Ode to Perseverance

I wrote this after high school, 1st or second year of college I think, don't have an exact date, but...I'm thankful that it's touched a few lives over the years. It's good to get it up in video form, maybe it can reach a few more. I'm posting the words like this because it's so hard to do irregular spacing in HTML, it's really not the worth the headache when this can work just as well.

Enjoy peeps!

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The Whirlpool -- Part 3

You live in a world full.

You live in a world full of isolation.

How can both those statements be true?

They just are.

John Donne said that “No man is an island.” However, if you think bigger…might you notice that every piece of land is an island?

So perhaps what he was trying to say is that no man is land.

Does that make sense?

That no man is like a piece of land? Does that ring as true as what Donne said IF you agree with what he said?

It seems logical.

And if you are following the logic there, and you can see the truth in the idea of no man being separate from ______, then you might want to spend some time thinking, “if man is Not land then….what is he?”

Put some thoughtful time into that metaphor. There are, after all, only so many other elements to choose from. They might offer you an interesting way to look at man.

All that aside, focus now on the current experience of reality; one that seems to be rife with isolation. That doesn’t mean YOU are alone. Certainly not, who would imply such a thing when you have a husband, a wife, significant others, kids, pets, friends and co-workers who give you books to read and music to listen to.

You are not alone. Right?

Then how is it there is still an incredible amount of isolation living in your life. Can you see it? Can you feel it? Would you appreciate it if someone pointed it all out?

Where is the isolation if it is not in your relationships? It is simple really: the isolation is in your mind. It is BUILT Into your relationship with absolutely everything, everything you see no connection to or see no connection between.

In your mind it is as though EVERYTHING around you has its own box. Every thing is boxed up, squared off, and framed in: isolated by a lack of perceived indivisibility.

The world IS indivisible, however, every boxy bit of it. There is a constant flow of relationship, there is a constant stream of cause, there is a never ending line of effects and the energy that invisibly exists between all of these never really changes or stops moving. Despite how often you draw a line where a line can never exist.

You think that all these pieces of life are separated somehow. You think it so much that you have divided the entire world with your thoughts. You think that everything fits into its own little box, affixed with its own little label and you like it that way, you like it that way a lot. You like that everything is distinguishable and clear. If it wasn’t so divided and divisible and clear, then pieces might start to overlap and when things start to overlap, suddenly there are RELATIONSHIPS that you’re not so sure about. Like a white supremacist who refuses to look at his family tree because he suspects—pretty much knows—there’s a nigger in there somewhere. Maybe two!

If the world wasn’t so divisible and clear it would suddenly be a lot harder to hate…….ANYTHING. If the world wasn’t so divisible and clear you would end up with so little to fear, and….what would you do without all that fear? Really. What would you DO without all that fear?

If it wasn’t so divisible and clear, you might inadvertently find yourself associated with and questioning so many things in the world that…you don’t want to think about. Because, after all, your understanding and definition of things is just fine. You got a family, friends, a house, a church, a God, a bible, a job, a car, a dog, a cat, a tv, food on the table and a vacation once a year. What more could you ask for in such a disparate world?

This is the world, your world as you see it. And all those basic pieces you’ve worked so hard to acquire are hardly even related in your mind. Your dog doesn’t have anything to do with that tv. Your friends don’t seem to have anything to do with the food on your table. Each one is in its own little box, unless the connection is OBVIOUS to the 5 senses of course. Hence why it takes some people so long to figure out that the invisible dog dander in the air is having a direct effect on your respiratory system. Not to mention the dust all over the tv.

The air in one room of the house has nothing to do with the air in another. They are as unrelated as the two different colors of paint on the two rooms’ walls. This is how you treat all of life. Even though you know a dog can smell something a mile away. Even though an elephant can smell water (that is underground) from ten miles away. Even though you’ve heard accounts of twins on opposite sides of the world sensing the other’s pain. Even though you’ve heard of more than one pet going crazy or dying the moment its owner passes in another place. Even though women who live together often experience an alignment of their menstruation cycles, like the face of the moon aligning itself with the Earth. Even though you, yourself, have a story of your own, maybe from a half-remembered dream, much like this.

For you, that is all neither here nor there. To you, these are all anomalies in a system that makes perfect sense. For you, these are “mysterious” exceptions to the rule. The unwritten rule that states, “I am only connected to what I see myself connected to AND, regardless of even that, what I AM stops at the tip of my finger.”

Never underestimate the power of denial. Never underestimate the power of disbelief.

The double-edged sword of belief/disbelief has severed, cut up and divided more of this world than any other ability. More than the ability to start a war. More than the ability to stone a woman to death with the sharpest stones. More than all the lies and half-truths and broken marriages combined. It has the power to split giant, old churches right down the aisle!

If the ultimate goal for the globe is unity, then this dichotomy is dichotomously the greatest ally and the greatest threat. If only there were some way around it…

If only there were a way to get you to see more, see bigger, elevate your point of view just like you did at the beginning to see that every piece of land is in fact an island. If you do not expand your point of view, how do you ever hope to understand or expand your relationship with the world around you? Until then, you will continue to think in small, boxed up terms, in very straight lines while concentric circles dance all around your imprisoned perception.

No wonder you are so easy to overwhelm, you must feel dizzy nearly all the time, you must feel like you are on the verge of vertigo every moment something sudden happens. You are completely out of rhythm with the regular flow of life. You are at odds with it. You are blind to the fact that everything constantly flows back into itself. Like it or not. As if seasons were a symbol for all that is on this planet. You haven’t figured out through experience that time does not exist and that energy is, in fact, overabundant.

You think you have to make a choice, you think that you have to make big sacrifices, that you can’t possibly have or do everything that you want. Cake or death. Cake or life. Cake. Icing. Crumbs. Death.

This point of view is understandable. You think everything you do is separate and you must allot this amount of time to this or ELSE. And you must allot some other amount of time to that OR ELSE as well. So many choices! So many choices consciously made that do not need to be scrutinized at all. So much thinking that gets processed and colored by isolation and tainted by your fears. It is possible that 80% of the choices you make you make out of fear. Thankfully, that 20% you make out of love are mixed right in, and due to the potency of these choices, they are the only thing keeping this failed system afloat.

“Just another day in the life, livin the way of the knife, can’t get away from the strife cuz everyday is a fight. Like a buffet where every bite is full of dismay and plight. I pray for light, but everyday is dark as night, without a spark of hope in sight, the rope’s too tight and I choke more the more I fight...”

That is how you see and speak about things on most days, isn’t it? This is why you believe you have to make a choice between inseparable things, like raising your children today and actively creating the future world. And yet you guard this choice like a den mother, as if the two “choices” are not part of the same circle. As if the future is not being determined by every single decision you make today. As if everything you do in one will not flow directly into the other, without any EFFORT at all. As if helping me help the world or help YOURSELF is very selfish of you, and will never be anything but.

Such a limited point of view….no wonder why you worry so much. No wonder why you choose fear so many times out of ten. No wonder why.

It’s all on you, huh? Yeah, it’s all on you here on planet Dirt. There’s just nothin else workin for you here, is there? It’s amazing the whole place doesn’t implode, doesn’t dis-integrate—considering the lack of belief you put into everything it tries to teach you and every carefully woven olive branch it offers.

Each of us has the power of a lion, and yet we live with the meekness of blind mice.

We live in a world full.

We live in a world full of lions who have forgotten they are kings.

We live in a world full of lions all part of the same pride.

And so you live in a world full of fear and isolation, in which every other breath bespeaks desolation. And begets it in the next exhale.

In truth, you live in a whirlpool. You are but one of 7 billion circular drops being slowly pulled into a few million smooth curves and some of you are fighting this process every single ripple of the way.

You are all bending in the same arc, in various perfectly turning circles, all moving in the same direction, all getting closer to the point of center. The center. The center where there is nothing but unity, where you move so fast everything seems to be standing still—long enough for each piece to tell you the tale of its existence and, by doing so, bring you more peace through a grander vision of Purpose in place.

The planet you live on is a whirlpool. And like a whirlpool there is sense in every element of its design. It is not a planet born of chaos, slowly rising up. It is, instead, made up of so many moving circles. It is a planet at one point of several overlapping circles. Circles that are all moving together in the same direction. Like a moon to a planet, like a planet to a solar system, like a solar system to a galaxy, like a galaxy to a…..

Do you really think that these exact parallels, these….living echoes, mean NOTHING to US? That we are somehow exempt? Even though we are in the middle of it all. Do you think these shapes have nothing to tell us even though they get repeated everywhere we look? Do you really think there is an END to their repetitions in EITHER direction? Do you really think that they are all NOT connected?

And if you do….why? Why do you see such chaos? An endless series of coincidences?

Is it because you believe everything that cannot speak was not given a story to tell?

A story that rings of truth?

If the wild animals of this planet could speak, do you think they would see chaos and destruction in what they do? In how they live? Or would they see order and balance? Maybe even symmetry? Would they see and sense sense and a constant given, a given constant, a constant give and take that seems to WORK just fine in seeming perpetual motion?

If the Earth could speak, and give its opinion on every species that exists….what do you think it would say about us? What do you think it would see in how we live?

Might it say: “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.” Might it ask us why “man serves the interest of no creature except himself?”

Might it even tell us a story of how everything was balanced in harmony until one species came into power and from that point on there has been constant disarray? And instead of blaming themselves for all the disorder they see and experience all around them (the disorder they themselves set in motion), instead of blaming themselves EVERYDAY, this species worships the power and projects the fault onto ANYTHING it can. Women, the past, sinners, snakes, the moderates, the conservatives, lack of this, too much of that, evil, human nature, and even the odd God.

Instead of blaming themselves everyday and seeing their “power” for what it really is, they simply create stories set in the past to blame their PAST selves. In a past where they have no power, as far as they are now concerned. A story of absolution for man walking the planet today, so that he or she can say, “That’s just how it is and how it’s always been, not much I can do about that really, but it’s not like I’m all that bad anyway.” Then he or she wipes his or her oily hands, as if that could clean them forever, and then goes on the interwoven way in colorblind ignorance.

This is the story being told all around us, but we have told ourselves to not believe it. We have told ourselves that our one story makes more sense than the billion being told for ages and still today. Doubt once gave rise to fear and fear begat the disillusioned, who came to believe in this illusion. But the greatest stories of all are always true stories, so it makes sense that the simplest, truest story of all, would also be the most fantastic, ergo—the hardest to believe.

The world is a beautiful whirlpool and it has been spinning and spinning and spinning for millions of years. And it is constantly working towards one thing: unity in balance. The sooner you see that, the sooner your life will start working for you all the time, instead of against you. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you will be able to enjoy every second of the ride, and an opportunity will never again feel like a burden. And every choice you make will never bring pain without also bringing the healing light of joy.

You like that everything is so “divisible and clear,” or at least you think that makes things clear: “SO…Definable!” The irony is…it is all these divisions that are confusing the hell out of you. Literally. And the longer we live, the more divisions we seem to make, and the more confused and fearful we become. When, at what point, do we start seeing the connections and start putting things back together again?

This is my question.

Think on it. It seems as though that is all some of you are able to do for now. Until you stop telling the universe everything you can’t do, and start remembering all you already have.

How It Adds Up -- by Tony Hoagland

Happy Poetry day peeps :)

There is Hope!

Ohhh yes....oh yes I do

So last week was pretty crazy. Not extremely crazy, or really crazy, just…pretty crazy. It was Valentine’s week and while the holiday had nothing to do with the craziness, it also had everything to do with the craziness.

Through a fortunate series of events and connections I’ve been getting more and more out there (in Bangkok) as a poet, as a performer and the like, and that’s been pretty cool. Almost every time I perform, a door presents itself. An opportunity appears and…I’ve done my best to Not Say No. I figure saying no kinda contradicts the whole concept of having AMBITIONS.

But so far, so (really) good. Just as I aspired and foresaw over a year ago, things are happening, things are crackin and coming together. I’m meeting cool people who see what I see (the potential of this art form) and little by little, we’re makin shit happen.

Understand, all I really wanna do is get it out there! I just wanna share what I have to share with the most people possible. That’s IT for me, that’s the end game. I really don’t care how this comes about, or what I get out of it in return (it’s not like I could expect much, we are, after all, talking about POETRY here!), but when I start getting invitations to do what I do and get paid for it….Well Alright, yeah, that’s pretty fuckin cool too! :-)
And that, my friends, is what has started happening. Last week I got paid for my poetry, which is a crazy sentence to say. However, the circumstances in which this happened are Even Crazier!

Guys, you’re not going to believe this, or rather, you’re not going to be able to imagine this, but somebody paid me money to recite LOVE poetry. LOVE POETRY! To people. Having dinner. IN THE DARK.

No. Joke. :)

This is what I did last week. On two separate occasions! WILDEST Fucking EXPERIENCE to ever come out of being a poet! Lol. It was SO crazy. So weird and so crazy. You might’ve seen my post on facebook about Dining in the Dark, this is what I’m talking about. Eating an entire three-course meal in absolute darkness, and then I COME IN, with some love poetry!

I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried folks. LOL.

It was pretty wild. I don’t know what it was like for the dinner guests on Valentine’s night, the first night, but it was bizarrrrrre as hell for me. Imagine doing what I do, and then imagine being led into a room that you’ve never been in before, a room that has not an ounce of light, in which you can hear people eating and talking like any other restaurant, and then YOU begin reciting love poetry to these people and no one can see anything! Weeeeird. But wild. ONE of a KIND experience. And all I can say is, WHY NOT?

Why shouldn’t that be happening somewhere in the world, and why not have me be in the middle of it? The world needs more poetry, that much I know, and I gotta do whatever I can to help feed that famine. ...Assuming that is how you bring a famine to an end.

It was a trip for so many reasons tho…

1). LOVE POETRY!?! Really?! This is how I’m going to make my first check in the world of poetics? LOVE POETRY?? HAHAHA, all I can do is laugh. The irony of it is astounding. I haven’t written a love poem since 2005! That unto itself could tell you all kinds of things! I would’ve NEVER Predicted this, not in a million years! A couple of those poems are from my teens and a couple I’ve NEVER shared publicly before! Not even online. And after all the work I’ve been doin honing my craft, sharpening my spear to fight the good fight against all the "evils in the world," when I finally get called to duty, “Uhhh, yeah, we just need a couple nice love poems. Think you could do that? Thanks.” Really world? REALLY??? That’s so funny!

(look, a picture of a couple pretty girls, to distract you from how much you're reading, ahhhhhh )
thanks for the pics Johnny!

2). It’s IN THE DARK! So much for being a “PERFORMANCE Poet!” Lol, it’s like a violinist playing to the deaf! It’s a good thing my old love poems aren’t performance poems, that would’ve just been confusing. Plus I probably would’ve knocked something over. But think about it, all those hours spent practicing my performances, getting every nuance and hand gesture down and then, when the time comes to shine, “Uhhhh, actually, nobody’s going to be able to see you.”

*cue the sound effect* WAAwaaaaah.

The romantic, artistic contributions for the night
1 violinist + 1 poet = business time!

3). MY LOVE POETRY??! MINE?? My love poetry ain’t NOTHIN great! It’s just not. I’m bein honest. It’s decent, it’s cool, but it’s nothin that I’m real proud of or would EVER show off as a great example of love poetry! God no. As if that type of poetry alone wasn’t unexpected enough, the poetry HAD to be memorized (no light!), and I only had about 3 days notice, which left me with one option: ME! WTF!? Lol, that was it, that was my immediate reaction to this situation that just lands at my feet.. I’m lookin up at God goin, “Really?? This is what you want me to be doin?” Cuz let’s all agree there is incredible love poetry out there, there are the GREATS. Too many to name, and I’m sure most of you know them. But I would’ve been 10 times more comfortable reading one of the greats. I mean these people are there celebrating Valentine’s day and their love and they deserve to hear the best, to be INSPIRED and have their breath taken away, not listen to my watered down cheesy shit! :-) I consider that a whole genre unto itself because it is SO HARD to do well. It’s just incredibly difficult to Add anything to that milieu that isn’t plagued with feelingless clichés. It’s all been said before. I wouldn’t DARE try to write a love poem unless I was crazy in love because you have to be crazy to think you can write something original or worthy of seeing the light of day in that one sacred context.

But yeah, there’s no way I could memorize 4 poems in a couple days, so I had to go with the couple I already had memorized from back in the day and couple I had memorized back in the day and could learn again real quick. Good enough, I guess. I mean, I wouldn’t have agreed to do it if I thought that they were bad, but…I felt like they’re good enough for public consumption so I went along with it. Cuz, fuck, you never know until you try. And this is definitely worth a try, if not just to write a blog about!
4). Comfort Zone = Ground Zero. I could easily run out of adjectives trying to describe how twisted that experience was. You CAN NOT Imagine what it was like! Standing there, in the dark, trying to impart some semblance of romance to the air of these people with words that probably are not endowed for such a task. Wow, it was just like Wow. One of the most vivid experiences I’ve ever had, and I couldn’t see a thing.

But you know what? I did it. I knew it’d be crazy and weird and uncomfortable, but I still said yes and went along for the ride and became that much more experienced AND shared poetry with a few people who might not have heard any for a very long time. Woo-freakin-hoo, that’s pretty cool.

I’m on a journey, one I never thought I would ever embark on, but embark on it I have. And I knew from the beginning that it would take me to places I could never dream or imagine as I went on my wordy way, most of which would be so new to me that I couldn’t help but feel uneasy, scared, or daunted by it. But there’s something I’ve been doing a really good job at keeping in mind, and I remembered it that night too! “When you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.” That---is----it. I gotta keep that in mind, otherwise my comfort zone and inhibitions will trip me up or slow me down. Bear in mind, there is a difference between integrity and comfort zone, I’ll still stick to my principles, but I know there are other parts of me that will be challenged, and they should be challenged.

FEAR, be damned!

So yeah, there you have it, you now know a poet---Who got PAID! How unbelievable is that!? There is Hope my friends, there is hope! For this world, for us, for doing the right thing, AND for POETRY! And if we just keep working together, we can work some of these kinks out, and there will be a little more harmony, a little more understanding, and (no…yesss…No..yesss, I’m gonna say it!) a little more love.

I gotta especially thank Adam Sharpe and Benjamin Baskins for seein potential in this art and making use of it and supporting me as an artist, givin me opportunities to show unsuspecting people what I can do in unexpected places. Them along with the rest of the guys behind LUSH definitely get thanks, just for being open to such a crazy incorporation as Poetry into the cool things they do. I don’t care why you do it, or what you think about it, I think in the big picture of things it’s an admirable thing to do and noble too! The world NEEDS more poetry, and could really make use of it too. In this fast paced world where fewer and fewer people are developing a love for literature and reading (and attentions spans shrink like shrink wrap), this is such a digestible, accessible form of art that can get in people’s heads, plant seeds or spur thoughts into action.

There is room for poetry, we can squeeze it in.

I’m really happy to be involved in the art I happen to be in. I really think it CAN make a difference and it has so much potential for growth in the consciousness of everyday people. So much room to grow, and I am ecstatic to help it do that in all the ways I can. It’s a great cause, for the people and the kids who find their voice in it, much like myself.

It’s only February, folks. I’ve told many of you this is just the beginning, that this year will be huge for me. And it will. This was just a road mark, much bigger things are coming that won’t need to be celebrated with a blogpost because they’ll be a celebration unto themselves.

Like I once told a friend, there’s two ways that you can really get people’s attention: you can either do something they’ve never seen before, or you do something SO WELL that they can’t help but take notice. Obviously, with a lot of effort, I’m trying to the do the latter, but luckily I happen to be doing it in a place where this really hasn’t been seen before, so that’s working to my advantage too. Either way, This IS Happening, guys. Make no doubt about it.

Thanks to all of you who are coming with me (90% of which probably read this whole thing! ♥ you guys), and those of you who are working behind the scenes (right now) to help me get there. You know who you are. We’ll pop bottles when the time comes. ;)

My success is your success. If we’re in this together, how could it be any other way?

Cheers!

Chutes and Ladders

"The cure for pain is in the pain." ~ Rumi

1-25-12

There is a bigger picture

We often think we got it all figured out

like we're looking at a board game

and can see the next logical natural

inevitable steps and conclusions

but then something happens

and we find out that the picture

is so much bigger than what we thought

At first we respond with fear

and maybe go through all the stages of loss

but if we can make it through all that

without holding onto too much of the darkness therein

we often find that the bigger picture

isn't so bad

It may even be just what we needed

to become the greatest version

of ourselves

I Have Not Been Myself

I have not been myself. For a while now. I mean, I have been lately, but…that was a pretty recent development. Up until last year, I was not myself. At least not in the best sense of the word. I was something less than that. A watered down version of myself. “KJ .50”. For years. And I didn’t even know it. And the day I became aware of the extent of it was the day that that changed. 1 night, over a year ago. Blink. Boom. Reformed. I was not myself for nearly 10 years. My god that’s a long time. Such a shame, such a waste. Passing thru life like a ghost, only so alive. Only so happy to be alive. This was me. I was becoming “just another cog.” With little in the way of aspiration or ambition. And I was okay with that. Seemingly. There was one period of “greatness” in my life when I was younger. A time when I began to feel great, but also see signs of greatness (in some way) within me. It started in high school, when, for the first time in my life, life started to seem good. Even…nice sometimes. I think a lot of this had to do with the circle of friends I had found who gave me my first taste of true friendship. And, collectively, my first taste of unconditional love and “family” (at least as far as most people experience that word). I felt comforted and un-alone, and had people I could be myself around for the first time. Whoa, crazy. Along with that, my freshman year, I found my art. Which was big to me then, and exciting then and interesting then, but…I don’t think I realized what I had. Or that there was anything really special about it. And I don’t mind putting some of the blame for that on the people around me. There was a surprising lack of support from “adults” in my world. Family and teachers alike. It’s kind of weird to me now. It’s like nobody sees each other’s potential. It's like nobody wants anybody to do better than themselves. And on top of that, I assure you it was drilled into my head that there was no “future” in choosing to be a poet. I HAD to be practical. Fair enough. Wait…no it’s not. Regardless, I didn’t have to worry about that stuff til after I graduated, and by Junior year I was VIBING. Vibrating with life and ideas. I had so much energy and so much enthusiasm for everything I was doing. And I think part of that was having less stress in my life than ever before. I was beginning to feel peace. I was writing a poem every day sometimes. One day I had an idea and just decided to start my own writing club in the school! The only one of its kind. I had another idea and STAGED poems in cahoots with the drama department and won an award for “best director.” These were relatively small things that were big signs. Or should have been. I was a mover and a shaker and I could MAKE things HAPPEN. This was news to me. Everything was going fantastically. Well….aside from having to throw out the annual bucket of unrequited love, everything was going fantastically!

I had begun thinking big and dreaming big. I was beginning to see my potential. I was growing. A lot. Things were coming out of me that…had power to them. In them. And I felt like I had a responsibility to put these gifts to use, to not waste them. And I really thought I would, I really thought I’d see these dreams thru. How could I not? The signs were too clear. When ALL the signs say “Go THAT way,” what kind of idiot wouldn’t go THAT WAY? By the end of high school, life was good. Understand, in general, I hated my high school. The education was fine, and I was a pretty good student by then, but the people and the culture just sucked. You have no idea how long it took me to figure out that “People don’t suck, it’s just Phoenix!” But thankfully, by the end of it I had found maybe half a dozen people I really cared about AND (this was new!) genuinely seemed to care about ME. You have no idea how good that felt. It was in the fortress of their friendship that I felt safe enough to pull the pieces my self out and put them back together. I rebuilt myself under their watch. Thank you. I was feeling SO GOOD and so alive at the end of my senior year, that I had my first conscious and visceral experience of psychic phenomena!

After graduation, the school hosted an all night party, and we actually went. Because…that’s what all the cool kids did. Ha. At the end of the night (i.e. 5 in the morning), which was a truly wonderful night, we were all in the cafeteria for the last hurrah and a big raffle. The raffle was of course just a gimmick to get us to stay the whole night and not go out and kill ourselves stupid. I didn’t care about it, but everyone who came was like automatically entered in or something. And there were some badass prizes, so yeah, we were there. Sitting there around the lunch table, FOR THE LAST TIME. Lunch tables that some of us had NEVER even sat at before (we all ate outside, in a corner usually, like we were hiding from the fucking world. A lot of my friends were in Sci-fi club and had a penchant for black trench coats. Nuff said). There we were, Class of ’99, getting all sentimental and shit over our plastic cups of coke, and it happened. I was enjoyin the last hour of the party, talkin, listenin, laughin, whatever. Tired but alive. And there, in the midst of that, the strangest sensation came over me. Suddenly, my entire body….wanted to stand up. I had no idea what was going on, I just felt this push in my mind, telling me over and over to do something that I didn’t understand. I did Not want to suddenly stand up in the middle of the cafeteria for no reason at all! That was not something that I wanted to do, I valued my invisibleness. But some part of me was trying to tell me what to do in a language I was not familiar with. In the midst of that sensation, I heard my name. And then I heard it again. And it wasn’t just in my head, I knew that after the second time. And because people started to look at me. My name was being called, quite loudly. Over the speaker system. I was being called to the “stage.” I had won something in the raffle.

I immediately stood up. Thrilled to give in to this crazy impulsive urge. Even though I was still trying to process what was happening. “What.….just….happened?” I think I stood there for a second like, “What the fuck WAS THAT?” The fact that I won something was cool (and weird), BUT….something way bigger just took place in my little existence. The whole way up to the stage my head felt like it was in a dream. I was not there. This could not be happening.

Somehow….I knew this was going to happen several SECONDS before it happened. Some part of me knewwww. How is that possible?

Needless to say, that experience redefined the word “possibility.” My mind was reeling. What a message to receive. It’s one thing to believe, it’s a whole nother thing to know. From experience. Experience trumps faith, and always will. This was mine, this was just another door blown open. My mind used to be a cell, but now it’s full of skylights.

There are so many well-defined lines that can be blurred. That’s what that experience taught me, phenomenally, for whatever reason. And here’s the thing, I won three hundred dollars in plane ticket vouchers. Which is a pretty cool prize. BUT….I never used em. Just never used em. Just like that. It’s safe to say that…my life was pretty sheltered in certain ways. I would say this was a sign of that shelteredness. I had only flown in a plane like twice up to then, and it was by no means normal for me to “travel” on my own. Why am I putting that in quotes? I have no idea! I guess cuz that word was pretty foreign to me back then. It’s not that I didn’t have that kind of independence, I just didn’t have that kind of freedom.

My point is though…I Had That ONE OF A KIND EXPERIENCE over something that would lead to nothing. Wow. Do you see what that means? That didn’t happen because that trip was fated to be some huge turning point in my life that was echoing backwards into the present. It wasn’t. It never happened. I sensed the future about something completely insignificant. It happened because it happened. It happened because it’s POSSIBLE. Because I was ready for it to happen, because my mind happened to be in that perfect place that would allow for such a blur in the time continuum to occur. All within that tiny space that is my awareness. Lucky me. Still, what a thing to know.

:-P

But yeah, that’s how good my life WAS. And my state of mind. And my relationship to the abstract. It all climaxed when I was 18. My life was better than it had ever been before and that was largely due to the fact that my understanding of life was better than it had ever been before. I got it. And it’s worth noting that this culminated with the end of my search for God. I "found" him. All by my lonesome. I went from being a nonbeliever and an active skeptic to the opposite. I opened my mind to it, I searched, and God came in. It was all adding up. I could see it now. For the first time in my life, my life made sense.

This was good. This was all very good. But unfortunately my life on the outside, hadn’t changed as much as I had changed within. I was still the son of the same parents. I was still the brother of the same siblings. I was still living in the same vapid city. I was still a product of a failed system and all of its drama. My friends were the only consistent source of positive experience (that didn’t completely exist in my head). And ultimately, that was the problem. I had overcome a lot of adversity, but there were still some things I was just too scared to do. Like telling my family and the world around me what I believed I could do. With words, with poems, with lyrics. I couldn’t break out of that box. My family has always been my kryptonite, despite the best of intentions.

I did not have the wherewithal to see it thru, to see thru what I knew needed to be seen. And said. And heard. And shared. I failed. And I did it by choice. Which is quite a kicker. Still kicks me in the gut every now and then. The Alchemist went from being one of my favorite books to a source of guilt and shame. I betrayed myself, I stabbed my own life in the back. After everything that had ever been dumped on me, the one to break me was me. It sucked. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. Within a couple years, I could hardly call myself a writer. And it set me on a course that would take TEN YEARS to complete. One big loop, one big detour full of little detours. What a trip. Despite all I’ve ever learned, and all I’ve been given, I still gotta do things the slow way. Sucks.
For all those years, I was living, and encountering people and touching lives and being touched by lives and I wasn’t even myself! I was not being the best me I could be. I was not representing human existence as I knew it should be, full of verve and splendor. I was barely invested in the story of us. I was not appreciating what I had or what I was given. I was not in love with life. And I was okay with rarely feeling GREAT.
I almost feel like I should apologize to all those people I came to love or came to love me then for never showing them my best. I’m sorry. You all deserve better. I hope that you will open your minds to all that I really am. It only gets better. I promise. Unless you don’t really like me that much. Then.....it probably…..doesn’t.It’s a silly thing to dwell on, but if I do, it brings me down. What a shame. To go from such a high to such a lifeless medium. To go from being a catalyst of good and betterment to being a glimmer in the window of your own life. Silly.

But you know what, that’s what life does to us. It makes us less than ourselves. Kills us by degree. It’s the deaths we never see. Our inner child, our spirit, our innocence, our belief. It’s the deaths we never see that affect us the most.

But whatever, thank god for second chances. These things can be regrown, the abstract world is very plentiful. I’m back now. And I am truthfully better than ever. Positive energy is an amazing thing and can take you to great places IF you can harness it. And truly believing in yourself is like throwing off the chains of doubt and sprouting wings. I would suggest doing both, if you have something worth flying for.
My life right now is better than it has EVER been. And I think it’s worth noting that that is a pretty remarkable thing to be able to say. I am thankful for it. I have been more alive and more creative this past year than I have ever been before. And the quality of my work AND my life have risen to new heights. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s a really exciting time to be me. And the opportunities on the horizon are absolutely TITILLATING. I would be jealous if I were you, but thankfully, I am me. ;-)