Yet it also seems possible that he is, as he claimed during his mea culpa on Letterman, a man with a profound rage issues. And that the impulse to use those words -- specifically that word, over and over -- came not from a desire to express a view on inherent racial characteristics but from a momentarily uncontrollable desire to inflict as much pain as possible.

NEW FRONTIERS, NEW DISCOVERIES

My research, as always, continues. I want to share a few things with you.

As you create what you want in life, the universe goes on ticking. In many respects, it is an automatic stage play in which the plot lines are generated from a pre-determined pattern.

Whereas YOU are free to invent your future. You can decide what you truly and profoundly want, and you can go about manifesting it.

Who has the advantage? Who has the upper hand? You, or the universe?

I realize that for some people, this is a stark question. They prefer to think in terms of "harmonization," in which they and the universe melt together in one gorgeous goo. They prefer to think that the universe is the source of their energy.

But YOU are the source of your energy.

And when that potential is realized, the universe can't hold a candle to the amount of power you have. That's just the way it is.

However, it can seem that an automatic machine (universe) is much more powerful than any individual, because that machine doesn't have to get up every morning and think about what it's going to do. The machine doesn't have to summon will power or focus. The machine doesn't have to sort out what it really desires.

The machine doesn't have to create. It just runs.

That's why, in our modern culture, the machine is exalted. It seems to possess the kind of staying power and singlemindedness that we wish for ourselves.

You could say we are free creators living within a machine. And sometimes we are jealous of the machine. We wish we could be as relentless.

Of course, this is all a misperception. At the highest level, for example, the universe wants to join up with us. It wants to help us bring into being what WE manifest. It wants to feel our live energy.

But at a lesser level, it is a machine. It runs. It spits out pre-determined results.

And therefore, what we create, what we manifest, can take time to happen. To the degree that we want to create something inside this universe, to the degree that we want to "change the operation of the machine," time is involved. Because time is built into the machine.

Therefore, we can become discouraged. We can weaken our approach to manifestation. We can lose the thread. We can even decide that we need to play the Normal and Average game. We can decide this is our only option.

Even as we might decide such a thing, we know it's a lie. We know we are short-changing ourselves. We know we are settling for far less than we are.

And when we jolt ourselves awake, when we see how we have been fooling ourselves, we pick up the thread again. We get back on the road of the great adventure.

There is even a bonus for us, then. We dig deeper into what we REALLY want. What we really want to manifest. We become more bold and more committed to that.

I'm not much for holidays, but if holidays are about anything, they are about renewal. A new opportunity. A new decision. A new commitment to create what we most profoundly want. I cannot say what you most profoundly want. I only know it's there, and you can dig it up and create it.

That's my holiday wish and my every-day wish for you and yours.

Outside the fog of propaganda and half-truths about this world, there we are---shining with power and the capacity to imagine and manifest our highest dreams.

When this creating reaches a certain level of intensity, we enter the realm of magic. In that realm, creating is the first step and every step. We no longer bow down to what we think are irreducible facts. We create facts.

As humans living on planet Earth in the industrialized countries, we tend to condition ourselves to what is easy, what is readily available. If we want something and try to create it and it doesn't come to us right away, we tend to reject the whole process, because we are used to a familiar pattern: if it's possible, it's quick and easy; if it isn't quick and easy, it's not possible.

That's a fantasy. The truth is, the more deeply we dig, the more intensely we manifest, the more powerful and joyous and satisfied we are.

That's a new one for all of us. It may not be new in theory (we've heard about it), but it's new IN ACTION.

Creating what we truly want and making it FACT is the royal super-highway. We've heard of ecstasy. Well, this is ecstasy! An ecstasy of body, mind, spirit, soul, consciousness, emotions, energy.

THE LAWS OF CREATION

In truth, there is no block on creating, except for the thoughts you may place between you and the act of creating.

Many years ago, when I started painting, I was attracted to a number of abstract artists. From spending hours and days and weeks and months looking at their work, I formed some guiding principles.

I didn't formulate these principles as hard and fast rules. I didn't consciously formulate them at all. I did, however, absorb and understand what was, for me, a path.

I think these "guidelines" would be useful for anyone. And I'm not just talking about painting. I'm talking about any activity, from business to relationships to quests to inventing futures you desire:

1. You don't need to create something that resembles what is already around you.

2. You don't have to copy reality. Reality doesn't need billions of cheerleaders. It already has them.

3. You don't have to assume there is only one space. You create spaces. You put what you want in those spaces.

4. You don't have to try to please everybody. You can be bold. You will find your "audience," and they will find you.

5. Keep creating. The speed with which others accept or like what you create is not a sign of whether you are "doing the right thing."

6. If you are glued to the idea of "doing the right thing," you'll eventually sacrifice everything for the sake of pleasing others and gaining their approval. And your creative force will dissipate.

7. If you become genuinely bored with what you are creating, create something else.

8. Don't wait for inspiration. Inspire yourself. If necessary, force the issue.

9. Don't assume you must create perfection. Perfection is actually creating what you want to.

10. Don't assume that creating must be about inventing balance and symmetry. All too often, those qualities are merely compromises with the status quo. In fact, launching creation automatically breaks through a previous balance that was stagnant.

11. You don't have to know everything about what you're going to create before you create it. You don't have to know anything about what you're going to create before you start creating it.

12. Often, if you think what you're creating doesn't come up to the standard you set, it's because you're imposing a standard you didn't want in the first place. You fooled yourself into thinking the standard was your own, but it was nothing more than a shallow consensus of other people's standards.

13. Don't spend endless hours fiddling and faddling and trying to decide what you want to create. Pick the best and most energizing thing you can think of, and launch. Then, as you go, you can change it. You can change it radically, if you want to. You can rub it out altogether, and do something entirely new.

14. Build up momentum.

15. Don't fall for the old adage that you must finish what you start. You can transform what you started and make it into something else---and then finish THAT. You can transform what you started 50 times.

16. Fear of failing is an illusion. What is failing? It's one thing and one thing only: NOT CREATING, OR STOPPING CREATING. If you keep on creating, everything will become clear. You will get what you want, and you'll also gain all the knowledge you want.

Conservative audiences love that stuff-- serious, historical reasons for tough-minded rich people to support sending other people's kids to fight unnecessary wars.

I predict that the media will suddenly become incredibly diligent in ferreting out all corruption and waste in government right about, oh, now. And they'll be so just long enough for the Republicans to sweep back to power on a platform of "Look at what happens when you put Democrats in charge: the most corrupt Congress ever!", using the media's massive excoriation of the Democrats as evidence.

My point is this. More damage was done to me in my teens by psychiatrists than I ever had a chance to do to my self. Adolesence sucks. The Boomer attitude to children not behaving nicely enough has been a dismal failure, and has distorted the expectations for the generation of parents after them. Medicating kids as a first option may make them sit still for a while, but the kids won't learn how to self-regulate, they'll just learn to take drugs to be the person they're expected to be.

My school never considered any sort of testing for any learning disabilities despite spending years on the verge of failing. I suspect it was because I was already classified as gifted and they would rather have believed I was lazy than reclassify me in a less prestigious way.