The Creative Power of a Thought

Humans are bestowed with the power to think.  No other creature on earth has that power.   

Most people are not aware that animals are incapable of thinking.

It is true that both humans and animals are born with instincts (sex drive, a spider's web, etc.), but humans  have the advantage of having thoughts, which no animal on earth has. (Sorry, but you dog doesn't think.)  

Thoughts are very powerful things.  It allows us to make decisions and have free will.   

A thought is composed of two things.  Images and words.   Within our minds,  we are constantly talking to ourselves, and making decisions based on those self-constructed conversations.   It is also creating pictures; imagining scenarios and events.  This two aspects of thinking is what gives thoughts their creative power.   

It is important to note, that it doesn't matter where a thought comes from.  What is important is if it is accepted and digested as true.  Thoughts can be created within our mind or picked up from outside sources. (If you are brain dead, let me just say that this happens when you read a book, a magazine article, watch a tv program, listen to someone talk,  etc.)  A thought will have the same creative power after accepting it as something true.  

Do you get it?

A thought becomes a tangible thing after being accepted inside our ahead as a real thing.   It doesn't matter, if the imagined scenario, conclusion or idea has basis on fact or real science,  what matters is if we are convinced that what we have just created and accepted from outside source is true.

We all heard phrases such as "what the mind can conceive it can achieve" and the famous quote by Abraham Lincoln "If you think you are right or wrong,  you are right."   This is exactly why when you belive that something can be achieved,  it can, and when you think it can't, it won't, no matter how hard you try.  Trying to achieve a goal believing that it can't be achieved is  a complete waste of time.  You have to believe it can, and if you do,  it will.   Let me give you an example.  

Two men set out to meet girls.  One of them imagines himself already with the girl he wants,  having fun, taking her places, doing things together,  going out,  having dinner with her, etc.  He has no real difficulty achieving his goal.  The other, sets out to meet his goal with a complete set of imagined scenarious and ideas.  He imagines himself having difficulty meeting girls.  He sees them inside his head laughing at him.  He is afraid of pleasing them because he imagines himself not knowing how to be intimate with them, he can't see himself having fun, but not knowing what to do.  He can't really create in his own mind the picture of the person he wants to meet because he doesn't think he has that power.  So he creates negatives images,  have very negative (unproductive) conversations with himself, etc, and those thoughts bear fruit,  he ends up lonely and depressed.  

You can imagine different scenarios with the same two individuals setting out different goals.  Imagine them going out for the first job interview.  Imagine one creating positive images and having productive conversations while the other is creating negative images and  having negative (unproductive) conversations.   Can you now see how creative thoughts are?  Are you examining your own thoughts now?  Good.  

There is a lot more to say about this topic.  I hope this is clear enough for now.  Until then, thanks for reading. 

Hans Gonzalez.

  

Multiplicity

As a photographer, I know that everything we see in nature can be seen from a multiplicity of angles.  Each angle can give the object observed a new perspective.  Sounds simple right?  Because it is.  

Every event that we experience we give it a meaning depending of where we are standing at that moment; We tend to believe that the meaning that we assign to the event is the only meaning there is.  At that moment,  it is very rare to stop and think and realize the many hundreds of choices we had at our disposal when we unconsciously made the decision to conclude that the event we just experienced could have only be experienced the way we did.   

Meaning is a very subjective experience, but we treat it as if it was the ultimate reality.  You just have to open your ears and listen not only to what you say, but what people say around you.  It is with our words that we create our lives.  

When we are describing how things are in our lives,  what we are essentially doing is giving it meaning and form.  We form our lives by the words that come out of our mouths.  Words are the finished product of feelings, and feelings are the finished product of thoughts, and those originate in our minds either by reflection of what we see around us,  or by will. 

When we feel what we speak,  we become like Gods,  bringing into our reality what we say.  How can a person that always declares that he will never  have a big house own one?  Or someone that is always heard saying that people are not trustworthy have really good friends?   If you don't like your reality,  realize that how you are describing it to you and your friends, no matter how real it feels to you,  is the reason it's part of your experience.  

There is a multiplicity of reasons why you are experiencing what you are experiencing right now, and many elements that are beyond the scope of this entry to talk about, including your ability to comprehend the fact that you are the only person responsible for everything that has happened in your life.  When you and I accept this,   we'll take the necessary steps that we need to make so that we live the live of joy, happiness and fulfilment we deserve.  

We have choices.  A girl that we care about rejects us, it is our choice to think "too bad,  I'll find another one, or 'oh my god,  I am ruined, I'll never find another like her every again'"  If you fall,  it is your choice to stand up and move, or stay on the ground."  You've heard of this, but have you heard of this:

When you feel you are the captain of your vessel,  of your soul, of your life, essentially, you are always responsible for everything that happens in your life.  You dont expect people to give you what you think you need, you ask for it, you make request.  Instead of getting mad for what a loved one said or did,  you communicate to that person how you feel  and asks him or her never to do it again.  Instead of waiting for opportunity to knock on your door,  you go out and find it.

One more thing,  before belittling other people or thinking you are someone superior to them,  just remember that it is only your opinion.   As it is your opinion the idea of not having choices, a good opportunity, or the posibility of achieving successs.  Change your mind,  change your life.  

Thanks for reading,

Hans.  

An Introduction...

My name is Hans Christian Gonzalez.  I was born in August 22nd, 1973 in the town of Salcedo, Dominican Republic.  As you guessed it,  I am 37 years old.    I have three sisters from my mother's side: Maribel 41, Biembenida (Amy) 39 , and Rosa 31.   Two Brothers and one sister from my father's  side:  Emmanuel, Alex, and Stephanie.   My parents divorced when I was about 12.  My mother moved from Salcedo to Santiago and I moved with her when I turned 13.   Lived with my mother and three sisters for 6 years before moving to Paterson, NJ when I was 18.

In Paterson, I lived with my grandparents Aida and Luis for almost a year.   Aida was beautiful blond with very pale skin and Luis was of a dark complexion.  They loved each other but never stopped arguing.

I Worked at a Carton factory where I made 5.50 an hour,   Took English classes at a school during the evenings.  No, I never finished High School.  Instead,  smart Hans decided to take the GED test.  Because of my poor English, I had to take it  three times before passing, never studied for it thought.  It was a stupid test designed for people who hated education.   I passed with a very high number. 

During that time in Patterson,  I used to commute every Sunday to New York to visit my grandmother, aunts, uncles and alcoholic cousins from my father's side of the family.  My girlfriend back then was Yesenia. We were together for about a year before that, but the relationship ended in the summer of that year 1992.

When I moved to New York city in December of 1992,  I lived with my mom and little sister in a one bedroom apartment that my mother had rented in Inwood.  Immediately coming to the city,  I enrolled in a a special study program designed to prepare high school drop-outs to work in an office environment.  I learned how to type, use a computer,  and prepare my resume.  It was a cool place to study because the city gave me 60 dollars or so a week to attend so I could pay for my lunch and transportation.

The program was going to be for around 9 months and started in January of 1993.  Around the same time,  I started to work in D'Agostino Supermarket down in the Greenwich Village.    I've got that job by chance while accompanying my second cousin Elena to an agency that helped pregnant women get jobs.   The officer took a look at me and asked me if I was working, and I said no, and he recommended me to work for D'Agostino.  I started to work part-time for D'agostino slicing turkeys and cheeses and making sandwiches.  It was a great change of environment.  The Greenwich Village was a great place to work and meet chicks.    

After my program completed I was hired by Castle Check Cashing where I made 7.00 per hour.  I worked at Castle for almost 4 years as a part time teller.    In the Spring of 1994 I started going to Baruch College  I wanted to become an executive.  I did some theater work in my first semester.  Landed a mayor role in a big production called Filumena, where I played a rich merchant owner, seducer of women.  The funny thing was that I didn't know much English back then to memorize some many lines, but I did and was very impressed at my performance.  

Baruch was an amazing place to study  and make friends.   Because I never finished high school, getting accepted there was almost a miracle.   There,  I learned how to read and write in English.  The classes that I loved the most were the ones that involved literature, writing, and reading.  Psychology, Sociology, Political Science,  Philosophy, Art...   It was orgasmic to sit through those classes.  It was one of the best experiences of my life. 

In 1995 I decided to change jobs as an office filing clerk at a mental health clinic in the Upper West Side.  

I worked there for about a year and hated it.  By December of that year I quit without having a job to fall back on.  Then bad things began to unfold.  I stopped paying my credit card bills,  didn't have enough money to continue going to school,  and the Spring semester of 1996 I dropped out of Baruch.  

I finally found a part time job at Sears in the Bronx and worked for a few months at UPS emptying trucks in the summer of 1996.  It was a horrible experience.

In January of 1996 I met Olga,  who would become my wife and mother of my child a year later.  She got pregnant in January of 1997,  and moved with her in June of that year in the city of Miami.   We married in the 29th of September.  Hannah, my daughter was born five days later, on October 3rd. 

It was in Miami where I started my retail career.  I began working at Bally of Switzerland there.  One of the associates had died of a heart attack and the manager needed to replaced him.  I felt sorry for the guy,  but was happy to get a stable full time job to support my family.  However,   the store was closed in June of 1998 and I was transferred to a Bally in Hackensack, NJ out of fear of being unemployed with a newborn child.

I moved to New York and commuted to Hackensack, NJ for about 6 months until I got a job in New York working for a French Shoe company called JM Weston.   Worked there for 2 years under a crazy manager named Bruno Francois.  In the Summer of 2000 I was approached by Hermes and worked for a year in John Lobb Hermes.  In November of 2001 I started working for Prada and stayed there until the end of 2005.  I started working in the ultra exclusive Bergdorf Goodman Shoe Salon in January of 2006 and stayed there for about 3 years, until I got laid off in January of 2009.  

My marriage to Olga ended in December of 2006 after many futile attempts to avoid the inevitable.  My frustrations resulted falling into depression and not paying attention at my work, which resulted of being thrown out for poor sales performance.    

Now that 2011 is upon us, the start of a new year and a new decade,   I humbly ask God for guidance and support.  Because I do hope to get a second chance on being happy.  We all deserve that.

By Hans.

CREATIVITY

We live in a thought world.   Most of what you see around you was first created in the mind in a form of a thought.   We hear this statement countless of times, but do we know what it actually means?  

Pay attention and  think for a moment.  The computer monitor in front of you, the CPU, the empty cup of coffee, your chair, the layout of your apartment, your TV, your mattress, the lamp, your sofa,  etcetera were first created in the mind of the person or persons that helped designed them.  Take this into consideration the next time that you come outside.  Think about everything that you see, and see it through the eyes of the people that invented them.  How would you perceive your world?  


Said it another way, everything that was created by us humans had to first come into form in the mind.  A thought is the blueprint of everything that was created.  Which means, that in order for you to create anything, you first need to see it in your mind as real as it would look when you have it.   You can't really create anything if you first can't see it in your mind. 


Think for a moment.  Are your thoughts a reflection of what you see around you? Or are the things around you a reflection of your thoughts?  If everything is created by the things that you think, and by what you say,  then your whole life is currently being created by what you think, say and do on a daily basis.  

Two things to keep in mind.  First, we all have a brain, and the power to think.   There are infinite possibilities.  You can either design with your mind the life that you want to live, never stopping until you see that vision your reality (why settle for less?).   Or we could just handle the things that were already invented.  


What do I mean by that?  Well,  most likely, you go to work for a company that was originally created by somebody else.  You can become extremely good at what you do.  You can be an excellent manager, and make enough money  to have the impression that you are making it.  But who is more powerful?  The man that came up with the original idea to start the company that grew to the point of becoming an empire?   Or you, who went to college to learn how to successfully manage it?

We hear that ideas make us rich.  How many of us really think that?  Do we really use our imagination?  We waste so much energy in mindless conversations with no substance.  We are so fixated on entertainment, on escape, on getting hooked on vices, on having a good time that very little if any is spent on thinking the things we want to think.  Have we forgot our purpose?   

The first thing that you have to keep in mind is that you are unique.  Stop wasting your time comparing yourself to others.  Your perception is deeply subjective and what comes out of your mouth are just opinions.   Everything is an illusion. Why?  Because everything that surrounds you at this moment,  i.e,   the money, the family,  your friends, problems, etc, will at some point disappear.  Only you will remain 'til the end.  And you too, will cease to exist.   

Your mind creates everything.  Realizing this gives you tremendous power.  Because as long as you think that things just happen, you will never exercise the power that resides deep within you.  Only when you can clearly see that everything in your life was brought about with your thoughts,  you will start to assume more  responsibility for everything that surrounds you.   


Then, and only then, the wheels of your fate will begin to turn and you'll have the life that you've always dreamed.  

By Hans Gonzalez.  

Self-Help Books

Talks and writings of the law of attraction, and the power of the mind have become very popular nowadays.  Around 7 billion dollars in self-help books are sold each year, and if you count all the audio tapes, infomercials, weight loss programs and personal coaching systems being sold in the United States,  the figure comes close to 10 billion.

From a point of view,  these figures indicate that the general public is leaning toward  a betterment of their own lot in life.   It is a fact that people have the ability to enhance their current level of happiness.  That we can get out of debt, lose weight,  live in an abudance of love, money, and good health.  But if the underlying need to seek improvement stems from a deep sense of being incomplete, not good enough,  unhappy, or depressed,  then no matter how many books we read, tapes we listen to, or seminars we attend to, the continuing need to spend more money on self-improvement systems will never stop growing.

This is not to say that self-help books  do not offer practical advice, or that the reading of them is a complete waste of time.  Many of them are well-written, well-researched, and very helpful indeed.  But from the reader's standpoint, if the need to read them comes from a shaky foundation such as lack or the feeling of inadequacy, the problem will continue to persist, and the buying and collecting and reading of these types of books will just be a reminder of this belief: that there is something really wrong with you.

Reading lots of these books, one after another, creates a false feeling of hope.  Most of us do not know how to read books anyway.  If you read a book only once, all you do is to become familiar with its subject.   To really understand it,  you will at least have to read it 10 times.   With a long list of books to buy and read, where are you going to find the time to do that?

Living with a deep feeling of unworthiness is a horrible way to live.  And it mostly comes from a belief that we have convinced ourselves in believing.  It is the lie that robs us from our healthy sense of worth.  Telling us that there is something really wrong with us, fixing our attention to what we believe are a long list of things we wish we never had in our lives.

This belief comes from various sources. One source is living in a society that is dominated by consumerism.   I am sure that you have heard this before.   A capitalist society works by making people buy things, and by teaching them that the  products being developed are things that they need to buy to better their lives.  So, billions of dollars are spent to tell you, that unless you have a particular product, you are left out, not good enough, etc.

Other more complex sources are traumas and painful experiences from early in life.   But in the final analysis,  the feeling of not being good enough is produced in our own brain by a belief from something that we told ourselves repeatedly after a painful experience  or set of experiences;  from what we read in magazines, newspapers, see in TV, the movies,  etc.

Everything that I am writing to you about in this post can be expanded to many pages.  But the message  that I want to convey is this:  If you feel the need to buy a book because you think you are not good enough,  don't do it!   Address the feeling.  Listen to your thoughts,  your self-talk, ideas of life, etc.  Instead of a book,  study yourself, what drives you to do the things that you do and it will be a far greater investment of your time.

In your reflection, you will find, that you are an amazing creature.  A miracle of nature, who has been given the gift of life.  That no matter your short-comings, past mistakes, or current situation,  you have the ability to stop and think, and appreciate all the goodness that surrounds you.  The people that are in your life,  your health,  good moments,  special moments, etc.

Thanks for reading.

Hans.

NAMESAKE

My name is Hans Christian Gonzalez.   I was named after the danish children books writer Hans Christian Andersen.  For me, it has always been striking to see people's reactions whenever I introduce myself to them.  Most find it odd that someone with a spanish accent like me has a name that is very popular for people living in Germany and Denmark.   Their reactions are natural and amusing at times.  But they reveal a fundamental characteristic of human behavior:  Our learned ability of gaining familiarity through association.

Imagine, if you can,  that every time you introduce yourself to someone,  the first thing that comes out of the person's mouth is "why is your name Fernando,  Roger, or Braulio, and then, after you've told them the familiar story that you told a thousand times, their react with an expression of disbelief, followed by the question: "but why?"  I can tell you.  At first, you find it amusing, but after a while, freaking annoying.  Just because I am dominican doesn't mean my name has to be of spanish origin.  It is true that one  meaning of culture refers to the behaviors and characteristics of a particular social, ethnic or age group being similar in nature.  But that doesn't mean that we should be regarded as photocopies of one another.

In gaining familiarity through mental association,  most of us fall into the trap of stereotyping.  It doesn't matter if we do it with countries, socieities, groups, individuals or personal experiences.  The impact is always the same.  The familiar feeling of thinking that we know something when we don't.  A feeling based on assumptions or personal opinion, not on facts, or actual experience.

Some argue that this behavior stems from our survival instics.  You have a positive or negative experience with someone or something, and the mind tells you that in every future event when a particular person that resembles that character or you are about to experience a similar experience,  the exact same thing is going to happen.  If the experience was painful,  we become afraid and forbid ourselves from getting to know that person, or experiencing such event.

The statement "All Americans think that Latin people are not to be trusted" is a stereotype.  "Lots of Americans think that most, if not all spanish-speaking people have spanish names" is not.   If a person
cannot comprehend why I was named after a famous danish chidren books writer,  I say that the person has a very strong steretype of spanish-speaking people.   Think about it!  Are latin people's education limited to books written only in Latin America?  Couldn't my parents know of famous European writers born in the 19th Century?  Or are we so ignorant that all we know is to play baseball, soccer, have amazing sex or deal with drugs?

It takes a lot of guts to allow ourselves the freedom of living moment-to-moment.  Finding comfort within our ideas, traditions and beliefs are just fear mechanisms that sound great to most people.   We even have festivals and organize events to celebrate our heritage and differences.  But the world is for the  person who is not afraid of leaving their comfort zone.  Of venturing to new territories, getting to know other cultures, languages and systems of beliefs.  The world is for the few ones  that celebrate the common similarities that exists among us all.  Thereby expanding their horizons, richness of experiences,  etc.

Thanks for reading,

Hans Gonzalez.  

Salcedo

Salcedo was a name of a town in the Dominican Republic.   So far, It has had three names.  

The first one was Juana Nuñes,  then Salcedo,  and now Hnas Mirabal.  

It was the birth place of the Dominican Republic's most historically important sisters:  

the Mirabal sisters.  In a time prior to the sexual revolution of the 60s,  these three

sisters formed a secret organization which intention was to end dictatorship of the country's deadliest man:  Trujillo.  

This post is not meant to be a historical account of my own town or to describe its importance in a grand scale.  Rather, I will describe how important it was for me, for the 12 or so years I lived there.  

Its size was notoriously bothering to most people.  The town center was only a few kilometers long, and a few kilometers wide.  You could actually walk from one side of the town to another and come back in little or not time.  It's main source of income in the time I lived there (1973-1986) was agricuture.   People from the country side would come down to the town to sell their foodstuff and in turn buy  clothes, and supplies from the different stores  in the city.   It was always buzzing with the loud noise of motor bikes, pickup trucks and and public passenger cars and vans.   People came and went from Tenares, Sfco de Macoris,  Moca, La Vega, Santiago, Puerto Plata, and Sto Domingo. 

I remember the students lining up at the different exit streets toward Moca and Tenares,  hitchiking to go study in the different college institutions that were located in the neighboring towns.   

It had several clinics, a public school referred to there as Liceo, and several private schools, the most important of which was the Catholic school Sra. Corazon de Jesus.  

When I lived there, the town had two huge movie theaters:  Cine Ritz and Cine Karina, each from the same owner, and each in facing each other at the town's plaza (Where the Main Catholic Church Temple is located).   One very modern discotec called Disco Sound,  a very nice restaurant/disco called a Druño,  my uncle's discotec called "El Tipico Salcedo" (Since it was the 70s, where Disco was so popular,  the dance places were then called discoteques.)  a Pizza place referred to as "la Pizaria.  A huge hall made of wood called "el club",  four gas stations.  Two very famous clothing stores,  la tienda Alexander (my father's store), and tienda Tono Coniel, which was in the same block of my father's store.  Even though Tono was my father's biggest competitor,  I don't remember ever meeting the guy.     The famous car dealer Almanzar, which everyone said got rich by making fake money, and a Sport Complex in the outskirts of the city  referred to then as "el complejo" where the town's youth went to practice sports during the day,  and where the cheap prostitutes went with their clients during the night.
It was called by many as "el hotel gramita (grass hotel, figure it out).  

Everyone knew each other, or knew of each other in Salcedo.   Gossip ran rampant.  You couldn't do anything without everyone  finding out about it the next day.   Tenares and Villa Tapia were two small towns, part of Salcedo that were both seven kilometers away.  Tenares to the east, and Villa Tapia to the south.  Moca was 11 kilometers to the west. and Santiago (Dominican Republic's second largest city)  just 30 kilometers away, or half an hour by car.  Tenares was more popular than Villa tapia and it was where the super famous HD disco was located.  Tenares was important because it was more in contact with its neighboring town Sfo de Macoris, which was back then the Dominican Republic third largest city and one of the richest in the caribbean.   Sfo De Macoris was notorious for being the birth place of so many Dominican drug lords.  It had the largest collection of Mercedes Benz and imported cars in the region.  To the point of being called "Little Germany."   It also had a lot of motels.  something that Salcedo, nor Tenares had.  

Salcedo is a very intoxicating city.  I remember it was very hard for me to leave to Santiago when my mother decided to leave.  It felt as though like home.  its streets,  its people,  its places,  its hideouts, were so familiar, so comforting, so safe,  that to leave it all behind felt like hell.  

This is the story of my home town.  It no longer is the town I left behind.   And now it has grown to be a bigger and more important place.  But the old town, that I saw while growing up, the one with its loud noise, unique festivals, colorful carnivals, and a lively christmas season.   It will forever be inside my heart.    

                                                        Colegio Sagrado Corazon de Jesus (El Colegio de las Monjas)

Hans Gonzalez