Hate is ...

Designing God is a blog about what we understand and what we create.

It has become obvious that the subjects I touch upon are very general and can apply to anyone. I've already mentioned God, love, death, meditation, stupidity, drugs, sex, etc. Now I want to take some time and discuss with you, the reader, about hate.

What is hate? Hate is a type of Fear, Fear is the father of Hate. As many psychoanalytic simplifications might suggest, everything under the sun falls under the categories of either Fear or Love. This concept, Hate, is continuously used in reference to something we are familiar with and simultaneously decide to absolve ourselves from it's source of pain. We could hate people, ideas, emotions, ignorance etc. Any affiliation with the unknown and simultaneously associated with something we're familiar with provokes feelings of hatred. I'm suggesting here that hatred is a negative emotional reaction to an unexpected result.

I have a dear friend of mine that is recently over a break up. Her stories about her boyfriend were emotionally confusing and the dialog easy to misunderstand. His explanation for the break up was clear but his actions spoke differently. Throughout all this confusion, it is no wonder that she concluded the following words: I hate him.

This same friend asked me a random question about the heart.

She said, "Vincent, what is the definition of a heartache?"

After minutes of pondering the question I responded with, "It is the emotion you feel when you know someone took something away from you that you know you can't have back."

I honestly cannot say whether she agreed with me or not, but I do believe the words I spoke. What we cannot have back is what terrifies us. We, as free agents of this universe, create and innovate our environment with the gifts of love and creativity. When our ability to love or create is taken away from hurtful criticism and ambiguity of the connection, we will naturally react with negative emotions as a result of human stupidity.

We cannot hate without harboring the element of fear in our hearts. It is simply the consequences of fear that lead to our suffering and inevitably to hate.

Hate is never justifiable. If we hate it's because of fear. When we fear it is because of a lack of love. When we lack love we lose understanding.

Love is ...

WHAT IS LOVE?

As many Buddhists would say "love is an idea." It is something we attribute to many human interactions and in spite of all the trouble it may cause, love still tends to conquer all. What do we mean when we say that we love someone, or that we have love for mankind? Or that God loves us? Or that we love our neighbor? Are there different types of love? Is love the end? Can love conquer over death? Is the meaning of live to love all and to forgive many? All these speculations flow through my mind when I contemplate relationships. now the subject of today's blog would not be something I've pondered for too short a time. It goes through my mind every single day of waking life.

There are problems when I consider the concept of love to be something eternal. As many things have been described in my previous blogs and entries I have considered that all things that exist must come to an end. On many occasions I've parroted this personal opinion to people and they conclude that I have a morbid view of life.

Why should things end? Wouldn't that just be bland and tasteless? That we have nothing to look forward to for eternity? Where is life's insurance policy? Aren't we rewarded something after all our worries, sins and deposits of stress in life's emotional bank account? Where is that pension at the end of this tunnel of darkness? And so love has to be that very thing! Right? Why can't we be gifted with love. Praised and showered with such raw emotion that humans are tenderly desiring for?

So I'm here to tell you that there is a truth to this and there is a reason why I have that idea of the longevity of love.

... There is an end, and we must accept it at all costs.

Designing god is a process we all go through in life; making a personification of all our lost emotions we require to survive. The Bible says in 1 John 4:8 that "God is love". I described in my previous blog about "God" as an atheist, I would like to add that "god is everything and is nothing"; that is the very conception of our mind in which we personify based on our own preferences. Almost as if we are running our own unique software in our mind. Just like all concepts, love is just another conception. A conception of how things should be. It could be quite quaint and poetic when anyone attempts to describe love with their first two words "love is ..." and that whatever follows harbors a profound and philosophically motivating conclusion. But is it really?

My take on it is that Everything is Love and Love is Everything ... and that's a good start.

This blog is not going to touch on the depths of relationships. I can only say what reality truly is. I have said that everything has an end, and love is everything. And since love is everything, love has an end as well. The universe will always be something mysterious. To find further truth in a concept we create is truly something unattainable. You cannot solve a puzzle with an open-ended question and expect to find one absolute answer. In the clutter that is the universe, the randomness of all, the unification of all understanding ... is only conceptual. To love is to know everything ... and yet we can't.

While standing here on earth, loving is an important process. If one were to idolize it, give it a name and a Facebook profile ... it's status will always read "I am".

Where is he going with this?

Is Vince high again?

Can this mean anything in my life?

Why am I wasting my time reading about how love is nothing?

Fuck this guy, he's depressing!

I'm going to wrap up this last point in the form of logic. Even your enemy is considered part of "everything". Your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend is love. Your next door neighbor is love. Your mailman with the tight shorts is love. Your dog is love. You are love!

This realization is how I walk in life. Knowing that everything is love, love is everything, and everything has an end. This is not morbid, this can only be true. With this thought in my mind, my awareness of my mortality is more vivid, real; my appreciation for the temporariness of life is so close for me to taste. With such a perspective on this one reality will allow me to love all who are part of this "everything" that will soon end.

And I will repeat again, we must accept this at all costs. Because if we don't, then our minds will drift from the importance of meditating on love.

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For those of you who like these blogs, please feel free to comment on the link below. All your words of encouragement will be appreciated.

Is Death the end?

Some say that death is not the end. That somehow we live beyond the life we claim is real and graduate to a newer world. Some believe this new world contains our deepest fantasies; a place where elements of escapism engulf our neuronal pleasures and expand for eternity.

I'm not here to testify nor rectify what should be the correct view about death. In reality, nobody knows what happens after we die. My opinion does not matter. But the sad truth is that we will no longer be around. And man ... that's deep.

Death is a long trip away from home, never to return again. The absence of life is death. My question to you is are we able to face it?

When I look at life, I don't know anything else. The present moment is all we have. It is our friend - a close one at that. The problem with modern society is that we abstract our lives to make the mundane things more vivid than they actually are. Principles of reality are not printed in paper nor can someone teach you what it is. Buddha was strict about that:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

What faces our current society, is the cause of the most ludicrous perversion of civilized conduct; how the world challenges itself with words, interpretations, concepts, philosophies, and premonitions of life; how the world lives up to it's status quo, determined to leap ahead and beat the rest of the crowd just to see another dollar appear out of reward for it's labor. The truly sick and blatant death of life. In no way am I addressing the inevitable cycle of life, in how death is inevitable, no. I'm addressing the death of living.

We don't value life anymore. Everything is a deadline, a panic, a stress, a situation, an event, a friend, a parent, a boss, the news, politics, issues, boyfriend, girlfriend, children, scandals, allegations, interpretations; irritable stimulations of the environment endlessly spiking their way through our scalp, into our minds and changing our perceptions of what is the obvious truth. And one of these truths is the reality of death.

Most recently I have had these irritable stimulations by the multiple. I felt at times when I could contemplate suicide and forget about the world or anything attached to me; to simply detach from everything, not even meditation could save me. Nothing would except one thing.

I have been drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, coffee, smoking cigars, sleeping late, staring at computer screens, reading endless articles on Law and Business, worrying about school, work, friends, family, and most the ambiguously categorized item of my priorities - my health. My panic attacks are visiting me more and more often, causing me to stop breathing and lose my control of air intake. My ADD is kicking in again when I cannot focus on my reading assignments; my brain is insisting the horrible suggestion to turn on the television for "background noise" while I study - not a good idea but habitual regardless of how smart I am. All these events make me cry and convince me that I'm slowly becoming a failure. I think I have reached a point in my life where I believe I am dying. It could be microscopic and a slow process, but I know the process of life is beginning to go in reverse. As I said before, only one thing saved me and it was that very realization.

Normally I write my blogs in a lighter note, and I'm not about to change my routine. Even though it looks bad to some, and innocuous to others, I'm still alive. As plain and stupid as that sounds, fuck everyone, I'm alive and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me from appreciate that.

When people talk about death, it's accompanied with a tone of dread. They don't realize that it's not that we fear death itself but the dying part of death. When we are born, we never complained prior to our existence:

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
— Mark Twain

Time is short, but that's the best news. Just because something doesn't last long doesn't mean it isn't valuable. There really is no need to commit suicide nor panic. This is coming from a guy who's suffering from anxiety attacks. No one should procrastinate life. It's time to start controlling our breathing, appreciating the present moment, learning and improving, and finding motivation to live eternally right now instead of later.

And for those of you who still wondering what happens after death ... stop wasting your time and get a life!

The Miracle Drug

Last night has got to be one of those nights in which you could only pray to have as much fun as desired. I was so embraced by pleasure in every way that it literally took control over me. Allow me to dive into my night of debauchery.

I went to a sports restaurant to see a few rock bands play to which I was invited by one of my friends, Rob, who plays in one of the local bands. He loves music, partying and something else which tickled my fancy later that evening.

Once we had beers, after we left, and after we had gorged ourselves with Denny's coffee with samplers galore, we went back to his house for a short jam session with friends.

"Do you smoke pot?" asked Rob. I said that I do but only socially. We made plans to arrange a few hits for each taker of which I was a obviously an inexperienced partaker.

My first hit was short, but then after that they passed it to me a second time. I admitted that I wasn't good at smoking weed because I can't ever inhale it right. Though I was clearly hinting at them to help me know how I should prepare for a hit, they just instructed me to simply let it into my lungs so that it rests there for at least 10 seconds.

My lungs shrank slightly blowing some air out to prepare for an bigger intake, I lit up the edge of the blunt, soaked up the grass's burnt scent and allowed the minty flavored peppers into my lungs as I gradually expanded my diaphragm. I counted ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ...

As I counted I was pondering over the fact that I've never been high before. I've smoked weed before but I've never really felt the actual "high". Perhaps I smoked like Bill Clinton when he was in college.

... 8 ... 9 ... 10 ... uhh ... 11 ... 12 ... 13! I blew out slowly the gases of carbon dioxide from my held breath. Making clear, ghostly rings into the cold air.

At first I didn't feel anything. But I needed to cough out the weighty fragments out of my mouth. I coughed for a good minute or two to which I heard my other friend say, "You're going to get really high man. Look at your eyes!" My eyes were matching the color of my skin.

Rob wanted to tune his guitar to mine. So I played each string carefully looking down at my acoustic. I'm looking directly at it for a while trying to feel the heat come back to my cold fingers. I felt like my body was vibrating with every note I stroke. Rob was concentrating on tuning his guitar to my low E string for a minute. He's a perfectionist.

Then it was the A string. It sounded more high pitched as usual, only this time I, for some reason, forgot that I needed to ask for a pick. I usually play with one even when I tune my guitar. It didn't matter though because my hand was cold anyway ... I couldn't feel it yet. Then I was tuning the D string, and I immediately thought I was playing a song. So I rock back and forth to a rhythm that I kept for a few minutes which being consciously aware that Rob was syncing his tuning to my strings. Suddenly it became a beautiful piece of music. It was not only meditative but it captured my attention span for the entire time. I suddenly lost track of the existence of the world around me and the people in the room. Rob didn't even exist at this point. It was just me and my guitar in a heavenly ritual.

In mid-plucking of my strings, I stopped. Is it possible to be surprised where you are standing? This is the pivotal moment of my life where I finally knew that I felt different. I knew something was wrong with me, and the time it took was minimal. I knew I was high and I lost control of my inhibitions. I didn't know where I was anymore. I looked around and remembered that I was at Rob's house. George and Cedric were looking at me with smiles ... they knew I was fucked up.

"Vince are you okay?" asked Rob.

"I'm good, I'm really good." I said, but I didn't speak ... at least I didn't remember speaking but I knew I said that. One thing about being high is that you're aware that you're contradicting yourself but you still go with the flow and pray that you start shutting up before you fuck up your grammar again.

As a scientist (a lifestyle I chose to live by), I began to notice that when you're high you have a disassociation with reality even though your senses may feel empowered. But some moment of the night I felt so stupid and useless. ... and thirsty!

"I need some water, can I have a glass?" I took a sip and I didn't need water anymore. I kinda felt obligated to "save" some water for Rob. But that's illogical because water is free. I was so out of it.

There were other moments throughout the night that I needed to slowly count up to 5 to test to see how high I was. I started laughing by number 3. Another time I kept imagining that it was daytime or nighttime and inconsistent moments of the time I was at Rob's place. Once I kept apologizing for being high. That laughter was contagious, more contagious than when sober and it kept getting more funny as soon as the initial chuckle takes place. It was very bad, but I will admit that the hilarity was irreplaceable.

At one point Rob and the group wanted to see a movie so we popped in a dark-comedy classic Sean of the Dead. I remember seeing it but I kept telling everyone repeatedly that I really like the movie as if I believed that as soon as I said it I didn't want others to forget that I favored the movie. "My favorite thing about this movie is the first part." I didn't know why I said that.

After watching the movie for 20 minutes I said something weird but then I laughed so fucking hard I wanted to fall down on the floor. I said, "OMG I thought we were watching Ghost Busters!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" My stomach was so cringed and soar from laughing but I kept going.

"WHAAAT!?" shouted both George and Nick sitting on the couch across the room. I laughed until my tears gave up on me. Everyone knew I was fucked up. But we all laughed at the hilarity of the situation. It was very very funny. But this is the only part of the night that made it all magical. I just loved the fact that I was with friends laughing at a comedy flick at scene where it's not meant to be funny, eating salted crackers and tasting the sensation of salt so much that it made my eyes water up even more, and asking deeply philosophical questions to the group. "Hey guys do you think it's okay to distrust people?" I don't know, but when I was high I felt it harder to trust people around me even after knowing Rob and George for so long.

So what do I think of MJ? I think it was ... interesting, I think I'd like to get high some other day but I don't think it would be good to have such annoying stimulations around me like I did last night. There are some bad things to getting high and there definitely are some awesome experiences one can draw from them.

For one, I don't like having no control over a situation and while I was stoned, I couldn't tell the difference if I was playing the guitar or if my fingers were. At some moments I felt so helpless that my value of life decreased to a stage of contemplation of suicide. I didn't value my life as much when I'm was high. And I consider myself a deeply humane person.

But the value of being high is the awareness level. Self-awareness is very high. I was able to dig inside my head because the outside world was clearly an illusion, like a dream, nothing was real except my consciousness. I felt as if I died and yet I was still awake. It was the deepest philosophical lens I could peer through alongside my regular meditation practices. I still value Meditation above marijuana for it's loyalty to the Buddhist values of simplicity and absence of drug-use. I strongly encourage everyone to peer into your own mind through an active practice of meditation and always question what is real and unreal - but of course without the use of substance.

Marijuana might not be a performance enhancing drug but it certainly can give you a lens in how to see reality and I support looking at the world through different interpretations.

As I mentioned in the last blog post about God, consciousness is the only thing that exists in our universe. Atoms, molecules and matter cannot really exist without our minds first seeing these wonders of nature. But our own minds create the world around us. Without minds, the universe would be blind and unnoticed. That is why I call MJ a miracle drug, because in order to see reality for what it truly is, you must first accept that the death of your ego doesn't mean your urge to discover reality dies with it. Reality is inside of us and it cannot ever be from the outside world. If you are under the influence of drugs, the outside world might change, but the inside world ... reality cannot.

Thank you for your time friends. Please let me know what you think of the artwork above. :)

An Atheist answers the question: What is "God"?

Prayer has it's benefits to those who believe in a higher power. There is a term used that I first saw in Dan Brown's book Angels & Demons called "supersentience". To my understanding of science, the placebo effect has it's realities in which most of the religious class would not accept as a natural cause. Most spritualists will beg that miracles happen by means of the "supernatural" instead of being just plain natural. But the placebo affect is indeed a real phenomenon that occurs within the human's psychophysiological mechanisms. Which always brings us back to the topic of belief.

I personally believe that in order to understand what God is, we need first to understand what we're doing when we pray. When anyone prays what happens in the brain? The mind is doing something that it commonly does not do. It seeks information; the mind focuses on a path or journey to take.

What about atheists? Do atheists pray? Majority would say "no".

I did a search online for atheist prayers and I found a somewhat humourous t-shirt quote:

Our brains, which art in our heads, treasured be thy names. Thy reasoning come. The best you can do be done on earth as it is. Give us this day new insight to resolve conflicts and ease pain. And lead us not into supernatural explanations, deliver us from denial of logic. For thine is the kingdom of reason, and even though thy powers are limited, and you’re not always glorious, you are the best evolutionary adaptation we have for helping this earth now and forever and ever. So be it.

http://friendlyatheist.com/2008/03/16/the-atheists-prayer/

This does not really demonstrate what I'm trying to say but it hints at an interesting point. Prayer is a natural thing regardless if an atheist pokes fun at it or not. However, religious advocates assume that when they pray they actually pray to an external entity with a personality.

I once said that God is the ultimate ground of our existence, whether one believes in God or not, this still rings true.

Take for example the study of consciousness. When we open our eyes our mind receives new information ... information that we could swear was being created in front of our eyes. I'm not suggesting that we create the universe, nor that it materializes in our prescense. There is nothing physical about consciousness to start with! Consciousness is the ground of all being. Consciousness equals God.

Buddhism instructs that our ego or "self" is an illusion. That we are simply the by-product of the universe. The universe is us and we are the universe. This is not false. But, we are existing entities with matters of the mind. We interact with the world in the physical plane. What could we conclude about ourselves? Do we have free will?

If the reader bares with me up to now. You'll be rewarded to know that finally the answer is out. God is not a person nor a formless energy. God is you and you are God.

Thoughtfully, I would not eat my own words in the prescense of a Christian who would quote scriptures that point to how Satan said the very same thing. Sure, Satan said that "lie" about how once we ate from the tree then we will be like God. Sure, Christians say that atheists are self-worshipping heathens and they don't respect any higher authority so they hence sit on their own throne instead of putting God there. I do however take on that assumption and challenge the reader to think critically about this next point:

If you pray to a personal God, and you ask him for strength and you receive it, does that mean it came from above? Why do other religions like Islam and Judaism pray exactly like you do and still receive strength after a life-affirming prayer? Surely they don't have the same God as you. The reason why all faiths gather strength and comfort from prayer is simply because prayer is an personal message to the one entity that the person never speaks to on a regular basis - the self.

Shad Helmstetter in his 1990 book titled What to Say When You Talk to Your Self, addresses a very important point about the mind. Talking to yourself is theraputic. Helmstetter hosted seminars across the country with this idea of self-talk. He proves that self-esteem and spiritual growth are hidden within. The answer you seek will be answer you find, convincingly through your own vessel. Having one on one conversations with your self does not demonstrate insanity but intimacy with your identity. This brings us all to center.

It has been said that the ultimate purpose of life is to live with God and to be happy. Now you know why. The ultimate prescense and the ground of all being is to live at peace and at one with yourself. If one could create God in his own image like Christianity has clearly done exactly like all world religions, so one can create his own spirituality. This gaurantees completeness of the human soul.

What is the Meaning of Life?

What is the Meaning of Life?

We asked this question to our listeners and got some really interesting responses. Here's what they said:

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"To be truely happy while doing your best to make others happy."

"The main thing is to be with God and to be happy. Life on earth is a test."

"I think that one of the most beautiful things we have, that most of us live for, is to connect with people."

"Knowing that you are going to die."

"Until my baby died it was giving unconditional love. Now the hell with this shit. Why do all good things come to an end? You know what I think -- looking at how violent nature is, that all the religions are here confusing people, we just need to try not to kill one another"

"That varies from person to person and I don't have an answer. The meaning of life is whatever you want it to be"

"To me the meaning of life is to find your own peace and truth with honesty, courage, honor and love. In my opinion we are here so our souls can prosper and learn ... to grow spiritually so we don't make the same mistakes. So we can move on to a higher spiritual plane"

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I think that life is an accident. We are so lucky to be here, by this whim. The birth of consciousness has no purpose, but the meaning of it is of free interpretation. Personally I find it comforting to make the assumption that life is meant to learn. We as humans love to ask questions and we love even more to be sure of ourselves. So that indicates that we like to know shit.

We'd like to hear your thoughts on this question.

- Vincent

Does Feeling Good Matter?

Feeling Good Lately?

Its understandable that people will always have basic desires. But when does a desire become a leech for pleasure? When is too much just too much? Is having everything you want the answer to all your problems? Questions like these are not light-hearted. These are issues that touch on the subjects of poverty, wealthiness, sustainability, starvation, addiction, debauchery, and perhaps ... enlightenment.

The fact that we cannot imagine life without satisfaction may invoke memories of pain and the unbearable thirst that abstinence entails. Sure we all hunger for a drop of "feel good" on our tongues, and there was never anything wrong with that. However the endless adventure to seek pleasure is one not many will admit to be a path leading to more pain and anguish.

The path to enlightenment is not one of starvation though. Enlightenment is cool for guys who take it easy. The trouble with enlightenment is the fact that most people will not recognize it as enlightenment, but instead they'll refer to it as more of a "dead end".

When I was a kid I drank a lot of coka-cola, played endless hours of video games, had a short attention span, and kept avoiding the "torture" of work. Something about these activities have been designed to lead back into more of the same vices of life. There are far worse addictions in life than coka-cola and video games.

Emotions are considered to be a heavy drug many keep going back to. Have you ever met someone who was addicted to a thought? Perhaps they couldn't even imagine themselves thinking of anything else except the memory of what they once felt?

This becomes evident by the clear example of a relationship breakup. The person who's suffering tends to consistently think of the other person and everything reminds him/her of the relationship's history. It comes to no surprise that these memories are vivid, and its generally because emotions ARE memories.

But what about the premise of this blog? Does feeling good matter? Why am I talking about break ups? Would it seem obvious to the reader that I "need to get laid"? Perhaps. But the answer is no. I have a point to draw from these examples.

Emotions are memories, but they are also like drugs. Just like a pill allows you to draw a chemical effect from its nutrients, so do emotions. And so from drugs that can make you have withdrawal symptoms, so can your emotions. My reasoning is that any idea you're fascinated with could be considered an addiction.

I will not get into the variations of what makes a good addiction versus a bad addiction. That will be for another blog. For the sake of interest, I personally think that all addictions are bad one time or another.

Any who, back to my general point of inquiry. Feeling good is not an accomplishment in life ... it is an experience of satisfaction. I is easily recognizable when you go on vacation and you feel the need to stay at the spot where you relaxed.

In Buddhism, life is a cycle of repetition. We have chores and we have leisure. There are bad feelings and good feelings. One day you will feel up and the next down. The ocean will always have waves of uplift and waves of depression. Enlightenment is when you finally realized, or in this case "remembered", that you are part of the waves of destruction in this world and simulatneously part of the waves of peace.

Fear not:

“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves”
- Frank Herbert (American science fiction Author and Writer 1920-1986)