I wrote an article for the Hill Country Weekly a few years ago that sold out more printings than the paper had in quite a while, at the very least, maybe ever, it was titled Boerne, Texas Gone Forever in response to those bumper stickers that had been popping up on peoples cars throughout the last few years. The following is not that article, but something else that spilled out of me while I was sitting in town this afternoon. 

​I haven’t done a lot of writing ‘on location’ in a while, it used to be pretty common for me to spend my late mornings to mid afternoons at a coffeehouse or in a comfortable bar setting: writing, working, and talking to people; for many months, however, it’s been the comfort of my couch, the ambient noises of short episode situational comedies or various Pandora stations where I have been drawing my inspiration (among other more cognitive places); I think, when Electric Coffee (my coffeehouse of choice for a good long while) closed, and I started bouncing around to a few places: Dienger Trading Co., Local Coffee (in Leon Springs), Boerne’s Daily Grind, and Bear Moon Bakery and nothing really felt as comfortable as Electric, I just, kind of, stopped going out.

And, even less so since I started working in Fredericksburg, a year ago. I haven’t really explored Boerne like I used to on a semi-regular basis, so, a couple of weeks ago, on my birthday, I walked along Main Street a bit, and, quite accidentally, I discovered Black Rifle Coffee Co., on the opposite corner of Dienger Trading Co., across from Main Street from the Square. Black Rifle feels, very much, out of place, it’s got a remarkably corporate aesthetic although it’s locally owned, and in the short time I’ve been sitting here I’ve already seen a handful of people that I haven’t seen since spending my days at Electric. The people watching here is fantastic. Adjacent to the coffeehouse, a sort of portmanteau of two businesses, is a gun shop; there’s an older gentleman with a gray handlebar mustache standing at the gun counter with a cup of coffee in his hands, because I know every time I’m about to buy a gun I’m thinking, “...if only I had more caffeine in my system. There’s nothing quite like a strung-out jittery trigger finger.” 


“Here, a free box of bullets w/ the purchase of your gun.”

“I don’t need the box...I only need one…

...half of a poppy seed muffin, but only if they can take out the poppy seeds and heat it up; if they can’t heat it up, and this is important, then leave half the poppy seeds in, and sprinkle the other half of the poppy seeds on half of a blueberry muffin, and then cut both halves in half and throw them both away, and a small black coffee.”


               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .


​There’s a bookstore in Boerne, again. I grew up going into Read All About It, here, in Boerne. It wasn’t the best bookstore, they catered mostly to the schools, with the books from school reading lists lining the shelves, and a section of Texas history books. It closed while I was living in Idaho, and there hadn’t been a store until I opened mine in the winter of 2015, Wardrobe Books represent whoop, whoop!


I had to close Wardrobe in the summer of 2016 (my building sold), and Boerne hasn’t had a brick-and-mortar until a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately Dale, the store’s owner, is only selling New books, and it’s too big a location to focus entirely on new releases but too small to have a decent selection of new books, and, quite frankly, the Boerne Bookshop will not succeed in today’s climate without selling used books, especially in a small Texas Hill Country town; if for no other reason than that the sales margins are way too low. Nevertheless Dale can rely on my support, inasmuch as I might be able to offer.


The point that I’m slowly making is that I’m intrigued by the transition Boerne is undergoing, I’ve known for some years now that our rapidly growing little town has been transitioning through an identity crises, and it seems we may soon be coming out of that (I’m excited to see how the rooftop bar and grille affects the dynamic when he opens sometime this summer), the changes that began with Bill Bird buying the Ye Kendall Inn and the Mazour’s opening The Cibolo Creek Brewing Co., are becoming more and more apparent; I never thought I’d be living in Boerne—in Texas—again, and yet I couldn’t be happier with my life, right now, and with the direction that Boerne is headed; although I am somewhat disappointed with how Ron Bowman, our city manager’s, attempts to increase city tax revenues by appealing to corporate syndicates and car dealerships is playing out, he is—unwittingly, maybe—creating two very distinct coteries which are pulling Boerne in very different directions. It’s somewhat how I picture Santa Fe, New Mexico a few decades ago, if you’re unfamiliar with Santa Fe it is made up of two, maybe three very distinctive cities: the obvious Northern and Southern echelons, and possibly a North Eastern collocation…

...unfortunately Boerne will not develop with such recognizable demarcations, there will be pockets of us, the favored elite surrounded by, you know, everybody else (whispers* “the little people” *cough, *cough): those that make it possible for me to live such a complacently serene, and lavish lifestyle with very minimal effort, but in order to do so, and to help support my unreasonably snug way of life, I am going to have to actually see them! Everywhere! Imagine, if you will, I know, it’s difficult and painful, abysmal and eerie, outlandish and crabbed, bothersome and difficult...where was I going with this again?

...ah, that’s right, imagine, if you will, a number of lost amiable zombies wandering around playing Pokemon Go!, only, your—I’m—the Pokemon! Have you read (or seen) the Hunger Games? Yeah, just like that, with those pesky districts rousing trouble for the devoted, hard-working, elite.

Black Rifle Coffee Co., had the good sense of installing iris scanners at the entrances, everybody in Boerne is marked with your tax bracket behind the Anterior Chamber of your eye between the Cornea and the Iris, the best idea since an expanding middle class establishing a clear and present boundary between the upper class and, well, you know…

...so, what I’m really trying to say is that Boerne is a very pleasant, and dynamic town, and I’m both excited to be a part of it’s development, and fortunate to be here right now, and to be happy. And it is, in now way, "Gone Forever," it's just different, and, in a great many ways, the changes have been for the better, it's just, you know, people are afraid of change, because people are afraid of what they cannot imagine, the unknown, so much so that they forget that change is inevitable, and you can either actively participate and influence it or you can sit idly by, and watch it happen beyond the purview, and context of your impact. 

​What is a Sustainable Business? And can a sustainable business find business sustainability? These are an important questions, and one that every business owner should be asking themselves now, and not necessarily because of our global climate whether it be societal or geological, but because sustainable business for business sustainability is where the future of business is headed.

​A Sustainable Business is one that has as low as possible an impact on an environment, a society, a community, and the economy. Essentially it’s a business that meets what is known as the Triple Bottom Line, a framework to evaluate the outcome of your business in three parts: Social, Economic, and Environmental. Sustainable Businesses are conscious businesses that recognize the importance of meeting the needs of the present world without compromising the needs for future generations. Most people, when thinking about a Sustainable Business, automatically think of a Green Business, or a business which focuses primarily on the benefits of the planet. The Triple Bottom Line recognizes the importance of our social, economic, and environmental impact equally, which is to say that the environmental impact is only a third of the demands of a Sustainable Business.

I do believe in the importance of limiting our impact on the planet, as much as possible, and I appreciate that there are a number of very large, profitable companies that are maintaining Sustainable Business practices, Game Changers 500 is an organization, similar to Fortune 500, which releases a list of Sustainable, Triple Bottom Line practicing companies that are growing, and are massively profitable.

​A good example of a great start is that most large, skyscraper buildings being built today practice low impact building, while developing buildings that are themselves low to negative impact. A LEED seal or plaque on display within or on the building is an indication of the more modern advanced environmentally friendly buildings. A number of these buildings are consuming CO2 from the atmosphere while actually producing O2, it’s amazing. That means these buildings are behaving like trees!

One of the impacts Sustainable Business focuses on is our social impact, and by that I mean many businesses are helping to provide better lifestyles for people living in underdeveloped countries, they are helping to bring these people up out of poverty, while helping to establish higher income families, that will, over the generations, be able to become consumers themselves. The idea is that helping to bring communities out of poverty will develop consumer friendly, and consciously spending people who may otherwise not have had the money to put back into the economy. When a business is conscious of its market, its environment, its employees, and its impact both now and in the future, it can only benefit the global economy. Our current economic system, and business development, though it is shifting dramatically to that of Sustainability, is one that either keeps people in-, or forces people further into poverty. But how does that benefit a business?

There are business of all kinds making sustainable changes: publishing companies, wineries, groceries, coffee and teahouses, banks, construction, and more.

​               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .

​It’s important as a business owner, and a consumer to understand the benefits of Sustainable Business.

As a consumer we must recognize that, especially in The United States, the way that we spend our money is the loudest, and most demanding means of conscious and effective voting that we have, and we are polling daily. Where, and how we spend our money will help to provide the foundation of business--and political transitioning—for our future, and the types of business that will thrive. Be conscious about it.

As a business owner, especially a small business, look into the benefits of using local materials, recyclable materials, and look for ways to help your community, and to invest in your community, and to invest in the people in your community. Small things really do make a difference. People will go to one coffeeshop over another because of where they get their milk, or whether it’s organic or not. And this is true of every business we shop at, and develop.

There are creative ways of being a Sustainable Business. CommuniTea Books, my bookstore in Boerne, Texas, buys Organic Fair Trade teas, and is constantly looking for ways to better the community where the tea leaves come from—all over the world. Guayakí brand Yerba Maté is giving a large percentage of their profits back to the region in South America where Maté is grown. The tea plant isn’t healthy in its indigenous area, and a lot of the forests are dying. Guayakí is helping to restore the regions forests so that the plant can once again grow naturally, and healthy so that not only the region can mature, and develop again naturally and economically, but also so that Guayakí can continue to provide a better product to the companies customers.

When you get the opportunity watch the documentary PROSPERITY. It is an amazing account of exactly what I’m talking about, and provides further insight into the benefits of Sustainable Business. Our current systems are not based on the practices of conscious commerce, and as a result they do not maintain sustainability. In order to maintain business sustainability in the future you will have to be a sustainable business.

Get behind companies such as Collective Evolution, Rodale Inc., Thrive Market, The Container Store, Change.org, Aspiration, Reserveage, Natural Grocers and more, and look in New Resource Bank, and demand that your community offers a banking system as conscious, and community friendly as New Resource.

There are 5 ways that you can start making a difference, as an individual:

1. Spend – be conscious about your spending
2. Work – work for good conscious companies
3. Invest – research investing in conscious companies
4. Bank – bank with conscious banks (like New Resource Bank)
5. Act – let your money, and your action be your vote

I had a rough morning...

​It started out fine, I slept in—until about 8:15—then I showered—I shower in the morning: it wakes me up, relaxes my muscles, clears my mind, and, kind of, lets me outline my day, although my day never actually unfolds as framed—I stepped out of the shower, dressed, and walked to my bedside table where I keep my glasses, completely unwittingly, assuming, of course, that my morning routine will continue, as normal, and I would make some breakfast, some tea, put on some classical music, check my email, collect orders that were placed over the night, audit my ads balances, and update my website, however after I put on my glasses, in the semi-dark room that is my bedroom, I noticed a slightly darker spot on my nice, white comforter, and thought, “Oh, if that little shit did it again...”

I turned on the light and, sure enough, my little Calico cat had left a nice spot of pee on my comforter. Dinah, my Calico, has been doing this lately, she’s unsatisfied with my level of attention towards her these past few days—I’ve washed that comforter a couple of times in the past week--in fact, the first time she did it, I left her enclosed in the bathroom with some food, water, and a litter box, you know, to teach her a lesson, of course she hasn’t got a clue why she’s spending the day in the bathroom, so although my pride might feel slightly less tarnished...; she got out of the bathroom and climbed on my lap while I worked that evening, all the while knowing that just moments before she had left another surprise for me, a surprise that I would not find until much later.

I keep two litter boxes in my house, and I’m very vigilant about changing them, because who likes the consuming smell of ammonia as it quickly fills every crevasse of your dwelling? I’ll tell you who: nobody, not even cats because I had neglected to clean out the most popular of the two litter boxes as often as normal, and my entitled little Calico decided she would show me exactly how she felt about that.

​So, I cleaned out the litter box.

I decided, also, to clean out the other, although it had hardly been used, the “other” litter box is the nicer of the two, it’s got a door; it was this litter box that I left with Dinah while she spent her punishment day in the bathroom, it was still in the bathroom this morning because I just hadn’t gotten around to moving it back to where I keep it. So, I lifted it to take it back, and underneath the litter box was a tiny puff of smashed poo. I am never going to fully understand how my tiny Calico managed to move this large, fairly heavy litter box, take a poo, and then move it directly over her poo, and somehow drop it so that it smashed, almost perfectly, and not slid all over the bathroom floor, as well as the bottom of the box.

So, I was standing in my bathroom looking, first, at this squashed poo, and then back at the pile of my comforter and sheets on the floor, and back at the poo, and, again, the pile on the floor. I take the litter box outside to give it a good rinse on this beautiful, wet, cold day and left it out there to dry, and then I came back inside. I started organizing some things, including my wash, because I figured, “What the hell, today’s just going to be the perfect day to take care of it anyway.” And then, after I started my wash and some, at that point, light cleaning, before getting back to my breakfast, tea, Mozart, emails, orders, audits, and updates, I noticed several little smudges on my coated, cement floor so I opted to investigate. I followed the smudges, erratically throughout my cottage, and reasoned that I should start my investigation with the...bottom...of...my...shoe.

At some point, while I was outside cleaning poo off of the litter box, I stepped in dog poo, and then dragged it haphazardly around the entirety of my home...



I sat down, in order to, you know, kind of, appraise my morning:

​“My cat had pee’d on my comforter because I hadn’t changed the litter box, which she, apparently, doesn’t actually use, in favor of the space beneath said box, and while cleaning the poo off the box--that she doesn’t actually use—I then, gracefully managed to step in poo, which was also not in, but in the immediate vicinity of the box, and took it inside in order to trek it around my cottage managing, auspiciously, to aid in the very crime that my lovely little Dinah had originally attempted, which in fact, inadvertently, started...everything.”

After several minutes of reassessing my life choices, and realizing that, sometimes, your only option is to just start somewhere, and it really doesn't matter where, I lit a few candles and a diffuser, started boiling some water, played a little ditty on the banjo, and leapt into action. 

Needless to say, my cottage is now very clean, it smells like Eucalyptus and "Ocean Breeze", the floors have been swept and mopped, twice with Citra-solve, and, yes, I did have that cuppa tea while the reposing melody of Mozart blended with the Eucalyptus and "Ocean Breeze", and now, all I have left to do is start a fire, and wait for Dinah to find the perfect spot on my comforter to leave a spotta pee. 

I initially wrote, and published this in the fall of 2010, and although it was written as an excerpt for a piece of short fiction I thought I'd include it in this collection. 

The Invention of the Relationship

​I caught up with her at the station. The train was idling, as if it were waiting for something, a steam was clearing while friends and families were embracing: they were chatting, and crying, tears for loved ones leaving, and for others returning. I nearly lost myself in the crowd looking for her, worried that I missed her.

The train whistled, a warning that she would be leaving soon, I pushed through the crowd now with an anxious brutishness. She was sitting on a bench hugging her bag when I noticed her. From this distance it looked as if she were crying—I had hoped that I would have learned from my assumptions, but I am constantly taken back by my lack of intuition, for someone who has been wrong as often as I should likely have been right by now, even accidentally—she was laughing, and not at all surprised to see me, in fact, she was expecting me, and had been considering whether it would be more “fun” to watch me chase the train as it left or to wait, to witness, first hand, the look on my face as she walked away; she then stood, and left.

I sat on the bench at the station for a while and watched the sun slowly set in a distance, until the light had faded, and disappeared. I thought about the invention of the relationship, and couldn't escape thinking about what it is that really makes a relationship work, and what it means exactly to be in one--it’s not always better late than never.

I thought about expectations, and how easily they can direct and influence our relationships; the expectations that we accepted mutually and were capable of working on, those we tried to compromise on, as well as those that seem to separate us. It occurred to me that there are only so few of our expectations that we can communicate to one another, the rest are conditioned and latent such as the influence our parents relationships have on us, the general opinions we form subconsciously from our experiences, and those that develop, subtly as a result of our cultural, religious, or political affiliations. The only way to work through these is a willingness of continued sacrifice, and really getting to know and to feel comfortable with our significant other.

We find ourselves making the subconscious presumption that because we have been conditioned with certain, distinct expectations, everyone has. It almost seems too obvious to mention but we really do have to learn how to communicate to each other, as well as how to be as honest as possible while communicating; it's easy early in a relationship to want to say what you think the other person wants to hear, but don't do that; we did that, a lot of people do that. Be honest.

I remember several years back we were sitting on a bench in a park in the center of town, near a gazebo that we had carved a heart and our initials in one afternoon on impulse, and we laughed about it and held each other. We sat there talking about our future, and our dreams, and we revised them, a little, to include each other, and then we latched on to some common interest and we simply ignored everything else. It may seem too early on, when all you want to be is playful, to talk about how serious a relationship you are looking for: who you want to be, what you want to do, having kids, etc., but starting this conversation early just makes it that much easier to have later, as well as anything else that you might want to talk to about, and it’s OK for everything to change, no one should expect that conversation you had months ago in that relationship to bet set in stone, but continue to talk about it, and other things. When it came to that point, we didn't know how to talk to each other, simply because it wasn't something that we had developed. And, then we just forgot to know each other; I did realize this, and still I couldn't say anything, I just didn’t know how, we didn’t know, because had never developed it.

And then one morning, I woke up to a note left on the fridge, I ran to the train station to catch up to her, and have since been sitting alone on a bench watching a train disappear in the horizon. I would, every few minuets, quiet my thoughts thinking that I heard in the distance a train whistle. I sat silently for a while until I realized it was only my imagination. I think I tried to hard to grow with her. I had this idea that in order for us to work we needed to grow, closer, you know, to, essentially, become one, but, thinking about it now, it seems ridiculous to expect that. If I was going to expect anything at all I should expect us to grow independent of each other, not away from, not towards, just near. We should have grown independently, together, and shared that with one another.

One evening we were taking a walk through town talking about any number of things that we could fathom between here and there, and we disagreed about something, and you would have thought it was the end of our world, I felt compelled to apologize just because I thought differently. Having generally similar interests is not something that many people are thinking about, at least beyond having like interests. What I mean is that obviously having common ground is important—especially to her in this situation—nevertheless it isn't something we think about because it’s, just, a common understanding, having the right shared interest, but the thought is incomplete, you also need to have the right contrast—the right differences, as well. Everyone is familiar with the idea that opposites attract, but do we really consider what that actually means, though? Our differences are just as, if not more, important in a relationship than our similarities.

Firstly, it means there is still a degree of self, meaning we haven't spent this time slowly becoming the same person. And, secondly, we’ll have something important to continue to talk about. It is easier and more interesting to have a conversation with someone about something you think differently on than something you agree about. This is, after all, how we learn. And it might allow you to come to similar conclusions via different means, and how amazing is it that you can continue to learn about one another, even after having spent so much time together? Also, you can see how well you react to one another when you disagree. You will agree on some things, but not everything, and when you do disagree are you capable of being accepting of that. Can you discuss it without arguing?

Regardless, I've been sitting here for hours, the warm evening air has now turned cold and damp, a full moon distracts me from being...distracted. I'm still, however, just as confused now as I have always been, and even if I did have some profound moment of enlightenment it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference next time around, because the rules change. It's all general. I'll hope next time around that what I've learned: to try and communicate as well as possible as early as possible, to not assume that everyone thinks and reacts the exact same way I do, and realize that it probably isn't personal will help to make sense of our individual feelings. These relationships are something that we cherish, and will continue to cherish, they make a difference in our lives; when you don't have one you want one and when you have them sometimes you catch yourself questioning your sanity. You know you'll get hurt again, but we believe its worth it, or at least that this one will be different, and it will be, but, how?

For a running number of years now I have wanted to pack a backpack with a few essentials, design and buy a sailboat out of Hamburg, Germany, then hop on a freighter from some undisclosed point on America’s east coast and disappear, at least from anything that I am familiar with.

​I imagined that I would end up somewhere along the southwestern coast of France. In my novel, Between Transitions, Jonah, the protagonist, started his journey in Paris then headed north by train to Brussels, Belgium then east to Cologne, Germany followed then by Leipzig, Berlin, and, finally, Hamburg. Where he too had commissioned a sailboat. Between Transitions ends with Jonah sailing up the Elbe towards the North Sea, leaving in an open-ended journey towards whoknowswhere, as Jonah sails away.

I, however, would like to visit the shores or Bordeaux and backpack inland to Lyon, and wander upwards to Geneva, Switzerland before making my way to Paris. Or to find myself in San Sebastian, Spain and then to walk south to Pamplona, and then west to Santiago de Compostela completing the walk--The Way—Camino de Santiago, before heading to Bordeaux and then east towards Lyon.

I was driving earlier this morning, listening to music, and singing along, I don’t remember to what exactly, and this feeling swept over me: how badly I wanted to get out of the car and just walk away. In that moment I could picture my sailboat, and I could see me sitting on the deck, with nothing but the sea surrounding me, and, in the distance, there was a faint hint of land, but still I could be mistaken, it could very well be nothing, only a mirage. I might be reading, or writing, or fishing perhaps, there is a glass of wine on the deck next to me, a small crimson puddle gathers around the edges of the circular base of the glass stem; or maybe I’m doing nothing at all, I’m just staring off into the distance, until I’m distracted by the warmth of the sun on my arms, and the salt in my hair, and the smell of seawater, of the sea completely consuming me, “you would think I would be used to it by now,” a thought likely to have crossed my mind: the smell; while also being consciously grateful that I’m not yet used to it, and here’s to hoping that I would never be.

I could go anywhere at all the world is as big or as small as I allow it. I could eat cheese with wine at a café in Barcelona, after running with the bulls, and smoke hookah with old wise Turkish men on a patio near the port of Istanbul, and swim in the pale blue ocean off the coast of Santorini, Greece, and walk through the castles and the hills of Croatia, jog from coast-to-coast on the tiny island of Zanzibar, and after docking in Mumbai, hike through India towards Nepal: Tibet: China. And, this would be the beginning, only.

What keeps me, I wonder. Here. Projects, different dreams, love? All of which are consuming day-in, and day-out, and yet all of which are still just slightly out of reach in their entirety. So, again, what keeps me; here.

I had let go of my fear of the unknown, and of the familiar long ago. I packed up my 99’ green Honda Civic and drove west down I-10: Pocatello, Idaho; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Salt Lake City, Utah; New York City, New York; Santa Fe, New Mexico. All of which came and went as easy to me as picturing myself sailing up the Elbe, towards the North Sea.

When I was younger I had an unquenchable desire to experience life. In the mornings, as my eyes slowly opened, I thought only about what I had already missed that day, and what I would not allow myself to continue to miss if I didn’t get out of bed. And so, I was up, and I was out, waiting to experience whatever opportunity I was able.

I know when that changed. When my lust for life left my body like a cold soul being lifted towards the heavens prematurely. It was during those same series of moments when everything else left me, and I was numb. I was a shell of body that contained only the hope of revival. It’s funny how the subtle manipulation of someone who claims to have loved you will slowly rip pieces away from you, it’s not so funny when you look back at a younger version of yourself remembering that you once had a lust for life, but to not remember what it felt like. It’s gratifying slowly developing it again. And then again the promise of sailing away is postponed because of dreams of opening a bookstore, the determination to see it through, and the limbo of a love that’s an unspoken, mutual, idea…only.

Do you ever think about that kind of stuff, and then you look out the window, and you see the sun reflecting off of the innumerous shades of green—my favorite color—and feeling only the passion, again, to experience…everything? Perhaps I would not have found that lust again without the direction of a dream, and the fulfillment of unrequited love: like pieces being put together, but differently, a puzzle that slightly resembles you. “You don’t know this new me, I put back my pieces differently.”

It is so easy to let the mistakes of your past dictate the direction of your future. In very small, unsexy ways, it builds up: more, and more, until it is all you can do just to get through the day, and then the next day, and the next, and the next.

​I was driving earlier this morning, listening to music, and singing along, I don’t remember to what exactly, and this feeling swept over me: how badly I wanted to get out of the car and just walk away. In that moment I could picture my sailboat, and I could see me sitting on the deck, with nothing but the sea surrounding me, and, in the distance, there was the faint hint of land, but still I could be mistaken, it could very well be nothing, only a mirage. I might be listening to music, or dancing, or cooking perhaps, there is a glass of wine on the deck next to me, a small crimson puddle gathers around the edges of the circular base of the glass stem; or maybe I’m running along the beach, I’m not even sure what country I’m in, the silhouette of my boat anchored just off shore, the course, uncomfortable feeling on the pads of my feet from running in the sand drifts in and out of my thoughts, “the sea is cold this morning,” a thought likely to have crossed my mind: the ocean; while also being consciously grateful that I’m not yet used to it, and here’s to hoping that I never will be. ​

*"Something Beautiful in the Morning: What Our Dreams May Become" was something I wrote a few years ago, and I wanted it to be a part of this collection of writings. 

Our political affiliations are almost entirely, and uncompromisingly learned. People rely on others, namely our parents, to guide us and teach us what it means to be human, and in doing so certain affiliations are impressed upon us by the very act of that guidance, many of which are imprinted upon us indirectly. More often than not generations of families become accustomed to certain affiliations without even the slightest conscious understanding of even their own respective worldview.

​That’s pretty fucked up.

Regardless of what you may actually think and believe your belief systems are almost always inherited. It’s exceptionally rare for a person to step outside of their construct and to look around at the world through only their eyes, tabula rasa.

I doubt that you could even imagine what you would see if you did, because you are only as capable of opening your mind to the possibilities of what your own imagination will allow.



“How is one to know one’s mind when one’s mind is all one has to know it by?”



I think this is why I’m fed up with our contemporary system of political discernment. Everyone is, quite literally, out of their minds. Very, very few people have a clue of what their talking about or why, everything is broken. And it was broken so attentively and systematically that the measure for which we—we, the people—are picking up the pieces is in-and-of-itself a system of repress.

Still the majority of the people—of us—are consumed with the folly, and the enmity, and the contest that we have lost nearly all sight of repose.

Why is it, do you think, that we feel like we have to actively do something to-, or about people who might believe differently than ourselves in order for us to resolve anything? And what, exactly should we do about them? Because, it seems to me, that we’re actively doing too much as it is. The thing about unity or equanimity or coexistence is that there really isn’t anything that we can do to obtain them, they are all just, kind of, waiting for us to calm the fuck down.

And if you’re actively trying to force someone to believe something other than what they were bred to believe then, I mean, you’re a fuckin’ idiot, you’re just wasting your time, and sure you’ve got the raw attention of a large number of people who think they can punch the stupid outta you, so you and they are otherwise doomed to a very long and difficult and provoking life, of which you only get one; so you’re both, essentially, wasting your one opportunity to live any degree of a decent life for no reason other than to be inexhaustibly irritating, and irritated with little to no recourse at the end of which you both, more than likely, suffer a drawn-out, painful death at the hands of your own disavowal to live a balanced and peaceful life.

In any state of political indifference the first thought, for most people, is the direction we need to take in order to get out of it, so we come up with answers to solve the case of current position. However, we never actually take the time to ask ourselves how we got to this point to being with, so...we’re essentially looking for answers to problems we don’t understand. And when you do that you get things like Donald Trump, and Democratic Socialism, and special interest groups financially controlling our elected representatives, and dangerous political dynasties like the Clinton’s, and people thinking that we need more, or less government involvement in our lives.

What we need is to take a deep breath and to actually evaluate ourselves. We need to take inventory on the state of our ongoing means and figure shit out before we systematically try to fix anything, otherwise we might find ourselves standing up in a town hall meeting making statements like “Even if we would bomb Russia...we have to get rid of the babies, its a big problem, even if we stopped having babies it’s not enough, we have to eat the babies...”​ or worse, to become so desensitized by tribal politics that we exchange doing what's right for conforming to party nuances. 

​I’m a very conscious person; almost to a fault, which is to say that I am very observant, pansophic, empathic, and that my mind is very active. I also have a reason for everything that I do, and say. I have learned, early in life, that people, in general—either—tend to assume that most others don’t have reasons for just about anything that they do or say, or people are very actively arbitrary in their hair-trigger re-actions.

​My reasons for doing or saying a thing are, more often than not, not at all what you, or most people might expect, when I discovered this stilted obscurity about myself and about people it did come as a bit of a shock to me but, I mean, I am not at all like most people—I have always been aware of that inasmuch as I am aware that, when inquired, most people would respond very similarly—most people like to think that they are also different, anywise—they’re not.

I am accountable for my actions, as well as semi-apologetic, if I feel like I should be—because my pride isn’t worth my compassion—and yet I’m not very concerned what most people think about me. I am neither accountable or apologetic for others, I am both because, quite simply, I try to “...be the change I want to see in the world.” I also believe in the power, and juxtaposition of gratitude.

I think that a number of people find some of these qualities to be conflicting, I don’t. That, among many other reasons, are what has enlightened me to the now evident verity that I am unlike most people.

I realized not too long ago that I haven’t missed anybody in a while, and it dawned on me that I rarely actually miss people, I mean, I have, of course, missed people, but not as frequently as most people seem to miss people. I care about people, not so much individuals, but that realization has never affected my basis of being kind and applicable, understanding and forgiving, grateful and authentic when, you know, living in the world—I mean, the only thing that any of us are guaranteed throughout the course of our lives is that we will, without a shadow of a doubt, always be surrounded by people—unless, of course, their awful, disgusting, rotten human beings, in which case, my general assertion is to—as gently and firmly as possible—specify that “we no longer exist to one another.” Some people think that’s cruel, personally I believe that life is too short to actively pretend, or to ignore (without the appropriate communicative action) people who I don’t want in my life.






I have observed, a short while ago, that I do actively miss somebody; there is someone in my life that I miss, sometimes even, while they are standing directly in front of me. In our humanity we need people, and there are people in my life that I care very, very much about, they matter a great deal to me, but I have moved around a lot and people have come and gone from my life so often that I haven’t really allowed myself to get attached; but it’s weird caring about what someone else actually thinks about me, like it willfully and exhaustively matters to me, and it sucks—for a lot of reasons.

I have been in love a couple of times, in my life; I mean, like, in the way that we commonly appreciate being in love (I accentuate the point because of my recent column about love, that you can read here), but I have never known love that has actually developed organically from nothing → respect → love; I’ve only been, like, you know: friends, and then like “whoa, we’re, like, totally in love now, far out! We should totally get, like, mar-ried and shit."

The thing is that although I do like, you know: playing a fool, and stumbling over myself, and saying stupid shit, and trying too hard, and having feelings it’s still also, well, it’s complicated—yeah, that’s the problem, I like the simplicity of communicating complicated away. That is—at least, part of the reason—why communication is so important to me; but what if you cannot genuinely, and openly communicate? The thing about a love that evolves organically, is that it’s not a choice. It is completely and irritatingly instinctual and compelling. It’s never been so difficult for me to, just, turn it off (I have tried, even if I don't really want to). And, that is very conflicting, which invites my reasons—whether they’re apparent to you readers or not—for writing this today. I haven’t yet talked about it, and that is not like me.

Do you ever think God gets bored—however you want to perceive God—I mean, boredom doesn’t have to look like a fat ol’ drunk sitting on a rusted (rusted, WTF?), torn ash gray couch, with a “half-full” bottle of Pabst pathetically offset between the cushions, one hand in a bowl of three day old popcorn, and the other hand stock-still down his untied gym pants, that look strikingly similar to the molded couch beneath his butt watching American Gladiators or Al Jazeera or recorded VHS tapes of 25 year old Dallas Cowboy games. 

​...or a human being without their cell phone!

​We can reinvent what boredom might be to a collective, omnipotent, omnipresent (un)consciousness. I don’t know that God does necessarily get bored but there is definitely a dearth of entertainment in the omnisphere, cause WTF? ...I'm gonna need a reason for this one, my friend?