Eric Forbes

almost. midnight.
how time flies.

the day rushed by.
a mag-lev train,
blurring high-velocity.
gone in a flash.

where did time go?
it’s still there,
somewhere.

I’m heading to the city right now to hang out with some smart people who know something about an open-source e-commerce software application called Magento. I’ve already installed it on a fresh install of Fedora Core 10 (Linux) running under VMware Fusion on my MacBook Pro and it’s pretty sexy. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much work it will require to maintain for a real website that I rely on for income, thus I’m learning all I can about it. 

Details:

Rye
688 Geary St
San Francisco CA 94102

Magento MeetUp SF starts at 7:30 PM tonight.

Gotta go!

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. 
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.
May you use the gifts that you have received, 
and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones,
and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

I realized that there is a mysterious power to writing with ink onto paper, especially when it’s a goal or intended outcome. I found a piece of bright yellow legal paper yesterday onto which I had written the following list of things I wanted in my next home:

Where to Live? : Matrix of Possibilities

I. Important “Must Haves”

• Dog OK
• Off-street parking and garage
• House
• High-speed internet access
• Close to SF

II. Nice to Haves

• View
• Access (not too many stairs)
• Central heat (A/C?)
• Gas kitchen
• Fireplace(s) –> that operate on gas or wood 

// end

As I looked down the list, I noted that the house I’m now living in has EVERY SINGLE THING I listed on the paper. Not one thing is missing. And to the list I add the following options I wasn’t even imagining back then:

• pool
• hot tub
• quiet
• natural beauty

So what happened when I took a pen to paper and wrote down what I wanted? I’m not sure how the process works, but I can recall coming up with this list after I had already started looking for places to rent in and around the Bay Area. One of them had too many stairs, another was a gorgeous SoMa loft that had everything I wanted, but no place to put my tools or vehicles. Another had a big fenced yard and garage but a fireplace that didn’t work since the last earthquake. Each place I saw had some problem that kept me spinning in circles on Craigslist and driving my gay-brother crazy as he continued to filter the listings for my ever-changing demands. 

At some point I figured out what I wanted and took the time to grab a pen and a legal pad of bright yellow paper. At at that point, something happened. There is an awesome and inexplicable phenomenon of committing a desire to paper. Somehow the magic recipe calls for two ordinary ingredients:

• an ink pen
• a piece of paper

I’m not sure if the paper has to be bright yellow legal paper with faint blue lines or if the pen has to be a medium black ink. If anyone wants to replicate my experiment, that’s what I used. Having an offbeat title for the list also helped to capture my frame of mind. I played with the “matrix of possibilities” concept for weeks and thought I was going to record my idea as a four-quadrant diagram but that didn’t happen. I wrote the title “Where to Live?: Matrix of Possibilities” and after writing it, I was satisfied that I had saved the emotion I was having at that moment. Finding a new place to live was a difficult process and I had many variables that made finding the right home challenging — or so I thought. In fact, my variables were not variable at all — they were constants. They were fixed moments in space and time. What I needed in a home could be described with words (not variables in an equation) and thus, the home that fit my needs (located somewhere in the array of homes available for rent in the Bay Area in my price range in the latter part of 2008) was out there somewhere. I couldn’t find it until I listed what I wanted and was clear about what I could and could not live without (thus, sections I and II). I wound up getting a place that had everything I listed. What if I had listed more? 

I was talking to Vivian today and likened this process to something ageless and magical. It was as if the ink was blood and the paper was flesh. I was inking my desires (blood) onto paper (flesh) and once that happened, magic was in the making. I am learning more about the process of clearly deciding and expressing my desires onto paper and feeling sure of the result as I read the words on the page. I didn’t hang this paper on my bathroom mirror either. I left it on the counter of my kitchen along with other bound pieces of paper and documents. I wrote it once (clearly) and read it back (right after) and imagined what having these things would feel like if I had them. 

From the dusty, cold, and dilapidated warehouse where I used to live to my new home seems so amazing and it happened so fast…

Once I decided. 
Once I wrote it down. 
Once I felt it already happening.

P.S.: I’ve watched and listened to “The Secret” and been a student of Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Napoleon Hill, and now Roy H Williams so I know what I’ve “discovered” isn’t a new idea. It’s old. And it works. Grab a pen and paper and write down what you want and imagine how you’d feel if you had it already. Bridge the gap of time (a perception) with energetic imagination (quantum physics, anyone?) and see what happens.

While blogs have been around for years, I’ve been hiding from them. What could I possibly say that hasn’t been said by somebody else? Somebody who writes better than me. Someone with a college degree. Someone. Anyone? 

Well not anymore!

I’ve joined the blog party a little late, fashionably late perhaps, but I’ve arrived in any case. I don’t have a clue what I’m going to write about or upload picture or audio or video of just yet. I figure this will just EVOLVE into whatever shape it wants over time. The discipline (for me) will be to add new content regularly, but as disciplines go, this should be easy. Learning not to spend all of my money (or go into massive debt) or to exercise regularly (and intensely) are more difficult disciplines and I have mastered them at least in some measure. So maintaining a blog or two won’t kill me. But putting myself out there for anyone to read will stretch me in a few new ways, and stretching is good. It keeps one limber and ready for action. 

On that note, I’m off to walk my dog Bo. It’s sunny and breezy outside so I’ll bring my camera along and snap some pictures while I’m out to bring back and post to my blog. My. Blog. How quaint! I love it already. It’s something that’s all mine. Thanks, WordPress!

=Eric