Home

I recently returned from a short vacation in Las Vegas. I had a good time, but what I enjoyed probably most of all was returning home to Roanoke. This was a surprise to me, a very pleasant surprise.

For years I have toyed with the idea of moving somewhere else, most likely out west. I've been traveling since I was a child and I've always loved California and Nevada. They are beautiful states with so much to see and do. Often I hear the call of the Pacific and I long to return to those beaches. I love the feeling of walking up and down the shore at Pebble Beach, my feet sinking into the mass of smooth stones. Every step is like a foot massage. The waves come in and when they pull back the stones clatter softly together. I miss driving up into the Sierra Nevada mountains and seeing all the different biomes. Deciduous trees and beautiful green clearings give way to conifer forests and high desert. There are natural hot springs in the desert and beautiful lakes cupped in the hands of the mountains. I love it out west, I always have.

My love of the west is further fueled by how much it contrasts with what I'm used to. I grew up in a small rural area in southwest Virginia and a lot of the people here have not been very far out of the state, if they've been out at all. From the people who have lived here their whole lives I get the sense that they are either not aware of what it's like outside of their small community or they simply do not care. When I've talked about moving out west some people have wondered why. Why move so far away? What's the point of going out there? Much of my motivation to move west comes from my aversion to the closed mindedness of the general population here. Living in Rocky Mount felt like reverting to the mentality of the 1950's. People are openly racist and homophobic. The most important things to the community appear to be high school football, southern baptist or holiness churches, and gossiping about the personal lives of everyone in town. When I point this out I'm often told that people are the same everywhere, moving out west won't get me away from shitty people.

I know that is not true. From traveling to different places I've seen just how different they can be. The mentality in San Francisco is very different from the mentality in Chicago. People in Alaska have a noticeably different culture from people in Florida. To say that people are the same everywhere is a very broad generalization. Surely there are shitty people to be found in all 50 states and there will be prejudice wherever you go, but that does not take away from the incredible variation in communities around the country. I became enamored with the idea of moving out west and immersing myself in a culture that was more open-minded, more progressive, and, as far as I could tell, happier.

People in Rocky Mount are miserable. I don't know what the reason is. It's probably a confluence of factors. What I do know is that the average person in Rocky Mount is unhappy with their life and they do not want anyone else to be happy either. They revel in the failure and tragedy of others. There is a morbid obsession with watching the lives of others fall apart. I can remember being a child and going over to the house of my step-dad's parents. They owned a police scanner and it was always on. They would be watching television or eating dinner and all the while the scanner would be crackling and beeping, the electronically distorted voices of police officers constantly reporting things from the mundane to the criminal. These people liked to know immediately when something happened in the community. Often times they would hear on the police scanner about a car accident and they would drive to the site of the wreck to see what had happened. As a child I didn't have a point of reference to compare this against. To me, this is just what people did. As I got older I realized how utterly bizarre it is to go and see a car accident as if it were some kind of attraction.

I've often felt completely out of place here. Though I've lived in this area all my life, I was raised by my mother who is an Italian from New York. She would tell me all these wonderful stories about living in the city, about how different things were. Some of it had to do with the time period (the 50's and 60's), but most of it was geographical. I'm sure that life in Rocky Mount in the 50's and 60's was vastly different from life in New York City during the same years. My mother taught me that just because a lot of people share the same ideas, that doesn't make them correct. I was shown from an early age that prejudice and bigotry are horrible things and the racism that people in Rocky Mount are so comfortable with is deplorable. In addition to the values she instilled in me and my siblings, we also reaped the benefits of my father's job with United Airlines. My parents were divorced when I was very young, but my dad would come and visit regularly and take us on vacations every summer. His flight privileges allowed us to fly for very little money. We went to New Zealand, Hawaii, Alaska, California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Florida. We flew to big cities and drove out to even larger deserts. I was amazed by the ancient redwood trees of California and the active lava flows of Hawaii. Traveling like that from such an early age (I was 5 years old when we flew to Hawaii) was a very formative experience for me. My childhood and adolescence were enriched beyond measure by those experiences. I saw that this little pocket of land tucked away against the Appalachians was extremely sheltered and closed off from the rest of the world. It was as if there were an invisible barrier along the border of Franklin County and these people were superstitiously afraid to cross it.

When I moved out of my mom's house I found a little place in Rocky Mount with a roommate, a friend of mine. We stayed there briefly and then moved a little further north to Boones Mill. We were right next to the interstate and halfway between Rocky Mount and Roanoke. We were close to our families but could go to the city without having to drive very far. I liked it more than living in Rocky Mount, but I still thought often about moving away. Eventually I got my own apartment in Roanoke and lived there for a couple years. It was nice living completely on my own, yet I still wrestled with the idea of moving out west. I could never make up my mind and eventually I moved into a beautiful house in Roanoke with four other friends. I love our house, I love living there, but still there was a little voice in the back of my mind telling me that I need to move out west while I still can.

Over the years I've thought a lot about why I want to move out west. The core of the attraction is the cultural differences. People seem more accepting out there, more open-minded. They don't seem to be as hung up on racial division or issues of sexuality. I often think that if I moved out west I could meet so many new and interesting people. I also imagine there would be so much to do, so much to see. There are activities I could pursue and communities I could be a part of. I could steep myself in the culture of the area and make connections with artists, writers, and free-thinkers. I thought that if I moved out west all these possibilities would be open to me.

Slowly a realization began to dawn within me. I realized that I was thinking about all the things I could do out west, but I had not thought about the fact that I hadn't even tried to do those things here in Roanoke. I came to understand that these things were not so much failures of the area, they were my failures. For a long time I had equated Roanoke with Rocky Mount. I had made the same mistake that I condemned in others. I had assumed that people in Roanoke were the same as people in Rocky Mount, that there wasn't any major difference and that this area was just as full of ignorance and intolerance as my home town. I must admit that I felt pretty stupid for completely missing this obvious mistake. I began to wonder just how much I had been depriving myself because of my own assumptions.

After living here for a few years I've learned that Roanoke is actually a pretty diverse place. There is a somewhat sizable geek community here and opportunities to play games like Magic the Gathering or even tabletop RPG's with other gamers. There are a lot of artists and crafty people doing all sorts of interesting projects. Also, Roanoke is a very open minded place. It is surprisingly gay-friendly and there is a very large and comfortable gay community here. The people are fairly relaxed and no one is in a rush to get anywhere, everything seems to move at a comfortably slow pace. This city actually has a lot of the things that I want, but I have not made a concerted effort to participate in and enjoy these amenities.

When our plane touched down at Roanoke Regional Airport and I stepped down onto the runway I was greeted by the cool moist air of a spring night in Virginia. We walked into the small airport and there weren't very many people inside, most of them were from the plane we were just on. As I waited for my suitcase on the luggage belt people smiled at each other and no one seemed ill at ease. I walked outside and even though the bright light of the Roanoke Star on top of Mill Mountain was hidden behind a layer of clouds, I smiled just knowing it was there. And I smiled because I realized that I was home.

Home.

This place is home to me now and that is a surprising feeling. I've spent so much time thinking of Virginia as just the place I was born, a temporary waiting room for my life. I kept thinking that one day soon I was going to pack up my belongings and drive out west to start a new life with new people and new experiences. Now I'm the one asking myself the question that others had asked me when I talked about moving: why? I have built some wonderful relationships here with some really incredible people. I can see my family pretty much any time I want to. There are things to do and new sights to see. There is a community of artists, writers, and gamers. This place has everything I need. What's more, I like it here. I like pulling into my driveway at night and seeing a small family of deer in my yard, watching me from a short distance away. I like the changing seasons and the rolling hills. I love the smell of the spring air and the sound of cicadas in the summer. I love the bright fire of the autumn leaves and the dark gray solemnity of winter. I am now happy to say that Roanoke is my home.

I may move somewhere else some day, but if I do it will not be because I do not like it here. I no longer feel the need to escape this place because I no longer feel trapped here. So much of our happiness is derived from how we view our world. I now see that I had painted my world in dark tones that it didn't deserve. I'm putting that way of thinking aside now and I'm looking forward to enjoying everything this city has to offer.

The Secret Doorway

There is a secret doorway
Under lock and key
That reveals itself in the midnight hour
But only ever to me

I pass through unnoticed
And disappear completely
For a few sweet hours
That stretch into eternity

Beyond that arcane portal
A universe of my own
Unlike the day-lit world
This one feels like home

Through its hidden valleys
Behind its many doors
Up the secret stairway
Down to the ocean floor

This world is my own essence
It knows me through and through
It harbors and it heals me
It cuts straight to the true

So far beyond the shores
Of the Earth so mundane
Free from doubt or worry
Free from strife or pain

No distance could you travel
Nor stone overturn
To find this hidden garden
Where nightly I return

It is there that I may flourish
And bloom eternally
I lay down all my burdens
I know serenity

But when the clock winds down
And brings about the day
To the flesh am I returned
The passage fades away

Throughout the sun-baked toil
Of empty drudgery
Many hours spent in longing
For the turning of that key

The Folly of Youth: Notes on the Cultural Apocalypse

I remember what the world was like before. I remember when there was a culture that moved forward by creating new things. Now there is an absence of culture as the people of the world no longer produce anything but instead constantly consume everything that came before until it is devoid of meaning or context. But I still remember. I remember.

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I pull my flannel shirt tighter around me and brace against the cold wind that whips against my body. It feels like September or October, but I have no idea what month it is. It must be close to fall. When does fall begin? I don't remember, but the date is arbitrary. Calendars are a thing of the past. Only the dropping temperature and the lengthening nights signal the changing season. I look up and squint at the gray overcast sky, unable to tell where the sun hangs. Its light radiates from the shifting clouds, seeming to come from all directions at once. Impossible to tell time in such weather.

I cut across a back alley and end up on one of the main streets. Somewhere in my mind I think I can remember the name of this street, but it fades away as soon as I try to hold onto it. They got rid of all the street names, said They couldn't stand something being permanently labeled like that. My eyes move over the dilapidated storefront next to me and I recognize it as an old pizza place. A brief smile on my lips as I remember eating there years ago. Seems like an eternity has passed since then. No use dwelling on old thoughts like that, they only bring on the dark times, the bad times. Can't afford to give up now. The important thing is that I have my bearings again. I turn and head west, scanning my surroundings for any local inhabitants as I continue on my way. Always wary of running into one of Them.

All at once I realize how thankful I am for this ridiculous beard. As mangy and unmanageable as it is, the insulation it provides is wonderful. Also it helps to conceal my age which is now a matter of life and death. People my age have a hard time in this world. Earth as it exists today is only for the young. Old-timers have no place in it. If revealed, they are often killed at once. Most of the youth willingly kill themselves once they reach the dreaded 30th year. Were my true age to be revealed I think They would not hesitate to end me.

I am also thankful that their ridiculous notion of style is what has allowed me to continue living. I am able to blend in and move amongst Them without raising suspicion. When They see my long wild hair, my large dark sunglasses, and my overgrown beard They simply accept that I'm being "ironic." A single tear falls from my eye into my disgusting facial hair as I realize that I don't even remember what that word means anymore. Is that ironic, too? Fuck if I know.

A few years back They collectively banned the word "irony" from all remaining dictionaries. They felt that would be the height if irony itself. Who is left to challenge Them on such madness? That's what I intend to find out. Perhaps there are still some brave soldiers like me who are willing to rise up against our new world order. Perhaps the human race still has a little fight left in it.

I stop as I approach an intersection. Which way did that Emo kid tell me to go? I know it was one of these subway stations, but I can't remember...

My heart stops in my chest as I smell the tell-tale scent of a burning clove cigarette. I pray my senses are playing tricks on me, but there is no such luck today. There, in the semi-darkness of a dingy alley a block ahead of me, are three of Them. Two males and a female. All three are staring at me, not saying a word. I can feel their eyes on me, analyzing me, trying to decide if I am one of Them. One of the males and the female are sitting with their back against the wall, the other male standing with one hand in his pocket, the other hand holding a slim black cigarette to his lips. He appears to be the alpha judging by his abundance of accessories. The others only have a few, but the alpha has many trinkets and badges that display his rank: a ring pop on the hand holding his clove cigarette, a Japanese language Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles iron-on patch on his orange hoodie, a wallet chain going from one belt loop on his skinny jeans to another belt loop, apparently serving no practical purpose at all.

I feel the word on my lips, the word the resistance uses to describe them but never utters outside a safe-house for fear of death. Hipster.

I try not to show my apprehension and just keep walking. Maybe they won't approach me and I can just continue down the street. I can tell immediately that this is not the case. The alpha exhales a cloud of acrid smoke as I approach and steps directly into my path. I stop, showing respect for his obvious rank, but I do not speak.

He looks at me for a few moments, sizing me up, and then he addresses me with a series of cobbled-together pop-culture references and quotes from obscure films or albums, I can't tell which. I feel a subtle wave of terror wash over me as I realize I am completely out of my league. He must be from one of the newer packs because what he's saying to me is even less intelligible than what I'm used to. They're evolving faster than I feared. His words hang in the air and each passing second in which I do not respond only adds to their obvious skepticism of me. This is a test. I know in the very core of my being that if I fail to pass it there will be no more autumns in my future. I will die here this day.

My mind races. I do not understand his pseudo-language, but I cannot let him know that. Thinking fast, I make a subtle scoffing noise and roll my eyes. Though he cannot see my eyes behind my shades (a necessary precaution to hide my crow's feet) the sentiment is obvious: I think he's a damn fool and that his apparent references to obscure nonsense are dated and boring.

His body shifts subtly, his stance less aggressive. I can see in his eyes that his pride has been wounded. My effort has paid off as his two companions give out a bored laugh and the other male stands up, his body language clearly showing his intentions. He begins to talk to the alpha in a snarky tone, challenging his dominance. Their argument intensifies, but the only words I can barely understand have something to do with "Arcade Fire" and "Tracy Ullman era Simpsons" and how the alpha is perhaps not as knowledgeable on these subjects as previously thought. I use the opportunity to keep walking down the street, eventually disappearing from their view.

I turn a corner and collapse against a wall, my heart beating so hard in my chest that it feels ready to explode. I feel the cold sweat all over my body as I try to regain my composure. That was too close. If they were more acute they would have seen through my ruse and I would have been a dead man.

I pull the over-sized sunglasses from my face and wipe the sweat from my brow. Looking up, I see the entrance to the subway ahead of me. I've made it! I put my sunglasses back on and waste no time running down the stairs, gladly leaving the city streets in favor of the darkness of the abandoned subway system.

I pull the battered flashlight from my pocket and it flickers on, illuminating the path ahead of me. The Hipsters do not like the underworld of the city, there is no light to see their carefully constructed outfits. Without proper lighting they cannot impress and berate each other.

Reaching into my pocket I find the coded directions scrawled on a piece of cardboard from a Pabst Blue Ribbon case. It shouldn't be much farther now. As I move deeper into the subway and away from the alley-dwelling pack I encountered earlier I finally allow myself to relax somewhat. I should be relatively safe now.

I don't feel the bat connect with the back of my head, but for some reason I still hear the disturbing crack right before I black out.

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The pain wakes me up. A screaming twisted throbbing thing that reaches all the way from my neck down to the base of my spine.

"Whhhuuuu," is all I can manage to say as I try to move my arms to lift myself off the cold pavement.

"Make another move and I'll knock that fucking beard off your face, you Hipster son of a bitch!" He's standing over me, I can actually hear his fingers tightening their grip on the baseball bat. I do as he says and relax my arms, not making a move. He continues.

"I don't know how you found your way down here, but once the big man gets ahold of you he's gonna think of all kinds of ways to make you regret it."

Before I can formulate a response I black out again. An infinite amount of time seems to pass.

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When I regain consciousness I'm sitting in a chair. My wrists and ankles are held to the chair with duct tape.I'm in a concrete room with a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The brightness hurts my eyes and it takes a while for them to adjust. There is a door in front of me and standing next to it is a large pissed-off looking guy in a cutoff leather vest with some mean looking spiked studs on it. His hair is a series of red spikes radiating from his head that make me think of a cartoon drawing of someone being electrocuted. I can't help but chuckle, even though it brings back the pain in my head. He doesn't seem pleased by this.

"You won't be laughing when the big man gets here," he says and then he backhands me across the face. My sunglasses fly off and land on the floor. I turn and face him, smiling as blood trickles from my nose. His eyes grow wide and I chuckle again.

"I don't think you'll be laughing, either," I say, still smiling despite the fresh pain on my face that seems to meld with the throbbing in my skull.

"Jesus..." he gasps, staring at my face in disbelief. I watch as his gaze traces over the wrinkles around my eyes. "You're... how old are you?"

I clear my throat and tell him my honest age. It feels good to say it again. It's a key that's opened many of the right doors for me. It's also a weight that threatens to drag me down to hell any day now.

He hesitates for only a moment, seeing in my eyes that I'm telling him the truth. Then he pulls out a switchblade and quickly cuts the duct tape, releasing me.

"I'll take you to see him right away. Come with me." His tone is now one of respect instead of authority. I stand up and rub my wrists, then I pick up the sunglasses from the floor and put them in the pocket of my flannel shirt. No need for the disguise now.

He leads me outside and into a milling crowd of others dressed in similar fashion as him. I hear gasps of disbelief and awe from the people we pass and a silence spreads out from us through the gathered masses. Ahead of us, sitting on a makeshift throne under a floodlight, is the big man. He's tall and lanky, reclining in that esteemed seat with one leg crossed over the other. Shirtless and wearing tattered jeans, his face is adorned with a few old scars and he looks weathered for his age, but he can't be a day over 32. Still, he's an elder here. His lime-green mohawk turns as he looks in my direction. Under that light, in the abandoned catacombs of this new world, he looks more like an ancient warlord than the leader of the Punks.

We walk up to the foot of the throne and the big man waves his hand, my escort bowing slightly and backing away into the crowd. The chamber is completely silent now as we regard each other for a few minutes that stretch on and on. He doesn't seem as shocked as the other leaders I've encountered, it seems like he's almost been expecting this day. In his eyes I swear I detect a hint of respect, but his poker face is well-maintained. Finally, he speaks.

"Obviously you have a good reason for being here, so let's hear it."

I gather my thoughts, and another couple minutes pass. I feel ready and breathe in deeply, then exhale. I speak loudly and clearly, not just addressing him but the entire congregation.

"I have traveled very far to speak with you today. I'm sure I don't need to tell you the great risks I have taken on my journey. You are all here because of how hard life is on the surface for those who do not agree with the current state of affairs. This is a dark and terrible time we live in and it seems that all hope for mankind may be lost. But we have an opportunity to restore some semblance of culture to this barren wasteland.

"The Hipsters would have you believe that culture is dead, that everything that could be created has already been created and recreated a million times over. They would tell you that there are no more original pieces of music or literature, that every song sounds the same and every film is just a sequel or a reboot. They proudly demonstrate this belief by constantly devouring and regurgitating everything that has come before in a sick display of nostalgic hubris. From horizon to horizon they have stripped this land of all beauty and originality in an attempt to fulfill their own prophecies.

"But the people who were alive before The Fall, the ones who still remember the old ways, they know this to be but the ignorance of youth. Art is eternal. It will forever be reborn and it can still rise like the phoenix from the ashes of the old world."

I turn to face the crowd now, my voice rising even louder. I can feel their eyes on me, listening intently to every word.

"In the cracks and corners of this world there is a rebellion brewing. A loosely assembled resistance is forming and I have come here as an emissary of that resistance. I have already spoken with the leaders of the Emos, the Goths, and the Metalheads. I have held congress with the Jocks, the Geeks, the Straight Edgers, and even the Bros. They have all agreed to put aside their differences and join together to stave off this cultural infection.

"Now each of you has a choice to make. You can either stay here in these abandoned tunnels and continue this mockery of an existence. You can huddle together like rats, waiting until the day they finally discover your home and slaughter every single one of you that either will not conform or is past their thirtieth year."

I turn back around to face the big man, and I swear there is a slight grin on his face. I'm speaking directly to him, but my voice rises to a crescendo and fills the chamber.

"Or you can join us and together we will rise up as one and wipe those Hipster motherfuckers from the face of the Earth!"

My voice echoes off the walls and no one says a word for a few prolonged moments. The big man slowly stands. His grin spreads across his face and then he shoves his fist in the air and shouts "Oi!"

The crowd responds in kind. "Oi! Oi! Oi!"

Progress

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

I've always hated hearing that question in job interviews or performance reviews. Truth be told I hate almost all corporate lingo and euphemisms, but this one is especially telling because it shows so clearly the modern American obsession with "progress."

I don't see anything for myself in five years. That's not to say that I don't think I'll have achieved anything or that I will not have made progress of some kind. What I mean instead is that I do not make long-term plans. I don't have it set in my mind that within five years I'll buy a house, start a family, get a promotion, run for political office, or open a small business. My mind doesn't work that way. Those kinds of plans feel like a massive burden to me.

I also don't agree with the normally accepted definition of progress. In America it seems progress is defined as getting a better job with more pay, getting a nicer car/house/boat/grill or some other arbitrary possession, getting a degree or certification in something, or any other number of measurable indicators of objective success. My problem with all of these goals is that they won't necessarily make me happy. They won't make me feel fulfilled as a person or bring me some peace of mind. All they will bring me is more responsibility and stress.

Yet millions of Americans leave their house every day and try to work toward these big goals they've set for themselves. They work crazy hours, juggle bills and paychecks, fake smiles and handshakes, and take on enough stress to drive them insane. But why?

Instead of "where do you see yourself in five years?" perhaps we should ask "where do you see yourself NOW?" Are you happy with your life now? If not, then why not? What do you feel you are missing that would make you happy?

Another good question is "what is progress?" That cuts to the core of the issue for me. What do you define as progress? If you get that great job and the big house and the Mercedes, what then? Will you finally be able to relax and enjoy all of the things you have attained? What toll will that have taken on your life? Why do we feel such a need to be somewhere or someone other than where or who we are?

My definition of progress is looking back on my life and feeling that I am a better person than I was, but not in any tangible way. If I can honestly assess who I am now and be proud of that person, I feel I've made significant progress. If I see a destructive or painful pattern that I normally follow and I decide I'd like to go a different way instead, that is progress for me. These are my indicators of growth and success. Defining progress as anything else seems absurd to me.

The modern American ideal of how we should live our lives seems to be based on quantity masquerading as quality. If you buy into this idea then it would have you believe that you can only be truly happy once you've attained enough things of sufficient worth. Earn enough money and spend it on building a fortress of objects around yourself and you too can have the American dream.

If you do, what then? Where do you go from there? If you actually manage to attain all the markers of success and progress, what will you do with yourself?

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that so many wealthy people are so unhappy. If you base your happiness on always reaching for something better, you will never be happy. There will always be a shinier car, a bigger house, a fancier yacht.

True happiness cannot be attained. You can never reach for it and pluck it from life. Happiness can only come from accepting everything exactly the way it is in this moment. You can be happy right where you are if you stop wishing you were somewhere else. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with making plans and setting goals if they help you manage your life and work towards things that you'd like to achieve, but if you tie your happiness to a goal set in the future then you are inviting disappointment. If you are in a situation that makes you unhappy, work towards changing it. If there are areas of your life that you would like to improve, make the effort to do so. But in the words of Bob Dylan, "Don't go mistaking paradise for that home across the road."

Do what makes you happy and do it now. The future you keep planning for doesn't exist anywhere other than your own mind and all the time you spend planning for it and stressing over it is time that you could instead spend enjoying the moment that you're in.

I'll leave you with the words of Alan Watts who was able to communicate these ideas so much more succinctly and poetically than I ever could.

Momentary Bliss

Last night I dreamt of a shaman. He was a character I was playing in a game, but I also became him. He seemed to be completely mad, but only because he was so far from sane. He/I hunched down in the dirt, barefoot and with wild unkempt hair, and called out a need to the forest. Something big was coming, a war to be won, and He/I needed all the assistance that Gaia could offer. So up from the dirt crawled a worm and We lifted it to Our ear where it bit down and dangled off the lobe. Up from the soil crawled a little lizard and We lifted it to Our ear where it bit down and dangled next to the worm. Down from the sky came a raven came and We lifted it to Our other ear where it bit down and dangled from the lobe. Creatures of old and deep magic, singing the songs without words, songs of the power that flows behind the veil of matter. With the old secrets pouring into Our ears We stood to face the challenge of a modern world of machines and electronic wizardry. A crooked grin spread across Our face and Our eyes gleamed with the raw intensity of a man who never forgot the old ways. They would think Us mad, but their sanity would be the one thing keeping them from stopping Us.

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My mind has been speaking to me in my dreams about the old ways. Somewhere deep inside there is a bell that tolls long and low. It speaks from a place that is behind the symbols we use to express our world. You may point to a tree and say "that is a tree", but that is a vastly inadequate description. Where is the tree and where are the leaves? Where are the roots and where is the dirt? Where does one end and the other begin?

There is power in the symbols, they can bind experience into defined shapes. We feel we create order when labeling and classifying our world. Language helps us to create commonly agreed upon containers for what we see and feel every day. How would we carry on a conversation without such a system?

Yet underneath and behind and outside these symbols there is something much more powerful, a power beyond conception or description, but not beyond experience. The full weight of the moment-to-moment experience is simply beyond measure. If you look at the tree and allow yourself to really see it, then you realize that there is no tree at all. There are no leaves, there are no roots. These are just words, just membranes we use to separate our world into manageable chunks.

We think this separation makes our experience easier to deal with, but it ends up making everything so much more difficult. Once the world has been filed away and reduced down to measurable bits, we then try to juggle all these bits in our mind and keep them all in the air at once. So many little pebbles bouncing around and colliding with each other. It is a source of great strife.

The other option is to acknowledge that all these little bits are not real, not in the true sense of the word. Surely we all know that the tree is real. We can go up to it and feel the rough grooves of its bark and hear the wind running its fingers through the leaves. We know that it most definitely exists. Yet it is nothing, as in it is no thing. It is not some separate object that exists despite the air around it and the dirt beneath it. It exists because of these containing and intertwining elements. It is convenient for our mind to view the tree as digging its roots into the soil and reaching its branches into the sky, to think of it as its own entity among other distinctly separate elements, but this is just a mental exercise. The tree is only separate in our mind, in our conception of it. If you truly look at the tree you will see that the soil could not exist without the tree and all the trees that had come before it. The wind could not exist without the tree either, without its breathing in and out, cycling the atmosphere through itself. Where does the soil end and the tree begin? Where does the tree end and the sky begin?

This may seem like a pointless statement, a philosophical platitude, and it absolutely is. That's because it's used to describe something that is beyond description, to point to a direct experience that cannot be defined or measured or categorized. If you observe the tree for long enough, you will begin to realize that the tree is the sky is the soil is the earth is you is me is the dog down the street is the ship resting on the bottom of the ocean is the winking star at the far end of the universe whose light is only just now reaching us even though it died in a glorious explosion millions of years ago.

To confuse our world and the direct experience with the symbols we use to describe those experiences is to invite mental death. If we walk down the street every day and think "That's just a building" and "That's just a car" and "That's just a cloud in the sky" then we are lying to ourselves. A great big fat lie. A lie so large that you can't even tell it's there because it entirely obscures your vision. It's as if we've painted a little picture of what we think of the world and then held it up in front of our eyes for so long that we forget that it's just a quaint little painting and there's a whole world going on behind it.

The direct experience is ineffable. It is so heartbreakingly beautiful that it completely defies all means of expressing it. To stand under the obscured moon and breathe deep of the moist night air after a spring rain is just as excruciatingly wonderful as waiting in line at the bank, it's just that one is easier to see than the other. Why is that? Because of that little painting we hold up in front of our eyes.

Every moment is the moment.

Drinking the coffee

It's hard to think when you keep thinking your way through your thoughts. In other words, thinking about thinking is not thinking.

Last night I kept dreaming that I was perpetually late for work. In the dream I had left work on my lunch break and decided to go to a drive-through to get food. I couldn't decide what I wanted and when I finally did decide it took an eternity for them to prepare the food. Then something went wrong and they couldn't make it after all. All the while I was fretting over being late getting back to work. I woke up and was disoriented. The idea that I was in my own bed didn't seem quite right, but some distant voice called dimly through the fog reminding me that of course that's where I was.

I fell back asleep and dreamt that I had decided to go home for lunch instead of dealing with the drive-through. Once there I wanted to change clothes and somehow got caught up deciding what to wear, nothing seemed right and I took far too long to make a decision. I finally got in my car but in my haste I backed it into some bushes and hit a tree, banging my car up and getting it stuck in the process. At this point I was almost in a panic about being late coming back to work. I awoke to the dim blue light of my alarm clock and felt my hand at the end of my arm like seeing an airplane up in the sky. Sure, I knew what it was, but it seemed so far away. I brought my hand to my face and slowly clenched and unclenched it, individually worked the digits and turned it back and forth. I laughed at myself then, partly out of half-awake delirium, but mostly out of a sense of the sheer absurdity of the situation.

Even in dreaming I can sometimes get so caught up in the mundane worries about life that I forget myself.

I think this is symptomatic of living in the modern world. As members of this society we are encouraged to have a firm grasp on the practical. We are all expected to go to work, pay the bills, cut the grass, walk the dog, balance our checkbooks. So much of life in America is about maintenance. It seems we are taught to be the custodians of our life instead of the person living it. I'm not suggesting that we should stop paying our bills or let the dog shit in the house, I'm saying instead that we are deceiving ourselves if we think of life as separated into that which is a necessary chore or drudgery and that which is "living our life."

I find myself thinking "Alright, I'll wash my clothes, go grocery shopping, wash the car, and clean the bathroom. Then I can relax and enjoy myself. Then my day will really begin." I put myself on auto-pilot to get through these mundane tasks so I can essentially skip ahead to the good stuff. I spend that time thinking about how fun it will be to play video games and watch cartoons (yes, that's what I do in my free time. I may be 27, but I refuse to be an adult.) Once all this is done, I finally sit down with a cup of coffee to enjoy myself. But can you guess what happens as I sit there and drink my coffee? Many times, instead of enjoying the task at hand, I find myself worrying about tomorrow's drudgery. I try to cling to the seemingly fleeting moments of enjoyment I have because I know that, come tomorrow, I'll have to go to work and pay my bills and balance my checkbook.

It is very difficult for us to experience what is happening to us right now, in this moment. We are constantly thinking about what has already happened to us or thinking ahead about what will happen to us. Then the moment passes and we reflect on it and think "I wish I had really been in that moment instead of thinking about other moments" and on and on. We always wish we were somewhere else and then when we get there we wish the same thing again.

It was in this spirit that I began pursuing meditation. I wanted to learn how to truly be in the moment, to let the reflections of the past and expectations for the future fall away. With a happy heart I sat down and tried to clear my mind. All the thoughts of my day ran through my head and tripped over each other and got in the way. I eventually became frustrated with trying to turn these thoughts off. It would take such a long time just to calm my mind. Once this challenge was overcome and my mind was calm I would try to think of nothing. This proved far more difficult than I thought it would be. How does one think of nothing? Nothing isn't something you can think of, such an idea is nonsense. Perhaps I should try instead to not think of anything, as opposed to thinking of nothing. As I was thinking about this, I realized that I was thinking about thinking about it, then I was thinking about thinking about thinking about it. I felt I had hit a wall and didn't know how to get over it.

Meditation became less enjoyable for me. I would sit down and just frustrate myself by trying to think or not to think. I drove myself crazy with it. Eventually I began putting it off. I would tell myself "I'm not in the right state of mind to meditate, I'll do it tomorrow" or "I'd rather meditate outside once the weather improves." At the time I didn't realize it, but meditation had become just another chore on my list. "Alright, I'll pay my bills, vacuum the carpet, and do my meditation. Then I can relax and enjoy myself. Then my day will really begin." Like most other chores I put on my list, I never got around to doing it. Then I felt guilty for not doing it and even if I did get around to meditating I couldn't enjoy it because it just felt like another tedious thing that I had to do. What I didn't realize then and have only recently begun to realize is that meditation isn't something that you do.  In fact it's actually hindered by trying to do anything.

I had always thought meditation was sitting down in a quiet room and calming your mind. While it's true that this is a form of meditation, it is just that - a form. It is not the only way. In Zen Buddhism this is called zazen - sitting meditation. However, there are other types of Zen meditation such as standing meditation, lying meditation, even walking meditation. When I learned about these I was amazed. "You can meditate while walking?" I thought to myself. The concept was completely foreign to me because I thought that meditation took such concentration and focus that it could be easily broken. How could you be walking around and still meditating at the same time? This is possible because meditation is not an activity, it is a state of being.

If you go for a long run, at first your mind is occupied. You think of how long the run will be, or perhaps what you need to do after the run. You think about your legs moving beneath you, you think about the strain on them, you think about the sweat beading up on your body. If you keep running you start to feel your muscles burn and you try to ignore the pain or push it away. Eventually you break through this and get your second wind and delight in the ease of it. Sometimes you even reach a point where you don't really think about anything. You feel your feet pounding rhythmically against the ground, you feel your breath go in and out of your lungs, you feel the sweat run down your body. You are intimately aware of every single detail, but you aren't trying to do anything. You aren't trying to breathe, you aren't trying to run, you're just doing it. That is meditation.

If you want some coffee you may get up and get the coffee maker ready. As you pour in the water and grind the beans you think about the coffee. You think about how the smell of the brewing coffee will fill the house. Once the coffee is finished brewing you pour it and think about how it will taste. You finish the coffee and think about how it tasted and the way it made you feel. Then you wonder if maybe you'd like another cup of coffee and what that one will taste like. All the while you were thinking about drinking the coffee instead of just drinking it. Meditation is about fully experiencing the moment, not thinking about it. Meditation is drinking the coffee.

When you do sitting meditation, the goal is just to sit. When you do standing meditation, the goal is just to stand. These are exercises designed to make you focus on what you are doing while you are doing it. You don't need to join a monastery to learn about meditation. You don't need to fundamentally alter your life in order to meditate properly. All it takes is a full acceptance of the moment you are in, every moment, the continuous moment. It is an unbroken awareness. It is not viewing life through a glass darkly, it is not viewing life through any glass, it is not viewing life at all. It is living. It is being right here, right now. It is not separating yourself from the experience. You are the experience.

The practice of meditation and the spirit of Zen seems to me to be about not grasping things, not trying to hold onto them with your mind, but just letting them flow through you. Be here now, in this moment, and fully experience every single thing as it happens. When you do this you will find that even the most mundane thing is full of the light of the divine. Even something as simple as drinking a cup of coffee becomes a sublime pleasure beyond the capacity for expression.

Drink the coffee.

Sucker Punch and the hate bandwagon

***Warning: Strong language and spoilers ahead!***



Yesterday some friends and I went to see the film Sucker Punch. I really enjoyed it and I recommend others go and see it while it's in theaters.

However, this film has apparently received a lot of bad press. For example this, this, and this. Just do a google search for "Sucker Punch film review" and you'll be inundated with a seemingly endless parade of negative reviews that seem more like an effort to wring new synonyms for the word "horrible" out of the english language than serious critiques of the film itself. I don't know what Zack Snyder did to piss off every film critic in the business, but it is definitely working.

I find this whole phenomenon very interesting and it's certainly not a new development. This type of thing has been going on for a very long time, though it sometimes wears a different mask.

It starts with someone saying something is objectively terrible. For one reason or another this idea catches on and soon everyone is singing the same song, shouting it from the rooftops that [X] is an awful, irredeemable, dream-raping shit sandwich. This judgment gains momentum and soon takes on a life of its own and before long even people who have no first hand knowledge of the quality or nature of [X] are speaking about it as if it personally broke into their home and raped their entire family.

Sucker Punch is the latest victim of this trend. The three main complaints about this movie seem to be 1) It has a nonsensical and ridiculous plot, 2) This shaky plot is used as a flimsy pretext to engage in on-screen CGI masturbation and over-the-top action sequences, and 3) Since all of these action sequences occur in a "dream state" or are otherwise "not real" there is no sense of actual danger and thus no emotional investment in them.

After watching the film I can see what these reviews are getting at, but it seems to me that they are entirely missing the point. For starters, the plot actually made a lot of sense, it was just told in such a way that it could be confusing for people who weren't paying close attention or those who aren't comfortable with blending fantasy and reality. Some people expect a film to take them by the hand and carefully lead them through the story, explaining every single detail fully so there is absolutely no question as to what is happening. Other people perhaps think that films should have certain ground rules and adhere to them strictly. Personally, I enjoy movies (or songs, books, comics, paintings, etc.) that take the conventional rules and warp them in an effort to show you something about yourself or the world.

Secondly, the plot didn't seem to me to be simply an excuse for all of the CGI-heavy action sequences. The story and the fight scenes are integral pieces of a whole. One of the themes that I see in this film is fantasy-as-reality. The premise of the movie allows for these flights of fancy and they didn't seem out of place within the context of the story. I think it's kind of funny that some people sit in front of the silver screen to see a two hour work of fantastical fiction and then criticize it for being simply an exploration of the fantastical fiction occurring in someone's mind.

Lastly, I felt that the dreamy representation of the main characters' conflicts in the film was a neat narrative device. Those who say that there was no "real" threat to any of the characters in the action sequences obviously weren't paying attention. In fact, at one point in the film the dream breaks for a moment because of something that occurs in the "waking" world and it shows both the dream world and real world impact of that event. The dream/action sequences are just an internal representation of what is going on in the external world. In fact, the entire movie is really about our perception of our world and how we deal internally with the things that happen to us.

Now, let's view a different film through the same critical lens which so many people have viewed Sucker Punch. To review: 1) Nonsensical and ridiculous plot, 2) Flimsy pretext for CGI and excessive action sequences, and 3) No sense of danger because all threats to characters are not "real". I think this describes another big-budget film that came out somewhat recently. I'm referring, of course, to Avatar. In James Cameron's ham-fisted attempt at a moral message ("Don't kill Native Americans!" or perhaps "Fern Gully fucking rocks!") he is blatantly guilty of all 3 of the above-listed trespasses.

The plot seemed to lose track of itself almost immediately. In the exposition it is explained that the avatars have been created in order to facilitate communication with the natives. In this way they hope to establish a rapport with them and thus learn about their culture and perhaps convince them to give up their land. This makes, if I may say so, no goddamn fucking sense. At no point in the film do the N'avi give any indication that they think these avatars are actually members of the same species as them. The avatars look more human, have 5 fingers instead of 4, and have trouble speaking the native language. The N'avi even refer to the avatars as "sky people" and chastise one of their own for bringing an avatar to their home tree (yes, they call it a "home tree"). Furthermore, it's pretty counter-productive and even insulting to use this method. Imagine if an alien race came to our planet and instead of engaging us in their normal bodies they instead spent a vast amount of time and resources to create alien-human hybrids with giant eyes and 4 fingers, then used those disgusting abominations to start an interaction with our race and learn about our culture. That would be horrifying and also kind of idiotic.

This nonsensical premise was then used as a flimsy pretext for James Cameron to shoot his CGI spooge all over the screen. He started writing this movie over 15 years ago and didn't start filming it then because the technology to bring his vision to life didn't exist yet. After waiting for digital effects to catch up with his idea, he then spent over $300 million to turn people into CGI cat monsters so they could fight CGI robots and helicopters in a CGI forest. Yeah, totally worth it.

Added to this is the fact that when Jake Sully is doing all of this badass stuff in his avatar body (such as wrangling dragons and banging cat ladies) he's never in any real danger! If his avatar gets sliced in half by a space puma or whatever the fuck was in that jungle, he'll just wake back up in his normal human body. The only real threat is that the military - who've already been established at this point to be soulless demons that eat kittens for breakfast - will lose a lot of money. How's that for emotional investment?

However, Metacritic (a site that compiles all major ratings of movies, games, and music into one overall score) shows Avatar as having a rating of 84 out of 100. Critics seemed to eat this shit up and this movie was hailed as an epic that set the bar for future film makers. Meanwhile Sucker Punch has a rating of 36 out of 100. Yet all of the main criticisms of Sucker Punch can be directly applied to Avatar. Even the inane dialogue that shows up in Sucker Punch is vastly overpowered by James Cameron's complete parody of conversation that occurs in Avatar. For fuck's sake, the main resource they were trying to obtain was called Unobtanium. Unobtanium?! Are you fucking serious?! Fifteen years and that's what he came up with?

So, what's the point that I'm trying to make? It's simply this: make up your own fucking mind. Critics are paid to be critical, it's what they do. They are also human and are just as susceptible to having their opinions influenced as anyone else. Just because a bunch of people tell you that [X] movie is a steaming pile of shit and the director should be euthanized, or just because everyone you know thinks that [Y] album is the utmost pinnacle of human achievement, doesn't make it true. Art is in the eye of the beholder. So go out there and fucking behold it, then make up your own damn mind about it.

For example, I don't like The Goonies. There, I said it.