Jeffrey Alexander Martin

In Dalton Township, Michigan we currently have corrupt and dishonest government officials attacking small farms and businesses. It recently came to my attention that the farm that I get goat milk from has been sued by a neighbor and the township. There are three tactics that they have tried to use against Hidden Creek Farm so far. The owners of the farm explain the situation well. Then I will dive into the dishonesty that the township supervisor Tony Barnes has shown so far, the immoral and illegal intimidation tactics that they are using, and what can be done about it. Here's a post that Hidden Creek Farm made on their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/HiddenCreekFarm/ - - - - - - - Dear friends, family, customers and small farm supporters, We wanted to give you all an update on the difficult situation we have been dealing with since last Tuesday… As you know, Lee and I have put our heart and soul into Hidden Creek Farm. Owning a farm that would serve a commun...

Two weekends ago I stayed with my aunt to be closer to the wedding that I was officiating for my cousin. Since I don't have a radio in my car I had a few hours to think about writing ideas on the drive over. I've been wanting to try this crazy idea for awhile, so we worked on it while I was there. I want to use fables and fairy tales in a multi-layered frame story. I'll talk about what that is in a moment. I wrote down the fables and fairy tales that jumped to mind. - - - - - - - The 3 Little Pigs Humpty Dumpty Little Red Riding Hood Goldilocks Pietr and the Dike The Fox and the Grapes The Boy Who Cried Wolf - - - - - - - A frame story is when you have a story within a story. For instance, you have a character walk into a bar and he starts talking to someone. This other person begins to tell a story. We become fully immersed into the other story and that's what the book is mostly about. At the end we usually pop back out into the bar scene before the...

I have been fretting over starting this article for two days. The basic idea here is that I have made various errors of judgment, decision, and action in the past. Because I have not adequately examined these errors I have not sufficiently developed the ability to avoid them in the future and do better. To do better in the future we must learn from the past. To develop foresight we must develop hindsight. A number of psychologists and philosophers talk about this. My favorite is Jordan Peterson. Here are two selections from his paper "Self-Deception Explained", and one from "Complexity Management Theory". (Somewhere he expresses the exact idea that I'm using better, but I can't find it at the moment.) - - - - - - - ...not only do those who avoid get worse, but those who voluntarily expose themselves to the anxiety-provoking and depressing – even if extremely traumatic – get better! Pennebaker and colleagues have demonstrated, for example, that norm...

This is my third time trying to write this article in the last two weeks. Here was my last attempt. - - - - - - - I always wanted to have an interesting life, and I do. I have done the classics like mountain climbing, skydiving, alligator wrestling, whitewater rafting, running with bulls, scuba diving, ice luging, road tripping, etc. I officiated my second wedding this weekend, I just arranged to borrow the staffs, swords, and dueling pistols for one of my four speeches at the Harry Potter festival in Sparta, Michigan this summer, I'm writing notes for the comic book I'm working on, and the philosophy papers I'm working on, and the fictional tales I'm working on, and I'm editing horror stories for the "Horror Without Borders" anthology for the Russian publisher I'm working with. All of that just starts to hit on the interesting things I've done, but I have a bit of a problem. Since I've focused so much on doing interesting things ...

What do I want? It's a huge question. There are different ways to try to answer the question. You can try to divide life up into certain time periods and decide that way, you can try to divide it up into different areas, you can just go with what feels right, you can try to do the logical thing, you can copy people, you can do what you're told to do or what is expected of you, or you can avoid the question. I have always found the question hard on long time scales, but I've usually been pretty good at deciding on things in a few weeks or even a couple of months away. The major problem with that is that the time isn't long enough to do many of the most significant things. Then your life has no structure and tends to devolve into chaos. You can have some awesome adventures, as I have, but you need a different focus if you're going to do more than that. I'm going to try to make some progress on this here. Logically I know that I need money, but for some reas...

My favorite quote is, "The heretic is the savior of religion from itself." I made it. It's one of those things that you come up with and it seems so profound you are amazed you were able to think of it at all. Interesting story ideas are always popping into my head. This one came in odd little fragments, so it seemed that it may be best in the form of verse instead of prose. I have my doubts about that, but alas, here we are. Let's take a look at a first version. (I was looking through various myths along with the insane poetry of E. E. Cummings and Bukowski when I thought of this.) - - - - - - - One day God went to see his father, "Why am I?" he asked. "You are to make sense of the world." said the man. Two day Man went to see his father, "Why am I?" he asked. "You are to make sense of the world." said God. - - - - - - - It's pretty good. I think it will probably blow some people's current models...

Why do people like horror stories? What's the point? It may be different than you think. The first thing you have to realize is that fiction is a highly advanced form of play. And, what's the purpose of play? Animals play to prepare themselves for the future. Lion cubs play hide and seek, chasing, wrestling, fighting, and killing. These are the skills that they will need for life. When a lion becomes fully mature it no longer plays, it doesn't need to. There are some animals that never really grow up. Domesticated animals are usually neotenous, or child-like. Pigs are like baby boars, dogs are like baby wolves, cats are like baby panthers, etc. Humans are neotenous our entire lives. This is why we play our entire lives, and why we can learn our entire lives. The type of play that you're involved with will depend on your environment. A child that has had a safe, happy, and protected life will probably play nice games. Most people don't have that experience o...

When Bill sent me the song "Through It All" by Gandhi's Gun, the first thing that I thought of was "Through It All" by Spoken. I thought it was a bad sign because I would just be comparing it to a completely different song that I didn't think it would be able to stand up against, since I like Spoken. But, I was wrong. Luckily they are different enough that I won't compare the two, and I would say Gandhi's Gun is just as good. There are two versions of this song that Gandhi's Gun has out: the original and the acoustic versions. I like the acoustic version myself. But, we'll get to that in a minute. Gandhi's Gun has the normal story about a band, and I will put that here, but the song "Through It All" has a more interesting story. Both of these came from their website:  http://gandhisgun.com/ - - - - - - - With positive messaging and an aggressive edge, Gandhi’s Gun combines the best elements of rock from days past with ...

The zoologist Desmond Morris wrote a book called "The Human Zoo". It's a great book. In there he talks about how animals in zoos have issues like causing self-harm, having eating disorders, having mood disorders, having depression, having obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc. It works the same way with another animal - humans. Historically there were literal human zoos. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the boxes that we make for ourselves. We live in a box called a house. We work in a box called an office or a factory. We drive in a box called a car. We shop in a box called a supermarket. We live in boxes, and we have issues with causing self-harm, having eating disorders, having mood disorders, having depression, having obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc. The answer seems simple enough - get out of the box! That's why people find certain activities to be so refreshing. Hiking, riding a bike, horseback riding, and motorcycle ...

When I was first talking to Abbey and John about doing something crazy like starting a business based on meditation coaching I think I needed some permission, some social validation. That was a start. When I talked to Bryan I connected with someone who started with my skepticism and was then able to see a good path forward. Now, I have to start defining what that path is and how to walk it. There is such a ridiculous amount of work to do. It's a bit overwhelming. That's why John and Abbey recommended that I go with something that I'm truly interested in in that first meeting I had with them, because otherwise you just burnout anyway. I bought MeditateWithJeff.com a couple of days ago. Actually, I bought it in 2017 when I first had success with managing my chronic pain with meditation. I didn't do anything with it, I didn't even have a plan, so I let it expire. Then, a couple of days ago I bought it again through domains.google.com. I looked at a few different...