Some blurbs from TV today. What do you think/hear/believe - when you hear such news reports? IS it a report?

1. The stock market fell on profit taking.
2. Greatest threat to capitalism since the cold war?: '08 election.
3. The polls say the public is worried about a rapid withdrawal.
4. The sub prime problem is overblown, there are some great opportunities
5. Must-see class reunion.
6. Is the huge stock market rally a major defeat for Al Queda?

Below are some quick thoughts you could have. I made these up and could come back an hour later and make up new ones. The point is to not accept this stuff as facts - including the samples I have below. If you would discuss topics and look deeper who knows what you might discover about the world you live in.

Here's something else to think about: What if these were the topics on British, French, or Iranian TV? What do you think the discussions would be like? Is one Right? There's a big clue to THE secret here.

1. The stock market fell on profit taking.
Millions of transactions, yet someone (WHO?) claims to know the reason they sold their stock? It could be true, but it's just a guess, NOT a fact.

2. Greatest threat to capitalism since the cold war?: '08 election.
As Jon Stewart ran: You can say anything if you end it with a question mark. This headline invokes enough thoughts for a short book. Let's start with just the word capitalism. Before you begin to talk about threats to it, you need to think about what capitalism is for you. Is it GE, Wal-Mart, ADM, Microsoft? Or the new pizza shop down the street, your friend that's selling on eBay, The landscaper in your neighborhood? When you start thinking, you could see that many people would like to see a "threat" (restrictions) to some of the mega corporations. So is every threat to capitalism a bad thing? Which capitalism? etc etc

3. The polls say the public is worried about a rapid withdrawal.
This was a lengthy discussion, my first question of the reporters would be: How does the public have any information upon which they base this concern? How can any of us have any understanding about what could happen unless we learned about people, leaders, conditions, etc. in Iraq. So hasn't this worry been loaned to us by reports we have seen? Who made the reports, the polls, who was polled??? etc etc What is the real source of the "worry".

4. The sub prime problem is overblown, there are some great opportunities.
OK so what is the opportunity HE"S selling?? It's JUST an opinion. My guess (also only an opinion) is that the people who make the big bucks on these types of guesses aren't TV reporters.

5. Must-see class reunion.
Yawn. Who says? What difference would watching this make in MY life?

6. Is the huge stock market rally a major defeat for Al Queda?
Another of the question mark deals. Wow! Here is just one way to look at this from the background. If you are a multi-billionaire like Rupert Murdock, you would probably want ALL public opinion to be behind all the activities, laws, etc that support big business. A story like this attracts our emotional side. Yeah, hurt those terrorists!! But maybe it's really about shaping public opinion that huge stock market increases helping billionaires is a good thing :-))

I'm an alien. I just realized how foreign I am. Like science fiction I live in a different dimension. I don't see the same world you do. Every TV commercial, news story, book is seen quite differently for me. Michale Moore, "The Secret", FOX news (?), CNN, my friends, China, Big business and Bush (W), are just a few examples.

The Secret is popular, positive, incorporates many interesting and potentially helpful ideas. Unfortunately it also contains a lot of bullshit. Things like "manifesting a million dollars takes the same effort as manifesting a dollar" is total BS. Yes, I get the idea, The thought process and the GOAL is the same, but at some level everyone knows this just doesn't work THIS way. Yet it does seem to work for some people, but certainly not everyone, not even 1 %! (Do you think 55,000 people have manifested a million bucks from reading the secret? - 4 million books, 1.5 million DVDs times 1%) SO they haven't really gotten to THE secret.

The book is close, the quotations bring an awareness to a human phenomenon that really is amazingly powerful. The problem is in the "manifesting" stuff. They really don't know how it works. They really haven't given you any concrete methods or exercise to be a better manifester! I actually know THE secret, the problem is that living in the reality I live in makes it very difficult to share it. People just don't have the ears to hear the answer. How can that be?

What kind of ears DO we have? The world has changed so much. We live in a time where education is all one way. We are told things. Our parents, teachers, president, news, etc. tell us "facts". We don't learn to think and discuss, like the ancient Greeks for example. The modern world stands on the mathematics, social and political ideas they invented. People learned through thinking and discussion, for example with the Socratic Method.

We run around with a bunch of "facts" we picked up from ??? ... who knows? We learned it someplace. What difference does it make? I know it!! period. NO discussion. People don't even know what discussion or conversation IS. The Greeks even knew that. CON=together, VERSA=transform. Our modern version of conversation is arguing the "facts". You throw me one of your facts, and I hit you back with one of mine, that shows you have the wrong fact. The end result is usually pitiful. Neither has respect for the other, neither learns anything new, and most likely the area of a circle would not have been figured out using this method.

That's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It's the beginning of why you can't hear what the secret really is. You already know, besides who am I to tell you? "If you're so smart how come you're not rich"? See I really do live in another world. I see being rich, smart, reliable, and anything else you can say about people so differently than you.

Actually while I respect Socrates: "He claimed that the chief goodness consists in the caring of the soul concerned with moral truth and moral understanding, that "wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state", and that "life without examination [dialogue] is not worth living".(Wikipedia)" Excellent, we really need the "examined life" thing, but I can see another, deeper dimension in understanding wealth and goodness. It's not about me being smarter than Socrates. We live in a different time, and I have the advantage of having learned from people that came after him. So I have a perspective that includes understanding what "Smart" or "Wealth" are, in a way that can make anyone more effective, at anything they do - especially if they want to manifest tha million dollars. I can tell you how, or better yet, learn what a GOOD LIFE is, with OR without that million bucks.

Stay tuned.