Magnetized for Success

When I was younger I had a vision of how I wanted to live.

I had plenty of time. I did what I wanted every day.

I was strong, I had strong and rewarding, relaxed relationships. I was connected to the feeling I had when I was feeling my best all the time. Constantly.

I had a business that ran with a little help from me, but not too much. It made ridiculous amounts of money.

And it saved the world at the same time. Every dollar it made was a step in the right direction, an inspiration, the cure.

And every dollar it made allowed me to create even larger and more radical forms.

Which were larger and even more radical in their transmission of love and belief. In their ability to be the active solution.

When I got to about age 23, I had chucked these dreams. I had done the initial math and found it unworkable.

Then an amazing thing happened. I started to move on without them.

Moving on without them, I became overwhelmingly depressed. And quite successful.

The more successful I became, the harder it was to feel what I had. (Although I never really felt the blessings I was constantly being given).

And then came the crash. Pillow yanked out, exhausted but couldn't sleep. When I did, it didn't help. I'd wake up just as tired. It was an existentialist's wet dream.

Then I said fuck it.

No really fuck it.

Not fuck it like I'm going to kill myself. Fuck it like if they want they can fucking try to kill me.

Because that's what I thought they were going to try to do.

(And they have in their own liittle ways. But none of 'em have had the guts to take it violent.)

And little by little, I started back down the long path of what the hell I wanted to do.

At first I was scared to write a poem. Then I wrote a bunch.

I had the idea for the title of a book but was sure I couldn't write one. Then I did.

I was sure if it took over a year and a half I wouldn't make it. I was broke and out of sorts.

It took five.

I was sure that if the book should be given away. Then that it was worth $120. (Or was it the other way around?)

Trying to moderate, I ended on $40.

I was sure that it would be obvious to anyone who wrote it what it was.

It wasn't.

I was sure that once I promoted it, I would be inundated, stressed and famous.

I wasn't.

I was sure once I got it out I'd have other things to write.

I didn't.

In fact, as soon as I got it out I wanted to stop writing. Everyone who knew me was just starting to pat my back at being a writer. I was more interested in drawing and the promise of the company I had dreamed up, White Gold.

Then I started painting.

By this time I was $40,000 in debt.

I had been broke for years. I hadn't gotten laid in way too long. I hadn't been in love for even longer.

I thought I was too old to be fucking around. I had friends who had had artistic careers run their coursee and were already back at regular old work. With a house and a wife.

I longed for a house and a wife. I longed for a woman at all. I longed for the money to pay my rent. I longed for the money to buy groceries. I longed for my stomach to stop feeling wierd and to stop losing weight. At 5' 11", I weighed 135.

I longed for clarity. I was confused about everything. Should I apologize to my friend who was mad at me? Was I in love with the friend who had always been there for me? Was I gay? Did I want to move to Hawaii? What did my dreams about sharks mean? What about the ones of people inappropriately touching me? What the fuck was going on? Could the reason I felt so bad be the fillings in my teeth poisining me?

Should I respond to my worst fears or my greatest inspirations? What was addiction and what was the truth? Could we do anyting we wanted--be happy all the time?--or was that childish bs and the route to anything worth doing difficult? Labor, toil, work?

Was genius really 99% perspiration? Was Bertrand Russel right when he said his youthful unhappiness kind of just lifted as he grew up and stopped thinking so much about himself? Should I think less about myself?

And what was Ayn Rand up to? If she knew so much why did she smoke? And not respect her husband? Why did Krishnamurti fight over money with the business partner who's wife he had been screwing for 20 years?

Why was New Age art so obviously and blatantly corny and horrible if they really knew so much? Why was worshipping a Goddess any different than worshipping a male god. or a white or a black one?

I changed my diet, my routine, my supplements, my therapist, my housing arrangement, the city I lived in, my thougts, my books, my art. I tried meditation, yoga, writing exercises, walking, getting more sunlight, getting more sleep, getting less sleep, being chipper, being honest. And wrote about it all. I put myself on the cover of my book with my shirt off.

I listened to people tell me my ego was out of control and wondered if they were right. I sought out men who were happy and in good relationships and asked them what they knew.

I changed from writing to painting and was scared out of my mind. I painted by myself in the basement every day for a summer. It felt like going 9 rounds. Was it really going to be this hard or did that mean it was the wrong thing?

By this time I was living with my mother. 37, wrote a book that didn't sell shit. 150 rejections from publishers. Family members that didn't buy it. Friends that didn't buy it or come to free readings.

Then I started looking for a job. (Actually I had been looking for close to 2 years). I'll go help someone else. Wait tables. Be an art director. Do graphic design. Teach people nutrition. Manage apartment buildings. Paint houses (which I did). Manual labor (check). Run a non-profit (nope). For some reason, the only labor the good lord was throwing my way was the labor I liked least--manual labor. It fucking sucked. I would share what I learned in a manner that business could understand, I would become a marketing consultant. I met with one of the top brand guy in the country. he said that everything in my Powerpoint was going to come true. And that he didn't know of anyone who'd want to talk with me.

I had dreams that I had been bitten by dogs and collapsed through a door. On the other side, laying with puncture wounds, my mom told me that I was going to go on. In the dream I couldn't imagine anything worse. I had no idea even how to get up.

I could barely stay awake all day. I slept on the couch hoping my mom wouldn't see me.

But a very strange thing was happening. Every step of the way, from what seemed like continual defeat and roadblocks, some part of me was happier. Much happier. In fact I felt like I was actually a man. Living at home with my mom.

I started going to the gym. Looking for a better haircut. Better clothes. (I had already dropped a couple thousand on very nice clothes before I moved, so I no longer believed it was just a matter of "believing"/spending my way to success.) So what was it a matter of then? I started getting up every day and doing what had to be done. Making calls I didn't want to make. When I got a little money I'd paint or try to get something going with my book, but I wasn't working anything like 8 hours a day. With the manual labor, sometimes all I could muster was 3 or 4. How was I ever going to even have a job and apartment, let alone make art, have an international business, a relationship, kids and my own house. This I would think while shoveling snow.

But I kept doing things. I got tired of eating broccoli and ground beef for breakfast (and Quinoa) and I had a dream that said I'd be feeding myself every day for 15 years. I got tired of doing sit ups and stretching and someone at the gym said we were going to do it out whole lives.

I was pretty happy, but there was something missing. A faith. A radical, every minute, what me worry faith. I had ridden as far as I could on white knuckles, I was doing the work, but I still didn't feel safe or really believe. When my mom sent me a job announcement, it took me days to get back to feeling like an artist. Just get a job motherfucker. To be supported on this planet, you have to do something that people recognize as valuable. And are willing to pay you for.

I had a dream that I would feel much better once I had my own place. I agreed.

Then I read a book that said you have to feel the way you want to live first. Then it follows. I believed this but wasn't sure god wanted me living the way I was. Why on earth should I believe more when seven (eight?) years of all the belief I could muster had garnered me exactly nothing (well in earthly terms it had cost me $40K--and probably $750K in lost earnings--in spiritual terms I was happier than I'd ever been). Still, did god want me living at my mom's house for 3 years chasing a pipe dream?

Yes he did.

He not only wanted me chasing it, he switched it up. You're late for a meeting at a record label one dream suggested. What? You're at a cocktail party and no one will listen to you until the letter on your t-shirt chest start stretching and you chant like a Muslim calling folks to prayer. Fuck, this was it. The thing I had been zvoiding. The thing I knew I was unable to do. Play music.

"You play like a retarded cowboy" my friend Mike Dill said. "I like everything but the vocals" the guy I was trying to recruit to play bass said. Our family didn't do music. I was a DJ, sure, but I hated to practice and just kinda threw stuff out there.

Put together a studio, my dream said. With what money? But I charged the computer and then found it. Bought the mixer with part of a birthday present and made the rest fixing up my mom's house in Seattle. Monitors, mics, hard drive, cables, keyboard. I was almost back to broke (and $8 grand in debt after I promised myself--and told god--that I didn't want to live that way any more). Then I got a gift that paid it off.

Shook, I had nothing else to do but go into my new basement studio and see what the hell happened. I wasn't exactly a musician, not like the guys you see who look like musicians and can play 1/2 the songs ever written, but I knew what I liked and could almost fake the rest. If I believed in the unlikely, the I guess this was the ultimate unlikely ending. I remembered that I had put "rap star" on a card during a game played to match people to their ultimate dream jobs. I was sriting at the time. It felt so safe precisely because it was so unlikely. I couldn't do it.

Somewhere along the way. Alone and unhappy----probably a couple hundred times--I had decided to not care. Decided to care about myself and ignore my situation or predicament no matter what the results. To believe for no reason. And tie myself to that ludacris, impossible, unseaworthy idea as tightly as I could. I started going to church as well. I was already praying. I bought a bible.

And somewhere along the way it started working. I didn't have a single thing I wanted physically, but I didn't really care. I gave up on the woman I was trying to chase down in Chicago. I gave up on everything that wasn't feeding me.

My belief got stronger. It wasn't as big of a deal to do what I wanted first thing. Even though money might be low in the bank and my bills coming due (I had been doing just that for years--but had been dreading it as well). And just like the sometimes corny people say, when I stopped worrying about it, it stopped. Once I stopped caring, once I was determined to do what I wanted no matter how often that flipped, how big it got or how far off it seemed, I started having fun.

I was relaxed. Even large things stopped ruffling my feathers. Public speaking. Telling people what I really did when they asked (instead of how I made money). I started being honest and assertive with business associates. Telling people the truth. Talking (amazing how infrequent that one is).

And then shit started coming. A call from Spike Jonze. A way to make a movie without Spike. Ridiculous deals on the tools and equipment I needed. Inspiration.

I still don't have shit. From a material perspective. None of the materail conditions described above have changed. But they're not me. And that's what I've always wanted.