A Happier Kind of Tired

  I am an author.  I am an actor. 

  I find myself having to repeat that several times a day.  They're not the typical answers that you give when someone asks you what you do for a living.  Especially not that second one. 

  But I filmed my first commercial on Sunday, with a cast of professionals, so that makes the second one official.  Men and women who've taken Theatre Studies and worked for years on stage and on film; who've wandered far distances away from home experiencing life from the perspective of art and spirit; whom I felt a kinship with on a professional level, for the first time in a long time.  And I have a credit to my name.  That's one commercial more than what the vast majority of the rest of the population has done or will do in their lives.  That doesn't make me better or superior, but it is something to be happy about. 

   This isn't all rainbows and sunshine, of course.  I've left my regular day job with the government, and so I'm on the hunt for something to pay the bills in the interim. I've been here before, but unlike the past few years, I'm no longer going to cite my stop-gap job when someone asks me what I do.  Make no mistake: I am an actor, and an author.

   "Author". "Actor".  Repeat as needed.

  A great bit of advice I can give younger guys and gals who are reading this is to never stay in a place that robs you of your spirit and confidence, because that starts to eat away at the other parts of your life that are not the business of the office or your boss.  That's what was happening to me.  With distance and time, I'll have a better perspective on the real nature of the misfit between myself at that job, but I think it had more to do with the people than I might have assumed. 

  On my last day of work, I received no cards, no lunches, no special acknowledgements or send-offs of any sort.  Instead, my now-former boss burst out of a meeting room with about an hour and a half left in my shift, put on her coat, grabbed her things, and rushed towards the exit.  She stopped briefly at my desk, saying "Sorry, Jody, I'm in a hurry."  Grabbed my hand in a quick handshake. "Best of luck to you!  Bye!", and then breezed out the door.  That was it.  I didn't want a parade - this isn't a question of satisfying my ego - but it is not a classy way to end a working relationship, especially not one that lasted a little over a year in an office of only five to six people. 

   Micromanager wasn't much better.  The convention in the modern workplace is that you can leave early from your last shift.  Technically, the employer can't do much except dock you for those minutes you didn't work.  It's not like they can fire you.  It's one of those unwritten rules that you let the guy go home early on his last day.  At least, that's how it is in good workplaces in the private sector, which is not where I was. When advising Micromanager that I had nothing else to do and was leaving early, she actually asked me, "Did you clear it with the boss?"  Definitely one of those WTF moments.  Coupled with a heads-up she gave me that she was "leaving a file on her desk for Monday", I wondered if it wasn't a case that she was deliberately obtuse, but rather that she might actually be off her gourd.  Hello?  Why would I care about the whereabouts of a file folder on Monday? I'm not going to be here on Monday. 

   That was the moment when it became clear to me that I wasn't batshit crazy or insane or otherwise stressed-out, that contrary to what my management had led me to believe, I wasn't doing a job I was unqualified for.  I was not incompetent or an imbecile.  The reality is that there is just never any way to satisfy the demands of people who have absolutely no interest in what you do, no self-awareness, and almost no sense of social decorum, except, of course, for people on the inside of their service branch, and who are, I'll repeat, just plain nuts.  Try to be the only sane person in an asylum run by the inmates, and see how long it takes for them to convince you that you're nuts.  You can clock it with an egg timer.

   No, those two moments completely dissolved any regret and anxiety I felt about abandoning a lucrative day job with nothing comparable to fall back on.  Not a smart move on paper, but the greater price was further damaging my sense of confidence and self-worth. No job is worth that.  Such wounds can be permanent. 

   So, what to do after you've made the leap of faith?  Keep flying.  It's all about the hustle from here on in.

   Finding a short-term stop gap job should be easy once I pare down my resume a tad.  Right now, I could serve coffee and lug boxes again and be happy, as long as I have some days free to audition and write.  For the first time in my life, I find myself overqualified for the jobs I want to work.  It's a challenge, but it's also a good feeling.


   I'm giving Convergence at least one more week in marination before I start editing.  Unlike The Quotable Breakup, I'm looking to publish my novel in the traditional sense - lit agent, publisher, book tour - so I'd rather wait until I can give more attention to the manuscript.

   And, of course, I'm still auditioning.  Got another one tomorrow, in fact.  At some point, I want to take a weekend retreat to study with acting coaches, but I'll need monies garnered from stop-gap wages before I can do that.  Until then, at each audition, I'm relying on my own instincts.

    I haven't been this tired, busy, or seen more of the great city of Toronto than in the past few weeks.  That's the thing about reinventing the self: it's a lot more work, but it doesn't feel like work.  When you're done for the day, it's a different, happier kind of tired. The kind you get when you come home from a wedding reception or a family picnic, or a long-expected party that's now finally come and gone.  One that makes you feel good waking up the next day, knowing you're going to do more.
 
   Creative career paths aren't for everyone, but neither is the corporate grind.  And I'm not going to rule out never going back to that grind: life may yet lead me back to it, albeit richer for the experience of walking the path of the artist for a time.  But I know and feel that what I'm doing now is right, even if the benefits aren't immediately evident, because I'm in the vibe, and when you're in the vibe, it doesn't matter what you do: wealth and joy will manifest when you need it. 

    I am an author.  I am an actor.  And I've never been happier.  Time for sleep!

Second Tier Dreams

    There are simply too many artists sacrificing the present chasing future dreams.

    As I wrote earlier, many aspiring writers, actors, animators, singers, what-have-you are waiting tables, pouring coffee, pushing papers, or lugging boxes to make ends meet.  The justification is that they're just "paying the bills", and this is true.  But one thing they don't consider is that they're not necessarily making the best use of other talents they may have in the interim.

   Take someone like myself - university educated, leadership talents thanks to the Fraternity and other organizations, intelligent, with high technical skill - and put them doing something from 9 to 5 that makes little use of these other talents - like administration or other entry level posts - and what do you have?  Work dissatisfaction.  Personal stagnation.  Stress.  Anxiety.  Feelings of malaise and disappointment. 

   Why do we do this to ourselves?  "Why," we say, "I'm just doing this until [fill in the lucrative artsy career goal], nothing more."  Why do we do this?  "It's just what I've always done." And every word of it is true, but eventually, working below our potential on a daily basis will cost us those other talents. They will atrophy. 

   As such, it's important to envision a second-tier dream, while bigger ones are pending.

   Artists usually don't do this, especially if they, like me, use tools like the Law of Attraction and intention-based mindset practices to fulfill goals.  "If I go after something else, won't I be compromising my dream?  Won't I be spreading myself too thin if I get a job that's too involved?"

   The questions makes sense, and the answer to both is, well, yes and no.  Yes, because no longer is your vision of seeing your book on the bestseller's shelf at Borders or winning a Grammy going to be the only one you have.  No, because the second-tier dream runs parallel to the main one: in fact, the second tier dream underlies the first.

   You see, Aspiring Career Artist, you're going to have to work a job no matter what until you get to that moment of fulfillment.  That means you have an opportunity to not only pay the bills, but to develop other skills that you might be sidelining in favour of your chief talent.

   Cindy Crawford may be a world-famous model now, but she had won a scholarship to study Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University. Mind you, she only studied for one academic quarter before modeling took off, but the point is that she definitely had talents that she would have applied in the working world.

  Twin career pursuits can lead to cross-fertilization that can only enhance your bigger dreams.  For instance, if you become a team lead in some capacity at a company, you'll build leadership and organizational skills that you can then internalize enough to help keep you on track with your novel-writing.  Sales skills garnered anywhere from furniture stores to the financial sector can enhance your abilities to read people, which you can then translate to better character portrayals as an actor.

   If it's that simple, why don't more people have twin careers?  That's the thing: they do.  In my modest thirteen year work history, I've met several dozen individuals like this, each with their own "thing on the side".  And many, if not most of the people I've actually talked to about their bigger dreams, feel as though they're not normal, that they're deviating from what society says they "should" be doing. That's because we're conditioned as children, especially boys, to think about one career only. 

   "What do you want to be when you grow up?" isn't typically a multiple choice question, but it should be, because most human beings aren't one-trick ponies.

   We spend 40 hours a week at a full-time job.  A third of your day, at least half of your waking life (assuming we're splitting the 24 hours three ways, including sleep).  If it's making you feel miserable, if you feel like a misfit, that's a sure sign that you should be looking to trade up anyway, artsy career goal or not.

   But if you are an artist, take it from a guy who worked at three different places in the three years it took him to start and finish his first novel: don't suffer the present for your future needlessly.  Don't stagnate at a place just because "it's a job".

  You've got other talents, and if you can explore them at a day job that helps you grow in those directions, that will put you (back) in a mindset of confidence, leadership, ambition, and excellence, then that's where you should be looking. 

  That's what I'm looking for.  After finishing the exercise that my ex gave me the other day, I concluded that what I'm looking for boils down to a few key elements: a leadership role in a big private sector company; a large team environment where I interact with lots of people each day; a Monday to Friday day shift; at least 10k more a year in take-home money than what I'm making now; a fair, consistent, and people-centric management philosophy; and someplace that has a strong participatory corporate culture (i.e. company teams, events, parties).   That's broad enough that I'm sure I can find such a place in my area, but specific enough that I reduce the risk of repeating past mistakes in approaching a potential job.

  To my friends who are still in school, high school and up, do yourselves a favour: set yourself a secondary, as well as a primary dream.  Contrary to what your parents, educators, and physics may have taught you, you can be in two places at once. 

   And who knows?  You might discover that your second tier dream is actually the thing you really want to do for your working life.  Of course, today, that's not me.  Definitely not me....

Confidence without Douchebaggery

  The following is a recounting of something Jody witnessed, and may not have happened exactly as depicted, though that's totally okay, because this version's been sexified by Jody's awesome imagination.

 The Phidelts had Wing Night this past Sunday in Westdale.

 After gorging on the delightful parts of some hapless, mass-produced chickens, me and the younger guys chill for about ten minutes before they head off to another pub. 

   During that time, two lovely young ladies emerge from the restaurant, walk past the bunch of us, and get into a car to light a cigarette.  Long story short, one of our entourage - driven by courage, apathy, and a deeper fortitude located somewhere in his pants - walks over to the driver's side.  I have no idea what he says - I'd later find out he opened with "I'd like to see some ID" - but the girls seem to enjoy it and the rest of us are quite entertained.

  "I love the way he sauntered over there," I say aloud.  "It's such a balls-out approach."

  At that point, a brother - who I shall deem "The Moustache" until he gives me formal permission to reprint his name publicly - responds with a cool point. 

"The trick is not giving a shit if people think you're a douchebag". 

  Think about it.  How many "nice guys" worry about looking like anything but "nice guys" when it comes to impressing the ladies?  That's why nice guys fail so frequently and so hard when they try to be less "nice" at bars and at parties: they're aware that they're putting on an act.  They're too afraid of saying something wrong that will make them look like complete assholes to the women.  Their fears become their focus, and thus become their experience.  There's nothing as confidence sapping, as emasculating, as the feeling that you have to choose between being a dick and being the Pillsbury doughboy to succeed at dating, and life.

  The trick is to lose yourself in the part.  And also to eliminate the word "douchebag" from your self description.  All you're doing is just walking your confidence. 

  Much like Jack the Clawless Tabby did in 2006.

  Call it a biological Napoleon complex all you want, this cat is one mean pussy.  Never once did it occur to him that the bear cub could easily take him out with the slightest of swipes, or that he was about five times smaller. The cat had his turf to protect. 

   Jack the Clawless Tabby never dwelled on his shortcomings: instead, he pushed his natural strengths to the max and harnessed them behind a single goal: telling a wandering bear to get the fuck off his property.

 Issues of confidence are rampant in my daily existence, mostly in the assertion department. Assertiveness remains a challenge for me, especially in the presence of stronger, go-getter personalities who are way more cock and balls than I'll ever be.  They give me little room to maneuver: if you push, I'll either dig in my heels or I'll just walk away, start some lone wolf time. 

  Or, if you're really being direct, I'll push back a little more out of proportion to what's called for, but that's a last resort.  I don't much care for pissing matches with people, but if you're on my territory - my home, my office, my arena - I will do what's necessary to protect my sovereignty.

 And yet, in situations where I'm not forced to beat my chest, I'm damned good at the confidence game.  I've landed a couple of jobs where I only barely met the requirements, based mostly on the interview.  Aaron pointed this out a couple of times when I've had moments of doubt: he's one person who sees that strength, and he's one of the most confident guys I've ever met. 

  We have an archetype in Western culture of the disgruntled office clerk.  That person who occupies a lower station in a greater organization who is so much more capable than what he's getting, if only he had the guts to just speak up for himself.  Frequently, the place where he paralyzes himself is one concept, this all-too-familiar fear:

"I don't want to be an asshole."

  Nor is it just guys.  Alice remarked to me today, in a somewhat related discussion, her own qualms with self-assertion.  After showing her the story on Jack the Orange Tabby, she said this:

   I'm always afraid that I'll look like a bitch if I assert myself like that.

    Back to the Moustache for a moment.

    "You know," I say to him, back at the parking lot of the restaurant after Wing Night, "I've always struggled with issues of authenticity, especially when it comes to meeting girls, but you know..."

     I steal another look over at Mr. Ballsy, chatting up the two girls.

    "It's nothing new.  I've summoned that kind of confidence at job interviews, why not here?"

    The Moustache agrees.  "Real douchebags don't care what people think.  That confidence is attractive and they know it.  You can be a good confident person without being a dick."

    Plus, as much as pretty girls can't initially tell the difference between an asshole and a confident good guy at a bar, I'm willing to bet they enjoy the process of sorting them out.

    Simple concept, right?  And yet, so many people fret over it.

   Losing yourself in the role doesn't mean putting on a show.  It's the acquisition and continued accumulation of a genuine feeling, and then just running with it.  It's like summoning a comic book superpower and then swaggering around. 

  Easiest way to summon this power?  Do what Ben Affleck's character talks about in Boiler Room - which Michael is watching over at his place as I type this:

"Act as if". 

   Assume you're a superstar, then lose yourself in the part.  I do this a lot lately as part of my visualization for acting.  Since I started, not gonna lie, my swagger's gotten more attention from all the right places (and a few of the wrong ones).

   As that superstar, walk up to someone today and strike up a conversation like it was nothing.  Unless the other person has some malfunction in that moment, I promise it'll go smoothly.

  If anything, that other person should feel anxious talking to you.  Be polite, kind, say whatever comes to mind, thank them, shake their hands if the chat was meaningful, then make your way out. 

   As you leave, notice that feeling - high, energized, certain - and carry it with you as long as it lasts. 

  And remember it the next time you see that cute girl you've been dying to talk to.

  To the naturally confident, extroverted A-types, this seems so basic, but to guys like me, it's always a new revelation, like a monolith from 2001.  Some people need to have this literally beaten into our skulls with a proto-human femur bone to make sure we never forget.

  And yes, lately I've been following my own advice and doing this with women.  More on that in a later entry.  Back to the novel, in the meantime.

Dare the Universe

Blog Evolution

To make any blog more searchable, it helps to include a few words about what it's about.  It's also preferable not to have those keywords all appearing at once in the title banner.  Hence, why I've resorted to the tag cloud, visible in the module on the upper right corner of the homepage to Dispatches.  I did a quick skim of all the entries to date and tagged according to what I saw. By the numbers, this isn't as much of a divorce blog as I thought it was.  We'll see how it evolves from here.

The Secret, on Amphetamines

Thursday, I returned home from work.  Another busy week, yet more mediocrity. 

The reason I'm perpetually unsatisfied in most jobs I've held is that most of them have been office work without much room for creativity, and I'm a creative person.  The most creative office based job I ever had was at the virtual concierge where I worked before lucking out on the government position.  Even that gig was heavily regulated due to the nature of the service we were providing.  I stick with administration for the same reason that food servers with other passions stick to waiting tables: it's the only means of making money to support their basic needs they've ever done while bigger dreams are still pending.

I'll also flat out state that the Public Service, from a creative standpoint, is a zombie apocalypse.  It does many things well, but encouraging innovation, imagination, and outside-the-box thinking is not part of the deal.  Nor should it be: you need to conform to existing processes and suppress all independent thought or desires to change the system, because there's only so much you can change.  Again, nothing inherently wrong with that.  But  I can decide is where I want to stand in relation to it all.  I'll do my job, but I need to get out before I, too, get zombified.

So, I returned home from work and decide to pop in The Secret. 

Now, most of my science-y friends and more rationalistic buddies don't necessarily buy into the Law of Attraction, or the way it's presented in The Secret. Fair enough. What you have to realize is that this DVD was my introduction to the concept.  I have it practically memorized. So even though I have my own doubts from time to time,  The Secret is part of my own belief system. Thus, telling me not to watch it, or to discount it on empirical grounds, is like telling a Catholic not to attend mass, or a Muslim not to bow to the east. Many scientists are devoutly religious, keep that in mind.  And I have had some rather anomalous experiences the methodology that prove, in my subjective experience, that the Law of Attraction exists, and works as advertised.

And one such experience occurred that night. 

I decided to do some visualizing of my own.  Scheduled to pay a visit to my talent agency on Saturday to activate my profile and start getting auditions for film and TV work, I started to fantasize about such a gig. 

Since this opportunity landed in my lap, I've had various fantasies and daydreams of success in commercials, film and TV which I won't share here, frankly because I don't trust that some well-meaning but skeptical readers won't shoot them down on practical grounds.  Watching The Secret, I decided to indulge in these daydreams. 

Two minutes - two minutes! - after I began my reverie, the phone rang.  It was the agency.  On a hunch, they wanted to see if I could audition for a major restaurant chain the very next day!  Normally, they'd wait until I was completely set up, but they were in a bind and were willing to chance a long shot.

I was stunned.  Chalk it up to coincidence all you want, it was a wake-up call of the biggest sorts. 

And I ended up turning them down.  A manager at my office was retiring the next day, so my absence from the office would have been conspicuous.  Or so I told myself.  They said "no worries", and I hung up the phone.

Next day, I went back to work.  Long story short, I wasn't nearly as needed as I thought I was. 

Today, I went in, and finalized my setup.  And I found out I had a great chance to have landed that part had I gone to that audition.  Major.  More where that came from, sure, but I've learned a few lessons from this.

First, office work assimilates people: people become bureaucratized quite easily. This happens in the private sector, sure, but government's particularly nasty at that because everything's hyper regulated and monitored.  Just visit any family court.  Remember the episode of The Simpsons where Homer actually files for divorce from Marge?  Who could forget the immortal words of comfort of the court clerk (who looked suspiciously like Lunch Lady Doris)?  "These things happen. Eight dollars".  This lady actually exists, I'll tell you.

As physically safe and mentally simple as government work can be, it steals the spirit of the artist, one bit of ectoplasm at a time, until you're nothing but an overweight, cardigan-wearing zombie, more concerned with potluck parties and the weekly lottery pool than trying to do anything more creative and passionate.  Don't rock the boat. Don't ask too many questions. Don't take risks.  That becomes your life, if you can call it living.

Second, bureaucratization causes you to lose sight of your own big picture.  No adventure would be considered risky if you weren't willing to lose everything, but it takes balls of pure adamantium to actually do it. 

Had I gone for that audition and booked it, it would have been worth the one day off and the potential wrath of my boss to get the start of a new career and several thousand dollars which would help me pay debt and travel.  But on the phone, having to make a split second decision, the reflex to play it safe that I've developed over a year of government work was all too automatic. 

In order to be an actual risk taker and not some guy who blogs about it from his all-too-comfortable swivel chair on his lunch break, you've got to actually take risks.

Finally, there's always more where that came from.  I'm not only talking TV auditions, here.  I'm talking full-time jobs.   In retrospect, I got everything backwards ass.  I took the risk of leaving full-time work to pursue my passion when I was supporting my ex, and now play it safe as a single guy with no one depending on me. 

Switching that around means daring the Universe.  It means being willing to sacrifice a sure bet for the slippery chance at your own fairy tale.  It means knowing that just as you step over the chasm, a step will rise up just as you're about to fall and catch your foot.  And another, and another, until you reach the other side.

The last time I decided to really take a risk was in 2007. That was when, supported by my ex, I quit my job at the distribution centre where I had worked since high school with nothing else lined up to replace it.  And all along that chain of events leading me to this writing, never once did I end up starving, or on the street, or having to tuck tail and move back in with Mom and Dad.  On the contrary: money and work always showed up somehow, in various forms, just in time to keep me going.

That's not to say it didn't have a price in debt or stress, but overall, Serendipity has looked after me.  I just forget about her in weaker moments, as do we all.  Fortunately, Serendipity is a forgiving lady. And hot to boot.

I'm not quitting my office job, to be clear, nor am I going to slack off.  But I am extending the same rule I had when I started: never let it interfere with my greater ambitions.  There are always other jobs, but precious few big dreams, the latter of which have only the narrowest of opportunities to become reality.

I have no illusions that I will become a major Hollywood star or anything, nor am I giving up writing to do this, but I am definitely open to the possibility, and am willing to be passionnate about any work I get and see where the passion leads me.

And next time they call, I am saying "yes" to whatever gorram audition they have for me.

Eames the Forger says it best in Inception: "You musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling". 

Surely,  I can dream bigger than my desk.

Jorge Garcia has a....Jedi Moment...

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Leave it to me to wait until the end of the series to not only find what is possibly the greatest cast-member blog on Blogspot from LOST, but to find the two entries in which Jorge Garcia realizes that he used the Law of Attraction to end up on the cast of the show.*

Here they are: Write It Down...and be specific.

Way ahead of you, dude.

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(*even if he doesn't call it that by name....a jar of DHARMA-Initiative Ranch Composite by any other name would smell as sweet....)

Something Wicked This Way Comes...Part I

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(LS Ratio: 4:10. Mood: Sleepy)

Anthropologist-turned-brujo Carlos Castaneda, in A Separate Reality, writes of an instance in which he and his mentor, Yaqui shaman Don Juan Matus, are on their way to a house where a group of Don Juan's associates will be seeking out Mescalito, the spirit figure accessible only through consumption of peyote. The road in Sonora, Mexico, that they drive at night rises and falls over a series of hillsides. Cresting one of those rises, Castaneda looks back and sees two lights, which he initially perceives to be a car that's been following them for some time.

"Not so," says Don Juan (paraphrasing here, of course). "The lights are Death. Death follows us, all the time, and it may catch us." Castaneda, at the time, was unclear on his teacher's meaning: Don Juan never spoke in metaphors. To him, the world was literally filled with deities and spirits, demons and angels, so whenever he spoke of them, they were as real as anything in our daily experience. To Castaneda, they were just car headlights.

Was Death really following Castaneda and Don Juan on that hot, dry desert night in Sonora? Conjecture still follows the late Castaneda, a former anthropologist who "went native" with the Yaqui, as to whether or not he'd just invented Juan Matus and Don Gennaro for narrative purposes.

Then again, I recently read a great quote - can't remember it now, can't find it now, either - that says that it's frightening to think of what's actually possible in the world, so we choose to believe that many of those things that scare us can't exist. I believe Don Juan existed. And I can say that if it were me in that car, I would have likely given the Yaqui sorcerer the benefit of the doubt. A death omen is a death omen. Keep driving. Don't stop.

I believe in what late Holographic Universe author Michael Talbot called "a participatory universe", in which the boundaries we in the West believe separate the human mind from the human experience do not exist, and are themselves constructs that we can dismantle at will. That's what all that "physicists' blackboard" stuff was about in my past few entries.

Physicists share a number of things in common with shamans: taking themselves out of the world to redefine and study, in their own way, what is possible in that world, and returning to find that the world has, in fact, grown from their studies. Working on oneself, by oneself, ends up redefining our perceptions and feelings, and both serve to re-shape the outside world after their own images.



I've been experiencing omens. We all do, but most of us dismiss them as coincidences, if we notice them at all. Then again, the Law of Attraction presumes a participatory reality, meaning that your mind and emotions influence external events. This is where the process loses many would-be believers: after all, thoughts can't make things happen in reality, right?

I've heard almost all the arguments and "explanations" for how these supposedly supernatural, meaningful synchroncities can all be either accounted for as psychological tricks of the mind or by explanable empirical phenomenon. And all of them miss the point. By light years.

The one that concerns me here, for this purpose of this post, is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which, LOA skeptics assert, accounts for the meaningful synchronicities that occur whenever we are looking for something in particular (i.e. why, if you're shopping for a particular Corvette, you start seeing Corvettes or Corvette references everywhere in your daily experience.)

(Strangely enough, in Googling the term Baader-Meinhof for this link, I found a definition on 1000 Awesome Things, a website and book I only first heard about yesterday on French-language Radio Canada as I drove into work. Spooky.)

That's the trick, though: it may be all in your subjective experience, but that's the only thing that matters, isn't it?

After all, you don't subject your daily experience to empirical testing: you just live your day. The Law of Attraction, the Path of the Beam, are not about what the happenings are, but about what they mean to you. And yet, others experience omens of their own, making this a distinctly transpersonal phenomenon.

Is there the possibility that this stuff is "real", in that the results can be eventually measured by scientific instruments? I'd like to think so, considering that other forces previously dismissed by the leading thinkers of the day as "mystical" - notably electromagnetism, speaking of attraction - are now powering our cities and iPods.

Anyone who kept an open mind back then is now thought of as a pioneer, since time and study proved there was quantifiable evidence of these phenomena. In their own times, without that evidence, others thought they were off their collective gourd, much the same way that we dismiss today's psychics and parapsychologists, alien abductees, and believers in life after death. Faith was and remains the key word. And wouldn't it be nice to be ahead of the game?

So yeah, I believe in omens, same way I believe in gravity, electricity, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and all the other energies that make up our daily lives in the first half of the 21st Century A.D.

What omens have I been getting lately? Stay tuned....