We have CNN on board, so we’ve been able to watch the first Presidential, as well as the vice Presidential, debates.  We’ve been able to follow news of the economic bailout.  We live in this unreal world where people are happily spending their money buying jewelry, art, gambling in the casino, etc., as if dancing while the world self-destructs.  We made our commitment to this trip long before the news began reporting this downturn, though I have known that things would be falling apart, having been long-forecast by such futurists as Gordon Michael Scallion (who has been a guest on Full Power Living).  I know that things must fall apart before the new can arise. 

This is where age helps, too.  I was in Spain on that November Thursday in 1987 when the bottom fell out of the U.S. Stock Market.  Reports of panic were widespread.  Things were down for a while; and then they began to get better.  With the years comes a greater awareness of the cycles of things, leaving me with the certitude that things will evolve, eventually getting better.  I’m focusing on what I want to “become”……

So many people from so many places.  We have met folks from Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the U.S. and England.  It is interesting to get their perspective.  They range from highly liberal to highly conservative, with most non-US people expressing dismay and curiosity about whatever is going on.  The most commonly-expressed idea is that they find the length of time this campaigning goes on interminable!  More people from other countries than from America are dismayed with Governor Palin’s candidacy, recognizing her extreme lack of preparation for such a formidable job. 

As a person who specializes in manipulation (Energy Sapping—see my e-booklet at our Store!), I am amazed that a national figure is again so blatantly manipulating the American public—trying to at any rate.  And the degree to which it is working is the most amazing thing.  Despite how pretty, articulate (at times) or feisty a person is, how can people continue to allow themselves to be so blatantly manipulated?  Governor Palin’s candidacy is totally designed to “plug in” features appealing, much as we use sexy women to sell cars and refrigerators on advertisements!  Palin, who is clearly willing to fill this role, apparently does so for her own ambitions (“should I be so privileged” does not divert my attention from this!).  Considering the number of times we Americans have allowed ourselves to be manipulated in recent years—and the disastrous and costly results—you’d think we would at last catch on and refuse the “invitation”!  I am most disappointed that we even consider allowing ourselves to be duped into making unthinking, costly decisions, once again.

And how interesting to hear the Senators and Congresspeople explain the many, many trillions of dollars of our children’s children’s money they have committed to bail out those who embraced such massive greed!  As a person focused on human emotions, every explanation sounds like this to me:  “It all has to do with emotions.  We were frightened.  We’re scared of a collapse, scared of losing our jobs, scared of taking too long to figure out a solution.  We’re spending millions on the production of wooden arrows for children (and subsidizing the rum industry), largely because of our need to persuade our colleagues to join us in our fear.”  I know that breakdown must occur before we rebuild, but this process IS tedious!  For me it is difficult to watch people pander to their own fear, rather than operate on the basis of integrity, look toward what they want to become, or master their emotions so they remain emotionally balanced—for our sake as well as theirs!

This is the report from the high seas of the Pacific (they’ve been moderate all the way, actually).  Onward, to Samoa, as we enjoy the good life.  We are told that this is the last voyage of this ship before the cruise line severely cuts the number of employees offering service to customers such as ourselves!

How do you react to the incessant television ads for prescription medication, which insist you “ask your Dr. about whether you will benefit from a prescription for…..”?  Drug companies are brazenly (and legally) touting medications which, in many cases, has horrendous side effects that even prescribing doctors don’t realize.  Finally, someone who knows medications, knows the side-effects, and even has inside knowledge of the underhanded profit-motivated methods used by drug manufacturers, has written a book, Medication Madness, to inform us as fully as possible about what we can get ourselves into when we “pop a pill.”  Dr. Peter Breggin is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, medical expert witness and author who “tells it like it is.”  His appearance will be followed by discussant, neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Fink, who has been working with the human brain for more than 40 years.  Let’s get to the bottom of “Medication Madness,” so that you and our world can be safer and more sane!

I’m not totally sure what the industry means by this term, but it struck me, once again, how much of a part emotions play in our lives. The price you are paying at the pump today has been influenced by people’s fear. Is it the fear of the producers that they won’t make a large enough margin of profit during the time they shut down refineries in order to put in the “summer additives”? Is it the fear of consumers that they won’t have gas to fuel their cars and their lifestyle? The fear of truck drivers, airlines and plastics producers that their products will become so expensive they’ll be driven out of business? I don’t know. Perhaps it is all of these. The point, of course, is that our world, on this daily and worldwide basis, is driven by fear!

IF we look at our world as a “giant school,” as we advocate in “Born to Learn,” then we still have not learned our lesson(s) regarding fear. My booklet, “99 Tips for Mastering Fear” was written shortly after 9/11 due to my concern that the lesson of “fear” had now come up in a big way and it was time for us to learn the lesson, or else continue to have one fear-ridden situation after another follow on the heels of 9/11, with subsequent fear situations increasing in pain (if that is possible!). As usual, we humans are taking our time. We have not recognized that the REAL thing to do is conquer our own fear. We will continue to get hit with “fear lessons” until we learn to put faith in place of fear.

Fear and Faith are opposites. I’m not talking about religious faith, necessarily. The faith we need to exercise (which does, actually, include an acknowledgment of “something larger than ourselves) is the type that allows us to go to sleep at night with faith that we’ll awaken the next morning, the faith that if we drive on the freeway on our way to work, we’ll traverse it safely, the faith that if we board an airplane it will descend safely from the sky and not fall in the middle of the flight and kill us, or the faith that we can make change in the way we live our lives and we will still be okay. Until we daily put faith in place of fear, our world will continue to “price in the fear factor.” Is that the world you want to live in?

Personally, I no longer live there. When I turned 50, I realized I had lived on the basis of fear for all those 50 years. There were reasons, for sure, including my grandmother’s voice, which had repeated during my childhood such things as “Don’t do that, for fear….” By age 50 I had grown weary of greeting everything in my life with fear. That’s when I learned that faith can be put in place of fear. I write about how to do this is “99 Tips for Mastering Fear” and in “Born to Learn.” I am radically different now that fear no longer dominates me and my daily life. Our world will be a much better place when we all, individually and collectively, stop “pricing in the fear factor” into our personal and collective lives.