All the cards on the table

I have fallen behind since the death of my computer. And I am still searching for enlightenment. Every day I read out of the Tao Te Ching and hope that something will strike me just so, that it transforms my life. Well I am here to report that the transformation has not taken place. When I started looking into Taoism I learned that there are many translations of the original manuscript.
The book was written by Lao Tzu more than 2500 years ago and has been translated many times. I have not completed reading the whole book. And I don’t always read it in chronological order. I believe that I read what I am meant to read at that particular moment. I am going to post the book here one chapter at a time and yes, I will post it chronologically. Here is chapter one:

1. THE EMBODIMENT OF TAO

Even the finest teaching is not the Tao itself.
Even the finest name is insufficient to define it.
Without words, the Tao can be experienced,
and without a name, it can be known.

To conduct one’s life according to the Tao,
is to conduct one’s life without regrets;
to realize that potential within oneself
which is of benefit to all.

Though words or names are not required
to live one’s life this way,
to describe it, words and names are used,
that we might better clarify
the way of which we speak,
without confusing it with other ways
in which an individual might choose to live.

Through knowledge, intellectual thought and words,
the manifestations of the Tao are known,
but without such intellectual intent
we might experience the Tao itself.

Both knowledge and experience are real,
but reality has many forms,
which seem to cause complexity.

By using the means appropriate,
we extend ourselves beyond
the barriers of such complexity,
and so experience the Tao.

So what does this mean?
Don’t look for the meaning, the meaning is whatever it is. To you it may mean one thing, and to me something else. Live your life as fully as you can, and do not worry about the past. When you are at your best you can be a help to others not only yourself. We can learn about Tao through the written word, however it is not necessary to do so to experience the benefits of a fulfilled life
Both what you have learned and what you have experienced are valid but the reality of life something in between. By using the right tools, we grow and learn and will experience the way of righteous living.

Does this make sense? When I read I try to understand as best as I can but the book of Tao is not easily understandable.

My creative process has slowed some. I am at a crossroads with my website. I have to make some difficult decisions. And I feel in turmoil. My sense of peace has been disrupted. I begin to question myself and some doubt creeps in. Can I do this? Do I have the skills necessary to pull it off? I have to keep going. I have to believe in myself and continue doing what I’m doing.
I know that I am my own worst critic. Professionals who looked at the site say that it looks great. If thats the case then why should I worry so much? I guess because failure is not an option, and because I love what I am doing. Try to imagine failing at something that you really love. It would be devastating. How can I succeed at anything if I failed at what I love?
I am putting my all into it, for better or for worse I am putting all the cards on the table.

Working on it

I am in the process of building a new website structured like a forum. I am also trying to redefine the genre. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, but I believe that what I am doing is radically different from your average cookie cutter forum themed website. But I must digress.
I started this a few months ago. I did my research and chose a program that is designed to build websites. Originally my idea was something completely different, so I chose a program based on that idea. Keep in mind that I have never done anything like this before. I played around with Dreamweaver and Frontpage a few years ago, so I had a very basic idea of what you need to know to accomplish this. But while doing my research it was suggested to me that I use something called Drupal. Drupal is a “content management system”. I had no idea what that meant. All I knew was that I wanted to build a website, and that I had i great idea that would be very successful.
After a number of calls to my webhosting tech support, I finally had it up and running on my domain. It is the single most complicated piece of software I have ever used. It is also probably the most powerful CMS software that is available today. As a point of information, since converting to Ubuntu I primarily use open source software and Drupal is open source. The one down side to open source software is that in most cases there is no live tech support or help desk that you can call. Yes there are forums dedicated to Drupal and most if not all open source software, but when you are trying to design and implement a website, waiting for someone to answer your forum post is somewhat frustrating and it can bring your work to a screeching halt. For two weeks I stayed up many nights into the wee hours of the morning trying to figure it out. I had many “AHA” moments as well as many “Oh No” moments. Just when I thought I had things figured out, BOOM! Things just blew up on me. I have to say thought that I learned an aweful lot about what a content management system is and what it does.
So after about three weeks I decided that maybe I should hold off with building my Drupal based site, and just do a forum. On paper that sounded like a good idea. Get the forum up and running, start attracting users and build a nice base of registered users to have,to migrate into my Drupal site. As I said, it looked good on paper. Okay, so now I need different software because I have a different plan in mind. I go back to the internet and specifically to the irc chat areas where I hang out, and start asking around about forum based software, And someone gave me a great link to OpenSource CMS, a really wonderful web site where you can test out dozens of software titles specifically designed for internet and web site development. So I demoed a few different titles and settled on one called phpbb3. It did come highly recommended for its ease of use and reconfigurability. Out of the ‘box’ it really is easy to work with, the installation was a snap and its step by step initial setup made that whole process a breeze. Now it was time to design and configure my forum.

Stay tuned, more to come.

The Rantings Of an Over Tired Mind

At three fifteen in the morning, its difficult to come up with a coherent thought. Especially if you have been sitting in front of your computer since eight thirty in the morning. I am obsessed. I am hopelessly lost in a fog of codes, and HTML, pages, permissions, edits, posts, irc’s, styles, log-in’s, log-out’s, content, php, email’s, updates, upgrades, users, passwords, cut, paste, save, save as, folders, directories, delete, undelete, surfing, button’s, switches, domains, forwarding, aliases, bots, desktops, hard drives, stop, stop, stop I have to stop. I can go on and on and never come to the end. The finish line, the final word.. I am driven to keep on working, to keep improving to keep looking for better. I can’t stop my mind or my brain from moving and calculating. Constantly re-imagining and second guessing. My body says STOP but I can’t. I still can do more, just a few more minutes thats all I need to finish this or that.

I have been like this for weeks now. And all I want is some peace and freedom from this run away train called a mind. Constantly needing and wanting to keep on keeping on. Even now, I sit here at four a.m. What am I doing? Can’t this wait until tomorrow? NO, I have to do this now. Thats how it has been. I want some inner peace. I search for enlightenment all the time. And not finding it. I get glimpses and I see the light sometimes, but it is always just out of reach. I thirst for knowledge. I want to know what other people know. Like my friend Dan. I want to know what he knows. I’m not satisfied, I want more and until recently I did not think that more was coming.

Did you ever feel stuck? Intellectually you know that there is something more than what you may already have have. And I am not referring about material things. I am talking about more as in satisfaction and and inner contentment. When I was younger my mother pushed me to go to college and get a good education. So I tried. I took computer programing, in the hopes of learning something very cool and useful. However, when I took the class, there was no such thing as graphical user interface. I don’t think that term exist yet. So I sat in class in front of a black screen trying to stay awake,while listening to professor Ambien talk about ones and zeros and binaries. And all the time I am thinking, “I hope Eric has some good pot”. And it’s not that I didn’t care about my education. But Professor Ambien was probably the worlds worst teacher. Needless to say I withdrew from the class and continued on my merry way towards an education in business. Which I am grateful that I got, but when a few weeks ago I installed the Linux based operating system called Ubuntu on my computer, I realized that professor Ambien had more to offer than I thought. Instantly computing became interesting again, and a whole new world opened up to me. It really did. you may scoff at what I say, but it is true. I love computers. I love what they do, how the do and how fast they do it. I finally found the more that I was searching for. No it may not be enlightenment, but it has given me focus and drive. I was stuck. I did not know what it was that I wanted to do. But now I have found it. And it is building and designing my own web sites. I have put it all together, and have come up with the idea. With the help of my new friends, Dan, Pat, Craig, Eric and others, we are going to change the face of forums.