As the book of 2016 comes to the afterword section, I'd like to revisit the ideas of Behind The Curtain, and get some last thoughts in before the glossary. I just read that post again for the first time since January. For some reason I remembered it being a way longer and messier post, which kept me from going back and reading it before tonight. As a consequence, I think I forgot some of the nuances of the Behind The Curtain philosophy. I still like the philosophy, so I'm going to review how it worked for me in 2016 and refresh some of the ideas in my head to keep it powering through 2017.
BTC spreads to all nooks and crannies of our lives, but for the purpose of this post I'm gonna break it down into three categories:
1.) Doing things to make the world better that nobody will know you're doing
2.) Doing things in alone time that will make your life better
3.) Taking a step back from "reality" to look at it from another perspective
In 2016 I definitely did a lot of number 2, a little bit of number 1, and kinda forgot/still trying to wrap my head around that third one. That one's a little out of reach for me right now, the way I described it in the list is just a starting point towards something else. In the night that inspired the first BTC post I had a revelation of sorts where looking at one aspect of reality in a certain way allowed me to see this other aspect another way and it was kind of like looking in a mirror at just the right angle to see the reflection of another mirror and another mirror and so on, until you're seeing this little nugget of reality down this channel of mirrors that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. I was high out of my mind when this happened but I'm pretty sure this mirror thing reminded me of faith, like the mirrors were beliefs that aren't totally grounded in reality, but they set your intention in a certain direction, and once your intention is set in a direction, that's gonna have effects in reality. The intention is what's behind the curtain. So maybe 3 is creating some sort of quasi-religious system for your life, and if my system is BTC then by taking care or 1 and 2, I take care of 3. There's a bit more to it because I remember seeing a definite nugget at the end of the mirrors in that revelation, and I'm not totally sure what that nugget is in this metaphor. Maybe the future self, but I feel like it was a less specific nugget. I'll revisit this idea when I'm high out of my mind.
Anywho, back to the grounded ones. Earlier this week, I was staying at my cousin's place and she went to pick up a pizza. When she went to the register to pick it up, she found out the lady in front of her had paid for her pizza. A documentary I was watching was mentioning how doing acts of kindness like this seems to make people happier, on both sides. I've been pretty broke the past few years, and now that I'm starting to be slightly not broke, maybe I could start doing shit like this. Leaving money in parking meters or paying for people behind me in line seems like more immediate ways to improve reality for people like me, which is in the spirit of BTC, but if I'm just giving away money it's probably better to go through that effective altruism stuff. Also I still owe Adrian money. So maybe for number 1 I should give more time than money this year. Also more blood. I also think a lot of number 1 has to do with squashing beefs, forgiving people, not holding onto grudges, and that kinda stuff.
Number two is mainly about health. This is the one that I actually did for reals in 2016. Taking care of the mind-body-spirit. I did a lot more reading/exercising/meditation than in the past couple years and I definitely felt better because of it, and that better feeling helped me in other areas, like making new friends and dating a bit for the first time in millennia. It's still hard as fuck to meditate enough though so it's good to refresh that idea. That shit chills out your vibes on so many levels.
Anyways, I might try to fit in a little tate-sesh before I get too sleepy. Goodnight blog.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Arrival On The Blog
I just got home from Arrival and I had an edible and my mom and boyfriend are talking about an email so I'm gonna write a blog post. I haven't word fucked this holy blogina in a long time, at least not with anything worth reading. I'm not sure I have anything to say now either. I'm sure I felt the same way about the movie as you guys did. And who the fuck wants to read about what some asshole thinks of a movie? Not me, so that's why I'm not writing that. But I feel like that's what I've been thinking about everything I used to write about in the past several months, and hence the lack of wordlove. I'll try to come up with a subject over the next few days. In the meantime if anyone has anything interesting to post I'd appreciate it, I'm so goddamn bored with the internet right now. I love you guys and I say we gangbang this blog all kindsa pregnant with blog posts, even if we know the blog is gonna die.
Peace among worlds.
Peace among worlds.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Monday, October 17, 2016
Ruined
So Emilie and I broke up.
Well, in all honesty, Emilie broke up with me. And as I
reflect on it, I totally deserved it.
We started our relationship way too fast and way too strong.
I have a tendency to get excited about things and become very intense. In fact,
this is what turned her off to me and ended our relationship. I was too
attached to her and the idea that I had finally found someone who could fill
that void inside me in order for me to become my best self.
Towards the beginning of our relationship, I remember
thinking to myself that I was going to ruin this for myself, and I did. I put
too much pressure on her and tried to force her into basically living a lie to
herself. I was so thrown off by how quickly she had fallen out of love with me
that I clung on to whatever I could. In all honesty, she should have broken up
with me two weeks prior, but I convinced her to try and keep us together. All
of this for selfish reasons. This is not how you treat someone you love. And I
do truly love her, she is wonderful and I just can’t shake these feelings. It’s
going to be a long healing process, but I’m trying to persevere.
I’m surprisingly not as broken as I thought I would be about
this. Obviously, it’s hard not to talk to her and see her at all, but what I
did to her wasn’t fair. I blamed her for things that were all my own personal
choices. I was too intense about spending time with her and it drove us further
and further apart. I just have to accept this and move forward and try and work
on the things that really drove her from me.
Part of me hopes that one day I can rekindle something with
her. I’m currently giving her the space and time she needs to recover and we
have talked about how we’ll be friends after we heal. As I continue to reflect,
I just know I want her in my life in any capacity. She didn’t deserve what I
did to her, she deserves the universe. I’ve never felt so selfish in my life.
She showed me that I do deserve love, and I pressured her into being someone
she didn’t want to be.
Right now, all I can do is focus on myself and making myself
into the man I want to be. I need to figure out how to channel all of this raw
energy inside of me into positivity and working energy. I’ve been getting
better at dealing with my anxiety and depression. I’ve been so-so sober for the
last month, having broken it only 5 times, including this past weekend when we
broke up. But I like the way I feel when I’m sober. No coffee, no weed, no
cigs, no alcohol. And I’ve been vegetarian for the past month or so, due to
her, and I don’t plan on stopping that either. I want to be a healthy person,
physically and mentally. I want to build the self-confidence and self-love I
know I deserve. I want to start pursuing the things I want to, like starting a
music blog, jumping into Improv and Stand Up, learning how to play and write
music.
I want to live more presently. My planning out of events and
being so intense about going to them turned her off to me completely. I want to
become easy going. I’m working on building a daily routine to channel my
energies and take every day one at a time. Obviously, I’m still going to buy
concert tickets and try and plan certain things, but the pressure I put on her
to do these things with me ultimately drove her away from me. I want to ground
and center myself. I want to be less attached to everything.
I need to learn how to accept “No” for an answer. The main
thing she criticizes me on is that I know what I want and I can be insistent
and forceful at times to get her to do what I want. And as I look back, it’s
true. I never meant it as disrespectful, I only wanted to shower her with love,
appreciation, and experiences, but it turned sour and ruined everything. All I
wanted to do was make her happy because she made me happy. But I guess in turn
it was a selfish desire to keep her in my life that made me do these things for
her. And not being able to accept her saying “No” is what ended up crumbling
us. I wouldn’t listen to her saying “No” to our relationship. I couldn’t take
the “No” of loss of sexual attraction. I couldn’t take her “No” to going to
certain experiences we had planned out. And because of that, I’ve lost a woman
in my life that has meant so much to me in such a short amount of time.
I need to take what I’ve just written and encompass it. I
need to learn from it. It’s definitely something that’s been hindering me for
ages. I get way too excited. I get way too intense. I guess I’m not as good of
a listener as I thought I was. I need to accept “No” for an answer. I need to
not be selfish and try to fix everything just so it benefits me.
This short-lived relationship has taught me a lot about
myself and it hurts to know I could have done better.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Dumb
Client: Here's a script. We're paying you for 2-minute episodes.
Us: This script ends up being 3 minutes. Can we cut it down to 2?
Client: Yes that sounds good.
Us: Ok. Here's the 2-minute version. We cut this, this, and this. Do you approve?
Client: Why did you make these cuts!?
Us: .........We are cutting them down to 2-minutes because that's what you're paying us.
Client: Ok. Put this and this back in.
Us: Ok. We put this and this back in.
Client. Ok. Put this back in too.
Me: Wtf was the point of this entire process.
Us: This script ends up being 3 minutes. Can we cut it down to 2?
Client: Yes that sounds good.
Us: Ok. Here's the 2-minute version. We cut this, this, and this. Do you approve?
Client: Why did you make these cuts!?
Us: .........We are cutting them down to 2-minutes because that's what you're paying us.
Client: Ok. Put this and this back in.
Us: Ok. We put this and this back in.
Client. Ok. Put this back in too.
Me: Wtf was the point of this entire process.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Monday, March 21, 2016
Float
I've been fascinated by the idea of sensory deprivation tanks since literally before I remember. I was reading an article about them last week and it cited all these excerpts from Richard Feynman's memoir, which was one of my favorite books in high school. I had totally forgotten that he had written about them, as I have a terrible memory for details in books I read a month ago let alone a lifetime ago. But I'm guessing this was the first seed of interest planted into my ever-thinking-scatterbrained-mind-brain. More on that guy later.
But first, another guy. Float tanks are a pretty hip/hippie thing, something that's good for the mind and body, fitting right in with the whole health conscious trend that everyone who is cool is totally into these days. I dabble rather deeply in the waters of health conscious trendiness, and everywhere from the yoga studios to the trader joes, I'm met with the same confident and enthused persona of someone cool enough to get a job at a trendy place like this, i.e. too cool for school. School being me.
When the elevator door opened to office-building basement that had become Float Lab, I was expecting the same young go-getter-behind-the-counter to be waiting for me, but at first there was no one. Adrian and I chilled on the couch, and eventually a tall gangly man in his early fifties came out from the back rooms. He had a thin pair of wire frame sunglasses on and wore an old gray t-shirt. His hair was short, a bit sparse, and unkempt.
"You guys don't have phones or anything?"
He spoke in a voice who's box had surely witnessed many a drug pass by. Adrian and I were like "yeah we have phones" and kinda showed them to him.
"Ah," said this wise hippie elder, "so you guys are already into it. Normally everyone's playing on their phone. They need something to play with."
I play on my phone plenty. I'm gazing into the abyss of an iPhone screen at this very goddamn moment. But having this man think that I don't do that felt like I'd just proven to an alien that not all humans are worthless. The man was in and out of the waiting room as the rest of the clientele filed in. Once the other four floaters had all arrived he came out to do his little spiel, but not before shooting Adrian and I a look and nodding towards the other couch. We look over and see all four people staring down at their phones. They were two couples too, not even like they were just awkward loners. Classic teacher's pet moment. Also this guy looked so natural in sunglasses that I forgot we were in a windowless basement.
Anywho I guess I should also cover the float since I already decided to title this post 'float'. Similar to mushrooms it was just a good check-in. Even though I feel like I'm perpetually checking in with my mental health, I always have so much going on and this and that obligation that I never really have enough time to reflect on my reflecting, and so on. So having two hours where that was literally the only thing I could do was good. Using last year's mushroom as a checkpoint, I'm still not where I'd like to be mind-wise but my nervous anxieties and self-attacking thought tendencies seem to have chilled out significantly. But still my mind is a bit further from my control than I'd like it to be, so once again I'm learning that I want to meditate more. So fuck. I really have to actually stick to that or else this blog is just gonna make me look more and more like an idiot. And there's already enough idiots on this blog.
So it's to the meditation chair for me. Peace out, idiots.
<3
But first, another guy. Float tanks are a pretty hip/hippie thing, something that's good for the mind and body, fitting right in with the whole health conscious trend that everyone who is cool is totally into these days. I dabble rather deeply in the waters of health conscious trendiness, and everywhere from the yoga studios to the trader joes, I'm met with the same confident and enthused persona of someone cool enough to get a job at a trendy place like this, i.e. too cool for school. School being me.
When the elevator door opened to office-building basement that had become Float Lab, I was expecting the same young go-getter-behind-the-counter to be waiting for me, but at first there was no one. Adrian and I chilled on the couch, and eventually a tall gangly man in his early fifties came out from the back rooms. He had a thin pair of wire frame sunglasses on and wore an old gray t-shirt. His hair was short, a bit sparse, and unkempt.
"You guys don't have phones or anything?"
He spoke in a voice who's box had surely witnessed many a drug pass by. Adrian and I were like "yeah we have phones" and kinda showed them to him.
"Ah," said this wise hippie elder, "so you guys are already into it. Normally everyone's playing on their phone. They need something to play with."
I play on my phone plenty. I'm gazing into the abyss of an iPhone screen at this very goddamn moment. But having this man think that I don't do that felt like I'd just proven to an alien that not all humans are worthless. The man was in and out of the waiting room as the rest of the clientele filed in. Once the other four floaters had all arrived he came out to do his little spiel, but not before shooting Adrian and I a look and nodding towards the other couch. We look over and see all four people staring down at their phones. They were two couples too, not even like they were just awkward loners. Classic teacher's pet moment. Also this guy looked so natural in sunglasses that I forgot we were in a windowless basement.
Anywho I guess I should also cover the float since I already decided to title this post 'float'. Similar to mushrooms it was just a good check-in. Even though I feel like I'm perpetually checking in with my mental health, I always have so much going on and this and that obligation that I never really have enough time to reflect on my reflecting, and so on. So having two hours where that was literally the only thing I could do was good. Using last year's mushroom as a checkpoint, I'm still not where I'd like to be mind-wise but my nervous anxieties and self-attacking thought tendencies seem to have chilled out significantly. But still my mind is a bit further from my control than I'd like it to be, so once again I'm learning that I want to meditate more. So fuck. I really have to actually stick to that or else this blog is just gonna make me look more and more like an idiot. And there's already enough idiots on this blog.
So it's to the meditation chair for me. Peace out, idiots.
<3
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Super intelligent species explanation
They are so much smarter than us that they can see how dumb we are, and how by continuing doing what we're doing we will in the end pay them no harm. Would they be smart enough to realize the purpose of existence and adjust their behavior to achieve it perfectly? Or would they be smart enough to truly know that existence had no purpose and thus why bother. Most likely if there is another species out there, the idea of answers and purposes are so basic and small minded that super intelligent beings are just on a whole other level of reality. But if this were true, how would we recognize it when we see it? Maybe some random bug in your house is actually some aspect of a super intelligent entity. Impossible to know.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Friday, January 1, 2016
Riding a High at the Casino (meant to be posted far earlier)
I got kicked out of a bar and played craps for the first time all on the same night. Which one came first you ask? I'm not sure. How fucked up was I? Judge from my previous answer.
My friends and I went to the Mohegan Sun casino to watch a basketball game and then proceeded to get shit faced. It was awesome. I'm riding the confidence high that I'm on so I spoke to many people, especially girls. I think it was the second bar we went to that I approached a lovely group of girls (maybe 8 of them sitting in a circle). I start making small talk and I soon learned that one of the girls is 19 years old. I forgot her name but I didn't forget that small detail. In my drunkenness I might have repeated this fact rather loudly. I don't know, it's fucking interesting that she had a fake ID, why wouldn't I loudly repeat this at the bar? I left the girls alone for a little bit to talk to my friends but I sure wasn't going to give up that easily. I returned to the group and may have repeated the fact about the fake ID one last time just to make sure that I had heard correctly. After a couple of minutes I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and a rather small bodyguard tells me to follow him. I agree. He leads me to the exit or entrance depending on which side you are on and let's me know that I have been kicked out. It might have been my creepiness or my inability to stay quiet, either way it was hilarious. My friends proceeded to try to argue with the bouncer but I was laughing hysterically through the whole situation.
This wasn't going to ruin my night. Oh no! My thinking was "Those girls just missed out on a great time, I'm sure there will be a girl that will realize that there is fun to be had with me" (I'm not cocky, this is partly me writing to be funny but mostly it was my thinking while drunk. I hope I'm just confident and I don't cross the line. Please tell me if I do).
We then went to a much better bar/club where there was some dancing going on.
First thing to do, buy a round of vodka redbulls. Classic sign of a good night to be had.
Matt asks me to buy an extra two long islands as well. Only three of us but I'm ordering 5 drinks, we are really getting hammered. I trust him and proceed with the instructions. It turns out, the long islands were for two girls Matt was chatting with. I hand the girls the drinks and they immediately walk away. Welp, that was a waste of money. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I had bought complete strangers drinks at a bar, next time I have to make sure I get to know them a little bit better. Learn from your mistakes, Adrian.
Don't worry, this didn't slow me down, my brain was on a high. I just brushed that shit off and kept going. The next couple of hours get pretty blurry. I danced a lot, I'm not sure with who but I danced. At one point I was trying to get these two girls to dance with us but they asked me to create a dance circle. I took on the challenge and actually got people to form a dance circle. When I invited the girls in, they denied. That was fucked up.
At this point, I might have been like 0 for 10 on the night but that didn't stop me. I kept on dancing and finally I hit. I start dancing with a cute girl and for the first time enjoyed grinding. She was pretty good. After a couple of songs, either the girl was leaving or I was leaving but I asked for a kiss. She said sure. In her head that might have been kiss on the cheek or she realized her mistake when she saw my mustache a half an inch from her mouth. She moved her head off to the side at the last second and I got half lips, half cheek. Oh well, it wasn't bad for the first bar hookup(?).
I left the casino with my head held high. I have never been so confident in the middle of so many rejections. My friend showed me how to play craps and I won $100, it was a great night!
My friends and I went to the Mohegan Sun casino to watch a basketball game and then proceeded to get shit faced. It was awesome. I'm riding the confidence high that I'm on so I spoke to many people, especially girls. I think it was the second bar we went to that I approached a lovely group of girls (maybe 8 of them sitting in a circle). I start making small talk and I soon learned that one of the girls is 19 years old. I forgot her name but I didn't forget that small detail. In my drunkenness I might have repeated this fact rather loudly. I don't know, it's fucking interesting that she had a fake ID, why wouldn't I loudly repeat this at the bar? I left the girls alone for a little bit to talk to my friends but I sure wasn't going to give up that easily. I returned to the group and may have repeated the fact about the fake ID one last time just to make sure that I had heard correctly. After a couple of minutes I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and a rather small bodyguard tells me to follow him. I agree. He leads me to the exit or entrance depending on which side you are on and let's me know that I have been kicked out. It might have been my creepiness or my inability to stay quiet, either way it was hilarious. My friends proceeded to try to argue with the bouncer but I was laughing hysterically through the whole situation.
This wasn't going to ruin my night. Oh no! My thinking was "Those girls just missed out on a great time, I'm sure there will be a girl that will realize that there is fun to be had with me" (I'm not cocky, this is partly me writing to be funny but mostly it was my thinking while drunk. I hope I'm just confident and I don't cross the line. Please tell me if I do).
We then went to a much better bar/club where there was some dancing going on.
First thing to do, buy a round of vodka redbulls. Classic sign of a good night to be had.
Matt asks me to buy an extra two long islands as well. Only three of us but I'm ordering 5 drinks, we are really getting hammered. I trust him and proceed with the instructions. It turns out, the long islands were for two girls Matt was chatting with. I hand the girls the drinks and they immediately walk away. Welp, that was a waste of money. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I had bought complete strangers drinks at a bar, next time I have to make sure I get to know them a little bit better. Learn from your mistakes, Adrian.
Don't worry, this didn't slow me down, my brain was on a high. I just brushed that shit off and kept going. The next couple of hours get pretty blurry. I danced a lot, I'm not sure with who but I danced. At one point I was trying to get these two girls to dance with us but they asked me to create a dance circle. I took on the challenge and actually got people to form a dance circle. When I invited the girls in, they denied. That was fucked up.
At this point, I might have been like 0 for 10 on the night but that didn't stop me. I kept on dancing and finally I hit. I start dancing with a cute girl and for the first time enjoyed grinding. She was pretty good. After a couple of songs, either the girl was leaving or I was leaving but I asked for a kiss. She said sure. In her head that might have been kiss on the cheek or she realized her mistake when she saw my mustache a half an inch from her mouth. She moved her head off to the side at the last second and I got half lips, half cheek. Oh well, it wasn't bad for the first bar hookup(?).
I left the casino with my head held high. I have never been so confident in the middle of so many rejections. My friend showed me how to play craps and I won $100, it was a great night!
Behind the Curtain 2016
Jesse and I arrived early to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Party, beanbag chairs in hand, chocolate kicking in, ready for a good time. Making a quickie taco run, we talked about the alignment we were finding ourselves in. Even when things seemed off at first, like Jesse not having room for his carry-on, or Jesse not getting enough change back, things had a way of righting themselves to a point of being better than normal, like Jesse inexplicably getting bumped up to first class where he could also fit his carry-on, or the cashier guy calling back Jesse for his change and giving him an extra quarter.
At the same time, it felt like everything has been happening to more extremes of late. "The good things have been better and the bad things have been worse," we discussed as Jesse swerved through a red light in a situation that would normally see him bee-lining through a yellow.
As the conversation went on and my highness increased, I began to zoom out of my life, viewing it like a story unfolding to a character. Events happen, but it's a combination of the events and my interpretation of them that shapes how they affect me. That interpretation influences and is influenced by this grand story that I was zooming out to see from above.
We have a lot of creative license in the interpreting and connecting of these events. It seems pretty obvious that anything happening 'out there' has no real meaning on its own, but fortunately for us, we exist 'in here' and from the relationship of out and in, the meaning can spring in any way that we can make sense of it. Any of you who have listened to Terence McKenna know this is one of the ideas he talks about the most. The basic point being is that it's up to you to decide what your reality is, what your life is, etc. As Graham Hancock illustrates in his last appearance on Joe Rogan (a very fun high-watch if you have 3 hours), you can take facts and make more interesting models of reality than the ones that are commonly fed to us. Because at the end of the day, in Terence's words, no one is smarter than you. With such a subjective framework, we essentially choose our own adventure. It's up to us to make it a good one.
We return safely to the party, and are assigned to popcorn-popping duty. Or rather Jesse is, and the universe quickly teaches me the lesson that I am too high to talk to strangers, so I join him in the kitchen. By the time we are done popping the corn, the fashion show is about to start. We leave the kitchen only to see that a girl and a guy have made themselves at home on our beanbags.
"We're gonna have to ask them to move..." I say.
"They're gonna be devastated..." Jesse says.
Jesse and I looked at each other, and in that moment knew that there was no way we could inflict such horror on such happy people. The idea sprung, that it would be fun just to watch them enjoy the show in comfort, not knowing such comfort was provided by us. The kindness of anonymous others have probably made our lives better countless times without our even knowing, and now it was our turn to be behind the curtain.
Thus, the title of the next journey of our lives was born: BehindTheCurtain 2016.
The reason for this long-winded post is to try to capture the widespread meaning of Behind The Curtain. Not only does it mean being the architect of a better reality through 'selflessness', but it also means taking a break and stepping backstage in the play that is your life, and evaluating things from different perspectives. For me it also encapsulates doing work behind the scenes to get in shape, both physically and mentally. Earlier in this post I mentioned the dichotomy of 'out there' and 'in here.' I think we all exist 'in here,' which in itself is behind a curtain (or a cheese grater depending on the mood of the blogger). It often feels like the times we've been incarnated into are overly concerned with the 'out there'; the material, the outward appearance, the atoms. That stuff matters, but as Iro tells Zukko in Avatar, you gotta be at inner peace first if you wanna make the most of the outer.
Anywho, I ask you the reader to join me backstage, 2016. Life is art, and with the right colors you can make it a god damn beautiful thing.
Ol' Mary Todd is calling, so I guess it's time for bed.
Respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln
At the same time, it felt like everything has been happening to more extremes of late. "The good things have been better and the bad things have been worse," we discussed as Jesse swerved through a red light in a situation that would normally see him bee-lining through a yellow.
As the conversation went on and my highness increased, I began to zoom out of my life, viewing it like a story unfolding to a character. Events happen, but it's a combination of the events and my interpretation of them that shapes how they affect me. That interpretation influences and is influenced by this grand story that I was zooming out to see from above.
We have a lot of creative license in the interpreting and connecting of these events. It seems pretty obvious that anything happening 'out there' has no real meaning on its own, but fortunately for us, we exist 'in here' and from the relationship of out and in, the meaning can spring in any way that we can make sense of it. Any of you who have listened to Terence McKenna know this is one of the ideas he talks about the most. The basic point being is that it's up to you to decide what your reality is, what your life is, etc. As Graham Hancock illustrates in his last appearance on Joe Rogan (a very fun high-watch if you have 3 hours), you can take facts and make more interesting models of reality than the ones that are commonly fed to us. Because at the end of the day, in Terence's words, no one is smarter than you. With such a subjective framework, we essentially choose our own adventure. It's up to us to make it a good one.
We return safely to the party, and are assigned to popcorn-popping duty. Or rather Jesse is, and the universe quickly teaches me the lesson that I am too high to talk to strangers, so I join him in the kitchen. By the time we are done popping the corn, the fashion show is about to start. We leave the kitchen only to see that a girl and a guy have made themselves at home on our beanbags.
"We're gonna have to ask them to move..." I say.
"They're gonna be devastated..." Jesse says.
Jesse and I looked at each other, and in that moment knew that there was no way we could inflict such horror on such happy people. The idea sprung, that it would be fun just to watch them enjoy the show in comfort, not knowing such comfort was provided by us. The kindness of anonymous others have probably made our lives better countless times without our even knowing, and now it was our turn to be behind the curtain.
Thus, the title of the next journey of our lives was born: BehindTheCurtain 2016.
The reason for this long-winded post is to try to capture the widespread meaning of Behind The Curtain. Not only does it mean being the architect of a better reality through 'selflessness', but it also means taking a break and stepping backstage in the play that is your life, and evaluating things from different perspectives. For me it also encapsulates doing work behind the scenes to get in shape, both physically and mentally. Earlier in this post I mentioned the dichotomy of 'out there' and 'in here.' I think we all exist 'in here,' which in itself is behind a curtain (or a cheese grater depending on the mood of the blogger). It often feels like the times we've been incarnated into are overly concerned with the 'out there'; the material, the outward appearance, the atoms. That stuff matters, but as Iro tells Zukko in Avatar, you gotta be at inner peace first if you wanna make the most of the outer.
Anywho, I ask you the reader to join me backstage, 2016. Life is art, and with the right colors you can make it a god damn beautiful thing.
Ol' Mary Todd is calling, so I guess it's time for bed.
Respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln
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