Who is MercuryLime?

Although I may write an autobiography later, I just wanted to explain my current web presence.

I have a Xanga. It's my personal blog, and I use it to communicate with my friends.
I have a Facebook account. Facebook is kinda of like a real-time yearbook, and you can leave comments and do all sorts of cool stuff. It's for high school and college kids.
I have MySpace. - another blog-type thing. I'm signed up, but I don't use it very often.
I have GMail. That's the email I use.
I run www.lousygames.com - It's my video game portfolio site.
I run www.mercurylime.net (or.com) - Although it's currently not doing anything, in the future I'll use it as my biography site, with links to all my websites and archives and a history section, that sort of thing.
I run www.nexblast.com - My music site. In the future, it will be used to showcase my music and perhaps offer my services.
I am a member of the forums at forums.xgenstudios.com - I post there occasionally because I like the people in the community, and it's where I've spent a bit of my free time the past two years.
I am a member of PsiPog. Always a fun read.

That's it for now. The better version of this will someday be on www.mercurylime.net

Thanks for stopping by!

And a minor update on lucid dreaming... Didn't have one last night. Or if I did, I don't remember it. I'll try again tonight.

Lucid Dreaming

Steve Pavlina recently released a podcast on lucid dreaming. Actually, he only did the intro. His wife was the main speaker.

I've never personally had success with lucid dreaming. I remember once, several years ago, when my dad told me about lucid dreaming for the first time. I was so excited and determined to have one, that I spent maybe 10 minutes telling myself "this is a dream" before I fell asleep. That was my dad's recommendation to become lucid during the dream. Amazingly, it worked. That night, while I was obeying the mysterious orders of a floating rock statue (a gigantic tiki face) on a snowy mountain, I realized - this is a dream! I don't remember what I did after that, but I think I fought the gigantic tiki statue and then went exploring. (I've heard several stories of people becoming lucid in their dreams for the first time, and they're all very interesting - almost more interesting than real life.)

Anyway, I was overjoyed with my immediate success with it, and decided to keep doing it often. Unfortunately, for some reason, I slowly lost my ability to have lucid dreams. I think it was because the shock wore off. I vividly recall the dream where I first flew. I was on some sort of peninsula - it was grassy with palm trees, and some houses. There was also a weird kind-of pit or weird shaped hills where there were lots of palm trees. Once I realized I was lucid, I was able to fly out over the water and do all sorts of cool stuff. In a different dream, I was in the backyard of my old house - I don't think I was fully lucid (I didn't feel myself), but I DID realize that I was in a dream. I jumped off of the slide in my backyard (I was young at the time) and broke my arm. It didn't hurt! I was in a dream, of course.

Writing about them actually brings back more memories. I remember one time, my friend broke his arm, and then in my dream, his arm was still broken (it was in an old-west cowboy town). This worried me at the time. And actually, that brings me to something else from long ago. When I was only a toddler, I remember I had one amazingly lucid dream. I was in the desert, and there were some very oddly shaped dunes everywhere - they started round, and slowly became a flat-topped square about 6 inches wide. I was tired, and so I sat on one. Suddenly it started gaining in height and I had to fall off into the sand quickly to avoid being too high. Then I realized that there were huge, black, holes in the ground - holes that led off into perfect darkness. Minutes later, I accidentally sat on one of the weird sand pillars, and it shot upward. By the time I realized it, it was too late to jump. I got higher and higher and saw that the desert and holes went out forever. There was a large hole growing by the pillar I was on. I gave up, and jumped, and fell through the hole. At the same time, I woke up, bouncing on my bed (like I had fallen through the ceiling). The rest of the day was uneventful - all I remember was playing with my toy train, and seeing my mom.

I've gotten totally off-topic, but I've always wanted to right down that memory. Back to lucid dreaming: I've decided to start doing it again. It'll be fun to see how much grander my dreams will be now that I'm older. I plan to make full use of the fact that I'm dreaming, by using extreme psychic powers and awesome environments (rain forest, volcano, etc.) where I'll fight epic battles. I may get bored of that pretty quickly, but I definately want to try it out.

Steve's wife suggests an exercise to help you dream lucidly, and also recommends you start remembering (and writing down) your dreams. This might be a problem for me - it's been a long time since I've remembered my dreams - now I only remember them once every few weeks.

I think that there are several hidden meanings in dreams, and it'll be great to not actually *lose* all those hours every night. Who knows? I think it'll be fun.

I highly suggest you listen to the podcast, and try lucid dreaming. If you do, share with me your results.

I think I had a point in writing this, but it got lost somewhere. Still, I hope you found this helpful. You can here Steve Pavlina's podcast at http://www.stevepavlina.com/podcasts/Pavlina-010-Lucid-Dreaming.mp3 , or you can read some background info for the podcast at http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/stevepavlinacom-podcast-010-lucid-dreaming/ .

The Final Problem

There are several people further along the personal-development road than myself. They have their lives handled and are generally content in the way things are going - and they're doing the things they want to do.

This is a note to you, them, and myself in the future. Because, I've discovered something else that's harder to admit (and I'll probably forget it sooner or later). This is that in many cases, all they are doing is their tried-and-true method for happiness. They are productive members of our society, and they're helping the human race. They DESERVE to feel happy. And yet, the battle doesn't really stop there. You shouldn't stop just because you feel happy. The problem is, we do. We just don't try as hard when we're happy.

I probably sound horribly cruel. I'm not saying you don't DESERVE to be happy. I think these happy people could be doing so much more - but don't, because, after all, they've come along way, and gotten to the "top".

I'm getting off-topic.

My point is this. Imagine it's five years from now.* I've turned this website into a huge success, and now I'm happy (I feel I've accomplished something) Next I'll feel I don't need to set my goals as high (not as high globally, they'll still be high personally) This could mean spending a year in silence, in the woods, building a house out of wood. I'll go through extreme physical hardships, I'll cut down all the trees and saw them myself, I'll push myself to the limits. A year later, my wooden house in the woods is complete. I'll go inside, and lie on the floor, feeling the exhilariting rush of completion. What will I have gained? I'll be in better physical strength, I'll be more confident, and perhaps I'll be slightly better of a person (more in tune with nature?)

But it will have been a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME. Machines could have done the same thing in only a couple of days! I could have accomplished much more from a global standpoint if only I'd not let my personal happiness get in the way.

Examples of things that give you that happy feeling (that may not be a good thing):
- Mowing the Lawn. This is a big one, and the one I hate most. Don't get stuck in this habbit!
- Fishing. Really. It's nice to try, and definately a skill, but fishing just because it feels good = not good.
- Watching Every Episode of a Television Series Just to Say You Did. Only watch TV if you get something from it mentally, IE it makes you think.
- Playing Video Games. Seriously! Playing video games on a whole isn't bad, but playing "just to level up a character" or "so I'll do good in battles" is a waste of time.
- Listening to Music. Eh... not too sure on this one. I think we benefit from listening to music.
- Counting X (coins, pencils, trees, etc.). It's so trivial!

That last one is the basic embodiement of what I'm talking about. Something that has NO real-world benifit, and only serves to help you (to make you feel better).

From what I understand, people with OCD might be a good example of this.

I think that this is one of the last pitfalls some great people are coming to. They're so close to the finish, and they bog themselves down with work and personal goals. I can only hope that someday I WON'T fall into the same traps.

And by the way, even though I dislike it, we all give respect to people who do this. It's a kind of sacrafice. I guess it's not respect so much as grieving. If I saw someone (someone I knew who was a great guy, and an extremely positive influence on everyone) counting strands of grass for ten years, I would consider it a waste of life. I wouldn't be mad at all - I would grieve.

* = Steve Pavlina once wrote about an exercise involving talking to mental versions of yourself from 5 years in the past and future. While this was unrelated to what I was talking about, it nevertheless is something I'm going to try. You can read about it here: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/08/my-favorite-meditation/

Happiness is Not Objective

Poor, homeless people can be happier than rich, wealthy, expensive people. Why? It's all part of being human. Think about it. We all strive for success in one way or another. We can all experience happiness. When you're at lunch, and you buy an especially nice frozen treat, you are happier. In general, finer things make us happier. Since, in most everyday interactions, more money gives us more happiness, we naturally assume that more money in the long term will mean more happiness. However, in many cases, this is not true. Think about it in terms of genetics. Rich Person A struggles many years of his life and becomes rich. He has all the toys and gadgets he wants. For the rest of his life, he stays at home, happily and contentedly playing with his hi-tech toys until his death. Rich Person B also struggles many years of his life and becomes rich. However, once he reached his goal (of becoming rich), he kept going, working hard and becoming even more successful until the end of his life. For the human race, people who are more like RP (Rich Person) B are a benefactor. They help the human race on a whole. People like RP A, on the other hand, while extremely happy, do not help the human race by living a happy, content life. Most people are somewhere in the middle.

Being too happy is not a good thing for humans on a whole.

Happiness is not universal. It's not even objective. When you experience happiness, that's your head telling you you're on the right track. When you don't feel happy, you try to do something to change the situation (you try to make yourself happy).

If everyone was happy all the time, no-one would ever try to change anything. We would all sit at home feeling happy.

That's why, when we feel unhappy, we try to do something to change it. When we feel sad, we try to prevent what caused us to feel sad from happening again. We're all just playing the roles assigned to us by our genes. Of course, everyone would love it if they could feel happy all the time - but it wouldn't be good for us as humans. We'd die out. People would be so happy they wouldn't eat anything. Sure, they'd feel the gnawing of hunger in their stomach, but they wouldn't feel the need to DO anything about it.

Don't worry, though. There is a solution. Although being eternally happy is not possible (or at least, it shouldn't be), being happy is actually rather easy to achieve. And no, I don't mean eating that bit of chocolate cake (that's for a future article). Just do what feels right. Being aware is half the battle. Force yourself to determine what things will give you long-term happiness, compared to short-term happiness. It's OK to spend your time doing things for short-term happiness, but keep in mind your future as well.

Don't do drugs. Using drugs makes you happy when you shouldn't be. Using drugs gives you very short-term happiness. Not only that, it makes it even more difficult to achieve long-term happiness. Then again, if you do drugs, you probably won't live as long, and your genes (which had a role in making you do drugs in the first place) are less likely to remain in our human gene pool. So, in a way, humanity is weeding out the bad traits, and keeping in the good.

So why are we unhappy? I believe that the only reason humans have so much stress, anxiety, grief, and unhappiness, is because as a human race, we haven't finished evolving yet. We're not perfect - we still make mistakes. Because it's so much easier for bad (genetically) people to continue living these days, where medicine and money virtually secure places for people who value themselves too much, as a whole, humanity is not moving forward as quickly as we used to. So the majority of us are not as happy as people have been at some points in history. Or as people will be in the future.

This is my first blog entry! It's bound to be jumbled and probably grammatically incorrect in places, but I hope that writing enough will help me to settle into my own style. I've found once you read a few articles by the same person, it becomes easier to understand the concepts they write about, because you begin to have a window into their mind. It's even easier if they have a certain style. One can only hope.

Here's a link to an interesting site about something called Sudden Success Syndrome - http://www.mmcinstitute.com/sws.html