WE LOVE OUR TOYS, BOYS

A man and his toys. Oh, they might get more complicated, or bigger, or certainly more expensive, but no matter what else he has going for him, a man has a special place in his heart for his toys. They might consist of cars, like Jay Leno and a few hundred classic models he has to have a staff to maintain--but he can easily afford this and his wife Mavis probably says what most wives say about their guy's toys, "It keeps him out of trouble."

Obviously, there is a toy gene missing in such men as Tiger Woods, John Edwards, and Elliot Spitzer--they don't seem to have had any toys that could keep them out of trouble. Okay women, here's the bottom line, I wouldn't trust any man who doesn't have at least one category of toy he is passionate about. Cars, electronics, any kind of collectibles except living, breathing specimens.

One of the exercises I often give coaching clients is to spend a specified amount of money frivolously on toys. Men seem to find this easier than women. I think it's one of the main differences between the genders. I'll go out on a limb here, and say, in my opinion, men like to indulge in some kind of play with some kind of object. Women like to indulge in themselves. They amount of energy men put into their toys, women more than equal in pampering themselves with potions and products designed to make them more attractive to men. Which most men, at least the ones with any brains, greatly appreciate.

Let's face it, the things women obsess about are much more beneficial and pleasing to men than any of the mens' toys are to the women in their lives. Not that men want to hear about that new hand cream or bikini wax, but they definitely want to admire the result. The results of their hours spent playing with toys, not so visible, not so easily appreciated. On the other hand, men who play wholeheartedly with toys tend to be calmer, more fun-oriented, and more tactile--in other words, more likely to pleasingly play with their women in mutually satisfying ways.

One of the sites I send clients to for choosing some of these frivolous items for their homework assignment, is

www.ThinkGeek.com--and maintaining my position from on high on top of Mount Integrity, I wouldn't dare ask someone to do something I wouldn't do myself. So I consider it my duty to regularly make frivolous purchases from this website. I felt validated the other day when I was at the San Francisco Apple Store for my one-to-one session with one of their geniuses and asked him if he knew about ThinkGeek. His face lit up, and he exclaimed, "That is such a neat place!"

And what kind of toys do I get for myself--what guilty pleasures am I about to admit to here? Well, my latest is a desktop finger drum set, five mini drums that light up and make actual drum sounds when you hit them with your fingertips. http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/922f/

Check out the short, silly video to see them in action.

The also have edible items, and this gives me a chance to explore "Things I would be unlikely to ever put into my mouth if I had more sense." The latest of these, and the jury is still out, are Caffeinated Maple Bacon lollipops. I'm only about halfway through my first one. Starting out, it's mostly the flavor of maple syrup, and with my weird tastebuds, I've never liked syrup on anything...butter only for me on pancakes, waffles, french toast. I was despairing of ever discovering any bacon flavor, when about a third of the way through the big lollipop, little shards of something I assume to be bacon bits began to appear. Tickling the tongue, but definitely tasting more bacony than maply (or is that mapely?).

And if you can go through the thinkgeek online catalog, or that of

http://www.perpetualkid.com/, or www.ThingsYouNeverKnew.com

and not even be tempted, you might want to have your testosterone levels checked. Or you might just be one of my beautiful female readers, too busy to waste your time on such nonsense as you head for the spa.

Jerry

And by the way, one of my other toys is my other blog, focused on prosperity, at:

www.MoneyloveBlog.com. You can also download my free ebook there, The Moneylove Manifesto--in which the Appendix features the most revealing stuff a motivational teacher has ever shared about himself. And if that doesn't rouse your curiosity, you probably don't like toys either--or kittens, puppies, and bacon lollipops.

STOP PISSING GOD OFF!

The initial trigger for this post was last Friday night, when Unity San Francisco opened its monthly film series with ONE, a film by three young non-filmmakers who went around the world and interviewed major spiritual leaders and teachers about the meaning of life. On Sunday, someone asked me if I enjoyed the film, and I said I did. She then asked what my answer would be to the question, "What is the meaning of life?"

I responded, "My answer would be that the meaning of life is to be found in the idea that all these people who go around asking the question and searching for the meaning of life must really piss God off. Here, he or she has created this wonderful mystery, which is supposed to be thoroughly enjoyed but thoroughly unknown, and people keep going around trying to know it."

I don't know if she thought I was serious or not, but I was. And my hypothesis may well piss off a lot of people, but I don't think God will mind at all. Thinking further, but I don't pretend to have covered all the possibilities, I came up with a few more human stupidities that probably piss God off.

Six Things That Piss God Off

1. Trying to find out the answers to questions we were never intended to ask.

Life is a magical, mystery tour, and if you can't just enjoy not knowing why we were created and all the specific details, then you're missing the point.

2. Messing up the perfect planet he/she created for us.

On the one hand, if we accept the almighty as all-powerful, we have to believe this old world of ours is indestructible. But not for lack of our trying. I suppose God sees us all as spiritual infants, who given a wondrous toy as a gift, must then expend a lot of energy trying to break it, or take it apart.

3. Human fears, taboos, distortions, and ignorance about sex.

Okay, God created everything, but the higher power so many people profess to believe in must have really have felt good about some very special divine creations, like chocolate and sex.

For 200 years, we pretty much managed to ruin what are now being revealed as the amazing healing powers of raw cocoa by adding milk, fats, fillers, and then heating it up to destroy 80% of the antioxidants. But sex is something we've been messing up for millennia. At the very heart of the gift of life, the force which created us all, created by God to give us pleasure and a taste of the divine in being able to create another human being. So we repress our natural desires, we try to get others to do the same, we do everything possible to make sex unattractive, unnatural, unobtainable, and unpleasant. I'm surprised God hasn't tried to take this gift back by making all of our private parts just fall off.

4. The establishment of religions.

Maybe it was celestial punishment for some major transgression, like the Tower of Babel. Here God creates life on this amazing planet, and gives us everything we need to make it wonderful, and what do we do? We create thousands of entities to supposedly worship the creator, each with its own interpretation of how and why it all came to be. Each with its misperceived and misguided assertion that it is the one true church--sometimes to the point of killing members of churches with opposing answers. So use your God-given intelligence for a moment. Do you really believe this omnipotent presence appreciates this polyglot substitute for spirituality? And out of all this hodgepodge, has personally selected one church and one religion to be the true be-all and end-all of human salvation? C'mon now, even God must have some sense of the ridiculousness of all this.

5. The Treatment of Women.

So God creates man, in the form of Adam. And then, realizing some important things were left out of this first prototype, as is true with most great creations, creates woman, in the form of Eve. Except, as a thinking, feeling entity unlike a new toaster or computer, human males immediately become jealous of this new version and spend the rest of history demeaning, abusing, and disavowing the obvious superiority of this superior species of human. And many of the world's religions have aided and abetted in this abuse.

6. Attempting To Read God's Mind.

This has been a problem throughout human history, but has become endemic in recent decades.

So many humans claiming to know exactly what God would think or do in certain situations. Clerics are the most offensive perpetrators of this, but it has filtered down to the lay public. So you're up there in your heavenly abode, trying to enjoy the fruits of your labor, despite how often those human fruits have disappointed you. And you begin to hear the cacophony of voices purporting and pretending to represent your views on every issue possible. One group says you will reward those who blow themselves and a large group of innocent bystanders up, another says you only will accept members of their church into a life beyond death, still another says women must be obedient and subservient to men, another says one race is inferior to others, and yet another says their winning their war is all part of your plan as is their enemy losing that war. It goes on and on, this mind reading act. And forget about trying to convince any of these poor unfortunates that they have it all wrong. It's like trying to convince a stalker that you don't really love them or appreciate the attention.

Maybe it's just time for another good flood. (oops, sorry Nashville).

Jerry

(comments welcome, as long as they don't involve any cross burning or voodoo dolls.)