online world peace lecture” (with or without quotes) stands above all of them.

Lesson is to pick your keywords carefully – and social bookmark everything you do.

But this still gave me optimism that a person could actually start getting wider niches if you use social bookmarking in connection with videos, MP3’s, etc.

Next work is to get a mailing list that plugs into these – if I’m promoting “Go Thunk Yourself!” books, then it would make sense to have an opt-in page for that book series… There’s my money line.

A nugget in a slanted article about farming

The key point here is whether it is still cheaper to raise cattle for two years on grass, or farm with chemical fertilizers (and mechanical, fuel inputs) and feed corn to feedlot cattle which are ready 8 months earlier. Means you have income every year from that year’s cattle, not a continuing investment – the longer the runway, the more chances that the plane doesn’t take off.

“With corn yields exploding, it was cheaper to fatten cattle in the feed lot than off grass. Breeders paid more attention to the yields butchers could extract from a beef carcass than to their live animal’s hardiness. Disease pressure in crowded feedlots was alleviated with the adulteration of the feed with antibiotics.

Meat got cheap, middlemen got rich, and grass-based cattle ranching entered a long economic decline.

Back on the farm, the high nitrogen fertilizers applied to the corn fields burned up the micro-organisms that had contributed to soil health and made grain farmers dependent upon chemical inputs for their fertility.”>Andy Griffin: Down on the Farm A brief history of beef: From prairies to corn to bombs February 9, 2005: “With corn yields exploding, it was cheaper to fatten cattle in the feed lot than off grass. Breeders paid more attention to the yields butchers could extract from a beef carcass than to their live animal’s hardiness. Disease pressure in crowded feedlots was alleviated with the adulteration of the feed with antibiotics.

Meat got cheap, middlemen got rich, and grass-based cattle ranching entered a long economic decline.

Back on the farm, the high nitrogen fertilizers applied to the corn fields burned up the micro-organisms that had contributed to soil health and made grain farmers dependent upon chemical inputs for their fertility.”

This is slanted to Hades and back, but an interesting quote overall.

If you were to raise only grass-fed beef, the probable strategy would be to geld the bulls into steers and release them back into the herd, once weaned. Take the heifers and sell them either as feeders or as heifers for breeding by others. Means you’d be keeping half your progeny on your pastures. Question is how much your crop land would generate in terms of pasture compared to farming it for corn and beans. Just a math problem, based on average hay versus corn yields. But if a farmer is raising corn and beans anyway, with cattle being only a part of his farm income, then taking a bit of this to feed his cattle would make sense.

We have a max of about 20 head on the land we can use for pasture, with about 60 acres arable for beans and corn. Probably it would be cheaper in terms of input to simply go to pastures all around and sell the excess hay we raise, leaving the cattle to winter forage on those hay pastures and fertilize them as they go. But I’ll not throw the bathwater and baby out yet until I can make economic sense of it. Right now, our corn and beans are the least profitable, as I’ve figured out how to make our own fat-cattle food with just grain corn and soybeans (plus some minerals). Once I’ve adjusted back to saving our own seed and changed my rotations to get legumes back into nitrogen fixing and so able to cut well back on nitrate fertilizers, I’ll be able to see what can be done on that other side of the farm. Until then, these people crying only for grass-fed beef can keep crying. The buck talks.