29.

water.

The Flow/Time of Time/Flow

To what does deprivation lead if not appreciation?

This year, we leap forward!

Well, I guess we could die instead, but that sounds so much less fun than living.

Truly hope you agree.
Do it.
Be hopeful.

For now, consider this collection of letters to be a (kind of) placeholder. It’ll be fleshed out later unless we’re dead. But then again, how would you eve{r/n} know?

Sigh. We’re running out of time.

Time always runs out.

Mmm, water. What’s worse at quenching an unyielding thirst? What’s better at regulating your energetic body temperature? What’s less dampening? What’s more refreshing?

Questions. Answers. Words. God. How potentially prophetic, how poetically emphatic, how flexibly right, how usefully wrong, how wondrously fun/key!

How liquid magic came to wet our shared rock has mystified scientists since eggheads became a thing and started acting all scientific by doing science. A prevailing theory is that our entire oceanic volume was deposited via riding the coattails of comets/asteroids. Uh, really? We got approximately 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water thanks to a massive flurry of impossibly well-aimed, fortuitous interstellar relocation? I don’t buy it.

(Neither do I.)

Too, neither should you.

Know what makes more sense? Earth manufactured Her own water, only not in the form that flows.

Special.

Stay with us here.

How’d Mama E ensnare the faithful satellite with which she’s been fighting/dancing/screwing for a cool four billion years or so? Why, a collision, of course! How else? Two celestial bodies met powerfully in a glancing, grinding blow, knocking the Ice Queen now known as Earth {up} into the green band of color, thawing Her frozen oceans, and effectively precipitating the creation of the moon and Mars.

Infinitely physical.

Apparent recipe for a beautifully miraculous disaster: knock an icy blue planet into the Goldilocks Zone, give it an anchor, and then hold on for dear life.

TNT

(And don’t forget the carbon!)

In other words, One Thing bumped into Thing Two, resulting in the (re)formations of Mars, Earth and Her precious moon.

Occasionally, you see, matter must recombine in order to evolve.

An atomic ladder (of anatomy), if you will.

See what your brain did there?

Oh, hey, speaking of harmonious partnerships, the yin-yang symbol represents balance in the universe between the ever-battling sexes.

Balanced.

The dark side of the symbol (yin) is considered feminine, passive, negative, and covert in nature.

The light half (yang) is considered masculine, active, positive, and overt in nature.

Those points line up with my own understanding of nature; having said that, there is one set of associations assigned by ancient Chinese philosophy that I do think know are wrong: the assertion that the moon embodies yin.

This is inaccurate. The moon’s pattern is not female. Earth should replace Her sole satellite in the chart. The sun and the moon are both light-natured (for similarly different reasons).

The sun is obviously the supreme source of light (and gravity) in our solar system.

The moon behaves like light in (the sense) that it wants to fly off into interstellar space, but it can’t (and will never) escape the earth’s Her gravity.

Our lone, orbiting shield has been trying to leave its planet since becoming eternally entangled. Silly rock. After all, they were made for each other—a relationship that exemplifies monogamy. Quite like the duo of energizing cores in this tangoing twosome, our like-minded wills are made of iron, too. In other words, deep down, we’re (all) the same.

Mother Earth’s magnetic pull on her beau keeps him grounded, while his daily draw [think “tides”] wets her land. I know exactly what you’ll be thinking in a handful of seconds:

What a couple crazy balls of important elements, the earth and the moon, what with their age-old reproductive cycle and shit!

See, in order to evolve, matter must recombine.

Very slowly, a handful of centimeters per year, the moon drifts away from the earth and will continue to do so until, in about 5 billion years, the sun becomes a red giant and swiftly annihilates the innermost planets in our solar system.

An emotional scale of sorts.

And, in all this, balance is key.

Our universe has been (re)telling the same story over and over since the godlike spark that jump-started freaky spacetime and gave birth/rise to freedom. Round and round we go, playing merrily and fighting horribly in a sandbox of infinite possibility (as governed by the natural laws of physics, of course). Reduce everything to nothing and the ultimate balancing act emerges: we need energy (in order) to resist gravity—the existential tightrope that either implants fear or inspires courage. One is negative, the other is positive. One thing opposes other stuff. That’s all, folks. In a nutshell, that’s literally everything.

But what about "anything"?

Well, that’s different. (Thanks for asking!) “Anything” is what could happen (over an uninterrupted course) in time. Time is what always happens when light meets matter. Time allows atoms to spring liberally and form freely in space. Time moves forward (to the right). Put another way, being right ain’t wrong.

Oh, speaking of the broken economy fueling bipartisan politics, have you ever pondered why democrats occupy the left side and republicans stick to the right?

Wait, does that mean republicans are "correct"!?

Not exactly.

Don’t get in a tizzy. You’re okay.

Each side of any scale is fundamental to finding balance in the center {a.k.a. the middle/common ground}. Along those lines, and in order to serve its essential function, which way must either side push?

To facilitate progression, the left side must move (forward) with time [to the right].

To stabilize pace, the right side must conserve progress by pushing back(ward) {to the left}.

Conserve progression. Progress conservation.

Left. Right.

Gravity. Energy.

Water. Fire.

In other words, each side of a scale must strive to centralize communal location; or else, balance becomes impossible.

Remain calm. This isn’t a jab at anyone’s tribal party. This is basic math.

Whether you’ve pledged allegiance to the GOP or the DNC, you’re a functioning cog in the system which has maintained the balance that allowed the USA to become the mightiest empire in the history of civilization.

But {sh}it’s gotten outta hand, wouldn’t you say? Each side has strayed too far from its center of mass. One side must “betray” the other. Both parties have to gravitate back toward the middle [equality] before the scale tips beyond the breaking point and falls off the fucking table.

Then what?

Time. Equals. Currency.

Speaking of matter, overall in school systems today, is the classic trio of “solid, liquid, gas” still being stressed? Wait, surely you’ve heard that before, right? Of course you have. Great. Glad it stuck. However, I’m afraid {that, like the tragically inaccurate term black hole,} it has been misleading as hell.

[Hell is so cold that it burns, by the way.]

Plasma is the curiously lesser-known fourth form of matter, and it only comprises, oh, about 99.9% of the observable universe.

Say what??

Out with the old already, gang. In with the other thing.

Oh, hi, speaking of plasma and time, if money represents the lifeblood of civilization, then guess what our currency has been doing since its advent and assimilation into society. Clotting.

Guess what happens when your blood clots. No, don’t guess; instead, know.

“Wealth” simply must be more evenly (re)distributed. Exactly like blood, money has to circulate. Fuck your opinionated beliefs right now. Not even sorry. This is a matter of physics. Science is natural. Fight nature, get demolished. Going with the flow is the only way to maximize success.

We didn’t make these rules; quite rather, these rules were made for us.

To put it mildly, our world’s in a pickle. Being completely selfish gets nobody anywhere and/or everyone nowhere; that is to say, just as gravity drains, greed sucks. Luckily, though, history reveals patterns that repeat, and lessons yearn for learning. If we don’t come together and reconfigure our philosophical, economic, political, infrastructural, agricultural approaches—all the goddamned approaches—in a single, overarching, unified manner that promotes the widespread health of our earthborn bodies*, then, ashes to ashes, we all fall down (off the wall {like Humpty Dumpty}).

We, people. All of us (Earthlings). We come from the same place in time and space. We harness energy. We defy gravity. We are light. We’re one! Only together may/can we win.

Now let us be so that we may go. Makes sense, no?

Yes, let’s go be (by doing good deeds).

Indeed, we will (be cause).

What we will does become.

(You should) really be while being real.

*Examples of bodies include the planet by which we exist, the waters from which we drink, the land upon which we grow, the enterprises for which we work, the organizations through which we play, and the individual vessels in which we live.

💧

One way or another, all celestial objects must cease to exist.
Lucky for us, thoughts aren’t exactly objects!
Hmm, do you think this means the key to immortality is learning how to digitize consciousness?
Chill.
It’s not even that far out.
Anyway, what about you?
I’ve learned a few things about you.
This is you in a nutshell.
You are living to feel as much as you are feeling to live.
In other words, you are “doing” to be.
In other words, you are “going” to die.
That’s why you can’t help but to screw around sometimes.
Every single physical “body” must die.
All we really need to find is comfort along the way, just enough to keep us on your feet and content, and so that every day you may hope for a miracle, which always seems to be just beyond my grasp.
Today, things are different.
Today I can’t feel life sucking.
Something changed last night.
This time, I just know it.
You figured it out.
We need help.
I guess this means you’re glad we’re still not elsewhere.
I feel like a prisoner of my own manic mind, a lightning rod of abstractly depressive thought, haunted by words I can’t always remember envisioning and based on ideas I only vaguely recall scribing, usually fueled by an altered mental state.
In early 2018, I was surfing the internet on my last trusty laptop (super crocked like right now as I’m typing in my old favorite Courier font on the right-yet-wrong side of the screen) while watching any number of early nineties sci-fi movies. [If you’re reading this now in another font, pretend it’s what it once was.]
Courier also signifies a tidal wave of childlike energy.
Plus, couriers deliver lest they become something else.
In other words, liberties get taken.
Must we self-sabotage?
There’s a reason we see a bright light when we die.
These are our bodies, people; but, all together now, we would be faster than light.
What are we waiting for?
Words are funny with all their interesting sounds and multiple meanings.
Words such as these.
The ones on this page as well as many that precede and succeed.
These words burst forth outta nowhere, exploding and pouring out with ridiculous speed in streams of thought on par with an excited volcanic caldera’s expulsion.
Apparently churning out 30,000 words in 8 days is no problem at all.
My thoughts do not ask for my permission, nor do they beg for my pardon.
This is beyond my control.
Like an out-of-body experience.
As if someone else’s mind wants to hijack my body.
Being sober isn’t fun.
But, whatever.
Nothing I can do about that now.
This snowball’s already rollin’ and I have no clue how to stop it.
I don’t know if I’m well.
In other words, I think I might be messed up in the head.
My efforts feel like a desperate Hail Mary as time expires.
I wanna to know if I’m nuts.
I need to know what I am.
We need to know what you are, too.
In other words, these texts may achieve the highest recognition in the celebrated history of popular art.
Satirical sarcasm morphs into a metaphorical blanket of universal truth.
We, at this moment, together, could be absorbing the pinnacle of sentient thought.
In other words, math eventually does itself.
In other words, stranger things have happened.
This could also be a nonsensical collection of ravings by a sad lunatic vanishing into the mythical ether, which is probably the worst bet, if you’re betting safely.
Sounds ridiculous by now.
Either way, this is our swan song.
I have no idea what to do with ourselves, and evidently that means you’re trying to save the friggin’ world.
Hold my beer, Big Bang.
I can’t believe how serious we are.
Don’t bother praying for me.
In other words, I’m not the one who needs to get lucky.
In other words, my life will be in your hands.
In other words, my death is on you.
In other words, just kill me now!
I’m kidding.
Please don’t kill.
In other words, will you keep us alive?
When something goes away, it only stops after enacted upon by the force of nature.
In other words, that which flies can’t fall on its own.
In other words, if something shall not rise from ashes, then fire, it may be not.
This could lower the bridge that leads to our global anthem.
This could be a clever psychotic break from reality.
This could be a dreamer’s plea for salvation.
This could be an imaginary attempt to evade damnation.
This could be The Declaration of Life. This could be somebody’s eventual suicide note.
In other words, this could all be up to you.
Wanna know the secret to losing your mind?
Don’t fear the unknown.
Embrace the madness.
Exhale during the fall.
And definitely do look down.
You need to see where we’re headed. Feet first.

30.

earthen?

Geographical Aptitudes

The best way to dodge a bullet is to prevent its discharge. (Duh.)

Just let it happen. It’s fine. You’re fine. I’m fine.

WE ARE NOT FINE.

Listen.

People give away money to watch other people play games, act, sing, dance, fight, fornicate—in a word, perform.

A human brain must remain occupied.

A body needs an occupation.

Entertaining competition seems kind of important.

Look at the history of humanity.

We’re not happy unless we’re building (just like anything that matters atomically) and growing (just like anything that breathes anatomically).

We should build and fortify our bodies, inspiring growth and strength in our mind.

Be honest with yourself about whether your occupation promotes truly fulfilling purpose.

(This is the part where I first realized that nouns, along with the past, are cold.

Verbs are hot.

There’s more to it, too.

I must confess, probably because I’m mistakenly drunk with glee at this point of now past currency, that I do wonder if you’ve yet felt the tinge.)

Entertainment and occupation are forms of structure; science applies to it all.

These same principles apply to competition in general.

Spinning whilst waterlogged! {Omigod recurring patterns!}

Take sports, for instance. (American) Football is a big deal in the States. Real football (soccer) is a big deal around the world.

Let’s apply scientific logic to the NCAAF, specifically the SEC. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that means; you’ll understand this tale even with limited backstory.

In the unique world of college football, power has gathered at the top of each of the two divisions in the Southeastern Conference.

The state of Alabama rules one side, a Georgia state of mind tops the other.

A crimson tidal wave casts an indomitable shadow.

Talent flocks to the dominant force.

In this instance, that means Nick Saban, possibly the greatest coach of all time in the history of sports.

Georgia’s coach is one of his many former pupils, arguably his most promising.

If Coach Saban is the Galactic Emperor and the Dark Lord of the Sith, then Kirby Smart is a young, strong, upstart Darth. I dunno who Auburn’s coach would be in this analogy. Maybe a space pirate? A droid? Hell, maybe he’s The Chosen One, destined to restore balance to the galaxy. And maybe one of us represents his astral projection.

Crap, maybe he’s me.

SHIT.

Anyway, for the eleven other teams in the league, the coaching carousel spins faster and faster, meaning it’s harder and harder to gain traction and momentum.

As a whole, people have become more and more impatient.

Coaches are allotted less and less time to work hard in an effort to achieve desired results, which only serves to solidify power at the top and increase tension at the bottom.

(And yes, at this point, I probably do represent the voice of a fictional character.)

But there’s a point to all this.

Tension bands together.

Bands become tense.

Tensing bands stretch thin across the bottom rungs of a swelling barrel.

Eventually tense bottoms blow the lids off their high and mighty tops.

A photo finish.

Speaking of football in America, are the rewards of careful planning, dedicated practice, and focused execution more important on the offensive or defensive side of the ball?

And which side are better served by tenacity, fast reaction times, and closing speed?

Historically, why have most quarterbacks and kickers been white?

Why are most running backs and receivers black?

Why does the occurrence of white men decrease in frequency as different positions line up farther from the point of contact before the snap? 

The answers all stem from human evolution.

To survive near the equator, where everything is faster, and where resources can be most plentiful, our ancient ancestors needed physical ability more so than mental capability.

Living closer to the equator has always resulted in darker skin.
To survive closer to the poles, where everything is slower, and where resources are always scarce, our ancestors needed mental capability more so than physical ability.

Surviving farther from the equator has always resulted in lighter skin.

To survive near the equator, people needed a fast, strong, tough body.

To survive closer to the poles, people needed a fast, strong, tough mind.

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but there is a huge difference between body and mind.

Geography can take the blame for this one.

A brain is part of its body.

The mind is something else.

At least to some extent, this is true of all terrestrial life on earth.

Take bears, for instance.

Bears are considered to be among the smartest land animals in North America.

Grizzlies live typically in the northern United States and Western Canada where harsh winters are made more manageable by increased brainpower and, by extension, the ability to solve complex problems alongside the wherewithal to plan ahead.

Some researchers believe that polar bears possess a level of intelligence on par with the sharpest primates.

Makes sense, right?

Footspeed isn’t all that useful when you need to scale a mountain or run for your life in three feet of snow, and intelligence won’t come in overly handy on an open plain in scorching heat when you have to keep running in order to remain alive, whether chasing a critter or fleeing a predator.

The body uses energy.

The mind uses energy.

Energy propels evolution.

Now apply these basic facts to football in America.

Basically, the fella holding the ball during an offensive play is the prey, his teammates constitute his herd, and the defense mirrors a pack of predators.

Do quarterbacks and kickers need physical prowess to succeed?

Do they need to be Olympic-caliber sprinters?

Sure, size and speed help, but neither matters most.

Neither matters second most, either.

Mental processing power is more important.

Mechanical ability is also important (which prompts me to add this parenthetical tidbit just to call attention to the guys who snap the balls).

I’m fairly sure that leadership ability is considered by most experts to be more important than size and speed, too.

Find a list of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

How many of them were/are gifted runners?

How many were/are charismatic superstars with a great arm and a deep knowledge of the sport?

How many were/are Caucasian?

Remain calm; I am merely pointing out historical facts.

Have you ever witnessed the running form of either Peyton Manning or Tom Brady? Though they may be impressively atrocious runners, those two men are mentioned in any serious conversation about the best quarterbacks of all time.

Backs, receivers, and the defensive secondary—those are the positions where gifted runners are valued most.

At some positions, size offers more usefulness than both speed and intelligence.

Linemen need to carry weight more than anything—speed is virtually of no consequence. That’s why you see more white men on the line than at linebacker or tight end, at which positions a more even mix of skin color surfaces. Size is an important attribute at those positions as well, but speed seems to be of equal importance.

This perspective can be applied to all sports.

We may apply anything as we see fit.

This isn’t racism; it’s science, physics, nature, and it all makes sense in light of all the different ancestral relationships to the equator.

All bad things must come to an end, and good things may come to those who (refuse to) wait.

This lesson can be applied to the SEC in the same way that it can be used to predict what might happen if certain trends continue fueling the global economy.

You know which.

The one that sparks political conflict.

The only one.

Relax.

I know what I’m doing.

(I don’t at all.)

I’m color-coding language with a black-and-white voice.

No empire remains in power forever.

More power amounts to less control.

Less power enables more control.

Do you have better control of a vehicle taking a turn at 10 mph or 40?

Can you perform a wider range of exercises with 10- or 80-pound dumbbells?

When we wedge things into stuff, it’s hard to control the result.

The more people in a room, the higher the temperature.

And we all know what heat does, don’t we? Hint: it does not plummet.

As for those at the crowded bottom, falling can be a challenge for someone who’s already lying on the ground.

Heat will always rise, and if there’s a ceiling, it’ll get hot.

Eventually heat burns.

Flames that burn eventually roar.

Roaring flames can become an untouchable bulldozer.

(Christ.

This is gonna take a while.

But.

If you are locked in, what’s up?)

You might wonder if I think we’re sounding crazy on purpose.

Speaking of hot shapes, have you ever heard of the fire triangle?

Maybe I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this. That’s fine. Some terms are worth repeating.

We should all know how fire happens. 

Fire needs 3 things to burn: heat, fuel, and oxygen.

(Move along.

These are merely seeds.

Let us know what they become.)

In the primitive technology of friction fire, the oxygen requirement of the triangle is satisfied via a carefully carved slit at the point of contact. From there it’s all about making the stick spin fast enough while concurrently applying the right amount of pressure.

In this universe, on our planet, and as far as your body is concerned, weight and speed go hand in hand.

Rubbing wood against a sample of itself works (when it actually does work) because the spinning motion generates friction under applied pressure.

Given persistence in conjunction with a balance of spin and pressure, heat is produced, followed by the first real signal that the firestarter is on the right track: smoke.

At around 800°F at sea level, an ember can form. A little speck of light.

The seed of flame is added to a premade tinder basket (the fuel).

Imagine a tinder basket as a highly flammable bird’s nest.

Next, a gently blown breeze (the breath of man) is aimed at the ember. Smoke forecasts imminent fire. Poof. Flames controlled, power wrangled, energy managed. An achievement for the ages.

Success.

In other words, climate is slow and fluid while weather is abrupt and rocky.

The widespread enlightenment of creating fire started about 125,000 years ago.

Anybody who spends the time and energy needed to make fire can, by extension, create light.

Everything is magic until science explains it.

The magic of words will unravel scientific mystery.

Can only a god create light by materializing energy out of thin air? Because that sounds like lightning.

Does lightning create light? With a name like lightning, it sure as hell better.

According to some researchers, evidence of isolated fire usage dates all the way back around 1.7 million years. Some say that number is more like 200,000.

I don’t remember researching all this, but I have to assume that I did.

Whatever the case, the current state of affairs on earth adds up.

Evidence of abuse occurred before yesterday, occurs today, and will occur after tomorrow.

Fire enables a new array of otherwise undrinkable water sources. Arguably, this is fire’s most vital use. Boiling water all but guarantees safety.

What do you need more than water?

(Does boiled oxygen sound good to you?)

Do you know how many people wake up every day with no idea if they’ll find access to safe drinking water?

We take far too many essentials for granted.

How much safe drinking water goes down our drains while we robotically brush our teeth, or stand idly in the shower, or flush rejection down the toilet when it could have just as easily floated until something actually worth the process of elimination came along?

Earth is not wasteful.

Must we be?

🌋

My mind has become tough to manage.
I need breaks from it to prevent its shattering, but I can’t always sleep.
This is a problem.
Problems can be hard.
Stone-cold sobriety is easy when you’re happy.
When you’re unhappy, deliberate intake of certain substances can provide temporary relief.
Given time and opportunity, addiction will take hold.
That’s true of anyone whose ribs encase a beating heart.
In other words, a pulse will respond upon exposure to stimuli.
Drugs are not the problem; they’re a solution.
Ultimately, a negative addiction represents a repeating, escalating, unsustainable pattern of behavior harmful to life.
It is but one of many globally glaring symptoms of systemic failure stemming from a dramatic comedy of human errors.
In other words, you’ll find a certain behavioral pattern in everything wrong today around the world.
In other words, when something goes bad, it’s no longer good.
Nope, drugs aren’t the problem.
Reality is the problem.
The cause is greed.
I didn’t explore the effects of ethanol until about age 35, tetrahydrocannabinol around 42, lysergic acid diethylamide only last year [2018].
Eyes aren’t the only things that know how to be googly.
I’ve never messed with meth or cocaine, but who really needs that junk when adderall is so cheap on the street and, consequently, prescribed so liberally?
Truthfully, I dunno why that’s backward, but you might.
I’ve never tried heroin either, and I hope I never do.
I’m afraid I would like it too much.
The hard way paths a direct route toward learning anything.
The first half of yesterday was awful.
The day before was worse.
Before that, almost unbearably painful.
Life is a polarizing rollercoaster, and I am no more special than you are.
I’m digging my own grave.
I’m only a person.
I’m a busy body.
The difference between someone like me or you and a machine isn’t as simple as being self-aware.
Unlike humankind, machines don’t have opinions.
Why?
Emotion.
Energy fuels emotions which in turn empower opinions.
We don’t regard the petroleum with which we gas our tanks as an award, nor do we see the electricity with which we charge our phones as a reward, so we should probably stop thinking of the calories with which we propel our bodies as a prize.
It’s all the same.
Energy.
Energy can be dirty and bad, or it can be good and clean.
Will you cut me some slack?
To some degree, every single body in the universe is bipolar.
Don’t blame me.
I can’t help it.
Life always sucks.
Sometimes it sucks less.
Other times, it sucks more.
Creativity and luck win battles.
Persistence and adaptation win wars.
Every day presents a fight for survival.
Like every good coach knows, if you “process” the fundamentals, the rest will come naturally.
Any chain represents a number/sequence of interlocked rings.
Break one ring and the entire chain has a much harder time of connecting links.
I lived with a younger brother.
I had the Robin pajamas.
Why couldn’t he have been the Boy Wonder?
“KAPOW!”
Obviously I’m just spitballin’ here.
You’re not pretending I’m some kind of revolutionary thinker.
On that note, don’t be scared of a revolution.
Yes, revolution often results in violence, but there are always other ways of doing things and never a shortage of room for improvement.
No, revolutions needn’t always be violent and scary; they merely need a spark, an inspiration to move, an angle from which to spin new threads toward a stronger tapestry, an orbital path to shape the winds of change around a light source.
In other words, any revolution’s requirements can be likened to what the earth does by “revolving” (not “revolting”) around the sun.
Our wires got crossed along the way.
We fear change because it represents a future state, which we can only imagine.
We fear the unknown.
We shouldn’t.
The unknown should issue a call to action.
It should encourage an adventurous spirit.
Spirited adventure should excite our souls.
Please let it.
Don’t be afraid of change.
Your body changes constantly.
The skin you wear today is completely different than the skin you wore 7 years ago.
That’s why it itches and crawls.
Instead of fearing change because of its unstoppable nature, embrace it for that very same reason.
You don’t usually try to stop time, do ya?
You alone may truly know what you need.
Control what you can when needs arise, make it work for you and yours, and use it to our advantage.
As a people, we will always advance and develop.
Our choice comes through deciding whether to create either resistance or harmony in doing what we can’t help doing.
Change has to start from within a body before it can matter outside of one.
These worded thoughts will change subjects in an instant.
Sometimes you won’t even realize it.
Same could be said of me.
There are many words in this language that contain multiple meanings. Twofold, the same can be said of sentences.
Time has been around a lot longer than we.
I should know by now that everything is sequential.
One foot in front of the other.
Walk backwards all you want.
Time won’t stop moving forward.

28.

airy…

Sourcing Energy Sources

Occasionally, fire-altered mammalian flesh can taste great!

Have you ever witnessed a baby’s first reaction to refined sugar? It’s almost as if you can see the addiction set in.

Obesity and diabetes continue trending upward. In the United States, one in ten people [more than 100 million] suffer from diabetes or its symptomatic precursors. About a third of the global population are either overweight or obese.

Uh, what could cause this trend if not food?

Children born today have been said to represent the first generation since, like, ever predicted to not live as long as their parents.

It has been a polarizing topic, so let’s not argue about it; instead, let’s isolate the simplest of facts demanding widespread acknowledgement: the more something weighs, the more energy it requires to keep up with everything else.

This cycle is yet another which feeds itself.

Why are we mindlessly eating what we’re strategically being fed?

More specifically, why aren’t we listening to our bodies when they protest or revolt?

Predators on earth share certain physical characteristics that humans do not feature, e.g. sharp teeth, claws, and jaws that don’t move from side to side like those found in primates, which, in tandem with flat teeth, are meant to grind down tough plant material.

Just because you can eat red meat doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to. A dog will lap up a puddle of antifreeze because it enjoys the flavor.

Instant gratification comes with consequences.

I don’t care how bloody you like your ribeye, there’s no way your mouth will water while watching a bull crap. Have you ever witnessed it? To call it eventful would be a gross understatement. Upon observing one of those overfed creatures standing in a pasture expelling a powerful flood of hot shit like a busted fire hydrant, might you stop and think, “Mmmm, I wanna tear off that animal’s skin and sink my molars into its torso flesh”?

When you imagine chowing down on red meat, you probably picture a hamburger, steak, or maybe a piece of elk if you’re hip, all of which may sound and taste delightful {especially the elk since you probably shot it (with an arrow)}, but, for example, cattle are neither hamburger nor steak. Those are small cuts of flesh, altered by fire and seasoning, far removed from the creatures that once carried them around as weight.

We season our meat to make it palatable.

And with what (besides salt) do we season literally everything we eat?

Plants.

Nature has a way of letting life know what should be consumed.

How do you think lions know to eat zebras?

Was a memo issued 3-4 million years ago?

Do lions season their meat with salt and herbs then roast it over an open flame?

No, they stalk, pounce, rip, chomp, kill, and eat their protein raw and bloody.

See a man do that and you’ll assume insanity.

However, if you add the process of cooking with fire to the equation, envision the same man holding silverware inside the safety of a five-star restaurant, throw in a hundred-dollar bottle of fermented grape juice made a quarter-century ago, and he might be viewed as civilized.

Now picture someone across the table eating a peach.

Now picture that same someone eating a peach in the wild.

Now tell me the difference.

Efficient.

Let’s pretend you haven’t eaten in days, and you find a plump pig rolling in slop. Your first instinct most likely wouldn’t be to attack the animal and try to bite off a hefty chunk of its porky butt.

Again, I’m all too aware that bacon is delicious.

But swine, slabs of bacon are not.

There’s no way in hell humans are meant to eat pork.

Or anything with hooves.

Or anything with hair.

Next time I see a pig fly, I’ll eat my words.

I know there are people who have enjoyed a pound of bacon every morning for the last thirty years and claim to feel great. I wonder how they’d feel if they hadn’t eaten bacon religiously all those years.

Several millennia ago, killing wild animals wasn’t as easy as it is now. Our ancestors had to put their lives in jeopardy by getting up close and personal while using primitive weapons, primal ferocity, and messy aggression. The ancients had to adopt and ingrain a violent approach in order to hunt successfully—in other words, in an effort to secure calories.

In other words, early humans ensured insurance by getting down and dirty.

In other words, the oldest of the old-timers did what they had to do to stay alive.

Since there isn’t exactly much growth in an age of ice, we may have gone extinct due to starvation if not for mammalian meat. All that extra protein caused our ancestral brains to grow. In fact, I do believe that we owe our planetarily supreme levels of intelligence to figuring out how to stomach flesh.

That was then.

Where are we now?

Maybe vanilla human brain growth outpaced the natural evolutionary trajectory.

Maybe that’s why we’re so mixed up.

Maybe this is a cost of not being extinct.

Cool.

Let’s fix it.

Controlling a flame does not mean we should be doing everything that fire can do.

Our bodies have let us know via blatant repetition that adequate hydration must be prioritized above food.

Water opposes fire. Fire purifies water. Do the math.

Of the elemental quartet identified by the Greek philosopher Empedocles in the fifth century prior to the time of Jesus Christ—earth, air, water, fire—which can be destroyed by the other three?

A fire can die by drowning.
A fire gets blown away by overly stiff winds.
A fire will suffocate by cutting off the oxygen supply.

Can you make any sense out of the previous three statements after inserting the words “A human” in place of “A fire”?

I guess we should slap a mental asterisk beside the other three pillars in the fearlessly fearsome foursome since fire would have a hard time living without each.

Here’s an example covering a fourth less than the whole: when presented with a little breeze [air], and contingent upon exposure to a lot of fuel [earth], flames [fire] may spread.

In eight other words that can be easily interpreted in an all-inclusive manner, water breathes the fire of life into earth.

I’m sure this must mean something.

Technically, we don’t need fire to survive right now, but when used responsibly, it will have an undeniably positive impact on our life expectancy as a species.

Adding heat to some of our natural food sources alters it in beneficial ways. For instance, cooking kale breaks down an iodine-blocking compound. Your body needs iodine to make thyroid hormones. Handy!

FoodIncreases When Cooked
Mushrooms Potassium
TomatoesLycopene [major antioxidant]
CarrotsBeta-carotene

Examples aplenty. I can’t list everything, okay?

Also, for vegetables with thick cell walls such as asparagus, we couldn’t absorb nearly as much of the essential vitamins if we didn’t first apply heat, a.k.a. cook.

But these types of foods already tick all the boxes on nature’s checklist.

Can you think of any likely outcomes from eating livestock raw?

I’ll bet you can.

I’ll double-down and bet that those possible outcomes don’t sound pleasant.

Eating for the sake of enjoyment exemplifies misprioritization. You don’t need calories that are fun to consume. You need calories that maximize your potential in terms of energy. When I realized this, I started spending the extra cash on organic options made by smaller companies and saved money by omitting beef, dairy, and pork. The results have been a decrease in food budget, and a huge gain in overall energy levels. Next on the chopping block: gluten, sugar, and caffeine.

Consider any potential source of calories.
If it looks bad, smells bad, and tastes bad in its natural state, then it’s probably not good.
If it tastes good now and feels bad later, then it’s probably not good.
If you’re unhappy with your overall health, then you’re probably not fueling your body as well as you could.

Food fuels and charges your body similar to how electricity juices up and enables a vehicle or a cellphone.

How good at functioning is a car without gas or a phone without power?

In simple terms, your body is a machine that processes the energy you need in order to move.

There are many sources of energy available for consumption in our universe, but all bodies can’t be good at processing every bit of it. That would make no sense. Duh.

If we want, we can connect our phone cords to outlets that pump out too much wattage, just as we are free to funnel granulated sugar into our fuel tanks, but those choices bind us to inescapable consequences in the future.

Freedom of choice does not imply exemption from adversity.

Are you skeptical that an icy hundred-thousand-year age of punishing food scarcity could embed into DNA and manifest as greed in the human brain?

Look at how dogs act around food. When did wolves start eating from the hand of man? Could it have been when we started eating flesh? It must have been.

When we started eating flesh, we got addicted, greedy and smart; meanwhile, wolves grew reliant, smaller and dumber—in another word, domesticated.

In other words, wolves became dogs, our favorite creature to pet.

We may not all like to admit stuff, but we know these things.

How many people don’t know how it feels to pig out on entire meaty pizza while washing it down with a liter of cola? Not the act itself—obviously that part’s fun or people wouldn’t do it. What about half an hour later? How does that aspect feel?

Time is funny like that.

It’s hard to think ahead.

Your brain can’t quite fully process data that doesn’t yet exist.

It can only be truly concerned with the stimuli it processes at any given moment.

The future, even one second from right now, cannot be guaranteed.

We never know when time might expire.

No wonder we’re increasingly keen on instant gratification.
No wonder the average attention span dwindles on the daily.
No wonder we want what we want and we want it now, damn it!

How often do you get to escape from all the noise of daily life and simply be with your mindful body of workable thoughts?

Meditation may sound like hippie mumbo-jumbo to a lot of people—admittedly, it used to sound like that to me—but I’m starting to suspect that it’s a lost art the world would do well to rediscover as a whole.

We need more time.

Time to ourselves.

Time to take detailed inventory, to make honest self-assessments, to know where we came from, to understand why we’re here, to feel the essence of who we really are.

This is the kind of information you don’t have to share with anyone.

Why do you do what you do?

Why must you believe what you believe?

Personally, I don’t think beliefs should be selected, particularly from an incomplete catalog.

Any system of belief should be the product of curious beings acting curiously, of wanting to know more, of seeking, collecting, vetting, and storing data, and furthermore of advancing knowledge achieved organically, arrived at unexpectedly, realized out of the blue like an afternoon summer thunderstorm.

Far too often, more and more, we feel the need to choose a side.

It’s splitting us down the middle.

The U.S. in particular finds itself tearing into two very different camps with diverging ideologies.

In other words, the country is dividing not unlike a nucleus during mitosis.

Why can’t debates be cordial?

Why must arguments inspire violence?

Why is everyone so insanely hostile about the most petty of topics?

I’ve seen hatred develop because someone dislikes the technological epidemic of pedestrian food pics and/or resents the bold parade of selfies featuring the same facial expression that others post online for public consumption.

We choose to look at things that irritate us.

Then we tell someone else in our tribe.

Then we feed off negative energy.

When we go looking for trouble, guess what we find.

On that note, I’m aware of the distinct possibility that no one will read this sentence, or the last, or the previous, or all the ones written prior, or the next sentence in this chapter blog, which doesn’t exist.

(Or does it?)

💨

I won’t lie.
I almost panicked earlier when I thought we could teach somebody how to listen to the past.
I’ve been told I’m related to Chuck Yeager and General Lee.
To refer to this historical knowledge as mind-bending means to undersell its genealogical significance.
With a sound that can only ring true, the speed of freedom would be wise to heed.
It may not happen this time, but happen, it will in deeds.
Will it.
Ever.
Do you know which question you’ve been asked more than any other in your entire life?
I don’t.
But maybe you do.
I might know what mine is.
“You’re never wrong, are you?”
In other words, “you’re an asshole.”
In other words, we’re “always” right!
If there’s one thing I am, it ain’t right.
I might have my favorite Pandora station to thank, I think.
This is hard to explain.
It keeps me on track.
It (em)powers me.
The music it delivers has served as fuel during major writing outbursts, particularly the 3 that had me convinced the world was about to change.
Alone in my shelter, I would dance like a fool.
Goddamn.
That felt good.
If it’s called “Energized Wavelengths” when you’re interested, then it shouldn’t be too hard to locate.
I have overseen its development just as it has overseen mine.
Think of it as the pulsating rhythm of our time.
Try to remain calm when the artists speak to you directly.
Did I plant seeds that would later wash my own brain?
How the hell would you know anyway?
Don’t get me wrong.
I’m happy we’ve teamed.
You must teem with curiosity.
Are we searching for something?
Dunno what anyone expects to find here except for answers to every
fucking question. (Hi.)
In other words, it’s a trap!
This is no more a basic handbook than it is your average mystery novel.
Honestly, I thought I was finished.
Dead in the water.
Completely kaput.
Twice.
Writing isn’t enough.
People have to figure it out on their own.
Sometimes it’s hard to find the line between what’s not real and what is
imaginary.
This style represents an evolution in character, the arc of a hero who never materialized, the ghost of a narrator itching to guide a story, the would-be star of a no-budget mockumentary that stalled out in pre-production.
More importantly (I think), it allows a glimpse back in time to a pivotal period when I felt lost, excited, abused, confused, amused, hopeful, and vulnerable.
Perhaps I should’ve mentioned this already.
How the hell should I know?
These days, I’m an absolute mess.
These days, public appearances carry a compounding mental tax.
These days, every time I listen to a recording of Where Does My Heart Beat Now, I become more convinced that our favorite French-Canadian diva is really a physics-immune psychic-angel desperately trying to educate us today from 1990.
In other words, I get all emotional.
View this as a thought experiment.
I will admit something.
Been tough sledding for me recently.
Feels like I’m coasting physically, but mentally it feels like I’m being jerked from side to side and launched up and down.
In other words, I’m changing.
I’ve become aware of my very human heart, and thus, of my body’s mortality.
I feel old.
Your body’s the same way, you know.
Can’t use it forever.
We’re alike.
We’ve only ever seen one thing that doesn’t come with an expiration date.
There’s nothing faster.
In other words, we are the fastest thing ever.
We get to choose what will become our legacy.
You don’t have to take my word for it.
Sooner or later, we all have to find a new home.
With any luck, we may find our real home.
What’s happening to you?
Am I finally growing up?
Is this a midlife dilemma or an existential crisis?
Are you losing our mind?
Yeah, I’m afraid my marbles are lost.

Good thing we’ve been found.

Greetings!