"Technology" is so cool.  We are attempting to mediate, recreate, and reproduce reality to our liking, to fuel our insatiable appetite for power and control. And it works.  World renowned linguist Noam Chomsky talks about how media was created with the purpose to control consumers.  The technological advancement of modes of communication defines the human condition.  We are trading our human experience of reality with our senses uniquely moment to moment at it is without thought.  Thought is symbolic of reality.  It is representative of that which is real, that which we all share, this world.  Thought distracts us from experiencing life, as the miracle it is, each and every moment.  Human thought represents reality as a controlled chaos, as the scientific method has "discovered". Electrons whirl around the nucleus of an atom.  Tectonic plates shift.  Our planet revolves around a sun in a galaxy that revolves around….spinning as we whirl out into nothingness like pieces of something which exploded.  As these pieces move out in every direction they become further and further apart as pieces (stars) die, implode as black holes and take back everything they made!  From light matter into dark.  Light matter makes up about 10% of the universe or that which we can perceive. Yet, the world we perceive has constancy, predictability, peace, and perfection.  Reality was meant to be experienced, not understood, changed, or controlled. 

One might say,we are a cross breed between aliens and monkeys.  I mean, there seems a giant leap from one species to another.  Animals are aware of themselves and other things on some level.  Animals feel.  Some scientists say they have emotion as well.  Where do humans go wrong?  We attempt to control and change our life experience based on self fulfillment, avoidance of pain and pursuit of pleasure.  This wholly egocentric way of life limits our sense of connection, causes alienation, and ultimately becomes man's attempt at playing "God". 

The problem with people is that the universe revolves around each person who inherently becomes the most important or powerful thing in existence.  This induces that we each create our own realities, like God's and Goddesses.  Perhaps, but then how do we all tend to get a similar experience not only in the world, emotionally, despite circumstances, and outside ourselves, otherness.  At root we all experience emotions.  The circumstance is not hardly as important as the common experience of love, pain, pleasure, jealousy and the like.  It is our emotional reality that binds us to reality and each other.  Feelings are our bodies reaction to thought.  It is the membrane between the internal and external.  In feeling, what is thought, or symbolic, enters the external perceived reality thus bridging the gap between self and everything else.

There is so much more, obviously.  I could rewrite this brainstorm much better and make more sense I suppose.  However, I am on the verge of a headache and just don't care to craft.  I just want to put ideas out there so that people can engage, interact, and affect what they will.

www.tavius.org

I have counted my reps and allow my general awareness over proper form.  However, I teach breathing out with the positive direction and inhaling of the negative.  Part of this is to maximize breathing.  The other part of this becomes a kind of mind body meditation.  Instead of counting reps, I focused on my breath as I pushed and pulled in time with a comfortable breathing pattern.  The rhythm of timing my breathing with my lifting allowed me to do many more reps than normal.  Instead of having a number in mind as a target, it focused my mind on my breathing and timed my reps to my breath.  This allowed me to be even more aware of my body as I felt not only movement, muscle tightness and form, but even further as a cardiovascular system.  

Granted, this is during a maintenance, or low intensity workout period.  There are many ways to achieve various goals.  The experience I describe is personal, guided by teachings, and tested.  Exercise, like anything else in life, is defined by the personal purpose and goals targeted.  Goals should be as specific and realistic as possible.  That is where personal trainers and nutritionists come in to play.  Make sure you communicate your specific desired results to the proper experienced authorities.  Ask for similar case studies.  See what other people have been able to achieve working with the resources you approach.  Ask yourself, does this person know how to help me reach my goals?  Will I listen to them, and do what they say?  Some personality types need more motivation, or others different styles of communication and inspiration.  

Not everyone is a fit to get fit.

www.tavius.org

www.tavius.org

What company would knowingly chose their symbol which represents sin,, and all things evil about humanity.  There is only one bitten apple of any significance.  Even if you are not Christian, or do not believe in the Genesis, why pick a logo that represents sin!?  Well, it came from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Maybe knowledge has something to do with it?  Funny thing is, Apple is living up to their logo!  Technology debases human culture mediating our realities so that we are addicted to whatever stupid gizmo or gadget mankind events.  Sex, power, money.  While people around the world starve, die unnecessarily, have no shelter, ad infinitum.  But it is capitalism fault!  Right?  Wrong.  Capitalism is an set of beliefs centered on competition.  In competition there is always a winner and a loser.  It breeds a mentality of success being better than the next guy.  If we are all ego tripping critically, materialistically, and physically minded we loose so much of the human experience, and mainly do to the fact we can no longer relate as humans, or equals.  We amplify our instincts for power and control beyond reason and reality!  Besides we have pixels to distract our eyes from the real sun heating our bodies, and actual flowers blooming and smelling wonderful.  I have yet to taste anything on my iPad, or smell anything, or really touch anything, and what I hear and see is not real.  It's a representation or symbol of what is real.  We are programmed to see and hear because this is the mode of communication and control most prominent and affective, since the advent of radio, TV, Color TV, 3D… our eyes, and attempt recreating reality in 3D.  Why must we obsess over ourselves and our petty misuse of information? 

The internet allowed the world to access more information than ever, but what is the source?  Most good information on the web comes with a price tag.  And what about the mode of communication?  Let's take away facial gestures, body language, voices, tonation,…and what are we left to communicate?  How much "real" information are we sharing, and building our world view and defining ourselves by?  5% of the information needed for affective communication?  What do we do with the other 95% of the missing information?  Tell ourselves a story and try to make ourselves and others believe it. 

www.tavius.org

The concept of the Apple logo being brought to my attention for what it represents is the influence of my friend Jonathan Reyes!  I miss our crazy intelletucal conversations.

Oh, I failed to mention I watched the movie "Hot Tub Time Machine" last night.

locked against mine

with nothing left

between us.

Rather than trying to push your buttons like a TV remote

I pay attention to the one that matters

carefully caress yours

until driving

you

out of your mind

like a car crash!

We wreck into orgasm

as our heads collide

inside

and your big beautiful eyes

flutter

roll back white

as if possessed

by demons of ecstasy

rising out of you

as if the sweat from your body were steaming

out of body we flirt with death

one sexual overdose at a time

render us retarded

left to speak in lizard tongues

our own language unfolds before us

as minds return

move bodies into will and then something transcendent

like an alcoholics moment of clarity

as you shutter shake

pass a chill of a certain kind of death

death of the senses

into sensation

we enter the atmospheres of mind's mind

a layer at a time

we return to our senses

eyes open windows to our souls

something cliche

if not for love.

Tavius Dyer 5/09/12

In 2010 during my separation and divorce I started off homeless, jobless, without money, car, or food.  Thankfully I was able to crash at a friends house for a couple weeks until I could get unemployment coming in.  I realized that I had done everything I had wanted to do in my life, and that it wasn't about what I wanted anymore.  It was about what I needed to become useful and helpful to others. 

My plan was simple.  Get a place.  Get a job.  Get a car.

It worked out that way but there were some months of being stuck at home with nothing to do for hours, so I would watch movies to pass the time.  I started checking movies out at the local libraries.  I borrowed everyone's movies whom I lived with in the old Victorian downtown San Jose, CA with 7 other people 20-28ish.  I was the old man.  Most of them were still going to school though.

I remember going to movie theaters was the biggest treat during this time.  When I had a ride and a few bucks I would go.  There were many times I would go alone, so not to be stuck at home isolated all by myself.  I started to call this "dating myself".  I was getting to know myself by spending time with myself.  This may sound weird.  Maybe it is.  But how much time do we really spend by ourselves doing whatever we really want to do? 

I am grateful to have a family of my own, my own business again, a place in the Sierra to live near my family where I grew up, and all this experience to share and use to help others! 

What a gift!

After the assault with a deadly weapon charge I imagined my life would be over once I turned myself in July 5th 2004.  I had about six months before I would surrender myself and concluded I would loose my job, my car, my place, and so might as well party on despite now being on Probation, not allowed where alcohol was served, and needing to check in with probation and get drug tested (which I never did).

I distinctly recall my life feeling like a speeding car with the accelerator stuck to the floor board, break inoperable, and steering wheel stuck.  I saw a brick wall fastly approaching with no way to avoid it, just pushing towards it faster and faster.  Little did I know how truly miraculous it was for me to live through what would be my last day ever drinking and using again, for 8 years!

I had accidentally ingested stimulants contained in a Gatorade bottle at home where I was supporting my Dad.  He would hide dope in liquids.  I had not liked using anymore as it stopped working for me because it didn't feel good.  In fact, it felt worse every time I used.  I smoked pot and drank in an attempt do come down and feel a little better.  Tequila shots, large steins of amber ale, and burning bowls did all put push me off into the sea's of insanity.  I was like Huckleberry Finn, perhaps, riding down the Mississippi river towards the gulf coast, a fictional character in my own life.  Somehow, I felt my life had become a story about someone elses life I had been told and was recalling. 

The waitresses exposed legs with nylon leggings caught my attention, and I reached out before me to touch them, to poke at them to test the reality of the image before my eyes.  I faintly remember sitting at the bar with a middle aged lady who was alone.  I felt sorry for her.  I wanted to give myself to her.  I went to the bathroom and saw a beautiful girl coming down the hall.  I thought I hit on her, but later, I would read in the police report, I had verbally assaulted her.

When I came out of the restroom, a man I had never seen before gave me a head nod, as if to say what's up.  Before I could step towards him an angry mob of men came from all around and surrounded me yelling, pushing, and grabbing me to physically remove me from the bar.  I recall yelling profanities, as I did not understand what I had done to deserve this.  Once outside, I stood before this upscale bar.  The colorful plate glass windows came into focus, and I smashed through them with my arm one after another.  The mob of men who threw me out came out and down the stairs for me.  I realized, then, I had done something wrong and didn't want to go back to jail.

I took to the streets sprinting in flip flops.  I could not keep up my momentum.  I felt weaker and weaker, until finally I turned a corner and rolled underneath a car to hide from the men chasing me.  I heard one of them yell "He's under here"! 

I woke up in the hospital hours later.  The surgeon had removed the staples from my arm.  My skin pulled back exposing white tissue with blood pooled in the cracks. The inside of my arm at the elbow was tore away and hung open exposing bone.  I had severed the main artery in my arm, and was saved by an off duty police officer who was in the the crowd that chased me.  The doctor said I almost lost too much blood.  An officer from the scene the next morning told me he hadn't seen that much blood but in a car crash where somebody had died.

When I was able to call my mom over the phone from the infirmary and hear her repeat back to me "I can't believe my son was found passed out under a car bleeding to death" her voice became a mantra in my mind repeating itself until finally realizing that there were grave consequences for my actions, and that I needed help.