Thoughts on people trying to convert me....

People sometimes try to convert me. Or it's more like they just suggest an answer that they've found. Get me to read bible verses and such. I usually do. I'm open to hear some wisdom. I ususally never get some profound truth out of it. You know, the things you know with the core of your being?...that to believe otherwise would be to not exist? I'd argue that that feeling is a key to the "divine" and not words on a page or some ritual.


   A few weeks ago I was sick and sitting at a stoplight on my way to work. It was cold. I wouldn't have gotten out of bed except I couldn't afford to be sick. As I drove past the ugly urban sprawl I thought about how many banks and churches I was passing and I had a thought:


   You guys won already. Why would anyone try to convert me? 76% of American identify themselves as Christians. That's an overwhelming majority. Did you know that every U.S. president has been a Christian? About 88% of U.S. military are Christians?


Here's my point. Christianity has been the Religion of western Civilization for as long as there has been western civilization. And this is the world you have built. Congratufuckinglations. And this is why I wont convert.


I don't need a book to tell me that, if we are all the same, if we are all made from 1 (god) then nationalism and patriotism are sins. Would your Jesus want you drawing up political lines and fighting over resources?
   I don't need a book to tell me that it is wrong to destroy and pollute the earth so that a few can be rich and the rest of us can be controlled. The earth is beautiful and could provide everything we need as long as we take a good hard look at what we REALLY need, and not just silly shit that we want. Like snuggies and fleshlights. And that we should respect the thing that gives us life and the diversity of it and try to help protect the balance of it all.
   I don't need a book to tell me that we all have the same basic wants, and launching missiles at people and invading and occupying other peoples lands is wrong.


   My spirituality is governed by this knowing that comes from within my soul and I can't misinterpret it and I can't lie about it. I love seeing people that preach to me about how they have all these answers do the exact same shitty things that we all do. The only difference between them and me is that they talked all this shit and acted so self righteous. I only know what I feel is wrong and can only give you my opinion and the proof will be in the pudding in the end. I don't have to scare you with visions of hell, because you will create your own end. This is the world you've created now. Do you love it?


   I think Christianity is just a convenient loophole for people. It allows you to be in a club, but you don't have to do anything different. You can just say you believe it and do whatever you want and be forgiven. I don't have all the answers, but I'm SEEKING and LISTENING and not latching on to the safest and most convenient thing that was sold to me from birth. The world is fucked and you guys are still trying to get us all on your side but your shit is NOT WORKING. It's too vague, up for too much interpretation. How someone can call themselves a Christian and still be in the military blows my fucking mind. I interpret the words as promoting loving thy enemy and shit, but like I said....too many loopholes. I've asked enough questions and sought enough to where I KNOW what kind of world I want to live in. One without countries, borders and flags. One without banks and churches. One where I don't have to go to work sick because I'm so fucking broke. 


So please, leave me be. You won't convert me. You already have so many on your side, you can't possibly say that it's the small minority of non believers holding you back. That would be a sorry excuse. You guys have had control for so long. And I hate the world you've built. You can tell me I'm lost all you want. I went to your churches and I prayed and I prayed and never heard a voice from the sky, never saw proof of a caring deity. I honestly can't see how if Jesus is real how he would let so many people fuck shit up in his name. So, perhaps you guys aren't fucking up at all. Perhaps you're all doing exactly what you're supposed to do. Perhaps I'm in league with the devil. Perhaps in hell, everything will be lush and green, corporations will not rule, food and medicine and education will be free and  nations will not exist. 
   So, if you'll excuse me I'm going to go indulge in heathenism. I'm going to go walk my dog somewhere in the sunshine where it's pretty and not spend any money. Praise hail Satan.

It's easy to swim in the shallow end

I grew up in a dysfunctional family. Now, this is not an indictment against them...the reason for a family's dysfunction could be speculated forever....blame could be chased back through generations and unfortunate circumstances like a pit bull chasing his ghost of a tail and never catching it. I love my family and am glad everything happened as it did. I learned all the lessons I needed to learn to get my mind where it is today, so I will take all the bad with the good.
   I guess troubled kids tend to gravitate towards each other because all my friends growing up came from broken homes and fucked up families. I understand now that your family is always supposed to have your back but as a teen it was more important for someone to "get" me. My family never "got" me and probably still doesn't. Perhaps that's a life long process.
   My friends and I adopted each other as our families, and I hold on to most of them today. Because we were all troubled, a lot of them succumbed to their various neurosees and addictions. I've probably lost more friends than a lot of people will have in their lives. My friends have kept me sane throughout the years and I probably would have offed myself long ago if not for them. From an early teen the most important thing in my life has been my friendships. My family may have bore my body, but my friends bore my soul, if you can dig it.
   That being said there is not much I wouldn't do for these people in my life. I'd scoop out my eyeballs with a red hot spoon, rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it....take bullets...run through walls. But most of all I will be here for you. Swallow my pride when needed...listen, understand....empathize. I hoped that everyone I call friend would understand this about me...that they would consider me invaluable....not disposable.


   But I have to understand that everyone did not grow up like me. Some people grew up with a healthy family. Some people value money. Some people are so insecure about themselves that they get in to a relationship and forget their friends exist. Until that fails and then they need a shoulder to cry on. Some people do not value their friendships like I do. Some people go through friends like they do pairs of shoes. It sucks to know that someone you would bend over backwards for could easily walk away from you...or see you out and pretend you don't exist. It sucks that people will allow a rift to be, instead of getting to the bottom of it.

   I have some of the most difficult friends a person could have. stubborn, neurotic....assholes, if you will. But I love them with everything I've got, and expect no less from them. Sometimes I need to learn who doesn't reciprocate this feeling and finally cut them loose. If you'd rather be petty....If you'd rather use your drama as an excuse to not put any energy in to it then fine. It's easy to swim in the shallow end. Have fun in the pee pee with your water wings on.

false security

When I was 30 I felt this fear steal over me. It had always been there, just gnawing away in my guts...tossing and turning at just the right moments. It was a fear that drove all my decisions in life as an adult. As a kid, it was quieter. I had hope. I believed the universe HAD to give you exactly what you imagined if you believed it hard enough. I had always envisioned what my life would be like at thirty. Married, kids....perfecting the established formula....succeeding where my parents and the families of most people I know had failed.
   I looked around at thirty and saw my friends married, having babies...I thought....wait, that was supposed to be a part of my plan....i must have failed in some way....


   I thought about buying a house, settling down roots and living like an adult. I started paying rent on a 750/month two bedroom with a pool, and workshops and gas fireplace and washer and dryer. I had central heat and air that worked right for the first time in years. I was trying to get my credit straight to purchase it. I was on my way to the American dream.


   I remember being out in the cold, after dark, right before Christmas trying to finish a carpentry job. Miserable. 4 degrees outside. I had a girl waiting on me at home that I was head over heels for. I would come home and make dinner while she studied and we would drink wine and make love in front of the gas fireplace. Yep, all that lame shit.
   But the stress of worrying about bills pushed me down like a boot on my chest. Things began to break and wear out on the house and my time, energy and money to fix them could not keep up with how fast they broke. 
My truck broke down, my cat died and I began to notice my girlfriends's insanity. I resented my job and my own insanity began to obscure my vision. I was enveloped in a dark cloud of doubt, stress and worry. The serpent of anxiety sat coiled on my sternum and feasted in my chest.


I had to do something before I lost my mind. I bailed on the house and moved back in to the tiny back house I had lived in years ago. I had to downsize all my possessions to do this. I took only what could fit in a small bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.
Soon after, the woman proved herself to be absolutely insane. the most poisonous person I had ever met in my life.


It didn't take long for all the foundation of security I had been trying to build around myself to crumble. I decided to relish in it. I got hungry again. All I had to count on was all the dreams I had when I was a kid before the fear set in. I plunged myself into self improvement. I finished a script I'd been working on for damn near 10 years. I started working out more, My lovers became hope and accomplishment. Acting out of desire instead of fear, I began to build myself up again.


I realized that no hoops we jump through can protect us from the inevitable. We are all going to be alone and sick and die at some point. No amount of comfort, tangible or intangible can cushion us from our impending loss. and we all go out the same way, empty handed and alone. 
The only thing i feel i will be able to take with me is that sense of accomplishment. That i didn't waste my time pinching pennies, that I let it all ride for something ultimate.


   I'm not saying that the fear never comes around. How will I make rent tomorrow? How will I take care of my parents when I'm older, and will I always be alone?
But I'm chasing a fulfillment that I think cannot be taken away. My soul knows which way to go and rebels at every wrong turn. I would love to know there's a guiding force whispering to it, directing me to a greater purpose....but I can't count on it. I've never heard your God in the ceiling and have stopped listening. There's a different feeling in my chest. It's more of a pull now than a push.My religious friends will tell me that it is god guiding me, but I've learned to not have faith. Just hope for the best and expect the worst. But understand your purpose. The thing that you were made for. For me, it's the things that make the doubts and fear go away. I wish I believed there was something to catch us when we make a leap of faith....some kind of wind to throw caution to.....but like that song says..."if I die tryin now, I wont die wonderin how life would've turned out".

It doesn't scare me to believe in nothing. Everything in life there is to have faith in has failed me at this point....Family, nation, religion, relationships....I find a comfort in the instability of it all. the only thing you can count on is that you can't count on any of it. It is fluid and you have to be fluid with it. 


Security is an illusion. Definitely in this life....so why not the idea of security in the afterlife as well? All the fairy tales were lies....but that's a good thing. If we throw them all out then we wont have this thing we're trying to live up to and failing.

Well, enough drunken 4am writing. good night.

Regaytionships

To preface, let me just say that yes, i know in the title I cleverly placed the word gay within the word relationships. Yes, I did use the word gay in a somewhat negative context. Let me just say that I fully support homosexuals and treat them equally as I would any other human. I fully support the idea that same sex couples should have every right as any other. In fact, I think gays should get tax breaks. Yep, you get rewarded for not increasing your carbon footprint and increasing the worlds population. Gays have more money to spend anyways since they don't have to spend it on children, we could stabilize the economy like this! and help the planet! I've never understood why people are against gay marriage because marriage is gay anyways.
  I'll go one further and say that I wish that 95% of the other men on this earth were gay. Then I would have less competition for women and there'd still be some dudes around for the grenades, the sea turtles and the land beasts. 


   But please, I'm asking all my gay friends, just let me have that word. I like calling stuff gay. It's not like I use it in the MOST negative connotation. It's not like I say "Hitler was totally gay". But look, until recently in the 20th century the word meant something totally different and we gladly gave the word over to you. If someone asks me how I'm doing today I can't say "I'm feeling really gay today, Steve!" because that translates into "I want a throbbing cock in or near me"! Lots of words have different meanings, so if I could please go on using it that would be great. thanks.


   Onward to my topic. It seems that most of the problems in the lives of people I know stem from relationships. Problems with, the lack of, one that they can't seem to end, somebody's cheating, not enough sex, fighting etc, etc, etc. I must say that I have found a great peace in my life and I'd like to share with you how.
  
 For a while now I have made the joke "I don't care anymore like Phil Collins". A reference to his the first track from 1982's "Hello I Must Be Going" album. I said "I don't care anymore" so many times in jest, that one day it just burned itself on my heart. When I hear about relationship problems that people are going through, I can usually relate because my relationship career ran the gamut from beautiful to ugly, meaningful to stupid. I've been through long term, short term, shallow, friends with benefits, cheaters, liars, fighting and boring, but now I have this disconnect...it all seems so foolish to me.
   The only thing you can count on in this world is that you can't count on anyone. People are fickle. They change. They get bored. They get tempted. and all that's OK. We're all fallible and there's a beauty in that. Why do people set themselves up for failure by saying "I'm gonna want this person all up in my face forever and ever amen"? I've always said "Never say never or forever". The worst part about marriages failing is that people had to make a spectacle out of it. If you feel so perfectly aligned with someone that in your heart you feel like you'd die for them and never leave them why not do that shit quietly, then if you change and fail it's not so bad. It's like all those people who have straight edge tattoos. Straight edge for life? yeah right.
   I think as a culture the need for marriage is phasing out. People have options nowadays. you can survive as a single parent. So why go through all that hullabaloo? Just live together til it aint cool anymore, then you don't have to fuck with the law, you don't have to give anyone money and you don't feel like a failure.


"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."- Albert Einstein


   I tried and failed so many times I think it would be insane to try anymore. I had some amazing times with some great people. I learned volumes about myself through my relationships and especially through my breakups...maybe more through the breakups. I was always so afraid to let go. Fear was the greatest motivator. I didn't understand that you don't have to possess someone to appreciate them. People are like sunsets, all the more beautiful if you just bask in them while they're here and not lament when they're gone. There'll be another one tomorrow.


In fact I think the stupidest I've ever acted in my life was over relationships ending. Fucking crying an shit? Acting like it was the end of the world, feeling like I wanted to die. I look back now and can't believe I acted like that or felt that way. Time gave me perspective and now I couldn't see things any other way.


   "But Christian", you may be saying, "This girl is special. Her vagina is made of hope and wishes. It has different rooms. It's another portal to Narnia. Elves and unicorns live in it. The elves bake warm cookies and your dick squishes into warm, chocolaty cookie goodness". How much is your fear based on sex? Haven't you learned yet that sex is easy? That anyone can get it at anytime? That often times it's not worth the fear of disease or the drama that goes with it or the fact that you have to hang out with them afterwards? I challenge you, guys and girls. next time you're on your way to hang out with someone of the opposite sex, pull over to the side of the road and rub one out. Just masturbate on the side of the road. I assure you when you're done you'll be thinking. "wait...I have all this stuff I need to do". But, if you still want to hang out with them, you may have something special there. I can't stress enough, once you realize that sex is easy then it won't be your motivating factor anymore. I've proven to the world that I can get laid...now what? How about making something of yourself?


   After the last relationship I had I was bummed for a year. A fucking year! But you know what I did? I made movies, wrote songs, went to the gym and did a host of other things I wanted to do. I worked on myself mentally, physically and spiritually until I found that peace, that completeness. It's like my friend's song says: "watch what I can do today. I'll climb a mountain, forge a river, cross the steam. I'll show 'em all today". Now I think about how much time I would've wasted watching movies, making dinners and eating ice cream. I don't have time for all that shit. I'm not looking to waste time. I've got a world to conquer. I don't get to wake up and do exactly what I want to everyday and I need to relentlessly try to remedy that. Last year I acted in 9 film projects, directed one, played a load of shows, wrote music, gained 20 lbs at the gym and did a shitload of other selfish shit. Not one time did I have to entertain someone, make someone feel special, hang out with someone's family, listen to someone's problems, deal with someone else's drama, tell someone where I as going or have someone all up in my face an shit.


  And how much of your fear is based on pride? You want to break up with someone and do and everything is fine until they fuck someone else or you even think about them fucking someone else. Then you try real hard to get them back. You can't possess people. And why would you want to? They all have expiration dates.


Everywhere I look I see people settling for less. I see people struggling to hold on to something that's not working. I see people unhappy. I see people jumping from one relationship immediately to another. Why is everyone so scared? I used to get lonely, but now I have no time. Worlds don't get conquered by people snuggling up to their special boo and eating pie.


And all the people that accuse me of being feelingsy? Generally they're all involved in regaytionships. The proof is in the pudding, and I'll have myself another bowl of I-can-do-whatever-the-fuck-I-want-pudding while you eat your same-motherfucker-up-in-my-face day-in-and-day-out-hold-hands-and-watch-tv pudding.

The greenline, hippies and the rule of 5%

Woke up with that old melancholy feeling. I guess it beats waking up totally depressed, or hating my life in the morning because I have to go do work that I hate. Mornings before work are always hard. I'm always thinking about what I could be creating that day instead of grinding one more day off my life.
   But I love working for myself. I booked a job for monday and left the house with my dog to go get coffee. I hadn't been drinking it these last few weeks. Trying to detox a little bit. But last night was a late night and goddamnit i needed it. The day is beautiful. It feels like spring. I decided, fuck responsibilities. I'm taking my dog to the woods.
   My whole life I've always been attracted to the in between places. Woods, ditches, empty lots...anywhere that 95% of people wont go because they don't want to get their shoes dirty. I guess I've always been troubled by people. For years my favorite spot to go to was the railroad tracks on what is now called the Greenline. Now, I'm not complaining. Memphis needed something like this. I'm actually surprised they did it. Memphis usually only supports things that are dumb and safe and only suitable for the great unwashed. The greenline is free and you have to go through the woods for a bout a mile. People might get hurt out there and not be within 20 seconds of a walgreens. I figured the Memphis Greenline would have vats of Ranch dressing for us to drink every quarter mile. In a way, they took a sacred spot from me, but I'll gladly give it up if it means people getting outside and off their fat asses.
   The bridge over the wolf river was a meditative spot for me. I spent many hours sitting on that bridge, smoking cigarettes and looking at the stars. It was a perfect crossroads. You could go east, you could go west, you could plunge into the woods or you could jump off and die. Just like life, except sometimes in life your choices just aren't that clear.
Me and Brian Moore used to swim in the pond that the greenline crosses. We'd actually wait for a train to come and when it got real close to us we'd jump off the tracks into the water. If you swam down to the bottom it was cold and if you plunged your feet in to the muddy bottom it would release a sulphuric smell. It's funny the dangers that we look past as children, just to experience life. There were snakes there. The water was probably polluted. We could've gotten hit by one of those trains.
   As I write this the memories that I made there come flooding back. One of the first times I went down there was with Grant Fey, who just offed himself a few weeks ago. It took us forever to build up the courage to jump off the tracks into the lake, and I was the first one to go.There used to be a train door that floated on the lake like a raft and we would push it around with long sticks, sometimes with 5 kids on it.. One time me and Jason and Chris Forte bought a watermelon at Easy Way and went down there with a .32 and blew holes in it, imagining it to be a girl that one of us was dating. There was the time that about ten of us trudged through the swampy woods at 4am with one flashlight looking for an alleged pot plant. Or when a still mulleted Joey and I hung out down there even though we were arch enemies at the time and someone pushed me in the lake.
   One of my all time favorites was when Jason ran away from home in the 8th grade. We had not been friends very long. He couldn't stay at my house so we decided he was going to live in those woods, and still go to school. We camped out that night in the cold, ate chunky beef stew out of cans by the fire, smoked poison ivy and walked to school in the morning. During first period, the cops showed up and took him away.


It sucks what we have to settle for as nature here in memphis. A paved track with thirty feet of trees on either side of it, strewn with garbage. The river it crosses is really a channel cut by the Army Corps of Engineers. That's why it's big and muddy and straight. If you want to see what the river is supposed to look like drive out past Rossville. It meanders through woods and under fallen trees and you can see to the bottom. Once a crew of us drove out that far and thought we could canoe back to Memphis. We were on that river for 9 hours with our homemade oars getting eaten by mosquitoes and scratched up by fallen trees. when we finally gave up and got a ride back to our car by some Deliverance rednecks it took ten minutes by road to travel what took 9 hours by river.
   Since the water now gets rushed through Memphis  and no longer floods the woods are slowly being choked out by privet and scrub brush. When an old tree falls a new on can not take it's place because the brush deprives it of sunlight and nutrients. One day it will be a forest of privet, which is itself a non native species. The lake will be taken over by the invasive chinese carp, that eat every other species out of the lake until it is deprived of diversity.

   On this day presently, I didn't go down there. It's not one of those in between places anymore. It's a major thoroughfare, and sometimes I just need to not see another soul for a moment. To not hear another voice. I was trying to explain to someone tonight about how I hate people, but I was trying to not sound like an asshole. Maybe I am. But I understand that evil does not exist in nature, only in man. Animals are never sociopaths. Honestly, if I could blink a billion people out of existence I would. For the greater good. 
   People I know joke about me being a hippy because I have respect for nature. I resent that. maybe hippy meant something different at one time, but to me hippy means slacker. It means lazy. Stoned. Apathetic. Non violent out of sheer laziness. I don't believe in non violence anymore. I think we should have public beheadings. BP execs, wartime presidents...off with their heads. Most of the people that call me hippy don't give a shit about anything. 


   I spent that day at Shelby Forest  and left the trail, just plunging headlong into the woods. I could hear nothing. No planes, no birds...nothing. I found a rusting car in the middle of the woods and wondered how it got there. After walking several hours I found that place in myself...that clarity of mind that I can only find when I get away from people. I thought about how I used to have memories and get these "pangs". It was a longing for time I had left behind. I would physically feel a pain shoot through me when I thought of a time I had loved. I don't get those anymore. Sure, I long for the presence of some of the people I love, but I never long to be in the past anymore. I've never felt more content or clear of my purpose and who I am than right now in my life. I have no confusion as to who I am or where I am going. I have no void to fill with a relationship. This may pass, but it's a great feeling, a great place to be at. To love who you are and what you do and feel totally sure that you are on the right path. But I think I earned this place.


   I was explaining to someone tonight about the rule of 5%. The rule of 5% is a Nation of Islam teaching, and although I think most all religions are hogwash, I really like this little teaching. Basically  85% of the world's people of all races and faiths are the deaf, dumb and blind masses of the people who are easily led in the wrong direction. These 85% of the masses have neither knowledge or wisdom and are manipulated by 10% of the people who have knowledge but use it for their own personal gain. Those 10% are said to manipulate the 85% masses of the people through ignorance, the skillful use of religious doctrine, and the mass media.

The third group referred to as the 5%, possess both knowledge and wisdom, the righteous teachers and are at constant struggle and war with 10% to reach and free the minds of the masses of the people.

This person asked me if I felt like I had wisdom. I said at the time that it would be unwise to go around making claims like that about myself. But I have lived, and I have an understanding. I see a greater picture and am aware when I'm being manipulated. Things that hold importance for most people hold little for me. I see a lot as foolish, as petty, as a waste. At the same time I have a sense of peace, but it is peace through experience. I feel like I see something that 95% of people don't see. I'm not going to name it. I'll let the feeling speak for itself. It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm rambling. none of this means shit.

How was the funeral?

I woke up to intense dreams. Apparently a lot of people had intense dreams last night. When I was in the shower I got a text from my mom about an old friend of mine that died. When I was younger I thought it was morbid that anyone would read the obituaries, but as I'm older I find myself scanning through it sometimes when I'm at the coffee shop and have given up on the crossword puzzle. I always do my crosswords in pen and draw a big dick on them when I get frustrated. If you ever pick up a paper with a half finished crossword in pen with a big dick drawn on it? that was mine.
  
 I didn't know how he died, but I cleared work for the day and made plans to go to the funeral. We had gone to grade school together since the first grade. Went to each other's birthday parties and spent the night at each other's houses. He was one of my few grade school friends that actually went to my high school. We always had pleasant words for each other but drifted apart. I can't remember the last time I saw him, so I'm not sad. Only thoughtful and respectful. People die. shit happens.

  I put on my suit and went out into the cold and rainy day. Just the day for a funeral. The funeral was at the Church of the River, on the bluffs overlooking the river. The views are beautiful and if I was going to go to a church I'd probably go to this one. At least you can stare out the window at the water. 
   I met his brother and sister, who didn't seem to remember me. I'm not offended. Last time they saw me I was a kid. Probably been 20 years at least. 
  
    His brother told me it had been a suicide. Typical. That seems to be the leading cause of death for people i know, followed by overdose. Every 6 months or so, I hear about another suicide or OD. I get it. I understand why. I suffer from a mild depression. It comes in waves. In 2010 it hardly reared it head at all. In 2009 it was around big time. It can be triggered by events, or even the weather. 
   
   I'm fascinated by suicide, but don't worry. I'll never do it unless I have some disease that reduces me to a shit and piss factory. I will die with dignity, goddammit. And if i did, i would make sure I had enough strength to get out to the woods. Let the crows and coyotes eat me. My parting gift to the world.

    There was a slide show on the wall with pictures of Grant. Pictures from when we played soccer together at St. Louis. Pictures of him as a grown man hiking in what looked liked Yosemite National Park. His brother told me he had been living in California, had a long term girlfriend and enjoyed hiking. At one point in my life I would have asked "with all those things to live for why would he kill himself?" Depression is not rational. When I'm going through a low spell, I could make a list of all the things I'm grateful for, all the people that I love and love me, and it still will not help. Depression is this ugly funk that comes from the center of your heart and it's hard to see anything else when it's around.
  
    I was interested in Grant's love for hiking because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I recently read Into The Wild and then I just finished another book called A Walk In the Woods about a guy who tries to hike the Appalachian Trail. I've been fantasizing about doing that. Walking for 6 to 8 months through woods and mountains, camping every night with only what I can carry on my back. I'd give anything to try. And I know that if my depression ever gets too big a hold of me, that's what I would do. Instead of killing yourself, why not do the craziest thing you ever thought of. Walking the Appalachian trail you will either quit, succeed and learn volumes about yourself or die. I wrote a song once that said: "with nothing to lose, you could have let it ride instead of folding your hand. at least you'd still be alive. Just stand up and be a man." I wrote that about two other friends who had killed themselves. But then again, it's a rational mind that would think: "I'm miserable. I might as well go for broke". A depressed mind is totally obscured by dark clouds.

   During the sermon i stared out at the river. The words were delivered by stiff old men. They were all about praising god and worshiping god. I looked out in the grey cold and tried to imagine what it looked like before all the hardwoods were cut down, before everything was razed and divided. The idea of worshiping god was silly to me. The only reason we want for anything is because someone, probably a stiff old man devised a system so that they could have power and control and be rich. Everything we needed was out there for the taking and they took it from us. That's probably why people get depressed and kill themselves. This world was designed for the rich and shallow. Rather than have the biggest condo overlooking the river, I'd rather look at an expanse of river unpolluted my man's trivialities. God was all around us. It was not in a booming voice from the sky, but in the sun and the rivers, the animals and plants. These things would be abundant and if they were not, we would die and death is nothing to be feared. The dead get to sleep. the dead don't have to toil. The men who took over had not the wisdom to know this and I have little faith that the men who hold power now will ever know it either. Power is a liquor that causes madness.
   
Staring at the river made me think of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse where he goes to the river and is thinking suicidal thoughts.

Siddhartha walked through the forest, was already far from the city, and
knew nothing but that one thing, that there was no going back for him,
that this life, as he had lived it for many years until now, was over
and done away with, and that he had tasted all of it, sucked everything
out of it until he was disgusted with it. Dead was the singing bird, he
had dreamt of. Dead was the bird in his heart. Deeply, he had been
entangled in Sansara, he had sucked up disgust and death from all sides
into his body, like a sponge sucks up water until it is full. And full
he was, full of the feeling of been sick of it, full of misery, full of
death, there was nothing left in this world which could have attracted
him, given him joy, given him comfort.

Passionately he wished to know nothing about himself anymore, to have
rest, to be dead. If there only was a lightning-bolt to strike him
dead! If there only was a tiger a devour him! If there only was a
wine, a poison which would numb his senses, bring him forgetfulness and
sleep, and no awakening from that! Was there still any kind of filth,
he had not soiled himself with, a sin or foolish act he had not
committed, a dreariness of the soul he had not brought upon himself?
Was it still at all possible to be alive? Was it possible, to breathe
in again and again, to breathe out, to feel hunger, to eat again, to
sleep again, to sleep with a woman again? Was this cycle not exhausted
and brought to a conclusion for him?

Siddhartha reached the large river in the forest, the same river over
which a long time ago, when he had still been a young man and came from
the town of Gotama, a ferryman had conducted him. By this river he
stopped, hesitantly he stood at the bank. Tiredness and hunger had
weakened him, and whatever for should he walk on, wherever to, to which
goal? No, there were no more goals, there was nothing left but the
deep, painful yearning to shake off this whole desolate dream, to spit
out this stale wine, to put an end to this miserable and shameful life.

A hang bent over the bank of the river, a coconut-tree; Siddhartha
leaned against its trunk with his shoulder, embraced the trunk with one
arm, and looked down into the green water, which ran and ran under him,
looked down and found himself to be entirely filled with the wish to
let go and to drown in these waters. A frightening emptiness was
reflected back at him by the water, answering to the terrible emptiness
in his soul. Yes, he had reached the end. There was nothing left for
him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into
which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of
mockingly laughing gods. This was the great vomiting he had longed for:
death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated! Let him be food for
fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten
body, this weakened and abused soul! Let him be food for fishes and
crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits by the daemons!

With a distorted face, he stared into the water, saw the reflection of
his face and spit at it. In deep tiredness, he took his arm away from
the trunk of the tree and turned a bit, in order to let himself fall
straight down, in order to finally drown. With his eyes closed, he
slipped towards death.

Then, out of remote areas of his soul, out of past times of his now
weary life, a sound stirred up. It was a word, a syllable, which he,
without thinking, with a slurred voice, spoke to himself, the old word
which is the beginning and the end of all prayers of the Brahmans, the
holy "Om", which roughly means "that what is perfect" or "the
completion". And in the moment when the sound of "Om" touched
Siddhartha's ear, his dormant spirit suddenly woke up and realized the
foolishness of his actions.

Siddhartha was deeply shocked. So this was how things were with him,
so doomed was he, so much he had lost his way and was forsaken by all
knowledge, that he had been able to seek death, that this wish, this
wish of a child, had been ale to grow in him: to find rest by
annihilating his body! What all agony of these recent times, all
sobering realizations, all desperation had not brought about, this was
brought on by this moment, when the Om entered his consciousness: he
became aware of himself in his misery and in his error.

Om! he spoke to himself: Om! and again he knew about Brahman, knew
about the indestructibility of life, knew about all that is divine,
which he had forgotten.

But this was only a moment, flash. By the foot of the coconut-tree,
Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his
head on the root of the tree and fell into a deep sleep.

Deep was his sleep and without dreams, for a long time he had not known
such a sleep any more. When he woke up after many hours, he felt as if
ten years had passed, he heard the water quietly flowing, did not know
where he was and who had brought him here, opened his eyes, saw with
astonishment that there were trees and the sky above him, and he
remembered where he was and how he got here. But it took him a long
while for this, and the past seemed to him as if it had been covered by
a veil, infinitely distant, infinitely far away, infinitely meaningless.
He only knew that his previous life (in the first moment when he thought
about it, this past life seemed to him like a very old, previous
incarnation, like an early pre-birth of his present self)--that his
previous life had been abandoned by him, that, full of disgust and
wretchedness, he had even intended to throw his life away, but that by a
river, under a coconut-tree, he has come to his senses, the holy word
Om on his lips, that then he had fallen asleep and had now woken up and
was looking at the world as a new man. Quietly, he spoke the word Om to
himself, speaking which he had fallen asleep, and it seemed to him as if
his entire long sleep had been nothing but a long meditative recitation
of Om, a thinking of Om, a submergence and complete entering into Om,
into the nameless, the perfected.

What a wonderful sleep had this been! Never before by sleep, he had
been thus refreshed, thus renewed, thus rejuvenated! Perhaps, he had
really died, had drowned and was reborn in a new body? But no, he knew
himself, he knew his hand and his feet, knew the place where he lay,
knew this self in his chest, this Siddhartha, the eccentric, the weird
one, but this Siddhartha was nevertheless transformed, was renewed,was strangely well rested, strangely awake, joyful and curious. 

  Later on, I thought about the most retarded question in the English language. "How was the funeral"? Someone asks me every time. It sucked! It was a funeral for crissakes!

Why war with god?

   A lot of people have been writing me emails telling me that they're worried about me. People send me their prayers and I am highly appreciative of their wishes for me. i thought I'd explain a little bit more about my war with god.
   I'm really not at war with god. The idea to me is meant to be ironic. I don't believe in god the way most people do. You see, through my life experiences I've felt the connection between all things. I've stood in awe of the vast complexity of things, yet the same electromagnetic force that spins the electrons around the nuclei of my atoms spins yours. It is a force unseeable and minuscule but it's energy transcends dimension. Despite race, creed religion, sex and species. There is a force beyond names and nationalities that drives us. It is the same force that drives Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists. Once you understand this connectedness, truly realize the timeless eternity of all this, you realize the folly of the silly divisions we draw between ourselves.


  see, i do believe in creation and destruction. once you realize the beauty of consciousness you realize that we have a choice, every day every moment. We are alive with these amazing tools. We will experience negativity in our lives, but we can absorb that in to our creative selves and make the choice to only create something beautiful. to be a part of the creative force. In saying this I know that I create my own fair share of negativity, sometimes through my writing. but my intent is to share my thoughts and to sometimes be funny, but ultimately to relate the things I've learned.


In understanding my connection to it all I've learned what things in life that most value that are illusion. Time is and illusion. Ownership is an illusion and Death is an illusion. You cannot posses a person, only reflect on them and appreciate their beauty, but friendships and marriages only provide a brief sense of security. If you never had it, it can't be torn apart from you. Property is an illusion. The things we expend so much energy to amass, we cannot truly own. In the end they will all be swept away and we will realize what we wasted trying to pursue them. It is an affront to the creation, to believe we can divide and parcel. All things existing belong to all. To disrupt the earth, to destroy other species so that we can own snuggies and eat mcdonalds is a disrespect. We are not the center of the universe, we only perceive it from there.


   We have an obligation to allow all life to exist. To lift up man as well as the beasts and the plants an the land itself. This truth is not always clear in ancient books. Through mans fears he divided himself from everything. to feel special we put our own human characteristics on the force of life and tried to justify our dominion over the earth. We do not have dominion over anything. we are intrinsically entwined to everything. We have to go beyond what man wrote in the books and listen to that force, to try and see what connects us all with our own eyes. then we can create heaven on earth and beyond.


People may cal this hippy dippy bullshit, but I promise I've had moments of clarity where pain is an illusion, where loss is an illusion and I've felt these things with my core and that was only through going beyond the books and the labels and tapping in tho the experience. If that force drives you and gives you life then you are as equally a part of it as any prophet. No one consciousness has authority over your spirit. You are bound to a greater consciousness and a greater spirit. the thing to do with this knowledge is to walk and act with respect and awe of the beauty of this whole thing.