All signs point to Death, but contemplating and accepting that is the most freeing and empowering thing in the world.

I firmly believe that-for maximum reward and reciprocation-everything I love requires constant attention and respect.  For example, my dogs must be walked, my body must be exercised, and my food and sleep must be moderated.

Without consistently tending to balance, all that we love (IMHO) will eventually turn on us in spite, or die a poor, neglected death.  Balance keeps that energy in motion.  Balance keeps that flow alive.

In many cases, people will conveniently arrange their ideals to perpetuate what is base and comfortable (I know I have).  Gut feeling justifies laziness/procrastination.  Logic justifies elitism/cruelty.  Guilt becomes a redemptive substitute for taking responsibility, or truly shifting one’s habits.

This is natural-just the Ego at work.  Take advantage of it by studying, hunting, and subduing it.  You only get stronger.

There is immense strength that comes from the courage to acknowledge and address personal weakness.  It may not seem immediate, but it is far truer than the bluster of ignorance and pretense.

Gross necessity/cravings impose structures.  They are sad ones though, composed of hunger and lust and society’s desire to perpetuate.  So reach beyond necessity and indulgence, into joyful aspiration, and tap those sublime structures that are home to the most ethereal beauties and wonders.

THOSE structures complete the picture of our boring flesh, and in so doing, transform our bodies into vehicles of transcendence.

When I compose my black squiggles (write), my priority isn’t self-expression or catharsis.  It’s to formulate that magic mix of squiggles that allows my reader to soar; to bestow that same privilege I was given from books when I was young, and be taken away to worlds of unimaginable horror, glory, and of course, Plain Old Coolness.

As far as the self-expression and catharsis?  When I edit my work to the point where it takes ME away, then those two things happen naturally.  And I don’t even have to try.

Easy to talk about acceptance, tolerance, and the big picture in the confines of comfort and warm smiles.  But that’s not when it counts.  When it counts is when your blood boils, when you feel under attack; when you are ready to launch a precise, vicious, win-at-all-costs effort against someone who needs help but you want to destroy.  That’s when it counts.

Because in the end, when we lay dying, are we going to dwell on the petty and transient failings of our lives?  Nah.  There’s something deep and good under all of it.  The other stuff?  It never mattered in the first place.  🙂

I love some of the classics that I’ve read in school.  But IMHO, rather than slavish devotion to “the greats,” it is more important to be influenced by what you ENJOY.

Tarantino knows what I’m talking about.

We are all drunken Gods with hangovers.