the role of hero

i’m not looking to release a compelling movie, i’m looking to unleash a compelling experience.

jesus, you have to flirt with disaster to ever get at anything. nothing safe will do. safe has got to be ripped out of the vocal box. safe must be replaced with “don’t want to.” safe is an illusion. it’s simple: perception of safety is better than perception of lazy, disinterested, no thanks. we want to believe we are something we are not. we want to believe we are working towards it. we want to torment ourselves with the goddamn ever-waving carrot. and we allow others to do it. we keep waiting, expecting, not expecting, “accepting”. . . it’s as close to embrace as we can muster.

we blame each other. why can’t he just get it? be it?

because he can’t. he cannot.

maybe a future him can. but this one cannot.

so accept that he cannot, accept you cannot accept he cannot, and sit with both your wants to accept and wills to not accept and see them slowly merge — watch the curve move towards the impossibly remote line.

now do this forever. that is all there is to do. move towards the line. it never, ever, ever, evvveerrrrrrr fucking stops. it never stops.

so go mad or get glad.

or go mad getting glad.

or get glad going mad.

or be mad at being glad.

or be glad at being mad.

or.

or.

or. . .

a true role play experience. full immersion. understand what you’re signing up for. a crash course, bungy jump into yourself.

it’s easy to be collective and kind 90% of the time. but that 10% of the time, even my deepest curiosities and belief in things outside of myself cannot get me on board with the train leaving station. this 10% i simply breathe like the other ninety. what’s being revealed? why do i hate this feeling time so much?

the ultimate collaboration. open to photographers, painters, writers, web designers, philosophers, poets, stay-at-home moms. anyone willing to accept the challenge. the winner receives $10,000. or a self-designed paid position on the original sandcastle team.

patreon kickstart campaign to pay for editor/collaborator prize, then new camera, then sandcastle initiative.

what ass do i want to cover? what’s the sexiest, most minimal, magical way to do it?

hello. i’m little bird. and i live in a cage. i’ve been here for quite some time now.

good actors are so expensive because they are so willing. they can deliver. they can suspend themselves, get so wrapped up in something else — their ego, the character, make believe, their craft . . . that they carry off what you’re trying to convey.

there is a slight strangle between us. i want to breathe into us fully, little bird and bubbles, i want to pretend like we’re the next big thing. how the fuck else do we get there? and he just wants to stay a shadow artist until boom! the world accepts him. i want to accept myself first and he cannot. and so it’s making me feel like i cannot. only i can. i want drama. lots of it.

the thing is if i am forceful, he will bend. he will come help sandcastle run. he will go to spain. i can compel any man to do anything. that is my power. but it’s a matter of will. (is that a matter of want?)

i’m afraid of how long i can go with the flow if the flow isn’t too obtrusive and provides more peace than most other options.

the question remains: is it because i am super black hole who will suckle what i can until the boredom or annoyance becomes too grave?

i am not bored. i love him. i love sandcastle. this project. i just want it next level. now.

and that can only come from belief. deep belief. the hero is all that is required now.

is samer a hero?

enough saying it must be about you.

i cannot rise. it must be simultaneous. that’s the point. i don’t want to convince anyone. i don’t want anyone signing up mid-swing. this is what i swore i’d stop doing. someone would enter in at ground floor or they can’t get on the elevator. the pent house must be earned.

i feel weird trying to seduce or induce an experience with samer. because his idea is to let it happen natural — as if this is a deus ex machina happening. people are weird as fuck. he is weird as fuck. they need prodding. he doesn’t grasp how much prodding and seed planting and watering and tending garden i had to do over the years to get him to where he is. he does not understand the manipulation game yet. if he did, he would have such gratitude in his heart, he’d realize it isn’t about him. it’s about everything that goes into making him.

it isn’t about me. it is about everything that goes into making me.

what goes into making me?

none short of everything.

i am a product of everything.

or at least that is my goal.

my goal is to soak everything into a super black hole and spit out such diverse cosmic energy — we explode and implode on one another and fractal out into eternity.

“the more exalted i feel about the world we do, the more exalted i’ll be. i’m sorry. that’s all i can do.”

no. lies. it’s not all you can do. it’s all you will do. that’s where your limit lies. that’s schopenhauer’s rocks. that’s the limit. that’s the place that’s so hard to break through. that space — that’s the fearlessness.

the search continues.

i mean

goddammit. why is this so hard to understand?

why can’t the hippy, the child, the starving artist, the shadow artist, the welfare recipient, the dazed out pothead understand:

you must earn it.

what the fuck is life for if all we do is hand things over?

that being said, one must be allowed to earn it as they see fit. we cannot be told what to do or think or buy or apply for. it must be felt.

republicans are right.

democrats are right.

all the rest are right.

it is all of it. this party plans to fuse it all into a new path forward.

existence must be felt. existence is rational.

i must suck up all of the oxygen or give it all away. i cannot play nice. i have never met my equal. i either deserve more airtime or i deserve less. there is no in between. must find in between. mutually shared airtime.

or not. it will never happen. once you get it, you’ll get it. that ain’t happening. never. ever.

my muse. swim and play. innocence is easy. now stay a kid while playing with knowledge. emotion is knowledge. drink it. fuel up. prices go up the closer to the desert.

i like to strip my access to oxygen and watch him squirm back to safety

i like to afford myself luxury that doesn’t cost my anything

i like to wake up disorientated and ask myself to put it all back together

i like to goldfish

make more reasons to celebrate. we go nuts for new years eve, independence day, christmas, and birthdays. make more mindful holidays. monthly affairs. radically different expressions of collective elated joy. that’s what festivals do. prolong the few moments of fireworks into a fast-burning, eternal flame of peace in ecstasy. we think we don’t deserve it. because we’ve clung so hard, we’ve mostly voided out the orgasm of living. we save it for rare moments, call the rest of it life. why not be an endless cause for celebration? not all celebration has to be loud and full of effort. how to celebrate waking life? morning coffee. the commute to work.

oh, look at her, she’s perfect. everything about her is in place. oh, and her too. oh, look at her. she’s perfect too.”

“you mean everybody?”

“shh. don’t tell. if everybody knew everybody else was already perfect, then where would we be? keep quiet now”

perfection is a confluence of events.

finding paradise that is not tropical is actually quite hard. you are restricted to a season, namely summer. . . a few months. you must access location, say australia. you have december to march to work with. a few days scattered throughout that are perfection. not too hot, not too cold. not raining. ample sunshine. the coast. the right spot. the right moment. the right energy and people. a home cooked meal on the shaded hillside of bondi beach looking out over hundreds of naked flesh soaking sun, digging the waves. we’re perched high up, yet close enough. we’ve cooked our own peanut satay tofu, garlic mushroom and tomato broccolini sauté, a gorgeous fresh salad, white wine, a joint, the boy you love, promise of endless open road tomorrows. making a movie. in the australian outback. maybe running for senate. maybe spending the rest of my life like this, building sandcastles the perfect distance from the shore.

all must vibe. coalesce. where your imagination must do zero effort. pure conditioning and animal nature takes hold and partners your dance to a coveted ten.

a hero knows his only alternative is villain. mostly to his own mortal soul.

there is no middle for the hero. the hero is, or is not.

the middle isn’t his.

a hero is perceived perfection.

only a hero knows it’s temporary. the world and role he’s born into.

he knows this role of hero is a perception. a state of mind way out beyond any system of beliefs. a hero knows heroes aren’t manufacturable.

a hero knows he is firstly an individual.

he knows he is an individual even beyond having to think about it.

this self-so knowledge is what makes him part of the collective — part of humanity, part of the universe.

a hero is not becoming. he already is. a hero knows he cannot both question his role as hero and also stay heroic. as a mouth cannot chew itself.

a hero knows seasons inevitably change. roles are recast. spring rolls into summer and fades to fall. bloom dims to winter as the waves calls it back.

the wave always calls us back.

the role of hero is learning to be fearless in the face of this inevitable. that time does not stop. that life is movement. birth eventual death. the hero knows this. the hero accepts this.

the hero moves with life. knows flow is the hero’s dance. in flow, the hero is armed with the greatest weapon of all: understanding. understands there’s nothing to understand. the ultimate irrationality tells him to be rational.

understanding rendered by fearless curiosity in the face of an inevitable meaninglessness to existence.

a hero knows it’s a game he must play. a game he can’t not play. he must play the game.

life is the game.

this is the hero’s true freedom.

he knows life is a sandcastle too close to the shore and doomed from the start.

the wave will come.

a hero breathes deep into his pain. slowly watches the play he’s cast himself lead actor and primary witness in to unfold.

a hero watches himself squirm. listens to himself scream out, “nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. phooey! the god’s are mocking us.”

he knows it to be true. the gods are making mockery of us.

only we are the gods.

we mock ourselves.

the hero is his mockery.

the hero is beyond his mockery.

the hero is unmoved by cheap criticisms on the chin.

a hero looks to the horizon.

a hero is an eternal work-in-progress

and yet the hero arrived perfected from the start

a hero is because a hero is not.

a hero is time

a hero is space

a hero is matter

a hero is eternal

a hero is flow

flow hangs in that space between bored and nervous.

the hero is addicted to experience.

the hero knows curiosity must be explored.

knows it’s a lifestyle choice.

a life time spent honoring his best offer.

by listening to himself.

& following his hunches.

then riding the wave he is on.

but he must want to be on the surfboard.

a hero doesn’t try to be. a hero already is.

a hero does not take the middle road. he is a man of extremes. he cannot casually indulge in truth. he can indulge ideas, pursue hypothesis, let curiosity lead him — but he cannot ignore what feels right deep in the hara, the vital center.

the hero understands he is not doing anything. that there is nothing to do. the hero can simply be. he is without care for money, success, time, or judgment. the hero is a self-so creature, a man unto himself, the means and the ends.

god, man, life.

director, actor, script.

dog, chain, master.

the hero is a kid who never grew up, entirely in his body — known to himself. knows what he wants. knows the score. is at home in all of it — the rage and the rainbow. acts his role outside the noise of the world.

he is his own education, his own religion, his own moral compass.

it’s so simple. be here now. act from this place.

he doesn’t clinging to his body, for he knows it is a temporary sandcastle built too close to the shore. he doesn’t put demands and expectations on it; he lives in it. listens to it.

he doesn’t fear his own heart. he listens to it.

he doesn’t condemn his own mind. he respects it.

collective consciousness is felt because the collective isn’t doing, it is being. it is rational emotion outside shoulds, oughts, & must.

the hero exists in a timeless space. acknowledges the irrational inevitability of death in the physical body & dance across the galaxy any way.

the hero isn’t titles or labels. the hero doesn’t fit in or bully. the hero doesn’t try, doesn’t expect, doesn’t control. the hero is.

the hero doesn’t spend life looking back or dreading moving forward. the hero is now. present and awake to his path. he hasn’t planned himself right out of living. he honors his curiosity. he affords himself time and space. he sets no demands on himself. he exists outside the world’s demands and labels and expectation.

it seems i am a creative after all, hot damn. i actually have some sort of eye615 and vision. feels cool. i also am an intellectual. i like to think and process. i like ideas. they are nice. i like implementing them. my ideas. they are my art. my life is my art. and i’m getting it down. it’s sort

of like a pop start, without the looks or talent but with a lot more desire to stir shit up that is beyond just my pot of turnips. you may see inappropriate photos, but we will create jobs, work towards peace, and explore our global consciousness.

thing is, i forgot how hard it is to think for many people. i’ve been doing it nonstop for so many years now, i forgot many don’t do it anymore. it’s hard to empathize with minds that have shut off and have not yet quite made it to full residence in their heart. so they’re lodged somewhere on highway 9 way out in the boondocks between mind and heart . . . the lung. they talk a lot but that’s because they’re so far from another home. the mouth is the closest mode to emote they got. but speaking without thinking or feeling is dangerous because it doesn’t know why it’s doing and saying. it’s suspended in space without attachments to the artist or intellect in them. so it’s just ego strangling thread hairs of reality. all-too-willing to give power away to popular culture, banks, doctors or politicians.

and this is why they kill off the revolutionaries. because if you started doing it — thinking for yourself… they’d be totally fucked. that cannot happen. so scared irrational boys convince you that you are ticking on your own clock. but you are not.

and there’s nothing i can say to make you see.

because logic doesn’t always work. humans are emotional.

god as hero is found in rational emotion, in romanticized realism. in praising the individual so that he doesn’t stand out as hero, but is rather just nature being. but this means other nature must be. small nature must expand itself; it cannot hold such reverence for others or we shall never understand the collective. all nature must be.

all nature must be.

i knew my soul’s score at 18: — rational mind, emotional heart. heavily curious. likes to explore, feels a great deal, sometimes too much. grasps the fatal flaw in believing in regret —

i couldn’t get a specific degree. i wanted to experience everything.

the self doubt monster is eating my neck. i like conversational language. venky has me so convinced i have to write pure. what is that? what he means is write for him. write for his analytical, math geek love crush he has on schopenhauer.

why do i write? it’s my nervous habit. i am talking to myself. processing ideas. because i cannot not write. because i like to revisit myself; i like watching myself. the way my parts work. sometimes together, sometimes in discord. i like tracking it. it’s less progress, more progression. what the heck am i thinking and feeling and emoting at various times in my life. what’s my input? how is it running through me? what’s my discoursing output? how does it all sit with me? how am i evolving? how is my input evolving?

it can become an overbearing presence::: my — self.

huge ego, massively insecure. eventually they collapse and become one. the modern monk. a real degenerate buddha. philosophy and religion and fiction brought to life. live the musical. every day. sometimes being awake catches you off, not in the mood to face never-ending micro moments of reality. you just want autopilot. and it is not there to be found.

this is why i sometimes smoke weed. at best, the ideas that flow feel inspired, because i have dulled my reception. i don’t understand as much input when i am high. i don’t have as many rational filters at work. things are coming at me and forcing me to spontaneously reply, finding new real-time balance with incoming data. assessing where to exist between the rational-emotional pole and plane of existence. and sometimes, i can zone off entirely and be on another planet for a little while. the idea generator and emotion feeler can release a little and i am a zombie. my mouth droops open, i like deranged and slow. it is my happy time. it’s best i do it in private.

it is the only time i am not in thought.

only sometimes it gives me unnamable anxiety. i feel lost. control is no longer mine. i can’t assume the ending. i suddenly don’t know all of nature’s intention. a story is unfolding that i have not read.

so now i am outside of the tunnel. i know the score. life is meaningless. so how much meaning do i want to give to it? to the next sandcastle that will eventually wash with the tide?

i want to run for senate but i want candidates like me to run too. that look different. that think different. that might not have gray hair. that know the score. that aren’t clinging to results. that comprehend life is a game best played by letting go.

hello. are you out there? let’s run. and when we win, we will meet at local coffee joints to talk about how to replace all the jobs lost by coal.

perhaps i’m jumping to the front of the line in some people’s eyes, but i’m writing parts of this collective story, and i think we can move it along a little faster. let’s be less need for exposition. expository writing about sexism, racism, and terror can shrink a little.

books that spend paragraphs telling us about the foliage is so last century.

let’s try something else.

overdeveloped, undercooked, whelmed.

underdeveloped, overcooked, whelmed.

waves of nausea.

try the glistening fleshy parts of a lemon.

safe in the concrete creature. protected from the elements. the parking structure’s womb has it’s own microcosmic happenings too. the fritz fellow on the tractor pulling a hundred shopping carts up the ramp in overdrive. the old chinese delivery man in his van with one foot out on the ground, playing a game on his phone and smoking a ciggie. a single collective echo from the cacophonies many individually buzzing parts. the old man slow to closing the trunk. he creaks, the car creaks — gentle now . . . nice & easy. there now. . . click. a single bone in the elbow clinks with the trunk’s latch.

for the first time i realized partly why my mom left, had her breakdown all those years ago when i was 16 — her baby no longer needed her. he had grown up. she knew i needed to be on my own, to challenge myself at 16 with my own mortgage, bills, and living. she had raised a very bright star that was ready to shine and wanted to know what owning his own house at 16 and being a landlord and full time manager of dairy queen while in high school, dual enrolled in college, would feel like. mommy, i cannot explain how grateful i am for your friendship and your love the past 32 years of life. you are my favorite drug. i am addicted to your love. you are my best friend. i seriously picture your face, your smile, your hugs, your slightly buzzed of peppermintt shnapps cheeks multiple times a day.

the thing is, of course i have favorites.

wait. this is how my brain works. it comes out like this. bent. torn to bits. shreds and fragments. i revisit thoughts. i’m a thought juggler. a collector of things and ideas and tricks. i bop. so why can’t this goddamn book? what are you waiting for? these are your thoughts right now. when you are in a good place things are clear in the fog. sometimes there is no fog at all. i think i shall put this down and paint. wait, draw. wollongong is gray air today. chilly perfection asking to play. ‘dark is very bright. play with us, too. fire is nice. respect us. take the rational gamble. calculate the risk. we’re onto something. nature isn’t eternally sunny. reconcile rational emotion.”

‘oh, i didn’t actually want to give him power.’

the dark feels stifled. the light feels trite. balance scales.

move an inch here. draw a line there. erase a page. walk it out. add a sentence, subtract one. read the room. clock time in the body. punch out. blaze. sing out. slurp.

there are no mistakes. it’s an improv. you can’t stop the dance. it is a dance. all the way through. we can just get better at the moves, learn tricks to be light on our feet. it is movement. all of it. even when standing perfectly still.

a manic flower. journey with me. i suffer severe short-term memory loss. but i revel in my memories. just not those experienced in the last three minutes.

stark, plain, incapable.

the camper van you can’t help but stop and stare at, maybe take a picture — suddenly slides open on you and out pops me, half bearded, in my underwear, eye boogers there. you are surprised. what the heck? people are in this crazy van? i hop out, stretch a minute, then hop up front and grab a thick book, kick back to read. you are incredulous. where are the cameras?

take a loot at me now.

let me be frank: i like being dramatic. i like when things seem a little extreme. reminds we’re alive. that we’re moving and stirring up the equations we teach and preach to each other. reminds me we are not stuck, that we are not just robots set for programming. i am extreme because it is extreme. being alive. we have this insane gift we did nothing to earn and it is dramatic. & i am grateful. and i want to express it. it is my life’s calling. to express gratitude for being alive. to spread magic.

what the hell? either the nuclear fallout will happen or an asteroid will hit or global warming will wipe us out or god or science will take us home one by one . . . or it won’t. but i’m going to spread my truth in the meantime and hopefully collective consciousness will win. hopefully enough people understand our mission and our message and get behind the idea and help this take flight and inspire others to run and stand up in a radically new way.

run.

we must run.

i mean run.

but only if you feel it deep.

and right now i am inspired. and have been for quite some time. i won a “when i grow up speech” in 4th grade. my speech? i wanted to be the president. i have always been fascinated by humans and by this planet. finding out how it all works. we need leaders who are first and foremost curious. who want to know more. who understand the best way forward is through listening and talking and flipping over more pieces to the puzzle. each of us have different corner pieces that make this thing fit together. some pieces are in syria, some pieces are in france, some in china, some in russia, some in mexixo, some in america. we must learn to work together better.

that starts with each of us.

i’m not promising forever. none of us can. politics shouldn’t be a life sentence anyway. it should be reserved for when one is truly inspired. when a person feels like having their voice heard a whole lot louder. i’m that person right now.

i have good ideas. i’m inspired. i should run. anyone with inspiration and curiosity firing in their loins mixed with fearlessness and understanding of the gift of life — should be running for an office.

i want to live in a world that is awake. awake to life we were somehow fortunately born out of. awake to the bright sun that comes up each morning, the moon that hangs with the twinkling stars overhead. awake to the very large planet we all inhabit together. aware of each other. aware travel is good. it is the best education we can afford one another.

in travel you learn. you are forced off balance. in traveling — you pay to experience diversity, to spark other nation’s ecnomy. you don’t build walls around yourself to keep it at bay. you breathe into it. into difference. into nature’ drama. you get a passport and you find a way to go. even across town. across the state. across the country. across the planet. across the galaxy. that promotes diversity.

cosmic diversity. understanding and cross-pollinating our resources it deeply advantageous — imperative really, to the continual evolution of our species.

a mindful, meditative, magical evolution.

not a lumpy, afraid, small transition. let’s walk with air puffed out in our chests. let’s honor ourselves. and each other. we are human beings. we are this gorgeous species of the planet. we don’t have to thin ourselves small. we don’t have to convinces ourselves we are nothing and power to change and dream on a big scale is left to popular celebrtiies, billionaires, and politicians.

we have one thing on our side: sheer volume. mass. humans. heartbeats.

there are so many of us. we are all us.

the 1% is 1% of US. the 99% is 99% of them.

it is one. they are inseparable. you cannot talk about the 1% without relation to the other ninety-nine. we are interdependent. we have to honor where each other is. and that comes from understanding. to understand means to get up close. to be personal. to invest some time and space.

stretch out. reach higher. breath into the expanse. if you don’t you retract. all is motion. motion is. we will forever be in sway. in flux. in transition. we are endlessly, eternally growing creatures. we aren’t fixed, immovable signposts for history to nod at in passing.

we are matter and we matter. bottom line: if more people are fearlessly breathing life into their dreams- without such self judgment, poisonous playmate world saying don’t bother, bills piling up, and fear and expectation and should and ought.. . .

if more people were chasing the bold magic — the world would be better off.

so we’re running a campaign of bravery. of curiosity and bravery.

of saying i want to learn things — maybe not in books. but in other eyeballs. in sleepy trains between monte carlo and milan.

in taking a walk down a different street this time home.

we.must.instill.fearlessness.into.our.youth.

it is the greatest hope. it isn’t the only hope. we will keep on going no matter who writes what song. matter cannot be destroyed, it can only be reshaped.

science agrees something happens to us when we die. none of us know for sure. we all have our hunches. the bottom line: it doesn’t disappear.

matter cannot evaporate. it can only take on different shape.

we transmute light.

light isn’t always good or bad, right and wrong. light exists beyond such labels. man must open up to a wider truth, and this is petrifying. this feels next to impossible. maybe it is.

but i want to have a conversation with the 63 million supporters of trump. i want to have a meaningful dialogue. i want you to meet some muslims, maybe come out dancing with us gays. i want to open an unprecedented dialogue between wall street and main street. speak up. our campaign will have an entire social platform to weigh in on every issue in real time, with public opinion polls on every issue up for a vote. tell us what you think. because you are us. we are you.

all 7+ billion of us will do a lot better if we get along. we may actually get human life to mars. imagine. imagine leaving behind the pain and regret and anger and expectation and dogma and belief and labelling behind and play for just a single moment in a world that is endlessly fracturing out.

collective ecstasy — a synchronized, rhythm — patterned in space and time. we want to invite the audience to step into it. to breath into. we become one thing. in that merger, where everyone becomes synchronized and in flow — we are having conversations in the open that are not always politically correct and tinged with fear and judgment. but real, deep, honest, reflective, quieting thought. that’s how we purge. we pop out of the drama we place on each other. one has to experience it to know what we’re talking about. vibration is felt.

all we is nature playing with patterns. our job is to colonize space and time in a more mindful way that treads lightly and grows the soul.

for a supposed christian nation that also tolerates other religions — we sure do shy away from any real god talk. like what this character might have meant.

how this character might have been misinterpreted over the years and maybe this is one giant misunderstanding and we’re all praying to the same god, and some call it science — but whatever it/she/he is. . . we are it.

we all come from this source. whatever the source turns out to be.

and the source is getting annoyed. god is saying — hey there — knock it off. we can really go places if you stop all this fighting. it’s me causing the tornadoes and earthquakes, you know. it’s also me causing the terrorism and enslavement to the big banks and cancer. i cause it all.

i am it all.

and so are you.

and the only job — since before even adam and eve — is simply to be.

not to choose, and to do. but to be.

to really get good at listening to yourself. we are our own greatest tool.

government should be to aggregate a collective voice and decide together how best to cohabitant this planet.

when we give all the power away to a few handful of people — we risk lives. there is a lot of corruption none of us will ever have the slightest whiff at. it is human nature. we must accept it. embrace it. and spark a very public new dialogue that simply welcomes others to the light.

we should celebrate the ego. we should celebrate ourselves. we should honor talented sport’s stars and musicians. we should honor great doctors. we should want to look and feel good about ourselves and our outlook on life.

and we should realize everyone else is doing that. and that is the goal. to want equality, space, time, honesty, a happy planet for yourself so much that you want it so badly for everyone else.

that is what god meant.

that is the golden rule.

this is what the buddha was on to.

this is what great many philosophers

and poets and artists

and teachers and doctors

and bartenders and mothers

have been saying for a long time.

now we need candidates who are speaking the language

who are tuned to our frequency.

we need a candidate tuned to our frequency.

life is a giant sandcastle built too close to the shore. all our lives we will be building sandcastles and watching them crumble. the very act of eating, digestion, and excretion of food is a sandcastle. it sounds so good, the mental, physical, emotional pictures takes hold and creates real ecstasy in our body. we feel something very animal in our deepest core when we think of pizza or ice cream. we cling to experience. because we cling to life. because we will die. this scares all of us. and is the cause of so much unnecessary pain. what if we all came to grips with it. with death. so we can then celebrate life.

we can really use all this technology and wield it as a tool.

technology is very, very powerful. it is hyuge.

and we don’t know how to properly wield it. we are learning. we must think beyond getting a few likes on facebook. we must teach our children they don’t need every single new apple iPhone upgrade to be cool and wanted and desirable and worthy. we can end bullying in schools when we end it in the offices all around the country.

bosses bullying those under their employ. up, up, up the ladder we go. politicians so out of touch with everyman’s reality. this is what happens.

most of our energy goes towards what is in our immediate surroundings — mental, emotional, physical.

if we are feeling sad, then everything is colored with it — the beautiful, swaying trees peppered in midday sunlight suddenly become painful for my eyes, too hot.

perception is reality.

and until we change our perception, reality will be slow to follow suit.

of course it will follow. because life is motion. nothing stays static.

when you are still, you are moving.

we don’t have all the answers. we don’t have a lot of the answers. but we’re not too proud to ask around. there are a lot of people who do know. and they will work with us.

i can tell you this — we have none of the corruption and special interest that current stakeholders in the most powerful city on the planet have. and that should be your very top concern.

citizens must run. but only out of being compelled. one cannot, must not run out of a sense of duty. martyrdom doesn’t work. it creates false prophets for profits, promotes sentimental pity. one must run because one wants to run. it is in their nature to run. they have big ideas and want to try them out.

if a man goes to the hardware store and picks up nails, wood, and a hammer and comes home to make a chair — suddenly he feels he owns the thing. suddenly if that man who sold him the goods came knocking asking for his supplies back, the man might take offense.

if a male hammer and a female nail decide to join forces over a piece of wood and make a beautiful piece of art and name her chair even if the other kids make fun, then is it not their right? should The Man be able to come into The Man Cave and tell him what to do with his recently assembled chair?

look — i like kids. i have nearly 50 nieces and nephews. but i will never be able to conceive one (probably). i know how my body feels and how much i do not like others telling me what to feel, when to feel it, and what to do with what my body creates. we just cannot do this. we cannot penetrate a human’s inner-most forcefield protection from the rest of the planet. we cannot go inside a women’s special private hootie bop womanly place and reach up there and decide what to move around.

we cannot do it.

i don’t like abortion. i like humans. i think we could severely cut down the number of humans that are popping out all over the planet and we could have a world-wide discussion on adoption — on really ending child homelessness and foster care.

housewives having coffee might do some good working themselves up into thinking adoption is the new sexy alternative. adopt more.

i know, we want to propagate our nature. but we’ve got a lot of nature to go around.

i want to have my own child. and i also want to adopt.

i want to teach my biology how to wield the great tools we all got. i want my future child to grow up in a world that has moved beyond petty divides for power. i want them to grow in a world rallied in celebration around diversity. i want them have their daily conversation rally around ideas. around art. around thinking and creating and being. i don’t want them to grow up in fear.

i have come a long way from one of eleven kids growing up on welfare to running for the United States Congress. i am proud of my journey. it is not the typical journey. i am not a career politician working my way up the ranks from city council to the white house. that is a way. and this is also a way. i have spend my adult life soaking up experience to understand my fellow man more. to be able to feel empathy in my bones for those i share the planet with. my travels across 50 countries and 49 states has taken me through wonderful young years in new york city fresh out of graduating from The University of Michigan to being a high school teacher, a life and wellness coach, a business owner, a bartender, a barista, a busker.

throughout life i have been guided by two things: curiosity & kindness.

i am curious and i am kind.

this is the recipe for a good life.

for experience. for empathy. for magic.

i may sometimes wear a dress to a town hall.

i may sometimes show up at your bowling alley and sub in on your league so we can discuss the real things going on in your neck of the woods.

i may sometimes host impromptu dialogues between groups of people that could really stand to start learning more about one another.

nothing lasts forever, including my life. so i want to live it fully. and i want to help create space for others to do the same.

the ego is strong. and cannot be killed. you cannot kill the ego. you can strangle it and eventually it breaks free and strangles you right back. we must work with the ego. wield it as another tool in the arsenal. we see what happens when ego takes hold and becomes all-consuming. we get donald trump. we get isis.

ego is how we express much of ourselves. ego makes things happen. builds civilzation. drives man to do things. it is a good thing.

but it is not the only thing.

we are getting lost in building, in growing, in mindless expansion and forgetting we need to keep our emotional intelligence up to speed with the latest gadgets. humans are very far behind evolutionarily to where technology is capable of taking us.

sexism, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, bigotry has to be seriously looked into.

we must start a different conversation. i cannot listen to politicians talk about nothing anymore.

they loop for hours never arriving on anything. because they don’t want to say the wrong thing. well i don’t care. this is my truth. i don’t want to be reelected. i may be killed, but there are more of me on the way. we are endless. this gorgeous dance.

empire and revolution.

but what about our empire being planet earth. what if we all worked together. what if bill in kentucky and

we are light and vibration.

we are human.

we are.

hello, my name is ricky ‘little bird’ lampshade herbert and i’m running on the sandcastle party ticket for the United States Congress senate seat up for re-election in the Michigan midterm election in 2018.

we’re launching a new political party called sandcastle. one of our first big goals is to get nearly 40,000 signatures to officially get the sandcastle party on the ballot. we’re pretty excited to hit the pavement.

you see we’re not your typical politicians. in fact, we’re not politicians at all.

we’re normal every day citizens like most of you.

this is my first time running for public office.

there’s but one indisputable fact: life is inherently meaningless.

meaningless causes dread.

or meaningless unlocks freedom.

all of existence comes down to how you cope.

some get ass cheek implants and drink champagne, some cling to religion and raising kids, some turn to drugs and art and gambling and travel, some recoil into philosophy and a dark apartment.

but once you accept all of it. once you welcome it all in — you accept the totality of everything . . . every goddamn thing is yes. every religion. every path busy processing the relentless meaningless underpinning it all…

then you are free.

only then can you sit with the cold fact and also derive the sunniest meaning you can. not the happiest. the sunniest. sometimes the sun is cloudy and gray.

the only hope is to follow your nature. to give over to it.

my nature is one of positive disposition with a lot of turmoil and drama.

i only learned this by giving space to find out. you can’t give over to your true nature with the noise of the world. most think they are being themselves and i know of less than a handful of humans living anywhere close to what they are.

they live a delusion. they dress it up as pretty as pie. and this is glory. an admirable trait.

second only to those who accept the futility and still choose to bop along the burning road towards oblivion.

so i choose to dance and make silly voices and travel and learn and compete and grow and experience and fail and look like a goddamn jackass.

i choose to believe in collective consciousness, in being a magical unicorn. i feel the vibration shift. my technology always fails me. my wavelength is of a different frequency. children take note of me. i get electric shocks daily from things i do not touch. i see things. i feel things.

i have wholly woken up.

and with this you either become fearless facing the inevitable futility or you become enslaved by the fear of the inevitable fact that you.will.die.

whether it’s up to you to decide or nature’s will to run her course, i am not sure. perhaps it doesn’t matter. it’s perception. but it seems there is wiggle room. very, very difficult-to-tap-into, far harder to navigate — wiggle room. nearly impossible to stay in. it’s cosmic improv. it requires serious time and effort. it requires space and someone with courage. if it ain’t you, you need someone with courage to feed off regularly until you grow the tiniest bud of fearlessness. once it sprouts a spore, it cannot die. it can wither with a season, but the bravery has birthed.

but it is truly the hardest thing on the planet to do. to breathe into the hopelessness with fearlessness and dare it to dance. say fuck you. i know it’s meaningless. i choose to dicker bop anyway.

that is the single only hope for any man to experience anything both true and holy and without spite and sadness in his heart. all else gives way under microscopic probing of a time slowed to snail.

one can live in ignorance and this is a type of bliss.

one can live in truth and this is a type of outrage and alienation.

one can live in truth and train goldfish ignorance into his consciousness and find endless joy in a parade of nonsense.

one can both understand it is useless and futile and truly, wholly without meaning and still do shit.

this is the buddha. this is the middle way. this is tao.

this is the noblest pursuit man can attain to at this time.

immersive mirroring. role play therapy. i’ll play the mirror. you play yourself. let’s see what happens.

we must wholly live for ourselves, we mustn’t do sacrifice or demand sacrifice done — pure self-fulfilled, self-willed nature moved by rationality — by reason, purpose, self-esteem. altruism is honoring self. let nature take care of the rest. but honoring the rational self means not being lead by brute force — means not being lead by impulse, by sex, by power.

power isn’t rational. power is emotional response, possibly to materially rational information.

it’s what we do with our rationality that defines our life.

man cannot force himself or his will or values onto another man. all interaction must be a trade — value for value. the moment man pushes his will, he sets emotional demands that he then expects.

an open trade of value. you are pretty, i have money; i’ll buy you a drink. you like to talk nietzsche, i like to listen; let’s grab coffee.

but we don’t exist in bubbles. we are conditioned. so when this starts taking shape in reality — the dance requires a certain rational grace. you made the latest apple computer, i want that computer; i pay you $2,000.

but why do you want the computer? if no one else had the computer, would you want the computer? how much did this computer cost them to make? what does buying their computer do? why should i take into consideration what affects their business practices have on the planet? what questions are entertained? you can make anything rational.

can you make anything rational argument?

man as end to himself, not as means.

obama runs for president not to change the world, not to help heal the sick, not to balance a budget, or end racism. he does so because he wants to do it, because his nature must do it, must express it’s will — because his rational nature wants to run free, because he has come to some rational conclusions about reality and he wants to test them out in real time, the end.

no means to the end. the end. the man is the end onto himself.

there is no such thing as self-sacrifice. no altruism. no good deed. there is only deed. nature doing nature. and when nature is doing nature and not backing up on itself, filling the pipelines with false emotional storyline — nature often has beautiful side effects that do things like cure cancer, stop wars, end racism, write compelling stories and gorgeous music, & a single Facebook status that tells a friend just what they need to hear in a moment.

nature did it because nature did it. it had to. not to get some expected outcome.

it is just nature acting itself out. and other nature receives nature’s stimulus and output and generates its own output. and this is all of existence. a well-oiled collective machine that is entirely devoted to and centered around it’s own selfish needs to survive.

obama’s rational self interest lead him to seek the presidency. no altruism, no self-sacrifice. no martyr. his own will-to-power. his way of staying alive. same with the thank you soap guys, same with mother theresa and ghandi. it’s all objectivism. we just call it socialism or capitalism or nihilism.

perceived positive effects of an action, what is often called good deed, altruism, positive progress. . . is mislabeled. it is nature’s natural fallout and logical expression based on the deed done by the self-interested, self-propagating nature, i.e. man.

this is collective conscious. a planet full of awake people, conscious to their self-expressing rational choice to think. or not think. the so-called mindful granola kids are really mindlessly wearing the buddha’s cloak. the collectivists are scared to look at themselves so they say we are all one. none of us need do anything. but we do need to do one thing: we need to be. and in order to be we must exercise our rational ability to process, to think — to engage critically with incoming stimulus. hippies don’t want to be alone, left to think for themselves, left to fend for themselves. they want to feel.

we are expansive. we are individual. we arrive naked and alone and die that way.

the only thing we can do is fuck with the packaging. make objectivism — man’s self-interested pursuits, his unique fractal-ing — be seen for what it is: nature honoring itself.

it isn’t cutthroat. it doesn’t have to be perceived as heartless, aggressive and forceful. romanticize the realism.

self-interest can just make a prettier fractal.

& it will be perceived as collectively bent.

because nature will not be covetous about itself, nature will be, not do in order to rub in one’s face or fit in.

& eventually maybe there will be no perception of self — time and space will collapse on itself and the universe will be one pinprick dot, entirely outside of time. nature’s perception will be one, which is to say will be all; this is the right collective.

honoring the self so much that it folds in on everything else. this is a self-so planet . . . one understanding cosmic diversity, diverse expression — is the only inevitable cause.

the one that is ever expanding across the event horizon.

the hero understands this. the hero is this. the hero is an individual. he is so much an individual that he folds back in on the collective. because they are the same. the individual is the collective. the universe is a self-so collection of individual parts folding itself back into an infinite harmony of one. the line and the curve, the dark and the light, on & off, birth and death. one.