Get a Love Artist

I feel like I'm learning something deep. How to let go on a fundamental level. Second to second.

It's strange, to get to where I am, I feel like I had to digest/figure everything out. And now that I'm here, I feel like it's time to drop it all. A pattern that I've seen a few times.

This last year was about preparing for battle. I had dreams where I was at war, shooting people, fighting, ripping people apart. I had dreams that I was a football player and had to train all week for one day of concerted, focused effort. I had dreams that people I was working with were teaching me how to box.

And at the same time, I was moving my center from my head down. (And strengthening my left side and relaxing my right). And when I got to my backside, the anger was palpable. There was some old shit up in there. So I kicked and screamed and worked it on out.

Now I want to enjoy everything. I'm not interested in knowing that the counter-culture is dead and rotting and this or that is coming next. I'm not interested in knowing what people's certain jeans treatment implies. Or the fact that they wear gray and black most of the time.

(Can you smell it almost starting up?) Gotta drop it. I'm interested in being that which is next. Being that which is happening, lovingly, and lovely-ly, right now. Like a crazy guy who beamed onto the smoldering battlefield and had no idea everyone had been fighting--for good reason.

I'm glad that almost eveyone in society is expected to care about culture and express themselves with clothing, music and what they do and how they live. I'm glad that people feel free to get tattoos, crazed hair (how old do I sound now?), get macked, wear ripped jeans, make a million dollars, do anything. That's a first. And good old-fashioned progress.

My question to myself is why would anyone else doing anything they wanted to do--including not buying my book, yelling at me (not that many do), threatening me (ibid.), cutting me off in traffic, ignoring me at the gym (same)--let alone the more obtuse and gentle things that I routinely hold against people in my head--why would anyone doing anything they wanted to do ever cause me to become less of who I am? To do something that I didn't want to do? Even if it wasn't really, really what they wanted to do. Especially if it wasn't something they really, really wanted to do.

Why wouldn't I just be the motherfucker I am? And want to be? Ruthlessly, effortlessly, skippingly? Why wouldn't my response to everything be yes?

Not that the words coming out of my mouth would be yes. But it's easy enough to say yes to saying no. (Henry Miller had a great paragraph somewhere where he figured out the same thing. That the answer to everything is yes. I figure out the same thing writing The Love Artist, and have gotten there to differing degrees at various times in my life. What I'm talking about now is the permanent, unfadeable yes. Doesn't it have to eventually happen. That we believe? That we understand? That we say yes and thank you, thank you, thank you! Even if just because it's gotten us exactly here. AND WE"RE EXACTLY HERE?! Isn't it inevitable that all our pondering and thinking, our experimentation, lead us to that which we exactly want? How could it be otherwise? This is it! This is what we have. What we are. And it's permanent. Even if a bunch of it is superficially change--novelty.)

Is there ever a good reason for me to bust my own flow? Even if it could "save the world" in the future, or in five minutes? Do the ends justify the means like that? Do they ever? Isn't that what the Nazis were all about? Haven't we conclusively proven that it's all means?

My whole thing has been that if we really get into what we want that it works. On a fundamental, essential level. Not the I don't wan't to get out of bed level. (Although, if it's that strong, try it out. Especially if you feel afraid of it.) My theory, and experience, has always been that if you don't want to get out of bed, there's probably another, deeper, more engaged want that has already gone unloved. Been ignored. Like I want to make a movie (and don't think I can). I want to cut a record (I'm afraid/can't sing). I want to paint (don't have time or room). I want to start an internet company.

So, what do I want to do? I want to learn how to use this music studio that I've built and cut a record. I want to be happy in the face of shit like black people. I want to win results and handle my business like white people. I want to feel close and relaxed--playful--with family. I want to find true love and put everything I've learned into practice. I want intimacy.

I want to enjoy myself. I want to glide through transitions large and small. I want to continue growing at a rate that makes looking in the rearview mirror increasingly unappealing. And I want to feel like I feel right now through it all.

I can't believe how much I've grown in the last year. In the last three makes it incomprehensible. Five years ago I don't even know myself without overtly thinking about it. Beyond that I need pictures.

I'm coming to build an essential enjooyment of what's happening. (Could take out that extra o, but I'm enjoying that too.) And it's getting deeper. Rooted in my whole being. Something that I could take onstage and just let go. Take downtown and feel. Bring to the ghetto--white or black.

For a while it was a throat laugh. Then a chest laugh. Then a belly enjoyment. Now I'm working on the whole enchelada. Tip to toe real-time acceptance, love, encouragemen adn enjoymentt. Not necessarily in words, but physically, energetically, intention-ally.

Why is there ever a reason not to believe in someone? Can anyone ever truly threaten us beyond making us believe that they threaten us? It's all already happening, is it too much to expect us to be able to process, enjoy and love it all real-time?

I'm gonna find me a love artist. And then be one right beside her. It's gonna be dope.