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.

And for all that I'm Thankful

Okay. Time for a little catch up. Or, as they say in India, a little Ket-chu-PEE.

First off, watching the AMAs for aminute last night and Madonna for a minute today makes it hard as hell to take a night off from recording, but I'm beat. I had a dream that an Asian woman was driving me home and she was running things over and missing turns becuase she was so tired. I guess I'm out of touch with my male, Western side (right side of body, left eye, left brain). I ended up in gridlock traffic on the freeway inadvertantly. See what happens when you try to go too fast?

Watching Jay-Z and Gwen Stephani I just wanted to win. Snow Patrol too. I'm hugely competitive but I don't think it had anything to do with them, just that I'm so hungry to drop. I'm working a couple, three hours a night and my guitar playing is good enough and my singing is getting there. Much better than a year ago and just a few whatever it takes away from what I really want. I figure a few whatever it takes should be doable in a month or so. Or maybe I should just do the songs and then go back and do vocals?

If you've ever done an extended artistic project you know how much you grow during the process. It's hard not to want to go back at the end and re-do stuff. To stay with the feel of it. Then there's the question: where were you hurrying and it's not worth keeping? Whatever. After a month of marination, I can pretty much tell if something I've done is shiite or not. I know my book is good because it hasn't aged a second. If anything I enjoy it more now than when I first wrote it.

What I liked about Madonna was her hips. She has the turnout of a dancer and killer legs. The more I learn, the more I learn that we are essentially embodied ideas. Our posture, our muscles, our everything is intimately related to who we are, and what we believe. This has nothing to do with "the beautiful people" being right, or somehow holy, but everything to do with how you look to yourself in the mirror. Not to mention how you feel. A subserviance to authority or others can't help but show up in your stance. The same with arrogance. Same with gentleness, love, strength, boldness, compassion and tact.

Maybe this is just another way of saying that we are who we are--all the way. Anyone who thinks that they can get over--and not be subjected--ultimately--to who they are--is mistaken. There are no shortcuts and the big G holds all the treasure. All of it. You could have a Porche, a trophy wife and a mansion and wake up in dread. This world is important--very--but it doesn't matter.

_____

In the last post I started to talk about surrender. Turns out it's a big subject. I would have told you that I was pretty well adjusted spiritually, especially for a guy who hasn't punched a clock in (counting) fifteen years or so. And took 5 years of that to writeand put out a book.

But it turns out I've been white-knuckling it on a number of fronts. And I've just got to let that go.

I have been in the strange position that I believe so much in people that I didn't believe in people. And so much in the universe taht I didn't believe that any of what I saw was true. But now I'm starting to see that it's all true, and about to change massively, and already changed, and not in need of any change at all.

I don't think this is very interesting, or makes very good reading. Let me step up my game.

It turns out that I have layers and layers of belief and non-belief. And that as I get closer and closer to what I'm here to do (make music, start the mature mass culture mudslide of love, enjoy myself, make and be radical love), I excavate layers like an emotional archaeologist.

For a while I felt like I was going back. I looked back and tried to figure stuff out. I had a therapist. I dealt with "problems" or "issues". I tried to make things better.

Then this worked. And I found a contentment that I had never eveen dreamed of. And I came to the realization that it wasn't "dealing with problems" that had gotten me there but more simply the the confidence or understanding that things were okay--good even. And getting okayer/gooder. It was kind of a Jedi mind trick--ghosts can't scare or chase you if you don't look back. It took a while but I learned how to improve myself without making some big horrible problem that I could freak out about. I learned how to grow without something being wrong to push off of. Then how to keep doing this without external pushes from others or the universe.

So I thought I was pretty butter. And I was wrecked and tired. So, being done, I'd just chill for a while. After all I was fixed and the ghosts were gone. Things were just fine.

Then I had a dream that kicked my ass. And told me that as fine as things were (I was still broke and living at my mom's house, btw), that when I was really done, or had made mor cocrete progress, it would be even more dope.

So I reluctantly took up the whatever and started whatevering.

And a lot of that involved bringing what I had learned in my mind into my body. Which took place at the gym, doing manual labor, sharpening my discipline, etc. Not anything I wanted to do, but I've certainly learned to move when told to by now. And that there are concrete rewards, enjoyment and real life waiting to feel and relish.

It turns out that I met a whole lot of my old beliefs and viewpoints in my body. Maybe they were coming out instead of going in this time, but I still had to deal with them. If you want to believe that this world is magic, if you truly want to have and enjoy the benefits of faith, then you're going to take so many risks it'll make your head spin. And that's just getting you to a strong enough faith so that you can believe what you're really going to do. It's basically leaping practice. Which can be daunting when you realize that the only reason to practice leaps of faith is to take bigger ones, from even more leveraged and compromised positions. (Gulp).

And along the way I'd definitely lock up here and there, if for no other reason that I wouldn't have to process all this nonsense. I'll take the leap, just, fuck it, don't make me go through the damn feelings again.

But that's not ultimately what I, or anyone wants. We want the feelings not to have sway over us. Or to find the love underneath them, not tap them down. No one wants to be a love expert, but here we are, here I am, usually working in some manner to look good, to be as cool, or detached, or macho, or whatever as the guys at the gym. Or even just trying to be better than in whatever conversation we're having. Subtle, wierd stuff.

But I don't want any of that. I dont want any of that in my being. Or anywhere near. I want nonsense to wash over me like a wave, and emerge clean again and again. I want to tolerate intolerance. I want to be humble to arrogance. I want to support discouragement. Not to change it, not even to be better than it (Maybe my old MO), but so I don't have to endure it. Because I know it's either becoming a part of me or I am being free. My physical body. Because I want to be able to sing. And I know once I open my mouth y'all can tell immediately. Cause I can tell. If I'm hiding, if I believe, if I'm fun, if I feel it, if I care--because it's there to be done--or if it's just a job. To be that person there doing it. Being cool. Being the expert.

Back to the point, I'm getting into some deep layers recently. If anyone ever tells you that money doesn't matter, do me and yourself a favor and tell them they're full of shit. That would be right behind saying love doesn't matter. Which would be just after saying the world doesn't matter, which would be just after god doesn't matter, I don't matter, and other people don't matter, respectively.

And it's a whole lot like saying sex doesn't matter. In fact they may be governed by the same chakra if anyone out there knows about that stuff.

Back to the story. The reason I was so envious of Madonna's turnout is that I've had a deep-seated hip injury for years. First from a snowboard incident and then likely compounded by sitting in a seat for my work life and riding a bike for my exclusive transportation for a number of years. And not taking measures to correct it.

I knew it would come down to this eventually. That I couldn't get out of being such a perfect hipster for so long without fixing my hip-ster. (Reverse the hip-gnosis! I once insisted on a Post-It somewhere.)

I'll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say that hips don't want to do much overnight change. They don't care if you're "left the past behind" or even "are happy now". Their job is to keep you upright and mobile. And like a basement or foundation, they rely on the beliefs and understanding you had when you were coming up to do that. Even if that process involved some sort of trauma. Maybe especially if that process involved some sort of trauma.

So I'm down to the hips. And working toward my feet. Which requires letting go of everything above that. I honestly don't know how there guys who are completely in the moment, or present, disembodied (embodied?)--whatever--how they remember lyrics. Unless they build them into their new muscles and then just do it from rote. Or improvise.

To make a long story short, I'm finding fear and disbelief in my body--on basically a cellular level--that I haven't had anywhere else for a while. How can my legs be scared while my brain is perking along happily? Don't know, but it's true.

The nice thing is that there's nothing compicated about this stuff. If it's muscles you're holding, you figure it out and let it go. If it's muscles I refuse to hold (oh yes, I've got those too), I try to figure out how on earth people go around holding those. You basically do what you least want to do. (Lord help us.)

Which is probably what you most want to do. Be doing.

As Charles Wright (Easy-E's father) said "It’s not what you look like, when you’re doin´ what you’re doin´. It’s what you’re doin´ when you’re doin´ what you look like you’re doin´!" Followed by: "Express Yourself" a couple times and then by "Some people have everything, and other people don’t. But everything don’t mean a thing if it ain´t the thing you want."

Express Yourself!

Sounded pretty right on this am at they gym. (Oh, and where, by the way, I just ordered a custom pair of pink and red Nikes to wear. The pink part is patent leather I believe. And If I remember correctly I ordered ALL*MYTEE on the side. I already wear all red and pink (sometimes a little orange) and have a pink iPod cover and a pink water bottle. Can you say ready for takeoff?)

When I was depressed and suffering significant anxiety I figured out a trick. I would let everything go but whatever was worst and basically stare straight into it. Instead of letting it chase me around and pick away or throw me off balance and get me in a tailspin, I would sit down or even lie down and say "C'mon then".

And it worked. It was much quicker than writing things out and eventually helped me move to real time in my processing of emotions. And sometimes I think that's what feelings are. Just saying check this. The point being to stare straight into it and get quickly back straight rather than try to avoid it and deal later or let it grow. I thought it was a mind game (or exercise) but I see it may be the same with physical stuff as well. Go straight to it. Take the hit.

So how does this work with surrender? With everything being easier? Good question.

I don't think surrender necessarily means relaxing--or easier. Okay, maybe it does. But you may have to, at various times, surrender to the hard work it will take. Or the slow pace of something. The point is that every moment is to be enjoyed--sunk into--even the ones we are thinking we should just grit out teeth and muscle it out. Maybe especially those ones. And then you can even muscle from beneath, from a point of standing under, of understanding as well. Leave it all in your feet--or better on the floor.

But I think the real deal is to be 3-D. To be able to go in any direction at any moment. I had basically given up my days to routine--and thinking I was knowing what was coming--because all I want to do is record music and I have to do my business x number of hours a day to do that. And with eating and the gym and Sunday, that's most of it. But once I let "knowing what was going to happen" go, things started happening. Differently. I didn't know what a day was going to look like. But this only happened after I gave up on both knowing what was going to happen and my body's reluctance of knowing what was going on. It may be all about control.

Being in control was very convenient, as I was pushing myself past where I was comfortable creatively and past where I was used to giving it my all energy wise, and being available to change when I had some time and energy wasn't really a priority, as I was in conservation mode. But a strange thing happened. As much as I was able to give over to it, it gave me more energy.

And now we're getting somewhere.

If you're still with me, god bless you. We're in deep.

I started doing the Suze Orman financial stuff. Money has always, always, always (past tense) been from an annoying trifle to a chronic, raging, stifling frustration. Quite simply I have never felt as though I have had enough. And a periodic glance at my bank account often times confirmed this. Writing a book for five years, you would think, takes more than $8K in starting money. And whenever I've gone to go get the money I needed to go do something, I've found myself without the time or energy to do it.

Extreme frustration of global proportion. Ugggh.

Compound this with the fact that I like the good stuff and no longer even pretend to be interested in going without cashmere (or a clean, dry, warm car) for my art, and you get an embodied feeling of "lack" that can stand up pretty well. You might even say that it has it's own legs. (Me and Suze are working on that, though, even though I don't do much overt "self-help"y stuff these days I may have needed her inspiration and insight on this one).

While writing my book, I learned how to just soldier on. It's the 30th and no rent $$ in sight? Oh well. It's been 3 years, can't stop now. Happen into the guitar shop and learn that my amp sold. Rent for another month.

That dried up around the time I put my book out. Oh well, time to learn how to go even further. Must proove dedication by borrowing to believe in my own creations. Even though I think, almost literally, that it will kill me. It doesn't but neither does the book do anything. I end up with significant debt, which dries up as well. (Not the monthlies, btw, just ability to exercise the line).

My answer, raise the price for the book, start painting, move in with mom, move on from painting to building a studio. Studio prooves pro-sumer, sound quality bunk, start upgrading. This is before almost my first song mind you.

My point is that I've lept so much that leaps almost don't phase me. (Which, funny enough, brought a new concern itself). --But I was still radically curious as to how I could so perfectly broke when I was living as if I lived in a prosperous universe. I told you all about the time I bought a new Rolex didn't I?

How could I still be broke after believeing so long and so hard? It wasn't about my mind, it was about my body. I didn't feel as though I believed. I would take a nap when I was beat but went kicking and screaming, even when I was talking (or writing) about "the beauty of a bath and nap everyday" (That's a quote from the Other Eben, actually.) I didn't believe as in Be-the-shit -Live (instead of dead), I just thought it and acted accordingly.

And maybe this is why it takes 10 years? If a smoker's lungs take 7 to clear out, it could easily take 10 to work the faithlessness and despair out of your dna and riboflaven (whatever). To go from "I believe" to I believe. To work those golden jjuices all the way down to yur cute little tootsies.

I don't want to be recognized as someone who believes, or even look like I believe, I want to actually believe. To feel, believe and understand plenty. I don't need proof, or even for it to happen as long as I feel it. I completely realize that this makes me identical to everyone who's out there searching for mushrooms or blow this weekend. It's what I wanted when I was searching for those things.

The power we have is, in Charles Wright's kind of words, is that we can want what we have. And have what we want.

___________

On another note I saw what I wanted today, hoo boy. The most beautiful woman turned the corner, with a white brother like me in the front seat. And I'd be lying if I said her new car wasn't part of it. I want the whole package. Except the car will be gold, not silver, and I'll be driving. And it'll go with a good sized house. Does that sound good to you, baby?

I kn ow this isn't popular knowledge at he moment, but we men have been too quiet as of late. Come on guys, we know what we want when we see it. We double check with a feel and know for sure with a hold tight, pheramones and discerning experience like anyone else, but we know what we like when we see it. Before we talk. Before we know your political stance. This doesn't mean we all want the same thing. Or taht you aren't beautiful. But there isn't much getting past square one when it's not there. Believe me I tried.

Pretend this is five different posts and I'll roll on.

Who and how I loved was always my greatest fear. I loved beautiful women. Tall, powerful women. Women who scared me.

But I thought, or was taught, that that wasn't right. That everyone was equal and that everyone was worth getting to know. That you couldn't judge a book by its cover.

So Itried dating books I couldn't judge by their covers. And sleeping with women I should have been attracted to. I can laugh now but this shook me to my core. My absolute core. I guess the greater question was how could I know anything or be trusted with anything if I didn't even have a reliable way of knowing who was right for me. What I liked. If I couldn't be the judge--but someone else--some committee had enough authority to tell me this. That my desires were wrong. Schwing!

Every organized religion and most scholastics say the same thing: Too bad you piece of grunt, we can't let you go free. That's what's been messing the whole thing up teh whole time. I figured that there was no way I was smarter that 3000 years of human progress, prophets, artists and spiritual teachers (Even if there wasn't one of their lives I envied--wasn't one of them that I wanted to be). I'm way generalizing here but I hope you can grasp the point.

I even assummed I was gay for a while. I followed my doubt so long and so hard (I had been trained in skepticism and the critical method after all) that when I got to myself, I went in with both guns blazing. If my desires were wrong then my fears must be right. (Warning: do not try this at home! : ) ). I must be gay and really want to move to Hawaii with my friend.

That was the conclusion I came to after believing that happy endings were a scam perpetuated by money grubbers in Hollywood and the truth was ugly and gnarled and cheap like punk rock and Schlitz. Dirt was natural, cleanliness was artifice--because you had to maintain it. I'm laughing but I went out on a limb for these ideas. I went all in. And it was probably more god and the nature of the universe--being positive--that alowed me to do that than my own will. Because you can't doubt yoruself that completely without eroding your own will as well.

If you ever get there, just remember to be complete. If you're willing to give up on everything, give up on unhappiness and despair as well and you'll be fine. But you have to be thorough. Be willing to give up on the certainty that you're destined to lead a meaningless, unglamorous, humdrum life as well. Then you'll be able to come out the other side the rock star, airplane pilot, veteranarian you always wanted to be. It's actually not that hard if you're willing to suspend disbelief with as much determination as you suspended belief.

Anyway, I'm still open to radical correction. And MT (that's Miss Thang) may be 180 degrees from what would be good for me. And if so, you'll hear it here first. But god gave me a little wink as she drove by, and said, yo motherfucker (he didn't actually call me motherfucker, but the intent--that he meant it that hard--was the same)--"Yo, motherfucker--your little All*Mytee ass is going to be all-right. In fact, you're going to be thick as a pig in shit. And if you can be the two-thirds the man you were born to be with HER--with that woman--and you can grow and be in the face of that constant beauty, that strength, that vulnerability, and, when it comes, the horror of that fear, then you, my friend, are going to be in for some wonderful, holy-assed, thisi world shit. I'm glad you did the work to be alive to feel it, and congratulations for finding the discipline without gettting too uptight to enjoy it--you have no fucking idea, my brother, how good it can get. And how long it can stay once you're willing to be ruthless. About your love.

"Welcome to it baby!"

Actually, he didn't say that either, he just put a song on the radio earlier in the day. That I heard in the car coming back from dropping my mom at the airport and running an errand. --One hundred point three. --LOVE FM. The lyrics to that song, by The 5 Stairsteps are:

Ooh-oo child, things are gonna be easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter
Ooh-oo child, things are gonna be easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter

Some day, yeah
We'll put it together and we'll get it all done
Some day
When your head is much lighter
Some day, yeah
We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Some day
When the world is much brighter

Some day, some day, some day
We'll get it together and we'll get it all done
Some day
When your head is much lighter
Some day, some day, some day
We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Some day
When the world is much brighter

Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter
Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter

Right now
You just wait and see how things are gonna be
Right now...

It made me very glad to live in a city where they have a whole station dedicatd to songs like this; Celebration by Kool and the Gang; and More, More, More by Andrea True Connection. And when it came on I cried about as hard as you can when you're on the freeway and have to merge and get over two lanes to make your exit.

__________

And one last thing. I realize now that I've got to want it. That I've got to believe it, and want to believe it. That there is no thing that I should be believing and that by listening hard enough I can discern. It's a ball that's got to be picked up and run with. A nature that must be embraced. A being that can only be embodied--by one person--me. Surrenderedly, of course. And it may not be true for anyone else. But that it must be absolutely certain for me.

More more more, how do you like it how do you like it
More more more, how do you like it how do you like it
More more more, how do you like it how do you like it
Ouuuh... how do you like your love? (X2)