The Story
written from the heart of a man of flesh and bone whose eyes see so much and yet so little
An Open Letter to all the John and Jane Doe’s of this world,
Long time. I hope all is well. I know we never really got to know one another, and whatever relationship we had was superficial at best. I’ve had that effect on most people throughout my life. I’ve always felt an outsider. That became my identity and as I absorbed the world through experience that identity only cemented itself in my behavior. The more I felt the more I acted the more I hated myself for being different. I’ve come full circle. I followed the path that I thought I had to, I wanted to be like everyone else, I wanted to fit in, but I was miserable trying. This isolation, it meant that my mind was my world and introspection and the power of paying attention became my super powers. You want to know my identity who I was born as, why I don’t fit? I saw intuitively as a child thrown into adolescence the cruelty and predatory nature of the rules that our society runs by. I saw that in order to climb the social sexual and economic hierarchy you had to step on others smaller than you. I saw that conformity was the true lesson of our so called modern education system. I did not understand, but I knew these were rules I could not abide by, until they broke me. I am sensitive, I am loving, I am curious, I am driven, I am always imagining. I have lived my whole life inside my head trying to make sense of the world around and finally, finally the pieces are starting to come together. I realize that what makes me different makes me strong. I realize there is work to be done. I realize that I have a gift. A gift of tenacity, a gift of no quit, a gift of a vision of a world that is not tearing itself apart. All I want, all I have ever wanted is a world where the rules of man remain separate from the rules of nature. I look around as I step into the shoes of my authentic self, unabashed, unashamed, and all I see is green and red. Our democracy has been hemorrhaged by greed and if we continue to play by the same rules we will be slitting our own throats in the process. I need an audience. I need security, I need help.
River
I believe that there is a current of human potential. I believe that this potential finds its origin in the hearts of every single one of us, no matter the color of our skin, the god we pray to, where we call home, none of these things matter because we are all human and we all carry with us the potential of our passions. To quote the polish artist Szukalski, “if you want to create new things for this world, never listen to anybody. You have to suck your wisdom, all the knowledge from your own thumb, your own self.” I have one mission and one mission only. This is my lifes work, this is what gives me purpose. I want to unleash this river, I want to break the dam that society has built so they can control it, control us. I need to do this because it needs to be done. This is an existential purpose we are perpetuating the greatest slaughter in known history, all to feed the machine. once we are alone, once we have fished the oceans dry, chopped our forests down, sucked all the oil from the sunbaked earth and there is no more life but us; the machine will continue to eat and churn on our bodies, on our souls. This is the future we will give ourselves if we standby in ignorance, in apathy, in learned helplessness. I challenge every one of you, open your minds, see the truth before you, look into your own self, look at your hate, look at your bias, break down these walls and through this step into your authentic selves, pursue your passions, pursue knowledge, help me save ourselves form the worst of us by cultivating the best of us. True power doesn’t lie in politics it exists in people, in the human potential that every single one of us carries with us from birth. Realize your own potential and make the change that you want to see for this world.
The Human Story
A body of work that spans time. The story of slow but progressive advancement. Like a glacier of human knowledge slowly grinding forward on a fixed and unfixed trajectory. It stops and it starts again as we learn and unlearn as we build and destroy. Constantly moving forward in space and in time. Each moment entangled with the actions and inactions of each of us, as we author our own story. Is there such a thing as agency? Ask yourself this question, do I control my actions or does fate? Do I chose to wake up each morning, do I chose to go about my day or am I just following the current of my story, the decisions predestined, written down in the annuls of time? We all have agency, we all have power, we all are unique, all special in what makes us individuals. Do you feel purpose? Does life give satisfaction to you? Are you driven by your individuality? Are you building something? Or are you consuming? Are you so afraid of suffering, of failure that you persist in a world that your only currency is your time? The thing that is most sacred to all of us. The one thing that once its spent it can never be recovered? Ask yourself what is it that lights up your brain? What fuels your engine, what is your purpose? What change can you bring to this world? Then ask yourself what’s stopping you? Is it fear of failure, fear of suffering, fear of hard work, of effort? All of these things, of these fears define growth. You will not succeed without failure, without suffering, without effort. You need tenacity, you need a vision that keeps you pushing, fighting tooth and nail and with this comes Atman, divinity, meaning there are many words for it. It is unique for each of us. Just as our stories are unique to each of us. But together, all of us, a collective, with each single moment gone, each decision made, we push that glacier our human story forward through time.
“But Van Assi” - You’re it
I fear that all my suffering, all I am, this raw emotional vessel broken by the weight of society, the weight of all the sacrifice, all the pain, the unimaginable circumstance that brought me here into this moment, brought us all here into this moment. I fear that there will be no meaning to it. We suppress what makes us great for what makes us comfortable. Comfort is where we will die. Ignorance is comfortable. Complacency comfortable. We are slaves to it. We will do anything to avoid being present, to be here, now, taking breath, giving it back, inhaling, exhaling, noticing the balance around us, noticing the trees, noticing their tiny green soldiers dancing in the wind, as they inhale and they exhale, everything on balance. Noticing the sky, noticing the creatures that share with us this space and this time. We fancy ourselves as gods, we pretend we are superior, we have domesticated our environment, we pretend that resources are infinite, that we control everything. We cant even control ourselves. We are running from everything. We are drowning the only single that that has kept our species distinct from the cattle so easily domesticated by the apex predator. We are drowning our curiosity, our thirst unquenched for knowledge. Our collective spirit for creativity, for the creation of something new, something better. We are abject in our defeat, habitual losers, being fed the same bullshit day in and day out and given just enough anesthetic so we can go again tomorrow. Let me tell you something, there is a reason for everything and its probably not what you think. Nietzsche famously said that “God is dead. God remains dead, and we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatest of this deed to great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” I ask you, take stock of your life, of all the decisions you made that brought you here as you are now. How many of these decisions were your own? How many seemed forced upon you by a society that you cant begin to understand, because that is how it has been designed. Do you feel, as you are, more cattle, more sheep, domesticated into slavery, tricked into escapism, terrified of waking up, terrified of trying. Or do you feel a god? Do you control your time, your emotions, your aspirations, your vision for your future? Can you manifest your own destiny, can you sacrifice what is comfortable for what is difficult? Divinity is in the here and now, divinity is a dedication to ones self, a burning appetite to improve. A thirst for adversity, for the challenge to overcome. Nietzsche, over 100 years ago saw the predator within, he looked into its eyes and he saw where it was taking us. It drove him insane. His body of work is a desperate cry into the void. A plea to the masses, and just the same as 100 years ago his plea falls upon deaf ears. This is my greatest fear. I fear we are more animal than man. I fear we will not be able to overcome. I fear that the sacrifice made by Nietzsche and those like him will amount to nothing. Change will only come if we demand it from ourselves first. Maybe the seduction of comfort will be too great for us to overcome. I can think of no greater tragedy, and as I look into the eyes of the predator within I fear that it will take my sanity, my will to persevere just as it took Nietzsche’s, just as it takes yours, just as it takes all of ours. The only thing I can do as I feel the turmoil boiling within is say resolutely, eye to eye, not today.
Ying and Yang
A circle of infinite burning and churning wraps its tendrils around the darkness of the night. A sacred light, pressure bears down on it, blackness all around. A passion of destruction and construction, ash to earth, earth to ash. An ocean that holds within the ebb and flow it contains everything and nothing, the potential for both. The thief of the night, greedy, froths at the mouth, feeds on temptation, feeds on the feeding itself. An enemy to even itself, living as the flames do, burning and churching until there is nothing but the dark remaining. A spark, ignition, awareness, fight, flight, oxygen, carbon, fuel, the dream, the imagined imagining the imagination. I sit at the center of this circle. It chokes and it smokes and it sputters at the coming of the night. The ocean of black, the pressure of the night, the circle tightening its hold, a snake of snakes, a dragon, in its belly the seed of all creation. In its heart the rhythm, the pulse of the universe. Like drums beat….. beat….. beat….. beating in defiance, in a habitual dance, one that knows only itself and everything and nothing. Only the beating of the heart. Beat…. Beat…. Beat…
Magic
If there is any magic in the written word what would the last breath of a desperate soul be? A fool I have been, snared as a lion would be by traps set generations in advance. In the irony of a reality subsisting of nothing but smoke and mirrors, in a strange way it seems to be only a reflection of my own self that set those snares. If I want to blame anyone I only have to look at my reflection. For the first time of what very well may be many times I’m beginning to understand the rules. You get what you give. Pain given, pain gotten. Love given, love gotten. Simple and yet so difficult. This world, this dream, its nothing but energy. Nothing but 99.9999% empty space and .00001% everything else. The energy we put out through thinking, feeling, and acting is the energy, as the magnets we are, that we attract back. Is this learning or is this only rehashing old lessons? Do different, be different, break free from this self imposed prison, this Mr. Nice Guy, this compliant and subservient act, this curse, the only thing to fear is the energy of fear itself. In the creative act, in the very essence of creation, it must come from nothing, the same nothingness which sits in the 99.9999% of every atom of every thing. I am the darkness, I am the light, I am Alice, I am the rabbit, I am wonderland. I am all of these and I am nothing at the same time. Sometimes the best way to find self is by turning the lights off. Whatever fear I had, its peace, whatever desire its sand through my fingers. My last wish as the universe experiencing itself is that there was no wish but the first wish. The wish of unconditional and everlasting love. The wish to be everything for myself. This is the wish that the spirit of all, of nothing, of everything in-between makes. What magic do these words hold. I do not know.
