Writing Playground

10 February 2010 @ 12:01 pm

I'm experimenting with a different way to post stories. Check it out and comment if you like (see CoryDeanSmith.com for contact details).

Click here to see "Zoos" story

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

2010-02-10-08-24

22 January 2010 @ 05:28 pm

Okay

Okay
by Cory Dean Smith.com
2010-01-22-17-25

I'm going to be okay.

I had an experience today that that is hard to describe because the point of writing about it is to talk about how it made me feel rather than about what happened... but there has to be something interesting for you to read here, right? So I'll tell you anyways and if you want to hear how I felt, that's your business... you can read about that after I tell you the story.

I woke up this morning with a pain in the back of my neck. I just thought I slept the wrong way or something, so I pretty much ignored it all morning. It came up now and then when I moved, but nothing too serious. It was when I went out to the store a few blocks away at noon for food that something really hit me. Not even a block away from the house I started to shiver and shake, and my neck started to stiffen and feel painful. With each step, I felt my entire body get stiffer and stiffer and my teeth started clacking like I was freezing... but it wasn't that cold out. I stopped for a bit, and everything just seemed to pause... then I began walking again and the whole process continued to worsen, until I reached a wall across the parking lot I was in. I stopped and leaned against the wall... my hands and legs shaking and my head, neck and back stiff as a board. Every movement, no matter how small, seemed to be painful. I went through several ideas of what was happening, from a virus to a muscle disease or spinal injury. I stayed with the moment for a bit and then decided to proceed to the store very carefully. I guess I felt sure it was temporary... and if not, then I felt sure that it wouldn't be any kind of serious issue to get some help, cause I was in the middle of a residential area.

I made it to the store, and the condition was worse by then. I had to clench my teeth tight to stop them from chattering, and manouvering around the store was a chore. It was hard work to keep myself from appearing to have a problem. When I gave the cashier the money, I had to force myself to slowly count the coins... it was really hard work to concentrate on the task. For sure, I felt like I was experiencing what it must be like to have a muscular condition where you lose control of your movement.

When I finished at the cashier and was walking towards the door, I noticed that my shivering and teeth chattering had stopped and I felt more calm. I stopped and did an inventory of myself... the condition had subsided enormously in the last minute or so. The thing that immediately came to mind was temperature. I proceeded outside, preparing myself to go back into the store if I felt it get worse, but it didn't. I walked all the way home and things got better and better. My neck actually got worse after being home, but it didn't escalate into anything resembling what happened on the walk. It was far more localized in a specific spot on the back of my neck... making it much more believable as a pinched nerve or something.

Okay... now on to my feelings around this. To some, this may feel like an extremely traumatic experience... almost comparable to having your life "flash before your eyes". The common reaction to such things is to come out of it with a "new perspective" on life and new respect for every "precious" moment.

The thing is, I feel that way already about life. In fact, I have been seeking ways to take me OUT of the moment so that I can experience what that feels like and learn something from it.

Here's the kicker and the reason why I called this story "Okay". In the very moment where I was actually in a position to believe that what was happening could be the onset of a permanent condition, I was not afraid. The thought of being immobilized or dying didn't really bother me in that moment. I even thought about the fact that I have been going out dancing more and more lately and feeling really great doing it... and that becoming immobilized could permanently change that. The thing is, having that thought did not make me afraid... it made me think "Wow, I got to dance before it happened!"

That makes me smile at myself and say "I'm Okay"... and I am.

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

PS - My neck still hurts badly, so if anyone wishes to give me a rub (even sending me a virtual one), I'd love it :)

21 January 2010 @ 03:26 pm

Sequoia G

Sequoia G
by Cory Dean Smith . Com
2010-01-21-14-28

The ego is like a Giant Sequoia tree.

Sequoias are massive and amazing when grown (eg. 30 feet wide and 300 feet tall). Like anything else, it has to start somewhere though... and in the case of these trees, it is with a seed smaller than the tip of your little finger.

The trick to the tree's amazing transformation is time. One of these trees can live as long as a thousand years. That's a little hard to imagine in human terms. It means that, technically, you would be able to visit and touch a living object that could have been planted by another human being whom you would only otherwise connect to through an ancient history class.

In the material world, the ego is exactly the same. It simply needs time to develop. There are no shortcuts... at least not in the way that we understand what a shortcut is. The truth is that using a shortcut means leaving life, as we commonly define it, behind. A person who “skips ahead” in their ego development, spiritually speaking, sheds their current material body in order to do so... which, in this reality - and to those still in it, will appear as that person changing drastically... even dying.

They have not really died... there is no such thing as death. There is only change. Once they change, they are just different, and you cannot see them the way you are used to seeing them.

Being different, however, does not mean better... it just means different. A life that spends a thousand years in the same “body” holds equal spiritual value as one that spends three days in it (see “Gastrotrich”).

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

Source:
Sequoias
http://www.kahncious.net/discover/sequoias.htm

16 November 2009 @ 12:02 pm

How to Forgive

http://www.wikihow.com/Forgive

"Hate is like an acid. It destroys the vessel in which it is contained."
- Ann Landers

24 October 2009 @ 12:03 pm

HOCKEY MURDER-HOMICIDE

...actually, that's not really what the headline said, but it should have.

Here's the real one:

"Russian Circus Bear Kills Manager"

And, if you doubt the idea of ice-hockey playing bears as real, you need to see this.

I just found it funny to fantasize that this wasn't a bear, but a human hockey player. It doesn't sound too far from the truth, except maybe the police would try a little bit harder to negotiate with the human.

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

13 June 2009 @ 12:34 pm

Megan Fox's hollywood street smarts

As seen in a news story (full story here):

---------------------------------
The star -- who admits "I'm clearly not ugly" -- isn't bothered by the fact that she's seen as a sex symbol.

"I don't know why someone would complain about that," she says. "That just means that the bar has been set pretty low. People don't expect me to do anything that's worth watching. So I can only be an overachiever. I think all women in Hollywood are known as sex symbols. That's what our purpose is in this business. You're merchandised, you're a product. You're sold and it's based on sex. But that's okay. I think women should be empowered by that, not degraded."

"I happened to be such an outrageous personality that people wanted to start writing about me because it was deemed controversial," she says. "I think if I had been a typical Hollywood actress and I said all the right things and I had been a publicity android, it wouldn't have escalated to this level."
---------------------------------

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

08 June 2009 @ 12:36 pm

Doing the Wrong Thing

Doing the Wrong Thing
by Cory Dean Smith . Com

I just watched the movie Bicentennial Man (again) and took notice of a line that his girlfriend says to him at one point when he is experiencing confusion over the concept of right and wrong when it comes to personal motivation. She said that sometimes it is important to do the wrong thing. Understandably, he was very confused by this.

Today I had my own experience of this concept.

I began my day with about five bucks in my pocket and a plan to get across the city and possibly have something to eat during the journey. Taking the city bus is always a confusing prospect for me... as I never know exactly how to get anywhere – the maps and schedules just confuse the crap out of me. I was hungry, but not starving, so I decided to start with the bus as the most important thing to take care of... and I was familiar with the route I'd need to take, so I felt confident about it. Then my plans changed... and provided me an opportunity to feel the benefits of “wrong things”.

My plans changed the moment I hopped on the bus. I was sitting there, confident about my choice, feeling like I knew exactly where I was headed – and then someone from outside poked their head in and asked the driver if this bus was headed to the central terminal (which I thought it was), and the driver said no – but he said that another bus which was going there would be along shortly. I was a little stunned, because I was confident that every bus coming to this stop went to the downtown terminal. Now I remember why I thought this... because the first time I took a bus from that stop I asked the same question and the driver at the time replied in a slightly condescending tone “Yeah, EVERY bus here goes downtown”.

At this point, I felt embarrassment – mostly because of the extreme change in my emotional confidence... I had been so sure of myself but was now staring a contradictory truth straight in the eyes. I have a feeling that allowing myself to be “bullied” into that confidence by the first driver's condescending attitude has something to do with it as well. No one around me knew about my feelings but me... which helped me contain my emotions about it to my thoughts rather than having them translate into physical sensations (flushing of the face, etc). Staying “still” was my way of not externally exposing to strangers what was happening inside me.

In hindsight I realize that the deeper feeling here has to do with feeling betrayed by others and by myself. I experienced both drivers as the same “source of information” and yet I got two communications from that source which directly and very obviously contradicted each other... that feels like a betrayal of trust from them. I wanted to trust both drivers, but that ends up feeling like a betrayal of myself because the real truth is that someone must be wrong... and it could beme. Either way, it is an issue of trust that has the ability to wrap me up in psychological knots. The answer, it seems, is to trust my instincts... whether they seem acceptable or not.

So... I stayed “still” to appease a very simple and primal desire. It felt like an instinctual behaviour, and the stillness was bundled with confusion... with confidence at about fifty percent.

I didn't have to wait long to further realize the potential depth of the “error”. The bus almost immediately made a turn that started taking me in the opposite direction of my destination. My emotions tingled nervously again as I realized that if I were to continue trying to plan my goal at this point, I would need to shift away from “planning for success” to planning to “minimize the damage” done by wrong choices. The thought of this made my instincts to stay “still” kick in again for the exact same reasons they did in the first place (fear of embarrassment)... but with the additional internal pressure of knowing a single wrong could now be perceived as multiple wrongs... Oh the drama of it all!

Okay, so now another shift happened, but this time it was within me. I let go of my “plans” and started thinking of it as a totally different experience... a chance to enjoy myself. I knew I still had enough money for another bus ticket if I needed it, and I wasn't on any particular time schedule, so I decided to enjoy the experience of taking a potentially new route that I have never been on before. If the route happened to double-back and bring me within planning range of my destination, that would be a bonus – but I was now resolving myself to two things... I wasn't going to be there in the timeframe planned, and I wasn't going to have money leftover for anything to eat along the way. These were the only two criteria I originally began with... so letting them go was like letting go of my reason for even starting out at all this morning. However, in the shadow of my “errors”, neither proved to be critical to anything other than my personal desires in the moment, so I was able to let them go and just sit back to take in the view.

We eventually did end up going approximately parallel to my destination, but it was still quite a distance away, and a river divided us. Without knowledge of any other routes, I wasn't confident about planning anything. The bus stopped for a long time at what I thought might be the opposite end of its route, and I again switched into planning mode, thinking that I might need to change buses there... but I again had a miniature instinctual behavioural moment that resulted in me remaining in my seat... and then the bus began to move once more.

Then the home run occurred... as we turned onto a familiar freeway, I had a rushing sensation that told me we were headed round the bases and straight for home. I had a vision of the homestretch before it even presented itself... the bus turned onto the freeway towards a turn that I knew, if we took it, would limit the possibilities to two clear routes, both of which were walking distance from my destination. The energy rush I felt was like a conceptual orgasm... an “Ah-Ha” moment which releases all the feelings of confusion about the original paradox of6 distrust and the indecisive stillness that accompanied it. It was all the proof I needed in that moment that right and wrong are simply concepts rather than truths.

As you might predict at this point, the bus in fact did take the better of the two last routes presented and delivered me directly to the actual bus stop which my original planned route would have taken me to... and the cherry on top of this story is that I think I landed there at the same time as originally planned (or even earlier, as the original plan involved a transfer and a wait), and also with just enough change left in my pocket to reward myself with a bag of my favorite salt & vinegar chips from a local store (and I was only able to afford the chips because they happened to be on sale).

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

PS – A simple personal experience like this reminds me that that I want to help others experience their own realizations of how their worlds really do work. Since I experienced this particular one firsthand, telling the story of it seems pale by comparison and therefore I sometimes wonder what might be the purpose of doing so other than for personal gratification. However, I am learning that my personal gratification can actually be of benefit beyond it's apparent acceptability... all I have to do is trust that it will in fact find the destinations it needs to be at and let go of trying to plan the process (and... that my concept of “planning” may need to be turned inside out... that planning can actually be about letting go of detailed control instead of the other way around).

08 June 2009 @ 12:35 pm

Electronic Cigarette

I just learned something I found interesting... that there is something called an "electronic cigarette". When I checked further, I realized that this concept has existed for a while... previously known as a "smokeless cigarette" or also other names.

However, I'm still intrigued by the concept... because I think it has some interesting potential as a tool for helping someone who feels that smoking is harming their health but has trouble changing the habit.

The specific one I found is called "Blu" (http://www.blucigs.com). Wikipedia has an article with a more general description of the concept (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-cigarette).

At first, I see that Blu is not marketed specifically to those wanting to quit (it is just a different way to deliver the same basic ingredients that a traditional cigarette does), but then I also noticed that they do have a non-nicotine option available. Considering that the device can be used in places where smoking is not allowed, and that the marketers say it costs 75% less than regular cigarettes, it may be a very viable way to wean oneself off the sticks.

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

06 June 2009 @ 12:37 pm

Indukraine Eggs

Made this up out of what was available in the fridge this morning and they tasted damn good... so I thought I'd write it down in case it's worth a million $ someday :)

It reminded me of an Indian breakfast dish I indulged in heavily while I was in Malaysia (scrambled egg wrap with roti bread and curry sauce).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
INDUKRAINE EGGS - India meets Ukraine for breakfast

INGREDIENTS
1 & 1/2 Tbsp coconut butter
1/2 Tbsp toasted ghee
1/2 large onion, chopped fine
3 cloves chopped garlic
2 large forkfulls of sauerkraut
Salt
1 & 1/2 Tbsp curry powder
3 eggs, beaten

INSTRUCTIONS
Heat large cast iron fry pan and melt 1 Tbsp coconut butter and the ghee in the pan. Saute onion and garlic until onion is a bit clear. Add sauerkraut and saute until onion and garlic begin to brown. Lightly shake salt over the whole pan and turn the food over once with a utensil. Sprinkle the curry powder evenly over the food and then stir. Saute until the curry begins to dry up the mixture to the point that it starts to stick to the pan and then add the remaining 1/2 Tbsp of coconut butter and stir the mixture to spread the oil around. Stir fry it around so that the curry browns a bit and then pour the eggs evenly over top. Let it sit for about 20 seconds and then gently stir every now and then until the eggs solidify and begin to brown with a curry coating.

Remove from heat and serve.

Serves 2 people (or one hungry guy).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Love,
Cory
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr

21 May 2009 @ 12:44 pm

Planning My Life While Continuing to Live it

"My future is a combination of what is supposed to happen and what actually does happen."

My schedule is created out of two things...

- what is supposed to happen and what does happen. The "supposed to happen" is predicted through lots of ways, whether they be practical or not (aka. spiritual, etc)... which I will call a window into possible futures by way of divination
- what actually does happen, which is what is experienced in real time

The process of planning/predicting is simply a tool to participate in the process of my own belief system and providing what it needs to exist. It is not a guarantee that it will happen the way it is planned... it is more of an intention to guide me along my own path.

The "daily business" side of things is for processing the way things happen, not for the way they are "supposed" to happen. Essentially, "business" is for processing reality... but that can only happen in the present.

Love,
http://www.corydeansmith.com
http://www.corydeansmith.co.nr