What Should I Be | Transcript

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW

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Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:00:05): Hello. My name is Julia Widdop, and I'm an interviewer with What Should I Be. If you'd like to get more information about What Should I Be, please visit our website at www.WhatShouldIBe.me. We provide complete and free access to a wide variety of interviews spanning many different careers from all over the world. Today I'm speaking with Ten Rose, and he is a professional volunteer from New Mexico. So, Ten, at what age did you first realize this was what you wanted to do with your life?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:00:47): I started out a juvenile counselor in my early twenties I guess, counseling juvenile delinquents, and I noticed that there were much bigger problems than the individual kids. I mean all the problems seemed to have a common base, and I thought that to go on and do something a little bigger that might affect a whole bunch of kids all at once instead of trying to do it one child at a time was something that I might be better at. I enjoyed the individual one-on-one work. It's very valuable and important, but it seemed like doing something for humanity in general might be a little more satisfying and productive for me personally, so I just went on to start doing other things, working for environmental groups and such.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:01:46): And what age were you when you took that turn in your life?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:01:52): That actually wasn't until about forty.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:01:55): Oh, okay, so it was kind of late in life that you really discovered your passion, shall we say.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:02:02): Yeah, really, and now I'm an author and I didn't discover that until I was fifty.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:02:09): And what was the common base of the problems that caused you to make this change would you say?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:02:24): Common base that caused me to make the change.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:02:26): Well, you said that they had problems that had a common base.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:02:32): There are bigger societal problems.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:02:34): Oh, okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:02:35): That lead to the children's individual problems. So, I thought that possibly going after those bigger problems and getting the cause fixed as apposed to treating a symptom would be the way to go.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:02:53): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:02:53): So that was basically the idea behind it. Yeah.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:02:57): And where did you first start volunteering?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:03:02): I worked all over the place. I mean anybody that needed anything, you know, because that's the -- I worked for environmental groups for twenty to thirty years, and then the bigger projects started later on with the African famine when we've won. And that was when I was also working in a juvenile detention center type place, and it was right before, in the early eighties, when the USA for Africa and live aid and all of that was coming out to help the people involved in Ethiopian famine. All right. Well, about a year or two before that, there was already some press on this issue. It hadn't grown quite that big, but there was already some press. I think Hugh Downs was a 20/20 and first brought it to light; you know, to popular attention through that show. So I'm working with the kids and we just decide like: "How about we do a little project of our own and get people to donate stuff, and we can have a little yard sale and we can send the money over to the kids who were starving." So, we started and it just ran us all over. I mean it just got passed us. Everybody got so involved in it. The firehouse donated a big extra room they had to store things and people started donating houses worth of furniture and all kinds of stuff.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:04:38): Wow.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:04:39): Really amazing. And here, I'm working with a dozen kids. I think as much as it was like a wonderful thing to know that we were providing food for people who really needed it, to see the look on those kids in the juvenile center that I was working at was, you know, we're right up there with that, you know. I mean it was incredible because these were people who had been told all their lives they weren't any good. You're always causing trouble, and you're nothing but a problem, and you can't do anything right; and their self-esteem issues were like off the chart. And you had to see them like light up. I mean really light up when this thing started going the way it was going.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:05:27): They changed.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:05:29): Yeah. Yeah. All of a sudden they turned like from people who couldn't do anything right and were constantly demanding attention in a negative way because that's the only way they knew how to do it, now, all of a sudden, they're starting to look at themselves as heroes and people that are functional and do something productive in the world. And so, that by itself. I mean obviously feeding people who are starving is like the major thing, but just the reaction of the kids who got involved in the program, you know, was beautiful. And I think that kind of sums up this whole volunteer. Look, what I do is not really a career. It's not for somebody who's going to get married and have a normal life with the kids and stuff, but to infuse some of this into whatever you do, I think, is a notion that will make everything else a person does very much more rewarding, because that common base that we were talking about before, if I had to sum up the problem, it's attachment to self. All right? Everybody is so attached to their own little thing. My wife. My kids. My house. My bills. My this. My that. My car. My whatever. You know? And you get a little bit skitzy if your attention is just always on yourself. All the little things turn into big things, and all of a sudden somebody steps on your toe by accident and has been shouting, and shouting, and yelling and everybody is all - this is all because your attention is concentrated on your own little individual world like that's the only thing that counts. And when you go out and start giving attention to other people and realize that they have the right to be happy just the same as you do and they have the need to be happy just the same as you do, and it's an interdependent world, because if everybody isn't happy there's going to be trouble and it's going to affect everybody else in the long run. So you think you can insulate yourself from whoever else is suffering, but in reality, if one person is suffer, it's going to affect everybody to a certain extent. So, just getting out. Whether you end up being a doctor or a lawyer, or whatever, you know, there's no reason to not infuse some of this spirit of volunteerism or of altruism of helping other people because it's going to make whatever you do richer. What I'm doing is pretty extreme. And it might not apply to everybody to actually go out and abandon everything and go out in the street and try to help other people in that particular fashion, but to infuse some of that into whatever you do for a living, I think, is an important thing.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:08:41): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:08:42): Very beneficial to the person doing it. I mean everybody talks about: "Oh, they're giving to these people and they're the fortunate ones," but you know, very few people, you know, stop and think for a minute. I mean if they actually did it and started helping people a little bit more, you see how good you feel by being the helper. You know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:09:04): And so, what would you say is the main thing that drew you to this way of life? You must have had an income to support yourself while you do this.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:09:20): Not really.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:09:21): No?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:09:22): That's the part I don't recommend to people and it's really pretty an impossible if you're going to have a normal family life. You can't really completely do what I'm doing. I mean I traveled around for most of my life and just like slept wherever. Luckily, people like what I'm doing and they let me stay over their houses and they feed me and they take care of me. You know? And recently my father passed away about five years ago and left me some money. So, for the past five years, I've, you know, actually been able to pay my own rent and have an apartment, which people consider normal. To me it's a luxury item. I'm like: "I own room here and can hang up my stuff. It doesn't have to stay in the duffle bag while I'm going to town for different groups and stuff." You know, go ahead and do what I'm doing if you want to consider a place to live a luxury item. But I think it's a little more practical for most people to like just infuse some of this volunteerism and decency by getting out of yourself and thinking about the other person a little bit into whatever they choose to do for a living.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:10:42): And how did your education help you with what you're doing now?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:10:48): Education always helps. I mean there's no substitute for experiential knowledge. You can go to school and learn from the books, and that's very helpful, especially if you're going into a particular field. I mean if you're going to be a doctor, or an engineer, or whatever; I mean even if you're going to be like a gas station attendant or flipping burgers at McDonalds, you have to be trained for that, much less for doctor or lawyer. It takes such extensive and long-term training. It all helps. And anything you can pick up from what you read or what you hear from teachers is going to be helpful. In the long run, experiential knowledge - there's no substitute for it. So, as much as I think that the book learning is important, it's more important to get a piece of paper to allow you to become a doctor or a lawyer. But when you get into the courtroom as a lawyer or when you get into where you're treating patients as a doctor, that's where the knowledge turns to wisdom and you know how to do the job, and you continue learning how to do the job. So, education helped me because I got the knowledge background information on a number of different things that allowed me to go out into the world and put some of that into practical use.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:12:24): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:12:24): Especially the education that I studied a lot of spiritual things. Reading the Tao Te Ching and different spiritual things that gave me this altruistic; that helped trigger this altruistic attitude.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:12:41): Okay. And what do you most like about this? What is it you like most about this?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:12:49): About what I'm doing?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:12:50): Yes.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:12:53): I still like writing. I really enjoyed writing the two books that I just wrote, and those I'm going to, you know, sell. And all the profits from them are going to go to sponsor wisdom professionals because I think we need more wisdom in the world. So, beginning with Tibetan Monks and Nuns, and then it'll go on to sponsor other wisdom professionals. So the author part is really fun. I mean I really enjoy writing the books and like that kind of concentration and just going all these stories, but it all comes back down to that singular feeling that you get from helping somebody, like the kids did in the juvenile center when they did the project for Famine Relief. And yeah, that's the most gratifying part. I mean people just don't realize how you always feel good when somebody gives you a present, but not that many folks realize just how good it can be to give someone a present.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:13:58): Definitely. And who do you consider a wisdom professional? You mentioned nuns.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:14:07): Tibetan Monks and Nuns are the first ones that the Fearless Puppy Project. It's named after the book, Fearless Puppy on American Road, but that's the first people we're going to sponsor. But wisdom professionals. I would say that there is a million different definitions for wisdom of course. Anybody who's giving it to you, I would say it's someone who realizes that we're all tied together. They're not completely focused on their individual physical needs. Mother Teresa would be at the top of my list for wisdom professionals.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:14:45): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:14:46): All right, Martin Luther King. People like that, you know? But there are so many wisdom systems. I mean even South American Shaman. Very few people know what these guys are talking about. It's basically the same wisdom as knowledge as you would get from Tibetan Monk and Nuns. A person like, of course, well known Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer, or people like that. These are wisdom professionals. So, who we're looking to fund with the profits from the books is anyone who is moving in that direction. Anyone dedicated enough to donate basically their whole existence, because it's all consuming. It's a mentality.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:15:31): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:15:31): It's more than a job. It's a mentality. So it's not like you leave it home.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:15:36): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:15:36): You know? It is home. So, anybody who wants to do that, dedicate themselves to that extent. And of course, when you're thinking about peace, and wisdom, and altruism, Tibetan cause and those people, it's a wisdom-based culture, so that's why that comes to mind first, but certainly not exclusively them. I just use them as a primary example. But obviously Mother Teresa would be at the top of the list and people like her and anyone. There's a Giraffe Society. I don't know if you know this, but there's a thing called the Giraffe Society, and it has nothing to do with the animal. It's recognizing people who stick their necks out and giraffes have long necks. That's why they call it the Giraffe Society.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:16:28): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:16:29): And if you go to their website, it's just like they go and find hundreds of examples of these kinds of people who go out and stick their necks out for the human good. And it's very encouraging that so many of them are children too.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:16:47): How nice.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:16:47): You know, there's like nine and ten-year-old kids doing lemonade stands to raise money for buying blankets for homeless people. And the next thing you know other people get involved, and this has become a major business, and there's great things getting done there. And that's another thing. There's a lot of people that are a little bit reticent to get into this stuff because they feel like they're fighting City Hall and nothing will come of it, and so what; you know, what's the big deal? So, you help one person. But there's no telling where it could go. I mean you do one little act of kindness; can't be overestimated.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:17:31): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:17:32): It's important because you never can tell how that's going to snowball. And if you go to this Giraffe Society website, you're going to see right there how somebody just started a little thing and thought they were just doing somebody a little favor, and the next thing they knew it just kept growing and growing, because people have natural tendency. We don't have as much of an opportunity. We have more of an opportunity with the information we get fed by the news and in schools and everything else. We have more, but it's always: "Look out for yourself. Get your own thing going," you know? And forget the other guy. So, we always have more of an opportunity, it seems, when we're told we have more of an opportunity anyways to do something that's going to be more self-centered and beneficial to our little self or family, or whatever. But the opportunities out there that people don't stop and think about are endless. Endless to be helpful to somebody else. I mean there's always an option to be nicer.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:18:40): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:18:42): There's always an option to be nicer, and that's simple enough, you know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:18:47): What are the things you like least about what you're doing?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:18:52): What I like least about what I'm doing - well, every once in a while I look around and see my friends got this nice house and all of this stuff, and I'm sixty years old, still sometimes wondering where I'm going to sleep at night. I mean after a while, actually it's not as bad as it used to be. When I first got started, it was a little rough. But now that I've been doing this for several years, people just give you stuff so you can go do what you're doing.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:19:24): Because they want to support what you're doing.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:19:28): Exactly. I've got several friends and they like what I'm doing very much, but they do have regular jobs to go to. There's a wine salesman and another guy that, you know. People that are doing all these different jobs, and they would like to get involved in this kind of stuff, but obviously they're working eight hours a day and have to come home. So, they do. They help support me to a large extent and allow them. I don't have to ever ask for anything, but it happens. But in earlier years, the part I liked least about this was certainly -- like if you're standing out there, hitchhiking, in the freezing rainstorm for a couple hours, it's kind of hard to maintain your smile. I mean it's good practice because you do have to learn that, no matter what happens, it's temporary. You know, it's going to pass.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:20:23): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:20:24): You know? But you don't have to get too involved, and you also -- you know, there are other mental exercises you learn to do, standing by the side of the road. A lot of these I got from studying Buddhism. That and other spiritual techniques and traditions. But you learn that and it doesn't help any to get aggravated. It's just nonfunctional energy, you know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:20:51): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:20:51): Standing by the side of the roads. It's a freezing rainstorm. You're cold. Well, you can be cold, and aggravated, and miserable, and giving yourself high blood pressure, or you can be cold and wet, and thinking about what you're going to do next for somebody else; how next time you're going to bring a little bit of plastic so you could put it over your head. You look at the clouds a little bit more, so you learn more how to deal with life as it is right in front of you - your own personal thing -, but you also get to focus more on who to help and what you can do later. You know, you think of somebody that's got greater problems and, okay, so I'm standing here, in a freezing rainstorm, but there's somebody sucking sand because they have no food to head.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:21:41): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:21:42): That's a little bit more severe. It makes my standing in the freezing rain look not so bad. Not so smart. I'll try to figure out how not to do it again, but now that it's here and this is happening, okay, so in order to get through this. It also teaches you other things. For example, the first person that pulls over and lets you into their car after you've been standing out in the freezing rain, slum hitchhiking for a couple hours, you can't start yelling and complaining that: "Oh, I was just out there." This is the person who's nice enough to pull over.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:22:17): And you're getting their car all wet.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:22:19): You're getting their car all wet and they're going to let you in. The last thing they want to hear is you all full of complaints and yelling and screaming about how people left you sitting on the side of the road for two hours. So these are all like lessons. That's the education you learn by putting yourself out there is the experiential knowledge. That's stuff you just can't get from books.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:22:41): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:22:41): And again, I'm not downplaying the book learning. It's very valuable and there are any number of things that I've read and put to use constantly in life just from reading them, being in the class, and hearing about them. But again, that's knowledge, and that knowledge doesn't turn to wisdom until you get some experiential thing going on.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:23:01): Yeah. Can you take us through an average week and explain what it's like to be you?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:23:08): There are no average weeks. There's no such thing as an average week. Today I have two interviews and tomorrow one. Next week I'll be twelve to fourteen hours a day on the computer, establishing connections for the books I'm trying to sell to raise money for the charity project. After that, I may get a call and have to go do a thing in a bookstore a couple of hundred miles away and talk to people there. I may have another week where, all of a sudden, there's dead spots everywhere that says: "We're on vacation. We're not doing anything," and I have to sit there all geared up and waiting to do something and there's nothing there to do. That doesn't happen often enough, but yeah, there are no average moments. I mean not only isn't there any average week, there are no average moments.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:24:05): Really?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:24:06): Again, that's one of the beauty parts about it actually; is that I'm not going to it. It's not as stable and secure obviously, but it's also more exciting of a life and more interesting if you're not going to the same. And I've worked in factories before. You go to the same assembly line. You fold up the thing. You put it in the box. Another one comes down the belt. You fold it up. You put in the box. Fold it up and put it in the box. All right, it's kind of fun. You can get a lot of other stuff done in your brain while you're doing because it doesn't take much concentration.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:24:41): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:24:42): But nonetheless, it can get a little bit dull after twenty years. Whereas this, there's not even a dull moment, much less a dull week.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:24:51): Because there's not an average or typical day or week.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:24:56): Yeah.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:24:56): Why are you in New Mexico rather than Vermont right now?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:25:02): Because it's warm and Vermont is cold.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:25:04): Oh!

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:25:05): Yeah, I've been doing this for - this is the seventh year now. And since I've got my father's money, which is almost worn out, so I won't be doing this forever. But for the last seven years, I've been able to go back and forth between New Mexico and Vermont. Stay in New Mexico when it's winter and in Vermont when it's summer, because the summers down here, in New Mexico, are easily as brutal as the winter in Vermont, you know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:25:35): Oh, okay. I thought maybe you were down there for a specific project or something.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:25:43): Well, it has been real good because it's a very small town and I've written two books while I've been here, and there's really nothing to do at night.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:25:53): So you've been getting a lot of writing done.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:25:55): Yeah, so it's a perfect place. It's like being at a writer's colony. You know? Something. Because you just sit in here and, if you go walk down the main street in the town that I live in, lovely little town, but you can walk down the main street at like seven o' clock in the evening, even six, no cars; no people. Walking from one end of the two to the other on the main street.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:26:22): There's nothing going on.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:026:23): Nothing happening, you know? There's a couple restaurants out going towards the highway and stuff that are open for dinner, but if you're not going to eat out there's nothing else to go to, so it made for a very good situation for me to do continuing meditation and the writing of the books, and all of that, and studying up on different things that I study up on, and learned some new exercise programs and I learned how to do Tai Chi. Different things. And there's hot tubs here to soak in, but that's about it. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing else going on. So that's basically what I've been doing here; is writing the books. And I had to concentrate on that because I'm not author. Everybody's been raving about the books. They're like: "Yes, I've actually done it."

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:27:18): You are an author.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:27:19): I guess. I am now. You know, I accidentally wrote a couple of real good books from what people tell me, but my idea was just a funding vehicle for the project. And I figured the odds of selling a million books were a little better anyways than winning the lottery. Instead of getting lottery tickets, I'll just, you know, write the books and try to sell them, and maybe that'll raise enough money for the project.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:27:46): And what were some of the most difficult and challenging things that you experienced in your journey?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:27:55): You have to get immune to rejection. You have to be very firm in your beliefs and knowing that this is the right thing that you want to do, and that helping people is the right thing to do. And I found that in a number of places. I go around door-to-door for Green Peace and I heard some guy say, "Save the whales? Why don't you save the dinosaurs while you're at it?" And they bark at you. And you just have to shut that out. You know, people are going to think what they are going to think. If I go there to present them with some information, they will either react positively, negatively, or not at all to it, and I can't take that personally. That's the other person is coming from where they are coming from, all right? I've seen so many people go out and try to like go door-to-door for different groups and they're feeling all noble. "Oh, I'm going to save the world," and they come home crying. You know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:28:56): Because they've been rejected so much.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:28:58): Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean if it wasn't the kind of situation that people were so self-centered - they're involved in their own stuff instead of the bigger picture. If it wasn't like that, well, we wouldn't need you to go door-to-door in the first place. Everything would already be on the guard, right?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:29:17): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:29:21): You talk to somebody and they don't care about what you care about, you can't let that turn you off to it.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:29:29): Doing what you're doing. What tips or suggestions would you have someone who's considering doing this with their life?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:29:40): Stay healthy. Stay healthy. Don’t over-amp on this, you know, and go crazy with it. It's wonderful to be dedicated and it's even more wonderful to be totally dedicated, but when you're trying to help every person in the world, please remember that you are one of them.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:30:00): And you have to take care of yourself.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:30:02): Yeah, because this martyr thing is way out of style, all right?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:30:06): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:30:06): It's an accepted part of our Western culture that whoever does anything good has to get their butt kicked in some fashion. You know, Jesus got crucified. And people get left out on the streets that are trying to do this kind of stuff, and people overextend to such a great degree, you know, and work like twenty hours a day. Forget to sleep. You're not going to do anybody any good unless you have yourself there intact, all right?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:30:41): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:30:41): I would say to anybody trying to do this type of stuff: I do three different sets of exercises and meditation every day. All right?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:30:53): Okay. Did you ever get unhealthy while you were doing this when you first started?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:30:58): Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I learned the hard way.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:31:01): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:31:02): I learned the hard way. You overextend yourself. You go out and think you can do all kinds of things day and night; the literal burning the candle at both ends and all of this, and that lasts for a very short period of time, until the fact that you're a human, living in a body, catches up with you. All right? And the mind and the consciousness, and the heart of this, is what does it all. But if you don't have a healthy body to carry all that around, you aren't going to get anything done. All right? So you have to maintain that health and strength to be able to go out and do this. Also, you're constantly talking to other people, asking them if they do this and that for whatever cause you're going out to. If you're tired, irritable, short-tempered, this is going to do absolutely nothing for your purpose. All right? You have to be in shape enough and calm and collective enough in order to be able to present your case logically to whoever you want to present it to, because if you start grabbing people by the scruff - and I've seen people do this. "How can you be so selfish and violent," and they hit somebody. They hit somebody, telling them that: "How can you be so violent?" Doesn't work. It doesn't work. I mean who was it? Gandhi, I think, was the one. Gandhi is another one of course that's right up there at the top of the list with Mother Teresa. He said, "You have to be the change--

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:32:37): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:32:38): --that you want to see in the world." So, if you want everybody to be calm and more helpful, you don't react to what somebody else is telling you. You act, all right? You have to be firm in that base. And in order to be firm in that base of knowing, even though it's unpopular and we're living in a world where a lot of people are just completely self-involved and selfish and want to get the most toys, and even though that's the norm and fear is the norm, if you're coming from a place of love and comfort and wanting to help other people, you have to be real firm in that place yourself, and you can't do it if you're not healthy.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:33:22): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:33:23): I mean it's a lot more difficult.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:33:24): So you credit your exercise and your meditation to your being able to stay stable like that and grounded?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:33:33): Yeah, it helps very much.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:33:35): And what kinds of exercises do you do each day?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:33:39): I do yoga, stretching, Tai Chi. There's a thing called tensegrity that's related to the Carlos Castaneda books. That's the Mexican Tai Chi-ish kind of program. And Mexican sorcerer, they call - whatever. But it's another very similar to Tai Chi kind of exercise program. And a lot of things I do are slow movements that just kind of get you back in your body, which sounds funny, but a lot of times, you know, because people always talk about the outer body experience. And we're always out of our bodies. You know, because our brains are always thinking about the job, and who do I have to call, and where do I have to go, and how am I going to pay the rent, and what about these, and it's all over the place. And when you do that slow moving kind of exercise, it grounds you. You know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:34:42): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:34:43): So then you're actually calm and you're at home within your own skin instead of constantly flitting around all over the place with your brain. You're at home within your own skin and within your own body. But the in-body experience is really the secret to all this. You know? And this is not an original thought. I mean we've heard this from lecturers in the last twenty years at least. If you want to go back into Asian texts, probably for the last twenty thousand years. But yeah, that grounding is very important.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:35:25): Okay. And how did you learn to do those? By video or books?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:35:31): Yeah. Yeah, I actually learned, you know, instead of Tai Chi. Yeah, pretty much all the exercises I started learning, but now I go to Tai Chi classes and practice with other people as well. But I started learning all of that stuff through videos. There was a period there and I think it was the early nineties, where PBS was running an amazing collection of spiritual people. And they had all these exercise shows on as well as like Deepak and Wayne Dyer, and Stephen Covey, and Marianne Williamson, and just oodles of these people that were doing lectures at the time, especially in conjunction with the PBS fundraising thing. They went on and did the lectures and give the books for a package. So I just watched them over, and over, and over again - the lectures and the exercise program - and started doing the exercise programs daily. And then, when I'd get to a town and I'd see they were having a Tai Chi practice with a bunch of people, I'd go in. So, now, where I am now, they have it in the Senior Center, so I go and do the same stuff with a group of people, which is even more fun. But it's kind of fun to do it, you know, myself too.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:36:56): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:36:56): I mean it gets the job done. It's all about centering so that you have a centered self in order to bring out to what you're trying to do, because, like I said before, it's very difficult to do anything productive when basically you're not all there inside your own body because your thoughts are all scattered all over the place.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:37:18): Well, how did you choose the town that you're in? Was there some particular reason you chose?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:37:27): Yeah, I'm in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, believe it or not. That's the real name of the town. They named it after the old TV/Radio show and they did some kind of deal with Ralph Edwards, who wanted some town to name themselves after his show for a publicity stunt. So they did it, and that's the real name of the town. It's Truth or Consequences. And I chose it because I was in Vermont and wanted to get out of the winter, and so I rode - and this was before I had my father's inheritance, so I didn't have any money at all. And I had worked at hostels before, so I rode around to like about twenty different hostels in warm places. California, Hawaii, New Mexico, and it turned out that this one sounded best and I ended up coming here and pretty much never left, at least for winters anyways. You know, for the summers, I drive again back up North, but for winters I ended up never leaving this place. It's a cute little town. It's different.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:38:37): It sounds different. How big is it?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:38:42): I would say that the major, like real downtown area is about three square blocks, and then you have about two miles of strip, you know? But that's like a real town. Then you got two miles of what America has become. That's what American has been; you know, used to be. It's real downtown with stores and people that you know. And then there's about two miles of strip that goes up to the highway that has all the fast food places and a Wal-Mart at the end of it. Stuff like that, you know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:39:19): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:39:20): So, yeah, we call the downtown truth and the part that goes up to the highway - the strip mall--

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:39:25): Consequences?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:39:27): Yeah.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:39:30): And can you do what you do from just anywhere? Is it mostly done on the Internet?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:39:38): Well, it depends what phase and what aspect. I mean what I'm doing now is mostly done on the Internet. When I was going around for the environmental groups more, that required a lot of traveling. And some of that is actually described in the Fearless Puppy book; about going around for the environmental groups. And there, I had to go town to town to town to town, and travel around. I kind of invented the business canvas system, because they had people going to folk's houses in the evenings, and I'm thinking: "Rather than people in the businesses are sitting right there--

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:40:16): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:40:17): --and they probably want to help and have no way to get this information because they're not at home."

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:40:22): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:40:23): When we're around, they're running the business. So I started going to the businesses. It worked so well they told me to keep doing it, and then I just established my own route and I would go travel from town. So I was like in a different town every week, sometimes every couple days.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:40:41): Wow.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:0:43): And I'd be doing that for like the better part of the year.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:40:47): Did those groups provide a place for you to stay at those towns?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:40:53): Most of those groups provided. Well, the last group I worked for anyways. Green Peace actually gave you a percentage of whatever you brought in for contribution.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:41:02): Oh, okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:41:03): The group I've been working for up until recently - a citizen's awareness network -, and they would provide traveling expenses.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:41:14): Oh, okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:41:15): I'd stay at a hostel. I could take a bus. I mean most of the time I hitchhiked anyways and I stayed at a friend's house, so it didn't cost him anything. But if I had to stay at a hostel or something, I couldn't stay at a Sheraton or anything.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:41:31): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:41:32): But I'd stay at a hostel or some cheapo place, or take a bus. Then they paid for the traveling expenses. And of course I always had, you know, friends around that I could stay with as well. I mean after a while, you go to all these towns for a period of twenty/twenty-five/thirty years.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:41:50): You have friends, yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:41:51): You start knowing people. You know, after a while, I became friends with some of the people who owned the businesses. And I was asking for contribution. But anyways, that was when I was younger and had the legs to do that kind of stuff. Now I sit and write books, and try to sell them, and that's pretty much all done by the Internet. You know? I imagine eventually I'll have to go around and start doing more book trucks and bookstores, and readings, and like that.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:42:21): So are you available to give talks?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:42:26): Yeah, I mean we're doing it right now.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:42:29): Yeah, that's true. Yes, we are.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:42:33): Yeah, I'm available too. I mean, you know, mostly that would happen in bookstores I suppose, because I'm an author. People would read the book and that's a common kind of thing that, if a book gets popular, then they invite the author to the store to read a chapter to people and talk about it a little bit. And I've done a few of those over the years, and it's going to start picking up because I just finished the second book, which is called Reincarnation Through Common Sense. So, even the title has already caught people's attention without reading the book, but I imagine there's going to be more of those travel to a bookstore to give a little talk kind of thing coming up.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:43:21): So what is the first book about? The first book was called what?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:43:26): The first book is called Fearless Puppy on American Road, and you can get some free sample chapters, if you want to see what it's like without buying it, at the website, which is FearlessPuppy.org.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:43:40): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:43:42): .ORG. It's not .COM. But if you go to that website, there's free chapters there and that'll tell you something about it, but it's basically about thirty-five years of hitchhiking.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:43:52): Oh, okay. So it's a story of your travels and your life it sounds like.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:43:59): Right. And a lot of this stuff we've been talking about, and a lot of it that we haven't been talking about. I mean I left home as a fifteen-year-old drug dealer in Brooklyn, New York. And I ran away from home and started hitchhiking, and that ran me into all of this other stuff. And so that's what that first book is about. The Fearless Puppy book.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:44:21): How you went from being a drug dealer to a philanthropist.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:44:26): Yeah, I was just a kid.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:44:28): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:44:28): I wasn't even a drug dealer as an adult, but I mean when you're in Brooklyn, New York, it gets pretty heavy because you're dealing with the police, the rip-offs, and the mob that's doing stuff. I mean you have to play a whole bunch of different cards a whole bunch of different ways. So, it's a little trickier than just being in a small rural town and giving your buddy a bag of weed and taking money from them.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:44:53): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:44:54): So, it got a little complex. I knew it was going to get more complex. I got out of there and just started going, and didn't care where, you know? And I ended up going through enough to make me realize that everybody has got problems and mine aren't that much more special. My needs aren't any more special than anybody else's. Sure, it's my responsibility to take care of my needs, but it's also you run into all these people on the road and it's a pretty common denominator kind of thing. Everybody is human. Everybody wants to be happier. Nobody is miserable on purpose. Nobody gets up in the morning and says, "Okay, I'm going to be a nasty jackass today, and I'm going to make myself miserable and make as many people." You know, if you do that, it's an illness. You know?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:45:50): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:45:51): And so that actually led, you know, from some pretty ugly beginnings, if I must say so myself. It actually led to a lot better stuff later on. So I don't ever begrudge the experience or complain about it because, you know, sometimes you have to go through some stuff in order to get where you're going.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:46:16): That's what made you who you are today, huh? And what's the latest book about? The Reincarnation.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:46:23): That's called Reincarnation Through Common Sense, and that's about a half-year that I spent in a Temple in Asia. And I don't want to spoil it, you know, for anybody who is going to read it, but the twist about this book is that I wasn't going there to study Buddhism at all. I mean I went to Thailand. I was rescued by a bunch of Monks and Nuns. I had some very bad incidences happen over there, and the Monks and Nuns practice compassion. That's their full-time job description. So, they took me in and said, "Yeah, we know you're not Buddhist. You're not studying this stuff. It's okay. You just sit here. Relax. Make believe we're your family," and the Head Monk said, "I'm like your oldest brother and the Monks and Nuns here are like your brothers and sisters. And there's your cabin up there on the hill, and you just relax. You can do whatever. You want to take part in what we do, great. You want to take no part in what we do, great. There's a beach over there. Go swimming. Do whatever you want." So, there are a lot of white boy in an Asian Temple books out, but this is one is a little bit unusual. It's got a much different twist to it in that it's not about a person who was going to study Buddhism, which is what all the rest of them are pretty much. I just more or less ended up in that situation. Just got lucky or karma. Whatever you want to call it, you know? And so that's what the second book is. And there's also a little twist on the term reincarnation, because most people think of it as dying and coming back in another body, and this is what reincarnation means. But there really is a whole other aspect to it, where it means you get up every morning and have a chance to start a new life with unlimited possibilities. I mean there's nothing stopping you from getting up in the morning and becoming another Mother Teresa. There's nothing to stop you from getting up in the morning and becoming a sniper from a bell tower either.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:48:42): Oh God.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:48:45): But seriously, these are. Your options are like from one end of the spectrum to the other. So there are certain Buddhist schools of thought. The idea of reincarnation is not about dying, and then coming back in another body so much as it's about realizing that you're actually a new person any time you have the thought that you are a new person. You hear so many people say, "Oh, I'm stuck here, and I have to do this, and I have no choice," and there's no such thing. It's nonsense.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:49:19): Yeah.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:49:20): You can have any. Of course there are consequences. There are repercussions of any action. It's not like there's going to be no reverberation, but the truth of the matter is that, at any given moment, you could put those headphones down, walk out, and start picking sick people up off the street and bringing them to clinics. Or you could go out and get a gun and start putting a bullet in people's heads on the streets. I mean the options at both ends are open, and that's the reincarnation thing that this particular book is focused on. As the reincarnation through common sense instead of through some kind of esoteric belief that there can never be any scientific proof of because obviously, if you're dead, you're not going to tell anybody. How about the experience of moving into another life?

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:50:18): Actually some people have, you know?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:50:21): Some people have. Yeah, I wonder where that comes from. It might be real and it might be some -- I mean the mind is an incredible powerful thing.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:50:30): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:50:31): Now, if folks ever realize the power that's lurking in there, they'd do a little bit more to exercise it. And it's possible. Nothing is impossible. I don't know if people actually die and come back in another body and remember it. It's also possible that people put this idea in their heads, and then they flash it on the screen afterwards.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:50:54): Now, do you have a website?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:50:59): The website is www.FearlessPuppy.org.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:51:04): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:51:05): All right, and FearlessPuppy is spelled just as it sounds.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:51:09): Okay. So, and on there you have about that book and also about the new book?

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:51:16): And about the project that we're doing to raise funds. I mean, like I told you before, I'm not author. I never had plans of being an author. The only reason I wrote these books, and it seems they accidentally came out real good because I'm getting great reaction to them, but the only reason I bothered to write to begin with was to fund the project.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:51:36): Okay, and tell us again about this project you're currently on.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:51:41): It's to sponsor wisdom professionals. Anybody who is going to like make a full-time commitment to bringing more positivity, more constructive action, more things based on altruism as apposed to selfishness into the world I think deserves to not have to worry about money while they're doing it.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:52:05): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:52:06): You know, and not have to worry about where they're going to sleep and what they're going to eat. You know? That's just the basic necessity. If it's that kind of person, they're more dedicated to other folks than they are to themselves to begin with.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:52:21): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:52:22): So they're not going to be like raking in a whole bunch of shekels, you know, and running around in Cadillac’s with their mink coats on, you know, anyways. But when it gets to the point where some of these people - and there certainly are some, you know, Buddhist Monks and Nuns that I know of that are running around and don't really have enough to eat every day. And that's if you're going to dedicate yourself to helping everybody else, you should have at least some kind of support system to make that physically viable for you to do without becoming unhealthy.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:53:02): Right.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:53:02): And so that's what the project is about and that's why I wrote the books; as a funding vehicle--

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:53:09): Okay.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:53:10): --for the project.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:53:11): All right. So, that's FearlessPuppy.org.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:53:16): Yeah.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:53:17): Thank you so much for being with us today.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:53:21): The pleasure was mine, Julia. It's wonderful to talk with you.

Julia Widdop (Interviewer: 00:53:24): Okay, good luck to you and your endeavors.

Ten Rose (Interviewee: 00:53:28): Thank you very much.