The Art of Happiness (Part 2)

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André likes to quote playwright Henrik Ibsen: “To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt.” André believes the root of the problem is that happiness dissolves differences between people, and French intellectuals, or the people who claim they are intellectuals, are afraid of being swallowed up in the mass of office clerks. “If a society places great emphasis on happiness being something anyone can achieve,” he says, “then those people who are always searching for a way to be different can do nothing but criticize and reject this striving toward universal happiness.”

- Why has there been such a strong focus on being happy and living a good and conscious life in recent years?

- The interest in happiness emerged at the same time as the interest in health. Now that Westerners don’t have to worry as much about pure survival, they’re much more interested in the quality of life. But there’s also a long-term trend here. Happiness also is part of democratization. Since the 18th century, everyone has a right to happiness. The American Constitution speaks of the pursuit of happiness.

Nowadays, happiness is a topic addressed by the consumer society. Happiness is everywhere, which of course leads to a deeper interest. This is undoubtedly because the need for meaning is more keenly felt since the role of religion has declined.

- What are the indispensable ingredients for happiness?

- Food and shelter are absolute conditions, of course. I distinguish between poverty and misery such as I have seen in Africa. You can still experience moments of happiness in conditions of poverty, but not in misery: it’s a near-constant wasting away. Human beings are social animals, so our ties to other people are important. And we are children of nature. Many happy moments are experienced in the outdoors. It’s no accident that in Christian heaven, we see our loved ones, friends and family again, and that this takes place in a natural setting of bubbling mountain streams and grassy meadows, the Garden of Eden.

- Has there been progress in happiness? Are we happier than we were 100 years ago?

- The social sciences have been working with indicators of happiness for more than 30 years. All the studies find that people are reporting increasing levels of happiness. On average, Americans are happier than Europeans, and Northern Europeans are happier than Southern Europeans. The West is aging, and the majority of older people say they’re happier than they did in the past. They also understand happiness better, because they understand what is and isn’t important.

There are plenty of objective reasons, too: In the Western world, illness, violence and war determine our chances of happiness less than they did in the past.

And then of course we have drugs to fight depression. Prozac doesn’t make you happy, but it does make you less unhappy. It decreases negative feelings so there’s more room for experiencing happiness. I see that my patients suffer less when they’re given good medication. Now, as an individual you have to work hard for -moments of -happiness. I don’t rule out the possibility that in 20 years there will be other serotonin-based drugs that will take over that function.

What I’m saying isn’t politically correct—society will have to debate the matter, like with fluoride in drinking water—but I don’t think it’s impossible that there will be some kind of happiness pill. I see so many people being eaten up, destroyed, by suffering. Alcohol, drug and domestic-violence statistics are much too high in our society. There are so many problems, so much unhappiness. If pills can change that, I won’t reject it out of hand.

- How can optimism play a role here?

- Optimism is an ingredient for happiness. It’s not the same thing as happiness. There are pessimists who are happy and unhappy people who are optimists. Optimism is the human capacity to anticipate, and it’s stored somewhere in the brain. Spontaneously, I’m a pessimist. If you ask me what the future holds for Africa, I’ll start talking about famine, violence and misery. But if I concentrate, I think, What were things like in Europe 100 years ago? War, unemployment, illness, poverty. Things have changed here now, so why not there?

Optimism gives you the power to try for happiness, and then when you get a little, you understand that trying to be optimistic was worth the trouble. In the end, it’s about making an investment in yourself. The Italian writer Primo Levi survived a concentration camp in spite of his despair, because he believed in life, saw something positive in it, and he held onto that.

- What is the purpose of happiness?

- It has no purpose—only that you’re happy. It gives you a more interesting life. We don’t live for happiness, but life is possible, beautiful and rich because it exists. When we’re happy, we don’t think about tomorrow; we enjoy it here and now. And we’re only able to do that because we know that there could be more suffering tomorrow. Happiness is only possible against the background of death; only we human beings know that we’re going to die, and that in itself is a good reason to strive for happiness.

You could also say, “What is the purpose of life?” Everyone gets to decide that for themselves. But, again, meaning and happiness are not the same thing. A big hero of the Nazi resistance has given a lot of meaning to his life, but that doesn’t mean he’s a happy person. To paraphrase Diderot: Happiness is a state of well being you wish would last forever.”

Be Happy!

—
Source: Ode Magazine, Peter Van Dijk, March 2008 issue
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/51/professor-of-happiness/all
—

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The Art of Happiness (Part 1)

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French psychiatrist Christophe Andre a self-confessed pessimist, unlocks the mystery of what makes us happy.

For the second time in two weeks, I took the train from the Netherlands to Paris, and for the second time in two weeks I missed my connection in Rotterdam due to a screw-up by the Dutch railway system. The first time I got pretty irritated. The second time I didn’t.

The key was simple and as old as the hills, but it works like a charm: Try to enjoy the moment. During my second trip, I was reading Vivre Heureux (“How to Lead a Happy Life“), a book by Christophe André, the French psychiatrist I was going to interview in Paris. In the first chapter he quoted Voltaire, who wrote, “I’ve decided to be happy because it’s good for my health.” Reading another of Andre’s books, “L’Art du Bonheur” (“The Art of Happiness”), convinced me I needed to interview him.

André has written some 15 books. “Vivre Heureux” and “L’Art du Bonheur” are targeted to a general audience. He also writes scholarly books and has done a comic book with the artist Muzo, in which André explains and clarifies a number of psychological disorders such as paranoia, narcissism and hysteria for laypeople in a surprisingly light and funny style.

Arriving in Paris, I make my way the next morning to his home in the suburb of St. Maurice near the Bois de Vincennes park and ring the bell at the gate of a beautiful villa. A couple of minutes later the gate is opened by André, who is strikingly bald, and he leads me through the garden into his large house. We sit in the sunny kitchen just off the garden in which a lonely cherry tree is also quite bald.

André looks like a Buddhist monk, which makes sense because he has studied Buddhism closely.

André, 51, the father of three daughters, spent his youth in Toulouse. Like many people raised in the Occitan region of southwest France, he is proud of his roots. He played rugby for 15 years, which is more popular there than soccer. “We’re different than the northern French. We stand around the squares or sit at cafés and chat about rugby. Our identity is partly based on the camaraderie of this sport.”

André developed a close bond with nature growing up near the Pyrénées mountains. “When we decided to buy a house here in Paris, I absolutely had to live near the woods. I need to take a walk every day to find my inner peace, to enjoy.”

In addition to writing books and giving lectures, André works two and a half days a week in Paris’ Sainte Anne Hospital as a psychiatrist, where he does a great deal of group therapy, and teaches half a day each week at the University of Paris X, Nanterre.

- Why did you start studying happiness?

- All my books are based on discussions with my patients. In my first books, self-esteem is key; it’s a problem shared by many of my patients. I treat all kinds of related symptoms: fear of failure, poor self-image, social phobias. These patients suffer a great deal and don’t have the capacity to feel happy. I thought about how I could help them. In my own experience, happiness does take effort; you need to do your best to see happiness, experience it, absorb it.

The first time I used a painting in my therapy was with a woman with agoraphobia. We were walking across the Saint Suplice square in the heart of Paris and we entered a church where the giant Eugène Delacroix mural Jacob Wrestling with the Angel can be admired in the semi-darkness. We talked intensively about all types of associations that arose from viewing the painting and she was thus able to start a process of self-reflection. After that experience I used paintings more frequently.

- Do you think people are naturally happy?

- We tend to be naturally gloomy. Melancholy is la condition humaine. Biologically oriented psychologists agree there’s a good evolutionary reason for this. When we were all still hunters and gatherers, a certain degree of concern was useful. It was prudent to remain alert to dangers and problems, which is why we’re geared to focus on the negative. It appears that the Christian church understood this early on: There’s no point looking for happiness on Earth; heaven is where you’ll find it. It is the reason why Sigmund Freud wrote: “Happy is not included in the plan of creation.” It has also been proven that happiness and unhappiness are registered in different parts of the brain.

And parents don’t often teach their children about happiness. Have you ever been on vacation and seen them stop the car, point and say: Look what a beautiful mountain valley. See that old tree and how beautifully it’s catching the light? They’re more focused on how well their children are doing in school.

- So you’re not a happy person by nature?

- There are people who are spontaneously happy. I don’t know many who are, but they exist. I’m more prone to depression than happiness; I’m more a pessimist than an optimist. I don’t have a happy temperament. My family background plays a role. My father was fairly violent. I’ve never taken anti-depressants, but I consider myself emotionally fragile.

- What about now? Do you experience moments of happiness?

- It’s hard work but it’s pleasant. You’ve got to put your mind to it. Working on happiness acts as an anti-depressant.

You can spend an evening with friends and only realize once you get home that you had a good time. That means you’ve missed your moments of happiness. You need to realize that there are many opportunities to be happy. You have to realize: This is enjoyable, this is a nice moment, I’m having fun, this is a little bubble of happiness. I know people who have a nice weekend and cannot be happy because on Sunday afternoon they’re already -starting to think about going to work on Monday. And at work they’re thinking they’re not happy because they don’t see their children enough. Those people never have their minds in the present. You have to tell yourself: “I’m going to enjoy this for a moment. My child is here and I’m going to stop thinking about my work. I’m emptying my mind and listening to what my child has to say.”

This can be learned. The English call it “mindfulness”. Concentrating helps. Meditation is very good. It takes hard work every day, but it works. Happiness can be learned. It’s within reach. When I get too nervous, too excited, too eager, then I know I need to rest and take a walk. When I walk, I need to stop occasionally and look around. Look and be open; absorb nature.

Happiness is about the little things. Happiness tends to be calm and peaceful. You don’t jump up and down with happiness, but with joy. Yes, there is such a thing as intense happiness, but it doesn’t happen often in one’s life. Striving toward absolute, huge, oceanic happiness, le bonheur fou, can be discouraging and distract you from little happiness.

André can provide a definition of “Happiness” with a capital “H”—in his book “Vivre Heureux”, he writes: “The experience of Happiness exceeds that of pleasure; it inundates the personality, escapes its control and limits, both psychologically and physically”—but it is clear that is not how he likes to address the topic. “Would you like another cup of coffee?” he asks, thus guiding me back to a modest yet tangible experience of happiness.

André jumps from topic to topic, from little to big happiness, from evolution to practical life lessons, from art to rugby.

Among leftist intellectuals in France, happiness gets a bad rap. In Vivre Heureux, André notes that the deadly sin of happiness according to these critics is petit bourgeois. Marcel Proust was gentler: Happiness was good for the body but bad for creativity. And any French intellectual worth his salt thinks happiness is selfish, for how can you be happy in an unhappy world?

André likes to quote playwright Henrik Ibsen: “To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt.” André believes the root of the problem is that happiness dissolves differences between people, and French intellectuals, or the people who claim they are intellectuals, are afraid of being swallowed up in the mass of office clerks. “If a society places great emphasis on happiness being something anyone can achieve,” he says, “then those people who are always searching for a way to be different can do nothing but criticize and reject this striving toward universal happiness.”

to be continued

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Who is a PT? Maybe, YOU?

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In a nutshell, a PT merely arranges his or her paperwork in such a way that all governments consider him a tourist. A person who is just “Passing Through”. The advantage is that being thought of by government officials as a person who is merely “Parked Temporarily”, a PT is not subjected to taxes, military service, lawsuits, or persecution for partaking in innocent but forbidden pursuits or pleasures. Unlike most citizens or subjects, the PT will not be persecuted for his beliefs or lack of them. PT stands for many things: a PT can be a “Prior Taxpayer”, “Permanent Tourist”, “Practically Transparent”, “Privacy Trained”, “Party Thrower”, “Priority Thinker”, “Positive Thinker”, “Prepared Totally”, “Paranoid Together” or “Permanent Traveler” if he or she wants to be. The individual who is a PT can stay in one place most of the time. Or all of the time. PT is a concept, a way of life, a way of perceiving the universe and your place in it. One can be a full-time PT or a part-time PT. Some may not want to break out all at once, or become a PT at all. They just want to be aware of the possibilities, and be prepared to modify their lifestyle in the event of a crisis. Knowledge will make you sort of a PT. A “Possibility Thinker” who is “Prepared Thoroughly” for the future.

Read history and you’ll find human society is much like a river. At first it flows straight. A torrent of water breaks through seeking the shortest route to the sea. It goes in more or less straight line downhill. Then, every river or creek gradually bends like a snake. The great mathematician, Albert Einstein once wrote a paper explaining the mathematical reasons why water can’t help winding and turning in every greater complexity. Depending on river flow and terrain, there will be many variations; shallows, rapids, eddies, branches, even dead-end ponds or lakes. Life forms grow and adapt to the changing river. Usually changes are imperceptible. Every once in a while there is a big flood. Then for a time, the river flows relatively straight again. For a little while.

In society, groups of human beings start off with simple rules which gradually develop into even more complex systems. Some members of the group benefit at the expense of others. Sooner or later, bends and kinks are eliminated by a major change in the government form. This can be the result of war, epidemic, or simply exhaustion. But surely as a river develops bends, a new bureaucracy will eventually grow.

What is perceived as an onerous burden to one person (a tax?) is perceived as a career opportunity to the tax collector. Thus, a good number of people at any time believe they are living in the best of all possible worlds at the best of all possible times. Simultaneously, others feel oppressed. Someone with the PT mentality who isn’t living the PT life will perceive this situation as intolerable. “Everything is going to hell. Nothing is as good as it used to be.”
What is the reality?

Simply that some people in any society (or fish in a river) will have it good (or bad) some of the time. Most of the people will have it good (or bad) most of the time. A few people will seem to have it very good all of the time. As I said in PT, happiness is a state of mind, a perception. Your reality is not necessarily my reality.

In Joseph Stalin’s time, nobody could deny that from a personal freedom and material point of view, Joe himself (materially at least ) had it pretty good — even though no one else in the Soviet Union lived as well as he did. But I venture to say that if we asked Joe in 1950 if he was happy, he’d disregard the material aspect to focus on the fact that is life and the political system he ran was in constant danger. He survived only by deporting, jailing and murdering a few million of his (perceived) enemies every year. Today in Russia, there is a new system offering vastly more economic opportunity and personal freedom.
There are lots of newly rich Russians who for the first time in 75 years have
the legal right to engage in commerce, travel and communications with foreigners. At the same time, in modern Russia, there is also more personal danger to the non-political guy on the street from violent criminals, and from economic circumstance. Would you be happy there?

Achieving stability, security and prosperity (or whatever social goals of a large group of people in general agree upon) plus encouraging individual freedom always involves a balancing act. Sometimes the main goal of a large group of people is enforcing certain religious beliefs. You can never please all the people and so, there is constant tinkering. One way to read current events in trend settings countries like the USA., where more and more people are being jailed for less and less (in the way of offenses), is a decline in personal freedom. But a decline in freedom for those in jail can be interpreted as an increase in freedom for those outside. Those not incarcerated are free from disturbance by those offenders sent away. Few people complain about the incarceration of categories of bad people that they themselves do not feel they fit into.

A PT by definition is a non-conformist in a highly regulated, highly taxed, first world society. Thus a PT must adapt in a special way. “How do I cope?” you ask. “How do I get myself and my family a material lifestyle better than anyone else or at least better than average?” Merely asking this question would be offensive to a socialist who wants all people to be ‘equal’. “How do I avoid conscription, confrontation, imprisonment and perhaps even death at the hands of my own government?” (This question is possibly treason in certain locations).

The answer for a PT is not difficult. Figure out what kind of behaviour is being rewarded in the town (or country) where you live, and what kind of behaviour is being punished. Then take the obvious path to make more money, sex, power, immortality, glory or whatever it is that you think you need. Obviously you must avoid activities or behaviour that gets you into trouble locally. If you can’t exist comfortably where you are, or can’t get what you want where you live; then look for opportunities (and restrictions) elsewhere in the world. Consider a physical move to where greater opportunities exist. Your particular river may have too many bends for your taste, but for the foreseeable future there will always be plenty of over rivers. Most fish are attached to a particular river, but you can choose to move to the environment that suits you best.

In some countries, entrepreneurs are richly rewarded. In the USA this is still true, but more so in unregulated, new fields of endeavour like say, computers. It is hard (but not impossible) to go to jail for coming up with the best selling original innovation in software or hardware. Try to be innovative in American or Swiss banking and you will be breaking a million and one rules. In countries like the Philippines and Thailand, it pays better to be a politician or army officer than a businessman. In Iran or anyplace where religious know nothings are in control, being a traditional community religious leader is less dangerous. It leads to respectability power and a good standard of living. You must match your personality and talents to a community that appreciates (or at least tolerates) you. Thus, the question to be concerned with is not “Where is the world heading?” but rather, “Where in the world should I be heading?”

The world’s communities are heading in a myriad of different directions — all at the same time. This is where the PT concept comes into play. By identifying several countries or communities where your favorite diversions or perversions are socially acceptable, you will avoid going to jail. If you like to smoke grass, do it in the Netherlands where it is legal. Obviously if you enjoy booze, don’t go to the Muslim world. The key is to go to those locations where you can legally and openly do what you love most. If you want to earn a lot of money, or have power over other people, there are places in the world where you are far more likely to succeed than others. Having more than one passport, and an open mind is all that you need to make that vital difference to the amount of “quality” you get out of life. You can be a Bad Guy! It doesn’t really matter that ecologists make life difficult for real estate developers in your particular suburb. There are plenty of nice places in the world to develop (or depending one one’s point of view, despoil).

Ecology isn’t fashionable in Africa. Even if you are a homicidal maniac, you can always find some place in the world to be hired as a mercenary and hack away at innocent victims. And if you don’t want to be an innocent victim, as a PT you can always go and live somewhere that is relatively safe from violent crime (like Monaco, New Zealand, Japan or Liechtestein). It is silly (in my opinion) to say thing like “individual freedom” is being eroded all over the world. It simply isn’t true. There are different sorts of freedom and different sorts of slavery going on in hundreds of different places.

One can have a Swiss Family Robinson sort of freedom by becoming hermits on an uninhabited island. Living with or near other people always involves some compromises and some advantages. My idea of an ideal place to live is where I pay little or no taxes, don’t have to risk getting my head shot off in any wars and I have a first class Chinese take-away nearby. We can get what we want by living in any one of a dozen prosperous tax havens. As a PT, you can expand your place of living options to virtually any locality. Unless you are an American, you needn’t renounce and you don’t even need two passports. Australian PTs live invisibly in New Zealand and Kiwis live in Oz. Any European can live indefinitely and invisibly in any other European country. The PT, being perceived by local cops and bureaucrats (if perceived at all) as a “Passing Through Tourist” who minds his own business, keeps a low profile, and avoids trouble. It is inconceivable that any other member of my family could ever be conscripted into any military service, jailed for any offence, or sent a bill for income tax. In any of the places I have lived as a PT over the dozen years, if there was the merest whiff of trouble, I was off like Bambi. The only time I had to move was when I made the mistake of confiding my PT status to my mail-drop operator.

To be a successful PT, your status and PT life should be your most closely guarded secret. But that’s my point of view. General Colin Powell would no doubt say that he found freedom and a satisfying career in the military when other doors of opportunity were shut to him because of his race or background. General Powell is not a PT and surely wouldn’t want to join our ranks any more than we would want to join the US army. Fact to remember; most people in the world are not PT material. Over half are directly or indirectly employed or supported by the government! They wouldn’t go for a PT style existence even if they could. If they thought about us, which we hope they won’t, it would be to classify PTs as Penitentiary Targets.

Not even all millionaires are potential PTs. An individual (one of my consulting clients) became a PT and bitterly regrets it. He cashed out of a multi-million dollar business, obtained another passport, picked up all his chips and moved to another country where he took up residence with one of the world’s most beautiful and pleasant women. Yet he complains that his kick in life was having the prestige (and problems) that came with a lot of employees, a huge income, and a big, visible lifestyle. His old life included recognition he misses. Stuff like giving parties for the local lights, photos and a mention in the town’s society pages. “Now”, he says, “I am a rich nobody!”. He finds the PT life boring. How about you? Unlike this client, once I had enough money to live well, I found more satisfying things to do than running a business. My business career was a stepping stone, not something I wanted to do until I croaked in my office swivel chair. It was no thrill or satisfaction to spend most of my time defending inevitable private lawsuits and fighting public regulatory agencies. I found being a recognized local celebrity was a royal pain in the butt. Obviously there are different strokes for different folks. It’s also a function of age. At 20-35 maybe you need to make your mark on the world. At 55 maybe you love and read more.

Princess Di (who is younger than the typical age at which people decide to become PTs) apparently most of all, fears being sidelined out of the public eye. This writer feels the other way “around”. Why? For lots of reasons. One is that people in the public eye are envied. There are and always have been non-entities lurking around. They want to harm those they envy. Little punks with lethal weapons stalk the rich and famous. Other threats are litigants, bureaucrats or journalists who can and will cut you down with lethal paperwork. Notoriety, display or anything that attracts envy (or the other side of the coin, admiration) is to be avoided, at least by myself. Look at what happened to John Lennon.
He never hurt anyone! The guy who shot him had no connection with him at all. Even a flash car is a dangerous possession.

My personal experience is that when I drove a ten year old sturdy and reliable rustbucket, I never once had a problem. But, upon trading it for a shiny new red Mazda sports car, the perceived glamor of this car, attracted vandals, even in Monaco. As a result of my own personal experiences, my PT rule is to no longer partake of any conspicuous (i.e. visible) consumption. No flaunting of wealth or possessions, period.

Going out for a long walk with my lady-love, my rule is she doesn’t drip diamonds (not even fake ones) nor gold chains. Neither of us wears an expensive watch. Nor does she wear form fitting sexy clothes. We make a big effort to look like poverty personified: Mr and Mrs Dumpy, stumbling out for their evening shuffle. Result? No unwelcome attention! How much dough do you need?

One clear requirement for PT freedom and mobility is either a net worth that enables you to live off your assets, or a portable occupation that allows you to earn money without licenses, permits or a permanent place of business. In my travels I’ve met street musicians, computer programmers and English teachers who are PTs though they may not know it. My report “PT”, identifies a lot of portable jobs. The outlook for PTs is good. Even if places like the USA. attempt to impose an exit tax on assets, there will always be ways for people, who make an effort, to move themselves and most of their assets to another country. In the old South Africa, rich people who wanted to expatriate assets and themselves often build yachts. They bought art works, jewelery, stamp collections and other portable wealth. Then they simply sailed off into the stars.

A small percentage but large number of Germans and Italians (Jewish and otherwise) were able to exit Europe for the USA and South America. They saw (as almost anyone could see ) that war was in the air and things were going to get worse before they got better. People killed or imprisoned by governments usually have years of warning and plenty of signals that it is time to leave.
Don’t be a Prisoner of your Possessions.

“Once we begin using material products to define ourselves,
we are doomed to be on an endless treadmill of dissatisfaction”.
Erich Fromm – in his book “To Have or To Be”, 1979.

A good friend of mine who was in the midst of a crisis didn’t leave. Why? Because his wife insisted on staying with her old friends, furniture and crockery. He will loose his freedom if he allows this foolishness. Another friend said he’d rather go to jail for twenty years than be separated forever from his old gang. Their is an old French saying “Chaque un à son gout”. Each to his own taste. Indeed, I prefer to be “Prepared Thoroughly”. The Only Certainty is Change.

Some people (probably the vast majority) think that the center of the universe is their home town. They actually think that they couldn’t make it, or be happy anywhere else. Generations of people stay in hell holes or refugee camps where life itself is a terrible struggle. It is clear to them (from other who do escape), that a little effort and initiative would make a new life possible. But the majority don’t make the move. They don’t seek to better themselves. Why? The vast majority prefer the certainty of misery to the uncertainty of change.
Perceptions.

For people living in relatively prosperous countries like today’s USA. or Scandinavia, some of the most wealthy and privileged will perceive that they are slaves living in gulags, birds in guilded cages. It is clearly a question of perception. But by becoming a PT and taking advantage of the opportunities available, any person can physically live wherever they want and escape most of the perceived negatives in their life. Finding freedom in an unfree world is possible if you simply decide what it is that you want to avoid, and what is important to you. Then, you take the steps to go where you want and do the things you want to do. You Can Go Back to Where You Started From!

A very wealthy American guy named Dart who made his billions from foam coffee cups must have read “PT”. But for all his billions he didn’t get any intelligent advice on his PT transition. He moved to Belize. Had he spoken to me, I’d have told him that Belize was a dump. It would be one of the last places a wealthy PT would invest or deal with government officials. Dart apparently wanted to emulate one of the characters in the “Passport Report” who ultimately returned (as a tax free diplomat) to his original USA place of residence. So Dart got his Consul General appointment from Belize. Then the USA wouldn’t recognize him in his new role. His main problem? He didn’t do his program in a quiet and low profile way. Whilst I never met Mr Dart, I imagine he used high priced big lawyers and accountants. This modus operandi almost guarantees litigation and problems.

A future PT doesn’t disclose his PT intentions to anyone in his home country, especially lawyers, accountants, politicians, journalists, or potentially hostile ex-wives. We won’t go over the motivations of all of these categories but a lawyer’s interest is in making continuing fees and getting publicity to generate new future clients. This is exactly what a PT needs to avoid.

The big move, when it comes, is essentially a divorce from the system. It’s an annulment from the old country’s bureaucrats (government employees), lawyers (officers of the court) and accountants (IRS collection agents). It should cut you off physically from any potential litigants, especially alimony seeking women.
Dart could have quietly moved his money to safe havens so that Big Brother couldn’t ever figure out what was where. His expatriation would have been handled with name changes in such a way as to make him invisible. He apparently has no backup passports besides Belize and no respectable countries where he could live. Although he can still do it, as part of the process, he should have made deals with desirable first rate countries for passports. His new home country, Belize, is a place where politicians milk a beached billionaire dry. The easily purchased Belize passport might have been alright as one of several PT flags, but Belize is not a country where you actually wish to live or have any assets. Dart needs better advice.

It is relatively easy to get a passport, by investment, ancestry or marriage in several countries of the European Union. The same is true of Canada, Singapore, Australia, or New Zealand. If a chap like Dart knew this, why should he chose a bung-hole like Belize, and why would he handle his affairs in such a way that muck-raking journalists could expose him and point fingers to louse up his PT plans. It is probable that he could still change course.

To Summarize:

Don’t waste time on meaningless speculations by trying to figure out what will happen in the world over the next 2000 years. Fine if you want to write a book of predictions for which there is always a market. But for your own personal use there is no point in trying to figure out where the world is going politically, socially or economically. There is not even the hope of getting any useful answers. The only answer is that everything will change. A “PT” is Pragmatic. The PT mentality merely asks “Am I happy with what I am? Do I enjoy who I’m with and doing what I do?” If the answer is “No” (to any question), the next step is to make changes. Start by reading about PTs.

The answer to your future lies in asking yourself, the right question. Making predictions for the long term future is not necessary. The very essence of being a PT is staying prepared for the unexpected and unpredictable changes. It is only necessary to “see” the options and choose. The way forward is in your control, so stay in control and have a happy and fruitful life.

Just, maybe, a PT.

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Your New Year 2009 Healthy Lifestyle Resolution!

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“You are what you eat, drink, breathe, think, say & do!” – Patricia Bragg

—
The Paul Bragg Healthy Lifestyle has many wise components. Here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts that Paul Bragg developed and Patricia Bragg practices and preaches:

- Don’t eat refined sugar, salty foods, white rice, white flour, fried foods, saturated fats or hydrogenated oils, coffee or caffeinated teas, sodas and drinks, pork, smoked fish and smoked meats, and all foods preserved with salt, sugar or chemicals.

- Do allow 4-5 hours between meals so the digestive system has time to work, before eating more food. Chew thoroughly.

- Don’t eat a big breakfast because it’s too difficult for the body to digest. Fresh fruits and blender energy drinks are excellent.

- Do drink eight glasses of distilled or purified water daily, along with herbal teas and juices.

- Do fast one day a week to cleanse and detoxify your system to help stay healthy.

- Don’t drink cow’s milk and its products.

- Do enjoy early or late gentle sunshine regularly, it has germ-killing and healing energy.

- It’s best to get your protein from healthy vegetarian sources instead of meat.

- Do make sure you have regular bowel movements (ample water, salads, etc. help).

- Don’t rely on enemas or high colonics unless sick or extreme constipation.

- Do exercise regularly, walk, swim, bike, etc.

- Don’t “self-drug”; correct your problems with living a simple Healthy Lifestyle.

- Do think positively, cultivating health, cheerfulness, happiness, kindness, charity and the love of family and brotherhood.

- Don’t neglect your sleep, get 8 hours nightly.

- Do practice deep breathing throughout the day and always maintain good posture.

- Do make every effort to improve yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually every day!

With Love,
Paul & Patricia Bragg

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MB7ArtThemia® Turtles Are Waiting For YOU!

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Here is a present to you, my dear readers, for a New Year 2009 – Hungry pet turtles to play around! Please, click on empty space around them and give them some food! God will love you for that in the year 2009!

Please, subscribe to MB7ArtThemia® to feed those poor bastards!

With Love,
MB7Art

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The Roadmap To Become A Blogger Report!

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There is a brand new blogging business website online with the name BecomeABlogger.com packed with free video tutorials created for you by Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick.

Here are the names of 10 free videos you’ll like:
Video 1 – Why You Should Use WordPress
Video 2 – How To Get Your Own Domain Name
Video 3 – How To Get A Web Host
Video 4 – How To Install WordPress
Video 5 – How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using FTP
Video 6 – Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your New Blog
Video 7 – How To Install And Use WordPress Plugins
Video 8 – How To Create Your First Blog Post And Blog Page
Video 9 – What RSS Is And Why You Need It
Video 10 – How To Use Feedburner For Supercharging Your RSS Capabilities

Also at the website don’t forget to claim Your FREE Copy Of a new book “The Roadmap To Become A Blogger”! Inside the roadmap you’ll discover plenty of useful information including:

- 5 essential milestones for a successful blog;
- What the “X-Factor” for successful blogging is and why you’ll fail without it;
- How to use social media to boost traffic to your blog and so on and so forth;
- How to ethically exploit the biggest wave in technology since the invention of the telephone;
- 7.4 million reasons why your blog will fail, unless you know how to take advantage of the intersection of two huge Internet trends;
- How a new way of using video, images and a blog turned a penniless actor into an Internet Superstar!
- 13 secret strategies to attract traffic to your blog like bees to a beehive, turn your competitors green with envy and provide you with multiple streams of passive income. And much MUCH MORE…

The roadmap is not just another report on blogging. It melds together what Yaro and Gideon learned and implemented over the past fours years to create an entire business based on the blog alone, with some brand new techniques that combine the power of social media and multimedia to take any blog to the next level.

Gideon Shalwick, the video wizard behind the Becomeablogger.com site, injected his unique understanding of multimedia (video, audio, online radio and tv) and social media (facebook, myspace, twitter, etc) into this report.

Keep in mind that also on December 4t, 2008 a NEW PREMIUM COACHING course on how to Become A Blogger Premium is going to be released. And If you like learning through step-by-step video training, you believe in the ideas that Yaro and Gideon teach in the Roadmap and want to learn directly from them how to implement them on your blog (or create a new blog), then you are an ideal candidate for their coaching program!

Claim Your FREE Copy Of The Roadmap To BecomeA Blogger Report Right Here Right Now!

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Interview With Yaro Starak About Comments to Your Blog!

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Today we have an interview with Yaro Starak. O.K., you might ask “Who is this guy?”. Yaro Starak is a young entrepreneur from Brisbane, Australia (sometimes he lives in Toronto, Canada). He is a 29 year old male – with big hair who is presently blog about Internet marketing, blogging, entrepreneurship and self development at
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

According to Yaro, he has been blogging since late 2005 and make over $10,000 a month from Enterepreneurs-Journey.com blog and over $30,000 a month from his online business in total – which by the way, is based entirely on his blog. Yaro has created, managed and sold several different Internet businesses since 1998 and currently teaches people how to make a full time income from blogging part time through his Blog Mastermind mentoring program. If you want the long story about Yaro (with pictures and his comments!) you can read his five-page bio at http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/yaro-starak-timeline/

All right, no more questions about Yaro? Let’s start the interview.

- Yaro, the focus of this interview is something all bloggers love – comments. Unfortunately most blogs, especially new blogs, receive very few real comments from real people (everyone gets spam comments though). Yaro, what is your point of view on why is it some blogs have a ton of comments while other blogs never receive any?

- Let me set something straight right now. If your blog has no traffic you will not receive
any comments. It makes sense of course, but some people don’t see the connection between these two elements. If no one is reading your blog then no one will leave comments either. Simply posting great articles to your blog is not enough – you have to *market* your blog to bring people to it.

- Sure, it makes sense – no comments = no traffic = nobody is reading your blog, right?

- Correct, understand if you don’t receive any comments to your blog it’s probably not that your content is bad or people don’t like you, it’s because you simply don’t have enough traffic. If on the other hand you do have some traffic, yet no one replies to your posts, there are ways to stimulate comments.

- Yaro, do you have some tips for our readers on how to stimulate comments?

- Yes, I sure do. And here are some of them. First of all, write articles that reference or focus on other bloggers. You will get their attention that way and there’s a good chance they will come to your blog and leave a comment as a result. Then, ask your readers a question at the end of your articles. Also, try to write about topics that stimulate conversation, such as current events (think politics, news, entertainment, marketing). Don’t be afraid to be controversial with your writing. Have a strong opinion and others with strong opinions will reply to argue or agree with you. Always be patient. Sometimes you just have to wait until the first person leaves a comment which opens the floodgates.

- Yaro, what do you think do you need to reply to all the comments, or just let them go?

- I am convinced you just have to reply to any comment and I can tell you why. A while ago I stopped actively responding to comments on my blog unless I was asked a direct question. I really had no excuse for not doing it, I was just lazy and working on other writing projects. Consequently the average number of comments on my blog entries dropped A LOT. I noticed the regular commentators stopped commenting as frequently and most conversations on my blog ended very quickly. This is really tragic for a blog and I’ll tell you why – it reduces your “Social Proof“.

- What is “Social Proof” by the way?

- Social Proof is when humans take action or make a decision based on seeing other humans doing it first. It’s sort of like an implied recommendation – if other people do it, it must be good. It’s like when you see a bunch of people all looking up at something in the sky at the same time. You can’t help but turn your head skywards and see what all the fuss is about. When first time visitors to your blog see other people making lots of comments they are more likely to decide there is something valuable at your blog and bookmark or subscribe to it and may even make a comment. This is good for blog traffic. This is social proof in action. I was very conscious of always taking part in comment conversations at my blog and consequently my readership was growing in leaps and bounds. I stopped and I noticed I hit a wall and my blog didn’t grow quite as well as it was.

I know a blogger who has a rule – she responds to every single comment made to her blog. Consequently she has developed a fantastic community around her blog and her traffic has
skyrocketed in a short period of time. Remember, comments on your blog are very important, take the time to respond to them.

P.S.: If you have a question for Yaro or need advice about blogging or business please ask in the forums (click the link below). If you have a problem or question about a product or service you have purchased from Yaro, please send an email to the address below:
http://replytoyaro.com

Thank you!
Michael B & Yaro Starak

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Happy ThanksGiving to All of You!

Image by Grant MacDonald via Flickr

And remember “Kindness gives birth to kindness” as Sophocles once said. Today I don’t want to use words but a beautiful picture by Zemanta.

Peace, Love & Joy to all of us! Michael B

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Why I Like to Sell Taschen Books Online?

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November 23, 2008 [Sunday]

As of today I have hundreds websites and blogs all over the internet. Did I made some money? Not yet. Did I made a little bit of money online? Yes! I have sold some of my photo works at:
http://strannik.shutterpoint.com
It was even enough to pay for 2 years of hosting!

And in the month of November this year I am trying to sell books on Amazon.com, where I have a couple of stores. Anyone (including myself) can look at them here now:
http://astore.Amazon.com/bestXmasGifte-20
http://astore.Amazon.com/kindlebooks08-20
http://astore.Amazon.com/taschentravel-20
http://astore.Amazon.com/visitSalzburg-20
http://astore.Amazon.com/volkswagen-up-20
http://astore.Amazon.com/fashiondesign-mb7art-20
http://astore.Amazon.com/wordpressblog-mb7art-20
http://astore.Amazon.com/taschensexybooks-20

Someone can ask me if I have made some money selling Taschen books. And the answer to my great regret – not yet, but what I am trying to do this time is to pick the topic I like, pick the publisher I adore and to experiment with blogging about it.

And the second reason for my actions is even more important! Do you know that since TASCHEN adventure began in the early 1980s it was company’s goal and credo to democratize great books and make them affordable and accessible all over the world at unbeatable prices? Do you know that TASCHEN is making the greatest books in the world and striving to produce , design, and package each book (with the retail price from $10 to $10,000) beautifully, with a great deal of care and attention to detail.

And here is the main reason, the collectors, who buy an XXL limited edition book early on (let’s use a book about Helmut Newton & his photographic works as an example) will have, in addition to a rare and exceptional book, the added benefit of seeing their asset appreciate with time.
TASCHEN’s XXL books have been known to have their value tripled, quadrupled, or even quantupled within a short lapse of time!

Here is a few examples: Helmut Newton’s SUMO market value went from $1,500 in 1999 to $12,500 today! Peter Beard’s book went from $1,800 to $6,000 within two years, and Jeff Koons went from $1,000 to $4,000 within just few month. Did you look at TASCHEN books as an
investment yet? Why not?

Michael B

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Are You (Yes, YOU) Making Money by Blogging? Why not?

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Are You (Yes, YOU)

Hi to all!

I just finished reading a fantastic report on how to make money
blogging. You can get your copy from here: http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=875252

It shows you everything this guy did to build a blog that makes him over $5000 USD per month! It’s a great read, I recommend you check it out.

In every bloggers life comes a special day – the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader – you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’s about as far you went when it comes to finding eaders.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers.

These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling. It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work or you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of
very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long
term appeal, stays current (it isn”t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to
first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don’t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead.
The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be
serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry – it’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important – it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing
in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at http://blogcarnival.com/.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this
link: http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=875252

Thanks,

Michael B and Yaro Starak (My BlogMasterMind.com)

PS. I’ve already started to implement the “Pillars” technique in my
blog and I’m experiencing a nice increase in my traffic.

To find out what I’m talking about see the section on “Pillar content” in the report.
http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=875252

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What is Zemanta?

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Zemanta is a nice online tool which can help you to blog smarter & faster – with instant smart links, pictures, tags and more! Zemanta will put most of your blogging tasks on autopilot creating automatic links, adding associated photos, tags and related articles.

By the way, Zemanta partnered with Yahoo MyBlogLog for better blogging experience. Have you ever wondered who are the faces behind readers of your blogs? Wonder no more, as MyBlogLog provides you with a handy widgets that allows you to build a community around your blog.

Zemanta is a revolutionary new platform for accelerating on-line content production for any web user. Any user-created text (a blog post, article or web page) is directly “read” by Zemanta, which recognizes all contextual content. Zemanta then combs the web for the most relevant images, smart links, keywords and text, instantly serving these results to the user to enrich and inform their content. What’s more, Zemanta can be deployed on all major content publishing platforms and web browsers through a simple plug-in.

Zemanta is one of a number of semantic computing startups attempting to address the problem on how to enhance the content that a publisher authors. Zemanta attempts to answer this question by processing the text in the content in real time to suggest four things that are contextually relevant: images, stories, in-text links and tags. For now the company has focused on enhancing the content for blog publishers. However, it seems in the future, they have plans of introducing support for distribution channels such email clients and other content management systems.

“Web users now spend half their time visiting content, far outpacing time spent with search, communications and commerce”
- Online Publishers Association

Users expect rich content, rich with information revealed through links, images, illustrations, and references. When you think about it, the best Web-ready content is a carefully constructed mashup.

As users increasingly author content, forums, blogs and social networks are rapidly becoming their favorite playground for individual expression. It’s there that they are telling their stories and sharing new information, weaving in rich content elements from across the web. Zemanta wants to help you tell your stories with more insight, more impact, and more smarts than ever before-to attract and build your readership.

Zemanta uses natural language processing algorithms to process the content that a blogger authors. The semantic parsing of the blogger’s content is done in real time and searched for recommendations on the data indexed by Zemanta. The source for this indexed data is identified by Zemanta which includes blogs, Wikipedia, IMDB, Amazon’s book listings, Flickr and other popular news and entertainment websites such as The New York Times, CNN among others. All this indexed content is validated of not violating any copyright laws before recommending them. The company notes that the images sometime may not be relevant to the content because of the limitations in semantic organization of the image data.

While Zemanta might lead the buzz around its launches there are a number of services that provide somewhat similar services such as: Evri, Calcais, Extensions based on Calcais (Tagaroo) among others. However the key strategic differentiator among the players in this business would be the number of widget installations, because widget is the key component that distributes the suggested content and probably will be utilized to push advertisements for monetization. The motivation for widget installation from users would be influenced by two key factors: 1. relevancy of the suggestions and 2. suggested content must be free of copyright issues. Zemanta already has these two features.

Are you ready for a new revolution in blogging?

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