Mark Hildreth’s Official Site

complex state of attachment

Hi!!!!

I’m so glad and appreciative that you’ve come to check out my new site!

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can connect with my fans in a MUCH more interactive and compelling way, and this site is undergoing a TON of changes that I think you’ll find really exciting!

So much has changed for me in my life over the past couple of years, and I wanted to create a site that would reflect me as I really am. Not a flashy advertisement of me, but a real, online representation of me, my life, my values, my work, and especially my music!

We’re in the process of creating a whole lot of new features, and what I want most of all is to connect and learn with YOU! We’ll be creating polls, questionnaires, contests, interactive boards and forums, and a whole whack of ways that you can play a part in my life and my vision. We want you to be able to influence my website– and my career! Plus, we’ll be putting up a ton of new pics, vids, blogs, and a whole bunch of other stuff that you can check out, with new stuff going on the site on a regular basis from now on!! I’m STOKED to start to connect with everyone out there in a whole new way. This INTERWEB business is FREAKIN’ AWESOME, MAN!!

So, thank you so much for your support and interest thus far; it means a lot to me. One of my highest values is learning about and connecting with people, so I hope you’ll join me here at the site, and we can move forward together!

With much love and respect,

Mark

PS. Let’s discuss what you all want to see more of on my site? What is your favorite thing about your favorite websites? What is the #1 thing you’d like to see on the new mark-hildreth.com?

I have had the most amazing realization!

It occurred to me yesterday, through the help of an amazing friend of mine, that I am separate from my thoughts and emotions. That my being, my essence - the real “me” in me is not what I feel or what I think. That I am a being, and I inhabit my body, and I generate all of my feelings and all of my thoughts. And that when I feel something bad, it is not me being bad, but a feeling I am creating. And that when I have a bad thought, it is not me somehow “becoming” bad, but me creating a bad thought.

It is probably the most freeing and revealing awareness I have ever experienced. I feel like a kid!!

I don’t know about you, but I have had a confusion my whole life that, because I think a bad thing or feel a suppressive feeling, that means that I am bad - that my being is “bad.” I have just discovered the reality that I am not my thoughts or my feelings. Isn’t that a trip!!

I hope you are well and full of love!

Mark.

I just want to talk a little about how I’m feeling. I’ve just realized that I feel a LOT. And I have a really strong tendency to ignore how I feel. I have stuff that triggers emotions in me ALL THE TIME! Like, practically everything I see, hear, touch smell, everything that I percieve I have some kind of feeling about.

But I am now aware that, most of the time, i just try to “do something about it” instead of really feelings it, and looking at it, and thereby being able to realize where I am really at. It’s like I’m just skimming through the whole emotional experience of being human, because I’m afraid of what I might find out about myself. Which is a big lie, because I don’t really even know what I’m going to find!

Food for thought.

With love,

Mark.

I’m in DC again, spending time working with combat vets who are recovering from injuries sustained in Iraq. I’m truly grateful to everyone here who has opened their minds and hearts to tell me their experiences fighting and dealing with the ramifications of this war. there is a genuine desire to tell their stories and I intend to honor that in my work.

Progess on Pvt. Wars is coming along nicely. the director, Farhad Mann, and the man who wrote the original play, James McLure, have concluded negotiations for the rights to the material, a laborious process to say the least and one that has been carefully worked out for all parties invloved. They are continuing work now on the intensive task of updating the Vietnam-era play to the present day screenplay.

On another important note, I want to talk about something I have just been exploring and realizing in my life. the notion that all suffering is self-imposed, and therefore unneccessary. i’m not talking about actual pain here, the physical hard-wired physiological response your body has in order to keep you alive. But rather the thought-induced, emotional suffering which is so dominant in our world. The I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, what is the point, I deserve better, reality isn’t good enough for me, us against the world plague of thought that we all (I think) subject ourselves to at some point or another.

Here’s the thing: sometimes being present, being in reality (rather than going into our heads and suffering) is not always easy, and is not always comfortable. But over a lifetime of suffering, the amount of time, energy, and pain we put into this slippery profession cumulatively takes SO MUCH out of us. We can cause ourselves real pain, headaches, backaches, sicknesses, diseases, and cancers. And when there are real things we want to do, things that could build real value for ourselves and others, we have wasted our resources feeling bad about how things “aren’t the way we want them to be.”

What would happen if we all stopped suffering about how things aren’t the way we want them to be, and went out and took steps in the world to achieve our goals in that regard? Imagine…

Achieving this is not easy. It takes effort, and commitment, and emotional fortitude. I have more thoughts on this. I will share.

Your thoughts?

With the utmost love and respect,

Mark.

I am reading Gandhi’s autobiography entitled “My Experiments With Truth.” What a guy! he thought some pretty cool stuff!

It is an unbelievable read. A bit dense right off the bat, but well worth the investment. HIGHLY recommend it!

With love,

Mark.

I am realizing more and more how important it is to be a thoughtful person, no matter how much it might seem uncomfortable or unusual to do so. There are a lot of people in our society (and I include myself in this group) who want to believe that what they think and feel is right, but don’t really take the time or put in the effort to stop and think about why they feel how and what they feel. In my experience, I feel what I feel, and then if I am challenged (or I challenge myself, an even more important thing to do) I want to defend my point of view, because it is mine!

But here’s the thing: what would happen if I admited to myself that I may be wrong? Or what if I just suspend my own feelings and consider truly and objectively the possiblities of another point of view, as if it were my own? Or even better, what if I begin to learn that there IS NO right and wrong, only good and bad, only choices.

The thing is (and I think this is self evident): all people are created equal. It follows, then, that no one person can be any more right or wrong than ony other, it’s just that each person has their own unique experience of life, and makes up their own ideas, their own postulates, their own beliefs and opinions and feelings, based on reality as they have taken it in during their lifetime.

Therefore, we will mine much more gold looking at ourselves, and asking ourselves the questions we have the impulse to ask others for (because we may just want an answer, and are not willing to actually work an answer of our own out for ourselves) than looking to the outside world for guidance.

Projectively speaking, this is all my own issue. But if you can see it this way, you might see that what I’m talking about is just as true, just as relevant for me as it is for every person in this country, on this continent, and sharing this world.

Now, now that your feelings are stirred: STOP. Think about why you feel what you feel at this moment.

Now, act.

(drum roll please…………)

What are your guys’ thoughts on the Iraq situation? Should we be there? Is what a soldier goes through in the line of fire worth what we are getting out of it here in America? What are we getting out of it here in America?

Do you think that US aggression in the world is to blame for all the fighting? Or is there an enemy “out there” that we can or should go after?

It seems to me that the US was built on conflict, and that war is a part of the fabric of American culture. Is that why there is so much retaliatory and non-retaliatory force used by the States?

Why does it seem that there is always an enemy? Is it possible/likely/realistic to think that there could be a point where there are no more enemies? Is using force and aggression the way to achieve this state?

Lots of questions…hypotheses welcome!

With love,
Mark.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my impulse to help other people. Especially people in my family, who I have a special love for. I’m wondering whether my desire to help people is really based in an unselfish desire to make the world better, for them and indeed for all people, which is a desire I’ve had for quite some time. But then again, I’m not sure that I’m not wanting to do it for other reasons. For example, i’ve noticed a tendency I have to help other people with problems that I myself am having. It may just come down to projection, but I see other people struggling with something, and I have a very strong impulse to help them overcome it, especially if I can understand their problem because I myself am going through something I perceive as similar.

But the fact is, I very often put myself into action to help other people get through their problems and into the light, but comparitively rarely do I do this for myself. I am very unlikely to really do for myself what I am so anxious to do for others. And in any case, what they are really going through and what I percieve they are going through may be very different things, depending on my ability for insight at any given time. It so happens that I think I have fairly good insight into people. But this does not change the fact that I am quick to work through others’ problems and uncomfrotable working through my own at times. As they say, it’s always easy to see what others might need to do, but very difficult to turn that critical eye upon yourself.

My hypothesis at this point is that I am taking the easy route. That is, I am working on other people because I find it easier to realize and solve their problems than I find working on my own problems. I feel that I am breaching against myself in the sense that I am subverting my efforts onto the problems I PERCEIVE in other people and not focusing on my own issues. In this way, I am fulfilling my desire to make the world better, but not in a way that is truly effective, since I am only really working on my own projections and not actually on changing true conciousness, since I cannot really change anyone else, only they can do that to themselves. What am I so afraid of finding out about myself if I turn this well-developed problem solving ability onto myself? Am I just afraid to realize my own failures as a person? Or is there something else?

Questions to be answered in time.

Mark.

I should think the real question that needs answering is what are we each doing about it? As a matter of habit, most of us say “Well, individual effort is never enough, change has to happen en masse.” or “That’s the government’s responsibility, that’s why I voted them in.” or “We need a new leader.”

The truth is the only person we can actually control is ourselves. The only person who can affect the changes you want to see, the world you want to live in, is you. All large changes happen because a large group of people come to want what ends up being the same goal AS INDIVIDUALS. Each of us can make a difference in this world through our own actions, our own thoughts, and our own minds - the only thing we really have under our control.

Ask youself: what am I doing right now to make the world better for myself?

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” -Gandhi

What do you think about THAT?

Mark.

Monday, August 07, 2006

i guess we’ll see

Canada has always had an international political stance of peacekeeper in the world. So far, in the conflict in Lebanon, Canada’s government has taken a pro-Israel stance, somewhat straying from Canada’s non-side-taking historical international role.

Funny though, I always feel so relieved to go through customs into Canada. Just seems like the kind of country that doesn’t go messing with other peoples’ wars too much.

You think?