San Francisco, January 1974: I’ve received a letter from my little brother David (15) in Henrietta Texas. It is (badly) typewritten, with many strike-outs. It says …

Dear Richard,

I have written you because I should.

I typed this letter because I felt that you could not read my writting. Donot laugh at my spelling or my toping. I used your typewritter (I did not think that you would mind, DO YOU)?

I have a thing against long letters. In your letter to MOM you spelled TEXAS TLxas. Uncle Richard is coming to see us, and my motorcycle is O.K..I’m fine. I think MOM says HI and sends her LOVE. Are you O.K..

I HAVE WRITTEN THIS LETTER LIKE WILMA WOULD.

DAVIS S. (Your Not So Good Brother)

P.S. Kitty says HI. and MOM is leaving for Europe in MARCH

Mount Shasta, April 7, 2005: As of 3 pm, I am sixty-one years old. I know it was 3 pm when I was born, because my mama told me that ‘People Are Funny‘ was playing on the radio, and back in those days, it came on at 3 pm.

I have a few more creaks and aches, now and then, than was once the case. I’m not so willowy flexible as once upon a time. Yoga and motorcycles don’t suit me as well as once upon a time.

The girls no longer grin at me, just because my hair is curly. Of course, my hair is not curly any more. Being truthful, I must admit that the curly hair, once upon a time, was a permanent anyway. I wanted to see what would happen. I found out. It made them grin.

But this is just as well. I no longer have a great need for grinning girls, so that works out fine.

But when I look in the mirror, it’s still me. I suppose some day, when I look in the mirror, I won’t be there. But in the meantime … so far, so good.

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

You and I are not really all that conscious, so would we assume other folks to be conscious?

Because each of us goes through the day being continuously aware of something, we assume that we’re conscious beings. I mean from moment to moment, we’re aware of this, then aware of that, and then something else. First a thought about your work, then your butt itches, then you remember you need to stop at the grocery store, then you sneeze, and then you admire a passing girl.

You see? Continuously aware of something or other.

However, that’s not the whole story.

If we take a viewpoint outside our own busy brain, and consider one thing that’s outside ourselves, in the environment … for example, consider the color of paint on the front door of the house three doors down the street from where you live.

What color is it?

Many of us will not know. Because when we consider just one thing outside our own busy monkey-mind, it’s clear that we’re not very conscious of that one thing, not very conscious at all.

And the two things are related. Because we’re so internally busy being aware of this, of that, of this other, we’re really much too busy to be very conscious of the multiplicity of things and people and events and colors and sounds and temperatures and tones and stuff and stuff and stuff … all around us. The being busy — which makes us think we’re aware — is actually interfering with our ability to be conscious of things outside ourselves.

The book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind is perhaps the best book ever written that explains how human consciousness came to exist. In this book, author Julian Jaynes uses an analogy for consciousness. He says that our conscious is much as if we were a flashlight in a dark room. Wherever we look, we see light. But all around us — behind and to the sides and above and below — all around us there is a vast darkness, which we can never perceive, because that’s never where we are looking.

Accepting this situation is not to say there is anything wrong. We are finite creatures in an infinite universe. That’s the deal. We are feeble and so very limited, in the wide world around us. How could we possibly be conscious of all the vast and imponderable concatenation of single things through which we swim as in a rich broth of sound and sensation?

The answer: We cannot.

By our nature, by our limitation, we cannot be conscious, no matter how busy we are being aware of this, of that, of this other. Our freedom amid this vast barrier is that we can thoughtfully choose what kinds of things we’re going to be aware of. We can learn to operate a mind, to operate a set of emotions, to operate a body. Learn how to treat others, how to find what we want and what we think we need, how we will cherish others. This is our freedom. The freedom to choose … if we’re thoughtful about … being alive.

But now to the point: If you and I are not actually all that conscious, day in and day out, then why would we assume that other people are conscious?

And the answer is that they are not. For example, if you start a new business and you advertise in the paper and pass out leaflets up and down the street, then you will be amazed how staggeringly long it takes for your community of people to actually become aware of your existence. Each of those people has such low consciousness of any one thing — such as yourself — that they can remain amazingly unconscious of you and your thoughts and your needs and your existence. Oh, for years and years, it may be.

So we shouldn’t suffer about what other people are thinking about us. They’re generally not conscious of us at all. And there’s a lot of freedom in that.

Knowing this handy Rule-O-Thumb, go forth and prosper.

Paris, France, Today: Early in the morning, at 12:01, over a friendly glass of Cabernet in a little cafe in Montparnasse, the Bloggard has signed an Agreement in Principle with the world-famous Folies Bergere.

Assuming that all proceeds as planned, in the upcoming summer season, the Bloggard will assume the leading role of Margo Lane in the Folies Bergere all-singing, all-dancing production of “Les Retours d’Ombre.”

The Bloggard reports that he is “tres jolie” about the upcoming production. No comment was forthcoming from the Folies at the Bergere.

More details to follow as they become available.

Mount Shasta: After my meeting with Henri earlier this year, in a far-away clime, we discovered that our second method book was written in only four days.

Started in a small hotel in downtown TianJin (about an hour’s drive north of BeiJing), once the writing was complete, then the real work began. It required about two months to then produce the 300+ measures of music, string graphs, and other illustrations, and to edit and remove errors and typos.

But now it’s done and available for sale on the EBay Megatar Store. This is Book Two of a series of six, and it’s entitled “Easy Touch-Style Rhythm.”

So if you’ve a hankering to play bass and walking bass, using our simple and powerful two-handed tapping method, grab yourself a copy and go boogie!

Great Wall of China, January 13, 2005: With a friend, I hiked up the mountain on the Great Wall today. The air is crisp and cold, and it amazes me that men could carry stones to these remote mountains and build, and build, and build. I touch the stones, and feel the strong hands of men working in the cold so long ago, hundreds of years before Pilgrims arrived in America.

The mountains are shaped oddly to my eye. In fact, they’re the shape that you see in those misty watercolors, as you see here, going on, apparently, forever.

“A man of 20 who’s not a liberal has no heart, and a man of 60 who’s not a conservative has no brain.” — variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill

Is it true? I don’t know, but it sure describes my experience.

We in America, lulled by years of prosperity, find it difficult to believe that barbarians still exist in the world.

But, yes, Virginia, there are humans who are not “civilized” as we know it. People who will kill you for your sneakers, and people who will torture you for the giggles of seeing you twist and scream. These are facts.

In our shrinking world, the far-away barbarians are now next door. With our transportation, communication, information, and weaponry, they’re here among us.

We got trouble. That’s a fact. And talking liberal at them won’t do a bit of good.

Some folks just need killing to dissuade them from their foolish ways. Maybe we don’t like that, but we don’t get to tell the Universe what’s true. We must have the humility to listen. The Universe will tell *us*.

And it’s telling us loud and clear, soldier.