2007 Warm Up

I must have had some of this stuff bottled up, so let's keep going.

If you've been reading along, you'll know that I've been on a belief bender. I'm starting to see just how powerful our beliefs--even those that we are not conscious of--are. Maybe even especially those that we are not conscious of.

Which is all fine and good when you're hanging with the new age crowd. But what about the scientists? What about the traders, bankers and brokers? What about the folks who call that touchy-feely? (A decent band by the way--The Feelies).

I'm reading a book right now that speaks exactly to that question. It's written by a scientist who sciences science. Like I'd like to think I doubted doubt.

He throws out any unprovable assumption--and science has plenty--and feels comfortable delving into the heart of the matter. The book is called Punk Science.

The second law of thermodynamics--that entropy rules--turns out it's only true for non-living things. Living things are basically miracles of order and spontaneous creation. Of mysterious genesis. And require incredible amounts of organization and energy to both come into being and maintain themselves.

And the whole life arose by accident in a pool hit by lightening somewhere? A lot of scientist think that that's bunk too. And many have spent a lot of time and energy trying to recreate it (something that supposedly happened randomly, naturally) with no results.

He talks about mutation as well, which I found facinating. We were all tought that mutations are random and if you're lucky you'll get one that allows you to survive better to a new environment etc.. Well it turns out the may not be random at all. First off there are certain "hot spots" along your DNA where they are most likely to occur, and second they may not be as disconnected from the environment, as random, as once thought.

He tells of an experiment that put bacteria in an environment that contained only lactose for food. This bacteria ordinarily cannot digest lactose, a sugar. The traditional thinking was that a mutation to allow this bacteria (a form of E. coli) to digest lactose should be as common in a control group as in the group immersed in the lactose rich environment. It wasn't. The mutation was more common in the lactose-rich group.

The last thing I found interesting was that science has long thought that DNA was like the master-controller for a cell--that the info for each cell and its "instructions" were inside of it. But recent experiments are starting to show that cells respond very actively to their environments and that messenger agents in the blood can determine what goes on inside the cell.

Which begs the question--so who, or what controlls what's going on in the cell? If our genes, our DNA isn't determining if we'll get cancer, have blood disease, etc., then what is?

We are.

What the cells are responding to are messages from the brain. Levels of adrenaline, hormones, and many other juices and substances that determine how we feel, how safe we are, how relaxed we are, how suitable the conditions are for us to grow and be nurtured.

I'm not saying that we are completely self-determined (yet, although if I knew you better and sat down to discuss the matter I would probably say that even our physical pre-determined attributes were self-chosen at some point, in some manner). But I would suggest that we have yet to scratch the surface with how powerful our minds are, our consciousness is.

And if this is true for our physical body, why would it be any different for our physical surroundings? If, in this universe, a cell surounded by a liquid, separated by a semi-permeable membrane, is responding to everything around it--and in some cases (that of brain cells), literally determining the liveability, the comfort level of the environment, the happiness of the related cells--then why would we humans, surrounded by whatever we choose to surround ourselves with (and whatever comes by), separated by a semi-permeable membrane (our skin), not be subject to the same process? Why would we not be creating and recreating according to our beliefs?

My point is that our beliefs--those thoughts that we have thought so many times that we now take them for granted--and use them to describe the world that originally inspired them--can determine our health, our prosperity, our love success, our happiness and contentedness. Dictate the environment in which we ask ourselves to live and grow.

Yes, we're all born into an environment that SEEMS to be out of our control, or not of our exact choosing (though I would probably argue that it is on a very real level), but it is our choice to either re-create that or make an entirely new one. And our beliefs radically inform how both our micro and macro environments feel--and if they are suitable for growth and living. Or barely suited for survival.

And I don't mean this like "Think and Grow Rich". I don't mean to brainwash yourself for success on a financial level--although I am certain that when you are operating with complete faith about your happiness on a spiritual level that you will be radically valuable to this world in many ways.

I mean it to have you, and me, wake up Monday morning excited about what we get to do that day, and week. I mean it to position you in a love that should be overwhelming, so thorough it is, but instead feels just like the normal order of things.

I mean that we should be sure that the universe wants us to be happy spiritually--today--and that financial stability normally follows from that.

[And I should note that I've spent years with the belief that if I just had a little more money, I 'd then have time to be and do who I truly was. This path never worked for me, and I found that the more I looked at money as a necessary evil, or work as something I hated that would buy my later freedom, I became more and more depressed. I now believe, fervently, that joy, freedom, justice, god any ourselves are all firmly rooted in the present.]

[I should also note that it took me 10 years of brutal financial conditions to arrive at this belief. Just because we think it once doesn't mean it's a belief and will sustain us or pay dues. We must take constant action using this faith as the basis for our decisions. Then, like a right handed basketball player practicing lay-ups lefty, it will gradually start to bear fruit. You will be taken care of during the process, and I personally come out of this period with some significant debt, but also a much greater standard of living, a better car, better clothes, more cashmere, and better health. But it will also ask that you be willing to pay, and in some cases to actually pay everything you have--spiritually, financially, emotionally, mentally and physically.]

But back to the good news. And with more people going through this process it may be getting easier. It may only take a short while--I'm not in charge of it--the important thing in my opinion is to go long and deep enough through whatever travails that trevails no longer phase me. Experience enough panic that it ceases to hold any interest as a response.

--Experience enough of fear's harvest that we give up on it all together. Which is hard to do without plowing through a whole darn bunch of it. At least if you grew up with as much of it as I did.

Back to the good news, though. That health, happiness and order is the normal order of life. And that we can live in a place where love and good feeling--where warmth--is the baseline. And prosperity is a byproduct of doing what you love. And true love a byproduct of being completely yourself. And just get better from there.

This is what this science is telling us. It's telling us that if we allow ourselves to live in concert with the larger consciousness of the universe--if we allow ourselves to be cells influenced by the big brain and body, and send on similarly ordered and positive/true messages--both energetic and spoken--to our cells and to our environment then we can recreate a living condition of god within us and right here.

A simple example. Say we're hungry and don't have any food in the house. We don't have much money in our bank either and so don't feel like going out to eat either. So we have to go to the store and then cook, which means that dinner is at least an hour away.

Do we tell ourselves the truth in this moment? Do we tell ourselves that this has happened millions of times before--hundreds of times to us alone--and it has come out okay almost every single one? Do we tell ourselves that even in the cases that it didn't come out okay, there could have been extenuating circumstances? Do we tell ourselves that our family has been fed three times a day, every day for however long that has been true?

Do we mention that the last time we went out to eat in this same condition that rebate check for $20 showed up the next week anyway? Or the friend we called ended up treating?

Or do we go straight to hell? Does the world become an unliveable place within five minutes? AND you should have never become an artist, moved to Tucson with your girlfriend, married your ex--whatever.

And what a miracle that we can even thing all those things--go all the way there--and end up back in relaxation and contenedness after dinner even though our default beliefs, our responses in important times, are programmed to contradict the natural, ordered, sustaining, healthy universe.

Just imagine what it wil be like when our deepest belief is in love as the source. When we relax straight back to it at the first sign of dis-ease. When we let go as a way of attracting more and labor to share our gifts appropriately.

Happy New Year. I'm going to be early because I know next year is going to be chock-full of goodness.

My resolutions--god willing--make more and more steady money, buy my own place, make more and more universally enjoyable music, meet the woman of the rest of my life.

Amen.

Is It the Shoes?

Okay, I was writing from a tired place so I had to take a nap. I should be able to bring it with the half-full now.

I've been having dreams about cross-country races recently and I figured out what that was today. It's me swinging (as fast as I can) to the other world that's right in front of us. The world of being, right brainedness, feeling--the world of half-full.

The world of constant blessings and overwhelming gratitude.

I was at the gym today and I remembered how much I love basketball. There's nothing like jumping back a little and letting it fly with a full follow through and watching it hit the net. Except maybe great love. And like great love, a great shot makes you want to take another. And another.

Which is only a problem is you've got 40 year old knees.

The world of being, which we inhabit, but I'd say don't fully enjoy as a tribe, is about coming from the center. About having your spring wound and just springing a little of it at a time. And winding it down more--returning to your center even more essentially--before you give any more of it up.

I personally would associate this form of being more essentially (although certainly not exclusively) with: the back (especially the lower), the lower half of your body, more sexiness, more immediacy, feeling, the great unknown, belief, letting go, and a whole range of other manifestations. Including, probably women and black folks, although I don't feel particularly credentialed to speak for or about them, being decidedly male and white.

It's also important to note that I don't think that this mode is more important, more holy or more valuable than the left brain's rationality--the dominant mode of expression and understanding in the Western world that I inhabit. I myself wouldn't choose to live a minute with much worse-built cars, more wasteful and expensive distribution systems, more erroneous accounting, less rule of law.

But I do think we have to have one be dominant--be the primary mode that we make decision from. And from what I can discern, that mode--the bigger, the more vital mode is the spiritual, the Eastern, the feminine, the abstract. It took me a long time to admit this, and my hand was basically forced on the matter, (and I still think the male, the Western, the concrete, and the rational are of extreme importance and value), but that is my current thinking. My current being.

And I make that viewpoint concrete by lifting weights and correcting my posture.

And, perhaps most important of all. Breathing in before I breathe out. Breathing in on the one and out on the two. And thinking as background or last resort. NOT, I repeat, not, as I was born to do: thinking/judging/knowing on the one, breathing out on the two and breathing in as a last resort.

I got there pretty good today. At the gym all my challenges come together. I'm under physical duress, possibly tired, maybe a little self-conscious, and surrounded by mirrors. Everyone is trying, and we all have our successes and shortcomings. My inclination is to create a pecking order and work my way up it.

But I really don't love this way of being. And in a very real sense, I know that's just what control wants us to all do. I used to think love wanted me to go up and talk to everyone, but I think it just wants me to be--not in control--and go from there.

Over the last few years I've worked my way up from totally skinny and insecure to feeling comfortable in the free weight room and doing my thing. I no longer look like I showed up yesterday most likely.

But part of my strength has manifested itself as "above" strength. Or "apart" strength. Part of me has taken on the folk on the gym who may or may not be about pecking order--on their terms. Which probably aren't even necessarily "their" terms, just the background ether and testosterone.

For a while, this was probably helpful. When I first got to the gym I was so hungry that I would have probably tried to be best friends with half the people there. Which can be quite difficult to maintain when you go three times a week and each session is punctuated with a set of repetitions every 30 seconds or so.

And in the case of women, downright distracting and weird, as I learned when the one woman I asked out there ended up becoming a trainer.

But this is one reason why I don't disparage the ego--it has lots of helpful and protective aspects to it.

It's just no way to live.

Plus, when you're constantly sizing people up, gathering information and forming opinions, you realize you're spending an awful lot of time with folks you may not even know--time not being yourself, away from love and devaluing your own stock. Not to mention looking more con-stern-ated all the time.

And this all may have even been necessary when I had wack shoes, but now that I have dope shoes, it just feels/looks/is corny.

--That sure sounds superficial.

And I am. I'm everything. I'm superficial and deep. And have plenty of mid-range too. I think that if you're aligned, it's banging on all fronts. I think it should be visible from a block away--to those who'll never even know ya. And powerfully whisper quiet and beyond inspiring to those who know you best.

I think it should be beautiful. It should look like the best. It should feel like the best, smell the best, and taste the best. And maybe not be the most eye-catching, but reward endlessly upon continued inspection and daily reflection.

I say this because for years and years I thought that my worst fear was true: that there was no way that I had enough authority to know who I should love. That what I was attracted to, what I wanted, was unholy, wrong. And that somewhere, somehow, some committee, some group of more than one, that wasn't comprised entirely of white men (as I was), some community process knew what was right for me, the individual.

This fear had me split right down the middle. And love, in my belief, was instant and guaranteed pain because it was either wanting what was wrong for you or holding your nose and eating what was "good" for you.

[And I should note here that I eat what's "good" for me to an extent that many seem to find extreme. Including broccoli, quinoa and ground beef pretty much every morning for breakfast. In fact, one of my deep seated fears when I started to get healthy was that the nature of love reflected the nature of food--that is what you liked most to eat was what was worst for you. And that real love wasn't a down and dirty, grind it our affair but something to be appreciated like some damn Art History class I took in college.]

I don't want to appreciate anything. I want to love the things I love, and feel them, and I'll do whatever is necessary, discipline-wise, to make that a solid and lasting reality.

What I've come to find, after eating a largely restricted diet for years; drinking primarily triple process filtered water; going to bed early; giving up caffeine, alcohol and sugar--including honey and most fruit sugar; and plunging forward into emotional, personal and career risk after risk; is that this just may be the price of entry to live a life unbounded by normal conventions. Conventions like work sucks, everyone feels this way on Monday morning; like no one has time for making love after a baby/two years/they get married. Conventions like life is hard. Like weekend nights are fun and the rest is so-so.

These type of disciplines (and there are other significant ones that I employ) may actually be the foundation for the type of life that we think of rock stars as living. (And if you've ever spent any time with rock stars, you know that the likelihood that they are feeling this type of life, however they're living, are slim.

I'm sure this is starting to sound a little arrogant, especially because I'm getting into comparisons, but I do have one more point to make. When I gave up cocaine, when I gave up alcohol, when I gave up smoking and sugar, an income, and pretty much all the things I gave up, I never stopped looking for the feeling, for the state of being that I was looking for when I had bleached hair, four piercings, a chain wallet and a 40 ouncer of Country Club in my hand.

Or the time I took ecstasy with four beautiful women and ended up at their place on someone's bed (you'll have to read The Love Artist book for more details, but I promise it doesn't hold a candle to real life).

I never stopped looking for what I was looking for, I was just able, by will or grace, to keep discarding the promising things that didn't work. And I threw out a lot. More than I wanted to, certainly. I went kicking and screaming. The last thing I wanted to be was alone.

And if I have found anything, and if what I have found every feeds me, it is because I have applied this method ruthlessly. What works stays, what doesn't gets axed. And even very truthy things--the bible, a great self-help book, a dream, whatever--have a part that will contaminate the whole--for you--if you don't slice it out. Even the best guru will only be 89% right for you in the end.

Because you're the truth. You're 100%, and even having access to all the information we have access to, there's going to be something missing if there isn't a radical, whole, probably "difficult" part of you up in there. (You can read "difficult" as something that will get your ass kicked out of the ashram/church/scene/club.)

But today I got past all of this and just felt it all. It really is a miracle we're alive. Even the guys flexing at the gym. And the guy parked in the middle of the street (belatedly).

And I got to this point, as I was mentioning before, because I was wearing my shoes.

My pink and red shoes.

Which make my gym outfit complete.

And I'm not sure I've gotten there as easily before--because I wasn't wearing my shoes. Wasn't 100% committed to bringing to bear exactly what I want on this earth.

Was shorting my shot. And so needed someone to blame.

Now the question is am I ready? Am I there just to say I'm there, or am I there and ready to play?

The Richest People on the Planet

The Sunday evening of the year.

That's where we are. The question being--do you go to sleep early in anticipation of a great Monday or stay up and twist yourself out trying to grasp a little extra weekend?

I gave a copy of my book to a guy at my gym. He's a multi-published writer about four or five books into paying his dues to New York. Has the same agent as some of the heaviest currently practicing writers. Guys who get on Oprah and don't show up--like that. 60s big name standards.

He liked it. A great deal. And said his agent wouldn't even have time to read it (though she'd probably love it, he said). Nor would any of his press contacts.

Which brings us to my point exactly: we're too busy to make a decent culture (he has largely shelved his personal literary ambitions to succeed in the literary world). And too proud/whatever to pay for one to be created for us. The true cost.

It's not a matter of ability, or desire, but of belief. We don't believe that this world is possible.

So it's not.

It's as simple as that.

We're the most powerful people on the planet. And what we say goes. And we are skeptical.

So we get skepticism. Literally live in it. And make choices based on it. And so get more.

But this is a fact I spit out. Because that's what it deserves. Not that doubt hasn't served us very well. I myself have been the grateful beneficiary of many of it's gifts. It's just that I'm at the point where any doubt I need will almost follow me around like a perpetual motion machine. So intrinsic is it to my being.

But it's not even time. Because he holds it in his hand and can't believe. Knows his agent--who got into publishing, I am certain, for the absolute love and joy of it all--wouldn't even read it.

We can't see it until we believe it can exist. And then. of course, it's on.

I've been thinking very brief thoughts about this connection for a while. The average American spent over 140 days last year consuming media of various forms. But I'm sure the bulk of that was by people who have a bit more time than my intended audience.

I'm starting to think--no feel--that time and belief are radically connected. If we believe, we have time right? If we believe, then every moment is a gift. Something to be savored. And I'm getting there.

I realize that my de fault position to the universe is no. And that once in a while I'm overwhelmed by a preponderance of evidence to yes.

Growing up I learned somewhere that knowing who was bad and or wrong would save the world. Know the right politics, the right companies, the right people and the right knowledge and things will be better.

But that assumed that huge swaths of the world were wrong--a fact the became more glaring to me than any rightness. Certainly than any feeling of right.

Now I find that it's my "knowledge of what is right"--or even what could be better, that is holding me back. It's the fraternity members I thought were so whatever in college. It's the jocks, the ditzes, the scrubs.

I want to believe everything and everyone. Maybe not like they want to be believed, I don't think I'm at risk of being someone's patsy, but believe that they are. That they're right--for them--essentially--even if they themselves don't believe that.

I want to operate from a foundation of possibility and the positive. Have that as my fall back position. My neutral. My wake up.

For example, today. I was driving back from the gym, having achieved this viewpoint and able to hold it and was driving when a car appeared parked in the middle of my lane. I immediately went to "what the...?", but when I looked at it rationally (not even emotionally or spiritually) I realized that I had no where to go as the light just past the guy was red. Why didn't I wait to see if my travel was really affected before I jumped? If it wasn't a blessing in disguise.

Why wasn't I marveling that I was driving at all--in a great car with orderly and tidy traffic. That I had Friday off enough to be at the gym until 2pm?

What would be enough for me to see what was instead of what wasn't?

Dinosaurs

Read an interesting thing about dinosaurs and it got me thinking.

What if we have our own emotional and ideological--belief--dinosaurs? Big, honking modes of reasoning that we base our action on that get so commonplace and so big that their failure is all but doomed by any change in the landscape.

This could be a long-standing belief or even a new one that one is trying to "get into" and thus gets a little overzealous in application.

Or it could just be one that has served its usefulness and is slated for extinction.

I know I've got a bunch of those. For as chipper as I can be, there's still some damn "struggling/starving/misunderstood" artiste in there somewhere. I still don't expect/live instant overnight, magic change. Or even expect a paycheck after years of toil. The delivery of the promised goods.

Here's the deal. You work night and day for years. You pay your dues. You blood, sweat and tears. Give up half the stuff you love and most of what you "like" for that which you will not live without.

And nothing happens.

Wash, rinse, repeat. Ten years goes by.

At some point you start to develop a dual mentality. Do the work, get more real, progress--whatever--get more yourself--and then go about your life. Eat, pay your bills, put your shoes on, etc.

But if you're really going for it. And I get enough comments at the gym on my pink and red shoes (and all red outfits)--and I know myself well enough--that I know I'm not shorting myself, but do I wake up certain that a payoff commensurate with the work I've put in is at hand?

That the world must bend to my will if I'm right? That if I go deeper and bring back the invaluable new, it must eventually be valued?

Uh, no.

Do I work certain that it will come? Pretty much--and if I look back a year, or even six months and apply the same rate of growth for the next five years, everything I want seems unavoidable. It's just a matter of dotting the Is.

But how do I let go of this "don't have enough" time/money/energy/love thing? Cause as I understand it, that's the last dinosaur that's keeping my ass in the Paleolithic era. And how can I be certain that what I'm doing is right and inevitable--and WILL MANIFEST--when the most certain thing about it, for me, so far, is it's stubborn refusal to produce even a trickle of negotiable fiduciary.

I guess it's a matter of bringing my ordinary, strong and daily faith up a few notches. To a cosmic, "certainty of love, every momentarily, the truth IS and must be" faith.

To blast whatever last pockets of doubt in myself and my surroundings with certain and compassionate care and attention. Or loving ignoring. If that's what love is at the minute. Then I guess it wouldn't even matter if anything every happened anyway. So content and joyful I'd be.

[Related note: approaching ourselves with a more certain compassion may be helpful--for as I see it a lot of this stuff is just, as my cousin says "a set-up"--not our or anyone's fault, but just the quickest and most certain way we'll learn what we want to learn--mainly to not let the cavity creeps get us down from what I can tell. How can you learn that without, at least for various periods and in certain ways, armadas of cavity creeps trying your last nerve? Sometimes you get in a car crash because you're messing around in your life and not paying attention. And sometimes it's to get you a new car. My point is that god/the universe forgives and loves us in ways more powerful (and faster, more effective) than we do ourselves. We then become the brake--out of fear.]

I'm so ready to walk upright, have fire, and make tools I could spit. Buy property. My own house. Apartment even. Lord help me if I get laid--or go on a date and have a beautiful woman put her arm around me. It'll take a minute to remember that that's normal.

It's not like I'm some wierdo who lives with his mom. Yeah, I live with my mom, and, yeah, my freak flag is where it is--and relaxedly unbudging (even if you're a corporate lawyer, honey). But I'm alive like I never even expected. And content like I never even knew you could feel--or existed. Full and focused.

Maybe you don't have to do anything for your dinosaurs to die off. But let em go.

It may be a little strange to wake up one day and never refer to yourself, even jokingly, as a caveman again, but it also appears certain to me that that day comes for everyone at some point.

Just a Quick Note

I'm staying alert and getting lots of good info.

1) I think that I became more sensitive as a young person in an attempt to feel people who may have been close to me who were more reserved than I would have liked. It has served me well in some respects, but in others it's definitely time to go.

The irony will not be lost on me if, after years and years of struggling financially and longing for relationships (while I wrote my book, "found" myself, etc.), things come together for me after I give those feelings to myself--after I cease to feel doubtful about them. (And thus stopp doing all the running around this fear led me to do--the fearful running around that is widely believed to get us these things.)

If this is the case, then does a business succeed (or love appear) after we've done the work because the work physically needed to be done? OR, is it more accurate to say that because we now have a more advanced belief and attitude about the business, or love, or whatever--more confidence, a byproduct of the work--that the stuff we wanted all along--desperately at first and eventually faithfully--magically appears?

Because we're now ready to handle it. Because now we know what it's worth. Because now not having it won't kill us. Because we grew into it and are much less likely to make a crutch out of the thing.

I'm leaning toward the latter, and I don't know if I could have skipped any of the work, but if it's really just a case of getting the right attitude/emotional state, then I'll be damned if I'm every going to lay brick patios again. Or fight with jerk-off business owners. I'd rather just cover my ass, take no shorts, and faithfully lift whatever is necessary whenever it's necessary--no matter how tired or hungry or lonely I am--from the start. Never be afraid of getting left, going broke, failing.

Or going all in.

And I'm happy to do the work it takes to maintain that perspective.

BECAUSE--and don't let me forget this, lord--I have seen that it is so much easier to believe from the start. That going straight to it no matter what, no matter how weak I feel or how strong I believe the "them"s of my life, the easiest way is always to stay present and deal with it now. Even if that dealing with it now is saying can we talk about this next Tuesday.

If I'm right and our beliefs do dictate our world to a greater degree than our physical realities, then if we think or even feel that we need to please people for them to stick around, or get a rise out of them, then we're going to find people who fit the bill and fall for them, guaranteed. Because we want to learn the opposite.

And that's a long row to hoe when we could have just not sold ourselves out in the first place.

2) I'm finding that a huge amount of it has to do with how we hold ourselves. Even at the gym, I find it easier to do the same exercises (with more weight) that avoid the places that really need attention than to do the same exercise properly (with less weight). It would seem, then, that I essentially have hidden certain things--beliefs, ideas, feelings--in my body so that I don't have to be conscious of them.

And they know how to stay out of the way, too. Places I can't see. Things I'd never even notice if I didn't watch how I walk--or whatever. Gnarly, ugly, weak, old shit.

The map to our own freedom is embedded in each and every one of our bodies. What works for us and what we need is mirrored all around us. And the results are always beautiful.

I approach waking life a little bit like I approach a dream. I look for clues. Things that resonate. Symbols. Correlations. Suggestions. Things that seem "charged" for me, for whatever reason. And I pay attention to my favorites, things that "get" to me, etc. If something didn't have anything to do with me, chances are, I wouldn't feel one way or another about it.

The trick, though, is not to take the symbolism too literally or seriously. They're loving clues, as much as we can handle at a give time. And all meant in fun--hard enough as it is to believe--by a higher power that is essentially such pure joy that he/she/it can't stand to see us short ourselves. Or take any nonsense. (Or blow any of our love dishing any out).

If all this is also true, I'm sure you've figured out by now, then future generations, having grown up and been inculturated in a society that knows all this, and has already done this work, will consume and create what they want almost effortlessly. (Figuring it out--what they want--may still take some doing). But the hard stuff will have been done. Like mining and logging and managing and banking. If your ancestors did any of those things (or all), then it's likely that you're on to other pursuits. The basics having been handled. We've got huge cities going all winter without anyone every having to go forage for firewood every day. Or get water from the river to cook or clean. There's no reason the same thing isn't true emotionally and spiritually.

--Or even more so.

White Gold Worth Billions

I believe I'm feeling what the new age folks called "magnetizing". After a million years of writing my book (with no job) and almost ten years of financial instability (to put it mildly) and a couple years of sporadic, often manual labor type work; a bit of selling on eBay; roughly five years of looking for work; a couple no-start businesses; and almost a year of working hand to mouth on a new business, I've either given up on caring, worked my way into faith about money, learned how to keep going or plain ole done the work, cause I don't have that dread about money any more.

For ages, as long as I can remember, I've approached money with dread. There was never enough, I always had way too much to do and not enough to do it securely. And I always needed something: food, rent, gas, or, more recently, some nicer duds, a professional recording studio, loan payment money.

What I never realized until about a month ago, was that I always had enough. Somehow I came out of this mickey fickey smelling like a rose. After a ten year walk-about that included a book, months of roaming aimlessly, many, many "lost" days, thousands of half-starts and/or half-baked ideas (did I really apply to be a waiter, or to run that non-profit not so many months ago?)--after all that (and probably more that I have gratefully forgotten) I somehow pop up feeling great. Happy (I started out, employed and suffering from moderate to severe depression).

I even have a better car, nicer sweaters, better shoes and more gear. I have a loan balance to match, but I've lost that perma-hungry feeling that permeated me. So deep that I didn't even realize it was there. Like the smell of your own house.

When I signed up (with myself) to be a love artist, I didn't realize exactly what I was getting into. I thought it'd be cool (at the time I still believed in cool), and play to my strengths as a nice person. Little did I know it would break me down and rebuild me the way it wanted me to be.

I thought I knew and could pimp. I didn't know, and didn't want to pimp.

And the only way to lose that urge for control is to have it ripped from your grasp. I certainly couldn't drink enough herbal tea fast enough to relax it out of me. (And I drink a lot of herbal tea). Though I certainly tried.

It's a total cliche but I thought I knew what was going on. And not only didn't I, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to be in charge. Responsible. But it felt like death to mind my own business. Go after my own happiness. Leave it.

At the gym this morning I was reminded of a wise friend's assertation that love was the greatest addiction. And a corresponding dream that had him with his teeth falling out. Love isn't the greatest addiction, but what we most want, the only thing worth fighting or dying for, and so sacred that we'll do just about anything to keep from facing the real thing.

I wrote in The Love Artist that more men have sold out for women than money and power combined. I also wrote that the most dangerous thing is the woman who's 60% right (for you)--because you'll stay forever.

Our lives, in my view, are exactly calculated to make us men. If/when we dodge the truth we may escape some turmoil, some toil, some sweat, but we also remain that much more a boy until we go dredge that sucker up--or, more likely, it comes calling and we decide to dodge or face it again.

My other thought this morning is how to gauge which of the various images that we hold of ourselves are real and which ar to be overcome. I'm sure we've all had the feeling of looking in the mirror and saying--damn, it's happening. That's a good looking guy (physically but also metaphysically, career-wise, etc.--I believe all these views and how we view ourselves are related but that's another day).

And at other times, we're a piece of grunt.

So a huge question, then, is which one are we? Especially because both feel so real and our choosing--what we believe about the world--becomes solid over time. (And etched in our faces and lodged in our bones).

Personally, I had already figured out that I had to be the higher of my two people. That come hook or crook, I was here to write a book and make music. I was 40 and it hadn't "happened" commercially yet, but it would and the was jusst the process. And I saw that that was exactly what it took to be the person that I wanted to be. I didn't want to be professional at making youth culture. I wanted to be wonderfully fresh at making adult culture. But that meant I had to be an adult FIRST. Before I got the love of the crowd. That meant I had to do it for no reason (external) until I was doing it for ALL reasons. And once I was solid at all reasons, magic would be upon it, etc.

That I COULDN'T, by my own desires and standards, be one day earlier than I am.

But with love, the confusion felt even deeper. Because it related to the above, personal equasion.

If I had the woman I was more attracted to (and I've dated her in the past while writing), she challenged me. And at times, questioned what I was doing. This was years ago, when my discipline and will were much smaller, but it still felt like it would be hard to maintain that relationship were I creating full time.

The other type of woman I've dated (and may god bless them all), I was less "crazy" about, still attracted to, but less magnetically. These women were more supportive of what I was doing but also had less power in the relationship. And were less serious, so had less at stake.

So is real love easier but less fulfilling? Another friend once told me that my wife is NOT going to be the best sex that I ever had. Is this true? Does a cooler flame burn longer? Or is it that we can't find the guts to brave the warmth we crave until we find ourselves? Or are we not strong enough (or don't think ourselves strong enough--same thing) to have it all for an extended period of time.

With love, my question again, is is it what we want when we're strong?, when we look in the mirror and say "damn, baby, yo got it going on; she's gonna feel you for real"? Or is it what we want when we want to be taken care of? Feel like we need protection? Want help but are feeling shy about asking for it, or have decided for whate4ver reason not to just give it to ourselves?

My current thinking is that we make ourselves men and become ourselves so that we can enjoy the first. And that the places where we felt it too hard or scary fall away as we muster the courage to confront them. That what we really, really want is actually safe--the only thing that is safe.

And that all the nonsense we surround ourselves with because we feel insecure, because we WANT to feel safe--be it security-minded relationships, careers, clothes, furniture, art, food, business, whatever--are actually the things that do us in and break us down.

I'm not saying that it won't take our whole life. In fact, that may be the whole thing. I'm not saying that it shows up immediately the first time you gather the courage to want it. But I am saying that it will make men of us, and it will result in a never even imagined sense of well-being and calm, provide the foundation on which immeasurable joy is not only possible but probable, and give us the tools to rock it all night: in the bedroom, in the boardroom, in the studio, walking downtown--wherever you do your thang!

Beeep.

Oh--and to finish my original thought, having gotten rid of 99% of this omni-present dread--the last Monday morning, right before the gym and awake alone in the middle of the night bits--I feel like there's a whole world that I can pull toward me with one two-hundred-and-ninety-third the energy it would take to try to chase it all down. I feel like I could get the love I want without becoming some sort of used car salesman (god bless them).

And it was hiding right here in front of my nose, right here inside me, the whole time. Waiting for me to fully integrate. Not as some sort of random, mean test, but so I'd be relaxed enough, strong enough, and happy enough to enjoy the mo-fo.

Cause it's gonna be bangin!

Magic and letting go vs. doing the work. Part 1432

Magic and letting go vs doing the work. Part 1432

I've been big on letting go for a minute here. And am seeing that you could be letting go even as you prepare for war. Not that I am, but I'm not sure that "letting go" is if you are active or not. Okay, it is, but it doens't imply inaction.

What it does imply is relaxation. And probably a radical acceptance. We really are supposed to enjoy all of this. I worked quite dilligently to feel that this morning (Monday) on my way to the gym. Interestingly, it was just as challenging to feel after I was done. Acing the transitions really is a sign of mastery. It's not the getting famous, the rocking her world, the lifting the barbell or singing the song, but how, when and why your return to just after.

Cause if we're really "there"/"here", there isn't a difference. Stuck in traffic or acing the test is the same if you're already happy.

But I'm also being told to lean back (like the Fat Joe song), which implies chilling out. Still walking but enjoying the movement of it. Being along for the ride. On every part. The getting up and brushing your teeth as well as the more sexy stuff.

This, I believe, has more to do with magnetism. Imagine a guy who's so hungry he's starving. He's lost all sense of decorum. Does the universe want to feed him? And, since he is the master of his own universe, does he believe he's closer than ever to getting fed? Not likely. Unless he's Job.

But that's what is required. I heard on ESPN today that Vince Young expects to win every time he goes on the field. Which, of course, goes a long way toward getting him there. Do we wake up expecting to have a great day? Expecting to find wonder and love and enjoyment along the way? And not thinking it, or even affermating it, expecting it. Like it was programmed in us.

Because we are programmed.

I'm working like a miner on the last bits of my programming. They're deep. I thought I was free of them because I had excavated the less deep stuff and thought it was horrific. This stuff wasn't that loud but felt scary. It was almost more insipid. And more physically implanted in my body. Lodged in places.

What if we are truly magic and it takes 10 years of brutal hard work to learn that on a fundamental enough level--after starting from a broken start--to realize it? I know I never thought it would be this much work. But I also don't care about the work anymore. And I'm getting into it. Which may be why it's time to lean back.

If we are magic--and science knows that at the very least we are made of light/energy and that our very observation--our devoted attention--changes the outcome of scientific experiments in unexplainable ways--if all this, then we are magic. And we are creators. Perpetual motion machines.

And if we are magic then what do we create? We must create what believe in. We must make and recreate according to our beliefs and actions. And as our actions are informed by our beliefs, then the beliefs is mostly it.

I'm not saying there's not a physical component to it. Obviously there is. (A side note: I believe that our physical bodies are the physical representation of our beliefs.) I'm just saying that our beliefs appear to be more fundamental than the physical--even though our teachers and almost every aspect of society (except for the better spiritual and religion stuff) tells us doggedly--in both form and content that the physical is superior to our beliefs.

And even when our religions get it right--like mine, Christianity--they still want to hang on the challenges of the physical for reasons of being cool and social control. They focus on Christ on the cross--his pain--rather than his ecstasy. His apartness rather than his togetherness. Religions have been used more than almost any politics as instruments of social control, and god bless them, but that doesn't always serve the truth necessarily.

And what are we capable of when our beliefs and our bodies are in harmony? Is Oprah a start? Is Barack Obama? It Trump? Axl Rose?

I believe they are, but I also believe they are tied to the old world in unnecessary ways. I think it's human nature to excel, but I think it's also possible--if you really forsake the physical, in ways that, god bless them, I don't think that any of these impressively talented people have--to do more with less. To get farther with fewer steps.

As the Dalai Lama said: we have too much to do to hurry.

To do it more essentially is essential. Someone valued at $300,000 a year doesn't do things ten times as fast as someone valued at $30,000. In fact, he or she probably brings more focus and attention to whatever he or she is looking at. This is breaking down as our economy and society goes off the skids, but the point is still valid.

The most beautiful thing in the history of the world is rapidly approaching. It is a time when the creative, the spiritual, will pay handsomely. Not the religious, like the middle ages (or now for some folks); not the famous; not the hardest working; not the most perfect; not the most educated; but those with the most flow.

The most unbreakable flow. Bulletproof flow. Flow to go.

Low flow.

We're still a bit too afraid to spend money on that which we can't take home--on ourselves--but we're getting there. We're rocketing toward it and by the time we see what it lovingly is, we'll no doubt contort out of pure fear and habit.

Because it is, after all, what we have wanted all along. And for whatever reason, ew still don't quite believe it true for ourselves. For our kids maybe, for future generations, for poor people, for good people, for other people. But not for us.

Yes, for us.

What we want.

All the time.

Everywhere.

Not a Krispy Kreme want but the thing the damn KK is covering up. Warmth in that place. Relaxation there. All the way down.

And all the way up.

_________

On another tip. I took a nice walk the other day. I've been walking a bit since I learned that half of my old beliefs seemed to be lodged in my hips (Hips Don't Lie). And since I realized that the gorilla drummer I wanted for my band was going to have to be me.

I was pondering my usuals--a couple of personal archetypes that I've studied around my own personal love styles for years. I go back and forth with amazing regularity. --Why they call it the dark night of the soul, by the way--cause you're going to learn how to see without your eyes.

Anyway, I realized that the answer must be what I want. That otherwise I would have no possible way to discern the truth. That it must be imbedded in my dna and love. Now it may take everything I've got to make it real--or me leaning way the hoonanny bck to magnetize hard enough for it all to manifest--but it's got to be what I want. There's no way I would have to think out things of this importance.

This is what The Love Artist is about, by the way. Is the truth--and by this I mean god's truth--ultimate reality--is it some cruel joke meant to shame us into worship (or anything), or is it what we've always wanted more than anything else in the universe.

And I'm being abstract, but I mean it very concretely. Is our love meant to be locked on to that which we care about (even if we have to remain present and eschew results to keep it so), or is it life more like an art history class--something we're supposed to appreciate because the somewhat cute, young professor from NYC told us to, and we'd rather be at a cocktail party with her than a frat party with our friends.

Are we supposed to feel it all the way, or is the best performance just meticulously phon-ed in, perfectly modulated, wearing the right pants and a bit luscious dans le weekend.

All of which you can boil down to--of course--how long is the sex that good?