Stuck Awake

Lately, I have found myself waking up in the middle of the night, unable to settle back to sleep. Tonight is one of those nights.

Most often though, I am awake as negative thoughts rush through my head, worrying about the day to come, or about things I have said or done in the past.

Worrying if I am 'good enough'.  I don't usually have trouble actually falling asleep, it is just the evening wake up.

Tonight, is not one of those nights. Well yes I am awake, though, a few days ago I started to accept the thought that for some reason I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night whether I want to or not.

I have had a fair bit of luck with taking melatonin before going to bed. Oh I still wake up, but my mind is much less active and it is easy to settle myself back down and get back to sleep.  Although it is a natural substance produced by the body, I still don't want to be 'addicted' to taking it every night to sleep. So rather then lie in bed, perhaps I am "supposed" to write these blog entries, to 'get out of me' whatever is inside asking to be free.

My thoughts this evening revolve around freedom, or maybe more clearly 'expression'. "Being ourselves".  Wayne Dyer spoke of the soul as having a natural want to be infinite to not be confined by anything. When I hear this words I think of our 'wild selves'. I am reminded of the book "The Four Agreements" which talks about how society 'tames' us to its norms and standards, even shames us into how to act and behave in order to 'fit it'.

There is a constant balancing act between following our hearts and our feelings, living with freedom and expression, and the consequences about living outside the 'norms' of society. To be clear, I'm not talking about breaking laws and being a general sh!t disturber.  I am talking about discovering or own values and sharing them with others who may not take kindly to our point of view.

Like it our not, their are people in our lives, that hold the opportunities we seek to reach our dreams. A person is not an island, we need the help of others to get where we want to go (once we figure out where that is) we need to know who can help us along the way.

Those with the power to help us, may also want us to change. If we truly want something ,are we willing to make this change? Change is an inevitable part of growth, but does it mean changing our deepest core values?

I suppose its something like the recent #metoo movement though not specifically about sexual harassment, but more generally about the power that "producers" have to get what they want from us, but what part of our souls, or freedom do we sacrifice in return?. and in the end does it justify the means?

It can be easy to abuse power, and not even know you are doing it, it can be easy to slip into victim thinking. Sometimes the whole thing just seems like a game, a vicious circle of bank and forth. Our soul trying to break free of the shackles that bind us, that keep us from expressing ourselves, while at the very same time hypocritically trying to change others, to limit their freedom, so that we can feel better about ourselves.

And yet, we are all the same you and I. Different skin color, different beliefs an values, different genders and sexual orientation, but linked like the branches on a tree to a common dependence on one another for survival, a thread that binds us together against the common enemy of death, as we struggle to be infinite, and fail to realize we already are..we already have all that we need.

Perhaps now, I can sleep

Today is Sunday, Oct 27 1991 - 12:35PM

Note: The post below is a transcription of a handwritten journal entry from 28 years ago. I think in this entry I was trying to rationalize why 'crib death' occurs. It seemed so sad that a baby could die so young, and I figured this was a logical explanation at the time....


The human body is essential only on the physical plain of existence. The soul is the essence of life and is housed within the physical body. The soul enters the brain. It is an EGO for a computer. Once the soul enters the brain, which happens at birth, the soul can operate the body. Humans spend the first 2 years at most adjusting to their body. At conception until birth the body and brain develop in preparation for the soul to enter. The moment the soul enters the baby is ready to be born. No human will survive after two years without a soul. When the soul leaves the body becomes like one mass cell which breaks down because the systems of the body are no longer being used.

Without a soul the brain cannot control the body. First all emotions shut down because the soul is what 'feels' the reactions known as emotions. Without a receiver to emotions, they cease.

Next every body system that is capable of working slows down and finally stops, this is the physical death of the body.  When a baby is born without a soul this results because the soul hasn't been matched for the body within a ten month to year process. The baby is born alive with no soul the brain decides to run the body it tries 'to live'. However, the baby will die within 2 years. The brain has no one giving it stimulus so it ceases to function.

On Choosing Happiness

     Happiness by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

Like many things in life, it is easier to give advice, then it is to follow-it. You can read an article like Neil Pasricha's 7 Science-Based Ways to be happy right now, and be like "Oh - I got it I see" the happiness equation is backward. I need to choose to be happy first.

..Any maybe it helps, for a while, you feel happy everything appears to be going great, and then one day out of the blue you read an email from your boss, and your face sags, or anger boils up inside you. Like a switch being flipped you go from feeling like a million bucks to feeling like you just won the 'worst employee of the year award'

So why does this happen? Zig Ziglar talk about changing our names, the idea that regardless of our present circumstances we can choose to be in the "Tate" family that is about helping others, thinking through our decisions and intentionally choosing the way we want to life our life.

It's great advice, it's IMPORTANT advice, and yet I can slip so easily into victim thinking, a poor me attitude, as easily as slipping into comfy pajamas before going to bed.

My "best me", is the me that thinks with a positive attitude that believes in my ability to share my ideas with others, that is confident, that is willing to create an environment that allows others to be the best version of themselves too.

..but doing so requires work, hard work, constant work, and it gets tiring, and slipping into anger, frustration, blaming others, blaming the world, is easy and comfortable.

Have you ever successfully encouraged someone in your life? Made a real impact, real positive change, only to come back a couple of years later only to find they have slipped back into their 'old habits' back to having the same troubles they told you about to begin with. Upset that you advice only seemed to work for the short term?

That's the problem with advice, it's easy to give but can be hard to live.

And when we fall off the bandwagon, because we are all human, we make mistakes, how do we find the strength to start over, to begin at step one all over again? Maybe we think "What's the point?" I'm just going to end up in this same dark place again anyway.

I don't have all the answers, I think this next time around, I will try to fill my life with like minded people, people who also want to intentionally live a life that matters, people like me who struggle with falling down, perhaps we can support each other to be the people we are truly meant to be, to love the people we are and to make the best of the situations we find ourselves in, and get back on the road to happiness and success...

On being a Positive person

Once in a while, I will be chatting with someone, and they will be quick to give me the compliment, "You're such a positive person Brad!"

And it's great to get compliments, and its nice to know that my behavior and attitude is positive, however, what most people fail to understand is that being positive is not a natural part of who I am.  In fact, you could say my "inner self" is rather negative, pessimistic, and even down right critical.

I think some people maybe born positive, they may wake up each day positive. Good for them!, but that is not me, from the moment of getting out of bed in the morning, my head is already trying to play games, trying to find ways to look at the world that will get me down, feelings of frustration, sometimes even hopelessness. It can feel like a battle of wits between the 'default' me and the 'intentional me'

I am positive - by INTENTION, by choice, and doing so take a lot of energy and effort. It requires talking back to the inner critical voice inside me, the one that holds me back from trying to be all that I can..and I don't always win, but with constant effort, with techniques like questioning inner voice, meditation and re-framing situations, I can work towards being the best version of myself, while at the same time accepting all of myself for who I am, what I can offer, where my faults lie, and what I can do to continuously improve. If there were some 'magic pill' that just always caused positivity, I think I'd take that...but maybe not because maybe then I wouldn't have gotten to know myself, to understand that my positive attitude is a choice and not luck.

Today is Friday Oct 18th, 1991

Note: The post below is a transcription of a handwritten journal entry from 28 years ago. Here are some of my early thoughts on the brain. I still continue to be fascinated by the brain and how it works which have inspired many of my experiments in programming artificial intelligence.


The brain is the most important tool the body has. The brain has four jobs to do;

One section of the brain deals with storing information. You can review the past, present and future. A fast about of knowledge is obtained.

The second section keeps the body in shape, it sends messages to the body for energy and to create the forces necessary for life.

The third section makes decisions. It will use the first two sections and all other data from the senses to form a conclusion and act on it.

The forth section is the 'subconscious' . The subconscious  is the reverse of the first three sections which combine everything and has enormous power

The four section combine and there are other smaller sections which control little things.  All together the brain is a complex tool which is more advanced then the latest computer. The brain, however is nothing without the soul. The soul is the combination of your emotions and your EGO. The brain can be more or less powerful but it is the soul which keeps us different from one another.

On Meditation

I firmly believe that in prayer we speak to GOD and meditation allows GOD to speak to us.  The 'inner voice' and GOD are one. The inner voice is the higher self which "decides" our future based on the decisions made in the present. It also keeps us alive in it is the 'motive' for the brain to function. The brain is like a computer and the soul or higher self utilizes it to store and retrieve information. When we are fully immersed into our higher self we can control our body and also leave our body.

Today is Tuesday, Oct 1st 1991

Note: The post below is a transcription of a handwritten journal entry from 28 years ago.
I find it interesting to note that as I decide to transcribe these to the internet, where they will likely live on forever that the day of the week (ie: Tuesday of 2019) is the same day of the week from 1991.

Here I refer to 'plains' of existence. In my later philosophizing I tend to think of these plains more as levels of conscious awareness. I don't quite understand the 'Madness is Perfection' from 28 years ago, but I believe elaborate it on it more in a later post...
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There are a number of 'plain' of existance. When we reach a set of requirements for this physical plain then we can go to another.  The first plane is the 'physical plain' We reach another plain we are still free to visit the physical plain again but we never return until we complete the requirements. The final plain is total peace and 99% perfection with GOD who lives on the final plain.  I believe we can communicate with these plains of higher existence and when we reach the final plain we will be at total peace

[ Madness is perfection ] <> [ Perfection is madness]