Subtle Energies

I'm starting to think that this is more about "subtle energies" than some kind of overt thought.

In other words, not what your brain is working to think, but what your body believes and is radiating. --Just like A Confederacy of Dunces--if your "valves" are open. Muscle memory and cell memory.

If this is right then you can't get over at all--can't sacrifice a couple unhappy hours and end up feeling richer next week. If this is right, it's pretty much all real-time.

Another interesting aspect of magnetism, or quantum attraction, is that there wouldn't really be any sort of "mistakes". You just get either more or less magnetized for something.

And the more magnetized you get the more likely you are to have it reach out and tap you on the shoulder--literally.

Which isn't a reason to never get off the couch--I think that one becomes demagnetized for what you really want just as quickly by not doing what you want as by doing something--focusing on something--you don't want to do.

But I may be wrong. I do know that if you are doing what you want, you shouldn't be afraid of missing something that is important to you. Because you won't. Getting focused is important, as is setting your priorities. And the rest will fall into place. --You'll meet them along the way.

An interesting anecdote:

When I first got to Chicago I set about looking for blue cashmere overcoats and nice brown leather coats.

I looked most places I went, but I have very particular tastes, bordering on exact, and I found nothing for the first couple months. (I was also looking on a "just moved, no job yet" budget--basically looking for a $1000 coat for under $50.)

Then a strange thing happened.

I started finding blue wool overcoats at my local thrift store.

First I found a nice wool one. Not exactly the right size, but close enough for government work. It was nicely made and in decent shape. Not soft, but hey, winter was coming. I did the numbers--one find every three months and snapped it up immediately. $25.

Then I found another one. A few weeks later. It was $50 but it was cashmere. A little worn in a few places but the cut was very nice. It wasn't a perfect cut for what I wanted (to wear it fitted without a coat underneath), but again I did the math--it was the first navy cashmere coat I had seen in months and months of looking. Winter was approaching and I had better act fast.

I snapped it up.

And then something really strange happened. You guessed it. An even better one. I don't remember if it was one or two more before I finished. But it arrived just in time for winter, was the cheapest cashmere one that I found ($35 I think), fit better than all the rest and was in better shape. I've worn it for a couple years now.

What I'm talking about is skipping the process. Is having faith that the exact one is out there. And that it's just getting better until you say "there couldn't possibly be a better one that this", and chow down.

And what if the universe is set up to operate like this?

The process for my leather coat went exactly the same, except there I ended up with a beautiful new one. (Two actually). Probably close to $2,000 in coats for around $200.

This has happened with countless other items since the coat thing. Sweaters, shoes, guitars--and that's just material items. I'm sure it happens even more significantly with people and relationships. Once we learn what we really want.

So what if it just looks like we have to hunt for the things we want? What if it just looks like we have to go out of ourselves? And in actuality, it is after we get over the fear, subdue the panic and emotionally "own" whatever it is we want that it arrives.

And all the "trouble", "problems" and "work" are just there to get us more rapidly to that point? Or are even created by ourselves to learn how to deal with them?

And by the way, I'm more sure than ever that premium priced mass culture is just around the corner. It can't not be. It's too obvious. There are too many people already paying $800 for a haircut. $2K for a sweater.

And they don't have any new ideas to base their designs on. They don't have a framework to live within. (Except that they're probably inching toward "punk" as the marrow of that gets homogenized--as they tease the radical content out of it).

And what we all want more than anything is a framework to live within. A culture.

Except that we don't feel we deserve one. Because we're still taking stock of what our growth and power has cost. And what we've ended up doing to other people to secure something that was at times and at other times not already safe.

But in so doing, we're still fucking with people. And they won't have any relief until we decide to mind our own business. Be ourselves. Be white. Be gold.

Cause our attention is a mother. Insecurity, adoration, kindness, and the need for control. We find it a little hard to be vulnerable. To listen. Even when we're ostensibly there to help.

But you can't go farther from yourself--name your books after foreign gods, practice yoga and learn Sanskrit, adapt TM practices, become punk or sing the blues--without intensifying in the part of you you won't deal with the longing for home. For the feeling of home.

And eventually, you'll do anything--whatever it takes--to get that feeling. No matter how "into" clubs you were, no matter how much you loved the culture of Northern Africa, no matter how deep you delved into Gamalon rituals. It all points straight back home.

And once you arrive back it might not be as sexy as the Nile Delta. It might not feel as exotic or lush. It might seem corny, or neurotic, or plain. It might seem white. Vanilla.

But rest assured, there's plenty of grist for the mill. Ain't no one going to get out unscathed. You'll be wrong at times. Fuck up at others.

--Just like your blues heroes. Just like Lee Scratch Perry and Timbaland! Just like Snoop!

And slowly, through reading books like The Love Artist, you'll develop a sense of an indigenous white culture. 2000 years after the fact. Yesterday. AND then TODAY!

And then right now.

And you'll scoff that you ever lived without it. That you ever for a moment thought you weren't worth it or couldn't afford it. When you were spending $1,700 a year at Starbucks getting nothing but farther from yourself. $974 a year at Ikea on stuff that immediately needed replacement.

$120 for a book that told you what was up? That showed you?!

That gave you the feeling?!!!?

And can do it again and again? That makes it come real in your life!

That was a fucking bargain!

And you can't believe you insisted on being such a tight ass. So faithless.

That you insisted it wasn't possible when it was right in front of your eyes for so long.

That your oldest two kids had parents that didn't know--didn't want to--because it seemed "weird". Or could have made you look like a fool.

You can disbelieve me if you like--and there will be more jam bands to come if you want to wait--but I guarantee that it can only happen like this. That you want to pay what it is worth. I can guarantee that you want to be a full consumer on this one.

Even though it might be scary. To go where no one has gone before.

It's called making yourself vulnerable. Which is what I did to the fucking hilt in writing the book. And what you will have to do to read it.

I won't ask you to make yourself as vulnerable as I did. After all you're not getting the only copy. But this isn't for kids. It's not Count Chocula.

But I also won't short myself. I won't give it out for a back-breaking $14.95. Because I know what that would do to the world. I know that the American public can take as much as anyone can give. And still not care.

Which is why mosts of our artists have such a piss-poor attitude. Any piss-poor attitude I have is because this is taking longer than I thought--because I thought you wouldn't be able to clamp down your desire like you do.

I didn't think you'd be able to survive at or past the breaking point so well--exclaiming to all who will listen (except your shrink and the guy who doles out the beds) that you're doing great!

I thought you were just waiting for someone else to go first.

But that's okay. And that's on me! I take full and absolute responsibility.

But I don't--and won't tell you that corporations are messing up the world. I won't tell you that it's impossible to live in this fake society. That it's the advertisers that are messed up. Because I believe in you.

And I believe in the advertisers. Because I was one. Par excellence.

I believe in you and know that eventually you'll let go. Because that's what I had to do. And it was the only way to maintain my sanity. EVEN THOUGH it seemed insane.

And that's where I am today. Back from that front trying to convince folks that there's only one way the peace can be won. I'm happy to share my calculations, but I do ask from my audience that they be completely honest with themselves about their desires.

I won't bitch out a pessimistic, jaded $14.95 CD or book, but you've got to be willing to pay what the real deal is worth. I also won't sugar-coat the truth--white wash where we actually are (or, regarding my book, where I was)--but again, I'll have to find an audience that a) wants and can handle the non-indie, non-mainstream truth and b) is willing to pay what it's worth.

I know that's asking a lot. But, again, I believe in you. Completely. And I know we'll get there. No matter how commonplace the arbitrary becomes--and flat-rate pricing for cultural content is one of the most arbitrary artifacts remaining in our culture--it is still arbitrary.

And this arbitrary decision is the most damning one left. It makes organic foods, environmental goods and decent coffee look like quaint old struggles fought by old ladies (and may god bless old ladies).

It will take significant power to change it. But nothing that we don't already have at our disposal. Nothing that we don't already give up halfway down the frozen foods isle.

Put it this way: we won't miss it for a second.

Love.

Notes from the Aboveground

A couple of interesting notes:

1) About getting in the groove. It could be that the healing, the deep connectedness we crave is not something that we'll have to re-order and re-invent our lives to enjoy but something very radically distinct very close by.

I have had many experiences where an "issue" that I thought was the result of some deep, dark, childhood something required nothing but a slight shift in perspective. And a desire to let go of any "bogymen" in the equation and to also admit my true feelings/get a life.

This would fit the description "right under our nose". We are sophisticated people, adn are likely on to the finer distinctions in life. Meaning that increasingly smaller adjustments would produce increasingly pleasing results.

2) I'm starting to think that one of the primary features of a quantum way of life is it's totality. That you have to commit wholeheartedly. And joyously. Believe all the way. Pull that last foot forward and toe the line with a deep belief.

3) I'm starting to find that things that require my control and work when I set out to control and work. And that things requiring less from me but being more beneficial to me result when I stay within myself.

That staying within myself ALLOWS things to come to me.

A great example of this would be another person. It's hard to be friends with someone who is deeply insecure, because they can't really believe you. It's also hard to be in love or attracted to someone who is needy. The line on the street is that we are much more likely to be attracted to jerks and jerkettes.

Is this because we crave pain? Not necessarily. There is something wonderful about a person who is confident enough that going off and doing what you want to do--or getting very, very close won't phase them.

Some people come to this point by shutting people out or being unavailable but that doesn't diminish the attractiveness of whatever sense of self they have been able to put together. If it is ego based it will be unattractive soon enough, but there are plenty of ways to be confident and self-assured without being annoying.

In fact, I would say that the more truly confident you are, the less you need your ego to hide behind.

To apply this, it may be true that the world wants to help those who help themselves. Or that we find those who don't need money, partners, or business opportunities the most attractive for just those things. There's also some power in being hungry, but that may be a secondary characteristic. Or one of the old world(?). (I haven't thought about it.)

Interesting because I've usually been of the mind that to find you have to be out searching. But the bible says ask and you shall receive. It doesn't say get wound up and go out searching. Although that's certainly one way of asking.

I can see this so many places. It still feels odd to give myself whatever feeling I want and the act as if I already have it. I'm used to getting even more hungry--starved even--to gear myself up to make something happen. To imagine that nothing will ever happen unless I...

And this has certainly garnered results (from the French Gagner meaning to win or earn). But, as I've been talking about, what if those results are only coming after I go through enough toil that I no longer give a rat's backside?

What if the PANIC that seems to keep the economy percolating happily is a false indicator, and instead of getting us motivated and careful is actually messing up our productivity. And the results that we think take a week, or a day or two years, actually take much less--the difference being the amount of time it takes us to overcome our own fear?

As I've mentioned before here I've gotten my largest breaks when sporting some of my largest IDGAF (that's I don't give a f@$* as translated by my friend Darren) attitude. And lost some of my largest gains when beaten into submission and "customer servicing"/cowering my way along.

I should also mention that the gains came when I had it truly, not when I was being a jerk--just asserting myself and politely "take it or leave it" taking no shorts. Even if I wasn't necessarily qualified.

And my losses weren't when I was necessarily being my most "nice", although I was probably trying. But when I had given up--and was probably being somewhat of a bi-otch as a passive way to get a little ego something out of the relationship.

Another interesting note: I've been writing more on this blog recently and have been getting more hits--but not on the pages that I've been writing.

I Want

I haven't mentioned for a while that if we're going to live a greener life without crashing the economy then we'll have to move more money per transaction. Buying high quality goods, services and content gives us the added benefit of letting us live with what we actually want rather than constantly re-buying and upgrading.

It also allows us to do less shopping--now I know that may sound to some like a shortcoming, but we won't stop altogether. And, plus, you'll be spending a couple hours a day more on love with your family and/or partner. So if you still want to watch movies, something'll have to go.

But that's still a little boring, what else?

I was thinking the other day how everyone thought they were living just fine under Newtonian physics (or Copernican for that matter) when Einstein came along.

And how much of the world still operates like Einstein never existed. That daily life is mundane. Work a chore. Routine routine.

But what quantum physics shows us is that the closer you look, the less predictable and the less boring things get. Of course you have to get over the hump--the "why would anyone want to look at this stuff" hump.

You have to want to be present.

Like the Zen (Taoist?) saying says: before enlightenment: carry water, chop wood. After enlightenment: carry water, chop wood.

If you've read here enough you'll know that I'm no eastern--and so I firmly believe that we can improve our lives, that we should expect things to get better as we evolve. But I also admit that it may not be the bang zoom that we dream of.

It may be even better.

My point here is that we can continue along at the Newtonian level. And work hard and be rich. Use friction and power.

And we'll get about what we see in front of us. A whole lot of wealth accompanied by time poverty and so much waste that we're literally scared to make any more money. To go forward.

Or we can go forward. Which in this case would be going not forward, which is what we have been doing for ever, but going inward. Going present. Going now. Getting real. Aligning ourselves with what's really happening. And the cycles of nature of history and the natural world.

Sounds a bit hippy but it's not. I assure you you can be fully modern--of your time--and do it all.

But my point here is that Newtonian physics was in a sense inevitable--because that's the way the universe runs.

But quantum physics--quantum life and culture is a CHOICE. It cannot exist without belief. Without the full and present participation--without the intent of the observer.

I said yesterday that all of this is inevitable, and it is, but that just means that eventually we'll change our minds. That eventually we'll get sick enough, or tired enough, or relaxed enough, or fed up enough to start believing.

So why not do it now?

This is one of the more complex processes that I've ever been through. When I was filled to the brim with doubt, I would wait and see. I was paralyzed. Even figuring out where to go to lunch was a chore. I literally didn't know how to make decisions.

Or I didn't want to.

And telling people that I was happy, or doing okay, or content when I wasn't felt like lying. It felt like being full of it. Unhappiness and not being in control felt honest. It also felt safe--as I didn't have to be responsible as long as it was society's, the universe's problem.

As long as I was a victim.

And I had good reason to believe I was a victim. I didn't see or understand where I would possibly get the time, money, love or energy to write a book--to do anything that I wanted. And certainly no one ever cleared my calendar for five years and gave me $100K to go hang out and do it.

I guess part of the deal is the nature of freedom. We are only guaranteed freedom--or life even--a day or moment at a time. Not for the foreseeable future. So we can only live or experience it that way.

Which takes a whole lot of faith.

And I had no faith when I started. None. On this matter I am quite clear. Because I thought about it a lot.

But I knew I had to find a way around this lack.

So I invented a shortcut.

I figured that if I didn't believe in anything then I would at least be complete--that I also wouldn't believe in disbelief!

This left me occupying the most narrow, and often fearful, of reality slices, but at least I wasn't paralyzed. At least I had a framework from which to act.

It was like plunging into cold water daily. Stepping into the real void from what had been a dark closet I imagined I would be leaving soon.

And it offered no credentials. There was no possible way to explain it at cocktail parties. No real answer to "what do you do?" or even "what have you been up to?" In theory I was writing a book, and that's usually what I led with, but that never felt like the semi-glamorous, arty, creative statement it can sound like from the outside.

Especially if I hadn't written anything in a week. Or a month. And those times were the norm. Or if I had no money in the bank and was heading out for a walk because I felt unable to write--again.

But I'm not looking for sympathy, believe it or not. Because I now know that it is impossible to get over--there is no way that I could evoke sympathy from you and not give up my own power at the same time. There is no way that I could make you feel sorry for me and miraculously escape making myself a victim.

But that was a choice. And one I learned long and hard.

For a long time I thought I was supposed to make myself a victim. That that's how one got power in this world. By cementing--convincing others of--your victim status.

And a lot of people still operate that way. Some consciously, some unconsciously. Both pimps and hos are victims. Put another way: neither kings nor peasants are free to come and go as they please.

Which is odd because we think of them as operating on completely distinct sides of the pendulum. We think of the left and right as having entirely different viewpoints, motivations, and decision-making processes.

But in reality they aren't so different. They are distinct. And there's no reason not to be overt about where you stand and why. But in an even more real truth, god loves everything. Life itself. And allows everything.

Not because he prefers a murder to a meal, but because he knows that we cannot get over. That we can never be separated from exactly what we do every moment, and who we are in every single interaction. The murderer doesn't get away with anything. In fact, he'll never get away from anything, most likely.

He may feel compelled to do it again, and that's something that everyone has the right to protect themselves from, but like a crack addict, more just brings you closer to quitting--getting real, discovering what it is you're really running from--YOUR TRUE FEAR. Or death--god's reset button.

Although I'm not sure we start over when we die. We may not change at all--so exalted and special a condition we enjoy here on earth. Embodied.

And bad television and unhappy work, bad relationships, pornography, alcohol and pot all do the same thing. And they all work. They make you unconscious.

And unconsciousness isn't anything to be avoided---because it highlights your consciousness. It just isn't as fun as fun. As being alive.

It also doesn't last or build into anything, but that's another story.

And that's the genius of love: it works either way. Both unconsciousness and consciousness bring you closer to it. Take either the left hand or the right hand path. And you'll find that you want it all. That you are born to live neither in the past nor the future.

And getting to this point, for me, was not so much a choice--an action--as an allowing. But it took a huge choice to allow it. Possibly the largest and most important set of choices in my life. And scariest.

In fact, if you had specifically designed a set of choices personally for me that would push every button I had and awake every fear I had ever even considered--it would probably look like exactly what happened to me.

So how did I come to b so sure that god is--that we are--love?

I chose to accept that I didn't want to be afraid of anything as well.

Before I had always thought that I would go get successful and then the fear of not having enough money would cease. Or that I would find love and the fear of not having love--or of losing it--would cease.

So I tried to put on a good front--until such a time that I needn't be afraid.

Which left me empty on the inside and hard on the outside.

What was actually happening, and a more accurate, more effective, and MUCH FASTER route to the condition of safety I so hungrily sought, was that I was ALREADY capable of much more than I believed, and I would proceed straight to the desert to deal with each of my fears one after another--more hungry and alone than my fears would have wanted, but always looked after, always protected, always safe--although invisibly and unknowably so.

After going each time kicking and screaming, eventually why not accept it? Why not just admit that there is no way to be the person you want to be but through being challenged. Through generating courage.

And that it's a whole lot easier to stand up and nip something in the bud then it is to shirk from it and deal with a big hairy mess later.

Or just accept the way something is. --But take responsibility for it either way.

And choosing to have complete faith that what's happening is best for me both materially and spiritually. But that god puts the spiritual first--because I do too. Because I don't really want to be rich in goods but poor in spirit. Even though I get frustrated at times being rich in spirit and living at my mother's house.

But here I am, on Monday morning. After finishing a little breakfast and tea, writing to you folks. Doing what I really want. And doing what I really want first.

Back when I was a successful graphic designer--a professional--I had seven free months a year, worked 6-7 hours a day, and still was unable to manage what I really wanted to do into first place. I could barely get to it Friday evening. Saturday afternoon.

And then only with some coffee or beer.

Now, I put first things first and second things second. With faith that my food, my money, my love will be--is already taken care of. And that as much of it is on the way as I can handle.

Some of it is still invisible, but none of it unknowable. Because I'm the one doing it. Just as I did it before. And I'm applying the same methods that got me results before--but this time with my priorities straight.

With my intentions and desired results conscious, overt and stated.

I want an economy where love supports itself. Where it grows naturally and people bring their whole beings to try to top each other in bringing it more.

I want it to be so strong that all other economies take serious note. And start trying to copy love. Undertake whatever they need to undertake to become more real. More honest, more direct and passionate. And then more compassionate.

I want it to inspire.

I want it to gleefully use exactly the resources it really wants to, be instantly recognizable as much more valuable. I want it to be classic, eternal, fulfilling, satiating. I want it to transcend fashion and fad.

I want it to be beautiful. And honest. I want it to be simple and well designed.

I want it to be easy, efficient, enjoyable.

I want it to be relaxed. I want it to be happy. I want it to be warm.

I want it to be voluntary. I want it to be a choice.

I want it to be courageous. Bold. Funny, charming, understated.

I want it to be honest. Fresh. new.

I want it to be immediate. I want it to be supportive. I want it to be challenging.

I want it to be delicate.

I want it to be loving.

The Genius of Love

Okay, I got my ya-yas out for a few days. But if the creating your own reality part of this equation is right, then my frustration would be creating as much of a barrier as it would be solving.

Still, I do think there's something to complete, unmitigated honesty every once in a while.

And it gives you, the reader, the possible investor, the book publishing magnate, a beautiful glimpse at what the world might be with a three-dimensional corporation slicing sh**te right down the middle.

What if a corporation could tell the truth? What if they had to to be more valuable?

What if there was a spiritual end run? --A way to gain the authority of power and money without sluffing off pieces of yourself in the process. What if by truly being yourself you inevitably pulled off something along the lines of a Ghandi (but with better shoes--or maybe your "traditional dress" is a suit). Or a Charlie Christian--but you didn't have to die to become...

This is sounding like ground covered. Do I actually have anything to say?

I guess not--except this:

I'm back to thinking that we/I can do it my/ourselves.

At one point I had $50,000 in venture capital promised to get White G going. The investor backed out, and I don't hold it against him, but I take it as proof that the idea is sound.

If nothing else, there are too many millionaires, too many billionaires who are too creative and too hungry to be at the ground zero of something REALLY--something real--happening.

There are too many cultural and business factors pointing at the White Gold model. And White Gold has occupied the territory too well to go unnoticed. Any blip by someone else (and I don't see anyone else doing anything even remotely similar) will just point back to The Love Artist.

I even talked to a friend who I asked for $7 million. He couldn't get past the word "white", but I know he's smart enough to get past it eventually. He likes Public Enemy too much not to eventually translate how they got their spiritual authority--by being their temporal selves--and transfer it to himself.

And he loves Italian local and neighborhood culture too much to not to eventually make it FOR himself. Because he also grew up a punk rocker.

And he's a little envious of some friends who started a clothing company that went huge, NYC-hip-hop style. Even though he'd never wear the stuff himself. He can feel--even if he doesn't let himself revel in it--what it means to allow yourself the visual, the textural, the tactile, the silent communion of color and cut.

And part of him--that Italian part--knows that that's sacred too. That a sustainable culture has modern versions of the cobbler, the tailor.

And that in modern urban America that ain't gonna be cheap. Especially if we want it slow--and to last.

And another part--the part that got him his $7 millie--knows that sustainability isn't fucking around. It's not the Green Party and non-profit gallery openings. (May god bless them). That the capital C Church is sustainable (cause they weren't f#*&ing around). --That making money is sustainable and that raising money to run non-profits is not--that it feels like death because it is eventually not as life giving--as efficient--as desire.

That it takes too much emotional energy to transfer enough money that way to make it a primary force in "saving" the world.

(I just looked up the world's oldest corporations: construction, winemakers, innkeepers, goldsmiths!, banking, shoes--and I'll bet very few of those families produce relaxation and happiness--joy--like they could. Why don't we invest our profits at least in happiness and love instead of insisting on more work?)

And another part of him--and I only say this because I know he is me in a certain sense--knows that he wants to operate on inspiration. That it's love and beauty and fun that get him out of bed in the morning--not policy, tariffs, restraint and the quality of life of his neighbor.

And I'm not saying by any means that those aren't important attributes in securing a spiritual, loving, and beauteous future--they may be--just that they won't be enough to be the primary movers--a la An Inconvenient Truth. They won't be first.

They won't be reasons because they don't inspire. They prod and motivate, yes, but it's really hard to lead that way--especially these days when everyone knows who's full of it. And it's easy to lead by example. --As it takes no additional energy at all.

Meaning that the moment someone proves the profitability of a spiritual, honest, free, warm, mature, responsible corporation with impeccable scruples, then all the refuseniks--who are now unhappily earning less at Whole Foods, or more grinning and bearing it as lawyers and managers--will cut themselves loose and clamor, if not stammer, to do the exact same thing.

And we will create an enormous market for ourselves. While half the rest of the world--still happily involved in the old market, will get promotions the likes of which has never been seen in India, Kenya, the Middle East, the Check Republic and a whole lot of other places where folks'd currently rather fight than switch (and why not--it makes more sense and begets a lot more cents).

Love is expensive. Peace a luxury. They both take a whole lot of faith.

Did we really think we were going to increasingly suffer and toil ourselves (or our kids) into a better future?

Whoops--I almost started pushing buttons. Please excuse me. You see I'm not above stooping to "the end justifies the means" methods myself. So maybe I want to adjust my tack.

Now where was I?

Let me go back a little further. Cause if what I believe is true, then I shouldn't even have to ask for that $7 mil again. In fact, if what I believe is true, then it should be already looking for me. My job being relaxing enough to believe it and handle it when it comes. Not letting such excitement bust my flow.

Or excite my scruples. :)

In college I had numerous and frequent lengthy debates in friend's dorm rooms about all kind of matters.

In one, I took on a friend who adapted a sort of conservatism out of apathy. I was pretty liberal at the time and although I wasn't listening to my own line of reasoning as closely as I could have, I'm sure my argument displayed that I was a little hungry to have him "with" me.

(A study about the political ramifications of loneliness would be pretty comprehensive I'd bet.)

To bring him over to my "side"--and this is something that the left can fall prey to--wanting to be "with" so much that you end up needy and "without"--I embarked on a diagram plotting the trajectory of Western Civilization.

It, of course, showed that we were inexorably moving toward greater personal freedom and away from hierarchy and centralized authority--moving left. I think I even convinced him a good deal. I'm not sure he ever went bleeding heart but I think he at least got in on some Hunter S. Thompson style good times hedonism leftness. (The last I heard he was working with young people, so that probably went the way of the dodo as well.)

But what I failed to realize myself, and may be just getting to, is that this is true. True in the sense that it's already happening. And is happening regardless. That it wasn't Hitler that caused a resurgence in fascism in the middle of last century (that's called the "great man" approach to history)--but the fear that the US showed after WWI, the response to the Tsars in Russia that caused them to decry any and all selfishness and personal interest.

If consciousness is an ocean, then no wave can grow on its own. And no wave can exist without eventually hitting a shore somewhere. And no movement can appear without a groundswell of support--even if much of that support, of the admitted desire it takes to support something swells primarily while unconscious.

Put it this way: who, in 1959 would have thought that in ten years would be 1969?

From uptight and hyper to Charles Manson and things getting creepy and Vietnam and starting to lose people: Jimi and Janice and Jim in one decade.

But the unadmitted--the unconscious--desire for that ten years had been growing for centuries.

Once you understand this, I suppose it's all tipping points and desire repression capacity ratios.

Which is the wonderful thing about desire: you can only repress it for so long.

And then it comes true.

All along, I've done the "math" on what I've wanted to do and my own personal style of living. I am disciplined but have zero tolerance (literally) for busywork. And even less for promotion, hucksterism, "work".

So what if my methods really were comprehensive. The trick then, would be more akin to surfing that wave--being properly positioned by reading the horizon and not being afraid to drop in when it was ready to crest--than trying to manufacture or create it.

What if that's what we've been doing the whole time? Only we thought we were creating it--doing it unaided, by ourselves, unappreciated and alone--because in our fear and trepidation we insisted on being just in front of the leading edge? In really trying?

And what if we could have--and still could--lean back (thank god for rap songs to noodle our unconscious)? And still have EVERYTHING happen?!

And enjoy it--maybe even go faster because we'd be in the right place in the wave--in the slot. Deep in the groove? In the tube.

And all the same things would happen.

And maybe more and more completely because everyone knows that when you loose it--your warm--you make mistakes and say stupid shit that makes people think twice about you--and then you have to do even more to make up for it?

What if we could relax? What if new experience was doled out on the basis of who was prepared spiritually--and that preparation was nothing but a byproduct of the "work" we thought was getting the job done?

What if magnetism really ruled the world--and not entropy? What if entropy was just a manifestation of our limited understanding--of our failure to take into account parallel universes, the measurements that don't agree with what we knew yesterday?

(An interesting note: physicists have found that a cubic centimeter of "empty space" contains more energy than all the matter in the universe--a result that has been proven through multiple experiments but is usually ignored or disbelieved because it tears apart so much of what we already know.)

What if we were the empty space--the slow moving energy (which we are--matter being just slowed down energy)--and the entire surrounding universe--that which we resist and demand to be separate from--both our reservoir and an unlimited opportunity?

I'm not saying that corn is going to get to my house without a truck coming from the field. What I am saying, is that I believe, that if we let it be true, it could find a much more direct route--happily!!, spiritually and environmentally--if we let our own desire guide us instead of the fear we've installed at each step of the process.

Hell, we used to have a fruit and vegetable guy who came to our house when I was young--Pandy, I believe his name was. I don't know where he got his produce from, but I'll bet it wasn't a distributor. These days even a large proportion of the sellers at Seattle's famed "Farmer's" Market get their produce from the same distributors. Which makes them basically a lifestyle choice--a shopping preference.

But the answer is neither back or forward. It is neither being nostalgic for Pandy nor insisting on more highly regimented Peapods (the modern, mechanized delivery system).

The answer is what we want. Is Pandy with an Internet connection. And maybe a fleet of trucks. Is a brand so confident and relaxed that it allows the idiosyncrasy that made us all stand at the window waiting for Pandy.

And we didn't realize we were paying for personality, for Pandy to be alive and happy, but we were. And this time we've got to do it SPECIFICALLY! Overtly.

Or else it's not coming back.

Another great example is cafes. There's no reason that Starbucks HAS to be tight--some would say uptight--about their signage, their employee conduct, their witty banter, their love. They could look and feel--even be named--however they want.

And there's no reason for them to be loose about their cleanliness, their maintenance, their customer service.

And in two minutes this will be nothing but the naturally-observed order of things. And in ten years no one will imagine why anyone ever named, decorated and ran every store they had the exact same--when everyone already knew who owned what, what they preferred and why.

In a sense it's too simple to accept. The funnest places I've ever hung out have been cafes with lax rules, marginal hygiene and low prices. I put most of them in The Love Artist. You could feel them. Sometimes too much.

And without exception, they failed or completely drained their owners (or both). Because they were giving away love--they were non-profit spiritually. And that is incredibly hard to maintain. Just ask any business owner who puts his or her heart and soul into their work.

So how again are we going to get a loving, sustainable future on the cheap?

And the places that stick around are usually a bit tight. And I'm sure there's a "taker" somewhere in each of those. Maybe a whole boardroom of them. And sooner or later you figure out it's just business with them and then it's just business.

The food tastes a little more shallow. The smile on the greeter a little seems a little more forced.

But we know this. And this means it is changing. This means that we are already asking for businesses to be real. Not more nice, not more chipper, not even more positive or more tasty or faster. But more real.

And sooner or later we'll realize that all the places we love we've paid for. And that we are extremely reluctant leaders in the economic sphere. Especially when it's our money.

But that everything we love gets built.

And that not even the future is something we're going to have to work at.

But that if we lean back, the present will come to us.

And at that time--to stay with it, to stay up in it, to keep it rolling, to hold on to that tube--we'll do what we want.

I, for one, am enthusiastic about what we'll come up with.

And I'm positive it's right on (and in) time.

How can I be so certain? It's the natural order of things. Living matter is ordered and orchestrated to such a degree that not even three thousand years of significant, full-time investigation has yielded anything but a few glimpses at the brains behind the universe.

Human bodies naturally tend toward health. Cancerous cells are routinely--daily--eliminated without a so much as a broken stride from the host. Where they do take over it is found that relaxation and taking it easy--and doing what you really want--seems to be the most effacatious cure.

Fear and "hard work" they don't prescribe.

Neither do they prescribe them to heart attack candidates. Take some time. Get a little exercise--this is what they say. They don't recommend cramming everything in.

So why would we be any different? Why would we be built to be half sick? To manage our neuroses? To work a job that we didn't love. And to have to?

While every fish in the sea and every bird in the sky gets raised, fed and housed every day just because. By living out their exact nature. By being exactly who they are. Even if who they are is eating other animals. Or digging holes. Or going south to vacation in the winter.

Why would this apply to everything but us? Why would we be more valuable when we go against our nature? And be more valuable the more we went against it?

If I was more crass, I would say that I could even get people to pay me just to say this. Just to titillate their busy and time poor, wealthy selves.

And this could work. I don't give a fuck who buys my book. And I guarantee that they will be doing the world a service by putting it back into alignment with itself. And creating possibilities for their kids that they never even imagined.

They might do it to have a $120 book on their shelves to pull out at cocktail parties. They might be so spiritually starved that they hope it's the artistic equivalent of a Tony Robbins seminar, which they've grown bored of--having already made it "big" and still not found "it".

And that's the beauty and true genius of the universe--it doesn't matter WHY you do it. It just cares WHAT you do and HOW. If it leads to more love and life, it's success. If it doesn't, it goes away.

That's why love is so great--and the perfect model on which to run an economy.

And it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. Because it's happening independent of our belief. And would continue happening even if I died today. Because it's what we want more than anything in the world. And we're honest about that in the deepest places of ourselves.

And it's been happening for all of history. Or history has been happening for all of it. So we can't miss our mark. And it--love--always happens at exactly the right time. Despite our plans, intentions, proofs, lesser desires, fears--despite everything.

It's all opportunities. And we decide what's most important. And it keeps getting better. Because we keep growing and learning.

Now let's see if I can release this into the universe with enough acceptance and relaxation--with enough of a feeling of honest plenty--that I can get my $7 mil. :)

Forget Art, Let's Dance, Part II

I haven't quite tied up yesterday's post so let's have at it again.

What does it mean to have some sort of voluntary socialism on top of a necessary capitalism?

It means that we are going to build a beautiful castle on top of the ruthless and sometimes brutal foundation we've been breaking all these rocks to build. It means that as our economy evolves, people will become sophisticated and 3-D enough that they will no longer be beholden to either money/rationality/the west/the concrete/the mainstream/the right/their left brain/Newtonian physics OR creativity/spirituality/the east/the abstract/the counterculture/the left/their right brain/quantum physics.

In short, we're growing. And we've pretty much exhausted the two dimensional possibilities. We can't be any more extreme--even if your own personal extreme is passivity. And the 3-D is beckoning like a warm, fresh lover.

And we're going to build a very large, massively robust and sustainable, great big ole loving culture right in the middle of everything. In our middle east basically. Exactly where it seems least likely.

When people talk about sustainability, I want to see the numbers. I want to see the walks in the park. I want to see the fragile dendrites getting stronger. I want to see more fun, more faith, and better, more loving love.

I don't want to see more uptightness about leaving one light on. Or nattering about this or that. I want to see people leading by example--and inspiring because they're in step. And enjoying themselves more than the rest of us because of their enlightened position.

I do not want to see someone who has not only denied themselves enjoyment to be a hard worker and just kept going and now denies themselves heat and light to show everyone else that they are ruining the world.

If that's the future, if that's sustainability, then I'm ready to go out with the polar bears.

One of the most important things in my opinion is to reclaim, re-enjoy what we do consume. The left has made consumption a dirty word for so long you'd think it wasn't the primary human activity. A baby doesn't come into this world producing--on the material level anyway. They come in, and we frequently go out, consuming exclusively.

(Although, very importantly, we are massive spiritual producers during these times often.)

There is holy consumption. In fact there is a lot. Pulling what you most care about toward you is a little understood but an entirely sacred act. It literally creates and re-creates the world in your image.

It doesn't do it IF you choose to, or if you opt in--it does it no matter what. No matter how furious, how reluctantly, how stingily, how lovingly, how bravely, how joyfully. And it not only replicates the products, the material item you consumed--theoretically to have another available; but also the feelings and viewpoint behind that, the reasons, the emotions, the intent.

What this world really runs on is our attention. Both the spiritual and the material world are created and re-created around, and in the image of, what we focus on.

And this isn't just what we focus positively on. If we choose to focus negatively on something, we are giving it our power as well. Life is a meditative prayer. And if we insist that we are running out of time and energy, then we will. And we'll have time and energy "savers" on every block whether we choose to shop there or not.

(Having helped create a zeitgeist, the likelihood that our interactive partners--both personal, civic, and business--will want what we've agreed upon is much more likely than that they will want some isolated, solitary product, content or service.)

But consumption has been left out of the sustainability equation for the most part. It is too loaded, to guilt and wince inducing.

But it may be the most important. If we are to get anyplace transcendental, or elevated, or loving or grounded even, it is imperative that we consume the most loving and lovely produce we can find. And we must buy it gleefully, grateful that we have the opportunity to include such wonder in our lives.

Let me first make a quick aside and then return to the physics of consumption.

I imagine that this may seem, for some, an extended marketing plea for my book. And although I know it's unfashionable in certain prominant, incredibly powerful art circles, I will tell you absolutely that I want to sell my book. Many of them.

And I will tell you, although the same caveat applies, that the book is very, very good. That it will provide your soul with feelings and combinations of thoughts that are completely unavailable in any other available book.

I will tell you that, even though you feel like you spend a significant amount of time and energy consuming modern culture, you are starved for the real thing. Even though everything you consume insists and has gone to great lengths to assure you it of its authenticity.

And you have selected it primarily because you agreed.

Now imagine for a moment a 32 year-old slacker. Suffering from acute depression, seeing a shrink, not seeing any women, and living off his family's dime after watching a successful business slide out from under him.

Do you imagine it would be easier or harder for this person to strip himself from the most powerful conventions that his current community--the counterculture, the left, the non-profit world, bohemia--maintains?

Do you think it would be any easier to stand up and be proud, to trumpet your achievement and declare it beautiful and wonderful--to declare it holy--in that community than it would to stage a sit in to champion creativity, long hair, relaxation, doing your own thing, flying your freak flag, youth and sex to white 50s conservatives?

Do you think it would be any easier to be white and male and proud in our current atmosphere of self-hatred than it was to be any other color and proud in atmosphere's past of other hatred?

Do you think it would be any easier for this white male to escape being branded arrogant and elitist than it was for the beats, or black folks even, to escape being branded lazy and stupid? And, assuming you're out there early enough, and that you're closer to van Gogh than Quicksilver on the cultural driver curve, what do you imagine the chances are at having your work taken on its merit--on having it succeed on its own terms in their economy?

I don't know the answers, and I'm not trying to paint white men as victims--AT ALL--but I do think they're interesting questions about effort and what it takes for someone to be not just not underprivledged--but all privledged. For as I understand them, most spiritual traditions--all of which are thousands of years old, back when people really were hard-strapped--speak to making us annointed--making us all happy and powerful--all kings--instead of all peasants.

Which brings me perfectly to the next aspect of consumption: support.

In a non-tribal society, in a free and democratic society where compensation--love and attention--is based on merit and not brute strength, manipulation, birth order, gender or family connections; every financial transaction is a vote of support.

It's a vote of support, a transfer of love and attention--both for what the product is, but also, significantly, HOW the product is: its manufacturing processes, advertisements, the company's management practices, etc.

This is fairly understood today, and may god bless the left for bringing it into sharp focus.

HOWEVER--up until now it has been used primarily negatively! As a reason for a boycott. Good protestants that we are, we protest what we don't like.

We feel comfortable supporting casually what we like a bit more, but are happy to buy what we think, what we "feel" we "can afford" and complain about its quality. Or feel like "everything is so expensive these days" (even though we're passing on with hundreds of thousands in the bank).

If we don't do this ourselves, then at least we keep an eye out for others who seem to be "free spending" or "loose with their money".

Why do we do this? Why don't we support and cherish what we absolutely love and ignore what we don't care for?

Because this requires more vulnerability. For many it is easier to make themselves vulnerable getting in the way of something--stopping something--than it is to create, to care, champion and invest themselves wholy (wholely? Holy?) in something.

This I would argue goes back to the early church's desire to control sex (possibly for good reason--I don't know I wasn't there) and notions of sin. The idea that if you like something, it's bad for you (the converse, of course, being proven--that what you dislike is actually true and proper). A notion that has ruled the Judeo-Christian (and most other) traditions, but that, interestingly, is being swept away currently by all sorts of forces. (Most of them "disapproved", ironically, by those who have already benefitted from the process--sometimes dissaproved most by those who have benefitted most. What's up with that?).

Vulnerability. Corporations avoid it like the plague, people "manage" it. Primarily it is seen as something to be avoided. It denotes weakness and, well, vulnerability.

But Jesus was all vulnerability. Even his protestations, which have been immortalized in movements such as Liberation Theology, contained a radical vulnerability. Full humility. An open hand. He came with the sword, he was also the lion, but the sword was often his tongue. The lion eating its prey only spiritually.

He turned the other cheek. (Though that story may not be exactly what we believe either.)

Let me see if I can put it more simply: On the other side of every purchase is someone elses life. You can believe they are connected to you or not, try to get over if you wish--but your life is entirely dependent on the recipient side as well.

Following this, if we buy with faith and belief--if we understand the creative power of our purchases and choose to LEAD with them, and undertake to create not only the life we want for ourselves, but also create the world we want to live in (the others we want to know and enjoy)--then we create concrete, sustainable proof that love is the nature of the universe. And do so constantly--as a matter of habit.

We create for others--dictate their creation--with our consumption, with our destruction. (And also deny others with our fasting or refusal to consume what pleases and nurishes us!) This is an unavoidable universal law.

I'm not saying that we can consume our way to salvation--but that we create the atmosphere in which we will undertake our growth--and make it easier or more difficult by broadcasting our deepest beliefs into our immediate economy and atmosphere. (This is just as easy to see personally as it is economically).

When we buy in fear and trepidation--when we make any decision with fear and doubt--we create the same environment for another on the other end. I don't know how we came to understand that the middle managers at mid-level companies weren't the exact same as us (who went to school with them)--whether they are selling tobacco (much love MD) or yoga mats.

They are us. And we are them. Maybe we've eeked out a slightly better niche. And maybe that screenplay, we hope, will get us a little farther, but the answer isn't saving our pennies to claw our way up despite our fellow love artists--it's to show them directly, to inspire them straight off the bat.

[Some may be thinking here that I believe indulging each and every whim or appetite is what I'm talking about. It isn't. I don't believe our true appetites go beyond true health when we look closely at what we are consuming and why. Put simply, I'd argue that an affair that damages a true relationship more likely resulted from an initial inability to express onesself--that is, an earlier inability to create what it took to consume or get what you REALLY wanted--than it was "extra" appetite that was dying to be expressed. As proof, I'd offer that an affair never delivers the promised feelings--it can't because it's not looking for them from the essential provider. There may also be some affairs that end up in exactly what was supposed to happen. I'm not in charge--but the closer I look, the more I see that everything lines up. (I'd also mention, for discussion later, that the true source of all attention and satiator of all true appetites is one's self--in relationship to god/the world/one's self possibly.) It's also worth mentioning, to those who thing letting go would wind us all up on a couch with beer and hand down pants, that, all things being equal, we don't really want tubs of coke and endless supplies of hookers, butter cookies, TV, National Enquirers, and pop--even though our appetites may get confused enough to believe that that would be ripping. What we really want is warm intimacy, engaged creative labor, and the feelings we imagine unconsciousness, drunkenness, produces--but that only straight consciousness can produce and maintain. It's when we believe that unavailable, or impossible, or past, that we decide to hedge our bets. This is why it is so important to create and cheer love and possibility with both our creations and consumption.]

And when we buy (or create) what we really, really want--even if we think we can't afford it (or succeed)--maybe especially when we think we can't--when we invest in creating the world we want, then we get it. And ONLY then do we get it.

And this is guaranteed. We've already acted with enough faith to get us to the precipice. Which is why we feel so precarious. We've been living for future generations for so long that we here--the future generation. And with this next step, the world we all dream about, with time, love, energy AND money, will come to pass.

It is inevitable. And ready to go viral as soon as we so choose. And it may get increasingly nuts behind us until we decide as far as I can tell. But as soon as we admit that we are not sold-out and poor but powerful and rich. That we are not deluded and lost but fully aware of the condition of our soul and ready to spring, full-blown, into what we had dismissed as some crazed schoolboy fantasy. Then..

Then..

Then it's on.

The other aspect of this, as I mentioned yesterday, is the creation. If we've had enough faith so far to ensure that this will eventually come to pass, we've also insisted upon our own victimization, poverty, busyness, distraction and confusion long and hard enough to keep it the fuck away.

No easy task when we've been dreaming so hard about it. When we're so magnetized for it. When it's our true nature and the guiding priciple of the universe.

And maybe why we don't buy what we like--because if life really was what we want, if we could really live as we choose, then we'd have to. Be vulnerable. CARE about what we were doing.

Be personally invested.

Completely personally invested.

RISK failure.

Leap..!

Instead of just guaranteeing subsistence. Possibly. And a manegable demise.

And that may be the real fright, not buying a book or the better sofa, but looking ourselves in the mirror and saying you could write that book if you wanted to. You could start that engineering firm. You have that play, that pizza joint, that speech in you.

And why does this scare us so? Why does it take ten years of absolute terror to become what we want? Because we know what we, collectively, hold in store for those who set out to do it.

We know that first they must endure the American Idol tryout. Before they're even ready.

That the wife will scoff at guitar playing, singing, the ukelele. Parents will say "that's nice dear". Because that's what we've done. And that's the place, the ghetto, where we've left our dreams.

Unrealistic. A pipe dream. Something you better have a backup plan for.

A waste of time and money.

And that's just the emotional part. Societially we'll make you tour incessantly just to make money. Even the biggest bands don't make diddly on their albums.

We'll download you for free. We'll hit you with such concentrated disbelief that you want to run and hide. You'll want to take time off. You'll want to ease up a little to make things easier. We'll follow you around and stalk you. Consume you in fluffy magazines and talk about you freely online.

And when you do, when you stop fighting us to love us, you're toast, my friend. That second album SUCKED! We're too busy to see what comes up next. It has to be easy to understand, cheap and mind-blowing. The 18-34 demographic is the only one with time to look for it, and that market is saturated beyond belief. You have two weeks in the studio.

What if every market was subjected to the artificial constraints of the culture market: what if all carrots had to be .79? (Not too hard, but don't expect truly organic or a relaxed farmer; speed-limit non-drug addled trucker; dental for the clerk or those cool organic baby carrots.)

What if all steaks had to be $4.99? All plane seats $278? All cars $15,281? All shoes $39.95?

Don't you think this would lead to s robotic, insane, homogenized market? Don't you think all the bands would start to sound like each other? Don't you think brown, black and blue would become the only colors? Don't you think all magazines would run the same, somewhat shallow stuff.

With a few hold outs run by people with principles until their significant will was drained.

Sure, a few people would bring wonderful things to the market just because, but they would still be predominantly a very certain type: Type A. And maybe uptight. In love with labor.

And you can do it if you're a holy man. If you were Nusurat Fate Ali Khan and just toured here every once in a while. Didn't have to also live here and feel what it meant to take the bus with all of us. Or maybe even the South Side--where property values had been "allowed" to go out of wack.

And eventually, creators, producers will do this. Artists do progress, but we can control the process from either side of the fence. And as of right now there is absolutely NO incentive to make a magazine, a movie, a song, a book, painting or blog even, that transcends the DIVIDE! That is neither mainstream pap nor wrung hand indie. That is neither artificially cheerful nor reluctantly mopey.

That IS warm, loving, real, adult, responsible, relaxed, spiritual, humanist, free, spirited, engaged, honest, funny, and smart. That IS 3-D.

And if you think that people shouldn't do things like that for money--and be honest about what they're worth and up front about what they expect in return--then what the hell got you out of bed this morning?

I didn't do it for the money but I'm sure as fuck not afraid of it either. I'm going to get it, I guarantee, and when I do, not only will I buy the biggest, dopest house I can find (I've got my eye on a brownstone right downtown--huge with real gas lamps), but that will broadcast possibility and hope to a couple million very astute people worldwide. And then it's on.

(Not to mention that the brownstone--compound is more like it--is currently occupied by some capital management fund or wealth advisors or something, and I'll breathe some love and life back into that REAL estate like it hasn't seen in years.)

Let's take back over downtown my brothers and sisters. Lovingly, in full view, with crystal clear ambitions and well-defined goals. With full intent instead of running from the fear that we're going to somehow starve even though we've been eating for generations.

Cause either way, we'll get what we believe in.

Anyone? Anyone?

Fuck Art, Let's Dance

Okay, let's stop pretending and get down to it.

Forget all this love stuff. Let's talk about money.

I read in the paper today an article criticizing college students, some 75% or whom list making plenty of money as a top priority. Whoever wrote it couldn't believe how shallow they were, blah, blah, blah.

Several pages later a story about a 77 square foot basement apartment in London for $335,000. Noted that the average price for a place in London was over $700,000.

I don't think that college kids have missed a thing. It's not like they're going to Dubuque to start a new farm. These young people plan to go to major cities. Which requires major money. Hell, even minor cities cost significant coin these days. And they don't offer much in the ways of culture.

Now, as I mentioned yesterday, I don't believe in victims, but I also don't believe that you can escape easily the time in which you live. Or the mores, or the land prices. Or that you should.

And we're crazy about money. Literally.

Half of us worship it, some literally. And half of us claim to not care about it.

(If you ever meet someone, by the way, who tells you they don't care about money--I'd keep stepping. A) they're lying and B) it's an untenable position--and you might not want to be around when it flips.)

Money is so connected to what we do, and what we do so connected to who we are, that you could almost wrap them all together into a ball. Except that for most, doing what they want means putting themselves on the market, which means submitting themselves to other's values.

Have you ever heard of a person complaining about the cliche "low-paid teacher" giving a teacher some money? Have you ever heard of someone complaining about sweatshops deciding to buy only hand-made designer goods?

Or does the person who complains about sweatshops try to buy from more pleasant factories, or reward "more authentic", often lesser quality goods from developing countries.

And does the same person raise an eyebrow when the production for said items follows their already drifting attention and heads overseas?

My point here, generally, is that we won't even scratch the surface of what having decentralized power, or being a people with authority and power dispersed, until we steadfastly refuse to be victims to "the group".

And the most powerful way we display this victimization is with our dollars. Which we primarily wield with great fear.

Money ceased to be worth what it was worth with the disappearance of the gold standard. It is now fiduciary.

Which means trust.

So what does it mean that we wield, that we share, that we create with our trust fearfully?

Wouldn't it have to mean that we are eroding our trust and eroding our trustworthiness? Chipping away at our own value? It would have to be gold to avoid the corrosive solution in which it was suspended.

And it's not. It's an emotion. And a somewhat precarous one at that.

Have you ever had your personal trust eroded by someone else's fear? By someone reacting irrationally and unlovingly?

I think that's what most poisons fear.

And I'm not saying that we aren't getting more prosperous--and more trusting and trustworthy every year. It is quite clear that we are.

I'm saying we're doing it with two hands tied behind our back and one eye shut. And possibly our tongue hanging out to the side.

(That's a joke).

Why? Because we're insisting that we get to trust through competition.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there. I'm no socialist. Or maybe I am. But I only believe in voluntary socialism. Built on a foundation of competition. With people who have already proven their mettle thoroughly.

And this line of thought is surprising even myself. I wasn't sure I had it in me. But for the sake of honesty I'll at least explore it.

Growing up I was a big fan of socialism. It appealed to various parts of me--not in the least the social.

It also appealed to the part of me that didn't really want to do much. The part that enjoyed living off my parent's dime and sneaking out of the house to go visit my girlfriend. the part that didn't want to do any homework (We'll talk about that one later).

But it appealed to most of these later, negative parts, because I thought life was impossible. I had already adapted the notion that being an artist was from hard to impossible, and that doing what you wanted was a pipe dream bordering on delusional.

Where I was from you tried to sneak something worthwhile in to your profession--a graphic designer was a leap so large and presumptuous I didn't even consider it until my disaffected 20s. My original choice was an architect. That way at least I wouldn't have to be a lawyer or a doctor. It was still selfish as hell though, considering that some of my folks were community organizers, but hey, I already had two earrings long hair (or a shaved head), and was borderline squatting, why not actually shake things up a little. (Actually more like organizers of community organizers).

And there was a fairly good tradition of graphic designers in socialism. Sure they were dandies, and not to be trusted, but their stuff was a little sexy. I kept an original, wool, communist flag in my drawer at the warehouse I shared with other artistic tidepoolers.

And it went on. I don't know how many times I had to be messed with by someone with minimal financial interest in what they were doing before I got it, but it was significant. And I discovered that there were ties stronger than hanging out, enjoying the same bands, and being friends.

It was sometime after I had finished my book that I read Ayn Rand. I was almost completely alone and although I was not trying to hear it, the message got through. How could you have a strong society without strong individuals? And without a dictator.

I tried to incorporate as much as I could into my already existing worldview, but I must admit that much of it got tossed. I worked for months on incorporating personal responsibility into my understanding, but at times it felt like I was just becoming a jerk. Sure, you could hold everyone to everything, but what then? Where was the fun?

And why the hell did Ayn Rand smoke?

And why did she cheat on her husband?

And, possibly most importantly, why wasn't she a better writer? I believed her reasoning, but her stuff read like a dime store novella. And half predictable at that.

I had always thought that a better future would include, would require far fewer meetings, and much less busywork--if any, but I also held firm to the belief that the art would get better. Lots better. Like better than Van Gogh better.

But wherever I looked, and in all the sources I found inspiration: Ayn Rand, self-help, The Power of Now, Krishnamurti, Yoga, etc--the best they could muster was Yanni. Eckhart Tolle's dust cover told me he lived a quiet life in Vancouver and an interview had him drinking a cup of coffee--and later some wine.

How happy could he be if he needed drugs like that? That I couldn't even touch without going for a rollercoaster ride. Even Oprah was always shown with the largest Starbucks cup imaginable. Most of the black folks I knew wouldn't even touch "the white man's poison".

And, furthermore, and possibly most importantly, why were American Socialists waiting for the government to do anything? Why didn't they just buy their own factories? Pay the workers whatever they wanted to? Why spend a single day printing inflammatory, all red newspapers about foreign invasions?

If the American people were really so deluded, so crass, so sold out and so "comsumerist"--as Noam Chomsky insisted we were--why not just write them off? Why not start a socialist shangra-la right here. Why not move everyone in next to each other and get it on?

I read Adorno and many of the others and found them impenetrable.

Why the hell would the truth--a supposedly robust thing, which supposedly favored butterflies, the drool dripping from Golden Retrievers mouths (or mutts if you insist), babies cooing, flowers, sunshine, love, and all sorts of delicate, airy-fairy and off kilter goodies--why would this set of irreplacible, fleeting tangents require some sort of soul numbing square barbed wire enclosure to protect it?

Why would it require post-doctorate degrees? Why would it require paperwork and what anarchists told us was desire (more horrible art), instead of what we felt as desire? Instead of the sunshine we saw, unmediated, unmitigated, uneverything right in front of our eyes?

Why would the money have to be centralized and then distributed? Wouldn't that take a lot more money?

So that was my gripe with the left. But the right was even more joyless. Sure they had some incredible architecture, but what about the day to day stuff? What about expression? What about keeping it real? What about tolerance? What about not only being free but exercising that freedom.

I was all for personal responsibility, hell I had even dated a Republican (she went on to become a lawyer--working on women and children's issues the last I heard), but I knew first hand from my successful graphic design firm that money, by itself, didn't do jack.

And they seemed to be as intent on talking about other people's business derisively as anyone else. And no new car could erase what you could see in their eyes.

And why did they all worship art so much? Like it was rare and foreign? I appreciated the collections, but if you want the real thing, why not head over to the West side? They've got blues bands playing on the backs of trailer trucks for free outside of rib joints.

Why did they need the credentialed, ancient, the real so badly? Why were they collecting so much African art? Masks and ritual pieces? Why were they turning their homes into curated museums to what at one time was a thriving, from the hip, make it up as you go along th-a-ng?

And--similarly, but not necessarily right sided--why did the Vatican have Egyptian mummies? Wasn't that even sacrilege? They certainly must have loved them to bring them back and put them out when they had so many artifacts and artworks.

So, back to money--the left wouldn't give it up for what they wanted--they were reluctant to build--even when they had the capital, and increasingly they did, and the right would give it up, would take risks, but only for kinda boring stuff. Museum quality. Heavily mediated old fun.

When I thought this, and it was over a period of variously PC and non PC years, it seemed very blatant to me that they were both half right.

Yes, be self-reliant, but why brow-beat folks having a little fun unless you were afraid of it. Yes, stay loose, but why be afraid to stand up? To walk tall?

As I improved my posture I was actually, literally afraid that people would call me arrogant. And some did, but usually not for that reason.

As we look backwards, it seems obvious to me that self-reliance and responsibility and accountability were essential foundations of our prosperity. Of our trust.

And it seems obvious, that when this boot-strapping or self-love got too strong--became too insistent--and was projected out onto others, or used to exact punishment or keep others in line, it could become hurtful. Make us less trust-worthy.

A lot of it was based on fear. Sometimes real and well-founded fear.

But as I look forward, I can't see what MORE it's going to do to those it has served so well. If thoroughly applied anyway.

It almost seems that we want half-and-half. Strong women and relaxed men.

A rock-solid foundation and an enjoyable house. Or a fundamentally sound house and furniture with fantastic colors, pleasing surfaces, subtle touches--and filled to the brim with love.

To do this we must spend more money--wield more of our trust--in quality. We must pay for each other's relaxed lunches (by paying a premium for exactly what we want). Not out of guilt, not out of obligation. But because we TRUST.

Because we have been so lovingly taken care of. And we know more is on the way. Because we understand that we are free to do as we please every moment. And that a lingering lunch is our birthright as well.

WE MUST GO FIRST!

And our artisans, and artists must start making the products they really want to make too! They've been making it scathing, dirtying up the colors on purpose to be cool, to make a point. They put square toes on our beautiful Italian shoes. Square toes are acid wash minus four years. It is fashion, an untenable position, one that cannot hold.

Cause our toes are round. And will always be.

And you don't really, REALLY, want to be set apart from the group (though I would suggest that square toes CAN'T even do that anymore,a s they've been taken up by those who are trying to feel a part of something already).

You also don't want to have to do anything to be accepted.

And the glorious news is that you don't have to.

You can now be your actual self.

Which, I guarantee, is neither a snarling punk rocker nor down the nose art influencer. Is not a "relaxed" hippy (do you know how much extra work it takes, in today's mechanized economy to make tie-die -- that's a joke, btw) who doesn't brush and won't commit. It is not an uptight, harried soccer mom. I guarantee.

And much love to all these people. But we're not cool or hot. It's scientific, not a pose. We're warm. We're right down the middle. We're 98.6 degrees.

A little less at the surface, or if we're not wearing the proper shoes.

What we are:!!! Is beautiful, powerful, loving, joyous, supported, well-fed, prosperous, growing creative beings.

And this only gets messed up--we only don't feel this--when we refuse to let something we're done with die off. Or refuse to follow and investigate something that cajoles us. Something that inspires.

Maybe it's this simple. We don't need to go against our feelings to somehow get to our feelings. We need to go through our feelings to get to them. And trust is the mechanism. Faith is the mechanism.

A quick story. I was walking around one Valentines Day feeling sorry for myself--for I was objectively a depressed, frustrated, low-output (or so I thought), unemployed artist. And I was alone.

I stopped into a bookstore in Seattle and saw a book I had been thinking of and looking for for years. A comprehensive, full-color book about Basquiat.

I had about $100 in my bank account. The book was, I believe $80. I had no income adn no prospects for income. I was paying $300 a month for rent. I still had years to go on my book before I could even hope to sell it.

So what did I do? I bought the book. I said fuck it. I didn't even know at the time how crucial it was for me to support doggedly and with complete faith that which I felt to be the most important and loving expressions of economy--I hadn't gotten there yet. I figured I would either fail and whatever or succeed and it wouldn't matter. All I knew was that I saw before me what I wanted.

And then, and even more difficult, when I got it home, I drew a picture in it.

Because Basquiat was dead and I was still alive and I couldn't be afraid of him. Or even less free if I was going to be any good. It meant that I couldn't return the book. And that if I didn't make it big I had ruined the book.

But if I did make it, I had made it more valuable.

I still have the book. And got past Basquiat as well, although he obviously had talent.

And Ayn Rand? I figured her out when I saw the movie The Fountainhead. When Roarke blows up his own building because it wasn't built right. That's bunk. His argument in court is against everything Ayn Rand claimed to stand for. He argues that he was made a victim by the builder and lead architect. And that, like a child, like a graffiti artist, like the Unabomber, he had no other recourse but to destroy property.

The true artist, of course, and the true adult, knows that this is bullshit.

Because he lives under the rule of law. And a broken contract is a relatively minor matter to prove. Especially when you have a character like Roarke supposedly had.

That's if, of course, he would even care. If he had a spiritual dimension (and Rand didn't seem to have much of one) he may have even let it slide. Why bust your stride for some punk you knew was a sell-out punk in the first place.

Why not just do what you've always done--exactly what you want.

May god bless you.

E

Getting Stronger Every Day

While I've got your attention..

I'd like to mention a thing or two that I've been wrapping my noggin around as of late.

If all this stuff is right: and all this stuff includes a large part of the posts I've written here; all the self-help books about making yourself happy, changing your life, etc.; and quantum physics--if all this stuff is right, and our beliefs on the matter are not secondary and inconsequential but primary and essential--if we can never really be rich until we feel rich--then all this hemming and hawing, all this chewing the fat seems to come down to one very fine point.

Do we believe?

And I don't mean this as some abstract, what would you answer if I asked you what you believed in, but a moment to moment feeling.

Do you feeel it?

Do you believe it enough to feel it?

I've been reading a number of books about feeling your way there and in general throwing belief at my, not problems, but areas in which I'd like to be more perfect, areas where I'd like to have even more bounty and love. Like my finances.

But to throw anything at these areas, it is easy to label them first--to sell out the whole process from the get--as problems. To find the places most surrounded by fear and then believe the fear and come to the conclusion that they need to be fixed.

Which of course presupposes that they are broken. Which of course, in this process, from this viewpoint, is a bear to overcome.

I find that I can even throw 60 or 70% love feeling at something--which is pretty darn warm and fuzzy--and still have a reservoir of fear underneath it. Lurking. Certain that this is a problem. Nagging that the way it is closer to doubt than belief.

I guess the finest point I could put on it is what do yo do first thing Monday when you wake up? If you're going to be a writer, or a singer, or a dancer and you go off to work at Burger King where all that gets put on hold is that really getting yourself any closer? To make the money to come back to it on Friday night?

And I don't belittle the day job. Not at all. My question is what is the right alignment of priorities to get the best and fastest results? What is most effective?

I looked way down deep last night and found I had a dividing line. On top was my keep hustling--do the work first and get the rewards--enjoy it--later. That viewpoint was mired in doubt and rosy-futurism but could also be "felt at" in the manner I described above. So that it seemed like positive thinking. Was chipper or perky.

The lower, more essential, more frightening part of me was the feel it right now place. Was the take the damn thing place. Was the "The Academy" doesn't know shit you don't tell it place. Was the this is the truth and this is what's real place.

This place scared me completely. I am deathly afraid that if I am comfortable, if I am happy, I won't perform as I should. I won't be motivated. I won't get what I want or need.

But this place seemed to me to be more in line with every spiritual book since (at least) the Bible. We are. We are already.

If you bring forward what is inside of you, what is inside of you will save you. If you don't bring forward that which is inside of you, that which is inside of you will destroy you. (I think that's from the Gospel of Thomas--one of the Gnostic Gospels--attributed to Jesus).

They don't say if you don't get the crop in, not getting the crop in will destroy you. They don't say if you don't do a good job, or advance in your career. They say if you don't be yourself. If we don't realize what we already HAVE! Who we already are.

This is a radically different faith than I've been employing. This is more of a Monday Morning faith. Could it be that we could go straight at what we want? Go straight to what we choose to do and have faith that the rest will be covered?

As I've mentioned in other posts, I have explored this method extensively while writing my book and afterward. I never fully believed it even while I was practicing it but I still did it white knuckle style.

It's pretty much a free fall when you say you're a writer and two years into a book you're not sure you can finish. And even less certain anyone will put out. And you haven't written anything in two weeks. And two weeks ago it was two hours and three days before that it was three hours and then it was another week before you had produced anything.

And it's fairly well established that I ended that period in my life in significant debt. Significant.

But what if it was my true belief that the universe was responding to--my actual belief. What if it was my 90% fear that created my surroundings and not my 10% tip o' the iceberg can-do-it-iveness.

And--I still graduated from that school with a much better car and nicer clothes. And, more importantly--I somehow found a way, day to day, to write the mo-fo. And the time to edit it. And the will and means to put it out. And that was about five years. And I ate out for probably 1/3 of the meals. Even got some sushi feasts comped by an artist friend who managed a great Japanese restaurant.

What if it just felt like failure. What if it just FELT hard. What if I was just predisposed to see the dark side of things from where I had been?

I'm not trying to re-write history here, they don't call it the dark night of the soul because it's like an all night rave, but what if it was nothing but a training ground to believe the way I wanted to--and the only way to do that was to throw everything that could be thrown at me.

And let me learn to take complete responsibility for my reactions. And emotions.

What if, like a black hole, we had an event horizon. Everything below it being available only to ourselves and everything above it available generally, publicly.

And it was your predominant beliefs in the former arena--those available only to god, and energetically available to others (but silently, wordlessly)--that actually magnetized you for what you would experience?

To back up, I should mention that I think we can live one of two ways: mechanically, where we go faster or do more to get more things and have a "better" life. This is a life based largely on obligation and appearances. We do it for the children, for future generations and enjoy ourselves guiltily, as we know that our enjoyment takes us away from what makes us valuable--our discipline and ability to delay gratification.

I think this represents primarily the way that people have lived until now.

But I also think it is obvious that certain people live another way: magnetically. Due to their skill, or talent, or whatever attributes the possess innately, they draw to themselves experiences, prosperity and relationships. I think this is what people imagine when they think of and hunger for fame--that people would be drawn to them as they are drawn to certain others. That things would be somewhat easy. (Although I don't think that the financial structure of our current culture, or business, makes it easy for almost anyone--including those yoga gurus and home entertaining doyens for whom it appears so. In fact, I think half of their job may be making it look pleasant.)

I think that this second paradigm is actually the universal law of the two. The first being certainly expedient--or appearing so--for matters of a primarily physical, material, nature.

But if the second were the larger law, and the first had us running and scared--that we weren't going to pay the mortgage, that Janie wouldn't ever amount to anything--wouldn't the universe have to reward the practitioners of the latter and at least withhold something from practitioners of the first?

And if we held feelings in part of our body and thoughts in another, and feelings were the currency of magnetism, and thoughts the currency of mechanism, and some of us chose to keep our feelings subordinate to our thoughts, isn't it clear that we could appear to succeed and never really feel safe or rich?

It's interesting to note that magnetism is by far the stronger physical force. Mechanism relies upon friction (think gears and pistons) and so is not only always in need of outside lubrication but also requires much more maintenance. The order of efficiency (and don't quote me here) is something like 15% for a mechanical engine that would push a vehicle and 85% for the same same vehicle moved magnetically.

It doesn't take much (even fuzzy) math to see where enough pollution could come from to mess up the planet pretty good.

The interesting corollary I've read is that research suggests that businesses that work on effectively managing problems and building skill sets in it's employees run at about 15% efficiency compared to businesses that emphasize improving their strengths and putting people with essentially natural aptitudes in positions they enjoy--which run at about 85% efficiency. (Again, don't quote me, I'm a generalist. But do check out the management books on strengths, intuition and creativity, they're fascinating.)

So, where are we. Oh yes, the feeling.

The question basically boils down to do we allow ourselves to feel safe before we do the work?

Or do we make ourselves prove it?

Do we wake up assuming that the world is a supportive, ordered place where we have time, energy, love and money enough to do whatever we're put here to do (and the go-ahead to explore long enough to find it), or so we just wake up determined to create a little more wiggle room in our fear--make tomorrow more likely rich.

Because what if what we get is what we're praying on. What we focus on and chant every moment of the day.

And if that's hide the fear and make more so we don't starve, then we get more fear. I'll say it as lovingly as I can but we, the world's richest people--each one as powerful (or more) than the average 8th century royal (think drinking water, life span, health care, chances for true love, and softness of underwear--and iPods)--we are as anxious, depressed, and medicated as any people I can imagine.

From a study on college students psychological problems:

•Over the three time periods (from 1988 – 2001) problems became much more complicated and complex –– anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, sexual assault, personality disorders.

· Depression cases DOUBLED.

· Suicidal students TRIPLED.

· Sexual assault cases QUADRUPLED.

[Emphasis theirs]

This doesn't even touch how much TV people watch, if their relationships are satisfying, how many sodas, coffees or beers they need to get through the day/week.

And I'm not a prude either. I drank and smoked my way through college and my 20s. But I also knew that things would be a lot easier if I just had something to do, somewhere to go, anything to aspire to, or knew adults who didn't seem sold out and weird.

So, if getting riches doesn't get us any riches, where do we look, what do we aspire to?

WE'VE BEEn told that our feelings--especially enjoyable ones--are an extremely poor indication of what's good for us. We've been told that what we want is what's destroying the planet. (So we scale back a bit and end up buying sweatshop produce that breaks or we replace in a year because it no longer speaks to us).

We've been told that our desires will lead us astray--like rock stars and drug addicts. But anyone who thinks that they're getting what they want--for the most part--hasn't been around many of them. They work hard, put their emotions on the line and make almost nothing on their albums and have to tour incessantly--leave their friends and family behind for the privilege.

AND, would it make any other sense in the world than for us to be saved--for us to save ourselves--that we have to leap headlong into that which we fear the most? That which we crave but are certain will destroy us? Into love and money? And flip our priorities upside down.

Insist that the vacation start now. Create the most valuable things you can and charge what they're worth. Feel what you already are.

And, if no one else chooses to join the party. You won't care. Because you'll already be rich.

Although people are so smart and so sensitive today, that I highly doubt they'd let a true practitioner--a true life--go by unnoticed. After all, they've been raised on lifestyle--inexpensive and t(h)in as it is.

Once someone drops an actual life. --"You mean a way to really be grown and live?"

Then it's on.

White Gold is like a hedge fund. I'm betting it all that you can't hold on to the denial of your desire--the fear that you can't afford what you truly want--longer than I can hold on to my enjoyment of mind--the faith that I can create what I intend.

And just like George Sorros and Great Britain, one of us is going to blink.

And I've done my math and checked it from bottom to top. I've checked it against ancient texts and up to the minute scientific studies. I've cross-referenced it with the most powerful marketing gurus and guys living on the street. I threw it out to women to see if it titillated, reassured. I fact-checked it with hip-hop and made sure high schoolers could feel it. I checked with the new agers to make sure it inspired.

And my target market? --The mes? Well I've been staring at the same thing they have for forty years. And when they zigged, and I didn't feel it, I zagged. Or went straight. Or just continued on. And I know we started at the same place because we hung out every day. And I locked on to the feelings we all wanted to have forever. And I kept on long after it made a difference for anyone but myself. So I know it matters.

And I hope you've done the same. I hope you have a simple and direct route to joy in this life and the next. For you and your children. For massive relief from downward social and economic pressures. For one of the largest roots of conflict in the world today: employment and opportunity.

Cause as long as you're in charge it'll be an issue. Which directly affects your safety. I know you don't think of your dreams and the rest of the planets dreams an interconnected but they are. And if you can provide (unhappily) all the magazines needed, and your neighbors all the jeans, you're not only going to have to do so but you're going to have to protect your gains from those who's dreams are just getting to the point where they want to do that--but are being stifled and so are squirting out the side. Because you may not consider moving on to bigger and better things.

[Quick note: I don't believe in victims nor do I disbelieve healthy competition, however, I completely understand and feel how much we mean to each other and how weird and personal it can get--how much like victims we can feel--when people get unhappily out of sync. I don't blame anyone for anything but at the same time have a hard time listening to those who are most powerful insist they are not, especially while those who are becoming powerful are literally giving their lives to prove it. I also understand how much easier it makes it when other people are fun, inspiring, involved and available.]

And we all know Sorros won. So did David. And so did Ptolomy, and Copernicus, Motzart, Newton, Einstein, Van Gogh, Tesla, Jesus, Ghandi, the market, the be-boppers, the street, the hip-hoppers, the skateboarders and punks and a million other freaks, weirdos and loudmouths as yet unborn. And we also know that the truth doesn't give a shit about credentials. Or past market performance. Your job doesn't matter, your blog, your meteoric rise to the top of the publishing world, your wife and kids (and may god bless them, I hope they can enjoy your credentials once the rest of you is gone), the artists you've discovered and pimp, the job you finally got that pays the bills and offers some security--none of that matters.

I can even guarantee that all this won't matter in the future, and that you'll like it. --Look back fondly at your salad days.

But that doesn't matter a whit to where we are right now.

And the feeling's getting stronger every day.

If You Want It, Here It Is, Come And Get It

I had a dream about basketball--me worrying about touch fouls and a radio DJ from the S. Side informing me bluntly that the game was played much more physically where he was from.

So maybe I've been pussyfooting it a bit. Trying New Age style to stay on the so-called positive and ignore the so-called negative. Maybe even whitewashing?

Which makes it a great time to bring up what else has to happen before we get to this glorious world, part of which will be pioneered by White Gold.

Coming up I lived for what we then called "college rock"--the second generation of punk made by folks who had never seen a working class neighborhood in London.

These guys were smart, unapologetic and had balls to boot. They did what they wanted. They were powerful.

My relationship to all things counterculture was such a given that I didn't even think of it as counterculture. My love and knowledge was deep. I investigated Situationism, found old school freaks and hopped on board long before many of the trends became commonplace.

I loved Mayakovsky and other Suprematists, Constructivists, Futurists, and all their proto, cubo and splinter offspring. It seemed to me that they had found a way to live, a way to thrive.

And it seemed obvious to me that the be-boppers, the beats and their modern offspring in hip-hop and punk were the closest things we had to a modern truth.

But alongside of this cultural appreciation lay a profound unhappiness. It seemed that not only had I been born too late but the whole world had conspired to deny me of a good time.

I, of course, responded by "good timing" as long and as hard as I could. Staying up all night, destroying people's property, destroying various parts of myself, creating art that would show the squares what living was really about.

But none of this eventually went anywhere. It never made anything in me stronger--even my feeling of freedom or abandon. It never erased the almost stifling self-consciousness I had picked up somewhere along the way.

Even though all of it tried so hard to shake it loose.

Which is pretty much how I ended up a former successful graphic designer with $8,000 in the bank sitting down to write a book called The Love Artist.

At the time I was listening almost exclusively to Leonard Cohen and Elliott Smith, with a little Al Green and maybe a little Lauren Hill thrown in for good measure.

My friends who weren't "in the scene" called the music depressing but to me it represented the truth. It was literally a representation of the nature of the universe. The closes one we had. And the beauty it contained was proof of that.

When I started writing I could see immediately that the book was going to turn out one of two ways: I could write it from who I was at the moment--some kind of uber-Clerks know it all Nihlist, taking sarcasm to some insane quantum DNA level and insisting that God himself was fucked and everything that had ever happened was innately wrong--or it would be something else altogether.

The first option held the allure of possibly detaching me once and for all from "bourgeois" society. Even though I knew everything, I was still relying on commerce--as a professional none the less--for my living. Maybe if I renounced capitalism all the way I would finally be free or pure.

The problem with that was that I already didn't like myself very much, and that seemed to be accelerating a tack that I had already explored. Being cool-er from cool. I wasn't sure there was anything on the other side of that door that I was truly interested in.

In fact, I wasn't sure that there was anything, for me, on the other side of that door but death. My own. I wasn't necessarily suicidal but I felt like I knew where unhappiness and detachment led to when the flames were fanned.

I didn't enjoy life. At all. And although there were plenty of philosophers that agreed with me that that was due to the nature of the universe, I couldn't ignore the people who seemed to get pleasure out of things that I derided. Things as simple, sometimes, as shopping at Old Navy. And no matter how much I convinced myself that those people were full of it, a trip downtown held incontrovertible proof that leisure and a full stomach, along with some clothes and a safe, warm place to live were at least sufficient to make people BELIEVE they were happy.

My second option scared the shit out of me. Something else.

Anything else.

It wasn't really much of a choice as I knew the first option would lead to my swift demise and, despite my condition, I wasn't really interested in that. Plus, I had known love and could feel what was real.

If only I could maintain it.

So my guiding principle became fuck it. Not only would I not give a shit about that part of society I considered "mainstream", right wing, crass, deluded, and repressed; but I ALSO wouldn't give a shit about what MY people thought: the freaks and punks, the leftys, the "in touch", the cool, the hip, the artists.

I just couldn't afford them anymore.

And so I wrote--deprived of both my scathing criticism for normal society and the comfort I derived from being part of the crowd that "knew" what was going on.

This didn't leave me much to write about from my old perspective. In fact, there wasn't much to write about but myself. --Which felt selfish, self-important, ego-centric. And exhilarating.

I couldn't do it straight right away. I gave the characters different names and told the truth. But even the truth was a little boring. So I told the emotional truth. A truth that could cut as quick and shift as completely as the wind. Just like real life.

Starting out I would get jacked up on coffee to write. To "get in".

I could see that this was fucking up the book--that anything written on coffee would feel like coffee--but as the story was essentially a suicide note I figured it worked.

Then I started editing.

While editing I realized that I was crushing all the beauty and all the delicate, vulnerable parts that I had somehow mustered up the courage to write. Or had managed to let out while my internal editor was turned off.

Writing I had promised that I would just write the truth and the later worry about the emotional, personal, creative and spiritual risks of putting it out. Coffee helped turn the stream on--even if I payed heavily for it afterwards--but coffee while editing was the exact opposite: it napalmed everything but the biggest trees and eradicated all but the darkest colors.

Still dependent on the kick, and still unable to release the truth in an atmosphere of peace; I switched to tea while doing the primary editing and then weaned myself off slowly. Realizing that I was axing huge, wonderful parts of the jungle I had created, but still not wanting to leave an unedited free-associative mess, I took to just crossing out and leaving parts I thought were dubious.

Which ended up working very well. As much of the book it about "the editor", what better way to be that than to see the editing going on while the book progresses.

Somewhere along the way I realized that half the shit I was editing out was the cute shit. (Some of which could be done without). Along with it was the reaches, the delicate, glistening hopeful parts. Anything that could be labeled corny.

But some of life is cute. And some is corny. And some is wistful as hell. So how is erasing all of this somehow the truth.

Which brought me straight back to my relationship with the counterculture.

The counterculture is a signal. An amplified, standardized signal that broadcasts from a certain place to a certain audience. It started off with many anomalies and quirks but has come of age as of late and is essentially as "professional" as the mainstream.

In some cases more, as the mainstream doesn't try as hard to be what it is. Still gets drunk and dances once in a while. Or takes their kids to