Ted Ollikkala (Spiritual Chicken)

CHANGE

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, another round of economy oscillations ruins your financial status and forces an unexpected career change. This is not something you would have done anyways… or is it?

Actually, the point is – yes. Yes, you should constantly be aware of and evaluating your ‘functionality quotient’. This means to ask yourself (daily), “What else could / should / ought I to be doing”. If you don’t like the square you’re on (as in a chess game) what would be the next step? Change. Right, but change is something not usually initiated from within. It is however, the most efficient way to behave.

Change from within is better than change from without because the driving force is controllable. Another way of identifying this is ‘active’ vs. ‘reactive’.


THE CONVERSE OF CHANGE IS NOT CHANGE

Change can be abused. The worst kind of change is change merely for the sake of change. We’ve all heard the adage (especially engineers!) “If it works, don’t fix it”


TIMING IS EVERYTHING

I mean it. The right thing at the right time is right. The wrong thing at the right time is wrong. So is the right thing at the wrong time and the double negative of this. To put this into laymen’s terms: Carpe diem (seize the day).


RELATIONSHIPS

If you are not attracting the right people then you’re trying too hard. Don’t try at all. Leave the social circles where they are. Leave the bad men where they are, too. Remember the ground rules of polarity – at the gross level (unconscious behaviour), like attracts like (think of the standard conversation when meeting a potential mate “What do you like?”) and opposites usually don’t mix well (except when they’re paid, like a maid in a mansion or a thief in a jewelry store).


MOTHERS

Most mothers are ok, until they get older. Then the doting gets in the way when autonomy starts to set in. Try telling a mother that there is no twenty-four hour safety net for her child (even before the days of GPS) and her determinism will rise up to the challenge.


FATHERHOOD

There are two types of fathers. Those who do and those who don’t. Actually, all of them do their initial duty, but not all of them follow through. Some even eat the baby after birth (I’m just kidding). Have you fathered lately?

Some fathers have gender malfunctions. They teach their daughters how to play baseball and climb trees (some daughters do this naturally but get discouraged by their fathers, which is just as bad).


EDUCATION

Everything I needed to know I learned at the playground during recess. No need to take it past grade 6 as by then we make our own playgrounds (some very sophisticated ones at that! – it’s a multimillion dollar business. I’m thinking Facebook here). Follow them at your own risk.


ORWELLIAN PHILOSPHY

Voltairism, Platoism, Aristotle-ism, Dan Brownism, Newtonianism, Nostradamism, Einsteinism, Hawkingism, Jesusism, Buddism (ah-ha!), Dali Lamism, Cayceism, “ism-of the month” club. Notice that there aren’t any presidents or world leaders on this list. Mostly philosophy and multi-faceted talent. Not a single American idol either. They’re not voted on; they’re self-made.


WORK ETHIC

Those who can, play. Those who can’t, work.

Those who transcend see no difference between the two and are ten times more efficient.


MONEY

Who needs it when you have a roof over your head and food in your belly?


TIME

How to explain again that it’s not linear and cannot be held. Most of the (time) we project out of it. We’re thinking in the past (self-correction) or in the future (goal setting). Very rarely does the average person make full use of the moment, at which point time simply ceases to exist. Ask any artist or musician – who are quite intimate with it.

LOVERS

You need a love who won’t blow your cover. The purpose of having a lover (besides the obligatory task of people-ing the planet*) is an unfolding drama. The idea is to find a common ground on which to merge personalities so that “If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you” (Groucho Marx).

Once this is done the two of you (actually, the ‘one of you’) can begin to work towards a purpose outside of yourselves. Enter parenthood. Father and mother merge into parents (parental units). Parents and their offspring merge into family units. Family breaks up and then everyone is miserable for awhile.


TEACHERS

How will I find my guru? Don’t look – he will find you. Furthermore, the guru need not be physically present


MIRACLES

They exist but are rarely seen by mortles. A mortle is like a chuckle, someone who is not serious about the meaning of life.

LIVING FOREVER

Some trees produce fruit after 300 years (pear, mango, olive, chestnut). The oldest living tree is a 9550-year-old spruce tree in Sweden. Many flowers live only for one season (annuals). Turtles can live to be 150 years old. The average life span of a mosquito is 3-100 days. The female mayfly lives for only 5 minutes.

But certain organisms never die (thus living forever). Cells, however, are not really born the way humans are born. Cells reproduce by mitosis. Mitosis is a biological process that involves dividing into 2 parts. Each time a cell divides, it makes a copy of itself and then divides in half. And this includes cancer cells.

Isn’t it ironic - cancer cells live forever.


HOW COME NO ONE HAS SEEN GOD?

Why should we? He doesn’t owe it to us. He plops us down in his creation and lets us run loose to our own avail. The universe exists on such a cosmic scale, the macrocosm and the microcosm that the two ends never meet on a single plane.

The smallest plankton in the ocean (a single-celled alga) is some 19 billion times smaller than the largest whale (the Blue Whale). Sharks are 25 times larger than humans. Humans are

If an insect grew to human size, would it have superhuman strength?

EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS

I don’t see how spirituality can NOT be everybody’s business. That’s like saying that water is not a fishes’ business. Without an aquatic environment, fish have no life. Once in a few millennia there is a Great Fish that makes the transition from sea to land and begins breeding a new species.

But that’s like the difference between angels and humans. We don’t exist in the same realm. To them (angels), we appear weak, foolish, and gullible. It’s as if they’re watching through a one-way mirror that’s on their side. Heaven, if you call it that – I call it simply a higher plane (one out of infinite), is only downward compatible. They (angels, disembodied gurus, and other non-material beings) can see and try to communicate with us, but we can rarely see or hear them unless we are finely tuned, silent, and still.

Cultivate the inner voice as you go about your daily business of involvement with the planet.