Once there was a Mormon.

IT'S JUST A JUMP TO THE LEFT.

I'm twenty years old.  Sitting in a stranger's home in California.  I'm wearing the white shirt, tie, and black name tag of a Mormon missionary.

Elder Stoddard
The Church of 
Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints

My companion is leading the discussion, and I'm doing my best not to zone out.   I haven't yet fully started on my personal path out of this particular religion.  Hell, in this moment, I am balls deep in it. Giving it away for free, to anyone who'd let us in the door. I have however, started asking myself the questions that would get me going down that road.

There are all sorts of neat little psychological tricks we play with ourselves.  Especially when facts and belief don't line up.  It's called a double bind, and I am not very good at it.  I know a lot of people who are.  In fact, most of the people that I've been surrounded by my entire life, are veritable masters.  Not me though.  Right now, in this house in Northern California, that smells of cat piss, and stale kitty litter, I am asking myself all of the questions that we were taught in our youth, to not ask.  To simply accept on faith.  Right now I am putting faith and fact together, and coming up with a whole handful of bullshit.  This bothers me, because if it's not true, then what the fuck am I doing here?  This is not comfortable.  In fact, this is distinctly troubling.  I am in my mind, questioning not my faith, but the very nature of faith. I'm not wondering if I have faith, I'm questioning it's place in thought, reason, intelligence, curiosity...I'm questioning the very philosohpy of faith itself.

I am pulled out of my thoughts, by a familiar sound.  I look at my companion who is still talking.  "Bearing his testimony", in the common church venacular.
He is also doing that thing with his throat, where is seems like he's trying not to cry, but also starting to lose that battle and crying anyway.

"I know this is the true church", he says.

Since my brain is still lingering on my own more private thoughts, everything inside me rises up and screams "HOW?"

How do you know?

I want to stop everything right there.  I want to take him by the face, and look him directly eye to eye and beg him to tell me HOW? How? Please.  Please tell me...because I don't.  I don't know.  I can't say I know with any degree of honesty....

and that's the crux of it all.  I've been saying it all along.

I know this church is true.

I know this church is true.

I'd like to bear my testimony. I know this church is true.

That line.  That sentence.  Repeated over and over and over again, by every member eveywhere, all the time.

I know this church is true.

I know this church is true.

I'd like to bear my testimony.  I know this church is true.

From the time we begin to learn to speak, we are led up to the pulpit.  Placed in front of strangers, and have those words whispered in to our ears to be repeated for the congregation.

Over and over.  Month after month.  Year after year.

I know this church is true.

I know this church is true.

I'd like to bear my testimony.  I know this church is true.

And my own hypocrisy slams me in the stomach.  I feel sick.  I can't breathe.  I've been warned about that too.  That sick, can't breathe feeling we get sometimes when we ask too many questions, or doubt the truth of it all, is Satan.  That's his power, trying to overwhelm you.

Oh yes.  Someone, a very long time ago, figured out that when two truths conflict, and one has to go, and reason finally overcomes unreason, there may likely be a strong physical reaction.  They figured out how to explain that reaction, in such fashion that is will be supported by the standing mythology.

And I want to on my knees BEG my companion to tell me how he knows.  How do you know? You say you know, but HOW do you know...because I ALSO say that I know, and I sure as shit DON'T know.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it's all a load of shit, and if it IS true, then this is the absolute most important truth in existence, and if it isn't true, then what is? What are we doing?  What does it mean?  How do you know?  Are you lying too?  Because...

Because I'm lying.  I don't know.

I don't know this church is true.

I don't know this church is true.

I'd like to bear witness and testimony, that I don't konw anything, and I am a liar.

Instead I smile.  I clutch my scriptures.  I nod my head.  I agree with what he says, and when the time comes, I say the prayer before we leave.

AND THEN A STEP TO THE RIGHT.

I am 27 years old, I am alone in my car, coming home from work, stuck in traffic, and my brain breaks.  Over the years, I have become less active in church.  I don't enjoy being there.  I don't like the repetitive boredom.  I don't like the us versus them attitude I feel every week.  I have become much more interested in more intellectual pursuits.  Lately I've been reading a lot of Socrates. Plato. Nietzche. I've just finished reading the Tao Te Ching, and the Discordia Principia.  These are words and ideas that I can relate to.  Far more than anything that Joseph Smith or Brigham Young ever committed to paper.

However, I am new to Vegas, and as happens with any life change, my wife had suggested that we start going to church again.  Start over.  Get back to the root of it all.  I agreed, and have been for a while.  It's boring, but as long as they leave me alone it's bearable.  The problem is, recently they've asked my wife and I to teach the eight year old primary class.  Funny thing is, I really do like the little fuckers.  They're full of life and curiosity, and have really warped sense of humor.  But...

But...

But the powers that be, want me to lie to these little hellions.  I don't really have much of a problem teaching them basic Christian concepts like loving one another, and kindness to others, but they're at an age now, where I'm supposed to tell them shit that I don't believe.  I've been able to kind of ride the fence of not believing, but going along with it, in order to not make waves...seems a LOT of people do that...
But now I can't.  Now I'm supposed to indoctrinate these young, impressionable minds, with mormon truth's that aren't.  I've been trying to reconcile some way to do this.  How do I keep my wife happy, while also trying to find a way to disseminate information to kids, while also trying to live my own truth...and...

and...

 I am alone in my car, coming home from work, stuck in traffic, and my brain breaks. The double bind, unbinds. I hear the crack. Reality in front of me shatters like glass, falls to the ground, and in front of me, I now see the world again.  Exactly the same, and brand new.  I laugh.  It is not a gentle laugh. It is the laughter that would be weeping, if I were the type who cries.  I am not.  There is joy in the laughter yes.  There is freedom.  There is the weight of the universe, now lifted, but there is also the pain of 27 wasted years.  All punching me at once.  I laugh.  I laugh and laugh and laugh, and I cannot stop.  I am happy, and I am devistated.  And I laugh.  It came from nowhere, and isn't going anywhere.  It is loud, and it hurts.  I realize, that for my entire life, I have been inside of the world's greatest joke, and right now...in this instant...I finally understand the punchline.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.  - William Hazlitt

The foundation of reason, the single block upon which knowledge can be built is the very simple premise,

What is, is.

Only what is, can be known.  It is impossible to know what isn't.

What is, can be seen, measured, tested, verified, reviewed, and repeated.

After what is, is verified, then you can build.  You can structure.  You can extrapolate.  You can predict.  Sometimes, you can even assume.

If you build on what isn't, then what isn't will crumble.

And so to build a bridge into the unknown, it becomes imperative to first establish what is.  Once we have firmly planted on is, then can we travel in to what may be.

And my god did I laugh.

And I pulled in to my driveway.

And although I was wearing the same clothes, and seeing out of the same wonky eyes, and carrying on my face, the familiar crooked grin...I was no longer me.  Now I was I AM.

After nearly three decades of heavy religious study, sometimes getting into the real deep shit, I finally understood I AM.

"Thou art God," Mike repeated serenely. "That which groks. Anne is God. I am God. The happy grass are God, Jill groks in beauty always. Jill is God. All shaping and making and creating together — ." He croaked something in Martian and smiled. - STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

And I walk in to my apartment.  I am new.  I am reborn.  Baptized in brain break and laughter.  I have shrugged off every teaching.  Every rule. Every sin.  Every single thing, that my church had tried to tell me that I could or couldn't do, and knew instantly that I now had only one rule.

For myself, I have only one rule.

Do not, with intent, initiate harm.

That's it.  That is my rule.
I will never allow my desire to become the obligation of another human.
I will never cast moral judgement on another human.
I will never shame another human.
I will never tell another human what to do, what decision to make, or how to behave.
This is my life.  I will do what I want.
It's your life, do what you want.

I will build my actions, and knowledge first, on what is, and then go from there.
And I will love.
Because goddammit...
what else is there?

I tell my wife that I will no longer be going to church.  I am not Mormon anymore.

What are you?

I AM.

To live a life.

"That's the most stupid expression in the world. 'I fell in love'  - as if you had no choice. There's a moment, there's always a moment; I can do this, I can give in to this, or I can resist it..." - Alice 'Closer'

I'm writing this on a Thursday night. As always, there is music in my ear.  I never write without the aid of music.  Tonight is Chopin.  That doesn't matter.  As always there in incense burning.  I find this calming.  It helps with the brain stuff.

Tuesday morning, I woke up with a clarity.  A strange little focus I haven't had in a while.  There were no bells.  No alarms.  There was no particular event.  There was nothing that should have instigated this clarity.  It was just there.  Like an old friend who calls when least expected.

In the time between my literal and metaphorical waking on Tuesday, I have been to work three times.  I have smoked 60 and 80 cigarettes.  I have been to rehearsal.  I have eaten.  I have showered.  I have written a few texts here and there.  Posted some insignigicant shit to my facebook. In other words...outwardly...I have not changed at all.

Inside, I am entirely new.  Or rather...a return to the old.  I am...renewed to what once was, and is again.  I feel better about that.

There is, it's hard to describe, a strange emptiness, but also...freedom.  Untethered to a certain fiction, that eventually I discover, is really more burden than is necessary.

And I am once again the me that I prefer.  

I am calculated.

I am calm.

I am the lone traveller of the path, I intentionally forge.

Without the weight of unrealistic fantasy, I find myself flying again.  Things have returned to the familiar color of my personal reality.

And I sleep again.

I did miss sleep.

And it is sleep that restores my absolute knowledge that in 2012, the life defining decision I made, was without question, the right one.  Sometimes I get distracted.  I guess that's okay...but distraction doesn't come without price.

That's okay.  There is no price I'm not willing to pay, if there is something of value in return.

And there was.

And there is.

But that's all tedious, and specific, and...really uninteresting.

So lets get to the crux of it.

I have been consistently acting since I was five years old.  For most of my young life, I thought that's what I was. What I was going to be. What I was going to do.  It was the only thing that I loved to do.  There were many other things that I loved...but...

I did a LOT of things.  Explored so many various interests.  There were so many things that I enjoyed doing...but only one thing I LOVED doing.

In my early years of college, I took a directing class.  This was something new...the first thing in over a decade that I also LOVED doing.  Acting. Directing.  Both within a particular medium, but requiring different skill sets.  I loved it no more...but especially no less than acting.  It was oh so fulfilling in entirely different ways.

Toward the later years of my college experience, I discovered playwriting.  And there it was again. A thing to do, that could also be loved.  Different....but the same.  Acting/Directing/Writing.  I loved it so much, I ended up the TA for the playwriting class for three semesters, before I left school.  Script analysis became another passion.  All of these things, within the theatre world, that fulfilled me like nothing else in my personal existence.

For a very long time, I called this a general love of theatre.  I didn't really get it.  I was still keeping these things separate...until...eventually...in an entirely different moment of clarity I realized that it was not that at all.  I didn't love theatre.  I didn't love acting or directing or writing.  I mean...I did...I do...still more than anything...but

Also not.  Yes...but the deeper truth is, it's not any one of those things,  I love storytelling. Theatre, and those various aspects of it, are simply the medium most accessible to me, to explore it.  And I do. And I will. I can't....not.

I am a storyteller.  This is what I do.  This is who I am.  I am a collector of stories. I have dedicated my entire life, to the process, science, art, philosophy, and craft, of telling stories.  This is where my passion lies, and I do.  I love it.  I love it in every aspect and regard.  Music. Novels, Paintings. Photos, Dance, Everything. And I realize that everything....EVERYTHING...is storytelling.

Everything is narrative.  The story changes, depending on the narrator, but we are all of us, the stories we tell.  The costumes we wear. The masks we craft.  We build lives, and careers, and homes, and even other humans, all within the narrative we present to the world, and the ones we keep to ourselves.

Our communities.  Our societies. Our rules. Our politics. Our gods. Our love. Our pain. Our sorrow. Our little daily deaths and devices, are all stories told...or waiting to be told.

And in my moment of clarity...I remember...that I am best suited to stand outside of it.  To remain less involved in the intricacies.  To forgo some of the simpler...more human pleasures...sometimes at certain personal cost...to instead...

Watch.

Learn.

Attempt to understand.

To craft from what I see, the stories I wish to tell, and the manner in which I wish to tell them.  I am not for some things, because I am instead for other things.  I get to observe. I get to build.  I get to design.  I get to be the architect of something different.  I get to chronicle our little tragedies.  And yes...

Yes...

Yes...

Sometimes it hurts like a motherfucker...but...

regardless...

This is a choice.  This is intentional.  I am not complaining.  I am not whining.  

I am grateful.  I am celebratory.

And there are many who would argue that perhaps I could have both.  That many others before me have found a way to make it work. Make it happen...and that may be...but...

I haven't.

And I have left destruction in the attempt.

Sometimes other...

Sometimes self...

I'd rather avoid both.

This is how I find the things I'm looking for.  This is where I discover the beauty that gives my life substance.  I know that I am not meant for some things...

and in not having those things...

I get to craft the stories about those things.

I get to see from the outside, all of the wonder that is less visible from inside.

Although sometimes...I can be distracted by some desire...

It is always in letting go, that I can see there is 

something

else.

Our stories may one day be our salvation.

I have no hope or pretense that I will write, act, or create anything so significant...

But if I find the one that is mine...

Well...

More things than are dreamt of...

In his mind, he has with her, all the conversations that he never will.  She asks him the questions, that will never actually cross her lips, and he tells her the things, he could never truly say.  In his mind, he is honest, and in his mind she cares.

The funny thing is, that even in his most vivid, his most intricate, and his most detailed fantasy of her...they still can't be.  He cannot, even with the permission he gives himself, in the freedom of imagination, believe that there is a chance.

Because always in there, no matter how he tries to forget...
No matter how he tries to run from it...
No matter how many times he has ignored it.

That warning.
That message.
Those words from the unseen guide, as he stood in the gray of the swamp.

"If you love her, you must leave her."

Leave her alone.
Lever her to her own life.
Leave her far....far away from you.

But only if you love her.

And he does.
And so he does.

There are, it is postulated, worlds and dimensions, parallel and paradigm, without number.  In this moment, he simutaneously visits each one of them.  He sees a himself fractured. Split into a billion pieces of his own image, scattered upon each word identical. He is he is he is he is he ad nauseum, and with each he, is she.

She. Laying next to him in bed. The morning sun, elastic on her skin. His fingertips tracing her shoulder blades as she sleeps,  Her hair covering her face, and he has never known such peace.  In this world, he wishes he could freeze time.

She, Walking the midway of the carnival.  Mocking him, for how miserable he failed in winning her the oversized stuffed hippo.  He takes the mockery, and laughs with her. Knowing his lack of talent with his own hands. He has never known such peace.  In this world, he wishes he could freeze time.

She. Wrapped with him in a blanket. The small Christmas tree, sparsely decorated, with but a few small boxes beneath. Unopened.  They are not in a hurry, because they are together, and it is morning, and they have nothing to do, and the day is their own.  He has never known such peace.  In this world, he wishes he could freeze time.

She. Sitting in a chair.  Reading a book. Their baby daughter in her arms, asleep.  They have each others eyes.  Eyes that he has known, and drowned in.  He is overwhelmed with this thing that never seemed real, and it is real.  Here, it is real, and in this world, he wishes he could freeze time.

She.  Holding his hand. His breathing becoming more and more shallow.  The light in his eyes fading. He won't be here much longer, he seems already gone, except for the fact that each time she speaks...he smiles, and in this world, she wishes she could freeze time.

And in each world, the single thing they have in common, is the smell of the incense burning on the nightstand in this world.

He pulls back in to himself.  He leaves his parallels and paradigms behind.  He wishes each him, in each world the increase of joy he has witnessed.

"If you love her, you must leave her."

Leave her alone.
Leave her to her freedom.
Leave her to her life.
Leave her free from the pain of you.

And he does.
And so he does.

He steps outside. The rain and snow both, falling slowly from the calm night.  Decorating the landscape in a fleeting pristine, and although he hates the cold...tonight he finds comfort in it.

He takes notice of each piece of wet, striking his face.  He listens to the empty sound of nothing, and takes a breath.

He wishes he could freeze time...and so he does.

He sees the flake of white frozen water in front of him. He whispers to it, her name. He lets time resume, and watches the flake hit the ground. He watches it melt. He watches it become water with the rest. He wonders how far her name in that water, will spread across this planet.

And he does.
And so he does.

All for the best

Sometime in the early 90's, actress Sharon Stone said in interview, "My mind is a dark alley, you should never go in there alone."

I liked that when I first read it.  I thought it was clever, and fun.  I also thought I related.  Perhaps I did.  Perhaps I want to.

I've come to realize though, that my mind is more like the Room of Requirement. I have to walk past the doorway to the deeper recesses, concentrating intensely on the thing I want to access.  I have to make a number of passes before the door opens.

Typically once I get inside, I find...

...every time...

A very long hallway.  More doors, on either side.  Stretching for miles.  Or...further.  Who knows.  If there is limit to imagination, then that's where the hallway stops.  Each side of the hallway lined with doors, going as far as the mind's eye can see.

There is a room at the top of the hallway.  This room is a lounge.  This is where I begin my jourey, if indeed I wish to travel.  Sometimes, just coming in this room is enough.  In this room are two large leather chairs adjacent each other.  Between them is chessboard.  This is where I sit when I need to meditate.

The chess board is dusty.  I think about blowing it off, and taking a seat.  This would probably be for the best. I look at the single white knight on the board, and feel the pull.  I know this would be the better choice right now.  There is a tempest beneath my surface, and I can almost hear the words of the old sage, "Peace. Be still."

I tell that old jew bastard to fuck off.  Sometimes we need the tempest.  Sometimes we need the chaos.  Sometimes we need the raging storm to come in and tear it all down.  Peace comes after the storm.  Not during.  There is a clarity that can only come while being battered by the forces we can't control.  Let chaos reign.

I turn from the chessboard.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe another day.  Not tonight though.  Tonight I need to check on something.

I start toward the hallway of many doors.

Just to the left, of the hallway entrance, there is a large counter.  Very much like where once checks out books in a library.  And behind the counter is Beatrice.  Very much like a librarian.

(Yes, there is a guardian of memories in my brain, and yes her name is Beatrice.  You do what you want with your own brain.)

Beatrice is older than time.  Beatrice was there to witness the war between the Titans and the Gods.  Beatrice watched through thin wire frame glasses, as Centurions nailed that skinny kid to a cross.  Beatrice once punched Ben Franklin in the nose, but he was a little drunk, and he was a little horny.

Beatrice is surly. She is mine while I am alive, and then she will move on.  I am just another blip to her.  She is everything to me.

"Are you here to see Barnabus?" She asks me.

(I also have a Barnabus, but he's a different character for a different time.)

"You know why I'm here."

"You should really see Barnabus.  He's pissed."

I just look at her. We lock in a staredown, and she's much better at this than I am.

"Please." I whisper.  "I just need to check."

"No you don't." She tells me.  "It has been making some noise, but it's fine."

"I believe you.  I do.  I just..." I trail off.

"Fine. You know what to do."

And I do.  I've done this before.

"Thank you." I tell her, and then step in to the hallway.

Once I cross the threshold, I no longer need to walk.  The corridor does the work.

The doors on each side fly past me.  A blur.  Everything in my head cosmos moves at indecribable speed.  The doors a blur.  Each one a passage to a different place.  Some real.  Some very much not.  I see all the people I have known.  I see all the people who have existed in my life.  I see all the people who have only ever existed in my mind.  Some smile and say hello. Some scream at me to stop and listen to them.  

I don't.

I see  Barnabus in his room.  He's drinking coffee. Black. He gives me a glance, but then turns away.  We'll have our discussion later.  He's going to rip me a new fucking asshole....

...and I really deserve it.

I'll take that beat down, but not tonight.

The rooms continue to fly past.  Millions of them.  Each one full to bursting. Some I've never been in.  Some I'll never go into again.  Many need attention.  Many, I'd like to throw a grenade into.

I feel like I'm standing there forever...but...I'm in there now, and time doesn't exist.  It's very likely that when I finally come out of all of this, real time will not even notice that I've been gone.  Here though, I stand, and watch the memories, and the lives, and the people, and the faces. I see them all.  So...

So much.

I have to close my eyes.  It's too distracting.  It's too painful.  It's too happy, and sad, and full, and I need to shut it out.

Finally I hear it.  The sound I've been waiting for.

The steady thump thump.  The pulse of me.  The rhythm of my existence.

Funny isn't it?

We have from the beginning of us, associated all the things we feel, with that thumping bumping lump of flesh....but really...

Really it's all through the brain.  Everything real and imagined starts first in the mind.  And through the mind, we reach the heart.  The heart of us.  The heart of me.  The room....

I am not here to go in to that room.  I just need to check.  I need to see for myself.  Beatrice reassured me that all is well, and to my knowledge, Beatrice has never been wrong.  

But that's how we are.  That's who we are.  When we need to know...REALLY need to know...all the reassurance in the world, doesn't hold a candle to self assurance.  Everyone in the world can tell me that New York exists, but until I put my feet on the asphalt of it, it was never really real.  And I need to make sure this door is really real. In the sense that it is really real in the realm of my imagination.

(Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean that it is not real?)

And there it is.  The last door in the corridor, marking the end of it all.  Not on either side, but directly in front of me.

And there they are. The chains and locks around the door.  Criss crossing from top to bottom.  Across from side to side.  Motherfucking Jacob Marley chains.  Thick.  Sturdy.  Each one secured with multiple locks.  Hundreds of locks.  Thousands.  Combination locks.  Key locks.  Riddle locks.  Puzzle locks.  Each link of each chain, locked, and secure.

I check each one.  I pull.  I twist.  I make sure they are all holding.  I have to be sure.

I take my time.  I am meticulous.  The sound is overwhelming.  Hypnotic.  That steady thump.  In here it is larger than me.  Each thump rattles each chain, and each lock, threatening to burst through...but...

So far...holding steady.

I turn my back to the door.  I sit on the floor and rest against it.

I know why I have done what I have done.

I don't doubt my decision.

I ruminate on the cost.

And I listen.

I listen.

I listen to that thump.

I listen to those chains.

And when I listen past the thumps and the chains, I hear...

(fuck)

I hear her.

And that is the sound that penetrates deeper that any thump, or chain rattle.

There she is.

And all I have to do, is let her out.  To let her in.

And I sit.

And I listen.

And she...

She is speaking to me.  Words that I won't share.

They are not words of hate, or anger.  It would be so much easier if they were.

No.

She is speaking in metaphor of hope.

And Fantasy.

And I know she lies.

Or maybe I hope they are lies.

Maybe I am the liar.  Truth is, that's far more likely.  I've had more practice.

And this is my torture.

This is my moment.

This is the gift I give myself tonight, so that I can wear my mask tomorrow.

I stand up.  I turn toward the door, and place my forehead against it.  Links of chain digging in to my flesh.  I listen to her.  She knows I'm there.  Her voice is close.  As though she too is leaning against the door, just the other side.

I apologize.

I offer grattitude.

And benediction.

And then there is silence.

The doors begin again.  Flying past me.  This time the opposite direction.  I am going back. In here my face is wet.  When I return, it won't be.

I close my eyes again.  This time blocking out all the passing doors.  I need to hold this on my breath.  I know the chains are on the locked door, and I know that I will be better in the morning.  But right now, in this timeless passage, I need this solitary moment to not be okay.

And that's okay.

And it is doors. And stars. And planets. And galaxies. And I see it all.  All of my creations that may or may not someday see light beyond this corridor.  I am weightless, and I see that I am bigger than everything, and smaller than it all.  I am in the storm, and I am the storm.  I am the creator of these worlds, and they have created me.  I am the stories I will tell, and they are the stories need told.

And I am again, now outside the corridor.  It is finished.  I am satisfied.  I have accomplished what I've come to do.  My worlds are safe.  The pulsating room at the end, is secure.  All is well.

"Did you get what you came for?" Beatrice asks, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"You know I did."

"You remind me of someone." She tells me. "You are quite a bit different, but there are ghosts of the familiar.  He was a bit mad.  A bit bad.  Dangerous to know."

"He also became legend." I reply.  "I'm happy in smaller ponds."

"He let himself have more fun than you do." Her eyes are twinkling.  She knows my weakness.

"I hope to not hurt anyone in the ways he did." I tell her.

"He hurt nobody more than himself." She's baiting me, but I don't feel like biting.

"I dunno.  He's not the one who committed suicide."

"That's what I mean." She says.

"Fuck you Beatrice." 

I hear her laughing as I go to leave.  The gravel voice of an old woman in my head, and...

And I am laughing too.

I have checked.

I have verified.

I am the monster that I need to be, for me to live in a monstrous world. Peace be still and all that jazz.

Now if only Barnabus would get that stick out of his ass.

Virgil is a dick.

Circles.

On his little tour through hell, that old timey poet Virgil guided Mr. Alighieri through nine of them.

Except it couldn't have been real hell, because as we all know, hell is other people.

Except maybe the other people, are the old parts of us, that we swore we'd left behind.

Which I guess, is kind of a circle.

And Dante, and Jean Paul, are far better with words than I'll ever be.

And to hell with words.
Insignificant
Incomplete
Incoherent
And many other in words.

To all nine circles of other me's with you.

And I am haunted by all of my never agains, which is why I never say never, which is a paradox, which is the lesson I have to keep relearning, because my hell is a circle of me ghosts taunting me with my should haves and nevers. 

And here I am again, and Virgil does a face palm, but he doesn't look like a Roman poet. He looks like The Dude from The Big Lebowski, and he's like...

...dude.

And I'm like...

Shut up.

And he's like...

...I thought you said never again.

And I'm like...

I'm taking the scenic circle.

And he's like...

You know how this ends right?

And I'm like...

How could I possibly?

And he's like...

Dude...you're on a goddamn circle.

Of hope
And beauty
And light
And darkness
And all the wrong words
And all the words I can't say
And all the words I won't say
And the pain.

Pain
Pain
Tedious pain.

Which is the toll for breathing.
And I do so enjoy breathing.
So I'll pay the toll.

And he's like...

See you on the come around.

And I'm like...

I really thought I'd leveled up.

And he's like...

I like your hubris kid.  It really ties the hell together.

And I step into the familiar darkness, with open eyes, knowing so well, before I even plant my foot, where my last step will land, but

But

But like the crazy
And the insane
And the stupid
And the ten thousand me's who so foolishly took this journey before me...

Maybe this time.

And he's like...

...dude.

Just words. Nothing to see here.

Last night I had a dream. It changed everything in that way that dreams don't.  See, I put zero stock in dreams. I don't believe that dreams mean anything. Synapses firing randomly while sleeping, are not portentous of anything important in the real world.

The details of the dream aren't important. They are crystal in my brain, but they are just, simply the story my sleep brain created, in order to make sense of all that biochemical activity. The details are irrelevant.

What is relevant, is the feeling that woke me with rapid breath, and broken heart at three in the morning.  The feeling that kept me awake the rest of the night.  What is relevant, is the unwelcome reminder of things I've worked very hard to make not true about myself.

And as a result I've locked myself away today, with some but minimal contact with the outside world.  I'm not ready for people. I'm not ready for

Vulnerable.

And that's what happened.

The dream itself is...irrelevant.  The players in it, will never know...don't need to know. That's another thing about dreams. In Jungian context, it doesn't matter who was in my dream. My dreams are never, ever about the people in them.

My dreams are about me. Every player in my dream is there for me to figure out how to relate to me.

And I related. I learned. I was made uncomfortable.  In the first person,I don't like this one bit.

In the third person, I couldn't be more thrilled.

You see, in my core, I am a storyteller, and our best stories are the ones that affect us.  And I am affected. So...success.

I'm writing this, because my brain needs to vomit.  I'll post it, because that's what I do, but ultimately this is for me to chime back to in some future, and laugh at me. Laughing at past me, is something I'm incredibly fond of, and present me is in a pretty shitty place in the moment, but to future me, present me is past me, and that guy is fucking hysterical.

But present me is facing a harsh truth, and needs work, and no...I don't want to talk about it.  I'll write about it, and I'll think about it, and I'll figure it out, but...I don't tell people things about me...and my christ I'm not going to start now.

And yes...I will be fine.  I'm not fine right now, but fuck...I've spent a lot of my life not fine,and I'm always fine. So forgive me a few days.  If all you know of me is my digital silliness, then you won't even notice.

If you know me beyond that...give me a couple days...

I'll be back to stupid, boring, silly ole me in no time...

And it'll be like nothing ever happened.

Stupid people with their stupid little feels...

Turns out I'm one of you after all.

The Emperors pretty pink suit.

German writer and Statesman Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe proposed that for critiquing art, (specifically plays, but it is a universal application) we aks ourselves three questions.

1) What is the artist trying to say?
2) How well did the artist say it?
3) Was it worth saying?

The beautiful thing about art, in any medium or form, is it's subjective nature.  No painting, no piece of music, no movie, no play, no...well...anything will affect two people exactly the same way.  Another beautiful thing about art,, in any medium or form, is that it will inspire in all of us, an opinion and the need to share it.  So what Goethe has provided for us, is not at all some way to difinitively answer if that piece of art is good, or not.  Because of the subjective nature of art, that question can never really be answered.  What it provides instead, is the framework on which to build the discussion.  Instead of just saying, I loved it, or I hated it, these questions give us something to build on why we loved or hated it.  They also allow us, if we actually ask ourselves these questions, to think for ourselves.  Not simply react to an initial opinion, but actually analyze why we have that opinion.  I like that.  I'm a big fan of thinking.

Now I will never be as smart, or have the realm of influence of Mr. Goethe, but I am a little bit self absorbed, and try to boil things down to a position of...me.  So, because I know these questions, and because I'm a big fan of thinking, almost any time I see, hear, or observe some new work, in whatever medium, I will ask myself these questions.  However, I also noticed, that these questions, as you will see, are as much about the artist, as they are about the work itself.  They can be applied to the work, but it always draws back to the creator of the work.  So for me, I created three more questions that leave the creator of the work out of it almost entirely.

1) Is it relevant?  I made this the number one question, because to me it is the most important.  If it doesn't mean anything, then what's the point?

2) Is it provocative?  Is it causing me to feel something? Is it giving me something to think about?  Is something happening in front of me that is moving me to think or feel?

3) Is it entertaining?  Now this may seem like a throwaway question, but it really isn't.  I have seen so many plays, movies, whatever, that may have left the first two completely to the wind, but boy did I have a good time, and I felt that that time was well spent. Some piece of work may be completely pointless, and ultimately leave me with nothing to think about beyond where to go for dinner afterwards, but boy did I have a good time.  Now if that's the case, whatever this piece may be, will certainly not stand the test of time, but in this moment, it's exactly perfect.  Think....pop music.

So now I'll tie this all together with one example.  I can absolutely see, understand, and even defend the existence of the musical Oklahoma, based on Goethe's three questions.  It holds up one hundred percent.  I know it's place and value both when it was written, and now.  However, on a much more personal level, it gets a big fat zero, on my personal questions.  To me, and I speak for me alone, it is not relevant, provocative, nor entertaining.  Sitting through any production of Oklahoma, for me, is absolute death.

I will use not just Goethe's questions, but my own, whenever I have a discussion about art.  I find myself having this discussion primarily regarding plays, or film, but these are the questions that build my personal foundation for any discussion.

Now this next part is going to seemingly come from left field, but bear with me, I promise by the end of it all, it does come together.

If you know me at all, if you've read my facebook posts, or blogs, if we've had the conversation, you know how I feel about body shaming.  Shaming of any type really.  I think all shaming, whatever form it takes, is one of the lowest things one person can do to another.  Especially when applied to another persons body.  To use the very physical form of a person, as a weapon against them is among the most dispicable things a person can do.  Seriously, to do this, reveals so much more about the character of the person shaming, than it does the person being shamed.  I will fight this with everything I have, whenever and wherever I see it.  There is zero place for this, in my little bubble of reality, and although my sphere of influence is as small as a person can have, within that sphere, there will never, ever be question where I stand on this topic.

There is also, especially in American social culture, this bizarre idea, that the naked human form is something to be ashamed of.  I'm not gonna waste words about how this has happened. The intrinsic link between nudity, and sex. I won't get into discussion of morality, or propriety, or decency.  None of these things really mean anything to me personally, or have much relevance to the discussion at hand.  I will simply note, that it's there.  This strange link between shame, and nudity. The further application to use nudity as a method of shaming. Although I hate it, I understand where it comes from based on our nations Judeo/Christian foundation. I also don't have it.  I never have.  I've never been ashamed of my own body, regardless what form it may take from time to time.  I've never been inclined to even think of a way to shame, when I see another naked body.  Nudity, and shame are not linked in my brain.  They just aren't.  So anytime, another celebrity gets caught in some degree of undress, and the whole world freaks out...I get it on an intellectual level.  I'm not stupid.  I understand the freak out. I just don't get it on a personal level.  Every. Damn. Time, the only thing I can think is...so what.  Janet Jacksons nipple popped out in a halftime show, and we are still feeling FCC repercussions, and in my head all I can think is ain't any of y'all seen a nipple before. Literally...calm your tits.  This is NOT the big deal you're making of it.

Sooo....after ALL that preamble...here we go.

This past week, in various parts of the country, in public parks, statues of a very naked Donald Trump mysteriously, and seemingly randomly appeared.  We, as a nation, collectively gasped. Then we laughed. Then we took pictures, and passed around the stories.  Then we made jokes. We made commentary.  We tweeted.  We posted.

Then the blogs came out.  Then the articles. Then all the little things telling us that this had crossed a line.  We shouldn't be laughing.  We shouldn't be commenting. No matter how horrible a person is, (and he is), we should never resort to body shaming.

Wait what?

And everybody jumped on that bandwagon.  The wagon that I'm usually the first to jump on.  Hell, the wagon I'm usually driving.

And here's where I tie it all together.

Because I do not inherently associate shame to nudity, this idea hadn't even crossed my mind.  The artist(s) whoever they may be, had titled these little statues, The Emporor Has No Clothes.  Or something to that effect, and in my head, that's all it ever was.  So let's look at it that way for a moment.

1) What is the artist trying to say?  Well, since the statues were titled, it seems pretty obvious.  These statues were a direct reference to the story I'm sure we're all familiar with, and I won't retell here.  In the metaphorical sense, it couldn't be more appropriate. Donald Trump may literally be, the stupidest person to ever run for President.  He clearly has no idea of what the constitution actually contains.  He hasn't the vaguest idea, the purpose of congress.  He is seemingly completely unaware of how checks and balances actually work.  He has complete disdain for actual law, and guaranteed constituional right.  He seems to have the idea that were he to be elected, he would then be granted some magic god stick that he simply has to wave around, to make things happen.  He is a small man, who says small things, loudly.  Most of those leaders who still give him endorsement, much like the folks in the story, do nothing more than enable him to continue thinking this, although they themselves know that nothing he is saying, can actually ever happen.  The story of The Emporors New Clothes, is very literally happening on the grandest stage, right before our eyes.  The artist, in creating these statues, with this title, couldn't have been any more clear, in what they are trying to say.

2) How well did he say it? This one could probably be debated with various points of view.  Since I live in a city where there was no statue, I never actually saw one.  I saw a few photographs of them. I can't speak to the quality itself.  From what I could gather, they seemed fair representation.  It was quite obvious who the statues were meant to represent.  The question applies more I think, to the metaphor.  The metaphor which was apparently lost, to the more immediate concerns of nudity and shame.  So really one has to wonder at this point, is it the fault of the artist, of the audience misses the point?  Or was there a way the artist could have made the point better, so that the audience doesn't miss it?  Or...was there really some body shaming going on?  Maybe.  I can't speak to that, because I am not the artist.  I know that for me as personal audience that was never the point.  I never felt that.  I think that if Mr, Trump had the body of an Olympic adonis, then the conversation of body shaming would never have come up at all.  Since instead, he has a body type that we as Americans have collectively agreed is physically less aesthetically pleasing...then obviously the shame would happen.  It could also be that the statues were less than kind regarding the genital region of the body, but again, to me this spoke much less of shame, and more to the fact that Mr. Trump himself brought the topic to the discussion during the debates.  So on a personl level, I think the artist said it very well, but on a grander stage, perhaps he failed.

3) Was it worth saying? Without question. Not only is it worth saying, it must be said over and over and over again.  I think right now that there may be no more important statement to make, than the absolute incompetence of the man, to the job for which he is so vigorously campaigning.  Not only must we address this issue, we must also address the fact that he has the support of men, who know absolutely that he is wholly unqualified.

So for me. Yes. This holds up absolutely when applying Goethe's theorem.

Now to my own.

1) Is it relevant? It couldn't be moreso.

2) Is it provocative? Obviously.  Not only personally, but on the grand stage.  We have talked about it.  We have been moved to speak and think about it. We have most certainly been provoked.

3) Is it entertaining?  Oh I laughed.  I laughed and laughed.  I was, without question, entertained.

So yeah. On all counts.  All six of my personal question, this statue holds up.  This statue should exist. This should be something we talk about, both as the work itself, and the metaphor it represents. I also, freely allow that others may wholeheartedly disagree.  That is the beauty of art.  That is the wonder of our stories.  They are all subjective.  We will all be moved differently. We should also all, as much as possible, contribute the the conversation.  Or even better, we should contribute to what's being discussed.

Make More Art.  Tell More Stories. Don't just have the discussion.

Be the discussion.