The Last Yard

I should try to finish the post that I basically abandoned the other day. Maybe in my fatigue I have more clarity. Burn It Clean for you Mudhoney fans. My friend Robert told me the other day about Eugene O'Neil. After he spent 24 years being intellectual, respected, getting paid, and earning kudos, he was so spent that he couldn't write anything but that which he exactly wanted--that which he wanted to see. Putting it all on the line he wrote some of the greatest plays in American history. After he gave up on being a great playwright!

Anything you want to win you've got to be willing to lose. A Final Four game, your relationship, at love, songwriting, anything. Everything.

My point last time (a few days ago) was that being alive, and excelling is basically like fucking the world. If you can stare in the eye of that which you love more than anything and remain dedicated wholy to being yourself, then you are going to be very successful at whatever you attempt. If you can do it when everyone around you is getting excited, falling apart, crying, annoying you, or just doing their damn thing, then even more power to you.

The more tired we get. The more stressed or scared we get. The more excited we get, the more we crave collapse. To just get the sucker done with and give up. And the more easily we collapse, the less able we are to please those around us. (Essentially please--which can easily piss the hell out of them in the short term--not please them, kissing-their-ass, pleasing them). And feel the way we want to feel about ourselves.

The crucible where all of this comes together and cannot be faked is fucking. You can be as smart as you want, as cool as you want, as cute as you want, as talented as you want, etc. etc. etc., but if you ain't bringing it, how is anyone going to really feel you? Even if they want to? How are you going to feel yourself? And how could you ever separate the two? (Yes you will have to prioritize them--and I highly recommend it--but separate them at your own risk. The bottom line is you want to receive and give love--and can't live without either.)

I would go so far as to say that men fall into two catagories, those who shirk from the challenge and those who crave it. Those who have performance anxiety and those who want the ball. Most of us are 3-D enough to have both at various points.

This is not to say that if you're good in bed you've got it going on spiritually. There are plenty of people who hide behind sex and sexual prowess even. This is just to say that all this shit--and I mean all of it--is inter-related. Just like in The Alchemist. And the way you want to be is what you want--ripped abs and all--and getting there--the sit-ups--is what it's going to take to get there.

And there aren't any shortcuts or fronts. You can't fake value--ever. You may be able to manipulate people--or yourself--short-term, but you will never get over on God. Who is you. Even when you refuse to be. You may be forgiven (and you are), but the difficult part about that is that you have to feel grateful to assimilate the grace that you had and didn't have to work for. Which is almost as difficult as doing the work as far as I can tell. : ) Whooo whooo!

So I was saying that I was falling in love. Becoming incorporated. Getting into this being that folks have named Eben Carlson. Getting into being this being. Owning all that that indicates. Or something like that.

I find that he doesn't really dislike just about anyone. And that even making fun of people or scoffing at people in my head (which I have done copiously for years, mind you) doesn't do anything that I want. I don't want to see a lot of what goes on in the world, but upon closer examination almost none of it really threatens me. For what that's worth. I find I'm most happy when I'm focused on what I want. Or at the least free and clear of the cultural/personal critic that I can easily be.

My most challenging challenge, has of course, expelling the demons relating to myself--my own people.

There's a whole lot to learn in the reformed smoker motif. I find it easy to excuse, ignore, and even be amused by other people's shortcomings. And find myself most offended by people who are like me. Or maybe are like me ten minutes ago--or are me 10 minutes ago. For whatever reason, this segment of the populace has been the most difficult to embrace. My own people. My people. Me. Their neuroses cut to the quick. My neuroses. Are never novel. I know what they mean even when they, when we, when we are withholding the nasty stuff with every ounce of our being.

But a strange and wonderous thing started happening after I had stopped indulging these feelings. They stopped. The thoughts still come up and ask for attention (they've stopped demanding), but, eh, they pass. I guess I figured I couldn't be a true love artist until I had compassion for everyone--those in power included. Maybe those in power especially.

And even that I took from black folks.

Chalk it up. I hope they're cribbing from me as well, cause that's the only way we're going to keep this account balanced. I know I don't have enough time or energy to pay it back. Unless being human allows multiple realities to exist simultaneously--allows everything to get done at once--by doing that which you really, really want. By being who you really really want.

Once my own people don't repulse me, then I guess I'm back home, huh? Or close. I don't claim to be over anything, or incapable of anything in any given moment, but I am the person I want to be--both in the middle and on the edges. Through transitions, with hunger, stress, fatigue, whatever. As close to unfadeable as I've ever been. Through with cool and on to warm. Not that I don't get faded. Or even fade myself. Not that I'm not anything. Just that I'm mostly there. And solidly so. I pulled up camp and relocated, in a number of ways, maybe in every way, and now I can honestly say my calculations were spot on. And I get on my knees to thank the lord that they were. Because I made an incredible number of decisions while plumbing some the depths. While blind. While angry, alone and tired. And hungry and hurt.

Thank you.

I have no idea how it all came to be. Even though I've worked on nothing else for the last 10 years. I didn't think it was possible, I didn't think I could do it, I didn't think it existed and I had no reason to go toward it, there just wasn't anything else left to do.

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition.

ps; I've given up on any idea that "something else" will at some point happen. I happen whatever there is to happen right now. I'm not going anywhere. Anyone who wants can come over here, but I'm not going to go somewhere else into famous land, into rich artist land. If it wants me, and I believe it does, it's going to have to get off it's high horse and come over here.

Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus are you listening?