Cluttered Mind

#1 - Some fuel cleaner started leaking from a container in my garage this weekend, well I thought it was that but now I think it was actually windshield wiper fluid. Anyway, today I picked up some kitty litter to spread on it and it seems to be cleaning it up well.

#2 - I bought a massage at a nearby location on Groupon a while ago. It had to be used Monday-Thursday and to my surprise they let me choose today a holiday.  When she asked me to pick an essential oil I assumed I'd go for lavender, but I discovered that I also delight in the smell of honeysuckle. 

I biked there and #3 - packed a sandwich/dinner to go sit by the lake after the massage. There were too many people at the beach, so I found a quieter spot and sat and ate, and just sat for quite a while.

#4 - Over a month ago I bought a year long membership to the Eckhart Tolle website.  However I noticed at the beginning of May they were additionally charging me the monthly membership fee.  It took at least three separate tickets and an activated pain body on my part for the issue to finally be resolved today. I was aware I was not passing this test, but I was also aware of my pain body. By the time I opened the third ticket I was at least also laughing at myself.

#5 - Which means I could finally go back to a spot in the video I stopped at because I wanted to spend more time with..

"It's a continuous practice at first, to be thinking, and at the same time not being taken over by your mind. To be able to use your mind, not be used by your mind. When you are on the computer or any of these devices, also very dangerous because they pull you in. They are like an externalization of the mind. And the mind can pull you in, or the phone can pull you in. It has an addictive quality, as everybody knows. Your attention goes there and it pulls your attention out of you. 

Years ago I talked about television, how excessive watching of television does that. It pulls your attention out of you, and you enter a hypnotic state. Nowadays it's even worse than before, people don't watch television that much anymore but they interact with their devices. And the device is an externalization and an amplification of your mind. So you have to be very careful that... you do not live, with a mind that is continuously cluttered. And this is a dreadful fate, to live in this world, full of mental clutter, and there's no respite. Every time, you are continuously, every time you interact with a device you are taking in more mental clutter, a lot of it completely unnecessary...sometimes it's important, but Facebook, why do I need to know what somebody is eating at this moment? What is the point? Why do I need to know where somebody is having a good time on vacation right now? I don't need all these tweets. Why do I need to know what the President of the United States is tweeting right now? I don't need to know that. It clutters my mind. 

All kinds of continuous clutter is the mind that has no space in it whatsoever. Then you find these humans become very quickly, even youngsters already are in need of medication. They cannot, their mind is disturbed. They cannot focus on anything for very long. They have Attention Deficit Disorder. They're completely gone. It's a dreadful affliction. So we need to be very careful and then help our children too, but first you need to help yourself, so you can help your children too. Not to get excessively drawn into these, what the worst thing we need to be aware of is mental clutter. Do not tolerate mental clutter. Make sure there is space in your mind. Most important things, the simple thing, as I said before, conscious breath, 2, 3 conscious breaths, create inner space. Alert contemplation of nature or anything that is around you. Alert sense perception, creates an inner space. Feeling the inner body, creates an inner space. Listening to another person, in a state of alert attention. Inner space. 

So, there's nothing more important because that is the being of you, the rest is the doing. If you get so trapped, every thinking is doing, if you got so trapped in the thinking, you're so cluttered. Total loss of being. And that is the disease, the mental disease, that a large section of humanity is now suffering from. It's a true, it is very serious mental disease, and unless that changes, I don't think that civilization can survive for very long with millions of people suffering from that mental disease because how are they going to create anything truly new when their mind is continuously cluttered, when they cannot focus on anything for more than a few seconds? Because any creative act requires you to become still for a moment and then focus, focus your attention and look at the situation, look at the problem. And that focused high alertness, that's how the creative process happens. If your mind is so cluttered that you can't do this anymore. You will never find again a creative solution to any of the problems that have already been created by the cluttered mind. And so you create one problem after another but never any solution. And if you do think you have a solution, it came from your cluttered mind and it will create more problems than it solved."

April 2026 - Freedom from the Thinking Mind, Can We Be Present While Thinking?

Will the Milkweed Make It?

#1 - I have immense admiration for people that use their yards to create habitat. I'm not sure how much I can do with potted plants on a patio, but I bought one milkweed and a flowering plant they said would attract butterflies.  It doesn't seem like much, but if everyone with a patio planted one milkweed well...I forgot to ask though about deer.  I just looked it up and my experiment may fail. I bought

"Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly Weed): Moderate-to-high vulnerability (69%)."

https://lifetips.alibaba.com/plant-care/will-deer-eat-milkweed-plants

whereas Asclepias viridis (Green Antelopehorn): has Very low vulnerability (11%)

sigh so it goes...I also planted one cherry tomato and one marigold that someone at work gave me. We'll see if any of it survives.

#2 - I was home sick the last couple days, I decided my nephew's track meet would be a pretty low key thing to motivate me to get out of the house today and besides some sniffles, I was fine.  I got groceries, I replanted these plants.  And I laid under this tree and read the new Elizabeth Gilbert book I'd just picked up from the library.

#3 - In the evening I wanted someone here to motivate me to walk, there was no one. So I asked life for motivation, and a bit later it came.  I was walking quickly when a robin kept skirting my path, finally it stopped a bit in from of me and pooped on the ground.  "Hmm what does that mean?" I thought. I looked around, a woodpecker. I was reminded of a friend who recently said woodpeckers were a sign he was on the right track.  So I slowed down and looked at some more birds, and then just sat for a while.

#4 - The Eckhart Tolle website is double charging me.  Yesterday I wrote them a message saying my pain body was being activated because I was being billed for something I already paid for. I received an email back they are looking into it, and I laughed at how strong my overreaction was yesterday.

#5 - "Do I have to?" My nephew's response to being asked if he'd go to the nearby frisbee golf course with me so I could practice my frisbee throwing.  The answer was, "No," so we didn't go.

"What do you do?" Diet

#1 -"Stop asking 'What do you do?' For 30 days I want you to go on a 'What do you do?' diet. Asking, 'What do you do?', is telling the other person's brain, 'Stay on auto pilot'. No more, we're on a diet. Also asking, 'What do you do?' is asking, 'What are you worth?' and if someone is not defined by what they do, it's actually a rude question." Vanessa Van Edwards 

Minute 1:25:02 Diary of a CEO Body Language Expert

I can not tell you how much I appreciate someone articulating this so clearly!  As someone that hasn't been defined by what I do for a long time, I don't like receiving the question. AND I find it so boring to hear from other people (usually). I typically ask, "What are you enthusiastic about in your life right now?" But sometimes I do fall into other autopilot questions, and I know I have to shift that to nourish conversations that are actually engaging.

Vanessa adds, "No more, 'What do you do?' you are going to replace it with, 'Working on anything exciting these days?' or 'Working on anything exciting recently?' This is permission connection. You ask someone that question you are giving them permission, if they want to tell you about what they do, oh they will. If they are not defined by what they do, they'll tell you something better."

#2 - I am going to a potluck Saturday and I was wondering what I'll bring, when I'll go to the store to get ingredients and when I'll make it since I might be gone earlier Saturday.  Would I go back home to get what I made? As I was trying to figure this out today I thought, "You know what, I could just stop at the co-op on the way and pick up something."  That felt so much easier! I'm perfectly happy when someone else does this, but for some reason I never let myself. However my word of the year is "Extravagant" and this qualifies.

#3- My favorite instructor at the fitness center I attend, a barre teacher, has been absent the last couple weeks. She was back today. In class I thought, "I say I like this class, but it's tough."  I guess I like that it's a challenge I want to return to.

# 4 - One of my families cancelled today so I used the time to try and contact the managers of a couple buildings I work in for recruitment purposes. One of the managers the email was rejected (I was given it by someone I spoke to in the office). I'm glad to find that out sooner rather than later so I have time to try and get the correct email.

#5 - 

Thorns in Our Arm

 "Michael Singer, the author of The Untethered Soul, has an analogy that says when you have a thorn in your arm and someone brushes up against it and you feel extreme pain, you have two choices. 

 You can yell at them and say, "Never again brush up against my arm! How dare you. I'm creating a boundary." 

Or you can pull the thorn out of your arm." 

Alex Banayan on Mike Posner's podcast.

Artists

I once heard the definition of an artist as being someone who shares their soul for a living.

(Mike Posner - I Went Back To Ibiza (Official Lyric Video)

There is so much I could say about the Mike Posner story.  I didn't know of him in his pre I Took a Pill in Ibiza days, when I would have had no interest.  But he is another example, and a reminder we all need, that sometimes pain is a gift.

It forced him to grow.

And how when we try to live lives without pain, or prevent others in our lives from facing pain.

We hijack their growth.

This is not a new concept. It goes all the way back to the Buddha who led a life shielded from all suffering.  Then left the palace walls and saw there was more than ease and pleasure, which led to wandering for years, and finally transformation under the bodhi tree.

On top of the opportunity for growth to occur from suffering. I would like to remind us all (including myself) that

 "not all who wander are not lost" Tolkien.

https://variety.com/2026/music/news/mike-posner-i-went-back-to-ibiza-recovery-guest-column-1236685527/

Chase Hughes

#1

#2 - The neighbor that occasionally screams at his kids went out with a rake to clear the clogged drain that was flooding our parking lot.  I peeked out my door and said, "Thanks!"

#3 - A family member got some concerning medical news earlier in the week, that sounds less frightening now that the doctor called and explained.

#4 - I am not skillful at being flexible with plans.  There was a winter weather advisory today which changed my weekend plans, followed by a winter storm watch that may change them again.

After briefly feeling resistant to this yesterday, I did well today going with the flow and recalibrating, and I may have a travel window in between the 2 events.

Plus I spent a day fully at home which was kind of nice.  The fitness center was closed for Passover so I did a growingannanas video. On Thursdays I have only 1 family home visit, they were sick. So I just worked from home today, spent a little time on my living room puzzle, and washed the clothes I bought at the thrift store on Tuesday.

#5 - "If you are exposed to a product that can't tell you the problem that they are solving, you need to be terrified, absolutely terrified. So if I look at Door Dash or Uber Eats, they get food to me faster. I don't have to leave my house. I don't have to do anything. I can continue writing my book or doing something on my computer, and the food just shows up. They tell you the problem that they are solving right?...But you look at something like Apple Vision Pro, they can't tell you. You will never see it. You'll see all the problems that a Mac book solves. There's this camera, it does all this, it does all these things. It helps you get this done faster. And you look at Facebook Meta, these AR googles, none of them will ever tell you the problems that they are trying to solve, because it's loneliness and people needing to anesthetize themselves from being in their own life. And we are in a loneliness epidemic right now, in the midst of, all this we've never been more connected but we've never had more loneliness than is in the world right now. 

So and there is so many products that are out there, that seem great, but they can't articulate what they're really solving, and it is usually loneliness, boredom, or a need to anesthetize myself so I don't have to think about my life. I don't have to be in my life. And that should be one thing, if I could just program into everyone's head be so, I did this to my kids, just be so so scared and so cautious when I see a product or an app or anything, that's not openly advertising the problem that they are solving." Chase Hughes

"I mean there's a lot of entertainment apps right at the moment for young kids so that works." Steve Bartlett

"Yeah which is fine for boredom." Chase Hughes

"Is boredom a problem?" Bartlett

"It might be." Hughes

"I'm trying to distinguish between like, is TikTok solving a problem for a young kid?" Bartlett

"Right.  So that might be solving loneliness instead of boredom. And I think TikTok does not talk about solving any problem." Hughes

"It's like a casino isn't it? The dopamine." Bartlett

"Yeah. It's so bad. And they use a hypnosis technique, not just Tik Tok, this is everybody, called fracturnation, which is where you bring somebody up, so like you'll see one of those videos  of a Grandpa holding his Grandbaby like that makes you almost cry. Have you ever cried just watching a 60 second Instagram reel?" Hughes

"Yeah." Bartlett

"I have too and I feel stupid. I'm by myself, watching a 60 second video. But like they'll pull you down and then punch you back up 2 videos later. And you'll start to notice this. Two videos later, it will be a riot, someone robbing a store, a fistfight, a car going way too fast flipping off the road, an airplane almost crashing. So they get you up and down and up and down, and the more I can do that, this is proven, that ramps up suggestibility. Dr. Milton Erickson did studies on this in the 1960's, and that increases your level of suggestibility 10 like fold. The more I can get you up and down, and up and down. And what happens after you get like 4 or 5 cycles of up and down? You get an ad. And it's so reliable. And I didn't realize it was happening until my wife said, 'Why are you buying shit off Instagram like once a week?' It was working on me. I was buying stupid shit that was on Instagram ads, and then I finally set time limits on this apps." Hughes

"You set time limits on those apps?" Bartlett

"Yes, Yes. My wife has the passcodes to unlock the, whatever it's called, screentime, iPhone screentime. But I am a brainwashing expert and I am personally terrified of short form social media like that, and I am not immune. And I'm one of the best in the world. And I am not immune to it. And I think that should be a stark warning for a lot of people." Hughes

"What's the cost though?  What's the cost of the like, in your view, living this kind of life where you know, we go home and we just like burn our brains out with these social media apps and fry our dopamine receptors. Is there like a cost?" Bartlett

"Yes I think the cost is increased loneliness.  And these apps, any apps that sell ads has 2 main goals. #1 - and all advertising shares these 2 main goals. #1 - Make you compare yourself to other people in unhealthy ways. #2 - Make you think, 'I am not enough' and we see that everywhere. I'm not enough and I'm comparing myself to other people." Hughes

The Diary of a CEO around hour 1:45:00 or a bit after with Chase Hughes

https://youtu.be/RvjR9GM2kX8?si=f4f5nzPYbB8JXY2t

No Kings 3

I had a friend yesterday say she restarted writing gratitudes after talking to me and then sent the 5 from her day and asked for comments.  After reading hers I realized that my rule that my gratitudes be unique not only helps me be more specific, and be a better writer, but it also forces the gratitudes beyond the superficial. To say "I am grateful for the sunrise" or "grateful for my family". Ok maybe. But are you even paying attention to your family?  Because if you are paying attention you can find something specific to be grateful for about them. 

 Today was No Kings 3 and I was grateful that when I mentioned it to a family member, she said she wanted to go. I don't enjoy going to rallies alone and it was nice to not have to recruit someone. We also both had similar preferences.  We both wanted to wait to cross the bridge when it was packed with people. I thought we might have to wait a while to get on the bus, but we got on easily and they added a bunch so also did on the way back.

I've been to much smaller protests where I couldn't hear anything, so that is what I expected today, but the sound system was impressive and I heard it all, including Bruce Springsteen's original song which was my highlight.

Reading creative signs is also always a highlight. Many are confrontational.  I appreciate the humorous ones.  I think my two favorite today were - "Never been prouder of my neighbors" and

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

Anne Frank