Weed, California, February 2008: Many years ago, when I lived in San Fransisco on Beery Goulevard, I had to do some layout work. I had very little skill, but I found a simple method. Although my method was slow, it worked.

I would just make up a layout, then change one thing. Then I’d look at version A and version B, and ask myself which version sucked less.

Then I’d take the winner, and discard the loser, and then on the winner I’d change something else, and again compare A to B.

In this way, I could slowly create a layout that looked pretty much OK, if not truly outstanding.

I just realized … I’m still using the same method. Still slow. Still works.

This little story was version A. Version B sucked more.

So version A is my story. And I’m sticking to it.

Gosh. You learn something every day. Some days, you learn two things. I wonder if today is one of those?

Henrietta, Texas, 1960: When I was a senior in high school, at lunch I’d run to my car and drive quickly down to the Lo’ Boy drive in, to order a BLT sandwich and coke, and then … on with the radio.

Paul Harvey. One day he said, “Sniffing glue. All the kids in Texas are doing it.”

Because my high school, and the Lo’ Boy, were located in Texas, I was dubious about that particular story. I knew he was full of beans.

But most of the time, he was so on. And then one day he said he’d be speaking at the VFW hall in Vernon, which was less than an hours drive. I vowed to go.

In chemistry class, I mentioned my trip to Vernon to the Chemistry teacher, Mr. Blassingame.

“Can I go with you?” he said.

Well, heck yeah. So me and the chemistry teacher went and heard Paul Harvey speak live. It was a magical event, it-

Actually I do not remember anything at all about it. I have a vague picture in my mind of the building, but I couldn’t pick Paul Harvey out of a line-up, and have no clue what he said.

Yesterday (2/28/09), I learned that Paul Harvey is no longer on this planet. He has moved on. I’ll miss him, and I bet lots of people will miss his unique delivery, his voice, his quick turn of events, and really-cool unknown stories about famous people in history.

Of course, back then, in high school, the voices on the radio, like the voices of my schoolmates, were eternal, as were our dreams, and life itself.

After my big trip to Vernon, for the rest of my senior year, I had an investment in Paul Harvey, and the BLT sandwich, the coca-cola, and Paul Harvey kept me company every lunchtime at the Lo’Boy. And what he’d say at the end of every program was …

… Good Day. …

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.

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

Doingness Goals can produce more Happiness than Beingness or Havingness Goals.

That’s it. In the physical universe, one must Be something, in order to Do something, with the result that one will Have something.

For example:

One chooses to be a surgeon, so one can do surgery, and then one will have the respect, money, and lifestyle of a surgeon.

One chooses to be a ditch-digger, so one can do the labor of digging ditches, and then one will have the muscles, money, and workday of a ditch-digger.

One chooses to be a car salesman, so one can do the selling of cars, and then one will have the wardrobe, commissions, and lifestyle of a car salesman.

Can you imagine somebody being a ditch-digger, so that he can do the selling of cars, so that he will then have the respect, money, and lifestyle of a surgeon?

Nope. Because it just doesn’t work that way.

And this knowledge leads us to something very, very useful …

In these examples, it’s clear that one could set a goal of any one of these things. For example, one could choose the goal of being a ditch-digger, or one could choose the goal of doing the digging of ditches. They’re not the same goal. In the first one you’re choosing who you are; in the second, you’re choosing something to do.

If you had a house and you wanted to dig some ditches around it, you could set the digging of some ditches as a doingness goal without your having to permanently become a ditch-digger. Or … you could choose the beingness goal of being a ditch-digger, and go through your whole life that way. It might be a little limiting, unless you really, really love the life of being a ditch-digger.

Similarly, you might choose the havingness goal of having a doctor’s office. Now you might be the surgeon, or you might be the landlord. Either way you could have a doctor’s office.

So you as a human get to choose your goals in life. And the goals you choose may be Beingness goals, or Doingness goals, or Havingness goals. But these three types of goals are not equal when it comes to providing you with a happy life.

When I went off to college, I first decided that I wanted to be an engineer. However, I’d not thought much ahead to what an engineer would do. And when I found myself studying engineering, I discovered at that moment that I didn’t enjoy doing what an engineer would do. The prospect of a lifetime doing those things was pretty boring to the wild guy I wanted to be at that time.

So the first thing we can do is to look past the Beingness goal to what we will be Doing, because that’s what’s going to fill up your life. Therefore, choosing Doingness goals may be generally wiser and more productive than choosing Beingness goals. Although Beingness is senior and probably more important than Doingness, the Doingness part determines whether you perform surgery or dig ditches or sell cars.

Now, if you listen to the television or if you read the advertisements online, you’ll notice that our world has the intent to ensnare you with Havingness goals. If you are to believe them, they claim you will be happy if you have this car to drive at illegal speeds down deserted roads, or you will be happy if you have that razor to make you handsome like the guy on television, or you will be happy if you have this bank to guard your financial affairs and make you wealthy when you are old and fat with white hair.

And you know that most of that is all baloney. This is our first clue about Havingness goals.

For you notice that they’re all Havingness goals. Are there any advertisements urging you to adopt a Doingness goal such as to save up $10,000, or to repair the storm drains of your house, or to practice dancing the tango? Not really. The closest they will come is to urge you to have a savings account at the bank, to have a power tool for the storm drain work, or to have lessons at Durango’s Dance Studio.

Always Havingness goals.

And let us ask the question: Do Havingness goals make you happy?

The answer is: Yes, they do, for about three minutes.

You may enjoy your new toaster for months, or even for years if you engage in the wise practice of gratitude. However, the flush of pleasure that comes when you first open the box and plug the toaster into the wall, and the flush of pleasure that comes with your first slice of toast will diminish rapidly. After a while, it’s just another slice of toast. A big ‘So What?’

But compare that to a Doingness goal.

Suppose that you really, really love dancing the tango, and you really, really enjoy teaching the tango to other people. You love the Doingness of dancing and teaching the Tango more than anything else in the world.

Now suppose you adopt the doingness goal of dancing and teaching the tango. And you start doing that.

How long will the pleasure last?

For the rest of your life.

You see, what happens in our world is that spirit or life (beingness) appears in the physical universe and does this and does that (doingness), thus bringing about the natural consequences or the inevitable effects (havingness) of such action.

Spirit –> Action –> Effect
Be –> Do –> Have

Life doesn’t really have to ponder much what it is being, just as you don’t have to ponder much what you are being when you focus on how you just love to dance and teach the tango. And you will have the natural consequences of the actions of a person dancing and teaching the tango.

The before and the after parts (being and having) are the premise and the natural consequence of the part in the middle (doing). The part in the middle is the part you most get to choose, and if you choose doing something that makes you happy, you can be happy your whole life long.

Now, within that, you can also make choices of whether you just get by, or whether you have riches untold while doing the thing you love. For example, you could squander your tango salary on red wine and drift from tango job to tango job, or you could own a national chain of Tango Studios and bring the joys of tango to the masses, or you could write startling and popular books on Tangercise and sell millions on television. So the havingness could vary tremendously. But in any of these cases, whether its the giddiness of red wine or the fame of Tangercise, you’d spend your life dancing and teaching the tango, and your entire life can be happy.

And the reason you can be happy for your entire life is that, when you choose Doingness goals, you are expressing what a spirit is designed to do in this physical universe.

You are fulfilling your destiny.

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!

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

Humans in groups are generally clumsy, and damn few humans are skillful enough to actually create a Conspiracy.

That’s it. The vast majority of things that go wrong are doing so because humans can not work together, and not because some skillful group of humans is both effective and secret.

For example, let’s say that I’m concerned about global warming, and about fossel fuels, and about the gubbamint.

Does this mean that I decide to give up driving my Ford Focus grandly about the town?

Not at all.

Instead, I drive grandly about in the Ford Focus, worrying about global warming, fossel fuels, and blamingthe gubbamint. Blaming is so much easier than walking, as I drive grandly around in the Ford Focus.

And if there’s one thing a human knows how to do, it’s how to conserve energy. His own energy.

[See also Law 23 of Roommates and Dishes.]

So, just as a practical matter, getting together with a secret group of people in order to do something, doing it effectively and then still keeping it secret? Not usually likely.

It was our Foundering Father, Benjy Franklin, who said, “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

Humans, keeping a secret effectively? Naw!

Humans, operating effectively as a group? Haw!

Humans creating a conspiracy without shooting themselves in their collective feet? Pshaw!

So you can relax. They’re not really out to get you. You just got run over by ordinary human incompetence, greed, clumsiness, thoughtlessness, and avarice.

Feel better now?

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