White G Wrap-Up

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. 2005 is histoire, and 2006 is here at last! I can't believe I'd ever be excited for Monday morning, but here I am, like a kid who can't wait for school to open. See what happens when you decide to go all the way.

I'm not going to do this in any order, but here are my picks and pans for 2005.

Movies

The best movie of the year was March of the Penguins. Real life triumphs fiction every time. 100% true love and death and destruction. But not corny. Made me realize even more what my parents and ancestors did for me. Not much difference when you think about it.

Also good was Hustle and Flow, but it tragically flawed in that the real story was about a white film maker (the director) and he pussied out and made it about black people--rappers and pimps and hos. To make it "real". Sell-out. What's the phrase for an Uncle Tom white? Why'd he scale back the relationships when the real story was about a committed marraige? (As I understand it, his wife was the one dancing.) C'mon white folks, bring the truth. Don't you think you're worth it? Or do we have to pimp black people to get our dose of realness? Entertaining but didn't change the game. We're still starving for a premium price point for more nuanced, more real mass culture. So we get pimps and hos instead of grown ups. Where are the adults demanding a culture? Priming the pump with their money? Financing the truth? Making what they want to see? I know you didn't conquer the entire world just to drink coffee, work and have a few glasses of wine. Or watch Sideways and Gray's Anatomy (gag). 2006 is the year that White G will jump start the adult imagination.

Even better was New York Doll. The story of Arthur "Killer" Kane, the bassist of the New York Dolls. Made in part by family friend Seth Gordon. If you think rock and roll is glamorous, take a look at this puppy. Also beautiful because it shows that if you start your documentary, you get your ending. Great stuff about the quest for art and the quest for god. WIth the background of early 70s punk rock. And it's 30 year wake. Date with Drew, which was inspirational, honest and fun, was also good. Good guts there guys. Way to go big! Cajones.

Music

A lot of pap, a lot of bling, a lot of "world", but not much substance or western relavance that I could find. Lots for kids, but almost nothing for adults. 2006 is the year that all changes. I guarantee.

Tech/Business

The biggest news was the video iPod. Imagine film crews roving and recording like bands do now. That's the future, now that the economics of production and distribution have changed. The future is now. Once we get true price point differentiation, all bets are off.

White G is positioned to capitalize on this one event. We have almost unlimited price points on all mass produced goods EXCEPT cultural ones. Except the most important ones. Jeans, vodka, iPod covers, tires, wheels, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, paper, candles, motivational speakers—all of this crap you can find at any price point you want. $800 bottle of vodka—no problem. But a $120 book. Well, it'll take a minute to get our heads around that. Luckily, the time is now. All the dots are in place and all it takes is someone to pull out their #2.

Why haven't we already. Because artists are notorious pussies about money. And notoriously bad about taking care of themselves. And often infantile. And nobody else understands (I guess) what it takes to make something important vs. something stupid and lame. And that every properly differentiated artist—every artist who has gone deep enough—has a monopoly. And that the majority of wealthy consumers (this means you) are good people starving for a beat.

Other factors—modern western culture has been in its teenage rebellion stage until now. It didn't want to build but to destroy. Now it can't "deconstruct" anything else. And it takes money to build, my brothers and sisters. We won't sit in this rubble heap for long. —There's just too much capital around. There're almost unlimited ideas, feelings and creative territory to uncover, illucidate, and enjoy—but no one's got the time, inclination or inspiration. No one can see. No one believes.

And there's so much crap out here—so many pants choices and iPod covers—that they (the material world) are almost worthless. It's simple supply and demand. And real spiritual or creative expressions (real intangibles for you CEOs) are rare as a motherfuck. If you don't believe now, just wait a few years. It's gonna get harder. This isn't the millenium for no reason. We are here because we want to get real, go for love and what we want this time around. And our souls aren't even flinching if we don't. Twenty year-olds are dying from cancer. Death isn't that big a deal, unless you refuse to believe your own life. Then it exists to shake you into reality/soul compliance. Just like Jonny Cash's brother. It doesn't have to happen—we don't need death to fuel life—but if we aren't living, our souls don't mind helping us examine the meaning of what is happening. What we are doing. It doens't hurt them any more than millions of powerful people walking around dead enforcing their fear—their death—on others.

What else?

I really enjoyed 2005. It was fun. I'd like to thank and give shout outs to my friends and family. Especially my mom, my sister Suz, who's been living with us, my friend Robert, who's my partner in crime and documentary director.

I'd like to thank god for the space on my credit cards and inspiration to re-order The Love Artist at it's true price. And for the prosperity to build a music studio with no regular income. And the time to do so. And the time and inspiration to create. And for taking care of me and informing me through all the ways that he does. God really is a permanent presence. One that we either feel or shut out. One pointing us to exactly what we want. His will is our will once we strip away the bs. Or I should say our will is his will. He isn't above us but around, in, through, with, for, because of us.

Thank you god for the multitude of blessings you have heaped upon me and my family and friends this year. Thank you for the overwhelming gifts you have given the people of my country and the world. Again and again. Thank you for the consistancy and enduring nature of your love. The incorruptability of your will. The variety of your perfect joy. The unfathomable depth of your understanding. The unwavering tenderness of your mercy.

Happy new year everyone! 2006 is going to be calmly and gently HUGE!

The "I Can't Believe It's a Marketing Plan!" Marketing Plan. (Originally titled: "What if I Dance for You Like This, Bitch?")

Ha! I found it! They can't keep me down now!

Working out today at my gym (taking almost a week off did more good than harm, interestingly), I finally found some concrete proof in the form of a bullshit little magazine called Stores. Actually NRF Stores. (National Retail Foundation?--even their mystery isn't real). The November copy of this magazine is $75 for a single copy.

Now that's only to get you to buy a subscription (those vigilant around customer manipulation will cry out here, no doubt), but a year is still $120 for 12 issues. Not that much, but considering they are almost entirely full of shit, not bad either. Their paid circulation is 32,000. So 3 and a half mil. before advertising, which is likely premium due to their readership.

As you may guess, Stores is about selling shit. Retail marketing. Fear, baby, fear! (And if you get that reference you get bonus points for X-treme cultural literacy). The ultimate in getting feelings/validation/prosperity/value from the outside in. Like a national conference of cheerleaders, only not half as cute, no fun, and completely devoid of any excitement, hip movement, titillation, sex appeal, enjoyment or emotion.

And I should know. I used to be in marketing. Love my FEAR now, baby!!!

And also now, according to Tom Peters, Malcom and the other gurus of glub, the only thing that customers care about is feelings. Being real. Love. Shit, we've got to add that to all this other junk? There's a reason that POS has two meanings. Piece of S*&t. And, in marketing, Point of Sale. : )

But you don't need me to tell you that marketing is the equivalent of a heart, gut and soul abortion. If you make over $30K a year, you already know. What do you need me to tell you? What do you want me to tell you?

You want me to tell you that there's a magic other way. That once we blink and everyone gets smart and good and liberal, cares about the war in Iraq enough and shops at the co-op instead of Whole Foods, and develops better micro-brews, (or starts reading the National Review, etc) that we'll have a sustainable economy and culture, even though you're tired of everyone at the co-op already and no amount of micro-brews, novel or not, did anything for your sustainability this Christmas. You want me to tell you that you can just continue on as you've been going and things will eventually change on their own/work out/ get better.

You want me to tell you that we can have meaningful and cheap creative and editorial content and not get poisoned by product placement, sponsorship, and advertisers' crass fear and desperation in general while subsidizing it it. Squeek by the cheap, crass and fearful and transcend without changing a thing—without paying for it. That we can live somewhere other than where we work. That we can live other than how we work. That we can live in a hospital and raise healthy and happy kids because we've almost found a way to deal with it and if we just had a little more time to do yoga and ate better and thought more like the Dalai Lama...

And I'd love to tell you that. Only it's not true. Which I know because I committed myself completely to that life and got nothing but depression, lame relationships, unhappy work and fear. I was even afraid of fear!

I had more money than I had ever had. I got checks for $20K. I had my own office that I shared with other artists, got to work at 11 and left at 6. Ate lunch. Skateboarded in my office (and played pool--we had a 7,000 sq. foot loft in downtown Seattle). What else is considered cool--oh, I would go to Sun Valley for meetings where my clients would buy me $50 lift tickets for three runs just so I wouldn't say I had been there and didn't go. And bought me nice lunches on top of the mountain.

Working 5 months a year this way, I covered all my expenses and bought the most killer guitars and bikes and cameras. Then traveled around the world. I was a designer, and so "creative" at work (which as far as I can tell means that managers and VPs get to mess with things you care about rather than things you find absurd--still progress, I guess, just no answer). I rode my purple Masi to work, got paid $1000 a day for photo shoots (that was more money back then), and generally "kept it real" in a kind of 90s post-grunge manner. I didn't even shower every day. I cut my own hair.

And I didn't give a shit. Still don't. The more money I had the worse I felt. Not because of the money, the money was the only slight balm, but because they, "the man", never gives out a fucking dime that he doesn't get ya back with .15 of fear, hatred and general panic.

So what, big whoop.

But I fucked and messed around with objectively gorgeous women!, I insist. I was backstage at the coolest shows! Drinking the bands beer while they played and throwing the afterparty. Had real-life rock stars and millionaire punk rockers (real ones from good bands, btw, not cheesy ones) fucking up my Metallica albums while trying to Dj. (All in the book and more fun, btw). If cool worked, it would have worked for me. I had my own clothing company (T hree) spewing anti-fashion as quickly as it could.

Bloop de-bloop debloop debloop. It doesn't even matter. Cool can't feel cool. Cool can't even feel.

So...., what I have to tell you--and yes, I do have a point--is that the only way out is what we want. We want to be cool, you cry! No you don't. You want to be warm.

Cool is all we can afford, you insist. Life isn't supposed to be fun. This is what reality feels like. This is as good as it gets! Millions before us have tried to improve their lot and found almost nothing. The ones who tried (van Gogh, Basquiat, Hendrix, etc.) went crazy, were fucked up, neglected their kids. We can't do that. We can't risk that.

We can't afford the real thing. We can't pay what a real couch, a real book, a real album, a real magazine cost! We can't make anything more beautiful than Leonard Cohen. Hotter than the Suicide Girls. We have to buy sweatshop goods. Levis should use their profits to pay those people more. Nothing else'll sell! —So, you'll always be in marketing, I reply? Your kids will be third generation marketing masters? Talking about emotional branding ten hours a day, with even less paperwork and fewer consultants? (Or was it more?) Fugazi is the truth, you retort—real holy men do it for free?!? For the kids!

No, they don't. Not for drunk, slumming/sloppy and petulant kids, anyway. Not for cool kids, when there are no warm. Not while the adults were starving. And trying to live through their kids—as if they could get them any farther than themselves. Despite their overloaded bank accounts. After getting used to being empty. And were raising kids to be the empty opposite of themselves. To be forced into punk. To be forced into hate and being against. Their own families. Rich OR poor. Because their parents were empty. And it wasn't about the money. But being present. And the current economy, the richest and most powerful one in the history of all knowledge, didn't allow that. Cringed at that. Hated that. Feared that. Crushed that. And mom and dad had made the decision to get on the bus. While everyone else devoted their life to trying to destroy it.

Real holy men would do it for their own kids! Their own inner kids! Would make a way that people could be more valuable being themselves, now that everyone knows how to go fast, be productive, self-edit, shut the fuck up and be other. And be a brat, question authority, drop out, shock the bourgeoise, and party.

Real holy men would make a culture that was real-the-fuck-sustainable. Enjoyable sustainable, not more prefect meetings and always thinking about recycling sustainable. That motherfuckers enjoyed. No-meetings,-lots-of-trust-and-juicier-fucking sustainable. More love and intimacy sustainable. Doing what you want sustainable. Waking up happy sustainable. To discover you have a beautiful wife and kids sustainable. And were emotionally available for your kids sustainable. Money or no money sustainable! And so were loved to be around sustainable. That kids giggled and laughed for sustainable. That babies felt. That felt babies. And had the time to be sane. To feel their lives, to feel their wives. What this beautiful, perfect shit actually means! You do know that this life means something right? That it is screaming, pounding its fist (or shoe--like Kruschev), insisting, demanding, whispering, and crying lovingly about love and holding to your truest self every microsecond, right? That love asserts itself constantly, completely and whole-ly, right?! Right in front of us, right?

Real holy men would stare down this entire charade of a civilization and say "a-aight". "Fine." "Works for me". I'm happy to do whatever it takes to do exactly what I want. And here's what it cost me so here's what it costs. I can't make it any cheaper and I don't want to fuck with anyone who doesn't believe. Here's a real sustainable economy. Take it or leave it. Come on over when you get tired of Kibble and Bits. The invitation is open and standing. I'll fluff you constantly on my blog for free. But the real thing cost real money. Eventually you'll have to step to it. Get real. Or you kids will. No biggie.

(Krishnamurti, interestingly, claimed that 4 people who really knew what was going on--who were thoroughly present--could, WOULD HAVE TO, change the world thoroughly and immediately. He was wrong, of course, which can be seen by the fact that he was fucking his best friend's wife for thirty years while he managed K's books, but I like the idea. It actually will only take one person. And every time one does, the world does change radically. Just imagine how radical love would be if we all did it. Dude #1 (hey, it's my blog): premium mass culture makes doing what you love pay, Dude #2: integrating personal knowledge and science produces cold fusion, makes rationality warm enough to wield free energy lovingly (you know that's what we're waiting for, right?), Dudette #3: —see I don't even know what women are going to do. That's how limited my big picture skills are. So just imagine what we'll do once we harness the power of inspiration (loving) the way we've harnessed motivation (pushing). Mastered support and magnetism the way we've mastered control and friction (baby). This is all that's left to do! What's up, mi bredren??)

Knut Hamsun went off and did manual labor after writing Hunger. A book that eventually revolutionized modern literature. Changed your life. Allowed you to be a person. More free. If you knew what was good for you, you would hunt down the Knut Hamsuns and make sure their bank accounts were fat. Out of pure greed and selfishness. I would. (And am). In the future, this will be called the gift economy, built lovingly and voluntarily on top of our current material, skeptical economy. People will routinely lead with money. Create with it. Believe with it like there was no tomorrow.

But you don't know what's good for you. And you think that Mssrs. Eggers and Jonathan Franzen are our Knut Hamsuns. Even though their sustainable culture is neither, really. And you didn't even enjoy reading it. Just thought it was cool and heard it on NPR (don't get me started on them--white news and black music, when what we need more than ever is black news and white music—and I don't mean Tavis Smiley and Modest Mouse, sorry Tavis).

Which is the reason the best artist could give away all he or she wanted and have it never amount to anything. Because a fearful public would never buy love—a mature, responsible, fun, honest, dare I say "sustainable" culture—out of fear (the way it could be Radical Chic and Mao Maoed into buying the counter-culture). The way you shop yields what you create. Fear creates fear. But shop in love and with faith (and I mean real love and faith, not Halmark/Protestantism's narrow versions) and you'll create it. How could it be otherwise?

I actually though about giving The Love Artist away. What could be more loving, duh? But then I realized that a leaky pail can take all the water you can spare. And still end up 100% empty. And a crazy person can hear they're crazy every two seconds and never bat an eye. It's the sane one that looses it.

So we'll have to meet in the middle. Unless you know me personally. Not my rules, but I understand mutuality and I don't flinch for two-bit hos, 1 night stands, or really cool, new improved pimps. As much as I'd like to. I know it don't work.

But none of that is really my business. My business is simply to say that in an economy that now understands it relies upon emotion and right relationships to sell (which it always has), that a $75 magazine about statistical sales bullshit necessarily implies the existence of a $300 one about love. And a $350 one. And $3500 movies. And $35 ones. And $200 cds. And $200 songs. Whether or not these products ever make it to market being, of course, a function of how often and how completely you, the creative consumer and master of your own reality, entertain your significant fears. Of love and money.

And, whether or not you buy my motherfucking book, The Love Artist. Honey.

You are now in charge of the entire world's reality. Starbucks, magazines about Proven Solutions for COnnected Retailers, Prada, The Shins. You create and destroy the world with the wake of your loving (if distracted) attention. The world is broken. The question is: will you react in fear, creating a world where the negative is accentuated and the positive is hidden just because a world where the positive was accentuated and the negative was hidden didn't work, or will you create exactly what and how you want with all the faith, love, belief and math you can muster?

No, that's bullshit. The question is not if but when? Cause it will happen. And the question is, will it be you—will YOU say "I can, no MUST afford it no matter what it takes"—or will you leave it to your children (who will then have to make the exact same decision without your approval; against your wishes; rebelling against your values and beliefs to do so; hating what you were unable to be; work to destroy your way of life just to live; and having to leave you, the family, and the clan to find truth and happiness)?

Take your time and consider your answer well. Do the math (I know you're a genius). Cause I'm way too sane to be wrong.

[Note: My friend rang me up over the holidays to ask if there wasn't some middle ground. If it was really all or nothing with me. He works with kids in Seattle and does great stuff. In many respects I was raised to be more like him than I ended up. I don't remember my answer, but I assured him that The Love Artist wasn't an abberation. That there wasn't something else wonderful that I was going to end up doing after getting this love and money stuff out of my system (I'm 38, yo!). No other better, easier application of what I've learned. Another friend I asked for $7 mil. to jump start White G said the same thing: White Gold, no, but keep me appraised of your next project. I like what you're doing. (That was 5 years ago).

I guess my answer now is why beat yourself up? Just buy the book or don't. It's not that anything will be taken away from the world, just that millions will now choose to create a much more loving, real and honest economy on top of what we currently have. The world is what it is no matter what I say. If you're looking for more then go look. When you get tired of new age sooth-sayers and gurus (both marketing and spiritual), then maybe you'll be interested in the truth. It's not that big of a deal. And believing in it or not doesn't change it one way or another. It just is.

All The Love Artist is is the truth. All White Gold is is the truth. All this blog is is the truth. My truth. Beautiful, flawed, perfect, heated, boring, genius, repetitive, inspired, juvenile, etc. And if that doesn't work, nothing else matters, does it? There are plenty of people who say the truth is only valuable when pasturized (otherwise you'll get botchulisme), to which I reply, you must never have had fresh milk. Or patted a cow, or gotten to know a farmer. You only need to pasturize when you insist on living across parking lots and freeways from farms. And in places where you can't trust whoever is selling you stuff. This is just as true emotionally and spiritually as it is physically and culturally.

And just like organic farmers 20 years ago, if the truth don't work, I'll go install rock gardens. Or make the next ad you see for nsbgroup.com really intriguing. Just like that whore in Italy with her shirt off as I drove past at 30mph. Frustrated and lonely. (I didnt' forget her did I?—so compelling was her brand—but I also didn't stop). I'll get medical insurance like my mom suggests and marry someone who'll do. Struggle through the holidays with my mother-in-law with the tastefully done, natural-looking face lift and the banker dad. Fight with the love of my life instead of offending their neurotic sensibilities, get pissed, and eventually end up just like 'em. When's the game on Bobby? Tell my kids that life isn't fair. That they should have a back-up plan if they want to make music. Or paint. Or write. Or make movies. Or do the only things that I ever in my whole life considered valuable. And that they should spend their most formative and creative years, the only ones where they've got a gnat's chance in hell of knowing what it is they love to do, preparing for the back-up plan. Ah yes, life as back-up. Backing up instead of backing that azz up!

Whoops—starting to sound like a broken record—it's all in the book. Only it's more like fucking and not so much like jacking off to the Joy of Sex!]

See ya in the funny pages!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. And to all a good night.

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WhiteG.com

Love and Money, Baby

What if giving is simply the easiest way to add value?

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WhiteG.com

White Men Can't WHAT?!

I was just cleaning up a little and found a few of the myriad rejection letters that I got for The Love Artist. I probably queried 150 agencies and was looked at and rejected by ten or 15. So 150 soft rejections and 15 hard ones--yeah we looked closely.

I guess I've felt this way for a while, but I realized I just took that to mean that they were afraid and possibly unintelligent. It didn't hurt at all. I could get a million of them in the mail and it wouldn't change how I feel one way or the other.

Do you remember when you were working lame jobs and one of the dimmer bulbs on the string was always the manager? That's kind of how I feel now. To get into our bullshit economy you have to sell out. You shut up, cut your dick off, and just try to get your little pimp, little mack, on--try to get over when and where possible.

But a pimp ain't nothing but a ho with money. They eat with hos, think about hos, sing about hos, bitch at hos and fuck hos. And the only thing they've got in this world is that no one ever goes up to them and says, "You're a bitch ass ho!" And that's only because they've got a nice car and a royal blue pinstipe suit (actually saw this one yesterday--woulda been dope if it would have been nice fabric and cut right).

Kinda like Tiger Woods AmEx ad: "My life... "is hectic". And his best memories are when he had time to ride his skateboard and bike "all over". Even the king pimps is ho-ed out. Doing "what he wants", a millionaire many times over and doesn't even enjoy it. Other than the obvious. But no day to day, "what a great life" warmth? We think people who've got it better than us feel it. And those who have it worse don't. That's not true. And I say that as a mamber of a family that got a sizeable land grant from the King of England in Virginia (it went all the way West at the time--they didn't know where the other coast was)--has been pimpin' for a minute. But do the math. Who am I to say who's feeling it? If a cup of coffee is the high point of your day, what does it matter anyway? Why not go for absolutely anything else?

So in a sense, for me, the rejection slips are a badge of honor. But not just because I got them from the "establishment". It's not that simple anymore. I also got them from the hipsters. And that's crucial.

If I had been embraced by the hipsters--the indy publishers or weekly newspapers--that would mean that I had just succeeded in being a good teenager. In being hurt the right way. Even the hip-hop world is a ho to this shit. They predicate their existance in the fact that they're underdogs, victims who have made it. Had to sell drugs, couldn't have gone to college, couldn't have been a concert pianist, couldn't have not broken their mother's heart, couldn't have sung about loving a woman, god, raising their kids. The street's as big an addiction as is out there. Drama even bigger. And if you think you've got you a man cause he made money by telling "the truth", either in an indy/white way or a hip-hop/black way, you better make sure he's capable of loving the hurt child that he wasn't afraid of being. Cause when we artists brand ourselves, it's deep. And once we get love and money and recognition for that brand. it's beyond deep. It's real. The number of artists who can't feel shit are legion. Who would rather a ho than the real thing. From Peter Sellers to Curt Cobain to Anthony Keidis, check their biographies and see if you want to live with that shit. See if you want to still be a star in this cool sky.

I thank god that no one's known me until now. Because I probably would have started being the whack shit that I thought worked. When I didn't even love it.

I've been smarter than all the managers I ever had. But I've never had the guts it takes to build and run something essentially differently until now. Never knew what it takes to make something large, prosperous and growing without resorting to control and being a bitch. How to rely on inspiration and giving. I never knew how to be responsible and present. How to be compassionate and a man. Have fun and be resolute. Learning wasn't necessarily fun, but I can tell you from the bottom of my heart and the tip-top of my soul that it's entirely worth it. Even if you have to chuck your job in today and stike out into the wild unknown unprepared (and you most likely will, although there's nothing wrong with doing it calmly and gently), you will do nothing but thank yourself for years to come. After the tears, fights and long lonely walks, of course.

But when you find your woman, have something you love to do. Are fully committed and loving out the last bit of your fear to be happy in the vast unknown. When you are able to raise a young boy into a man. When you are able to impart feel to family and play to work. When you really feel how beautiful your wife is. And how much she loves you and how far she'd go for you. And are equally grateful! When you really feel how blessed you are to have kids, and what it means that these souls picked you to come be with.

When you are able to wake up Monday morning and the first thought you have is "I get to do exactly what I want today", and know what that is, and do it without fear of time, money, your kids, women, your friends, your boss, caffeine, the guys at the bar, your parents, or the bored sell-outs guarding the gates to literary purity (novels by foreign non-whites are hot, if you're white or local, you better be professional, homoginized and really fucking nice), or the board of directors, or the shareholders (what, you thought CEOs were free? with all that money are you crazy?!), the coach, your label head ("Now Jimmy Iovine's name on the bottom of my checks"), the guy who put you on (your Dre), your mom or the world's not yet as privledged as you--then, my friend, you will be free and happy as a mug. And able to deal with all those mo-fos. Lovingly. And inspire them. And build a world without pimps or hos in full sight of eveyone. Because you take full and absolute responsibility. And do so with full and absolute faith.

And it'll feel like a permanent, slow-motion, two-handed gorilla dunk, where you take over the whole league and re-do the logo the way you want just as the shit slaps the back of the net; inspire new and more lovely rules; let the players wear what the hell they want; let the coaches say what they want; let the players say what they want; and cash 432 checks while the most loving and gentle flashbulbs intimately illuminate that secret something you've always wanted illuminated; and pause to swing on the rim for a minute. With your dick hanging out.

And what a fucking relief it'll be. Ahhhhhhhhh!

Editing

Good lord, how many times will I learn this one?

It's not the creative force in me that has a problem, it's the editor. I make stuff I like and that's fun. Then I try to make it sound like perfect, uptight, over produced tripe. I did this on my book so much I finally had to include some of the stuff I would have axed crossed out. With music, there's no such recovery. You can crush it in the mix easily. It's only butterfly wings.

To believe ourselves. That's the whole thing.

And let our fragile ideosynchrasies sit. And get on with it.

White, uptight, and ALL*RIGHT. I guess it's a good thing lots of people are mastering their own stuff now. It lets you see what they really, really believe in.

More Light!

Ahhh! Finally here--December 21. More light from here on out.

There's something big in me dying off this year (you know your old stuff dies off in the winter, right?). I'm not sure what it is yet but I'm paying a lot of attention. I don't want to have to do any of this again.

For me, winter (especially Nov.) is like the Sunday night of the year. Where you have to recap everything that's happened all year and turn and face what's next. Not always fun, especially if you haven't done the work to make what's coming next (Monday morning) a joy, but always valuable.

For the first time in my life, I'm really looking forward to Monday morning. They don't feel like they used to. When I dreaded them. Now I know I don't have to leave myself to make money, be happy, have a relationship, be a good son, etc. I don't have to leave myself, period. I've learned that broke and hungry and alone, now I get to experience it rich and full and in love. No small feat, but exactly what I want. Happier than a monk in the real world. (WIth a better haircut, too--if I can reference T-LA).

And there's enough time. Time. Time Time. That's all I've ever really wanted. I haven't really told many people this but in the far back reaches of my mind, I've always wanted to be a master of time and space. To master time and space. To feel like I want to and know I can feel wherever and whenever I want. To be permanently home. Funny that I've gone without a home for much of the period where I've learned this. Sorta like Malcom finding god--freedom--in prison. A lot of times it takes the exact opposite of what you want for you to demand what you want. (If you're homeless, or in dire straights, take note. you are closer than ever to exactly what you want. I promise. You still have to go get it, but you're closer than when you were just walking around unconscious).

I've also been re-thinking White Gold. I don't know if I'll do the whole design side of things. My priorities are enjoying myself, music, relationships, my family, having time to grow and learn, and spending time with friends. There should be plenty of money from the book, the album, the movie and the paintings to keep me flush. I'd like to do a magazine, a clothing line, cars, etc., but trying to control products is a serious drag. As all designers know. The wonderful thing about art is that it can be more valuable a little rough around the edges. Not so a pair of pants. Starry Night has parts where you can see bare canvas. And what's up with that wierd shaped tree?

Especially in today's homoginized economy, a little relaxation should be worth many times more if you've got the balls to ask for it.

As for those who spend even more time and stress trying to make things look rough the "right" way, trying to be cool (as I did for years as a graphic designer), well, you may just have to forgo the feelings you want this time around. I can tell the difference.

What I want is: to go to the gym three days a week for 2 hours. To make most of my own food. To eat at home with my wife and kids. Sit down dinners. Hot food. To spend 2 hours an evening/night in bed with the woman I love. Playing, relaxing, loving. To be there for my kids. To see the games and scraped knees. To play music with and for them. To raise a family in love and watch that change the world. To have the time it takes to learn from what we know, and make music and paintings that reflect that. (And movies).

What I don't give a shit about: cocktail parties, bars, drinking, social ambition, being seen, networking, knowing more people more superficially, trying to escape myself.

I've been watching the classics on TV the past week or so. The Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz. I'd never watched the whole SOM before, thinking it trite and corny. It's actually really good. Every song (but one) a hit. Pretty amazing. My favorite is My Favorite Things. Just a beautiful song. If for whatever reason you can't feel it from Julie Andrews, check out the title track on John Coltrane's album of the same name. Unbelievable. One of the best pieces of recorded music ever for my money. And then go back to Julie 's version and ask yourself if you allowed yourself to feel it from a white woman like you did a black man. (I didn't). My friend Riz once said that the most hated on racial group was white women. He said no one would dare kill off, rape, and maim black women in movies like the do white women. I don't know if he's right, but it's an interesting perspective.

I'm mastering the songs I have done for some Christmas presents (don't tell). I still have a few presents to buy but am pretty well done. Looking forward to seeing all the family. I've got an e-mail off to Barneys book buyer and am praying she can feel me. Whether or not anyone ever buys a single copy of The Love Artist for $120, premium mass culture is the future. That I guarantee. It may happen today, it may happen in five years. But it's coming. And it's going to be bigger than video iPods, King Kongt and video games combined. Enormo! So get ready to buy what you really want. And make what you really, really want. Cause bullshit won't pay for much longer. And anything else will just be a job. Hell, if you start now, you can own significant waterfront real estate. Do it because it's what you want, and because you'll be twelve times as happy, and be able to feel your wife (husband) and kids, and yourself; not because it'll pay, but do it baby. The sex is much, much, much better as well.

Sooner or later people with money (that's us!) will have to admit they're spiritually bankrupt and sooner or later those with soul (that's us, too)! will have to admit that they want to pursue beauty, health, the truth and love. And that that costs more than factories fearfully cranking out pre-ripped jeans (you really wear acid-wash?), coffee and smokes, and fucking.

True love's gonna pay my friends. And it's gonna pay big!

Once they figure this out, they'd be stupid not to read the book. (Da Love Artiste, yo!) It'll save them thousands in time and New Age dead ends. And get them the feelings of love, and the blowjobs, that they've always dreamed of, years and years quicker. $120, $220, $440—if money doesn't matter than it doesn't matter either way, yo! Call me a sell out (and a few of you have recently--way to keep me honest!), tell me my priorities are messed up, ignore me and refuse to write comments, mutter "what an arrogant fuck" while you secretly tune in (yawn)—do anything you want and I'll applaud it, that's the whole deal!—but write a better book and I'll buy a copy for whatever you have the guts to put on the cover!

Lovs of love, and Marry Christmas!

Winter in Pakistan

My studio is in the basement and there's snow on the ground outside. So my feet are usually cold. Which sucks, but this is the season to realize that if you lived in the mountains in India or Pakistan and an earthquake not only leveled your home but also wiped out the mountain roads connecting it to your sources of fuel, food, blankets, etc. it would be significantly worse than sucks.

I'm as tired of giving as anyone. I've gotten taken a time or two at the front door by hustlers recently (they're pretty good here in Chicago); I gave what I could for Katrina; I'm doing what I can on a personal level with some folks I know; I haven't had a regular income in 7 years; I'm putting out a book, working on an album and financing a documentary; and I'm $40K in debt, BUT, I've still live in heaven on earth compared to the folks on the India/Pakistan border. Even before the earthquake.

So I just dropped some coinage off at CARE Crisis Response. This page is for a one time only donation, though it's a little misleading (they're trying to get you to donate monthly). I did a little research and they seem to get a good percentage of the $$ (91%) into the field. Make sure to unclick the button at the bottom if you don't want to get on their mailing list.

God promises that we have no reason to worry about eating tomorrow, for just as he feeds even the lowliest of his beasts every day (I believe crows are mentioned--sorry guys), so shall he feed his favorite. Yeah, you're his favorite. Soak it up a little. Go ahead and gloat. You are the recipient of a permanent beam of love. That's why we can't replicate you. And you run on your own (just add ground beef). And you have the power to heal yourself.

Try finding an car that does that!

(I actually had a self-healing car for a short while, but the thing was in such ridiculous disrepair that it probably attracted the big guy's mercy. Or maybe he was helping out a serious salad days artiste. Either that or some rust developed on the clutch plate and it stopped slipping for a minute after having left it for three months to rot.

A pretty remarkable car--one of a long line of 70s and 80s Datsuns that attached themselves to our family for a while in the 90s. You had to be half-enlightened and happy just to drive it. It had lost its shift-plate and so required the force to drive. Every piece of glass in it was broken, it leaked water on both drivers and passenger's sides floors--in Seattle, the seats were ripped beyond sitability and covered with fake sheepskin, the clutch slipped, the radio had been disconnected with a hammer and screwdriver and then re-inserted (the first pull-out?), the trunk could only be opened by putting your finger into a hole where the lock had been and turning right, and, by the end, after it had been stolen and rescued, you had to hotwire it to start it. Keyless entry and ignition!

Before that, it had had a boat key and push-button start installed by my friend Mark Morrison, who gave it to me on the condition that I pay the $111 in tickets it had on it in collections.

See how glamorous it is to be an artist, kids! I still got laid with it, though. That's almost the whole thing. If you can tell the whole, dirty, poor-ass, struggling, trying-to-figure-it-out-but-not-even-close-yet, got wet feet truth with a smile on your face and enough confidence to still pull the women you want, it's just a matter of time. I still have the Lion of Judah that Mark brought from JA, where he was a record producer in my current ride--an Acura. I still haven't "made it" materially, but I feel so good that it barely matters. Even if I died today, it would have been worth every shitty meal, doubt and tear. If you can be happy poor, you can be happy rich. And being happy rich is no small ting.)

And Away We Go

This was the shit I was trying to ignore, but I think it's just too wack to let fly.

Maureen Dowd recently wrote a book entitled "Are Men Necessary?" This has been getting play all over the news and those pussies at NPR are only too happy to roll it around and debate it's merits.

The old me would have offered up a reasoned response to this bullshit, but the new me has better things to do. Plus, it doesn't merit anything more than a good, old fashioned:

Fuck you, bitch.

Wish You A Merry Christmas

And many returns of the season.

We had the whole Chicago branch of the family here tonight to decorate the tree and sup, and, as has happened for the last three years, carrollers showed up just as we started.

Pretty radical to have people come to your door and sing with you. Just your plain ole every day magic. I love Christmas. Snow, presents, family, decorating, the whole thing.

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WhiteG.com

You Are What You Buy

If we are what we eat (and I can vouch that we are), then we are also how and what we buy. Where you put your attention and love thrives. The world is a garden. What you ignore dies (or grows thick with weeds).

Sweatshops, quality, lunch hours, sanity, care, decent bosses, living wages, dignity, craftsmanship, lasting environmental goods that will be used and last a long time, things that you will wear until they're worn out--all of these depend on your concentrated attention and money. And on the higher profit margin of quality goods, services and content. So please consider going deep (in both heart and pocket) this holiday season and spending a little more for things people (and you, yourself) will cherish. At the very least get them the things that they really, really want.

You are of great means and getting greater every day. Scared money don't make love, Money.

My book's in and ready to ship. The Love Artist, baby. $120 a copy. And so packed with love that it's practically oozing. The future, I guarantee. Order now and avoid the embarrasment of doing so because Vanity Fair told you it couldn't be missed!

All the love in the world. And peace across the universe.

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WhiteG.com

Sincerely Seeking Simon

Hi,

If any of my NY peeps know Simon Doonan, or anyone at Barneys corporate there in NY, please let me know. I have his contact info, but would love a name to get my foot in the door. I just dropped the scrilla for the books. They should ship tomorrow. And then it's off to the most gentle and races ever held! Ooh, it's gonna be fun!

What if YOU could make Oprah or Martha money working part time from home doing what you wanted every day? Would you do it? Would you do it if it took ten years? I'll let you know how it feels (although I'm already happier than a man's got a right to be in this day and age, it has been suggested to me--by powers beyond my understanding--that it's gonna get much much better. From three times [better than I was] to five times! Or maybe it was by a factor of 5. Either way you slice it it's lots and lots. Especially if you consider that I was diagnosed with severe chronic depression while I was writing T-LA [and suffered it for years and years].)

Plus it's snowing here in Chicago and it looks beautiful! Absolute magic in the house!! Getting tree this weekend and the Chicago clan will be over to decorate and eat dinner on Sunday. This is what it's all about. Can't wait til it's my house, my tree, and I've got a family of my own to add to the mix. I've waited a hell of a long time for this. I had friends making millions back in the 90s. Even the quasi-professional ones got houses a couple years ago. You will hear me roar, I guarantee it.

Double Luv,

E

ps: Just bought all my internet real estate! I'm poaching on a few more that should expire next year. Ya gotta have the dope domain names!

(follow up 12/21--Talked to him and he gave me the email of the person to talk to. Didn't exactly give a whit, tho. May be less "big pic." than I thought.)

"For every tree is known by his own fruit."

Hi All. There is nothing I'd like more today than to rip into some aggregious ignorance I see circulating all around me in the public sphere, but that would bust my flow—and relegate my chosen calling, making love and love-filled products, to second fiddle.

So. It's off with the cultural critic hat and instead of busting that nut, I'm going to re-absorb this energy (dying to come out as hate and well-justified spew, by the way) up into something loving. Something that my kids can swing from. I trust in god enough that the hate and bile that I'd like to respond to is punishment enough for the people making it their life. If their way of life doesn't work, then it can't thrive long-term.

I'm not going to church at the moment, feeling it a bit detached, lacking faith, and spiritually arrogant, but I'm still compelled to open the bible on this one:

"For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit."

On the way to that one (in Luke 6), there's the classic, first quoted to me by my friend Dave Primmer (over at Primco), who I think got it from James Joyce (and props for even attempting that guy):

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but percievest not the beam [2x4] that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.

"[Tree thing here]...

"For every tree is known by his own fruit."

Off to make some music.

Basquiat was a King

I am a Love Artist.

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WhiteG.com

The Ne Plus Ultra!

Here's an article I was hoping someone'd pay me for. I'm gonna give it to y'all for free. The first part's about how I came to believe that capitalism could save the world. The second is about the transition we're undergoing from a primarily material world to a primarily spiritual one. It's long. I value your attention. SWAK, E

For the Love of Money—Creativity, control and how capitalism will save the world from itself.

When I learned in high school that money was based on fiduciary, and that fiduciary meant trust I couldn’t believe it. How could such a warm and fuzzy concept be at the core of such a gnarly subject? My experiences with procuring money already felt much more like the ultimate in deceit and manipulation (on both sides—to be fair) than anything resembling trust.

However, I kept at it and have come to understand. (What a wonderful thing to say I believe!) If you travel deep enough—into the nebulously powerful realm of the all-one—you find, indeed, that money is love. And love money. Given that only love exists, how could it be otherwise?

But touchy-feelies like that and $3.50 will get you a latte. It’s one thing to sit around and opine, it’s quite another to walk around all day both feeding yourself and feeling love. What interests me is how the hell we’re going to evolve spiritually without crashing the world economy. And visa-versa of course.

Before I start, let me confess that I’m no expert. I have not run numbers for twelve years to prove my theorems. Neither am I a guru. I don’t have an MBA. If you like these ideas, please do like Leadbelly told Woody Guthrie and rip me off—doing so will make them yours and absolve me. I'm not your—or anyone else's daddy (not yet anyway).

What I present is more like photographs from disparate sectors of knowledge—ones that usually don’t talk much. Or even like each other. I may have drawn in a few parts that looked like they met but to my great delight it appears that ideas about love and economics are finding each other at last.

If you breathe deep and squint it’s possible to see the flowering of a unified theory that involves both our creation and our consumption, our spiritual desires and our material needs. And the quickest way to get there is through what we want.

I come from a line of frustrated artists—men who were largely seen as wonderful and talented despite their disinterest in any serious breadwinning. I think we had had money too long and knew it didn’t really work. I inherited from my father an impulse to quit the economy and mull things over as soon as our stomachs were full.

None of us, however, had made the jump. Had provided for our self both materially and spiritually. By the time I was in my mid-twenties I had quit painting and hated everything for the simple fact that the world was impossible. I saw no way to both live as I wanted personally and how I wanted materially. So why bother. Fuck it.

But I also had nothing else to do. So when I lost my main client after building a successful design firm in the 90s, I decided to give up—I would do nothing until I either ran out of money or came up with something worthwhile to do. I would test the world—see if it was real, right now love or just later on, retirement love.

I ended up dreaming up a book—or the title for one anyway. The Love Artist. And although I was certain I had neither the time, talent, nor money to complete such a project, I worked daily to remain true to my promise. Some days yielded a couple pages while others yielded a walk around downtown and a meal I was sure I couldn't afford.

Luckily, my belief was unnecessary for the project’s success.

What was necessary, however, was the continued suspension of my disbelief. A process that felt like death stuck on repeat. But first I learned to crawl, then I learned to walk. I found miraculous people and beauty along the way. Spaced just far enough apart that I couldn’t rely on them. I was desperate for someone to follow.

Along the way I read Ayn Rand—and wondered why she smoked. I shopped at the co-op and watched the checker hold my meat like rotting flesh. I wondered why my favorite restaurants all went out of business. And how the hell love could not be ridiculously valuable given that I couldn’t find any anywhere.

I wrote poems entitled “A love letter to black people” and listened to the Wu-Tang. I learned how to take naps when the rent was overdue. And I slowly realized that I had disbelieved and critiqued everything but disbelief and critique themselves. And that I really, really wanted money.

Somewhere in this process I started to get my leg up on a vision of a modern, global indigenous people—of us. A world with boutique juice bars made heady and rich by monks paid to meditate in the corner. A world where you were authentic by virtue of your birth. And your desires, traditions and mores were accordingly holy.

I began to see rich white people paying for the privilege of communing with un-rich, non-white people. Of those with money (material success) paying to feel soul (spiritual success). And those with soul paying to feel money.

I began to see Armani as the neighborhood tailor (though I prefer Vestimenta). Church’s $500 wingtips as the cost of modern, Western cottage industry—and resoleable at that. And my Whole Foods as the mom and pop corner store.

I began to see a modern global economy based on the best goods and services from around our neighborhoods and around the world. What if, instead of buying three sofas on our way to the one we lived with forever we went straight there? Wouldn’t that let our friend Seth build sofas like he always talks about? Grow the economy and save trees?

What if we really believed? What if we believed in belief? Paid for belief? Shopped and created with radical faith! What if we refused to flinch when our greatest fears reared their ugly heads? What if we refused to acknowledge any fears at all? What if the way to belief was just to believe? To lead ourselves there kicking and screaming?

As I enacted my new vision I found the fire burned out once I got where I wanted. Once I had the damn pants, or shelf, or phone I really, really wanted I didn’t really care about pants, or shelves, or phones any more. It was the half steps—the knock-offs and facsimiles—that left me hungry and crying for more. Still thinking about phones even after the kill.

It took a while to figure out what I really wanted. But once I did I was done. I went through five styles of shoes and three styles of pants and have barely cared about either since. All the fashion and change and square toes dropped away. What I really wanted was eternal. In gorgeous, resplendent color. And expensive.

There was always a part of me that knew exactly what I wanted and kept thinking about it until I got it. Kept meditating and really cared. It wasn’t until I accepted this that I realized how much work and shopping, how much waste and raw materials, I had gone through just to allow myself to consider buying the best camera, the bike I really wanted, the one guitar.

But I also found that most of my artist friends were making counter-culture safe products—ones with built-in ugliness, darkness, awkwardness, and discomfort. Victim artistry. Primarily nostalgia and kiddie shit. We'll show the big mean corporate scum/our parents how absured they have made the world. Art as a political statement, a teenager's pouty glare. None of these was I willing to pay real money for. I also couldn't believe that this is what they really, really wanted to bring into the world.

When grunge succeeded and all the artists ran off, I knew the counter-culture was dead once and for all.

For Seth to get the price he wanted for that sofa, he was going to have to lose the corner and bumpy green fabric. Only penny-pinching hipsters wanted that shit. (To look at, ironically—for those who have disavowed appearances). He would have to commune with the norms, go pop, want something, gasp—sell out.

When I started, in each case I started off more mass-produced, factory-built, safe, counter-culture/hip and cheap; and ended up more hand-made, beautiful, traditional, colorful, exquisite and pricey. A severe shock to my politics at the time. But what if the cost of people building what they really love and what lasts and what will be cherished and passed down was other people paying for it? Wasn’t I making the most beauty and value I could? Didn't I want to trade for the best?

But money is the root of all evil, every religious and most spiritual traditions told me. A church of the poor. All spiritual teachers (except perhaps the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh) have disdained it. It’s harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven.

Sure there were some white new agers talking about prosperity but they had a vested self-interest. And seemed a bit flakey and made bad art. Their idea of success seemed to be more workshop facilitators, self-help writers and inspirational speakers. What the fuck were we going to do once we got well? Once we actually healed? Couldn't we just skip all the handwringing and go straight to what we wanted? Wasn't the proof in the pudding? The solution in the process?

My favorite rappers certainly weren’t afraid of clocking cash money, that’s for sure, but the art form was split between them—the gangsters—and the so-called "conscious" backpackers. Wasn’t money gangster, ego, selfish, superficial?

Even closer to home were my people: the white counter-culture. Punk rock had saved my life but it so hated money that anyone charging above $8 for a show was suspect as not being down for the cause. Art should be democratic, available, for the kids, community. It barely even sang about sex. Ripped jeans, dirty shirts and thrift store shoes (and bad beer) were the truth, right? Ugly was true and beautiful was full of shit like a drunk cheerleader trying to be liked. Wasn’t I just a closet dandy?

But this question of value kept coming back in unexpected ways. I believed in radical freedom and expression in every other aspect of life—and that once the kinks and suppressed obsessions were gone it was gravy. If Freud was right, and civilization built on over-repressed desire, couldn’t we just relax? Do what we wanted? Why couldn’t we head straight into our material desires? Our hungers and sexual desires? Wouldn't everything just work itself out?

Or more exactly—with a god of love, why was there any difference?

It got me thinking, what if we just let everything go? How much money did we actually spend on security and control? Was it worth the return on investment? What the hell were we so afraid of? What would a world turned inside out look like? One where institutions and economies were built around belief instead of doubt?

What if our schools looked like libraries? Businesses like Kinko’s? What if our insistence on being different, or safe, or right had actually been the meditation that created difference, instability and mistakes? What if we just let it go? What if everyone knew what was right and found it if supported enough? What if artists, freed from the counter-culture's childish proscriptions, really did create value-ladened, lasting, inspirational goods, services, and content?

And what if that was exactly what our economy needed now—placed lovingly on top of a hard-won and scrappy but rock-solid foundation that fed, clothed and housed all of us with ridiculous ease?

What if the answer was to do what we wanted every minute? And never give a thought to that which irked, or troubled, or concerned? What if the way to the top—for everyone—was actually straight up? Without looking back? What if love really works? What if to get where we wanted we had to believe ruthlessly and lead ourselves?

Would this mean god was alive again after his much publicized death? Would this allow even the most brutally secular to believe—if god just did the work? Provided? And would it force the fundamentalists to embrace mystery or be left out of the largest spiritual gold rush ever known on earth?

All this was nice and good—when I could maintain the vision—but it certainly wasn’t paying the fucking bills. I couldn’t talk about it without pissing people off. And why even talk if everything is already perfect and getting more so? Why do anything? If freedom and love are winning and enough, if god's in charge and TCB why not just sit around enjoying love and freedom?

The answer, of course, was economics. Mine specifically. I had none. I was living on credit. Doubt-ridden or not it was time to re-enter the world and make some fucking scrilla. Plus I was hungry. For both people and stability. A plan that required both instability and solitude didn’t seem much fun.

So I started out to sell my book. Which offered little relief.

In my determination to make it real I hadn’t left much out. It didn’t help that the vision was to put myself, shirtless, on the cover. My heroes were hip-hop artists and R&B stars. If Al Green can, why can’t I? (You're white motherfucker!) So what if I was skinny and pale and looked like a writer?

I realized that no white men got on the covers of their own books until they were dead. And that punk rockers were allowed to go shirtless in drunk crowds long after dark. —Then sober, in the morning while still alive aught to pretty much be the answer. My friend Charles laughed at me as I picked him up to take the photo.

Then came the problem of pricing. I had been rejected by every publisher I had sought out and so was putting The Love Artist out myself. Under the imprint White Gold. I decided that as it was real—as I had avoided the deadly (and boring) white irony of my peers—it was worth at least $120 to their $14. Anticipating market resistance, I settled at $40.

And I found it—market resistance that is.

So I set off to find a job. It had been years since I had had one but somehow I had managed to pay the rent and eat multiple times a day since my meager initial funds had run out. It wasn’t always pretty but it happened. The universe had taken care of me. My question now—and a very personal one at that—was how much belief is enough?

Originally I thought I’d consult—tell business owners how to better deliver the new world where customers demanded love at every turn.

But what should I say? I now believed—in almost everything. Did I follow the old eastern adage and go back to carrying water and chopping wood? Was this planet not yet ready for believers at work? If so, how much should I drop? Is the spiritual realm disconnected from what we are here to do all day every day? Just the thought made me unhappy.

It turns out I didn’t know any business owners who were interested in being told what to do (big surprise). I knew that customers were demanding real life—that they didn’t feel any different about shopping than they did about sitting in a café or going to a yoga class. But the business owners who knew that didn’t need help.

So I tried to go back to design—even though it had triggered my demise years before. I couldn’t find any work doing that either. It felt like the world had moved out from under me—and I no longer quite fit. I had actually gotten to a point where I thought I would be unemployable if I went any further and pressed on but not eating wasn’t really an option. I had sunk $40K into putting my book out and I couldn't even get it reviewed, let alone carried.

So I applied to non-profit work, where they promised to work me overtime for meager pay. I’ve always loved being around kids but felt I had more to offer. Plus, now that I believed the kids were perfect—or close anyway—it was the rest of us that needed help! Why teach them how to contort instead of straightening the system?

Money, money, money. MONAAY!. I even had a dream telling me all I cared about was money (after I applied for a particularly lucrative non-profit job, ironically enough). I knew money was key, but where to put it in my value system in relationship to belief was a huge, persistent, crippling exhausting question.

And so back and forth I went like a saw—or like sewing together a gash. As I write this I actually haven’t found anything more than sporadic work—painting houses, building patios, some design here and there, but I do know the answer. I'll give it out down below. For free to you. Just for paying attention.

Eventually, I moved in with my mom to save money. God bless you mom. And as I started to recuperate as I joined a gym and started doing sit-ups and pull-downs, I found myself researching management and creativity—giving myself what I call my Border’s MBA. What I found flipped my lid.

It turned out that business had come full circle right under my nose. It wasn’t exactly human—or even humane—but it talked about it incessantly. The most respected, most cutting edge business writers were talking about an economy of “intangibles” (read creativity, relationships, trust, love, belief).

And intangibles were turning the management pyramid upside down, managers were talking about cultivating individual strengths, supporting individuals. About employee happiness as the largest single indicator of growing profits—whether they had a best friend and did what they liked every day at work. What the..!?!!

Maybe, just maybe, money was trust after all. And we'd just taken a long, hard road to figure it out.

And these guys had numbers! I most definitely did not have numbers. Intangibles I had—in spades, tangibles I did not.

I found a book called Emotional Branding and met with the author, Daryl Travis. His assertion (translated by me) was that all a company had to identify itself was, get this—a feeling—and with material competition growing our economy was quickly becoming one where all that really mattered—to make money—was, could it be?—love!?

He didn’t have any work for me or know anyone who would be good to talk with but he did say that the spiritual economy I was talking about seemed right on.

At this point I was alternately dancing a jig and convinced of my own insanity. Boardrooms delivering love? I worked up a PowerPoint presentation along these lines and sent it out to a few friends—nuts and bolts people, consultants and managers in charge of millions of dollars in various fields—guys who had numbers.

And to my surprise, none of them flinched. They told me to tone it down a bit (‘don’t use the word “spiritual”, it’ll make HR think about religious discrimination lawsuits—try “abstract”, or “intuitive”’)—but no one told me I was a flake. In fact they said other people (at PriceWaterhouse Cooper) were approaching them with similar ideas.

It was either some advertising exec.’s crass final solution or an unbelievable gift from on high. I couldn’t figure out which one. I wanted it to be true, but I had wanted a lot of things to be true that just plain old weren’t. What if by saying money was love I was actually becoming the exact thing I was trying to avoid.

There were definitely people—writers—who were taking this route to boost sales in existing products. Talking about an emotional connection as a way to more deeply manipulate buyers—reinforce the economic status quo. But in a sense I saw their efforts as futile—like China’s efforts to contain the internet.

Once you unleash love, it has its own very certain values. Once a person knows what they want, you can't sell them somethign else.

And I agreed—and understood that Starbucks would not be long for this world unless they could deliver the individual, idiosyncratic, charming love of my favorite coffee shops. (R.I.P. Puss Puss Café and The Green Cat.) People were getting more conscious, more demanding, and there was more money looking for profits all the time. There were coffeeshops everywhere. The independent/corporate arguement was moot to the new generation. The winner? Whoever could deliver.

True love franchised around the world was just a matter of time.

I began to talk to managers at my favorite businesses. Why was everyone at Potbelly Sandwiches so blatantly happy all the time? It felt the opposite of Subway. "—We pay them more,” said the manger. And let them write on each other with Sharpies during the lunch rush from what I could see.

This was not your grandmother’s “we’re-having-fun-now, dammit” fun either—as a former marketing professional I have a ridiculously fine-tuned antenna for that—this was good old-fashioned “what-the-hell’s-going-on?” fun. This was unmanaged. And unmanageable. Someone was managing for the unmanageable.

Which brings me to Christmas.

I was still looking for work—and wondering at what point you just give up on pursuing that which you don’t really love and do whatever the hell it takes. I had gotten a few design jobs but they sure felt like the old economy to me. But I didn’t even have rent to pay and I was still living off credit cards—surely this was no time for more belief.

(I had already flopped one new small business venture off the side and had been looking for work for close to five years).
And then it happened. I heard it. The final nail. Wal-Mart’s sales were off. A number of the analysts blamed their failure to advertise but a third raised an even more interesting specter: that people were no longer flat broke—and having no desire to be associated with Wal-Mart—had simply up and gone to Sears.

They had treated Wal-Mart like it treats employees and suppliers—like a two-bit ho. And right when she needed it most—when the convention was in town and rent was due. The whole thing played out in my mind like a modern The Christmas Carol. But that was just a fairy tale, right? It wasn’t the way of the world. Ho, ho, ho.

I started thinking again.

What if we are transparent? What if what we do and how we do it is exactly how and what people do to us? In business as well as on the weekends? What if you couldn’t fake value ever? What if everyone knew everything?

What if control and manipulation didn’t actually pay? In the long run, of course—but what if we’re almost there? What if all people—businessmen and Wal-Mart shoppers alike—simply want more expensive, more hand-crafted, higher quality goods; responsible, honest and trustworthy service; and inspired, enlightened content?

What if in making these goods the higher priced materials afforded less waste? What if while providing more skilled and creative labor, workers need more relaxation and autonomy? What if once computers, TVs, stereos and phones are flat, wireless, and did everything, people bought a lot less of them?

What if we all bought junk because nothing else existed? Or thought it was what we deserved? What if kids acted up and screwed around because they knew there was nothing good waiting for them? What if adults replaced intimate relationships with products because work left them exhausted and stiff?

And—and possibly most exciting—what if, with the absolute proliferation of immaculate goods and services, people got bored with them and finally got down to the unbelievably green, enlightened, enlightening, inspirational and enjoyable business of building a mature, conscious, vital, real and fun popular culture?

What if?

And what if that spread freedom and democracy worldwide?

What if this inspiration economy valued individual, cultural and geographic strengths while balancing financial power between the owners of the delivery system and the alchemists of soul? What if it valued people creating what they love and automated the management, production and distribution systems?

What if it did more with less and held “intangibles” as it’s highest value. Paid for them!

What if this economy—as it had already mastered the physical sphere—grew exponentially faster and was exponentially more powerful than the old one?

And what if upon doing what they love, people became less afraid of each other and came together more often to live, work and play? What if this spurred a massive move to new enlightened urban areas? What if this led to less fuel consumption, higher density and more shared housing? What if more productive workers had more time?

What if youth culture was only one fifth of our entire culture? And even less of our economy as kids didn’t have as much disposable income?

What if free trade zones extended around the globe? What if borders were opened in Asia and the Americas like they have been in Europe? What if the whole world figured out that people were so valuable alive and doing commerce that it rebuilt all war-torn areas like the US did Europe and Japan after World War II?

What if we just let go and it all worked out?

What if all this were already happening and no one believed it?

What if it had taken us all this time just to get to this point?

And what if all you had to do to join this movement was do what you want? Like The Spice Girls said: “What you really, really want!”

Create what you want, buy what you want, live how you want.

What if it were all the same thing?




A Bit of Theoretical Framework—for the Smart Ones out There

I believe that we’re in transition between two fundamental ways of seeing the world. These two worlds are not in opposition, as some believe, but they do have significant, distinct features. I apologize up front for my sweeping generalizations and broad brush strokes but I know you’re smart enough to see what I’m getting at without me sweating the details.

I also know that you don’t want me to bore you. For more details you can visit my blog at: www.ebencarlson.com. The “math” does work out.

For the last millennium, humans have been primarily concerned with the material world. And rightly so. Life has been—and for many continues to be—nasty, brutish and short. Human experience in the past has been characterized by conflict, injustice and hunger.

Over the last fifty years, however, we have begun to see our intense and determined work pay off. More of the world than ever is free, fed and engaged in a meaningful way in the power structure of their society. Unless the momentum of this movement is radically altered by a force we cannot conceive of or implodes under its own excess, it will continue to grow and spread.

During this last fifty years we have also seen the emergence of a new way of looking at the world. This perspective is much more spiritual in nature and can be associated with unfettered creativity, human potential, justice, self-expression, health and wellness, and a host of other attributes that are less tangible . If the first world is concerned with the quantitative, this one is concerned with the qualitative.

In economic terms, this switch has seen us go from trade in raw materials to trade in finished products to trade in information and will eventually find us trading primarily (most valuably) in ideas. With a larger, more automated machine able to wring value from more sources, the most important resource will be high quality ideas.

This is already happening across the board. The examples I mentioned in the last section are but a few examples of what might be the largest economic shift in the last few thousand years. (Ever?) The reason that Wal-mart will eventually fail as a system is that it allows no room for any qualitative content. No room for love.

One of the most interesting features of this shift is that inspiration is replacing motivation as the primary force of growth. Though this sounds simple the implications are enormous.

Motive force is based on friction. One thing pushes another and motion results. A car may be the clearest example of this. Without any friction on the tires, in the engine, and at every point along the chain of movement, the system fails and motion is impossible. The word control could replace friction in many of these examples.

Motive force is a wonderful and reliable way to move, however it has significant drawbacks as a way to understand the world. In a factory it is indispensable, however, using it as a management tool works for some people in some cases but also has drastic limitations. For one, the more it is used, the less effective it often becomes.

Inspiration, associated with force in the qualitative world, is based on attraction, or magnetism. In this system, friction retards the process and it often becomes more effective the more often it is applied to a given system. Also, and importantly, there is less wear and/or down time required between applications.

Think of the extreme example of a horse. Under a system of motivation, to move the horse, one might use either food, a whip, or a horse of the opposite sex. But applied constantly, all of these methods would lose their impact. If one could tap into whatever inspires horses to run, though—it would run as well as it could as long as it could.

Another word that is easily applied to the realm of inspiration is support.

When applied to the consumer market, these factors can be more fully understood.
The perfect product in the quantitative, material economy is an addictive substance—one that can be cheaply mass-produced and where use necessitates more consumption. The drawback is that these types of products have an increasing down time between consumption. And eventually both deplete natural resources and impair the ability of the consumer to consume.

In the qualitative or creative paradigm, the perfect product is inspirational content. This has the benefit of being able to be broadcast worldwide and consumed by millions of people simultaneously. Consumption makes the producer more valuable instantly. The consumer is often immediately ready for more.

It is easy to think of these examples in terms of relationships. As the inspired product or relationship uses as little friction as possible it is more gentle on the recipient and can actually improve well-being. The addictive product or relationship, while it may deliver the desired feelings effectively, takes a much greater toll.

For the sake of ease, I’ll refer to these two worlds as the material and the spiritual, or the material and the creative. They are essentially the same way to say two different things. The first uses doubt to quantify and learn about the known world. The second uses belief or faith to assign quality and feelings to the unknown.

To refer to the combination of the both—which I believe is what the future holds for us all—I’ll use the term quantum economy or quantum culture. By this I mean that, like light, we will live with access to two distinct, seemingly exclusive states of being. We’ll live as both particles and waves.

From what I can tell the most effective viewpoint is one that can juggle these two perspectives on the fly. For many tasks and relationships, the wait and see skepticism of the material world will remain effective and even necessary. If you try to impact the world too broadly through faith or creativity alone you will find your impact diluted.

However, since fewer and fewer people will be employed with the production of goods and services in a mechanistic, strictly material manner, the qualities of control and quantification will become less necessary in society in general and therefore less valuable.

On the other hand, if your primary relationships—to yourself, your partners, and the world—are based on anything other than a resounding, emphatic and faithful yes then life may very well seem pale and difficult. From what I can tell growth will be the process of finding people, companies and ideas worth granting access to the realm of our unconditional support and belief.

As the world continues to change around us (and in us), I believe that unconditional support will inspire more and more individuals. As it stands now, though, even many who are attracted to the faith that this brings flip-flop back and forth between belief when they can get it and a rabid disbelief when they feel they can’t.

As the emerging paradigm is completely voluntary it will be populated by individuals who have taken complete responsibility for their life. Both financially and emotionally. Freedom truly is a discipline. It’s a discipline of yes but it’s a discipline nonetheless.

The emergence of this quantum culture has profound and far-reaching implications for just about every facet of our existence.


Take your time

One of the most important features of this transition we’re undergoing isn’t money or even love—it’s our relationship to time. Which informs the core of our feelings and ideas about faith, belief and love. Whether we feel in time or out of time—even more than what we are doing—is whether we feel good. Whether we feel god.

In the material economy—plenty of which will stick with us, by the way—the harvest is valued. People are hungry and need to eat. The efficient harvest of time becomes crucial to people’s success and survival. Our hunger compels us to up and at ’em. This has kept us alive and allowed us to thrive for generations.

No small feat.

In the spiritual economy, growth is valued. As ideas grow exponentially, it is often valuable to let them marinate. And although they can go bad and lose their value, even plowing ideas under for fertilizer is of great value. As the harvest takes time and ends a cycle, it can slow the process.

In the Western tradition I would suggest we emphasize being present with an eye on the material economy—keep it moving and watch out for sloth. From what I know of the Eastern tradition, I would suggest that it emphasizes being present with an eye to the spiritual economy—stay relaxed and don’t worry about the illusion.

And while both of these traditions—and their apparent opposition—have brought us unfathomable value (and unspeakable horror), I think that ultimately, like light, we are quantum—both spiritual and material beings. And that to thrive we must have the tools, knowledge and mastery of both the material and spiritual at our disposal.

Which brings us to desire.

Whether you approach the present from the Western tradition of engaging the world or the Eastern tradition of releasing it, you will find yourself rife with desire. Both traditions have strong viewpoints about which desires to listen to and which to ignore. I believe we are quantum beings—and are meant to handle ’em all.

It’s not that desire will save our life—but that desire is our life. Only by being ourselves (which I would argue we can’t not do) can we feel what we think of as being saved—or reaching nirvana. If you’ve seen the movie Siddhartha you’ll remember that he not only dropped out but also dropped back in.

Luckily, with his and many other great teacher’s offerings, we need not wait until we’re old and tired to find the peace we seek.

Desire both inspires us and teaches us. A candle is a wonderful reminder that the whole world is beautiful. And that our natural state is to radiate warmth, beauty, and productive energy. But if we fail to see it as a symbolic reference, more than likely its beauty will overwhelm us and we’ll try to touch it. Ouch!

This is what all desire is. Something to get us up and moving—to inspire us—and a reminder that being ourselves is really all we want, can excel at, and is all there really is. As we grow into greater wealth of experience—intimacy, prosperity, artistic creation, communion, etc.—we must be stronger to remain ourself.

But there’s no reason not to deny ourselves. One of my personal inspirations is a 15th Century Japanese monk named Ikkyu. Ikkyu became enlightened and alternated running the monastery, drinking with the fishermen down in the village, and enjoying the sensual company of his blind girlfriend. Then wrote poems about it all.

As we move into the quantum economy we’ll find a lot more of this: Dalai Lamas partnering with Trumps. Much of the relative growth will skew Lama, but the Trump side will remain the critical foundation on which everything rests—eventually relaxing into the values of the spiritual economy as material security spreads.

Put another way—as our material survival becomes less of a question, spiritual values will be adapted voluntarily across the board. Some may revert to material values should they be faced with material shortage, but as spiritual values are infinitely more enjoyable, this seems to me unlikely.

Organizations and individuals will compete to deliver love around the world.

Spiritual competition? Oh yes! Anyone who thinks the world’s artists and religions aren’t competing to see who can go deepest, stay down longest, and come up purest is a fool. As long as we are in time, everything has direction—and therefore value. Every artist, leader, and saint worth mentioning is doing their best to win.

Being spiritual, though, this competition is significantly distinct from the material competition we know more intimately. Spiritual competition leverages relaxation, cooperation, love, understanding, caring—everything it can get its hands on. It also uses hard work, individual achievement, icy resolve and ignoring.

It uses anything it wants.

I have no doubt that there are ridiculously valuable and beautiful thoughts—along the lines or Van Gogh’s Starry Night or E=mc2 perhaps—that take ten years to think. And that humanity is littered with them. Under our current set up they are likely either rotting on the vine or plucked green and sugared to taste.

Someone out there has been thinking about something every day for years but can’t quite get the time to put it all together. They want to but aren’t sure. Luckily, every ignored true desire grows brighter. If not you someone will grab it.
Its getting more valuable every minute.

And there may be still another more exciting feature to this paradigm shift. It may transform our very personal relationships.
In the material world humans are essentially receptive organisms. We learn and absorb and once we have the tools, knowledge and framework to build something we do. Our unique strengths may help us but are differences are just as likely to be a stumbling block.

In the spiritual world, humans are primarily (broadcasting). We have the tools, knowledge and framework (we are ourselves) and our unique strengths and characteristics are our currency. What makes us valuable. They are what we have to share with others.

Material competition always culls—leaves certain people out after judging on a standard (developed by those in charge). From preschool to university, millions of us are being told we are not worthy of our dreams every year. Even more often in the workplace.

Material competition is an exclusive affair. Luckily all it’s protecting is money and privilege—the power structure’s way of doing things. Which is a beautiful way to get yourself bread. But almost certain to retard your spiritual development.

Spiritual competition, having broader aims, is an inclusive affair. And if it isn’t then it isn’t spiritual. If it isn’t the communion (with both self and community) goes missing. To compete spiritually, quite simply, one needs the idiosyncrasy and reality of non-homogenized, non-similar beings. Just as artists need to constantly venture outside themselves (or deeper in). Either way the spiritual depends upon the unknown for success. White needs black. Black needs white. Etc.

Right now, finding ourselves at the end of a massive material undertaking (developing the systems, practices and methods that will sustain us materially for the foreseeable future) we find ourselves wrung out, irritable, lonely and disconnected.

We are literally divided against ourselves. And must be to survive. Our brain must send out constant messages to the feet to keep marching. But under our very feet—person by person, whether we admit it or not—we are passing the point where material scarcity has any real relevance in our lives.

When you decide to admit this, our economy and culture will reflect this shift.


Placing the laws of attraction first in our lives has radical and far-reaching effects. While the spiritual values of compassion and acceptance have been emphasized and spread broadly over the last 50 years, one that hasn’t found as much appeal is discernment.

In the bible, upon describing the last days, it is warned that many imposters will arise claiming to be the messiah. Symbolically this represents the thin lines of demarcation that separate the truth (for us) from everything else. While many choices may be above reproach or have no discernable flaws, the penultimate choice (the one we hunger to experience, whether or not it scares the shit out of us) will always come with a feeling—a positive condition instead of simply the lack of any negatives.

To have a culture of inspiration we will have to have great powers of discernment. We will have to embrace that which we love for no other reason than we love it. What we love may appear superficial. It may appear shallow. We may not know the reasons we are choosing it. It may appear self-centered. It may appear any way at all. But we must choose it. To do otherwise is to worship death and decay.

Speaking of Buddhism, we have as much to learn from Donald Trump as we do from the Dalai Lama. If Donald Trump (or Jack Welch) was the head of Tibetan Buddhism, China would have had a serious fight on it’s hands. There is no reason why a spiritual tradition cannot protect itself. Cannot feed and clothe its people in a modern economy. Cannot protect its women and children from rape and starvation.

This is different than Christianity’s crusades—which seem to me to have been offensive. If the West can’t stop, then the East can’t start. Each is a half-truth.

And our job is to discern the truth.

Truth?

Everyone lives and dies by their own truth. Even if that truth is that there is no truth. It is imperative to the development of culture, human rights, and our spirituality that this truth is acknowledged. Whether or not there is an ultimate truth—we each live each moment as if there were! And whether you lie down, start negotiating or take up the sword in the face of perceived evil, you are creating a world based entirely around your truth. And everyone who comes after you will be forced to deal with your choice.

So much for staying out of the way. To those inclined to drop out (cause they're too smart, too pretty or whatever) I say drop the fuck in. Bring it. The time is ripe for those bold enough to make a stand.

The key to understand the difference between the material world’s choices and the spiritual world’s choices are the words judgment and discernment. Good judgment is what works in the traditional sphere—business, school, skiing in the backcountry, etc. Judgment is taking in the available options and weighing each of them. A bridge will support X number of pounds and to violate that number is folly.

While judgment works very well in our relationship to the outside world—it’s effectiveness with ourselves and other people is severely limited. In the quantities it is found today it is often toxic. Judgment is no way to life ourselves or our mates (or both) into a higher, more enjoyable realm of relationship.

What the personal/creative/inner/spiritual world relies upon instead of judgment is discernment. If with judgment, all options except the best are wrong—and the most desirable option contains the least objectionable attributes—with discernment, all options but that chosen are simply less preferable. And the chosen is specifically, engagingly preferable. What we want. And because we want it.

We are not used to making decisions like this. “I felt like it” and “I wanted to” are seen as a child’s excuses. One of the reasons we enjoy such little of their joy.

This way of seeing has enormous benefits. Although the largest difficulty in switching from the material to the spiritual mentally may be finding a way to grow without having anything to push off of. Growth in the spiritual realm is much more likely to be a feeling of being pulled—of wanting to—than of being pushed.

A note though: studies in the workplace find that too much positivity is as detrimental as too much negativity. This isn’t a la-di-da-di world but one where the emphasis has been fundamentally switched. The study found that if 13 positive comments to one critical seemed to yield the best results.

It will always be of value to bust through and give the god’s honest truth.

Change happens in miraculous ways.

A point worth emphasizing is that living successfully in this spiritual world requires full and radical acceptance of personal responsibility! Whatever your choices, you must take the full brunt of the outcome. Once you step into this world, the safety net of both traditional culture and its counter-culture counterpart are gone. You make decisions on your own, are beholden to no one. Are free to ask for help and negotiate whatever you can. But are radically accountable to god/the universe/the results/what is/etc.

It is for this reason, I believe, the spiritual world will be a completely voluntary affair. A utopia similar to what Marx described will come about, but it will be (as he said) after a prolonged construction of a material base. And completely voluntary. Quite simply we will pay and risk all we have to gain entry, and gain everything as a reward (as the bible says). Those who aren’t interested will hang out in the material world until they tire of it or until entry into spiritual culture becomes second nature. In a very concrete way, every person that braves the gap makes it easier for those that follow.


Questions

The questions I’m still interested in are: what would a school, a business, society, a culture, a family look like that operated on a 13/1 ratio of supportive to critical?

In the material world we doubt our ability to survive (for great reason in the past) and when the going gets tough we tighten the screws. Confidence is what we call those who can endure the ridicule, doubt and torment of the taskmaster—either internal or external. This has produced fantastic results for years.

However, as our minds and culture become saturated with the critical thought, it by definition becomes less valuable. And even toxic. Our opportunity is to turn this ship around—our mission to do it without trying to make the master craftsmen and women who build it wrong.

It’s a beautiful ship in many, many ways. It affords the most freedom, spiritual diversity, material security, and loving, full relationships of any ship ever built. It spreads freedom and democracy as well as access to power as a matter of course. It inspires dreams of economic self-determination and autonomy around the world.

But in the emerging spiritual economy, the taskmaster is decidedly counter-productive. Both internally and externally it yields too much fear and despondence for anyone to operate at his or her creative potential. And it is only by operating with increasing creative freedom and power that we will grow the economy.

And have enough time to have the relationships we want. And live with the level of inspiration we demand. At the level of material sophistication and comfort we already enjoy. Etc, etc, etc.

One of the crucial aspects of this emerging paradigm is to treat every decision as if it were an investment. At first this can seem tiresome and slow. It may be, but what is even more certain is that it is the only way to take full responsibility for the world in which we live.

Having tried each individually—we now find that we must save the world for both ourselves and others simultaneously.
We must focus our desires and interests into a laser-like tractor beam and both create and draw toward us that which we love and wish to encourage in the world around us. While ignoring just about everything else.

The challenging part of maintaining this focus is that it can seem elitist. And indeed it can be if undertaken with the wrong understanding. The key is to draw from the whole world—allow everything that crosses your sight to be fully considered. The difference is, of course, that you focus ruthlessly on merit—what works.

What works will be in relationship to what you are interested in creating and how you are interested in living. It will most likely be one thing—that will require both enormous sacrifices, serious humility, and a certainty of focus reminiscent of the world’s great artists.

And it may not look pretty from the outside. It may scare people. But it will be beautiful. And the only possibility for you.
It will likely take attributes from many, many sources. A hybrid. It will resonate with years and years of cultural understanding. And it may make huge money—eventually. I can’t wait to see it. To feel it.


Love

The area where t